Posted on 07/24/2003 1:55:39 PM PDT by Mr.Atos
I was just lisening to Medved debating Creationism with Athiests on the air. I found it interesting that while Medved argued his side quite effectively from the standpoint of faith, his opponents resorted to condescension and beliitled him with statements like, "when it rains, is that God crying?" I was reminded of the best (at least most amusing)debate that I have ever heard on the subject of Creationism vs Evolution, albeit a fictional setting. It occurred on the show, Friends of all places between the characters Pheobe (The Hippy) and Ross (The Paleontologist). It went like this...
Pheebs: Okay...it's very faint, but I can still sense him in the building...GO INTO THE LIGHT MR. HECKLES!!
Ross: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What, uh, you don't believe in evolution? Pheebs: Nah. Not really. Ross: You don't believe in evolution? Pheebs: I don't know. It's just, ya know, monkeys, Darwin, ya know, it's a, it's a nice story. I just think it's a little too easy.
Ross: Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact. Like, like, the air we breathe, like gravity... Pheebs: Uh, okay, don't get me started on gravity.
Ross: You uh, you don't believe in gravity? Pheebs: Well, it's not so much that ya know, like I don't *believe* in it, ya know. It's just...I don't know. Lately I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down, as I am being pushed.
Ross: How can you NOT BELIEVE in evolution? Pheebs: [shrugs] I unh-huh...Look at this funky shirt!!
Ross: Well, there ya go. Pheebs: Huh. So now, the REAL question is: who put those fossils there, and why...?
Ross: OPPOSABLE THUMBS!! Without evolution, how do YOU explain OPPOSABLE THUMBS?!? Pheebs: Maybe the overlords needed them to steer their spacecrafts!
Pheebs: Uh-oh! Scary Scientist Man!
Pheebs: Okay, Ross? Could you just open your mind like, *this* much?? Okay? Now wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the Earth was flat? And up until what, like, fifty years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess o' crap came out! Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny, tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?!?
Pheebs: I can't believe you caved. Ross: What? Pheebs: You just ABANDONED your whole belief system! I mean, before, I didn't agree with you, but at least I respected you. Ross: But uh.. Pheebs: Yeah...how...how are you gonna go in to work tomorrow? How...how are you gonna face the other science guys? How...how are you gonna face yourself? Oh! [Ross runs away dejected] Pheebs: That was fun. So who's hungry?
It might. But the alternative is the status quo on FR, which holds that atheism, agnosticism and in fact pretty much anything except some sects of protestant Christianity are incompatible with conservatism. Thanks to Patrick Henry, I found the original Dennett thread, which beautifully exemplified everything Dennett wrote; you can accuse an atheist of virtually any crime you want, up to and including genocide, and get away with it. I'm not willing to surrender conservatism to the bible-bashers, who are newbies to the movement, and tied to the movement largely by political expediency rather than principle.
What can I reply to this, RWP, but to say that you have allowed your own personal prejudices and preconceived notions about people who love God to color your analysis, and thus the conclusions you draw? It seems clear to me that, in the American experience at least, these people you love to hate are the original conservatives. They are not "interlopers" or parvenues (i.e., the politically motivated sans principles). I think you could look around just inside your own department and finder better candidates for that description. Just a suspicion I have. FWIW.
I agree with you except for the widely respected part. Most scientists are quiet little nerds who run away from conflict and public notice. They will rarely appear in a popular publication or in a public setting. The lefties in the media push their favorites. So outside the sciences it will always seem like the atheists are in charge, at least until the leftist media collapses. It's just not true.
Leftists control of the media is slowly collapsing. The left no longer has dependable funding since the fall of the USSR, and polls show that high school students are more conservative than they've been in 2 generations. My glass is half full for now. ;)
Actually, this is the converse of the truth. I was far more favorably inclined to fundamentalist Christians a year ago or two years ago than I am now. I can probably provide documentary evidence of this, in terms of email, letters to the newspaper, etc. Free Republic has dramatically changed my opinion of fundamentalists, as a result of direct contact and experience. Direct experience of fundies on FR has led me to believe they are, taken as a group, far more narrow minded, less charitable, less honest and less intelligent than I previously gave them credit for. It is true that this brings my opinion more in line with stereotypes; but alas, stereotypes are not formed in vacuo.
