My Muse, tired of sickness and pain and crutches and scooters (Lord, especially scooters!) keeps coming back to The Season, which is Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. And the New Year, of course. Essentially, it's an American combination of religious celebrations and rites, a time to reflect on what was and will be, and a time for family. And a time for unbridled spending although this year's awful economic downturn, THE worst since the Great Depression, will probably cause the retailers to justify firing thousands of full-time workers in addition to the seasonal help added for the Christmas rush.
An aside: see what wars bring ya? Especially tax breaks for the wealthy during war? And record-breaking deficit spending by those frugal, small-government advocating Republicans...naw, let's blame it on the black guy! He's a socialist, radical Muslim who wasn't even born in the United States, right?
And speaking of ridiculous conspiracies...I had a kind of interesting discussion with a friend recently over the manner in which the proponents of Creationism/Intelligent Design present their “intellectual”, as opposed to religious, arguments for replacing Darwinism with the concept that everything derives from a single Creator.
My friend's argument rested on this person's desire to believe that we are the product of God's infallible design and not the “less comforting” idea that we evolved from “primordial ooze.” Others who follow this ridiculousness have stated, incorrectly, that they are offended to be told they “come from chimps.” Well, the theory does not state empirically that we evolved “from chimps”; instead, it predicts that humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor. Talk about making a mountain out of a mole hill.
The fact of the matter is that Creationism does not stop with a critique of Darwinism; rather, it is but the starting point of a critique of secular humanism/materialism and it relies on scare tactics outlined in the Wedge Strategy that connects the dots from Darwin to the Devil, to Karl Marx and to Sigmund Freud, among others. It's not the oddly repugnant idea that we possibly evolved from ooze; it's the sinful repudiation of The Bible as The Infallible source to every question residing in every fundamentalist's heart of hearts. Yes, I know, the same group that ostensibly proselytizes the peaceful teachings of Jesus Christ and strongly identifies itself as pro-life also supports the use of torture as well as the war in Iraq.
This antagonistic view of progressive thought makes one wonder if the freeing of the slaves and suffrage for American women would be platforms supported by this group or not. After all, the Bible is rife with references to the woman's subservience to man as well as the use of slaves. In fact, the system of apartheid that brutally divided the ethnic groups of South Africa between White masters and everyone else was largely a construct of Dutch Calvinists in the Dutch Reformed Church. Let us not forget that our own heritage springs from Calvinists benignly referred to as “Pilgrims” or “Puritans” were the same folks who burned witches at the stake and whose vestige (from Latin vestigium for 'footprint' ) includes our own version of apartheid called “Jim Crow Laws” and the continued assumption that whites are more or less superior to darker skinned citizens.
Why do you think Pres. Obama has more death threats than any preceding U.S. President in recorded history? Why do you think the idea of whites as a minority scares the bejeezus out of so many white folk? Why does the school that some relatives attend in Talibama allow boys to pray aloud while the girls are to pray in silence in recognition of their subservient status to men? And I ain't talking about 150 years ago. They attend now. And they don't learn science in science class. Instead, they learn of Darwinism in a class entitled “Christian Evidences.”
In a related manner, the fundamentalists I've spoken with or read online adamantly believe in the literal, as in WORD-FOR-WORD, translation of the Bible. Which leads me to ask, “How do you address situations or issues not specifically written in the Bible?” What about entire books of the Bible edited out by men? How did we determine that December 25th is the actual date of Jesus' birth? Well below is a passage from Unexplained Mysteries of the World website that most will find interesting and, better yet, edifying. Please let me know what you think with the emphasis on the word 'think' and not 'let me know' for, if nothing else, I hope we can foster a site that encourages and promotes actual thinking and the rejection of passive acceptance of whatever is politically advantageous or makes me look good in the eyes of others. You know who you are.
Peace—JR
