Who's brainwashed in America?

Ask some non-religious liberal friends how they would describe a person who attended only fundamentalist Christian or ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools from preschool through graduate school. "Brainwashed" and "closed-minded" would be their most likely answers, and they would often be right. Most people assume that any person who is exposed to only one way of looking at the world for all of his or her life can hardly be regarded as open-minded.

Now ask those same individuals how they would describe a person who attended only secular schools from preschool through graduate school.

Your friends would probably look at you with incomprehension. What kind of question is that? After all, they and the great majority of people in our country attended secular schools, and they consider themselves perfectly normal and open-minded. "Brainwashed"? "Closed-minded"? Such terms cannot possibly be applied to the secular or the "progressive," only to the religious and conservative.

But, of course, such a response is logically untenable. If a person is to be considered brainwashed for having only received a religious education, a person who has received only a secular or liberal (as in politically liberal) education should be regarded identically.

In fact, when secular people and those on the Left deny this, it actually illustrates that they probably have been brainwashed. The secular-Left immersion they underwent has been so effective that it has rendered them incapable of realizing that they have been so immersed.

This is one reason it has become more and more apparent that the most closed-minded people in American and European society today are not the religious, but the secular, not the Right, but the Left. The majority of even fundamentalist Christians and Orthodox Jews are exposed to far more secular thought and behavior than the secular are exposed to religious thought and behavior. Virtually all religious Christians and Jews study secular subjects, have been taught by secular teachers, read secular books and watch secular films and secular television. Virtually no secular people have studied religious subjects, been taught by religious teachers, or read religious books, let alone watched religious films or television, neither of which exists in any number.

The same holds true for liberals and conservatives. Virtually every conservative reads a liberal newspaper, watches liberal newscasts, reads liberal magazines and has been taught in liberal schools by liberal professors. Few liberals have read a conservative newspaper (there are almost none anyway), read a conservative magazine, studied in conservative schools or been taught by a conservative professor (of whom there are also almost none).

So who exactly is more likely to be provincial and ignorant of other ways of thinking? The question is rhetorical. That is why the late distinguished University of Chicago professor Allan Bloom wrote his best-selling "The Closing of the American Mind," not about religious or conservative America but about secular liberal America as embodied in its temple, the university.

That also helps explain why the secular Left (not yet a redundant phrase, but getting there) so often hurls epithets – "racist" (for opposing affirmative action), "homophobe" (for opposing the redefinition of marriage), "sexist" (for opposing medically unnecessary abortions) – instead of offering reasoned responses. As befits a person who has almost never been exposed to opposing ways of thinking, sustained argument is not possible.

Just as many liberals and secularists can only imagine a religious person being brainwashed, not a liberal or a secular one, they likewise can only imagine religious extremism, never secular extremism. One can easily be too religious, but never too secular. Yet, we have far more secular extremism than religious extremism in our society.

The American Civil Liberties Union is one such example. The organization recently threatened to sue the National Park Service over two little plaques at the Grand Canyon that had Psalms written on them. That most Americans do not consider a lawsuit over something so trivial a manifestation of extremism only proves how effective the secular brainwash is.

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The object of the excercise is the make ensure than the US is a place where people of all religions can be at home. If, instead of Psalms, there were passages or a Budhist saying, would you consider the ACLU's suit frivolous?

When we look at the religious strife in the middle east, Indian society, the Balkans and Northern Ireland, do you realize what the US could be like if those of every religious affiliation had their own way?

Assisted suicide exists in a single state, but should the US ban it because it is counter to certain faiths? Since it is not counter to the Budhist faith, and that state has more Budhists per capita than other states, how should that effect this?

The issue isn't secularism, the issue is whether we are to have a functioning society or endless civil unrest. I know which I choose.

oc

Because that is something that would come verbatim out of O'Reilly's mouth.

Look, people on all extremes can be said to be brainwashed. I also think that you and O'Reilly make too much out of the "secular attack on traditional values." Sure, there are some cases that are ridiculous, but this not a nationwide epidemic. The success of "The Passion," and the fact that the SCOTUS is likely to uphold "Under God" proves that the sky is not falling.

then maybe you can have that opinion. I personally went to a Episcopalian high school. I went to Church 3 times a week for 6 years. I have a Catholic wife and am sending both my children to Catholic school. But I am an athiest and think that your opinions are those of a religious nutjob. If you don't think that Fox news is far enough right for you or that this Adminstration is not conservative enough for you, I guess you are about to organize a set of crusades to go reclaim the holy land or something.

