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July 30, 2010
Crime and guns (part 2 of 2)
(See part 1 here.)
Opponents of personal gun ownership worry that easy access to guns may cause needless death and injury in situations which otherwise might end peacefully. We have all heard horror stories where children have accidentally killed people because they stumbled upon firearms left unattended. We worry that people in drunken states or people prone to violent rages may use guns in deadly ways. We also fear that this would increase the rick of armed crimes.
People also fear that carrying guns around might cause people to respond more aggressively than otherwise to the minor slights and annoyances of everyday life, like the person who cuts you off in traffic, or gives you the finger, or for any of the many minor aggravations that are a part of life. We fear that having a gun might cause people to channel their inner Travis Bickle, saying, "You talkin' to me?" before unleashing a fusillade of shots.
How realistic are these fears? Not very, says Dan Baum in his article Happiness is a worn gun in the August 2010 issue of Harper's magazine (subscription required, I think). He says that the data does not seem to support most of those fears. He also says that carrying a concealed weapon gave him a heightened sense of awareness about his surroundings and a sense of security that actually made him react more calmly when challenged, like when two men yelled a slur at him on the street. He just walked away with a 'Zen-like calm', with less anger and tension than he would have had when he was unarmed because he knew he had a gun and thus felt less put upon and more in control of the situation. He had the inner confidence that comes from knowing he could have handled the two men if things had turned ugly.
Rage wasn't an option, because I had no way of knowing where it would end, and somehow my brain and body sensed that. I began to understand why we don't hear a lot of stories about legal gun carriers killing one another in road-rage incidents. Carrying a gun gives you a sense of guardianship, even a kind of moral superiority. You are the vigilant one, the sheepdog watching the flock, the coiled wrath of God. To snatch out your gun and wave it around would not only invite catastrophe but also sacrifice that righteous high ground and embarrass you in the worst possible way.
He also points that an armed citizenry might be of real help in many situations. Most people think that the police will protect them from crime but in reality police are nowhere around when crimes are committed (unless you are dealing with really stupid criminals who act in the presence of police) and usually arrive long after the fact, whereas your fellow citizens are all around you and may be able to rescue you from crime or violence.
It is feared that the mere possession of guns will make people into vigilantes, seeking out crime so that they can enact their Dirty Harry fantasies, waving a huge gun and saying to some hoodlum "You feel lucky, punk?" But is this true? Baum writes:
But shall-issue [i.e., laws that made gun ownership much easier by requiring authorities to issue any adult a carry permit unless there is good reason to deny it-MS] didn’t lead to more crime, as predicted by its critics. The portion of all killing done with a handgun—the weapon people carry concealed—hasn’t changed in decades; it’s still about half. Whereas the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., can produce a list of 175 killings committed by carry-permit holders since 2007, the NRA can brandish a longer list of crimes prevented by armed citizens. I prefer to rely on the FBI’s data, which show that not only are bad-guy murders—those committed in the course of rape, robbery, and other felonies—way down but so are spur-of-the-moment murders involving alcohol, drugs, romantic entanglements, money disputes, and other arguments: the very types of murders that critics worried widespread concealed-carry would increase.
It is true that the US has extraordinarily high levels of violence and violent crime involving guns whereas countries like Canada and those in Western Europe (where gun ownership is highly restricted) have much lower rates. But how much of this is due to easier ownership of guns and how much is due to other factors? Are Americans just historically and culturally more prone to settling conflicts using violence and would find other ways to harm others if they did not have guns? As jpmeyer points out in a comment to yesterday's post, even within America there is huge variability with respect to crime and violence that (at least superficially) seems to show little correlation with gun control laws. Since guns can always be obtained by anyone in any country determined enough to do so, doesn't restricting its availability simply deny access to those who would use it in a responsible manner?
Gun ownership is a tricky question that inexplicably arouses a lot of passion. Like global warming, it is not an issue that has moral or religious overtones (like god and gays and abortion) so it is surprising that people get so worked up about it. It really should be one of those questions that could and should be discussed on a very clinical and empirical basis, involving questions such as: What does the data tell us about the effect of widespread ownership of guns? What is the impact of allowing people to carry them either concealed or openly? What does widespread ownership of guns have on the level of violence and crime and death and injury?
Baum says that after going around for some time carrying a gun both openly and concealed, he will stop doing so because it is "uncomfortable, distracting, and freaks out my friends; it's not worth it… If I lived in a dangerous place, I might feel different, and I may continue wearing a gun when I travel to such places (at least to the ones that allow it)."
