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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2009 : 13:43:55 [Permalink]
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by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2009 : 13:45:37 [Permalink]
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by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2009 : 16:16:53 [Permalink]
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Dude.....
OK, now tell me the truth.
Do you think that a large majority of the birthers, the "death panel" screamers, the "right wing nuts", the "clowns", the 29% of the Republican party that is stone hard right wing, largely fundamentalist, and politically ultra-conservative; the people who are shouting their heads off in town halls, who vote a straight Republican ticket, many of whom worship the gun culture and believe in armed militias, and many of whom are obviously very racist; those who blindly follow and obey every word and syllable of racist propaganda as spread by Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity etc.,---- do you believe that these folks would distribute in a standard bell curve of "intelligence" (as measured by current psychometrics) almost exactly the same as an equivilant sample of the entire American electorate would if given exactly the same "intelligence" test?
As I have said elsewhere, to the best of my knowledge, there are no testing statistics available on these parameters. So, we are strictly talking about your and my opinions, not a hypothesis that has actually been tested.
Are these fuckers DUMB, or are they just as smart (taken as a group) as the average American voter?
In other words are these gullible, unquestioning, political lemmings just as "intelligent" (by the only testing measures we currently have) as the general voting population of the United States? The very same voting population that elected Barack Obama with a comfortable margin?
I just want to have your opinion again that intelligence has little or nothing to do with it! I frankly have no idea how to substantiate or discredit either your view or mine; but I'm sure open to suggestions! |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 08/13/2009 : 16:39:18 [Permalink]
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Bill,
Interestingly I think this ties into a conversation I have been having with a friend of mine (he is a cognitive psychologist, A.B.D. and doing his dissertation research as we speak. This isn't his exact area of research, but we chat about it.) about the usefulness of religion/faith in an evolutionary context.
The conversation started with this blog entry.
Moved on to this one.
And today included this Newsweek article.
The birthers seem to have this odd cognitive dissonance going on, so do the anti-evolution crowd, and other like groups that deny obvious points about reality. They are, on one hand, clearly intelligent enough to function in society. They have jobs, some of them may even have important jobs, and seem apparently normal. On the other hand, when you get them talking about their particular pet beliefs, they seem to be critically disfunctional.
Perhaps the group belief dynamic (Patty Hearst, Stockholm syndrome) is overriding their ability to think clearly, leaving the impression that they are just a bunch of fucking idiots?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2009 : 21:13:33 [Permalink]
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If I'm not mistaken, the term "cognitive dissonance" refers to the discomfort one feels when two (or more) of one's beliefs contradict each other. The thing that most people refer to as "cognitive dissonance" is the fabrication one invents for oneself to eliminate or at least ease that discomfort (trying to make the beliefs consonant).
That some people believe that light once went much faster, so what appear to be billions of years passed in 6,000, is not cognitive dissonance. The cognitive dissonance occurs when one remembers that one's Bible says 6,000 years, but top scientists says 13.5 billion, and your respect for science and your faith both demand that you trust them both to be correct.
It's gotta suck, and it's no wonder people make up stories to force science and faith to coincide again. And every time we try to tell them different from what they've concocted, we cause them pain. Which suggests that it's no wonder at all why some people cling to the fantasy: the pain of simply believing contradictory things is too much, but even if they can cope, we basically ask them to throw one of the things that they cherish away, forever. And then with the next claim they make, we ask them to do it all over again. When the hell will it end? It's a lot less painful to just not listen. To wave the evidence away and ignore the logic.
This is why we don't argue with the fundamentalists with the goal of actually changing the fundamentalists' minds. We argue with them (in these pages and elsewhere) to show people who don't yet suffer from cognitive dissonance what's going on, in the hope that they can avoid the same psychological trap. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2009 : 22:27:27 [Permalink]
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Dave_W said:
| If I'm not mistaken, the term "cognitive dissonance" refers to the discomfort one feels when two (or more) of one's beliefs contradict each other. The thing that most people refer to as "cognitive dissonance" is the fabrication one invents for oneself to eliminate or at least ease that discomfort (trying to make the beliefs consonant). |
That is essentially how I understand it as well. One of the symptoms of cognitive dissonance is a denial of contradictory evidence.
It is unlikely that Doomar will ever even open the links I provided for him in the birther thread he started. That is a good example of cognitive dissonance combining with the group belief dynamic. Doomar has been told by his friends and associates that Obama isn't a citizen, had that belief confirmed by various talking heads (Limbaugh, Dobbs, Orielley, et al). He already hates the idea of a democrat as president.
But he knows that the evidence for his citizenship is overwhelming, he knows that there is no 50 year conspiracy involving hundreds of people and government agencies to fake the birth record of a half black half white baby in the 60s, and so on and on..... The effect of his social group's belief, the constant reinforcement of that belief by "trusted" outside sources, and his dissonant denial of contradictory evidence combine to give us a shining example of extreme willful ignorance.