As far as your questions, I do oppose affirmative action. Mainly because it is unfair and degrades those minorities that deserve to be there. People then think, they only got in because of affirmative action, when they truely got in on their own merit. I think applications should not include race. It is up to the minorities to measure up. And those that do should not be cheated of what they have earned by people thinking they got handed something they didn't earn.

As far as gay marriage. I think that marriage is a legal status that allows you to share benefits, share legal protection, change taxes, inherit, etc. If two people have a loving relationship that they want to bind together in a legal marriage, why shouldn't they. That is the question, why shouldn't they be given the same legal status. Now if your CHURCH does not want to conduct gay marriages, fine. But marriage is not a religious contract, it is a legal one. And why should Gay couples be denied legal status of hetero couples. The law should be inclusive unless there is a reason not to. Not the other way around.

And as far as abortion, that is also a hot topic. But according to your definition of conception as the point where life begins (I assume), then every egg that has been fertilized in a test tube during fertility treatments and frozen can not be thawed out, or it is murder. Is dropping wart compound on that wart also murder because you are killing human cells. There is a point where we are just human cells, and a point where we become human. This is a gradual scale between conception and birth. It is not black and white but a multitude of gray. I think there is a shade of gray that needs to be picked and leave it at that. But every miscarriage is not the same as a child dying and every abortion is not murder, they are basically elective miscarriages. But that does not mean you should be able to get an abortion the week before your due date either. I personally think the end of the first trimester seems like a good place to draw the line myself.

So am I brainwashed, or is there logic in these arguements.

Why don't you share your arguements on these same issues. Oh and by the way, since this is the LAW we are talking about and NOT religion, your responses should not use the word God once for a reason or your arguement becomes unconstitutional.

If you want to go live in a religious commune, go right ahead. Maybe you should become Omish or something. But don't impose your religious beliefs on the rest of society. In society you ARE free to believe in your God. That does not give you the right to try to force others to believe in your beliefs.

Have you ever considered that your beliefs are not "mainstream" simply because others have heard them and simply don't agree with them.

Finally someone feels alike when it comes to the "brainwashing" of the American public. The liberal left wing who almost everyday accuses me of being brainwashed is the side that is the most closed minded that I have observed in my everyday life. Thank you Tom for that most wonderful post! Cheers to that one.

What a waste of bandwidth...The secular right never accuses people of being femi-nazi's, or tree-huggers, or pinko's, or un-american because they're the great 'thinkers' in this country right??

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The last time this country mixed politics with religion, people got burned at the stake.

If a person is able to watch FoxNews and not scratch his or her head in disbelief at the crap they saying, that person is irreparably brainwashed.

Agreed.

But you must admit that lanky blond guy on Fox & Friends in the A.M. has the neo-con snear in the voice down pat!

I consider Faux News entertainment - you know, like Limp Bushpig on the radio and his "dittoheads".

Why does everybody have to put a partisan stench on EVERYTHING? (Maybe that's the fun part of being in a political chat room.) You know, i think alot of this has to do with personal preference based on how you were raised and what type of outlook on life you have. I find it interesting that someone will become an atheist just because of some "bad apples" in the religious field. Hey, if you dont believe in a higher power or whatever because it seems ridiculous to believe, that is fine. But to change your whole outlook on things because of other negative people is just... i dont wanna say silly, but it is.

The ACLU is the perfect example of how trivial some of this stuff is. You know, that organization (and some bleeding liberals) has given a bad stench to the democratic party(i know, i know, partisan stench on EVERYTHING, right?)

Gay marriage is another non-issue that people wanna bring up. The worst arguments i have heard about that is that "it will destroy our moral fabric of our society, and therefore, destroy our society all together." GIVE ME A BREAK! How? what precedents do you have? Rome? whatever! i cannot recall the various reasons why the Roman Empire fell, (although there are a few obvious ones) but i tell you, i never heard homosexual marriage as one of them.

oh well, thats all for today. Arent you glad i didnt cuss?