Dear Religious People of the United States,
It's finally happened. I've actually become really angry, and that takes a lot.
I'm not angry about your beliefs. You are free to devote yourself to any faith you want. I realize that there are atheists who would like to dictate to you what you can believe, who would like to change your mind for you if you're unwilling to change it yourself, but I am not one of those. You will never get any quarrel out of me over how you spend your Sundays (or Saturdays, or whatever day you prefer to worship).
What I am angry about is the fact that the vast majority of you seem content to let narrow-minded bigots and blowhards be your spokespeople. Men and women make statements in public forums that would be (rightly) shouted down if they were generated by any other source than the majority religion; statements that marginalize those who don't share those beliefs, which question the intelligence, patriotism, and (even) the right to citizenship of those who dissent. And hardly a squeak of criticism is voiced.
Let's start with Sally Quinn's piece in the Washington Post, entitled "Romney Captures the God Vote at First Debate." Responding to Governor Romney's statement that all Americans are "children of the same God," Quinn writes, "This is a religious country. Part of claiming your citizenship is
claiming a belief in God, even if you are not Christian.. We’ve got the
Creator in our Declaration of Independence. We’ve got 'In God We Trust'
on our coins. We’ve got 'one nation under God' in our Pledge of
Allegiance. And we say prayers in the Senate and the House of
Representatives to God... Up until now, the idea of being American and believing in God were synonymous."
I beg your pardon?
For one thing, Ms. Quinn, you don't know your history. The addition of "... one nation, under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance occurred in 1954, "to acknowledge the dependence of our people and our Government upon … the
Creator … [and] deny the atheistic and materialistic concept of communism." "In God We Trust" was added to coinage in 1955, and became the official motto of the United States a year later. Yes, the United States has been a majority Christian nation since its founding; but it has been only sixty years since the movement to make Christian belief a sine qua non for being a "real American" began.
Oh, and while we're quoting from US law, documents, and history, Ms.
Quinn, perhaps I should remind you of Article VI, paragraph 3 of the
United States Constitution, wherein it states, "No religious test shall
ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under
the United States."
The deeper problem here is that Quinn and others like her seem unwilling to acknowledge that the face of America is changing. Atheists and agnostics are making up an increasingly large slice of the American citizenry. A poll in 2004 found that 9% of respondents claimed "no religion;" a similar poll in 2008 saw the same demographic jump to 15%. You may not like it, but atheists and agnostics are increasing in strength, numbers, and willingness to speak up against the kind of bigoted nonsense Quinn and others have claimed.
My disavowal of a deity has nothing whatsoever to do with my devotion to my country, its people, or its laws. And it would be nice if some of the religious people in the United States would recognize that fact, and remind the officials they elected that the bully pulpit of American politics should never be used to ramrod religious beliefs (or disbelief, for that matter) down the throats of the American public. It would be damn near a miracle if some of you would tell people like Representative Paul Broun (R-GA) to shut up and sit down. Broun, you may have heard, is the politician who recently told a group of his constituents, "All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big
Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught
that from understanding that they need a savior... What I’ve come to learn is that (the bible) is the manufacturer’s handbook, is
what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives
individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it
teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society.
And that’s the reason as your congressman I hold the holy Bible as being
the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll
continue to do that." [Source]
You know what? I'd do that for you, religious people of America. If one of my fellow atheists started campaigning to have religion outlawed, to have freedom of belief suspended, to have churches closed, I would stand up on your behalf. If one of us said, "You can't be a true American unless you're an atheist," I would shout him down. A politician who stated that 'atheism teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society' would be, in my opinion, unfit for office. No one has the right to tell another person how to settle a matter of conscience, and that includes what higher power, if any, to believe in.
I'm issuing a challenge to you. We have enough divisive hate-speech in this country right now. Partisan politics has become the flavor-of-the-month, and the flames are being fanned by media. It's time for this to end. Religion has no place in government, just as government has no place in religion. Stand up for the commonalities that unite us all -- love of country, support of the rule of law, dedication to freedom of speech and freedom of belief.
Be willing to say, "You know what? The fact that I share your religious beliefs doesn't give you the right to question in my presence the morals, ethics, or patriotism of those who don't."
Be willing to challenge those who have already stopped listening to the likes of me, who have already decided that everything I say "is lies straight from the pit of Hell."
Be willing to stand up for the religious tolerance that the founders of this country wrote into law when they framed the Constitution.
Your silence just makes the fissures that divide this country wider. And it is time for that silence to end.
sincerely,
Gordon (your fellow American citizen)
Showing posts with label Mitt Romney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mitt Romney. Show all posts
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
The power of vicarious experience
I find it curious how certain most of us are of our beliefs. We all like to think of ourselves as basing our views of the world in reality; that we (and others who agree with us) are clear-headed, logical, perceiving the universe as it is -- and that because of that, our views won't change.
In reality, our attitudes are constantly shifting. That even the most stubbornly doctrinaire amongst us can be pulled around unconsciously was just dramatically demonstrated by a lovely little experiment performed at Ohio State University. (Source)
In this study, test subjects were given a passage to read, about a fictional character who was enduring adversity. In one passage, the main character had to fight for his opportunity to cast his vote in an election; in another, a person is presented in a favorable light, and then at the end of the story is revealed to be a different ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation from the reader. In each case, reading the story had a strong, and measurable, effect on the reader. In the first instance, the test subjects who read the story about a man who overcame obstacles to participate in an election had a "significantly higher" likelihood of voting in the next election themselves; in the second, assessments given after reading the story resulted in more favorable attitudes toward the group in question, and a lower likelihood of stereotyping, as compared to a control group.
