The idea that Christianity and politics are a dangerous mix now passes for common wisdom. When a Liberal hack waved a stuff dinosaur during Stockwell Day’s campaign a few years ago, everyone knew what he was getting at: Day, a Christian, was superstitious and not rational. That idea still has legs, especially in the big city. Last night on SNL Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin said “We don’t know if this climate change hoozie-whatzit is man-made, or if it’s just a natural part of the end of days.” The audience — surely smart, witty urbane paragons of virtue and rationality compared to Palin’s upright, small-town Christian — hooted and applauded with a positive fervor of self-regard. They understood: Palin goes to church, so her beliefs are irrational.
As a lifelong non-churchgoer, I’ve never been able put my finger on why, exactly, such urbane, asserted superiority over Christians seems so mistaken, or why I get the unshakable feeling that such attitudes portend a rumbling, unpleasant cultural consequence-to-come. It might have something to do with the way noisier atheists believe they are rational because they are not Christian. Or it might be because their assumption that their views are the end product of rational examination flies so aggressively in the face of what is often so obvious, that their beliefs in many cases have been assembled piecemeal from a series of worldly, time-bound political fads.
Atheists believe they are free from the shackles of superstition, but are their beliefs actually more rational than those of Christians? Why, funny you should ask:
“(A) comprehensive new study released by Baylor University…shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.
Well yes, you might say, but “pseudoscience” could mean anythi…
The Gallup Organization…asked American adults a series of questions to gauge credulity. Do dreams foretell the future? Did ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis exist? Can places be haunted? Is it possible to communicate with the dead? Will creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster someday be discovered by science?
The answers were added up to create an index of belief in occult and the paranormal. While 31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in these things, only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once a week did.
Okay, but maybe that’s because a lot of atheists are not educa…
Surprisingly, while increased church attendance and membership in a conservative denomination has a powerful negative effect on paranormal beliefs, higher education doesn’t. Two years ago two professors published another study in Skeptical Inquirer showing that, while less than one-quarter of college freshmen surveyed expressed a general belief in such superstitions as ghosts, psychic healing, haunted houses, demonic possession, clairvoyance and witches, the figure jumped to 31% of college seniors and 34% of graduate students.
If the idea that prominent individuals in public life might have superstitious beliefs is “scary,” then perhaps the statist/left has been barking up the wrong tree.
Amen
Now, let me think. What is the latest, greatest superstitious, cultist belief ? The one most dangerous to our way of life ? A western world phenomena ? A huge tax grab by civil servants ? Has been proven to be scientifically invalid ? mmmm, tap tap
Good one Ron, LMAO.
Complete and utter hogwash.
From the original supposition to the final conclusion.
Oh Global Warming … for a second I thought you might mean the irrational worship of a junior senator.
It should be no surprise that someone who is taught an organized superstition would be more resistant to odd ideas than someone who has to build up and organize a philosophy from the beginning. This doesn’t justify the organized superstition which remains superstition.
Gee, Jim,,,you are smart….
So if I understand you EBD you are suggesting that those who claim to be atheist often trust the paranormal and occult stories, while they condescend those who have faith in Christ, and the Biblical expaination for life.
They just want to create their own religion.
“They understood: Palin goes to church, so her beliefs are irrational.”
But of course it’s entirely rational for ‘the one’ to attended a ‘hate America’ and racist church proudly for 20 years. Yup, a pass on that.
The hypocrisy of left knows no bounds.
“When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing – they believe in anything.”
– G.K. Chesterton
Okay, bear with me for a moment here…
For some reason I can’t seem to get my site added to Blogging Tories. Whatever.
My latest post is on the very real possibility, if trending continues the same, of a Lib/Dipper coalition.
IMHO, it’s time to cut to the chase, and put the boots to this asinine notion of “strategic” voting!
The consequences of the Libs and Dippers pulling off a coalition, IMHO, would be catastrophic.
Seriously!
I just want to get Conservatives, if they agree, talking about this.
A LOT!
whew – ebd, that’s a lot of thoughts. If I may comment..
I don’t think that the raucous and santimonious laughter against Palin was so much against her religious nature but against her being a ‘rural Christian’ rather than an ‘urban Christian’.
After all, these same sophists see nothing objectionable about Obama’s 20 year long sojourn with a racist, anti-American ‘urban’ church.
As for atheism (and I am one) I think that there are different types as well. You can have the arrogant mode, asserting that ‘science knows all’ and humans are ‘all rational’ and must be free of superstition…to the more humble type, which only asserts that ‘I don’t know if there is a god’ and can’t find any reason for accepting that there is. And that’s as far as it goes.
