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

I keep hearing stuff like how millions of Americans now believe in creationism as opposed to evolution. If this is true its hardly surprising that Bush has got back in.

The Majority of Earth's population believes in Creationism and has for Centuries. It's nothing new; they're unrelated I would think.

http://www.sorryeverybody.com/gallery

Says a lot that NY overwhelmingly voted for Kerry

No, there is a direct link between the Christian Fundamentalist resurgence in the USA and the re-election of Bush, and in the belief in Creationism.

Interestingly, the National Parks system has just been cleared to sell a book in their information centers that claims to educate children about the 'four thousand year old Grand Canyon' which was caused as a direct result of The Flood...

I'm wondering what social forces are at work in the states to make people christian fundementalists. Here in the UK and most of Europe we are essentially secular and think of christian extremists as a pretty weird group on the fringes. I think 'fear' often forces people to look for simplistic religeous answers.


What are so many Americans really scared of then?

We are taught to fear... Everything.

We are bombarded by fear by the press, by our leaders, by our churches, by each other. Even though violent crimes have dropped over the last few decades the media coverage of violent crimes has risen by multiples of previous levels. The Bush (the younger) administration institutionalised fear with the Homeland Security and the colour code system and random 'terrorist chatter' alerts. The christian churches here find any attempt to keep the government and schools secular that they equate such attempts as a threat to the peoples right to worship and ignore the fact that not everyone shares their beliefs. And more than anything else, we as a people, because of this culture of fear, happily take away our own rights and silence dissenting voices and spread rumors and horror stories and make zero tolerance policies and barricade our homes and carry guns where ever we go and put up cameras on every corner and live in gated communities and do everything we can to try and defend ourselves from fear by creating more of it.

I miss the days when WWIII and the compleat destruction of the planet was what we feared most. At least we tried to enjoy ourselves before armageddon came. Now we have so many smaller fears that we can't even relax enough to enjoy the little freedom we still have left.

yes but we in the UK are also beset by many fears. crime, terrorism,old age, death ets etc. but we don't turn to fundementalism. We did in past centuries however. That's why hearing about what's happenning in the States is so strange. half of you is the scientific/capatalist engine house of the world and the other half is a backward looking simplisic minded bunch of medievalists.

I hope things change..........because it may just be a blip

marking

I think that the Michael Moore film Bowling for Columbine explained a lot to me. America was founded on paranoia, People escaping from fear and prejudice, but actually taking it with them. (And I'm not forgetting these people where Europeans )Fear of the Native Indian, Fear of Communism, fear of the muslim and the terrorist. Fear of the neighbours. Fear is a really useful tool for a controlling government and we can see how it works. Too much bad news that's slanted towards creating panic. (I even wonder if the UK would have reacted in the same way to the Orsen Well's War of the Worlds in the same way as America did.) Sadly the gun culture is growing in the UK. Once you frighten the people, the people will arm themselves against imaginary foes and then those foes become a reality, because everyone potentially has a gun in their glove compartment or next to the bed. I wouldn't like this to happen here.

Religion is merely another type of control that plays on fears.
I remember when I was a kid, the future was predicted as a place where science was going to create a brand new world, disease, war and old age were going to be a thing of the past. Food would be pills, space travel would be everyday and we'd all learn to get along with each other, because there would be enouigh to go around. Nowaday the future is portrayed as a frightening place; Meteor showers, WMD, Virus's, magnetic pole slippage, Global warming, and a report that we've all got a 50-50 chance of surviving the next 50 years. What happened to optimism? Who killed it? We seem to have cancelled the search for new planets and our inherent desire to explore for bickering over oil and land down here.
Greed starts all this and creates a need to control and control is best achieved by frightening the population. Nasty. And worse we ALL seem to vote in the devil we know will frighten us the most.

Evolution textbooks row goes to court
A suburban American school board found itself in court yesterday after it tried to placate Christian fundamentalist parents by placing a sticker on its science textbooks saying evolution was "a theory, not a fact".


http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1346851,00.html

We're having a parallel conversation over on this thread... if you move quickly, you might be able to read through the backlog before it gets too huge. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F38024?thread=519163&post=6089789#p6089789 I've decided that fear creates Republicans. I think that the opposite is also true - that complacency creates Democrats. Problem is, complacent people don't vote. That was the problem with the 2000 election. With the 2004 election, nobody was complacent - there were a lot of people who got out to vote. This time, there were more people afraid of the unknown than of the devil they knew... so to speak.

Just a quick poll.
1) Who here believes that the *empire* the US has created is exempt from the rule of eventual downfall of world *rule* and
2) What are the signs of that demise?

Oh, and does anyone here believe that that exemption is due to Divine Right?

The reason that the UK does not go fundamentalism any more is because they all left for the New World. All the crazies left here and created a new country across the sea. The US is a case in point with what happens when a nation is created by fundamentalists.

The US better sort itself out quick snap, cause if it continues this trend it will not be the scientific powerhouse it is now. Of course that is just a good oppertunity for us. Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

The way I see it is that the US has two very different sides to it. One very scientific side, and one backward, Christian fundamentalist side. The sides are drifting further and further apart. As long as the government doesn't impede on research too much, I think America will remain a powerhouse of technology.


Poll: I don't think America will be able to maintain world rule. There are contenders for the crown waiting in the wings (China most dominantly), and as I said American society is drifting apart, this is not the solid and determined base needed for world domination.

poll: China is becoming a threat to America precisly because it has bought into the global hegemony and the international system.

Conseqeuntly China has a vested interest now in maintaining things pretty much as they are

The US government is already impeding on science by withdrawing funding from stem cell research.

So it does, but the government doesn't call all the shots in science. This may be a set-back for stem cell research, but it will continue with private resources. It's the big companies that do most of the research, and the government hasn't got much influence on that, except a total ban on certain research.

I had thought that the bulk of Bush supporters were deluded and ready to listen to lies. After reading this unnerving piece I have a feeling that the Bush Voters swung that way precisely because they agree with him and are happy in the knowledge that the lies are intended for the 'others' to bring them on side.
This report shocked me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1329858,00.html

The US government is already impeding on science by withdrawing funding from stem cell research.::
a cynical person might think it is as a result of keeping what they have
learnt secret.

big companies, are not goverments big companies, any way most of these directors are or where part of goverment, or sit on committes ect

Everybody Tells Me Everything
by Ogden Nash

I find it very difficult to enthuse
Over the current news.
Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens,
And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.