The researchers called this phenomenon "experience-taking." We read a story, and in some way, we become the character about whom we are reading; we adopt his/her persona. As a result, it becomes more appealing to do what the character does, and more difficult to stigmatize the members of the group to which the character belongs.
"Experience-taking changes us by allowing us to merge our own lives with those of the characters we read about, which can lead to good outcomes," said Geoff Kaufman, who led the study while he was a graduate student at Ohio State. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth College's Tiltfactor Laboratory.
In each case, the effect was strongest when the story was told in first person, and when the main character was of a demographic most like that of the reader; for example, when the man who endured adversity to cast his vote was, like the test subject, a young male university student. Third person stories, and ones where the demographic significantly differed from that of the reader, showed a lower -- but still measurable -- level of experience-taking.
"Experience-taking can be a powerful way to change our behavior and thoughts in meaningful and beneficial ways," said Lisa Libby, co-author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University. "(It is) powerful because people don't even realize it is happening to them. It's an unconscious process."
The findings of the study appear online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and will be published in a future print edition.
What I find most interesting about all of this is how fluid our perception of the world is. That memory is plastic, and highly unreliable, has been known for years; the rather alarming discovery that our senses are quite capable of overlooking the obvious followed suit soon after, with such classic experiments as the "Gorilla in the Room" video clip. But all through this, many of us have clung like grim death to the idea that at least our convictions stay the same; we believe what we believe until we choose, deliberately, to change it. Kaufman and Libby's experiment show that, in fact, our views of those around us are as mushy as the rest of our brain.
And all of this, of course, has significant bearing on the current kerfuffle over whether or not Mitt Romney bullied a kid in high school. I'm not going to address the truth or falsity of the claim; predictably, the Democrats say he did it, the Republicans claim it's a slanderous falsehood. Myself, I don't care. The idea that a 65 year old man somehow has gone for fifty years with his attitudes about gays, bullying, and fair treatment unchanged is absurd. We are all, all of the time, adjusting our beliefs based upon those around us, what we see, what we hear, and what we read. Far from being a sign of flip-flopping -- that dirtiest of the f-words in the political arena -- shifting our stance based upon circumstances is inevitable, and universal.
To be up front: I'm no fan of Romney's politics, for the most part, and anyone who knows me will vouch for the fact that I'm very far from being an Ann Coulter-style apologist for conservatives. But I much more care about what a political candidate says, does, and believes now than I do about an incident from five decades ago. Those who focus on such things are implying a patent falsehood -- that humans don't, or can't, change.
In reality, our attitudes are constantly shifting. That even the most stubbornly doctrinaire amongst us can be pulled around unconsciously was just dramatically demonstrated by a lovely little experiment performed at Ohio State University. (Source)
In this study, test subjects were given a passage to read, about a fictional character who was enduring adversity. In one passage, the main character had to fight for his opportunity to cast his vote in an election; in another, a person is presented in a favorable light, and then at the end of the story is revealed to be a different ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation from the reader. In each case, reading the story had a strong, and measurable, effect on the reader. In the first instance, the test subjects who read the story about a man who overcame obstacles to participate in an election had a "significantly higher" likelihood of voting in the next election themselves; in the second, assessments given after reading the story resulted in more favorable attitudes toward the group in question, and a lower likelihood of stereotyping, as compared to a control group.
The researchers called this phenomenon "experience-taking." We read a story, and in some way, we become the character about whom we are reading; we adopt his/her persona. As a result, it becomes more appealing to do what the character does, and more difficult to stigmatize the members of the group to which the character belongs.
"Experience-taking changes us by allowing us to merge our own lives with those of the characters we read about, which can lead to good outcomes," said Geoff Kaufman, who led the study while he was a graduate student at Ohio State. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth College's Tiltfactor Laboratory.
In each case, the effect was strongest when the story was told in first person, and when the main character was of a demographic most like that of the reader; for example, when the man who endured adversity to cast his vote was, like the test subject, a young male university student. Third person stories, and ones where the demographic significantly differed from that of the reader, showed a lower -- but still measurable -- level of experience-taking.
"Experience-taking can be a powerful way to change our behavior and thoughts in meaningful and beneficial ways," said Lisa Libby, co-author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University. "(It is) powerful because people don't even realize it is happening to them. It's an unconscious process."
The findings of the study appear online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and will be published in a future print edition.
What I find most interesting about all of this is how fluid our perception of the world is. That memory is plastic, and highly unreliable, has been known for years; the rather alarming discovery that our senses are quite capable of overlooking the obvious followed suit soon after, with such classic experiments as the "Gorilla in the Room" video clip. But all through this, many of us have clung like grim death to the idea that at least our convictions stay the same; we believe what we believe until we choose, deliberately, to change it. Kaufman and Libby's experiment show that, in fact, our views of those around us are as mushy as the rest of our brain.
And all of this, of course, has significant bearing on the current kerfuffle over whether or not Mitt Romney bullied a kid in high school. I'm not going to address the truth or falsity of the claim; predictably, the Democrats say he did it, the Republicans claim it's a slanderous falsehood. Myself, I don't care. The idea that a 65 year old man somehow has gone for fifty years with his attitudes about gays, bullying, and fair treatment unchanged is absurd. We are all, all of the time, adjusting our beliefs based upon those around us, what we see, what we hear, and what we read. Far from being a sign of flip-flopping -- that dirtiest of the f-words in the political arena -- shifting our stance based upon circumstances is inevitable, and universal.
To be up front: I'm no fan of Romney's politics, for the most part, and anyone who knows me will vouch for the fact that I'm very far from being an Ann Coulter-style apologist for conservatives. But I much more care about what a political candidate says, does, and believes now than I do about an incident from five decades ago. Those who focus on such things are implying a patent falsehood -- that humans don't, or can't, change.
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