I personally, don’t accept a god, but I do accept that the universe is rational and ordered. A glance at a crystal, a hive of bees, a growing child, affirms such a conclusion.
The argument that the more liberal Protestant tends to be more likely to believe in superstition contradicts the urban/rural theme of Sarah Palin. The urbanites denigrate Sarah Palin because they define her as rural. And her church as ‘not liberal Protestant’.
As for the Gallup Poll and ‘house of worship’, I think we’d need to know what is the nature of this ‘House’. Is it Obama style or Palin style?
And finally, are academics superstitious? Some are, some aren’t. I think those on the left perspective are more so than those with a conservative view.
Me , I have a difficult time trying to understand how incredibly wealthy socialists can reconcile their non-belief (spiritually) , with their unwavering belief (quasi-scientifically) of things unproven .
Studies of this nature need to be methodologically rigorous, with good controls so you know what portion of each tested group also intersects with the much larger subset of homo sapiens known as “morons”. All we can really know for certain from the linked article is that this group definitely contains Bill Maher. Not necessarily because of his atheism, but because he thinks aspirin and the Salk vaccine are e-e-e-evil. What does he use for headaches, a rubber mallet?
It might also be helpful to know what sort of degree programs characterize the 34% of “grad students” who think “The X-Files”, “Sabrina” and “Buffy” are documentaries. I don’t want to throw stones, but I’m thinking there’s not a whole lot of quantum physicists in that group.
Another example from the linked piece: “21% of self-proclaimed atheists believe in either a personal God or an impersonal force. Ten percent of atheists pray at least weekly and 12% believe in heaven.” These numbers tell me that 21% of self-proclaimed atheists really need to look up the word “atheist”.
They’re also proof positive that there is no causal link between religious beliefs, or lack thereof, and lifetime membership in the moron brigade. Apparently, that’s still open to everybody.
“When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing – they believe in anything.”
– G.K. Chesterton
Posted by: JJM at October 5, 2008 8:42 PM
Chesterton’s wrong. The fact they’ve stopped believing usually means they’ve had a traumatic experience, or lost something. I’m not much of a Christian, but I don’t want to be associated with athiests. They strike me as being just as closed minded as the most radical religious fanatics.
Being quietly agnostic is another story, but then we’re not hearing any arguments from that group, are we?
ET, there’s no doubt that Palin is denigrated on a number of fronts, including her rural-ness, but I’ve seen that same “end of days” charge leveled at George Bush, who is certainly not of a rural upbringing.
It seems to me that the issue of religion is only “scary” when it’s the faith of Conservatives/Republicans being discussed. Obama’s personal faith has never for I’ve seen been on the ‘scary’ radar even as his pastor’s political views were being attacked.
I’m not sure what you mean by “The argument that the more liberal Protestant tends to be more likely to believe in superstition contradicts the urban/rural them of Sarah Palin.” I do have a bad head cold, so….
EBD: It does not necessarily negate your point, but your example is very poor. I would say that the viewers did not make the logical leap “Palin goes to church, so her beliefs are irrational.” but rather that Palin (in your example) does not accept conventional physics which could be argued is a definition of irrational.
Regards,
John
The left has always cast the religious as backward, hidebound in their thinking and worthy of collective disdain.
This distopia of mutual respect powers the progressive movement.
Progressive thought is a 49 flavour ice cream shop.
If you don’t like one flavour, you have many more to choose from and it’s all free.
Me, I like vanilla.
Now this is hogwash (both the statement and the implication): “but rather that Palin (in your example) does not accept conventional physics which could be argued is a definition of irrational.”
I believe that JJM misquoted Chesterton. I believe Chesterton said, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”
I’m a politically involved Christian and find the secularism of this age totalitarian.
Recently, I was at what’s called “Lectio Divina”, a spiritual reading of scripture, with both quiet and time to meditate. A wise and humble priest led the meditation.
Here’s part of the reading, from Philippians 2: 1-17:
“[3] Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves.
[4] Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
[5] Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
[6] who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
[7] but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
[8] And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”
The shallow, brutal hurly burly of secularism and secular political life—talk about materialism and hypocrisy—has no room for the quiet and depth of wisdom contained here.
The vitriol directed at Christians, such as Sarah Palin by our so-called “tolerant”, left-wing, secular elites is a moral inversion of the most heinous proprtions.
