On Evil
AIM Column | By Bethany Stotts | June 23, 2008
“And lastly, all evil begins with an ideology…
Is evil the result of human choice or manufactured by social circumstances?
Professor Philip Zimbardo, known for his infamous Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971,
opted for the latter explanation at a recent CATO book forum.
Zimbardo
told the audience that he believes Lucifer was expelled from heaven not for
sinning, but for disobeying an authority figure. “It’s really a story about what
happens when you challenge authority—you go to hell,” said the Stanford University professor. The
author of The Lucifer Effect, Zimbardo believes
that any person has the capacity for terrible deeds, torture, murder, and other
crimes.
Anticipating
the criticism that his theory abdicates human responsibility, Zimbardo said, “When I give this talk people say ‘oh, you’re
saying people are not accountable for their behavior.’ No, not at all...You are
personally accountable for your behavior.”
This
did not, however, keep Zimbardo from sympathizing with
the Columbine and Virginia Tech shooters. He said,
“Again,
I did a lot of research [earlier] on shyness and shy people desperately want
someone to notice them...This little Korean kid at Virginia Tech, what did he
say in that video? He said, ‘for two years nobody spoke to me. You ignored me. I
was nothing until I had a gun and started shooting, suddenly I became
important.’ And the same thing at Columbine and [in] all these cases these are
kids who are marginalized...”
He
continued,
“And
so what he’s saying is ‘everybody wants to feel special, at least to somebody.
And so my sense is that is an obligation that you have, that for all the people
you come in contact with, you think ‘what is it I can do to avoid myself
treating you as an object, treating you as a student, treating you as an
ordinary person.’”
As
director of the Stanford Prison
Experiment, Zimbardo personally presided over
abuses similar to those found at Abu Ghraib. The
sociology professor described the abuses perpetrated under his supervision in
1971. “Our guards stripped prisoners naked. They put bags over their head[s].
They sexually humiliated them,” he said.
Zimbardo
later added, “And then they got them to engage in humiliating tasks—cleaning
toilet bowls out with their bare hands, stripping prisoners naked, sexually
taunting them, and then it always descends halfway through into
sexually-degrading activities, literally much like we saw at Abu Ghraib.” The men Zimbardo
recruited for this experiment had just graduated college and were
psychologically screened before their selection.
Professor
Zimbardo said that he ended the experiment after six
days at the behest of his girlfriend (now wife) after she threatened to break up
with him. “She looks at the same thing with a different definition of situation and says to me ‘it’s terrible what you’re doing to those boys. They’re not
prisoners, they’re boys and you are responsible’—and she runs out,” he said
(emphasis added).
Zimbardo
outlined eight steps by which people are radicalized into violence against
others.
1.
“Mindlessly taking the first small step.”
2.
“Dehumanization of others.”
3.
“De-individualization of self.”
4.
Diffusion of personal responsibility to the group.
5.
Blind obedience to authority.
6.
Uncritical conformity to group norms.
7.
Passive tolerance of evil through inaction or indifference.
8.
Conformity to an ideology.
“And
lastly, all evil begins with an ideology, the big positive value that when you
accept that, it justifies the evil processes to get to that ideology,” he said.
While
many of Zimbardo’s theories have become mainstream, his political attachments tend to be limited to
one particular side of the aisle. A visit to his Lucifer Effect photo gallery reveals which political associations Professor Zimbardo considers valuable:
- Al Gore
- Bill Clinton
- Clinton-era Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
- Former Surgeon General and Bush critic Richard Carmona
- Chip Frederick, one of the Abu Ghraib torturers
- Janis Karminsky, another Abu Ghraib figure
- Studs Terkel (progressive journalist)
- Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer-Prize winner for reporting on the My Lai Massacre
- UC Berkeley Professor, Mark Danner, author of Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror
- Major General Antonio Taguba, author of the Taguba Report.
The
now-retired Major General recently spoke out in support of a new report issued
by the progressive Physicians
for Human Rights which accuses the Bush Administration of war crimes in
Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. “The remarks by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who’s now retired, came in a new report that found
that U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks,
sexual humiliation and other cruel practices,” reports the
Sacramento Bee.
Zimbardo
had highly complimentary words for General Taguba. “For that
wonderful report he got fired. They told him ‘do not submit your request for
promotion, you will never get it.’ And this is how the system protects itself,”
said Zimbardo.
He
ended his presentation with the following comment: “We want to oppose evil
systems of power at home and abroad and advocate for respect of personal
dignity, justice, and peace.”
