Remember the movie “Expelled” which ‘argued’ how ID Creationists were somehow punished for their beliefs? I wonder what the producers of this movie think of this somewhat disturbing piece by Tom Willis in CSA (Creation Science Association for Mid-America)?
Tom Willis Wrote:Everywhere the subject of origins is discussed, evolutionists routinely, yea, systematically, denounce creationists as some combination of stupid, ignorant, and… dangerous. If we recall there are two major methods men make momentous decisions: empirical and theoretical. I intend to show in a brief space that belief in evolution requires, at minimum, deep delusion allowing one to believe, or pretend to believe, in a manifestly impossible historical scenario. And it leads, both empirically and theoretically, to grotesquely harmful results in every society in which evolutionists are allowed to have a major influence, including our own.
And “Expelled” believes that ID Creationists face problems?
Willis proposed the following “solution”
The arrogance displayed by the evolutionist class is totally unwarrented. The facts warrent the violent expulsion of all evolutionists from civilized society. I am quite serious that their danger to society is so great that, in a sane society, they would be, at a minimum, denied a vote in the administration of the society, as well as any job where they might influence immature humans, e.g., scout, or youth, leader, teacher and, obviously, professor. Oh, by the way… What is the chance evolutionists will vote or teach in the Kingdom of God?
The damage done by some of my fellow Christians who confuse their faith with facts of science seems to range from the foolish to the outright moronic (and I am holding back here). Depriving people, including fellow Christians of their God and Constitution given rights hardly seems to match my understanding of Christianity.
Wait, the Kingdom of God will be a democracy? For some reason, I was expecting it to be a theocracy. Go figure …
Just skimmed the pdf. I could feel my IQ dropping by the second.
He contradicts himself. At one point, he declares that “evolutionists” should be forced to make bricks for food. Shortly thereafter, he calls for them to be violently expelled from society.
I guess he wants to just work them to death at forced manual labor. That solves his problem plus yields a huge pile of new bricks. This reminds me of a mid 20th century European country that tried something similar. Willis just substituted “scientist” for “Jew”.
For those who are worried about brain damage, he message is the usual.
Science=evolution=atheism=mass murder
Tom Willis is apparently a follower of kingdom now xian Dominionist theology. Below is what they think of the USA and what they want to do.
The christofascists state often exactly what they want, to destroy our civilization. Falwell, Dobson, Robertson, the DI with their Wedge document, and on and on. In the above excerpt, Tom Willis, a follower of the Kingdom Now theology, states their plan for the USA. They want to replace the US democracy, which they openly despise, with a dictatorship of well, themselves.
And then violently expel the “evolutionists”. Or put them to work making bricks. This seems to be a big conflict within the Kingdom Now movement. I guess liberals soft on evolutionists are everywhere. It would be easy to dismiss Willis as a psychopathic loon. He is one. He also has something of a following and influence in.…Kansas.
What can one think about people who hope god shows up, destroys the earth, and kills 6.7 billion people as a much desired, happy event?
Like I said on Pharyngula, the PDF that this came from includes a smiley face near the end, right where he advocates the violent expulsion of scientifically literate individuals from the country, continuing on to suggest at a minimum disenfranchising them.
My reaction was to make a different sort of face. The sort of face one makes upon discovering something very old the fridge, something so old you don’t know what it originally was. The face you make as you stop breathing, in fear of smelling whatever odor may be exuding from what you’ve just discovered.
Also as I said there, this kind of thing can probably turn more people away from christianity than I ever could using fundamental science.
The problem is it’s probably turning the wrong people away. Presumably this kind of frothing rhetoric has a target audience, this is not just a wackjob rant on a myspace page. There must be people screaming “amen, we must violently expel the infidels.. woops, we mean evolutionists, our sane society demands violent intolerance, it’s what Jesus would have done!” in response to this.
Blaming the Nazis on evolution and then declaring evolution a religion and demanding that those that believe in it are persecuted and vilified. What more can I say?
Inappropriate (or perhaps sarcastic) use of smileys and emoticons seems to be common among the most conservative Christian bloggers. I’ve confronted at least one of them about this.
Such as in: Evilutionists are all going to hell. : ) or : P etc.
Or they end their anti-evolution screed with some insincere valediction like “God bless!” or “Have a nice day!” which can properly translated as “Die, you scum-sucking pig!”
