Centroids :
It is clear that I have been spoiled by this group. Just
concluded a series of
e-mail exchanges with Ray Adams, the founder and director
of the site,
American Traditions magazine / American Traditions.org.
Originally got in touch with him inasmuch as his views on
the issue of homosexuality
are very similar to my own. Indeed, I have found that my
views on this subject
are similar to those of many other "fundamentalist"
Christians. Alas, there the
story seems to end. Actually not quite, but in general
terms.
My assumptions , this exchange of opinions has made it
clear twice over,
are Radical Centrist in character, up and down the line.
This is good but it
also is bad since I also tend to assume that RC truths are
so obvious that
they are universal, when , obviously, this is not the case.
Adams made my blood boil, to be candid about it. For him it
necessarily
is the case that the entire Right-wing set of values is
right and any other
perspective on events is dead wrong and, worse, that all
other viewpoints
are reducible to secular Leftism. Apparently this includes
all other
forms of Christian faith. As well as all other religions,
minus the exception
of Islam ( we also basically agree on that issue ), also
become, magically,
the same thing, denominations of Heathenism.
Where we really got into a fight ( gentlemanly, but a fight
nonetheless )
was on the issue of evolution. I had not realized, although
I should have
known better, that there still were any pure
anti-evolutionists " out there."
The Left also is anti-evolution, but with a different take,
those people
object to sociobiological implications, essentially, since
this new science
says that natural equality is a fiction. Which the evidence
clearly shows
is the case. But to accept this view it becomes necessary
to question
"enlightenment" philosophy, which the Left refuses to do.
So the Left
more-or-less can live with animal evolution at a very basic
level but only
as long as it is kept separate from actual thought and is
primarily used
as a club with which to beat up on Christian rightists.
Adams, a lawyer by training, defends Intelligent Design
tooth and nail.
He insists on associating it with opposition to
homosexuality and to Islam
as if, if you are an evolutionist, you necessarily must
also be pro-homosexual
and pro-Islam, since that is the paradigm of the Left. Or
the only paradigm
that the hard Right recognizes. Similarly all the Heathens
must, by his logic,
all feel the same way , and evidence that, for example,
Buddhists are
anti-abortion and critical of homosexuality, simply does
not register.
It doesn't fit the model that Adams and other Rightist
Christians
assume is the only way to conceive the world.
Pat Robertson, in comparison, is a Liberal Christian out in
Left field.
Granted, 'ol Pat is everyone's crazy uncle, but usually the
man is stable
and usually does his homework, or some homework anyway.
Adams went to lengths to "disprove" evolution, all of
his opinions reflecting
a view of evolution that, far as I know, no-one
maintains. By this view
new species arise via species interbreeding. Actually the
process involves
population isolation over an extended period of time, and
environmental stress
which demands ( or rewards ) adaptation.
Then there is "Snowball Earth," the now well-established
fact that until
about 650 million BC our planet was frozen over,
everywhere. This had
lasted millions of years and when it was done, what life
had survived
did so, it seems, only in the vicinity of probably 13
geothermal hotspots,
undersea volcanoes. So, when the ice broke apart and the
Big Melt
was under way, these 13 populations had the run of the
planet and
the result, after a few million more years, was the
Cambrian Explosion.
Speciation on steroids, like nothing before or since.
But to Adams, the Snowball Earth never existed --he had not
even heard
of the concept before I brought it up-- and the Cambrian
Explosion
therefore is an example of Intelligent Design in nature as
God, ex nihilo,
invented scores of exotic species the way that Picasso
created
his paintings. For the hellovit, because they look pretty,
or whatever.
It will take a while for my brain to recover. This is
faeryland stuff,
the Mad Hatter and Alice-in-Wonderland, but actually
believed-in
by a professing Christian.
One useful lesson, as bad as the Left often is, once more,
after a good
number of years and many transitions in life, comes a
reminder that
there are reasons for the disdain of the Left for the
lunatic Right.
Which is tragic since that same Right, on some issues, is
absolutely right.
But why in hell don't they understand science ? They just
don't.
They are clueless. Consequently they look like idiots
to everyone else.
Bits and pieces of my run-in with Adams have leaked into
some of
my comments here in past days. Now you know the full story.
Billy
-- 