In his latest column at Slate, Christopher Hitchens ponders the religious beliefs, religious pandering, and antiscientific attitudes of Texas governor Rick Perry.

. . . religion in politics is more like an insurance policy than a true act of faith. Professing allegiance to it seldom does you any harm, at least in Republican primary season, and can do you some good. It’s a question of prudence.

I’d add that so long as professing allegiance to God is not really, really extreme, and is limited to Christianity, it never does a politician any harm. Those disgusted liberals are more than counterbalanced by conservatives and accommodationists who don’t see faith as a flaw.

. . . As usual, though, there is some built-in wiggle room. In 2006 he said that he believed the Bible to be inerrant. He also said that those who did not accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior would be going to hell. Pressed a little on the sheer wickedness and stupidity of that last claim, the governor did allow that he himself wasn’t omniscient enough to be sure on such doctrinal matters. He tells us that he is a “firm believer” in the “intelligent design” formulation that is creationism’s latest rhetorical disguise, adding that the “design” could be biblical or could have involved something more complex, but is attributable to the same divine author in any event. Whether he chooses to avail himself of the wiggles or not, Perry can be reasonably sure that the voting base of the theocratic right has picked up his intended message . . .

Hitchens wonders whether Perry really believes the stuff he says, or is simply hustling votes.

. . . And this is what one always wants to know about candidates who flourish the Good Book or who presume to talk about hell and damnation. Do they, themselves, in their heart of hearts, truly believe it? Is there any evidence, if it comes to that, that Perry has ever studied the theory of evolution for long enough to be able to state roughly what it says? And how much textual and hermeneutic work did he do before deciding on the “inerrancy” of Jewish and Christian scripture? It should, of course, be the sincere believers and devout faithful who ask him, and themselves, these questions. But somehow, it never is. The risks of hypocrisy seem forever invisible to the politicized Christians, for whom sufficient proof of faith consists of loud and unambiguous declarations. I am always surprised that more is not heard from sincere religious believers, who have the most to lose if faith becomes a matter of poll-time dogma and lung power.

Of course Perry doesn’t know enough about evolution to pronounce on its validity. I doubt that, for instance, whether he could give a good example of a putative transitional form in the fossil record. I am surprised, though, that Hitchens thinks that asking those hard questions is the purview of religious people. After all, Hitchens was one of the New Atheists who claimed that moderate faiths are also poisonous, as they enable more virulent forms of religion. Why would “sincere religious believers”, then, have anything to lose if politicians loudly proclaim their faith at election time? In many senses religious people, fundamentalist or liberal, are all in the same boat to Wooville.