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May. 8th, 2006
I've probably built it up too much now, but, well, such is life. It started with a story I didn't bother to run in with the usual Cultural Warfare Update:
You see, one of the things that has bothered me more than anything else about the fundamentalist movement, historically, is its rejection of a scientific approach to, well, science. I don't expect a scientific approach to faith. Indeed, that's rather missing the point. But I do want it with science. Science works. It's how we've gotten medicine, high-quality videogaming, the internet, really cool motorcycles, and fresh strawberries in February. It's why humans don't live in straw huts shaking sticks at bears and hoping they go away. I'm for it.
But as I've spent the last decade documenting, the way the fundamentalist movement judges the truth of evidence in science is whether it confirms to their ideas about received Biblical truth, or, as they more often put it, Biblical literalness. This is also made clear by the ongoing clown-car clusterfuck they call"scientific Creationism""intelligent design." Sometimes, they even put it in print:
That's been kind of a hard fight for them, and they know it. Yes, most people believe in one form or another of creationism in the United States, but there's not yet been an outright rejection of the process that eventually undermines creationism, rational thought based upon empirical evidence; people just don't think about it, for the most part, because they don't need to and it doesn't affect their daily lives - or, at least, they think it doesn't, and that's close enough. Combine that with a lot of disinformation, obsfucation, lies, and"teaching the controversy"propaganda, and you've got the kind of results you see in American polling.
But despite that, their own numbers say that only 9% reject reason as a primary method of understanding the world. Nine percent. The rest give at least lip service to the idea of taking data from the world and using that to figure out how the world works.
That's what they want to address. This is Focus on the Family going for the brass ring of not just what people think, but how they think, calling it "one of the most ambitious and powerful projects in the history of [their] ministry." The Truth Project has as its overt goal Biblical literalism - or their version thereof - as the definition of the world.
The logical and literal reading of this leads directly to Christian Reconstructionism, of course. They're the only ones genuinely honest about all this, so it's not comforting to me that I've seen Chalcedon Institute writers showing up more in mainstream fundamentalist organisations such as Concerned Women for America (as documented in many previous Cultural Warfare Updates). The Reconstructionists haven't moved; the fundamentalist leadership, on the other hand, has.
It's no wonder they've been quoting Stalin without irony. They're using his tactics. If you control the thought, you control the action. If you control the mechanisms of thinking, you control the thought.
And American science education - hell, American education in general - has been so wretched for so long that they've maybe got a shot at it.
But in the end, what does this get them? It gets them the Arabic world in the 14th century. Repeating the same mistakes. Choosing the same road; purity of faith over everything else. And most likely, meeting the same fate - dragging down the rest of America with them - all the while praising God and the glorious new road, just like every previous civilisation which has marched down it to irrelevance. This time, it'll be different! - except no, I don't think it will. And I certainly know I don't want to see it tried.
1: What a Soviet-esque article title! What next, Devote All Energies to Successfully Running Socialist Research Institutes? (Reportedly the real title of a real Chinese research paper, as translated.) Or wait, no, excuse me, it should be Marc Fey Discusses the Importance of Devoting All Energies to Successfully Running Creationist Research Institutes. That's better.
2: The world is not flat; the Bible says it is, like a circle. It also says it has four corners. Allegorical? Sure, I can take that. They don't, though, except when they do, like with that whole flat-earth thing, where suddenly it's real inconvenient.
3: Focus on the Family has been a strong supporter of Creationist efforts of all stripes; see previous CWUs for as much documentation as you can eat.
DVD Course on Biblical Worldview Launches This WeekI mostly dismissed it initially as an actual religious news story, the sort they toss in occasionally with their political news to remind people that they're still a religious organisation in arenas other than politics. But then I saw this link, in the Donations section, which included this text:
Focus on the Family
Newsbriefs
May 2, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/briefs/a0040341.cfm
Focus on the Family announced Monday the launch of a DVD-based small-group curriculum aimed at training Christians to have a Biblical worldview. The Truth Project will hold its inaugural event this weekend at Calvary Church in Charlotte, N.C.
What's a Worldview Anyway?I know more than enough about their rhetoric by now to know that I should investigate this.
