U.S. politics isolation tank

[Netzach]

What doubts and questions do the followers of those religions grapple with?

Seriously? The central motif of the narrative in Judaism is a man being faced with a request to kill the thing he loves most on earth, without understanding why.

This isn't to show "wow, everyone should blindly be a follower, cool!" The depiction is one in which belief in God is underlined as exceptional, irrational, and nearly impossible for the reader to think they'd ever live up to as a persistent state - that at most your unwavering faith would show up in dark moments.

The whole insane OT narrative is filled with doubt, bad things happening to good people, and mysterious "acts of God" that are completely left to mirror the destabilizing faith-shaking mess of life as it's been since goat herder cult days.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Money. Unreal amounts of it so that a guy named Mendel could dick around with peas, as one example.

The only reasons the Greeks and Romans had any authority with the Renaissance was that these guys thought Aristotle and Virgil had predicted the birth of Jesus in some way. A happy accident, but without it I shudder to think.

An academic structure, in fact the only ones in existence for centuries. A geneticist or astronomer give or take a few. Anything resembling medicine for centuries.

There wasn't much competition in the understanding shit around us game prior to 1700, but the relationship between institutions can't be reduced to ignorance versus not.

Infrastructure.

Gotcha.

Seriously? The central motif of the narrative in Judaism is a man being faced with a request to kill the thing he loves most on earth, without understanding why.

This isn't to show "wow, everyone should blindly be a follower, cool!" The depiction is one in which belief in God is underlined as exceptional, irrational, and nearly impossible for the reader to think they'd ever live up to.

The whole insane OT narrative is filled with doubt, bad things happening to good people, and mysterious "acts of God" that are completely left to mirror the destabilizing faith-shaking mess of life as it's been since goat herder cult days.

Doubt in what? That God is a nice guy?

The real fucking doubt-- that the Bible is not actually a holy writ-- that' s the doubt that's missing.

Faith is one thing-- the conviction that the sun will rise in the morning and the goats need milking. That your kids love you, faith that the village on the other side of the mountain will be where it's supposed to be, at the end of the road.

Belief is, unfortunately, the crazy siamese twin. It's a waste of the brain, it really is-- in very literal ways-- an opiate, filling the 'need to know' hole in our minds so that people don't bother to learn anything because they've been made stupified and happy. JesuslovesmeyesIknowforthebibletellsmeso.

 

[Netzach]

Infrastructure.

Gotcha.

Yes.

And style. Worldview. Sensibilities. There could not be a non-Jewish Einstein or Maimonedes. There could not be a non Christian Bruno, even if he did wind up burnt up at the stake as a heretic.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Yes.

And style. Worldview. Sensibilities. There could not be a non-Jewish Einstein or Maimonedes. There could not be a non Christian Bruno, even if he did wind up burnt up at the stake as a heretic.

Well, Maimonides I'll give you since everything he did was within a Jewish cultural reference. He was a nice guy. He specialised in Jewish law and ethics according to wikipedia, and was an all-around Nice Guy. Jewish ethical codes speak to me, for sure. I have Rabbi Hillel in my sig.

But why can't there be a non-Jewish Einstein? What the fuck does that even mean?

ETA
ah-- Giordano Bruno, who said that maybe the earth went around the sun, and the sun went around God. And was burned at the stake.

He based his ideas on
1) Pre Christian astronomy, and
2) His own empirical observation, which contradicted what the church said.

There were lots of astronomers before him-- In all kinds of places like, say, Persia, and Africa, who had come to the same conclusion. and who knows how many European stargazers could have been Bruno except they could not accept the heresies their eyes were telling them.