In an interesting aside, Baum says that "Young adults buy markedly fewer guns than older people. They want to be urban and digital, and guns are the opposite of that. A big push by the industry to feminize the shooting sports has fallen flat; only in hunting has women’s participation increased, and even there just by a little."
So ultimately the issue may simply be decided by changing demographics and social trends. Guns may come to be seen as uncool as smoking cigarettes and John Wayne may go the way of the Marlboro Man.
POST SCRIPT: Will Wall Street win again?
In the wake of the financial scandals, a new agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been set up to protect ordinary citizens. Elizabeth Warren would be the natural choice to head it since she has been a key mover of the idea and has shown herself to be a smart and fearless fighter. (For Warren's appearances on The Daily Show, see here.)
Naturally, this makes her disliked by the banks and credit card companies and they are exerting pressure on the White House and Congress to scuttle her nomination. The Democrats know that if they overlook her, their progressive supporters will see this as yet another gross betrayal and capitulation to their Wall Street overlords.
Funny or Die reads Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's secret thoughts on Warren.
July 29, 2010
Crime and guns (part 1 of 2)
In American politics, strangely enough what gets people really fired up are not the major issues of the economy or wars but the three g's: guns, god, and gays. (Also abortion, but it ruins the alliteration.) The split on this issue is pretty much along ideological lines. Self-described conservatives tend to oppose almost any restrictions on the ownership and carrying of firearms while self-described liberals see unrestricted ownership as an invitation to increased crime and violence.
The latest issue of Harper's magazine had an interesting article (subscription required) titled Happiness is a worn gun by Dan Baum about the recent trends around the country that allow people to more easily own and carry handguns, either openly or concealed. Baum has owned and used guns a long time but just recently tried out what it was like to carry a gun around on his person, either concealed or openly, in those places where it was legal to do so. He estimates that around 6 million American routinely carry guns on their person.
I agree with Baum when he says:
To the unfamiliar, guns are noisy and intimidating. They represent the supremacy of force over reason, of ferocity over refinement, and probably a whole set of principles that rub some people the wrong way. But a free society doesn’t make people give a reason for doing the things they want to do; the burden of proof falls on those who would forbid. I started out thinking widespread concealed-carry was a bad idea. But in the absence of evidence that allowing law-abiding citizens to carry guns is harmful, I come down on the side of letting people do what they want.
I am not fearful of people owning guns. I am not a supporter of an outright bans on guns and support the Second Amendment. I can see where having an armed public can be beneficial in some situations and can also be a deterrence against a tyrannical government. This stance puts me at odds with almost all of my family, friends, and the people I move around with in the normal course of my life, who are shocked at my views whenever the topic comes up.
Where I disagree with the extreme pro-gun groups like the NRA is in their desire to view even reasonable restrictions on gun possession as evil. I can see the need to make sure that people who buy guns are screened in some way to weed out criminals and the mentally ill and that they be required to undergo firearms training to show that they know how to handle them. The right to own a gun should be treated like the right to drive a car. Just as we are willing to give ordinary people the right to drive vehicles (which can be lethal weapons) provided that have shown that they have had training in how to use it and handle it responsibly, so it should be with guns.
As Baum says,
We may all benefit from having a lot of licensed people carrying guns, if only because of the heightened state of awareness in which they live. It's a scandal, though, that people can get a license to carry on the basis of a three-hour "course" given at a gun show. State requirements vary, but some don't even ask students to fire a weapon before getting a carry permit. We should enforce high standards for instruction, including extensive live firing, role playing, and serious examination of the legal issues.
Baum lists five reasons that people give for opposing handgun ownership: "you think it so unlikely you’ll be attacked it’s not worth the trouble or the sacrifice of Condition White; you expect the police to come to your aid in the event of trouble; wearing a gun makes you feel less safe instead of more; you’ve decided you couldn’t take a life under any circumstance; or you don’t want to contribute to a coarsening of society by preparing to kill at a moment’s notice."
(Baum says that the gun advocates have a color-coded system for the level of alertness. "Condition White is total oblivion to one's surroundings—sleeping, being drunk or stoned, losing oneself in conversation while walking on city streets, texting while listening to an iPod. Condition Yellow is being aware of, and taking an interest in, one's surroundings—essentially, the mental state we are encouraged to achieve when we are driving: keeping our eyes moving, checking the mirrors, being careful not to let the radio drown out the sounds around us. Condition Orange is being aware of a possible threat. Condition Red is responding to danger." Baum said that whenever he carried a gun, he always found himself in Condition Yellow. He ultimately gave up carrying a gun because he found that he enjoyed being in Condition White, where you can get lost in your own thoughts.)
