By Larry Jones
Among the many disasters of the Bush
and his cronies is their downgrading of genuine science, as all good
fundamentalists do. One of the latest examples is their suppression
of the portions of the Environmental Protection Agency’s report that
links human caused greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. In addition
Dick Cheney’s staff edited out six pages of a Center for Disease Control
report that said climate change is a serious public health concern. Humorist Andy Borowitz quipped that Bush was about to change the name
of the EPA to “The Environmental Prevention Agency.” In reality,
Bush pushes superstition, not science.
In that light, here’s a strange story
about a religious superstition that recently ended up on one of my alternative
news sites, about a student named Webster Cook who went to a Catholic
church. During the celebration of the Eucharist (called communion in
Protestant churches) the priest blessed the wafers given to the congregants
to swallow. The blessing, Catholics believe, turns the wafers into the
actual body of Christ. It’s called the miracle of transubstantiation.
But Mr. Cook didn’t swallow it; he walked out of church with it in
his hand. Members of the church wrestled with him to get it back. Catholics
everywhere got very upset about this theft of Christ’s body. Many
of them became downright angry. A spokesperson for the local diocese
called it a hate crime. Cook has been sent death threats from all over
the world.
Then, to complicate matters, a University
of Minnesota biology prof named PZ Myers told this story on his blog
and regarding the outcry he said: “Get some perspective, man. IT’s
A CRACKER.” Of the hate crime comment he said: “Wait, what? Holding
a cracker hostage is now a hate crime? The murder of Matthew Shephard
was a hate crime. The murder of James Byrd, Jr. was a hate crime. This
is a goddamned cracker. Can you possibly diminish the abuse of real
human beings any further?”
Calls went out to the university to fire
Myers and he too started getting death threats and sanctions by the
university, including removing his blog from the school’s web page.
I just want to know when being an atheist became a reason not to let
a scientist express his opinions against what he considers a DANGEROUS
SUPERSTITION? The notion that a wafer can become the actual body of
Christ is not scientifically valid. Here’s Myers” blog page http://pharyngula/
Bush & Co. have been engaged in a
sustained effort to suppress science, especially when it presents truths
that are problematic for them. The Bush Regime has aggressively fought
for “educational” approaches aimed at drilling obedience and rote
memorizations into children’s heads, not critical thinking, curiousity
and imagination, cooperation, and above all the ability to think through
questions, problems, and challenges. The Bush administration has itself
promoted fundamentalist, “god said it, I believe it, that settles
it” Christianity, and supported in myriad ways Christian fundamentalist
churches and organizations.
So if you go to the World Can’t Win
site because you want to really change the world, you need critical
thinking to do so. Religious people, including Catholics, are welcome
in WCW. And so are atheists. I’m just stating my understanding of
what we need in order to move together toward a different future, and
that includes people learning and learning to use the scientific method.
Frankly, I’m on Myers” side. We must not be like Bush and turn our
backs on science.
MYTHS ABOUT KIDS IN GAY OR LESBIAN
FAMILIES
I know a really great family made up
of two men and two wonderful adopted children, and I know of many other
gay and lesbian relationships of long duration, like 35 or 40 years.
So I wonder why right wing Christians, like George W. Bush, and Focus
On the Family and their ilk, take such strong stands against them. Here
are some of their reasons as listed by religioustolerance.org.
Children raised in families led
by same sex parents would be continually exposed to homosexuality. They
may choose to become gay or lesbian at a higher rate than those raised
by a father and mother.
God may punish same sex parents.
This might adversely affect the children in their family.
God may punish the nation as a
whole if same sex marriage is legalized. That would harm all children
in the nation.
There are more, but you get the idea.
New York University sociologist Judith Stacey comments on the studies
done on this subject to date: “There are some 50 studies now, and
we don’t see them going the other way [against viable gay/lesbian
families with children]. I have yet to see one legitimate referenced
publication or scholar come out with a generally negative finding.
George Bush has said that he opposes
gay marriage, adoption rights, anti-discrimination myths, and hate crimes
for homosexuals. What kind of world do you want to live in? One in which
people are suppressed, even jailed because of who they love, in which
people are taught to believe that God’s wrath will be visited upon
an entire country if it “tolerates” homosexuality, or one that embraces
humanity in its all its splendid diversity?
THE RAPTURE MYTH
The rapture doctrine is usually attributed
to John Nelson Darby who back in about 1827 pulled together biblical
texts in jigsaw puzzle style and, Kazaam!!!, there was his prophesy.