Bethany Stotts is a Staff Writer for Accuracy in Academia, and can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
31 Comments | Post a Comment
We all reap what we sew !! G-d said: discipline is LOVE. We don’t see that in the homes much less in government. But then we are living in a time just before Messiah comes. Where HE Said: wickedness and all evil would be here. The heart is evil, who should know it ? Calling good evil and evil good..woe to them all~ The gov is in the homes, tearing them up, drugging our precious children in schools who misbehave as no disipline. As bad is parents who go along to get along. Top that with drugs coming over our borders,Muslims with Mexican names, bringing drugs and violence and disease. Most people sleep even now as the very freedom and liberity is slipping very quickly to say nothing so going hungry. So much against G-d that they don’t ever see the truth in ALL that is going on. Even when it hits their homes, lost, jobs lost. Will there be world war too? Yes, as it is written. The world is bring it on as they refuse to name the enemy that G-d tells us about. The SELF, MEISM in the religeous groups, making excuses for killing and evil. We are to hold gov accountable and follow the laws of the land. NO ONE does that as the globalist set up their evil world impire. NO borders, taxes to the ones who work for those who WON’T. OLd HIllary’s book it takes a village, NO she means a world. Welcome to HILTERS old plan with a new face. Put the frosting on the cake now, Bow to Islam or die. G-d tells us men do NOT learn from history, and our children have watered down history and are being so dumbed down they can’t read. So many evil men and women , the big talking heads in gov and state, Do they think the war coming is going to save or help them? If they do,,soon they will find out they are just guppie’s for the big guys. who will get their share of hell too. Wanting the ugly un out of here,,who are mostly muslims. who laugh at the suckers in gov. Now the world has the bigest liar of all, a Muslim who can lie for Alah, who never said he loved or served G-d , but he seems to think murdering a precious baby in the womb is santified by Almighty G-d. NOT MY G-d of Abraham..not a chance. An look at all the so called religons who say OK..A liar has his or her place in the lake of fire, and they can twist scripture all they want, after all we all have a choice in our hearts what we believe. BUT that doesn’t change a thing.G-d’s word is true, apostasy is here in and out of everything. It is going to be a terrible day, like the world has ever known as Satan goes to and fro stealing,killing and destroying. and all there idiots do is think about Self. Member the fellow that said, even G-d could not sink the Titanic? hes dead…For me, I will never worry about who can kill my body, but I would worry as to G-d killing my soul..He gives us all the choice. And the preachers so called means salesmen. they will get double punishment. All scripture is thru the HOLY SPIRIT..and they first walk over Genesis 12,,to bless Israel, and so on the destruction of the world goes on as it is written. Bush leads the pack on the roadmap to hell, and we are letting him..and we suffer because of holding him accountable on his way to global war..LIKE IT! It is now or never..to BELIEVE G-d and not evil men.
I meant to say, of NOT holding Bush and the administration acc. Have not any President for years…We either serve money or G-d and HE says NO ONE SIT"S on the fence. You think you can,,but you have a day coming,your not going to like it !! And the so called christians who role up in a fetus position and say G-d doesn’t want us mixed up in gov? So why did HE tell us to follow the laws of the land? to hole gov accountable? And to love your family and children? Do you do that by letting evil destroy your land, your children and familes? You think it is ok to let drugs kill our chidren? To infest them in schools to learn they don’t have to have morals? To disrespect you? To learn of sex that YOU should be teaching is a sacrad thing for marriage. YOu let them become drugged , mentally fried, be a barbie doll and into heavy metal rock? dressed just like all are doing? that is your idea of good..G-d says if you don’t disipline your children, you hate them, then wonder why they grow up and kill you, run the house, do as they like..usually till they get to middle schools and then the gov finishes them off ! shame on you all who let this happen to your children. LOOK at the generation of today,,and it all happens because you do not believe G-d and HE said, you refuse the truth so he sends a lie and you will and are believing it..Soon HE will finish shaking the world and their will be so many sorry to late.Time to decide which side of the fence you are on..Don’t forget, Satan comes as a angel of light, sounds so good..G-d told us to love our enemies.we do, but don’t stand with them, join them and go along with the evil, so why are you.Knowing HE said all gov is ran by the god of this world…HELLO
What a bizzare article. Normally I find the work on this web-site very informative and factual. This appears to be a clear departure from that. Having served in the military I know that the treatment at GitMo and Abu G cannot be construed as torture. Especially when compared with what the enemy done to US soldiers. To elevate what we do as ‘torture’ is the grossest mischaracterization.
Perhaps even harsh language will be denied usage during interrogation.
