Reprise: "Are Highly Religious People Less Compassionate?"

The Good Samaritan

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-good-samaritan.html

"Are Highly Religious People Less Compassionate?"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/08/are-highly-religious-people-less.html

Conservative Christians Delight In The Punishment And Pain Of Others

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/09/conservative-christians-delight-in.html

Americans, Especially Catholics, Approve Of Inquisitorial Torture

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/04/americans-especially-catholics-approve.html

Christianity's Bedrock Commitment To Torture: Remaking "The Faithful" In God's Image

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/12/christianitys-bedrock-commitment-to.html

Alan: Conservatives are unduly fond of "principles" -- smarmy, safe, bourgeoise principles -- principles that justify themselves while condemning others. 

Because conservatives are orderly, rule-heeding people, they are ipso facto incapable of looking outside the box, the box that both contains and protects them.

To be "outside the box" would locate oneself "outside the fold," in a "place" of lostness and irremediable "perdition" - a word that derives from the Latin "perdere" meaning "to lose.",

Conservative passion for "law" and "order" is driven by conservatives' need to believe in personal "salvation," which is to say they need to be assured of a safe place inside the box.

Outside the box -- as they see it, indeed as they think they MUST see it -- is nothing but lostness and interminable angst driven by eternally recurrent anxiety.