Post subject: America: Fast Becoming the Dumbest Nation On Earth!
Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 4:13 am
Unthought Known
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:46 pm Posts: 9617 Location: Medford, Oregon Gender: Male
Lately I've been feeling that in addition to the degradation in political discourse, there's just a general dumbing down of our society I see happening. I see it everywhere, from the way people behave in public, to the way people spell, speak, and communicate, to people's emotional intelligence, to the way they blindly accept fallacies that the media perpetuates. I'm going to use this thread to further this idea. First up:
WASHINGTON – Americans increasingly are convinced — incorrectly — that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, and a growing number are thoroughly confused about his religion.
Nearly one in five people, or 18 percent, said they think Obama is Muslim, up from the 11 percent who said so in March 2009, according to a poll released Thursday. The proportion who correctly say he is a Christian is down to just 34 percent.
The largest share of people, 43 percent, said they don't know his religion, an increase from the 34 percent who said that in early 2009.
The survey, conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center and its affiliated Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, is based on interviews conducted before the controversy over whether Muslims should be permitted to construct a mosque near the World Trade Center site. Obama has said he believes Muslims have the right to build an Islamic center there, though he's also said he won't take a position on whether they should actually build it.
In a separate poll by Time magazine/ABT SRBI conducted Monday and Tuesday — after Obama's comments about the mosque — 24 percent said they think he is Muslim, 47 percent said they think he is Christian and 24 percent didn't know or didn't respond.
In addition, 61 percent opposed building the Muslim center near the Trade Center site and 26 percent said they favor it.
The Pew poll found that about three in 10 of Obama's fiercest political rivals, Republicans and conservatives, say he is a Muslim. That is up significantly from last year and far higher than the share of Democrats and liberals who say so. But even among his supporters, the number saying he is a Christian has fallen since 2009, with just 43 percent of blacks and 46 percent of Democrats saying he is Christian.
Among independents, 18 percent say Obama is Muslim — up from 10 percent last year.
Pew analysts attribute the findings to attacks by his opponents and Obama's limited attendance at religious services, particularly in contrast with Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, whose worship was more public.
Andrew Kohut, the Pew Research Center's director, said the confusion partly reflects "the intensification of negative views about Obama among his critics." Alan Cooperman, the Pew Forum's associate director for research, said that with the public hearing little about Obama's religion, "maybe there's more possibility for other people to make suggestions that the president is this or he's really that or he's really a Muslim."
Obama is the Christian son of a Kenyan Muslim father and a Kansas mother. From age 6 to 10, Obama lived in predominantly Muslim Indonesia with his mother and Indonesian stepfather. His full name, Barack Hussein Obama, sounds Muslim to many.
White House officials did not provide on-the-record comments on the survey, but they prompted Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston to call The Associated Press.
Caldwell, who said he has known Obama for years, said the president is a Christian who prays every day. He said he was not sure where the public confusion about the president's religion came from, but he called false media reports about it "a 24-hour noise box committed to presenting the president in a false light."
Six in 10 of those saying Obama is a Muslim said they got the information from the media, with the largest portion — 16 percent — saying it was on television. Eleven percent said they learned it from Obama's behavior and words.
Despite the confusion about Obama's religion, there is noteworthy support for how he uses it to make decisions. Nearly half, or 48 percent, said he relies on his religion the right amount when making policy choices, 21 percent said he uses it too little and 11 percent too much.
At the same time, the poll provides broad indications that the public feels religion is playing a diminished role in politics today, with fewer people than in 2008 saying the Democratic and Republican parties are friendly toward religion.
With elections for control of Congress just over two months away, the poll contains optimistic news for Republicans. Half of white non-Hispanic Catholics, plus three in 10 unaffiliated with a religion and a third of Jews support the GOP — all an increase since 2008.
The survey also found:
_The Democratic Party is seen as friendly to religion by 26 percent, while 43 percent say the same about the GOP. That's a 9 percentage point drop for Republicans since 2008, and 12 points lower for Democrats.
_Fifty-two percent say churches should stay away from politics, a reversal of the slim majorities that supported churches' political involvement from 1996 to 2006.
