#even if you aren’t Christian there is substantial evidence to prove it

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

There’s nothing like a national election to illuminate the complex and slippery nature of bias at work in the country today. Just ask Pete Buttigieg. Always something of an underdog in the Democratic primary, Buttigieg has started to poll well in Iowa and New Hampshire relative to his national numbers and has proved to be a formidable fundraiser. But as his profile has risen, murmurs about how his sexual orientation might affect his bid have gotten louder and louder.

There are plenty of reasons, of course, why Buttigieg might struggle to gain traction among more voters. His lack of statewide or national political experience is one potential stumbling block. Voters of all races may also balk because he has faced criticism for his handling of the predominantly white police force in South Bend, where a white officer recently shot and killed a black man, and for implementing economic policies that some feel ignore or harm communities of color. And another scapegoat has emerged: Last month, a leaked memo described the results of a focus group conducted by Buttigieg’s own campaign in July, which found that some black voters in South Carolina were uncomfortable with his sexual orientation.

It’s hard to know how much that discomfort truly matters — even a number of the skeptical focus group voters were still open to supporting Buttigieg — and to the extent that it exists, it’s certainly not confined to one group. But regardless of the reasons behind his depressed support, Buttigieg’s candidacy is a case study in the dilemma facing gay and lesbian candidates running at all levels of office today. It’s remarkable, in one sense, how little Buttigieg’s sexual orientation has come up in the primary so far, considering that only 10 years ago, the election of a lesbian woman as Houston’s mayor was enough to make national headlines. Voters’ willingness to support gay and lesbian candidates is at an all-time high, and multiple studies by political scientists have suggested that Democrats are especially unlikely to discriminate against candidates like Buttigieg. “If anything, there are some subgroups of Democrats who would be more likely to vote for a gay candidate,” said Gabriele Magni, a political science professor at Loyola Marymount University.

Stop there, and you’d have a pretty rosy electoral prognosis for Buttigieg — focus group skepticism notwithstanding. But it also isn’t the full story. Some Democrats haven’t moved as quickly to the left as others on gay rights issues. And a substantial chunk of Republicans are still comfortable saying they wouldn’t support a gay candidate. As ever, it’s difficult to know what actually keeps a voter for pulling the lever for a particular candidate, but Buttigieg’s sexuality could be a sticking point for some. Experts like Magni said Buttigieg might find it tough to draw support from the most conservative or religious corners of the Democratic primary electorate, not to mention Republicans in the general election. And in a primary driven by voters’ concerns about how electable the candidates are, the perception that a significant slice of voters would never support a gay candidate might be an even bigger hurdle than the reluctant voters themselves.

Just a few election cycles ago, a debate about the electoral impact of a gay candidate’s sexual orientation would have had a clear answer — because being gay was a dealbreaker for almost half the country. As recently as 2007, only 55 percent of Americans said they would vote for a gay or lesbian candidate for president, which is only slightly higher than the share who currently say they would vote for a socialist. But many voters’ qualms about the prospect of a gay or lesbian president evaporated over the following decade, and 76 percent of Americans — including a majority of Republicans — now say they wouldn’t have a problem supporting a gay candidate for president. That’s still not the near-uniform level of hypothetical support the same polls show for a female or black candidate, but it’s also not obviously disqualifying. After all, only 63 percent of Americans say they’d vote for a candidate over the age of 70, which describes the three top-polling candidates in the Democratic primary.

There are plenty of signs, too, that a Democratic primary is particularly friendly terrain for a gay candidate. Political scientists have found in studies and interviews with candidates that gay and lesbian candidates overwhelmingly run as Democrats, in part because Democratic voters don’t seem to penalize candidates for their sexual orientation. A recent experimental study co-authored by Magni found that voters who identify as very liberal and nonreligious were more likely to support a gay candidate over a straight candidate.

The impulse to size up the electoral landscape and run where their support is strongest can partially help explain why gay and lesbian candidates often don’t find their sexuality to be a serious barrier. “When you talk to gay and lesbian candidates, they’ll generally tell you their sexual orientation didn’t matter much in their race, and that’s in part a function of the fact that they tend to run in more liberal areas, like cities,” said Donald Haider-Markel, a political science professor at the University of Kansas and the author of “Out and Running: Gay and Lesbian Candidates, Elections, and Policy Representation.”

But there are still pockets of the Democratic electorate where voters’ views of gay people aren’t as liberal. And that poses a few potential problems for Buttigieg, who has to run a national campaign. A significant chunk of his base is composed of white college-educated Democrats; this is also a subset of voters where his sexual orientation is highly unlikely to be a roadblock, given that several decades of data from the General Social Survey shows that people in this group are especially likely to say that homosexual relationships are never wrong.

But as my colleague Nathaniel Rakich wrote recently, Buttigieg has some fierce competition from Elizabeth Warren for white college-educated voters. And while the groups with whom he might be hoping to expand his support — like religious voters or whites with lower levels of education — are certainly not uniformly opposed to gay candidates, they are groups where his sexual orientation might be more of an issue. People who attend church frequently are much less likely than non-churchgoers to believe same-sex marriage should be legal, according to the Pew Research Center. Likewise, lower levels of education tend to come with lower levels of support for gay marriage.

Voters’ feelings about gay candidates could show up in more nuanced ways as well. The specter of electability, for example, could turn out to be a bigger roadblock for Buttigieg than outright hostility toward gay people. For instance, a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll found that voters were basically split on whether the country was ready for a gay or lesbian president, and only 26 percent said that their neighbors were ready.

To be clear, several experts told me these electability concerns don’t have a lot of evidence to support them, although that may be partially because there hasn’t been a lot of research on how gay candidates perform in real-life elections, and candidates may also avoid contests — like Republican primaries — where they’re all but destined to lose. But discomfort with gay marriage or homosexual relationships won’t necessarily stop voters from ultimately supporting a gay candidate. And Haider-Markel pointed out that the people with the strongest prejudices against gay people are also highly unlikely to vote for any Democrat, which means that in a general election, Buttigieg’s sexuality would probably matter less than the “D” next to his name. Dislodging gut-level intuitions about electability can be tricky business for a candidate, though. That’s particularly true when significant chunks of the electorate — including almost 40 percent of Republicans — are still perfectly comfortable telling a pollster they wouldn’t vote for a gay candidate. It’s hard not to assume that a neighbor’s stubborn opposition to gay marriage will shape their vote in some way — even though in reality, the forces that influence our choice of candidate are far more complex.

This complexity makes it nearly impossible to say for certain whether it’s Buttigieg’s sexual orientation — rather than his age, or his political inexperience, or his policy positions, or some ineffable combination of factors — that has kept him from rising further in the polls. And that will also make it hard to assess, when all the ballots are cast and the Democratic nominee is chosen, just how much Buttigieg’s electoral chances were affected by his sexuality.

But it also means that even if some voters are being held back by Buttigieg’s sexual orientation now, other parts of his biography, like his military service or Christian faith, could still change the way they think about him. The good news for Buttigieg is that there are months to go before the primaries begin, and he has plenty of cash to spend on introducing himself to voters who might currently know next to nothing about him. “At a very basic level, Buttigieg could reduce some bias just by getting voters to see him as a gay man who was also in Afghanistan and goes to church on Sunday,” Magni said. “Sexual orientation is less likely to play a role in vote choice when people move past the stereotypes they have in their mind about who gay people are supposed to be.”