The idea was that a time would arrive when Jesus would come down close
enough to earth to rapture up into the sky and onward to heaven the
“truly faithful” followers. It could be any time, so be ready. Perhaps
you have seen the bumper sticker: IN CASE OF RAPTURE, THIS CAR WILL
BE UNMANNED. Hopefully, the school children in the crosswalk up the
way will also be raptured in time to prevent a mass slaughter.
Liberal Christians don’t believe this,
but most fundamentalists do. A BUNCH OF THEM ARE ON THE WHITE HOUSE
STAFF. If you have an ounce of critical thinking in you, you won’t
buy it. It’s a myth, pure and simple. Well, actually not simple, the
doctrine is a lot more complex than I have laid out here. If you want
to dig more deeply into it, here’s a website you can go to. It’s
worth it just to see Darby’s picture. His hair makes him look like
a punker in a tuxedo. http://www.sullivan-county.
I just finished reading “Deer Hunting
with Jesus” by Joe Bageant. He grew up in poverty-ridden Appalachia
and his family were true rapture believers. Joe said that as a small
child he came home one day from school and his parents were nowhere
to be found. They were at the neighbors” house, but he was scared
to death that they had been raptured and he was left behind. He finally
got some good education and has long since given up belief in the rapture
myth.
THREE OTHER MYTHS YOU SHOULD NOT BELIEVE
The world was created in six days.
That’s the biblical myth, but there are actually two creation myths
in Genesis. In one God speaks everything into being. In the other, God
makes man out of mud and breathes into him the breath of life. Or maybe
you want to check out some of the other multitude of creation myths
from almost every culture in the world. Bush thinks totally non-scientific
creationism should be taught along side evolution, a scientifically
proven fact.
Abstinence only sex education
works. Nooott.!!! Since 1982 Texas alone has spent some $117 million
on this program, yet the state is ahead of the national average in students
from 9th to 12th grade who have had sexual intercourse.
And they are less likely to use condoms. You guess the results. You
might want to send some diapers to the Lone Star State. The Bush administration
also insists that U.S. money for AIDS in Africa should requite abstinence
only sex education, with disastrous results..
Elections represent the will of
the people and whoever gets the most votes in a presidential election
wins. Not true. Al Gore won the most votes in 2000, but George W. ended
up in the White House. And Gore would have had a clear victory if many
hundreds of voters in Florida had not illegally been turned away. It
went to the Supreme Court to decide. Because of the Republican-leanings
of the Court, they chose Bush. But the other factor is that who even
gets selected as a candidate has to be in the favor of the nation’s
large centers of finance capital. Big money wins elections, even in
Obama’s so-called base of small donors. That, too, is a myth.
So if you want a better future for the
nation and the world, don’t be fooled by election myths or any other.
Vote if you want to, but don’t put your best energies there, because
you”ll be disappointed and disheartened. We don’t need more charismatic
politicians, we need people like you, like us, to demand in huge numbers
that things be truly turned around and turned over.
Enough already of the anti-science and
anti-intellectualism in general, the ways children are indoctrinated
rather than taught and encouraged to grow in all ways, the promotion
of fundamentalist “no-nothingingism” that we has sprouted like poisonous
mushrooms over these past several years.
Larry Jones is a long time political
activist and former United Church of Christ minister who lives in Honolulu.
For most Americans, myths have a powerful appeal; they provide “simple” explanations to complex questions, they make people of low moral character (like George W. Bush) into larger-than-life individuals who can do no wrong and make no mistakes, and they’re also a way to avoid having to take time to actually think about themselves and the world around them.
Myths also allow us to avoid the uncomfortable process of having to explain ourselves to ourselves — and to others — by providing us with an “explanation” about ourselves which glosses over those unpleasant realities and truths about ourselves which we don’t like to dwell upon. Acting on truth depends on critical thinking skills, and in the last forty-odd years or so, the American people have lost those vital, critical thinking skills. Instead, we’re fed myths which are designed to affect our emotions, rather than our intellect, which is why those Catholics were infuriated when that college student didn’t consume the communion wafer. His actions provoked their emotions, whipping them up into a frenzy, and blotting out all critical thinking.
The whole-hearted acceptance of myths by the American people has grown along with the rise of anti-intellectualism which began during the Reagan Era, and has continued to grow with each successive Presidency. Indoctrination of adults and children in these various myths, along with an anti-science attitude, has become the norm, and any kind of growth or transformative change in science or in the intellectual realm is looked upon as some sort of sinister “Satanic” plot, which is a pity, because we’re cheating ourselves and our children out of great things, and when we embrace the “Rapture myth”, among other things, we’re abdicating our responsibility to improve the universe, and for tyhose who think that the only thing God is concerned about is whether they stayed sexually pure, they may want to think again, because “sexual purity” isn’t the only thing God is concerned about.