Thursday, May 02, 2013

More examples of how religion is destroying our future. Believers in the Biblical "End Times" stifling climate change legislation in America.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

The United States has failed to take action to mitigate climate change thanks in part to the large number of religious Americans who believe the world has a set expiration date. 

Research by David C. Barker of the University of Pittsburgh and David H. Bearce of the University of Colorado uncovered that belief in the biblical end-times was a motivating factor behind resistance to curbing climate change. 

“[T]he fact that such an overwhelming percentage of Republican citizens profess a belief in the Second Coming (76 percent in 2006, according to our sample) suggests that governmental attempts to curb greenhouse emissions would encounter stiff resistance even if every Democrat in the country wanted to curb them,” Barker and Bearce wrote in their study, which will be published in the June issue of Political Science Quarterly. 

The study, based on data from the 2007 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, uncovered that belief in the “Second Coming” of Jesus reduced the probability of strongly supporting government action on climate change by 12 percent when controlling for a number of demographic and cultural factors. When the effects of party affiliation, political ideology, and media distrust were removed from the analysis, the belief in the “Second Coming” increased this effect by almost 20 percent. 

“[I]t stands to reason that most nonbelievers would support preserving the Earth for future generations, but that end-times believers would rationally perceive such efforts to be ultimately futile, and hence ill-advised,” Barker and Bearce explained.

Over and over again we see examples of religion interfering with scientific progress and education in this country, and I for one am damn sick and tired of it!

Make no mistake the push for home school programs, charter schools programs, religious teaching in the classroom setting, and the introduction of standardized tests, are ALL a coordinated effort to keep our children believing rather than thinking, or receiving educations that do NOT encourage critical thinking skills and instead focus on memorizing test answers rather than learning.

EVERYTHING the GOP does is designed to make Americans dumber, and more easily manipulated, and religion is the very best tool they have to help them to achieve that goal.

This country was founded as a secular nations for a reason.

32 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:58 PM

    Amen, brother!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous1:31 PM

    You'd think they would want Jesus to see that they were good shepard's of His Father's Creation, but, no they don't mind being judged as complete aqnd utter asshats who shat upon the wonders of earth and were responsbile for the extinction of so many forms of life that their God created. Talk about being short-sighted.

    If there ever is a Second Coming, I sincerely hope these people, these destroyers of the plane are sentenced to the Hell they so fervently believe in and then, maybe be, just maybe they will eventually understand how profoundly stupid they are.

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    1. Anonymous1:06 PM

      God gave man dominance over the earth. Like a woman, mother earth will submit to the rich man's god-given right to rape her as he pleases.

      Delete
  3. our lad1:46 PM

    The oldest and most successful hustle known to man.

    ReplyDelete
  4. fromthediagonal2:03 PM

    These regressive fanatics have very patiently laid the groundwork for over 40 years, from local churches to school boards, town and county commissions, to state governments. The gerrymandering assured legislative domination, which then influenced the judicial structure of each state.
    Now it skews the Nation.
    This is why and how this country's original separation of church and state has been undermined from the bottom up.

    While this is bad enough, the "wait, there is more" phrase of late night TV kicks in at this time: the authoritarians of both big capital and religious fervor have developed a stranglehold upon the most vulnerable, namely the believers, who cannot see that they are being used to the detriment of all.

    Progressives all over this world have for too long ignored this trend. Why have we? The simple reason is that all of the above defies reason, and if we know anything, we know how to reason, whereas those who seem crazed are indeed "crazy like foxes" as an old saying tells us.

    If this seems looping, it is because my brain stutters at the sight of the picture above.

    Mea culpa!

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Anonymous3:43 PM

      Progressives tend to simply be polite and always respect the beliefs of others, therein lies our problem. If we, as progressives would simply be more vocal and call these folks out on their idiocy then, well, nothing would change, but at least we as progressives would not be seen as sitting back and doing nothing.

      Just as the "believers" feel that I "need to be saved", I on the other hand believe that they need to be saved, from their own stupidity.

      We'll never agree, but hey, if they want to christian homeschool their kids, or send them to christian school and leave them unable to compete in the job market, do I really care?

      All of the coffee shops that I frequent are staffed by lovely young christian girls that were either religiously homeschooled or attended christian school. Guess what, they're making $8 bucks an hour serving coffee because they're not qualified for either college or any other job.

      I'll always need Frappes and Mochas and there will always be christian girls to serve them to me, for minimum wage. Praise Jesus...

      Delete
  5. Why can't they just patiently wait for Jesus' return and let us get on with it. Doesn't it bother them that for the last 1800 years every single person who has declared we are in the end times has been wrong? What is special about the current crop of idiots that they are believed.