"Worldview" is fast becoming a commonly used term. But do you know what it really means? Dr. Del Tackett shares four important points to keep in mind when seeking to understand the meaning of "worldview."
You see, one of the things that has bothered me more than anything else about the fundamentalist movement, historically, is its rejection of a scientific approach to, well, science. I don't expect a scientific approach to faith. Indeed, that's rather missing the point. But I do want it with science. Science works. It's how we've gotten medicine, high-quality videogaming, the internet, really cool motorcycles, and fresh strawberries in February. It's why humans don't live in straw huts shaking sticks at bears and hoping they go away. I'm for it.
But as I've spent the last decade documenting, the way the fundamentalist movement judges the truth of evidence in science is whether it confirms to their ideas about received Biblical truth, or, as they more often put it, Biblical literalness. This is also made clear by the ongoing clown-car clusterfuck they call
The Bible consisting of the thirty-nine canonical books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven canonical books of the New Testament, is the divinely inspired revelation of the Creator to man. Its unique, plenary, verbal inspiration guarantees that these writings as originally and miraculously given, are infallible and completely authoritative on all matters with which they deal, free from error of any sort, scientific and historical as well as moral and theological.These ancient writings - these demonstrably wrong in many cases words2 - are the officially unalterable and uncompromisable literal standard against which observable reality is measured, not the other way around - and if, as the Dover decision so clearly showed, if that makes "And then a miracle occurred" into a valid process step, they're fine with that.3-- Institute for Creation Research FAQ ( http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=home&action=faq )Living from a Christian worldview means that what you do aligns with what is true, and the Scriptures are the ultimate authority on Truth.-- Focus on the Family/The Truth Project, "A Real Foundation: Marc Fey discusses the importance of integrating a Christian worldview into every area of life"1)
That's been kind of a hard fight for them, and they know it. Yes, most people believe in one form or another of creationism in the United States, but there's not yet been an outright rejection of the process that eventually undermines creationism, rational thought based upon empirical evidence; people just don't think about it, for the most part, because they don't need to and it doesn't affect their daily lives - or, at least, they think it doesn't, and that's close enough. Combine that with a lot of disinformation, obsfucation, lies, and
But despite that, their own numbers say that only 9% reject reason as a primary method of understanding the world. Nine percent. The rest give at least lip service to the idea of taking data from the world and using that to figure out how the world works.
That's what they want to address. This is Focus on the Family going for the brass ring of not just what people think, but how they think, calling it "one of the most ambitious and powerful projects in the history of [their] ministry." The Truth Project has as its overt goal Biblical literalism - or their version thereof - as the definition of the world.
A biblical worldview is based on the infallible Word of God. When you believe the Bible is entirely true, then you allow it to be the foundation of everything you say and do. That means, for instance, you take seriously the mandate in Romans 13 to honor the governing authorities by researching the candidates and issues, making voting a priority. [...] Most of us go through life not recognizing that our personal worldviews have been deeply affected by the world. Through the media and other influences, the secularized American view of history, law, politics, science, God and man affects our thinking more than we realize. We then are taken "captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ" (Colossians 2:8). (emphasis added) (The Truth Project: What's a Worldview, Anyway?")Make no mistake: what they're saying, very clearly, means that between their ideas of Biblical literalism and observable data, between how they read the Bible and the very idea of reason - "the world" - the Bible wins, no matter how screwed up it might happen to be. It's no coincidence that people like Terry Randall said that when things started go to wrong in the Western world was at the Renaissance. It's no coincidence that their idea of "history" can let them rip early American scientist Benjamin Franklin brutally enough out of context to appear to come up with this condemnation of people using reason:
Living from a Christian worldview means that what you do aligns with what is true, and the Scriptures are the ultimate authority on Truth. (As before, "A Real Foundation: Marc Fey discusses the importance of integrating a Christian worldview into every area of life".)