 

[Stella_Omega]

In fact, here's how the religious authorities reacted to Maimonides;

But Maimonides was also one of the most influential figures in medieval Jewish philosophy. His brilliant adaptation of Aristotelian thought to Biblical faith deeply impressed later Jewish thinkers, and had an unexpected immediate historical impact.[33] Some more acculturated Jews in the century that followed his death, particularly in Spain, sought to apply Maimonides's Aristotelianism in ways that undercut traditionalist belief and observance, giving rise to an intellectual controversy in Spanish and southern French Jewish circles.[34] The intensity of debate spurred Catholic Church interventions against "heresy" and even a general confiscation of Rabbinic texts and in reaction, the defeat of the more radical interpretations of Maimonides and at least amongst Ashkenazi Jews, a tendency not so much to repudiate as simply to ignore the specifically philosophical writings and to stress instead the Rabbinic and halachic writings; even these writings often included considerable philosophical chapters or discussions in support of halachic observance, as David Hartman observes Maimonides made clear "the traditional support for a philosophical understanding of God both in the Aggadah of Talmud and in the behavior of the hasid [the pious Jew]"[35] and so Maimonidean thought continues to influence traditionally observant Jews.[36][37]

Mostly, science-- the application of empirical evidence to test theory, sometimes resulting in a negation of that theory, whereupon it is discarded-- Something that religion never does willingly-- has always happened despite religion. In the cracks.

 

[intothewoods]

Infrastructure.

Gotcha.
Doubt in what? That God is a nice guy?

The real fucking doubt-- that the Bible is not actually a holy writ-- that' s the doubt that's missing.

Faith is one thing-- the conviction that the sun will rise in the morning and the goats need milking. That your kids love you, faith that the village on the other side of the mountain will be where it's supposed to be, at the end of the road.

Belief is, unfortunately, the crazy siamese twin. It's a waste of the brain, it really is-- in very literal ways-- an opiate, filling the 'need to know' hole in our minds so that people don't bother to learn anything because they've been made stupified and happy. JesuslovesmeyesIknowforthebibletellsmeso.

It's a long tradition in Judaism to question the texts, and argue their meaning. And I think it's no accident that so many Jews are atheists or agnostic. Everything is argument. Sure, it's part cultural, but that tradition is obviously vastly different than the simplistic Christian message you reference. And I'm not saying all of Christianity can be boiled down to Jesuslovesme either. Not that there isn't plenty to criticize when it comes to religion, but I think it's a waste to characterize it so simplistically.

Having said all that, I don't mind religion as a potential answer for the unknown. I do mind where it becomes a substitute for choice. As in, I didn't seek medical attention for my baby, my baby died, it was God's will. That's not limited to religious folks either. There are plenty of people who substitute God with belief in the universe or the "natural order" or the like, and make decisions that align with that lifestyle rather than based on data, science and evidence.

 

[Netzach]

Stella, that's the thing. You're saying "the religious" and picking the worst of Catholic Europe as your highlight reel. It's tempting, believe me.

However notice that the Jewish community didn't "excommunicate" Maimonedes, burn his writings (we don't really do that much casting out. I'm a fangirl for Spinoza, it was done to him) or hack off a limb.

And believe me, people were making use of the information he had and being less halachic and more halachic according to conviction. You couldn't get two Rabbis in the same 4 mile patch to agree on what was halachic. And now, every third medical facility or medical training facility funded by Jewish donors is called "Maimonedes" something. We love the guy.

When I say there could be no non Jewish Einstein, it's not a Jewish superiority moment, there could be no Jewish Curie, no Christian Bose. Religions form and are formed in a culture, American Atheism is in a binary system with mainly Evangelical Christianity in the US. When I used Bruno as an example, he DID soak in a renunciant environment with mystic tradition, and the danger was that his universe got in the face of the Church during a messy Reformation, not that it conflicted with a perfect and omnipresent God and god-controlled model. It just wondered about the model. Bruno got shafted by timing.

Atheism isn't the logical march of the informed and enlightened scientist in the face of revelation. There's plenty of non-theism and non-religiousness that pre-dates Newton.

It's a conviction. That's it. It's a conviction about an inability to share another conviction. And I feel the inability whenever this comes up. Pascal's wager annoys me as much as it does you, believe me.

