of schools that have been bullied into not teaching real science for decades, and a primitive religion-based mindset that thinks some bunch of fairy tales from a couple thousand years ago have all the wisdom and knowledge anyone needs.

We really are doomed with men like this running our country.

and the death and resurrection of Isis, Christ, and Zoroaster among others are JUST MYTH!

What will come next? I know, the earth is NOT at the center of the universe and the planet is not flat. Never mind I can see it plainly with my two eyes.

because somebody will need it.

Idiots

a lot of self-identified believing Christians: that soon, any day now, Jesus will return and we'll all enter Paradise. That sort of thing certainly discourages any sort of long term planning, doesn't it?

to get on the heaven cloud once this earth turns to unending crap which will be soon because to them climate change events are just staged signs the apocalypse is near.
Hey whatever you do do not go all pagan & pay attention to the earth when you could be reading about heaven

so that the return of Christ or whatever can unfold as they think it is foretold
thus why bother to give a damn about future planning, it doesn't matter anyhow.

The problem now is, we are having one of those cycles where religious nuts are trying to gain active control of governments.

to political ideology...

Congressional Repubs don't believe in it because their party masters tell them not to believe in it...

more than that fervid belief is created, all the supposed reasons are just rationalizations trumped up afterward.

they are "told" by their overlords who hand them regular installments of cash.

And, from my recollection of the dogma crammed down my throat growing up, the rest of us have to be killed for the rupture to happen. Of course, I am not certain any of what I was force-fed as a child was even remotely close to reality or even the dogma the rest of the zealots believe.

I don't believe in anything but I KNOW that these misled individuals will push until they get what they want or we defeat them in elections and in our personal interactions with them.

You can't just say that it's all driven by economic forces because there are some fundies who are doing well and yet still believe in myths (see the Mormons).

to most of us.

I have this joking routine I do that assumes multiple limited-responsibility deities I call gods, lower case g, and I say things like "The technology gods don't like me" and "The parking gods adore me" because as it happens, I often have trouble using technology, and yet I always get good parking spaces. In my case, I do sort of believe what I'm saying, but not to the point where I think anyone else should believe any of that, and I'm perfectly comfortable when people laugh at me about this, precisely because I don't take it seriously.

But when it comes to more organized religion, be it so-called mainstream or a cult, people do take it very seriously, and therein lies the problem.

as do most humans. I would even propose that most fundies don't believe EVEYRYTHING that their respective religions teach them, esp. given their actions.

But why do some people cling to it for everything and others can see it for the fairy tales that it is? Why can't some people accept hard data and science as a means for seeing the world?

Why some people can tell the difference between fairy tales and reality while others cannot is something we should be able to figure out, but cannot.

Recently, some people here on DU, as well as in lots of other places, got quite exercised over whether or not one should tell their young children that Santa Claus brings them presents at Christmas. I don't need to repeat the arguments pro and con, but my personal take is that there's some joy or fun in the Santa Claus myth, and I recall believing in him when I was very young, and no, I didn't feel betrayed when I learned the truth.

It's my personal take that some myths are quite harmless, so long as they don't get treated seriously, which is why I do my little Parking gods/Technology gods schtick. It's all intended in fun.

Meanwhile, I have a son who is heading into astrophysics, and I'm constantly discussing things with him related to that field, and I find it utterly fascinating.

Our minds and bodies are a reflection of how we have adapted to conform to our environment. Maybe believing in the supernatural is how some people can cope with the existing world. Maybe their minds simply resist hard data and evidence as some sort of survival trait that others don't have.

Even Inhofe knows it's real.

This is 100% Political - the GOPs position is to never give an inch on the Denial argument, because that's the slippery slope to addressing Atmospheric Carbon.

Even introducing it is seen as a provocation to the keepers of the Status Quo.

... they are reptilian shapeshifters themselves, or they are working for the reptilian shapeshifters.

They wish to destroy human civilization, make us their slaves, and melt all the ice. (As cold-blooded creatures, they hate ice.)

Or maybe these 50 Senators are simply grifters, psychopaths, and ignoramuses.

Either way, it's disturbing.

Senate votes to claim that Gravity doesn't exist and that more research needed to prove the earth is not flat.

concern once businesses start losing billions to climate change. Here in WA state leaders of outdoor recreational businesses such as skiing are meeting with politicians to talk about how climate change is affecting the future of their business. The question is will it be too late by the time it becomes a legitimate business concern?

I had a very long time friend who just lives to ski, up there, who had no concern over the implications of no snow, it was just an inconvenience to her.
Sigh.

Some want democracy for all people and some for just themselves, or more accurately, for their money.

There has to be a cheaper way to find the worst people in the country."

Borowitz, today.

I bet we could poll kids still in high school, find out who their worst classmates were, and know pretty much who will be running for office a few years down the road.

It would really go a long way toward erasing the GOP Senate majority that gets blamed for everything that doesn't get done, decade after decade.

That vote was 98-1. It was then that the Republicans took issue with the word "significantly" and so they voted as the OP said 50-49.


It's all apart of another Keystone pipeline bill.

from the top to the bottom. The case for taking back the Congress and every legislature in America.

Something we desperately need to do.

Blown away that even in Oregon the High Plains Grifters had support from the Sheriff.
('course, that WAS Eastern Ore,....East. Wash. has long been a Repug. bastion)

Or offering fancy new policies to protect against it.

They should know soon, and then the money grubbers in Congress will start pretending to do something about it. Then they'll allow a "some people say it's here" inadequate bill or two to crawl forward loaded with poison pills and cutouts for billionaires.

Yay democracy.

Which is antithetical to the interests of the Republican Party. And of course because it would gravely hurt the oil and energy industries.

But they have been brainwashed.

But consider that belief in global warming at least in part relies on trust in the science community, and academia has long been an enemy of the right wing, especially for conservative christians who feel like science says that God doesn't exist.

That's what TV is for.

And thats the central problem.

window dressing since the electronic voting machines will guarantee their seats are kept warm by their own asses.

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

- George Carlin

It's our technology that gives us the ability to do it. In the same way that humans can't fly, or move at 55mph, but our planes and cars allow us to do so.

So it had to be less enforceable and limited to issues and procedures that could be adopted by executive action. It is sad.

The only thing worse would be if there is a republican president in 2017 to go with the current congress. The we would go from "doomed" to "royally doomed".

would be the ones that think they can legislate reality away.