I fear that continued acceptance of this kind of double-speak will lead to a subsequent 9/11.
OK.
I don’t have a clue if they are actually torturing people in the prisons named. Neither does anyone else except those immediately involved.
Does anyone really think this this government is going to come out and tell the truth if they were?
Boy we are trying hard in this country to still be ‘true believers’.
These two prisons don’t concern me as much as those people flown into Egypt and other countries for ‘interrogation’. We truly have no idea what goes on with them.
I certainly hope there is no torture, and again we, the ordinary people, have no clue. One thing to remember, some Germans truly believed and some deluded themselves that the concentration camps were simply ‘work camps’.
A person who came here after the war, was a kind, normal acting person - and after living here, working here, enjoying the freedom for 15 years told me, “Hitler vas a vonderful man!”
The first paragraph explains Zimbardo’s beliefs, and gives rise to the fact that evil IS evil, pure and simple.
If this article is attempting to defend Gitmo and such, it surely does not achieve that goal.
Zimbardo seems to ascribe to the flawed belief that evil is ’ manufactured by social circumstances’. ‘Professor Philip Zimbardo, known for his infamous Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, opted for the’ (sic) ‘explanation at a recent CATO book forum.’
Evil has many faces, and those that believe that humanistic people, whether ‘R’, or ‘D’, do not perform evil acts, regardless of ‘circumstance’, are entirely misled by the maleovelent evil that decides their roles in life, without accepting or listening to the Creator about what the ACTUAL truth is.
Bush ran on a ‘no nation-building’ platform, in 2000, to defeat the ‘D’ candidate. Obviously, he LIED. THIS is one form of ‘evil’. CIRCUMSTANCES had nothing to do with this lie, except for the possibility that these circumstances were MANUFACTURED to enable the promise to be broken (NOTICE, I did not state WHO manufactured these ‘circumstances’!).
Cheney has NOTHING TO DO with Halliburton, he claims, although he gave up his CEO position at this company to run for V.P., and subsequently, several ‘no-bid’ contracts for ‘rebuilding Iraq’ have been awarded to this company. COLLUSION and OBFUSCATION are are EVIL, according to God.
God says that He is ‘not the author of confusion’, which the Cheney-Bush leadership appears to be the king of.
The author seems to show that collusion and reverence to BOTH sides of the one-party system of totalitarian dictatorship is proven to be Zimbardo’s choice, by the references she names.
Evil, in it’s covert forms, offers ‘light’, but the end of this association is DEATH (whether eventually, or immediately).
That is, I believe, the point of this article.
EVIL is NOT ‘manufactured’ in ‘social’ climes. It IS actually a reality, more real than mathematics or the Second Law of Thermodynamics could ever be.
Zimbardo embraces the LIE.
I do believe Evil (capital E) exists in all of us. Maybe some more than others or may be some of us control that part of our nature, better than others.
War is not a civilized situation. It reduces one to the basic, animal nature, I’m thinking. That does make some either give in and not control the evil.
Personally, I can’t judge what someone does in battle. I have never been there or even close, so to judge would be just words, with no basis.
What someone does in the heat of battle, however, and what one does to a prisoner or someone helpless are two different things. I could understand someone being so angry because they had seen their buddies killed and swacking one with a rifle or hands. The Abu Ghirab (sp) picures we saw were evil, they were perversion, they were unsettling. We weren’t told of any actually physical torture, but I have since wondered if it did happen and the pictures we saw were a smokescreen to keep us occupied.
To coldly torture another human being, cannot be justified nor excused.
Yes, I think all forms of corruption and collusion against others is evil - be it done by R or D, and they are working hand in hand to do just that.
As to who manufactured the circumstances - all of them working together. Some to actually do it, while the others remained silent.
There is no justice in War. In War, all you can have is “VICTORY”. And that’s justice.
If Human Rights International and ACLU are really that “holy” and just, why don’t they go to the terrorists and fascist leaders and say the same. Look what will happen to them.
They can only bully democratic societies but they can’t do anything against the dictators. Still they will rely on America.
Based on the latest ruling of the SCOTUS, American soldiers will never take prisoners… they will be forced to kill their enemies alive in the battlefield.
In case of Taguba and the Democrats, there are things that should be kept and addressed quitely, as they would stir more chaos than good. Look what happened. More soldiers died. There are proper venues to discuss the matter rather than publicise the same to the whole World.
Appeasement is only for the coward. I’d rather die fighting that saluting and befriending criminals.
No, war is not the place to look for or get justice.
But winning can only bring justice if you are in the right.