[themikithornburg]

This story was first published in ILLUMINATI AT MY DOOR, D. L. Russell, editor, 2015 THE POINTY-HEADED EGGHEAD THEORY The school cafeteria wasn't crowded, but the fact that it was even half full was a testament to the curiosity of the people who had driven across town through a blizzard to see and hear the candidate scheduled to speak. Unfortunately, the candidate's flight had been cancelled, as the mayor who'd agreed to act as the master of ceremony was forced to announce. "But you're all here now," said the mayor, "so perhaps we can have our town-hall meeting anyway. If anyone wants to leave, go ahead. But if you decide to stay, I suggest that we have questions from individuals in the audience. We'll work it like this: I'll take a question, and then anyone who wants to answer can do so. And we'll go from there. All in favor, say aye." The audience responded with a loud Aye, and only a few people got up from their seats and quietly walked out. "All right!" said the mayor. "Who wants to start?" Immediately a woman in the third row shot up her hand. The mayor pointed at her. "Go ahead, ma'am. Please come up front and speak into the microphone, so everyone can hear your question." The woman, a cheerful-looking middle-aged woman with reddish-gray hair, dressed in jeans and boots and a green sweater, got up and went to the microphone. "Hello," she said. "My name is Norma MacDonald. I'm actually not from town, here – I'm from a small town in Ontario, Canada, and I'm visiting my niece and her husband for a few weeks. But I do have a question. "I hope this doesn't offend anyone," she continued, "but I'm curious about the way a lot of you Yanks treat and talk about your President. I understand that there are political differences, but it seems to a lot of us Canadians that the discourtesy and disrespect for Mr. Obama goes a lot further than that. Early on, there was a member of your House of Representatives who yelled out 'You lie!' in the middle of a state-of-the-union speech the President was giving. Then there was all the fuss from people who say he's a secret Muslim and wasn't even born in the United States, even though there's absolutely no evidence for either of those things – and plenty of evidence that neither one of them is true. And I've heard a lot worse from ordinary people whose comments aren't reported in the news. "That isn't all, either. I don't understand why so many of you seemed to be positively in love with some of the Republican candidates for president whose campaigns were based on obvious lies, and who said things that no intelligent person should have been able to respect, let alone agree with. A lot of us Canadians just don't understand any of this. I'm sure everyone here tonight is more, well, civilized. But maybe someone could help me to understand those who aren't. In other words, I guess my question is – what's the matter with a lot of people in this country?" Norma MacDonald smiled, nodded to the mayor, and went back to her seat, amid gasps and horrified looks from the audience. The mayor stood at the microphone. "Well," he said, "does anyone want to answer Ms. MacDonald?" After a few seconds, a woman in one of the center rows put up her hand and stood. "I'm not sure," she said, "but I think it's… the Illuminati. You know, that's a secret organization, a conspiracy going back centuries. I think they've done some scary things that no one knows about. First they put fluoride in the water, which as everyone knows drives people crazy if they drink enough of it. Then they started inserting little flashes of pictures and words into the movies and TV programs… I forget what that's called… but it makes people think and say things without knowing why they're doing it. And bunch of other stuff. It's the Illuminati! They want to take over!" Her face red, the woman sat back down again. The voices of the audience became a muffled roar that threatened to become louder. At that moment, a man in the back row stood up and held up his hand. "May I speak?" he shouted. The audience quieted down; the mayor beckoned the man forward. "Yes," he said. "If you have another answer for Ms. MacDonald, please come up and take the microphone." The man stepped forward and stood on the platform until all eyes were on him. "Thank you all," he said. "And thank you, Norma MacDonald, for your question. "Here's my opinion. Americans on average are no more stupid and no more intelligent than people everywhere else, including Canada, on average. We may be, on average, more ignorant, although I couldn't prove this. Our cultural values, unfortunately, include a high degree of contempt for intellectualism and educated behavior and decisions; this has been true probably since before the United States was established as an independent country. It was noted by Alexis de Tocqueville after his visit to the U.S. in the early 1830s, and it is true in the 21st century – see everything from the widespread disdain for John Kerry (he spoke French and therefore must be a wimp) and widespread love for George W. Bush (he could hardly speak English and therefore must be a tough, manly man), promoted by Republicans in the 2004 election campaign, to the widespread disdain for and bullying of students who get high grades in U.S. high schools (who read and think and must therefore be nerds, geeks, and deserving of scorn). We love physical strength and sneer at mental strength. Our contempt for and fear of the intellectual increases exponentially as time goes on, as we become more and more suspicious of anyone who thinks logically and seems to know more than we do. We do not respond by wanting to know more ourselves; we respond by wanting to avoid thinking logically and knowing things, because we're afraid that to do so will somehow make us perceived as (and maybe even turn us into) the thing we fear and hate, the thing we can name but are mostly too ignorant to define – LIBERALS! "The reasons for this mindset are complex, but one of the reasons has to do – as de Tocqueville noted – with our racial history and divisions and the collective feelings of guilt and fear of karma held by white Americans of northern European, "Christian" (read: "Protestant"), ancestry. We did our best for almost three centuries to eradicate Native Americans, and did succeed in reducing their numbers and their economic status substantially. It took technological and economic advances and finally a disastrous civil war to bring about an end to African-American slavery, and when it was ended our resentment of the former slaves and their descendants resulted in our enforcement of economic and social and political behavior that not only condemned those people to well over a century of second- (or third- or fourth-) class citizenship but also condemned people of both races to the racially polarized society, characterized by suspicion and hate and fear, that we all live in today. "Barack Obama's presidency – his election and reelection, which awakened many up-till-then smug white racists to the fact that they were becoming a minority, and his rational, intelligent way of speaking and method of governing – brought this fear-driven, guilt-driven, racially bigoted anti-intellectual mindset to a head. The formation of the so-called Tea Party, and the sharing of its general views by large numbers of white U.S. citizens, was a result. Traditional, relatively middle-of-the-right-lane Republicans were voted out of office and replaced by radical right-wingers whose strength is their appeal to those people. These new office-holders are now in control of the U.S. House of Representatives and bid fair to control the U.S. Senate. They are not experienced or accomplished politicians, and to satisfy the people who elected them they have no real agenda except to disagree with President Obama, to insult him whenever they see an opening, and of course to comply with the orders of the lobbyists and contributors who supported their campaigns. "The lobbyists and lobbyist employers, and the multi-billionaire right-wing contributors, while they themselves are sometimes bigots, are not necessarily so, nor are they ignorant. They are driven wholly by their desire to increase the wealth of the wealthy and their need, in order to do so, to increase the ignorance of the ignorant. They are the puppet-masters of the radical office-holders and office-seekers, and they are now almost wholly in charge of the United States – or so they hope, and so they wager. "These people are your 'Illuminati.' They are not members of an ancient Jewish conspiracy, as traditional 'Illuminati' believers would have us think. They are powerful, but they are not all-powerful. We, the citizens of the United States of America, are still allowed to read, to think, and to vote, although those we have put in power are doing their best to deprive us of those freedoms. It is up to us to take advantage of our freedom to read, to think, and to vote. And, in my opinion, it would be best to do that soon. The power we Americans still possess is the only thing these people fear, and they are speaking noisily through their puppets and spending enormous sums in efforts to silence us, deprive us of our power, and turn us all into mindless, flag-waving, science-doubting, frightened, angry loud-mouths who have no real power left at all." The man who'd been speaking turned, nodded at the mayor, turned back and nodded at the audience, and left the platform. The people in the cafeteria looked at one another in stunned silence. Could the man be right? After a few moments, one man in the front row turned and looked at another man on his left. "Whaddya think, Ed?" he asked, in a whisper that could nevertheless be heard throughout the room. "I dunno," Ed responded, as people strained to hear what he thought. "That guy… did you ever see him before?" "No," said the first man. "Never." Ed nodded. "What I thought. He looks like a foreigner, don't he? I bet he's one of them Ay¬-rabs. He talks funny. All them big words. Sounds like one of them pointy-headed eggheads. Prob'ly a college professor or something. You know, a liberal." There was a general sigh of relief through the cafeteria. Ed had explained it all, thank God. There was nothing in the world the matter with Americans, except for too many pointy-headed eggheads. Only one man muttered, to his wife, "How can you be pointy-headed and an egghead at the same time? Eggs aren't pointy…" And the woman in the middle row kept shaking her head, neither pointy nor egg-shaped. "It's the Illuminati…" she said to herself, as everyone put on their coats and walked back out into the blizzard. THE END

[marcjampole]

If you want mainstream media to like your book on American decline, blame the 60’s. Fantasyland latest to do so

It seems as if no social critic can get a fair hearing in the mass media unless she-he blames it on the sixties. If you Google the expression “blame it on the sixties,” you summon up references to a wide range of articles and books in which experts and pundits blame a variety of current social and economic problems on changes in the attitudes, customs and mores of the 1960’s. My perusal of the first three pages of search results found the 1960’s and early 1970’s faulted for the rise in child abuse, our economic decline, political correctness, the vote in the Electoral College for Donald Trump, the increase in obesity, crime and growing drug abuse.

