Way back in May, in one of the more memorable debate moments of the year, John McCain was asked a straightforward question: “Do you believe in evolution?”
It’s the 21st century and McCain is an educated man, so it should have been an easy one, but he’s a Republican, and he needs to appeal to a far-right base that has little use for modern science — so he hesitated. After a pregnant pause, McCain said, “Yes.”
The Politico’s Jim VandeHei opened it up to the stage: “I’m curious, is there anybody on the stage that does not agree, believe in evolution?” The camera didn’t show the 10 candidates for very long, but three would-be presidents raised their hand: Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Tom Tancredo.
As it turns out, though, there was one more evolution-denier on the stage who, for whatever reason, didn’t raise his hand: Ron Paul.
Digby makes the case that we probably shouldn’t be surprised.
No Trackbacks To “Another GOP candidate rejects modern biology“
Ron Paul is in step with the religious right. Read his views on what he thinks the constitution means, his faulty knowledge of history, and his whacky interpretations of the intent of the founding fathers. Ron Paul is a loon.
“The War on Religion” by Ron Paul
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html
“As we celebrate another Yuletide season, it’s hard not to notice that Christmas in America simply doesn’t feel the same anymore. Although an overwhelming majority of Americans celebrate Christmas, and those who don’t celebrate it overwhelmingly accept and respect our nation’s Christmas traditions, a certain shared public sentiment slowly has disappeared. The Christmas spirit, marked by a wonderful feeling of goodwill among men, is in danger of being lost in the ongoing war against religion.
Through perverse court decisions and years of cultural indoctrination, the elitist, secular Left has managed to convince many in our nation that religion must be driven from public view. The justification is always that someone, somewhere, might possibly be offended or feel uncomfortable living in the midst of a largely Christian society, so all must yield to the fragile sensibilities of the few. The ultimate goal of the anti-religious elites is to transform America into a completely secular nation, a nation that is legally and culturally biased against Christianity.
This growing bias explains why many of our wonderful Christmas traditions have been lost. Christmas pageants and plays, including Handel’s Messiah, have been banned from schools and community halls. Nativity scenes have been ordered removed from town squares, and even criticized as offensive when placed on private church lawns. Office Christmas parties have become taboo, replaced by colorless seasonal parties to ensure no employees feel threatened by a “hostile environment.” Even wholly non-religious decorations featuring Santa Claus, snowmen, and the like have been called into question as Christmas symbols that might cause discomfort. Earlier this month, firemen near Chicago reluctantly removed Christmas decorations from their firehouse after a complaint by some embittered busybody. Most noticeably, however, the once commonplace refrain of “Merry Christmas” has been replaced by the vague, ubiquitous “Happy Holidays.” But what holiday? Is Christmas some kind of secret, a word that cannot be uttered in public? Why have we allowed the secularists to intimidate us into downplaying our most cherished and meaningful Christian celebration?
The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life.
The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s Christian heritage. Christmas itself may soon be a casualty of that war.
December 30, 2003″
First again! :-)
I should get a life. :-(
God created evolution: http://evolutionoftruth.com/images/evolution.gif
debaser71 @ 1:
If you look at it from my perspective you’ll see that when you don’t separate state and religion, you end up where Iran is. That’s no place for a civilized country to be.
every time i step into a church, i choke on the hypocrisy.
below_me @ 5:
Your hypocrisy, or the church’s? :-)
Why go?
Yeah, Ron Paul’s a kook.
(Gawd. You know the Repubs are bad when they make McCain look rational.)
Wait, let’s hear from the Paulistas. How do the Ron Paul stans explain this away?
flat earth repugs
aka, amurkkkan taliban.
youtube has some videos of ron paul rallies and the attendees should scare the shit out of any who believes in the idea of america.
RockmanEnough @ 6:
Indeed, why do people go to church?
They also believe in witches and casting horoscopes to divine the future.
RockmanEnough @ 4:
why bash iran? that’s baseless at best.
why not start in kansas? or tennesee? or mississippi? or massachussets?
Acting Patriotic @ 3:
—
Yeah, I could go along with that: God triggered the Big Bang or set evolution on its course or something, but to say He controlled everything not only flies in the face of science, but makes Him look like an incompetent.
