Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Global study uncovers common three-stage sequence in religious decline.

Several Texas school districts adopt a “Preaching as Teaching” education policy.

Court rejects release of Moroccan woman on trial in blasphemy case.

Civil rights groups alarmed over Quebec’s move to ban prayer in public.

Evangelicals are pushing for household voting because they are misogynists.

World of Woo: Why wind farms attract so much misinformation.

Environment:  What is climate transparency and why is it important?

The Resurrection of Jesus and the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.

Neanderthals and Homo sapiens may have interbred 100,000 years earlier than once thought.

I got an AI to impersonate me and teach me my own course.

Long Reads:

How online chats are leading to imprisonment for blasphemy.

The Cats and Dogs of War.

Some thought-provoking ideas about how intelligence and consciousness fit into the broader tapestry of life itself.

On the necessities of secularism.

How much is Trump pocketing off the Presidency?

A PRRI survey to estimate support for Christian nationalism in all 50 states.

Sunday Book Club:  The Certainty Illusion: What you don’t know and why it matters.

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Videos:  Church leaders arrested in multi-million-dollar conspiracy after FBI raids. Great moments of unintended consequences. A great conversation on improving your debating skills.  Can you be brainwashed? A great conversation about history.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week!!

“I don’t reject gods. I just apply the same standards I use for everything else—and they don’t make the cut.”

-me.

[StregaModerator]

Thanks, Reg 🙂

[UnseenParticipant]

This article is more than 10 years old, but it explains a lot, like how in the world does he get so much support within groups you’d think shouldn’t support him: ethnic minorities and women among others.

The One Weird Trait That Predicts Whether You’re a Trump Supporter

I’ve found a single statistically significant variable predicts whether a voter supports Trump—and it’s not race, income or education levels: It’s authoritarianism.

That’s right, Trump’s electoral strength—and his staying power—have been buoyed, above all, by Americans with authoritarian inclinations. And because of the prevalence of authoritarians in the American electorate, among Democrats as well as Republicans, it’s very possible that Trump’s fan base will continue to grow.

My finding is the result of a national poll I conducted in the last five days of December under the auspices of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, sampling 1,800 registered voters across the country and the political spectrum. Running a standard statistical analysis, I found that education, income, gender, age, ideology and religiosity had no significant bearing on a Republican voter’s preferred candidate. Only two of the variables I looked at were statistically significant: authoritarianism, followed by fear of terrorism, though the former was far more significant than the latter.

 

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I think Bill Maher mentioned this recently. It may have been a different family. But a similar event. A family found Arizona to be “too woke” so they moved to Texas, only to find it was just not conservative enough for them. So they sold everything and gave their money to the poor moved to Russia. WTF!

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

That’s right, Trump’s electoral strength—and his staying power—have been buoyed, above all, by Americans with authoritarian inclinations.

I’ve heard that before.  Also that Trump supporters tend to think in a very group-oriented way, they think that groups have to compete, and that their group has to win.

[jakelafortParticipant]

I almost posted that history vid.

The historian being interviewed seems reasonably intelligent.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

World of Woo: Why wind farms attract so much misinformation.

It is indeed Woo that wind energy makes the whales loco and ruins the scenery (which RFK Jr also said for 20 years about proposed wind energy projects off Nantucket Sound, back when Leftie Eco-Wackos loved him.)

But, come on, the term “windmills” is no more hokey than “wind farms.” Mills and farms are both places where useful things are produced. Quibbling over that is just being pedantic.

And there’s plenty of Woo on the pro-wind side from the article, such as conflating nuclear power with fossil fuels and indeed conflating all fossil fuels. Both nuclear power and natural gas have the least Carbon production of any form of energy.

It is also Woo to think that “windmills”–er, “wind farms”–are a better way of dealing with Carbon than trees, fruit, and vegetation grown on the land on which these “wind farms” rest.

Above all, it is Woo to think that forms of energy dependent on the mercy of the weather, such as wind and solar, can provide enough energy to power AI, let alone “the city by the Bay, the city that rocks, the city that never sleeps” that is Modernity.

