Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Is Bush good for science?

Despite of all europeans crossed fingers, Bush got elected again. How do people in the more educated part of demography react to this?

Horror - at both of them. There is no two-party system, there is the State. We had the choice of voting for French vanilla or vanilla, for Tweedledumb or Tweedledumber, for Big Poverty or Big Business, for a Left-wing Yalie tapped for Skull and Bones or a Right-Wing Yalie tapped for Skull and Bones.

Republicans steal from what you have, Democrats steal from what you might have. The difference is hunger vs. famine. Bush the Lesser is a christ-besotted moron. He is a mumbling disaster for a technological society.

Uncle Al says, "I don't trust a President who cannot pronounce 'nuclear'."

Horror ? It's hard to think otherwise but what kind of new catastrophic events is he able to invent for humanity in four years ?

He will bring about, if he can, the destruction in th US of Science as a free and unhindered rational search for truth. The only Science that will be supported with government funding will be that which agrees with his fundamentalist religious tenets and supports the glorious state.

We will have the equivalent of the Moslem Sharia, a theistic dictatorship with "fellow" scientists turning each other in for glory and more lab funding, ground to oblivion in paranoia and enforced with the blood of the innocent. We have several "wonderful" examples of the kind of society that kind of mentality produces; we exerted ourselves in our infinite stupidity to "liberate" one of them recently. I should think we could take heed and refrain from swelling the ranks. Bush's re-election may be the end of Science as we know it in the US. Right-wing Christianity can be every bit as repressive and sadistic in practice as German Nazism or Mao's Communism. They just praise God, call Jesus their brother and smile very sweetly while they do it.

I look for Atheists, Unitarians, Pagans, Wiccans and other non-Christian faiths (I include Atheists rather wryly) to come under more and more pressure to convert and conform. Freedom of religion will fade into a new theme: Freedom to worship Christ. And we will be watching to make sure you do. Alas for me, I am no idolator, and will be at the front of the line when they start executing people for heresy.

As for my perspective, to put it in terms of Tolkien, I had rather have had Boromir than Grima.

Ah, Amaranth, ever the optimist!

Heh! I'm a fan of Orwell, and a pragmatist. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. He can't be re-elected, so he doesn't face any threats, and with the fawning adulation of the far right, he's practically unstoppable. If he succeeds in loading up the Supreme Court, he'll be uncheckable too. I predict an all-out run with the bit between the teeth. I look for a ban on all abortions and more unfunded mandates such as "No child left behind" which was not supported by federal funds and is bankrupting many school districts while showing little improvement in children's achievements.

To paraphrase Morpheus, "Welcome to the desert of the insane."

A bit off topic perhaps but people outside the US can't help wondering why it is that only the US has such a huge (and growing) number of fundamentalist christians? What is driving this?

That's worth its own thread, don't you think? Part of the answer lies in government encouragement (tax breaks), little/no regulation or requirements for church leaders/minister/pastors (no test, no training whatsoever required, just a valid ordination certificate). Some of them are just ignorant and uneducated. Some of these people are deeply unhinged, and very frightening. They make Karl Rove look like a choir boy.

All it takes to establish a legal church in the US is a person with an ordination certificate and two other persons of legal age to be secretary and treasurer, provided they meet monthly and keep minutes. All I need to start up "Our Lady of the Perpetually Peaceful Pixels" is the two other people. Which in this highly conservative area would be like finding a live dinosaur that talks and does the hula.

I'll take a stab at answering your question, though understand I am coming from outside mainstream and charismatic religion and therefore my observations may be as through a dark glass.

Mainstream Christianity (Catholicism, Church of England, Lutheran, Methodist and so forth) basically say, "Worship Christ, pray to him and he will tell you what to do."

Charismatic, or Evangelical, Christianity says, "Worship Christ, send him your prayers, but ask me what to do." And any time a believer is in doubt he or she can call Rev. Jones across town and get an answer right away." It's the instant gratification, plus the relief of not having to actually exert one's self to actually think about what it is they're doing. Some people prefer to be sheep. I've never understood it.

Another factor is the social interaction. In many of these evangelical churches, members address one another as "Brother" and "Sister", Brother Jones, Sister Smith. This creates a false sense of belonging, as to a large family, at least for the duration of the service. There is also a lot of hand-shaking and hugging. (I've been to a few of these.) In our fragmented, paranoid society, we often lose sight of the fact that human beings need to be touched, albeit carefully, and to belong to some kind of tribe. The Evangelical church offers that subtly in its structure and rituals. It also offers people whose ability to lead themselves is impaired (alcoholics, drug addicts, obsessive-compulsive, abusive, etc) a way out of their dilemmas: "Come, follow me, do as I say and you'll be cured." And some of them recover. People in precarious straits are vulnerable to that.

