Monday, January 12, 2009

The War on Supidity

Children in a doorway in JerusalemImage via Wikipedia"if there were no god, there would be no atheists" That is the quote that I woke up to yesturday morning. I spent most of the day thinking about it and reading tweets in reply to that comment.

The stupidity behind that comment is very evident and can be shown if you just replace the word "god" with "Santa" and "atheist" with "people who don't believe in Santa" as StyxMaker on twitter did.

This however is not the reason for this post, it is just the back story. I am writing because I hate stupidity. I realize that everyone in their lifetime is going to have a stupid moment, that isn't what I am talking about. I am talking about people that even after they are shown a heaping pile of evidence they stick their fingers in their ears and close their eyes. These kind of people will never change their minds about what they believe and they are just dragging down anyone that is willing to listen to them. If it were just adults that were in danger of being stupid it would be one thing, but they are teaching children. At first it is just ignorance on the part of the children that they follow in the footsteps of their parent, but later on when they are presented with the facts of reality they turn and head in to the black hole of stupidity and that is when it is dangerous. Problems like this one occur or this one and pretty soon you realize that your living in a place controlled by stupid people with no immediate future of changing. This is why stupidity much be combated every time it shows itself.
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For me, it isn't so much stupidity as it is the willful embrace of stupidity. There are people out there who seem to wear their stupidity like a mark of pride. That really gets under my skin.
1 reply · active 843 weeks ago
And sadly they see our rationality the same way, as a moronic misstep worn with pride. What can you do? . . . No, seriously, that's not a rhetorical question. What can we do?
Stupid people embrace what make them feel smart. Take entertainment, for instance. Movies and TV that appeal to the lowest common denominator tend to be the most successful in terms of viewership.

With Christianity, there is this book. And this book says they're right. This book says that no matter what anyone else says, they have the monopoly on truth. And yes, they get to stick their fingers in their ears and sing "lalalala".

To not do so would reveal just how much they don't know. They are both unwilling and unable to grow up and grow out.
Godless woman, how do you reconcile your quarrel with stupid adults teaching children with your approval of Chistians leaving public school as you displayed in an older post?
5 replies · active 843 weeks ago
I realize now that I didn't think about that public school post thoroughly enough. I was just reacting to my daily experience of Christians letting their faith color their teaching in the public school environment. I really shouldn't have agreed with that news article.
Glad you've picked up on the discrepancy between the two posts. May it comfort you that legally, Christians have no right to impose their faith onto "our children" in public school, as is demonstrated in these numerous court decisions. Furthermore, one can teach their children the things that aren't taught in schools oneself. My parents got some books from the library on sexuality and sat down with me and my brother when we were 10 years or somewhere near that age. We were taught this stuff in school some years later but it was a good initiative by my parents nonetheless.
I am well aware of the court decisions but this doesn't mean that the teachers aren't going to make comments like "he is our Pope" or skip over the chapters on evolution in science class, or take more interest in students that go to church.
I know there have been court cases about requiring to teach evolution, but it isn't always enforced at the local level. Since all the teacher has to do is put it in the curriculum and come up with an excuse about how their wasn't enough time in the semester to cover that. I went though school without ever hearing about evolution. So, did many of my friends that went to other local public schools, also more and more now people are fighting for equal time for their fairytales.
That is true and it is a problem indeed. The problem of public education is finding a balance between making sure everybody is taught the same curriculum that is established by the ministry of education (or whatever it's called in the United States) and making sure this curriculum isn't watered down because of political correctness, "equality" and other such nonsense. The first can be enforced (and is enforced thus in the Netherlands) by requiring students to pass a central, national exam upon graduating, making sure all the important facets are covered (like evolution in biology). If a parent still thinks his or her child hasn't been taught everything that is important, the parent can inform the student themselves, covering the second problem.
It starts with the kids.

We have a problem with anything "smart" in this country. The other kids will call you gay if you are smart, not that being gay is a bad thing, though apparently, the average teenager thinks so. It is a marketing problem. We need to make being smart cool again.

This anti-intellectualism is fostered in the young and only gets worse as they become adults. I've met people who honestly believed there was no such thing as facts, the truth comes from whomever has the loudest voice or most power. Even today I meet adults who believe that every person's opinion is equally relevant.

True education could reverse this trend but it won't happen until we get the irrational people out of the education business, and prevent them from intimidating the educators who are trying to do the right thing by our kids.
The wingtards who still worship the moronic monkey (and get all of "their" opinions from a pedophile dope addict) are PROUD of their stupidity. They are downright happy to be clueless.

We'll hear from them again in 2012, as they try to elevate one of their own to the top yet again. Caribou Barbie, who is wingtard ignorance personified, is going to run. And her inbred Klanservative hordes will happily parrot whatever she tells them to parrot.
On the subject of stupidity, a friend sent me this a couple days ago. I had never heard of it before: http://whatstheharm.net/

Some of the entries there are downright painful to read. I suppose some of it could be considered normal ignorance or absent-mindedness as opposed to full-blown stupidity, but most of it.. no. Fortunately, they provide at least enough laughs to make it worth the masochism, perhaps on par with FSTDT.

For example, since the gullible/loons/fools/idiots poisoning childrens' education came up, here's a related cringe-inducing entry:

(Tom Degan / Timo Degen?, 31) "After he learned of Breatharianism from a website, this kindergarten teacher decided to try it out. He was fasting for three weeks when he had to be hospitalized in a coma, and later died."

The top of the section containing the entry in question says "Here are 3 people who were harmed by someone not thinking critically." I don't know about you all, but I don't find that tragic in the least.

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