Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
We're a religious nation - just an ignorant one.
So, last night I was listening to NPR, and I heard a long piece they did on Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's religious references in his various speeches. Fine, fine, we all know Huck wants to put the Law of Heaven above the Law of Man, et cetera. Right?
Well, maybe, maybe not.
See, what NPR found out when they started asking people about Huckabee's use of those allusions was that most people just didn't get 'em.
Huh? We're an overwhelmingly religious nation, according to just about any poll or measure you can come up with. Something on the order of 80 - 85% of Americans self-identify as one variety of Christian or another. Yet here's an excerpt from the NPR report, where they have gone out onto the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and talked to people:
We started by recounting this story: In November, as Huckabee surged in the polls, a student at Liberty University asked him what was driving his startling success. Huckabee responded, "It's the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people."
We played the tape for Leitha Anthony, who was waiting to go into the Washington Monument. Did she know what he was talking about?
"That's when Moses ... had to feed all the people, the multitude of people that left Egypt," Anthony hazarded. "That's what it was?"
Um, no, Leitha. It's talking about the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, one of the acts which helps to establish the purported divinity of Christ. Let's try again:
For the next quiz question, we played a clip from Huckabee's Super Tuesday victory speech:
"Sometimes," the former Arkansas governor told his supporters, "one small smooth stone is even more effective than a whole lot of armor."
"Maybe something to do with the war," guessed Dan Booth, who was visiting from Alabama.
"He's talking about peace, the resolution of peace?" ventured his friend Mike Allen.
Guys, c'mon. It's talking about how David slew the Giant Goliath. Big cultural metaphor, if nothing else. Used to establish that David, later King of Israel, was "chosen" by God, and how that also shows that the God of the Jews is a bigger and better God than all the various competitors among the other locals.
This is basic stuff. Any Christian worthy of the name should have at least a handle on these references. What's that, you say Christians are uninformed about the tenets of their religion?
Like every person we stopped, Teutonico and Pettit were raised in Christian households and had attended Sunday school. But Boston University professor Stephen Prothero says they're not alone in being mystified by Huckabee's rhetoric.
"Half of Americans can't name any of the four Gospels, and that includes the Christians," Prothero says. "And half don't know that Genesis is the first book of the Bible. Those are much easier questions than things like, you know, 'What's the loaves and the fishes story?'"
I mostly didn't pay attention in Sunday school. And I cut it whenever I thought I could get away with it, going off to spend the time hanging out with my more delinquent friends. But even I, good atheist that I am, who hasn't been in for religious instruction in almost 40 years know this stuff.
Gah. We're screwed. Completely screwed. They don't know enough of their own religion's teachings to think for themselves. Obviously, all they do is what the local Shaman tells them, believe what their cult leader preaches.
Have a nice weekend.
Jim Downey
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Assuming that they actually have the ability to read...
I actually had a Christian say to me two days ago, "I shouldn't have to go through and read the whole Bible. The preacher should be able to teach it to me so that I can understand it without going to all that trouble."
I could barely believe what I was hearing. The conversation started with me discussing the virtues necessary to be a good teacher. (I teach science.) Anyone can regurgitate information, but only a good teacher can explain the information back so that anyone can understand it. The woman then went on, as if to agree with me, that she doesn't want to have to read her Bible, which is why preachers need to be good teachers, to read and break down the Bible into bite-sized bits that idiots like her can blindly follow. This woman was in her 50s!
So, these knuckle-heads are going around, calling themselves Christian, ranting that the "Bible says [this]" and the "Bible says [that]", but they don't have a clue what the Bible actually says. It's sick. But then, did we expect any better?
Huckabee can't get it right either.
We started by recounting this story: In November, as Huckabee surged in the polls, a student at Liberty University asked him what was driving his startling success. Huckabee responded, "It's the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people."
I'm not surprised that the fundies haven't put any serious study into their scriptures either, especially in the light of some of the comments that were listed here.
Hell, for that matter, Huckabee doesn't have it right either. According to the texts, Jesus of Nazareth was in his 30s when this event supposedly occurred. That's not a "little boy" by any account.
