Q: Why is fundamentalist Christianity better than string theory?
A: Because it makes testable predictions.
Here is a prediction, from none other than Sarah Palin: God will intervene on Election Day.
In an interview posted online Wednesday, Sarah Palin told Dr. James Dobson of “Focus on the Family” that she is confident God will do “the right thing for America” on Nov. 4.
Dobson asked the vice presidential hopeful if she is concerned about John McCain’s sagging poll numbers, but Palin stressed that she was “not discouraged at all.”
“To me, it motivates us, makes us work that much harder,” she told the influential Christian leader, whose radio show reaches millions of listeners daily. “And it also strengthens my faith because I know at the end of the day putting this in God’s hands, the right thing for America will be done, at the end of the day on Nov. 4.”
…
She also thanked her supporters — including Dobson, who said he and his wife were asking “for God’s intervention” on election day — for their prayers of support.
“It is that intercession that is so needed,” she said. “And so greatly appreciated. And I can feel it too, Dr. Dobson. I can feel the power of prayer, and that strength that is provided through our prayer warriors across this nation. And I so appreciate it.”
Admittedly, not a very good testable prediction. I doubt that we’ll see wholesale conversion to atheism on November 5th if Obama wins. More likely, we will be told that this is just an exceptionally subtle part of God’s plan. It’s like predicting supersymmetry at the LHC!
I went on a brief trip to Ireland and England a couple of weeks ago. You know what they couldn’t stop talking about? Sarah Palin. And religious Americans more generally. This pretty much sums up why:
I understand that later on in the interview, Tracy claims that the bit in the Gospels about loving your neighbors was “probably inserted by Communists,” and she raised her eyebrows so high that her eyeballs popped completely out of her head.
It’s not surprising that all the US election talk in the UK and Ireland is about Sarah Palin. She’s new and a cultural oddity to most people there. Even by the standards of Ireland, which is still shaking off the political dominance of the Catholic church, Palin is pretty much an anomaly these days. Politically she is far to the right of any mainstream politician in these two countries (leaving out the convoluted Northern Ireland situation, which I am not currently up to speed on), and her religious views, except perhaps for her anti-abortion stance, are also far to the right of what the Brits and the Irish normally encounter. The number of “Bible-believing” Christians there is vanishingly small.
But most of all, why should we be surprised when a (likely) young-Earth creationist VP candidate for the most powerful country in the world is the subject of astonishment amongst our less religious allies? It astonishes them because it should be astonishing (and disturbingly so) in this day and age.
How many “hateful sermons” exactly. I’ve only ever seen one. Was it really a pattern week in, week out? (I honestly don’t know.) But that’s not to excuse Obama. If he had continued to defend Wright after all his nonsense and outbursts once the fuss erupted, then I would be leery about Obama too.
However, Obama gave a full account of the relationship in a public press conference, answered all questions, categorically repudiated the words of Wright, and then cut off all ties once Wright continued to repeat them.
Palin? She hasn’t even begun to do any of these things, so where’s the equivalence?
One side note: Wright’s “God Damn America” sermon is no different in substance to countless statements and sermons I have heard from right wing pastors like Robertson, Falwell, and Hagee in which they blame America and its sinful ways for the removal of “God’s shield of protection” that (somehow) enabled 9/11, the Oklahoma bombing, Katrina, and other attacks and natural disasters to befall the US. They all say the same thing — that we deserve the bad things that happen to us. That’s not to excuse Wright in any way, but he is not alone in citing that sentiment, even if he uses a sharper tone to do it.
LOL! No one’s putting a gun to your head to force you to keep hitting the page down key. Turning off comments is a terrible idea, though I have noticed that many right-wing blogs do exactly that. Not sure what that means.
I wouldn’t say Palin’s prediction is testable because what she really means is that no matter what happens on November 4, God will have done “the right thing for America” and therefore God exists.
Sean, “God will intervene on Election Day.”
Sure enough and that God is called Diebold and ESL. With divine help like that McCain might have it in the bag.
Lawrence B. Crowell
Hey “Speedy Gonzales” I am not living in a “religious disneyland”. I haven’t been to church since 1990. The FACT is the vast majority of people on this planet believe in spirituality and God. That is all I am saying.
