How is it possible that a significant portion of the American population believes, or says it believes, that President Obama was not born in America, that Donald Trump would make a great president, that Sarah Palin is fit to lead our country, that Michele Bachmann is telling the truth, that health care for all means "Death Panels" etc., etc., ad nauseam?
Put it this way: being ignorant in America is now considered a virtue.
Amongst other reasons blame American-style religion.
As I point out in my new book (Sex, Mom and God) it takes hard work, years of religious indoctrination, the failure of public education and the fulfillment of Neil Postman's prophecy about "entertaining ourselves to death" to get a country to the point where a Glenn Beck or Donald Trump is not simply laughed (or scorned) off the national stage by an informed public that knows that village idiots belong on lonely street corners howling at the moon, not on talk shows taking the rest of us with them.
We're too nice
One of America's great sins is our respect for any and all religion. Note: the irony is that religious gullibility even prepares many religious believers to accept greedy evangelists and crass tycoons like Trump because they -- like the believers -- are perceived as "outsiders" bucking the educated culturally savvy "elite's" facts.
This is an unintended spinoff of our commitment to free speech. Since we're all free to say or believe anything then, the thinking goes, we should respect whatever it is our neighbor says he or she believes.
This is a mistake: Just because we're all equal before the law doesn't make everything said or thought of equal value, let alone deserving of respect.
The Evangelicals
One group that has perfected the art of special pleading for respect for non-reality-based "ideas" are the religious fundamentalists otherwise called Evangelicals. They train their families from birth to be the sort of gullible dupes the Palin/Trump/Bachmann/Becks of this world manipulate.
Evangelicals are a group to which no idea is too farfetched. From birth they are told that facts are lies and that "true believers" like them -- and they only -- have access to the actual and only truth: the Bible.
And this isn't just any Bible theirs is the literal "I-believe-every-word-to-be-true" Bible.
When you raise people on the idea that black is white and white is black, green is red and blue is yellow.... don't be surprised if eventually a whole class of folks are color blind.
Someone repeatedly told that God-hating elites deny the "fact" that dinosaurs and humans coexisted a few thousand years ago; that the world is 6,000 years old; that gay men and women choose to be that way and can be "cured"; that everyone besides "born-again" Evangelicals are going to hell; that Jesus will come back soon... etc., etc., becomes the sort of person who, quite literally, will believe anything.
Talk about alternative medicine, here's a whole alternative reality: "You believe in human evolution, but we know better!" "You believe that president Obama was born in America, but we know better..."
Ignorance has been elevated to a new form of "virtue"
The belief of most Americans is that everyone has the right to believe what they want, say what they want, be what they want. But today's' Republican Party and the bloc of Americans who believe in both creation myths and that President Obama is Kenyan etc., proves that it's been a horrible mistake to offer stupidity a serious platform. And sincerity of beliefs isn't the point.
Respect for religious stupidity is -- by extension -- why the media gives Trump, Bachmann et al platforms from which they can spread falsehoods. Trump isn't remotely religious but the sort of people ready to believe in someone like him (or the Tea Party) have been fed a steady diet of mythology that has literally altered the way their brains work. If a scientist, an expert or the "liberal media" says something is true then ipso facto the opposite -- no matter how harebrained must be true! Actually believing that the Palins, Becks, Trumps of this world are serious people is just the political version of giving creationists a "serious" place on textbook committees.
Or to paraphrase Bill Maher's catchphrase: One should choose one's imaginary friends carefully.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His new book is Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics--and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway.
Follow Frank Schaeffer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/frank_schaeffer
It's the fact that it isn't real, that is the problem.
I keep hearing them insist that all morality flows from their god, all the while demonstrating an appalling lack of moral action in the world. But, a lot of moral mouthings.
Words are cheap. Actions are what count.
Christian morality is false, because real morality is based in empathy and love for others. Christian morality is based in coercion. You heard me. Coercion. Be good, or else. Threats. And the ultimate threat, eternal damnation. Hell.
That is not moral; that is pathological.
Are all Christians good people NO not in the least. And the reason is, they are people who haven't grasped what being a Christin really is. I didn't know teaching someone to be honest, to love your neighbor, and to show love and kindness to others was a bad thing. You speak out as you have walked my shoes and I am just a puppet with no real thinking of my own.
Just because I believe in something that you do not, Doesn't make me ignorant. That makes you narrow minded.There are ignorant people out there christian and non-Christian alike. Reading your posts only proves that you don't have to look any farther than your own mirrors to find ignorance when you close your minds to ideas and other points of view.