In India it wasn't some huge BFD for a very very long time, it was a little minority stuffed inside Vedic and Hindu culture quite comfortably for a time period that makes European history look like a road runner cartoon. It mainly started to look like everything you'd find familiar by 20th c. - but these people were definitely of the opinion that there were no Gods, the Hindu Pantheon was an informational system maybe, and for some people, totally irrelevant. How strange it is that this was probably less liable to get a person in trouble in 1013 than 2013.

 

[BiBunny]

Believe it or not, one of the cornerstones of the Baptist church is that each person can and should study the Bible and current scholarship to come to his or her own conclusion about what it all means--and that person should only have to answer to God about it.

The Southern Baptist Convention was essentially hijacked by conservative whack jobs in the 70s, so that's why they're so goddamn crazy today. Everybody with any sense left them to their own devices years ago. But just because they've chosen to ignore that tenet doesn't mean it's not there. The Baptists were one of the most liberal sects when this country was founded.

Even though I, too, left the church, in the sense of being a seeker, I still have Baptist tendencies.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I'm not sure what your point is. Mine is that we would have made science regardless of religion. Great Astronomers, great mathematicians, ordinary folk who suddenly noticed that rock over there has bones in it and who were impelled to find out what that meant. Nothing to do with religion. We all know, it's a historical fact, that the religions speaking generally, have spent a lot of energy trying to keep the spirit of inquiry in a box. Under a rock, in a dungeon.

Talking about the American Atheist movement, -- which oh fuck yeah, I would be a far less angry person if i could have not been subjected to the culture of American religio-normativity on at least five fronts. I'm American, I'm Atheist-- I am, sadly, an American Atheist. it's kinda a default, for most of us. We are on the defensive each and every day.

I agree, Judaic culture puts more of a premium on learning for learning's sake. I lived in the midwest for fifteen years after living in Los Angeles-- the dumbing down influence of Christian and Catholic belief was so pervasive that I remember being shocked at the sense of intellectual freedom that the sixth-grade kids exhibited in Buffalo Grove, a mostly Jewish neighborhood. They had a freedom FROM religion. Many Jews do. Not many Christians do.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Believe it or not, one of the cornerstones of the Baptist church is that each person can and should study the Bible and current scholarship to come to his or her own conclusion about what it all means--and that person should only have to answer to God about it.

In other words, the expectation is that the Bible is WORTH studying.
That the conclusion WILL include the existence of God. That a non-god conclusion is simply not possible.

Is there no problem there? I think there is.

 

[Netzach]

I'm not sure what your point is. Mine is that we would have made science regardless of religion. Great Astronomers, great mathematicians, ordinary folk who suddenly noticed that rock over there has bones in it and who were impelled to find out what that meant. Nothing to do with religion. We all know, it's a historical fact, that the religions speaking generally, have spent a lot of energy trying to keep the spirit of inquiry in a box. Under a rock, in a dungeon.

Talking about the American Atheist movement, -- which oh fuck yeah, I would be a far less angry person if i could have not been subjected to the culture of American religio-normativity on at least five fronts. I'm American, I'm Atheist-- I am, sadly, an American Atheist. it's kinda a default, for most of us. We are on the defensive each and every day.

I agree, Judaic culture puts more of a premium on learning for learning's sake. I lived in the midwest for fifteen years after living in Los Angeles-- the dumbing down influence of Christian and Catholic belief was so pervasive that I remember being shocked at the sense of intellectual freedom that the sixth-grade kids exhibited in Buffalo Grove, a mostly Jewish neighborhood. They had a freedom FROM religion. Many Jews do. Not many Christians do.

I honestly don't know what our science would look like without religion, because we have no idea what institution would have fostered it.

I don't think it's the only source of morality, it sure the fuck isn't MY source of morality directly. (I think no matter how much I reject God and 99 percent of what was foisted off on me as "Jewishness" my personal compass is a Jewish one, though.)

...But it is a source of morality and ethics for a lot of people and a compelling one - what made us decide that giving people medical treatment was a good idea versus whacking the weak with an axe? I don't think "God" did but I think a social agreement about "God" plays into it.

You don't need to go outside secularity now for ethics, but I believe that for a long time leading up to this modernity, this may not have been the case.