You’d think that most of the sixties-haters would be religious and social conservatives, because, say what you will about that decade, it did witness the sexual revolution that led to more open attitudes and greater social acceptance of sexual rights for women and all kinds of sexual experiences between all kinds of people. But as it turns out, a substantial number of sixties critics are self-flagellating liberals, you know, pundits who claim to be liberal but butter their bread by always blaming liberals for their own predicament. For example, after the election, a slew of Democrats blamed Clinton’s loss on the Democrats depending too much on “identity politics,” i.e., caring about civil rights. With friends like that…

The latest liberal self-flagellator to blame the sixties for the deplorable state of the world is novelist and journalist Kurt Andersen, in his glib and often superficial Fantasyland. Anderson’s description of today’s American Fantasyland is attractive and largely accurate. The insidious spread of fake news; the new level of lying by politicians; the basing of social and economic policy on disproven or bad science; the great numbers of Americans who believe in demons, the absolute existence of a god with male features and/or a literal interpretation of the Judeo-Christian genesis myth; the large number of adults whose lives revolve around electronic games, comic book superheroes, cosplay and other escapist fare; the climate change deniers, the evolution deniers, the birthers—these snapshots of the irrational are but a sampling of the evidence that Andersen musters to show that current American society is based on lies and myths, that we surround ourselves with fantasy.

Andersen is also right when he asserts that fantasy has played a major role in American society since the search for the Northwest Passage and the Salem witch trials. His history of irrational thought in America reads like an outline or a greatest hits list: each major figure in an irrational movement or trend gets a paragraph or so. For readers who want to delve into the long history of irrational thought in America, Fantasyland can serve as a syllabus that sends you to the right people and primary sources to read.

But the third part of Andersen’s thesis—that the sixties marked a turning point, after which instead of being a peripheral trend, irrationality took center stage—is dead wrong.

In sixties terminology, Andersen’s mistake is to conflate “do your own thing” with “believe your own thing.” Yes, a lot of people believed in some pretty weird stuff in the 1960’s. Like the First (1730-1740) and Second (1800-1860) Great Awakenings and the Roaring Twenties, the sixties saw an uptick in interest in the occult and the irrational. But lots of the doing of your own thing in the sixties and early seventies involved overthrowing old myths and lies and asserting the truth of empirical science, such as the anti-Vietnam War, Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, Gay Rights, environmental, anti-nuclear, organic gardening and sustainable living movements. All products of a very rational sixties. And in every case, it was the government or the majority of those with influence who were living in a fantasy.

Andersen takes particular note of the rise of the Pentecostal movement and televangelism in the 1960’s. True enough, but morality is not inherently contra-factual. Morality motivated a lot of the antiwar activists and poverty workers. Remember, too, that a Christian left and right wing have existed in this country since at least the abolitionist movement got its start. Even if we accept the core beliefs of the Christian right wing that have persisted for at least 140 years, a rise in a concern for moral issues doesn’t in and of itself suggest the society is entering a fantasyland. I can be against a woman’s right to control her body for moral reasons and still be living in the real world. I enter Fantasyland only when I believe that an abortion causes future health problems, that life begins at conception or that vaccines cause autism.

All of society bases part of its existence on fantastic notions, typically related to ethnic superiority, national character, religion and the convenience of rich folk. Certainly since Columbus made his voyages, religious and irrational beliefs have harmed the United States. Our economy before the 1860’s was largely based on the myth that Africans were inferior people who needed the white man’s guidance and therefore benefited from slavery. What about the medical, economic and social impact of the myths that led to the anti-marijuana laws of the 1930’s? TR, Henry Cabot Lodge and William Randolph Hearst shoveled a lot of bull hockey at Americans to build support for the Spanish-American War and our later atrocities in the Philippines. I would like to prove that the inflection point at which belief overran rationality was during the Reagan era, when so many edifices of lies were built and then used to justify horrific policies; lies and myths such as welfare queens, supply side economics, the failure of government, the failure of public schools and the benefits of the unimpeded free market. But reading history books like Stephen Kinzer’s The True Flag about the Spanish-American War epoch and Matthew Karp’s This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy about pre-Civil War U.S. foreign policy demonstrates that the Bush II and the current administrations aren’t the first times the United States has been run by a band of reality-denying ignoramuses guided by myths with no basis in reality and representing a sizable minority but not all the people.  

If we, as I do, place primary blame for the growth of the American Fantasyland on the increase of lies and myths knowingly perpetrated by the news media, we can’t really locate in the 1960’s the inflection point after which fantasies begin to dominate the media and, by inference, American society. Since the original scandal sheets and yellow journalism of the Gilded Age, mass media has been growing inexorably, and as it does, so has the ubiquity of advertising, the focus on celebrity and the increase in myths being presented as truth—in commercials, by televangelists, well-funded rightwing think tanks and rightwing television and radio, on alt-right and UFO websites, in social media and fake news. Let’s look at some of major events in the history of media’s creation of Fantasyland: yellow journalism emerged at the end of 19th century, free market commercial radio developed in the 1920’s, the first radio evangelists started broadcasting in the 1930’s and 1940’s, the rise of commercial television and the beginning of the right wing creating alternative distribution channels for their myths occurred in the 1950’s, the federal law that allowed companies to own more TV and radio stations passed in the 1980’s, rightwing radio was born in the 1990’s, the Internet was the 2000’s, the Citizens United decision in 2010. You get the idea.

Why then blame the 1960’s? We would have to read into Kurt Andersen’s heart to know the answer as it pertains toFantasyland. I am, however, quite confident that the larger phenomenon of blaming the 1960’s (and early 1970’s) for every social and economic ill since then results from the mass media applying a screen: Blame the sixties—we like it; blame another decade—reject the article! For the most part rich folk who like the status quo own the mass media and the companies which support media outlets with advertising. While rich folk include a spectrum of beliefs from left-leaning to ultra-right (there are very few socialists of any ilk among this group), they mostly lean right and mostly want to protect the prerogatives of the wealthy.

And they don’t like the true story of what happened in the sixties: It was the absolute high point for equality of wealth and income in U. S. history and the high point of union power (if not of union membership, which occurred in the 1950’s). While not the inflection point for American irrationality, it certainly was for the movement to provide equal rights in courts, the marketplace and workplace to all Americans—plenty happened afterwards, but the turning point certainly came in the 1960’s with the maturing of the Civil Rights movement and the start of other inclusion movements. The 1960’s thus represent the start of the threat to the special position of white males.

In other words, the real “evil” of the 1960’s is not that it created an American Fantasyland, or that it led to a decline in morals or educational standards or the work ethic. No, what the mass media hates about the 1960’s is that for a few brief years we saw a way to institute a true social democracy in a fairly equitable society with a fairly level playing field, kind of like the model developed in Europe after World War II. The Reaganites saw another way, but to make it work, they had to denigrate the real ideals of the sixties—government spending to solve social problems, a level playing field that did not favor individuals of any group, the importance of ending poverty and giving people a hand up, enlightened stewardship of natural resources, a foreign policy not dependent on America bullying other nations. These core beliefs—all based on facts and science—contradict everything the right stands for. Thus the desire, even today, to blame everything on the 1960’s.

I stopped reading novels about writers or university teachers about 30 years ago. I think it might be time to stop reading books that blame the 60’s.

