(via Organized Ignorance)

Here’s a link to the original article which appeared in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Citing several studies in moral psychology, the authors highlight the finding that despite differences in, or even an absence of, religious backgrounds, individuals show no difference in moral judgments for unfamiliar moral dilemmas. The research suggests that intuitive judgments of right and wrong seem to operate independently of explicit religious commitments.

This is obviously false. The fact that you can’t have morality without Jesus proves the morality doesn’t exist without Jesus which proves that this entire study is false.

Maybe you atheists should try using logic for once instead of blindly accepting whatever some scientist says just because he has “evidence”.

“Remind her of the story of Jezebel. It clearly shows that a wife must adopt the religion of the husband. If she doesn’t do this, she is a horrible person.”

My wife, who is religious (though she doesn’t do the organized religion thing) had this response after hearing about it:

“Really? So I need to be an Atheist or I’m a bad person?”

It’s fun imagining the backpedaling and confused rationalizing that would follow this turn of events.

One show in particular stands out to me because of the audience response. If you go the Mythbusters forums on this topic you’ll see a thread with posts into the thousands. I am, of course, talking about the (in)famous Plane on a Conveyor Belt episode. Here’s Adam Savage describing the problem on the show:

Let me spell it out for you, normally a plane sits on the runway, spins up its engines, moves forwards gets enough air over its wings and takes off. But in this case, the plane is sitting not on the runway, but a huge conveyor belt that is matching the planes forward speed in reverse, and the grand question is can the plane take off? The myth is that it can’t

Just in case you haven’t seen the show I’ll continue below the fold so that I don’t spoil it for you.

Since it isn’t actually the focus of this post, allow me to simply give it away. The plane takes off. If you want more detail, check out the forum for all kinds of explanations.

Anyway, the reason I wanted to point this out is because many people have this mistaken idea that only creationists and possibly conspiracy theorists make the type of cognitive errors that render their beliefs immune to logical refutation. The fact is that such errors exist everywhere in all forms and can be quite independent of someone ideology. This example in particular is focused on a physical question. It’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s not a religious dogma. It isn’t open to interpretation, and it isn’t some vague idea with loosely defined variables. It’s a well defined and scientifically answerable question. If you read the thread you’ll find terms that are explicitly defined, an organization of the points into those that are relevant and irrelevant along with explanations of why, and mathematical equations demonstrating the forces that are work (not all in one comment, but spread throughout). There’s even a link to a YouTube video that both explains and demonstrates what’s happening.

And yet there are those who ignore all of that and claim that it is simply wrong. All of the evidence that is presented is simply ignored. There’s no ideological underpinnings to the belief that a plane on a conveyor belt will not take off. There is no hope of exposing some secret organization for the evil creature that it is. There doesn’t seem to me to be any real reason to not accept the conclusion. It’s simply a cognitive error that makes it impossible for someone to accept evidence that is contrary to their own belief.

The crux of all this is that of course a creationist may be dishonestly ignoring evidence and using faulty logic to support their beliefs. But then again they may also believe as they do because they have a cognitive disfunction that renders them incapable of properly evaluating evidence to the contrary. Kind of  like those people who believe a plane on a conveyor belt cannot take off in spite of seeing it happen with their own eyes.

This must be the thinking behind stamping references to bible verses on US military rifle scopes.

It’s meant to be funny, and of course it is. And yet, like a person with PTSD I find myself almost hating it because it gets it too perfect. I’ve wasted hours, even days in these kinds of circular arguments, where any point that I effectively rebut is dropped only to be restated later as though it were never addressed.

And it’s not just creationists for whom this problem exists. Anti-Vaxxers, AGW Deniers, Cdesign Proponentsists, Moon Hoaxers, 911 Truthers, UFOlogists, and pretty much any Conspiracy Theorists have this penchant for continually stating and restating their talking points without ever acknowledging that any attempt at rebuttal was ever even made.

Here’s a philosophical question for you. If you present evidence and I never look at it, does it actually exist?

In spite of that, someone over at The Ethical Hedonist did the leg work and fact checked the list. I don’t want to give anything away, but it really is fun to see dishonesty so thoroughly exposed. Not that it’ll make a difference where it counts. Facts are a tool of the devil, designed only to confuse you and draw you further from God.

If you’ll allow me to paraphrase the interview a bit (BO = Bill O’Reilly, BH = Brit Hume):

BO: *shows clip of Brit Hume urging Tiger to become a Christian* Was that proselytizing?

BH: I don’t think so. All I was doing was pointing out that Tiger should seriously consider changing his religion from Buddhism to Christianity. That’s just trying to get him to convert to my religion, not proselytizing.

BO: But wouldn’t he just be accused of pretending to be Christian so that people would leave him alone like so many people before him?

BH: Praise be unto Jesus, most holy. His gaze does pierce through all deception. His light shines forth from all who bless his name, and the light is truth that we shall not be deceived. Praise Jesus!

BO: What kind of reaction have you gotten?

BH: I’ve gotten all kinds of email from good, kind, and gentle people who agree with me, to evil, hateful, violent people who said nothing but mean, spiteful things to me. I was just stating facts. I wasn’t belittling Buddhism.

BO: What do you think drives people to persecute you for being a Christian?

BH: I don’t know. All I know is that being Christian means being persecuted. All I did was make the simple statement of fact that Buddhism is a fart in the wind compared to Christianity, and instantly I’m persecuted just for being a Christian and nothing else.

To be fair he does add “I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither.” But apparently it’s okay to steal from the large corporations because “the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices.” In other words it’s not really stealing. It’s just making other people pay for it so you don’t have to. God never said anything about forcing other people to give charitably against their will, I guess.

During Monday’s hearing, it was revealed that the secretary of state’s office has a written policy that allows anyone to apply to put up a display at the Capitol. The policy was established by Daniels’ predecessor, Sharon Priest. The nativity scene was exempt from the application process because it has been a temporary holiday display on the Capitol grounds since the 1940s.

In other words every display except the nativity scene had to get permission. Way to be neutral, eh? Anyway, I just learned about this and haven’t really looked much deeper into it. I’ll dig a bit and let you know any other details that I find.