"So convenient it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do."Abusing Benjamin Franklin as a closing coda, a sideswiping attempt to clip the side-view mirror of historical legitimacy, taping it to the door of their car as they race down the freeway to... where, exactly?-- Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1791
The logical and literal reading of this leads directly to Christian Reconstructionism, of course. They're the only ones genuinely honest about all this, so it's not comforting to me that I've seen Chalcedon Institute writers showing up more in mainstream fundamentalist organisations such as Concerned Women for America (as documented in many previous Cultural Warfare Updates). The Reconstructionists haven't moved; the fundamentalist leadership, on the other hand, has.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2). ... If we capture and embrace more of God's worldview and trust it with unwavering faith, then we begin to make the right decisions and form the appropriate responses to questions on abortion, same- sex marriage, cloning, stem-cell research and even media choices.This is them trying to rewire how their rank and file think. Not the conclusions they come to - they've already got them onboard that, work there isn't needed - but the actual mechanisms of thought, the actual ways in which evidence is weighed and conclusions are reached. They're losing the battle of the observable facts, and they aren't yet getting what they want against the tide of collective story - at least, where queers are concerned, and for them, that's plenty bad enough - so they're trying to replace reason with the words they've already decided to be true, so that any observable evidence can just be discounted as irrelevent. It's more than "political correctness," it's religious correctness, and they've apparently decided to chuck 1800 years of lessons from violent European history and declare that this time, religious sectarianism will be different!
It's no wonder they've been quoting Stalin without irony. They're using his tactics. If you control the thought, you control the action. If you control the mechanisms of thinking, you control the thought.
And American science education - hell, American education in general - has been so wretched for so long that they've maybe got a shot at it.
But in the end, what does this get them? It gets them the Arabic world in the 14th century. Repeating the same mistakes. Choosing the same road; purity of faith over everything else. And most likely, meeting the same fate - dragging down the rest of America with them - all the while praising God and the glorious new road, just like every previous civilisation which has marched down it to irrelevance. This time, it'll be different! - except no, I don't think it will. And I certainly know I don't want to see it tried.
1: What a Soviet-esque article title! What next, Devote All Energies to Successfully Running Socialist Research Institutes? (Reportedly the real title of a real Chinese research paper, as translated.) Or wait, no, excuse me, it should be Marc Fey Discusses the Importance of Devoting All Energies to Successfully Running Creationist Research Institutes. That's better.
2: The world is not flat; the Bible says it is, like a circle. It also says it has four corners. Allegorical? Sure, I can take that. They don't, though, except when they do, like with that whole flat-earth thing, where suddenly it's real inconvenient.
3: Focus on the Family has been a strong supporter of Creationist efforts of all stripes; see previous CWUs for as much documentation as you can eat.
Huh, lookie thar
May. 8th, 2006 08:26 amIf two LJ entries end up having the same date and time, the arrows in the individual-post-view don't work right; one entry gets skipped! Very annoying. I'll have to edit one to redate it, but that'll make it drop out of my friends list (or would last time I checked) so it'll have to wait a few days. Foo.
So if you're arrowing through my entries and either see only the addenda or only the main article, that's why. Go here to see all entries posted this day.
So if you're arrowing through my entries and either see only the addenda or only the main article, that's why. Go here to see all entries posted this day.
Today's Cultural Warfare Update
May. 8th, 2006 11:27 pmToday's Cultural Warfare Update has a comics page! Well, a comic, anyway. Okay, well, it's today's Malfunction Junction. But it made me laff. Yay! It'll be at the end.
