God forbid we use science

[Occhidiangela]

Just in case anyone was still wondering what Obama meant by "age-appropriate sex education." He has once again emphasized, as he did previously in response to Mitt Romney's comments, that what he means is information to help children deal with sexual predators.

-Jester

Which is a limited and narrow approach. I find mine to be far more practical than that idiotically expurgated explanation. I inow Obama is walking a tight rope, but that sort of gutlessness does not impress me.

Sexual predators are one of a hundred different issues that kids need to be educated about, and as kids approach various milestones you have to educate them for what is coming, not wait until you they may already have screwed up. (Pun intended)

See above, and how we prepared our daughter for what she was going to face.

Your asking Christians to "keep their faith to themselves" is absurd. Do you want homosexuals to all go back into the closet, as well? Where is your moral consistency, Jester?

Occhi

[Roland]

He's not going to win California come hell or high water, so if even Evangelicals there have come to see sense on the issue of birth control, it doesn't matter one whit to Romney. His targets lie elsewhere.

-Jester

He's not going to win Massachusetts, either, I can guarantee you that. Not that I'm pleased with our latest Governor (don't even get me started), but that's beside the point.

Speaking as someone from Massachusetts, his "career" here will be his downfall. He used this state as a springboard for Presidential campaigning, and it's truly showing now that he's gone. In the world before the Information Age, he might have succeeded. Not now. He will be doomed by his past transgressions, and I for one am glad. I only hope I don't see a repeat of our last Governor election playing out in the next Presidential election, for that would truly make me weep for the next 4 years...

[Munkay]

He's not going to win Massachusetts, either, I can guarantee you that. Not that I'm pleased with our latest Governor (don't even get me started), but that's beside the point.

I for one think the 10,000$ drapes look just dashing:P

Speaking as someone from Massachusetts, his "career" here will be his downfall. He used this state as a springboard for Presidential campaigning, and it's truly showing now that he's gone. In the world before the Information Age, he might have succeeded. Not now. He will be doomed by his past transgressions, and I for one am glad.

Agreed. I don't think Romney has any chance of winning Massachusetts. He came into office with a past as a plotting business man, and left it with a past of being a plotting politician (focused squarely on the presidency). But as always it'll be interesting to see how things shift before the election.

I only hope I don't see a repeat of our last Governor election playing out in the next Presidential election, for that would truly make me weep for the next 4 years...

You mean another election based on hot air? One candidate claiming she did so much in her role as Lt. Gov - when she didn't - and another promising some reforms - reforms that had zero to little chance of being successful?:P

Cheers,

Munk

[Jester]

Which is a limited and narrow approach. I find mine to be far more practical than that idiotically expurgated explanation. I inow Obama is walking a tight rope, but that sort of gutlessness does not impress me.

Obama is the next Clinton. All hat and no cattle. Which is a fair sight better than what else is out there, which is mostly a different cow metaphor.

But, on this issue, he's been pretty clear since moment one, and it is Mitt Romney that has been twisting his comments, in order to score "ZOMG Kindergarden Sex Ed!!!!111" points.

As for limited and narrow, what would you suggest? That the government send informative pamphlets to parents telling them how to do their job? Education is just about all the government can do to protect kids, without directly interfering in child raising.

Sexual predators are one of a hundred different issues that kids need to be educated about, and as kids approach various milestones you have to educate them for what is coming, not wait until you they may already have screwed up. (Pun intended)

See above, and how we prepared our daughter for what she was going to face.

Great! Fantastic. And, as I pointed out earlier, if every parent was as good as you, we'd probably not have any problems with schooling at all. Sadly, that is miles away from the case.

Your asking Christians to "keep their faith to themselves" is absurd. Do you want homosexuals to all go back into the closet, as well? Where is your moral consistency, Jester?

Uh, what? Not even close.

I'm not telling Christians not to *identify themselves*. You can walk around and proudly proclaim you're a Christian, live a Christian life, go to Christian potluck dinners. Couldn't care less about any of it. And the Hindus, and Mormons, and Branch Davidians, and neo-platonic-goat-sacrificers, same goes for the lot of them. Not my cup of tea, but, then, neither is jumping in bed with another guy.

