With Expelled, I expect that Ben Stein has made a terrific, useful movie that will remind us that a scientist who refuses to wonder and who hates the faithful is untrustworthy, locked in a mental box with marxists, monarchists and post modern architects. Hopefully it will also help us understand the gentler and more reflective nuances of what I've viewed as a frequently manipulative and cynical cultural movement stemming from fundamentalist Christianity via the dark ages.
But here's Rush Limbaugh writing something patently untrue: "Darwinism, of course, does not permit for the existence of a supreme being, a higher power, or a God." Darwinism itself doesn't threaten theology or faith, and the theory doesn't prohibit anything. In fact, it leaves the central and most important question unanswered, as it should. The realization that our lives are progressive rather than a series of ancient, sporadic miracles, prophecies and magic, is a liberating insight. It liberates us from corrupt authorities and from ignorance, which cripples our decisions. It liberates us from fate, from "God's will," which is the petty, meddling characteristics that we impute on Him like pagans. In this process, God grows more clearly wonderful, complex and universal. Science and religion are opposite in many ways, but they are not opposed. They wind around each other. They sometimes touch and they sometimes move apart, but they wind in the same direction. The difference is that religions have benefited from God's mystery and distance. Science pursues his fingerprints.
But here's Rush Limbaugh writing something patently untrue: "Darwinism, of course, does not permit for the existence of a supreme being, a higher power, or a God." Darwinism itself doesn't threaten theology or faith, and the theory doesn't prohibit anything. In fact, it leaves the central and most important question unanswered, as it should. The realization that our lives are progressive rather than a series of ancient, sporadic miracles, prophecies and magic, is a liberating insight. It liberates us from corrupt authorities and from ignorance, which cripples our decisions. It liberates us from fate, from "God's will," which is the petty, meddling characteristics that we impute on Him like pagans. In this process, God grows more clearly wonderful, complex and universal. Science and religion are opposite in many ways, but they are not opposed. They wind around each other. They sometimes touch and they sometimes move apart, but they wind in the same direction. The difference is that religions have benefited from God's mystery and distance. Science pursues his fingerprints.
That said, Darwinism does threaten the dogmatic religions. This is very good. In threatening dogma, Darwinism undermines the authority of the institutions, diverts the aspirations of the faithful from salvation from original sin, and relates us to beasts. Darwinism also represents the scientific process at its best, and the scientific process requires us to state as fact only what we prove through observation. Authorities thrive by conflating faith with fact.
As for Rush, the rest of the transcript actually seems to conflate liberty with destiny and faith and is really strange. What happened to reason? Where's Goldwater?
5 comments:
I think asking Rush Limbaugh where is reason might be a prayer better made to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Seems to us that Limbaugh makes a lot more sense than the cardboard cutouts who populate TV. He has something to say and says it well, unlike the lame Democrat presidential candidates and their mendacious promoters who never discuss issues. limbaugh's audience is huge. Why do you suppose that is? If Limbaugh is so unreasonable, cite us an instance.
Since this has everything to do with an idea, and references one comment by Rush with is clearly wrong, I see no reason to go into the justness of his popularity here.
I have less interest in any disagreements with the left than with what I see as the betrayal of American conservatism by the Republican party's corrupt jingoism.
And I cited a precise example of unreason.
Furthermore, anybody who aligns themselves with evangelicals is reasonably suspect.
Syllogism:
1)Anyone who aligns themselves with evangelicals is reasonably suspect.
2)Evangelicals have constituted a large portion of the Republican base for the last several elections.
3) Republicans are reasonably suspect.
Dark Elf (and your first person plural multitudes and minions who also quake at the feet of the swarthy halfling),
To your points!
1) Rush Limbaugh is a damn sight more entertaining and verbally facile than anyone on television. John Milton couldn't make him up.
2) lots of fairly rotten people have had something to say and said it well (though our present [first person plural here used to describe us as Americans] president seems to fail on both counts).
2b) Rush Limbaugh can appear to lack mendacity because he is not running for office and therefore has no restrictions placed on him by voting constituencies or the media. Since Rush's base is so large (and functionally composed of inalienable rightists- more on those another time), he has no economic pressures to couch his statements. In a non-publicly funded election, candidates do.
3) The sheer numbers of people that Rush Limbaugh attacks could also point to the numbers of people who think NASCAR's attendance make it a compelling sport, McDonalds billions served make it a fantastic restaurant, and the movie Titanic's box office make it the greatest thing committed to celluloid.
And to be clear: I love conservatives. I love conservatism. I love limited government and greater personal freedom. And I love the crystalline view that conservatism is able to place upon the world. I value it. Frequently disagree. But believe it to be of massive worth. And I enjoy listening to Rush Limbaugh from a strictly Jane Goodall perspective. I sit and listen and imagine thirteen million people nodding their heads. It's like something out a John Carpenter film.
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