I, personally, am not talking about fascist and terrorists leaders. Are we to stoop to their level? If we do, we have lost a most important thing. If we think we are fighting to stop that, then we have lost. We have become what we are supposed to be fighting against.
There are many things that will not stay buried in today’s world. It would seem it would be better to face things.
As for appeasement and befriending criminals - I’m not getting that - if it is supposed to pertain to this discussion.
Let’s take a statistical look at where ‘evil’ from crime predominantly exists…
From Gregory S. Paul, social scientist and author of ‘Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies’ published in Journal of Religion & Society
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”
That recent study by social scientist Gregory S. Paul in the Journal of Religion & Society concludes that belief in and worship of a God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society, but is actually contributing to social problems in prosperous democracies. His well documented study also finds that “Higher rates of non-theism and acceptance of human evolution correlate with lower rates of dysfunction, and the least theistic nations are usually the least dysfunctional.”
At RoadToPeace.org on ‘Monotheism and Violence’
http://www.roadtopeace.org/index.php?itemid=389
you’ll find the most relevant table 4 from a survey that ranks belief systems by violent events occurring per each million adherents of Monotheism, Eastern Religions and Atheism. The table is ‘normalized’ using a rank order for Atheism equaling one. There is a whopping 2738% greater occurence of violent events by adherents to monotheism than the 1.3 average of violent events per million by adherents to eastern religions and Atheism. Directly following this table 4 from ‘Monotheism and Violence’ at RoadToPeace.org, the authors ask a most relevant question in “Why the disconnect? Could it be that Monotheism itself is an expression of the Authoritarian Personality?”
There’s a reference on skepticfiles.org to a study of Sing Sing inmates executed for murder during a 10 year span. It cites 97% of inmates executed for murder in a 10 year span were adherents to monotheism [Jewish, Christian and Muslim combined] and only a 1/3 of 1% were atheists. US Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics on known religious affiliations in 1997 show 90.9% of all inmates in federal prisons are adherents of a monotheistic religion [Christian, Jewish or Muslim] with just 0.209% prison adherents of atheism.
http://holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm
http://www.skepticfiles.org/american/prison.htm
This shows a reverse correlation when compared to the general population. The per capita percentage of Christians [77%] in the general population produces a 6% higher per capita percentage of Christians [83%] committing crimes that put them in prison. The opposite is true for atheists by a wide margin. There’s a significantly lower percentage of atheist offenders in US Federal prisons [0.21%] than the per capita percentage of atheists [anywhere from 4%-14% averaging 9%] found in the general population. This proves a Christian is far more likely to commit and be convicted of a crime in America than an atheist.
Let’s take a statistical peak at where ‘evil’ predominantly exists…
From Gregory S. Paul, social scientist and author of ‘Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies’ published in Journal of Religion & Society
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”
That recent study by social scientist Gregory S. Paul in the Journal of Religion & Society concludes that belief in and worship of a God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society, but is actually contributing to social problems in prosperous democracies. His well documented study also finds that “Higher rates of non-theism and acceptance of human evolution correlate with lower rates of dysfunction, and the least theistic nations are usually the least dysfunctional.”
At RoadToPeace.org on ‘Monotheism and Violence’
http://www.roadtopeace.org/index.php?itemid=389
you’ll find the most relevant table 4 from a survey that ranks belief systems by violent events occurring per each million adherents of Monotheism, Eastern Religions and Atheism. The table is ‘normalized’ using a rank order for Atheism equaling one. There is a whopping 2738% greater occurence of violent events by adherents to monotheism than the 1.3 average of violent events per million by adherents to eastern religions and Atheism. Directly following this table 4 from ‘Monotheism and Violence’ at RoadToPeace.org, the authors ask a most relevant question in “Why the disconnect? Could it be that Monotheism itself is an expression of the Authoritarian Personality?”
There’s a reference on skepticfiles.org to a study of Sing Sing inmates executed for murder during a 10 year span. It cites 97% of inmates executed for murder in a 10 year span were adherents to monotheism [Jewish, Christian and Muslim combined] and only a 1/3 of 1% were atheists. US Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics on known religious affiliations in 1997 show 90.9% of all inmates in federal prisons are adherents of a monotheistic religion [Christian, Jewish or Muslim] with just 0.209% prison adherents of atheism.
http://holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm
http://www.skepticfiles.org/american/prison.htm
This shows a reverse correlation when compared to the general population. The per capita percentage of Christians [77%] in the general population produces a 6% higher per capita percentage of Christians [83%] committing crimes that put them in prison. The opposite is true for atheists by a wide margin. There’s a significantly lower percentage of atheist offenders in US Federal prisons [0.21%] than the per capita percentage of atheists [anywhere from 4%-14% averaging 9%] found in the general population. This proves a Christian is far more likely to commit and be convicted of a crime in America than an atheist.
