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Babcia’s Candle

Thursday 5 January 2023

Any time the sky began growing dark with threatening clouds, Babcia would always shuffle to the kitchen, light a votive candle, and place it in a plate of water.

The motivation behind the small plate of water was obvious: it was protection against an unintentional fire. The bottom of the candle could get quite hot, after all — an entirely reasonable precaution.

The candle itself, though, was to ward off the approaching storm. I’m assuming prayers accompanied the candle, but they must have been silent because the only thing I ever heard Babcia say was, “I must light a candle to keep the storm away.”

If the storm never appeared or the clouds dissipated completely, I’m sure this felt like confirmation of the ritual’s effectiveness. But it didn’t always work. What then?

Looking back on it, this is the same approach Christians take to prayer in general. When a believer prays for something and God appears to have answered the prayer, then it’s confirmation of prayer’s effectiveness. But what happens when God doesn’t seem to have answered the prayer? Most Christians simply move the goalposts.

Let’s say a young child runs out into the road after an errant ball toss and gets struck by a car. The child’s family rushes out to the child lying on the street, praying all the way. If the child gets up, the prayers were answered: God saved the child from all harm. If the child gets taken to the hospital but survived, the prayers were answered: God saved the child from serious harm. If the child ends up paralyzed because of the accident, the prayers were answered: God spared the child’s life. If the child ends up dying, the prayers were answered: God has taken the child into eternal bliss.

This type of thinking persists in the conservative Christian community, and it begins to affect how they view other things. Just look at the followers of the MAGA movement, in particular Mike Lindell and his pronouncements that soon his lawyers will present information that will change everything about the 2020 election. He gives a date by which everything will change; that date comes; nothing changes; he grows silent; after a while, he gives a new date, and the cycle repeats. He’s been doing it for nearly two years now, and those who follow him and believe him give him a pass each and every time.

What can we make of this mentality? If nothing counts against a claim, then it’s not rational in any sense. Unfalsifiable claims are meaningless, and because they’re unfalsifiable, nothing counts against them. But in the case of prayer and the My Pillow guy, they have been falsified, time and time again, and yet believers hold fast. The belief itself, the faith itself, is more important, it seems, than truth.

Election 2022

Tuesday 8 November 2022

It was a little after six when I realized I hadn’t gone to vote. I’d been putting it off all day, spending the day working on our yearbook for 2022, taking the kids on a bookstore outing, and learning that the $3,000 we spent to fix our outdoor HVAC unit was completely wasted. So, a mixed bag.

The line for voting stretched into the parking lot, but it was moving fast. Even if it wasn’t, I was going to stick it out: “Vote like democracy depends on it” has been an idea consistently popping up on social media, and I’m likely to agree. The radical GOP (which stands for Gaslight Obstruct and Project) seems determined to destroy our democratic institutions, and their traitorous support of a man who tried to overturn a fair election has made me say numerous times, “I’d vote for Satan himself before I’d vote Republican.” Besides, the Republican party of the past is just that: they are, by and large, a bunch of conspiracy theory anti-democracy grifters who take their supporters to be naive children who don’t remember what they said five minutes ago.

As I entered the voting booth, I clicked on the option to vote for the entire Democratic ticket, then clicked through the options to check each selection. It was only then that I realized how many races were one-person (usually one-man) races, with only a Republican running. In all of those races, I cast no vote, though I thought about writing in myself.

What an amusing situation that creates, though: so many Bible-belt Christians here are so anti-communist that they see communism where it doesn’t even exist. They equate anything left-leaning with socialism, which they in turn equate with the very worst version of it (i.e., the Soviet Union). However, elections in the USSR looked more like elections in South Carolina than Republicans here would probably like: one option, and one alone.

If the modern GOP had its way, that’s exactly what they’d enforce.

Return II

Thursday 21 January 2021

I’ve sometimes wondered what would be the reaction in the Christian community if somehow some irrefutable proof surfaced that Jesus would never be coming back, that the second coming was all a pipe dream. Now, I know that no such proof is possible, and the events of recent weeks demonstrate all too clearly that irrefutable evidence can be refuted simply by a movement in the will, a forcible rejection of what is clearly and demonstrably true. We see that in the election; we see that in denial of climate change and evolution; we see that everywhere. But let’s just run this thought experiment: there’s somehow evidence that Jesus’s second coming will never happen, that the Christians, who have been predicting for 2,000 years now that Jesus is coming back “any day now,” were completely wrong. What might that look like?

I think we’re seeing it in real time now as Qanon conspiracy theorists grapple with the reality that none of Q’s theories have come true and that, with Biden now sworn in, they won’t come true.

