evolution

So strange, in fact, that I think it’s almost worthless. [Via Hot Air's Allahpundit, resident secular conservative.] Newsweek and MSNBC (those paragons of objectivity) polled on several topics, including the usual approval ratings, and on some religious issues. Here is what they “found”:

» On the question (12) “Which one of the following statements come closest to your views about the origin and development of human beings? Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process (or) Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process (or) God created humans pretty much in the present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so?”, 13% of atheists responded with the latter choice, “created in [their] present form”. 27% responded that “God guided [the] process”. I’d say 40% of atheists are hard of hearing.

» On the question (13) “Do you think the scientific theory of evolution is well-supported by evidence and widely accepted within the scientific community?”, 63% of evangelical Protestants said that it was not, while 18% of agnostics/atheists said that it was not — which makes sense if these 18% believed that there were some explanation other than either God or evolution — something I find unlikely. Although I believe the dichotomy of creation vs. evolution is a false one, that’s how it’s presented in the media, and so that’s why people who don’t follow or understand science (or people who don’t care and use the issue to club their political opponents as Godless/stupid depending on their politics) see it that way.

I don’t think this really gives us much information. There seems to be too large an intersection of non-intersecting answers, one that would not be covered by a reasonable margin of error.

Which leaves me with the feeling that I missed something. Did I?

Joel has posted a third item in his series on Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, focusing this time on the relation of religion to liberty and the social order. I haven’t very much to add to Joel’s own post and the comments therein, but this from the text:

Religion perceives that civil liberty affords a noble exercise to the faculties of man and that the political world is a field prepared by the Creator for the efforts of mind. Free and powerful in its own sphere, satisfied with the place reserved for it, religion never more surely establishes its empire than when it reigns in the hearts of men unsupported by aught beside its native strength.

Liberty regards religion as its companion in all its battles and its triumphs, as the cradle of its infancy and the divine source of its claims. It considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom.

Even for someone like myself who is not religious, there is meaning here.

[previously: I -- I-A]

AS A DAVID IN THE AGE OF NEW MEDIA, YOU WILL ADDRESS ME AS “CITIZEN JOURNALIST”!*

“Politics” has the same number of letters as “Pop-tarts”. So, I’m taking that as a sign.

UPDATE: Flash flood warning. These will happen about every three days until May — the joys of living in a valley.

Here’s a thought: Know how you can buy those fire alarms that instead of a harsh screeching play a voice, since we’re supposed to respond better to a familiar voice? Maybe the Kansas Emergency Broadcast System should consider that, rather than having Megatron tell me that there’s a flash flood warning in Johnson County, and that you puny humans had better submit to his rule or perish in a deluge. And for the love of Optimus, don’t drive your car through flowing water.

j.d.: “Soooo… it really warmed up today.”

mailbox:

j.d.: “In the Seventies, I hear.”

mailbox:

j.d.: “S’posed to rain all week, though.”

mailbox:

j.d.: “Say, I was just passing by, and—

mailbox: “No.”

I can’t decide whether this trend is good or bad. Unthinking devotion to something is bad*, but I myself reject most forms of pop culture; I will not immediately condemn anything that causes others to reject it en masse, and I’m not religious at all. I merely think that most entertainers and “celebrities” are dolts and not worthy of my attention or approbation.

Unfortunately, there appears to be plenty here for everyone to dislike (all emphasis mine):

A 45-year-old married father of three, Luce began his youth ministry, known as Teen Mania, 20 years ago.

“It’s a battle, it’s a very real battle, it’s a spiritual battle for their heart and soul, so we tell them about how they can come close to the Lord, but it is also a cultural war, and essentially we live in a Christian country with a very un-Christian culture,” Luce said.

If you didn’t know any better, you could mistake a BattleCry concert for any rock concert, minus the sexy clothes and alcohol. There’s plenty of loud music, fireworks and contemporary self-expression, but there’s also praise and prayer.

Saturday morning the teens gathered in groups around the stadium and prayed before the entertainment and speakers began inside.

When Luce talks about the “un-Christian culture,” he makes it clear that he is on a crusade against all the influences bombarding kids today.

“BattleCry” would have been a kick-ass name for a metal band. Well, as I was saying, there’s enough here for everyone to dislike. Oh, the irony:

“This is a hateful and narrow and bigoted brand of Christian fundamentalism, which does not represent Christianity, and they do not know and understand the agenda that is behind it,” said Giovanni Jackson of World Can’t Wait, a nonprofit political activist group.

Last year, the San Francisco board of supervisors condemned the event and took some heat for it. This year they issued the following statement: “BattleCry’s efforts to spread the intolerance and bigotry promoted by its leadership to our young people are reckless and irresponsible. We need to increase understanding of our human differences, not teach our kids to be suspicious and hateful toward people unlike them.”