It's a hell of a lot more expedient to kill off the weak.

 

[Netzach]

See the Catholics I bumped up against as a kid were Fordham University, Jesuit prep school

"...of course it's mostly ridiculous, but I believe in the trinity and Marian intervention and there's a magic about transubstantiation that I can't really get over..." Catholics.

I don't know what happened there. I'm not in the club, so I don't get it.

Incredibly rigorous minds. I feel bad for them now. Just 20 years ago it was really different.

Then I met liberation theo activist types in college and lesbian excommunicated Nuns and stuff. They were really doing transformational stuff, despite the fact that this is terribly verboten.

There are these Non Roman Catholic sects this guy started in Brazil that are really interesting. It's a religion in a lot of crisis and flux.

But dumb and ignorant, squelched and compliant, are not the impressions I have. Not till very recently anyway.

 

[BiBunny]

In other words, the expectation is that the Bible is WORTH studying.
That the conclusion WILL include the existence of God. That a non-god conclusion is simply not possible.

Is there no problem there? I think there is.

Well, the assumption is that church members should do that. I don't imagine you'd stay in the church if you didn't think the Bible was worth studying or that God existed. I was just making the point that even in that tradition, the original mission was not to make sure everybody in the church was in lock-step with what Pastor Jackass thought the correct interpretation was.

Also, the Baptists being proselytizers is a fairly new phenomenon.

Apologies for not being clear earlier. I got interrupted as I was writing and just cut myself off in a hurry.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I honestly don't know what our science would look like without religion, because we have no idea what institution would have fostered it.

See, I contend that Religion really didn't foster science. Not any religion. Science mostly happened in the cracks and corners where someone had the chance to see something that indicated other than holy writ.

...But it is a source of morality and ethics for a lot of people and a compelling one - what made us decide that giving people medical treatment was a good idea versus whacking the weak with an axe? I don't think "God" did but I think a social agreement about "God" plays into it.

In most cases, it's compelling argument for a moral agreement amongst the "us" as opposed to the "them." Heathens pagans and unbelievers either must become usses as well, or be considered less than, and unprotected by the moral agreement.

Hominids were taking care of wounded tribe members before there was language. There are a number of finds where someone broke a major bone and lived long enough for it to heal-- meaning they had help surviving.

It's still true-- The San! Bushmen take care of their people and although they have a god concept, their gods doesn't punish anybody.

The idea that it's better to cull the weak rather than take care of them only happens when there are plenty of people around to make up for the lack, which is a state of affairs that exists in spades right now. Around then is when some asshole comes up with a hypothesis like "Man the Hunter" and promotes it as if it were proven theory, and people start talking as if genocide were the rule rather than the exception.

But dumb and ignorant, squelched and compliant, are not the impressions I have. Not till very recently anyway.

Really? Where have you been all these decades?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Well, the assumption is that church members should do that. I don't imagine you'd stay in the church if you didn't think the Bible was worth studying or that God existed. I was just making the point that even in that tradition, the original mission was not to make sure everybody in the church was in lock-step with what Pastor Jackass thought the correct interpretation was.

Also, the Baptists being proselytizers is a fairly new phenomenon.

Apologies for not being clear earlier. I got interrupted as I was writing and just cut myself off in a hurry.

They've been aggressively proselytizing since the seventies, in my experience. That's more than a life time for some people.

If we sent our kids to a Sunday secular School each week, and encouraged them to think about science as much as we now encourage them to read the one single book-- AND, and this is really pretty important-- if they knew that the grownups were talking about science upstairs-- like, if the pursuit of empirical learning were as normative as the pursuit of belief is...

Then Bible Sunday School wouldn't be as egregious a coercion as it now is.

 

[BiBunny]

They've been aggressively proselytizing since the seventies, in my experience. That's more than a life time for some people.

That was about the time of the conservative takeover of the SBC. Not that they were ever the most liberal of the Baptist orgs, anyway, but still. The moderates broke away and formed the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and the liberals and progressives broke away and formed the Alliance of Baptists. If I were inclined toward a strictly Christian worldview--and I'm not anymore--I would go to an Alliance of Baptists church.

