Das Opium des Bourgeoisie

[shkrobius]

A UNL sociologist mined the data from the General Social Survey (conducted by the UoC since 1972) to correlate education and "religion" on a large nationwide sample. Here are the findings:

- Education had a strong and positive effect on religious participation. With each additional year of education, the odds of attending religious services

Comments

[shkrobius]

Sorry, but Jews do not evangelize. I do not consider you as the subject for a "deeply satisfying conversion;" I am satisfied to see you out. There was bitterness in your complaint that the Jews do not consider you as one of their own. There is no reason you should be considered on a different footing from the millions before you. There will be no fight to win you over.

I reproduced the opinion verbatim and provided links. If it is not much of an opinion, this is hardly my fault. Of course, I did not attack you personally, and it pains me that you took it this way; that was not my intention at all; I wanted to illustrate what kind of "explanations" you find fully sufficient when it applies to the behavior of people you admit hating. When this kind of "explanations" were(theoretically!) applied to you, you immediately found such rationales false and insulting. Yet when you applied this kind of rationales to the others, it was fine and in accord to your experiences. You do not find anything problematic with calling hundreds of people (whom you never met) hypocrites (because you do not understand their motives) or claim that their only true motive is economical, or social climibing, or whatever. It does not strike you that such blatant disregard for what people themselves say about their motives IS hypocritical. No one claims that you chose to be an atheist for shallow, egotistical desire to assimilate in a secular society dominated by anti-religious elites. Yet, the mirror image of such "rationales" makes sense to you. This is pure bias. This is pseudo-rationale because its only point is reasserting prejudice, it has no explanatory power.

Lastly, such pseudo-rationales (ascribing people imaginary motives, then accusing them of hypocrisy) can be produced by the yard, on any occasion and regardless of the particulars. It takes very little imagination to produce one. E.g., because it is statistically established that higher church attendance increases one's longevity
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/reprint/87/6/957.pdf
http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/54/7/M370.short
educated classes attend their churches more often in order to live longer. This is no more or less idiotic than the social-climbing theory, but, at least, has some solid data rather than pure hearsay behind it. The social-climbing theory's only intellectual appeal is that it resonates with the currently prevalent Marxist view that human behavior is fully shaped by economic interest. Well, every age has its own lunacy.

>>you only make yourself more and more ridiculous - just as the rest of your brethren.

Now, THAT is a rant!

[eta_ta]

once again, you engage in personal attack and you twist my words and you "diagnose" my ulterior motive.
you insult me, triggering a reaction then you exclaim "that's a rant". classic manipulating behavior.
switching topics. manipulating.declairing your opponent simply "bitter" for being rejected from your club of compliant idiots. that your opponent "lacks imagination" (does she really? that's a shame). hints at your opponent being Marxist (same trick leftist use by painting all their opponents racists).

every low trick in the book, every fallacy.

I am disgusted.

[shkrobius]

I can't add more to what I wrote above. You find hypothetical rationalizations starting from the universal origin of human actions in economic self-benefit (which is the cornerstone of the Marxist philosophy, and it is not a "hint", this is how it is) insulting when these are applied to you, but consider such rationalizations entirely proper (not in a hypothetical, but in the actual form) towards the others. If you protest the treatment along the lines, then perhaps you should not use such argumentation, because it opens you to precisely such argumentaton; you can't have it both ways. When you are given your own medicine (in a highly diluted form), you barrage me with complaints of being misunderstood, manipulated, your words twisted, yourself analyzed and insulted, etc. - and I am even denied the right to classify this outburst as bitter! So far, your only logical argument was calling me a deluded member in a club of compliant idiots. Whether this is true or not, it does not address the issue discussed: viz., why educated people visit this club more often than uneducated, --- unless you make a claim that educated people are more stupid, deluded and compliant than uneducated ones.

[eta_ta]

Enough.
Thanks for this reminder why I crossed you from my reading list.

[shkrobius]

I wish you the best.

[eta_ta]

I'm sure you do. Just another mitzvah.

Hypocrite.

[eta_ta]

and the last.

it's not "bitterness", you sweetie (as opposed to).

it's anger.

this is a typical, standard misperception/acusation so often heard from mysogynists: you are bitter! because you want to belong to us!

nope, silly. I am disgusted and angry.

[shkrobius]

BITTER adjective: feeling angry or upset because of a bad experience, especially when you think that you have been treated unfairly.
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/bitter#bitter_3

"Disgusted and angry" IS bitter. That you are/were treated unfairly has been reiterated four times. That you had bad experiences was reiterated even more times. You accuse me of the standard English usage.

[neatfires]

> Sorry, but Jews do not evangelize
Also, Jews do not murder (except in wars), do not idolize anyone other than God (aside from Rabi Nachman and the pure tzadikim), get rid of hametz on Pesach (by selling it to a goi for 1 shekel and buying it back after the holiday is over), etc. In other words, this is just the usual hypocrisy, so common in Judaism. If you know Hebrew, here's a reality check for you:
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3901700,00.html