March 11, 2008

Progress: The Three Presidential Candidates All Accept Evolution

I'm sure John Hagee has done everything in his power to get John McCain to stop "believing" in evolution. Probably threatened not to support him, may have even offered him hookers. But so far McCain hasn't changed sold out on the evolution issue.

Now Hagee and the rest of the Republican supporting Young Earth Creationists have a choice: McCain or to write in JC.

Here is what McCain has said regarding evolution:

From his 2005 book "Character is Destiny":

"Darwin helped explain nature’s laws. He did not speculate, in his published theories at least, on the origin of life. He did not exclude God, for Whom the immensity of time is but a moment, from our presence. The only undeniable challenge the theory of evolution poses to Christian beliefs is its obvious contradiction of the idea that God created the world as it is in less than a week. But our faith is certainly not so weak that it can be shaken to learn that a biblical metaphor is not literal history. Nature doesn’t threaten our faith. On the contrary, when we contemplate its beauty and mysteries we cannot quiet in our heart an insistent impulse of belief that for all its variations and inevitable change, before its creation, in a time before time, God let it be so, and, thus, its many splendors and purposes abide in His purpose.”


And this after saying he believed in evolution:

"But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also." It turns out that McCain's views have, well, evolved over time. Back in 2005, McCain thought that intelligent design should be taught in public school science classes because "all points of view should be presented." By the next year, McCain said that he respected those who believed that world was created in seven days. However, he asked, "Should it be taught in a science class? Probably not."


Looks like he followed the Dover Trial or at least was made aware of the crock that intelligent design is.


Now for the Democrats

...in October The New York Times quoted Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) as declaring, ''I believe in evolution, and I am shocked at some of the things that people in public life have been saying." She added, "I believe that our founders had faith in reason and they also had faith in God, and one of our gifts from God is the ability to reason."

I am grateful that I have the ability to look at dinosaur bones and draw my own conclusions,” she added, saying, too, that antibiotic-resistant bacteria is evidence that “evolution is going on as we speak.


Obama hasn't said much about evolution versus creation but he did say this:

"It's not 'faith' if you are absolutely certain," Obama said, noting that he didn't believe his lack of "faith" would hurt him a national election. "Evolution is more grounded in my experience than angels."


"Substantially more people in America believe in angels than they do in evolution." Obama declared in that speech that the single biggest political gap in America was "between those who attend church regularly and those who don't." He then excoriated "conservative leaders" for exploiting this gap by suggesting that "religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design." At the very least, this implies that Obama believes intelligent design is unnecessarily divisive.


OK, now for some quick US political quips from an atheist Jew in Canada:

If Hillary really wants to win the Democrat nomination all she has to do is get a reporter to ask Obama if he thinks OJ killed Nicole. There is no right answer for Obama, either way he'll lose enough votes to blow his chances.

I wonder if Eliot Spitzer is an atheist Jew. I know he is an ethnic one. Apparently he grew up in a very secular household and he never had a Bar Mitzvah. Not having a Bar Mitzvah might be why he is in the news right not. There was a survey done at an Israeli University that showed that Jews who never had a Bar Mitzvah were most likely to overpay for hookers.

The difference between a Democrat and a Republican? Democrats have sex with female hookers.

6 comments:

  1. I'm actually mildly enthusiastic about this election. It proved to me that a) a crazy right-wing Evangelical preacher can't get the nomination, b) neither can a sleazy malpractice lawyer, and c) both parties are capable of presenting reasonable, electable candidates.

    I want Obama to win, because Clinton is sleazy and won't get anything done and McCain is still a bit more of a morality cop than I would like, when it comes to abortion/birth control/sex ed etc. But I can live with McCain, which is more than I could say about a lot of other potential candidates. This election has encouraged my faith in the US party system a bit.

    Also-- the correct answer is always an uncomfortable laugh followed by, "Well, I'm not really familiar enough with the case, what's your opinion?" And Eliot Spitzer is a moralist, so he's probably not an atheist. At least not in public. :D

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  2. Well, I had a sorta-Bar Mitzvah party but I never read the Torah in synagogue and never hired a hooker (yet. I'm 34 and not a politician, but who knows?). take THAT, statistics!


    Seriously, I didn't get the survey joke.

    Ira.

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  3. I poached the Rep/Demo joke with credit.

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  4. See Food, the joke was kind of Woody Allenesque.

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  5. I'm not at all enthused about this election. I am not at all happy with the choices.

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