Karl Giberson’s recent blog post for Huffington Post connects the evangelical church’s anti-evolution belief with a growing disconnect of young persons.  He argues that the more evangelical churches reject science, the more it will lose teenage-to-twenty-something members.  

 

Dr. Giberson notes that some churches encourage young people to challenge their science teachers by asking “Were you there” whenever they are taught that earth is not 6,000 years old, or that human beings evolved over billions of years.  “The suggestion that scientists cannot speak about the past unless ‘they were there’ is a strange claim,” he writes.  “The implication is that we cannot do something as simple as count tree rings and confidently declare ‘This great pine was standing here 2,000 years ago.’ As a philosophy of science, such a restriction would completely rule out the scientific study of the past. This, of course, is precisely what the creationists want.”

 

I understand why some Christians think challenging scientists is a holy pursuit.  If scientists suggest the Bible is not to be taken literally–even those sections that were written to be figurative explanations of the relationship between God and mankind, such as Genesis 1-3–then evangelicals believe they must do whatever they can to defend their faith from such naysayers.  I understand this, but I don’t agree with it.

 

Christianity is about living like Jesus, and Jesus was not interested in science.  He chastised the righteous and the greedy, and encouraged the desperate and poor in spirit.  He drove out money changers and loved prostitutes.  He said the Kingdom of Heaven is for persons who visit widows and prisoners.  

 

That’s what matters, not defending a poor interpretation of the Creation narrative as a scientific treatise. 

 

Evangelicals, go ahead and believe the earth is 6,000 years old.  Go ahead and argue that “Were you there?” is a powerful defense against reason.  Go ahead and be intellectually impotent and critically irrelevant.  But when you do this, don’t do it in the name of Christ.  Do it in the name of your own deliberate ignorance.

 

 

In recognition of iPod’s tenth anniversary, here’s the first iPod ad:

I’m one of the 4% of Boy Scouts who have earned the Eagle rank.  I’m one of the 1% of persons with an INTJ personality type.  Ten percent of all persons, including me, are left-handed.  Fewer than 1% of Americans have a Ph.D.–count me among them.

I’m also one of the 99% of Americans who control half of the wealth in America.  The other half is controlled by the other 1%.

As one of the 99%, I pay a higher average income tax than those in the 1%, even though my assets are considerably lower.  If I made more of my income in capital gains (like the 1% do), then I would be eligible for enough tax breaks to pay a less percentage than many in the 99%.

My brothers and sisters among the 99% don’t blame the 1% for this tax discrepancy.  In fact, we are proud that we live in a country where it is possible to succeed financially.

But we do blame the Republican-controlled legislature for supporting tax policies that requires the poor to pay more to a government system that privileges the wealthy.

That’s why I will be supporting Democrats in the next election, and I encourage the rest of the 99% to do the same.

The 99% is perhaps the least-exclusive group to which I belong, but it’s also one of the most important.

“Sometimes I say phrases that do not make sense,” he said.  “Furthermore,” said he, “sense make not.  Do that phrases.”  Say I, “Sometimes.”

When I announced a couple days ago that I thought Tim Pawlenty would be the GOP candidate, I wrote that my predictions are usually wrong.  And I was right again, which means I was wrong about Pawlenty.

 

He dropped out of the race this morning, telling ABC’s This Week, “What I brought forward, I thought, was a rational, established, credible, strong record of results, based on experience governing–a two-term governor of a blue state.  But I think the audience, so to speak, was looking for something different.”

 

Pawlenty is right that he brought forward some credible bona-fides that would have made him a worthy opponent against President Obama.  But I’m not sure he is right that the voters want something different from the GOP candidate.

 

I certainly hope he isn’t making that judgement based on his performance at the Iowa Straw Poll, because he won.  His tally may have been fewer than Bachmann’s or Paul’s, but he won the Poll.

 

Why do I say that?  Because neither Bachmann nor Paul are viable candidates for the GOP nomination.  They appeal almost exclusively to either the religious right (Bachmann) or the libertarians (Paul), neither of which are a large enough bloc to carry the GOP nomination.  For them to secure the nomination, they will have to reach out beyond these blocs to the moderate Republicans, and they are too far on the fringes to make any headway among the caucus and primary voters.

