I wish people wouldn't say things like "believe in Darwin", as though Darwin himself were a substitute for God. That kind of language just perpetuates the conception that atheism, or at least "evolutionism" is like some sort of religion, with Darwin its prophet, or idol, or whatever. It doesn't help separate atheism from religion, and lends fuel to the idea that there is such a thing as an "evangelical" or "fundamentalist atheist".

Word and phrasing choice is important!

I'm not sure why you'd suggest that Fund might be a "fundie", aside from the nice wordplay aspect... Seemed to me his reaction to Reagan's comment was based on the latter's assertion that "reality doesn't matter to these people", where it sounded like he meant all southerners. I know that's not really what he meant, but he did come across as pretty condescending.

Let's save our vitriol for the real wackos, shall we? Maybe you've seen more of Fund than I have, but based on this one clip he doesn't seem to identify with the religious right. It sounded to me like he was advocating moderation by both parties.

<-- you completely missed the point with that statement. "these people don't believe in Darwin" is a great and completely apt, witty line because in the context it means that Christian fundamentalists can have an unreasonable aversion to the truth.

<-- you completely missed the point with that statement. "these people don't believe in Darwin" is a great and completely apt, witty line because in the context it means that Christian fundamentalists can have an unreasonable aversion to the truth.

Cory, I agree that that's what Reagan was going for, I just wish he'd chosen a different phrasing. Presumably he meant "these people don't even believe there was such a person as Darwin" as a hyperbole, but it sounds like he was just talking about believing in evolution until you reflect a bit on the context.

So I didn't miss the point -- I was just taking issue with his choice of phrasing.

This wasn't the best (worst) example of people inserting "Darwin" into phrases that usually have "God" in them, but it contributes to the popular frame that sets up "evolutionism" as just another religion.

In any case, I'm not that invested in arguing about whether this particular instance was a problem or not -- I just wanted to make the broader point.

Cory and Colin...

This may sound all too liberal to be realistic, and if you have criticism, bring it, but it sounded to me like both Fund and Regan are dancing in an ugly grey area and you both could have very valid points.

Yes, there is a sector of the right that is keen to straw-man Darwinian thought as a pseudo-religion when it clearly is not. Darwinian theory is just that - theory. Atheists and agnostics are some of the first to admit it, and are often disgusted by accusations that they participate in come kind of "religion" that is (like Islam) oppositional to judeo-christian thought.

On the other hand, Fund is using (egregiously) a stereotype of right wingers that doesn’t further discourse at all. When he should just take the time to point out a common rhetorical ass-clown move (often made by the small proportion of people like Dobson) he instead decides to play on nasty stereotypes about southerners and “those evil rightys” that may not be entirely true but appeal to Democratic sympathies. If he made the same ugly generalization about any other gigantic group of the population liberals would tar an feather him.

It’s total shit that some ignorant fucks like to straw-man atheists and agnostics (like myself), but shame on Regan for taking the cheap argument out of a discussion without explaining his target. Not all southerners are christian darwin haters. That was a cheap shot.

Real quick - the parenthetical "like Islam" is intended to point out that Islam and atheism are often used rhetorically to represent a similar "evil" bu some jerks, not to claim that Islam is in some way evil - it isn't. Just clarification...

Real quick - the parenthetical "like Islam" is intended to point out that Islam and atheism are often used rhetorically to represent a similar "evil" bu some jerks, not to claim that Islam is in some way evil - it isn't. Just clarification...

Lindsey,

What Reagan said was "...that may please you or me, but it doesn't please a lot of people down in the southern states...those people care whether he's a 'Christian' or not." He never said all southerners are Christian Darwin haters. Having grown up in Seattle and having lived my last twenty years in Texas, I have come to the opinion that Reagan's attitude is pretty close to correct – and seeing one Bush-Cheney sticker after another on one pickup truck after another for so damned long it drives me up the wall has made me a lot more disdainful of a lot of southerners. It doesn't matter what this administration does - torture, wiretapping, massive deficits, corruption, lying, warmongering - and that with incredible incompetence. ZERO accountability from a lot of southerners.

The problem is basically this: evangelical voters voted overwhelmingly for Bush and will do so again for anyone who convinces them that "Jesus Christ is their favorite philosopher." A lot of these people are fanatics and they have even more grass-roots influence in the GOP than is proportionate with the votes they cast on election day.

It wasn't a cheap shot.

Hi Lyndsey,

Thanks for the comments.