Historically speaking, though, the Baptists were some of the most outspoken and radical in their views of separation of church and state. That's why I always snicker when I hear some SBC idiot carrying on about "this is a Christian nation!" Even your predecessors didn't think that, cockbag, so STFU.

If we sent our kids to a Sunday secular School each week, and encouraged them to think about science as much as we now encourage them to read the one single book-- AND, and this is really pretty important-- if they knew that the grownups were talking about science upstairs-- like, if the pursuit of empirical learning were as normative as the pursuit of belief is...

Then Bible Sunday School wouldn't be as egregious a coercion as it now is.

Personally, I don't see religion and science as necessarily in conflict with one another, so I would not have a problem with that. I just don't want kids, so it'll probably never be an issue for me.

On the other hand, I think that if religion suddenly disappeared tomorrow, the people you're talking about wouldn't replace it with science. They'd replace it with reality TV or something. Lots of people are just intellectually lazy and willfully ignorant.

 

[Stella_Omega]

That was about the time of the conservative takeover of the SBC. Not that they were ever the most liberal of the Baptist orgs, anyway, but still. The moderates broke away and formed the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and the liberals and progressives broke away and formed the Alliance of Baptists. If I were inclined toward a strictly Christian worldview--and I'm not anymore--I would go to an Alliance of Baptists church.

Historically speaking, though, the Baptists were some of the most outspoken and radical in their views of separation of church and state. That's why I always snicker when I hear some SBC idiot carrying on about "this is a Christian nation!" Even your predecessors didn't think that, cockbag, so STFU.

I want them all to die in a fire, they have fucked SO MUCH with my life.

Personally, I don't see religion and science as necessarily in conflict with one another, so I would not have a problem with that. I just don't want kids, so it'll probably never be an issue for me.

Lemme trot out that old Liberal argument here-- even if you don't have kids, other people will. And those other people's kids will become part of your society. And if they are not taught to think, then you will be living amongst a society of dimwits.

I didn't raise my kids to be Christians, but Christians have fucked with mykids' lives SO MUCH.

On the other hand, I think that if religion suddenly disappeared tomorrow, the people you're talking about wouldn't replace it with science. They'd replace it with reality TV or something. Lots of people are just intellectually lazy and willfully ignorant.

Well sure they would in the case of a sudden disappearance-- because they would need to fill that nasty void. Like replacing cigarettes with junk food. But there was a time when intellectually lazy and ignorant people were not being taught to despise and distrust thinkers who think. And a time, by corollary, when thinking people did not fear that unthinking people hated them.

 

[intothewoods]

They've been aggressively proselytizing since the seventies, in my experience. That's more than a life time for some people.

If we sent our kids to a Sunday secular School each week, and encouraged them to think about science as much as we now encourage them to read the one single book-- AND, and this is really pretty important-- if they knew that the grownups were talking about science upstairs-- like, if the pursuit of empirical learning were as normative as the pursuit of belief is...

Then Bible Sunday School wouldn't be as egregious a coercion as it now is.

Is this based on your time in the midwest? I mean, my kid is certainly encouraged to think about science more than the OT or any religious text, as are the kids he goes to school with. Actually, in my day to day, the non-empirical stuff is more like support for homeopathy, but I guess at this point I've managed to surround myself with super nerd urban parent types.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Is this based on your time in the midwest?

Not any more or less than the time I've spent elsewhere. Also there's lots and lots of news and discussion available to us about places we don't live.

I mean, my kid is certainly encouraged to think about science more than the OT or any religious text, as are the kids he goes to school with. Actually, in my day to day, the non-empirical stuff is more like support for homeopathy, but I guess at this point I've managed to surround myself with super nerd urban parent types.

Me too, but-- again-- there IS the rest of the country. People are PROUD of how well they know the bible. They don't know much else, and science is suspicious and they blame scientists for not knowing everything RIGHT NOW. And also, YOU SHOULD KNOW YOUR BIBLE-- even if it isn't your bible and you could care less about it.

