Feb 15 2006
Christofacist idiot watch update!
News from the war on intelligent thinking….
In their neverending war on science, critical thinking and reality, proponents of ‘intelligent design’ seem to take a few steps forward, and a few steps back. First item here, we have Ken Ham, of ‘Answers in Genesis’ fame visiting schools and propagandizing to schoolchildren about the evils of evolution. It’s not amazing how his simplistic answers go over well with elementary school children, who haven’t developed the critical thinking skills necessary to make rational deductions, weigh facts and such. What is amazing (and sad) is that this same line of un-reason seems to work really well with adults whose critical thinking skills, (when not completely numbed by hours at the mall and episodes of American Idol) should be able to disseminate facts and such. But these people, infected by the mind virus known as ‘Biblical literalism’ have never been much for the facts, anyways. Here’s a few samples of some horseshit for you…
“Boys and girls,” Ham said. If a teacher so much as mentions evolution, or the Big Bang, or an era when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, “you put your hand up and you say, ‘Excuse me, were you there?’ Can you remember that?”
The children roared their assent.
“Sometimes people will answer, ‘No, but you weren’t there either,’ ” Ham told them. “Then you say, ‘No, I wasn’t, but I know someone who was, and I have his book about the history of the world.’ ” He waved his Bible in the air.
“Who’s the only one who’s always been there?” Ham asked.
“God!” the boys and girls shouted.
“Who’s the only one who knows everything?”
“God!”
“So who should you always trust, God or the scientists?”
The children answered with a thundering: “God!”
Yay! I didn’t see it so it must not have happened! Saddam! 9/11! O.J. is gonna find the real killers! Erp…! (sound of brain synapses misfiring). So here we have propaganda at a very early age. Some more twisted illogic for you…
“Ham described the fossil record as “billions of dead things … laid down by water” — proof, he said, of Noah’s flood.”
In a bit that brought the house down, Ham flashed a picture of a chimpanzee. “Did your grandfather look like this?” he demanded.
“Noooooo!” the children called.
“And did your grandmother look like that?” Ham displayed a photo of the same chimp wearing lipstick. The children erupted in giggles. “Noooooo!”
This next nugget is so important… a major family crisis was averted….
“Emily Maynard, 12, was also delighted with Ham’s presentation. Home-schooled and voraciously curious, she had recently read an encyclopedia for fun — and caught herself almost believing the entry on evolution. “They were explaining about apes standing up, evolving to man, and I could kind of see that’s how it could happen,” she said.
Ham convinced her otherwise. As her mother beamed, Emily repeated Ham’s mantra: “The Bible is the history book of the universe.”
Man, the Flying Spaghetti Monster can’t be too thrilled about this. No mention of it anywhere. So what do you make of all this? Will these children(at least some of them) be deprogrammed as their brains and thinking skills hopefully become more developed? Some will struggle with it. Many, I suspect will continue to live in their little bubbles and not allow facts to get in the way of their worldview. And maybe one will be president someday.
But all is not bad. Some good news from the New York Times, here. Apparently, in Ohio, Intelligent Design people were trying, once again to incorporate doubt upon evolution in science class. That pig didn’t fly, fortunately. One thing that seems to continually be missing from any discussion from the ID people is that even the core ID proponents, such as Michael Behe, concede that there is no way to prove any of what they are saying is true. ‘Facts are stupid things,’ once said their annointed savior, Ronald Reagan.
The ID propaganda organization, The Discovery Institute, whose game plan is ‘teaching the controversy’ (of which, among scientists, there is none), was counting on Ohio to be a testing ground for it, if you will. God shoulda told them this wasn’t gonna fly, huh?
Fiction is a funny and sometimes dangerous thing. Not a good thing to base your whole life on, is it?
Posts
This is so scarry, in a bad way. Ultrareligious people freaks me out. Just find out you blog and I am charmed. I will be back, resistence is futile!
;-))
When I’m old, I don’t want them to say of me, “She’s so charming.” I want them to say, “Be careful, I think she’s armed.” -G. Stoddart
Glad I was able to give you a dose of charm….Thanks for reading.
BTW, where did ‘missredketchup’ come from? Do you not like green ketchup?
J.D.
You should check out this book. I saw this guy giving a speach on ‘Book-TV’.
The book is called ‘The End of Faith’, and his basic argument is why does religion get a free pass when it comes to reason.
Pat Robertson can say that Katrina was God’s wrath and a lot of religious types will agree, but if you say that it’s Poseidon ‘God of the Sea’s wrath then your just a fool.
The guy’s web site samharris.org doesn’t seem to work, but I found a link to a site with an interview with him.
Check it out.
http://ravingatheist.com/archives/2004/11/interview_with_sam_harris_part_1.php
Yeh, I tried to reply to one of your posts before and ended up making a blog of my own.
I posted one entry and haven’t been back yet.
Yes, Sam Harris has a lot of good stuff to say, he’s a regular contributor to ‘Free Inquiry’ magazine(a freethought secular humanist magazine that is a great read).
I’ve thought of getting a discussion going on that whole ‘taking the gloves off’ when it comes to debating religion. I must say, I’m not against religious people. I don’t agree that living one’s life based on superstition is necessarily the best thing for humanity. But where the line is crossed is when it ventures into public policy.
One could make the argument that if religion is a big part of public life, why shouldn’t it influence public policy? Well, public policy should be based on factual evidence. It is something that affects all of us, believers and non-believers alike. To pass a law that is compassionate is a noble thing; we should be passing the law because compassion is a noble human endeavor, not because ‘God said so.’ On the same token, if one wants to ban gay marriage because it will ‘destroy the institution of marriage’, they need to provide real evidence of this if they want to be taken seriously. Of course, they haven’t and never will. ‘Evidence’ is not really important to them. I must add that I support gay marriage as a concept, but I also feel the government should get out of the marriage business altogether.
Thanks for stopping by!
This Ken Ham dude sounds like the usual Christer nutcase.
When will people ever learn?
mw,
Unfortunately he’s a usual Christer nutcase with a growing audience…
funny….you can’t spell idiot without id