Rocking the boat

[the_nita]

If I can argue the government doesn't get to be in my bedroom, then I don't get to bitch that a minister doesn't talk about his religious beliefs.

Until such time as his ACTIONS go against his responsibilities in government, he can believe in little green men from mars and that candy causes syphilis, as far as I'm concerned.

Comments

[ink_13]

Yup. That's pretty much what I was going to say.

[the_nita]

He was asked what HE BELIEVES.

Different from "what are you going to do with this belief".

I disagree.

[psychedelicbike]

I agree with hel_ana, with one clarification. Evolution is a reproduceable scientific fact. Speciation has been observed through animal husbandry and induced in laboratory experiments.

A science minister refusing to acknowledge scientific theories and/or facts on the grounds that it is a religious question is akin to a finance minister refusing to discuss changing the prime lending rate on the grounds that it is a religious question. Does not compute.

Can we trust a man who refuses to acknowledge widely accepted scientific theories to have the competence to fulfill the role of science minister?

[self_serve]

Totally unrelated, but I'm loving the new icon of you. Very pretty!

[the_nita]

Thank you - shortandcranky is good at making me look good.

[the_nita]

You mean the power to make rules that government has in place that people flout all the time?

Marriage to multiple people? Beating people for fun and/or profit? To name a couple?

I'm sorry we disagree. But I am not sorry to reiterate that yah, I do think it's equivalent. Either you can hold your private beliefs or you can't and just because you, hel_ana, state that his job makes it different doesn't mean, to me, that it is.

[the_nita]

Let's put it this way - written is rarely a good place to engage me in a discussion about something I disagree with someone on.

[theagentx]

I find it somewhat amusing that, while you can find 1000 quotes of Goodyear's response to some question about evolution, what I cannot find is an actual quote of the question asked, or a transcript of the questions asked prior to this. Maybe someone with better Google-fu then I can.

What all the articles state is, he was asked if he believed in evolution... so the question could have been "How do your personal beliefs align or differ with the theory of evolution?". This to me largely feels like the press trying to create a mountain out of a molehill from a quote for which no context is provided.

[freya46]

As long as those beliefs don't make his decisions a danger. We've seen the results of that.