I think the virulence and the persistence with which Christian

[KlatooBNikto]

fundamentalists have attacked Evolution is because it undermines one of their pet assumptions:that there are such things called races among human beings.That one of them, the White race, is superior to all others.The Black race is inferior to the white one.The yellow and brown races fall in between.This is the natural order of things and God intended them to be so.It says so in the Bible.

This basic assumption was used to justify slavery.It also formed the basis of the Apartheid system in South Africa and the segregation of races and "separate but equal" system in the U.S.The most threatening aspect of the Theory of Evolution, to the fundamentalist Christians, is that it provides credible evidence of the common ancestry of all human beings. That would clearly undermine one the assumptions of superiority invoked by the racists among us. That is the core of their fear.

The same also holds true for their opposition to the way human beings evolved and how the Earth got populated by creatures.

[Crankie Avalon]

1. I've read the Bible from cover to cover---twice...

...and there wasn't really that much of what you are saying in it, especially about the "yellow" race, etc. The people who wrote the Bible didn't even know "yellow" people existed. The story of Noah in Genesis has a bit about Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, that can be loosely said to be about "race." Shem is supposed to represent the Jews, Japhet the Gentiles, and Ham the African peoples. And this may be something we modern people have only interpreted into it. Otherwise, "race theory" in the Bible is more tied in with nationalism more than hate for it's own sake. Much of the Bible is the rationalization and justification of the Old Testament Jews and their land grab of Israel, Palestine, the Promised Land or whatever else you want to call it from the people who possessed the land before them. They have to be made to look bad, and the Jews have to be "the Chosen People," for the aggression to look palatable.

Fundamentalists believe in the literal truth of the Bible, word for word, and the Bible doesn't say anything about evolution. It has a foundation myth that Fundamentalists have to insist is true, just like they have to believe in the myth of the flood (a myth many civilizations had versions of), the parting of the Red Sea, and all the other bits of the nationalist epic/religious fairy tales of the book.

[KlatooBNikto]

2. You are correct but it is the perception that matters.What people

take away from reading a book is reinforcement of their existing prejudices.Facts are never allowed to stand in the way.Your examples of the three people as typifying the different "races" has been modified to suit the political prejudices of our time.

[petron]

17. This reminds me of the movie "Saved"

I watched a hilarious movie the other day called "Saved" about this gal that goes to a Christian fundie school. There were some seriously phucked up kids at this school.

In one scene one of the characters, played by Mandy Moore, is painting a giant wooden sign of Jesus and she is painting him as a white guy. Another character says to her that he didn't think Jesus was white and she responded by saying something like: "Of course Jesus was white!"

While the movie was trying to portray the complete idiocy (in a funny way) of some fundies, it's a sad but often true that fundies believe Jesus was white and that he would approve of fundies behavior today.

Sad, sad.

[lawladyprof]

12. It is taught like this is in Christian school textbooks--about Noah's sons

and the dispersal of the races. Millions of students use them in Christian schools (in some cases now with our tax dollars) and millions more use them in homeschooling.

[Crankie Avalon]

14. It's too bad some people choose to focus on this passage...

...and read their own desires into it, and not also concentrate on the implications of the "existence" (since they believe all these Biblical characters really existed) of an Adam or a Noah.

If we, for a moment, take the Bible for the same thing that the Fundamentalists do, then we are ALL of us descended from one common ancestor, Noah. And before the flood, humanity's common ancestor was Adam, supposedly. But, instead of stressing either of these sources of humanity's common origin, we should be more interested in how--one generation removed from Noah--humanity was somehow already divided into wholly separate "races" in the guise of Noah's own sons.

[Sporadicus]

3. Fundies Attempt to Turn Darwin's Statements Upside Down

to give the impression that he argued for 'superior' and 'inferior' races. Darwin's mention of 'favoured races' in his Origin of Species referred to variations within a species that survive to produce more offspring. Fundies use the convoluted logic of arguments of this sort to give the impression that Darwin was a racist (some even suggest that Darwin's theories allowed the development of ideologies like Nazism), but the opposite is true. Darwin was in fact vehemently opposed to slavery.

Citing examples from this series of essays could help us regain the voice of reason regarding Darwin & evolution. It's reached the point where we can't remain neutral in this ideological war any longer - especially when the fundies' perversion of Darwin & evolution threatens the direction society will take in coming years.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

[Ravenseye]

4. I Think English Speaking Fundamentalists Are Funny

They have to believe in the literal word of the bible, but it's not even in the original language.

The Koran isn't even supposed to be translated. Well, it can be translated, but it's not the Koran unless it's in Arabic (it's actually written in the Koran about this...I think it's because that it's poetry and doesn't translate correctly)

Other religions have texts in archaic languages that they were originally written in (Sanskrit, Old Hebrew, etc) and they read and speak this old dead language.

Fundies here though read and take literally a version of their holy book that was edited and translated into English from german, french, and latin versions that were edited for hundreds and hundreds of years, that were translated from Greek, Hebrew and other languages with completely different word structures.

The number of incorrect translations in the english bible is a laughable ammount.

If they want to be fundamentalist shouldn't they at least read the original text in the original language?

I had one fundie once tell me that the English version (I forget which one....King James probably) is a precise translation from the original languages...and that was proof of God. The logic they used to defend themselves was some of the worst I had ever encountered. I had a nice conversation that time with a few of them, attempting to poke holes in their logic but they just looked at me smiling. Kinda like they were brainwashed or something.

[BiggJawn]

5. "It's the King James version, or it's PERVERSION!"

That was a popular saying of Greg Dixon, pastor of the long-since-seized-by-the-IRS Indianapolis Baptist Temple...

Didn't care much for "Good News for Modern Man", either...

