Zombie Revelation (or, “Why we need bible study in public schools.”)

There was, a long time ago, this dark-skinned Middle-Eastern Rastafarian guy who could do magic.  He used to wander through the land with his twelve hippie followers and his ol’ lady, smoking ganja, giving away food, and curing people of various diseases.  Even leprosy, which is a nasty disease that makes peoples’ private parts fall off.

He raised this guy Lazarus from the dead and made him a zombie, which, in retrospect, was probably a foreshadowing of what was eventually going to happen to him.

We don’t know if Lazarus woke up hungry for brains, but we would think so.  Well, given that zombies always want brains.  They don’t have many left of their own, so it only makes sense.  They know they need brains, but can’t remember why, or what to do with them.  Rather like members of Congress or TV studio executives today.

He made a lot of people really upset because he told them that they didn’t have to kill animals to be good with God—all they had to do was believe in him and God would forgive them for everything they did.  This sounded like a pretty good deal to a lot of folks, being that it was harder than blazes to get on God’s good side.  Up until then, he came across a raging bastard entirely too fond of smiting, burning, flooding, sending plagues of locusts, and turning people into pillars of salt.  The peasants were pretty cool with the idea of a way to get on his good side without having to sacrifice half their livestock every time they accidentally said His name in vain when they whacked their thumb with a hammer.

Now the priests of the time didn’t like that, because they got a lot of goodies from people bringing their cattle and goats and chickens to them to kill as sacrifices to God and with this fellow saying “hey, you don’t have to do that anymore,” it left them out in the cold, and cost them both food and money.  Not to mention power.  There has never been any priest in the history of the world who’s been cool with giving up power, so that put a crimp in their collective colons and they decided to do something about this upstart dope-smoking magic Rastafarian hippie guy.

So they got together with the Romans, who pretty much ran the whole world back then, and told them “this guy keeps calling himself the King of the Jews (the Jews being one of many religious sects that roamed the Middle East) and says that they don’t have to listen to you Romans.  He also smokes a LOT of pot.”

Now all of this meant that the Roman governor of the area had to pull himself away from his drunken debauchery (which is pretty much all the Romans did when they weren’t building roads and developing difficult numerical systems featuring a lot of Xs and Ms and Vs) to check out the matter.  He actually found nothing really to complain about, so he told the priests that he didn’t quite get what had their colons in a knot.

They called this guy a heretic and a blasphemer, and again accused him of trying to overthrow Roman rule, which made almost no sense considering that all he did was wander around and do nice things for people and occasionally turn water in to wine to help people party.  And smoke a lot of pot.  Roman law stated that smoking lots of pot and overthrowing the government were almost impossible to do at the same time, so this fairly well confused the whole issue beyond salvation.

So this Roman governor, who was named Pontius Pilate, asked them again, “are you sure you want to accuse this guy of being some kind of revolutionary asshole?”  Personally Pilate didn’t care.  All he wanted to do was go back to his own partying.  He thought all these priests were a bunch of malignant clods and he really wanted them all to leave him alone so he could go back to having a good time.

The priests said “yes, he’s a heretical jerk-off and we want him to go away.  Preferably on a permanent vacation.”

So Pilate said “fine, I wash my hands of this,” (which is Roman for ‘I’d rather be having a threesome with a couple of gorgeous slave girls than spend another moment talking about this shit with you clowns’) and told his men to do whatever the priests wanted and went back to gorging and puking and guzzling wine and lazing about with scantily-clad female slaves feeding him grapes and fanning him with palm fronds in between bouts of great Roman Governor sex (which is a lot like American Republican Governor sex without all the lying and eventual public groveling).

So the Roman soldiers got together with the priests and hung this fellow up on a cross and let him die of thirst and exposure over the next few days.  (Which, as you can imagine, is a really, really bad way to go).  Then, finally, they let some of his friends take his body down and drag it off to some cave.  Now this fellow wasn’t the only one of these guys who could do magic, and when his friends got together, they decided to try and bring him back.  They spent a few nights taking massive bong hits and doing their boogie-woogie mojo and, finally, this guy sat up and looked around.  Unfortunately, not even Middle Eastern Rastafarian magic guys can actually bring someone back to life, so he came back as a zombie and the first thing he said when he looked at his twelve stoned buddies and his former ol’ lady was “Brains.”  (Which is apparently Zombie for “Hey, I’m hungry.  What’s for dinner?”)

