Well, where else do we find people readily accepting and promoting belief in strange, bizarre claims without the benefit of evidence or reason? Easy: religion.
These increasingly frenzied claims have become so detached from reality that they often seem like black comedy. The right-wing magazine US Investors' Daily claimed that if Stephen Hawking had been British, he would have been allowed to die at birth by its "socialist" healthcare system. Hawking responded with a polite cough that he is British, and "I wouldn't be here without the NHS".
This tendency to simply deny inconvenient facts and invent a fantasy world isn't new; it's only becoming more heightened. It ran through the Bush years like a dash of bourbon in water. When it became clear that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, the US right simply claimed they had been shipped to Syria. When the scientific evidence for man-made global warming became unanswerable, they claimed – as one Republican congressman put it – that it was "the greatest hoax in human history", and that all the world's climatologists were "liars". The American media then presents itself as an umpire between "the rival sides", as if they both had evidence behind them. ...
How do they train themselves to be so impervious to reality? It begins, I suspect, with religion. They are taught from a young age that it is good to have "faith" – which is, by definition, a belief without any evidence to back it up. You don't have "faith" that Australia exists, or that fire burns: you have evidence. You only need "faith" to believe the untrue or unprovable. Indeed, they are taught that faith is the highest aspiration and most noble cause. Is it any surprise this then percolates into their political views? Faith-based thinking spreads and contaminates the rational.
Source: The Independent
If children are taught to not only believe things on faith, but to also reject claims that are supported by evidence and reason when those claims contradict faith, then it shouldn't be surprising that we get beliefs like those listed above. This sort of attitude is a great benefit to authority figures since they are, of course, the ultimate arbiters of which beliefs should be taken on faith and which shouldn't.
What would happen if American schools instituted not just classes on critical thinking and skepticism, but actually inserted lessons on critical thinking throughout the curriculum? What would happen if students in public schools were consistently taught the importance of believing things based on evidence and reasoned arguments, not faith or slavish adherence to tradition or authorities? Who would be able to object without looking completely foolish?
Sadly, not even Democrats are immune. According to a recent Rasmussen Study, “Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure.
Republicans reject that view and, by a 7-to-1 margin, say the President did not know in advance about the attacks. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 18% believe the President knew and 57% take the opposite view.”
Apparently the best predictor of skeptical thinking is whose ox is being gored. We’re so ready to believe the worst of people that don’t agree with us that any accusation seems plausible. Politics in this country has become extremely partisan, in part, I think, because presidential elections have been very close for the last 20 years. Extreme partisanship breeds a poisonous attitude that the ends justify the means and a paranoid examination of the opposition that can’t fail to turn up ‘discrepancies’.
The question is ambiguous. Bush was warned that Al-Qaeda was determined to attack the US, so depending on how the question is interpreted a “yes” is the correct answer while the “no” from Republicans is actually a sign of being impervious to facts and reality.
How many on the left believe Bush was behind 9/11?
How many believe he blew up the levies in New Orleans?
How many believe other crazy things?
It goes both ways and anyone who says otherwise is fooling themselves.
Of course “it” goes all ways in the sense that in every political arena there are people who believe nutty things.
But you fail to note the vital importance of your central question: How Many
Are the numbers of Democrats who believe Bush blew up the levies or was behind 911 anywhere close to the numbers of Republicans who believe that Obama isn’t a citizen?
If not, you’re drawing a false equivalency – because it’s the numbers of Republicans who believe insane, stupid things right now that’s so significant, not merely that there are some who do. When you pretend that the two are comparable, you give the impression that insane beliefs among so many (and so many prominent) Republicans isn’t special, isn’t unusual, and isn’t worth getting concerned about.
That’s dangerous. When your leg is falling off due to gangrene, you don’t say “yeah, well, my finger has a paper cut too, so what”?
“Well, where else do we find people readily accepting and promoting belief in strange, bizarre claims without the benefit of evidence or reason?”
http://atheism.about.com/
“Well, where else do we find people readily accepting and promoting belief in strange, bizarre claims without the benefit of evidence or reason?”
http://atheism.about.com/
- wow classy….curious to know how he intends to support this comment?
“What would happen if students in public schools were consistently taught the importance of believing things based on evidence and reasoned arguments, not faith or slavish adherence to tradition or authorities?”
