Over the last several years I've spent a great deal of time talking to people about every issue under the sun. We've talked about global warming, climate change, energy policy, government regulation or intervention, gun control, what is taught in schools and why and whether or not there should be a Nativity Scene on public property and in many cases people are reasonable. However, some issues are just impossible to talk about rationally, because some people won't listen to reason. Now, these folks that won't listen to reason typically identify themselves early and often as Christians and not just as Christians, but Christians who believe in the inerrant Word. I used to not get the connection, but now I think I do.
In a conversation I was having with a member of Propeller.com I stated that people of lower education tended to identify more with the conservative movement. I knew that I had heard or read it somewhere, but I could not confirm the information. As a researcher and historian, I make every effort to ensure that what I say is both true and accurate and because I could not confirm it, I was forced to hedge my statement.
In the course of my effort to find out whether or not what I said, in reference to conservatives, was true I found that in 2006 Baylor University did a landmark study about religion in the United States and it was in this study that I found the answers to much of what had bothered me.
I wish to be crystal clear, so I will spell this out. Education does not equate to intelligence. There are many people that are very intelligent that have not been educated, but a person can be born a genius and if they are never taught how to read it is unlikely that they will pick it up on their own. Further, I want to be clear that education is more than just learning about a subject. It is, in many ways, learning how to think. As we become more educated we learn that things are rarely as black and white as they appear at first. Most of us were taught that 1 + 1 = 2 and that is true. However, later we learned that 3 + -1 = 2. So, if we were never taught about negative numbers we would say, with certainty, that 1 + 1 = 2 and there are no other addition solutions that will lead to that answer. And as far as we know, we would be right, but a more educated person would tell us that we were incorrect.
With mathematics it's easy to prove that someone is right or wrong. In the higher areas of science it is more difficult and it is especially difficult when you have a bunch of yahoos out there with doctorates making money off of the ignorant. Unfortunately, education is not a cure for greed or sheer stupidity. It is possible to receive a degree from an accredited university with a D average. So, just because a person has a degree does not mean that they know what they are talking about. We all know the guy from high school or grade school that barely squeaked by. We all know the guy that passed high school Government, but still didn't really understand the three branches of the U.S. government. So, education is also not a perfect indicator for whether or not someone knows how to think rationally, but typically the more education one has the more likely they are to think with reason.
According to the study by Baylor 33.6% of Americans fit the category of Evangelical Protestants. The study identifies these people as:
“Protestant groups that emphasize the authority of the Bible, salvation through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, personal piety, and the need to share the “Good News” of Jesus Christ with others (i.e., to evangelize).”
I think that accurately reflects the group upon which I would like to focus. According to the U. S. Census Bureau (12/18/07) there are about 303 million Americans. So, 33.6% of that would be nearly 102 million people. Of all Americans with a high school education or less nearly half (45.4%) identify with Evangelical Protestantism and less than a quarter (23.5%) of those with a college education or more.
The category of Evangelical Protestants and Black Protestants are the only two categories of the seven categories named where those with a high school education or less account for a larger percentage of the group than those with a college education or more.
So, now we come back to my original assertion that people that have less education are more likely to be conservative. Based upon the data from this study we can see that nearly half of the Evangelical Protestants have less than a college education. Also in this study are questions about “conservative” issues. Evangelical Protestants, which we have noted tend to have less than a college education, significantly identify with conservative issues and since Evangelical Protestants account for over a third of Americans one can safely say that having less than a college education tends to make one more conservative than not.
** Becoming-who-you-are requires skepticism and self-assertion **
The word ‘islam’ means submission. Obviously submission to the will of Allah, as prescribed in the five pillars of faith. The big-3 monotheisms are alike in dismissing an individual’s will, “not my will but thy will done” as we’re shown in the poignant scene at Gethsemane in the NT.
Self-assertion takes on the character not of honest questioning and personal growth, but of insubordination and rebellion.
With characteristic, combative verve, Kierkegaard condemns the doubter as insubordinate, a rebel against fideism:
“They would have us believe that objections against Christianity come from doubt. This is always a misunderstanding. Objections against Christianity come from insubordination, unwillingness to obey, rebellion against all authority. Therefore, they have been beating the air against the objectors, because they have fought intellectually [against] doubt, instead of fighting ethically [against] rebellion. . . .So it is not properly doubt but insubordination.” (Lowrie 122)
Thus, SK. It’s not surprising that even attempting to leave a religious culture which demands ’subordination’ or ’submission’ to someone else’s interpretation of an alleged “will of god” adversely affects the psychological well-being of the “apostate.” Guilt feelings get induced. Guilt is the elder brother of Sin.
Becoming more "inner directed," becoming-who-you-are, or “individuation” (to use Jung’s terminology) is the goal of personal growth. It cannot occur without self-doubt or without doubting authority and authority figures. When you’ve made a "leap of faith” into hyper-religious space there is no return except by self-assertion, and doubt is just a form of it.
You want to emulate Prometheus and cease wanting to mimic Jesus. (A hero differs greatly from a god.)
Irrational self-assertion characterizes the popular culture, the “secular” culture. Irrational fideism characterizes fundamentalism, jewish, xian, or islamic.
Tolerance, that wide band of humane behavior, lies between inhuman anarchy and inhuman puritanism. Trying to navigate in that band requires years of training and making a lot of mistakes. And, there is no end to learning until life itself ends.
bipolar2
c. 2007