And that’s how Jesus Christ became the first zombie God and why we spend every year around the time we think he was born worshiping a big fat guy with a flying sled and reindeer who climbs down chimneys and gives the kids presents.

Huh.  It sounds like something’s been lost in the translation.  Ah, well.

But many legends say that some day this Jesus fellow will come back around and sink his zombie teeth into the flesh, and then eat the brains, of his most devoted worshipers.  This will apparently grant them all eternal un-life as super-zombies who will no longer care about the trials and tribulations of mortal existence and thus usher in the end of the world in a zombie apocalypse.

Or something like that.

(This is, of course, satire.  Any offense given by the content of this post is not, of course, purely coincidental).

Public Option or Bust

An overwhelming majority of Democrats support something akin to the so-called “Public Option” and, given that single payer was never on the table, I would count myself among that number.  It’s the only thing we might do to keep the insurance companies honest, keep them from colluding with one another and using their wiles to fleece us ordinary Americans out of our hard-earned money.

Any Democratic congresscritter who’d vote no on the public option is asking to be ridden out of town on a rail.  In fact, despite the protection and defense of the party apparatus, they might well find themselves without a job come the next election cycle.  They ignore our will at their peril.

The party apparatus has, so far, made it very difficult for an incumbent to be chased from office, but up until now we didn’t have such organizations as MoveOn and its ilk to not only chase funding independently of the party, but also to finance attack ads against those Democratic congresscritters who refuse to do as their constituents ask.

A friend at work said “if we could just insure everyone, the prices would go down through market forces.”  My reply?  “Yeah, and that’s what they said about auto insurance.  We’re still waiting.”

That made him think.  The only thing that can keep the insurers honest is to give people an affordable option to their services, one backed by the strength and surety of the U.S. government (like the FDIC) in which some bean counter can’t excise a person or refuse to pay for a medical service in order to gain their employer a little profit.

In the end who would you rather have standing between you and your doctor–a faceless government bureaucrat who might not give a damn about you, or a corporate accountant who’d get a bonus for giving you the shaft?  Seriously, folks, what the hell is wrong with anyone who thinks the latter beats out the former?

We’ve got assholes like Glenn Beck leading frightened reactionaries on marches on Washington, decrying “socialism” as if that had anything to do with the question at hand.  People not at war with an idea, but with a word.  People who don’t understand how badly the status quo is already shafting them, and people who are already enjoying the public largess who have the nerve to deny it to others.

Rush Limbaugh is a rich asshole.  So’s Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.  They just want your money, your support, and your viewership.  They don’t care if you live or die, as long as there’s someone to replace you at the FOX slop bucket, growing fat and indolent on well apportioned selfishness, greed, and ignorance.

They tell you that Europeans hate their healthcare systems.  Lie.  It’s a flat out lie.  Notice they don’t trot out the hundreds of people who declaim them?  Because they can’t find that many people to interview who’d say as much.  If they could, they’d have them on the TV 24/7 until everyone knew about it.  But they can’t.  All they can do is cast aspersions and pretend that such people exist.  The fact is that they’re the European equivalent of your crazy Uncle Ed who thinks he was abducted by UFOs and subjected to anal probes.  People who no one with any sense takes seriously.

Rather like our Birthers, people who, against all evidence to the contrary, still doubt that Obama was born in the U.S.  People who believe that healthcare reform will result in government bodies dedicated to deciding who will live and who will die.  Hell, we already have insurance company accountants who do that.  An actual panel would be an upgrade.

I met a lady tonight who came in looking for a butterfly bandage.  She apparently had a cut that should have had stitches, but couldn’t afford them.  So she was looking for something to hold the wound closed long enough for it to start healing itself.

It’s pretty sad that we’ve reached that point in the U.S.  And sadder still that there are those who will resort to anything short of violence to keep it precisely that way.  And maybe not short of violence.  It’s no secret that the FOX News yahoos are doing their best to incite these folks to greater and greater radicalism, all in the hopes of securing the safety and profit of a few select companies who stand to lose a great deal of money should they be forced to compete with a government insurance plan.

