Helping others is socialism!

glennmagusharvey

I think Christianity is, like most other religions, basically a good thing, but it has extreme believers who do stupid shit...like various other religions, as well.

> I think that might be true for suburbs, but I do not think that really
explains why rural areas and small towns tend to be less
liberal/progressive than urban areas. My understanding is that many
small towns are vary close-knit and people feel free to share things
with each other in them. One example I can think of is a neighbor coming
over to ask to borrow some flour or something like that.

That might be due to common cause from having few resources.  These rural areas and small towns are typically poorer and more in-the-middle-of-nowhere than suburbs.  Suburbs tend to be well-supplied with goods (think big box stores and supermarkets and malls and plazas) and roadways (easy access to major roads such as expressways), and also tend to contain people who have had sufficient wealth to move out of a city or to move closer to a big city without being in it.

Beholderess

God Himself could come down from heaven and back me up here but it wouldn't matter.

To be fair, it is true that were this one to meet god, it won't prove anything to her. Oh, of course it would prove that god exists and is sufficiently powerful - but not that s/he/it is right. It might as well be Cthulhu for all I know. If Cthulhu starts whispering in my head that I should sacrifice a bunch of kittens and old ladies to him - I am allowed to question that, right? But if God tells me the same I should obey? And how do I know that it is not actually Cthulhu telling me that it is God?

Maybe it's better to simply decide that sacrificing kittens is bad, period, no matter who says to?

CaptainFargle

Quite right Beholderess. 

Incidentally, you really need to add your avatar over here. The Hanar speech patterns come off as a little odd without the Hanar Avatar. 

Beholderess

Thank you (bows)

Actually, the speech pattern came before getting a Hanar avatar. People likened this one to hanar so she decided that she might as well be one if that's what people see her as.

CaptainFargle

If that's the case you have to admit it's remarkably coincidental. 

LouieW

CaptainFargle,

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/ Try
that link. I haven't studied the Qu'ran yet, but they have Skeptics
annotated one on there that will probably provide a lot of what you're
looking for.

Thank you for the link. I looked over a very small portion of the comments about the Bible and the Qu'ran and I imagine I may go back to it later. I wonder if such a site really has any effect on people who are religious though. From what I can tell it is more targeted to people who already are atheists or agnostics. Still, I think it seems like a useful website.

glennmagusharvey,

That might be due to common cause from having few resources.  These
rural areas and small towns are typically poorer and more
in-the-middle-of-nowhere than suburbs.  Suburbs tend to be well-supplied
with goods (think big box stores and supermarkets and malls and plazas)
and roadways (easy access to major roads such as expressways), and also
tend to contain people who have had sufficient wealth to move out of a
city or to move closer to a big city without being in it.

You are probably right about that. I am a bit skeptical about your claim that people in urban areas are more used to sharing resources and getting along with their peers though. I was under the impression that many urban areas were fairly fragmented into different neighborhoods that were somewhat homogenous in regards to income, ethnicity, and the like (i.e. there are poor neighborhoods, rich neighborhoods, ethnic neighborhoods and such). Still, I think you are right about cities that are diverse without being prone to separations and conflict around ethnic or class lines though.

I also think that being willing to share resources does not necessarily have to do with one's political affiliation. My understanding was that conservatives do not have many issues with sharing per se, but simply do not want the government to force them to share in ways that they think are inefficient, ineffective, or unfair. Of course, I am not an expert on ideology so I might be a little off there.

glennmagusharvey

I totally agree that there are often instances of inefficiency in government services.  However, ineffectiveness is a judgement call to some extent, and unfairness is frequently values-dependent.

However, the biggest problem with this is that people who complain that the government is forcing them to share in ways that they think are inefficient, ineffective, or unfair, could either be:
* honest, good, hard-working, nice people who objectively think this about a given situation, or
* greedy people who stand to gain from criticizing government for these things and changing policy in certain directions.

There is no good way to distinguish between these two groups.  In fact, most people in the second group think they are in the first group anyway.

The thing with some of these government programs is that they're basically "institutionalized sharing" that is supposed to be able to serve independently of the faults of individuals.  For example, people might forget to donate to charity, or they might have a tight fiscal situation this year or month.  But taxes are always available, because they are collected by law.

The idea is that, when people's sentiment varies--say, oh, y'know, I don't remember so-and-so environmental or poverty-related issue being a problem, or I don't feel like giving today, or whatever--there's a consistent source of funding for these serivces.

LouieW

glennmagusharvey,

Sorry, I did not want to get in a political debate or anything. I admit that you would probably dominate me in one as I probably know relatively little about politics compared to yourself and I do not think much would be gained from such a discussion.

I guess what I really took issue with was what you said about people in urban areas getting along better with their peers and being more accustomed to sharing than those in suburban areas. While that may be true (I am not really sure how one would measure such attitudes though), I disliked what I saw as the implication within your post that people who are worse at getting along with their peers and sharing are more likely to be conservative and thus that conservatism is somehow associated with such negative qualities. I apologize if I misinterpreted what you said though.

glennmagusharvey

Oh, I was not trying to debate.  Just offering some new thoughts on the topic of conversation.

I do see your point (which also was raised by someone else) about people in urban areas not necessarily getting along better.  That doesn't fit into my model, which means that my model needs tweaking.

Of course, I never vouched for nor guaranteed any validity to any of my political analysis, so my rear is covered. :P