When I write things like “Nothing in movement conservatism makes sense except in the light of creationism”*, I’m not doing so because I think that’s an especially SICK BURN (I used to be a hardcore hockey fan–trust me, I can be much crueler). I do so because the proposition of creationism, that life on this planet arose in a manner similar to that described in the Book of Genesis**, is so obviously wrong and not based in reality, one can’t help but see all of the dishonest tactics they use. There are no excuses that can be given, so the little lies for the Big Truth, the Gish Galloping, the blatant misrepresentation, the casting themselves as victims, all of this is nakedly exposed. Once the dishonesty and it manifestation is so naked exposed, you realize that creationists’ ideological co-travelers use the same dishonest tactics. Once you see this, you can’t unsee it.
Well, at the risk of hitting the copium pipe hard, I think a lot of people in positions of authority, who desperately and intentionally have wanted to pretend Trump is something other than the foul beast he actually is, have had their moment of creationist realization in the last week or so. Starting with the blatant censorship of Jimmy Kimmel (never thought I’d defend one of the hosts of The Man Show, but here we are), Trump’s Truth Social post where he argued the Attorney General should be targeting his political opponents (it’s unclear if this was accidental), then his absurd attempt to blame autism on acetaminophen (Tylenol) use during pregnancy, followed by his humiliating United Nations speech, and culminating in an incredibly hawkish reversal regarding Ukraine (for now, anyway), it’s nearly impossible for anyone other than committed propagandists and true believers to realize the emperor has no clothes.
There is no secret economic or political philosophy of Trumpism, nor is he a much more intelligent philosopher-king in private. He is a stupid, impulsive, narcissistic man child, whose strongest convictions are his superannuated bigotries and various online conspiracy theories. Working for Donald Trump is like working for the Oracle of Delphi, but with large amounts of stupidity: Trump will utter something like “ME WANT HAMBURGER”, and then his minions will interpret that as a Ukraine policy shift or some other matter of import. We have reached the point at which using euphemisms to cover up his glaring inadequacies is about as effective as his hand makeup is at concealing his poor and declining health.
I just wish they had figured this out a year ago. The country would have been better off if they had.
*With apologies to biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky who is credited with “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”
**Never mind that the Book of Genesis has two different creation stories.
mikethemadbiologist
In the beginning there was darkness, then Bang! There was light
If you put your glasses on just right, stand a bit off-kilter and look at it from another angle, the first few verses of their badly plagiarized creation story actually provide a pretty accurate description of the formation of the solar system, the collision of planets and the coalition of moons, of evolution. As I say, you gotta’ look at it just right …
I’m not sure what you mean. I hope that you know that “Let there be light” came after the creation of the earth in the Bible. I also hope that you know that the word “day” appears in, “And the evening and the morning were the [nth] day.”
I meant what I said: the first few verses of the biblical creation story accurately describe what really happened. Veered off into lalaland after man …
So tell me: where do the first few verses tell us that nighttime stars as giant balls of gas tens of trillions of miles away, that the sun is one of them, the one the earth orbits around?
Where does one read that the earth and the sun formed around the same time, closer to now than to the original creation event?
Pardon me, the first few verses of the Bible bear absolutely no resemblance to what happened.
Maybe you need to read a little deeper, like direct translations out of Armenian and Greek. Or read what I first said: put your glasses just right, step back and look at it just so. You’re just looking for a fight …
I really doubt that you’ve checked any of those. I stand by my statement that the first chapter of Genesis bears no resemblance to astronomical history.
And there’s Poe’s law. It’s getting increasingly hard to tell what’s a White House statement and what’s a parody.
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