It seems clear to me that, in the American experience at least, these people you love to hate are the original conservatives.
I don't love to hate them. These are the people, for the moment, whom I am forced to accept as political allies; whom I have defended, and will probably continue to defend, to liberals at least.
As for whether they are 'true conservatives'; not in the last century, they weren't. They were allied to the Democratic party most of the time; a couple of the larger denominations for the explicit purpose of maintaining racial segregation. Those in the midwestern states allied themselves with the radical economics of Bryan, and voted for Woodrow Wilson.
The rest of your post contains insinuations that are incomprehensible to me.
I'm very troubled by the "us v them" attitude that has invaded the conservative movement and this forum. For the longest time, the divide was between conservative and liberal except during general elections when predictably, the people would separate to promote their own candidate.
And then there were the individual subjects which caused dissention here and there - like Elian, the Westerfield trial, etc.
But now we see dissention all the time. As an example, there are individual posters on both sides of the evolution v creation debate who say the other doesn't belong at the conservative table.
The Lurking Democrats are probably gleeful.
Remember the Democrat convention when Gore made his acceptance speech? It was all about us v them - poor v rich, labor v. capitalist, homosexuals v boy scouts (they even booed the little kids.) He took the Democrat party back decades and messed up their chance of keeping the White House. Once rooted, resentment is hard to weed out.
I am also very much troubled over the group victim attitude. That's another liberal/Democrat trademark - where each victim distinction is a badge of honor.
We conservatives used to have a "stand on your own two feet" attitude - where being an individual was the important thing. What's with all this "woe are us" hand-wringing I keep reading?
Sorry to be so long winded, but I have one more point. It is not logical to say all Christian fundamentalists are the same. We are individual beings with our own, personal strengths and weaknesses ... just like everybody else.
Conservatives can surely have heated discussions among themselves. Where this ceases to be useful, IMHO, is where the point starts to be made that 'anyone who holds viewpoint x is not a true Conservative', as in the recent rash of 'Darwinism is Marxism is Naziism' posts. At that stage, one can hardly expect the targets to resign themselves to playing defense; rather, they themselves are likely to look at the credentials of the self-defined 'True Conservatives'. Thence the foodfight.
This has gotten worse recently, but it has always been a problem. Evos have done an awful lot of ignoring over the years. Almost all of us ignore f.dot, whose posts, if you actually take them seriously, are quite frequently hateful and occasionally obscene. There has been an organized campaign to ignore ALS and a cohort of the like-minded he has tracked in. However, threads are still getting killed or relegated to the backroom. At some stage, some self-policing has to be done. These people are posting, whether you like it or not, in your name, and profess the same beliefs you do. Unfortunately, Alamo-Girl, you are not the typical fundamentalist Christian on this forum.
The point that is made with this observation is a critical one. It has reminded me of a tactic that I am witnessing elsewhere where radical Leftists and Greenies pose as Constitutionalists insurgents into the Libertarian movement attacking Capitalism and driving wedges between Objectivists and Conservatives. I've exposed such sappers enough now to believe that it is more tactic than coincidence. In the case of Capitalism, it is impossible to defend Constitutional liberty without legitimizing Capitalism... afterall that is the fundamental connection. This becomes a fatal flaw for 'sappers' by which they expose themselves.
I am not suggesting conspiracies here, just possibilities based on experience. Either way, I agree with both of you (RWP, and AG) that the extremes of either position are not dangerous in themselves. Afterall, someone must defend the fundamentals of a principle in order for it to remain as such. The danger arises when those fundamentals transend a basis for principle and are used to 'filter' thought. That is when fundamentalists become extremists undermining the same principles they seek to defend. And often times, they become tools of destruction at the hands of a lurking and sly enemy.
Not that I believe all such dissent stems from agent provocateurs – indeed, some of it is truly heartfelt, particularly among those who believe themselves to be marginalized to begin with.
