Like the other major religions, Christianity is vulnerable to cynical exploitation by megalomaniacs, aspiring dictators, fascist regimes, and con artists who skillfully by-pass people's rational minds in order to exploit their deepest emotional needs and fears.
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” (John 20:29)
The crucial question here, is "believe in what?" Because once ignorant people can be made to accept the proposition that God demands belief without knowledge and without experience, then nothing is easier for "God's representative(s)" than substituting one's own agenda for God's. The "Good Shepherd" is replaced with the "wolf in sheep's clothing", and the protected sheep are turned into meat.
Because of Strauss' teachings, Kristol continued, "There are in Washington today dozens of people who are married with children and religiously observant. Do they have faith? Who knows? They just believe that it is good to go to church or synagogue. Whether you believe or not is not the issue -- that's between you and God -- whether you are a member of a community that holds certain truths sacred, that is the issue." Neoconservatives are "pro-religion even though they themselves may not be believers."
This noble hypocrisy on the part of intellectuals is required in order to encourage religious belief in ordinary people who would otherwise succumb to nihilism without it. In other words, Kristol believes that religion, which may well be a fiction, is necessary to keep the little people in line. This line of thinking has led him and other neoconservative intellectuals to attack Darwinian evolution because they fear it undermines religious belief.
The Voice of Neoconservatism
In the 1930s, a little known German philosopher named Leo Stauss came to the United States and began a university teaching career. Among his students were Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol and others neocons who adopted Strauss's philosophies as the foundation for the political ideals that have taken root so fundamentally in the Bush Administration. To wit: Strauss viewed religion as absolutely essential in order to impose moral law on the masses who otherwise would be out of control. At the same time, he stressed that religion was for the masses alone; the rulers need not be bound by it. Indeed, it would be absurd if they were, since the truths proclaimed by religion were "a pious fraud." As Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine points out, "Neoconservatives are pro-religion even though they themselves may not be believers."
[Strauss believed that]secular society..leads to individualism, liberalism, and relativism, precisely those traits that may promote dissent that in turn could dangerously weaken society's ability to cope with external threats. Bailey argues that it is this firm belief in the political utility of religion as an "opiate of the masses" that helps explain why secular Jews like Kristol in 'Commentary' magazine and other neoconservative journals have allied themselves with the Christian Right and even taken on Darwin's theory of evolution.
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