Intellectually Inferior Christians

David Sklansky has issued a challenge to Christians. He is willing to wager $50,000 for anyone who can pass a polygraph exam on two tenets of Christianity: 1) that Christ rose from the dead, & 2) that those who do not profess faith is Christ will not enter Heaven. The second part of the wager is that he and the challenger will both take the math portion of either the SAT or the GRE in half the normally allotted time, and whoever scores lower will pay the other $50,000.

His premise is that people who agree with those two basic beliefs of Christianity are less intelligent than those who do not. Of course, all it would really prove if Sklansky won the bet is that Sklansky is better at a math test than the individual challenger. In case you didn't know, Sklansky has written several books about the mathematics of Poker and describes himself as a child math and logics prodigy.

A few quotes from Sklansky in the thread:

Their beliefs make them relatively stupid (or uninterested in learning). Or only relatively stupid people can come to such beliefs. One or the other.

The condescension of otherwise intelligent people toward those of us of faith is annoying and amusing at the same time.

And I really can't even conceive of someone who can legitimately pass that polygraph doing great on the exam. The only way it is conceivable I could lose without getting cheated is if I am rustier than I realize or if I happen to make the occasional careless error that is impossible to fully guard against.

So, if someone gets past the polygraph and then does, in fact, best Sklansky on the test, he'll blame it on the challenger cheating or his own rustiness.

It's a "no win" bet for any challenger because of the parameters of the wager. not to mention that many of us who could probably give him a run for his money on the test are too smart to wager $50,000 on such a proposition.

For the record, I believe the two things he includes in his polygraph portion, and at one time, I think I could have been in the game on the math test. I took both the SAT and the GRE in my school career. I missed one question each on them. On the LSAT, I missed one question in the Logical Reasoning section and aced the Logic Games section.

Even if Sklansky could get a perfect on the test and a challenger, let's say me, only missed one, Sklansky would have won his $50,000, but how can he honestly say the challenger did not do "great on the exam"?

Sometimes, it's so easy

I was pointed to this article by someone who was actually recommending it.

Ted Rall's Condescending Rant (or should that be Ranting Condescension?)

Just a few excerpts:

"But if militant Christianist Republicans from inland backwaters believe that secular liberal Democrats from the big coastal cities look upon them with disdain, there's a reason. We do, and all the more so after this election."

"Though there is a religious component to the election results, the biggest red-blue divide is intellectual. "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" asked the headline of the Daily Mirror in Great Britain, and the underlying assumption is undeniable. By any objective standard, you had to be spectacularly stupid to support Bush." (emphasis added)

"Would Bush's supporters have voted for him even if they had known he was a serial liar? [I couldn't resist an editorial comment here. They just won't give this one up. There is absolutely NO proof that Bush lied about anything. One can be wrong without having lied. Either the lunatic left can't get that or doesn't want to.] Perhaps their hatred of homosexuals and slutty abortion vixens would have prompted them to make the same choice--an idiotic perversion of priorities. As things stand, they cast their ballots relying on assumptions that were demonstrably false."

"Inland Americans face a bigger challenge than coastal "cultural elitists" when it comes to finding high-quality news coverage. The best newspapers, which routinely win prizes for their in-depth local and national reporting and staffers overseas, line the coasts. So do the cable TV networks with the broadest offerings and most independent radio stations. Bush Country makes do with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity syndicated on one cookie-cutter AM outlet after another. Citizens of the blue [sic] states read lackluster dailies stuffed with generic stories cut and pasted from wire services. Given their dismal access to high-quality media, it's a minor miracle that 40 percent of Mississippians turned out for Kerry."

For the record, the last time I checked, CNN was located in Atlanta, a decidedly Red State. This last argument is, by far, the most specious one he makes.

I have three words for these cultural elitist Liberals who look down their collective noses and me and you:

KEEP IT UP!!!!!

I don't normally sign my entries, but just this once, I thought I should.

Marty
B.A., M.A., J.D.

Leftist Condescension

It just gets better and better.

Take a look at this article by Jane Smiley on Slate subtitled The unteachable ignorance of the red states.

Then, take a gander at this very good response by Bruce Thornton titled
Jane Smiley, Republican Party Recruiter.

Of course, we can't leave out Maureen Dowd, who told Chris Matthews on Sunday that she and he would "go up" in the coming Rapture, but all of us hypocritical Christian voters who supported Bush would be going the other direction. Her vitriol can be found HERE (NYTimes registration required).

As I said a few days ago, I hope this garbage keeps up. While the leftists keep patting themselves on their collective back about how smart and clever they are, Conservatives will continue to win national elections.

Can any explain to me how Dowd ever won a Pulitzer? Oh never mind, it shouldn't surprise me in the least.

The morning after

Okay, so it's actually the middle of the afternoon. I'm working on 3 hours sleep and a morning in Court, so bear with me.

It appears to me that I came pretty darn close in my election prediction. I am assuming that Iowa and New Mexico will ultimately be marked down in the Bush column. If that holds true, I will have been right on all but one state, Wisconsin. I know it's hard to prove this after the fact, but I very nearly went the other way on the State of the Cheeseheads. I confess that it was the one state I chose with my heart instead of my head. As I looked at the polls, Bush was leading in the Poll Average, but the last 2 polls before the election showed a fairly solid Kerry lead.

I wanted my Electoral College numbers to be at the point where if any one state (excluding Texas) went the "wrong" way, Bush would still win the White House (even if Florida was the wrong state).

Kerry's Concession Speech

I promise you I am not being snide when I say this, but John Kerry's Concession Speech was the finest speech I have ever heard him deliver. If he had been talking like that throughout the campaign, he might have won this thing. But then again, when your Party is being "advanced" by the likes of Michael Moore, moveon.org, and ACT, you're in trouble from the word Go.

I've still seen some far left-wingers who don't get the point of yesterday's election. People really do like President Bush. Despite all the criticism that he isn't as "Presidential" as some would like, the President appeals to voters as being a real guy. Maybe that's just a put-on. I really don't know for sure, but I do know people who are close to him who tell me that what you see is what you get with Bush. Folks who have been involved in high-level politics for years or even decades have told me that Bush is the most genuine politician they have ever met. That's what I believe resonated with the American people.

The straightforwardness and resolve of the President was contrasted by what appeared to be condescension coming from the Left in general and Kerry in particular. When John Edwards says you'd have to be out of your mind to vote Republican, it might amuse his base, but it's not going to draw in those elusive undecided voters. I hope the Left keeps on thinking of me and those like me as close-minded, bigoted, ignorant, foolish, or just plain stupid. As long as they have that attitude, I can rest assured that the Republican Party will retain control in Washington for years to come.