The Carnival of the Liberals and the Culture War
Carnival of the Liberals #91 is now up at Crowded Head, Cozy Bed. Most of the articles are exclusively political, and they’re good reads, but I’m looking for anti-fundie articles. There are several of those, and my favorite is “The Desperation of the Powerless” at And Doctor Biobrain’s Response Is…. The good doctor tells us why we should worry when James Dobson concedes the culture war. Check it out!
Ken Ham Bonus!
While I was searching for an image about the culture war to decorate this post, I came across an article at Tiny Frog about Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis. According to Tiny, the AIG website gets way more traffic than the Discovery Institute. That surprised me. Since the DI has been so successful in spreading confusion about evolution, I assumed that they had more public mindshare than they do. I guess their message is getting out, but people don’t take the next step, which is to buy into that whole Intelligent Design creationism fraud. It looks like the public is even stupider than I thought. They much prefer AIG’s laughable young-earth creationism, which doesn’t even pretend to be scientific.
Here’s a picture from Tiny Frog’s article. He pulled it out of a book Ken Ham published in 1987. You should pay him a visit to see the rest.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:41 am
If you think Intelligent Design is laughable, you might like to consider the theory in Intelligent Design Message from the Designers -’forget the postman, read the letter’. If this is science fiction then within the context of that theory in that book,so are the dangers of over-population environmental degradation and the dangers of nuclear war and for that matter Ufos
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:48 am
Oh, Ron – way, way stupider.
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Adam or Ape?? While I don’t necessarily like the idea that I’m descended from ape, I’m not so sure I want to be related to that sadsack Adam either. Is he wearing a blouse? And why is there a leach on his face? Gee, if I get my choice of origins, I really can’t imagine I’d want to go with either of these. I mean, the ape seems to be standing in his own urine. While I had an uncle who did that, I wasn’t descended from him either.
And call me crazy, but if I have the choice between God created rules and my own rules, I’d pick my own. That’s a no-brainer. I mean, duh!
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Well, from what I can tell from looking at the picture, at least the ape is trying to create some form of language.
Also, if God’s rules are supposedly absolute, then why did he change all the rules when Jeebus came along? I guess that his rules must be some of those non-absolute absolutes that I hear about. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go drink a glass of non-wet water.
May 23rd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
revatheist,
You raise a good point no theist can counter: if man was destined to fall from grace in the garden of Eden, why didn’t God, being omniscient and all, see that coming? The flood? Surely he could have avoided that as well.
As to Jesus and the idea of atonement for original sin and salvation, well, the same question applies. Was it God’s divine plan to wait a few thousand years to incarnate himself in the flesh so that people might get to heaven? Did God change his omniscient mind? Who the fuck knows or even cares. Its all so silly when you cut right to the chase, isn’t it?
May 24th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
I wandered over to the Amazon reviews of Ken Ham’s book via the Orbiting Frog link. Man, what a zoo! I think this was my fave review:
Clearly a satire, but it got 11/19 “helpful” ratings.
May 26th, 2009 at 6:09 am
But… but… but… Free Bird!
Er… I mean, Free Will!
May 26th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Yeah, freewill as long as you use it in just one very particular, narrowly defined way.
This reminds me of a great song:
“You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill.
I will choose a path that’s clear. I will choose freewill.”
May 27th, 2009 at 5:50 am
Personally I think if you “choose not to decide” (if that’s even possible), then you still haven’t made a choice, but that’s just me. Then again Rush are far better musicians than philosophers. After all, they think Ayn Rand’s ramblings made sense.