LINK Half of Republicans believe false accounts of deadly U.S. Capitol riot-Reuters/Ipsos poll
A demonstration of how a flawed epistemology can harm thinking processes.
Is there a connection between "faith" and the respect society is conditioned to give faith responsible in any way for people who believe the lies being spread in the the American political dynamics of today like Qanon conspiracies and the reported statistic that half of Republicans believe 1/6 insurrection conspiracies? Could they actually believe that because they believe something, it actually makes it real regardless of the facts? They have "faith" in god, so that's enough to prove god is real. They have "faith" in republican party so that's enough to prove that the party leadership doesn't lie.
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6 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.. . . the actual source :
FearlessFly
Level 9
Apr 6, 2021
0
Since the source that I used does acknowledge their source to be Reuters I'm not sure what the point of repeating it is? Does something of relevance change in the Reuters' page?
@redbai . . . yahoo adds NOTHING, (actual) journalism matters.
@FearlessFly So there was no point as they were the same article. Yahoo! gave credit to Reuters for the story so there was nothing untoward about it being there or what it's origin might be. Same story, so it's materially not different in the least and has the exact same amount of "journalism", but somehow you can discern a difference that apparently cannot be articulated but attention must be directed to this nebulous aspect. Okay. 
@redbai "no point" -- the POINT is that Yahoo did no journalism for this article. 
@FearlessFly Which they pointed out by giving Reuters credit like every other site on the internet does when posting news from another site. So again, pointing out the obvious for no apparent reason, unless you just like to take any opportunity to take a petty swipe at Yahoo! on a site where no one at Yahoo! will see it and wouldn't care if they did.
They are INVESTED in ignorance. Believing reality would force them to face problems in their values paradigm.
MikeInBatonRouge
Level 8
Apr 6, 2021
0
I don't know if they believe it, but they espouse it. Most of them are not delusional, they are just propagating a lie.
barjoe
Level 9
Apr 6, 2021
1
Just to be clear you're saying that not just the politicians, but individuals being polled, are simply blatantly lying in their media outlets and pollsters, respectively?
Despite the muddled phrasing of your first question, I get it, and I think I have to say "no", or at least "not necessarily". Religious belief does not, in and of itself, predispose someone to believe just anything that a leader of their choice tells them to believe.
Not all Republicans are religious; not all religious people are Republicans (for a very good example of the latter, just look at our current President, a staunch although non-doctrinaire Catholic).
Some people believe in UFOs and alien abductions, or Bigfoot (Sasquatch to our Canadian friends- big hello to north of the border!), or recovered memory therapy, with the exact same fervor and disregard for any contrary evidence as Qanon adherents or election conspiracy theorists. Some people believe the CIA killed Kennedy and over 100 other people to cover it up, something which would have taken tens or hundreds of conspirators to arrange, and ignores all the forensic evidence as well as ignoring the fact that JFK hadn't even planned a trip to Dallas until a few weeks before the event, and after Oswald was hired at the book depository- so if he was a CIA plant or even just a patsy, it would have required precognition of the entire trip and the motorcade route to put him in place ahead of time. Ahem
Anyway... People choose to believe in the reality they like, versus the reality that exists. And with the fragmentation of information sources, it's easy to choose to get only news and information that backs up what you already believe. Add to that "news" programs such that the network admits in court that nobody should actually take the program seriously as news, it's clearly just entertainment; but that disclaimer is nowhere on the actual program itself.
It all started with The X-Files. Now, "I Want To Believe" is a mantra for an entire generation who only want to believe in the reality they are happy with; religion or no.
Paul4747
Level 8
Apr 6, 2021
0
Maybe my "muddled phrasing" confused you, but I was asking about epistemology as it relates to religious beliefs and political beliefs not religious beliefs themselves. I was addressing the ease it takes to believe nonsense with a bad epistemology whether religious or political. It was not about Republicans, religious republicans just happened to be the example I chose to use of the issue at hand. I'm sure there are religious Democrats that believe crap about their political POV due to their "faith" also using the same poor epistemological process of adding "faith" to the mix.
@redbai I'm sorry but I couldn't come up with a better term than "muddled". Maybe in retrospect, "imprecise", but I didn't get much sleep last night.
Regardless, epistomology is independent of religious belief, or another way to put it is that people believe in things other than religion with what can only be described as a religious fervor. Look at the allegiance some people give to sport teams, for example, or as you discussed, conspiracy beliefs. The neural pathways are the same as for religious belief.
It's genetic heritage on one level. Evolution saw to it that those who sat down and considered every aspect of a problem, instead of being instantly and unswervingly certain that they knew what was going on, were often eaten by bears, fell off cliffs, etc. Humans are predisposed to believing the first solution they are presented with, especially if there's a strong authority figure involved, and regarding those who challenge their beliefs as dangerous troublemakers; because that was the path to evolutionary success back in the dawn of history. We are evolutionarily biased against intellectuals and seeing all sides of the issue. We want to see the side that means we win, and they (whoever "they" are) lose.
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