Table of Contents
Then god seperated the state from the church
Secularization
Issues of their times
Jehovah's Witlesses
Christianity
Science
Woman
Overton Window
Malcolm X
We're not burning witches anymore, so we are secular
Stupidity is the property of a person, action or belief instantiated by virtue of having or being indicative of low intelligence or poor learning abilities.
“Being indicative” is the operative term here, however, as most accusations of stupidity often come down to the failure or inability to comprehend another person's perspective. In the overwhelming majority of cases, it is an expression of illusory superiority at work, whereas people tend to believe that they are smarter, better, more rational than others. Usually this presents as “what X is doing is stupid” when really all that's happening is that they don't understand why another person did a thing. The problem is that what people do usually always makes sense to oneself, because your thoughts make sense to yourself, but an outside observer doesn't have all that information. When you make mistakes or even just do normal things, you know why you do them and why they make sense from your perspective, while from someone else's perspective, especially if they are doing their own things rather than fully focusing on your stuff, your actions may not make sense. Once they “don't make sense” and if emotions are involved, then this will quickly devolve into “what they are doing is stupid”. This (“X is/did something dumb”) can be observed in soccer games, Rocket League, driving/traffic, politicians (who usually have more intricate motivations beyond what is presented on surface level, which often causes them to act in what seems to be highly contradictory ways - see Donald Trump), etc.
Anyone will have been accused of being/having done something stupid, and many times you will find that the only thing that happened is that they just weren't aware of the circumstances that made one act that way in the first place1). People seem to be very quick to fling around accusations of stupidity (whether directed at a person or action).
Usually, even if a thing that was done actually is stupid, serious cooperative deliberation usually leads to sufficient understanding on all involved sides, more often than not to a point where those accusations are voluntarily rescinded (unless conflict has evolved beyond this point). It's not a point about actually being intelligent or not, it's about misunderstanding and expectations.
Illusory Superiority
On average, people are of average intelligence. Thank you, Randall.
People tend towards thinking of themselves as being very smart. Everyone does it, myself included2). It probably comes from a very long history of one making sense to oneself (rationally, not emotionally) while others tend to be beyond comprehension. No front, though, I think it's pretty human to be inclined to think this way, however this means that it will take active effort to counteract. I do this by generally assuming that, on average, I am probably a very average human being and that when I don't understand why a person is doing something that irritates me and which I do not understand, the failure probably lies with me in not understanding it. I try really hard - though admittedly fail more often than I am comfortable with admitting - not to get annoyed or pissed off and instead either just carry on (when dealing with people I don't have to deal with for very long) or try to talk it out (when repeated interaction and therefore the emerging issues are likely to repeat and therefore worth the effort to address). xkcd has a very nice strip on this that also nicely captures the “sigh” element of repeatedly dealing with people that say things like “people are so dumb”.
This, by the way, does include everyone who might actually be considered stupid. They aren't any dumber than you are. Political enemies (liberals, conservatives, etc.), conspiracy theorists (flat earthers for example), cult adherents (Jehovah's Witlesses), those who do not believe in conspiracy theories, and everyone else. If you have ever committed the grave sin of calling someone stupid (I certainly have), this is the context for that. Ever since, I try to reserve that for the most dire of situations because, well, while it is not to me to make assessments on other people's intelligence, sometimes things are stupid. Averages are just averages. While I may be thinking of myself in those moments to possess the necessary authority to make such claims, this is way out of my depth. There are experts who have dedicated their lives to the study of intelligence and even they can't really define it quite yet, so who am I to fall such judgements. That would be arrogant.
Must be stupid
Remember, everyone thinks they're being reasonable. You, me, everyone around us. It always makes sense from our perspective, but if someone else does something that doesn't make sense from our perspective, then clearly they must be dumb.
Actually I take it all back, some people really are stupid and they're fucking annoying and please just shut the fuck up already. I spent three years in total isolation, never saw a human soul, and now that I am somewhat back into society I remember how painful some aspects of dealing with other humans were. One of these aspects is people that are very, very slow. Like, unreasonably slow. Please, get out of my way. Please, if you can't do this then let me do this alone. Don't stand in the way, taking up time and resources if you're not gonna contribute anything anyway. Let me do it on my own, I never chose you to be here anyway. Jesus christ.