h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/its_a_goddamned_cracker.php

Really? Read the above...Catholics really do believe that a consecrated cracker IS LITERALLY the body of Christ. Having chatted with some Irish friends at the weekend they aren't too suprised it happened.

This is Dogma at its most illogical.

Yes, I'm aware of the cracker incident and its aftermath.

That Catholicism, not the religious right.


when it suits their purposes, the Evangelical right in the U.S. is quite happy to condemn the Catholics for their biscuit idolotry.

Now with Sarah Palin running for the Veep post, you could end up with someone who will be only one seventy-five year-old heartbeat from the presidency; someone who voted for not funding sex education in schools, but full funding for abstinence-only programmes. With an unmarried pregnant teenage daughter. (Seems it won't even work in HER home. No matter).

This is also someone who believes (or claims to believe) that dinosaurs roamed the earth in the company of human beings.

Believes in creationism and that evolution is a myth.

The list goes on.

It's hard to believe, but the US could well be governed in the next few years by someone even stupider than GW Bush. I would have thought that wasn't even theoretically possible. But it seems that McCain has such little respect for the intelligence of the American people that he thinks they will get behind this halfwit.

To coin a phrase, god help us all. He may just be right.

Ah yes, the folks who regard 'The Flintstones' as a documentary....

"Outside, several of them stop to be interviewed by a video crew. They have come from Indiana, one woman says, two toddlers toddling at her feet, because they have been home-schooling their children and they have given them this adventure as a kind of field trip. The whole group then bustles into the lobby of the building, here they are greeted by the long neck of a huge, herbivorous dinosaur. The kids run past that and around a corner, where stands another, smaller dinosaur.

Which is wearing a saddle. It is an English saddle, hornless and battered. Apparently, this was a dinosaur used for dressage competitions and stakes races. Any working dinosaur accustomed to the rigors of ranch work and herding other dinosaurs along the dusty trail almost certainly would wear a sturdy Western saddle."

http://www.aboyandhiscomputer.com/Greetings_from_Idiot_America.html

Pierce identified the most salient characteristic of the direction in which the religious right is taking the US and the world. Stupidity.

The denigration of intelligence, mastery of a subject, rigorous and clear critical thinking, expertise, knowledge, analysis, and scientific method has become the battle cry of those who defend religion.

To suggest that we just ignore people's quirky little beliefs in simple idiocy is now to suggest that we tolerate and encourage flat out stupidity in the way we live and are governed.

sayamalu

A well timed post as I have a few comments and questions around all this. More politics than religion but of course it's religion that could get as all nuked here.

I don't believe it's McCain who called the shots over Palin. McCain wanted one of his buddies but people higher up the chain wanted Palin as she ticks many boxes: religious, creationist, anti-abortion, NRA, small town, cover of Vogue MILF etc. Remember, McCain only met Palin once before she was running mate (probably to make sure he didn't have a heart attack being by some good looking.)

BUT what they didn't realise is she knows less than Dubya did BUT she seems to actually have some drive and ambition.

The people who have actually run the country for the past 8years have been able to pretty much control Dubya.

(QUESTION: Who DOES actually run the country, are there any specific names?)

I am sure they thought they would be able to control Palin. I am not so sure. If McCain pops his clogs I think Palin may actually try and wrestle some power from the puppetmasters. She will have the whole of the far right religious lobby and this is probably further right and more religious than the current powerbrokers are.

From what I have seen of Palin she knows little of world politics, believes her god has some plan and that humans are part of it, seems happy to talk about military action. I have no idea whether she believes in the rapture but I would say yes based on her other beliefs which is scary as it requires the end of the world and she would have the power to carry that out.

She scares me.

Bush was a nightmare, but at least you thought he was just phenomenally stupid and bleated out religious drivel by rote; couldn't really care less, but was told it was important to say those things.

Palin on the other hand is jaw-droppingly ignorant, staggeringly stupid, and worse yet, I'm terrified that she actually BELIEVES the idiocy she spouts, and believes fervently.

Let's see if McCain's (actually you're right...McCain's handlers)assessent of the sheer stupidity and anti-intellectualism of the American populace is accurate. The US has been steadily declining in any rational person's judgment for nearly half a century (generally downwards with a few moments of hope in between) since Dallas '63, but if they actually elect the McCain Palin ticket they will have sealed their fate as a failed experiment in rational liberal democracy.

Can you believe that one president in our lifetime said sincerely and without irony "Ask not what you can do for your country...etc" Can you imagine that today?

How about JFK's justification for space exploration and choosing to go to the moon? "Because it is hard!"

In today's USA? No. Now they see biological science (as Taliesen pointed out) as an episode of the Flintstones, and the future as The Jetsons. Ease and entertainment and freedom from thought. Institutionalised retardation. And they insist on exporting it.

May we live in interesting times.

Or as the American witty curse would have it..."Your Momma!"

"And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what, together, we can do for the freedom of man."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2007/apr/22/greatspeeches

I remember my hair standing on end when I heard this speech, and I was just a Canadian schoolkid.

America has truly lost its way

This will be JFK the NRA member who *never* publicly aired his views either pro or anti-abortion, but who played up his Catholic connections? The same JFK behind the Bay of Pigs and who got America into Vietnam?

Politicians, like rock stars, gain immortality by dying before they can put a foot wrong it seems.

People may like to know that on More4 this Friday at 11.15pm we have the NBC Election Debates
The US Vice-Presidential Debate
Democratic and Republican vice-presidential candidates Senators Joe Biden and Sarah Palin go before a national television audience.