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Um, nope. If what you believe is not true, then that makes you ignorant. And it isn't true, now is it? You know you can't see any evidence of what you believe in, except for what other people have told you or what you've read in a book written by other people. You've accepted it all because you weren't prepared to spot lies and falsehoods, did not have critical thinking skills, could not question your own beliefs. And you apparently still can't. So sure, you're one of the more harmless ones, but still, they are false beliefs that do not serve you and prevent you from fully joining humanity. And if you believe in the bible, you already think you know how the world will end and why, so why *strive to make it any better,* right? Why strive to unite all humanity as is our eventual destiny if we are to survive, if you don't *believe* that we will survive?
With that kind of defeatist thinking, we WON'T.
http://godsownparty.com/blog/dominionism-101-an-introduction-to-todays-political-right/
When I saw videos about Pastor Thomas Muthee, who 'annointed' Sarah Palin to become Governor, it made my hair stand on end! Extremist Evangelicals like the NAR (New Apostolic Reformation) , 7 Mountains, Joel's Army, Gideon's Army, etc., all using their extremist ideas to exploit gullible people and creeping their way into our school boards, city councils, local, state and federal government. Wake up, people! Corporatists like the Koch brothers have a pact with the Christian Domionists, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.
Sad. Can't you educate yourself? Can't you see what you've allowed yourself to become in the world?
WinkeyDink has made of you????
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It's easy to win an argument with a Christian, since they are based in beliefs rather than thoughts, faith rather than reason, fantasy rather than fact. The hard part is getting them to see that they've lost the argument, for the same reasons.
If any hypothetical belief system dislikes science, which is without a doubt the best method of finding the truth about reality that we have ever come up with, the next question is naturally "What do they have to fear from the truth?"
Fear of God is a barrier to real morality, not a path to it.
Wanting to be right so bad that you come to actually believe that you are right, is not the same thing as actually being right. If you can't tell the difference, you're hopelessly lost, and no one can help you anymore.
When what you believe in is a fantasy there's always a defense for your belief, since you're not constrained by the rules of logic and reason when making one.
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Oooooh, love the sentence structure there. Are you a member of the Department of Redundancy Department?
You're the believer in this mix. Belief is defeated by facts, but the believers never realize that.
SarahPAC donated $1K to Down syndrome even though Sarah personally made over $12M by exploiting Trig as her "son".
http://politicalgates.blogspot.com/2011/04/justin-elliotts-definitive-debunker-of.html
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The biggest egomaniacs always see themselves as being modest, along with every other good thing. It's inconceivable to them that they're really shallow and self-centered. That's why they are.
-Atheist: The nature of ignorance is such that the person who is ignorant cannot possibly know it and will reflexively assume that it is not they who are ignorant but the person who is informing them of their ignorance. This is the basic nature of true ignorance. True ignorance is believing that one is not ignorant, and thus not bothering to learn new things. The truly ignorant are too ignorant to ever know that they are ignorant. If they could know such a thing, they wouldn't be ignorant in the first place.
-Christian: Are you calling me ignorant? I'm not ignorant, *you're* ignorant!
Religion is most like a computer virus for brains. It comes complete with instructions for development and propagation of the virus, and code that prevents the person from deleting it or noticing that it doesn't conform to reality. It is orchestrated, organized, and officially sanctioned psychosis, made easily digestible and palatable to the masses.
Everyone was wrong about everything in the past, so why would any sane person not at least seriously question a bronze-age belief system? Why is that forbidden?
Learn to think before you learn to believe, or you’ll soon believe that you don’t have to think.
All is balance. That is something that is so invisible to christians. They're too one-sided. About everything. Black and white, while the whole world is shades of gray.
Nixon? Certainly Reagan didn't. No others more recent. The liberals have been the ones balancing the budget, and the conservatives spend us into a hole every single time they get the chance.
See, you've believed their lies about them being fiscally responsible, now haven't you?
William Shakespeare quotes (English Dramatist, Playwright and Poet, 1564-1616)
However, his content of flagrant praise for our president (constitutional attorney and professing Christian) without reasonable mention of our presidents approval of extreme mistreatment and injustice of Bradley Manning is telling of his superficiality. The pot calling the kettle black in this articles case.
Truly, I so want to post Mr. Schaeffers articles. I have prior, even though I am not prone to post from a source of hypocritical elite control that exploits and profits from its backbone of contributors. But then, there you have it. Consideration of the source.