“And don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways,” Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objection. “There’s nothing so mysterious about it. He’s not working at all. He’s playing. Or else, He’s forgotten all about us. That’s the kind of God you people talk about - a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a supreme being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when he robbed old people of their power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?”
“Pain?” Lieutenant Schiesskopf’s wife pounced upon the word victoriously. “Pain is a useful symptom. Pain is a warning to us about bodily dangers.”
“And who created the dangers?” Yossarian demanded, He laughed caustically. “Oh, He was really being charitable to us when He gave us pain! Why couldn’t He have used a doorbell instead to notify us, or one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person’s forehead? Any jukebox manufacturer worth his salt could have done that. Why couldn’t He?”
Things I have learned from my fundamentalist relatives:
1. Jesus was a blue-eyed blond.
2. Jesus spoke English.
3. The world is flat.
4. The world is no more than 6000 years old.
5. There are no dinosaurs now because Noah wouldn’t let
any of them on his ark.
6. When wine is mentioned in the New Testament, it’s not
alcoholic wine. It’s just sweet grape juice.
7. And thanks to Uncle Royce, who came up with this one
about Adam and Eve, which I think only I got: “All this sin
wasn’t because of the apple on the tree. It was the pair
on the ground.”
very unsettling that so many bona fide kooks are running on the right AND the left.
Did anybody catch that CNN special on Faith? Clinton and Edwards spewed out the zealot slop as earnestly and ignorantly as Huckabee.
The fact that the GOP is rallying around some overt, and quaintly proud, lunatics, suggests that a democratic victory might not be so easy in 08.
RockmanEnough @ 6:
donuts and coffee afterwards?
Ron Paul’s comment about evolution or creationism leaves a lot of room for scientific discussion.
there are lots of areas of science where there isn’t an absolute certainty. At least he isn’t pushing his views or forcing his belief system on others.
adorian @ 14:
Man created god in his own image . . . if you want to read a short illuminating book about the subject . . . I highly recommend “Escape From Evil” by Ernest Becker . . . you’ll find it at Amazon.
Ron thinks science is a commie conspiracy. He sees everything through John Birch Society glasses
Avid Reader @ 16:
Some people get confused . . . they think we’re electing a King/Queen . . . we’re electing the chief executive and in that roll Dr Paul is the best choice.
Speaking of insanity . . . America just invaded a defenseless country and killed a million people. Along the way we raped their men, women and children. We built a palace in the middle of their capital city were jack booted men in suits dined on lobster.
Dr Paul will end this . . . that’s enough for me.
Cantor de Mambo @ 10:
I go because I believe in my church and what it does and the people who do the doing!
Some of us do more than just sit and wait for marching orders or voting instructions.
Some of us give clothes and food to the needy, hot meals to the hungry, temporary respite to the weary, seek jobs for the unemployed, training for the uneducated, run boy scout troops, girl scout troops, youth leadership training, elderly outreach. There are 130 different programs in my church to benefit the participants and the community.
Anyone who really wants to can make a difference is what their church is and what it does and what it stands for. My church is full of people who embody the spirit of what is found in the bible.
That is not to try to make it sacred to you or even change your mind, just to let you know that there are people who congregate with a positive purpose and act on that purpose with positive intentions and produce positive results. I am grateful that THAT church was introduced to me for I now have a church home.
Maybe if you found a church that was about something other than jesus camp or mind altering, you’d at least have a more developed perspective.
Obviously, church is not for everyone.
Avid Reader @ 20:
great perspective. you’re right. Only Paul would end this. And only Paul would reverse the cancerous growth in the executive
Sure, Kucinich would too, but he isn’t getting anywhere in the Democratic party. They only want to select another corporatist who would either continue the occupation/exploitation or expand it.
so now the corporatist apologists have to attack Paul on any front they can.
Truth B Told @ 17:
naw. he’s just pandering to the huckabee klan.
yeah because evolution is merely an “opinion” “belief” or “view”….please
CoIntelPro @ 12:
you can add missourah (missouri) to your list.
bill w @ 25:
I was trying to compromise. :lol:
From the TCR link:
Paul: First, I thought it was a very inappropriate question, you know, for the presidency to be decided on a scientific matter.
