slowman;
You had asked for input from one of two groups -- so here is mine as a born again Christian:
My vote in this election was determined by a Christian worldview which encompasses several dimensions including but not limited to morals. In fact I would respectfully submit that trying to analyze election results one-dimensionally, i.e. in terms of moral issues alone, will be a struggle as a lot of people I know tend to view the world through several prisms such as economics, justice, education, environment, compassion, morals etc. There are competing worldviews to be sure....some have argued that in fact atheism, secular humanism, and scientific materiliasm compete directly with a religious worldviews, but tend to mask this fact under the guise of objectivity. But I am not here to argue the philosophical case; I can only state my thought process which is that a Christian worldview most consistenly explains in a comprehensive and integrated fashion my experience that creation, consciousness, truth, morals, altruism, love, and God exist as both as concepts and in day-to-day practice. Stated somewhat differently, I personally find that a worldview of say scientific materilism does a pretty poor job of beginning to explain why morals even exist, much less why even little children without any religious indoctrination can easily grasp the basic concepts of right and wrong.
I also respectfully would ask your clarification term of fundamentalist. Do you mean this as the label is conventional applied in the media, as in anti-intellectual? I would argue unabashedly for the use our reasoning abilities combined with our direct experience. I would also like to make this observation -- with apologies to Einstien -- that Christians suddenly didn't become more conservative on the issues this particular election. Rather, Einstien's independent observer might say that in the last 40 years secular thinking drifted far enough to the Left to give the *relative* appearance that the Right became more moral when in point of fact it has remained pretty much where its always been.
So to wrap us this initial post and answer your question; did Bush and the Republicans win my vote by representing my worldview? -- well, at best they align with some of the basic concepts of a Christian worldview. Does that constitute a religious agenda? I don't think so becase you will also find that within that worldview we all have individual understandings on given issues of what Jesus and the Bible teach as a whole.
You had asked for input from one of two groups -- so here is mine as a born again Christian:
My vote in this election was determined by a Christian worldview which encompasses several dimensions including but not limited to morals. In fact I would respectfully submit that trying to analyze election results one-dimensionally, i.e. in terms of moral issues alone, will be a struggle as a lot of people I know tend to view the world through several prisms such as economics, justice, education, environment, compassion, morals etc. There are competing worldviews to be sure....some have argued that in fact atheism, secular humanism, and scientific materiliasm compete directly with a religious worldviews, but tend to mask this fact under the guise of objectivity. But I am not here to argue the philosophical case; I can only state my thought process which is that a Christian worldview most consistenly explains in a comprehensive and integrated fashion my experience that creation, consciousness, truth, morals, altruism, love, and God exist as both as concepts and in day-to-day practice. Stated somewhat differently, I personally find that a worldview of say scientific materilism does a pretty poor job of beginning to explain why morals even exist, much less why even little children without any religious indoctrination can easily grasp the basic concepts of right and wrong.
I also respectfully would ask your clarification term of fundamentalist. Do you mean this as the label is conventional applied in the media, as in anti-intellectual? I would argue unabashedly for the use our reasoning abilities combined with our direct experience. I would also like to make this observation -- with apologies to Einstien -- that Christians suddenly didn't become more conservative on the issues this particular election. Rather, Einstien's independent observer might say that in the last 40 years secular thinking drifted far enough to the Left to give the *relative* appearance that the Right became more moral when in point of fact it has remained pretty much where its always been.
So to wrap us this initial post and answer your question; did Bush and the Republicans win my vote by representing my worldview? -- well, at best they align with some of the basic concepts of a Christian worldview. Does that constitute a religious agenda? I don't think so becase you will also find that within that worldview we all have individual understandings on given issues of what Jesus and the Bible teach as a whole.