Let us hope you hear them as well as here them. Creationists are an embarrassment to conservatism precisely because they are evidence that the knuckle-draggin' gap-toothed slope-browed mean and dumb stereotypes are true. Worse, creationism seeks to hijack conservatism into an absolutely unwinnable war against the universe, its workings and history, and all the vast evidence related thereto. Sane conservatives must not allow this to happen.
I never cringe more than when Steyn rails at evolutionist and militant atheist Dawkins. I'm embarrassed for both of them. Steyn tends to be right on the money in matters of culture and politics but apparently, from a few things he's said, has been misled on science. Dawkins is his perfect inverse, a fine grasp of science but out of his depth in a mud puddle at much of anything else. Each should stick to his area of competence, but free speech means freedom to be not only wrong but loudly wrong.
I beg your pardon(?)
Cordially,
Can I borrow a band-aid?
My knuckles are bleeding.......
"Creationists are an embarrassment to conservatism.."
Have you ever given a coherent, short answer to explain how our world with all its life came about? Luck is it?
Do I belive that God created everything, including man? Yes, unreservedly. Do I believe he did it in seven days, with a wave of his hand? With respect to the literalists, no. I believe God is much more subtle.
I believe God set up all the conditions necessary for man to evolve, pushed the button, and, at the appropriate time, caused the mutation that became Adam, and endowed him with a soul. Doing it this way is a far greater demonstration of his power and omniscience than a flash-bang kind of creation. It also has the salutary effect of causing scientists to go down their thought chains, hypotheses, etc, to discover, at the end.....the ineffible, that is, God.
Relax, Vade, creationists aren't an embarassment or a threat to anybody. Just ignore them, unless you share the nutty belief that they might be complicit in "...drag[ging] us back down into the Dark Ages...".
You're right about Steyn and science though - stick to culture and politics. Of course, evolution, in the public arena, has always been politics. So his evo-bashing is fair enough. Some evos occasionally get a little carried away with themselves. Here's the full "Dark Ages" quote from a recent FR thread:
"......
"Like you, I weep for our future."
Don't let it get you down. I'm much more optimistic. We have a few hundred thousand scientists (more than ever before in the world's history) upon whom the future of our species depends. It seems depressingly true that the great majority of the population is stone cold ignorant of science, and a few -- so well represented in these theads -- are openly hostile to any manifestation of reason, but it has always been so.
With all that baggage trying to drag us back down into the Dark Ages, we're still making progress. If some school districts here and there get into astrology and creationism, it's tragic for those kids, but such setbacks aren't universal. Others will carry the torch of reason and learning forward."
"Free speech means freedom to be not only wrong but loudly wrong...AS IN ...Creationists are an embarrassment to conservatism precisely because they are evidence that the knuckle-draggin' gap-toothed slope-browed mean and dumb stereotypes are true...."
HMMM! VERRY INTRRESTING!