Give me that hot new religion

College students are apparently losing their religious faith in great numbers. On the other hand, many are embracing a new kind of religion.

. . . great masses of Americans have rejected and repudiated, they think, the non-rational desire for religious meaning in their lives.


But what they've actually done is only reject and repudiate conventional religion's offerings in this area. Having rejected the usual method of finding transcendence in everyday life, and yet still possessing a strong desire to discover such transcendence, they simply begin attaching religious significance to traditionally non-religious ideas and actions, such as buying local organic produce and fluorescent bulbs. . .

 The connection between "black angel" movies and the election of President Obama is fascinating. Follow the links to the City Journal articles. Ace calls them "Magic Negro" movies, bringing to mind the liberal hate-fest after Rush Limbaugh played a parody song based on the early reaction of black "civil rights advocates" to Obama's candidacy when they complained that Obama was not "authentic". It was a liberal black journalist who originally called Obama a "Magic Negro". He had something of a point, when it came to how whites viewed Candidate Obama. Even before he became the Democrats' nominee, Obama was aware that he had the ability to lead people to project their own hopes and dreams onto him. Don't know if he realized that some would think of him as  Alpha and Omega.

And Candidate Obama promised some magical things. As Tim Blair noted,

Obama's one great advantage over McCain is his stunning speaking style, which is so powerful Obama sometimes gets away with statements of almost pure absurdity.


In his acceptance speech, for example, Obama declared it "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal".

Obama's team later tried to back off from some of his grand statements  to prevent a sudden let-down among his supporters. But Obama was right about the rise of the oceans beginning to slow. We found out that the world was not warming as rapidly as Al Gore had warned. Without Obama taking any actions which would substantially reduce carbon emissions, the rise of the oceans was slowed. Amazing. Maybe he is kind of mystical.

Of course, Obama's statement claiming credit for slowing the rise of the oceans that night was a terrible insult to former messianic figure Al Gore, who had been working to slow the rise of the oceans for years by urging government action and starting "green" businesses. Gore may have lost out to Obama in the messianic department, but he has lots of money to console him. And properties near the ocean in San Francisco and Montecito, with at least the one in San Francisco within the flood zone were oceans to rise as much as he said they would in "An Inconvenient Truth". Among his other fancy real estate holdings. Being a messiah, even a former messiah, has its potential rewards, if one invests wisely in ones' own messianic program.