Evangelical Cristianity tends to split society into "them" and "us", usally along racial lines, and what often occurs is that the "Hate" energy of the group is directed at "them" and the "Love" impulses toward "us". It boils down to a perversion of the commandment, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." In the hands of many, not all, but many Evangelical congregants, this becomes "Love thy neighbor who belongs to this church as thyself; if he doesn't belong to this church you can dump fertilizer in his yard."

That's by no means all there is to it, but perhaps enough of an overview to give you a little insight. There is a lot of focus in Charismatic services on the rapture and the second coming, and a lot of promise of material wealth then. This has a lot of appeal to people who have almost nothing in the here and now. And we have a lot of those.

"God made a lot of poor people, and it's no shame to be poor, but it's no great honor, either." --Tevye, Fiddler on the Roof

We are moving from a kleptocracy to a theocracy.

I see no hope for reason when the self-annointed definers of morality are on the rampage.

Science in the US is dying. I wish I spoke Chinese.

Let me give a swing at that answer too. My youngest brother (clocking in at 34 years old) has become an ordained minister in the nebulous Evangelical movement.

His heart is in the right place (wanting to help others, wanting to save souls). The Christian Right is a strange bunch that can be summed up in a post email message little bro sent to me...
[quoted]

I do see things differently about the election but I am not so wrap up in the man who is in charge of the country. Things are strange and scary and one man alone can only do so much. You know my faith and God is where my trust is, this isn't a big secret but just stating my thoughts on my beliefs. I see a big gap in the things that I feel are morally right and decent and a decline of those ideas over the past decades. A person can choose whatever he wants to be, that is free will but sadly the choses that have been made seem to be getting less and less Godly in my view.

When statements like "The south has too much Jesus" really bothers me because blanket statements and insults are usually the weapons of those who feel they are superior in their opinions and drown out those that have opposit views. People that scream for tolerance are usually the least tolerant of those who don't believe and think the way they do.
[unquote]

buried in that small missive are many truths - the Right feels that no man can lead them, only Jesus (whatever that means - its an individual thing), so Shrubby gets a big fat pass on his efforts to tie an aging population to Drug Companies (legislation forbidding Medicare/Medicad from group purchasing, forbidding importation of drugs), another big fat pass on Iraq (those godless heatherns, etc etc etc), and the Environment destruction he will cause (God's Creation, Man Can Not Change)...

Also the note of the inferiority complex (being talked down to, the fact that they don't know sheet about science summd up in a back of the short bus philosophy that life has delt this hand, God only knows why, and we are given only what we can bear attitude NEVER aspires to anything greater in this life - it is all saved up for some never to be reached dreamworld just as silly as the 40 virgins that await morons who kill themselves in the name of (whatever).

Finally the last tone completely ignores the history of crime and intollerence practiced in Jesus' name throughout its history - We Want To Be Equal (and once equal) We Need To Eliminate The Heretic - a well known and sure to be repeated passion play.

America IS in trouble. We have given the keys of power to a deamon, a demegogue, a fool and a believer in lies. And that finger is firmly entrenched on The Button - a man whose supposed dearest wish is to see Christ Return, which can only happen after the Temple has been rebuilt and a final battle between the forces of Light and Darkness which combined with a series of devine curses that wipes out most of the world's population.

Dearest wish? Our demise. Maybe we had all better start praying to whatever powers there may be to keep that horror from coming to pass.

Phew, Thanks Amaranth & Danno. (Touche on the "new post suggestion", Amaranth!)

Amaranth's statements: "There is a lot of focus in Charismatic services on the rapture and the second coming, and a lot of promise of material wealth then. This has a lot of appeal to people who have almost nothing in the here and now",
are very scary.

They don't seem a lot different from the beliefs of the Islamic fundamentalist suicide bombers who believes they'll enter heaven immediately and get to deflower 70 virgins (not sure what female suicide bombers believe they will get).

I'm not sure how strong a contributor the lack of community/family factor is. I think that's a reality in most western societies. Maybe it's the US's easy availability of evangelical cod spirituality to fill that hole that clinches it.

Anyway, thanks again. It's enlightening to hear reports from the trenches.

Fact. One thing that Bush's re-election has done
is to have an increase in the number of Americans who have applied to Emmigrate to Canada.
Resumably they are Democrats, since Canada is more left wing than the USA.
(Item put out by BBC 24 Hour News, last night)

Yes, and if I had more working capital and were less ill right now I'd be one of them. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the handwriting on the wall and read it in your native tongue.

I have already begun taking steps to vacate the premises. This place feels like Nazi Germany circa 1933.

The election in 2006 will likely seal its fate.

If you are into rocket science and nuclear pysichs you will have a good job

This one originated before I joined. Interesting comments. Has it all come to pass?