The first proselytizers I remember clearly happened to me in Westwood, Los Angeles, maybe 1973 or 4. I was waiting in a car at the curbside, with my window rolled down, and they talked to me through the window. They were very sad when I told them I was an atheist, and said they would pray for me-- Which they did, on their knees, in the middle of the movie-and bar-going foot traffic, until a foot cop told them to get up and stop being an obstruction. Little did we know just HOW obstructionist these people would become...

 

[Homburg]

Therein lies the rub. In my eyes, there is no difference between the aggressive, combative, in-your-face atheist (and I used to be one) and the aggressive in-your-face proselytizing christian/other person. There's no difference in net effect, just direction. It's like the communist and the fascist. One may be leftist and the other rightist, but both want to oppress.

In my eyes, that's the common ground between both the proselytizing religiofreak and the aggressive atheist. Both are willing to shove their beliefs in the face, and often down the throat, of the other person. Not me, no thanks.

I used to be that way. As a teenager, I was pretty angry about the whole affair, and had a resoundingly negative opinion of religion and religious people. This included some surly anger at my own mother. In retrospect, mom was comparatively very mellow about religion, just not mellow enough for my angry teenage ass.

I used to sit there seething about the idea of people jamming the bible down my throat and would come up with arguments designed to inflame and anger. It was trolling pre-internet. I was quite happy when given the opportunity to illustrate my supposedly enlightened atheist superiority to deluded and oppressive christians etc.

Then, as a freshman in college, a friend of my roommate expressed his belief. Did so in a moderate, clear, and plain-spoken manner, and I took after him. Dude took in my rant calmly, didn't get mad, didn't argue, just debated. Then he said, "Religion is something you either get or you don't. You feel it, or you don't." His attitude has as much effect on me as the pithy statement, but I had one of those eureka moments that are so valuable, and so overlooked, in life.

I realized that, no, I didn't feel it, and that was why it was meaningless to me. And he did, which was why my attitude towards it was just as meaningless to him as his was to me. In that moment, I realized the pointlessness of the whole discussion, and how much of my own time and energy I was wasting in being a dickhead to people who wouldn't get me any more than I would get them.

In short, I was picking fights for no good reason.

So, since them, I'm no less a non-believer. I just don't waste my time and energy trying to ram my non-belief down anyone else's throats, and thus I keep myself from being as bad as they are, or, well, all too often from how I perceived them to be with a solid case of confirmation bias.

Not making a judgement call on you. I have no idea the trials you've been through at the hands of the faithful. Just relating why I'm not a dickhead. Well, why I'm not a dickhead about this issue. Any more. Like I said, wow, used to be.

And, as an aside, took a second to read your linked post on top/bottom versus dom/sub. Always happy to see that distinction. I've been beating that particular drum for a few years now, and you summed it up succinctly and without implied judgement. Good show.

 

[intothewoods]

Not any more or less than the time I've spent elsewhere. Also there's lots and lots of news and discussion available to us about places we don't live. Me too, but-- again-- there IS the rest of the country. People are PROUD of how well they know the bible. They don't know much else, and science is suspicious and they blame scientists for not knowing everything RIGHT NOW. And also, YOU SHOULD KNOW YOUR BIBLE-- even if it isn't your bible and you could care less about it.

The first proselytizers I remember clearly happened to me in Westwood, Los Angeles, maybe 1973 or 4. I was waiting in a car at the curbside, with my window rolled down, and they talked to me through the window. They were very sad when I told them I was an atheist, and said they would pray for me-- Which they did, on their knees, in the middle of the movie-and bar-going foot traffic, until a foot cop told them to get up and stop being an obstruction. Little did we know just HOW obstructionist these people would become...

Well, state of public education aside, aren't most kids attending public or, at least, secular school, during the week? I realize there are schools where evolution isn't taught and that religious rejection of science is a problem -- Texas Board of Ed is super FREAKY and disturbing -- but I don't know if it happens to the degree you're suggesting. I don't think we have a nation of biblical scholars.