If our elected Senators and Representatives fail to give us a public option, they’ll find the wrath of an aware electorate able to communicate with one another to share their outrage will be a far greater burden than they’d ever expected to bear.  The neocons underestimated the power of the internet.  So, I believe, have the Blue Dogs and their allies.  They forget who employs them.  It’s time they were reminded.  Forcefully.

Hulubaloo

Must remember–it’s okay to watch shows on Hulu, but avoid the comments sections.  I notice that the most “vocal” people tend to be arrogant, pretentious shitheads.  “You like that?  You’re an idiot.”

I must remember to go ahead and watch the shows on Hulu, but I should in no case read the message boards associated with the various shows.  They risk making my head explode.

On the Glee board they’re arguing about Kanye West and racism.  WTF?  I’m sure there are plenty of actual places where that discussion makes sense.  That particular board is not one of them.  And some yutz has the SN of “Obamaism is Communism.”  I hope he has “IDIOT” tattooed on his forehead to warn people who have to actually deal with him in person because that level of stupidity is genuinely dangerous.  Anyone who thinks Obama’s very far left of center is hanging onto the right edge of reality by the fingernails.  He’s about as “left wing” as Nixon was.  Less crazy, but still… NOT a communist.  Stalin, Lenin.  Communist.  Obama?  Centrist.  Maybe slightly left of center, but only by about a gnat’s wing.

Yes, people are truly this stupid.  And too many of them vote.  Usually Republican.  Reminds me of the LaRouche douche I saw in Seattle this afternoon, holding a picture of Obama with a Hitler mustache.  Dumbass.  Might as well have been holding a sign saying “Please throw me off the pier.”  What kind of moron do you have to be to stand there with something like that in hand?  “I donated my brain to science… please listen to me ramble.”

Uh…No?  I’d rather juggle lightsabers?   I’d rather bathe with rabid weasels?  Oh, wait.  For some of these folks, the latter would be like a family reunion.

Before the primaries, I said that I thought Obama was too status quo and too naive.  So far things have seemed to bear that out.  He reached across the aisle to coddle the Republicans and found out it was like trying to pet a vicious dog.  Your intentions might be good, but your judgment sucks sewer pipe.

Anyone who buys into FOX News  and their ridiculous  RW propaganda simply shouldn’t breed.  The crap they spew has about as much relationship with news as the stuff that goes in the front end of a dog has with what comes out the back end.  And they’re proud of it.

Count me out.

Is Hollywood missing the point?

Say it isn’t so?  How could our garden of cultural icons possibly get anything remotely wrong?  The mind boggles.

Take comic book movies (and I can hear you folks out there already, “yes, please, take them.  Anywhere.  The farther the better.”

The most successful comic book movie of the best few years is arguably a movie that doesn’t even belong in the genre, though at first glance it seems to.  I’m talking about “The Dark Knight,” a dark vision of a movie with a real “hope is pointless vibe running through it about as subtly as a chainsaw at high whine.  The nihilists get their way and we end up with a movie that tells us quite clearly that chaos is the point and there’s no point in saving a world that doesn’t care.  A similar message to the film version of the critically acclaimed and fanjoyed “Watchmen.”

Bleh.  As The Dude found out, nihilists in the end are a bunch of chickenshit snivelers who pretend that life has no point because they’re desperately afraid that it does and they missed the memo.

“The Dark Knight,” in a very real sense, defined exactly why Batman was never meant to be part of the comic book genre.  Bruce Wayne is a batshit crazy rich guy, holed up in his mansion with a butler and a teenage “ward” for company, naming all his instruments “bat-this” and “bat-that.”  The guy’s the original model for “bats in the belfry.”

Batman was conceived not as a superman, but as an ordinary person (as ordinary as a filthy rich scion of wealth could ever be) pushed beyond his limits of tolerance by the evil that men do.  He’s not really meant to be a hero of the kind we’d like to aspire.  He’s the “gee, I hope I don’t turn into THAT guy,” in so far as his place in the annals of super-heroism.  Rather a “Wow, he’s super-rich and yet his life sucks even worse than Peter Parker’s.”  At least Spidey had MJ, right?

Thus, it’s success in giving the Hollywood bigwigs a collective boner with a $ on top is just the thing we comic book fans really, really don’t need.  Together with “Watchmen,” they’ve managed to sap all the fun out of the genre with the kind of nihilistic bullshit that makes Jesus weep.  Copiously.

