The media is puzzled that Americans overwhelmingly elected Barack Obama and other Democrats, while overwhelmingly voting down gay marriage. See, for example, Same-sex marriage bans paradoxical in historic election - CNN.com.

But the elections are proof of what can be seen from the discussions on this blog, that being liberal in one’s political beliefs does not necessarily translate into being liberal in one’s moral beliefs.

Similarly, being conservative in one’s political beliefs does not necessarily translate into being conservative in one’s moral beliefs. Both sides, of course, fall short of moral practice. But lots of conservatives believe in abortion and extramarital sex, all in the name of freedom and small government.

From William Lane Craig’s article on the rise of theism among contemporary philosophers, God Is Not Dead Yet in Christianity Today:

The teleological argument. The old design argument remains as robust today as ever, defended in various forms by Robin Collins, John Leslie, Paul Davies, William Dembski, Michael Denton, and others. Advocates of the Intelligent Design movement have continued the tradition of finding examples of design in biological systems. But the cutting edge of the discussion focuses on the recently discovered, remarkable fine-tuning of the cosmos for life. This finetuning is of two sorts. First, when the laws of nature are expressed as mathematical equations, they contain certain constants, such as the gravitational constant. The mathematical values of these constants are not determined by the laws of nature. Second, there are certain arbitrary quantities that are just part of the initial conditions of the universe—for example, the amount of entropy.

These constants and quantities fall into an extraordinarily narrow range of life-permitting values. Were these constants and quantities to be altered by less than a hair’s breadth, the life-permitting balance would be destroyed, and life would not exist.

Accordingly, we may argue:

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due either to physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.

Premise (1) simply lists the present options for explaining the fine-tuning. The key premise is therefore (2). The first alternative, physical necessity, says that the constants and quantities must have the values they do. This alternative has little to commend it. The laws of nature are consistent with a wide range of values for the constants and quantities. For example, the most promising candidate for a unified theory of physics to date, superstring theory or “M-Theory,” allows a “cosmic landscape” of around 10500 different possible universes governed by the laws of nature, and only an infinitesimal proportion of these can support life.

As for chance, contemporary theorists increasingly recognize that the odds against fine-tuning are simply insurmountable unless one is prepared to embrace the speculative hypothesis that our universe is but one member of a randomly ordered, infinite ensemble of universes (a.k.a. the multiverse). In that ensemble of worlds, every physically possible world is realized, and obviously we could observe only a world where the constants and quantities are consistent with our existence. This is where the debate rages today. Physicists such as Oxford University’s Roger Penrose launch powerful arguments against any appeal to a multiverse as a way of explaining away fine-tuning.

The National Portrait Gallery is opening a huge exhibit on Abraham Lincoln. It includes this photograph by Alexander Gardner in 1865, shortly before the president’s assassination, a print made from a glass plate that had cracked.

Art critic David Brown calls it “one of the four or five greatest and most moving photographs ever taken of a human being.”

The crack (which is rendered so crisply that it appears to be an indentation in the paper) both records and predicts. It symbolizes the broken country that Lincoln restored to unity but whose wound he couldn’t erase. It portends the violent, veering trajectory of the bullet that would kill him.

But the crack is only part of the story.

Lincoln’s face is careworn, his expression one of seemingly infinite patience. Some think he has a Mona Lisa smile. He is seated off-center and the light-sepia background is blank. The pose is intermediate between a conventional portrait and a half-body view.

Furthermore, Gardner’s camera catches only Lincoln’s lips, beard and part of his nose in focus. The far shoulder is a featureless blur. His ear — oversize, attentive — is indistinct. Even his left eye, which is as deep and complex as the vortex that took the Pequod down, isn’t quite sharp.

The impression is of Lincoln receding from present tasks into history.

Now the government is getting ready to bail out General Motors and the rest of the American auto industry. William Katz contemplates the prospect:

Let’s see if I have this right. I, and millions of my fellow citizens, in addition to our other burdens, will now be asked to bail out the American automobile industry, which has fallen on hard times. No less a pair of automotive authorities than Nancy Hot Rod Pelosi and Harry “High Octane” Reid have said so.

Now wait. Did I miss something? I don’t see where Honda, Toyota or Nissan are begging for salvation. Mercedes seems to be in business. BMW is still moving cars. Even Rolls continues to transport the Saudi royals. This seems to involve the American companies only - GM, Ford, and what’s left of Chrysler.

Ah, the comedown. It’s been 55 years since the president of GM, Charles E. Wilson, famously said that what’s good for General Motors is good for the country. In fairness, he also added that what’s good for the country is good for General Motors, but it’s the first part that got the headlines. In the two or three decades following Wilson’s remark, America’s passion for its auto makers continued, rather blindly, with heavy celebrity involvement. . . .

So what happened?

Arrogance is what happened. Mediocrity is what happened. Junk is what happened.

In the 1970s a survey was taken of German and American auto executives. They were asked, “What do you do?” The Americans replied, “We sell cars.” The Germans answered, “We build cars.” It was a difference in corporate culture. The Japanese noticed. They decided to build cars, and they succeeded. Many Americans today, brought up on Pontiacs and Fords, won’t own an American car, unless it’s a car made in Ohio by a foreign company. What a stunning change.

This country was custom-made for the Japanese auto invasion of the late seventies and early eighties. For decades, even as we loved our Detroit-made autos, we knew that many of them weren’t very good. The Mustang might have stolen our hearts, but our wallets were bleeding. (One Olds that I had required two engine changes.)

A University of Chicago professor, who had a background in the labor movement, told me this: When an auto worker ordered a car, that car was tagged, at the start of the production line, “For one of the boys.” The workers made sure the car was made right. Wonderful story. But it makes you think about the thousands of other cars that were coming off that same line. You might have owned a few. . . .

Auto executives then, like many today, came from the finance side of their companies, not the auto side. Alfred P. Sloan, GM’s legendary chairman, once famously said that GM didn’t make cars, it made money. He turned GM into the largest and most profitable industrial company in the world.

But no longer. Now the companies of our dreams, the companies that made Dinah Shore sing and Groucho joke, the firms that turned out the bombers and tanks of World War II, are begging for help. After decades of failing to produce cars with the quality and features Americans want, they ask largesse from the public they often ignored. They will get that help - because there are millions of jobs involved, because Democrats will not let the United Auto Workers down, because the bankruptcy of our auto industry would be a national humiliation, and because…because in a way we still love them.

Notice what this suggests about VOCATION and what can go wrong.