One account on Reuters:

On Wednesday, they grappled with a harsh reality check: Trump had left office with no mass arrests or other victories against the supposed cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophile cannibal elites, especially Democrats, he was ostensibly fighting.

Instead, Democratic President Joseph Biden was calmly sworn into office, leaving legions of QAnon faithful struggling to make sense of what had transpired.

In one Telegram channel with more than 18,400 members, QAnon believers were split between those still urging others to ‘trust the plan’ and those saying they felt betrayed. “It’s obvious now we’ve been had. No plan, no Q, nothing,” wrote one user.

Some messages referenced theories that a coup was going to take place before the end of Inauguration Day. Others moved the goalposts again, speculating that Trump would be sworn into office on Mar. 4.

“Does anybody have any idea what we should be waiting for next or what the next move could be?” asked another user, who said they wanted to have a ‘big win’ and arrests made. (Source)

Two movements here: one, a return to reality; the other, a doubling-down, squirming deeper into the hole.

The BBC includes this:

Many reacted with shock and despair as Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th US president.

“I just want to throw up,” said one in a popular chat on the Telegram messaging app. “I’m so sick of all the disinformation and false hope.”

Others insisted “the plan” had not failed, finding new theories to latch on to.

For weeks, QAnon followers had been promoting 20 January as a day of reckoning, when prominent Democrats and other elite “Satanic paedophiles” would be arrested and executed on the orders of President Trump.

The 65 days that led to chaos at the Capitol
What is QAnon?

But, as Mr Biden took his oath and no arrests were made, some in the QAnon community had an uncomfortable meeting with reality.

“It’s done and we were played,” wrote another. (Source)

Those who are doubling down are coming up with increasingly bizarre explanations of what’s going on:

Some of them just don’t even make any sense at all:

Some of them are waking up, though. One TikTok video, now viral, is supposedly from a Qanon woman who has come to her senses:

So, who else is feeling just a little silly? […] I went too far down the rabbit hole, now I’m back out again — and it nothing happens on the 20th, how many of you are going to feel stupid as hell? And who the f*** is Q? Who is it? Who is this person? Because none of it has come true, and I was just thinking — what if this person knows that none of this stuff is true and they’re just messing with people, like getting inside their heads.

The video is here:

So what does this tell us about Qanon and conspiracy theories? I feel like these reactions would mirror what would happen in our hypothetical proof of the non-return of Jesus. There would be some who would accept it — probably more liberal believers. For that matter, there are Christians liberal enough already to say that Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead, didn’t really ascend into heaven, won’t really return, but insist that that doesn’t really matter. “It’s all about the teachings!” they say, and then they paint this picture of Jesus who seems in some ways at odds with the Jesus in the Bible. (He certainly seemed to think he was coming back, so there’s that…)

Most believers would stick by their guns. Nothing — absolutely nothing — could convince them otherwise.

This leads to the thought that has plagued me for a few years now, a thought that ultimately pushed me back away from Christianity: If a belief is not falsifiable, if nothing counts against it, to what degree can we call it a rational idea?

This, in turn, leads to another thought I’ve had rattling around in my head for some time now: there are a lot of similarities between conspiracy theorists and religious believers. And in fact, I think an argument can be made that religion in general and Christianity, in particular, are, at heart, a gigantic, cosmic conspiracy theories.

Return

Wednesday 20 January 2021

One of the things I’m most looking forward to in the Biden administration is being able to go for days on end without giving a single thought to the president and what he’s doing. That’s how it’s always been, even with presidents I didn’t particularly like or agree with. I’ve always just assumed, “Well, he’s an adult. He’s a reasonable human being. How much do I possibly have to worry about something over which I have no control?”

Shifting Ground

Monday 4 January 2021

Coming out of cultic, conspiratorial thinking is a process. It’s not something that happens overnight. It’s not the flip of a switch: “I believe in lizard people. BOOM! Now I don’t believe in lizard people.” There’s a push and pull, a rise and fall to the process. It starts with the most basic thought: “I could be wrong about this.” But turning your back on a set of theories (for lack of a better term) that one has invested so much into is difficult, and giving up all that, admitting that one is wrong is tantamount to admitting that one wasted a significant portion of the short life we have here on earth.

DeAnna Lorraine, the QAnon conspiracy theorist and rabid Trump supporter who recently ran for Congress, seems to be making those mental movements in a recent video. She begins with the assumptions of QAnon:

Because we have so much trusted this plan, we always think he’s playing 5-D chess. Anything that looks questionable, we think, “Okay, it’s a strategy. He’s playing 5-D chess. We don’t have anything to worry about.” Is it possible that that is a detriment to us?