In all fairness, I haven’t seen Watchmen, but I understand it follows fairly close to the graphic novel, which landed by some strange coincidence in the top 100 novels of all time.  By someone’s standards.  Given that the first victim, the not-so-lamentable “Comedian” should’ve been blown away by his friends sometime long before the current story arc begins (an amoral, psychotic mistress-killing, .44 caliber abortionist shithead should never, never, have been granted the status of superhero in the first place, but hey, whatever.  Instead, his murder sends the equally batshit insane Inkblot (I know that’s not his name, but it might as well be) hunting his killer when he should’ve been down at his favorite pub drinking to the doer.

The only real “superhero” in the whole mess is Dr. Manhattan and he’s not a superhero either.  Just like there’s never been a Jesus-Man, there shouldn’t be a big blue human dynamo capable of single-handedly arranging detente.  Gods shouldn’t meddle in mortal affairs.  The long term consequences suck sewer pipe.

What people don’t get is that in the end comic books, and the movies spawned by them, are about hope.  A hope that in this supremely shades-of-gray world someone might come along who clarifies the light and the darkness, and takes a stand against the worst evils on our behalf.  Sure, from that point it becomes possible to explore the gray areas a little, but it’s never been about throwing away the black and white entirely.

If I want to watch a superhero movie without superheroes, I’d do Mystery Men again.  It’s about people reaching for hope, and dreaming that they can make a difference, and not about a man-made God and a bunch of washed-up would-bes that nobody should give two shits about.

It’s a bit like what they did to the Vampire Chronicles.  I won’t even get into the author’s wobbly acceptance, much as I love some of her work (they were an inspiration to me) I’m not sure how well grounded she is.  She wrote a remarkable series about a vampire who wanted to be a hero rather than a monster and it got lost in Hollywood’s gobbly-gook, 1/3 horror, 1/3 drama, 1/3 who the hell knows anymore?  The best book of the series was excised and the follow up was fucking lame.  The book was too busy to make a good movie…

Almost too bad the movie channels hadn’t caught on to what they could do quite yet.  We could’ve had a much earlier version of “True Blood.”

There’s a reason that romance and all its sub-genres are all the rage in the literary world right now.  People are starving for hope.  And if there’s one thing a HEA (Happily Ever After) ending will give the reader, it’s hope that it might be reflected in her (or his) own life.

8 Years

Mere minutes after the 9/11 attacks, we were united.  We were Americans together, facing a common enemy.  The whole world reached out to us in sympathy.  It didn’t take long for that unity to fracture.  Conservatives wanted to punish.  Punish someone.  Anyone.  The liberals were heard asking “Why?  Why did this happen?”

No, we didn’t want to give the hijackers counseling (hard to do anyway, since they were DEAD), as someone suggested.  We wanted to understand their motivations so we might take steps to prevent it from happening again.  (That might be too nuanced for the conservative mind, but there you have it).

When we brought up the things that may have led to such a drastic action on their part, we were called the “Blame America First” contingent.  The conservatives, led by the Bush (mis)administration and pop-eyed pundits, became the “Blame Everybody Else” faction.  America could take NO responsibility for it and, as a matter of fact, the reason for it was that the terrorists “hated our freedoms.”  They do to some extent, but given that we’re not the only country WITH such freedoms, and in many ways there are Northern European countries that are more culturally free (our claim to fame seems to revolve around economic freedom, which as anyone with any sense could tell you is illusory anyway) it falls a little flat.

Given that the United States trained and financed Osama Bin Laden for his fight against the Soviets when THEY invaded Afghanistan (one of the things, one might argue, that ultimately led to their downfall), there is some merit to suggesting our covert intelligence community DIRECTLY contributed to what came of it.

Whoops.

To make matters even worse, yet another former friend to the intelligence community of the United States (the guy we financed and supplied through his incredibly brutal war with Iran) was determined to be a threat (by what means we still cannot ascertain) and a second war (or a second front to the SAME war) was sold to the American people by a great many truly questionable methods.  (Wasn’t opening up a second front one of the things that defeated Hitler during WWII?)

We heard a veritable mantra (Nine-Eleven, Nine-Eleven, Nine-Eleven, Nine-Eleven, etc…ad nauseum), as the justification for everything they wanted to do.  So what if 17 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia?  So what if Osama Bin Laden was a disgruntled member of the Saudi royal family?  “Let’s get Saddam!”