I couldn’t read past the first paragraph.
The writer obviously doesn’t realize the difference between saying one believes in something and actually believing in and following the teachings.
Starting off with the wrong information doesn’t seem the way to produce valid facts.
“...This proves a Christian is far more likely to commit and be convicted of a crime in America than an atheist….”
Well DUH! If the majority of Americans are Christians, then obviously the majority of criminals in America will be Christians.
I’m anti-religious, but Rational Responder’s post reminds me of the mendacity scale:
1. lies
2. damn lies
3. statistics
4. advertising promises
5. politicians’ promises
Zimbardo did touch on, but not fully comprehend, part of the truth when he describes the motivation of the Virginia Tech shooter. Society is increasingly tending toward collectivism and egalitarianism which devalue individuals as simply “the people.”
Persons who perform many of these evil deeds are trying to stand out and mark their place in history, even if it means infamy rather than fame. They are rebelling against being told they are no more or no less than anybody else. If you aren’t somebody, you’re nobody.
People ranting about the “wealth gap” and redistributing wealth are simply pushing us toward the smallest common denominator. They are both witting and unwitting forces toward that evil.
Equal opportunity does not imply or demand equal results. The individual makes ALL the difference.
Found the same statistical conclusion elsewhere to what Rational Responder asserts above here at Yahoo Answers
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060808194336AAOCu5q
The Federal Bureau of Prisons does have statistics on religious affiliations of inmates. The following are total number of inmates per religion category:
Response %
——————————————————
Catholic 39.164%
Protestant 35.008%
Muslim 7.273%
American Indian 3.222%
Nation 2.320%
Rasta 1.987%
Jewish 1.773%
Church of Christ 1.744%
Pentecostal 1.463%
Moorish 1.426%
Buddhis 1.180%
Jehovah Witness 0.890%
Adventist 0.831%
Orthodox 0.502%
Mormon 0.399%
Scientology 0.254%
ATHEIST 0.209%
Hindu 0.159%
Santeria 0.157%
Sikh 0.019%
Bahai 0.012%
Krishna 0.009%
Note that the Judeo-Christian Total works out to 83.761%. Not an unexpected result.
Note that Atheists, being a moderate proportion of the USA population (about 8 - 16%) are disproportionately LESS in the prison populations (0.21%).
The USA has the highest crime rate of any of the 200 nations in the world. 80% of the population goes to church at least once a year. In the Scandinavian nations, only 5% go to church, and they have a low crime rate. Japan, and other non-Christian nations have very low crime rates.
You know anyone can say they are anything.
I can say I’m Julia Roberts - but——
There are many other things criminals in this country have in common.
Probably 99.9% have watched TV - probably 90% have watched it a lot.
Probably 99.9% have seen movies - many of them probably a lot.
I’m guessing quite a large percentage have listened to rock/rap music.
The time spent doing any one of those things is, I’d be willing to bet, greater than the combined time spent thinking about the Creator, reading the Bible (or other religious books), or attending church.
Now could we say maybe it is one or more of those things that caused the problem? That’s far more plausible than one day a year in church did it.
The idea that it is religion that caused this is silly, but we could take it even more into that realm of absurdity.
I’m sure 99.9% of those people wore clothes most of the time.
I’m pretty sure they all drank water at some point in time.
Etc., etc., etc.
If we really tried, I’m thinking we could come up with thousands of other things all these people do ‘one day a year’.
John, we agree again on some things.
I do think the unfulfilled expectations that our entertainment media and even our politicians give people causes a lot of our problems. Both politicians and entertainment make it seem like being a success, etc., is effortless, and is one’s right.
It suggests also that if one is not beautiful, successful, completely happy, then someone else is to blame.
This country needs are some very tough lessons in personal responsibility.
I’ve been told that God hates sin but loves sinners. The state of agency that produces heros and monsters exists for us all. If someone had information critical to the survival and well being of my people, I would do my damdest to extract it in spite of the consequences or the law. That said, it shouldn’t take all that long to verify and act on. The prolonged mistreatment and suffering imposed on prisoners is egregious.
War is a bad thing, even when God tells us to.
Yes Lady Texan, a conjecture that 90% of evil is done by criminals who watch TV may be ‘reasonable’, but it’s a completed unrelated conjecture compared to these statistical FACTS according to the Federal Bureau of Prison survey citing 83.761% of US prisoners as Judeo-Christians while only 0.21% are Atheists.
