Comments on: How America is a little like Pakistan

By: Lab Lemming

Lab Lemming — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 08:17:06 +0000

America is a little bit more like Pakistan:
Public officials get gunned down in public.

By: jay

jay — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 20:43:37 +0000

I thing clark (17) makes a good point. There is evidence that a function of religion is separation of ‘in group’ from ‘out group’ and that ritual, the more arcane and inconvenient the better, serves to distinguish the true in group person from the interloper.

Even if a person is of a different religion, active professed belief in a god is interpreted as evidence that the person has a (actually superstitious) fear of ‘doing wrong’ and can be more readily trusted.

By: JMW

JMW — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 11:24:10 +0000

http://www.gwynnedyer.com/articles/Gwynne%20Dyer%20article_%20%20The%20Atheist%20Buses.txt

By: clark

clark — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 04:18:43 +0000

I halfway wonder if people wanting more “litmus tests” of being a believer is precisely due to the rise in secularism. That is those who are believers feel like their culture is slipping away and put the cultural markers as a prime symbolism that someone is like them. I think it safe to say that people don’t vote based upon how good a job someone would do but rather how well someone represents them. It’s an important distinction.

I’d also add that as sympathetic as I am to your meritocracy inclinations the problem always is that the elite, however intelligent they may be, doesn’t really get the other classes and thus can’t really watch out for what’s important for them.

By: Matt B.

Matt B. — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 22:59:01 +0000

Thanks, David Boxenhorn. Now I understand the German word “Strasse”. Words sure go through a grinder on the way from Latin to Arabic, huh?

By: PD Shaw

PD Shaw — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 20:47:18 +0000

Becoming a successful politician involves a different career path than the population at large. It seems to me that the politician begins his career by leveraging group membership to gain name recognition and coalesce more and more group support to higher and higher offices. Religious group membership seems like a good place to start, particularly with the decline of the old fraternal/business organizations. I always assumed Obama’s church attendance was not entirely without political implications, though I’m reluctant to conclude it was entirely pretextual, just reinforced an affiliation that may have otherwise been far more subdued.

By: MG

MG — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:37:01 +0000

I am aware Adams was a Unitarian, and of the differences between Unitarianism and “conventional” Christianity. I call what Unitarians do on Sunday morning “going to church” as that is what Unitarians I know call it. I suppose there are other terms.

I took your point as being that modern day US politicians have to pretend some religious affiliation regardless of their actual belief, while in the time of the Founding Fathers this wasn’t the case. I was disputing that, I think US politicians have always dissembled about their lack of religious belief and I provided some examples.

I’m not really interested in the religious lives of politicians, I just get annoyed by claims that the US is heading down the path to theocracy when that’s clearly not the case. I don’t think you believe that either so I’ll just drop this.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:32:24 +0000

vel’s comment is dumb. don’t post stuff like that again.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:30:12 +0000

I think you are confounding public behavior and private belief to make your point. Washington, Jefferson, and Adams all seem to have attended church services regularly whatever their private beliefs. (my sources being wikipedia and some biographies I have read).

you’re way too simplistic. first, both adams were unitarians. they weren’t nicene creed christians. second, washington did things like avoid communion according to many sources. also, their beliefs changed over their life. the early jefferson was much more religiously heterodox than jefferson before his death.

and i know about peter stark. i actually read everything i link to, and have blogged about him before.

By: MG

MG — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 17:18:41 +0000

Hi Razib,

Also it seems there is an open atheist in congress currently – Pete Stark.

From wikipedia:

“[I am a] Unitarian who does not believe in a Supreme Being. I look forward to working with the Secular Coalition to stop the promotion of narrow religious beliefs in science, marriage contracts, the military and the provision of social service.”

By: vel

vel — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 17:16:56 +0000

I’d say that by evidence we have no actual Christian beleivers in the US Congress since the Christian thing, per Jesus, is to give up everything and follow him. I suppose we do have some good Paulianists there, but each is sure that only their sect is the “right” one. Unfortunately, here in the US, religion is equated with “goodness” and that certainly isn’t true at all. It is the self-proclaimed religious that want to ignore their fellow humans, to make loads of money, incite hatred and try to eliminate freedoms, all based on what they want to claim their god supports. These are only people who want to force their personal desires and hatreds on everyone.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 17:10:11 +0000

But I propose that religious post graduates would be more likely to actually pursue public office than the nones, because the latter group knows that the electorate would not elect someone who is not religious.

interesting point. the only thing is that politicians have a knack for being sexual hypocrites. you could make the same argument for politicians having more sexual restraint because of the expectations of the public, but that doesn’t seem to pan out.

