Is Religion a Species or Cultural IQ Test?

It struck me, this morning, that the USA has become a particularly gullible society. Even more than any other time in my 72 years and that is saying something. The Pew Research Foundation, in 2018, found that 53% of US citizens claimed “religion is very important in their lives.” If you look at the world map the Pew organization made, it’s difficult to find a country with a high degree of religious “commitment” that isn’t pretty much a sewer of stupid. We’re in the bag with great nations like Brazil (72%), Nigeria (88%), Egypt (72%), Ethiopia (98%), Greece (56%), Iran (78%), and the rest of the world’s degenerate nations. So, my conclusion is that the existence and persistence of religion in a society is a Gullibility Test. If a significant percentage of a population is willing to believe an incredible collection of sheepherder tales, that population will buy all sorts of incredibly stupid stories from whoever wants to rule that population. Hence, the current state of the United States of America.

There isn’t a single nation anyone would want to emulate with a superstitious population over 30%. Even Mexico (45%) and Israel (36%) are less superstitious than the USA. Canada, the country most US citizens would love to escape to if they would have us, has a 27% loony quotient. Most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and even Russia and China have managed to educate their populations so that under 20% fall into foolish magical thinking. Greece, Italy, and Poland are the only mostly-religious countries in Europe and . . . you can fill the blank with your own stereotype jokes of those countries. Among the world’s nations, the only countries (except the UK) with a total goober for a leader are religious nations. They are the ones who will believe anything; and the more incredible the better.

In the USA, we’re being overwhelmed with all sorts of stupid; from conspiracy delusions to radical left and right wing crazies to the usual variants of cults and splinter religions to alien invasion fairy tales. We are, also, obviously gullible as hell. Electing an internationally known con man to the highest office in the country has to be the pinnacle of gullibility and not only are US citizens that dumb but a substantial portion (typically >45%) approve of his miserable “performance.” That is also known as “doubling-down on stupid.” I’m sure we’re not the only nation that exemplifies Dunning-Kruger Effect, but we are working at perfecting it into a chaotic system of mismanaging government.

I recently read a note from a young friend who said, "Most younger Americans would kill for EU, Australian, New Zealand, or Canadian citizenship." They would absolutely marry for that reason. As of 2017, there were approximately 900,000 US-born Mexican residents, 800,000 in the EU, 750,000 in Canada, 700,000 in India, 600,000 in the Philippines, and the numbers drop radically among other US-citizen exported nations. There are only about 18,000 US citizens residing in New Zealand, mostly because (like every civilized nation in the world) NZ is only interested in educated citizens with useful skills. Of course, like every other country in the world, if you have a few hundred million to buy your way into NZ/EU/CA/AU or pretty much anywhere else citizenship it’s there for the buying. Money is still the universal language. Some things are dependable, I guess.

Is there a fix for our national foolishness? Apparently, the coronavirus is going to take a shot at it. The halfwits who believed President Fucknuts when he told them to guzzle bleach, to open up their guts to ultraviolet, to take a fist-full of unproven prescription and over-the-counter drugs, and to get out there and “open up the economy again,” are going to be the ones who continue to get clobbered the hardest by Covid-19; and reality. Maybe, instead of having to launch the boneheads toward the sun, Marching Morons style, they’ll just take care of themselves, evolution-style, and, probably, they’ll go down thinking it was part of the Intelligent Design. Who could argue with them? Who would want to?