I’d like to point out to Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) that if you believe in the Bible, then you believe that Noah lived to be 950 years old.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) said you can have “an honest difference of opinion” of what’s causing climate change without “automatically being either all in that’s all because of mankind or it’s all just natural,” BuzzFeed reports.
Barton then cited the biblical Great Flood as an example.
“I would point out that if you’re a believer in in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn’t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.”
Now, the reason that God decided to flood the world was because he had determined that mankind was wicked. And the reason that he decided to spare Noah and have him build the Ark is because Noah was the only righteous man of his generation.
I don’t think Rep. Barton is all that righteous. But, more than that, the thing is that if you believe in the Bible then you have to believe that God has no responsibility for people dying in floods in today’s world.
Why?
Because he promised not to ever do it again.
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
Okay, if you want to quibble, God could argue that the people and animals that drown in tsunamis and floods and superstorms are only a portion of the total population. Still, he promised not to drown people and animals as retribution for wickedness. However, he didn’t say he wouldn’t destroy Texas with droughts and hurricanes if their dumbassery grew to levels he found intolerable.
Fundamentalists have had centuries to develop their biblical cherry-picking and delusional rationalizations into a very predictable art form. Arguing religion in this country is a complete dead end. In a country where the bumper sticker mentality is, “The bible says it, I believe and that settles it!”, trying to use evidence, facts and logic is simply a non-starter. We happily wallow in and celebrate our ignorance.
I’m not sure that in my lifetime we will ever be in a place where superstition and religious fantasies are finally viewed as outside the mainstream of acceptable thought in this country. Hopefully, the coming generations will continue to become more enlightened. It is encouraging that the hold that some of this religious nuttery is lessening with the young people who are growing up and developing in a much more diverse society and with a much more secular view.
nobody actually believes that crap, you know. It’s just an act, designed to get them something they want – in some cases, social interaction. in other cases, the ability to dominate others. It can be benign or malicious, depending on how it’s used.
The vast majority of Americans are atheists. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t act the way they do. There’s honest atheists, who admit they don’t believe in god, and then there’s the rest, who put on a show.
One of the only “true believers” I ever met was a mentally handicapped girl I knew growing up. She was mormon, and she really, genuinely believed everything the church told her. Whereas her siblings took it all with a wink-wink-nudge-nudge attitude, she really, genuinely believed that I, her friend, was going to miss out on heaven simply because I was not part of her church.
You know what it looks like when someone actually believes that? Not for show? She was terrified. When I moved away, she was crying, begging me to take a copy of the book of mormon with me. It was horrifying. This young woman had been frightened out of her mind for a fairy tale.
Unless you see reactions like that from the people in your life who claim to believe any sort of fundamentalist version of religion, they’re just putting it on.
I’ve wondered about that for a long time. I’ve had relatives and other contacts who believed the myths were “real”, I think genuinely in some way. Whether the likes of Barton and the rest believe it on some level or know they’re just grifters, the ones they prey on manage to live in fear of “god” while blatantly (and inescapably) breaking the rules. I think it’s literally some kind of contagious mental illness.
i wonder which of the Noah family was tasked with caring for the various disease-causing microbes that seem to have survived.
Digby gets down to the nitty gritty of today’s politics: Obama is screwing past, present and future generations by tampering with SS and Medicare or is it -aide? He has shot his wad and is now a paralysed president (not even a lame duck one)who has given the House and Senate to the Republicans for years to come. He has finally overstepped his grating eloquence and embalmed M. Thatcher for eternity in the Rose Garden. How did he ever get the idea to call himself a Democrat? Now it is certain that St. Vietnam J. Kerry and the rest of the adminstration will wage war on Iran, no matter what Iran does. You see, the backlash against the Democratic Party is now going to take on such force that only a war can save it: you know, Democrats are strong on defense!, hot ladies and gentlemen. After all, if he can drone the hell out of so many why can’t he also start another war? Who criticizes him, a Paul or two? Of course that will only be all the more reason to give the rich more tax breaks by opening new loopholes to compensate for the ones which will be closed. If worse comes worst, he can make another fawning trip to Israel. Am I incoherent, raving. No, not really.
In the little corner of Texas where we live, it’s pouring with rain today.
Other types of natural disasters are apparently still on the table. Frankly, it’s hard to believe that those that perished in the flood were any more wicked than those that have followed.
Near as I can tell, Barton’s god is the father and chief marketing czar of dumbassery. That’s why he got so pissed that Adam and Eve dared take Knowledge into themselves. Whereupon they fucked each other and made two offspring who fucked their mother, thereby creating the god-damned human race.
Barton’s god is the father and chief marketing czar of dumbassery
And it looks like Barton is the regional distributor.