25 | August | 2011 | Existential Ennui

Tags

atheists, civil rights, creationism, Darwinism, David Barton, Dawkins, evolution, MLK, Obama, renewed Darwinism, Rick Perry, rightwing nuttery, teabaggers

Note that the cartoon pictured at left carries the “Answers in Genesis” website. I believe that these are the same people who bring you the “Creation Museum” in Kentucky and are building the Noah’s Ark as their next “reality” project.

I am generally not a big fan of atheists, at least the mocking types. It’s all well and good to conclude that there is no proof of God and that you are content to let it be, living your life by perfectly good standards of conduct, without resort to any religious faith. I tend to be in agreement with atheists who take on the fundamentalists, because they don’t represent any kind of believing that I can understand nor accept and their actions are damaging for the most part.

I do tend to get rather pissy with atheists who lump all believers, of ANY faith into the same basket and make fun of them, such as referring to their belief in “faeries” and boogie men. It tends to belie your own faith in your own beliefs of “there is no God” when you are so insecure as that.

So, I’m not, generally speaking, a great fan of Richard Dawkins, though I certainly have no quarrel with his evolutionary statements. I find them compelling and utterly credible, as the entire field of evolution seem to be to me. But recently, Dawkins had some words for our new pal Ricky Perry and the field of GOPers who adhere to the “safe” haven of “it’s ONLY a theory.” (By the war, Al Gore points out in An Inconvenient Truth, that “it’s only a theory” is the intentional plan of attack of those who wish to confuse any issue, be it global warming or evolution.)

My thanks to Joe.My.God for the quote:

There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office. What is unusual about today’s Republican party (I disavow the ridiculous ‘GOP’ nickname, because the party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt has lately forfeited all claim to be considered ‘grand’) is this: In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today’s Republican Party ‘in spite of’ is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory. Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like themselves over someone actually qualified for the job.” – Famed atheist Richard Dawkins, responding to Rick Perry’s denouncement of evolution.

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Speaking of evolution, there is a rather fascinating book published in 2010 about what the author calls RD or “renewed Darwinism“. Paul Lawrence area of expertise is in business, and he was near retirement from the Harvard Business School when he became dissatisfied with the “agency model” of business leadership, finding that it seemed to relate only to making stockholders happy. He began to investigate other fields and found in Darwin his answer.

Lawrence posits that man is evolutionarily driven to four things: acquisition, bonding, defense, and comprehension. We are, he suggests, constantly engaged in the activity of balancing these four things. He claims that things appear out of whack now because a “few bad apples with an outsized drive to acquire and no moral conscience” have prevailed, because they have no apparent need to bond.

So far, studies looking at Lawrence’s model of leadership tend to confirm it. Those companies who exhibit a healthy balance of all four things, tend to show good results, those that don’t, don’t.

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I must say I’m good. I read this headline in my reader: “Perry retreat co-host MLK deserved no credit on civil rights.” Well, I knew it could be none other than our ubiquitous TeaNutz® faux historian David Barton. Yes, Perry continues to double down in his unity with all things wingnut crazy, alienating all non-Christians and not a few Christians, and now African-Americans.

It seems that Barton is of the belief, that while MLK is a deserves a “place” in history, “Only majorities can expand political rights in America’s constitutional society.” Barton is almost too stupid to attack. I mean, dude, seriously, your “analysis” is childish.

Barton and others have done their level best to rewrite history books for Texas schools, seeking to minimize such folks as Thurgood Marshall and César Chávez. This all in an attempt to glorify white Christians, to the exclusion of all others in the history of the US.

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Ya know, Jebby Bush warned ’em when he was last interviewed on Faux Noise. He said, it’s fine to criticize the President’s policies, but hey, lay off challenging his motives. But of course, no, that would not be cool would it? The National Review, long since sunk in a cesspool of what else? poo, has decided that the President’s VACATION READING FARE is not appropriate! Angry Black Lady Chronicles has the story (Not sure if they got it from Think Progress?)