[becauseithrewgasandamatchonher]

So can’t message you for some reason, doesn’t work when I send a message so why don’t we put everything under a read me so it doesn’t get so damn long.

One:

You know what if you won’t take my word for it listen to James Grossman the Executive Director of the American Historical Association:

James Grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association, says that the increase in statues and monuments was clearly meant to send a message.

"These statues were meant to create legitimate garb for white supremacy," Grossman said. "Why would you put a statue of Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson in 1948 in Baltimore?"

(http://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544266880/confederate-statues-were-built-to-further-a-white-supremacist-future)

Or Doctor Mark Elliot:

“All of those monuments were there to teach values to people,” Elliott says. “That’s why they put them in the city squares. That’s why they put them in front of state buildings.” Many earlier memories had instead been placed in cemeteries.

The values these monuments stood for, he says, included a “glorification of the cause of the Civil War.”

(http://www.history.com/news/how-the-u-s-got-so-many-confederate-monuments)

I know you like to use your opinion instead of sources but I’m excited to see how you explain this away or discredit these people. Especially the guy in charge of the American Historical Association.

 Two:

Oh yeah because few people on the left are burning stuff that suddenly means everyone who is left leaning is for that. Are you out of your fucking mind? This is fucking ridiculous you think they speak for the entirety of the Left?? Like show me facts. Show me statistics that it’s a wide spread thing on our side then maybe I’ll take these people seriously until then chill the fuck out.

Also let’s talk about this article in regards to colleges. First and foremost again with the misuse of freedom of speech unless you’re going to fight all the times students have gotten expelled from Universities for saying slurs and shit you really need to chill out with your problem you have with a University exercising their right to not allow someone on to the campus and people exercising their right to protest until they are heard.

There is a code of conduct at Universities and it’s beyond ridiculous if a school is okay with inviting someone that has said/done things that go against that code of conduct when if I a student did any of that I would be fucking expelled. Them bringing that person in shows what the schools values are before you say “well they aren’t students.” If I owned a school and decided I was going to let Sean Spencer [a neo nazi who has called for ethnic genocide] come speak to my students that would say something about myself and my schools values.

Ann Coulter has said some fucked up shit to include the homophobic word f*ggot. She’s said "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity." She’s said "I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo." She’s said “ Jews would be “perfected” once they became Christians.”

Do I need to keep going about the fucked up shit she has said? No one owes this woman a fucking platform she’s garbage. I read something once about how speech can be violent because of the effect it has on the body and the brain but there’s something that stands out to me:

The scientific findings I described above provide empirical guidance for which kinds of controversial speech should and shouldn’t be acceptable on campus and in civil society. In short, the answer depends on whether the speech is abusive or merely offensive.

Offensiveness is not bad for your body and brain. Your nervous system evolved to withstand periodic bouts of stress, such as fleeing from a tiger, taking a punch or encountering an odious idea in a university lecture.

Entertaining someone else’s distasteful perspective can be educational. Early in my career, I taught a course that covered the eugenics movement, which advocated the selective breeding of humans. Eugenics, in its time, became a scientific justification for racism. To help my students understand this ugly part of scientific history, I assigned them to debate its pros and cons. The students refused. No one was willing to argue, even as part of a classroom exercise, that certain races were genetically superior to others.

So I enlisted an African-American faculty member in my department to argue in favor of eugenics while I argued against; halfway through the debate, we switched sides. We were modeling for the students a fundamental principle of a university education, as well as civil society: When you’re forced to engage a position you strongly disagree with, you learn something about the other perspective as well as your own. The process feels unpleasant, but it’s a good kind of stress — temporary and not harmful to your body — and you reap the longer-term benefits of learning.

What’s bad for your nervous system, in contrast, are long stretches of simmering stress. If you spend a lot of time in a harsh environment worrying about your safety, that’s the kind of stress that brings on illness and remodels your brain. That’s also true of a political climate in which groups of people endlessly hurl hateful words at one another, and of rampant bullying in school or on social media. A culture of constant, casual brutality is toxic to the body, and we suffer for it.

That’s why it’s reasonable, scientifically speaking, not to allow a provocateur and hatemonger like Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at your school. He is part of something noxious, a campaign of abuse. There is nothing to be gained from debating him, for debate is not what he is offering.

On the other hand, when the political scientist Charles Murray argues that genetic factors help account for racial disparities in I.Q. scores, you might find his view to be repugnant and misguided, but it’s only offensive. It is offered as a scholarly hypothesis to be debated, not thrown like a grenade. There is a difference between permitting a culture of casual brutality and entertaining an opinion you strongly oppose. The former is a danger to a civil society (and to our health); the latter is the lifeblood of democracy.

By all means, we should have open conversations and vigorous debate about controversial or offensive topics. But we must also halt speech that bullies and torments. From the perspective of our brain cells, the latter is literally a form of violence.

(https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/opinion/sunday/when-is-speech-violence.html?mcubz=1)

Now can you say that being anti-Semitic [Jewish people will be perfected by becoming Christian] calling for the invasion, murder and forced conversion to Christianity [man that has a long history of fucking up countries] saying that we should televise and condone torture AND drop fucking bombs [daisy cutters] throughout the Middle East isn’t fucking abusive and oppressive? I mean you could but it’s garbage.

Three:

I love that you left out what that statement was in reference to. You said no one who is affected by it cares which was a blatant lie and you’ve obviously ignored the copious amounts of NA that have called for this stuff to be removed.

Your facts were called bullshit because they didn’t support your original statement.

You do realize it doesn’t fucking matter if 4.7 million don’t care right? Those 520k+ NA still exist and they give a damn so your statement the people affected don’t care is a fucking lie and using that article to push your narrative that is fucking wrong makes it bullshit. It’s not because I don’t like evidence. It’s because the evidence you have provided is garbage and doesn’t support the statement YOU FUCKING MADE. You don’t get to fucking decide an issue doesn’t matter because the majority of said group doesn’t care about it.

  Four:

Nothing you said changes that the article detailed how to help the NA community. So either your article is good and the information is sound or it’s bad. You can’t pick and choose. You can’t use part of the articles information to back up your statement then trash the rest of it. Do you know how that makes a source look?

Doesn’t matter why you omitted it. The point remains it proved my point that the government was fucking the NA community over. Your source that you provided agrees that what the government is doing with the land [along with the cigerrets and the casinos] are hurting the community.

Hmmmm that’s fair the US has provided that but uhm just a quick thing:

 Since it was first established within the old U.S. War Department in 1824, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has distinguished itself as the most corrupt, ineffective and abusive agency in the federal government. Although the BIA now professes the greatest respect for "tribal sovereignty" and "tribal self-determination," there is precious little evidence of genuine concern for tribal autonomy in its administration of federal Indian policy as its recent illegal intervention into the internal affairs of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma substantiates. The overwhelming weight of evidence tells a very different story about BIA policy making. By any standard, the BIA is a colossal failure as a government agency and the dead weight of its administrative wreckage represents the single greatest obstacle to the freedom, prosperity, cultural integrity and progress of Native Americans. Until the BIA is abolished and federal Indian policy is fundamentally reformed, the future holds little promise of a significant change in the lives of Native Americans.

(http://www.cherokeeobserver.org/Issues/abolishbiapart2.html)

 Five:

I don’t use reddit. Ever. So like again I say just say the shit you wanna say so I don’t waste my fucking time responding to it??

 Six:

So the fact that they haven’t paid there bills somehow means they deserve to be living with dirty fucking pipes? They deserve the city officials to not fix the fucking pipes that a lot of them have been prosecuted over for their role in it?

The first thing that you said in this post was this: We’ve given you everything you want, but you just want more you greedy layabouts. So  you didn’t originally say anything about people only complaining on twitter. Try reading through your own statements.