In the case of Christians and Jews, the marginalization is international and crosses political boundaries. The American Jews ran to the Democrat party for protection (but the Democrats have recently abandoned them in favor of others, so hopefully the Jewish voters will migrate to the Republican party.) The American Fundamentalist Christians ran to the Republican party for protection and have the numbers and will to reject abandonment.
This is why I am troubled whenever Catholics say that Protestants are heretics, or vice versa Protestants say that Catholics aren’t Christian. Even among fundamentalists who believe the Bible to be inerrant, we do not share the same interpretation of Scripture. The Bible itself tells us this is to be expected – some can tolerate milk, others meat. We will see things differently. Add to that our personal philosophies and backgrounds in the disciplines of math and science – and what you get is a variety of views, especially with regard to the theory of evolution.
Truly, I cannot name even one person on this forum or off who sees ”all that there is” the same way that I do. Moreover, I’m very glad nobody puts a seal of approval on my view. I’d much, much rather they keep an open mind – read everything they can, pray about it earnestly and arrive at their own conclusions!
Lurkers: my views are documented on these webpages:
People of good faith can always disagree, civilly, amicably. We learn from each other, and the learning is a continual process in our lives. It has been said (justly IMHO) that Truth is a quest, not a "final possession." For me, the quest is motivated (and guided) by my profound love of God.
I guess what really peeves me the most about scientific materialists in general is the tedious attitude, not only that truth is a final possession, but that they actually possess it. Which premise is implicit, it seems to me, when one sees people like Lewontin, Dawkins, Pinker, Dennett, et al., dispense with parts of reality as immaterial to their "received truth." Logically, they must "know the whole truth" before they can begin throwing parts of reality away as not having a bearing on what is true. But the fact remains, of course, they do not possess the truth at all, because it is not, nor ever can be, any finite, mortal man's "possession." It is the work of the entire species, homo sapiens sapiens, conducted over the time of the Universe.
Things really have been getting pretty ugly around here of late; it is incredibly depressing to me. It does seem to reflect more general developments in the broad society outside of FR: the Kultursmog; the dissonance; the unintelligibility of discourse; the destruction of language and meaning; and the sheer, brutal incivility and monomaniacal selfishness of the current public debate. FreeRepublic is mirroring developments occurring outside of itself; and that may well include the infiltration of agents provocateurs.
I came across a reply recently, a ping from one buddy to another, described as a "Troll from Notre Dame ping." Surely this was not intended as a kind reference, in regard to an unidentified somebody.
This kind of name calling is, to me, the tactic of a Gramscian thug. And many such seem to be crawling out of the woodwork around here these days. And they are attacking the very foundations of reason, while stinking up the place as much as possible in terms of personal abuse towards people they disagree with. Whose or what's purpose does this serve?
Consider that last a rhetorical question....
That was "... of Notre Dame," as in the movie title, not an insult about a graduate from the university. We've been doing lots of movie-titles with the word "Troll" substituted in place of some other word. And it's because our threads have been attacked by a band of ill-behaved people "trolling" for flame wars. Posting such movie titles is hardly anything that could be called "attacking the very foundations of reason." You know better.
Well I do now that you have explained this mystery to me. However, PH, I must tell you that my confidence in your fair-mindedness has been in decline for a while now. I find it increasingly difficult to put trust in your good faith.
I have always valued your good will, BB. If ever you want to, please freepmail me with any such concerns. Any time.
Things really have been getting pretty ugly around here of late; it is incredibly depressing to me. It does seem to reflect more general developments in the broad society outside of FR: the Kultursmog; the dissonance; the unintelligibility of discourse; the destruction of language and meaning; and the sheer, brutal incivility and monomaniacal selfishness of the current public debate. FreeRepublic is mirroring developments occurring outside of itself; and that may well include the infiltration of agents provocateurs.
I'm quite sure of that -- unwitting agents, perhaps, but often those are the most effective agents tactically.
But we know the principle, when it comes to applied logic:
GIGO
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.