I helped a friend by coming in to teach second grade science last year. I was a “scientist” (close enough anyhow) and answered questions and tried to get the kids excited. One of the questions was about how we got here, so I prepared something on human evolution.
No way. My friend said that one of the parents, a 7th Day Adventist, said he would sue of evolution was even mentioned. And my friend who taught only one day a week didn’t need that aggravation. And I live in the Bay Area. Do you think kids in Alabama get much evolution? Anything in the book probably gets an eyeroll from most teachers.
The little background they do get is outweighed by the crap from their preachers and Sunday School teachers.
“Science is hard” says Fundie Barbie.
I’m not sure creationist leaders are any more or less crooked than the average fundamentalist bigshot. But I think that lots of them can delude themselves, because otherwise their whole worldview of an inerrant Bible gets shattered.
Look how many of them bray about sexual morality and still support the adulterer in chief.
Which you only know because you know 419 scams are scams. Some sucker who falls for them doesn’t know that the scammer isn’t honest. Marjoe Gortner lost faith but was still a very successful preacher, convincing his audiences he was authentic. How does a member of the congregation know if the preacher is honest or dishonest?
Good, so you doubt Western religions also. So what’s the argument about, or is your doubt cultural bias also.
Just before I retired I wrote and ran a system which collected and analyzed terabytes of data from microprocessor manufacturing. I know all about variations, I generated graphs for them every day. I know the limitations of measurements, especially when an internal temperature sensor reported a temp of - 273 degrees C. But limitations on accuracy and precision are far different from doubting the measurement completely. And of course the basic principles of semiconductor physics are tested for each of the billion transistors fabricated on a chip.
Superstition, which invariably leads to religion, is baked into human DNA. All major civilizations in recorded history have had it, and probably long before that, and that is no coincidence. I am not religious, and believe through progress we will eventually move away from that, but to call sincere religious belief “delusional” is very condescending imo.
Our cultures dominant paradigm is privileged not because it comes from our culture but because it produces things like the computer you are reading this on.
As an engineer you should be well aware of what accuracy means, and that knowing a measurement is accurate only to +/- 5% is far different than saying the measurement is worthless.
I don’t know what the cultural assumptions of a voltmeter are, anyway.
My understanding—and Merriam-Webster seems to back me up—is that “delusion” can be used in an informal, colloquial sense, where I think it’s safe to say that all of us are deluded, about something, sometimes.
But there’s also a more specific, formal, psychological sense. In this sense, being deluded is a lot more than just being wrong about something. It’s possible for a belief that God has spoken to you personally to be a delusion in this sense, but most sincerely held religious beliefs, whether or not they happen to be correct, would not.
To me? Any. Any that is based on superstition. Delusional connotes mental disorders, and I think more people are superstitious (subcategory: religious), than not. It is perfectly natural.
For example, everyone in America does know that creationism is false as an explanation of history. Yet some people claim to believe it anyway. Claiming to believe something that you know for certain is not true, is not sincere.
There may be exceptions - people who can’t read, people who have been prevented from reading, people who are mentally incompetent - but the evidence is there for all to examine.
Unless Big-Brother-like suppression of the truth in the Evil Belt is actually broadly denying access to people who want to know.
Wel, to be fair - there are many, many examples of “facts” that were taught in school and believed by the scientific establishment for many years that turned out not to be correct. So, just because their is evidence that supports a hypothesis, that doesn’t mean it’s correct.
To be even more fair, there is a difference between new evidence correcting old evidence, and refusing any evidence that interferes with the narrative you are trying to indoctrinate people with.
Just to clarify, is it OK with you if religious belief is the complaint, not the defense? Even if you believe religion is bullshit, you don’t really want laws that, say, ban Muslims from entering the US, right? Or denying Quakers conscientious objector status? You simply don’t want people to use religious beliefs as a defense against charges of discrimination, murder, or anything else. Is that accurate?