Atheists and the Election

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

In this video Penn Jillet talks about the candidates from the perspective of an atheist.As he tends to do, he makes several very good observations. Though to be honest I actually think he gives some of front runners WAY too much credit on the "not a nut job" scale. 

His comments about how "Christians" as we think of them today didn't really exist before the 60s is especially interesting. And I think rather true. It is rather amazing that abortion managed to get sects that had spent centuries killing each other under one tent. And if you really think about it that is something that really would have been impossible 100 years ago but now we accept it as a simple fact of life.

Anyway, while I myself am agnostic I agree with a lot of the points Penn makes here. And shake my head at just how sad it is that in a nation with seperation of church and state that this sort of spiritual theater has to go on in EVERY election. On the other hand, at least it isn't like it is in the Middle East. That's something to be grateful for.

Comments

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

That's a really good video. What I think is there's something psychological about being told all your life that something is a fact, a strange sort of cognitive dissonance where the amount of mental focus, clarity, and strength that it takes to declare one of your core beliefs to be mention is literally too much for your mind to handle. There's a barrier there where some sort of psychological response kicks in because the core of your being is so wrapped up in these things you were told to be true, that unraveling them would destroy your mind. Penn's point about people being unresponsive about taking The Bible literally really shines on this. They actually do not possess the power to not believe in it. Something that severely damages or distorts the mind, some kind of event like that, is really the only way to shake their belief.

tl;dr people's beliefs are so deep that they can't disbelieve lest the framework that holds their mind together unravels.

[taiki.livejournal.com]

I think what grounds Jillette as a political commentator is that he's out with stating that he's representing the "Nut point of view."

Given that we just went through Republican debates with Perry, Bauchmann, et al... I'm pretty sure at this point Anarcho Capitalism isn't a nut point of view anymore.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

Penn Jillette on agnostics:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Evangelicalism in general doesn't exist prior to the 19th Century, fundamentalism as a subset of evangelicalism is as old as the 1880s, which is the exact same time full-fledged atheism first appears. So I might note that this applies also to 99% of what is referred to as "traditional values." They are not any sort of traditional.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

People are generally surprised to learn exactly how much of US "traditional values" came directly out of Victorian class politics.

"On the other hand, at least it isn't like it is in the Middle East. "

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Give it ten years.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Ah. Penn Jillette. Never a more irrelevant voice.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I prefer Teller's view on religion ;)

[lyssna.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, at least it isn't like it is in the Middle East. That's something to be grateful for.

Don't be too grateful. There are many countries where an atheist or agnostic running for head of government is not an issue at all. The USA is still extreme.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

And yet we do less women go places without the company of a man. So I think we're still ahead of the Middle East on this one.