Okay, the latest from Kansas and evolution

[RoBear]

The "Kansas Now" channel (22) in Wichita shows weather for several cities consecutively as well as the occasional local program. In addition there are brief news items at the bottom of the screen.

The latest is that some people in Hays are objecting that a museum there is using evolution to explain the origin of dinosaurs.

Words fail me...

:banghead:

[slackmaster]

1. Only clowns, farmers, and cheap hookers live in Kansas

I'm so glad my parents decided to move us to California back in '62.

[salinen]

2. I once saw

a hooker, dressed as a clown, plowing a field in Kansas.

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. *lol* Erm... how did you know it was a hooker and not just a clown?

[RoBear]

5. So which do you think I am?

I just unloaded on an asshole at our atheist MeetUp (yes we have atheists in Kansas) because he kept saying he hated Kansas. In spite of the fact it's turned too damn red lately, I happen to like it here. My time in other states has been no better, and often worse.

Did you intend to flame me????

[slackmaster]

9. Depends

What crops do you grow?

:hide:

[Lars39]

11. .

:rofl:

[ET Awful]

18. Sorry, I need a state with contour :)

I mean . . . if I pull out a survey map of the state and the contour lines are 6 inches apart . . . . just not my kind of place :evilgrin:

[donco6]

21. You need to visit the Flint Hills

http://www.topoimagery.com/maps.html

I'd put it up against anywhere in the Midwest for topography.

So what if that OTHER 1/2 is flat! :)

[Scout1071]

7. To be fair.....I've met my fair share of "special" California people.

Small town Cali isn't that much different than small town Kansas.

It's really an urban vs rural thing.

[slackmaster]

10. Kansas has a well-deserved rep for having a lot of racists

Some of them are related to me.

[RoBear]

12. I actually haven't met too many racists, although

I know there is a fair share of them. I tend to hang with a crowd that is pretty adamantly liberal. And, oddly enough in the "buckle of the bible belt," pretty anti-fundie.

[donco6]

22. Where I grew up was staunchly Dem back in the 60s, 70s.

Something happened with Reagan, tho - I think that's when it all went off the beam.

NE Kansas - near Manhattan.

[Scout1071]

19. True, but northern Cali isn't exactly "enlightened."

Just as western Kansas has a "rural" attitude.

I met plenty of mountain racists in northern Cali. Just ignorant really. Never traveled. Like I said, it's rural vs urban.

[Ladyhawk]

25. You are correct. My town is one of those backward places.

I'd love it here if there weren't so many fundies. :(

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. Well aren't you just too special?

Actually I think those of us who do live in Kansas and love it enough to stay here are lucky that people like you don't live here anymore.

I hate to bust your bubble, but there are quite a few of us here in the Sunflower state who are not clowns, farmers or cheap hookers. And we are weary of the constant bashing of our state here on DU.

[sakabatou]

3. There's a place for these people

It's called the Bush bubble. It's a place where you only have to worry about yourself. You don't have to pay taxes (unless you want to), you can listen to all the RW radio you want w/o the dribble of Air America. There is a downside though: everyone will fucking hate your guts.

[Scout1071]

4. I would like to officially propose that we kick the entire Western

2/3rds out of the state. The bulk of the population is in the Eastern 1/3rd and we are starting to get more than a little fucking tired of these asshats making us look like fools.

The reason I propose we boot them is that as a native, I simply would have to refuse any attempt to annex the Eastern portion to Missouri. From "The Outlaw Josey Wales" - "Everything in Missouri is just a bit tainted."

Therefore, I propose that the eastern third - where people actually live - and the western 2/3's seperate. They can become Kanorado or something.

Thank you. That is all.

[rockymountaindem]

8. Isn't there some Kansan group trying to annex part of Colorado?

If so, then *you* guys get Marylin Musgrave. Just sayin'.

[Scout1071]

20. How about everything east of Denver and west of Topeka becomes

Kanorado. Leave the rest of us out of it!

[donco6]

23. That's about right.

I'm not sure CO wouldn't be better off without it, myself.

[donheld]

6. Words fail me...

Brains fail them... :banghead:

[deminks]

13. My shame for some of my state...

knows no bounds.:banghead:

[donco6]

24. I am embarrassed to admit I grew up there.

And I did NOT used to be. I *was* actually quite proud of my state - it's role in abolition, the civil war, the German-Russians that are my ancestors - all admirable. But these days - I just avoid even mentioning it most of the time.

