Atheist Age

Nonsense is your right

Remember the good ole’ days? Way, way back in early 2008? When Wannabe Huckabee scared the shirota bacteria out of the planet by suggesting the US Constitution should be amended to reflect the eternity of “Gods Stardards”.

“[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it’s a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that’s what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards,” Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Huckabee blew it by endorsing as a “great leader” John Hagee who wrote in Jerusalem Countdown: A prelude to war:

“It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God’s chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day….

How utterly repulsive, insulting, and heartbreaking to God for His chosen people to credit idols with bringing blessings He had showered upon the chosen people. Their own rebellion had birthed the seed of anti-Semitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come…. it rises from the judgment of God upon his rebellious chosen people.”

Friedrich Nietzsche once observed that “The Christian resolve to find the world evil and ugly, has made the world evil and ugly”.

Nietzsche raises an irrefutable truth. It matters significantly with respect to guys like Huckabee because US District Court Judge James Selna ruled this week that calling creationism “superstitious nonsense” violated the First Amendment rights of a student who, of course, chose to do the Christian thing. Destroy the infidel. Fortunately, the decision isn’t the win for pseudoscience as ID proponents may claim.

In short, it had nothing to do with European History as teacher James Corbett referred only to another teachers views. Give the man a medal for restraint, I say. Still to be pedantic, creationism may well be nonsense on a stick, but it ‘aint history… just fact. Yet the USA love to beat each other up over legal waffle, so defender of invisible friends, student Chad Farnan spotted his chance to be a Church-n-State spanner and lagged on his teacher.

This longer and more detailed statement took place unmolested because it tumbled out “in the context of a discussion of the history of ideas and religion”. Sounds like Chad had a bash at that evil utterance also. Wired Science report:

“The ruling today protects Farnan, but also protects teachers like Corbett in carrying out their teaching duties,” the judge wrote.

The teacher got into hot water because the creationism statement came outside the context of his AP European History class. In making the statement during a discussion of another teacher’s views on evolution, the court could not find any “legitimate secular purpose in [the] statement.”

However, Judge Selna found a second statement that Corbett made about creationism did not violate the student’s First Amendment rights, although it’s an equally pointed critique.

“Contrast that with creationists,” Corbett told his class. “They never try to disprove creationism. They’re all running around trying to prove it. That’s deduction. It’s not science. Scientifically, it’s nonsense.”

That statement was OK because it came in the context of a discussion of the history of ideas and religion. Thus, its primary purpose wasn’t just to express “affirmative disapproval” of religion, but rather to make the point that “generally accepted scientific principles do not logically lead to the theory of creationism.” One might expect that if creationism came up in the context of evolutionary biology, it would be similarly OK to say, “Scientifically, it’s nonsense.”

What must be said is that demonstrably fallacious, politically motivated, reason, evidence and logic free abuse of the human intellectual process can assist in the dismantling of democratic freedoms. Said simply, creationism is a belief humans must recognise as false, and dangerously so. It is used help to recruit xenophobes of the West and the terrorists of the Islamic Republic. In a bizarre yet strangely satisfying twist the creation myth has held hands with inhumanity since it was scratched into the sand.

We’ve been here before also. The forcing of views upon those conveniently in the way. Today, we rationalise the Inquisition by explaining it away as representative of the dark times, only possible through misguided belief. It wasn’t us, could never be. An aberration. Galileo Galilei and Shakespeare say nothing about us also I suppose. More and more apologists today link this failure of civilisation to “belief”. To faith. To excuses. To reason, no less. Truly human nature played a part in “enforcing holy scripture”.

Think of the wartime Popes living dilemma – the Christian, the Roman Catholic, Gods servant; Adolf Hitler. In fact, just to be clear, my view is Hitler was a psychopath and his “up to five times per day” injections of crystal methamphetamine [Ice] doomed his brain, and the German war effort.  It is the idea that “atheism” precludes immorality and inhumane action, that all humankind must reject. The reverse is true. In cases where religion was oppressed, psychopathology has not been demonstrated as not viable. Nor has the far more rabid elimination of non theistic scientists or academics been explained.

Despite the semantics, modern USA Evangelicals have the confidence of their delusions. Consider “Reverend” John Hagee in supporting Senator John McCain in 1999;

Nazis had operated on God’s behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and shepherd them to Palestine. According to the Reverend, Adolph Hitler was a “hunter,” sent by God, who was tasked with expediting God’s will of having the Jews re-establish a state of Israel.

Going in and out of biblical verse, Hagee preached: “‘And they the hunters should hunt them,’ that will be the Jews. ‘From every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.’ If that doesn’t describe what Hitler did in the holocaust you can’t see that.” [Source]

Hitler believed he was “chosen by God” to assist the Vatican. Imagine you’re reading a christian fundamentalist piece on Intelligent Design;

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith. – Adolf Hitler

Or remind yourself of the SCA fighting for secularism on Capitol Hill, and stories of US military breaking up atheist meetings. For over a century atheists have been considered poor cannon fodder, knowing this one chance at life is ones own – not that of an Officer, or Church representative. Hitler agreed;

Believing solders are the most valuable ones. They give their all. – Adolf Hitler on Faith and Belief.

Sadly, history will repeat. And the history of human beings forcing others to obey the imagined will of their creator marks perhaps our lowest trait. Religion strangely enjoys default polish and respect. Yet, its history is clear. Almost as we hear the tragedy unfold or baulk at the obscene wealth, the sexual abuse, the irrefutable lies and trickery we are chastised for even questioning what are at best delusional thoughts.

From Creationism corrupts our youth. Mike Gravel on the oppressive nature of religion:

Tags: Controversy, Critical Thought, Evolution, Fundamentalism, Islam, Sharia, Terror, Video