Pat Robertson- Pushing the Limits of Stupidity

Pat Robertson, and American televangelist, has come out and said some pretty ignorant, hateful things in his time. For example (this one is so ignorant it's actually funny):

"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." - 1992 (Wikiquotes).

The frightening part is that to remain on television, he must be earning money and hence some people actually follow this utter dribble he spouts forth, which doesn't bode well for [certain subsets of poorly educated, older, white, American] society.

In recent events, some random psychopath picked up a gun, went into a Sikh temple and shot a bunch of people. 

While most people would say (inside the USA) "That guy was possibly influenced by the Batman shootings, and is a random psychopath" (outside USA) "This is more evidence as to why there should be tighter gun control laws in the US", Pat Robertson has gone for the hate and blame game approach. See his dribble on the shooting incident here: http://www.examiner.com/video/pat-robertson-blames-atheists-for-sikh-temple-shooting

“What is it? Is it satanic? Is it some spiritual thing, people who are atheists, they hate God, they hate the expression of God? And they are angry with the world, angry with themselves, angry with society and they take it out on innocent people who are worshiping God.”

In retort, one author put it so beautifully: "For the record, atheists neither love nor hate god, for the simple reason that god does not exist.".
(http://www.examiner.com/article/pat-robertson-blames-atheists-for-sikh-temple-massacre?cid=rss )

I think I love this guy (no, no- not Robertson- the other guy). Blunt, sees it like it is, and recognises a total arsehat when he sees one.

Robertson's diatribe against athiests is clearly ill-informed, and shbows more evidence in support of the theory that extreme conservatives have lower intelligence ( http://www.livescience.com/18132-intelligence-social-conservatism-racism.html).

It could be a matter of not having the educational opportunities, though, so we've been here before, but will say it again. Atheism is not a hatred of a God, deity or theology. It is an absence of belief. 

Let's provide some context, and compare it to something he may be able to comprehend:

Compare unicorns to ponies. A child may believe in and love unicorns, or believe in and love ponies. Chances are, though, they have seen, and possibly touched a pony, as it is not a figment of their imagination. When you grow up and learn the difference between real and imaginary, most rational people don't start to hate unicorns or resent anyone who ever led them to believe they might be real.

Knowing your shit vs knowing you're shit

One thing I find myself persistently frustrated by is the stupidity of others. While to a certain extent I try to life by the adage:

Never argue with a stupid person; they drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.


how do we know what is stupid or crazy? Thousands of years ago there were some influential figures who claimed to be receiving or channelling messages from deities.

These days, if you hear voices, you receive a prescription for anti-psychosis medications and a clinical management plan with a team of specialists.

I was reading through a psychology proposal which featured a measurement instrument, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 25 www.cd-risc.com , at work today and noted the following item:

3. When there are no clear solutions to my problems, sometimes fate or God can help

People are asked to respond on a 5 point Scale from 0- not at all true to 4- true nearly all the time

On face value you might think- sure, these seem like reasonable statements, and that any extreme answer could indicate a problem, e.g. "God/fate will always take care of things".

Now consider the inverse- the response of "I believe it is never true that God/ Fate will help with my problem". Hmm, what a negative response, you might think on face value. As an atheist, however, I find it amusing that people cannot cope with the fact I do not believe there is a God or in concepts like fate, and feel the need to suggest there is a problem with my sanity for it.

I accept that many people are religious and have these beliefs, but do not personally ascribe to them. To have included such an item in a tool designed to measure people's mental state of being is interesting- in that it potentially rejects the tenet that any atheist could be completely sane.

It takes an incredible arrogance to assume that your beliefs or a cultural norm are RIGHT and any other beliefs are WRONG or even suggestive of poor mental health. Yet it is the default position adopted by so many, as beautifully described by the Dunning- Kruger effect:

It is one of the essential features of such incompetence that the person so afflicted is incapable of knowing that he is incompetent. [or in other words, some people are too stupid to realise they're stupid] To have such knowledge would already be to remedy a good portion of the offense. - Miller
http://people.psych.cornell.edu/~dunning/publications/pdf/unskilledandunaware.pdf