I'm saying that religion doesn't belong in politics. That doesn't mean religious *people* don't belong in politics. Just that the functioning and appearance of government should be strictly secular.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

Yes. Quite difficult to say *exactly* who is an Evangelical. Much easier to say it's about 25% of people, by most reasonable definitions one could write. Rather deceptive to say it's 0.5%. Unless you pick a totally unreasonable definition, there's no way that number is even close.

I showed you my source. .5% of people when asked describe themselves as Evangelicals. I would agree that the political movement of the Religious Right is higher than .5%, but it is also much broader than Evangelicals.

About half of Americans describe themselves as "born again." Does that mean 50% are Evangelicals? That's not a totally unreasonable description, but probably not selective enough. About half of those self-describe as belonging to a faith that is Evangelical, broadly speaking. I would say that's a perfectly appropriate broad definition, which yields about 28%. Still probably a little high, but pretty close. I think my number is a perfectly accurate ballpark figure, and in any case, perfectly describes the group of people I was initially talking about, whatever you personally care to take "Evangelical" to mean.

Now you are being unreasonably obtuse. If we go with the 25% number, then you would also have to go with the 9% number which are the portion of Evangelicals which are Traditionalist Republicans.

Are you painting with the broad brush? I say yes, and I've shown you why. What you are saying about Evangelicals, would be akin to saying that Catholics are the source of the abstinence-only movement. When, again, there is a large portion of Catholics that would fall on both sides of the issue. Are Blacks the problem with crime? Are homosexuals the problem with AIDS? You would be quick to jump all over someone for a "bigoted" view, unless that view is held by you.

Great! Fantastic. And, as I pointed out earlier, if every parent was as good as you, we'd probably not have any problems with schooling at all. Sadly, that is miles away from the case.

And... How does the Nanny state differentiate the good ones from the bad ones? It doesn't. It assumes the lowest common denominator, and takes over the parenting of all children by law. The only time my children are out of parental site is when they are with people we feel 100% certain about or have screened. The largest amount of time they are out of sight is when they are at school, but we've done the best we can to insure they have good people teaching/caring for them. There are friends of my children where I won't let them play inside the other children's house, because I am not 100% sure about the adults in the house.

[Jester]

Now you are being unreasonably obtuse.

GAH!

I showed you my source. .5% of people when asked describe themselves as Evangelicals.

The number of people who would *describe themselves as Evangelicals* is much higher than 0.5%. It's ... (I'm sure we're all tired of hearing this) AROUND 25%.

The statistic you cited was the number who, when asked "How would you describe your religion," and forced to give one answer alone, would say Evangelical. If we extended the same concept to how many "Christians" there are (Because, by your inane misconstrual, that's how many "when asked describe themselves as Christian") we would end up with 6.8%! That's not even a 10th of the actual number.

Plus, we have a perfectly good set of numbers that we have also looked at, and discusses, and from which we get the numbers cited, from where you get the 9% of "traditional" evangelicals. How on earth are 9% of the people "traditional" Evangelicals, if only 0.5% are Evangelicals at all?!?!

In short, that 0.5% number is nothing more than trivia. It does not match what I mean when I say "Evangelicals." It does not match what anyone I know means. It does not match what the National Association of Evangelicals means! It doesn't match anything at all, except a number on a table that means almost nothing! It's like a clueless Martian anthropologist figuring the number of people who are "Earthlings" by asking humans for one term to describe where they're from, and ONLY counting the people who said "Earth"!

And you're accusing *me* of being unreasoningly dense?

I would agree that the political movement of the Religious Right is higher than .5%, but it is also much broader than Evangelicals. [...] If we go with the 25% number, then you would also have to go with the 9% number which are the portion of Evangelicals which are Traditionalist Republicans.

Are you painting with the broad brush? I say yes, and I've shown you why.

Look, this is an *internet forum*. I can't chisel out a picture-perfect statue of the entire American public in all its glory in every post. What I have said is, as best I can tell, correct, or at least, correct enough to be posted here. It is certainly a fair sight more nuanced than the *ludicrous* generalizations you whip off about Muslims on a weekly basis around here.