Do you people really spend your days looking for “empircal” and “testable” predictions everywhere? That must really be stressful. I would say its a neuroses. A new mental illness has been identified: Scientific Neurosis.
Advice: Keep the scientific “method” where it belongs, in doing science. It does not apply to everything. Making it apply to everything is nothing more than a religion.
tacitus,
Oddity, surprised, astonishing – is good words but the verdict is more like “one level” above this.
We just don’t understand how she does the math? What material is she made of?
Sarah Palin is Pro-Life. And at the same time she is fond of pit bulls, guns and more of this?
This kind of “logic” just does not work in Europe at the moment… “Prayer warriors”, what is that? Sounds like medieval…?
Hey Speedy,
What is wrong with Pit Bulls? Have you ever known one personally?
If Pit Bulls are aggressive, its due to the owner. Pit Bulls raised by good owners definitely can turn out to be sweet dogs.
Your comment is like many others on this blog-a Straw Man. Why don’t you criticize Sarah Palin’s ideas-there is plenty of room for that-instead of attacking her for being fond of Pit Bulls and guns?
What is wrong with guns anyway?
David McMahon, and what I’m saying is that the majority of people in Europe does not believe in God. And that the majority of the countries in Europe are secularized by law:
“secularize, UK USUALLY secularise
verb [T]
When something is secularized, religious influence, power or control is removed from it:
He claims that Western secularized society makes it difficult to live as a Christian.”
Everyone is free to believe in Santa Claus, God or that the Earth is flat. The important thing is *secularized*.
A science blog which introduces one of literally thousands of variations of so called “Christianity” do so on what scientific basis? Haha.
Seriously — I’ve been a bible student all my life and seldom see proper hermenuetics, which remain consistent from the first book to the last book.
Palin and Dobson both “use” the Bible to suit their own philosophical based theology: the stringing together of verses that produce a similar feeling. which is based in their own subjective desires.
Simply because a biblical writer wrote of a person or himself as speaking to God in prayer and providing some personal feelings experienced at that time, doesn’t set a godly precedent for all so called “believers” to partake in the same relationship that writer had or his subject had at that time. (Just because King David felt something when Jehovah spolke to him doesn’t mean and can not mean it will be the same for me as it was for him as King of Israel at that time)
Yet this is the type of biblical application that is promoted 98% of the time in the diverse, opposed, conflicting, contradicting, religion called, “Christianity.”
And by the way, when you say, “Fundamental Christianity” every one who touches a Bible stands up to be counted — claiming to be the prime example.
Here’s a “Fundamental” that all Christians miss — What is the context of the first book of the Bible?
Answer: Exodus chapters 3 – 7 It was during this time that Moses was told that His God was Jehovah of Abraham, Creator of the universe, i.e. Egypt and everywhere else.
The context of Genesis was and is, not the creation of the universe.
A prayer by one of the “Christians” followed by a feeling, has nothing at all to do with God’s Will, and can not be proven biblically.
David McMahon, “What is wrong with guns anyway?”
It’s more like Palin is “wrong”, in thinking that guns and war is very useful tools for saving the life of small humans.
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That is a bunch of baloney.
Guns are a useful tool, if you get car jacked, or someone breaks into your house, or if you have to hunt for a meal.
David McMahon,
So if someone breaks into Sarah Palin’s house, she can kill that person with her gun and say that she is Pro-Life?
Is that what you are saying?
Hey speedy, If you broke into my house, I would kill you dead. Yes Sarah Palin can kill someone in self-defense and be “pro_life”, since the latter term means strictly against abortion.
For the record, I already voted-and did vote for Obama. I am not strictly against abortion in the right wing sense. That being said, any individual certainly has the right to self-defense.
What would you do if someone broke into your house while you were sleeping?
David McMahon, welcome onboard! 😉
Were I live you be accused for murder if you killed a burglar. So I would call the police.
After a while I will of course realize that the things he took I will get compensation for from my insurance company. And that is not civilized to kill someone even if he steals my brand new TV.
I would thank “god” for that I didn’t had a gun in my house and killed someone and had to live with that for the rest of my life, just for a fu**ing TV.
