We are headed to Williamsburg for Part II of a > 3-week family drive from Missouri (a bell -weather state??) to Pennsylvania (Keystone?) to our time-share in Daytona for a week. (Anyone want to buy a time-share on the non-oil side of Florida?). Across Illinois, Indiana and Ohio I saw gigantic crosses (like The Effingham Cross in the middle of Effing-nowhere) and Tea Party billboards everywhere.
In some places I am afraid to admit that I am an atheist. Probably because of what I hear on the radio about us.
I saw a church sign that said “Good science agrees with the bible”. Where do I even begin? Is the Law of Natural Selection “good science? I really want to emphasize something here. When we say “Law” in science, we mean that it is logically irrefutable. Like the Law of Entropy, another favorite of mine. Most results in science are not as strong so as to be called “laws” and there is the scientific method that gives us a means to state how certain we are of some hypothesis. Like the hypothesis that we are polluting the air so much that it is affecting the entire planet’s fragile climate. Most (> 99%) of the qualified scientists looking into this problem understand that we are > 99% certain of this.
I am very pissed off at my brother-in-law who is a right-wing blogger and who uses his computer skills to amplify right-wing bat shit. He used his skills and his time and his energy and his soul (he is a Christian who believes we are here to be judged) to help spread around conspiracy theories about science professors at Penn State. He was complicit in costing my Alma Mater financially and in damaging its reputation. I do not understand how his intent could be good. “Scientists are being paid by fringe environmental groups to make this stuff up and we have to cut costs and regulations to create jobs so we can’t be spending money on this”, or something like that. Nope. I don’t think his intentions are bad, I think his logic is bad. And this is where I really get into trouble being an educated, arrogant, atheist: I think that my brother-in-law, and others with backward religious and political beliefs, actually believe some or all of the following:
(1) That God controls the climate
(2) God is watching over us and protecting and/or punishing us selectively
(3) God is giving us Earth to do whatever the hell we want to.
(4) Heaven is better than Earth, so WTF.
The Tea Party and religious conservatives the world over with these types of beliefs are going through their death-throws as logic prevails. God I hope so.