And now, today's news:
Vatican official astronomer calls creationism "a form of superstitious paganism," at which I have to go, "Hey, this shit isn't our fault, leave us out of it" ( ^_^ );
The Weekly Standard's Maggie Gallagher, who has become quite the anti-marriage-rights battler, fiercely condemns marriage rights in a long article supporting discrimination against married gay and lesbian couples; her thesis is that marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples, by interfering with licensed agencies of the state's abilities to discriminate against GBLT people, destroys religious liberty. She also warns that it could become as unfashionable to discriminate against GBLT people as it is now to be an overt racist;
Focus on the Family news article on state abortion bans;
FotF cranky about Harvard study on "abstinence pledges";
FotF starts their November election push with a large article on how all their religious issues "hinge on the mid-term election";
I stridently disagree with European hate speech laws, but they have them and have had them for a long time. Now that they're being applied to anti-gay hate speech (and it is hate speech, even if I don't think it should be illegal), Focus on the Family loves talking about them; also note in this article that the anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund, Focus on the Family, and other fundamentalist groups are getting involved in European court cases;
Focus on the Family upset about pork - because they want that money;
Focus on the Family Dispatches includes an ACTION ITEM to ban embryonic stem-cell research; also includes mini articles containing talking points against marriage rights, accusations that Planned Parenthood supports child molesters, and promotion of their "ex-gay" conferences;
Focus on the Family promotes Concerned Women for America wonk Warren Throckmorton's ex-gay ministry video, I Do Exist;
Focus on the Family: we just need on more judge; we really wish Samuel Alito had attacked Roe v. Wade in his confirmation testimony but understand that "for tactical reasons" he couldn't; the article also attacks decisions overriding laws against birth control;
FotF: Planned Parenthood uses National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month "to generate more business" by not teaching abstinence-only;
9th Circuit throws out DOMA challenge;
Focus on the Family, CWA, the AFA, and others butter up Bill Frist over his support of anti-"indecency" legislation in the Senate; includes ACTION ITEM to support the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act;
Anti-marriage activists deliver signatures for anti-marriage state amendment initiative in Illinois; my first quick reading from their excerpt from it would indicate that it bans civil unions/domestic partnerships too, tho' not by name;
AFA Action Alert demanding Federal intervention on Mt. Soledad Cross;
Liberty Council to defend Virginia businessman who violated county civil rights law by refusing a lesbian customer;
And finally, the Cultural Warfare Update Comic.
( Articles and excerpts )
And now, today's news:
Vatican official astronomer calls creationism "a form of superstitious paganism," at which I have to go, "Hey, this shit isn't our fault, leave us out of it" ( ^_^ );
The Weekly Standard's Maggie Gallagher, who has become quite the anti-marriage-rights battler, fiercely condemns marriage rights in a long article supporting discrimination against married gay and lesbian couples; her thesis is that marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples, by interfering with licensed agencies of the state's abilities to discriminate against GBLT people, destroys religious liberty. She also warns that it could become as unfashionable to discriminate against GBLT people as it is now to be an overt racist;
Focus on the Family news article on state abortion bans;
FotF cranky about Harvard study on "abstinence pledges";
FotF starts their November election push with a large article on how all their religious issues "hinge on the mid-term election";
I stridently disagree with European hate speech laws, but they have them and have had them for a long time. Now that they're being applied to anti-gay hate speech (and it is hate speech, even if I don't think it should be illegal), Focus on the Family loves talking about them; also note in this article that the anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund, Focus on the Family, and other fundamentalist groups are getting involved in European court cases;
Focus on the Family upset about pork - because they want that money;
Focus on the Family Dispatches includes an ACTION ITEM to ban embryonic stem-cell research; also includes mini articles containing talking points against marriage rights, accusations that Planned Parenthood supports child molesters, and promotion of their "ex-gay" conferences;
Focus on the Family promotes Concerned Women for America wonk Warren Throckmorton's ex-gay ministry video, I Do Exist;
Focus on the Family: we just need on more judge; we really wish Samuel Alito had attacked Roe v. Wade in his confirmation testimony but understand that "for tactical reasons" he couldn't; the article also attacks decisions overriding laws against birth control;
FotF: Planned Parenthood uses National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month "to generate more business" by not teaching abstinence-only;
9th Circuit throws out DOMA challenge;
Focus on the Family, CWA, the AFA, and others butter up Bill Frist over his support of anti-"indecency" legislation in the Senate; includes ACTION ITEM to support the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act;
Anti-marriage activists deliver signatures for anti-marriage state amendment initiative in Illinois; my first quick reading from their excerpt from it would indicate that it bans civil unions/domestic partnerships too, tho' not by name;
AFA Action Alert demanding Federal intervention on Mt. Soledad Cross;
Liberty Council to defend Virginia businessman who violated county civil rights law by refusing a lesbian customer;
And finally, the Cultural Warfare Update Comic.
( Articles and excerpts )
