February 27, 2007
An evol conspiracy of heck fire proportions
.
Ben Bridges, a Republican state representative in Georgia, has made a name for hisself by decrying for years the teaching of evolution in Georgia’s public schools (don’t fergit kids – we’re the home of the “evolution disclaimer textbook sticker”). But even ole’ Ben is backing away slowly from a powder keg to which some fiendish cohort stenciled his name. It seems that a feller by the name of Marshall Hall sent out a memo regarding a buttload of “indisputable evidence – long hidden but now available to everyone – (that) demonstrates conclusively that so-called ‘secular evolution science’ is the Big-Bang, 15-billion-year alternative ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion.”
Sufferin’ Septuagint! What’s the number to call?!
By the time the memo got out to several other state legislatures and, hold on to your hats, was presented in the Texas House (NO WAY?! Way.) by an acquaintance of Rep. Bridges, ole’ Ben, in sync with the Anti-Defamation League breathing down his neck, saw the scripture on the wall. “I did not put it out nor did I know it was going out,” Bridges told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I'm not defending it or taking up for it.”
Smart move, and seemingly not too hard to put the distance between him and Hall, especially if you take a gander around the latter’s website, the official site of the Fair Education Foundation, Inc. The main thrust of Hall’s game is to have evolution declared a religious teaching and therefore also subject to Constitutional scrutiny heretofore levied upon the teaching of creationism/intelligent design. He had ostensibly worked with Bridges to introduce a bill in the Georgia House that “calls for an end to all teaching of evolution-based ‘science’ in tax supported education.” The decision was made to not introduce the bill, according to the FEF website.
In his list of the “long hidden but now available facts” Hall puts forth the claim of the religious roots of evolutionism, beginning with a citation (from a now unavailable webpage) of Nechunya ben HaKana, a first century Kabbalist who asserted that if you know how to use the 42 letter name for God you could decipher the time between the creation of the universe and man. Some 2000 years before Douglas Adams, Nechunya estimated the age of the Universe at 15.3 billion years. Hall continues looking down his nose at such cosmic spiritualist science by citing the calculations of physicist and, by Hall’s estimation not so coincidently, Kabbalist Gerald L. Schroeder, author of The Science of God, who put forth something along the line that the six days of creation could be calculated to equal the approximately 15 ¾ billion years that make up the universe’s age. Not being a stranger to far-out religious calculations, I’ve heard this sort of figuring in other circles, and I say “why not?” After all, if we’re going to get churchy, let’s throw in the scripture from the Second Book of Peter which states “that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” If that doesn’t just mesh right in with Big G’s Moving In Mysterious Ways concordat* (and He backs it up in a diatribe to the prophet Isaiah, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD). Nyaaah.
I fear that Hall may be on to something then. Evolutionist teaching may well be built upon a religious foundation. But should we snatch up the rug of tax dollars for public schools that teach evolution? Certainly not if Hall’s plan is the alternative. He displays on his home page a photo of a lamp-like device that appears to be causing a model of Earth to levitate motionlessly in the air, accomplished by “an electromagnet and computerized sensor hidden in its display stand.”
“Could God have engineered something like that for the real Earth?” he asks. “The Bible and all real evidence confirms that this is precisely what He did, and indeed today’s cosmology fulfills an anti-Bible religious plan disguised as ‘science.’ The whole scheme from Copernicanism to Big Bangism is a factless lie. Those lies have planted the Truth-killing virus of evolutionism.”
OK, not so out-of-whacked for a guy who advises you to “Please Fasten Your Mental And Spiritual Seat Belts” before embarking on a trip through the wonders of his website, which includes such nuggets of wisdom and observation as:
I found quite amusing his assessment of “Kabbalist” Carl Sagan: “by all accounts, a perpetually stoned ‘exobiologist’,” and he prattles on with the usual anti-semitic conspiratorial crap against Einstein, Spielberg, Eisner and others.
I commented at PJ’s place the other day that I have no patience with these types, having actually walked in their midst in another lifetime. But I also said I take issue with scientists who seem to follow a course of study as if to disprove the existence of God. I find that almost as disingenuous as the former folk, and indeed I see that elitist scientific attitude as the likely driving force behind the so-called faithful’s ranting – they’re pissed off that someone is putting their religion to a test by the numbers. Any Higher Power, in my humble and supplicative estimation, is not quantifiable on purpose, and makes the frothy-mouthing on both sides seem ridiculous.
*term aptly coined by Mr. Terry Gilliam
Ben Bridges, a Republican state representative in Georgia, has made a name for hisself by decrying for years the teaching of evolution in Georgia’s public schools (don’t fergit kids – we’re the home of the “evolution disclaimer textbook sticker”). But even ole’ Ben is backing away slowly from a powder keg to which some fiendish cohort stenciled his name. It seems that a feller by the name of Marshall Hall sent out a memo regarding a buttload of “indisputable evidence – long hidden but now available to everyone – (that) demonstrates conclusively that so-called ‘secular evolution science’ is the Big-Bang, 15-billion-year alternative ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion.”
Sufferin’ Septuagint! What’s the number to call?!