Personally I feel kinda bad for Doomar. He used to, a couple years ago, be an almost reasonable person. I swear I recall some old threads where he was actually capable of reasonable conversation. He has been getting more and more retarded as time goes by though.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2009 : 12:57:10 [Permalink]
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Unbelievable. Someone on Rapture Ready is actually able to get some clear thinking in, and posted yet.
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>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
| Edited by - the_ignored on 09/02/2009 12:59:57 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2009 : 16:08:28 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by the_ignored
Unbelievable. Someone on Rapture Ready is actually able to get some clear thinking in, and posted yet.
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I'm stunned. The guy can actually think, and even argue logically and politely. Those things seem to really piss off the RR crowd. Next, he'll be accused of witchcraft.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2009 : 16:25:57 [Permalink]
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Yeah, he will probably be banned shortly.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
 Posted - 09/02/2009 : 17:40:06 [Permalink]
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Ha. Not only must you be a Christian to post there, but you must also be a conservative. What does being conservative have to do with the rapture they are all ready for I wonder? So, their God is only going to take Republican Christians?
You really don't have to go much further with thinking like that to get to a Fred Phelps. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2009 : 20:23:01 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Ha. Not only must you be a Christian to post there, but you must also be a conservative. What does being conservative have to do with the rapture they are all ready for I wonder? So, their God is only going to take Republican Christians?
You really don't have to go much further with thinking like that to get to a Fred Phelps.
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This conflation of religion and politics really is one of the symptoms of a Culture War. Even if they named it, it turns out the name was well-chosen.
What I see today is the most vivid nationwide example of reaction in my lifetime. I'm just glad it's a movement composed of a relatively few people who are screaming louder and louder each day.
A reactionary movement is largely driven by psychological factors, such as a desire to return to "the good old days" which themselves are mythical, invented by wishful imagination or outright, fraudulent historical revisionism.
Thus we see people claiming the Founding Fathers created a "Christian nation" in America, when all the evidence (including the Constitution, which contains no mention of God) is that many of them had beliefs that were Deist or otherwise far from the more primitive beliefs that the Religious Right holds today.
The reactionaries see Richard Dawkins books as best sellers, they see the rise in both numbers and voice among atheists, they see the first black President, they see churches across the land closing their doors, they see women speaking their minds and controlling their destinies. Meanwhile, driven by science and technology, everything is changing, and at an accelerating pace.
The reactionaries cannot help but conflate their fundamentalist religion and right-wing politics, as these are their last certainties.
They are at war against modernity, against reason, against history, against science, and especially against modern, reasonable science-supporting people with an understanding of history.
Each of the reactionaries has some notion that somewhere in the past, between Creation and the Civil War, is the Golden Age, a time of prosperity and certainty, when women and minorities knew their place and stayed in it.
Such a time never existed. But that little fact won't stop them from fighting to bring their delusion "back".
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2009 : 16:41:37 [Permalink]
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Speaking of teabaggers and whatnot, some guy is in the process of doing a documentary about them.
Originally found on PZ's blog.
Kind of like Jesus Camp I guess it'll be like.
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>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2009 : 19:05:44 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by the_ignored
Speaking of teabaggers and whatnot, some guy is in the process of doing a documentary about them.
Originally found on PZ's blog.
Kind of like Jesus Camp I guess it'll be like.
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I like the way the guy rarely argues, but mainly lets these wingnuts expose their ignorance and madness all by themselves.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 09/10/2009 : 02:35:34 [Permalink]
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In that Rapture Ready-thread, "out of the box" wrote:
| There's a reason that the lady with the scales is depicted as wearing a blindfold. This represents an American value that I find very important. |
Someone who refuses to take off the blindfold, and is perfectly content with being unable to look at the evidence?
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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leoofno
Skeptic Friend
USA
346 Posts |
Posted - 09/10/2009 : 06:56:19 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Ha. Not only must you be a Christian to post there, but you must also be a conservative. What does being conservative have to do with the rapture they are all ready for I wonder? So, their God is only going to take Republican Christians?
You really don't have to go much further with thinking like that to get to a Fred Phelps.
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I enjoy listening to the crazy conservatives and the like on the radio as I drive back and forth to work. (My current favorite is Pastor Butch out of West Virginia, the Pistol Pack'in Preacher who just can't wait for the civil unrest that he knows is imminent.) Now, my wife thinks I'm crazy and asked me recently: "Where do you find these people?" Thats when it occured to me; its not hard at all, I just tune in any of the religious stations. Any of them. Most of the programs on these stations are by preachers who are Birthers, Teabaggers, FIMA-Concentration-campers, any of the wacko-conservatine nonsense that you hear about... its all there, easily found on any religious radio station.
So I, too, wonder why the religious nuts are so in tune with the conservative nuts. I think Halfmooner is onto something. SOunds good to me. |
"If you're not terrified, you're not paying attention." Eric Alterman
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Birthers, ‘Teabaggers,’ etc.
