Comments | liz_marcs: Fantastic Essay about Idiot America

liz_marcs

Fantastic Essay about Idiot America

Aug 13, 2007 13:07

jblaque has reposted fantastic 2005 essay by Charles P Pierce that was published in Esquire about science vs. religion, intellect vs. gut, enlightenment vs. deliberate ignorance, and the loss of the American Dream to Idiot America called Battle for the Planet of the Apes.

Fantastically long, but oh-so-worth-the-read, if only for the insightful punchline at ( Read more... )

Comments 13

beer_good_foamy August 13 2007, 17:55:55 UTC

Thanks a lot for linking that. Brilliant read.

liz_marcs August 13 2007, 23:02:53 UTC

Glad you liked it.

(The comment has been removed)

liz_marcs August 13 2007, 23:02:44 UTC

Glad you liked it.

nocturnalista August 13 2007, 20:29:36 UTC

Urgh. I have recently spent a lot of time on the MSN religion boards, and all of this article is played out in glorious technicolor.

If someone refutes a post with well-researched information, half the time the next post contains exactly what the refuted post said. Most of it deals with Christians being under attack, and the United States being founded on Christian ideals. There's also a horrible amount of bigotry and blatant hatred ( ... )

liz_marcs August 13 2007, 23:01:56 UTC

I remember there was a Usenet history discussion board I was on, oooooh, something like 10 years ago where someone came in and announced that the U.S. was founded as a "Christian nation."

Just about everyone jumped on him hard, complete with cites, quotes from the founding fathers themselves, and the existence of the Jeffersonian bible. This guy would not budge, despite the fact that there were at least three dozen people with hardcore evidence backing them up, telling him he was wrong.

By the time it was over, we were all: 1) tools of Satan; 2) going to hell; 3) would get what was coming to us when the U.S. reverted to this guy's mythical "Christian nation."

We laughed him off the Usenet board at the time. It seems so much less funny now and more like a chilling preview of the shitstorm to come.

I don't believe religion is a bad thing, either. But religion is not science of any stripe. Treating religion like can offer scientific answers of any kind is a lot like using Tarot cards to conduct a clinical study: it's not gonna ( ... )

beer_good_foamy August 13 2007, 23:21:14 UTC

But that's the entire crux of the thing, isn't it? Once they start discrediting the very idea of scientific proof, once you find yourself backed onto that slippery slope where everyone has a "worldview" or an "agenda" and everything is just opinions and personal beliefs, then you cannot win by logic and rational arguments. And the more that way of thinking spreads, the scarier it gets. Once we start teaching children that rational thought is optional, we're in deep trouble.

(Richard Dawkins had an interesting/terrifying example in his latest book; during the trial against that school in Pennsylvania that wanted to teach creationism a few years ago, the defense attourney argued that as far as he was concerned, the human immune system was created by God an intelligent designer, could never be understood by scientists, and he could see no reason for them to try. That's what they would have taught children. But hey, it's not like we need to educate people to cure cancer and HIV anyway, right?)

(Sorry for ranting.)

jgracio August 13 2007, 23:33:19 UTC

But, yeah...trying to convince someone who uses their religious book as a weapon to put the book down and see reason (and that they don't actually have to throw away the book if they do) is a near impossibility these days.It's not just these days, but always. Look, there's nothing you or anyone else can say that will convince a true, hardcore believer, because anything you might say can be easily refuted just by saying something like "Oh, that's just God testing our faith ( ... )

xxmagex August 14 2007, 00:33:31 UTC

http://xxmagex.livejournal.com/92809.html?mode=reply

A somewhat related post about a movie I saw last week when I finally got down to watching the DVD. Thought of you Liz when I saw the part I am talking about.

m_mcgregor August 14 2007, 00:35:08 UTC

I think perhaps the Larry King question of "Why are there still monkeys?" hurts the most, because this argument has reached such horrifying levels of hilarious sadness in my heart. I joke of it often, and yet there it is actually coming up in the news as if it were an insightful question ( ... )