[TexasProgresive]

8. If the King James was good enough for

Jesus, well it's good enough for me!

[BiggJawn]

19. Amazing how they spoke english, isn't it?

Even pilate....:D

[Crankie Avalon]

7. That's very true...

...if they really think the Bible is the "literal word of God," you would think they would make it their business to learn how to read it in the language God wrote it. Hebrew so they can read the Old Testament, Greek so they can read the New. But, they can't even get around in English all that well.

I once read an article where some people were angry about bi-lingualism and justified "English only" by saying, "If English was good enough for God to write the Bible in, it's good enough for all of us." :crazy:

[Ravenseye]

9. How Do You Counter That Ignorance?

I mean seriously.

There are plenty of wonderful devout christians who aren't complete slack jawed morons. It just seems sometimes that the most vocal ones are the dumbest of the lot and the smarter ones follow them along saying 'well we don't believe everything he says, but he says it so well'.

Wait...

[Dogmudgeon]

10. Most of it is magical thinking about the nature of language

When I read the Bible, I'm struck by the emphasis on the inner experience of meaning, not the insistence that the words themselves are magical. Word mojo is a very common superstitious belief, especially among fundamentalists.

In Christianity, there is an explicit concept called the Holy Spirit, which according to most, is the manifestation of God in the context of one of the persons of the Trinity. Non-fundamentalist Islam takes an almost post-modern approach: The Quran is preserved in Arabic because it is the text, but the experience of God and adherence to virtue is not bound to that text.

Fundamentalists consider the the words themselves are special, and that all experience of God/the Holy Spirit/spirituality must be compared to the words of the Scripture. I am not adept in the Quran, so I can't provide any examples from Islam, but I do know quite well that Jesus and the early Apostles explicitly avoided a Scripture-bound approach. They revered the Scriptures, but spoke extemporaneously, confident that the Holy Spirit would give them the right words. Jesus himself is famously quoted to have said "the Law was made for Man," not "Man was made for the Law."

This is generally "interpreted" to mean that Christians may eat pork and ham, but are given no such choice in making love (they must not) and hating gays (they must).

All of the Scripture quoting and "chapter-and-verse" citations you see being made by Fundies does not come from Christian faith. It comes from the formalities of argumentation, which are used to justify a non-Christian, anti-Christian belief in the spiritual properties of words.

"Graven images," if you will.

--p!

[Ravenseye]

11. They Do Come Off Sometimes as Anti-Christian

First as far as the Quran, they preserve the text partly because it's holy. They believe that it's the word of God that was given directly to Mohammed who had it 'burned into his brain' and then had help writing it down. So yeah it's the literal word of god. Thing is, it's really perfect poetry in Arabic, that won't translate into English. Think not rhyming but rhythm. Anyway. Fundies there say 'WORD OF GOD WORD OF GOD' but everyone else says it's just better to read in the original because it sounds better.

I also don't get the whole pick and choose aspect of the fundies here. How can they eat pork but not have gay sex? Thats extreme but how can they not sell their daughters into slavery, or how can they plant corn and beans in the same field.

How many people have gardens where they plant the three sisters together. According to the bible they need to be stoned to death, meanwhile being gay is just really bad, but doesn't necessary indicate stoning.

[BiggJawn]

6. I had a co-worker who is a Christian Reconstructionist....

Guy was a combo of the worst bitz of C-R and Black Helicopter paranoia...

Anyway, he told me once where all the different races of man came from. Remember how when Cain killed his Bro Able, and GAWD drove him from Eden to wander the wilderness?

Well, Cain needed sex, and since there were no women in the wilderness, he did the nasty with all the animals he could get his hands on. I suppose he invented the Wellie boot, too, to assist his boffing of Sheep...Anyway.....
The result of his beastiality was all the different races in the world...

this guy was dead-serious about this. also owned a lot of guns and carried Gold, refused to carry a driver's license, in fact, he refused to hold ANY "license".

Whack-job. The kind that we're gonna be staring down gun barrels at some day....

[noonwitch]

13. It attacks their notion of an omnipotent, perfect God

Evolution implies that creation was a natural process of trial and error, and adaptation to environmental circumstances. To them, it is essential to believe that God never made any mistakes, and the evolutionary process would prove otherwise. For some, they also have a strict belief in the 7 day creation story in Genesis. They can not see this as an allegory.

The same type of people 600 years ago thought that the earth was flat.

[RedCloud]

15. The Bible is beastly ignorant!

Makes you wonder what morans wrote it!

They didn't even discuss the dinosaurs. Major spazz out! Get with the program, Allah or Zeus or Jehovah or Bhudda. stop showing you don't know the great secrets before mere mortals discover them.

[Walt Starr]

16. War

What life has taught me
I would like to share with
Those who want to learn...

Until the philosophy which hold one race
Superior and another inferior
Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
Everywhere is war, me say war

That until there are no longer first class
And second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a man's skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes
Me say war

That until the basic human rights are equally
Guaranteed to all, without regard to race
Dis a war

That until that day
The dream of lasting peace, world citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion
To be persued, but never attained
Now everywhere is war, war

And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
that hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique,
South Africa sub-human bondage
Have been toppled, utterly destroyed
Well, everywhere is war, me say war

War in the east, war in the west
War up north, war down south
War, war, rumours of war

And until that day, the African continent
Will not know peace, we Africans will fight
We find it necessary and we know we shall win
As we are confident in the victory

Of good over evil, good over evil, good over evil
Good over evil, good over evil, good over evil

-- Bob Marley

[B3Nut]

18. Great tune...

Marley basically lifted a speech by Haile Selassie to pen those lyrics. Like a lot of his stuff, it's still potent and relevant. Brilliant guy, Bob was...

Todd in Brrebratistan, mon :)