John Kasich of Ohio: Creationist

THIS one is a quickie. In the Cleveland Jewish News we read: Candidate John Kasich seeks to phase-out state income tax. Here are a few excerpts, with bold added by us:

Former U.S. Rep. John Kasich is proud of the 10-year congressional plan that resulted in a balanced federal budget, an effort the Republican from Cincinnati led as chairman of the House Budget Committee.

[...]

Speaking last week to The City Club, Kasich, who announced in June that he is a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor – and likely to run against Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland in 2010 …

That’s one part of the news. We like Kasich. We’ve always agreed with what we knew of his views. However, near the end of the article it says:

On social issues, Kasich said he supports teaching both evolution and “creation science” in Ohio biology classes.

Not even the closeted version of creationism that goes by the name of intelligent design. Kasich wants full-blown creation science in biology class!

That’s all we wanted to point out. There’s a lot more information in the article. If you’re interested in Kasich and the Ohio Governor’s race, click over to the article and read it all. But remember, Kasich is a creationist.

Why do we always end up with choices like this?

Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Pat Buchanan Presents Every Creationist Fallacy!

THIS is a double winner. It’s an article by Patrick Joseph “Pat” Buchanan, conservative columnist and three times a candidate for the US presidency. His article appears in WorldNetDaily, which we have previously described as “one of the worst practitioners of journalism that ever existed, or that ever could exist.” We’ve presented our opinion about them here: WorldNetDaily — Worthless Creationist Rag! They are also a winner of our coveted Buffoon Award.

Brace yourself, dear reader, as we give you some excerpts from Buchanan’s WND article: Making a monkey out of Darwin.

He begins by praising what he calls “a splendid little book” by Eugene G. Windchy: “The End of Darwinism: And How a Flawed and Disastrous Theory Was Stolen and Sold.” Here’s an Amazon listing. Sales Rank: #4,726.

With Windchy as his intellectual guide, Buchanan proceeds to tell us all about the evils of Darwin and his theory. The bold font was added by us:

That Darwinism has proven “disastrous theory” is indisputable.

“Karl Marx loved Darwinism,” writes Windchy. “To him, survival of the fittest as the source of progress justified violence in bringing about social and political change, in other words, the revolution.”

“Darwin suits my purpose,” Marx wrote.

Darwin suited Adolf Hitler’s purposes, too.

We’ve devoted several essays so such fallacies, starting here, so we’ll waste no time repeating ourselves refuting Buchanan’s (and Windchy’s) nonsense. Let’s read on:

Historian Jacques Barzun believes Darwinism brought on World War I: “Since in every European country between 1870 and 1914 there was a war party demanding armaments, an individualist party demanding ruthless competition, an imperialist party demanding a free hand over backward peoples, a socialist party demanding the conquest of power and a racialist party demanding internal purges against aliens – all of them, when appeals to greed and glory failed, invoked Spencer and Darwin, which was to say science incarnate.”

All that because of those Galapagos finches! We continue:

And here Windchy does his best demolition work. Darwin, he demonstrates, stole his theory from Alfred Wallace, who had sent him a “completed formal paper on evolution by natural selection.”

Yeah, Darwin was a thief! Somehow Buchanan fails to mention that Darwin assassinated Lincoln, kidnapped the Lindbergh baby, and was in league with the Zionists. Maybe he’s saving those for his next article. Here’s more:

Windchy goes on to relate such scientific hoaxes as “Nebraska Man” – an anthropoid ape ancestor to man, whose tooth turned out to belong to a wild pig – and Piltdown Man, the missing link between monkey and man.

We know all about those, Pat. We’ve discussed Nebraska Man here, and Piltdown Man here. They’re meaningless. Moving along:

For 150 years, the fossil record has failed to validate Darwin.

Yeah, right. Another excerpt:

And Darwinists still have not explained the origin of life, nor have they been able to produce life from non-life.

True, and that has nothing to do with evolution. But tell us, Pat, when the trick is eventually accomplished, whatcha gonna do? Well, never mind. Here’s Buchanan’s final sentence:

Darwinism is not science. It is faith. Always was.

What’s Buchanan’s point here — that faith is bad? Okay, Pat, if you say so. Nice article!

Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Creationist Wisdom — Example 51

WE present to you, dear reader, some excerpts from Evolution ‘threatens’ faith? Hardly: Faith simply helped me see the truth, which appears in the Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg, Virginia.

The letter-writer begins by mentioning an earlier, pro-evolution letter which had appeared in the paper, about which he says:

The refutations to which she refers haven’t gone unread. They’re just unconvincing. … She opines that we “refuse to accept evolution because it threatens [our] faith.” I can only reply, “Amen.”

That’s fine. He tells us up front what he believes and why. Here’s the rest of today’s letter — most of it — plus our Curmudgeonly commentary between the excerpted paragraphs. The bold font was added for emphasis:

Many Christians have no problem with evolution. Even the Pope has declared as much. Well, I’m not Catholic.

Yeah! How’s that for a counter-argument? Let’s read on:

I’ll admit I’m an uneducated man, at least beyond high school, but I once accepted evolution.

Why do these people always want to tell us the history of their intellectual meanderings? We’re not persuaded by anyone’s biography. It’s sufficient to say what one thinks, and why. Anyway, the letter continues — as does the writer’s personal story of enlightenment:

Later, I became a Christian, and it’s not a stretch to say I’m a self-taught Christian. I mention this because after a plain and simple reading of the Bible, I find that evolution is incompatible, even contradictory.

Truly, this is powerful reasoning. Here’s more:

I was taught that in math, when trying to solve a problem, first simplify to the lowest common denominator. Apply that principle here. Evolution says death is a tool for the advancement of life. The Bible says that death didn’t exist in the beginning; it’s a result of sin.

Death — the lowest common denominator! Moving along:

So the simplest question is, are we here because of death, or is death here because of us?

Hey, we’ve got an even simpler question: Which came first — life or death?

Never mind. Here’s another excerpt:

For nearly 100 years, Christians have been trying to make evolution fit because it’s so “irrefutable.” Maybe it is. But if it is, something in the Bible is wrong. And if one part can’t be trusted, which parts can be trusted?

Uh … that’s 150 years, but we’ll overlook the discrepancy because the letter-writer is self-educated. But hey — if one part of his letter is wrong, can the rest be trusted?

Here’s our final excerpt:

Ultimately, our choice is, either the Bible is true or it’s not. I’ve made my choice.

[Writer's name and city can be seen in the original.]

And a fine choice it is!

Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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St. Augustine on Creationism

THIS is an excerpt from The Literal Meaning of Genesis by Augustine of Hippo (354 AD to 430 AD). According to Wikipedia:

[Augustine] is one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity. … He framed the concepts of original sin and just war.

[...]

In [the] Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, and the Lutheran Church he is a saint and pre-eminent Doctor of the Church, and the patron of the Augustinian religious order; his memorial is celebrated 28 August. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of Reformation teaching on salvation and divine grace.

Augustine is obviously important to a number of denominations, and what we’re going to quote here is relevant to the creationism-evolution controversy. It’s included in our List-O-Links, but we’re posting it here because it deserves more prominence.

The text comes from: AUGUSTINE’S COMMENTARY ON THE BIBLICAL BOOK OF GENESIS. To find our excerpt it at that link, search on “Chapter 19.” Just before that chapter begins, Augustine says something that isn’t often quoted in creationism debates, but it should be. It’s this, with bold supplied by us:

In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture.

Now for the part that is frequently quoted in creationism debates. To make this easier to read, we’re taking the liberty of breaking the text into paragraphs. Everything that follows is by Augustine; no Curmudgeonly commentary is required.

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.

Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.

The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.

If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”

Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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