Obama has taken extra effort to declare his Christianity throughout this campaign. This is to reduce the potential damage caused by his Muslim birth and early upbringing. But also to appeal to a broad and important demographic.
However, his Chicago church, where he was a member for 20 years, is beyond being a weird pseudo Christian sect, far outside the mainstream. It’s dangerous.
Far different than Palin’s religious belief and affiliation.
I agree with EBD.
The left are increasingly strange and irrational people.
To laugh at foolhardy Christian beliefs is not an attack on Christianity, it’s an attack on the beliefs. In the SNL reference, it was probably an audience composed of a majority of self-described Christians who were doing the laughing…not atheists with a superiority complex. No matter how they describe themselves, people expressing a belief in the occult or the superstitious are generally ridiculed.
I can’t really comment on the research cited by EBD because it’s the standard “journalist-reports-science” article without details. However, let’s ask a couple of questions:
-I hear correlations being reported, but nothing about causation…isn’t it foolish to draw conclusions based on incomplete information?
-When asked about something “paranormal,” are equivalent beliefs accounted for equivalently? By that I mean if an atheist reports that he believes in astrology but a Christian reports that he believes God controls his fate, is the atheist categorized as believing in the paranormal and the Christian not? I’d say they both believe in the paranormal and simply express it in a different way.
Actually I think it’s really simple why the electorate is told not to trust “christian” politicians … the word is ABORTION … small “l” liberals don’t want anyone making moral decisions for us and that one is the BIG TICKET. All serious christian are of one mind on that issue and will not agree that I have a right to make that decision for myself.
All that being said, I can be a conservative and be very comfortable voting for both McCain in the U.S. or Harper here because I know there are enough balances in place that these laws can’t be changed … but the big “L” liberals need to fear monger, both here and down there as though overnight these laws can be changed and the changes will be fully informed by christian morality and nothing else.
There are other moral issues that would be fully informed exclusively by christian morality .. but on no other subject is the decision SOOOO clear. Unfortunately as Conservatives we have no one but ourselves to blame as WE let the Christian Right hijack the agenda both here and even more in the US.
I don’t want to be labelled as an ‘atheist’. That has a negative aspect. I was raised Roman catholic and have not attended their cult shows since I was 9,except for weddings and funerals. The assumptiom that if you toss aside one superstition makes you more likely to embrace another is bunk.That implies that we are weak and need a figure to worship,because our own thoughs are insufficient.Organized religion is organixed superstition,scientology,catholicism,islam,all profess that believing will bring you to a better afterlife.BS,the only thing that I grabbed out of the RC doctrine was ‘do onto others’and if you are an A-hole all week,a few minutes on Sunday makes you pure.BS again. I believe in myself,and if you think there is a higher power than yourself,you deserve whatever personal hell that brings you.
I agree, John, it was poorly expressed — a bit of a leap and overly condensed. The audience didn’t necessarily think “Palin goes to church, so her beliefs are irrational.” But even if the larfs were about her non-acceptance of conventional physics, that irrationality was clearly portrayed as stemming from her faith.
Hey guys
Ever think they were laughing because Palin was essntially denying that global warming is human-created and therefore,outside of your little Flat-Earth society here, was revealing herself as ignorant?
In my experience, the largest group that wants to cram its religion down your throat are the athiests. Tied for second are the zoophiles and the eco-creeps.
Physicists believe in irrational numbers!
And engineers believe in pie 😉
Best,
If the Libs and NDP joined, it would be a mixed blessing.
It could cost us this election. The Liberal base is centrist mostly.
This shift to the left would dawn on the electorate over the next term of government.
After that, the sane Liberals would move to the Conservatives, as the only remaining centrist party.
This could spell the doom of the left for many years to come. The Liberals know this.
To allow the coalition would be a capitulation to the NDP by the Liberals.
It’s not going to happen.
RW in Big C writes, “By that I mean if an atheist reports that he believes in astrology but a Christian reports that he believes God controls his fate, is the atheist categorized as believing in the paranormal and the Christian not? I’d say they both believe in the paranormal and simply [?] express it in a different way.”
Is that so? RW, there’s nothing simple about it.
Along with believing in God, Christian belief includes, “Love thy neighbour as thyself”, with the accompanying obligations to serve others. Where does astrology make such claims of its adherents? (To spell it out, RW, the gap between astrology and Christian belief is vast—and you didn’t even notice.)
Such naive, perhaps, but utterly sloppy, shallow, and dangerous thinking, on the part of the atheist cheerleader gang, fills me with disgust and some despair.
shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.
