"Now, thank the Lord (so and so) was a christian, because other jews would have made us pay three times for those doors". Complete with a highly offensive and racist impression of a money-grubbing jewish merchant. It was like something out of a nazi propaganda piece of wagners operas. This was not met with chuckles, or laughter from the audience as befits a poorly crafted joke. No. It was met with "Amen brother!" and other things christians do to show approval from the lily-white congregation (yes... congregation).
Looking for bad science in a creationist museum is like looking for trees in the Amazon Rain Forest, but this was the part that surprised me the most. In my experience, most conservative Christians - the ones I know are mostly Baptists - at least make a show of not being racist or anti-Semitic. Even if I'd been able to stomach the beginning of the lecture, I'd have left at that part. I'm surprised at your restraint.
I don't know what part of Texas you're in, so can I ask what freethinkers' group you've joined? I met a couple of atheist student groups in Texas a year and a half back at a Secular Student Alliance conference.
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things... their number is negligible and they are stupid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Now, thank the Lord (so and so) was a christian, because other jews would have made us pay three times for those doors". Complete with a highly offensive and racist impression of a money-grubbing jewish merchant. It was like something out of a nazi propaganda piece of wagners operas. This was not met with chuckles, or laughter from the audience as befits a poorly crafted joke. No. It was met with "Amen brother!" and other things christians do to show approval from the lily-white congregation (yes... congregation).
Looking for bad science in a creationist museum is like looking for trees in the Amazon Rain Forest, but this was the part that surprised me the most. In my experience, most conservative Christians - the ones I know are mostly Baptists - at least make a show of not being racist or anti-Semitic. Even if I'd been able to stomach the beginning of the lecture, I'd have left at that part. I'm surprised at your restraint.
I don't know what part of Texas you're in, so can I ask what freethinkers' group you've joined? I met a couple of atheist student groups in Texas a year and a half back at a Secular Student Alliance conference.
I am in Arlington, and if you were at that conference, you probably met Becky Robinson, chain-smoking cog psych grad student about 5.5 feet all. Heads up the Freethinkers at UTA
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/ Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences
There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.
SisterMiriamGodwinson wrote:Conservative Christians are acting less and less anti-Jewish these days, although I don't get out much, so I"m just saying that I"m apalled if what you say is in fact true.
Uh, no. Conservative Christians are increasingly pro-Israel, but that doesn't mean they're increasingly fans of Jews.
I know how modern crypto-racists operate. The same guy who shakes his head about how badly we've treated black people will suddenly discover his inner racist when his daughter brings home a black boyfriend. Quite frankly, I think it would be naive to believe that conservative Christians' antipathy for anti-Semitism runs any deeper than that.
What's truly sick, is the seemingly-increasing number of Jews, who are convinced that Conservative Fundamentalist American Christians are Israels' (and therefore their own) bestest friends, in the world.
Most of these Jews fall into a category with which I am increasingly disgusted, which is the sort who apparently think that the purpose of the United States of America is to stand as guarantor of Israeli safety, no matter what happens. You point out to them how this kind of leadershuip has utterly wrecked the US eceonomy - and that of our allies - and none of it matters. Because Conservative Christians "love" Israel. And you even hear Jewish commentators on the airwaves, insisting that all the talk in Christian eschatology about the Jews being gathered in for Armageddon, is just 'liberal propaganda.'
I find myself endlessly fascinated by your career - Stark, in a fit of Nerd-Validation, November 3, 2011
