Numerology and other non-science (nonsense)

888 is the number of Jesus.

Resolution 888, sponsored by Repub Congressperson Randy Forbes, would establish a particular piece of nonsense called "American Religious History Week."

If you're wondering why the resolution is titled "888", Google "Jesus' number 888." You will find that 888 is, for various reasons, the number assigned to Jesus. Here's one site to check out. Pretty sneaky, Forbes!

What is it with these fruitcakes?

Forbes introduced this travesty on December 18, 2007. It is promoted thusly: "Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation's founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as 'American Religious History Week' for the appreciation of and education on America's history of religious faith."

Oh, barf! That's the only appropriate response when you know what this is really all about.

The resolution is filled with so many lies that ol' George (Washington) and ol' Tom (Jefferson) and ol' Ben (Franklin) are spinning in their graves!

Chris Hedges, writing in The Nation, says the resolution is "an insidious attempt by the radical Christian right to rewrite American history, to turn the founding fathers from deists into Christian fundamentalists, to proclaim us officially to be a Christian nation."

He further says that "The resolution is staggering for its sheer volume of falsehoods about our history, our system of government and our democracy."

Unfortunately, many folks are gonna think this resolution is just great and they're gonna read the resolution and they're going to say, "I didn't know that!" and "Isn't that wonderful" and "Yes, we should teach this material in the public schools" all the time unaware that most all of what appears in the resolution is NOT true!

Chris Rodda notes that the resolution, "which purports to promote 'education on America's history of religious faith,' is packed with the same American history lies found on the Christian nationalist websites, and in the books of pseudo-historians like David Barton."

For a thoroughly detailed report on the substance of the resolution please read Mr. Rodda's article on Talk2Action.


Creationists on the move

Ken Ham, the bozo who founded Answers in Genesis, is over in England pushing to bring creationism to the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe!
Thankfully, some folks are fighting back. "In October, the 47-nation Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, condemned all attempts to bring creationism into Europe's schools. Bible-based theories and 'religious dogma' threaten to undercut sound educational practices, it charged."

But, trouble looms. A British branch of Answers in Genesis has managed to get its creationist non-science introduced into a number of state-supported schools in Britain. Here's how: "We do go into the schools about 10 to 20 times a year and we do get the students to question what they're being taught about evolution," said Monty White, a creationist leader. "And we leave them a box of books for the library."

Another bunch of bozos called Truth in Science has sent thousands of DVDs to every high school in Britain "arguing that mankind is the result of 'intelligent design,' not Darwinian evolution.

Something called the AH Trust, is planning to raise money to build a "Christian" theme park in northwest England with a huge TV studio for the production of "Christian" films, many of which will promote creationist nonsense and non-science.

But get this: Christians are not the only fundamentalists with creationist crap to promote. Thus Muslims have their own Quranic version of creationism! Hee, hee.

Here's what would make me angry if I was a common Englishman: The British government is taking over funding of about 100 Islamic schools even though they teach the Quranic nonsense. The British government is afraid to impose evolution on these little Islamists because it might be considered anti-Islamic!

Last year a notorious Islamic creationist in Turkey tried to get his fancy book, "The Atlas of Creation," placed in public schools in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Spain. The Council of Europe fought back and was evidently successful in stopping this plan.

So, now we have the spectacle of two groups of religious misfits, still living in the 15th century, trying to impose their 15th-century views on 21st century Europeans. What a mess!

Stupidity reigns. Incredible mythologies carved out of primeaval mud are passing as science. Delusional, well-funded, true-believers are working night and day to spike the tea of knowledge with their brew of ignorance and superstition!

Richard Dawkins, the Oxford university biologist and author of "The God Delusion," says he often speaks in the schools about the "marvels of evolution" but finds the students have already adopted the moronic creationist ideas.

"I think it's so sad that children should be fobbed off with these second-rate myths," said Dawkins. "The theory of evolution is one of the most powerful pieces of scientific thinking every produced and the evidence for it is overwhelming. I think creationism is pernicious because if you don't know much it sounds kind of plausible and it's easy to come into schools and subvert children."

Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, who helped release the Pentagon papers, and is a real hero in the eyes of many freedom-lovers, has dared release a YouTube video that takes a poke at creationism.

In the video, Gravel says "I am deeply insulted that in some areas that not only is evolution shunned but efforts are made to substitute it with creationism and all other kinds of teachings, which corrupt our youth... There's no foundation for this. I think it's unfortunate. We're regressing in these areas, and so I think we have responsibility to our children to provide them with the greatest scientific information available to all of us, and that begins with respect to evolution...

"I ... really exhort as public policy that we concentrate on keeping religion out of politics, and keeping a very, very strong separation between church and state. Otherwise you will take the oppressive nature of the state and marry it with the oppressive nature of religion, and that is the ultimate oppression of human beings."

It should be obvious, at least to anyone with a modicum of common sense, that our whole understanding of human life and the world is based upon the evolutionary theory.

To teach our children that the world was created 6,000 or 8,000 or 12,000 years ago by some imaginary being up in the sky and that humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth together and that there was a great flood that covered the earth except for one man and his family and two of every kind who floated around in a big boat is CHILD ABUSE!!!

One last (for today) piece in the creationist stupid puzzle: These non-scientists are putting out a "professional, peer-reviewed technical" magazine called Answers Research Journal. Bonnie Goldstein tells about it in her article "Peer-Reviewing the Bible" on Slate.com.

Usually, she says, "peer review is a valuable step in the publication of scientific research. Scholars submit new discoveries to academic journals, which, in turn, solicit independent experts to assess the reliability of the work."

But, the Creationists don't want real peer review 'cause their "peers" in the scientific community hold them in scientific contempt. So, the authors who submit articles to the Answers Research Journal "suggest who should review their work." Hee, hee. The purpose of this, of course, is, as Goldstein points out, "not to ensure that research meets academic standards of scientific inquiry, but rather to ensure that the scholar's conclusions conform to a literal interpretation of the Bible."

The Answers Research Journal is part of the "ministry" that operates the Creation Museum. It's chief editor is a creationist by name of Andrew Snelling. He specificies that contributors to his rag be certain that their research "is formulated within a young-earth, young-universe framework," and provides "evidence of faithfulness to the grammatical-historical/normative interpretation of Scripture.

There it is, clear as a bell. This is not about science, this is about fundamentalist Christianity. The parameters spelled out by Snelling are the opposite of what scientific research is all about. A true scientist he is not. Science is about discoveries that lead to theories or theories that lead to discoveries followed by the rigorous testing of those discoveries and theories, free of religious, political or philosophical constraints.

For a solid, scientific understanding of evolution and assistance in how to respond to creationist crap, go to ScientificAmerican.com.


Considering both of the issues discussed above -- Resolution 888 and Creationism - the following remarks seem in order.

Retired journalist Bill Moyers (a Baptist minister) told a group at Harvard medical school that "one of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington."

Kevin Phillips, in his book, American Theocracy, explains what that kind of delusion means: "No leading world power in modern memory [other than the U.S.] has become a captive, even a partial captive, of the sort of biblical inerrancy--backwater, not mainstream--that dismisses modern knowledge and science. The last parallel was in the early seventeenth century, when the papacy, with the agreement of inquisitional Spain, disciplined the astronomer Galileo for saying that the sun, not the earth, was the center of our solar system."

That's where we are. Resolution 888 and Creationism derive from those who dismiss modern knowledge and science; who seek truth in a literal interpretation of the Bible. These religious Luddites or what I'd call "neo-Luddites," are found in the White House and in positions at every level of our government (including the military!), and in positions of responsibility throughout our land.

The original Luddites were opposed to technology. These neo-Luddites are opposed to any "truth," or knowledge, or science, not based upon the mythologies of ignorant Near Eastern tribes that spent most of their time fighting over territory and gods and women and camels and cattle and goats -- killing, and raping and pillaging, often with the blessing of the god they claimed was the "one, true, God," creator of heaven and earth.

Some things never change. Delusions rule.