Donutz

Pretty provocative subject line, I'll admit.

Here's the thing: I've noticed (or I think I have-- my sample size is pretty small) that people who are religious and people who are global warming denialists and people who are into "alternative medicines" and people who are into psychics and astrology tend to be the same people. It's obviously nowhere near a 100% correlation, but I'm pretty sure it's higher than a random distribution. Am I imagining it? Am I overly sensitized?

No need to limit it to the subjects I've listed either. There's Obama-as-muslim, Obama-as-foreigner, Moon-landing-was-faked, Holocaust-was-faked, global-shadow-conspiracy, flouride-as-communist-plot, etc etc etc. Is there a particular mindset that draws people to this stuff?

__________________

Illegitimi non carborundum

I hate the parts between winter...

PaoloSmythe

i think you are quite wrong.

__________________
Just coz you don't understand it
Doesn't mean it makes no sense!

snowjeeper

I think you are quite right. Ever notice how extreme right wingers and extreme left wingers are exactly the same people but believe in different things? It is absolutely a mind-set/personality thing. It's just that there appears to be more right-wingers believing in extremism than lefties. I think that is because religion preps their minds to believe in anything that someone tells them to.

roremc

They are all things that tend to have no proof of existence. Or if there is proof its based on flimsy evidence. religion being the really big one. No proof or evidence there at all, jsut lots of misguided faith.

__________________
So many runs so little time.

snowjeeper

my mother in law is mormon, and she will absolutely believe anything someone in authority (perceived) tells her. it's scary. she's even educated, well at BYU of course.

Donutz

The reason that I first thought of it is that my family are pretty fundamentalist, and I've had arguments about religion (obviously) but also arguments about my mom trying to push echinecia and St John's Wort and all manner of concoctions on me, all the while telling me how standard medicine didn't work for her or my dad (I once pointed out that when the crap doesn't work my dad goes back to his inhalor. Didn't go over well). There's even a conspiracy by big pharma to suppress the alternative medicine industry.

The best explanation I can come up with is that there's a mindset that holds science, logic, and the whole concept of testing of hypotheses in contempt. Therefore anything that comes out of that arena -- whether weather models, medications, biology, or whatever -- cannot be allowed to be right.

Again, I have to stress that this is personal observation, based on my family and those people I still stay in touch with who are religious. Small sample, no-blind, and no formal analysis. I'm just wondering.

__________________

Illegitimi non carborundum

I hate the parts between winter...

Donutz

I am surprised both by your stance and by your unaccustomed brevity. Wassa matter? Having dinner?

__________________

Illegitimi non carborundum

I hate the parts between winter...

KIRKRIDER

Fixed it for ya

Snowfox

I would disagree with your statement. Of course there are certain people who claim to be Christian who are very outspoken about issues, and that's why you always see that type rather than any other. Because they're so outspoken.
Would it be very interesting news wise if there was a mild mannered man who claimed he was a Christian but didn't want to kill abortion doctors or thought that Obama was a fellow brother in Christ? Or said that he was perfectly fine with other types of religious types of buildings were built because that's kinda a big deal that we can do that sort of stuff here?

Of course not. As much as people would like to claim they want fair and balanced news and whatnot, it's often not nearly as interesting as skewing it the way you (or your audience) want. People who are interested will tune in more and that will create larger ad revenues. Thus, on the news at least you're going to see a lot of the crazies getting airtime over the more level headed individuals.

Regarding medical practices, a lot of doctors are Christians. If nothing else, some consider medical advances or skills to be gifts from God and to be used as such. There will be some Christians who buy into the alternative medicine scams, but then I feel there would be a lot of Atheists who do as well.

If it's one point that I'm trying to get across, it's that you can't stick all Christians into one mold. Besides going down to individual beliefs, there are tons of individual sects and a couple of religions (I, among others, consider) outside of Christianity but influenced heavily by it. Hell, even among Lutherans you have the Wisconsin Synod (very conservative, fundamentalist almost), the Missouri-Synod (considered by the Wisconsin to be liberal, by ELCA to be conservative), and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (considered very liberal by both of the previous groups). And that's just one very small portion of Christians right there. Regarding most of the issues (Evolution, Abortions, Premarital Sex, Medical Care, Euthanasia, Gay Rights) you'll individuals who fall on both sides of the spectrum.

Edit: I realize the posting wasn't outright specific about Christianity, but that's usually to what it seems to boil down.

HoboMaster

My biggest beef with the religious mindset is that it causes people to become incredibly complacent in the sense of thinking for themselves. Many people get to the point where they start "letting god" make decisions for them, which in reality is just making poor and easy decisions and hoping god will make everything better. I mean honestly, is God a babysitter? I think the last thing god wants you to be is a weakling who let's some other person or influence make all your decisions for you. It's a poor excuse for not taking responsibility of your life. Actually thinking about things causes an internal conflict that is supposed to be rationally thought out by the average person.

I think what it comes down to is that simple-minded people want to take the easy way out, and never changing or thinking of any change is a sure path to complacency and a life of little mental tact.

Why debate things when Fox News has it all put together for you.....

__________________
PowderHound and TreeNinja