Compare 83.761% Judeo-Christian US prisoners to its smaller 79% Judeo-Christian US population (ARIS). Compare the mere 0.21% atheist US prisoner populace with a much larger measured frequency of 14.3% in the US populace according to American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS).
Compiling these statistics from the Federal Bureau of Prison survey using the measured frequency of the non religious in the general population at 14.3% [American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS)] shows the Atheist having about a 2% chance of going to jail compared to any given Christian.
And Greyghout, does that mythical god [or gods] you speak of also love the evil of these criminals killing and maiming in his, its, or their mythical name[s]?
Family members in a Cannibalistic Christian Jesus Cult skin ‘n eat their boy, 8:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1027962/Boy-skinned-eaten-cannibal-cult-family-held-captive-cellar.html
Ohio Pseudo-Science Teacher burns Christian crosses into his students’ flesh with 50,000 volts:
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/05/11/Zapper.ART_ART_05-11-08_B1_4JA5TI2.html?sid=101
Christian Faith in mythological lies killed yet another young victim from not letting him use an anti-biotic to cure a simple urinary infection:
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_061808_news_faith_healing_death.13b408d5.html
“There is evidence that within the U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal dysfunction. The strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the northeast where societal conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002).
“Despite a significant decline from a recent peak in the 1980s, the U.S. is the only prosperous democracy in the world to retain both high homicide rates and high levels of religious belief and practice” (Beeghley; Doyle, 2000).
As the great philosopher Karl Popper wrote in ‘The Open Society and Its Enemies’: “If we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.” This includes tolerating the intolerance found in certain religious sects in the US. Just because the evil from a radical right Christian cult hides behind its Bible and a US Flag label pin doesn’t mean its Christian cult ideology along with its members are not evil.
“...War is a bad thing, even when God tells us to…”
People deluding themselves into believing that some mythical, mystical, “supernatural” being tells them to do anything are the cause of much of Evil in this life.
Attila rules the people by force of the sword; the witch doctor rules Attila by force of Attila’s fear of the “supernatural.”
Sapient - These prison system facts are simply facts that are written down. That makes them no more correct than the facts we know.
If I went to a prison and asked about TV watchers, wrote it down, and published it - then it would be facts - right? It is no less factual now and we all know it. To allow ourselves to live our lives by skewed, to fit their agenda, ‘facts’ some ‘expert’ manages to get published is very dangerous.
It is designed to produce hatred for others. This compiler has presented him/herself as an expert, an objective researcher - yet it is something far different. It is as evil and destructive as those who say they are Christians and behave very unlike Christians.
In pre-war Germany, thre were ‘expert facts, published facts’, that suggested Jews were inferior and dangerous, homosexuals were inferior, gypsies were inferior, disabled people were expendable, etc. etc. Very evil people hid behind those facts and acted upon them. Otherwise good people either believed them because of their own prejudices, or thought the ‘experts’ were so educated and it must be true - or were frightened to speak out.
This ‘report’ sounds chillingly like those I have read about that time in history.
Anyone reporting these facts and those who are trying to make them seem ‘factual’ are not taking into account that saying one is a Christian is far different from being one. It speaks to a perhaps deliberate misunderstanding of just what being a Christian means. Most people in America, if you asked them, would say they have some religious affiliation - mostly Christian. Yet, do not practice the faith they say they have.
Does anyone, I mean anyone with two cells sparking, believe that someone who kills and eats their victims, or that shocks and tortures, burning a cross into people are truly Christians? Come one now.
Once again, I can say I’m Julia Roberts - in the daylight - that premise is hard to maintain. It is, however, no harder to maintain than this experts facts when looked at objectively, realistically and without personal hatred and prejudice.
Parents, everyday, have to make medical decisions regarding their children. Are the ones who choose not to accept modern medicenes and loose a child any worse than those who do choose to accept it and because of modern medicene incorrectly applied , loose the child? I’m pretty sure the later happens more often than a parent’s refusing based on religious grounds.
A report such as this is evil. We need to be very careful about unleashing evil on any group. Even a group for which one holds distain. Evil, once unleashed, is not easily controlled. It has a way of destroying many things - even those who choose to use it as a tool.
I don’t believe God ever tells us to go to war. I realize that the Old Testament says that and it was hinted at by this President. That is not to say that in a human sense, we decide war is sometimes- sometimes, necessary. We should never suggest that God told us to go slaughter other of his people. It’s a human thing - we need to take responsibility for it and not be so wimpy as to lay the blame on God. If you do something because you think you must - then do it - and be man/woman enough to take responsibility.
