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Monday, February 19, 2007

...according to a memo sent out under the name (but not written by, though he doesn't necessarily disagree with it) of Georgia State House Rep. Ben Bridges (R -- ugg):

Meet our new friend, Georgia State House Rep. Ben Bridges (R), chairman of the retirement committee in the state house.

Bridges is now in a bit of trouble for spilling the beans about evolution being the product of a Pharisee Jew conspiracy to bamboozle normal Americans and destroy Christianity.

“Indisputable evidence — long hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that so-called ‘secular evolution science’ is the Big-Bang 15-billion-year alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion,” reads the letter that went out under Bridges' name. “This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic ‘holy book’ Kabbala dating back at least two millennia.”

It seems that the actual author or analyst, I guess you might say, was a fellow named Marshall Hall, the husband of Bridges campaign manager, Bonnie Hall. Then they sent it out over Bridges' signature to state legislators in Texas, California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio. And they didn't stop by letting the cat out of the bag on evolution. They also blew the whistle on all this hokum about the earth revolving around the Sun...

Oh yes, they really did...the earth/sun thing, that is. Worse, the thing got picked up and passed on...widely...by another legislator.

Is it anti-Semitism, or just a case of "I see dumb people?" I try to be respectful of views I disagree with these days, I really do...but what are the limits?

[h/t: RichardC]

3 Comments

Oh. My. G-d. Ignorance piled upon ignorance, then multiplied upon itself, then promulgated as certitude and truth. Nice stuff, not. And then - "I try to be respectful ..." LOL! That's Mel Brooks quality material there! Like the guy being placed in a pile of wood, ready to be burned at the stake, then he says something like, "well, let me try to understand your position ..." Lol, rich stuff.

There are many things at play here, but at base I suspect it's a type of paranoid or near-paranoid quality fueled by an over-active or re-active conscience. In simpler terms it probably is "I see dumb people."

I'm not conversant with Kabbala literature but in New Testament terms, for us Xians, I believe it's Paul who addresses this type of phenomena when he suggests those with an over-active conscience need to humble and constrain themselves. (While also suggesting those who are wiser and who are not constrained by such an over-active conscience should refrain from dealing with these types in a manner that is too harsh or too callous. This becomes problematic however when the ideas and potentially injurious and are additionally promulgated, as with this case.)

Well, come on. You KNOW how us pesky Jews are................

:-(

Btw, there are a host of issues, among them philosophical, theological, on through to public policy issues, which are very much related to what is reflected in this episode. Too, in large measure they are far more subtle and nuanced issues than is typically brought to bear in the standard left/right dichotomies. Paul's Xian, NT treatment of the strong conscience vs. weak conscience (the latter comprising those who tend to over-react and tend to be overly sensitive about some issues) theme is representative of that more subtle, that more nuanced treatment.

For example I'm a theist and do not believe intelligent design (ID) belongs in the science classroom per se. (Philosophically oriented preambles, addressing scientific materialism or physicalism, addressing scientific positivisms, etc., are germane to some science classroom subjects, such as evolution, in fact should be required.)

Otoh, rudimentarily addressing some philosophical topics, outside of the science classroom per se and within a philosophy classroom would be relevant - beyond the more rudimentary preambles in science classrooms, suggested above. Given the nature of the subject matter (e.g., science, epistemic valuations and truth claims, broader philosophical implications still), if such an overt and direct approach is omitted from the high-school curriculum, then the tendency is to impart a strictly and narrowly conceived physicalist worldview - a reductionist worldview.

Problems inhere to doing this type of thing correctly and in a manner suitable to high-school age students, obviously, but if such were done I very much suspect the majority of those who are pejoratively classified and dismissed as "right wingers," as "fundamentalists," etc. would come to accept such a better balanced orientation in curricula. That's my opinion only and is largely intuitive, but I do suspect a kind of public policy tipping point is reachable and the remaining "overly zealous literalists" would be recognized as being on the fringe even by many of those who presently are seen as co-extensive with those more zealous literalists.

But such is not desired by those who variously benefit from left/right dichotomies and simplifications, even if it would better advance social comity and would additionally better clarify epistemic groundings and truth claims as taught within relevant curricula.

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