Secular Right

LOL.

Never pass up a chance to snark, eh?

You know the other day, I made it to a movie right before it started. I exclaimed, “Oh, thank God!”

I penitently await Heather’s chastisement.

Obviously the people in West Point prayed more fervertly asking God for this facility. The people in competing cities have less faith and more iniquity.

But of course this problem with cognitive biases extends well beyond religious belief. What is the biggest harmful manifestation of human tendencies to see events as confirmation of existing beliefs?

Polichinello, there’s a need to call people on their irrational biases.

Randall,

First, the tendency to point and laugh at every poor schmope who thanks God for some benefit betrays a bit of irrationality itself.

Secondly, I don’t see anything in the sign meant to denigrate any other town. It was a general expression of gratitude from someone happy to see her town prosper.

According to the General Social Survey, atheists are 5 times more likely to be extremely liberal than theists. I’ll take narcissistic Christians over socialists any day.

Funny stuff. When I saw the title to this post, I figured it would be about our Dear Leader and the GM plant closings this summer!

Great recent Onion piece:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/god_makes_surprise_visit_to_local?utm_source=a-section

What’s kinda sad is that so-called “believers” would likely find this funny too, because really, all that God-actually-making-appearances stuff only happened in olden times, right? But those oldy-time biblical accounts are totally true….while simultaneously being ridiculous on its face were someone to suggest that it happened today. You just gotta have faith!

Keep up the great work Heather.

Polichinello :

Polichinello

You know the other day, I made it to a movie right before it started. I exclaimed, “Oh, thank God!”
I penitently await Heather’s chastisement.

Why wait. Here’s mine. You, and folks like the lawn signer, simply fail to see the insult (unintentional, I suppose ) in publicly thanking “Jesus” for answering your prayer – and by definition NOT answering the prayers of the opposite “side”. In doing the public thanks, the inescapable implication ( and thus the insult ) is that you and your prayer were more deserving. To which the other side can understandably say, “Screw you.”

Best to keep the “thanks” to oneself.

Yeah, it’s unnatural to be egocentric. People who are that way should be called out on it. Like those bastards who take the best parking spots at work and rudely neglect to think about those who will arrive later.

You, and folks like the lawn signer, simply fail to see the insult…

Sorry, I suppose it’s because your skin is so thin it’s transparent.

Very hard to see, you know.

Let Heather chuckle at the practices of faithful Christians. She just doesn’t get it and does not seem to really want to. Besides doing so highlights her own blissful ignornace of the genuine follies of her fellow secularists and atheists.

Polichinello, I point out lots of different irrationalities, religious being just a subset.

As for this particular case: I think it presumptuous to think that God acted on one’s behalf in siting a car factory. Even if God exists God might have had reasons unrelated to one’s own well being for making the choice. Or God could’ve just said “I’m letting events take their course on this one”. If you think God controls everything then there’s no free will. If you don’t think God controls everything how can you tell when he intervened in each particular case?

Ron Guhname, Does the atheism make the liberalism? Or do they have a common underlying cause?

Polichinello :

Polichinello

You, and folks like the lawn signer, simply fail to see the insult…
Sorry, I suppose it’s because your skin is so thin it’s transparent.
Very hard to see, you know.

Thanks for making my point by adding insult to insult.

Randall: Using GSS data, I show that the link between atheism and liberalism is not due to education or IQ:

http://inductivist.blogspot.com/2009/04/education-does-not-explain-link-between.html

I know for a fact that God had nothing to do with the selection of the factory’s location. He was busy deciding which of two Little League teams would win the local playoffs that day.

Ron, I would expect the extent that religiosity is influenced by education would vary depending on which academic field one studies. Some types of information do not directly challenge religious beliefs. Other kinds of information do undermine religious beliefs. Though it depends on the religion too. Catholicism isn’t going to be as much undermined by the evidence for evolution as some of the strains of Protestantism that reject Darwin and all that.

Also, the kind of personality attracted to each academic discipline varies on average, making cause and effect harder to tease out unless one does a longitudinal study.

Randall: I updated my post. Further analysis shows that trust in science helps explain the link between atheism and liberalism a little bit. I suspect that being scientifically-minded makes one more likely to embrace atheism and reject social conservatism.

As for this particular case: I think it presumptuous to think that God acted on one’s behalf in siting a car factory.

Who said anything about God acting on anyone’s behalf? It just an expression of gratitude. God may have had something else in mind, but saying “thank you” never hurts. Seems rational to me, once you accept the premise that God exists.

Thanks for making my point by adding insult to insult.

You want some cheese with that whine?

Seriously, dude, man up. It’s some lady with an innocuous sign, not the Spanish Inquisition.