Christian Bashing

[Sockmonkey]

Trouble is, when the handfull of nut jobs make a stink they act like they have the tacit approval, if not the outright support, of every other Christian.

[Oregonaut]

Every monolithic block does that though. The "we" identification is frequently used by people to add credence to their inanity.

[iChef]

There is a Middle Eastern quote that I really like that kind of explains these monolithic blocks and their relationships. I forget exactly where it's from but it goes some thing like..
"Me against my brothers, my brothers and I against our cousins, my cousins and I against my village, my village and I against the world"

[Zcorp]

"Christians" are very diverse. There are more denominations between Christians than there are political parties in America, so its a bit dishonest to paint with a large brush and imply that "Christians removed TJ from Textbooks".

"Christians" did not remove TJ from Textbooks. The Texas Board of Education did (and they happen to consider themselves Christian)

Agreed, lots of diversity. The incident with TJ and the TEA is just one of the things I've mentioned.

And now I'll explain to you its significance. Yes it was the TEA who removed them from the text books. However the TEA are elected individuals. People get elected by pandering to the desires of their constituency, our government officials get into place due to the values of our people, and when someone who is a Creationist gets onto the board it says something about the values of that district. When majority of the board in of our biggest states voted to remove TJ from the text books it suggests something about the constituency of Texas.

Just like how it says something about the culture in America for Obama gets falsely accused of being Muslin and it matters in the polls. Or how no Atheist candidate stands a chance of being elected president, and how Obama left out non-believers from his SotU. They type of Christian that we elect is barely relevant, whats important is that they self-identify as Christian. This is also true among a lot of Christians in our nation, it doesn't matter what you actually belief as long as you call yourself Christian. Then you are 'in' if you don't your out. So yes its a problem with Christian culture in America. There are different sects all making twists on the dogma, but that doesn't seem to matter and honestly I doubt that most Christians can even tell you the difference between the groups as it would seem they can barely tell you about their own beliefs, so expecting them to understand nuance differences between their Church and another seems a bit unrealistic. There are more radical variations like the Mormons or Christian Scientists, and they are very much about touting their differences between the other sects, and even those laities will vote some someone who is Catholic before an Atheist.

So yes, it is a culture problem with Christianity and the us vs them scenario and that people are valued often in politics for the level of their faith rather than which sect of Christianity their faith is with.

[EdgarJPublius]

"Christians" are very diverse. There are more denominations between Christians than there are political parties in America, so its a bit dishonest to paint with a large brush and imply that "Christians removed TJ from Textbooks".

"Christians" did not remove TJ from Textbooks. The Texas Board of Education did (and they happen to consider themselves Christian)

Agreed, lots of diversity. The incident with TJ and the TEA is just one of the things I've mentioned.

And now I'll explain to you its significance. Yes it was the TEA who removed them from the text books. However the TEA are elected individuals. People get elected by pandering to the desires of their constituency, our government officials get into place due to the values of our people, and when someone who is a Creationist gets onto the board it says something about the values of that district. When majority of the board in of our biggest states voted to remove TJ from the text books it suggests something about the constituency of Texas.

Texas politics can be very misleading about what the actual values of the majority of Texans actually are.
For starters, the constitution requires that almost all public positions be elected, there are very few appointed positions in the Texas government. The state constitution also requires most of these positions to be filled at any given time with someone who was elected to that position. At the same time, most of the legislation passed by the state government must pass a popular vote to become law.
In practice, this means that for each election, the ballot is roughly nine thousand pages long and covers everything from the town dog catcher (literally in some counties) up to the state legislators and any law that was introduced in the last session of the legislature (or by the governor, or the local governments etc.). Even for a committed political participator, that's a lot of names and positions to remember (it doesn't help that the format for legislation on the ballot is itself confusing). So most people end up either skipping the majority of the ballot, or voting straight party ticket.
This isn't helped by the popular perception of Texas as a redneck redoubt of evangelical christian right wingnuts (historically, most of the state was actually relatively liberal until ten or twenty years ago or so, and the major population centers have mostly remained such). Since voting is already a pain, and everyone in Texas is constantly being told by everyone else in the country how religious and conservative we are, its no wonder that most of the liberal population stays home on election day. Heck, the Texas population is ethnically mostly Hispanic, and the perception that the conservative WASP is always going to to win that they hardly vote either in most districts.

And then, on top of this already fucked up, apathetic system, you have the independent school districts and the TEA which are all fucked up in their own special ways.
Besides having it's own voter demographic issues (who do you think is more likely to vote for educational positions?), the TEA itself is composed, unlike virtually every other governmental body in the state, of single member districts that are geographically distributed. this means that major population centers such as Dallas, San Antonio, Houston and Austin (which account for nearly two thirds of the States population and consistently vote Democrat), get one board member each, and sparsely populated districts (which makes up only a third of the population but more than two thirds of the geographic area, and mostly vote republican) also get one vote each, and outnumber the more populous urban education districts.

The situation is so bad that many of the State legislature (including the Speaker for the House, a republican) have made statements to the effect of the whole thing needing to be scrapped and re-structured. The sorry state of the TEA is likely to be a major issue of the currently seated state legislature (although the budget crises will likely take precedence and education may get pushed back until the year after next)

[Zcorp]

In practice, this means that for each election, the ballot is roughly nine thousand pages long and covers everything from the town dog catcher (literally in some counties) up to the state legislators and any law that was introduced in the last session of the legislature (or by the governor, or the local governments etc.). Even for a committed political participator, that's a lot of names and positions to remember (it doesn't help that the format for legislation on the ballot is itself confusing). So most people end up either skipping the majority of the ballot, or voting straight party ticket.