Yeah, right. Because that’s the only question that will be asked.
Paul, like his fellow Republican’s, is on the wrong side of so many of the issues that it’d be comical- if it weren’t so fuckin’ frughtenin’ that he’ll be defended here today. 80 comments on the topic so far at The Carpetbagger Report translates to roughly 300 here at C&L, about half of which will be Paulists attempting to defend the indefensible.
Time and time again we see fresh evidence that evolution is no theory but actual fact. There have been recent studies on Chimps and other primates that clearly show that they are not mere animals but are evolving into a more intelligent being. They do have intelligence and have shown it in many ways. A gorilla named Koko can communicate through sign language and chimps can add (as in mathematics) in addition to having a very accute short term memory when compared to humans. Still others have formed very primative languages consisting of only a few words to make a few sentences that the other primates can understand. If this does not indicate a clear example of the processes of evolution then I don’t know what does.
Someone should ask the candidates if they thing the End of the World is a good thing?
Straight across the board ‘yes’.
That will swing the undecideds over to the Dems.
Joe O. @ 28:
watch kids on a playscape or climbing trees . . . . its obvious isn’t it?
Truth B Told @ 22-
Thanks for pointin’ out to those of us regs at the Koufax Award winnin’ lefty blog that there’s a Democrat who’s an anti-corporatist.
Beats the shit outta the GOP, where there are 9 out-and-out corporatists and 1 corporatist enabler.
Avid Reader @ 30:
Agreed. To me, evolution is very obvious.
Avid Reader @ 16:
beer and pretzels?
Andy K @ 31:
funny, I thought the name of this blog was Crooks and Liars - fits the democratic party too I believe. But then, I believe that there is only one party…the corporatist party with two faux opposition wings.
clean up the corporatists and collaborators in your own party before you try to take on one of the few Americans who have opposed his own party.
truth b told–
what koolaid are you drinking?
obama would do everything paul and kucinich push for, or at least he’d also push in those directions…
the only thing good about paul is his opposition to the war, and every dem opposes and will put an end to the illegal war.
paul was an earmarker thug in DC, just like the rest….now the party is letting him play the clown so there is some release valve for the anti-war sentiment..
Except for Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Ravel, all of the candidates work for the “global rich man’s club”. The group that implements policy is the Council on Foreign Relations. Barrack Obama’s wife works for the CFR in Chicago.
The early primaries/caucas exist to eliminate the populist. Last round it was Howard Dean who was culturally assasinated.
Recently, there have been attempts to tie Dr. Paul to the white supremacist movement.
And Max Clellan was not patriotic
I am a liberal Democrat supporting Dr Paul as the best candidate to restore the executive branch to its constitutional boundries.
Quit picking on the non-evolutionist non-believers.
Remember ‘Walk a mile in their shoes……..?’
Ya gotta remember, if your parents were troglodytes, your mind seems to wander around the era of A.D./B.C controversy, and you don’t know the difference, your polite contemporaries refer to you as ‘quaint’, you can’t comprehend the word ‘monosyllabic’, reading and writing is a foreign language to you, and you have trouble spelling ‘US’, you would probably have your doubts about evolution,too, if you hadn’t experienced it.
Then, if you became a ‘christian’, and found out all the world’s knowledge was compacted into one book, could get an illustrated version so you didn’t have to learn to read, and memorized certain weird phrases like, ‘John, 3:81′, and could repeat them, your doubts about evolution would be replaced with certainty, as your new-found ‘friends’ and fellow sheep told you it was ‘the Devil’s Work’, you would learn to shout and stamp your feet and denounce evolution at every opportunity.
And you would be right. In your new-found universe, there would be no evidence of evolution.
I will pray for you, Avid Reader and Truth B…..
Paul is to Huckabee as Obama is to Dean
They don’t let black men (or women) into the rich white boy club….so let go of your conspiracy baloney….(remember, Paul has been in the DC rich white boy club for some time)
Obama is the only hope for change