I personally will not choose to carry a gun myself, mainly because I am not sure that I have what it takes to actually kill another human being, though one never knows what one might do in extreme situations where one's own life or the life of a loved one is threatened. Carrying a gun and not being able or willing to use it lethally seems worse than not carrying one at all. Another reason is that I hate carrying unnecessary stuff around on my person. After being nagged by my family, I now carry a cell phone for them to contact me in an emergency but only they know the number and so I never get any calls on it (since I can usually be reached by them at home or at work) nor do I make any since I hate talking on the phone anyway. Carrying in my pocket every day something I never use irritates me but I do it to accommodate the family. A gun would be bulkier and the chances are almost zero that it would be ever used so why carry one around all the time?
(To be concluded tomorrw.)
POST STRONG: If only Eve had had a sassy gay friend…
A comedy cliché is the sassy but sensible gay friend who saves the heroine from doing something foolish. Actor Brian Gallivan has made it into his signature character.
The sassy gay friend rescues other famous fictional characters like Desdemona, Ophelia, and Juliet.
You can read an interview with Gallivan here about how he arrived at this series.
July 28, 2010
Crime and punishment
Studies "indicate that across a wide spectrum of the population and independent of local crime rates, viewing local television news is related to increased fear of and concern about crime." That is consistent with my personal experience. I hardly ever watch TV and definitely not the local TV news. As a result, I tend to be less fearful of crime than those who watch the steady diet of fear-mongering that local news channels depend upon in order to get ratings.
I also live in a quiet tree-lined neighborhood in a middle class community with people walking their dogs and children playing on the sidewalks, and all these feed into the impression that one is living in a crime-free area.
But I recently started subscribing to the local weekly paper that reports the news in about four or five small suburbs including the one I live in. The items mostly consist of local community events and people, city council and school board meetings, and the inevitable zoning controversies of which at least one involves the proposed construction of a McDonalds to which the neighbors object. There is something about a proposed McDonalds that galvanizes opposition in middle-class neighborhoods.
But there is also one curiously fascinating feature that consists of the police blotter that lists all the crimes reported and I must say that reading it changes one's perception of the neighborhood, reminding one that there is petty crime all around. And when I say petty, I do mean petty. Most of them deal with stolen bicycles left unattended, people entering unlocked garages and homes and stealing small items, minor altercations, and domestic violence.
There was one item that jumped out at me and that was the arrest of a man for stealing a toothbrush. I can't get that terse one-sentence story out of my mind because it raises so many questions. What would lead someone to steal such a cheap item as a toothbrush? Was it someone who had recently fallen down on his luck but still valued personal hygiene? There seemed to be something poignant about someone who would risk arrest just to get a toothbrush. Or was the 'thief' (the word sounds jarringly strong for someone committing such a petty action) a kleptomaniac? Or was it an adolescent who could easily afford to buy it but wanted to steal it as a lark or a dare?
If the theft was out of genuine need, why would the drugstore (which is where presumably the attempted theft occurred) be so hard-hearted as to report such a person to the police? Surely you would give a person so desperate to maintain personal hygiene a chance and perhaps even a toothbrush free of charge? If it was a stupid childish prank, surely a strong warning would have been sufficient?
Another blotter item spoke of the arrest of a person for stealing a 12-oz can of beer. Again, the pettiness of the crime causes one to raise one's eyebrows and wonder about the story behind the story.
There is often a class element involved in determining whether a petty crime gets reported to the police or not. I recall that when I was in high school in Sri Lanka a couple of boys from my school were caught stealing books from a store down the street. These boys were from well-to-do families who clearly did not need to steal and were presumably doing it for kicks or on a dare or for one of the many other reasons that make young boys act stupidly. Because their families were influential, the matter was hushed up and the boys quietly allowed to transfer to another school. But a little later two classmates and friends of mine who were not members of elite families got caught stealing books from the same store, confirming that young boys are incorrigibly stupid. But in their case, they were immediately expelled with all the shame that accompanies such an outcome, and their case was publicized and made into a stern lesson for us all on the evil of stealing.
