A Survey And My New Word...Denialism

So y'all know me. As usual I was having my morning coffee (no breakfast beer today...at least not yet) just cruising through Lifeway Research: Biblical Solutions For Life (1) when I came across their new survey. I think this survey says a lot about the current state of belief v. science in this very important voting year. Check this out, yo.

1,000 American Protestant Pastors split about evenly on the question "Is da erffs 6,000 years old?" It's not kinda pathetic, it is totally pathetic. It is really hard for me to believe that a relatively normal U.S adult still falls for the bad ol' and childish church lie "Satan put all that fossil and geological evidence (like carbon dating) to tempt you and fool you, you mere human."Unfortunately because it was a 50/50 split that is the best statistic. It gets way worse.

Concerning the statement "I believe God used evolution to create people" a whopping (yes, I said whopping) 73% said no way bro-skie. What does that even mean.

That means that 73% of the leaders that totally influence 1,000's and 1,000's of people, week in and week out, are telling (not teaching) their peeps that God created humans fully intact that way we are right now today-no evolution required. Really Team Atheist, not to be, like, all superior and smarter than the average believer but...WTF. Besides that, if anyone thinks that these pastors are encouraging skepticism, critical thinking (and I'm sure that very few do...) and fact checking, then I think you are giving them too much credit.

Look at the current race to be the GOP representative that loses to the awesome Black Prez and how they totally poo poo evolution. Super crazy statements come from them like "evolution is just a theory" and "yes, I do believe that Intelligent Design should be taught right along side evolution." Where did they learn that...their churches.

I just thot this pic was funny...and true.

Here's my favorite one...74% agree, that is AGREE, with the statement "I believe Adam and Eve were literal people." Oh my garsh. If I were dead right now I would be turning in my grave. All the cool kid atheists know that this last year there has been that talk, you know-that talk-of how Adam and Eve are totally made up, mythical, they never existed and it would be impossible. (I'll make a logical fallacy right now...) Even conservative Christian scholars have admitted and agreed with the latest research that  sends the idea of Adam and Eve to the folklore bookshelf.

Why? First of all, it is impossible for two people, that is two human beings with a finite amount of genes, to account for all the genetic diversity in the world today. I dunno who, but some brainiac calculated that with the amount of time that humans have been on da erffs (98,000 years I believe, correct me if I'm wrong Team Know It All) compared to all the genetic diversity in humans today that two love birds could not possibly have been the source for all of humanity today (the last year of our existence so sayith the interpreters of Mayan 2012).

Besides that...Did any of the believers in the churches of the pastors surveyed ever think to ask, "Hey wouldn't that mean there was a lot of that bad ol' brother sister fucking going on, and doesn't that make Gawd a total freak." Even though were are talking about 1,000's upon 1,000's of believers, I'm not going to give them enuff credit to come up with something as common sense as that (2).

Not only is this important because this is an election year, this is important because I love this country. I'm proud to be an atheist/skeptic Filipino-American. I do not heart it when America is losing in the arenas of science and technology. I do not like it when the rest of the world looks at America as a bunch of fat, blind and uneducated religious fanatics that show denialism when presented with the facts.

This is why the battle for secular society is so important (I haven't said that in a while). This is why The New Atheist must keep working of the foundation that the Four Horsemen provided. This is why we need to have unity, put down our differences, and become that team I keep talking about.

Team Atheist forevah...

(1) What you don't go to LWR. C'mon atheists. Y'all gotta check out Pew Research, Tempelton Foundation and Answers in Genesis to name a few. After all to know them is to debate them (and win).

(2) Slowly, very slowly...I'm becoming and unapologetic angry atheist and I'm not going to say sorry. Nu Kriss, baby.

* Article

The War On Science Funding

What happened to the GOP? Fo sho they are the party of "no", but now they are becoming the party of lies, untruths and deception. The war on science, and in this case science funding, has been going on for a while but it is in recent years, with the Christianization of the GOP, that the battle for research funding has become a war.

In these dire economic times politicians justly want to pinch pennies, after all good people are unemployed and families are struggling. But when the propaganda machine is rolled out and voters are deceived, then that is lame-o pants. Recently Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) made the claim that half a million dollars of tax payer money has been spent on shrimps on a treadmill. It would be totally bad...if it were true. The lie is that scientists spent money exercising shrimp, the truth is that shrimp on a treadmill is only part of the research and that the half a million dollars was spent on legitimate research.

Biologist Lou Burnett, "...and it suggests that much money was spent on seeing how long a shrimp can run on a treadmill, which was totally out of context." But voters wouldn't know that coming from the senator.

Another example from the Traditional Values Coalition (why do they always have names like that) claims that researchers spent 9.4 million to study, get ready for this...penis size. OK(?). The reality is that researchers were investigating sexually transmitted disease and no tax payer dollars were spent. Unfortunately once a group makes a statement like that the damage is already done.

The average voter doesn't have the time, or energy or even the want to investigate claims like this. Politics is learned through sound bites, one liners and emotion. The sad reality of it is that people do not even know why they know something (epistemology). They just hear a sound bite and think "yea, those scientists are wasting my money," or "Them dam immigrants are stealing jobs from good red blooded Americans (as if the average American would work in the fields. Right).

I used to have respect for the old school republicans. I was down for agreeing to disagree, but not anymore. When the GOP got hijacked by evangelical Christianity the battle emerged in the science classroom (evolution v  intelligent design), the history classroom (American exceptionalism and founding fathers) and now the battle to fund science.

There is a war going on peeps and we can't lose this one.

* NPR Shrimp on a treadmill.