Why the Murders in Benghazi “Should Shock the Conscience of People of All Faiths"

Speaking from the State Department this morning, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the Islam-motivated slaughter of four Americans at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi “an attack that should shock the conscience of people of all faiths.” This statement is correct—although not in the way Clinton means it.

The conscience of people of all faiths certainly should be shocked by this atrocity, because their faith lends credence to all ideologies of faith—including Islam. Either faith—that is, the acceptance of ideas in support of which there is no evidence—is a valid means of knowing the truth, or it is not. If faith is a means of knowing the truth, then how can anyone say that the Islamists are wrong in doing what they “know” by means of faith to be right?

If Americans want to defend themselves against a faithful enemy, such as jihadists, then Americans must reject the notion that faith is a means of knowledge; they must recognize and accept the fact that man’s only means of knowledge is reason; they must embrace the fact that the true and the good and the right can be known only by means of observation and logic applied to the requirements of human life on earth.

America’s choice is clear and becoming clearer by the day: faith and force—or reason and freedom.

What will it be, fellow Americans? And how will you explain your choice to your children—if they live to inquire?

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Related:

• Religion vs. Subjectivism: Why Neither Will Do
• Religion vs. Free Speech
• It’s Religion and Altruism, Stupid
• Drawings of Mohammed, in Defense of Human Life

Image: Wikimedia Commons

About Craig Biddle

Craig is cofounder and editor of The Objective Standard, cofounder and director of education at Objective Standard Institute, and executive director of Prometheus Foundation. He is the author of Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It; Rational Egoism: The Morality for Human Flourishing; and the forthcoming Moral Truths Your Parents, Preachers, and Teachers Don’t Want You to Know. He is currently working on his fourth book, “Thinking in Principles.”

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