Thomas A. Timmerman wrote:
> But I've got a right-wing conspiracy theory of my own:
>
> Paul C. Smith wrote:
> >I believe that the typical member of the religious right has
> >consciously decided that lying in service of his/her religious
> >beliefs is a good thing. I can believe
> >that quite a few people are honestly as ignorant as one
> >would have to be to believe those arguments. But I believe that
> >the majority, and perhaps the vast majority are somewhere between
> >dimly aware and well aware that most of what they say is untrue.
>
> If someone believed the same thing about women, blacks, or
> homosexuals, would they (even in their wildest dreams) ever post it to a
> professional list dealing with teaching psychology? Therefore, I can't
believe that
> Paul is serious. And if Paul isn't serious, he appears to have the same
motivation as
> M.S. noted above.
Paul is serious. Perhaps I should have qualified my belief a little bit
more, but you must have noticed that I did qualify it quite a bit. If it
helps, I do not believe that the typical religious believer is lying. I'm
talking about the religious right here (a term begging for better
definition, of course).
Are you implying that my belief is prejudiced? It is not - if anything, I
(and the rest of the world) have given the religious right far _too much_
benefit of the doubt, accepting the "mere ignorance" explanation until it
clearly stretched credibility beyond the breaking point. I believe that the
breaking point for me personally came when the Kansas School Board decision
was debated in the local paper, and we had a string of letters to the editor
from creationists who were very obviously simply lying (as well as some from
creationists for whom I still believe the "mere ignorance" argument - but
who cited books written by creationists who were clearly simply liars).
> By the way, Paul's claim is an empirical one; so as long as we're asking
for references....
Fair enough. My claim is merely my expression of a personal belief. If I
were to say it in class, I would expressly point out that it is merely my
personal belief. I clearly presented it here as a personal belief. I have
not and will not present it as a claim representing the current state of
psychological research. Obviously there's no need to support such a claim
with references.
I have no problem standing behind what I wrote above as part of who I am as
a professional. Surely if we as educators can't stand up to the kinds of
people responsible for the Kansas School Board decision, this isn't much of
a profession.
Paul Smith
Alverno College
Milwaukee
