QuickiesScience

Skepchick Quickies 3.12

Amanda

Amanda works in healthcare, is a loudmouthed feminist, and proud supporter of the Oxford comma.

Related Articles

25 Comments

  1. The thing is that evangelicals thrive on shaking their fist at the rest of the world and fantasizing about everyone else going to hell for all eternity. So the number attracted to the movement may go down, but the hard core nutters will just get more hard core the more embattled they can claim to be.

    This is good news, of course, but the really scary people aren’t going anywhere.

  2. I think it’s a little early to sound the death knell for Evangelicals. Depending on the world situation, their numbers might actually increase. I’d love to think we’ll just continue to progress and advance, with science giving more and more people better lives. But if it all starts to cave in, people will flee back to religion in a panic. And it won’t be to wishy-washy, liberal religion, either.

  3. I’m going to strive to perfect my angry monkey glare. You will know when I have succeeded when you hear reports of an unexpected increase in the fatness of Pittsburgh tots.

  4. Thanks for the submission link… yay for supporting new small presses!

    And I think what the monkey study really proved is that babies are manipulative little cretins who KNOW how to get what they want. Smart little buggers.

  5. I found the idea that evangelicals will turn to Catholicism very interesting. Most Evangelicalism that I’ve encountered considers Catholics to be practically the same as heathens. But then I’ve witnessed someone who turned from crazy, end-times, quiverful, Evangelicalism to crazy, Latin mass, head covering Catholicism. It was bizarre.

  6. “We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.”

    That’s what most Americans object to, the in-your-face Evangelical part of their Christianity. I see a move towards intolerance of any group that infringes upon another’s personal life.

  7. Global Warming… More frightening than the Jacoby article are the zealots who comment under it. I have been an online and print Boston Globe reader for years, it seems there is a really organized effort to put negative and “right wing” comments on the message boards. This one commenter “Oscarbozach” I swear is a hired hand. His comments start going up on the boards as soon as the articles appear and are straight out of the conservative position talking points.

  8. It would be interesting to see a “faith migration” graph. Something that shows, of the individuals who have changed their faith, what they changed from and to. (e.g. 3% converted from Evangelical to Catholic, 5% converted from Episcopal to None, etc.)

  9. @SoresportI have often wondered about the commenters online… Are they plants? Are they “real’? Are they a good sampling of readers/voters/people?

    Over at the Washington Post (online) they have a whole column written by one of their journalists that is nothing but regurgitated comments… a “comment recap” if you will.

    —LAME—
    :

  10. I’ve actually known quite a few Evangelical types who’ve moved over to Episcopalian and Orthodox Churches. I think the appeal tends to be finding a community that is less judgmental, more relaxed about social issues and has better food and wine at social gatherings. Also there is little or no pressure in Episcopal, Catholic or Orthodox churches to share your faith which is a great relief for many evangelicals who are sick and tired of being told what to do all the time but still want to hang on to their basic religious beliefs.

  11. The call for a work of fiction with a POC/LGBT character reminded me of a SciFi book I read years ago where in the future you could have your gender switched and then switched back again, and even have children as a woman and later become a man and father children. On top of that it was essentially a space detective novel. This ring a bell with anyone?

  12. Sounds more like just another majority religious group crying “help, we are being oppressed, we must act now”.

    Exciting as it sounds, I don’t think we’ll ever be rid of organized christianity. As the article said, this particular brand will just pop back up under a different name, so who really cares, it’s just people moving from one building to another to continue doing what they’re already doing now …

  13. @James Fox:

    Hmmm, The Ophiuchi Hotline deals a whole lot with sex-changing (and duplicating people, and other weirdness). I’m not sure it’s the “space detective” novel you’re thinking of, but it does take place in space.

  14. @James Fox:
    It sounds familiar. But then, it’s not a completely original concept in Science Fiction I suppose. There’s more than one story out there, short or long, that deals with the issue of gender and sexual orientation in a “what if …” kind of way.
    Especially since “What if …” is the basic premise of pretty much any science fiction story ever written.

  15. @Steve: Steele Beach, yes, thanks! I recall enjoying that book very much. Just finished Anathem by Stephenson which was about 900 pages of thoughtful head stretching wonderfulness!

  16. As far as gender-bending in a fantasy setting goes, this comic (and subsequent pages) came to mind (it becomes the main storyline as of comic #951).

    Oh yeah, comic is likely NSFW in some of the more conservative parts of the US …

  17. Evangelical collapse?

    I wish but probably not.

    I’ve yet seen any of these nuts go by the wayside because of the money “drying up”. That will not happen.

    I do see that the author was correct about evangelical knowledge of scripture and that the demographics for the future look bad for them (i.e. no new blood and the old folks isa dyin’)

    But, in the near term, the membership will simply become more aggressive to counter that (you see that in street gangs all the time). Though numbers always win in the end, this will take lots of time.

    Eventually evangelicals will be less of a (or even an insignificant) political force but I’m sure I’ll be dead long before then.

    Too bad.

    I’d love to see the 700 club go off the air,

    rod

  18. Hi there!

    I could see the collapse of ultra-conservative fundamentalist evangelical churches in the next 10 or 20 years, but probably only the most extreme of those.

    However, I’m trying to imagine a scenario in which all of the world’s religions just start to quietly steer away from dogmatism and become benign little philosophies accepting of other points of view and willing to admit that their holy books are all really kind of silly.

    This is absolutely fucking terrifying to me.

    What will I do with all of my righteous Atheist indignation!?!? How can I go about my daily routine without a smug superiority over the credulous faithful!??! What will I do with all of my clever repartee and snappy comebacks to intelligent design arguments!?!? Worst of all, how will I ever be able to shamelessly flirt with Skepchicks if we’re not part of a rogue underground social movement to undermine unquestioning credulity anymore!?!?

    This would be worse than I could imagine! :(

    — Craig

  19. Hey everybody, lets all pay attention to Rebecca’s post!

    @w_nightshade:
    Iain M Banks was the first author I thought of as well.

  20. @Rebecca – “Er, please ignore this post. Test…”

    Such a well designed post, the “Er” catches the attention, like walking around a corner and seeing your co workers kissing. Then onto a polite “please” a firm instruction “ignore this post.” Finishing with a tease in “Test…”, leaving one wondering what is coming next.

    Is that enough attention?

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top button