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  6. Hmm Make no mistake the push for home school programs, charter schools programs, religious teaching in the classroom setting, and the introduction of standardized tests, are ALL a coordinated effort to keep our children believing rather than thinking, or receiving educations that do NOT encourage critical thinking skills and instead focus on memorizing test answers rather than learning.

    Not all.....not all, indeed.


    Follow the money- a helpful habit when trying to see what (really who) is behind such efforts.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous3:29 PM

    Hello, Dave.

    I've been waiting for you.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous3:36 PM

    Thank God Mitt never became president: http://www.policymic.com/mobile/articles/39259/romney-southern-virginia-university-speech-get-married-have-a-quiver-full-of-kids

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous3:37 PM

    http://www.policymic.com/mobile/articles/39259/romney-southern-virginia-university-speech-get-married-have-a-quiver-full-of-kids

    ReplyDelete
  10. ...and who are you?

    anonymous commenters all appear the same to me

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous5:12 PM

      Call me Ishmael.

      Delete
    2. Ahab, is that you?

      Moby here. Catch me if you can.

      Delete
  11. Anonymous4:17 PM

    Grandmother Says She is Persecuted if She is Not Allowed to Convert Grandson

    ...One persistent sore point for me as a Heathen and even more, as a father, is the self-martyrdom of my mother-in-law. Perhaps none of this should surprise me. After all, she refused to invite me to our first Christmas since I was not a Christian. But that’s water under the bridge. She is my son’s only living grandmother, and as such occupies (or should occupy) a rather special place in his life. Not surprisingly he loves his grandmother and wants to spend time with her. I don’t begrudge him that. And I know she loves him and wants to spend time with him. Indeed, we, as parents, want them to spend time together.

    So it breaks our heart when her insistence on some imagined right to proselytize our son gets in the way of what should be a wonderful relationship. I have cherished memories of my maternal grandmother and the time I spent with her and with her sisters. I know what my son is missing, what he has missed, and what he will miss in the years to come. And it breaks my heart. Grandma’s visits, if visits there are, should not have to be supervised. And they should not carry with them the prerequisite of conversion.

    She is a member of the Assemblies of God. This is a group that, even in my LCA Lutheran days, I would not have recognized as Christian, and knowing the Bible much better as a Heathen than I did as a Christian has not changed my opinion. To be fair, they would not have thought of me as a Christian either. And I have to admit that Paul of Tarsus would likely have been much more comfortable in the ecstatic atmosphere of an AOG church than in an LCA church. But Paul is hardly a recommendation, since Paul, when he invented a religion about Jesus, demonstrably got Jesus all wrong.

    My problem, however, is not with my mother-in-law’s beliefs. She is entitled to those. I honestly do not care what she believes as long as she does not push those beliefs on me or on my son. Sadly, she has no such reluctance. And so my problem is her insistence that she has the right to spread these beliefs. She is hardly alone:

    http://www.politicususa.com/grandmother-persecuted-allowed-convert-grandson.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Leland3:42 AM

      And how does your WIFE feel about G'mother doing this? Also, how old is your child?

      If your wife agrees with you, then the problem is how to tell the G'mother to shut the hell up without throwing her out permanently (or leaving and staying away). (Personally, I would have tossed her out the first time she defied me about the subject!)

      If the wifey doesn't agree with you, then you can always ask him what she "taught" during the latest visit and then PROVE to him the things she says are misleading at best. SHOW him the contradictions relating specifically to that day's "lessons". Since you say you know the bible, that should be easy. And if (when) something comes up about which you are not sure, there's always internet research!

      In my opinion, it would be a mistake to flat tell him she is as crazy as bat shit or is lying as that would be pitting the love for one against the love for the other and could alienate BOTH from him. SImply try to reinforce THINKING and STUDYING to compare as the way to figure out where to go with what she "teaches".

      Only one problem with that as I see it: It will ultimately lead him to doing exactly the same thing for what YOU teach him, so be very careful in what and how you teach!

      Delete
  12. I have a firm and unshakeable faith in God, but few would call me a Christian, and some see my manner of believing as more heathen than churchly. I'm fine with that.

    I also have a firm and unshakeable faith in reason and in science and in modernity. I've never seen a conflict between my belief and the course of reason.

    I used to say, Let people believe what they want. Lately, I'm more likely to say, Screw that. The Christian Right (Wrong) homeschoolers are so badly undereducating their children that it verges on child abuse, and when you add in the regular beatings these kids get, they no longer verge on child abuse but rocket straight into it. I've come to believe something that had always been unacceptable to me as a good well-behaved liberal; I now believe these children should be either taken away from the parents or forced by law to attend enough normal schooling that they are capable of passing standard tests, the SATs, and thinking for themselves.

    Grrrrrrr. I get fairly riled up over this End of the World And The Glorious Return of Jesus and all that other bullshit. Hell, even the Bible says: "No man may know the time." 'Course, these Christian Wrongers sort of ignore that line of the Bible, as they ignore pretty much the entire New Testament, far as I can see.

