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I was with my two surviving brothers in recent days due to a death in the extended family and they completely believed the current scare-mongering about how illegals can take over your home while you're on vacation and you can't get them out when you come home. A notion pushed by a single provocateur immigrant blogger hungry for eyeballs and supported by absolutely no data whatsoever. This kind of nuttery would have been inconceivable even twenty years ago, but is commonplace now. It just takes enough of the herd doing it to provide you with cover, I guess.
I also noted that the less religious of the two brothers was astounded at the changes in society, how the world seemed to be really going down the tubes in a way that exceeds the normal "it's not like it was when I was a kid" sense. I think a lot of this is lubricated by a growing unease with the state of the world, a growing distrust of the viability of society, and ultimately a loss of hope. It makes it easier to retreat into fantasies, to listen to anyone claiming to have any kind of answer, however fanciful. This is true of anyone, in or out of theism; but theism throws gasoline on the fire.
There is certainly a bias in humans (negativity bias and or memory bias) where people believe things were better before. That has always been the case. My mom was a Jehovah's Witness. And their way of thinking was based around things are getting worse. For fun I looked up a publication of theirs from the early 1900's talking of how the world was declining rapidly, children non longer listened to their parents and a whole series of benchmarks that indicated how bad things were back then. You could easily take that article and use it today and fit into today's mindset of many. And add to it today how information spreads instantly around the world and if you want to focus on negative news it would appear there is more of it than before even though its not at all the case.
There is certainly a bias in humans (negativity bias and or memory bias) where people believe things were better before. That has always been the case. My mom was a Jehovah's Witness. And their way of thinking was based around things are getting worse. For fun I looked up a publication of theirs from the early 1900's talking of how the world was declining rapidly, children non longer listened to their parents and a whole series of benchmarks that indicated how bad things were back then. You could easily take that article and use it today and fit into today's mindset of many. And add to it today how information spreads instantly around the world and if you want to focus on negative news it would appear there is more of it than before even though its not at all the case.
Yes that's definitely in play and always will be, but we are in a down cycle of human history, devolving into authoritarian / fascistic ideation, and running out of natural resources, with a couple of other nasty trends converging at the same time. So I do think it's rather more than the standard-issue generational angst. Enough that I have hedged my bets in various low-cost ways, let's just say. But my response is just that ... rational provisional defensive moves, but fundamentalists have a MUCH higher burden: they must preserve the dogma and worldview, no matter how dysfunctional or out of touch it becomes. So they end up contributing to the problem.
Yes that's definitely in play and always will be, but we are in a down cycle of human history, devolving into authoritarian / fascistic ideation, and running out of natural resources, with a couple of other nasty trends converging at the same time. So I do think it's rather more than the standard-issue generational angst. Enough that I have hedged my bets in various low-cost ways, let's just say. But my response is just that ... rational provisional defensive moves, but fundamentalists have a MUCH higher burden: they must preserve the dogma and worldview, no matter how dysfunctional or out of touch it becomes. So they end up contributing to the problem.
They don't have to prove anything.
Their conviction is enough for them. You're going to hell, because they're convinced you are. There's no reasoning with them and little point in even talking to them.
Their conviction is enough for them. You're going to hell, because they're convinced you are. There's no reasoning with them and little point in even talking to them.
What I mean is that they have to deny what's right in front of them if it conflicts with their dogma of choice. "Let God be true and every man a liar", etc. No they don't need proof of anything but they need to deny evidence contrary to their beliefs, such as, the evidence that immigrants are good for society, that violent crime is decreasing rather than increasing, that their own tribe is losing ground rather than gaining, that they don't have any better objectively measurable quality of life than those who don't believe as they do -- often no better really than the most vile sinner they can conceive. That last bit was what took me out of the faith -- it doesn't deliver on its promises of divine protection, providence, grace and general largesse -- the righteous are not reliably blessed nor the wicked reliably confounded, unless you choose to believe in some ultimate / eventual sense that is invariably displaced into the afterlife. The life of the righteous is no more predictable or explicable than anyone else's on balance. THAT is what they have to defend against / rationalize away / ignore.
I think this is key. I remember when I was in a relatively mild-ish branch of fundamentalism, I wasn't comfortable with the pentecostals, charismatics, or the (more overtly) racist southern denominations, but I was happy to let them push fundamentalist-friendly initiatives in the public sphere just the same. Do our dirty work for us, so to speak. Our real malfunction with that sort of thing wasn't so much ideology as cultural taboos. We were more about maintaining decorum / dignity / respect / status. We didn't even like political involvement as it was inherently yucky. In the ensuing decades however, that particular Overton window moved enough that now it's almost fashionable to engage in politics, conspiracy theories, etc.
I was with my two surviving brothers in recent days due to a death in the extended family and they completely believed the current scare-mongering about how illegals can take over your home while you're on vacation and you can't get them out when you come home. A notion pushed by a single provocateur immigrant blogger hungry for eyeballs and supported by absolutely no data whatsoever. This kind of nuttery would have been inconceivable even twenty years ago, but is commonplace now. It just takes enough of the herd doing it to provide you with cover, I guess.
