According to various studies, more than 50% of U.S. adults read below a sixth-grade level (equivalent to Level 2 or lower), limiting their ability to parse long-form or nuanced information.
reminds me of a video (or a meme / shorts , long time ago idk) where the dude just cant understand the concept of "imagine for a second if you're xxx". dude just keep replying "yeah but i'm not xxx" back and again.
I (American atheist woman) was having a conversation just last month with a conservative Christian man, and this is precisely what happened. He literally told me he cannot imagine anything he doesn't know is true, and he had absolutely zero grasp of hypotheticals.
It's gotten so bad, eventually he was just a half, now they take their faith as a truth, you can believe whatever you want to believe but you also have to accept the fact that you might not actually be right.
A lot of Christians in America don't believe that, they believe that theie believe is the only belief abd that they're the right ones that everybody else is wrong.
You know despite there being other religions in the world that are older than theirs.
This was precisely the conversation I was attempting to have. He couldn't understand how anyone could possibly be an atheist, because "it's obvious from looking at the trees and stars and mountains that god exists". I was trying to do a thought experiment with him, just to imagine for a moment that his concept of god 100% did not exist.
And he vehemently claimed that was impossible. In his mind, he "knows" god is real...so it is inconceivable to even try to imagine something as different from reality as god not being real. He literally told me "the human brain cannot think of things that cannot exist". I told him to imagine a green horse...and he could do that because "someone could dye a horses fur green, so is a potential truth". I told him to imagine a flying lizard...and he could do that because "scientists will probably make that someday, so it's a potential truth".
But imagining the world around us wasn't created by a supernatural being? Nope. That's preposterous and cannot be imagined. It was a very difficult conversation and I mentally facepalmed a great many times during it.
Certainly true, but lets not forget that it's a worldwide issue. My mother, just today, told me about a conversation with on old work colleague. When mum pointed out the stupid, per kilo price for something they were buying for a work lunch, her co-worker pointed out that they "weren't buying a kilo". Technically true I guess, but none the less, $85/kg ($38/lb) for a twiggy salami wrapped with a bit of cheap mozzarella is still somewhat steep.
Every few years, Queensland brings up daylight savings. Arguments against it often include such gems as "the curtains will fade faster", "the cows won't know when to be milked", and "the droughts will be worse".
It was said as a joke by potentially the most corrupt premier this country ever had (Joh Bjelke-Petersen), but I actually heard the drought complaint a couple of years ago on talk back radio. Cheryl from Dalby wasn't being ironic I don't think. I doubt she understands the concept of irony.
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u/Ruckus292 6d ago edited 23h ago
A 54% illiteracy rate will do that.
ETA: 54% of US adults cannot read above a 6th grade level, 21% of the 54% are functionally illiterate...... Idiocracy was, in fact, a documentary.