I'm sure before it's just a matter of time before Huckabee publicly compares his lagging support with the ancient Biblical story of the tortoise and the hare.
Devil's in the details...
As it was pointed out... in the story, Jesus is preaching his liberal, anti-establishment, pacifist, hippie, love-the-world lessons to the crowd (all those things that modern Christians condemn... funny, eh?), and the crowd gets hungry. So Jesus asks if anyone in the crowd has any food, and a little boy says he's got some bread and fish. So the kid gives up his lunch, and Jesus does the hokey-pokey, and next thing you know, there's enough food for 5,000 people.
So... yeah, it was a little boy. I'll give Huckabee this much credit... he HAS read the Bible. Now, if only he'd read some non-fiction.
Talking to huge crowds
If there were 5,000 people there, Jesus was probably using his Magic Jesus Megaphone Voice, a little detail that most accounts of the incident don't mention.
Accounts also don't say whether the food just appeared in each hungry person's hand, or if there was just one big pile of it, and they had to line up to have it handed out to them, soup-kitchen-style. And if it just appeared in one big pile, was it just lying on the dirty ground, or did God also put up a big table or something for it to rest on? Also, did Jesus magically check the loaves and fishes for contamination, so he wasn't multiplying by 5,000 a potential case of food poisoning?
And what if the Jesus-magic misfired, so that instead of just creating 5,000 sets of loaves and fishes out of nothing, the magic only used the loaves and fishes as a 'seek' pattern to identify more loaves and fishes within the range of the magic, afterwards transporting them there to Jesus' locale. But that would mean that 4,999 people were cheated out of their own lunches, as their food vanished to reappear before Jesus.
The Missing Gospel of Long John, expurgated from the Bible by a Vatican council, relates the appearance not only of malt vinegar and french fries, but a 55-gallon drum of ketchup and a lake of diet soda. The sporks used by the crowd, also magically supplied by Jesus, were said to perform miraculous feats forever after.
His lunch.
It was the kid who gave up his lunch. (John 6:9)
If you're going to debunk a Bible story - at least get it right.
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton
One more
One more very comforting statement from Obama, same speech:
"But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square."
Really man, how can you think Obama will defend the church and state separation ?
You got it all wrong
Uhh no.
Mister, I present to you, Barack Obama:
"There are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word “Christian” describes one’s political opponents, not people of faith. [...]
I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people’s lives — in the lives of the American people — and I think it’s time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy."
Don't wag your finger at us Frenchy
First of all, for some context, this is a keynote address from 2006 which Obama was responding to attacks from a well known Christian extremist named Alan Keyes. This is the same Alan Keyes who threw his 19 year old daughter out of the house, stopped paying for her college, and stopped speaking to her because she is gay.
I also noticed you quote mined a few phrases you thought might be controversial. Because you've pulled these kinds of stunts before, my first thought was to follow the link you provided and see for myself. In the very same address, Obama also says...
And there is more...
I couldn't agree more. Religion used to be a private thing. I don't care what religion you are as long as you don't expect me to join your club.
Listen, no one hates the way our politicians pander to the religious more than I do, but we are actively working to change things here in this country. If you've been paying attention to what's happening right now in American politics, you would see that there has been a huge backlash against people like Alan Keyes, Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and other agents of intolerence.
We might be close to the end an era where religious extremists have too much political influence in this country. It's been an ugly couple of years that hopefully we've learned something from. Clinton and Obama aren't going to be ruled by religious extremists and on the Republican side, McCain is a virtual lock despite the lack of support from the religious right.
Rather than criticizing us, you should be congratulating us.
...
It's true that i nitpicked quotes without reading the full text. Nevertheless, they are wrong. Even within the context.
You say it was a response to the attacks of Alan Keyes. I know this man from watching the Daily Show, i can still remember Lewis Black's rant when Keyes's daughter came out with her gayness. Keyes had said about Cheney's daughter: "If my daughter was gay, I'd tell her it's not right to make a decision based on hedonistic pleasure". And Black "Well, now you can !"
