The Notoriety of Doofus and Dotty

_________________________________________________________________________

I stumbled across a blog in Australia in which the blogger decries the potential lunatic, fear-filled reactions of American Christians to the projected Obama/Biden victory. See: The anti-Obama Christian bloggers.

"Moreover, I have to say that I am starting to get concerned about where this will lead. Polls suggest a much greater chance of an Obama win than a McCain win, which means that a situation might arise in which a great number of angry, terrified Christians are faced with an Obama White House and a Pelosi/Reid Congress.

What will these Christians do? Hopefully they will settle down, look back at what they believed in the lead up to his victory and then begin to exmaine [sic] their beliefs more objectively. Unfortunately, given the propensity of American Christians to be convinced that fiction is fact (eg Harry Potter and Satanism) I don't think this is going to happen. I'm worried, though, that violence may occur in response to an Obama/Reid/Pelosi victory as Christians take up the arms guaranteed by the constitution, refuse to pay taxes and begin overt resistance to the world of evil that they believe exists in the form of Obama and the Democrats."

Dream on, buddy, "objective examination of beliefs" and fundamentalist Christianity are diametrically opposed.

Fundamentalist American Christians are "angry and terrified" because, in their ill-intentioned bid for power, Doofus (top left) and Dotty (right) have been telling lies and whipping up hatred against Obama, presumably because they read the unthinking emotionality of their "congregation" well.

(I probably did not need to clarify whom I am calling Doofus and Dotty.)

How else could Brat Maverick hope to win with a platform that can be summarized as: "Let's cut down on Washington waste while continuing to spend billions on a war that we will not admit cannot be won."?

In essence:

"He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it,and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections."

The writer is clear and fair, yet is an "evangelical" (what is Australia coming to?). I take this to indicate that he is familiar with the emotional reactivity that passes for thinking in fellow fundamentalists.

"That means I do believe in the spirit world, including the existence of Satan."

What an interesting example of philosophical tension!. He recognizes the disconnection between Harry Potter and the mythical "fallen angel", Mormon brother to Jesus, and yet he believes in equally ridiculous notions. Proof positive that otherwise intelligent people can entertain indoctrinated stupidities that are utterly without evidence. They call if Faith, I call it something completely different.

More : Dotty and the Wizards of Odds . The Political Perils of Narcissism .

Lest I forget

One of these days I may find time to learn how to write the code for polls. Until I do, I'm limited to Google's polls or one of the online poll generators.

I set up a Google poll a little while ago and wanted to post the results before it closes. Thanks to everyone who participated.

If you wish to make your mark on the poll, there are a few days remaining.

The poll set-up did not allow for instructions, so some people were obviously a little confused by the questions.

When I realized this, I added the following request: "If you wish to participate in the poll below, please indicate whether your background is liberal or conservative and amidst or in which of the Abrahamic religions you were raised." I shall assume that the percentages of respondents in the categories before and after that clarification were approximately equivalent:

liberal 68%
conservative 32%

Christianity 93%
Islam 3%
Judaism 3%

I had expected that liberal backgrounds would appear overrepresented because I suspected that it's easier to deconvert to atheism from liberal roots. I could not ask the country in which respondents lived.

At top left is a map of religiosity in the US (lightest less than 35%, tan 35-50%, orange 50-75%, and most horrifying of all, brown at over 75%).

Potential atheism (below) could be taken as the inverse of this map (right).

Mapping religion in America

The Latest Discrimination

The Religious Right [wrong!] has long promoted hate-filled moralistic discrimination against groups of whom they disapprove. Those with the temerity to admit that they do not believe in God are the latest targets of these intolerant and monumentally ignorant folk.

In a post titled To those who believe that atheists face no discrimination was a link to this piece of trash that makes me even happier that I am Canadian and an atheist!

'You must believe' – what a ridiculous misinterpretation of freedom of religion and speech!

Alice Shannon of Soldotna, Alaska appears unaware of the fact that a far higher proportion of the religious rather than of atheists commit crimes. I refer not merely to actual numbers of religious criminals versus atheist criminals, but to the fact that atheists are underrepresented in the criminal factions. Why? Atheists are more likely than the religious to have higher levels of education and the educated are less likely to commit violent crimes. They commit white collar crimes, if they commit crimes at all. (My bet is that the Enron perpetrators were actually religious.)

However, even F-Alice-ous must have heard of this statistic. She argues, purely on emotional grounds, that even if atheists have not committed a crime that this approximately 10% of the USian population is still responsible for the rampancy of crime. Perhaps, knowing that atheists are usually brighter and better educated than the religious, F-Alice-ous believes that atheists, like Danny Ocean, are the masterminds who direct goon religionists to commit crimes. By this reasoning, American prisons are full of religious felons because these criminals are daft enough to get caught.

In her bigotted stupidity, F-Alice-ous is actually ignoring the root causes of crime in America. These include America's policy of slavery and subsequent maltreatment of African Americans; First Amendment protection of gun-related crime; family violence and abuse of children, including authoritarian parenting styles; and, conservative-policies-supported poverty (like Dick Cheney, greedy conservatives have 'never met a welfare proogram they liked').

The further ruin of the US has been brought upon Americans not by atheism but by the worst president in history. Despite his record of lies and incompetence and the enormous cost of his Alienate-Hearts-and-Minds War-to-Invite-Terror, religious bigots love Dubaya because he tells them that God gives him directions. This of course, is quite plausible since Dubaya clearly is not getting any good advice.

I did find something good on the website that posted the video: Manikin Moonwalk a bird with da moves.



atheismbigotryChristianityfundamentalismpoliticspolitics

Phew Pew

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life published a survey (Sept, '07) on the influence of a candidate's perceived religiosity on voter preferences:

As in the past, most Americans continue to say that it is important for a president to have strong religious beliefs. And voters who see presidential candidates as religious express more favorable views toward those candidates than do voters who view them as not religious. But the latest Pew survey finds that candidates for the White House need not be seen as very religious to be broadly acceptable to the voting public.

An alarming 61% of American voters said "they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who does not believe in God, while 45% say they would be reluctant to vote for a Muslim."

Presumably, many of these anti-atheist and anti-Muslim voters are aware of 9/11 and do support the "war on terror". In view of these obvious reasons for bias against Muslims, it seems extraordinary that even more voters should be anti-atheist. I was not aware of any mass murders perpetrated by atheists. Perhaps I have missed something! (Hitler and Stalin do not count as mass-murdering atheists because, no matter what their relgious convictions, they were motivated by megalomania and paranoia rather than by anti-religious purposes.)

Clearly, American voters entertain inaccurate stereotyping. Education, as always, was associated with less prejudiced perceptions.

This report is discussed in a post on the Framing Science blog.

atheismpoliticsPew