“Wind farms” may be a nice thing to have where the wind is constant enough and Solar panels are perfect for space, where there is no weather or spinning of the Earth to block a clear line of sight to the Sun, and where the Sun could be a safe disposal for dead batteries. But life on Earth takes more. Nuclear power and natural gas For The Win.

• This reply was modified 6 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling
• This reply was modified 6 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Simon,

I’ve heard that before. Also that Trump supporters tend to think in a very group-oriented way, they think that groups have to compete, and that their group has to win.

Both MAGA and Anti-MAGA think in group-oriented ways. The Anti-MAGA espouse racial, ethnic, sexual, gender and class identity politics and the MAGA react with their own brand of identity politics. And both assume their desired group identity has monolithic interests and both tolerate no dissent.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Both MAGA and Anti-MAGA think in group-oriented ways. The Anti-MAGA espouse racial, ethnic, sexual, gender and class identity politics and the MAGA react with their own brand of identity politics. And both assume their desired group identity has monolithic interests and both tolerate no dissent.

Enco, that’s a good depiction of where it’s at. Neither tribe tolerates dissent because they are even further polarized now than they were last November. Reasoned debate is absent and, in its place, everything is processed via emotions in what social psychologists would call identity-protective cognition more. Both sides are engaging in identity-based politics and internal dissent is seen as treacherous and outsider hostility seen as dangerous. The irony is that both sides criticize each other for being “tribal” while relying on the same tribal mechanisms to maintain survival.

We need your help…

I’m talking of course about extremism, and extremist ideology

Views and conduct

Views and conduct run counter to everything which can actually tear at the fabric of who we are as an institution. We need your help.

• This reply was modified 6 months ago by  Reg the Fronkey Farmer. Reason: added the 'more' link

[jakelafortParticipant]

Ya goddamn white trash. Ya goddamn white trash.

Oops sorry i was singing.

Mirror images of stupidity far left and right. You goddamn white trash. Woops. Sorry. I got an earwurm somehow or other. On the positive side Free Palestine and globalize the intifada are intended to further the mythical state of Palestine and spread into every corner of the voild where diversity, equity and inclusion are lived. It is just that Islam has no diversity, equity or inclusion. It does however having something for the eternally moronic goddamn white trash…

[PopeBeanieModerator]

jakelafort wrote:

It does however having something for the eternally moronic goddamn white trash…

Awesome observation, it’s  not just the lefty white trash.

[jakelafortParticipant]

From Pope:

“Awesome observation, it’s not just the lefty white trash.”

Hell no! I see far left and far right as mirror images although the far right is sans putative rationale. It is naked authoritarianism. Yea it capitalizes on the excesses of the far left but it has as its champion you know who. I honestly don’t think anyone who is the least bit discerning and not an ideologue credits him with integrity or intelligence. So immediately the wheels come off the jalopy. It is characterized by demagoguery. It is an attack on our norms and our democracy. The doge experiment is a perfect example. Instead of taking a straight razor and cutting out the bad parts the entire head is chopped off. And i don’t think there is much circumlocution about the true objectives. The adherents love them some orange crush and would in a heartbeat make him the permanent president and probably primogeniture for the future.

The far left on the other hand is ersatz intellectual. It is sophistry. Not good sophistry. Far right has a very poor representative of a charlatan but he more than does the trick. Far left has intellectual sophistry. Piss poor sophistry but that is what it is.

As i’ve indicated over and over humans as a whole lack agency. They go with the contemporary rivers. Whether it is easier to get lefties or magas to be converted to something reasonable i am not sure. Both sides have a religious fervor in their beliefs and truly identify with their ideologies.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake,

Be careful of getting earwurms. It might turn you into a certain junkie lawyer who plays a Doctor on TV and claims his bionic electron microscope eyes can detect “mitochondria issues” just by looking. You might also think your stomach is bulletproof against e coli, Trichinae, salmonella and any other nasty bugs carried by raw milk.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

With the proviso, of course, that “white” is all colors and shades of the visible light spectrum unrefracted by a prism.

Fortunately, this trash doesn’t need separate bins for recycling and repurposing.

[Author]

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