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Wednesday, October 20, 2010 © Copyright 2010, The Ultrapolis Project – May be used freely with
proper attribution. All other rights
reserved. |
IN
THIS ISSUE:
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World Trade Center Successor Rises – At Last
·
Hardcore Atheists Celebrate Religious Survey, But Science Backs Belief
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Quotes of the Week: Dennis Miller on TV Reality, Senator Harry Reid on
Inside Butts
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One World Trade Center Rising Fast – At Last
The ‘Freedom’ Tower Finally
Hits its Stride on the Way Up After
nine long, arduous years of legal wrangling, bureaucratic gridlock,
corporatist maneuvering, and wading through the very emotionally and
politically charged issues surrounding the treatment of the post 9/11 space,
the much anticipated successor to the fallen World Trade Center twin towers
is finally rapidly making its way up to its planned patriotic height of 1,776
feet (541 m). Previously known as the
Freedom Tower, the One World Trade Center’s foundation was not poured until
2006. It took another two years before
constructions began on its first floor below street level. It was not until the start of this year
that the building climbed above street level and construction began in
earnest, and the decade-long disgrace of a giant hole celebrating a Muslim
extremist terrorist victory over America finally began to recede into the
shadow of an American effort at rebirth and restoration. The building is now at 40 stories, and
beginning to become a visible presence in the downtown New York City skyline. The
new World Trade Center complex’s set of buildings replacing the seven
destroyed in the 9/11 attack or taken down afterwards, will only sport one
tower as tall as the original ‘Twin Towers.’
The One WTC Tower’s rooftop will reach 1,368 feet (417 m), symbolically
matching the taller of the two fallen twins.
Then a mast-like spire will stretch out another 408 feet (124 m), to
reach its total height, making it officially the tallest building in the
United States, though the Sears (Willis) Tower in Chicago will still have
higher floor levels. 1 WTC is set to be completed in 2013. For additional spectacular images, beyond
those below, on the future development of the WTC site, including renderings
of the memorial inverted waterfall pools and the stunning new transportation
hub, please visit www.wtc.com.
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Atheists
May Huff and Puff, But Science Backs Belief
Pew Survey on Religious Knowledge
Touted Highly, Tells Little (Disclaimer: The following is NOT a discussion of
whether there is proof of God’s existence – we leave that for another day.) Hardcore Atheists Rejoice!
Last month much ado was made by bloggers and
online commentators, mostly atheist, about the Pew
Research Center’s “U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey” which
discovered that as a group, atheists and agnostics outperformed Protestants
and Catholics “on questions about the core
teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.” Individuals who
touted the survey, from well-known public pundits to regular users of
Facebook, appeared delighted to present the survey as some sort of validation
for their disdain for religious belief, or proof of how religion,
particularly Christianity, foments ignorance, especially of other
faiths. A few hardcore atheists, who
have an absolute faith that there is no God, and believe religion is the true
font of all evil because it promotes superstitious ignorance and intolerance
of others, found the survey especially comforting. What Mormons and Atheists Have in Common
The truth is that since the proportion of Christian Protestant and Catholic believers is so much larger than non-believers in the U.S., this survey, as amusing as it may be at first glance, tells us nothing at all. That is because those groups of people that are small minorities, as well as non-conformists, have always tended to be more informed than those in the majority mainstream. It’s a bit like conducting a survey in the U.S. of how much everyone knows about American history, and finding that French people in the U.S. know more about American history and culture than Americans do about either French or American history. The fact is people in a small minority have a stronger motivation to know about themselves as well as the majority view. Hence Mormons (a very religious group) and Jews, both small religious minorities, performed nearly as well as the atheists and agnostics in the survey. |
Quotes of the
Week
Dennis Miller on ‘Reality TV’, Harry Reid Getting “Up in There.” I
am trying to wean myself off reality TV because I find it’s too
representative of the real world now, [and] undeserving people are winning. Dennis Miller, Oct 13 on the O’Reilly Factor Asked about
whether insurance should be told what procedures to cover: Insurance companies don’t do things out of
the goodness of their hearts. They do
it out of a profit motive, and they have almost destroyed our economy. We need them to be forced to do mammograms.
That’s why you see breast cancer awareness month. You see the baseball
players wearing pink shoes, and you the football players having pink, uh, uh,
helmets. It’s because people dread breast cancer, and you don’t get breast
cancer, you can—correct breast cancer—you detect it if you do mammograms.
Colonoscopies, if you do colonoscopies, colon cancer does not come because
you snip off the—things they find when they go up and—no more, and we need to
have insurance companies do this… Democrat Senator Harry Reid of Nevada Oct 14, debate with Sharon Angle |
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Secondarily, non-conformists also tend to be better educated and better informed precisely because a non-conformist nature is one that questions. Those that consciously choose to take a different path from the norm of their own society have to be better intellectually prepared to face the daily mental challenges to their chosen ideas – no matter what those ideas are. The first Nazis in the early 1930’s, Mormons today, Christians in early Roman times, atheist and Jews in any time, would likely be better informed, and better prepared in the art of polemics. All this means is that if view X is prevalent in society, the demographic of its believers will mirror that of its society, from the very bright to the very dim; while those of that same society that voluntarily choose a view Z that is contrary, will more likely be informed persons who question social assumptions. And those non-conformists will more likely abandon prevalent beliefs or views if emotionally motivated to do so (trauma, hate, deep cynicism), or if they are intellectually unsatisfied with the answers they get from the established majority view. Atheist Shibboleth
Vs. Real Science One of the biggest fallacies
constantly portrayed by hardcore atheists, many agnostics, even the
occasional religious liberal, is that religious belief is at the root of most
a humanity’s conflicts and atrocities.
They say this because as they love to point out, most acts of horror
in history were committed by believers.
Again, this is like saying that in the U.S. being an American leads to
criminal behavior because most crimes in the U.S. are committed by
Americans. Here’s a hard scientific fact: there is no scientific
study showing religious belief in general leads to wars, genocide, et
al. Anecdotally, the gulags and
killing fields of the atheist Stalinists and the Khmer Rouge certainly show
us that human monsters don't need it.
And, the few scientific studies that have been done on the effect
religious belief has on human behavior, personal and social, indicate the
effects are positive for the vast majority of people, and harmful only in the
case of a tiny group that takes on fanatical religious views. (For a quick
summary, we suggest reading “This Is Your Brain on Religion” by Dr. Andrew
Newberg, Associate Professor of Radiology and Psychiatry, published in USA Today on June 15, 2009.) So, yes, complacency
in knowledge is to be expected from predominant groups. But, American Christians ought to be
embarrassed anyway. And this
complacency in the knowledge about one’s religious, historical, and cultural
background by predominant groups is very possible what causes their downfall
throughout history. To know and learn
more about ourselves and others is a virtue that elevates the human
condition. More than that, we should
also be wary, because it may also very well be a matter of survival. |
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