The Authoritarian Personality Type: Fundamentalist Christians on parental Rights part 1

[JDMarine89]

Charlie Sheen?

[cybermone]

Its surprising that a loving mob with attitudes you describe frame challenges to these attitudes as pesecution for their godliness.

[edwardsson777]

Interesting -- as the video "freedom from conscience -- psychopaths" points out, the psychopath resists all authority over him or her. However, the psychopath runs our political system and then fills subordinate positions with people who are rule followers. Interesting irony.

[EucharistOfHypnos]

I'm a bisexual multi-ethnic atheist with strong egalitarian leanings, and I'll be the first to say that the RWA scale is a total crock. The guy isn't a doctor -which doesn't necessarily mean anything by itself, but his lack of scientific integrity is glaring-, and the test is very poorly worded. There are better meta analyses out there if you're really interested in seeing correlations between the current fundamentalist political movement and fascism.

[LithodidMan]

@EucharistOfHypnos I am curious about where you believe his scientific integrity is lacking, I have read a huge number of his papers and marvel at the rigor he employs when compared to many other researchers in the social sciences. Also, why would you say he isn't a doctor? He earned a legitimate PhD at an accredited university and holds a professorship...

[EucharistOfHypnos]

@LithodidMan no shit? most PhDs plaster their letters all over the place, I didn't see him lauding himself, so I assumed he wasn't one.

I went back and looked up more about this guy, and I was wrong.

[14nationalsocialist8]

lol That research is nothing but Jewish programing

[vadimcream]

I've always meant to ask, is that your voice at the top? It sounds like it might have been taken from the Simpsons... If that's you your redneck voice sounds exactly like Hank Azaria's.

[crackerz99]

@vadimcream i think thats the voice from one of hte guys in king of hte hill.

[BoricuaChiTown]

There is a history of child abuse that starts at the very beginning and to this day, in Nigeria 1,000 kids have been killd in recent years by Christians who accused them of wit.chcraft, and the catholic priests have abus.ed thousands more sexu.ally in their well established institution of pe.derasty. Religion is dangerous to children.

[BoricuaChiTown]

The bible is profoundly abusive toward children and its ideas, particularly the idea of 'fear of God' originates in the minds of children who were terrified of their parents who were tyrants.

[BoricuaChiTown]

deuteronomy 21 orders the stoning to death of a son if he gets drunk. judges 11 also documents how a father sacrificed his own daughter to jehovah. even the greatest patriarch in the bible, abraham, almost sacrificed his own son and cast his other one into the desert under the whispers of his first wife. Lot got drunk and raped his daughter, Noah got so wasted once that he passed out naked! and cursed his son out.

[KhagarBalugrak]

To put it clearly, there's nothing about atheism that magically makes one immune to committing evil acts. Atheism, just like Christianity, doesn't purify one and make one incapable of theft, murder, rape, etc. Stalin and Mao were atheists, and look at what they did. To think that atheism will usher in a golden age is just as deluded as thinking Christianity will solve the world's problems.

What we need is to act from good intentions, not to subscribe to a dogma, including atheism.

[KhagarBalugrak]

Atheism is usually a cover for the desire to be completely selfish, to totally abandon moral commitments to fellow human beings, to remain politically passive, and to insist on the right to "freedoms", even when these freedoms are at the expense of other people.

Yes, Christian Fundamentalists are without question authoritarian and desire to kill and torture people who are different. Atheists, on the other hand, usually desire to abandon morality in favor of self-gratification.

[KhagarBalugrak]

Actually, atheists can be just as bad as Christian Fundamentalists. Most atheists I know don't even believe in helping the poor, the sick, the mentally ill, and in opposing America's many brutal, genocidal wars. Most atheists I know are 100% amoral; they believe life is just a random, one-time occurrence, and that therefore, there is nothing wrong with killing people, since they're going to die and pass onto eternal oblivion anyway.

[yubarraboo]

Authoritarianism is a huge issue with mass communication That facilitates propaganda.

I've seen in my lifetime that the anti-liberal movement has taken hold. Freedom and democracy are seen as sins or disease that needs to be cured. It is disheartening to find that authoritarian mentality is easily adopted by the majority with nothing more than rhetoric and appeals to narcissism.

I am already working on relocating to a more liberal country, as I fear the conclusion of this movement.

[djlookwood]

no-one has the 'right' to impose any belief on any child, period. the imposition of belief or thought on a child with sanctions imposed for any dissent is the core crime of the authoritarian mind set. All other crimes are built from that base.

Read Alice Miller, John Holt, Richard Gray, John Taylor Gatto, or even my own work on this...

