How Did Some Americans Become So Stupid?

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Nothing to do with the issues.

The issue is that non avian dinosaurs exist as fossils. Thats it. Thats the problem. They need to be explained.

How can you have extinct creatures in a world where every species is the product of special creation, and in which the world is only six or ten thousand years old?

Now...you might think that there is an obvious "escape clause" in the Bible for Young Earth Creation believers to get around that problem. That being -just postulate that Noah just left the dinosaurs off of the Ark, and that the non avian dinos just all drowned in the Flood, and just call it a day. Solve multiple problems at once. Like the unicorns in the Sheldon Leonard song. Just admit that Dinosaurs DID exist,admit that they are now extinct, and just say that the Flood caused their extinction. Nuff said. It wouldnt REALLY be scientific of course (those picayune scientists would see tons of problems with even that), but it would be good enough for most nonscientists. Thats what I would do if had YEC beliefs...I would think.

But apparently that violates the theology of Fundamentalists. You cant have dinosaurs becoming extinct in the Flood. Though its okay to postulate that dinosaurs are "no longer as plentiful as they used to be" and have dwindled in numbers over the later centuries (must be due to habitat reduction).

Not sure exactly why it violates theology for dinosaurs to die off in the Flood...but the Bible says that Noah took aboard "two of every unclean creature" and "seven of every clean creature". Since the Bible is always literally true that means he rescued all dinosaurs as well as rescuing all of the living animals we have today. Which means that dinosaurs continued to exist AFTER the Flood (at least for some time).


When the Ark came to rest on Mt. Ararat all of the elephants and giraffes and rhinos came off two-by-two (just like all of our children's picture book showed). But so did pairs of brontos, and stegos , and T-rexes, etc.


So this tenet in the YEC creed of that there were post deluvian dinosaurs means extra work and resulted in a whole current publishing industry devoted to trying to prove that dinosaurs lived among humans in historic times- after Noah- through ancient and Middle Ages time. May still be around.

One tactic is to equate "dragons" with "dinosaurs". Dragons of myth are really those dinosaurs that lived in the same world as humans. Another is to equate the two Biblical monsters ..Leviathan in the sea, and Behemoth on land, with dinosaurs living in the same time frame as humans.

"Any parody of religion is indistinguishable from religion." -- Fnord's Law of Creative Mockery

According to the Pew Research Center (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/how-u-s-religious-composition-has-changed-in-recent-decades/), American religiosity is far lower than it was fifty years ago, and is continuing to decline.

If the theory which many in this thread seem to support - that religiosity is the cause of American stupidity - then American intelligence should be skyrocketing as a result of religion's decline.

Yet, if this theoretical increase in American intelligence were true, I doubt this thread would exist. Instead, just about everyone on this thread would be celebrating the skyrocketing American intelligence levels and crowing their victory over faith. But that's not what's happening.

While it is true that the interaction of religion with science has been a fraught and troubled one over the centuries, it is ridiculously simplistic to blame religion for the general level of intelligence in America.

I have shepherded my four children through the public education system and I have seen the decline in standards between when my oldest kid began elementary school to when my youngest began college. My kids just a few years ago were being taught at a much lower level than I was when I went through the New York City public school system (not exactly the greatest schools in the country, even back in the 1970's).

I'm not arguing for anyone here to have a higher opinion of religion. I'm also not arguing that religious people (especially religious Christians) have no political influence in America. As a Jew, I'm angry at how many Jews have been killed over the millennia due to Christian doctrine and rage. As a queer man, I'm angry at how many of my brothers and sisters have been tortured and murdered for their sexuality.

As I've stated, I left Christianity and am now simply a cultural/ethnic Jew who has no idea how this beautiful and terrifying universe came to be. I get lost in wonder, humility, and poetry when I look into the night sky. I am thankful that I was able to vote to legalize gay marriage in my state years ago.

I'm just trying to get away from simplistic beliefs about most things. Simplistic beliefs prevent us from looking at the real, messy, and complicated reasons that things happen in the real world. And if we can't see real problems, we can't come up with solutions.

If religion is the cause of America's stupidity, then America should be smarter today than at any other time in its history; yet this doesn't seem to be the case.

I hesitate to use the term "special interest" since I haven't been diagnosed yet. But I have spent decades studying comparative religion and theology. When I was younger, it seemed like the way in which I could make sense of a world which overwhelmed and confused me.

In addition to my studies, I tried for many years to be a religious believer, thinking that if I could just apply myself hard enough, I would be able to get my life under control. Of course, that failed and I no longer believe that any religion has The One and Only Complete Truth.