[charlie]

15. Well, at least they're no longer claiming

fossils are God-planted boobytraps to test their faith. That's progress of sorts, I suppose.

[Dave Reynolds]

16. The use of the word "dinosaur" will now be replaced by

"Jesus horses".

That is all.

[ismnotwasm]

17. I have met several people

More or less intelligent, who say "I don't believe we came from monkeys" This is in Western Washington, which also has it's share of umm, oh hell dumbasses. Try to explain to them that evolution doesn't isn't about evolving from monkies-- They need a whole entry level biology lecture that I'm usually not prepared to bother (or qualified to give) with. Kansas (and a few other states) seem to have a smaller, more vocal population with media backing. Probably organized churches that also don't understand what evolution actully is about and don't bother to find out either. The biblical inerrency crowd is so friggin' sad. They leave out so much wonder and beauty of life. I'd feel sorry for them if they weren't trying to cram that crap down our school systems.

[mitchtv]

26. DU nickname "Kansas, the land that evolution forgot"

[CatholicEdHead]

28. Here is a link to the complete story:

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/sep/22/evolution_teaching_debate_makes_its_way_kansas_his/?state_regional

[hyphenate]

29. Kansas has some smart people

and I wish more of them would speak up. There are intelligent people in every state, in every corner of the world. But sometimes, they just don't understand how much of the process they really are. Many of them have gone through hell for their beliefs and their dreams, only to see them dashed or shattered. Is there any wonder why there is so much cynicism, so much frustration and so much hopelessness in our country?

There is so much hatred within the radical religious right. I recently found a quote in a book I'm re-reading that I found is in, so many ways, the utter truth: "in any age when people pervert goodness, love and obedience and set up a god small enough to fit their shrunken souls." (For those interested, it's a quote from a Zenna Henderson novel)

This is the epitome of the right winged radicals: they take a universal god and malform its image until it suits their purposes. They take words written long ago, and selectively take quotes to suit their purposes. They take their hate, their intolerance, their endless stream of utter nastiness and codify it to mean something else. They preach good, but endorse evil. They say they are righteous, but they condemn anyone different in their eyes. They take every other religion in the world and say it is the devil's work. They hide in plain sight, letting their money and their ambitions steal anything good from their lives, and from the lives around them.

They preach creationism, because they can't envision the universe. They preach literal interpretations because their souls can not wrap around the idea that we aren't alone. They preach fundamentalism, because they don't want anyone to know how afraid they really are. In effect, they are Flatearthers in a time that has outsped them, that has made their lack of ingenuity and imagination stand out in a world too sophisticated for them to conceptualize.

It's not just Kansas. It's the whole country. People in most other advanced countries have overshadowed these people. The "enemies" of World War II are far more advanced than we are. It's scary to admit that we're behind so many others to these people--pride is what keeps them from understanding and accepting this. And it's because of pride that they want to sink us even further into the abyss. They think that if there is a god, he/she will sink to their level and destroy everyone who has forsaken him and take only those who remained faithful. Sad, isn't it? That these people can not grasp the true nature of whatever "god" exists out there? That they can not accept that a true god isn't a petty god, that a true god would work with natural forces to bring about--or destroy--living matter? That a true presence in the universe isn't compatible with just us, but would represent living beings all over the universe?

It really is a shame. Because those children of these radical religious people are never going to be accepted at the best universities, that they will never be able to reconcile the real world with the limited one in which they have spent all their lives, and that every country in the world with a secular government is going to keep ahead of us, to the point where the United States will be nothing but a run down piece of land with nothing but idiots. It's not going to be in my lifetime, but it will happen. Unless these people are shut down--and shut down permanently, this country will never be the rising star it has been for the past two huesndred and fifty years, and will likely collapse sometime from the sheer detritus which is its ruling class.

Evolution is fact: creationism is dreck. One will take your mind into the future, the other will dump it back into the primordial waste from which all life once began. And there is no way to stop these radical extremists until more of those who are intelligent speak up and shove it down the throats of all of these idiots and parasites.

[FreedomAngel82]

30. Oh good grief

:crazy: