thecosmicdance (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} thecosmicdance) wrote,@ 2009-02-12 11:25:00 |
 |
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vatican declares Evolution compatible with the Bible.
"Gee, thanks for the permission", say all the Catholics, Anglicans, Jews, and educated mainline moderate Protestants who already figured that out.
"You can't tell me what to do" say all the conservative evangelicals.
"Science wins war over creationism" say all the anti religion people.
Today is Charles Darwin's birthday.
You know, I have no problem at all with Darwin himself. It's all that other stuff brought into play by all those other people that turns "Charles Darwin" into one of those "ohh no...this will end badly" names. Mostly because most people don't really know what they're talking about when they try to talk about evolution, and this is true of people who take the scientific position as well as those who take the religious one.
Both scientists and religious scholars always forget that the general public doesn't really understand either one. Unless you plan to go into a scientific field, you never take another science class once you have that high school diploma in your hand. Chances are, while you still had to take them, you either weren't paying much attention or you were only learning, then forgetting, what was needed to pass exams.
It's the same with religion. Most people don't understand it, they're just going along with it because it's what you do, so it's easy, really painfully easy, to confuse and mislead them down all sorts of interesting roads without even trying. I occasionally entertain a fantasy of writing a religious book filled from cover to cover with totally inaccurate information and see how long it took people to catch on but I don't want to be responsible for the results (the last time someone did this, it ended up with Tom Cruise losing his freaking mind).
But generally, what people know about either is what they hear/see from scrolling past newspaper headlines or flipping through the nightly news, and journalists do their best to report on both science and religion as shallowly and sensationally as possible. So what people end up doing is not picking a side based on facts but on what they *wish* was true based on their personal politics. And often those politics are *really* about things like North versus South, rich versus poor, high church versus low, conservative versus liberal etc.
According to the PBS documentary "Make'em Laugh", the majority of twentysomethings actually get their news from political satire (which is prob. true of other age groups as well, for young people it's "The Daily Show", for older people, it's Leno).
Charles Darwin is actually the great great great grandfather of Skandar Keynes, so there's that too(scroll down to #5). Can't be mad at a man for that.
But speaking of exactly what I'm talking about, I got lost in Tv Tropes the other day and stumbled on their synopsis of Lamb.
Please stop saying Levi Bar Alphaeus is not in the Bible. He is. He gets almost no lines and doesn’t seem to have much of a purpose but he is mentioned in the NT. I know this because when I was doing the Bible posts I saw his name and thought that was pretty funny.
Also, re the MM red hair thing.
No, she could’ve had red hair. Possibly not that kind of bright, northern European red hair and certainly not combined with IrishGirl!porcelain skin to go with it but there are many Biblical characters commonly thought to have red hair, such as David and Benjamin. And considering that the Jewish world had been conquered by Europeans twice at this point, it’s entirely possible there could be some kids with bright red or even blonde, hair. Mary Magdalene’s red hair is an old, old, bit of Christian fanon. I don’t know where it came from or precisely why, but depicting her as a redhead is so common it’s surprising to read the NT and see no mention of it.
However, I totally understand the desire to make her dark haired because regardless of whether or not red hair is possible for her, it’s acknowledging “Hey, I get that this character is not European”.
"Gee, thanks for the permission", say all the Catholics, Anglicans, Jews, and educated mainline moderate Protestants who already figured that out.
"You can't tell me what to do" say all the conservative evangelicals.
"Science wins war over creationism" say all the anti religion people.
Today is Charles Darwin's birthday.
You know, I have no problem at all with Darwin himself. It's all that other stuff brought into play by all those other people that turns "Charles Darwin" into one of those "ohh no...this will end badly" names. Mostly because most people don't really know what they're talking about when they try to talk about evolution, and this is true of people who take the scientific position as well as those who take the religious one.
Both scientists and religious scholars always forget that the general public doesn't really understand either one. Unless you plan to go into a scientific field, you never take another science class once you have that high school diploma in your hand. Chances are, while you still had to take them, you either weren't paying much attention or you were only learning, then forgetting, what was needed to pass exams.
It's the same with religion. Most people don't understand it, they're just going along with it because it's what you do, so it's easy, really painfully easy, to confuse and mislead them down all sorts of interesting roads without even trying. I occasionally entertain a fantasy of writing a religious book filled from cover to cover with totally inaccurate information and see how long it took people to catch on but I don't want to be responsible for the results (the last time someone did this, it ended up with Tom Cruise losing his freaking mind).
But generally, what people know about either is what they hear/see from scrolling past newspaper headlines or flipping through the nightly news, and journalists do their best to report on both science and religion as shallowly and sensationally as possible. So what people end up doing is not picking a side based on facts but on what they *wish* was true based on their personal politics. And often those politics are *really* about things like North versus South, rich versus poor, high church versus low, conservative versus liberal etc.
According to the PBS documentary "Make'em Laugh", the majority of twentysomethings actually get their news from political satire (which is prob. true of other age groups as well, for young people it's "The Daily Show", for older people, it's Leno).
Charles Darwin is actually the great great great grandfather of Skandar Keynes, so there's that too(scroll down to #5). Can't be mad at a man for that.
But speaking of exactly what I'm talking about, I got lost in Tv Tropes the other day and stumbled on their synopsis of Lamb.
Please stop saying Levi Bar Alphaeus is not in the Bible. He is. He gets almost no lines and doesn’t seem to have much of a purpose but he is mentioned in the NT. I know this because when I was doing the Bible posts I saw his name and thought that was pretty funny.
Also, re the MM red hair thing.
No, she could’ve had red hair. Possibly not that kind of bright, northern European red hair and certainly not combined with IrishGirl!porcelain skin to go with it but there are many Biblical characters commonly thought to have red hair, such as David and Benjamin. And considering that the Jewish world had been conquered by Europeans twice at this point, it’s entirely possible there could be some kids with bright red or even blonde, hair. Mary Magdalene’s red hair is an old, old, bit of Christian fanon. I don’t know where it came from or precisely why, but depicting her as a redhead is so common it’s surprising to read the NT and see no mention of it.
However, I totally understand the desire to make her dark haired because regardless of whether or not red hair is possible for her, it’s acknowledging “Hey, I get that this character is not European”.