I like Thomas Sowell in general, but even he has some problems, some blind spots that I think are endemic to social and political thinking and need to be pointed out.
Therefore, here I go, as I did in the comments on one of his videos, pointing out that it’s not just the left that have issues. The right is every bit as bad.
Anyhow, I caught the following video, I seem to be doing that a lot lately, watching a video and wanting to respond to it, so I’ll leave it right here for you to peruse first.
Most of what he says is absolutely true. He’s just not following the same logic to things that his own side is equally guilty of. He complains about liberal indoctrination in public schools, something I will entirely agree is a major problem, but he ignores the same kind of indoctrination in the religion that is most prevalent on his side.
Nobody does indoctrination like the religious do. They have a weekly service, several in fact, designed to reinforce group-think and blind faith. They have schools for their children that both force religious dogma into young minds, but keep outside ideas from being taught. In his video, he shows a sign of some liberal little twit holding a sign, but ignores the same thing being done by the religious. In fact, I almost considered remaking the entire video with all of the same imagery from the religious right, but that’s a lot of work. Absolutely nothing he accused the left of doing wrong, 100% correctly, I think, couldn’t just as well be levied at the religious right.
So why are people so blind?
I’ve certainly brought this up from the perspective of the left, missing all of the things their side is doing wrong, because they are so fixated on the wrongdoing of the right. Here, I’m being even-handed because both sides are doing the same thing. Wrong is wrong, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, but neither side, at least the extremists on either side, don’t seem to be able to see it.
The reason, I think is painfully clear. Both sides have an audience that they are pandering to and that audience doesn’t want to hear about the misdeeds of their own side. They just want to hear how the other side is the enemy. The religious do it constantly against atheists and, let’s be honest, atheists do the same thing against the religious. The left against the right, the right against the left, fill in any two sides and you will probably find the same thing going on.
I don’t do that though. I am now and have always been an equal opportunity critic. I go after everyone and don’t have any sacred cows. If the right does something wrong, I’m the first one out there pointing it out. Same with the left. Same with the religious. Same with atheists. Because my side is truth. I don’t care about anything else. While some of the things that I do may appeal to one demographic over another, I’m not beholden to anyone. I just want to get to the truth.
I think this has really become an issue as people have moved online and are trying to make a buck. Mostly, they know who their intended audience is and they say just about anything to appeal to them. I have an intended audience to be sure, although I have a YouTube video coming out on that subject coming up down the line, so I won’t spoil it here, but I’m not picking one side arbitrarily, I really care about a hopefully wider spread of humanity. I might not get it a lot, but ideally, my intended audience would span all sides of any argument. I don’t see where pandering actually gets you any closer to the truth and truth, to me at least, is all.
So what do you think? Why is there this very clear and obvious problem? Let me know in the comments.
re: I just want to get to the truth. re: The Age of Artificial Stupidity and Indoctrination
How to think –NOT- what to think✔
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I get it. . . . Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion. You don’t believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they’re true. But so, so often people claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it’s served up. Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?
The problem with the truth is that it is rarely pure and almost never, ever simple. ―It is a beautiful and terrible thing all at once, and should therefore be treated with great caution. We can burn down our whole culture with it and that is us included. The truth is messy. It’s raw and uncomfortable. You can’t blame people for preferring lies. That said, the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. Real life’s nasty. It’s cruel. It doesn’t care about religious heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth.
Absolutely I can and I do. I blame people for being idiots. I blame people for not caring about reality. I blame people for wanting comfort over facts. People who do that are idiots and deserve to be called out on it. Truth is all that matters. Your feelings are irrelevant and anyone who values their fee-fees more than the facts, their estimation falls to nearly zero in my eyes. It’s why we can’t have rational discussions with these people because they have no clue how to be rational, nor do they care.
Dumb doesn’t impress me one bit.
re: Dumb doesn’t impress me one bit.✅ . . .Oh absolutely, but sometimes people don’t know that they’re dumb and sometimes we don’t know what we don’t even know.
re: Absolutely I can and I do. I blame people for being idiots.✅
What if you had a diet that was giving you a deadly disease but you didn’t realize that you were actually accelerating the situation? -AND that diet ameliorates another ailment that you have so you think you’re doing something good. In fact you’re convinced of it.
The most important things that we need to know in our lives we might not even know yet and only over time do some people finally realize how bad something is for them.
re: Your feelings are irrelevant.✅ That’s true where you have most, if not all, of the facts but many times people aren’t in possession of enough facts. They think they are helping themselves when in fact they’re destroying themselves.