There is no doubt that I benefit from the class bias of society in that my honesty is taken for granted for reasons that have nothing to do with knowledge of my personal character. Once at the grocery store I forgot to take the items on the bottom rack of the shopping cart out and place it on the counter for checking out and so they were not rung up. I discovered this only later after paying my bill and heading out the store. When I discovered my error I of course told the cashier and we all laughed at my forgetfulness. I suspect that if I had actually wheeled the cart out of the store without noticing my error, I still would not have been arrested for theft because my age and my ethnicity and my 'respectable' demeanor (at least I think I look respectable) would have protected me. It would have been treated as the honest mistake it was. But others who have the 'wrong' profile will not be so fortunate and will not be given the benefit of the doubt.
I recall once a conference presentation in a hotel meeting room that I made together with my African-American female colleague. After our session, we cleared up and took our stuff out to make room for the next presenters. I picked up what I thought was my colleague's expensive-looking coat (she is always well dressed) but it was only later after relaxing in the lobby and getting ready to go home that she said that the coat did not belong to her and I realized that it must belong to the people who had been setting up after us. Her boyfriend was also present and he started to take the coat back to the room to return it, but then stopped and asked if I could do it because he said that it would be awkward for him to do so as people 'might not understand'. The problem was as clear as it was unspoken. It did not matter that he is a very distinguished-looking and impeccably dressed man who could easily be mistaken for an ambassador or college president, while I was my usual nondescript self. The basic fact was that he is black and I am not, and that made all the difference in whether we would be presumed guilty or innocent of theft.
Most of us are unaware of the class and race privileges we enjoy and assume that it has been eradicated until we are directly confronted with it.
POST SCRIPT: Girl raised from birth by Wolf Blitzer
From The Onion News Network.
Girl Raised From Birth By Wolf Blitzer Taken Into Protective Custody
July 27, 2010
The origin of religion-9: Real and fictive kinship
For the last post in this series, I want to look at the strategies that religions use to both grow and retain their members. Elisabeth Cornwell and Anderson Thomson in their article The Evolution of Religion suggest that the growth of religion could have been aided by the idea of 'fictive kinship'. To understand this, we need to bear in mind that what evolution selects for are individual genes, not the full organism. The full organism (a human or chimpanzee or bird or plant) is simply a vehicle for carrying and reproducing genes.
The early research of W. D. Hamilton and R. Trivers showed how it can be evolutionary advantageous for a gene for the organism that contains it to nurture, protect, and even sacrifice itself for a relative because of its shared genes, and that this could form the basis for what we call altruism. As the mathematical biologist J. B. S. Haldane replied when asked if he would give his life to save his drowning brother, "No, but I would to save two brothers or eight cousins", which reflects when the number of his own genes that he loses by dying breaks even with the ones he saves in others.
(For the foundational papers in this area of research, see The Genetical Evolution of Social Behavior I and II by W. D. Hamilton (1964) Journal of Theoretical Biology, vol. 7, p. 1-52, The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism by Robert L. Trivers, (March 1971) The Quarterly Review of Biology, vol. 46, no. 1, p. 36-57, and The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod and William D. Hamilton, (March 27, 1981), Science, vol. 211, p. 1390-1396. For a clear summary of the research on how evolution can provide an explanation of the biological basis of altruism and cooperative behavior, see Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene (1989).)
This drive to perpetuate a gene by aiding the survival and reproductive success of those who share that same gene, our 'kin', is evolutionarily advantageous and is thus likely deeply embedded in our primal brain.
Farmers know this and take advantage of this altruism towards actual kin by tricking animals into creating a false sense of genetic connection, a 'fictive kinship', in order to make an animal help another not related to it. For example, sheep and lambs can die during the birthing process and although it would help the farmer if an ewe that had lost its own lamb allowed an orphaned lamb to suckle it, ewes are reluctant to allow a lamb not its own to do so. This is understandable behavior in Darwinian terms because the ewe's genes do not benefit from spending its resources on an unrelated animal. But by skinning the dead lamb of an ewe and using it to cover the body of a lamb whose mother has died, the ewe can be fooled into thinking that the lamb is her own and allow it to suckle.
Cornwell and Thomson suggest that the perpetuation and growth of religion is aided by this idea of fictive kinship. In primitive societies, we recognized as kin those who lived with us or very close to us. As societies grew larger and more complex, other devices had to be created to keep track of who was kin and who was not. Family names were one such device but in even larger groups we find ways to trick people into thinking in terms of kin by using labels such as 'brother' and 'sister', 'fatherland' and 'motherland', and so on. These terms are targeted to appeal to the primal brain that has evolved to instinctively rally to help kin, and are exploited by armies and religions and politicians in order to get people to band together as fictive families to fight against other fictive families.