[sapamm]

On the Google email list we have been discussing the way in which the RWA may interact with the Social Dominance Orientation type. The RWA-SDO embrace. When the SDO's learn how to push the buttons of enough RWA's, to paraphrase Altemeyer the SDO's can get the RWA's marching. It is the SDO's that need watching, they have the sociopathic skills needed to get a large mass or RWA's agitated and on the move. Come and discuss with us: Google Groups 'The Authoritarians'

[sapamm]

You might also be interested in Derrick Jensen's 'Engame: The Problem of Civilisation' in which he characeterises civilised societies as analogous to an abusive controlling RWA family. He sees fascism as an inherent aspect of civilised peoples. I see a strong connection between this structure of civilisation (since the birth of agriculture) and obdeience to authority and all that flows from it including authoritarian child-rearing and abuse cascading down the generations

[sapamm]

We have a Facebook group 'Authoritarian Watch' focused on the RWA and Altemeyer's book. There is aslo a Google Groups email list 'The Authoritarians'. Come join us.

[shelley0809]

This is not a big issue in the UK. However, children need a coping mechanism when say thier pet rabbit dies, we just say 'the go to heaven ' pick a star that they can see & that's heaven, just to say nothing dies permantley ( a soother ). But when are people going to learn that children are not their property, that they develop their own personalities & have rights of thier own. Teaching them religion, well some parts is damaging! Way to go to screw a kid up ( religions).

[TheFallibleFiend]

One thing I noticed raising kids was that I consistently deferred questions from kids of religious parents with "You should really talk to your Dad" or "Have you asked your mom about that?" WHEREAS, fundamentalist type parents often initiated religious discussions with my kids and tried to give their views - and encouraged their kids to try to convert mine, sometimes in very rude ways.

[LithodidMan]

Yes, I have encountered the same thing. A child in my youngest son's class preaches constantly to him and to me (he is 8). I just deflect and change the subject but it is pretty clear he is not doing this on his own.

[Brianswers]

Interesting studies, thanks for sharing. Sadly the hypocrasy doesn't surprise me. A woman at my last job complained that Muslims wanted a room set aside to pray. not 5 minutes later she was complaing how prayer had been 'taken out of schools'. This is in Ontario where we have a CATHOLIC school board in addition to a secular one.

What does 'low RWA' stand for? I missed that.

[LithodidMan]

RWA = right wing authoritarian, the higher the score the more likely to have high RWA personality, low RWA's tend to be the more liberals, and most people fall in the middle. You can take his test (in the link), it is fun although as he points out meaningless as an individual score.

[tattooskin72]

My feeling is that if you are going to teach about one religion, you better be teaching about them all. I know in Texas they just passed a law that they will be teaching the bible as "literature" or some crazy crap like that. but it's just the Bible and no other religious text. To me that's bullshit.

[LithodidMan]

If it is done from a secular viewpoint I do not see a problem. The reason the Bible (in this culture) and not others would be justified as it is the most influential religious book in our society. And, again if done right, might get people to make the leap that you can teach this as mythology and it makes a bit more sense that way.

[tattooskin72]

It would be beautiful if they actually did it from a secular point of view. My fear, especially since this is being done in Texas, is that it will be done from a point of indoctrinating these kids. Being as taught as mythology, as it should be, wouldn't be a problem with me.

Still doesn't change that it's ONLY the bible being taught. I think that if you are going to teach one (even as myth) you may as well teach them all.

[KKDragonLord]

@LithodidMan If its in Texas, its most certainly Not done from a secular viewpoint. The Texas Governor Rick Perry admitted proudly that creationism is taught in his schools alongside evolution despite the 1987 supreme court ruling forbidding it.

[wolfwing1]

heh I'm a Canadian atheits, and I would say yes and no to that question. For me, I don't think saying there is no god in schools is nescarily a good thing, but teaching logic and showing them indirectly there is no need for a god that could be seen as good. Just teach them the science. Though out of schools I think it should be brought up more.

[pareidolian]

I'm a Canadian atheist too, and I would have said that it was a terrible law. I agree that science and logic should be taught. However, Piaget's research indicated that kids do not achieve formal operations (simple logic) until age 11 (on average).

I do think that the converse of the argument against that law is also valid. The average kid, even in high school, is not necessarily equipped to discriminate between different value-based dogmas. Leave it all out.

[dangerouslytalented]

I feel myself getting smarter when I watch your videos.

[LithodidMan]

It's a gift ;) Just a few minutes talking to me and nearly anyone feels smarter (by comparison).