Seven:

You know how you said that I was misquoting you [which I wasn’t lol] it’s nice to see you doing the same thing. Here’s what I said:

ALSO I don’t know if you know this but not everyone is able to go out and do the stuff I do whether it’s age, whether it’s economical, whether it’s because they have a disability of some sort so calling them a lay about is so many levels of wrong not to mention talking this stuff on the internet can and often does get people involved who can do stuff to do so. You discounting the power of words and the internet is illogical and just to ridiculous for words.

At no point did I say that no one out of the people I listed could go out in protests but the fact remains that for every child, poor person, disabled person that can go there’s someone that can’t so again you calling these people layabouts is fucking garbage, but I love that you think the links you provided mean EVERYONE in those particular communities can do something.

Eight:

Yes. It’s quite possible since you’re more likely to live in poverty if you were in poverty as a child (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rich-kids-stay-rich-poor-kids-stay-poor/) (http://www.nccp.org/publications/pub_911.html) (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/02/19/a-college-degree-is-worth-less-if-you-are-raised-poor/) (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/the-long-shadow-poverty-baltimore-poor-children/) and having literally all your money, land and shit stripped away from is a sure fire way to put people in poverty if I ever saw one.

I honestly can’t expect much from someone that thinks institutional oppression doesn’t exist. I mean I can’t blame you for not understanding this “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” thing is garbage and has always been garbage

Nine:

Read the following: (http://www.aaihs.org/slavery-the-13th-amendment-and-mass-incarceration-a-response-to-patrick-rael/) (http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/gilmoreprisonslavery.html) (https://www.afsc.org/story/slavery-mass-incarceration) (https://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/3/from_slavery_to_mass_incarceration_ava) (https://eji.org/enslavement-to-mass-incarceration-museum) (http://racism.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1470:institutionalized-slavery&catid=137&Itemid=155&showall=1&limitstart=)

 Also let’s talk about your articles

The one talking about Black leaders: I’m all for admitting there were other circumstances as well but the idea that the war on drugs wasn’t to attack Black communities (http://jezebel.com/nixons-policy-advisor-admits-he-invented-war-on-drugs-t-1766359595) or that drugs weren’t funneled into the community (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/gary-webb-dark-alliance_n_5961748.html) is factually incorrect.

Also there being other contributing factors to Mass Incarceration doesn’t suddenly mean it didn’t start with slavery.  That’s not how that works.

The first article:

Is the fact that Black politicians are on board with this and that there’s some racist black guy trying to put Black people in more economic poverty supposed to prove anything?

 Ten:

Have you ever experienced poverty? Have you ever experienced being so poor you can’t feed your own children [due to racism in the job market and a slew of other things] that you turn to crime to feed said children? If the choice is between starvation for yourself and your children and committing a crime that’s not a real choice.

One I didn’t bring the law in to this [despite the fact there are numerous racist legal practices] but I’m glad you can recognize that stuff from 100 years ago can affect today albeit even if you’re saying so in just a legal capacity. But please tell me how your comment is right but mine is wrong when I say stuff from 100+ years ago can affect people today?

 Eleven:

We are having a debate/argument/discussion whatever you want to call it and while you are right it’s not a research paper when you do this stuff you need to have your fact straight.

 For example I haven’t gotten stuff wrong here that’s fine but nothing I’ve gotten wrong has presented me as a possible racist liar [your own actions even if they were by accident are the same actions that racist people have done. People I’ve had this conversation with before so if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s a duck until I know otherwise. AGAIN that was your fault. My initial evaluation of you was your own fault.]

 Twelve:

Don’t really care. If I’ve got the facts to back me up I’ll cuss all I want especially when it’s about topics that directly affect me and others like me. If you allow my insults to detract from the facts that’s something YOU need to work on not me because even if you had cussed me out I still would have read your sources and I would have replied to them in kind.

If my argument is supported by facts and you think me being mean to you delegitimizes my argument that is supported by facts that means you don’t care about the facts because someone was mean to you. People need to stop using people being mean to them as a way to negate facts.

 Thirteen:

So I realized I didn’t actually link my source apparently lol?? I thought I did so that’s on me but it was a list of articles from google talking about the issue but I already know we are gonna run into this problem again later down so I’ll save what I am going to say for then.

 Fourteen:

So all you’ve got is your opinions didn’t I say don’t bother responding if you couldn’t give me something other than your opinion?

However there is something I will address. Yes we commit more violent crimes I won’t ever deny that because I know it’s a fact. I frequently use those FBI tables in conversations. What I will say though is violent crimes doesn’t encompass everything so let’s talk about that other stuff:

Even more surprising is what gets left out of the chart: Blacks are far more likely to be arrested for selling or possessing drugs than whites, even though whites use drugs at the same rate. And whites are actually more likely to sell drugs:

Whites were about 45 percent more likely than blacks to sell drugs in 1980, according to an analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth by economist Robert Fairlie. This was consistent with a 1989 survey of youth in Boston. My own analysis of data from the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that 6.6 percent of white adolescents and young adults (aged 12 to 25) sold drugs, compared to just 5.0 percent of blacks (a 32 percent difference).

This partly reflects racial differences in the drug markets in black and white communities. In poor black neighborhoods, drugs tend to be sold outdoors, in the open. 

 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/30/white-people-are-more-likely-to-deal-drugs-but-black-people-are-more-likely-to-get-arrested-for-it/?utm_term=.1797b7e3e9ef)

To compound on this cops just don’t seem to care about white people doing this stuff. (https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration/smart-justice/war-marijuana-black-and-white) (https://privacysos.org/blog/there-goes-your-overtime-cop-explains-why-police-dont-target-powerful-whites-in-drug-enforcement/) The CIA definitely didn’t care when they were targeting Black people and Hippies.

Not to mention white people are now calling for a gentler war on drugs now because of a fucking heroin crisis (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/us/heroin-war-on-drugs-parents.html?mcubz=1) but I mean fuck the Black community right? Let’s support laws that put them in jail (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/08/racial_bias_in_criminal_justice_whites_don_t_want_to_reform_laws_that_harm.html)

 Black people are more likely to have their cars searched despite the fact that they find more illegal stuff on white people (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/27/police-are-searching-black-drivers-more-often-but-finding-more-illegal-stuff-with-white-drivers-2/?utm_term=.e402ec8667c4)

Black people are more likely to be stopped and frisked despite the fact that white people carry more contraband (https://thinkprogress.org/white-people-stopped-by-new-york-police-are-more-likely-to-have-guns-or-drugs-than-minorities-9bf579a2b9b3/)

And there’s this too: (https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/data-police-racial-bias)

So that information about violent crime doesn’t suddenly fix everything.

ALSO Black people are more likely to be in poverty so there’s a racial aspect to all of this isn’t if it isn’t the single contributing factor. One of the reasons is probably this: (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2915472/) or this: (http://www.epi.org/publication/african-americans-are-paid-less-than-whites-at-every-education-level/)

 Fifteen:

Columbus was also trash and his statues need to be removed and Columbus day should be replaced with Indigenous People’s Day [it’s already happening but all of America needs to get with the times] again books, museums and mandatory curriculums exist that’s not gonna change.

Have you heard anyone call for the removal of museums that are about educating people? I know for a fact that the African American History and Heritage Museum has a section about Civil War and there’s no way people would remove that. Now a museum glorifying the actions of the Confederate sure remove it. History like that should be remembered not glorified.

Educating isn’t glorifying and if you can’t tell the difference between those two words I can’t help you. NOT TO FUCKING MENTION it’s the people that are supporting this shit that are ALL FOR revising ACTUAL HISTORY BOOKS that teach kids about this stuff. We aren’t the ones doing what you’re accusing us of. The right is.

  Sixteen:

Soooo you’re against pedophilic material being censored since no one should be forcibly censored? I mean that’s cool…I guess….I can’t even.

