You have an Idiocracy, if you can keep it...

You may have heard recently that a Pew Forum poll showed that atheist/agnostics scored higher on questions about religion than others. The press has been talking about what it means, etc. yaddy yadda yadda. Well, you know what I think this poll shows? That Americans are stupid. The highest average score (which was among the atheists/agnostics) was a 62%, which when I was in school was a big fat F. That means a bunch of people didn't know crap about religion and few knew a whole lot.

And Diane Winston over at the Huffington Post declares that it's really not important to know these things.

"But really, how important is it to know that Jonathan Edwards was an 18th-century revivalist or that nirvana is the Buddhist experience of freedom from suffering? The focus on factoids obscures a central challenge of the 21st century: negotiating the absolute conflict of multiple religious absolutes."

Well, it's kind of difficult to "negotiate the absolute conflict[s] of multiple religious absolutes" if you don't know shit about any of it. I find that a lot of people in this country are willfully ignorant and make it a point to say that they "don't need to know" anything. Yes, perhaps it is true that you don't need to know any of this stuff to go down to Wal-Mart and go shopping, and stop in at the McDonald's on the way home and stuff your face with a Big Mac and fries (mmmm, fries...). Anyway, it's kinda important when dealing with other people that you have some inkling of what they believe and why and what has happened before now.

In fact, only 2% of people got what would average to an A on it. The questions aren't hard either, they're things that one ought to know from just reading crap on the internet. Or should have learned in a general history/sociology class in college or high school.

You know, you gotta wonder about these things, either that or the intelligence of the people who take them. Only 28% of white evangelicals knew that Protestants teach salvation through faith alone. Only 57% of Jewish people knew that Maimonides was Jewish. I mean, come on, I knew that, he's one of the most important Jewish scholars ever. They did say that the higher the education, the more questions people got right, with college grads getting an average of 20.6 correct while people with a high school diploma or less only got an average of 12.8. Again though, those are averages, and a 20.6 is still an F.

What's funny is only 94% of atheists knew what an atheist is. I mean, that's really, really simple and 6% of self-professed atheists got it wrong. Maybe they just didn't bother reading the questions? I suppose that's a possibility.

The survey also apparently included general knowledge questions. Only 59% of people could name the Vice President. What's scarier than that, is that most of them probably vote...

First they came for the Jews...

It's truly amazing the number of dumb ass people we have in this country. I know, I know. Calling people dumb asses is probably counter-productive, but really, what else can you call people who are so ignorant, so undeniably moronic, that they protest against the First Amendment to the Constitution?

Anti-mosque protests on the rise, say Muslim advocates

By Liz Goodwin liz Goodwin – Wed Jul 21, 5:16 pm ET

Opposition to the construction of mosques has skyrocketed in cities and towns across the country, scholars and advocates of Muslim culture tell The Upshot.

Public protests against three planned mosques have made news in the past week: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin joined others in opposing the building of a mosque a few blocks from the World Trade Center site. Hundreds demonstrated against a proposed mosque in a small town in Tennessee (pictured above). And some residents of Temecula, California, are opposing the local Muslim community's plan to build a bigger mosque, saying it could become a hotbed of radical Islam.

...

"There is very little counter-thrust in the public debate, and the result is, I think, Muslims are becoming increasingly concerned about their security in the country," Zogby says. "This is a worrisome environment. Something's got to give."

Opponents of mosques feel freer now to openly object to the presence of a mosque in their community, says Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy organization.

...

Of course, opponents of mosques do not consider themselves bigots, and many are genuinely concerned that mosques may help produce homegrown terrorists. According to the Washington Post, 34 Americans have been charged by U.S. authorities since January 2009 with direct involvement in international terrorism. But in many of these case, it appears the suspects were radicalized via Internet contacts.

...

A pastor opposed to the proposed Temecula mosque reflected these fears of homegrown terrorism.

"There is a concern with all the rumors you hear about sleeper cells and all that. Are we supposed to be complacent just because these people say it's a religion of peace? Many others have said the same thing," Pastor Bill Rench told the Los Angeles Times.

...

Some opponents of the mosque in Tennessee have told local news outlets they think people will learn jihad inside the mosque's walls, though the local Muslim community has had a smaller mosque in the town for years without incident.

Several hundred people in Tennessee took to the streets of Murfreesboro last week to protest the local Islamic Center's 15-acre land purchase. They were met by a counterprotest of equal size.

"In Islam, a mosque means 'We have conquered this country,' " one man told a local CNN affiliate. "And where are they? They're in the center of Tennessee. They're going to say, 'We have conquered Tennessee.' "

A plan for a separate mosque was tabled in another town in Tennessee this year after public opposition, reports the Tennessean.

Ahmed visited the site of a mosque in Columbia, Tennessee, that had been burned down and vandalized with painted swastikas in 2008, while researching last year.

"The local tiny Muslim community was in a state of shock because most of them were born in America and had lived very happily in the small community," he says. "People say, 'Go back home,' and they say, 'Where do we go? This is our home.' "

I believe that Lewis Sinclair was right, when fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. They may come for the Muslims first, but they'll come for you eventually...

Dirty Swine! Flu Name Offensive

I wondered why they had started calling it "North American Flu" in the press this morning. Now I have my answer.

Israeli official: Swine flu name offensive

"JERUSALEM (AP) -- The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed "Mexican" influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday.

Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and "we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu," he told a news conference at a hospital in central Israel.

Both Judaism and Islam consider pigs unclean and forbid the eating of pork products.

Scientists are unsure where the new swine flu virus originally emerged, though it was identifed first in the United States. They say there is nothing about the virus that makes it "Mexican" and worry such a label would be stigmatizing..."

So now we're going to start naming medical based stuff based on religious superstition? Please. I happen to like pigs by the way. They're smart, and I don't understand how merely saying that the flu is 'swine' somehow compromises their religious beliefs. Maybe it's just me.

I fail to see how a exhortation from the Biblical writers to not eat pork, translates into not using the name "pig" or "swine". Are they not allowed to look at pictures of pigs either? I mean, I'm really not schooled on this avoiding all things to do with pigs. I just thought they weren't supposed to eat it. So, if this is the case, does reading The Three Little Pigs to a Jewish kid in a class constitute an infringement on his religious beliefs? Am I correct in thinking that this is about as ridiculous? Or am I missing something?