What you are saying about Evangelicals, would be akin to saying that Catholics are the source of the abstinence-only movement. When, again, there is a large portion of Catholics that would fall on both sides of the issue.

As I have *already* said, they are not the ONLY ones who support abstinence-only. They are, however, the *largest* block in favour of it, the most *consistent* block in favour of it, and the most *republican* block in favour of it. They are the most likely to vote their religion, on this kind of issue. Therefore, they are, *primarily*, the ones Mitt Romney is looking to win over! If you are unwilling to make even this kind of generalization, how the heck to you ever talk about politics at all? By qualifying every sentence with an entire encyclopaedia?

Are Blacks the problem with crime? Are homosexuals the problem with AIDS?

Hey, how about that! I already made those distinctions *in this thread*!

You would be quick to jump all over someone for a "bigoted" view, unless that view is held by you.

And this one!

Bah.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

And you're accusing *me* of being unreasoningly dense?

Yes. You posted some monstrously preposterous high number of people who are "Evangelicals" -- which in the context of that article was referring to the "Religious Right", and not the population of people described by the attendees of all the denominations that are a part of the NAE. I showed you an equally irrelevant number that shows that "when asked how you would describe your religious affiliation" not many people claim to be "Evangelical". You asked me where I got the number, and I showed it to you. So, forget the .5% number. I accept your premise that when asked people would say "Baptist", but might also be in the "Religious Right", however, you refuse to accept that when asked people might say "Catholic" and might also be a part of that voting block called the "Religious Right". Trying to label Evangelicals as the group that is the most right, is like trying to label Germany as the country that is the most European. My point is simply illustrated thus... When you ask me my nationality, I would say "American". Not Minnesotan, and not Swedish, and not North American. The United States belongs to the OAS, which encompasses all of the Americas. Is there anything we in the OAS all agree on? That is how it is within the Baptists, Methodists, and all the miscellaneous sects you have swept up into a nebulous blob of Christians you arbitrarily call Evangelicals. Your motives are to ascribe a political block to a word, and I'm saying that word is not "Evangelical". The survey you claim to be accurate also tells you that, but you refuse to read and understand the numbers.

As I have *already* said, they are not the ONLY ones who support abstinence-only. They are, however, the *largest* block in favour of it, the most *consistent* block in favour of it, and the most *republican* block in favour of it. They are the most likely to vote their religion, on this kind of issue. Therefore, they are, *primarily*, the ones Mitt Romney is looking to win over! If you are unwilling to make even this kind of generalization, how the heck to you ever talk about politics at all? By qualifying every sentence with an entire encyclopaedia?

Where do you get the evidence for this statement? Have we seen any survey that asks a sample of those people who belong to the denominations who are members of the NAE how they stand on abstinence-only sex education for all school grade levels? I don't think so.

That was my only point. You are pointing at the Jerry Falwell type Religious Right, which I am certain it is not 25% of Americans, and certainly not 50% plus. And, as I pointed out in places like California, only 7% of parents believe in AO sex education. I would suspect the figure is not really very high even in the reddest of states.

So here is another source for comparison... Religious Identification in the U.S.: How American adults view themselves

Notice this quote right near the top...

"evangelicals remain just 7% of the adult population. That number has not changed since the Barna Group began measuring the size of the evangelical public in 1994....less than one out of five born again adults (18%) meet the evangelical criteria." (N = 1003; margin of error = ±3.2%).

Or,

Political affiliation:
Adults identifying with a specific faith group are almost evenly split among Republicans, Democrats and Independents. But those who do not identify with a religion are 43% Independent, 39% Democrat, and 17% Republican.

59% of Assemblies of God followers prefer the Republican party; only 13% of religious Jews and 9% of Buddhists agree. 56% of Jews prefer the Democratic party; only 14% of Mormons and 12% of those who identify themselves simply a Evangelical or Born-again agree.

So much for the voting bloc theory. Who cares if you can win 70% of the vote of a group that comprises 7% of the population? A smart politician would aim at Catholics, and mainstream Protestants.