To be fair to Reagan, I don't think he meant to suggest that all southerners are far-right out of touch with reality types. He did say "some people in the south" or something to that effect, it seemed with the intention of picking out the set of people that listen to guys like Dobson. So I suppose in that sense he was, by definition, referring to people that fit his generalization. But I agree with you that it didn't come across that way.

You're also right that atheists are frequently straw-manned by the Christian right, though that wasn't quite the point I was trying to make. I certainly find that objectionable, but to argue that here would be to preach to the choir, which is no fun.

My complaint in this case is largely directed toward atheists who say things like "by Darwin..." and "for Darwin's sake". It's usually in jest, admittedly, but by inserting Darwin's name into a frame that typically includes God, it creates the analogy in people's minds between Darwin and God, as though atheists worshipped Darwin. I've noticed a lot of people, who usually identify as "agnostic", saying things like, "atheism is no better than fundamentalism -- it just substitutes one dogma for another". To me this reflects a misunderstanding of what atheism means. It does not mean a profession of knowledge that there is no god. In that sense it isn't actually mutually exclusive with agnosticism. I myself am both an atheist and an agnostic: I believe there is no god (though "believe" is being used in a different way from the way people use it who say they "believe" in god -- it is in no way a statement of faith, but rather a statement about a philosophical conclusion), and I also believe it is impossible to know whether a god exists. It seems to me that that's the most common misunderstanding about atheism -- that it entails "faith" in god's nonexistence, and is thus a mirror image of religion. Substituting "Darwin" for "God" perpetuates that misunderstanding.

The republicans are dead in the water in 08.

The republicans are dead in the water in 08.

Yeah, so? I'm more worried about what the Democrats are going to do with the smoldering crater the Republicans have left them.

Will they start down the long, long, long road to repairing the Iraq mess (using something other than the horrific and counterproductive "men with guns!" idea) that has caused diplomatic and economic damage both internationally and domestically?

Will they get rid of the "Patriot" Act and the clean the piss off the US Constition and make illegal surveillance and detainment for sure illegal? Will they investigate the dark corners of the Bush administration?

Or will they just brush these issues carelessly aside, and then keep on doing business as usual.

The Democrats have been in Congress for a while now, and so far all we've seen is some barely disapproving muttering from most of them, and some offish, hollow-sounding rhetoric from others.

And really, why wait until 08? How unthinkable is it to impeach based on the gross mismanagement of the Iraq issue? Presidents have been impeached for less. Apparently thousands upon thousands of needless deaths, and disgusting mistreatment of veterans and prisoners alike, and so on and so on... doesn't really set Americans off like it used to. Extramarital blow-jobs, of course, still register though.

No, I don't think the Republican party's poor prospects for '08 really make me perk up.

I'd like to see some actual change for the better, but I'm not holding my breath.

If someone thinks that "believing in Darwin" is equivalent of "believing in God," they're just plain old nuts anyways. It's like saying we can't admit to believing in Newton because some deranged crucifix-junkie might accuse us of worshiping a false god.

"...they don't believe in Darwin..." is a terrible insult, and if true, it should be considered a great shame. Just like believing in religion, astrology, and all the rest of that hocus pocus.

The content of the phrase isn't what gets me, Dzwonka. As I said above, I suppose what he was going for was to say that they don't believe the person Darwin existed, as a hyperbole to point out how out of touch with reality they were. "Belief in Darwin" should not be used in place of "belief in evolution"... Darwin was the first to articulate the idea of evolution in a comprehensive and organized way, but it's not like he invented evolution. Evolution is a fact of life -- if Darwin hadn't formulated the idea in writing, someone else would have. I'm not worried about being accused of worshipping a false god [does that really not have 2 p's? the in-line spell checker seems to think not]; I'm worried about being put into a category with religious people, as though atheism were a "belief system" on par with Christianity or Islam. It's not a belief system -- it's the practice of responsible philosophical/scientific thought processes. If people think, as many do, that atheism is no more tenable than religion, and so the only thing that can be reasonably said is that one is agnostic, then that misses something. It's maybe not so directly tied to using phrases like "for Darwin's sake", but it's an important point.

I'm starting to sound redundant, I fear...

"The Democrats have been in Congress for a while now, and so far all we've seen is some barely disapproving muttering from most of them, and some offish, hollow-sounding rhetoric from others."

