Comments on: Flexible Standards on Religion http://enableate.com/steve/2008/1148 make it happen Sat, 11 Feb 2012 06:47:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2 By: Anonymous http://enableate.com/steve/2008/1148#comment-14083 Anonymous Thu, 08 May 2008 17:57:13 +0000 http://enableate.com/steve/2008/1148#comment-14083 confabulate. nice word. -anonymous confabulate. nice word.

-anonymous

]]> By: Michael http://enableate.com/steve/2008/1148#comment-14080 Michael Thu, 08 May 2008 14:26:40 +0000 http://enableate.com/steve/2008/1148#comment-14080 "Many pundits will assume any argument to support their party regardless of the overall consistency of the rhetoric." Humans in general will come up with all kinds of reasons to support whatever position they happen to believe in at the time. It is not rational, it will never make sense. I like to think about split-brain patients who's corpus callosum has been severed: Often when the Right side of the brain produces some action, the Left side will automatically confabulate a story to explain why, even if the story is completely false. The patient will however believe this account to be true. I believe that whole brained people regularly confabulate explanations to support their more deeply held beliefs in an attempt to maintain consistency. “Many pundits will assume any argument to support their party regardless of the overall consistency of the rhetoric.”

Humans in general will come up with all kinds of reasons to support whatever position they happen to believe in at the time. It is not rational, it will never make sense.

I like to think about split-brain patients who’s corpus callosum has been severed: Often when the Right side of the brain produces some action, the Left side will automatically confabulate a story to explain why, even if the story is completely false. The patient will however believe this account to be true. I believe that whole brained people regularly confabulate explanations to support their more deeply held beliefs in an attempt to maintain consistency.

]]> By: darwin http://enableate.com/steve/2008/1148#comment-14059 darwin Wed, 07 May 2008 17:15:46 +0000 http://enableate.com/steve/2008/1148#comment-14059 First of all, as to the article: while I'd be the last to claim that politics in this country isn't full of hypocrites,I don't think this particular argument is valid. The claims Rev. Wright have been making aren't religious claims, they're claims about civil rights, racism, and anti-american conspiracy theories, which liberals have been rationalizing for a long time. If Rev. Wright was saying that God sent hurricane Katrina to punish us for tolerating gays, I certainly don't believe the liberals would defend him just because it would help Obama. So I don't think there's an inconsistency there. As for your larger point, part of the problem is that we're talking about 3 different things: individuals within a political party, the political party as a whole, and the media coverage of the political party which is often the only thing we really know about the party. I think that *most* individuals probably have fairly consistent beliefs, with maybe a few unexamined inconsistencies; I think that political parties contain enough people with oposing views that whenever the political landscape shifts, new people flock to the head of the party, giving the appearance of hypocrisy; and I think the media decides on what the story is going to be on any given day and then finds the few vocal people in either party willing to come on the news and espouse the desired viewpoint, making the entire process seem completely erratic. First of all, as to the article: while I’d be the last to claim that politics in this country isn’t full of hypocrites,I don’t think this particular argument is valid. The claims Rev. Wright have been making aren’t religious claims, they’re claims about civil rights, racism, and anti-american conspiracy theories, which liberals have been rationalizing for a long time. If Rev. Wright was saying that God sent hurricane Katrina to punish us for tolerating gays, I certainly don’t believe the liberals would defend him just because it would help Obama. So I don’t think there’s an inconsistency there.

As for your larger point, part of the problem is that we’re talking about 3 different things: individuals within a political party, the political party as a whole, and the media coverage of the political party which is often the only thing we really know about the party. I think that *most* individuals probably have fairly consistent beliefs, with maybe a few unexamined inconsistencies; I think that political parties contain enough people with oposing views that whenever the political landscape shifts, new people flock to the head of the party, giving the appearance of hypocrisy; and I think the media decides on what the story is going to be on any given day and then finds the few vocal people in either party willing to come on the news and espouse the desired viewpoint, making the entire process seem completely erratic.

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