Elites disgust me. The major news networks might laugh at the yokels, but not right-wing Fox, right? I just watched Shepard Smith (clown name) mock the fact that Miss California believes that her being asked about gay marriage might have been a temptation. Laughable rubes. The Gallup graph above shows that 70% of Americans--an impressive majority--believe in the devil--up from 55% in 1990.
Shepard, hehe. They do sheep, right? Tabloid journalist. He's a liberal. Sneering at religious people. Why should I be surprised? Like we're supposed to take a college dropout seriously.
Oh please. Anybody who believes in the devil is an idiot, worse than people who believe in UFOs. (At least UFOs are possible.)
ReplyDeleteThe media constantly coddles religious believers, pretending that they are somehow more reasonable than UFOlogists or astrologers. There's a clear pro-religious bias in the media.
I am not joking.
That's a pretty low standard for 'elitism' when not believing in Santa, er, Satan is all it takes to be 'elite'.
ReplyDeleteShep is gay--no joke.
ReplyDeleteSo is Anderson Cooper of CNN--not that there's anything wrong with that--except that neither of them is much of a newsman.
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ReplyDeleteWhat kind of people pay good money to survey that kind of question?
ReplyDeleteThat said, I suppose it just might be indicative of a general retreat to a fantasy world.
Oh please. Anybody who believes in the devil is an idiot, worse than people who believe in UFOs. (At least UFOs are possible.) Oh please. Most people's conception is allegorical, something about the forces of Good and Evil. There's every reason to believe, given the human experience, that such representations might hint at an underlying reality. Certainly the effect on people intellectually ill-equipped to be, say, jewish atheists of believing them seems vastly superior to alternatives believing the dopey precepts of communism. As a practical matter, isn't that what counts? Remember, by their fruits ye shall know them.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up as a liberal protestant, I had no time for the devil, and I still don't literally believe in one. But I've come to feel that it's not bad as a working hypothesis. Most human evil can be explained in terms of the natural but disordered drives of individuals and groups, but there's also a kind of gratuitous evil that seems to act as an external force. I can understand people ascribing this to a malevolent intelligence.
ReplyDeletei.p.
Your point reminds me of a theme in some of Edgar Allen Poe's work that there is something in people that urges them on to do self-destructive things. You're hiking and come to the edge of a cliff, and a voice inside you says jump. It is a challenge to explain this rationally.
ReplyDeleteAre you trying to say that belief in the devil is plausible simply because it is common? Are all majority opinions automatically deserving of respect? (Hint: Liberalism is a majority opinion.)
ReplyDeleteYou're hiking and come to the edge of a cliff, and a voice inside you says jump. It is a challenge to explain this rationally.And explaining the supposed existence of god or the devil, or of forces of Good and Evil, is less of a challenge? Please. You're straining at the gnat and swallowing the elephant.
ReplyDeleteMost human evil can be explained in terms of the natural but disordered drives of individuals and groups, but there's also a kind of gratuitous evil that seems to act as an external force. I can understand people ascribing this to a malevolent intelligence.If human beings at war were to rip at each others' flesh as if they were common prey, that would presumably be an incidence of "gratuitous evil," yes?
Apes in Gombe have done exactly that, in their wars. Would any rational person think that that was due to the influence of a "malevolent intelligence"? If not, then why would anyone invoke the same principle for us higher primates? At what point in the split from our last common evolutionary ancestor did souls, Satan and free will enter into it?
It really does come down to what Jewish Atheist said: At least UFOs might exist. The rest is just believing in Santa Claus, whether as a real Person or as a Cosmic Force.
To go from atheist to agnostic I could see, even though it's the opposite of the direction I've gone. But to have once been a (presumably thoughtful, not redneck idiot) atheist, who weakened into believing in fairy tales--while mocking those who don't!--is just sad. You had already figured it out, Ron; and then you went back before the buzzer rang and "changed your answer." Pascal would be proud, but who else?
Strictly speaking, I am an agnostic. I don't know there is a God and don't see how anyone could know that. On the other hand, I don't see how you can know there isn't one.
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