Sarah Palin And Magical Thinking

Sarah Palin And Magical Thinking
Andrew Sullivan.com
18 September 18, 2008

A reader writes:

"Regarding the "odd lies" of Sarah Palin. I grew up in a deeply evangelical family, and through the lens of evangelical thinking the world is magical, populated with demons and angels, devils and gods. You are taught not to believe your eyes or your senses, that the wisdom of man is foolishness to god. That belief is Truth. That belief is Truth before reality is truth. What comes out of this is what I'll call magical thinking."

"You feel the presence of God, feel Him talking to you, feel the mission of your life, the purpose the plan the direction given to you by God. So everything becomes like a mythic fairy tale. You get in the habit of fitting the day to day realities into a 'story' the life story of God's purpose in your life."

"This is how Sarah becoming Governor is destiny."

"Her memory is constantly rewriting the reality to fit her proscribed vision within an evangelical Christianity that has direct contact with god. If you see all of her 'lies' through this lens they begin to make perfect sense."

"Thought I would share: I can totally feel what she is feeling. And if you look at those leaked emails, the prayer talk, and faith talk and god talk, it completely fills your thoughts every moment of every day."

The question is simply whether this magical thinking is what we need to address the financial crisis, the terror war and the Iraq occupation. If you want a president who doesn't believe in empirical reality, you know who to vote for.

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Sarah Palin And Magical Thinking