In fact, I think that's part of the problem in this country. Religion is a means to an end -- different ends depending on who is doing the preaching. Joel Osteen is selling you on one world view, and (to pick an extreme) Westboro is selling you on another. In neither of these cases do we have followers really studying the text and digging deep in terms of translations, sources, etc. When that happens and of course when we study other religious texts, we can't help but expand our thinking. Not that I'm suggesting this be any substitute for studying science as well as other philosophies, but there are many cultural factors at work in terms of choosing a narrative over rational thought. And, again, it is not just religious folks who reject science and evidence-based thinking.

Oh, also, I grew up in the 80s and 90s. I had my share of run-ins with ultra-religious Christians, but I also grew up in a place where it was not so weird to be an atheist and extremely common to not identify with any religion.

 

[Homburg]

And to add an interesting piece of info to this portion of the discussion, there was a study that showed that christians in America were outperformed on religious knowledge by atheists. Fun fact, eh? Atheists know more about religion than christians, heh.

So what does that really say? Does that say solely that christians are uniformed? Yeah, it does, actually. They performed poorly compared to other religions. But when you make the same comparison between atheists and other religions, you find that the atheists performed well period.

So are atheists smarter? Better educated? Or are they maybe just a lil obsessed? I think I know what Shakespeare would say - "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

http://www.pewforum.org/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey-Who-Knows-What-About-Religion.aspx

Disclosure - I either took part in this survey, or took part in a very similar one around the same time. Not sure if it was this one, but it came out with the same sort of results. I do remember that much.

And there's a link to a 15 question quiz along the lines of the study. I got 15 out of 15, so, yeah, lil obsessed. Then again, my lil obsessed non-believer ass has a degree in philosophy and religious studies with a pretty solid amount of the latter in there insofar as electives are concerned. My lack of faith manifested very strongly in a desire to understand it as far back as I can recall. I spent much of the first half of my life reading about the topic in a vain attempt to understand why people were so wound up about it.

And I can't tell you how many times I've taken career tests and gotten "priest", "preacher", or "rabbi" as the response. Gotta love that, eh?

 

[intothewoods]

I gotta get back to this later -- this thread is all of a sudden moving like gangbusters, WTF PEOPLE, pace yourselves so I can participate! -- but I do find it significant that the difference between an aggressive Christian and an aggressive atheist is that one has representation at the highest levels of power and one does not.

I don't like an overly aggressive anyone (and smug atheists on Facebook are the worst!), so I do take your point, Homburg, but I just cringe a little when people equate the two.

 

[Homburg]

Well, state of public education aside, aren't most kids attending public or, at least, secular school, during the week? I realize there are schools where evolution isn't taught and that religious rejection of science is a problem -- Texas Board of Ed is super FREAKY and disturbing -- but I don't know if it happens to the degree you're suggesting. I don't think we have a nation of biblical scholars.

"Terrifying" is the word that comes to mind when I read about what Texas is doing in their version of "education". It deeply frightens me.

The dominionist movement frightens me as well, as I've said here a few years back. I honestly think there is no more dangerous, and anti-American, a force in politics than the dominionists.

 

[Homburg]

I gotta get back to this later -- this thread is all of a sudden moving like gangbusters, WTF PEOPLE, pace yourselves so I can participate! -- but I do find it significant that the difference between an aggressive Christian and an aggressive atheist is that one has representation at the highest levels of power and one does not.

I'm sure I'll submerge again after a little bit, and that'll slow things down a touch.

I don't like an overly aggressive anyone (and smug atheists on Facebook are the worst!), so I do take your point, Homburg, but I just cringe a little when people equate the two.

Making people cringe is the point to the comparison. It is purposefully uncomfortable. I want that cringe because it has a better chance of causing the very sort of rational self-searching that atheism purports to engage in. I've argued before that atheism in this country has become a dogmatic religion sans godhead, and still mean it. I've been in discussions where people, myself included, have been told they were "not atheist enough".

No one expects the Atheist inquisition!