All Non-Apologies

My PR department and team of close personal advisors has informed me that perhaps my criticism of Katharine Hayhoe the other day was a bit shrill and over-the-top. And by "PR department" and "team of close personal advisors," I mean one long-suffering friend of mine who reads the blog and facepalms whenever I fly off the handle and start dropping f-bombs left and right.

Hayhoe does, after all, have the science mostly right, and she is trying to do something positive. If nothing else, she is starting a conversation about climate change in communities not entirely known for their science affinity and acumen, which, as George Marshall (no, not THAT one) points out, can be half the battle.

However, I won't exactly apologize, because, well...because, let's face it, Hayhoe ain't ever gonna read my silly little blog, and wouldn't care what I say if she did, anyway. Also, the larger point about the long, sordid history of the evangelical community, the Church, and religious people in general attempting to complicate and thwart scientific research and environmental efforts, and my frustrations regarding same, remain. I hinted at occurrences in the recent past in the final paragraph of the Moyers/Hayhoe post, but, truly, the problem goes all the way back to antiquity.

And even that is not the full aggravating story, because here's what really burns my bacon. Religious people try to suppress the research and findings, until they inevitably get out and spread among the public despite their best efforts, and then...dammit this freakin' pisses me off...they try to hijack and take ownership of the issue like they and whatever prehistoric Holy Book to which they owe allegiance knew it all along! Therefore, when I see Hayhoe smiling away on TV, trying to shovel a load of shit on top of all of our heads that the Bible and faith have been telling us right from the start to care for creation, I think to myself, "Fuck, here we go again, this time with climate change. They're gonna downplay or try to erase from the record what they've been doing for years — centuries even — and are still doing, and then portray themselves as heroes and ask that we all pat them on the back for finally coming around and embracing REALITY."

Ggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!111!!1!1!!1!!!1

So, while I won't apologize, I will at least provide some concrete examples of this irritating behavior (not every instance by any stretch of the imagination!), and thereby hopefully explain a little better than I did in the previous post why it infuriates me so.

• I've already mentioned religious zealots routing Hellenism and philosophy from Judea in a link above, and setting an anti-intellectual tone which lasted for millenia, and still plagues us today.
• You may have heard of people like Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo, etc. Well, while they and those that came before and after them were being branded as heretics, their works were being banned, or they were being jailed and/or executed, powerful religious forces at the time were busy incorporating astronomical features based on their scientific findings into the structure of houses of worship. This was meant to solve simple dating/scheduling problems as well as wow the public into believing God had graced the clergy with special knowledge and powers that the unwashed masses lacked. Witness the Wells Cathedral clock, the Münster Cathedral clock, the Exeter Cathedral clock, the myriad of features at the Strasbourg Cathedral, the Lyon Cathedral features, and on and on and on.
• A Vatican astronomer and mathematician completed the creation of the Gregorian Calendar based on extensive Copernican heliocentric astronomical observations and data which he and the Church originally opposed vehemently. The Pope at the time then marched the new calendar around like there weren't powerful theologians who wanted to ban the works that made it possible, and who would ultimately get their way. Shocking, I know.
• Fast-forwarding to more modern times, concerned scientists and ecologists have gone through decades of this bullshit, and this crap, and this arse-backward nonsense, only to be told no worries, it's all better now.
• Young-Earth creationists like Ken Ham use the vague wording of scripture and preaching to claim they knew the science all along. And yet they have never made one meaningful prediction for us of the type that almost spills out of the research unbidden for a scientist (see Halley's prediction for the return of a certain comet you may have heard of).
• And perhaps most disturbing of all, some eschatological adherents within the religious community not only don't recognize environmental issues as a problem, they welcome their catastrophic potential, because, for them, it means Jesus, or whatever messiah, is coming back.

So, basically, asinine religious reactions to scientific discovery run the full gamut: deny the science, deny the problem(s) it predicts, applaud the onset of said troubling real-world event(s) because it means your Magic Guy is coming back to save JUST YOU, and, of course, smile away on Moyers & Company like none of this ever happens or needs to be addressed aggressively, and instead make screwball, smirky assertions that the vague, nonsensical language in your Holy Book had the problem covered all along. You know, don't worry, the morally-righteous crusaders are on the way to make it all right again.

And people wonder why I get ticked off...consider this your Sunday anti-sermon. You're welcome.