So, then, where do you see scorning of sophistication and material comfort in my post or some other post to which you were responding? There is a mystical element, in general, to this sort of reasoning i.e., almost exclusive attention to murky and immeasurable stuff like motives, psyche and so on. Wouldn't it be a lot more useful to consider whether the claim is true or not: that religion is a last resort of the poor and atheism is a luxury of the privileged?
Also see my response to John on "populism".
> "Over-educated" is a yahoo term of contempt for people who apply
> their knowledge to a critical understanding of the world around them,
> usually applied in defense of the status quo.
That's a rather provincial attitude, no? Or are you that certain that I am a "yahoo"? What I mean[t] by "over-educated" is a criticism of people who think that all others can understand the world only through their brand of education-gained knowledge. Unless you are convinced (and are able to convince a disinterested party) that I am a yahoo, it doesn't make sense to assume that I am applying the term in defence of the status quo. In fact, there is good reason to believe that both I or any member of this list is generally displeased with the status quo.
> Superstition is a bad thing because it's false, and leads people to
> misunderstanding and often bigoted behavior.
I will respond more generally to the ideas of "false" and "true" that underlie the certainty with which superstitions are defined (after all, the dictionary definition is pretty circular), in response to John's post about science, etc. In response to the above: bigoted behaviour should definitely be countered, but is it true that their basis is falsehood? And if not, and even if so, does [all] falsehood retain the stain? To quote/paraphrase Nietzsche, why truth? Why not falsehood?
To consider how tricky educated opinion on falsehood, truth, etc, are, consider that one of the people I criticise, Pinker, uses in fact the very rhetoric (or scold), in defence of Summers and elsewhere, that the left should not deny the truth, etc.
--ravi