Indeed, Obama says some things that i agree with. Yet, I am bothered by the idea that when a christian extremist attacks him or the liberals, he feels he has to respond.
I read his speech a little more.
He talks of the role faith can and should play in public life. He quotes the examples of several politicians who used faith during their terms.
And he praised Ronald Reagan not long ago.
So what is his suggestion ? Pointing out that religion has no role to play in politics ? Asking that everyone keeps his faith to himself ?
No. His suggestion is that liberals talk about religion too. When he complains about conservatives, he complains that they take all the religious credit to themselves, and use it to advance their agenda. So what he's going to do is prove that liberals are faithful too, and use their faith to advance his agenda.
In other words, he wants to hit back.
But how is that protecting the separation of church and state? Is that not, on the contrary, precipitating the fall of Jefferson's wall ?
Wave the book around, don't read it!
I'm constantly amazed by the god-shouters who don't know the first thing about the Bible, let alone about the science they're always arguing against.
C'mon, God-guys, the book's right there on your dashboard. Pull over and read it! Then you can yammer on about it.
Remember what Paul said in his letter to the Philossians, chapter 5 verse 15: "Verily, if thou readest only the popular verses, thou hast missed the crunchy parts, with their soft, creamy filling."
*pats* I know we'd like to
*pats* I know we'd like to think it's that simple... suggesting they read their own Good Book, but that would fall under the assumption that they're literate to begin with.
Mmmm! "Crunchy Frog"
But watch out for the "Spring Surprise!"
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
good article, thanks
"We've also seen that the widow's mite has more effectiveness than all the gold in the world."
[snip]
The widow's mite actually refers to a poor woman Jesus observed giving a small coin to God. It was all she had.
=========[snip]
Wow, now THAT's getting obscure. Not ashamed to admit I missed that one, too.
I'm glad I recently read THE REASON DRIVEN LIFE, since that gives me some insight into how Huckabee, like Rick Warren, has a quite literal, fundamentalist reading of the Bible that Mr. Price nicely skewers in REASON DRIVEN LIFE.
McCain could still do some damage, but he's preferable to Romney or Huckabee.
The Dem race is winding down, too. I know Edwards won't do it, but I sure would like to be able to vote foar an Obama/Edwards ticket--but there's little chance of Edwards agreeing to play 2nd fiddle on yet another ticket, and I don't see an Obama/Clinton ticket either, though a Clinton/Obama ticket is not outside the realm of possibility, I don't think.
I hope the Dems win if only for the Supreme Court and Federal court nominations that will follow and help correct the rightward drift of the Judiciary over the last several years. I'm less optimistic about their being able to end the war, and I fear for Obama in particular if he actually tries...that JFK mojo cuts both ways. I will probably go ahead and vote for the dude and wish him the best. I'm not crazy about his religiosity, but I do think he will defend church-state separation better than McCain and about as well as Hillary would. And he will do more about curtailing the war spending than Hillary or McCain, though my fear is he will simply re-direct it (Pakistan instead of Iran, say).
re: Huckabee--he's sort of doing the same thing as Ron Paul, i.e. speaking in coded language that his base will supposedly pick up on faster than the general public. Though in Huckabee's case, well educated secularists know most of the religious allusions he's making, we just roll our eyes and groan with disapproval.
Like speaking in tongues?
When I heard that, I thought hell, it's such a secret code that his intended audience can't figure it out. (But one did, even the obscure 'widow's mite' selection.
Don't let it get you down too much
Americans are generally ignorant of a wide swath of rudimentary knowledge. Ask these same people who we fought during the War of 1812 or what Pythagoras' Theorem is, and you'll get dumb looks across the board.
On the plus side, they can probably name every winner of American Idol.
Ignorance of the Bible is
Ignorance of the Bible is what keeps Christianity alive.
Bored kid with a slingshot
It shouldn't take a bright bulb to know better than to mouth off to a kid who spent a lot of boring days with nothing but a slingshot and a bunch of rocks to keep himself entertained. You just might have a pissed-off kid who's gotten GOOD with that thing...
Nuthun supernatural about that.
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton
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