That’s a level of self-reflection and vulnerability I would not have expected. She seems to be suggesting that her assumptions about Trump’s acumen and about the whole farcical idea that he’s battling a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles that has embedded itself in the government and entertainment industry — she sounds like she’s suggesting she might be wrong.

Later in the video, she says,

We’re going to know for sure. Is Trump really the 5-D master chess player who is just going to totally decimate the swamp and arrest all these deep state operatives and everything we’ve seen up to now is just a massive, you know, all these brilliant chess moves and it’s all going to come into play in a sting operation and QAnon is real and everything is happening and everyone was right. Is justice finally going to be served? Are we finally going to see that checkmate? Are we finally going to see the traps close? Or, we’re not. Or we’re going to find out the truth. Maybe things failed. Maybe QAnon operation wasn’t real. Maybe, maybe some things weren’t really the truth, right? But we’re going to know in about twenty-five days.

Such an admission, it seems to me, is something we should be applauding. Yes, Lorraine has done tremendous damage in spreading the QAnon nonsense, but if she can manage a shift, if she can see the light for herself, perhaps there’s hope for others. Perhaps she could be a force that mitigates the damage of the QAnon cult.

Unfortunately, I fear she’s going to be mocked. Right Wing Watch explained the video thusly:

Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps she’ll never stop rationalizing. One user tweeted in response:

https://twitter.com/WasOptimist/status/1344001808906256389

But maybe that pessimism is wrong. Maybe we should give her the benefit of the doubt and not mock her. Mocking never works. It’s fun, I know — I’ve done it enough in my online life. But we know it never works. It’s like a cold wind trying to blow the jacket off someone: she just holds on more tightly. It’s a natural reaction. Mocking certainly does little to reverse this slide into hyper-partisanship we’re suffering in America now.

If anything, the more I think about it, the more I realize folks like this need compassion more than anything. They’re trapped in conspiratorial thinking that is not often easy to escape. That sounds condescending, but it’s not meant that way. These people aren’t stupid. They might have ruts in their thinking; they might lack critical thinking skills; they might gain a certain comfort from this kind of gnostic, insider thinking; they might be lacking in education to one degree or another. But they’re not stupid.

I think Michelle Obama was right: when they go low (however we might define that), we go high.

Trump and Biden as Spiritual Warfare

Tuesday 22 December 2020

It’s sad a tweet can be a tragic harbinger of things to come.

When one side portrays itself as being God’s side and sees the other side as being of the devil, no good can come of that. No unity is possible when things are framed in terms of a good-versus-evil, spiritual battle. One does not compromise with the devil; one does not work with the devil; one does not even talk to the devil. Instead, one fights the devil; one shuns the devil; one destroys the devil. Mixing politics and religion is especially dangerous for that very reason.

The Civil War created fissures in our society that exist today. How long will the damage Trump and the Evangelicals’ Faustian bargain with him last? For generations, I fear.

And this guy is from France for heaven’s sake!

Confirmation Bias

Thursday 12 November 2020

What does it take to change a “Stop the Steal” Trump supporter’s mind about the election? What about an outside opinion, reported in the Wall Street Journal?

A team of international observers invited by the Trump administration has issued a preliminary report giving high marks to the conduct of last week’s elections–and it criticizes President Trump for making baseless allegations that the outcome resulted from systematic fraud. (Source)

But see, it’s not so easy for Trump supporters who reject the election results. They’re predominately Evangelicals. They read the Left Behind series as history written in advance. They believe in an antichrist — probably the pope — who will literally perform miracles. They think that all the world will bow down and worship this man. They won’t see this as confirmation that the election is fair; they’ll see this as proof that it’s an international conspiracy. This culminates, they believe, in the creation of a one-world government that will strip America of its sovereignty as part of the coming tribulation.

They won’t see this as confirmation that the election is fair; they’ll see this as proof that it’s an international conspiracy. They will see this as part of the grand prophetic end of the world.

You can’t reason with that. It’s a faith as strong as any other, as strong as their faith that God will somehow deal with the coronavirus (those who believe it’s real, that is) and pray for it despite evidence to the contrary. Nothing counts against that faith. If someone goes through the pandemic without falling ill, it was through God’s grace. If someone falls ill but doesn’t become overly sick, it’s due to God’s mercy. If someone falls deathly ill and has lasting complications, it’s God’s grace that he didn’t die. And if someone falls ill and dies, it’s God’s mercy because he’s gone home to the Lord. Nothing counts as evidence against that kind of faith. If nothing counts against it, if there is no way to falsify it, it’s not a rational belief but merely a warm feeling.