My God. Wow. Speachless.
Stark - raving - mad. I’m not normally stuck for words, but it was all I could think of after reading that.
The dialogue quoted from the Washington Post page also, unfortunately, demonstrates the dreadful level of public understanding of both evolution and of the dating methods which are one of its (many) lines of supporting evidence.
A questioner quoted “carbon dating” as the method of dating geological ages and was correctly advised of the actual radiometric method used. This did not refute the point - that geological ages are attested by multiple lines of evidence - but it made this fruit loop look good because he knew the name of one method. He was then able to make up nonsense and to quote Woodmorappe (!) as an authority, without further challenge.
I don’t know. If this is the level of public debate in America, we’ve lost. I say “we”, because if America loses, we all lose, and lose catastrophically.
I have no idea whether the NCSC can take money in Aussie dollars. I think I’m about to find out.
Who exactly would we be voting for? I thought Jesus was running unopposed. Is Shiva the dark horse candidate?
I just love US free speech. Let the nutters expose themselves for the fascists they are. Saves so much work and time.
Except that now they’ve added:
Christianity=creationism=intolerance=forced labor/ostracism
How ironic, considering that many slave owners (and others) justified slavery based on the “mark of Cain”, the “curse of Ham”, and other fallacious Biblically-based arguments.
How come Darwin was anti-slavery then?
See his section on leaving Brazil at the end of the 2nd edition of the voyage of the Beagle.
Alos the correspondence of Darwin and Asa Gray (almost an evangelical ) during the civil war on slavery.
In 1833 the British (Anglican) evangelical magazine The Christian Observer refused to publish a pro-slavery article. It was then published by the Record another Anglican evangelical magazine. This shows the split among christians.
I’m most interested by Willis’ claim that “Evolutionism was/is the apologetic foundation for the faith of predatory capitalism, Germany in WWI, the USSR (from 1918 to this day), NAZI Germany, Fascism in other European countries, and Socialism in all of Eastern Europe beginning about 1945”. In particular, how the heck did “Germany in WWI” get in that list? I understand the claims for all the others, but this comes across as just listing all the historical governments that the US has conflicts with between about 1930 and 1950. I suspect that in 50 years we’ll have claims that the Taliban was motivated by evolution.
Since evolution is pretty much a non-issue in Europe, I wonder how non-voting will work here. Not that the other countries are really REAL though. Not like the US. So we probably don’t count.
Anybody who had a basic understanding of historical timing would find it ridiculous to suggest that a book first published across the pond in 1859 would somehow be relevant to a debate that had been raging in the US for a few decades by that point, and had for all practical purposes come to a head with the Civil War set to break out in 1861. I appreciate the inclusion of some other snippets because now I can save myself the time of having to read through all of his lunacy.
also, consider that Darwin didn’t PUBLISH his theories until 1859, JUST before the Civil War broke out. By that time, the debate in the U.S. regarding slavery was pretty much over, actual conflict was nearly underway. The Dred Scott decision had already been handed down, and John Brown had begun his ill-fated campaign. “Darwinism”=Slavery? THAT one ought to have been checked a little closer for historical accuracy before being used by the creos. And the Conservative Southerners of the mid-19th century weren’t exactly people who were chomping at the bit to accept evolution, now were they? Getting desperate, guys. Put a little more thought into the next one. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before we hear that “Darwinism” was used to justify the Inquisition :p
This is both hilarious and horrifying, therefore I propose a new word: horrifarious.
Non-Christians are not getting punished here on earth– God isn’t smiting evolutionists right and left with thunderbolts from the sky– and that must rankle his followers. Thus both The Rapture and Hell are very exciting concepts to some Christians who can look around and see non-Christians happy and enjoying life on earth. Better to imagine unbelievable tortures for those who don’t spend their time praying, reading the Bible, communing in church, and spreading the word of God than to feel like you have wasted your life with empty gestures.
…I wonder if “Darwinism” was also used to justify The Crusades, or the slaughter of the native Americans? Miller, Dembski et. all ought to look into those, I’m sure their poorly read dupes wouldn’t suspect any time discrepancy…
Guys like Philip Johnson are on record stating things like theistic evolutionists are the ID movements worst enemies. These guys aren’t just talking about “removing” atheists. It is the people most closely associated with their own religious beliefs that they want to get rid of.
