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alienmotives wrote:

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Well, you know, if I was able to believe that there was a Giant Sky Ghost out there who is interested in every little detail of my life, and that when I die it won't be for *real* because I'm going to go hang out with said Giant Sky Ghost in his posh house, and if I were also able to believe that the war in Iraq is just and going great, and that Bush is a fine human being and an excellent, honest leader, and that the sexual preference I was lucky enough to be born with is the only right one, and that all illegals are bad people, and that evolution and most science in general was just something lefties make up for no reason other than to annoy me and/or shake my faith in the Giant Sky Ghost, and that above all Fox News is both fair AND balanced and it's only a coincidences that O'Reilly is telling me everything I want to hear....

Belief is a good way of putting the comment about the Great Sky Ghost because there is no proof of His/Her/Its existence... nor any proof of nonexistence. It's all about belief. I admit I don't have it, but I can appreciate the ability of others to find hope in the accountings of others. I just don't appreciate when they use their rules against others. Not to restrict others from joining their group... more power to them, there; but when they actively injure others, I can't support it. I feel the same way about true athiests; they have an utter, unprovable faith in the nonexistence of a greater power. Good for them, but I can't subscribe to that faith either.

If you can't believe the war in Iraq is just, fine; but please, don't delude yourself into believing that's an indication of logical thinking. The circumstances involved in any nation-to-nation interplay tend to be intricate, and with conflicts even more so. Logical analysis of any conflict is only theoretically possible if all of the pressures and negotiations, histories and beliefs of all parties involved are available (which they have never been, in any national conflict) and analyzed objectively. The best you can say is that it's an indication of moral superiority, and that's only based on perception; people who support the war believe that their position is one of moral superiority. Both sides can back up their views with evidence and anecdotes which support them. On a personal level, I approve the war effort, although I disapprove of some of the tactical decisions.

People believing that their sexual preference is the right one is not a logical issue at all. It's also not true that tolerance is limited to any one group, nor bigotry... whether aggressive or dismissive in nature... is restricted to one side. Without hunting up any studies, I'd be willing to lay down money that homosexuals are, as a group, far more tolerant than heterosexuals of other sexual preferences, but I also don't know how much of that stems from having to spend so much time in a minority status and perceived as being an outsider. I'm inclined to think that, human beings being as cliquish and exclusionary as they are, Joe Haldeman was right in his novel The Forever War; that in a time in the future where homosexuality was the norm and heterosexuality was a rare deviation, the heterosexuals would be distrusted by many and openly vilified by some.

All illegals are not bad people. All illegals have violated Federal law. This does not make them bad (a subjective term), but it does mean they have performed criminal acts (an objective term.) That is logical. If you then believe that criminal laws should not be enforced, or that they should be modified... fine. Propose a viable change to the law, and campaign for it, and get it enacted. But, if you do so, the consequences of that law should be your triumph or your burden. The notion of being praised for the intentions of an action and getting a pass on the actual result is irrational, but exemplified in our treatment of politicians and activists.

As far as science goes... I'm an electronics technician. I've been working with a telephone company for nearly a decade; prior to that, I was aiding in design and performing circuit testing on high-voltage power supplies. Before that, I worked as a field tech for a civilian nuclear power plant. Before that, I spent a six-year hitch in the US Navy, as a nuclear reactor operator. While I was in the military, it was my job to teach other people submolecular physics. Before that, until I dropped out of college due to a lack of funds, I was a chemistry major.
One of the reasons I tend to side with the right on science issues is that they are the ones who (in the modern era) typically decry groupthink and the automatic rush to accept every pseudo-scientific theory based on one flawed computer model or funded study. The left consistently shuts down arguments in favor of their views, and then denounces the other side for daring to postulate on the possibility of error... despite the fact that much of science has progressed purely upon the back of such theorizations. Nearly every great leap in science has occurred by people challenging the status quo, and suggesting that another possibility exists; and untold failures have occurred as well. But it's not just the "Evolution is wrong, and God told me so" people who are trying to squelch progress and free thought; it's also the "Global Warming is happening, despite the field data accrued over the last decade" people.

Fox News leans right. Most of the other television media leans left. Because one outlet is biased doesn't mean the other sides aren't.

Oh, come on, Toshi!