    /end rant

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous6:32 PM

    And the crazy just keeps getting a platform:

    Meet Penny Nance. She’s really concerned. How concerned? Well the Concerned Women for America CEO appeared on Fox & Friends this morning to decry the horrific fact that Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx would dare proclaim May 2nd as a “Day of Reason” in addition to the widely-recognized “Day of Prayer.”

    “You know, G. K. Chesterton said that the Doctrine of Original Sin is the only one which we have 3,000 years of empirical evidence to back up. Clearly, we need faith as a component and it’s just silly for us to say otherwise,” she said. But she didn’t stop there. Clearly offended and disgusted by the notion that a governing official would have the audacity to recognize “reason” as a large factor in the improvement of humanity, she brought out the big guns, targeting straight for the origins of “reason” itself:

    “You know, the Age of Enlightenment and Reason gave way to moral relativism. And moral relativism is what led us all the way down the dark path to the Holocaust [...] Dark periods of history is what we arrive at when we leave God out of the equation.”

    Take a moment and let that sink in. This concerned cable news guest from a widely-known Christian conservative organization just demonized “reason” and the Age of Enlightenment — widely regarded as the era directly responsible for inspiring the scientific progress that made the industrial revolution and the rapid betterment of human life possible — because it “led” us to the Holocaust. Therefore, we should be very upset with this big, bad Foxx mayor guy because he’s a newly-minted Obama cabinet member who dares suggest reason deserves a special place alongside prayer.

    Keep in mind that her bafflingly narrow-minded view of history and demonization of “reason” ignores many key points:

    http://www.mediaite.com/tv/concerned-fox-news-guest-scientific-enlightenment-and-reason-led-directly-to-the-holocaust/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Leland3:49 AM

      Welcome to the southern religious mentality!

      Here's an idea: let's take all these idiots who want to disparage the Age of Reason as a BAD thing and force them to live for a year (or even better, permanently!) in exactly the same conditions people did prior to the improvements made by science - complete with the fleas and the filth and the bad food and the wars started by the catholic church and the COMPLETE LACK OF PERSONAL CONTROL over one's life - especially the women!

      Even if it didn't do anything to change this idiot's mind, it would fun for the rest of us to watch. And WE could learn from it, too!

      Delete
  14. Anonymous6:55 PM

    Masturbate-A-Thon 2013 In Philadelphia Celebrates National Masturbation Month

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/01/masturbate-a-thon-2013_n_3192430.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

    Can you IMAGINE how outraged the right wing christianists are over this???

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Handing off the baton, so to speak. Now THAT'S a marathon.

      Delete
    2. Masturbate-a-thon 2013 Where "handing off the baton " has a whole new meaning! Watch for slick spots on the track...

      Delete
  15. Didn't Jesus supposedly say a few things about not trying to predict when the end would come? If you say you believe the Bible, maybe you should read all of it, not just the parts that turn you on.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anita Winecooler7:15 PM

    I'm with you on this one! This "End Times" and "Left Behind" mindset is a complete fraud, and it is dangerous.

    To borrow a motto, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste".

    ReplyDelete
  17. our lad9:28 PM

    Here's what I know. You wanna get yourself invisible? Yeah, you do? You boil down a black cat, you take them bones to the graveyard at the crossroads at midnight. Then you suck on each an every black cat bone you got, left to right, while you look in the mirror you brought. When your face it disappear, you found your black cat bone, you're on you way. BUT, you just made you a deal with ole Scratch. You made the deal, yessir, now you live with the deal you made. I'm all for homeschooling.

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  18. Years ago, when the local pastor in these parts was trying to get me to join his church we used to discuss the Bible. He became quite agitated when I suggested he learn some Greek- specifically the meaning of the word Apocalypse which is the unveiling, not the destruction.

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    1. Leland6:15 AM

      Don't you just LOVE IT when you can prove to them you know more than they do?

      And are more than willing to do just that?

      Delete
    2. I try to avoid schadenfreude but sometimes I just can't resist. If memory serves I ended the conversation with a warning that went something like: "those who try to force an apocalypse on others often find they have merely unveiled themselves- revelation then comes from looking in a mirror."

      Delete
    3. Anonymous3:46 PM

      No you don't - you love it. No doubt you did end the conversation with one of your pompous ass pontifications. My guess is that you turn everything into a pissing contest and don't stop until you "win".

      Delete
  19. Anonymous5:04 AM

    So in Pascal's Gambit, I am supposed to believe in a 'God', and 'practice' that religion 'just in case it's true', and the religists can't even be brought to even venture a guess that they might be wrong ad to realizing that if they don't participate on keeping this planet habitable, it won't be.

    PT Barnum was right!

    ReplyDelete

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