“There are few people that epitomize things that they can’t stand more than the mayor of San Francisco right here, and I’m not particularly offended by their point of view, and I just hope they are respectful and they don’t hurt people in the process,” said Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Those poor put-upon San Francisco politicians.

“Now, such a union is not always possible…”

It’s not quite a dichotomy, I think. It’s a peak with the two “extremes” at the bottom of either slope. The further down a society is on the slope, the more likely it is to end up at the “bottom”, which in one case is desirable and the other is undesirable (and impossible in a society that claims to be free).

Anyway, I’ve read a little further, and it turns out I wasn’t so crazy after all. Tocqueville:

THE political consequences of such a social condition [one in which the people' rights, riches, and power have small standard deviations---ed.] as this are easily deducible.

It is impossible to believe that equality will not eventually find its way into the political world, as it does everywhere else. To conceive of men remaining forever unequal upon a single point, yet equal on all others, is impossible; they must come in the end to be equal upon all.

Now, I know of only two methods of establishing equality in the political world; rights must be given to every citizen, or none at all to anyone. For nations which are arrived at the same stage of social existence as the Anglo-Americans, it is, therefore, very difficult to discover a medium between the sovereignty of all and the absolute power of one man: and it would be vain to deny that the social condition which I have been describing is just as liable to one of these consequences as to the other.

There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality that incites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom. Not that those nations whose social condition is democratic naturally despise liberty; on the contrary, they have an instinctive love of it. But liberty is not the chief and constant object of their desires; equality is their idol: they make rapid and sudden efforts to obtain liberty and, if they miss their aim, resign themselves to their disappointment; but nothing can satisfy them without equality, and they would rather perish than lose it.

On the other hand, in a state where the citizens are all practically equal, it becomes difficult for them to preserve their independence against the aggressions of power. No one among them being strong enough to engage in the struggle alone with advantage, nothing but a general combination can protect their liberty. Now, such a union is not always possible.

From the same social position, then, nations may derive one or the other of two great political results; these results are extremely different from each other, but they both proceed from the same cause.

I’d like to develop these thoughts further — but I’ve been dealing with folks at the office running around with their hair on fire, and I’m tired, so I’ll just leave it there for now.

Genesis 1:11-13

[11] And God said, Let the earth bring forth peanuts, the peanut-butter-yielding seed, and the peanuts yielding peanut butter after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
[12] And the peanut butter brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[13] And the evening and the morning were the third day. *

A Georgia lesbian argues that Georgia gays can’t adopt kids — so she doesn’t have to share the kid she gave birth to (thanks to the turkey baster).

Sara and Missy Wheeler had split by July 2004, and Missy was fighting for joint custody of the boy.

The two sides do agree about one thing: The case is about a mother’s rights.

“Everybody seems to forget we’re not talking about lesbian rights,” Missy Wheeler’s attorney says. “We’re talking about a child who’s been bonded with a mother.”

Sara Wheeler made the legal argument that, since nothing in Georgia law specifically allowed gay adoption, the adoption should be tossed out.

Her first lawyers warned her the case could set gay rights back a century.

She hired a new attorney and asked the DeKalb County court to toss the adoption that she had previously pushed for, claiming it should never have been approved because it runs afoul of state law.

News of the tactic whipped up Atlanta’s gay community, one of the largest in the South. Lambda Legal, a gay rights group, made a legal filing with the Georgia Supreme Court supporting Missy Wheeler. “There’s something about this case that’s just tragic,” said Greg Nevins, a lawyer for the group.

Laura Douglas-Brown, editor of Southern Voice, the city’s main gay newspaper, penned a column accusing Sara Wheeler of “self-hating.”

“We owe it to each other not to lash out in ways that damage the entire gay community,” she wrote. “Your own family may be destroyed, but don’t destroy ours, too.”

Oh, the Googling this boy will do.

Anyway, the county court and the Georgia Court of Appeals both threw the case out. The dissent (i.e., the argument that the adoption should have been thrown out) makes for some interesting — and by “interesting” I mean “dumb” — reading. The judge argued, essentially, that the Court of Appeals needed to hear this case to make new law regarding the adoptions of children by gay couples, which is not his place. Adoptions by gay couples are not prohibited (although gay marriages are) by Georgia law, which means they are permitted (which not only invalidates this dissent but Sara Wheeler’s case as well).

I’ve said many times that gay marriage/civil unions/whatever you want them to be called should be permitted, as I view the issue as a matter of contract law between two consenting adults. I also have utterly no problem with “gay adoptions”, since loving parents are probably better than dysfunctional parents or none at all. The Georgia Supreme Court refused even to hear this case. Which is as it should be.

j.d.:

mailbox:

j.d.:

mailbox:

j.d.:

mailbox:

j.d.: “Sooo… you—”

mailbox: “No, I don’t have your damned actuary test score!!!”