To this day I’m almost positive the reason we went after him was because the administration KNEW they could take him.  And back in 1999, George W. Bush told his biographer that, if given the chance, he’d do what his father didn’t.  He’d go after Iran, kick Saddam’s ass, and earn himself the second term his father didn’t get.  In 1999.  Gotta give him credit for determination.  He did EXACTLY what he said he would.

So, yeah, I’d like to take a moment to look back and remember all the CITIZENS who were killed on 9/11, and the families they left behind.  And the wives that Ann Coulter insulted by calling “Harpies” who “probably wished their husbands dead anyway.”

Yeah.  Classy, eh?

If nothing else (and it was PLENTY else) the events of 9/11/2001 brought home a very important lesson to the United States.  Our relative seclusion and separation from the Old World could no longer be counted on to protect us.  And we were given a choice.  We could either play the swaggering bully (arguably one of the reasons we were attacked in the first place) or we could try to be the kind of nation we like to think we are.

Bush played it one way.  Barrack Obama, thankfully, is capable of playing it another way.

Personally, I’d like to remember and commemorate this day by working to ensure nothing like it every happens again.  Who’s with me?

Dear America:

“You need not fear.  The parasite remains alive and well, attached to the neck of Uncle Sam.  Despite all attempts to coax the huge, bloated leech off the patient’s neck, it seems to be there to stay.  Since any attempt to excise it might in fact kill it, we have decided to leave it where it is.  Sure, it’s ugly, it weakens the patient significantly, and nobody really wants it there, but we’re pretty much pro-parasite these days.

“There are those of you who want it gone and we’d like to assure you that someday, with the right incentive, and the right technology, we may actually be able to lift the parasite off the victim.  But, in the meantime, go about your daily business and try to ignore the bloated, pulsing eyesore.  We have been assured by the experts that it poses no immediate risk to the patient’s life and, should such a threat become evident, we can treat it with an infusion made from shredded thousand dollar bills.

“Thank you for your time and patience.  God Bless America.”

The Eye of the Beholder

At what point does being appreciated for physical attractiveness become degrading?  In liberal circles there is always talk of sexual objectification and exploitation of women for the titillation of men and it’s hard for many men to understand where the line might be drawn.

Having spent an equal time, more or less, being subjected to the ruminations of feminists who find any treatment of female sexuality in the public sphere to be, at best, disquieting, as I have in reading the commentary of female romance and erotica authors about sex, sexuality, and the like, I have to admit to being even more confused than I was to begin with.

I couldn’t help but get the impression that some of these feminists are living in something of a bubble, seeing things from only one perspective and reflecting one another’s perceptions to the point that the discussion becomes meaningless.  Or, rather, where it becomes not a discussion of an important issue, but little more than an echo of closed viewpoints.  Now while it’s certainly true that there are definitely circumstances and scenarios in which women are being blatantly objectified in the media, it might also be that some of the arguments are overwrought.  The media uses sex to sell products and, for all our wrangling about it, it certainly works.  Some of the things they use sex to sell might seem ridiculous, but obviously it does what it’s intended to do.  Since they keep doing it, I mean.

Now I think this is beside my original point.  I’m more interested in personal interactions than something the media cooks up.  Madison Avenue will beat a horse into a skeleton and then wonder why the pony won’t go.  Let’s say they’re not particular responsive to changing circumstances and/or ideals.   It’s obvious by the actresses that are popular these days that men find toned, athletic woman more attractive than wispy models, yet who do advertisers use most of the time?  Interesting to note that notions of male “beauty” hasn’t changed a lot since… well, since Rome.

But I digress.  My point is that I’m more interested in what makes personal experiences positive or negative.  Why do guys check women out, and vice-versa?  Is it degrading, or intriguing, or something else entirely?  Is it in the eye of the beholder?

It just may be.

Some might argue that the point it becomes upsetting or degrading is at the point that the attention is coming from an unwelcome source.  Being thought attractive by someone one finds attractive in turn is rarely the problem.  It’s being found attractive by someone whom one finds ugly, creepy, or otherwise undesirable.

