OTHER SPAGHETTI, DIFFERENT WALLS: In my NormBlog profile I mentioned that doing a blog is especially exciting now for those of us on the Right, as we try to renew and reexamine our beliefs, because on a blog you can throw a lot of spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. A newly-launched blog, Secular Right, is attempting to do just that for the unbelievers among us. Walter Olson is involved, which bodes well.

I will be especially interested to see how any lib/trad-type splits play out on this site. You all know that I believe all political and moral/ethical talk is either incoherent or based on some object(s) of love. That’s one reason atheist conservatives (as vs. libertarians) are so fascinating to me: Whom do they love, and how do those loves resemble or differ from love of God? How do those loves shape and contradict their conservatism, as love of God might shape and contradict a believer’s conservatism? (Obviously, there will be a lot of different answers to these questions!)

When I was an undergrad, we sometimes referred to the “Romantic Atheist Faction” of conservatism. I hope we’ll see some of that on the blog.