Now obviously, I don’t actually believe you believe that but your stance is no censorship is good but if you budge that means in certain circumstances it is. So who are you to decide what those circumstances are? Mine reasons are based off the racist history of the statues and their continued presence in a society that claims to be post racial/racism

 Seventeen:

So I’ve already proven that you’re wrong about why those statues were put up from two very reliable sources but I am eager to see how you plan to discredit them or if you’re even gonna bother providing sources and are going to use your opinion again which will not hold up to that.

Anyway those statues were put up to glorify the reasons the south seceded [racism along many other things] and to terrorize Black people. It wasn’t solely about memorializing their fallen [I’ll agree that was part of the reason] but like that part shouldn’t matter since the racism is quite clear now. At least to anyone that cares about sources.

 Eighteen:

Things happened in the past that effect the present [which you agreed with] and therefore reconciliation should be made.

Also you didn’t have a single source to back up your opinions so you saying it’s not real doesn’t mean shit to me because your opinion doesn’t mean shit without fucking sources. Your word isn’t fucking fact.

OH MY GOD yes because a Black man managed to do that with some KKK members that means they can all have that happen? Didn’t you get “mad” at me earlier for something along these lines? You are a joke if you think the people he convered represent the entitirety of the population of the KKK which is said to be 3000 people (http://www.epi.org/publication/african-americans-are-paid-less-than-whites-at-every-education-level/) We don’t even have a number of how many people he converted but you wanna use that as proof that all these racist fucks aren’t gonna stay that way?

Fine I will change my stance THE MAJORITY OF THESE FUCKS will continue to be the way they are unless there are serious consequences for the fucking behavior whether it’s getting expelled from college, losing their job or someone beating the ever living shit out of them. This is not me saying I condone violence but my point stands.

 Nineteen:

Do you realize the KKK have been marching around the US before this? Do you realize the Nazism and all that was on the rise before this happened? Also when it comes to PoC people claim the victim narrative is bullshit but let it be the KKK and Neo-Nazis all of a sudden it’s got legitimacy that’s racist bullshit.

Their beliefs don’t change facts. Their history is racist. The KKK is racist. Neo-Nazism is racist. The Confederacy seceded for multiple reasons but one of them was RACISM. The fact that people are claiming to agree with them is just more proof that our country is racist but of course no one will go for that because these people are the actual ones trying to erase fucking history.

Things aren’t always black and white. Things don’t always happen because of racism but you acting like systematic oppression doesn’t exist is factually incorrect, moronic and doesn’t help shit in tearing down these systems in order to help people.

REMINDER: PUT YOUR RESPONSE UNDER A READ MORE

[academicatheism]

On The “Science” of Apologetics

As I’ve stated many times in recent memory, I have zero interest in apologetics. Apologetics is simply a distortion of philosophical tools. It can also be pseudoscience, specifically when apologists try to discuss evolution, abiogenesis, and cosmology; they like to pretend they have competing scientific theories that suggest there’s a designer when in reality, their religiously-based opinions are not scientific theories and aren’t written about as such nor tested as such.

There is, however, a blogger going by the blog name “thescienceofapologetics” who has become a target of mine. I’m not targeting him/her individually nor am I suggesting that s/he is evil. What I am suggesting is that this person is intentionally misleading, going so far as to blatantly omit facts, alternative points of views, and worthwhile rebuttals like this one and this one. Like many wannabe apologists before him/her, s/he publishes the anons who are rude and curse and name call to make it appear as though there are no worthwhile challenges being brought forth. The narrative is that “fact over fabrication” is taken so seriously that all non-believers and non-Christians can do is throw tantrums and attack this individual’s character. 

I can assess character insofar as traits are obviously present. This individual is deceitful, intellectually dishonest, ignorant, pretentious, and interested not in fact, but rather in fabrication. The entire blog is oxymoronic in that it purports an interest in “fact over fabrication” and yet consistently defends fabrication over fact. Christianity isn’t the fact; the claims of Christianity aren’t facts. Christianity is the fabrication and its claims are, each and every single one, gross fabrications, embellishments, and falsehoods. I showed that in both responses, which didn’t and probably won’t receive reply, especially given the private message that said “I don’t want to fight you.” No one said anything about a “fight,” but if that’s how one wants to see it, it’s a “fight” this person can’t win. The truth is undefeated. Conspiracy theories, religion, and all manner of human deceit have tasted the sour taste of defeat more times than anyone can count. 

The problem with a religion like Christianity is that despite such defeats, it persists as though it hasn’t been utterly brought down by the advancements of science, philosophy, history, and other disciplines. The same, tired arguments for god are trotted out again and again and again as though no one has ever addressed them. What’s more is that they’re brought out like corpses on a puppeteer’s strings, without amendments or substantial revisions of the sort we would expect severely wounded arguments to have! This doesn’t say anything more about defeated arguments, but it definitely says a lot about the mentality of people like this blogger. 

The blogger may try to get off the hook by citing the length of my responses, but the length of my responses are not intended to intimidate; nor am I trying to prove by verbosity because that being the case, I can Gish Gallup my way around with so many facts, germane or not. Yet I don’t do that. I stick to the topic and elaborate wherever necessary. The fact of the matter is that elaboration is often needed because prior to facts being stated, distortions have to be addressed. I spoke on my method in an earlier post.

First I want you to realize that I’ve listened carefully. Then I want you to realize that I’ve listened so intently that I can understand your argument or defense, and even enhance it. Then I want you to see that despite that, your point of view is demonstrably wrong. Then I explain exactly why that’s the case and if required, I present conclusive evidence or a cogent argument. Then all there’s left to do is show you why the fact of the matter serves better, especially as it relates to filling any gaps left by the belief in question. This is what makes my responses as long as they are. 

They could be more concise some may argue, but on topics like these, that will only serve to take away rather than add value. Aside from that, rather than prove my own authority, what I intend to show people is that I’ve read authorities on the topics apologists like to talk about. In fact, I still read about all of these topics though I have no interest in apologetics; the reason for that is because these topics involve science, philosophy, and history, and the practitioners of these fields are, for the most part, interested in discovering the truth, the fact of the matter. Apologetics is a pseudo-scholarly discipline in that it violates this; it’s not seeking the fact of the matter, but rather purports to have already discovered it and this is far from curious because Christians claim to have found the truth though they never sought it. It’s a discipline crafted in their own, intellectually dishonest image.

This is an open notice to anyone following this blogger. S/he’s lying deliberately; this is chicanery at its finest. S/he’s is distorting facts and omitting evidence and effectively silencing opponents by refusing to publish anything worth his/her attention. S/he’s more interesting in pushing the narrative that atheists and non-Christians more generally are just an angry bunch because they have no way to address the “truth.” “Fact over fabrication” is a facade because every post is actually a defense of fabrication over fact; this person isn’t interested in facts on any front and given these two responses, that’s conclusive and absolutely demonstrable. 

I seek to educate rather than indoctrinate. I’d rather know than to believe. My allegiance is to truth and facts and not the sanctity of opinion. Given that, this wannabe apologist has two choices: 1) start valuing fact over fabrication for real this time or 2) face the consequences in the form of a relentless, knowledgeable opponent who has vast experience in doing precisely this sort of thing. Looking directly at you now: you’re not the first and unfortunately won’t be the last wannabe apologist, but you’ll certainly prove to be anything but the finest among them because you’re all the same: desperate to believe and lead others to believe even if it means deliberately lying, omitting evidence, distorting facts, and manipulating people. That stops now!

[skeptic42]

Ignorant christian argument

So, I came across this worthless video.  Wow.  Here’s the description with my response:

"It's pretty easy to 'destroy' Atheism using logic.

This should be interesting

Occam's Razor.

Oh no!  You're going to cut me with Occam's Razor!

What is the simplest answer to this question?

Let's see what our limited choices are...

Before the 'Big Bang' how did matter come about to be?

We don't know.

Atheist would say it was just there brah.

Damn my free thinking for getting the answer wrong. Although, I don't know anyone that claims that.

A scientist would say we don't know.

This is actually a better answer.  Anything else is speculation, which is the entry point to the scientific method.