School board meetings would become as loony as townhalls, and home-schooling would skyrocket. (This would probably bifurcate higher education as well, into reality-based and faith-based institutions.)
“Who would be able to object without looking completely foolish?”
I really don’t think they care about that. If I may be permitted a bit of snark, many of them believe in all sorts of ridiculous things: talking snakes, the sun stopping in the sky, worldwide floods, Satanic fossils, and 3=1. There is a strong anti-intellectual bias at work, and it’s pretty much impervious to public opinion.
Some of them believe that Grendel from Beowulf was a dinosaur, presumably because that would mean they weren’t extinct when the ‘events’ supposedly occurred.
I would like to see more polls on nutty beliefs, we need a better idea of who is drinking which koolaid.
With more clearly-worded questions, of course.
Van Jones, Obama’s Green Jobs czar is a 9/11 truther. He’s in a position of power in the government. I’m not holding my breath for the liberals painting Conservative Republicans as conspiracy theorists and impervious to facts to give a damn.
He’s no. 46 on the list of signatories.
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041026093059633
OK, that’s one elected official. How many elected Republicans and Republican voters does he compare to?
You’re dismissing the importance of your leg falling off because you noticed that the paper cut on your finger has started to bleed a little.
I don’t think it’s a partisan thing or a religion thing really…politicians seek power. And they will frequently say things that misrepresent the facts in order to scare or anger people into supporting them or their programs with a view to increasing their own political power. Political party is irrelevant…that’s just the way realpolitik works.
In regard to death panels, etc….I don’t think it’s tendency toward blind faith that’s driving the opposition, but rather a complete lack thereof…. I think what’s driving the opposition is skepticism that the government is capable of efficiently managing healthcare.
When I read some of the insanity coming out of the GOP, I don’t know whether it’s good that they’re escalating their insanity–in that they’re demonstrating the nuttiness they’ve been accused of (but didn’t manifest since they had the power and weren’t scared), or it’s bad, because I don’t know if icons of ignorant perspectives, like GOP vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, could actually muster broad appeal?
When I saw Palin being blessed against witchcraft, that was sufficient cause to wonder about her grasp on reality.
Now, with the healthcare reform issue, in Austin, we’ve seen the GOP shut down public dialogues so that no constituents can dialogue with their representatives. In fact, GOP Travis County Chair, Rosemary Edwards bragged in an opinion article submitted to the Austin American-Statesman about her participating in “shouting down” Representative Lloyd Dogget, who agreed to meet with constituents and answer questions about the reform bill. No dialogue could take place–as those who attended swamped the paper with accounts of not being able to even hear the questions asked. In other words, in their vigor to express their free speech at their disagreement with the package, they effectively banned all other citizens and constituents from being able to enjoy that same freedom. I’m all for freedom of expression–but when the exercise of that freedom bars others from exercising that same right–then you’ve overstepped your “rights.”
Meanwhile, while we have important issues to iron out in reform, we’re being inundated with ridiculous red herrings like “Death Panels,” “Tax covered abortion,” and “socialist conversion of the nation.” I notice that whenever critics express their concerns in these more irrational points, they never fail _to fail_ to provide sources or references to support their claims. Time and again, when I see replies posted, the people responding to such ludicrous criticisms _do_ offer references to sections of the bill where anyone can go and read the more nutty GOP concerns discredited.
Also a GOP chair was quoted on Yahoo! News yesterday talking about the president’s upcoming speech as an agenda to brainwash children.
I was pleased to read a comment in the same article from a school aged student who wrote that she was upset that people thought a presidential speech would be sufficient to “brainwash” her–and who was also “pissed” the speech would not be aired in her school.
Out of the mouths of babes!
I think that all of us project. If we are sarcastic generally, we are more likely to take other people’s comments as sarcasm, even where sarcasm is not intended, for example. And in this case, I think if we gullibly follow blindly (for whatever reason many conservative Christians identify and feel represented by the GOP), we are more likely to think others are as easily led.
I honestly don’t know how many wingnuts there really are in the GOP–and if most GOP members are just regular, thinking people. But the wack-a-loon comments aren’t relegated to some nobody in the membership. The craziness is coming from their own chairs and nominated candidates.
