Ben Seewald, whose only claim to fame is that he’s married to Jessa Duggar, tries to stake out his own domain of stupid in a conversation with Dante Berry, another evangelist. He does not do well. But in the topsy-turvy world of American fanatical Christianity, that might mean he succeeded.
“If you check it out, what they’re trying to do with America, is basically have us going against each other while the Devil can sneak in real clearly and destroy what he’s trying to destroy,” Dante explains to Ben, adding that “if we’re fighting against each other, the Devil can sneak in and do what he want to do.”
“That’s right,” Ben agrees, “there’s no room for racism in Christianity. That all comes from the Devil. That all comes from, like, this false religion out here, evolution, that stuff? Teaching that, like, some people are ‘more evolved?,’ and different stuff.”
Do I really need to spell this out? Evolution is less than 200 years old. Racism preceded it. Evolution cannot be the original cause of racism.
Furthermore, Christianity is suffused with racism. Slavery and pogroms were justified by Bible verses long before evolution came along; those Founding Fathers the fanatics want to claim as fellow Christians? Racist slave owners. The Civil War? Backed up by pious, devout claims that the Bible said it was OK.
Evolution does not teach that some people are “more evolved”. To the contrary, all human races are equidistant from the last common ancestor of chimps and humans. To say that one group is more evolved from another is absurd. Meanwhile, the Bible teaches (and Ken Ham still promotes at Answers in Genesis) the Hamite theory of racial origins — that black people received their skin color as a curse from Noah, and that it condemns them to an eternity of servility.
“… like, some people are ‘more evolved?,’ and different stuff.”
Though you must admit that being close to the Duggars might hint at where he got the idea.
Christians have exttremely poor memories – just look how their gospels contradict each other.
re “more evolved”
I’ll be the first to call: “Godwin”. The ‘more evolved’ trope was a staple of the H regime with their ‘most evolved’ race of humans to rule the lessers. Even though Godwin requires the H word to be used, I think he’s pulling a Godwin by implication only.
The fact that some have misused the idea of evolution to rationalize their racism does not mean evolution(ism) was the cause of the racism. Even today, racist may still grasp at evolution as a last gasp rationalization for the racism they were instilled with through osmosis, given the culture we’re struggling with.
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ugh, childish me. childishly amused at the name: . reading all kinds of childish images from that name.
re “more evolved”:
I’ll call it: ~~~ Godwin ~~~
The ‘more evolved’ phrase was a staple of the H~~~ regime with their ‘most evolved’ race of humans to rule the lessers. Even though Godwin requires the H word to be used, I think he’s pulling a Godwin by implication only.
The fact that some have misused the idea of evolution to rationalize their racism does not mean evolution(ism) was the cause of the racism. Even today, racist may still grasp at evolution as a last gasp rationalization for the racism they were instilled with through osmosis, given the culture we’re struggling with.
~~
ugh, childish me. childishly amused at the name: . reading all kinds of childish images from that name.
If there’s one person who knows a lot about the devil, it’s Dante.
The most eloquent summary of evolution and stuff I have read, like, ever.
Our understanding of evolution is fairly modern but evolution itself has been in operation for millions of years so it might be that Ben is tacitly accepting that evolution is a thing. He just doesn’t want his children to understand it?
He got that part correct: teaching evolution that way, is an aspect racists use to teach their filth. It seems that is the only shred of truth in his question though. What he is trying to imply, though, is fractally wrong.
You can always tell how enlightened and deep a person’s understanding of a topic is, by counting the number of “likes” and “stuffs” in their argument.
Like, the more the better and stuff.
What kind of dressing goes best with word salad?
It’s pretty hard to deny evolution given the evidence, so the only trick they have is to squirt their dishonest strawman evolution ink sack and run away.
On the “more evolved” train wreck of thought, here’s a counter “just so” story:
“Modern white people are descended from humans who were just too damn stupid to head back south during the last ice age. One would assume the glaciers forming over their campsites would be a sign, but their nuclear inferiority made them too stubborn to leave to find greener pastures. Dozens upon dozens of millennia pass, barely subsisting on the fat of equally incapacitated quadrupeds, and they lost their ability to walk around unaided in common sunlight, their inanity forever branded into their DNA. Luckily for these pale ignoramuses, those to the south invented agriculture, art, philosophy, math and civilization, which they then co-opted to further their barbaric ways. To this day, the aggression against their southern cousins is ceaseless, fueled by their lust for warmer weather and inherited genetic hatred of those who correctly chose to eat bananas and shell fish instead of mammoth blubber and pine cones.”
How does this even????
Is there some language of which I’m heretofore unaware that has a whole lot of false English cognates?
Add grnound cheesonant and sprinkle with verbinate.
tkreacher @ 7,
I have a really bad habit of that. In general more than in debate, but I guess I should, like, stop then. And stuff.
“sneak in real clearly” makes perfect sense from a people who see their invisible god in everything? Also, I think I want this as my superpower: the ability to sneak in clearly and not be noticed until my
havoc is wreakedwork here is done.So…you’re saying climate change denial is genetic?
I love science!
The Devil Made Me Buy This Dress!
Yeah, just ask an Amalekite.
I was under the impression it was a marker of socioeconomic class, regionalism, and/or generation.
Oh, that’s what you meant, wasn’t it?
Not that I would defend Ken Ham, but AIG traces the origins of the races (and they also insist that all humans are just one race) back to the Tower of Babel (and the flood before that), not to Cain. After Babel, changes in skin tone came about through evolution of the “micro” kind.
I read way too much AIG, because I don’t know why.
Rey. An Amalekite would say “What’s Christianity?”
I would not say that it’s absurd if we consider the general case and apply the argument to all life. Evolution happens when a successful act of reproduction occurs and at no other time. As such, the temporal unit of evolution is the generation time. Thus, if evolution teaches anything, it would be that bacteria are the most evolved life forms by far. Escherichia coli has a generation time of 20 minutes under ideal growing conditions. Other bacteria have much longer generation times. All have shorter generation times than humans by orders of magnitude. You do the math.
On the other hand, I suppose you could also take a selectionist view and suggest that evolution happens every time an individual is killed and prevented from reproducing. If you consider that viewpoint, bacteria still are more evolved.
Anyway, that’s what my molecular biology professor, Christopher Kvaal, says without elaborating as much as I did and I think it makes a lot of sense.
While we’re at it: Social Darwinism is older than actual Darwinism: it’s seminal manifesto, Social Statics, was published eight years Before the origins of species. What happen is that a bunch of rich englishmen for whom plebeians raison d’être was to sustain the upper-class’ material comforts decided to justify their parasitic worldview palatable by making it sound sciencey and eventually filled their discourse with soundbites plagiarized from Darwin’s lingo.
Urk, this is what I get when the preview stops functioning.
“a bunch of rich englishmen […] decided to make their parasitic worldview palatable“