Christianity, especially Catholicism, exploits the fictive kinship aspects extensively. It speaks of 'god the father' and 'Mother Mary', their priests are referred to as father or brother, their nuns as sister or mother, and the liturgy constantly invokes the idea of the congregants as brothers and sisters.
Another explanation for the origin of religion is the idea that belief in an afterlife is a precursor to belief in god. This view suggests that in primitive societies, older adults may have found it advantageous to themselves to initiate and propagate the idea that there is an afterlife in which they still wielded influence over events in this life. It enabled them to command respect and good treatment from the young in this life even when they were old and decrepit and of little practical use. It is not a big step from believing in a world of the afterlife to believe in some sort of hierarchy existing there, with the ruler of that after-world transmuting into a god-concept.
It is unlikely that we will definitively answer questions about the origins of religion since those events lie in deep evolutionary time and beliefs don't leave fossil remains or their imprint in DNA.
Those of us who wonder why religions still exist in the face of modern understanding of how the world works tend to underestimate the determination of believers to hold on to their beliefs. A Pew poll finds that while the public may say that they respect and understand science, "much of the general public simply chooses not to believe the scientific theories and discoveries that seem to contradict long-held religious or other important beliefs."
When asked what they would do if scientists were to disprove a particular religious belief, nearly two-thirds (64%) of people say they would continue to hold to what their religion teaches rather than accept the contrary scientific finding, according to the results of an October 2006 Time magazine poll. Indeed, in a May 2007 Gallup poll, only 14% of those who say they do not believe in evolution cite lack of evidence as the main reason underpinning their views; more people cite their belief in Jesus (19%), God (16%) or religion generally (16%) as their reason for rejecting Darwin's theory.
This reliance on religious faith may help explain why so many people do not see science as a direct threat to religion. Only 28% of respondents in the same Time poll say that scientific advancements threaten their religious beliefs. These poll results also show that more than four-fifths of respondents (81%) say that "recent discoveries and advances" in science have not significantly impacted their religious views. In fact, 14% say that these discoveries have actually made them more religious. Only 4% say that science has made them less religious.
These data once again show that, in the minds of most people in the United States, there is no real clash between science and religion. And when the two realms offer seemingly contradictory explanations (as in the case of evolution), religious people, who make up a majority of Americans, may rely primarily upon their faith for answers. (my italics)
But whether we treat religion as a mental illness (as argued by Albert Ellis) or understand its origins and presence in any number of other ways, we clearly have our work cut out in trying to expose it because of its deep evolutionary origins that can make people choose to believe in illusions over reality.
But the big weakness of religion, the one that works against it and will ultimately lead to its demise, is that it is a false belief with zero evidentiary support and such beliefs, however strongly held, eventually crumble.
POST SCRIPT: Trying to discredit science to preserve religion
Following up on the above Pew poll, you can see the comical lengths that religious people will go to in their attempt to show that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. Incidentally, the creationist Kent Hovind (aka 'Dr. Dino') who is featured in the video is now serving a ten year prison sentence for tax fraud.
July 26, 2010
The origin of religion-8: Religious observance as obsessive-compulsive behavior
In the previous post in this series, I discussed neurologist Robert Sapolsky's theory that the charismatic founders of religious cults had schizotypal personalities. He then goes further and tries to identify what traits might be at work amongst the followers of religion. What is it that makes them adopt ritualistic practices that serve no useful purpose? He suggests that the conscientious observance of time-wasting rituals that characterize devout followers of religions is a milder manifestation of what we now call obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD).
There's a remarkable parallelism between religious ritualism and the ritualism of OCD. In OCD, the most common rituals are the rituals of self-cleansing, of food preparation, of entering and leaving holy places of emotional significance, and rituals of numerology. You look in every major religion, and those are the four most common ritual forms that you see.
You could look at any of these organized religions -- though we're very accustomed by now that, when we think of religion, it's often interspersed with good works or a sense of community -- and see that religion in its orthodoxy is about rules: how you do every single thing all throughout the day. You look at orthodox versions of any of these religions, and there are rules for which direction you face after you defecate, which hand you wash, how many swallowings of water, which nostril you breathe in with, which nostril you breathe out -- these are all rules that Brahmans have in order to get into heaven. Numerological rules: how many times you have to say a certain prayer in a lifetime.