By: Uncle Al

Uncle Al — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:30:33 +0000

“Babylon 5: A Geometry of Shadows”

Elric: “I see a great hand reaching out of the stars. The hand is your hand. And I hear sounds – the sounds of billions of people calling your name.”
Londo (eagerly): “My followers?”
Elric: “Your victims.”

Theocracy always ends in a test of faith. Uncle Al prefers statistical process control MTBF, then build to code or better. Alas, that requires a broad and deep national intelligence that Yahweh and Congress abohor. Everything we have of value we owe to the Serpent and his pomegranate (apples, Malus sieversii, being native to Kazakhstan cold mountains not Mesopotamian warm lowlands).

By: Georg

Georg — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 15:45:52 +0000

Peter Scholl-Latour
who warned of the islamic extremism long before 9/11,
even often wrote about the similarities to US and Israel.
Georg

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:45:20 +0000

I think that there is an assortitive aspect to this issue for which your proposed regression model wouldn’t be able to account. Let’s assume for discussion that we have a group of people who are contemplating political office, all of whom have post-graduate degrees. I accept that the percentage of those who are atheist or “nones” would be similar to the numbers you cite in the post. But I propose that religious post graduates would be more likely to actually pursue public office than the nones, because the latter group knows that the electorate would not elect someone who is not religious.

I accept your larger point that some of the people in congress who espouse religious affiliation are closet nones. But if the religious post-grads are more likely to pursue office than the nonreligous post grads, your numbers may not be underestimates as you suggest.

By: dave chamberlin

dave chamberlin — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 13:48:45 +0000

We may actually get a republican candidate for president who openly admits to not believing in evolution. It would be interesting to see how much they change their tune after the primary. We had the classic attack ad of Dukakis riding in a tank. Maybe we will see Huckabee riding a dinosaur in a cowboy outfit while the narrator asks “What other nonsense does Huckabee believe in?”

By: David Boxenhorn

David Boxenhorn — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 10:07:24 +0000

Do you know that الصِّرَاطَ – al-sirat – is borrowed from Latin?

From the comments of :

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/001419.php

(I’ve seen more authoritative sources but can’t find them on line in a quick search)

“SiraaT suggests the Arabic root morpheme SrT, with two so-called emphatic consonants (S and T) and the vowel pattern i-aa. However, Arabic native roots never contain more than one emphatic consonant. That rules out that this is even an original Semitic word (cf. Greenberg, Patterning of Semitic root morphemes).

The obvious link is with Latin, where a similar word [via] STRATA with a similar meaning exists.

In support of this etymology one can bring to bear the fact that Arabic borrowed all the other words for the key concepts of empire from the Romans:

[via] STRATA > SiraaT (= street in English) “military road”
EXERCITUS > caskar (c=`ayn) “expeditionary army”
CASTRUM > qaSr (= chester, caster, castle) “fortified camp”

All these borrowings show a preference for heavy consonants (qaaf, Saad, cayn).”

By: Murugan

Murugan — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 07:02:46 +0000

This reminds me of the Richard Dawkins’ TED speech and his observations about the “grotesque mismatch” between the American intelligencia and the American electorate which ended with a typical Dawkins-ian quip “.. the high office in the greatest country in the world is barred to the very people best qualified to hold it: the intelligencia, unless they are prepared to lie about their beliefs”

By: Tim Beauchamp

Tim Beauchamp — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:24:56 +0000

Seems like it is now easier to be Gay in the Military than it is to be an Atheist in Congress. There seems to be a kind of DADT system in politics.

By: ohwilleke

ohwilleke — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 23:35:17 +0000

Estes Park, Colorado not so long ago, held a successful citizen’s recall effort to remove a town councilman who would not recite the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.