 

Their victories at the Iowa Straw Poll does not reflect their potential as presidential candidates.  The poll is not representative of voters.  It’s not representative even of Iowa voters.  It’s not even representative of Iowa GOP voters.  It is, however, representative of Iowa GOP voters who are 1) at the Iowa state fair, and 2) are willing to either spend thirty bucks to pay for the privilege of voting, or to grab a free ticket from one of the candidates.  The folks who are eager enough to participate in a poll where you have to pay to play, or attend a rally to play, are going to be the hardcore fringe voters.

 

Tim would never appeal to the fringe GOP voter, so he was never going to win the Straw Poll.  But he could win the nomination.  Or, he could have if he stayed in the race.

 

With him gone, all the GOP has left are candidates who fail to be electable (Paul), rational (Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, Santorum), or populist (Romney).  Oh, and Huntsman, too.  He’s electable, rational and populist, but unknown.

After the second John Kerry/George W. Bush debate, I knew W. Bush would lose the 2004 election.  There was no way, I thought, that any reasonable person could have watched that debate and thought that W. Bush would be competent enough to lead our country for four more years.

 

I was wrong.  Shows what I know about predicting elections, which is very little.

 

So with that caveat, here are some predictions about the 2012 primaries and election.

 

–President Obama will win the Democratic primary.  Vice President Biden will be his running mate.

 

–The top  three winners in the GOP Iowa caucus will be Bachmann, Romney, and Pawlenty, in that order.

 

–Romney and Pawlenty will do well in New Hampshire, but Bachmann’s numbers will be relatively low.  One of the top stories from the primary will be “How did Bachmann fall so quickly?”

 

–Perry will do remarkably well in South Carolina.  He may not come in first, but the media will cover his performance.

 

–After Super Tuesday, Romney and Pawlenty will be the only viable GOP candidates left.  Bachmann and Perry will continue to campaign.  The other candidates will close their campaigns.  Gingrich and Santorum will endorse Romney; Cain will endorse Pawlenty; Paul will endorse no one.

 

–Bachmann will center her campaign around targeting Pawlenty so much that commentators will say she is not running for President, but is settling some sort of Minnesota-based score.  Each hit she throws will be countered by a Pawlenty statement noting that Bachmann is all talk and serves the interests of the very few, while Pawlenty is a man of decision who serves the interests of all Americans.

 

–Pawlenty will ultimately secure the GOP nomination, in part because he will be seen as the “better man” as a result of the Bachmann fued, and in part because he will be seen as a more populist candidate than Romney.  He may choose Perry as his running mate to help secure the religious right vote.

 

–President Obama will win the election, 60/40.

 

Again, I could be wrong about all this, but I’m very confident about the first and last points above.

Anders Behring Breivik, the Oslo terrorist, may be a Christian.  Or he may not be a Christian.  We don’t really know.

But here’s what we do know: 1) he calls himself a Christian in his online manifesto; 2) he’s not a fan of multiculturalism, particularly the embrace of Islam in Europe; and 3) he rained down his righteous anger using a firearm and a car bomb.

None of these are “Christian” by any definition that can be discerned from the Gospels.  Jesus Christ, who should be our model of Christianity, did not refer to Himself as a “Christian”; to be sure, He was Jewish.  (The word “Christian” appears in Acts after Jesus ascended to Heaven.)  Jesus seemed to be a fan of multiculturalism; many of his parables expressed acceptance and love for folks from other cultures.  And with the exception of overturning tables in the temple, Jesus wasn’t one to get violent.

The news media have covered Breivik as a “fundamentalist Christian.”  And even though this may not be the best term to describe him, I can understand why the media would use it.  Many fundamentalist Christians 1) go out of their way to self-identify as “Christian,” 2) are skeptical of multiculturalism, and 3) call for an active, aggressive removal of anything that conflicts with their beliefs.

The media are wrong to suggest that Breivik is a Christian based on his actions.  But based on models of fundamentalist Christianity we have in America, I don’t blame them for calling him that.

Tom: If this psychologist thinks I’m crazy, I’ll eat my hat.

Jerry: But you’re not wearing a hat.

Tom: That’s because I ate it.