[ArtK78]

Perhaps some of the smarter Republicans have changed party affiliation over the events of the last year or two. That would leave the balance of the Republican party dumber on balance.

Another example of natural selection.

[kenberg]

 PassedOut, on 2013-December-30, 13:03, said:

Two articles about the disturbing results of a new Pew Research Poll:

Washington Post - Republicans growing more skeptical about evolution



Slate - Republican Acceptance of Evolution Plummets


Somehow, we have got to take the educational system back from the religious whackos.

Also, the Earth is flat. With monsters in the ocean to devour those who go too far out. A friend claims that there is a conspiracy afoot to make us all stupid. It seems to be succeeding.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2013-December-30, 15:54, said:

Also, the Earth is flat. With monsters in the ocean to devour those who go too far out. A friend claims that there is a conspiracy afoot to make us all stupid. It seems to be succeeding.

Sea monsters, heh heh. Now everyone knows you sail off the edge of the earth long before you get to water deep enough to support sea monsters. What a kidder.

[nige1]

 ArtK78, on 2013-December-30, 13:57, said:

Perhaps some of the smarter Republicans have changed party affiliation over the events of the last year or two. That would leave the balance of the Republican party dumber on balance.

Maybe this would make both parties dumber

[hrothgar]

If you look at the cross tabs, its pretty apparent that political affiliation is serving as a proxy for religion.

The Republican party is collapsing down into a fundamentalist white evangelical Protestant core.

The poll states that

Quote

Differences in the racial and ethnic composition of Democrats and Republicans or differences in their levels of religious commitment do not wholly explain partisan differences in beliefs about evolution. Indeed, the partisan differences remain even when taking these other characteristics into account.

However, this does explain a lot of the variation.

[kenberg]

I was of course joking, sort of, about the Earth being flat. But the question of where all of this nonsense is coming from goes back to the original purpose of the thread. Growing up, I knew many people who were not interested in science. For that matter, I regarded my own high school biology class as even more boring than reading dead English poets. But I do not recall that there was any, or at least there was very little, of this crazy anrti-science hysteria. One neighbor did express some concern that my going to the University might turn me into an atheist but even she did not go on about the sin of evolution.

Mostly the way of life seemed to be this: If anyone were so rude or tactless as to ask whether you believed in God, everyone knew the correct answer to that quiz and then they would change the subject. In day-to-day living, people who talked about God were considered weird. We had a Bible in the house, my parents belonged to a church and sometimes went. But when my parents told me what was expected of me, it was always what they expected, not what God expected.

There seems to be a substantial shift taking place with regard to religion. It's not a good thing. I know that mikeh recommends that we all take a stand, even against religious moderation. But I grew up with religious moderation and I am fine with it. I have no need to convince people to believe as I do, but this subjugation of science to religious belief is bad stuff.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2013-December-31, 07:30, said:

I was of course joking, sort of, about the Earth being flat. But the question of where all of this nonsense is coming from goes back to the original purpose of the thread. Growing up, I knew many people who were not interested in science. For that matter, I regarded my own high school biology class as even more boring than reading dead English poets. But I do not recall that there was any, or at least there was very little, of this crazy anrti-science hysteria. One neighbor did express some concern that my going to the University might turn me into an atheist but even she did not go on about the sin of evolution.

Mostly the way of life seemed to be this: If anyone were so rude or tactless as to ask whether you believed in God, everyone knew the correct answer to that quiz and then they would change the subject. In day-to-day living, people who talked about God were considered weird. We had a Bible in the house, my parents belonged to a church and sometimes went. But when my parents told me what was expected of me, it was always what they expected, not what God expected.

There seems to be a substantial shift taking place with regard to religion. It's not a good thing. I know that mikeh recommends that we all take a stand, even against religious moderation. But I grew up with religious moderation and I am fine with it. I have no need to convince people to believe as I do, but this subjugation of science to religious belief is bad stuff.

Sometimes humans can outsmart themselves and such seems to be the case with the GOP. The GOP actively recruited the religious right by adopting planks that were attractive to those individuals - anti-this and anti-that. Little did they realize how fast demographics would catch up and how profoundly the growing multicultural voting block would affect outcomes. By the time it became clear to all that living in the past was no way to address the future, the GOP had trapped itself into a dependency on the religious right and their fantasy-worldviews.

It is not so much that there is greater stupidity in the world but stupidity does have a louder voice, sponsored by the GOP.

[Scarabin]

I favour religious moderation because I am scared of "group-think" whether due to political correctness or herd mentality. It does not have to be due to either but all too often it seems to be.

"Group-think" is my understanding of group psychology where a group pressures its individual members into holding uniform views.

[32519]

 32519, on 2013-November-10, 02:45, said:

I am quite happy to join with you in poking fun at both Jesus and Christianity. Why? Neither have any place with Elohim, the God of the Jews. Neither names occur in the ORIGINAL eye-witness accounts, letters and books which make up the New Covenant (calling it the New Testament is an attempt to distance Yahweh as its originator. The Old Covenant came through Abraham).

In the ORIGINAL documents, it was Judah Yehoshua (not Jesus) who was the chosen son of Yahweh, the son that Yahweh sacrificed to take upon him the transgressions of the entire human race. Judah was the fourth son of Jacob. Go and read Genesis Chapter 49 to see how Jacob blessed his 12 sons before he died. In the first 400 years directly after the resurrection there was a systematic carefully orchestrated movement to replace Judah’s Yehoshua's name, first with Joshua (Moses’ successor), which was then simplified to Jesus.

