Commentary By Ron Beasley
I'm not a big fan of organized religion in general but the Evangelical Christians, the Catholics and the Mormons present a much greater threat to this country than Islam because they are here and like the extremist Muslims there minds are still in the 16th Century. Here is the latest example, Billy Graham's bat shit crazy son, Franklin.
"I think the president's problem is that he was born a Muslim, his
father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father
like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a
Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name,"
Only the most ignorant of the ignorant could pay any attention to this Neanderthal throwback. The US is in big trouble because there are way too many members of the most ignorant class. So how many is too many? I'll send you over to my old blog for the answer.
Almost half of Americans believe God created humans 10,000 years agoThis is according to a recent Gallup poll. (disclaimer: the head of Gallup is a no holds bared Christian Wingnut so this poll should probably be taken with a grain of salt) That's right, 45% of Americans think that God created humans 10,000 years ago while only 35% think that there is evidence to show that Darwin's theory of evolution is correct. It's no surprise that George Bush won since nearly 50% of the American people are still comfortably living in the 16th century and only one third seem to believe in science.
It's easy to see how so many listen to the nonsense of Franklin Graham.
I'm sorry my fellow Americans but were in the mess we are in because too many of you are too ignorant and superstitious for the 21st century.
I'm sorry my fellow Americans but were in the mess we are in because too many of you are too ignorant and superstitious for the 21st century.
ReplyDeleteThis makes little sense to me. The America of generations past accomplished great things - and found its way out of many a mess of the same scale we now find ourselves in. And this they did despite being more superstitious than the American people of our day.
If there is a correlation between a national religiosity and problem-solving capacity I do not see it.
T. Greer
ReplyDeleteIt's the anti Science!!!!!
Quite curious, as the lead to this post was devoted to sectarian hate, not the American public's loose grip on science.
ReplyDeleteBut lets run with the anti-science meme. Was the America of the 1940s - that is, the America came roaring out of the depression and over the Axis powers -more scientifically informed than contemporary Americans? The Butler Law was still in force then. Was America worse off because of it?
The question, T. Greer, isn't whether or not America was any more scientifically informed in the 1940's than it is today, but how it compared to its contemporaries, and whether or not they compare more or less favourably these days. After all, Ron is talking about the 21st century, and what may not have critically hampered the US three-quarters of a century ago doesn't necessarily apply to today.
ReplyDeleteIt is also worth noting that a great deal of the scientific progress of the post-war era in the US was inspired by the fact that the great bugbear of the Cold War was at least rhetorically inclined to scientific advancement, and the US overrode its less enlightened impulses in a fear-based national security blitz. Since the great bugbear these days are a handful of nut-cases dedicated to the same pre-enlightenment ideals of the religious right, and since the religious right has all but totally subsumed one of the two major parties in the US, there just isn't the same kind of pushback to their anti-scientific idiocy anymore. A line about being careful about your choice of enemies comes to mind.
Thanks BJ - well said!
ReplyDeleteThe point about push-back is well put. I remain unconvinced, however, that the people's loose grasp on science is more injurious to the Republic than is the people's loose grip on history, civics,foreign affairs, or the multitude of other things Americans know nothing about. What evidence have we that science test scores are a determinant of national success?
ReplyDelete