Monday, January 21, 2008

Huckabee's Evolution

Not trying to follow-up my last Huckabee post, but I just read a comment by the guy and had to say something. Apparently, his anointer, Chuck Norris, stated that McCain is too old to be president because he might die in office (despite the fact that Norris is only four years younger than McCain), and Huckabee backtracked from this, saying:
"I'm not going to say he's too old. I think he's got a lot of inner strength, good genetic factors by his mom."

Genetic factors?? But...I thought he believed in the whole creationism/God thing. If anything, shouldn't that read "good health factors from God"? What do genes have to do with anything if you've already rejected evolution? Either God gave it to you or he didn't, and your parents didn't have a damn thing to do with it.

Of course, the truth is that old Huckabee's just being a huckster. For this post, I violated blogger ethics by doing a little research, just to make sure that Huck is on the pro-creationist side, and found this article where he tries to walk a fine line by saying that while he doesn't believe in evolution, he doesn't oppose evolution being taught in school or think creationism must be taught. Instead, he thinks kids are smart enough to make this determination on their own, which is why I've instructed my children to write on every history test that time only really began yesterday and that everything they're being tested on is an illusion. Hell, all education should be ala carte. Take the parts you want; reject the rest.

But the truth is that this is another of Huckabee's religious con jobs and he's not even smart enough to pull it off. Because while he acted as if he doesn't believe in evolution, he also made sounds in that article as if he believes in Intelligent Design, saying "I believe that there is a God and that he put the process in motion," Huckabee said.

But of course, that means he believes in evolution. I mean, saying that God "put the process in motion" means that he doesn't even think God's hand is actively guiding our development, but instead is going with the Catholic's idea of completely giving up on the evolution debate and moving into the debate on origins, which has nothing to do with evolution. But apparently he's too dumb to know it. He's just borrowing different pieces of the fundamentalist rhetoric and doesn't see how it all fits together.

God's Law of Evolution

And the problem is that in order to con people, you have to have some idea of what the truth is. In this case, I suspect Huckabee doesn't really know much about evolution, but has enough knowledge to understand basic genetics and has it hardwired in his brain as being part of reality. And he's even less familiar with the creationism he's pretending to accept, as he seems unaware that straight creationism has no evolutionary aspects at all, and that even most Intelligent Design proponents believe that God had an active hand in evolution.

But if you're going with the idea that God set everything in motion, then you're supporting straight evolution. That's all there is to it. If you think He set it in motion, then science class is just a matter of explaining God's law of evolution to us. But you still have to explain it. While he obviously thinks he's been clever by dodging this issue, all he's done is expose that he doesn't really know what he's talking about.

Hell, even religious leaders should be upset about this fraud, and the only reason they're not is because he's the best candidate they've got. But I'm sure they'll get a bit antsy if he keeps repeating this stuff about God setting the process in motion. After all, Intelligent Design is just a firewall to stop science from encroaching further into their territory and isn't supposed to be taken literally. For fundamentalists, it's just a new word for creationism, and that's clearly not how Huckabee was using it. He's dumb enough to believe that it's really the religious breakthrough they pretend it is, and still hasn't figured out that it's already part of a separate con job.

And I have no doubt in my mind that he's even lying about his belief in God. Because if he did believe in God, he'd at least have some sort of consistent worldview on this stuff. And he'd certainly know better than to lie to people about religion or autograph bibles. No, he's just taking advantage of believers and thinks we're all too stupid to know any better. And like I said, he's having trouble selling this even in a Republican primary. If he makes it into the general election, he'll be eaten alive.

3 comments:

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James H said...

Catholic Supporter of Huckabee here.

I really don't think Huckabee is doing a "con job" here. When people here terms like Evoultion, Creationist etc they all visions of what those terms mean.

For instance I am pretty sure Huckabee is not a Young earth Creationist. He believes that God created amn etcetc. However as most Evangelicals and a good many Catholics we are not so much put into the extremes of other camps

That is real life

Doctor Biobrain said...

James H - The Catholic Church believes in evolution. They are not creationists. Huckabee says he does not believe in evolution, but says that God put evolution in motion and believes that McCain's mom gave him good genes. This doesn't even make sense.

As a refresher: The evolution v. creation debate has nothing to do with the origins of the universe. If you believe that God created the process we call evolution, then you believe in evolution (as the Catholic Church does). If you believe that God created everything as-is, then you're a creationist. And then there's the whole "Intelligent Design" thing, which can mean just about anything, as long as God's involved and evolution is insulted.

But Huckabee's statements just seem to be a gibberish mix of all this. Of course, if he really doesn't know the difference between these positions, he probably shouldn't be talking about them until he learns a little more.