Americans, in general, are idiots

The fact that 40% of Europeans suffer from any mental disorder, which comprises a wide array of mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, insomnia or dementia, proves nothing. So what? We all suffer from anxiety or depression at some point of our lives. I don"t know what you are getting at. Can you expound on how this is even relevant to the discussion that we are having? I don"t contest that there are tens of million of bright Americans with high degrees that are doing a fantastic job in maintaining United States competitiveness through science and research and so forth. Though that is true, that does not erase the fact that there are tens of millions that are morons. To give you an examples of a survey conducted by Public Policy Polling, PPP, they covered a whole range of conspiracy theories and beliefs that Americans were asked about, including the results on how many Americans that believe in lizard people that I mentioned in the previous round. My point is that these statistics on some of these absolutely absurd and ludicrous notions indicate that they are, if not stupid, outright insane. Those who believe this outrageous nonsense do, I claim, have a tendency towards being less bright or more of an idiot. "5% of respondents believe that Paul McCartney died and was secretly replaced in the Beatles in 1966, and just 4% believe shape-shifting reptilian people control our world by taking on human form and gaining power. 7% of voters think the moon landing was fake." These are some other examples of the questions that they were asked. "Do you believe in Bigfoot or Sasquatch, or not?" 14% do; 7 Do you believe that the exhaust seen in the sky behind airplanes is actually chemicals sprayed by the government for sinister reasons, or not? 5% do; Do you believe the government adds fluoride to our water supply, not for dental health reasons, but for other, more sinister reasons, or not? 9% do; Do you believe President Barack Obama is the anti-Christ, or not? 13% do; etc. http://www.publicpolicypolling.com... Ok, so these were the more crazy piece of evidence for making my case. Do I have any more polls that support my thesis. Yes, indeed I have. They are both hilarious but at the same time a worrisome. Pew forum conducted one study in which they were asking Americans of different religious affiliations (including atheists and agnostics) basic questions about the major religions. The answers were stunning, to say the least, especially due to the the fact that United States is the most religious country in the industrialised world. Only about half Protestants (53%) were aware of that Martin Luther was the person who initiated the protestant reformation movement which eventually made their religion a separate branch of Christianity. 45% of all Catholics are not aware the catholic church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion actually become the body and blood of Christ rather than symbolizing the receiving of Christ. 47% of Americans don"t know that Dalai Lama s a Buddhist. only 38% correctly associated Vishnu and Shiva with Hinduism. Only 27% correctly answered that the largest religion in Indonesia - the country with the largest Muslim population - are Muslims. Only 52% know that Ramadan is the Islamic holy month and only 54% correctly identified the Koran as the holy Muslim book. Concerning the Quaran burning incidences and the dead diplomats at the American Embassy in Benghazi, US has spent a large time talking about the burning of the Quaran, but what we know from this study is that about half of Americans is sort of scratching their heads and are wondering "what is the Quaran? Is that a novel or something written by some dude in the Middle East"? It is hard to have a national conversation about Islam when there is such a knowledge gap when it comes to the Muslim traditions. This lack of knowledge permeates all levels of society and ultimately affect the whole discourse that America is going to have about the war on terror, terrorists and Islam. In fact, what this illustrates is that there are major elements in the respondents personal faiths that they are not aware of, and particularly elements of other religions. Despite this unbelievable poll results an overwhelming majority of Americans are religious. About 83% of all Americans are Christians, out of which 78,4% are Christians. In light of the fact that the majority of Americans identify themselves as belonging to any Christian denomination, it seems appropriate to mention just one more funny statistic concerning Americans general knowledge (or lack thereof) about religion, and in particular of their own religion. Did you know that only 53% know that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That"s right. When they read the gospels and look at the old and the testament they can"t figure out which one came first. http://religions.pewforum.org... http://www.beliefnet.com... Ok, so now we know that America is overly religious despite the fact that Americans don"t really know much about religion in the first place. The thing they dedicate such a huge proportion of their lives to is something they don"t really know much about. To me that suggests either two things. Either they are too intellectually lazy to really dig into scientific and religious subjects at hand in order to challenge and subject their own belief system to rigorous testing - which would suggests a certain dullness - or that the society in which they live perpetually spreads religious dogmas around to such a high degree that one might not be encouraged to enforce a critically mindset for the sake of group of belonging and fear of exclusion. I think the latter is mostly true. I don"t think - and I don"t think anyone can construe it that way - that Americans are inherently dull. We are all shaped by our surrounding environment, and if a major segment of the community where one live are religious dupes, one grows up thinking that way. We all now it can take time until one starts to challenge held beliefs and notions. Hence, the stupidity that dwells in the minds of so many Americans, and that so glaringly obvious infects the political and intellectual discourse in America is, is ultimately a product of a culture that breeds ignorance. I seem to have devoted a big chunk of this round on addressing religious aspects in America, and I do that because I do believe that much of the religiosity in America stifles dissent and critical thinking, especially among the evangelical denominations of whom mostly are on the rise. http://www.christianitytoday.com... The degree to which religion has infested itself in American society is easily demonstrated by looking at the creationist movement that is gaining credibility and influence in American schools and in politics in general. The numbers are absolutely stunning. According to a Gallup poll that has researched on Americans view of human origin, 46% of all Americans believe in the creationist idea that God created mankind at one time within the last 10, 000 years. This is a stunningly high number of idiots! This is what is literally dumbing down America. This is why other countries are beating you! You can"t maintain your competitiveness for long if 46% believe that the earth is 6000 years old and if 25% of Americans are unaware that the f*cking earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around! With this in mind, you can"t be serious when you claim that a huge percentage of Americans are not idiots. I would think that all this combined information suffices to establish that my thesis is correct - and I do have more information http://www.huffingtonpost.com... http://time.com...