A Theist would say it was put there intentionally.

I’m going to take a wild shot in the dark and say this is supposed to be the correct answer to an incorrectly understood concept.  So the Big Bang that happened 13.8 billion years ago, was put there intentionally by god (this is the theist answer, so I'm not reading anything into the answer).

Out of the two definitive answers which is the simplest? Sorry kids, stuff is never 'just there'

That's a claim, do you have any proof?

a child could answer this question.

But you can't, so a child is smarter than you.

You lose at the scientific method. GG.

Also this doesn't even get into how you get conciousness [sic] out of matter.

It is a challenging question that we are probing.  And the god of the gaps is the simplistic answer, so you win your loaded question..

Hey!  Wait a minute!  Occam's Razor is not evidence.  Nor does mean your simplistic answer is correct.  When confronted with two equally valid (key word) explanations, the answer with the least amount of assumptions could most likely be the correct answer.  So you've actually proven nothing, well, except that you are a moron.

Many quantum physicists would agree that the universe naturally lends itself to conciousness [sic], that the universe may not even exist without it.

This appeal to authority is not proof of anything.  It might be universally held by all scientists.  But universally held ideas have been disproved time and time again.

An Atheist would say that conciousness [sic] is just a well developed brain coming to grips with itself.

Strawman argument of, like your reasoning capacity, no worth.

Intelligent life is not a normal occurence [sic], it occurs no where else in our fossil record.

Using a narrow definition of intelligent proves nothing.  Life has been around for billions of years and has included varying levels of intelligence.  More so than your videos.

So for it to be just a random occurence [sic] of evolution doesn't add up,

Learn about the Law of Large Numbers, then maybe you might begin to understand just how chance works.

as higher intelligence is seen no where else as required for a species to survive.

The dinosaurs survived for millions of years.  Mankind might not last as long as 1% of their reign.  So, who has the higher intelligence?  Certainly not you.

So again, science does not weigh in on the Atheists side.

Actually, it does.

And regardless of what you've heard, the majority of scientists on the planet are not Atheists (nor ever have been in recorded history) just like the majority of human beings on the planet are not Atheists.

Pew Research shows that belief in god among scientists is at 33%, 18% are deists, 41% do not believe in any higher power, god, or universal spirit, 7% don't know refused to answer.

So, once again, you're wrong.

I will say, you are right that atheism is not a majority, and I never heard anyone make that claim.  Unless you consider that from the perspective of all the various religions, non-believers are atheists.  It’s just that some atheists believe in one less god than others.

It is a complete fallacy that Atheists have constructed for their own personal comfort,

Oh, you mean like the belief that you are among the chosen to go to heaven, where you will be served by kings and princes (despite it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle then a rich man to enter heaven) and some imaginary sky daddy is looking out for you, making sure nothing bad ever happens, except to test you even though he already knows your heart.  That prayer works.  Not only are you out of touch with intelligence, you are out of touch with christendom that holds that atheism is a bleak world view.  Nothing comforting there.

but that is not based in reality.

And believing the words of a book that is full of lies, plagiarism, and contradictions is based in reality?

The majority of scientists are at least open to the possibility of God as the question of Gods existence falls well out of their scope at this time.

Being open to possibility is not the same as believing something.  No one can prove or disprove the existence of god, in fact it’s not even a question science is looking at.

I'm willing to believe in a god, but I'm not going to accept warm feelings, flimsy arguments, or the god of the gaps as proof.  Evidence has to be compelling.  Conjecture and hearsay are not evidence, except...

I guess I’ve been corrected by Lyle Hutz.

To be an Atheist, to deny the existence of something our science has not approached even begining [sic] to tackle yet, is by default not scientific.

If you deny the existence of the gods Zeus, Woden, Jupiter, Mars, or some 2,000-5,000 other gods without proof of their non-existence, then you too have failed the pseudo-scientific belief test you just made up.

That's how easy it is to destroy Atheism, for a novice.

Novice?  Please!  You aren't even capable of thought.

The reason why Atheists seem so smug in their intellectual high ground is not all that difficult to pinpoint.

The bullshit meter is detecting deeper shit ahead.

This video provides ample evidence of it. Atheism can only produce a victory in a debate when it sets up a false dichotomy diametrically opposed to Theism.

Like the false dichotomy of your arguments.  You're really piss-poor at this.  Anyway, what’s the “false dichotomy?”

Which of course allows them the easy cop out 'You're the one making extraordinary claims so the burden of proof falls on you'

You really need to learn to recognize a false dichotomy, or more correctly.  You’re very familiar with one and don’t even know it.  “Repent and believe in jesus, ... or ... burn in hell.”

That's how claims work.  You make the claim, you prove it.  People have made a living for hundreds of years selling snake oil and bullshit products.  Bullshit ideas are no different.  You claim it, you prove it.

Otherwise, there a hot cup of tea orbiting the sun between earth and Mars. By your reasoning, the onus is on you to disprove it.  If you can’t then it’s true.

assuring that they can't lose, even if they don't win. But when treated as a stand alone ideology without the luxury of this all important bitch move, Atheism is found wanting.

It's a bitch when you can't prove your claim, bitch.

Not only do they have absolutely no evidence for their beliefs,

Actually, you don't either. So far, nature doesn't lie.  However, christians do.

it isn't even supported by modern scientific theory.

As opposed to the claims made by the fractured religions of christianity, islam, judaism, buddhism, hinduism, wiccans, and more.  Science might not have a "theory of atheism," but that doesn't mean science supports the bullshit religious beliefs spouted by ignorant followers, like you.

This is the reason why the most intelligent people in the history of the human race have not been Atheists.

The fallacy here is that because many great scientists were religious, therefore science doesn't support atheism.  This ignores that fact that christianity was dominant, they grew up being told it was true, everyone believed it, and that these men strove to understand reality.  This often brought them into conflict with religion.

From Sir Isaac Newton to Albert Einstein.

Uh oh!  You didn't do your research.  Albert Einstein was a deist.  He did not believe in god, specifically rejecting the christian god, but he believed there was a higher power that took no direct action in the universe after creating it.  He was not an atheist, but he was not religious either.

Make no mistake,

Like the many you have?

if you're making the admant [sic] claim that something does not exist, you are still subject to providing a basis for your beliefs even if there is no one on the other side saying that it does exist.

The basis of non-belief is there is no compelling evidence that god exists.  But the onus is still on you to prove your claim that god exists.  Just as a prosecutor has to prove his claim, he can't just accuse someone of a crime, present no evidence and get a conviction.  Except with a stupid jury, which is what christianity is.

And on that front, either scientifically or intellectually, an Atheist will never really be able to substantiate their claims outside of 'that's just how they feel about it'

That's actually a christian argument, "I just feel jesus in my heart, therefore it's true."  Atheists reject the belief in god because they see no evidence, what they see are false claims, mass self delusion, and a myriad of other reasons to reject the claims of religion.

which puts them exactly on the same level as a Theist to a neutral third party who looks at their beliefs objectively.

Objectivity.  Which this ignorant argument lacks.

Imagine presenting to a neutral third party, “unicorns do not exist.”  Offered as proof, none have been found despite the search for them.  No bones, no horns, no herds, no reliable witnesses.  The person who believes presents stories, tapestries, books, pictures, statues and the argument, “How can we make all this if we didn’t know what they looked like?”

And on that note, get fucking rekt cucks."

By this tripe? The only thing rekt is your intellect, cuck.

[thegreenwolf]

[I know this is a long one, and potentially controversial. Do me a favor, please and read all the way to the end, and pay especial attention to the italicized bits? Thank you!]

Celtic Wicca. Samhain, the God of the Dead. Witches’ covens that extend back in an unbroken line thousands of years. These are just a few examples of the really bad history that’s been passed around the pagan community, and which has rightfully been skewered by those who have done better research. I came to paganism in the mid-1990s when Wicca was all the rage, and everything was plastered with Celtic knotwork. The Craft, Charmed and other media helped bolster support for aesthetic paganism that was more about looks than substance. A glut of books hit the market, many of which were full of historical inaccuracies from the mildly off to the blatantly awful.