But one thing my experiences gave me was a hesitancy to caricature or dehumanize religious believers. In my days studying and practicing Neopaganism before I became a Christian, I met just as many idiots as I encountered in the Church. And since leaving organized religion, I've met just as many atheist idiots as I encountered in my days amongst organized religion.

It honestly seems to me that idiots will always justify their own idiocy, regardless of whether they are Muslims arguing against the rights of gay people or atheists arguing that Jews caused the downfall of civilization by spreading their desert religion and corrupting humanity with irrationality and hatred.

I do believe that America is getting dumber, but I don't believe we can pin that on today's anemic levels of religiosity. I think that this problem will not be solved until we dig in to much more complicated and messy issues.

Does this only apply to religion? Were the German cartoons depicting Jewish behavior and religion indistinguishable from Jewish religion?

Or should we actually do our best to be honest in our criticisms of anything with which we disagree, just as we require NTs to be factual when discussing folks with ASD, etc.?

Fnord borrowed, and then modified someone else's idea.

Something called "Poe's Law".

Mr. Poe's original 2005 statement was "any parody of Creationism is indistinguishable from a sincere expression of Creationism". That truism came to be expanded by others on the Net to "any parody of any extremist fanatical creed, secular, or religious, is indistinguishable from a sincere expression of that creed". And in that form thats been a popular truism since.

Fnord made it "any expression of religion".

I agree with the first two interations ( Creationism, and any extremism). But not with Fnords version.

Which brings me to my next point. you're making several flaws in logic. Among them is that you yourself are making a caricature and are lumping everyone on this thread into one basket as if we were all expressing the same one opinion. Which we are not.

Above I expressed doubts that Americans really are "getting dumber". Though later I did concede that the "willful ignorance" of some religious extremist who try to influence public policy may have some bad effect.

Religion maybe "anemic" in the rest of the industrialized world, but not in the US, and especially not in the Bible Belt.

Its true that even here religion is slowly declining but thats all the more reason for some religious elements to become more fanatical and to exert influence on public policy.

So even if religion is to blame for making the nation dumber it doesnt follow that declining religion would make us smarter...it could even be the opposite.

And you can see videos on UTube made by folks who visit "the Ark Experience" and see the dioramas showing Noah feeding caged dinosaurs in the Ark, and thus see how religion in America is already a parody.

A better question might be why have so many of them been elected as public officials?

Cause and effect

Indeed.

Maxims like Poe's Law make it easy to remember the principle behind them.  Besides, how else to express the idea?

I have seen Monty Python -like sketches that were such well-performed parodies of religion that -- if the viewer knew nothing about Monty Python -- would be easily mistaken for real religious practices.

I once recited a recipe for Hasenpfeffer in the original German that convinced some visiting door-to-door Mormons (Jehovah's Witnesses?) that I was a high priest of a demonic cult (although the dog laying on a table surrounded by lit candles probably helped sell the illusion).

Some of you (but obviously not all) are bullies and bigots and you spew hatred on this board which is presumably designed to offer solace and community to vulnerable and hurting people. Not all of you, but enough of you - in enough threads.

Some of the finest people I've met in my 50+ years on this earth have been Bible-believing Christians. They put some of you to shame. Maybe some of them weren't as smart as some of you, but they were better people than some of you.

And it horrifies me to think that some of them might come to Wrong Planet to better understand their own diagnosis, or that of their children or grandchildren, and they would see what you have to say about them.

And if the price for me coming to WP to learn about autism is avoiding this cesspool of a subforum or swallowing my words when I see good people slandered, then the price is too high. It's just another type of masking - keeping my mouth shut so as not to lose my newfound community. It's not worth it. I see too much poison on some of these subforums.

This place isn't for me and I'll warn others away as well.

That's my opinion, which may be right or wrong. And if my words don't apply to you, or if I'm completely mistaken, or if you honestly believe that what you are putting out there is making the world a better and more just place for people who are hurting, then you can ignore what I've posted and keep on doing whatever you're doing.

↑ Derailing the topic?  Why?

Faith is one thing (the belief in something unprovable), while religion is another (the physical expression of one's faith).

Believe in who or what you will; but use that belief to abuse, oppress, and murder others is simply wrong.

Jokes about religion are protected under Free Speech laws.

Now, can we get back on-topic, please?

Stupidity seems to be the new norm everywhere, not just in America.

We do still coexist with dinosaurs though.

They're found in KFC buckets.

It sometimes amazes me to stop and think that life forms that once dominated the Earth could devolve into something so tasty.

In my experience, people in positions of authority are more likely to be religious than the average person. Hopefully I can say this without having to explain in detail.

Could you explain? I haven't seen this myself. Am I a bully or bigot and unable to see this in myself?