Conflation Nation (by Cynthia Kaplan at HuffPost)

[marmar]

Cynthia Kaplan


Conflation Nation
Posted June 1, 2007 | 04:07 PM (EST)

I've just returned from a hair-raising journey to a strange and terrible place. Okay, so it was on the Internet, and I didn't have to change out of my running clothes, but we all know that there are corners of the Internet, dark, dank, worrisome corners, where scary things lurk. And not just lurk, they have sex with each other and spawn more scary things. Anyway, where was I?

Oh, yes. Just when we were hoping that, with the recent death of Jerry Falwell (may he rest in...well, may he rest), the Enlightenment would resume full force to religiously observant and unobservant Americans alike, May 28th brought the opening of a new museum in Kentucky that is called, wait for it, the Creation Museum. I logged onto the Internet to investigate further. Before long I found myself crouching beneath my desk, humming The Itsy Bitsy Spider and wishing my mother were there.

What is the Creation Museum, you ask? Well, it is a natural history museum dedicated to the commemoration of the time when Adam and Eve and their descendants dwelled amongst the dinosaurs.

When was that again? Oh, right, never. But that's not the thinking of the Creation Museum's founders, members of an organization called Answers in Genesis, which is run by an Australian ex-pat named Ken A. Ham, and sports the motto: "Upholding the Authority of the Bible from the Very First Verse." The ministry's main doctrine is presented as a well-organized, pseudo- scientific treatise both on how evolution is unnecessary to science and how, rather, science can be explained by Creationism.

Okay, let's take a breath. A lot of religious people believe that, one way or another, everything on earth was created by God. Full disclosure: I don't. I am a secular Jew/atheist, who believes that men wrote the Bible in somewhat the same spirit that our founding fathers wrote the Constitution, with the overall intention of imposing some order on all the chaos. I think the Creation is an excellent story that explained the origins of man in the age before carbon dating. That said, I also have enormous respect for the power that religion has to unite people for good causes, buoy people who are floundering, offer solace to people who need comfort.

...(snip)...

The science/religion conflation is particularly frightening. It is a shortcut to another terrifying conflation --that of church and state. One third of the voters in this country believe the Bible is literally true, and their devotion has put them at the continued mercy of evangelical leaders who are still aligned with the Republican party. Even if these voters currently oppose the war, are appalled by the economy --having joined the ever ballooning class of Americans who live in poverty-- or have witnessed their congressional representatives and leaders embroiled in scandal, they have not rethought their position on the Bible. And, hey, it's hard to vote against God. While these other issues may lose their faith-based support, creationism is on the rise. (Perhaps it will do for the 2008 Republican candidate what fear of gay marriage did for Bush in 2004. Yikes.) Three out of 10 current Republican candidates raised their hands when asked during the recent debate if anyone did not believe in evolution. The percentage of adults who believe in evolution has actually declined.

There has been, as the title of the new Al Gore book so eloquently states, an assault on reason. We have, in fact, devolved, and, when you think about it, it is exactly what the Answers in Genesis ministry predicted: a mutation that could lead to the end of the world. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cynthia-kaplan/conflation-nation_b_50358.html

[Rick Myers]

1. Answers in Genesis is PROOF that DEVO was right!!!

We are devolving!!! I've debated AiG supporters, and it is nearly imbossible to have any rational discussion with them.

[lapfog_1]

3. No, I think we are simply splitting again

much like Homo Erectus split into Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals... we are splitting again. And much like the competition from that earlier age, we will be in fierce competition with our "Neanderthals", but we must win if we are to progress.

[freesqueeze]

2. the whole premise is ridiculous

How can you seek answers (as a scientist) when you already have all the answers (as an inherent bible believer)?

There's no intersection here.



E = G-O-D(squared)

[whistle]

4. Gee, they could open one right across from Holy Land Experience

...in Orlando FL and for all those non-Christians who were prepared to believe have their spiritual transformation they can gp right over to Holy Land for half price and be converted. For those non-believers who remain that way, there could be a special shuttle provided to bus them directly to the 33rd Street detention center less than a mile away where they would be detained indefinitely until they are reprogrammed and once they turn their will and their life over to Jesus Christ they can then do missionary work around the world.