Yeah, I agree with all of your response, and was typing this up as I was reading the rest of yours. With this conclusion:

In general it suggests that Christianity or being Republican is more valued than education by the majority of Texas or at least the majority of districts in Texas.

Spoiler:

Yes, and people will skip different areas of voting depending on how much they are value those areas. Either groups that value the accuracy of education and specifically science less than other things, like the name or party of who they are voting for. They are in one area preventing them from getting many of the seats on TEA. They simply don't go out to vote. Of voting for the TEA is likely low priority in Texas, thats a problem in and of itself. It is a relatively low priority in the US in general, which imo a huge problem.

[EdgarJPublius]

Adding to my earlier points, I believe I read a study a while ago that indicated republicans/conservatives were more likely to vote a straight party ticket than liberals/democrats, so if you have a ballot as in Texas where many positions will be skipped unless someone votes party ticket, then those positions are going to be filled by the party more likely to vote a straight ticket.

Also, my point was that while it might appear from the outside that being republican/christian is the dominant/more valued position in Texas, the reality is that voting is significantly de-valued in Texas over-all, but more so for non-Christians/liberals (since the 'conventional wisdom' is that christian conservatives will win anyway, so why vote?) so that christian/conservatives tend to win elections out of proportion to their actual demographics.
This is compounded for education positions, since staunch evangelical Christians are simultaneously more likely to want to spread their beliefs through the school system, and more likely to see secular bias in the schools as an existential threat to their childrens' well being than skeptical/agnostic parents are to see a de-emphasis of certain historical or scientific subjects as existentially threatening.

[M.C.]

Sounds like too much democracy is a bad thing.

[Arrian]

In general it suggests that Christianity or being Republican is more valued than education by the majority of Texas or at least the majority of districts in Texas.

Or it means that an easily mobilized constituency can have a far larger impact on state politics and policy than their numbers would suggest. If there's low turnout in general, a minority group with very high turnout, especially on specific issues, can outvote the majority.

[Zcorp]

Also, my point was that while it might appear from the outside that being republican/christian is the dominant/more valued position in Texas, the reality is that voting is significantly de-valued in Texas over-all, but more so for non-Christians/liberals (since the 'conventional wisdom' is that christian conservatives will win anyway, so why vote?) so that christian/conservatives tend to win elections out of proportion to their actual demographics.

Agreed, but learned helplessness doesn't come from being the majority.

[EdgarJPublius]

Tell that to the Hispanic population of Texas.

[Zcorp]

Tell that to the Hispanic population of Texas.

I don't know enough about that and the legality of those voters to comment.
But it is irrelevant to my point, and maybe I should of used a more clear term, learned helplessness doesn't come from being the dominant group.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_group

[KnightExemplar]

"Christians" are very diverse. There are more denominations between Christians than there are political parties in America, so its a bit dishonest to paint with a large brush and imply that "Christians removed TJ from Textbooks".

"Christians" did not remove TJ from Textbooks. The Texas Board of Education did (and they happen to consider themselves Christian)

Agreed, lots of diversity. The incident with TJ and the TEA is just one of the things I've mentioned.

And now I'll explain to you its significance. Yes it was the TEA who removed them from the text books. However the TEA are elected individuals. People get elected by pandering to the desires of their constituency, our government officials get into place due to the values of our people, and when someone who is a Creationist gets onto the board it says something about the values of that district. When majority of the board in of our biggest states voted to remove TJ from the text books it suggests something about the constituency of Texas.

Just like how it says something about the culture in America for Obama gets falsely accused of being Muslin and it matters in the polls. Or how no Atheist candidate stands a chance of being elected president, and how Obama left out non-believers from his SotU. They type of Christian that we elect is barely relevant, whats important is that they self-identify as Christian. This is also true among a lot of Christians in our nation, it doesn't matter what you actually belief as long as you call yourself Christian. Then you are 'in' if you don't your out. So yes its a problem with Christian culture in America. There are different sects all making twists on the dogma, but that doesn't seem to matter and honestly I doubt that most Christians can even tell you the difference between the groups as it would seem they can barely tell you about their own beliefs, so expecting them to understand nuance differences between their Church and another seems a bit unrealistic. There are more radical variations like the Mormons or Christian Scientists, and they are very much about touting their differences between the other sects, and even those laities will vote some someone who is Catholic before an Atheist.

So yes, it is a culture problem with Christianity and the us vs them scenario and that people are valued often in politics for the level of their faith rather than which sect of Christianity their faith is with.

Correct me if I'm wrong... but your ultimate argument is: "if Christians didn't exist, the world would be a better place". (Not just from this last post, but from your other posts as well) Or perhaps: "Christianity is causing the bigotry mentioned in your previous post"

Can you please confirm / deny / clarify this? My rebuttle to that argument is simple: you've so far only demonstrated correlations. I don't think that removing Christianity would make people any less bigoted than they already are. Thats as far as I'll go till you confirm / deny the above interpretation of your argument.

[EdgarJPublius]

I'm not sure that matters exactly. My point is that you're making assumptions about the political demographics of Texas based solely on heavily skewed voting figures. The real population doesn't conform to any such simple profile.

And you are espescially off base when you make assertions such as

When majority of the board in of our biggest states voted to remove TJ from the text books it suggests something about the constituency of Texas.

Since, as I have discussed, the voting districts are distributed by geographic area rather than population. Two thirds of the state's population is represented by only one third of the voting members of the TEA, and the five members of the board that make up that representation are overwhelmingly liberal.

This has very little to do with the actual constituency, and very much to do with population distribution and the (willful or accidental) mis-allocation of voting districts