Now, where somebody is going for some level of irrationality -and- they’re also insouciant, that’s different.
Yeah, but that’s where you have the responsibility to understand yourself. You need to go to a doctor to see if you’re sick. Sure, there are things that you might not know, that’s just reality, but you can’t just shrug your shoulders and do stupid stuff and blame it on ignorance. It’s why it’s so important to keep asking questions about everything and making rational decisions based on the best information that you can gather. It might not be perfect, but perfection is an unrealistic goal to begin with.
For instance, I’m diabetic. Now I didn’t always know I was diabetic, at one point I wound up in the hospital in intensive care on the verge of death. Health problems tend to crop up if you do dumb stuff. Thereafter though, I knew and I had to handle it rationally. That’s why, nearly 30 years later, I’m still going strong, with no problems. Then there was my grandfather, who was also diabetic, but he refused to take care of himself, refused to lose weight, refused to stop eating sweets. Guess what? It killed him. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Unfortunately, being stupid and irrational, that rarely ever leads to such dangerous consequences. I really wish stupidity was painful. That way, at least hopefully, we wouldn’t have so many absurdly stupid people.
re: That’s why, nearly 30 years later, I’m still going strong, with no problems. -Excellent! Keep taking care of yourself✔ eating healthy, plenty of exercise, et.al.
re: Unfortunately, being stupid and irrational, that rarely ever leads to such dangerous consequences. I really wish stupidity was painful. That way, at least hopefully, we wouldn’t have so many absurdly stupid people. . . . .It has very bad consequences but it is not like the instant karma you often get from abusing drugs, mainlining sugar, climbing 8,000 meter mountains without supplemental oxygen, et.al.
re: It’s why it’s so important to keep asking questions about everything.✔ . . . .And see that’s my point to any Theist. God’s test comes down to seeing how effectively we can shut down the strong, rational, critical reasoning abilities He gave us to survive and believe something that looks totally, completely made-up by bronze-age peoples? God’s test comes down to seeing if you can believe in the face of z-e-r-o, objective, demonstrable, independently verifiable evidence? i.e. God requires, in the face of no demonstrable evidence, people to believe something that appears absolutely ridiculous and that in itself is completely contrary to human nature (Asking Questions) as God designed it?
It’s why they don’t want to talk to us because we’re going to suggest some things that aren’t emotionally comforting and they can’t have that.
re: we’re going to suggest some things that aren’t emotionally comforting✔
. . .And worse yet, research shows insulting others (ha, ha, ha, ha -it is so hard not to) and suggesting someone is ignorant or misinformed (-which they are), no matter how misguided their beliefs may be, will cause the people you are trying to influence to reject your argument. For religious worldviews it can trigger a “backfire effect,” which can end up strengthening the original positions and beliefs, particularly with charged issues (-The resurrection of Christ, et.al.).
Of course they will say things like “Atheists don’t see the truth of what we are saying because they are completely blinded by Satan and under his control.” . . .Which would only be a valid thing to say if the Bible were facts in evidence and had any credibility.
Again, that research shows that suggesting someone is ignorant or misinformed (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha -which is all true), no matter how misguided their beliefs may be, will cause the people you are trying to influence to reject your argument. Instead, studies show that if you try asking questions that lead the person to question what they believe it may have an influence. While opinions may not ultimately change, the chance of success is greater.
Something like. . . . In Matthew 27:51-53 it says “The earth shook, rocks split apart, and tombs opened. The bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead. They left the cemetery after Jesus’ resurrection, went into the holy city of Jerusalem, and appeared to many people.” There were certainly people writing at that time. Why do you think NO ONE else in the entire ancient world ever mentioned that?
In other words, questions, thousands and thousands of them. Constant questions. That’s all they should get.
I don’t care. I’m not here to convince the terminally stupid. Nobody is going to change their mind until they have decided, internally, that they’re actually concerned with the truth. It’s why we see theists acting the way that they do. It doesn’t matter how many times we show that their beliefs are wrong, that their conclusions have no evidence, or even that the evidence contradicts all of the things they believe, they’ll never change their minds because they’re not using them to begin with. They aren’t interested in challenging their own preconceptions and until they are, there’s no point in using them as more than an example of how stupid the religious are.