Transfer that to the election: these Evangelicals see conspiracy everywhere. It’s in the DNA of their religion. To forsake that is to forsake their very faith.

The Split

Monday 9 November 2020

Today, conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza tweeted the following:

I’ve seen the same sort of pronouncement in other places. Trump-supporting conservatives are heading to alternate social media platforms, with MeWe and Parler being the most often mentioned replacements for Facebook and Twitter. The reason for this is fairly succinctly summed up on Parler’s “Values” page:

Biased content curation policies enable rage mobs and bullies to influence Community Guidelines. Parler’s viewpoint-neutral policies foster a community of individuals who tolerate the expression of all non-violent ideas.

What they’re referring to is FB’s and Twitter’s policy of labeling misleading information as such. Groups based on ideas with absolutely grounding in reality (like QAnon and white supremacist groups) get kicked off; groups that share clearly factually incorrect information have labels slapped on the posts. Is this censorship? I don’t know. But I see value in this. We’ve all seen the mess social media has made in our lives: it’s easy to live in an echo chamber of our own making, and if someone promotes dangerously deranged ideas that threaten the very underpinnings of a democratic society, someone needs to point that out. Will this help? I doubt it will for most people. But for a few? To see that fact-checkers have determined this meme contains incorrect, inflammatory information? It might just give second thoughts to someone.

But with everyone heading off to “free speech” social media platforms, the echo of everyone’s self-created echo chamber will only resonate more and more loudly. If many people do indeed follow through with D’Souza’s idea, we’ll have two parallel societies in America in life and online, two distinct realities. And one of those realities at this point seems decidedly disconnected for facts.

It will only get worse.

Stories will be invented whole-cloth. Conspiracy theories will no longer be hidden in the dark like mushrooms; they’ll be out in the open, flourishing but, like mushrooms, still fed on shit.

Shit in; shit out. Parler is already in the news for an Arkansas police chief’s call to kill all Democrats:

Would this have happened without Trump? Would these people have been as brazen in their ridiculously absurd notions, their shameless hatred, their unencumbered ignorance? Would QAnon have arisen without Trump? Would supporters of a non-Trump Republican president have come to doubt the legitimacy of the electoral system in America? Would this graph have looked the same?

Best case damage scenario: Trump takes down the whole Republican party. Massive restructuring and soul-searching takes place and the GOP emerges cleansed, humbled.

The LA Times thinks this might be impossible:

Because Trump’s narcissism was so profound, he responded to any criticism with the political equivalent of a nuclear counter-strike. And because Trump’s insecurity was infectious, his fan base — which had outsize power in primaries — would follow suit. This ensured that most Republican politicians shouted their praise of Trump and muzzled their criticism. […]

Institutionalized Trump narcissism probably cost him the election, because the superhuman image he insisted his loyalists embrace never reflected the reality on the ground. Many Republicans were in fact not that into him. They liked the judges, the tax cuts, even some of the “own the libs” bombast. But they were turned off by the self-indulgence, the conspiracy theorizing and the constant need for praise and attention. Still, few conservative politicians or media figures were willing to say so, at least not in a way, or on a platform, where the president would get the message. Trump believed his most fawning media and his fawning media told him again and again, “Never change.” […]

For four years, Donald Trump was president, which also meant he was the de facto head of the Republican Party. This allowed the acolytes of Trumpism — however you want to define that sloppy term — to marry Trumpism, nationalism, patriotism, populism, tribalism, MAGA, etc., to old fashioned party loyalty.

That marriage is over now. And the breakup is ugly and revealing in its ugliness. For many people, Trumpism wasn’t about the party. For a few it wasn’t even about the country. It was about him. His infectious narcissism and incessant victimhood fueled this cult of personality, which he valued more than the office he held. He’s lost his grip on the office, but he’s doing everything he can to hold on to the cult, by claiming he was robbed. It remains to be seen how many he’ll ultimately take with him. But we can be sure the answer will be too many.

Those of us who said Trump might indeed be an existential threat to our system shouldn’t be gloating over being proved right, in part because the people actively working to help Trump destroy our system — i.e., his supporters — don’t even see it that way. They’re saving democracy. Sort of like destroying the village to save it.

The Walk

Saturday 7 November 2020

had a different feel this evening.

Christmas lights already going up

I understand that there are a lot of people out there who are feeling the same worry I felt four years ago when Trump unexpectedly won. I feel for them, but I don’t think their fears are as founded in reality as mine were. I guess that’s natural, that bit of self-centeredness in one’s thinking, but I really think the fears of Biden turning America into Venezuela are as unfounded as QAnon’s fears of the “true” nature of the Democratic party.