If one looks at it this way, there’s a certain element of hypocrisy to it all.  Is it degrading to have one’s committed partner find one sexually attractive?  Or is that the intended goal of things like trips to the stylist, manicurist, or tanning salon?  Or, for that matter, to the gym?  If there’s a difference between being ogled by a complete stranger and someone with whom one plans to have sex, as there would be, isn’t it still true that both are examples of objectification?

And do we not all do this to some extent anyway?

And here’s another question that comes up.  What about folks who are attracted to people of the same gender?  Do women objectify woman, or do men objectify men?  And who is there to object to this?

Examples of things that make me go “hmmm…”

I say where the problem really lies is when a person sees an attractive person as ONLY that, not as an actual human being.  Being attracted is a normal human response.  Denying their humanity isn’t.  Or shouldn’t be.

Of course, mileage may vary.

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine people rising up to protest any of the previous presidents speaking directly to school children by way of video or television?  It’s hard to imagine even Clinton taking heat for this sort of thing, and he took heat for almost everything.

The Right kept accusing us of trying to politicize criminal behavior, but they politicize EVERYTHING.  They politicized town hall debates on health care.  And now they’re politicizing a speech made by the duly elected President to school children about the value of education.

They’re whooping our asses.  They’re able to stay on message, go on the attack, and stay on attack, while we run around in a disorganized gaggle.  We can be formidable, but only in small groups–if cornered.  As a whole, we’re too easily fractured, and broken into our component groups.

Our elected representative go off message way too often, they don’t seem to communicate worth a damn with one another, and they act as though they spend their lives in a bubble untouched by the outside world.  This whole affair is appalling.  They’re protesting a perfectly legitimate public act by the President of the United States.  Out of nothing but spite and (quite possibly) overt racist tendencies.

It’s truly pathetic, and it’s truly pathetic that our leaders aren’t calling them out for the cowardly, stupid, and truly un-American crazies they are.  “Seriously, people, what are you afraid of?  That Obama’s going to hypnotize your children with his African voodoo gaze?”

Right Wingers–undeniable proof that America needs more psychological help than it’s getting.

I pledge alliegance to…

There’s currently a facebook poll on the Pledge, and whether or not we should bring it back to American schools.  There are three possible answers.

“Yes,” because they’re attending an American school (and what this has to do with anything, I don’t know)

“No,” because it’s offensive to what the kid(s) believe (referring to specific children, I imagine),

“Yes,” for those kids who want to do it.

Most people don’t know that the Pledge was originally written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist minister.  Interesting that most folks who’d like to see the pledge return would be scandalized if they did know this, and they would’ve fought it tooth and nail when it was originally introduced.

I love the smell of hypocrisy at midnight.

The original text:

“I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”  We can all remember the changes that have been instituted in time, the most questionable of which was the addition of “Under God” in 1954.

At various times, there was a lot of conflict with groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who saw it as idolatry.  From their perspective, they were probably right.  You know–stopped clock and all that.  American atheists, agnostics, and “Free Thinkers” found it particularly odorous after this last addition, yet most of us Gen X-ers would probably remember being forced to recite it as children ourselves.  Obviously, the objections of these groups were considered to be of little consequence.

I don’t like it.  Never have.  I regularly pledged my liver to an assortment of imaginary agencies as a child, and the few times I remember being asked to recite the vow as a teenager–well, it’s doubtful that I would’ve been given a pass had they heard what I was saying then.

From my perspective, a forced oath is meaningless.  A promise made under duress (and what greater duress could there be as an innocent child made to do so by authority figures appointed to educate them?) has no value.  In fact one might go so far as to say it’s offensive to anyone who has ever knowingly taken and kept an oath of his or her own volition.  It cheapens their sacrifice.

And forced oaths have no place in an allegedly free society.

I’m sure people will disagree with me.  It wouldn’t be the first time.   Don’t care.

It’s a free country.  Allegedly.

You keep using that word, “theory,”

but I don’t think it means what you think it means.

Okay, evolution deniers, I’ve had just about all of your willful blindness that I can take.  You say evolution’s only a theory, so it’s not really proven science.  A Theory is as “proven” as it gets.  Acting as though it means the same thing as some yutz–like, maybe, YOU, saying “I have a theory that we’re going to have ham for dinner tonight” shows a remarkable ignorance not only of science, but of critical thinking in general.

I had this conversation the other day.  With a coworker.  I mentioned “the kind of nuts who don’t believe in evolution” and then discovered that she, specifically, was that kind of nut.  I’ll admit, I felt like a bit of a jerk.  For all of five seconds.  I simply said “Huh” and went about my business.