In history and the present, people do many things because of bad reasons, then say God told them to.
Yes, I would do many things to someone who could or did cause harm to my loved ones. What we would do as individuals cannot be imposed on society as a whole. A society cannot always act as society would like to act, either. We don’t have public stonings, public hangings, stocks in the public square, etc., etc. Now personally, I could do all those things and more, slowly and painfully, to someone who harmed my loved ones, but we can’t as a society.
We must be careful of letting evil out of the bottle - it has no allegiance, not even to the one who opened the bottle.
Interesting statistics. Notably lacking in ethnic and immigration status for the classifications, but, hey, why let facts get in the way of Christian bashing. Also noticeably absent is whether these are violent crimes or ....??????
Do you really consider the possesion of marijuana or any other drug, for personal use a serious SIN or damaging to society?? Check out the statistics on prison population and minor drug charges.
Basically the statistics simply represent the numbers of people in social classifications. More “upper class”, who are less likely to be in prison for any reason, possibly due to better legal representation, are atheistic or agnostic, than lower class. Try parsing those numbers Irrational Respondent!!!
Of course, then we have one of the WORST violent crimes I can imagine. ABORTION!!! Not classified as a crime, yet, an innocent life is lost, many times by excruciating torture, every time this so-called medical procedure is performed. Without these, and many other non-crimes showing up in the prison population, it twists the statistics even more. Did Christians drive the legalisation of this???
I would point out that the Purpose Drivel Life and other rip offs of the Christian faith are quickly corrupting the teachings of the Bible to the point that a 50 year old like me barely recognises the connection any more. The Catholic Church in the US is only
the most visible example of how the Christian teachings are being undermined and corrupted by modern interpretations by Humanistic types. Basically I can no more accept that a lot of these people are Christian than I can accept that a Wiccan is the same faith!!
So, Irrational Respondent, I am going to go out on a limb and assume that you have Socialist tendencies. Do I then blame you for the atrocities committed by every group that ever claimed to be based on Socialist teachings?? You know, like National Socialists in Germany, Italy, and Spain?? How about Communists in USSR and China?? Remember North Vietnam and Cambodia after the Vietnam War?? Maybe Che Guevara and his ad hoc executions for the movement!!!
What should we do with groups like Code Pink who assist Muslim Terrorists to murder Israelis??
Do you even try and exclude those jail house conversions made to improve the chance for parole?? How about those who were raised by parents of that faith and simply put it down by habit and practice and believe none of it??
Irrational Respondent, your statistics are as meaningless as those used by Hansen to prove Global Warming!!!
Yes, these ‘facts’ are designed for a purpose and that purpose is to direct hatred toward God and Christianity.
Truthfully, Christianity has strayed far from what I think it should be, and I can’t defend that, but I think if someone wants an example of evil - this report is just that.
Sin is an offense against God, and evil is the bad which diminishes life? I wouldn’t want to set anyone off on a religious rant here, with volumes to be said. Was there a report in one of Aldous Huxley’s essays about this French guy? He heard God tell him to sacrifice his brother. His brother agreed. It was done and resulted in a big flap in the Church. Upshot was that scripture was a bad thing for the layman, and should be restricted and vetted through the priests. I thought we all were common partakers in the fruit of the tree of knowledge good and evil, but it must have worn off, or be too bitter for everyday life.
Torture each and every rotten filthy 7th century beast that comes through Guantanamo. Torture them, kill them.
That’s the way to do it.
That will discourage any more becoming suicidal crazies????????? Not!!!!!!
That will also show our moral superiority.
Sounds like a winner - well maybe not when you think about it.
“...Sin is an offense against God, and evil is the bad which diminishes life?...”
Sin is, for the most part, the imposition of guilt on people by a few witch doctors who rule through superstition, fear, miracle, mystery and authority.
There really is such a thing as Evil and its manifestation is one thug, gang, or tribe imposing its will on individuals by force.
The concept of god was invented by the witch doctor to explain everything Man did not yet understand, to win arguments by appeal to “higher authority,” and to control the thugs who rule by brute force. The witch doctors’ means of control is the thugs’ fear of the unknown that the witch doctor was able to instill through “supernatural” explanations for natural phenomena, and by convincing everyone else that Death is not the end of the individual’s life.
What makes any religious leader or believer any different from the witch doctor or the ignorant savage chanting mystical incantations beseeching mercy from the “supernatural” being invented by the witch doctor?