I actually think this is more important to watch than the presidential debates. We will see for the first time what Sarah palin has in store for us!

I wonder if we will see any ridges in her clothes up to her ear like we supposedly saw with Dubya 4years ago...strokes chin.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7643879.stm

Hello, SWL....

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And your point, presumably, was that JFK was a flawed man?

Thanks for the input. That's certainly given us a great deal to think about.

As to your fawning over Palin, SWL, we'll see.

Does anyone care to bet how she'll do against Joe Biden?

"Fawning"???

I don't recall saying anything pro or anti Palin. I don't particularly have an opinion on what has proven to be a pretty meaningless & ceremonial governmental position in a foreign country.

I do however find the revisionist whitewashing of JFK quite amusing.

Sorry, SWL...your directing us to a link that praises your candidate's debating skills was indirect.

Please enlighten us...where did you see us "whitewashing" or revising anything in history? Or is this latest straw man another attempt to derail a discussion?

The question at issue was the danger of Palin's religious convictions.

And by the way, if you seriously believe the position of United States Vice-president to be a "meaningless & ceremonial governmental position in a foreign country", you have clearly had your head deep inside your fundament for the last eight years. Remember a fellow called Dick Cheney? Ran the government for a fellow called Bush? As for the next 4 years, you are aware that the man running for president is geriatric ? And if he dies in office, the great debater would replace him?

And, incidentally while the US is a foreign country to you, and to me, it isn't to everyone who uses the Internet. And like it or not, the US is still capable of screwing up the world beyond its borders

So, to remind you...

The question at issue was the danger of Palin's religious convictions. And by extension, the danger they pose.

oops...

...they pose to the world as a whole....

I don't view that link as praising Palin's debating skills at all. If anything, it discussed how she is unable or unwilling to discuss the issue and uses populist homilies to avoid the subject.

The vitriolic attack earlier in the thread on Palin was a bit OTT imo. As Mayor or Governer, has she used any of her religious beliefs to pass ordinance or legislation? Having beliefs is one thing, acting on them in an official capacity is another thing. I'm sure many Presidents had odd personal views, never mind Vice Presidents. Nixon was a Quaker - big deal. Much is made of this "gun-toting, bible-bashing, good-ole-girl" candidate. I would say that only the last label makes her unique in American political history.

There is a definate attempt in some circles to paint Obama as a new JFK and the rather breathy posts earlier reflect this political spin. It would behove those with rose-tinted glasses to remember that a young, populist President's blunders led to the Cuban missile crisis, an embarassing debacle and a bloody, divisive Asian war that scarred the American psyche for a generation.

Obama may well be "the real deal", I have no idea. But I would rather see him judged on his own merits than wrapped in the false colours of JFK, who was ultimately a divisive failure.

As to Cheney & the VP position. Cheney would have been Cheney whatever official role he held. He's a career mover & shaker with decades of experience in Washington's power circles. Don't confuse the man with the office. What influence did Al Gore or Dan Quayle have?

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Yes. She vetoed funding for sex education in schools and provided full funding for teaching "abstinence only". As Governor. For reasons of religious belief explicitly.

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And I imagine Palin would be Palin etc. etc. And I am very aware of the difference between individuals and the offices they hold.

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In one instance a lot, in another very little. But in neither case did the president die leaving the Veep in charge. A very real possibility. It would have been a tragedy in the case of Gore, but things would have gone on. In the case of Quayle it would have been a black comedy. In the case of Palin a disaster.

And while we all enjoy your rather peurile, half thought-out Kennedy-bashing , just what is the relevance?

Palin is a dimwit. She is a religious idiot who uses her nutjob beliefs as a weapon. She could end up assuming an office in which she is required to run the world (insofar as the USA runs anything).

Not taking sides but...SWL's comment about JFK was from Talesins' regarding JFK's speech...whcih was an excellent speech and where has the US got lost...the point there is it hasnlt got lost it's still on the same route. A lot of JFK's politic decisions and stances were ill-thoughtout and dangerous.

Palin: she has stated in various speeches (availabel on Youtube) to her fellow Xtians that they will be going out to do gods bidding etc...she will be doing the same.

The link to Palins debating *cough* skills *cough* for me was to show that she her skills are simply avoiding the question and turning each answer into a homily 'Thought for the Day' platitude.

Palin and religion affecting political decisions: yup, the sex education bit and also backing the enforcement of rape victims not getting free rape kits but having to pay for them (she also believes that abortion is not an option in rape cases).



Agreed, and I want to see the VP debate because if they moral majority of the US vote in McCain it will be on the back of her and we will have every right to criticise them for being dimwits themselves. Let's just hope the majority of Xtians have some common sense and realise what a zealot she is. I can't believe all American Xtians are of that mind set.

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A lot, a few, some, one, whatever. We were referring to the idealism and hope that could be expressed in a presidential inaugural address. That idealism is gone. That's it. That's the whole point.

That JFK was a flawed individual goes without saying. There is nobody in history without flaws, Palin's belief in christ notwithstanding. JFK's failings are both irrelevant and moot to the discussion.

(I'd be delighted to participate in a discussion of the flaws of historical heads of state; that's for another thread, though.)

However, You're right about the fact that McCain explicitly or implicitly will owe his election (assuming the US populace is as dimwitted as predicted) at least partly to her and to her nutjob feligious views. And she IS dangerous because she is stupid, because she doesn't realise that she's stupid, and because the people who vote for her (or guide us to her admiring links) are equally stupid.

And morevoer, she's dangerous because she represents the respect the people have for stupidity as long as it's dressed up in religious clothes.