So she asks me, “What does that mean, Huh?  You sound like you don’t approve.”  (Or something similar).  She was fishing for more than a single grunt in response.

So I reply “I’m just not sure I’ve ever met someone who didn’t believe in evolution.”  You skeptics and what not say what you will about pagans, at least they believe in science.  They just believe in other things BESIDES science.  I’m agnostic, but I have a lot of friends (and a wife) who are pagan.  One in particular I’d just love to see in a debate here, as a matter of fact.  I wouldn’t care who “won.”  I’d just like to see it.

But I digress.  After I say that, she’s silent for a little while, then started in about it “only being a theory.”  I sighed, and thought about how to counter this.  I paid some attention in High School science classes, but I don’t remember off-hand how they defined them.  If I remember correctly, “theory” means something that’s been proven.  It’s as “hard” as science gets sometimes, given that science, unlike superstition, allows for new information to change accepted assumptions.

I told her as much, saying that science isn’t the same as mathematics, where 2+2=4 and that’s it.  The term “theory” is science’s (and scientists’) way of saying “there are very few absolutes, but this is what looks to be the case.”  Our medical sciences are, to a great extent, based upon the theory of evolution–particularly germ theory.  We’re able to combat germs because we understand how it’s likely to react to certain stimuli–based on what we understand of how they evolve.  If evolution wasn’t a fact as well as a “theory,” we wouldn’t be able to manipulate them the way we do.

Closer to home, I pointed out, is the simple existence of dogs.  Man’s best friend and all that.  A creature we have been deliberately breeding (evolving) as WE chose for the better part of several thousand (who knows how many?)years.  All those remarkably different creatures are, in fact, nearly identical genetically.  And only a hand-span away from the wolves that spawned them.

Adaptation and Natural Selection are observable facts.  Our understanding of how it works may not be complete, but no credible scientist has any doubt that evolution occurs and is, in fact, occurring around us all the time.  I realize this flies in the face of the whole “God Created Man” thing, but, seriously, do you want your science to be based on faith and dogma rather than observable phenomenon?  Would you trust your safety to an airplane built like a cross with no consideration for lift and drag and other physical laws based on the idea that “faith” would help it fly?  Would you bet your faith against the laws of motion?  I don’t care HOW pious you are, you can’t evade the laws of physics.

So the way you deal with the seeming dichotomy between your “divinely inspired” book and real world science we use and depend on every day is to deny the science.  Because you know, deep down, which you should actually trust.  Science has no agenda and has built millions of tools that have shaped our world and continue to do so.  Religion and “faith” possess the agenda of whoever’s interpreting the documentation and has never once, by itself, added to the sum of human knowledge with regards to the physical laws of the universe.

You get on a plane and fly because science told them how to make a machine that could fly.  You pick up a phone and call your wife because science told them how to project information through the air in radio waves.  You climb in your car and motor down to church because science told them how to burn fossil fuels to create combustion and create the horseless carriage.

Science.  You can sit and pray to be instantly transported somewhere else for as long as you like.  Faith can’t do that.  Science, on the other hand, can tell you why it might and might not be possible.

Science doesn’t demand faith.  It demands critical thought.  It requires questioning previous assumptions.  Science grows and changes as our understanding of the universe expands.

Religion?  Not so much.

There’s a reason the Bible and other holy books don’t really describe the world, the solar system, the galaxy, atomic structure, or anything else that is actually observable.  Because the people that wrote them had no more information about the nature of the universe than anyone else did.  The idea that a omnipotent, omniscient deity had even the smallest input in any of them seems, well, ludicrous.

But people can believe anything they damn well please, as long as they don’t try to pass laws meant for the rest of us based on their narrow view of the world.

I have to add that my new-found annoyance about this subject was raised by the inanity of the following comment, made by a parent and a teacher in middle of the Missouri High School Band tee-shirt controversy.

“I was disappointed with the image on the shirt.” She said. “I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school.”

Yeah–who’d want a high school associated with science, right?

Here’s the whole article, btw… http://www.sedaliademocrat.com/news/0px-18740-span-font.html

They are the 21st Century equivalent of flat-Earthers and are just too blind to notice.  So many fools, so little time.