The Attorney General--one of the biggest Bush administration advocates for Gitmo and torture--is about to be fried. All because he lied to Congress about a perfectly legal firing of U.S. attorneys. So he's going to be fried as a direct result of the Democrat's congressional oversight of the executive branch. You think that's nothing?

The Democrats have been in office barely 2 months. It seems you expect Bush, Cheney and Rice all to have been impeached in that time. Just because you hold a 1% or 8% advantage in Congress doesn't mean you can do anything you want. Enough with bashing Democrats in Congress. Nancy Pelosi is probably the most skillful Dem congressional leader since Tip O'Neill. Maybe she's better. Doing what feels good to liberals is not always smart politics or morally good politics.

I'm really glad to hear Republicans talking about this. They have, historically, had some good points to make, and have been a good counterweight to the Dems in their various incarnations, but not for the last 30 years or so. I'd love to see the whole lot of them shake off the cooties from the Dominionists (to use Chris Hedge's term) and return to being a party that's about small government and personal responsibility - and even family values, if they can broaden the definition of family after dumping the fundies and their hate-mongering. How I would love to see the Christian right be told by both parties to sit down and shut up - or feel free to form their own damn party.

Tim,

Having spent the first 23 years of my life in north Texas, I completely agree with you.

I'm sure that it is difficult for people who live outside of the Bible Belt to imagine the tremendous stranglehold the hardline Religious Right has on the politics of the South, but it's there... squeezing the life out of the whole god-damned region.

I think that Ron Reagan's phrasing was troublesome, serving more to set adherents of the doctrine of fundamentalist Christianity/Dobsonism against adherents of the doctrine of fundamentalist atheism/Darwinism/evolution (the slashes do not denote interchangeability between any of the strong beliefs), when his point was really to just say that a significant percentage of voters in the southern states are not operating under what we assume to be standard rules of "reality." And in that sense, I believe that Ron was not overstating.

Dobson, Falwell and Robertson are the political gatekeepers for the South. To expect that southerners might be willing to look beyond such a damning admonition (as not being a Christian) from any of those three regarding a Republican presidential candidate is to disregard the extent to which the belief system of the South drives the voting patterns of the South.

Thanks for the counterpoints, dende blogger.

The Democrats have been in office barely 2 months. It seems you expect Bush, Cheney and Rice all to have been impeached in that time.

I guess two months isn't long in politician-land. Still, there is a glaring need to get serious about impeachment. Instead, the Dems (Pelosi, I think) said impeachment was "off the table". This may have been a move to keep them from seeming like they had a threatening vendetta, but I really think the needless mass bloodshed caused by BushCo needs to have a big public spotlight shone on it, and fast. Hundreds of people are dying in the Iraq clusterfuck every week, nobody should be fucking around here.

As for the Attorney General... it would be a start, but we'll see how that goes. I'm skeptical. If he does get thoroughly fired and roasted, drinks are on me.

I agree that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a skillful politician, but will that be enough to help put the brakes on this rape of American and international trust?

"Instead, the Dems (Pelosi, I think) said impeachment was "off the table"."

People can reasonably disagree about strategy, but I think it was good strategy to say impeachment was off the table. They said that before they got power. If the Dems come up with good evidence that Bush committed crimes, they can go where it leads them, and legitimately claim that they had no intention of doing whatever it took to pin something on Bush.

It's clear that there are not the votes for impeachment unless Bush did something obviously and demonstrably criminal. You and I should feel free to call for impeachment if that's the way we feel but I think it's the responsibility of elected officials to use their political capital wisely and not waste it. The GOP was hurt in the 1998 election because it was obvious to most of the country that they had spent 4 years trying to find something that would stick to Clinton. I don't think that the Dems look like that at this point, which is good.

Given the slim majority the Dems have, it would have been a bit wishful to hope that the Dems could end the war on their own and not completely discredit themselves in the process. But now Bush has a massive scandal at Justice at the same time that he's fighting with Pelosi and Reid over the pullout date. If you ask me, the two Dem leaders are playing their hand better than I would have or most people I know would have.

Count me in with the folks who are glad the Democrats are not impeaching Mr Bush. Even if the Democrats manage to prove that the president committed impeachable offenses, I still do not think it is likely enough Republicans can be found to convict him. It would amount to a publicity stunt, like the Clinton impeachment, and would only hurt the country overall.

Colin, I agree with you. I dislike the deification of Darwin, even as a joke. Any creationist that could potentially be reasoned with will only be turned off by such nonsense.