If they decide to ride that tiger where will it stop? What type of OEC would be “safe?” Will the YECers that believe that the earth is older than 10,000 years old be acceptable? Once they get rid of the worst rascals they usually start shooting each other. Will the only ones allowed to be left standing be the true believers like flat earthers and geocentrists, or will those guys simply be “removed” too?
I seem to recall reading that Willis himself is a geocentrist. So he’s got a pretty high standard of insanity set there already.
In a word ‘Barking’ . I wonder how many bricks Richard Dawkins will be able to do on his own without using a kiln ? Or is the creo crazy talking about mud brick production ?? Let them eat…brick !!
The “brick-making” method of dealing with people more educated than you has a historical precedent. It was used in China. If I remember correctly, it was by one of the emperors who bought the Great Wall. Scholars were considered as potential opponents, so they were sent away to work on the Wall and make bricks. It’s nice to see that the bad old ways are never fully forgotten.
Also: “the evolutionist class” Doesn’t that sound a bit Stalinian?
And: “What is the chance evolutionists will vote or teach in the Kingdom of God?” Well, not a lot, as it doesn’t look like a constitutional monarchy.
I’m appalled you would think of suggesting Shiva as the dark horse. Every one knows Shiva is red in color. The word Shiva comes from the Tamil word siva meaning red. Sanskrit equivalent is Rudra, same root as red/ruddy in Indoeuropean.
It is Krishna is who is dark. And his next expected avatar Kalki has him riding on a horse presiding over the destruction of the universe in an apocalypse, (after which the cycle will start again, of course). Obligatory inappropriate smilies provided here. Sprinkle them according to taste. :-) :-} :-{} :-[] :-()
If these yahoos want too establish criteria for voting and teaching, how about scientific literacy. That seems like a lot more valid criteria than who will supposedly get into a supposed after-life in a supposed heaven. Of course that would be the last thing that they would want, since most “evolutionists” would probably be a lot more qualified that most fundamentalists.
The underlying assumption in all of this nonsense is that the two sets are mutually exclusive, i.e. that you can’t be a Christian and believe in evolution. Well these guys should read their Bible more closely. The criteria stated for entrance into heaven don’t have anything to do with belief in evolution. The Bible does have a lot to say about people who lie, cheat and steal however. There is also that part about who gets to cast the first stone.
Ostracism, another cute idea from a certain religious text.
Sometimes I think more than a NC-17 (“very strong/sexual/offensive language, strong explicit nudity, very strong/gory/disturbing violence, or strong drug abuse”) is warranted on that one.
Hmm. “NK” - No Kooks admitted.
In regards US fundamentalism and its effect on the world a (slightly dated) article in Edge that I just was pointed to [hat tip: Sandwalk] gives an inspiring model.
It explains not only the amount and profile of US and world religiousness but also points to promising trends (affecting science and education) and their possible causes.
As a reaction to published, apparently tendentious, analyzes of statistics on religion the authors rejects what they term a myth:
So rationalism is actually doing well. But, the authors ask, what about the peculiar case of US then:
So religion is becoming healthier as well. The authors propose an explanation for the current events, which I find plausible. And go on to ask if there is a common mechanism in place:
And they claim to find one common cause that seems reasonable:
I would of course like to see a test or two for the model, besides explaining the US case. But it seems promising, both as an explanation of oddities and general trends, and as regards future prospects.
Internationally, as the earlier bimodal economic distribution of nations is merging to a natural unimodal one as most developing nations succeeds in closing the gap. (TED, Gapminder 1st speech.) And for US and its large influence on science and education, as AFAIU at least some of the current presidential candidates now seem to cater to the middle class and their sense of security.
Seems democracy (and a modicum of social security) isn’t such a bad idea after all. But that doesn’t mean NCSE shouldn’t get help today!
No, they would maintain the illusion of democracy by giving you a choice between one theocrat and another, kind of like Iran where the ruling council has to approve all candidates.
“I don’t care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating.” Boss Tweed
Tom Willis’ delusional post really emphasizes the ample warnings from the likes of Paul Gross, Barbara Forrest and Wesley Elsberry regarding the crypto-Fascist behavior not only of the Discovery Institute, but of intellectual “fellow travellers” like the Creation Science Association and Answers in Genesis. It also emphasizes Ken Miller’s astute warning in his latest book that we are now engaged in a battle for America’s soul (http://www.amazon.com/Only-Theory-E[…]5&sr=8-1) (Without indulging in too much self-promotion, I think my extensive Amazon.com review of it is the only one so far to emphasize the importance of Ken’s warning which the other reviwers have missed. Mine is the only one which also emphasizes Ken’s rhetorical decision to “take seriously” the “scientific” arguments of Intelligent Design by asking whether it is a valid scientific theory, before demolishing these arguments.).
