I am listening to "Talk of the Nation" this afternoon, where there's a dialogue about Race and the use of the term "Racist" on-going, when a caller says "We all came from Noah". - LMFAO! A person can believe anything they want to believe. They can think aliens monitor their thoughts and wear foil hats. They can think that local elections in Arizona are fair if they want to chose to be that delusional. It's a free country... but calling into a nationally broadcast radio show, and saying such things... it's too darn funny!
Universal Myths, when taken as fact, despite all empirical evidence against it, are a superstitious sign of devout ignorance.
9 years ago
At least the caller is trying (I assume) to downplay the differences between races by understanding the fact that we are all related if you go back far enough. His point is valid to some extent, despite being based on the equivalent of a child's fairy tale. Similarly I found myself citing "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" the other day. Same sorta thing - referring to a fairy tale to make a point. It works. It's valid. But I doubt he realizes he is in fact citing a fairy tale.
ReplyDeletePerhaps "fable" is a better term than "fairy tale".
ReplyDeleteI think Matt makes a good point. Since many fundies are also xenophobes and racists of the worst order, it's refreshing to see someone walking through the consequences of a belief such as "we all came from Noah" in a positive way.
ReplyDeleteI used to think like a positivist, i.e., that validation of beliefs and theories can only be accomplished with empirical evidence. I've taken a different approach recently that considers there may be an underlying, measureless reality that mostly produces cause and effect (i.e., perhaps there is a creator). Then again, I've also recently become a conspiracy theorist in many areas, including aliens (i.e., does this reduce my credibility?). By the way, Joe, if you get a pic of a tarantula to accompany the tarantula hawk, please post. I had no idea these two creatures were "battling it out" in Arizona.
ReplyDeleteFerdi,
ReplyDeleteI also find it hard to believe that Earth bound homosapiens are the only intelligent life forms in the entire universe, but I highly doubt that any alien life form is monitoring my thoughts, or that an aluminum foil hat would block them if they were.
No tarantulas observed here in AZ yet (nor shed / molted exoskeltons either), but lots and lots of black widows outside - I kill them in the garage and in the yard after being bitten last year, requiring a leg ultrasound and lots of antibiotics when my leg started turning black from the shin bite marks upwards towards "the boys". Lots of wolf spiders, who eviscerate roaches and beetles, so those arachnids get to live.
Ron and Matt's point about open minded fundies is a good one - I just have difficulties with the logical scientific gymnastics, being married to a Scientist who is also an enlightened and thinking Christian. Having lived in the buckle of the evangelical bible belt for 16 years, I've acquired an allergic reaction to quick creationism, which has resulted in a zero tolerance policy. It would probably be good if I took a more moderate stance on such view points, now that I only visit SC and GA a few times year, and don't live there full time anymore.
It is a shame though, that while the readers of this blog understand it is a myth, a fable, a fairy tale, in the context of greater story telling, that nearly 1/2 of all Americans think 7 twenty hour hour days is literally the truth and all the rest of their shaky faith relies on that narrow interpretation.
I have found that many of the homosapeins are not even intelligent, don't insult the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how a set of stories are viewed as "the truth." No one would ever regard Aesops's or Grimm's as the truth. In one respect trying to scare people into thinking only one fantastic origin is the same as the Grimm tales created to scare children into minding their elders.
Today's USAtoday had an interesting article, along with lots of pretty color charts.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/sciencefair/2009/06/tracking-a-worlds-worth-of-evolution-in-one-big-chart.html
my buddy JoeM had a great posting on the average American Homosapien here
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