The poll, overseen by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, involved landline and cell phone interviews with 3,003 randomly chosen adults. It was conducted July 21-Aug. 5 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
Nearly one in five people, or 18 percent, said they think Obama is Muslim, up from the 11 percent who said so in March 2009
up from the 11 percent who said so in March 2009
up from the 11 percent who said so in March 2009
up from the 11 percent who said so in March 2009
up from the 11 percent who said so in March 2009
up from the 11 percent who said so in March 2009
_________________ Deep below the dunes I roved Past the rows, past the rows Beside the acacias freshly in bloom I sent men to their doom
Post subject: Re: America: Fast Becoming the Dumbest Nation On Earth!
Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 5:57 am
Got Some
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2007 6:50 pm Posts: 1663 Gender: Male
Since more people are finding out that Obama is a Muslim America is getting smarter rather than dumber. At about 7% in 5 months. Not long until 100% smartness is achieved.
_________________
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Post subject: Re: America: Fast Becoming the Dumbest Nation On Earth!
Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 3:56 pm
Supersonic
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:43 am Posts: 10694
punkdavid wrote:
dkfan9 wrote:
Secret Muslim
Obviously, he's not keeping the secret very well if nearly 1 in 5 Americans knows about it.
Well, when you skip the national day of prayer, and mock gun toting bible beaters while going out of your way to celebrate Ramadan, I can see how people could get confused.
Post subject: Re: America: Fast Becoming the Dumbest Nation On Earth!
Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 4:47 pm
Unthought Known
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:46 pm Posts: 9617 Location: Medford, Oregon Gender: Male
LittleWing wrote:
punkdavid wrote:
dkfan9 wrote:
Secret Muslim
Obviously, he's not keeping the secret very well if nearly 1 in 5 Americans knows about it.
Well, when you skip the national day of prayer, and mock gun toting bible beaters while going out of your way to celebrate Ramadan, I can see how people could get confused.
Let's just use this statement for today's entry to this thread.
_________________ Deep below the dunes I roved Past the rows, past the rows Beside the acacias freshly in bloom I sent men to their doom
Post subject: Re: America: Fast Becoming the Dumbest Nation On Earth!
Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 4:51 pm
Of Counsel
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:14 am Posts: 37778 Location: OmaGOD!!! Gender: Male
meatwad wrote:
LittleWing wrote:
punkdavid wrote:
dkfan9 wrote:
Secret Muslim
Obviously, he's not keeping the secret very well if nearly 1 in 5 Americans knows about it.
Well, when you skip the national day of prayer, and mock gun toting bible beaters while going out of your way to celebrate Ramadan, I can see how people could get confused.
Let's just use this statement for today's entry to this thread.
I see no trend lines however.
_________________ Unfortunately, at the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Flower Children jerked off and went back to sleep.
Post subject: Re: America: Fast Becoming the Dumbest Nation On Earth!
Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:46 pm
Supersonic
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:43 am Posts: 10694
Maybe 24% of America secretly reads the NYT? Maybe the Muslim population still believes he's a Muslim?
Quote:
May 12, 2008 Op-Ed Contributor President Apostate? By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK Chevy Chase, Md.
BARACK OBAMA has emerged as a classic example of charismatic leadership — a figure upon whom others project their own hopes and desires. The resulting emotional intensity adds greatly to the more conventional strengths of the well-organized Obama campaign, and it has certainly sufficed to overcome the formidable initial advantages of Senator Hillary Clinton.
One danger of such charisma, however, is that it can evoke unrealistic hopes of what a candidate could actually accomplish in office regardless of his own personal abilities. Case in point is the oft-made claim that an Obama presidency would be welcomed by the Muslim world.
This idea often goes hand in hand with the altogether more plausible argument that Mr. Obama’s election would raise America’s esteem in Africa — indeed, he already arouses much enthusiasm in his father’s native Kenya and to a degree elsewhere on the continent.
But it is a mistake to conflate his African identity with his Muslim heritage. Senator Obama is half African by birth and Africans can understandably identify with him. In Islam, however, there is no such thing as a half-Muslim. Like all monotheistic religions, Islam is an exclusive faith.
As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.
Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.
His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).
