The 18th century was a time of opulence and privilege for some. Europe was dominated by the twin authority of the Church and King – but beneath the surface, new forces were gathering to challenge their absolute rule.
. . . [A large] share of the American public (19 percent) spurns organized religion in favor of a nondefined skepticism about faith. . . .
[…]
Most polls suggest that atheists are among the most disliked groups in the U.S. One study last year asked participants whether a fictional hit-and-run driver was more likely to be an atheist or a rapist. A majority chose atheist. In 2006, another study found that Americans rated atheists as less likely to agree with their vision of America than Muslims, Hispanics, or homosexuals. “Wherever there are religious majorities, atheists are among the least trusted people,” said University of British Columbia sociologist Will M. Gervais.
Conservatives and liberals don’t seem to agree about much, and they might not agree about recent studies linking conservatism to low intelligence and “low-effort” thinking.
As The Huffington Post reported in February, a study published in the journal “Psychological Science” showed that children who score low on intelligence tests gravitate toward socially conservative political views in adulthood–perhaps because conservative ideologies stress “structure and order” that make it easier to understand a complicated world.
Ouch.
And now there’s the new study linking conservative ideologies to “low-effort” thinking.
Easter morning is arguably a fair time for the Sunday morning political shows to host conversations about religion, but every single network offered only one perspective: there is a “war on religion.” CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX limited their religious guests to Catholic and evangelical Christian leaders, all of whom parroted conservative talking points about the role of faith in society and how liberal policies somehow infringe on “religious liberty.” Absent from the discussions were any progressive people of faith, non-Christians, or non-believers.
“Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me, but they all seem to. It doesn’t matter what country they’re in, or what religion they claim, they all want to control women. They want to control how we dress. They want to control how we act. They even want to control the decisions we make about our own health and our own bodies.”
~ Hillary Clinton
I’ve written and re-written this post four times already this morning. With each edit came the revelation that it had morphed into another version of a rant against those who are under the notion that we are a Christian nation because of majority rule. Well, I’ve written about that many times and with each word that appears before me on my word processor, it becomes inevitable that I find myself writing about it yet again. Regardless of how many times I hit the “back space” 0r “delete” key, my mind stubbornly returns to the concept of tyranny.
Through the cobwebs and scattered papers that litter the floor of my mind and amongst the remnant memories of thousands of books that I have read which sit on the dusty shelves of my recollective, there emerges the single, unadulterated and clear thought [WOW!] of why the religious right continues to hawk their snake oil salve that consists of the single mandate that we should all acquiesce to their dictates and doctrines.
I really have a hard time wrapping my mind around the strategies of anti-choice activists. I’ve encountered a few, and I’ve browsed some of their websites, and am so unimpressed with their tactics . . . but they seem to work effectively with some people. . . .
The argument is never about whether some state is alive or not. Your appendix and tonsils are great masses of living cells, but if the organ becomes inflamed, doctors will cut them out and throw them away. Every time you poop, about a third of that mass that you excrete and flush away consists of living bacterial cells, yet no one hesitates and feels regret at the tragic loss of life when their hand is on the handle.
The argument is about whether that living thing is a person requiring extensive legal and moral protection, and it’s entirely clear that “life” is not a sufficient criterion, or people would be lobbying for the protection of turds and tonsils. We are not absolutists about protecting all life; we can’t be.
. . . Under the Defense Department’s co-called “Efficiency Initiative,” the number of civilian employees has been capped at 2010 levels, yet there has been no comparable cap on the contractor workforce. This has encouraged managers to use contractors instead of civilian employees, even though privatization is more costly and also violates the law.
Source: MoveOn.org
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Always Question Authority 