Nonsense. Traditional christianity IS a belief in the paranormal, in pseudoscience and is in and of itself, superstition. That means 100% of traditional christians cited in your surveys believe in the occult and the paranormal,witches, (Palin), and so on. Why exclude christian hocus pocus from any other superstition.
wallyj, your understanding of and feelings about the RC Church and Christianity are very negative: your right, but I think quite subjective and short sighted.
I doubt the SNL audience was composed of majority atheists. Modern Christianity is not so dogmatic anymore. Plenty of Christians could find those jokes funny. As an atheist I sure did, and I like Palin. SNL is not going to change my mind on things like that.
Chesterton is wrong and “dp” is right?
Who wouda thunk?
/In your dreams
I believe in Star Trek.
This comes as no surprise to me, as I’ve always understood the most common reasons for atheism are are combination of willful ignorance and a deficient education.
(Lookout, I do believe that JMM’s Chesterton quote is accurate: at least this version is widely attributed to him.)
“Palin … does not accept conventional physics which could be argued is a definition of irrational” – John, I keep hearing this type of charge against Palin but never any supporting evidence. Can you direct me to a source for Palin denying an established law of conventional physics?
Sheila wrote about abortion: “All serious christian are of one mind on that issue and will not agree that I have a right to make that decision for myself.” The fact is Sheila, that in our world, there are dozens of serious moral decisions that we do not permit people to make for themselves. The liberal “pro-choice” people and the Christian “pro-life” people are not arguing whether all moral choices are strictly a matter of personal choice, only whether abortion is somehow “special” in this regard. The Christian world view has got some pretty clear guidelines about when personal choice crosses the line of morality. On what do non-Christians propose to base their guidelines?
“To laugh at foolhardy Christian beliefs is not an attack on Christianity, it’s an attack on the beliefs” – Actuall no. It is just more of the currently fashionable elitism that allows some to dismiss believers as idiots without any real argument or critique of the content of the beliefs. That atheists and secularists find comfort in battling self-constructed, simplistic straw men versions of Christianity only exposes their inability and unwillingness to come to grips with serious questions of reality, morals and faith.
EBD – Bush is a Texan; he’s not part of the urban sophist crowd – as is Obama.
My point about “argument that the more liberal Protestant tends to be more likely to believe in superstition contradicts the urban/rural them of Sarah Palin” was a poorly worded comment that the urban left insist that Palin is a superstitious follower of some witchlike cult Christianity. So, they are saying that her religion is NOT ‘liberal Protestant’ but is fundamentalist and is highly supersitious.
The two claims are contradictory.
real- there’s no scientific evidence for AGW; there’s a lot of evidence for cyclical warming/cooling. This conclusion is hardly confined to SDA.
The belief in AGW is, however, a metaphor of the superstitious view that Man is Sinful, Guilty of Evil, and will face a Fiery End unless he Controls His Evil Nature. It’s certainly not a scientific view and dissent is not allowed. You either believe it..or you are a heretic. Hmm. Superstition.
Of course John, that’s because π is transcendental, and Euler’s identity is the most beautiful thing. Yet pie are not round, pie are squared. But seriously, I was seeding a point with that comment, namely that in discussion like this, people tend to say a lot of things about words like believe and rational. Oh yeah? Which definitions?
I mean, seriously, when people say rational, do they mean reasonable, logical, or a handful of other characterizations that have been debated at length by philosophers for millenia? What happens when people are debating with each other while at the same time not understanding that each is using a significantly different definition for a critical word?
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, when one’s in the mood, it’s just something I’ve come to notice, over the years, especially in things like limited bandwidth theological discussions. It’s an interesting phenomenon to study in its own right.
Do you believe in belief? How can you? How can you not? Call for Kurt Gödel, Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme courtesy telephone, please.
lookout:
Astrology is not a religion, it is a belief without any foundation in evidence. A Christian’s belief that God’s hand is guiding his life has exactly the same evidentiary foundation–none. In that respect they’re comparable. Overall, though, I never equated astrology and Christianity. It’s quite obvious that practicing the religion, for many adherents, involves the “love thy neighbour,” type of thing that you mentioned…it gives some people a “moral compass” that perhaps they wouldn’t otherwise have. It gives them meaning, which I’d never say about astrology.
