Heres an interesting set of facts about the new American zeitgeist. These are just observations, not judgments.Let's first start with some global benchmarks. Science Magazine conducted a poll and found that a large majority of the population in developed countries accept Darwinian evolution. 78% of Japanese believe that we evolved, 70% of Europeans and 69% of Chinese agree. In the United States the figure is 45%. In Texas, 60% of the population deny evolution. 47% of US Republicans believe that we have always existed in our present human form - God made us who we are today. "Regarding evolution - the jury is still out" ~George W. Bush
There is a growing segment of America that are convinced dinosaurs and children played together and the reason the dinosaurs didn't eat the children is because they were herbivores - at first. Traditional science with its evidence that some dinosaurs were definitely carnivorous? Conflicts with the bible, therefore not true. What about carbon dating? Cannot be trusted due to Noah's flood. The pressure of the water in the flood skewed any chance of dating anything accurately. As Lewis Black once joked - "These people are watching the Flintstones as if it were a documentary".
Tea activists claim that Obama is Muslim and that he was not born in America. Obama attends a Christian church, his children were baptized there, and his official birth certificate from Hawaii is free to see on the internet. He eats pork too. But hard evidence means nothing to some people if they instinctively feel that something is wrong. According to one poll, 47% of all the Republicans believe that Obama is a Muslim and 27% of them do not believe that he was born in the US.
Climatologists point out that the climate is undergoing global warming, and that it is man made, but - why should we trust the scientific consensus? What do statistics, evidence and Greenland ice cores matter if it was a cold winter in Oklahoma? The New York Times indicates that all Republican Senate candidates in this election deny that global warming is man-made.
2 comments:
Thanks for the perspective. I avoid discussions of religion because I truly believe that God invented EVERYTHING. So...that leaves a lot of room.
I just finished re-reading a book called "Island in the Sea of Time" By S.M. Stirling, 1998. An event happens in 1998 and the island of Nantucket and an elipse of the ocean disappears from 1998 and is deposited in the year 1250 BC. Of course there is a lot of survival stuff, rebuilding and farming and difficulties of getting the next meal on the table. However, it gradually dawned on the religious members of the island that Christianity did not exist! Christ had not been born to die to save them...yet! O mi god lets kill us off before we 3,000 years of history. That faction tried to burn down the town and starve the Natucketers. THey were caught intime. Eventually the Father of the local Catholic church called all the other religious leaders together to promulgate a kinder gentler Christianity sort of a "the prophet shall come" kind of thing. The rest of the story deals with the Coast Guard tall ship "The Eagle" her captain and a certain younger officer named William Walker who decides to leave and set up his own kingdom in England (Alba). RIA
Sounds like a fascinating book. I tend not to avoid talking about anything. Much to the chagrin of those around me (some of those around me).
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