Jonah Goldberg talks about leaps of faith. Although "progressives" often disparage (and find incomprehensible) so-called "leaps of faith" among religious people, they often fail to recognize the "leaps of faith" and assumptions inherent in their own positions. Goldberg writes:
Whatever your view of religious leaps of faith, it is hardly the case that liberalism is immune to similar leaps. Many progressives take many things on faith: the brotherhood of man, the ability of government to relieve man's estate,
capitalism's incompatibility with the environment, the cognitive homogeneity between genders, the inhumanity of the fetus, the ability for "understanding" to bring peace, etc etc. Now, my point is not to say that all of these leaps of faith are either bad or wrong. Those are different and case-by-case arguments. My point is that many progresives make these, and other, leaps of faith and are then often immune to evidence to the contrary. . . What bothers me is the idea that progressives are immune to this very human tendency and therefore free to denounce it in others without paying heed to the context, consequences or intent. Perhaps even worse, at least the religious are usually honest and clear-headed about the fact they are making a leap of faith. Many progressives don't even realize — refuse to realize? — they've done likewise.
Me: I like Goldberg's point about the blindness many "progressives" show towards their own assumptions. However, with reference to classical Christian theology, its emphasis on the rational and respect for empirical evidence makes the "leap of faith" terminology somewhat inaccurate and misleading. I'll need to develop this point further another time.