Pagans with a decent background in history began to tear apart the inaccurate material, some of which had been floating around for decades (I’m looking at you, Margaret Murray!) We encouraged each other to go beyond strictly pagan books and explore historical texts, both those written for laypeople and more academic texts. We cited our sources more. And so now, twenty years later, while paganism still has its share of bad history, we have a lot more accurate information to apply to our paths, whether we’re hardcore reconstructionists or not. And we have space for things that aren’t necessarily historically accurate, but which we find personally relevant, like Unverified Personal Gnosis, or UPG (which you can read more about here.)

All this came out of a lot of discussions, along with debates and arguments. Post bad history in a busy pagan listserve circa 2000, and you were bound to get dozens of responses correcting you and offering good research material. And today wrong historical information is still swiftly corrected. What boggles my mind is that a lot of the same people who will throw down over historical inaccuracies won’t bat an eye when someone horribly misuses science. Woe be unto anyone who tries to say that Artemis and Freya are just different faces of the same Great Goddess, but sure, we can say that quantum entanglement proves magick is real without a doubt. Whatevs, it’s your belief, right?

In Defense of Facts

Wrong. Just as history deals in facts, so does science. Yes, there’s room for errors (accidental and deliberate) and updated research, but that doesn’t negate the general tendency of both of these fields of study and practice to deal in the most accurate information we have available to us. We’ve gotten good at pointing out where pagans are over-reaching historically through speculation and UPG. We suck at doing so for those speculating beyond what science has demonstrated to be true or impossible. It’s the same error at play: when history or science don’t have a clear answer–or the answer that you want–you don’t get to just make up whatever you want and say that it’s equally real.

Lots of anecdotes do not equal “anecdata”. No matter how much you really, really, really want to believe that you can make streetlights turn off just by walking under them, the evidence we do have is pointing toward it just being an occasionally blinking streetlight and good timing. It’s also confirmation bias in that you’re seeing what you want to see and that affects your “results”. No one has yet created a substantial, well-crafted study that even remotely suggests a person can affect the electrical flow to a light bulb (other than by physically tampering with the wires, unscrewing the bulb or turning off the power.) A group of people walking back and forth under a streetlight does not a solid experiment make.

Yet paganism is full to the brim with people claiming they can do similarly supernatural things. Look at the proliferation of spells that claim to be able to aid in healing, take away curses, or even affect political outcomes. That’s saying that “If I burn this candle or bury this herbal sachet or say these words over here, that thing or person or situation wayyyy over there will be directly affected in the way I want it to.” Sure, your process was more elaborate than just walking in proximity of your target, but you have no more evidence of causation than that other guy. And look at how many pagans claim that a simple spell is every bit as effective as a complicated one. Doesn’t it follow, then, that the simplest spell–walking under the light with the intent of making it blink off–has every bit the chance of working as something more complex?

Why We Treat Science Differently

But that’s getting away from the point. I think we don’t want to be sticklers for science in the same way that we’re sticklers for history because we don’t want our sacred cows slaughtered. Our beliefs can still hold up when we question historical inaccuracies because many modern pagan beliefs are based in history, and better history means better justification for our beliefs because “our ancestors believed it!”

But many of our beliefs are also based in pseudoscience, as well as bad interpretations of good science (like the misapplication of quantum anything to trying to prove magick is objectively real). When we start picking apart the scientific inaccuracies in our paths, it feels threatening and uncomfortable. If you feel a sense of control because you literally believe that a spell you cast will change a situation you’re anxious about, then you don’t want to question the efficacy of that act because you feel you’ve lost control again. If your connection to nature is primarily through thinking the local animals show up in your yard because you have special animal-attracting energy, the fact that they’re more likely just looking for food, shelter, and other normal animal things makes you feel less inherently connected. So instead of focusing on aligning our paths more closely with scientific research as well as historical research, we instead cling tightly to justifications.

The Rewards of Accuracy

I think that pressing for more historical accuracy has made paganism stronger as a whole, both as individuals and as a community. We’ve spent decades working to be taken more seriously as a religious group, sometimes to gain big steps forward like equal recognition for our deceased military pagans, other times to just be able to mention our religion without being laughed at. Those who want to emphasize to non-pagans that our paths have historical precedent and long-time relevance have more resources to do so. There are other benefits: Those who want to emulate the ways of pre-Christian religions have more material to work with. And history offers more depth to explore; your interest in a particular ancient spiritual path can extend out into knowing more about the culture, people and landscape that that path developed in. If you’re creating a new path for the 21st century, you have more inspiration to work with when you see what’s worked for pagan religions in both the distant and recent past.

Science has a lot to offer us as well. As a naturalist pagan–and a pagan naturalist–my path is deepened, and I find greater meaning, the more I learn about and experience the non-human natural world. I don’t need to believe the blacktail deer outside my studio are there because they have some special message for me. It’s enough that I can observe them quietly from the window as they go about their lives, our paths intersecting by proximity. I do not need to drink water from their hoofprints to attempt to gain shapeshifting powers; I can imagine a bit of what it is to be them when I follow their trails through the pines and see the places that are important to them. And that makes me even more invested in protecting their fragile ecosystem; my path urges me to give back to nature.

When pagans step out of the narrow confines of symbolism, and act as though nature is sacred because we know how threatened it is through the science of ecology, not only do we deepen our connections to nature, but we also show the rest of the world that we walk our talk. It’s just one way in which we demonstrate that, as with our historical accuracy, we’re also interested in scientific accuracy, rather than denying or ignoring facts in favor of our own spiritual self-satisfaction. And rather than getting entangled in self-centered interpretations of nature that elevate us as the special beings deserving of nature’s messages, a more scientific approach to paganism humbles us and reminds us that we are just one tiny part of a vast, beautiful, unimaginably complex world full of natural wonders that science can help us better explore and understand.

Conclusion

As always, I’m not saying don’t have beliefs. Beliefs have plenty of good effects, from strengthening social bonds to bringing us comfort when things go haywire to helping us make some subjective sense of the world through storytelling and mythos. UPG can be a really valuable tool in giving us a place to put the things we believe that don’t fit into known historical research, and I think we need to extend it to hold beliefs that go outside known scientific evidence, too. So keep working your spells and your rituals, and keep working with the deities and spirits that you hold dear. If you derive personal meaning by feeling that the crows are nearby because of some spiritually significant reason and it improves your life, don’t let go of that, so long as you also accept that the crows are just crows doing crow things.

But we also need to be able to make use of critical thinking skills and suss out areas where we’re factually wrong, no matter how we may personally feel about the matter. That way, as with history, we’re able to clearly say “This is the portion of my belief system that matches up with known facts, and this part over here is more personal.” We’ve learned to be skeptical of the claims of people who say that historians are wrong and they have the REAL history; we should be able to do the same for those who claim to know better than thousands of scientists.

What I am also asking you to do is really question your beliefs, their foundations, and where they intersect with and diverge from science (and history, while we’re at it.) If you have a belief that runs directly counter to known facts and you feel it has to be every bit as real as science or history, ask yourself why. What would happen if you allowed that belief to be UPG, or personal mythology? What would happen if you let it go entirely? What would you have left, and what value does it have?

I can’t say where this process of questioning will take you, whether you’ll let go of your beliefs, or recategorize their place in your life, or just cling to them more tightly. Every person’s path winds in its own direction. But just as we have questioned our historical inaccuracies and come out the better for it, I think that as individuals and as a community we can benefit from really questioning scientific inaccuracies in the same way. Won’t you join me in this effort?

If you enjoyed this post, please consider picking up a copy of one of my books, which blend a naturalist’s approach to the world with pagan meaning and mythology–Nature Spirituality From the Ground Up is especially relevant!