As to religion and witch doctors, I won’t argue.
But divorce God from religion - I’m thinking He already has.
Yes, evil exists - sin exists. We can see that.
There is a line in a movie that says, (not verbatim) ‘the most important thing the devil ever did, was convince people he didn’t exist’.
Evil is more than just thugs taking advantage of others. There are many things going on in the world today that is evil that doesn’t involve one group physically harming another.
Why do our movies always have unnecessary sex in them?
Why do they portray children as smart mouthed, foul mouthed, disrespectful little monsters and pretend that’s normal?
Why are our movies and music so violent, bloody and cruel?
Why do fashions for little girls and teenagers look like streetwalker clothing?
I read a lot of whodunit books. I have been appalled at the number that have been written concerning the murder, sadistic murder of a child, sometimes sexual. Many more are about the sadistic, sexual predators of young women. Why?
Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? I’m thinking it’s the latter today.
Why is divorce presented as desirable and right? It is a sad thing and sometimes unavoidable, but desirable?
I have yet to read a modern book in which there is a pregnancy that is ‘inconvenient’ that abortion isn’t presented as a viable, even natural, and usually presented as the best, alternative. Abortion is given a really pretty coat of paint in today’s literature.
If they can convince us to accept as normal and right the idea of killing the most innocent in our midst, because they are inconvenient, - then we will accept any other atrocity that is presented to us. They only have to present it to us as ‘convenient’ for us, or as ridding ourselves of a problem.
I could go on, but I think it is desensitizing us to evil. It is apparent many of us no longer recognize it.
Evil isn’t always out to get our physical beings, but our spiritual beings.
Greed and power grabbing is only a manifestation of evil. Evil exists and works when there is no material gain to be had - only spiritual.
“... Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? ...”
The problem is the perverted definition of art and the hoodwinking of wannabe intellectuals who are afraid to admit they don’t “get it” which admission would destroy their self-image of sophistication.
My favorite expression is “If you can’t tell what the damn thing is, somebody is certainly pawning off anti-rationality and lack of talent as art.” (c.f. Dadaism)
Too many sheeple let others tell them what is art and what is crap. Unfortunately most of what is labeled art these days is crap.
Ladytexan, can I recommend you expand your reading habits to include Ayn Rand (both her fiction and her non-fiction)?
John, you do know I wasn’t actually calling that stuff ‘art’ don’t you?
I guess I could say ‘do movies, music, books, TV, plays’ imitate life or does life imitate them.
A huge majority of the people of this country imitate movies and TV. They are a powerful medium for propaganda.
As for art, and those who aren’t willing to say they don’t like something for fear of ridicule, I agree.
I see that same thing in many things in this country - including politics.
As for Ann Rynd - probably not. It’s been over 50 years since I read The Fountain, and wasn’t impressed, at the time. At this point in time, I’m pretty sure my recollection is more from the movie than the book - since I’ve seen it in the last quarter century - still not impressed. I don’t know that I have read any others.
But I might - I have a couple around here somewhere.
I’m not sure the word ‘expand’ fits here, if you mean you think I’m limited in my reading. I read many other things, but I do read whodunits for entertainment.
When I read fiction, I read fiction and don’t want a ‘lesson’. When I read non-fiction, I read to learn something.
ladytexan:
Atlas Shrugged was much better than The Fountainhead in my opinion.
Rand’s non-fiction is better than either of those and certainly worth reading to compare her views from the 60s and 70s with the current situation. She was prescient and visionary about the degeneration of the political situation in this nation and the drift toward communism.
Start with her collection of essays titled “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”
ladytexan:
BTW, I agree about the tendency toward lecturing in Rand’s fiction. Skip over the soliloquies and enjoy the stories.
Sometimes I like to call her Ayn Rant. 
John, I will do that.
I’m pretty sure I don’t have any of her non-fiction. Maybe I’ll go to the library tomorrow.
Right now, I am diligently searching for my copy of ‘Rape of the Mind’ by Meerloo. I read it, quickly, some years back and would like to reread. As usual, when I want a book, it’s not where I can find it.
Completely Off Topic - Sometimes I get a reply posted in my email, and can read it there, but when I click to the article, many of the recent replies are not shown.
Am I doing something wrong.
June 23 at 11:03 pm | #1 | Link
During WWI, WWII, and later conflicts, our military became aware of the FACT that a large percentage of the recruits would NOT TRY to shoot a enemy soldier even if they were being fired upon.
I wonder if the Professor ever pulls his head far enough out of his posterior to be aware of reality??