The Separation of Logic and Fundie
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.
—Abraham Lincoln
So why don’t fundies ever take Honest Abe’s advice?
I was listening to the local talk radio station tonight. Gene Burns is very thoughtful and lays out his case well, so even when I disagree with him, I can see the logic he uses. That’s rare in talk radio. One of his other endearing traits is that when a crackpot calls in, he lets them stay on the line a while—purely for entertainment purposes. The longer they talk, the more they show off their ignorance.
The call he got tonight is both funny and sad. It’s funny that somebody can be this ignorant, and it’s sad that there are so many like him. What you’ll hear is a pig-headed desire to remain misinformed.
For some reason, it is very important to fundies to believe that the United States was founded as a Christian country exclusively by good Christians. I don’t know why this fiction is so vital to their own sense of self worth. I’ve always assumed that if they can sell this fiction to the rest of us, that we’ll just agree to let them merge church and state. I’m sure that is the motivation of the national leaders, such as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, etc. I just don’t see what Fundie the Plumber or Fundie Sixpack (OK, so we need a good name for the common small-town fundie) get out of that deal. It can’t just be about theocracy. There has to be something more personal and more critical to their identity as Christians. Maybe they just can’t fathom the possibility that this isn’t God’s Chosen Country.
Anyway, have a listen to this call. He’s ignorant of the First Amendment, misinformed about history, and even misinformed about Christianity! In other words, he is typical of his breed.
January 14th, 2009 at 4:27 am
That was a very good listen. I was hoping to find a download so I could listen on a portable device later though! I have enjoyed the website for years.
January 14th, 2009 at 4:41 am
How did Gene Burns wind up in SF? I remember him from when he was here in Boston; a friend was friendly with him. I thought he moved the chocolate business, along with the entire extended family, to Orlando years ago.
January 14th, 2009 at 6:04 am
Am I the only one not seeing the audio player at all on this page?
January 14th, 2009 at 6:58 am
The usual fundie tactics – if you don’t like what you hear, just shout your ignorant rubbish louder so you don’t have to hear it.
January 14th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Ed:
I don’t support downloads, because I’m probably in enough trouble just having it on my site. If you look at the page source, you’ll see the link. You might be able to extract it directly somehow.
However, if you’re quick (i.e., before next Tuesday), you can download the entire show from here. Once there, you’ll need to click on Tuesday. Then grab the 9–10PM file. That’s also a higher quality file. I down-rezzed this one to save bandwidth.
Have you tried therapy?
January 14th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Jeff:
He’s been out here for years. I didn’t know he had a chocolate business. Maybe he sold it. I know that at least some of his family still lives in Florida.
January 14th, 2009 at 7:26 am
PL:
I’m not surprised it’s missing. Try adding some space to the bottom of the post. That’s another thing I have to fix. There isn’t enough space at the bottom, so any graphics at the bottom of a post are getting clipped. If you look at the HTML for that post, you’ll see I added a blank space after the player. That allowed the whole thing to appear for me. I suspect IE8 is just more sensitive.
January 14th, 2009 at 7:43 am
Dead Fred:
Of course it’s typical. In fact, if you read some of the comments on that page, you’ll see they’re doing it right there! Oh, how I love irony.
January 14th, 2009 at 8:19 am
On the subject of the Framers’ beliefs, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to Peter Carr:
January 14th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
ZING!
Gene needs a hold button, like Matt Dillahunty, so he can actually get his point across without having to shout over the caller.
January 14th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Excellent clip.
I suspect I would like Gene if I could hear him on a regular basis.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
that was wonderful
i loved the “I never fight with an unarmed man”
January 15th, 2009 at 6:01 am
I opened up the Dev Tools and tried fiddling with the HTML and CSS. It turns out there is plenty of space, it’s just not rendering the object tag. What’s weirder is if I take the object’s URL and open that in its own tab, it works fine. If it’s working for others with IE7, I wouldn’t sweat it, it’s probably just a IE 8 beta bug.
January 15th, 2009 at 6:19 am
Jefferson will always be a hero of mine. The skepticism and value of reason over tradition just brings a smile to my face.
That line is as relevant today as ever. If your god really is the one true creator of this universe and he gave us all the attributes we have (created in his image and so on), would he truly not value reason over blind obedience?
January 15th, 2009 at 7:47 am
That was beautiful. Could you post a download? I want to keep this one.
January 15th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Yeah, he had a handmade chocolate business for years, employed most of his extended family. He was always big on taking care of them. I remember, now, though – the business was always in FL. He came up here for a number of years, but I think the winters got to be too much for him (it’s thirteen degrees here now, so I can’t say I blame him). I think I remember our mutual friend telling me that he was getting ready to move back down there. I guess he got sidetracked.
From his bio page at WKIS:
January 15th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
I found the source, thanks for the reply! Bay of Fundie ROCKS! Thanks for the work you do on it. Ed
January 15th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
A good number of years I saw a televangelist who was selling tapes with the same thesis: the first ammendment guarantees the right to pick your own christian denomination. How they read this into the first ammendment and the secular constitution is beyond me. The best I can come up with wishful thinking and weekly brainwashing.
January 16th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Troy – It’s easy. Their’s is the only “true religion” because every other so-called “religion” is actually just a cult. I mean it has to be because if Christianity is right, all the others have to be wrong, right? Plus, I mean obviously “freedom of religion” never meant “freedom from religion.” I mean golly it’s obvious.
January 16th, 2009 at 11:04 am
It’s also important to point out that, even if the Xian dominionists were to succeed in pushing this interpretation of the 1st amendment and the USA became a country composed entirely of church going Xians, the evangelicals would then find some denomination to vilify, probably Catholics.
A faith based on adversarialism cannot flourish without an enemy.
January 16th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Jeezy creezy, that caller was annoying.
But I love Gene Burns’ last word though:
January 16th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
I remember Laura Ingalls Wilder writing in the Little House series, “God is America’s king,” as opposed to other countries having actual kings.
Even if the framers *did* have religion in mind, that doesn’t mean that it is what we should follow today. The times they have a changed.
Not My God
http://www.sarahtrachtenberg.com
January 17th, 2009 at 7:18 am
Although I agree with your interpretation of the “living, breathing constitution,” many people do not. And that is why arguments over “what the framers intended” consumes so much time in political debate!