Ok, so I got this one wrong. The ORIGINAL name of Jesus is actually Yehoshua which means Yahweh-is-Salvation. You can read the article and this one to find out more.

[Vampyr]

Thanks for clearing that up.

[Vampyr]

Duplicate

[32519]

This sounds like dejavu, Malaysia churches continue calling to Allah despite ban. Didn't the Jews also complain when other nations started turning to their Elohim, calling him by his correct name, Yahweh?

[ArtK78]

 32519, on 2014-January-26, 03:10, said:

This sounds like dejavu, Malaysia churches continue calling to Allah despite ban. Didn't the Jews also complain when other nations started turning to their Elohim, calling him by his correct name, Yahweh?

If you knew anything about Judaism (and it appears that you do not) you would know that Jews do not use the name of God. In every prayer or text where the name of God is spelled out, whenever it is recited or chanted the word "Elohim" is substituted. "Elohim" is not the name of God, it is the word for God. There are two versions of the name of God used in Jewish texts. In English, these are roughly Yahwah and Jehovah. They are never said aloud.

So I don't know what you are talking about when you refer to Jews complaining when other nations starting to turn to Elohim, calling him Yahweh. That makes no sense.

[kenberg]

 ArtK78, on 2014-January-26, 07:06, said:

That makes no sense.

More deja vu

[32519]

 32519, on 2013-November-10, 02:45, said:

I am quite happy to join with you in poking fun at both Jesus and Christianity. Why? Neither have any place with the Elohim of the Jews. Neither names occur in the ORIGINAL eye-witness accounts, letters and books which make up the New Covenant (calling it the New Testament is an attempt to distance Yahweh as its originator. The Old Covenant came through Abraham).

The Vatican currently have their very own Edward Snowden, either a current or a former employee, who has/had access to the ORIGINAL documents and is starting to leak their contents out.

In the ORIGINAL documents, it was Yehoshua (not Jesus) who was the chosen son of Yahweh, the son that Yahweh sacrificed to take upon him the transgressions of the entire human race. Judah was the fourth son of Jacob. Go and read Genesis Chapter 49 to see how Jacob blessed his 12 sons before he died. Yehoshua is from the tribe of Judah. In the first 400 years directly after the resurrection there was a systematic carefully orchestrated movement to replace Yehoshua’s name, first with Joshua (Moses’ successor), which was then simplified to Jesus.

So who is it that is leaking out the info? It may actually even be Pope Benedict XVI, the first Pope in 500 years to resign while still in office. Read some of the reforms he tried to reintroduce. External pressure may have been taking an adverse effect on his health forcing him to resign.

Where there is smoke there is fire, Benedict denies he was forced to resign.

[Winstonm]

 Scarabin, on 2013-December-31, 20:26, said:

I favour religious moderation because I am scared of "group-think" whether due to political correctness or herd mentality. It does not have to be due to either but all too often it seems to be.

"Group-think" is my understanding of group psychology where a group pressures its individual members into holding uniform views.

I think in a wider sense your description of "group-think" applies to a larger population than you might realize. Except for the most liberal of Christians, there is a required belief that a real figure of a man-god once lived on Earth. The "group pressure" requires this concession to worldview to include in reality what is clearly outside of known reality.

Holding to this fantasy-like idealization of a historical figure I believe is what Sam Harris finds objectionable with moderate Christians - that, after one cedes that "anything is possible, including god-men" the only difference between moderates and fanatics is degree of belief influence.

It is the process of belief without objective verification that supports all other baseless belief systems.

[Scarabin]

 Winstonm, on 2014-February-26, 09:56, said:

I think in a wider sense your description of "group-think" applies to a larger population than you might realize. Except for the most liberal of Christians, there is a required belief that a real figure of a man-god once lived on Earth. The "group pressure" requires this concession to worldview to include in reality what is clearly outside of known reality.

Holding to this fantasy-like idealization of a historical figure I believe is what Sam Harris finds objectionable with moderate Christians - that, after one cedes that "anything is possible, including god-men" the only difference between moderates and fanatics is degree of belief influence.

It is the process of belief without objective verification that supports all other baseless belief systems.

I would, of course, agree with most of what you say, except that I think there is a wide gulf between moderates and fanatics. Imo moderates are capable of rational thought, fanatics are not. Thus I expect moderates to be capable of changing their beliefs and to be tolerant of others' beliefs.

I am cynical enough to believe no one is completely rational. By coincidence I am watching a Scandinavian detective series in which the heroine is a blonde, Swedish detective who governs her conduct entirely by police, legal rules and has no concept of other peoples' feelings. Unless you have seen the TV series, "The bridge" you have no idea how weird she seems.

[32519]

Noah's ark park to go ahead in Kentucky

[Zelandakh]

 32519, on 2014-February-28, 07:51, said:

Noah's ark park to go ahead in Kentucky

What has this got to do with religious moderation?

[Vampyr]

 Zelandakh, on 2014-February-28, 08:08, said:

What has this got to do with religious moderation?

The religious anti-science movement in the US really scares me.

The irony is that they are missing out appreciating the beauty and wonder of the universe, which, if created by their god, is so much more impressive than one in which stuff was just put there.