By the time the memo got out to several other state legislatures and, hold on to your hats, was presented in the Texas House (NO WAY?! Way.) by an acquaintance of Rep. Bridges, ole’ Ben, in sync with the Anti-Defamation League breathing down his neck, saw the scripture on the wall. “I did not put it out nor did I know it was going out,” Bridges told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I'm not defending it or taking up for it.”
Smart move, and seemingly not too hard to put the distance between him and Hall, especially if you take a gander around the latter’s website, the official site of the Fair Education Foundation, Inc. The main thrust of Hall’s game is to have evolution declared a religious teaching and therefore also subject to Constitutional scrutiny heretofore levied upon the teaching of creationism/intelligent design. He had ostensibly worked with Bridges to introduce a bill in the Georgia House that “calls for an end to all teaching of evolution-based ‘science’ in tax supported education.” The decision was made to not introduce the bill, according to the FEF website.
In his list of the “long hidden but now available facts” Hall puts forth the claim of the religious roots of evolutionism, beginning with a citation (from a now unavailable webpage) of Nechunya ben HaKana, a first century Kabbalist who asserted that if you know how to use the 42 letter name for God you could decipher the time between the creation of the universe and man. Some 2000 years before Douglas Adams, Nechunya estimated the age of the Universe at 15.3 billion years. Hall continues looking down his nose at such cosmic spiritualist science by citing the calculations of physicist and, by Hall’s estimation not so coincidently, Kabbalist Gerald L. Schroeder, author of The Science of God, who put forth something along the line that the six days of creation could be calculated to equal the approximately 15 ¾ billion years that make up the universe’s age. Not being a stranger to far-out religious calculations, I’ve heard this sort of figuring in other circles, and I say “why not?” After all, if we’re going to get churchy, let’s throw in the scripture from the Second Book of Peter which states “that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” If that doesn’t just mesh right in with Big G’s Moving In Mysterious Ways concordat* (and He backs it up in a diatribe to the prophet Isaiah, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD). Nyaaah.
I fear that Hall may be on to something then. Evolutionist teaching may well be built upon a religious foundation. But should we snatch up the rug of tax dollars for public schools that teach evolution? Certainly not if Hall’s plan is the alternative. He displays on his home page a photo of a lamp-like device that appears to be causing a model of Earth to levitate motionlessly in the air, accomplished by “an electromagnet and computerized sensor hidden in its display stand.”
“Could God have engineered something like that for the real Earth?” he asks. “The Bible and all real evidence confirms that this is precisely what He did, and indeed today’s cosmology fulfills an anti-Bible religious plan disguised as ‘science.’ The whole scheme from Copernicanism to Big Bangism is a factless lie. Those lies have planted the Truth-killing virus of evolutionism.”
OK, not so out-of-whacked for a guy who advises you to “Please Fasten Your Mental And Spiritual Seat Belts” before embarking on a trip through the wonders of his website, which includes such nuggets of wisdom and observation as:
The Earth is not rotating...nor is it going around the sun (That makes for a pretty quick scamper that old Sol does each day from the east down to the west)
The universe is not one ten trillionth the size we are told (I agree, it’s not)
“All that remains is to understand the role that Hi-Tech Fraud, occult mathematics, Kabbalist-friendly scientists, Space Agency complicity, etc. have played in transmuting True Science into an evolution-based false science.” (Seriously, that’s all...)
I found quite amusing his assessment of “Kabbalist” Carl Sagan: “by all accounts, a perpetually stoned ‘exobiologist’,” and he prattles on with the usual anti-semitic conspiratorial crap against Einstein, Spielberg, Eisner and others.
I commented at PJ’s place the other day that I have no patience with these types, having actually walked in their midst in another lifetime. But I also said I take issue with scientists who seem to follow a course of study as if to disprove the existence of God. I find that almost as disingenuous as the former folk, and indeed I see that elitist scientific attitude as the likely driving force behind the so-called faithful’s ranting – they’re pissed off that someone is putting their religion to a test by the numbers. Any Higher Power, in my humble and supplicative estimation, is not quantifiable on purpose, and makes the frothy-mouthing on both sides seem ridiculous.
*term aptly coined by Mr. Terry Gilliam
Labels: don't mix, politix, religion
Comments:
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And any higher power who wishes to make himself known would likely do so to his own satisfaction and not necessarily to the particular extent desired by the militantly atheistic, nor the anti-science brigade.
ITA! They both should keep out of each other's faces. Science in school, faith in church. How hard is that?
I've always felt that the answer lies in between as well. In fact, I've gone so far as to define science as "The study of how God does his shit."
I just can't imagine being so stuck on any text, be it religious or scientific, that I'd ignore or seek to change any new data that fails to mesh with it.
I just can't imagine being so stuck on any text, be it religious or scientific, that I'd ignore or seek to change any new data that fails to mesh with it.
# posted by 
: February 27, 2007 6:25 PM
: February 27, 2007 6:25 PM
Good points, all. As to Joe's last sentence, everywhere else in science new concepts and revelation are met with the joy of discovery. The Kabbalists have no more sway than the Illuminati who have no more sway than the Bilderbergs, etc. To think so is the height of paranoia and ignorance, though it does make for great X-Files episodes.
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