With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings. (Some may point to cases in which lesser punishments were ordered — as with some Egyptian intellectuals who have been punished for writings that were construed as apostasy — but those were really instances of supposed heresy, not explicitly declared apostasy as in Senator Obama’s case.)
It is true that the criminal codes in most Muslim countries do not mandate execution for apostasy (although a law doing exactly that is pending before Iran’s Parliament and in two Malaysian states). But as a practical matter, in very few Islamic countries do the governments have sufficient authority to resist demands for the punishment of apostates at the hands of religious authorities.
For example, in Iran in 1994 the intervention of Pope John Paul II and others won a Christian convert a last-minute reprieve, but the man was abducted and killed shortly after his release. Likewise, in 2006 in Afghanistan, a Christian convert had to be declared insane to prevent his execution, and he was still forced to flee to Italy.
Because no government is likely to allow the prosecution of a President Obama — not even those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, the only two countries where Islamic religious courts dominate over secular law — another provision of Muslim law is perhaps more relevant: it prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing.
At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.
That an Obama presidency would cause such complications in our dealings with the Islamic world is not likely to be a major factor with American voters, and the implication is not that it should be. But of all the well-meaning desires projected on Senator Obama, the hope that he would decisively improve relations with the world’s Muslims is the least realistic.
Edward N. Luttwak, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the author of “Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace.”
Post subject: Re: America: Fast Becoming the Dumbest Nation On Earth!
Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 8:28 pm
Of Counsel
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:14 am Posts: 37778 Location: OmaGOD!!! Gender: Male
Regardless of the "religion of his birth" as viewed by some (in the same way, one is a Jew if one's mother is Jewish), I'm sure that if a person actively renounces that religion of his birth, those people will recognize that renunciation as such. In short, if Muslims would have considered Obama a Muslim by birth, the same people probably do NOT recognize him as a Muslim anymore because he has actively become a Christian, attending a Christian church for most of his adult life.
My rabbi told me that the one rule in reform Judaism is that you can't believe that Jesus was the Messiah. If you do, you are no longer a Jew, you are a Christian. Probably would be the same thing if you believe that Muhammad was God's one and only prophet, then you are a Muslim. Then it matters not whose cunt you came out of.
_________________ Unfortunately, at the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Flower Children jerked off and went back to sleep.
Post subject: Re: America: Fast Becoming the Dumbest Nation On Earth!
Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 9:33 pm
Administrator
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:53 pm Posts: 20537 Location: The City Of Trees
punkdavid wrote:
Regardless of the "religion of his birth" as viewed by some (in the same way, one is a Jew if one's mother is Jewish), I'm sure that if a person actively renounces that religion of his birth, those people will recognize that renunciation as such. In short, if Muslims would have considered Obama a Muslim by birth, the same people probably do NOT recognize him as a Muslim anymore because he has actively become a Christian, attending a Christian church for most of his adult life.
My rabbi told me that the one rule in reform Judaism is that you can't believe that Jesus was the Messiah. If you do, you are no longer a Jew, you are a Christian. Probably would be the same thing if you believe that Muhammad was God's one and only prophet, then you are a Muslim. Then it matters not whose cunt you came out of.
Isn't the stance of the Catholic Church such that once you're baptized (or perhaps it's another ritual--I'm obviously not an expert on the matter), you're a Catholic for life in their eyes? We could also get into the sticky issue of Mormons seeking posthumous baptizing.
Whatever the case, all it proves to me is that once you leave the realm of fact and enter the world of faith, you can make about any non-falsifiable claim you want.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
What happens when the smartest country on Earth is not a country at all?
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Post subject: Re: America: Fast Becoming the Dumbest Nation On Earth!
Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 1:21 am
Yeah Yeah Yeah
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2005 6:25 am Posts: 3216 Location: Aussie Expat in Ireland Gender: Male
How do you quantitatively define 'smart?'
_________________ PJ: 1 in 1995, 2 in 1998, 20 in 2003, 13 in 2006, 3 in 2007, 8 in 2008, 5 in 2009, 4 in 2010, 5 in 2012. EV: 8 in 2011, 1 in 2012. Brad: 1 in 1998, 1 in 2002. Shawn Smith: 1 in 2008
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