Of course, it’s not just the religious that are doing this, it’s a massive problem for mankind, but someone has to speak out against it and not care about the endless whining and complaining in response. I’m going to be that person. I don’t care if they like it. I don’t care if they change their minds. It’s far better to put their stupidity on display for anyone who is on the fence, who has already decided that reality means more than fantasy, to nudge them in the proper direction. I can’t tell you how many times I get whiners complaining that I’m offending them.
Well too fucking bad. Maybe you shouldn’t be such a dumbass then!
re: someone has to speak out against it and not care about the endless whining and complaining in response.✔
re: I can’t tell you how many times I get whiners complaining that I’m offending them.💯✔
Absolutely you should not respond in any way to that. That’s just a subterfuge, an attempt to control other people by saying “I’m offended” instead of presenting demonstrable evidence.
re: I don’t care. I’m not here to convince the terminally stupid.✔
re: I don’t care if they change their minds. It’s far better to put their stupidity on display for anyone who is on the fence, who has already decided that reality means more than fantasy, to nudge them in the proper direction.✔
Okay, I guess I really didn’t understand those objectives.
It’s funny how every single one of them, probably down to a person, would say that reality means more than fantasy but then go on to do all the things that shield them from finding that out. In other words, do none of the things that would ultimately help them understand and discover reality more accurately, like deeply questioning their most cherished beliefs.
I’m sorry, but if the only thing you can say in response is “I’m offended”, you’ve got no reason to respond at all. “Good!” In fact, you ought to be offended by your own lack of a backbone and overactive sensibilities. I don’t care if I offend people. They probably deserve it.
I say this a lot, but I don’t care what they say, I care what they can prove and their actions are not the actions of anyone who actually gives a damn about the real world. They can say it all they like but their actions show conclusively the truth.
All true and all excellent points.
You could look at every religious video on the web and you know you’d find the same thing: No demonstrable evidence; No rational, evidence-based way to show it is true.
What the religious are offering is simply not operating in that register of demonstrable truths, it’s trying to meet security and emotional comfort needs not truth needs. That’s why the pope has to be infallible; that’s why the Bible has to be an inerrant, both of which are demonstrably false. How can you have comfort and security if you’re dealing with books riddled with demonstrable errors and with fallible human beings ( Popes, priests, etc.)
You know they can’t prove anything. If they could prove anything, we’d all know about it. How the hell is J. Warner Wallace or Andy Bannister or “Dr.” John MacArthur or “Dr.” King even equipped to prove anything? Doctor’s degrees in fairy tales, what would even give us a reasonable expectation that these people are going to be able to prove anything -ever?
Craig talks about “Reasonable Faith” none of it is reasonable. It’s completely circular and non-demonstrable. The tells are when Craig says things like “Atheism is completely hopeless, there’s no hope in it.” What does that have to do with what’s demonstrably true? You can never find the truth unless you’re willing to risk being massively depressed and go through an ego death, none of which these evangelists are willing to do.
You know what? . . .if it was provable, then it would actually be a moral decision. -Okay, you know it’s true. NOW, are you going to follow Christ or not? But as it sits now, it’s just an intellectual dishonesty decision. Am I going to believe something that looks completely made up with no demonstrable evidence? What is commendable about believing in things on insufficient / non-demonstrable evidence?
That’s essentially it. They just want to believe. That doesn’t mean any of it is true. Every time I get into a conversation with the religiously deluded, it comes down to blind faith and when I point out that faith is worthless, they get mad, they stomp off, they throw a fit and they make empty threats. It’s why I’m having fewer and fewer discussions with the religious these days because I already know, going in, that it’s a giant waste of my time.
You are extremely skilled at deconstructing and demythologizing religious claims and it seems you can do it efficiently. We need people doing this but like a DEA/CIA agent who is good at their job, I’m surprised they haven’t put you in the nut house. These people are maddening because they argue crazy talk like, “well –you know, this is a different kind of truth” –or- “faith is deeper than rational thought.”
To me, saying its “deeper” is a way of saying: “Well, we know it’s bat-shit crazy talk, but we’ll remove it from rational debate altogether and just say it’s deeper. That way you won’t be allowed to apply any reason to it and it might sound cooler than saying its superstitious mumbo jumbo.” If deeper meant more idiotic or less rational then I would agree but I don’t think that’s what they wrongly and ignorantly mean. The assertion of religion being deeper is that we forbid you to respond to it on a rational level, but rather we are allowed to assert truth and facts based on feelings at an emotional level.
-or- more simply: Religion is not deeper than rational thought, it’s devoid of it.