(no subject)

[elfs]

It's religion and politics time, boys and girls.

First, in an unlovely specimen of a right-wing rant about Jack Kevorkian and Terry Schiavo, columnist Ashley Evans sneezes into the punchbowl of reason and writes:

It reminds one of the Creationism vs. evolution debate in public science classes: should it not be mentioned that evolution is still a theory, that there are serious gapes, or that most people trust in intelligent design?

I don't know about you, but I don't know about many serious "gapes" in evolutionary theory, although I have been known to gape (look with open-mouth amazement) at people who write something quite so ignorant. (I resist mightily the inclination to make porn "gaper" jokes...)

In similar news, Rep. Bill Sali (R - Idaho), while talking about how allowing a Hindu priest to conduct opening prayers for Congress should never have happened, dropped this lovely bomb: "We have not only a Hindu prayer being offered in the Senate, we have a Muslim member of the House of Representatives now, Keith Ellison from Minnesota. Those are changes -- and they are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers."

In more serious news, the Armed Forces is considering disciplinary action against four generals who appeared in an Evangelical group's fundraising video in uniform, implying that the group had the support of the Armed Forces. One general said he believed that the group, Christian Embassy, had become a "quasi-federal entity." Another said that Christian Embassy had been at work among the Christians in the Pentagon that he believed the group was "a sanctioned or endorsed activity."

I cannot emphasize just how devastatingly dangerous it is that we have four generals who, after having taken their oath as a soldier, then go on to proclaim that "their first loyalty is to Jesus Christ" and that "my weekly prayer sessions are more important than doing my job." Dude:

I, _____, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

When you put your loyalty elsewhere, you are a domestic enemy.

Meanwhile, Stephen Baldwin (the dumbest of the Baldwin brothers) is running a Pentagon authorized project called "Operation Straight Up," a standard old-time revival. Their Iraq project is called "Military Crusade." If you give them money, they put it into a "soldier's care package" which includes these gems:

"More than a Capenter" by Josh McDowell

This classic evangelical tract is designed to be most effective when given to people who are vulnerable due to stress or mistreatment. OSU includes this lovely blurb: "We can only hope that since the book is double printed on the reverse side in the Arabic language that it will indeed influence the nations overseas as well." Since the Pentagon is supposed to punish attempts at proselytising, I can't imagine why they're letting this through. [By the way, the misspelling of "Carpenter" in the title is verbatim from the OSU website.]

"Left Behind," the Video Game, PC Edition

In this charming video game (in the Warcraft/Starcraft style of play) you command an army of soldiers against the army of evil as you battle for the streets of New York City. The soldiers in the army of evil all wear blue berets and United Nations uniforms, and when you kill one of them your soldier forces shout out "Praise the lord!"

Comments

[mundens.livejournal.com]

What we know is that the existing mechanisms are entirely sufficient to do the job, and there is no need to postulate any flying spaghetti monsters to cover the non-existent gaps.

You seem to be keen to find "the" theory, when this is unneccessary, because the theories describe several different mechanisms, all of which are probably responsible the current situation.

I think we should also take over the intelligent design theory. It's perfectly possible that the entire universe was designed from scratch by us, or people very like us.

That doesn't make them gods, just people who know how to create universes, something which hopefully we'll have figured out before the heat death occurs. :)

[dossy.livejournal.com]

"I think we should also take over the intelligent design theory. It's perfectly possible that the entire universe was designed from scratch by us, or people very like us.

That doesn't make them gods, just people who know how to create universes, something which hopefully we'll have figured out before the heat death occurs. :)"

You know, I've seriously considered this idea many times and am glad to hear someone else put it forth for a change (even if only in jest).

Perhaps the universe does collapse on itself at some point. But, before it does, we figure out how to push through (to the next universe that's to come) a "seed" which will ensure that after enough time has passed, life will re-emerge and the cycle will continue.

Of course, this leaves us that annoying problem:

Which came first? The chicken ... or the egg?