[Jester]

And who is the Barna Group? Interesting question, with an answer that obviously shows how they got their results.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Barna

These numbers are, dollars to donuts, deflated in order to show what Mr. Barna wants to show: that those who "really" believe are a small minority of faithful, engaged in a David-vs-Goliath struggle with the giant of secular society. Evangelical isn't just an objective category for him and his company, nor is it a matter of self-identification. It is a goal to be attained. Hardly an objective source on who is and isn't Evangelical, I'd say.

Their definition of evangelical is a remarkably thorough affair, excluding anyone with so much as a scrap of religious moderation left in their bodies.

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=...TopicID=17

So, perhaps the group of people this describes is only 9%. That alone is enough to give me the heebie-jeebies, because a tenth of the electorate is definitely non-trivial. If 9% of the voting public were fundamentalist Muslim, I'll give you 2000-1 odds you wouldn't be so dismissive. But the group of people who believe much or most of that definition, who go to those churches, listen to those preachers, and self-identify as being "Evangelical," is much larger. It is them who I am talking about. Depending on when you poll them, and how you phrase the question, that's anywhere from about 15% through to about 40%.

(Monstrous? Preposterous? I'm not the one who claimed a number that's 1/18th of even this maddeningly conservative estimate (in both senses) matched their personal experience.)

-Jester

[kandrathe]

And who is the Barna Group? Interesting question, with an answer that obviously shows how they got their results.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Barna

These numbers are, dollars to donuts, deflated in order to show what Mr. Barna wants to show: that those who "really" believe are a small minority of faithful, engaged in a David-vs-Goliath struggle with the giant of secular society. Evangelical isn't just an objective category for him and his company, nor is it a matter of self-identification. It is a goal to be attained. Hardly an objective source on who is and isn't Evangelical, I'd say.

Their definition of evangelical is a remarkably thorough affair, excluding anyone with so much as a scrap of religious moderation left in their bodies.

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=...TopicID=17

So, perhaps the group of people this describes is only 9%. That alone is enough to give me the heebie-jeebies, because a tenth of the electorate is definitely non-trivial. If 9% of the voting public were fundamentalist Muslim, I'll give you 2000-1 odds you wouldn't be so dismissive. But the group of people who believe much or most of that definition, who go to those churches, listen to those preachers, and self-identify as being "Evangelical," is much larger. It is them who I am talking about. Depending on when you poll them, and how you phrase the question, that's anywhere from about 15% through to about 40%.

(Monstrous? Preposterous? I'm not the one who claimed a number that's 1/18th of even this maddeningly conservative estimate (in both senses) matched their personal experience.)

-Jester

And, so... ...your numbers might be... ...somewhat inflated to show whatever that pollster wanted to show? So, actually to be accurate, how you phrase the question and how you poll the results could be anywhere from .5% to 40% as we've seen. Which is a good example of "How to lie with statistics". And, for the record, my personal experience is that I don't really hang out at Bob Jones, or Liberty U, but I do see mostly the mainstream Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims. Remember also that I live in the only Midwest State that is immune to Republican landslides. So, yes, 1 in 200 hard core "Religious Right Wingers" is about par for those in my area. If 7-9% were Muslims it wouldn't bother me at all, so long as their imam was not exhorting them to violent Jihad against the infidels. But, then, it would equally bother me if some Evangelical pastor, or even the Pope himself was exhorting people to shoot abortion doctors. In any case, I think it is worthy of keeping them in the FBI watch list and using all the powers of the Patriot Act to surveillance the be-jesus (or maybe the be-mohammed) out of them.

[Jester]

And, so... ...your numbers might be... ...somewhat inflated to show whatever that pollster wanted to show?

Gallup asks people, every year, "Would you describe yourself as a "born again" or an Evangelical Christian?" And every year, they get somewhere around 40%. That is a slightly larger category than strictly Evangelicals, but illustrates the kind of self-identification I'm talking about. Maybe there's some wacky push-polling trick to that question, but it seems pretty clear to me.

http://www.wheaton.edu/isae/defining_eva...alism.html

-Jester

[Frag]

I think I understand Jester's position now.

~Frag :whistling:

[Jester]

I think I understand Jester's position now.

~Frag :whistling:

Wow.

That is a *gem*.