I actually felt for McCain, having to campaign alongside a caricature like Palin. McCain actually might have been a moderate and sane pick–a war veteran and ex-POW. Like all politicians, he had his moments, sure. But he wasn’t a wingnut like Palin. Despite her popularity with other wacks, I think she actually hurt his campaign, and I perhaps secretly hope that the majority of GOP members were able to see her for the ignorant nut she is, and that’s what killed McCain’s chances. I say this because I hope that the wingnut faction in the GOP is a vocal minority that has manged to somehow rise to the top in these chairmanships–and not really representative of the larger number of GOP members, who I’m hopefully aren’t the religious right and the conspiracy wingnuts who think Obama is a socialist spy.
I say this because I hope that the wingnut faction in the GOP is a vocal minority that has manged to somehow rise to the top in these chairmanships–and not really representative of the larger number of GOP members, who I’m hopefully aren’t the religious right and the conspiracy wingnuts who think Obama is a socialist spy.
Tracieh; I couldnt agree more. It surely seems apparant that at the present time the wingnuts are floating to the top of the GOP and perhaps bringing the more gullible of the party along for the ride.
It may be just wishful thinking on my part but I simply cannot believe that more than a vocal minority of Republicans are as ignorant as the remarks we have been hearing would imply. Of my republican friends the vast majority are greatly concerned about the deficit and possible implications of health care reform but none have lept aboard the solcialist-nazi loving racist Nobama bandwagon.
The GOP is good at using fear in getting its message out and each and every year communication becomes easier and faster. On the internet false information can go viral before anyone has a chance to refute it, and once someone gets around to trying, they cant be heard over the din. Thats what we are seeing now, this could have never have happened in the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s when the only information we could get was in printed form or through 1 hour of television news a night.
He who controls the information war – wins.
There’s a saying in politics: “Where you stand depends on where you sit.”
So I guess one man’s wingnut is another’s brilliant strategist. And that is true from either side of the aise.
All the current and ever increasing wacko claims by
white conservative Republicans boils down to one thing. There is a black man leading the USA and
he is threatening their white fat cat status.
They must do any and everything to make him fail. Maybe even some of their hateful rhetoric will spark some nut case to try to assassinate Obama. If not they’ll keep up the verbal assassination.
First and foremost this is a racial issue.
the religious right has sold out to the republican money-changers or vice-versa so they have to endorse each others platforms even the bizarre and disgusting crap going on now. unfortunately there are no republican statesmen to disavow the crazies.
And I thought being impervious to facts was one of the prerequisites for being conservative and religious for how can one otherwise get a modern scientific education and still continue to believe a simplistic and illogical fairy tale about the formation of the world concocted by a bunch of ancients some three thousand years ago.
Liberals are just as bad as conservatives when it comes to fear mongering and ignoring science to suite their agenda.
Nuclear power for example. Because we regulated it to the point where it’s effectively banned, we have to burn coal which is far worse for the environment.
Liberals frequently use anecdotal evidence and fear mongering to argue for action on global warming. Hurricane Katrina for example. I still haven’t seen a single graph demonstrating the link between hurricanes and global warming.
Most of the abuses that liberals predicted would happen from the Patroit Act didn’t occur.
Regarding that last one, it should be noted that fear mongering can help stop the worst of government policies. If conservatives didn’t spread fear about “death panels” do you think government might not try it?
Whether it’s worse or not is debatable.
It’s hardly credible to argue that there is no link between global warming and severe weather.
Did they predict something would happen, or argue that the government would be given the ability to do something?
You mean, the sorts of “death panels” which insurance companies are already using?
Regardless, your question is a good example itself of fear mongering. So your entire comment reduces to “liberals are just as bad, here are some questionable examples, now BE AFRAID!” Great way to reinforce the original argument I made. Thanks.
Traditionally, theologians have considered the problem of evil to be the ultimate Achilles’ Heel for theism, at least in terms of belief in a benevolent deity. The argument here, though very different in its nature may rival the earlier in terms of its damning force on the effects of theism, at least in America. I write this as a person who is not only a Christian believer, but also a pastor. I am increasingly disturbed that Christianity, or rather the Christian practice of living in terms of a faith world-view, is being exploited by the political right power culture. The damage to our culture and nation being wrought by the capacity for ‘taking things on faith’ is such that I am now having to weigh whether the good outweighs the downsides in our enculturating more folks in faith communities. If by Christianizing a population, we are now making them bait for political manipulation that works against the world’s best interest, the church has a huge ethical problem on its hands.