“Creation science” can never escape the long shadow of motivated reasoning; but (from a purely theoretical philosophy of science perspective; I really do not love seeing it in person) it can be kind of interesting to see how detailed and esoteric parts of it get in response to the demands of the hyper-pious but intellectually curious.
The public face is, of course, mostly slick conmen gish galloping and shouting about how “Were you there? Did you see it?”(no, afraid I missed it; funny how this standard of evidence only holds for things you don’t believe…) and asking if you’ve ever seen a dog evolve into a cat; but something like “baraminology” really gets quite fiddly in the hands of the people who take it seriously(might actually be worse than the real science; since it faces the same problems that keep the fights feisty in phylogeny and phylogenetics; but with the additional ideological requirement to draw distinctions between ‘created kinds’ and mere microevolutionary variations, which alternates between adding an esoteric metaphysics layer and tying at least one hand behind your back when it comes to phylogenetic work).
The enterprise is ultimately a dangerous and unlovable bad-faith exercise; but some of the (honestly rather tragic) local elaborations by people who are too ideologically enmeshed to just go do real science; but too smart and intellectually curious to stick to sound bites are really quite fascinating.
I’m not sure if there is any analog, in legalmancy, for the people carrying water for the various profoundly illiberal attempts at constitutional subversion.
IANAL but I imagine that originalist legal scholarship could get very intricate in the hands of people who take it seriously and believe that it is an honest legal philosophy with consistent moral and intellectual principles.
Nothing new here (Germany). The first international contract that Hitler made once he came to power. The one with the Vatican (fresh from it’s re-inauguration after making a contract with the another fascist - Mussolini), introduced Religious education as required subject in schools for all! To this day it is still a requirement and in fact the ONLY school subject that is explicitly required based on our constitution!
Well yes. There was a time that I said stupid things like “I don’t want to believe in a God that does this.” If the evidence is that he exists, you should believe in Him whether or not he is evil. But I don not find the existence of God to be a useful working assumption. Replacing the question “Why does the Universe exist,” with “Where did God come from,” seems pretty pointless to me.
The drive to force Christianity on kids in school and the drive to make voting harder and Gerrymander the vote come from the same impulse. Those that don’t like what happens when you give people a choice would like to take that choice away from you.
I was coming at it from the point of view of “God” as a literary character. I’d read various mythologies, and in school over the years we’d glanced upon Greek myths - where the framing was always, “these gods were very human, with all the flaws and foibles.” What hadn’t ever really struck me was that the same was true of the Abrahamic god as well. I had accepted the modern religious framing of the stories as representing an omnibenevolent deity, but that wasn’t reflected in the stories at all.
1 Kings 7:23. And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
That said, my overall impression here is the same as usual for me: I hope there’s a lot of malicious compliance. There’s a lot of …interesting… stuff in the bible.
And does the law specify a version of the bible? Teachers should get creative. There’s the Wicked Bible that commands adultery, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas where young Jesus kills a boy for knocking into him, the Book of Enoch where fallen angels marry human women and teach them magic. There’s even medieval versions that helpfully illustrate all those lovely old testament scenes.
You are aware that will end up with lots of teachers out of jobs and lots of students in detention…
We’re treating this like it’s some normal politics, rather than the march of fascism.
You can see my comment about that above. Of course there will be a specific version required. Of course attempts to game this will be met with harsh penalties…
I get the feeling that some people are finding this to be some fucking game, but it’s not. This is about a minority pushing us into a theocracy. People are already dying because of laws being passed. We take this seriously, or we’re fucked.
Trying to make any sort of fascist the worst fascist is a loser’s game, since it eventually makes some sort “not as bad.” That said, christofascism is the worst. I speak as a Christian who would probably be among the first against the wall. They want an Iranian style theocracy, and know just how to so about getting it. I really hate it.
And they have a supreme court willing to make it happen too… the more we downplay the significance of stuff like this, or misunderstand how this will be implemented, they more we’re letting them get away with it.
The next president may well get 2-3 USSC appointments, so making sure who it is that gets those is of incredible importance. I have not seen those made a campaign issue. They should be!
When we studied the relevant period they specifically had us compare Fertile Crescent deities to Egyptian ones for largely that reason.
The Egyptian pantheon did have a bit of an edge to it (ma’at was both about justice, balance, and order and about you doing your part for those things because nice predictable seasonal flood your society’s continued non-starvation depends on; be a pity if someone disrupted it…); but were mostly chill to a degree that others were not.
I’d be interested whether there is such a group of people; or what pipeline produces them.
For fundie-science there’s a relatively clear chain of people who get fundie upbringings whose metaphysics they will absolutely never shake; but whose facile slogans they are too curious for. Are there lawyers out there raising originalist broods?