Orthodox Judaism has this amazing set of rules: every day there's a bunch of strictures of things you're supposed to do, a bunch you're not supposed to do, and the number you're supposed to do is the same number as the number of bones in the body. The number that you're not supposed to do is the same number as the number of days in the year. The amazing thing is, nobody knows what the rules are! Talmudic rabbis have been scratching each others' eyes out for centuries arguing over which rules go into the 613. The numbers are more important than the content. It is sheer numerology.
Then, obviously getting closer to home for most people here, there is the realm of the number of rosaries and the number of Hail Mary's. Religious ritualism is shot through with the exact same obsessive qualities.
Once again, these rules are time wasting and maladaptive for most people. But not for all, because if so they would have disappeared over time. They work to the benefit of those who make the rules. Sapolsky suggests that religious rituals originate with people who have OCD-type symptoms because it provides them with a livelihood. The rabbis and imams whose job is to perform the rituals that ensure that animals are slaughtered correctly, the priests who hear confessions and conduct services, the pope, are all people would have to get real jobs if there weren't these structures that provided a perfect match, a socially approved outlet, that allows them to benefit from what is essentially a disability. As Sapolsky says, "Outside of the realm of religion, OCD destroys people's lives. It is incompatible with functioning. Not only can you function with those rituals in the religious context: you can make a living doing it. People make a living doing rituals ritualistically in the context of religion."
So according to Sapolsky, schizotypals are the kinds of people who originate religions and people with OCDs make up the ritualistic rules that surround them and are its most ardent followers, who form the core fundamentalists who take the magical claims of the originators literally.
But protecting them and their beliefs are those with milder versions of this trait, the average person in the church, synagogue, mosque, and temple who are more modernist believers who kinda-sorta believe and kinda-sorta obey the rituals but not 'religiously'. (It is interesting that the metaphor of doing something religiously is used to characterize someone who never fails to perform a specific action at the requisite time and place.) Such people construct a protective belt of metaphor and obfuscating language to create the illusion that the beliefs make sense and that the rituals have a rational basis. They deflect attention away from the fact that at it core, the beliefs are factually false and unsupportable. The need for the existence of this group to allow religion to flourish ties in with the computer modeling work of James Dow that I wrote about earlier in this series.
The model assumes, in other words, that a small number of people have a genetic predisposition to communicate unverifiable information to others. They passed on that trait to their children, but they also interacted with people who didn't spread unreal information.
The model looks at the reproductive success of the two sorts of people - those who pass on real information, and those who pass on unreal information.
Under most scenarios, "believers in the unreal" went extinct. But when Dow included the assumption that non-believers would be attracted to religious people because of some clear, but arbitrary, signal, religion flourished.
"Somehow the communicators of unreal information are attracting others to communicate real information to them," Dow says, speculating that perhaps the non-believers are touched by the faith of the religious.
So perhaps the schizotypal personalities of Jesus and Mohammed and other cult leaders have features that attract even non-believers (many atheists have nice things to say about Jesus and Buddha as persons, Mohammed and Joseph Smith not so much), and this is sufficient to give the unreal message they propagate survival value.
People constantly ask why we new/unapologetic atheists argue against all religion and not just 'bad' religion consisting of the extremists, the fundamentalists, and the blatantly crazy and murderous. In this passage from an audio clip that I linked to recently, comedian Marcus Brigstocke explains why he thinks all religion is bad. After listing the crazy things that religious extremists do, he says:
I know that most religious folk are moderate and nice and reasonable and wear tidy jumpers and eat cheese like real people. And on hearing this, they'll mainly feel pity for me rather than issue a death sentence. But they have to accept that they are the power base for the nutters. Without their passive support the loonies in charge of these faiths would just be loonies safely locked away and medicated, somewhere nice, you know with a view of some trees, where they can claim they have a direct channel to god between sessions making tapestry drinks coasters, watching Teletubbies, and talking about their days in the Hitler youth. The ordinary faithful make these vicious tyrannical thugs what they are… Without the audience to prop it up… fundamentalist religious fanaticism goes away. (my italics)
I am not sure if Brigstocke is familiar with the work of Sapolsky, Dow, and others about the neurological bases of religious leaders and their followers, but his words do seem to be perfectly consistent with it.
We will not be able to get rid of religious extremists as long as 'moderate' religion continues to exist.
Next: Strategies used by religions to grow.
POST SCRIPT: Marcus Brigstocke on living according to the Bible