I also noted that the less religious of the two brothers was astounded at the changes in society, how the world seemed to be really going down the tubes in a way that exceeds the normal "it's not like it was when I was a kid" sense. I think a lot of this is lubricated by a growing unease with the state of the world, a growing distrust of the viability of society, and ultimately a loss of hope. It makes it easier to retreat into fantasies, to listen to anyone claiming to have any kind of answer, however fanciful. This is true of anyone, in or out of theism; but theism throws gasoline on the fire.
Time to consider eschewing family funerals? Is there any limit to the insanity of the deplorables?
There is certainly a bias in humans (negativity bias and or memory bias) where people believe things were better before. That has always been the case. My mom was a Jehovah's Witness. And their way of thinking was based around things are getting worse. For fun I looked up a publication of theirs from the early 1900's talking of how the world was declining rapidly, children non longer listened to their parents and a whole series of benchmarks that indicated how bad things were back then. You could easily take that article and use it today and fit into today's mindset of many. And add to it today how information spreads instantly around the world and if you want to focus on negative news it would appear there is more of it than before even though its not at all the case.
People seem to have a 'nostalgia bias'. The book 'Thinking, Fast And Slow' is a great read, as it is basically a compendium of cognitive biases and of studies which serve to illustrate them. I believe it was that book which introduced me to the phenomenon of the 'peak-end rule', which basically describes the human tendency to recall only the peak sensation of a given experience and the very end of a given experience. So there's a conflict between the 'experiencing self' and the 'remembering self', because people tend to make choices based on extremely faulty and incomplete memories. The things that stand out in our memory, whether pleasant or traumatic, are ultimately the outliers of our lived experience. The uneventful, mundane 99% of the time we live is deemphasized by memory, leaving us with a very misleading picture of what life was like in our past and what it tends to be like overall.
People seem to have a 'nostalgia bias'. The book 'Thinking, Fast And Slow' is a great read, as it is basically a compendium of cognitive biases and of studies which serve to illustrate them. I believe it was that book which introduced me to the phenomenon of the 'peak-end rule', which basically describes the human tendency to recall only the peak sensation of a given experience and the very end of a given experience. So there's a conflict between the 'experiencing self' and the 'remembering self', because people tend to make choices based on extremely faulty and incomplete memories. The things that stand out in our memory, whether pleasant or traumatic, are ultimately the outliers of our lived experience. The uneventful, mundane 99% of the time we live is deemphasized by memory, leaving us with a very misleading picture of what life was like in our past and what it tends to be like overall.
And now we are not just relying on our memories. Now we have cable news, social media, etc with endless biased and misleading information that backs up whatever preconceived biases we have.
So its not just that you think things are getting worse, your favorite talking head and your political leaders are saying the same thing so it must be true, right?
Time to consider eschewing family funerals? Is there any limit to the insanity of the deplorables?
Well the less religious brother was my reason for visiting ... we have always been very close and it is his wife who died after a long illness. I knew he was hurting, whatever notions are banging around inside his head, religious or otherwise. So I just wanted to be present for him for a few days, and give him the benefit of my meager yet greater experience with the mechanics of bereavement, what to expect, where to get support, etc.
He received his wife's ashes and will be dispersing them somewhere at some point, but there's no funeral planned as no one in his or her extended family really cares enough to do it. Funerals are for the living, not the dead.
The more devout brother invited myself and the other brother to church Sunday but we weasled out of it. Dodged a bullet there, too, because it involved not only a church service but a one hour "lecture" afterwards. I just wasn't up for that after traveling 1000 miles, and the intense emotional demands of the whole situation.
This type of death is increasingly common. It was that way when my son died ... his "friends" hadn't given him the time of day for years, they came out of the woodwork when he died but none of them would have traveled to a funeral or memorial service, they were fine with various remembrances online such as me taking over his FB account and turning it into a drive-by memorial. People will still do simple things like that at least. But there was no service for him either. He's pushing up a Magnolia tree in the back yard and I thank him for contributing to that daily.
But yeah this kind of desire for Christian hegemony or the notion that correct doctrine fixes social or political problems, does get Really Old and it effects how often I call especially the devoutly fundamentalist brother, who is deeply committed to a dozen or more whacked out conspiracy theories that are apparently shared by. most of his fellow believers.
I'm 72 years old and have never heard of "Christian Nationalists", nor have I ever met any individual or group who is interested in putting Christian values and practices into the government. I do see that some state representatives in Congress would like to do exactly that, but it is impossible for them to do it as things stand.
Anything like that is not possible because of the U.S Constitution, which clearly states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.........". The Supreme Court has ruled multiple times that it is unconstitutional for public schools to lead school children in prayer or Bible reading even if its on a voluntary basis. Putting Christian values or any other religious values into the Federal government is not going to happen unless the Constitution is amended.
People can conjecture whatever they wish, but the law of the land says what it says.
Last edited by stephenMM; 03-30-2024 at 09:45 PM..
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