And I should also explain that burglars in my country “knows this”, so 99,99% does not carry a gun.
I’m pretty sure that USA is on the wrong path. What are you going to do in the future? Are you going to arm the kids before they go to school??
Speedy and David — as a rough rule of thumb, if more than one out of every five or so comments is by you, you’re doing something wrong. Let’s try to whittle it down to your most essential contributions.
@Brad,
Speaking of statistics, I’d say that the eminent “Tracy” is fairly accurate example of a huge swathe of the population, have you seen the IQ distribution? Brainy bloggers and academics tend to forget that most people are terribly limited in their ability to understand the world around them.
During his first campaign, W. also very confidently predicted that he would win in Florida. I wonder if we won’t see once more a divine intervention on ballot machines ?
The reason Sarah Palin gets so much attention in Europe?
As Sandi Toksvig points out on the Radio 4 ‘News Quiz’ – she’s a gift to comedy (indeed, every time she is mentioned they play a little snatch of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel to thank the Gods of Comedy)
@ #11–Unlike adherents of organized religion, atheists, strictly by virtue of their atheism, are not members of any movement. No atheist speaks for me, and I will never claim to speak for other atheists. I heartily encourage all human beings to pursue their beliefs to whatever ends they desire, but no one should ever accuse atheism of being a religion, because it is surely not.
Atheism is a choice, and no two atheists believe exactly the same things. There is not, and can never be, by definition, an organized body of atheists, despite occasional attempts.
@ #25–please keep attacking Sen. Obama over Messrs. Wright, Rezko, & Ayers. It worked so well for Hillary Clinton.
The odds of both Colin Powell and Warren Buffet endorsing some wild-eyed radical are pretty close to nil, don’t you think? But please, by all means–keep firing McCarthyite broadsides against Sen. Obama’s character while America struggles with two wars and a crippling financial crisis. I mean, we’re cheering $2.50 gas. Oh yes, and add Galveston to the list next to New Orleans….perhaps Obama can pull himself away from fomenting the Islamofascist Revolution long enough to appoint a competent FEMA Commissioner.
—
Anyway, I’m interested to hear more about what the Europeans had to say about the election beyond just Palin. She’s going to go down as embodying the worst qualities of Eagleton, Quayle, and Agnew.
Speedy is proud that: “Were I live you be accused for murder if you killed a burglar. So I would call the police.”
I knew a girl who went to prison because a burgler tried to rape her and she killed him with a knife. In Amsterdam. I am not making this up. The point is that it is your over-liberal silliness that tells you that burglars are peaceful people who come into the house, ask permission, take a TV and leave.
Just for the record, I am not for guns either. But moral high ground without a smack of realism just isn’t very useful, even for people outside the academia.
Lets save the all-out European pride. It is a fact that Europeans can condescend Americans only because Americans do the dirty work for them. Of fighting the wars to protect the markets and resources of our beloved Western capitalism. I write this from Europe.
America might be doing a lot of things wrong, but so is Europe. At best, it is an issue of degrees. There are plenty of skinheads and the like here, and in some places they are really close to the surface. Lets not even start about Berlusconi’s ilk. Most of my non-white friends have told me that England is far more racist than the US.
I think America has certainly messed up in many ways (especially because it is a huge country and managing a continent is not easy), but it is also true that it is far from obvious that anybody else would have done a better job if they were dealt a similar hand.
I think the main difference between the US and Europe (I’m Swiss) is not the fraction of people that would describe themselves as Christians, it’s the priority of the subject religion in politics. I have never heard of a major European election which has been decided by the religious views of a candidate. It is simply not a topic at all. We believe (at least in Switzerland, but I’m sure also in most other European countries) that religion belongs to the private live and has nothing lost in politics. I wouldn’t even know about the religious views of our politicians, and I don’t care neither. I only need to know about their views on economics, education, foreign policy etc, since this is what politics should be about. Therefore most Europeans are very surprised about all these discussions about religion in the US elections and this influence of religion in politics worries us (or at least me) and leads to a bad feeling about US politics here in Europe.
“I have never heard of a major European election which has been decided by the religious views of a candidate. It is simply not a topic at all.”
On this I agree. This is a point where most of the US (the invisible majority who can still vote) is still very primitive.