Thanks, Frag. That's a keeper.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

Gallup asks people, every year, "Would you describe yourself as a "born again" or an Evangelical Christian?" And every year, they get somewhere around 40%. That is a slightly larger category than strictly Evangelicals, but illustrates the kind of self-identification I'm talking about. Maybe there's some wacky push-polling trick to that question, but it seems pretty clear to me.

http://www.wheaton.edu/isae/defining_eva...alism.html

-Jester

Actually, the Wheaton article is saying what I've been saying. There is more than one definition of "Evangelical" making it hard to quantify. I feel it is dishonest to use the Gallup number which is the broadest sense, for talking about the slimmest fraction that are moral ultra-conservatives.

[NuurAbSaal]

I think I understand Jester's position now.

~Frag :whistling:

Failed to open page, server not found:(

take care
Tarabulus

[Frag]

Failed to open page, server not found:(

take care
Tarabulus

Just checked and it appears I crashed their server... who knew the Lounge had that much traffic? <_<

Just kidding, should be up "soon" :D
~Frag

[Jester]

Actually, the Wheaton article is saying what I've been saying. There is more than one definition of "Evangelical" making it hard to quantify. I feel it is dishonest to use the Gallup number which is the broadest sense, for talking about the slimmest fraction that are moral ultra-conservatives.

Well, I'm not using the Gallup number, which is 40%, approximately. I've been saying 25%, which is a much smaller number, by over 40 million people.

I have emphasized, many times, that not every Evangelical (and one could broaden this to not even every congregation) will find Romney's appeal to be convincing.

But the "moral ultra-conservatives" are not a slim fraction. They are over a quarter of all born-agains, and nearly a tenth of the population. Since around two-thirds of the voters aren't likely to vote in a Republican primary anyway, even if we just consider that group of people, ('Evangelicals' by the Barna number, 'Traditional Evangelicals' by the earlier one) that is more than enough for a candidate to bend over backwards for their support.

But they are certainly not the only ones. The voting statistics for Bush in 2000 and 2004 make it abundantly clear: the candidate who speaks the right message about Religion can carry the Evangelical vote, to the tune of nearly 85%. This is not just Jerry Falwell and his immediate crew. This is a huge swath of the voting public.

Issues that convince the hard-core Evangelicals are likely to swing the major Evangelical organizations over to one candidate. When that happens, the power of the pulpit in politics brings over a much larger, perhaps more moderate group, but in huge numbers. Not every Evangelical has to be completely over the top 700-club-crazy for a candidate to win broad Evangelical support by making appeals to the conservative wing. Those same conservatives, since they represent the largest faction of Evangelicals, control all their political apparatus.

It is perhaps telling that the only other group who votes so consistently in one direction are the African-American born-again churches, who vote almost the complete mirror image. Interesting to contemplate.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

...
Issues that convince the hard-core Evangelicals are likely to swing the major Evangelical organizations over to one candidate. When that happens, the power of the pulpit in politics brings over a much larger, perhaps more moderate group, but in huge numbers. Not every Evangelical has to be completely over the top 700-club-crazy for a candidate to win broad Evangelical support by making appeals to the conservative wing. Those same conservatives, since they represent the largest faction of Evangelicals, control all their political apparatus.

I think this is mis-perception. The surveys we've looked at show that Evangelicals span from the ultra progressive to the ultra conservative politically, and in fact it is the "bleeding heart do good" crowd that is more likely to want to use government to solve social issues like poverty. You seem to insist that "Evangelicals" are a predictable voting bloc, and I would say they are no more predictable than Catholics. In that broadest sense, Evangelical merely means that the person believes in openly discussing their faith. The closer you get to the Barna group definition, the more likely the individual would be conservative. Religious ultra conservatives span all sects of Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims. And, again, the surveys we've looked at show that the distribution of political philosophy are equally distributed across beliefs. Your 25% number is clearly split between Democrats and Republicans.

But, you are right in saying that to "say the right things" will attract massively people of faith. If Mit was pandering for votes, he could have been broader in his appeal by telling religious groups that he would endeavor to keep the government clear of moral decisions. Among those issues would be sex education, parental consent, abortion, tax exemption, and enforcing secularism in the society.