Regards,
John
I have seen Willis’s article on the paper newsletter he mails out. There is no smiley there.
If I remember correctly, Tom Willis was one of the main characters behind the first round of the creationist-inspired curriculum changes in Kansas several years ago. That man is not just a creationist, but he’s a young earth creationist (thus, being even more dismally ignorant of basic science). The rhetoric that comes out of these young earth creationists is (1) often quite zany and good for a laugh, and (2) often just as ironic in its inherently hypocritical nature.
What amazes me is that people in these states even allow people with such horrible scientific illiteracy and incompetence as young earth creationists to come within bullhorn distance of having anything more than zero official public influence on science education in public schools. Young earth creationists are walking poster children for scientific illiteracy, not to mention intellectual incompetence.
Of course, it isn’t just Kansas. Now the state of Texas has a young earth creationist, Don McLeroy, isn’t just on the State Board of Education, he’s the chairman of the board! That’s such a sick state of affairs I don’t know who to blame the most, the young earth creationists for being incorrigible in their defiant promotion of scientific error and ignorance, or citizens in Texas who take science seriously in general for allowing such a thing to happen in the first place.
The tax-exempt status also comes with an important rule. Churches are not allowed to participate in politics. Now granted that this rule is more honored in the breach than in the observance, but it is there. Take away a church’s tax-exempt status and they will feel entitled to a more overt voice in how this country is governed. After all they would be helping to finance said government, and what was our country’s rallying birth cry? “No taxation without representation”. I can live with the tax-exemption privilege they enjoy.
Excellent point.
Hmm. Yes, but according to the statistics such european radical groups had less of an impact. For the US history, your points may be a problem for the proposed model. It depends on if we would expect a correlation over this subset as well (in effect looking for potential causality in the other direction as well, I think); I have to think about that.
Speaking of causality, I’m reminded that this is what you would rather first look at beyond correlation in these cases before or during testing. So that is another problem.
It is a part of history here [Sweden] too. In fact, 1686 Sweden enacted a law stating that the church had to keep official church records. [Sorry, swedish reference.] (After the reformation 1527 the lutheran church was the only allowed at the time.) A national system begun 1946, but dual records were held until 1991 when the national system adopted full responsibility.
As an example, what is claimed to be the worlds largest book is such a church record, 1.1 m wide, 42 kg mass, and 12 390 pages. It wouldn’t fit in my book shelves, thats for sure.
As it is both a church records on people and economical records for the region of Östra Götaland from 1813, I suspect it is a not so well considered reaction to a law from 1812 stating that the church economical records would from then on be a basis for the person records. (See the earlier link.) I wonder what the book binder thought.
FYI, regarding Willis’ vaporings on slavery, I emailed him on the 17th asking him to offer some specific example of slavery advocates actually using an evolutionary defense. As Civil War era American history was my major in college (BA) I wasn’t expecting him to do so, and I was right. Willis replied today that while he “could” offer examples he wouldn’t, supposedly because it would be a book length argument (can’t even give a summary?). He then showed his concern for email brevity by pasting in two pages of blather on the evolutionary evils of Nazism and Marxism, and defending (inadequately) the supposedly lofty and reasonable Biblical attitudes on servitude. As Willis is a geocrentric friendly YEC wingnut, that his view of more recent history would also be fradulent shouldn’t come as too much of a shock.
jk replied to comment from jkc | June 13, 2008 7:06 AM | Reply also, consider that Darwin didn’t PUBLISH his theories until 1859, JUST before the Civil War broke out. By that time, the debate in the U.S. regarding slavery was pretty much over, actual conflict was nearly underway. The Dred Scott decision had already been handed down, and John Brown had begun his ill-fated campaign. “Darwinism”=Slavery?
Do you actually know the name of the book? We call it the Origin of Species, the full title is “On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.” Which favored races was he talking about?
Finches.
Don’t forget pigeons, also.
Darwin was a big pigeon breeder.
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