With religion, you’ve got faith and morals. I have no problem if those are part of a politician’s make-up, even if the morals don’t match mine. In fact, about the only area where I disagree with the Christian right is on the matter of abortion, and since that’ll likely never be addressed again in this country, I’m comfortable supporting the CPC. On the other hand, both religion and paranormal superstitions have foolish beliefs. This isn’t the same as faith. Faith is the belief in something despite the lack of evidence (i.e., belief in God). Foolish beliefs are those things which a person chooses to believe despite evidence TO THE CONTRARY, such as young-earth creationism, intelligent design, and AGW. When politicians express such foolish beliefs I question their intelligence. Stockwell Day did so with the YEC thing…almost all of them these days are doing so with AGW.
In cases like the SNL situation described, it just so happens that the beliefs being ridiculed are those of many (not all) Christians. If a politician came out expressing a belief in astrology, I’d also consider that to be a foolish belief deserving of ridicule.
So ET, you believe in Magic Crystals. I base this statement from your Oct 5, 8:46 pm post.
I assume that is not your meaning but many assume stuff about Christianity that is just as silly.
The premise of the main post, that we are all rsponding to, is the amazing things that people will believe in without a grounding. It is astounding the mumber of people who believe that the DaVinci Code is based in reality. They get sucked into shallow belief systems that have little bases in common rationality. Weirdo televangelists preying on the gullible are to blame for the denigration of the Christian religion. Most Christians have very little idea about their own creed and I gather it is the same amongst Muslims. The reformation sure helped mainstream Catholicism. The protestant reformation has led to the current disbelief but fortunately Eastern and Western Catholicism has kept to the orthodoxy. Speaking as an agnostic of course.
Very well written EBD – love the “interrupting” technique!!!
…remember heathens, there are NO absolutes.
None.
None whatsoever.
Nope.
positively no absolutes.
Absolutely none.
Definitely no absolutes.
——-
Right.
rudy – I’m an atheist, and frankly, I don’t think I arrived at this domain via a “combination of willful ignorance and a deficient education.”
I don’t think that either education or knowledge can lead anyone to believe in god. It’s a matter of faith.
Any of the traditional arguments for accepting the reality of god (Aquinas) or even the later philosophical ones – just don’t convince me; they end up as tautologies.
However, that the universe exists and functions within a logical reasoning, an interactive reasoning that also permits freedom, seems to me to be valid, from the observation, as I’ve said before, of anything in our world, whether it be a crystal, the composition of a molecule, the strange fact of so many flowers with five petals, the complexity of our biological realm..and so on. None of that can be due to the haphazard come-by-chance of neodarwinism. BUT, I don’t accept an apriori Agential Will.
I also agree – there are a lot of serious moral decisions that cannot be made by oneself, because we are, as humans, not merely individuals but also, members of a society…and the world.
“Call for Kurt Gödel,” and offer a piece of pi to Hilbert to console him.
Best.
Rudy: My response was in the context of what EBD wrote. I believe that Ms. Palin has now said that global warming is partly due to man and partly due to natural cycles (provided you grant her a little leeway in regards to grammar). That is a scientifically valid statement.
Regards,
John
I appreciate your civil response, RW. But, as you brought it up, let’s look at abortion—logically.
In an article by Andrea Mrozek, in The National Post, Tuesday, September 23, 2008:
“When pro-choice social commentator Camille Paglia wrote that she sanctions ‘murder’ when it is called ‘abortion’, pro-lifers were horrified. They should have cheered.
“Her article—published recently on Salon.com—only briefly touched on abortion. But the offending comments were made as part of an attention-grabbing one-two punch. Paglia wrote that she is ‘a firm supporter of abortion rights,’ but then went on to say: ‘I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful … which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue.’ Almost every pro-abortion activist lives in a zone where they conceal what abortion really is—though they know that the procedure involves killing a person each and every time. The difference between them and Paglia is that they don’t come out and say it.”
Now, RW, as both a firm believer in logic AND a strong supporter of abortion, for the full nine months of gestation, which Canadian jurisprudence allows, what do you think of that?
Don’t you mean, John: I believe that is a scientifically valid statement.
If one wants to look at abortion (or anything else) logically, Lookout, then one has to define one’s axioms. The problem is, people on opposite sides of the debate have incompatible axioms. And what does axiom mean, in this context? It means what one believes a priori. So arguing logically about abortion per se is generally useless, not that there’s anything wrong with that, yet it remains the case that nothing will change until people’s axioms change.
I believe there is only one axiom: existence exists.
After that, everthing else I believe is just my belief.
only idiots are absolutists
and most christians will not question their beliefs