'I believe in evolution ... call me crazy' ... In the end, I can say I believe in science and I believe in God. I don't see the need for one to disprove another. Having said that, I also believe–as a Christian and a thinking individual–that if creation theory is to be taught as “an alternative” to evolution in science classes, it should be presented in a scientific way and other creation ... Jon "As Clear as Mud" Huntsman -MSNBC Republican Candidate for President
Q. When the Philosophers speak of gold and silver, from which they extract their matter, are we to suppose that they refer to the vulgar gold and silver?
A. By no means; vulgar silver and gold are dead, while those of the Philosophers are full of life 1766 Alchemical Catechism, Théodore Henri (Ted Henry) de Tschudi
Al Gore says the planet is melting and has the science to prove it. I have a Chicago Telephone Directory. I could use that mass of data and call some folks for a random sampling - 'What's it like outside?' Science kids.
I caught Huntsman on the news last night. The guy strikes me as the kid in the AP Class who looks over on the exam papers of his furiously writing peers and gives the examiner the silent high-sign to indicate that those he scans "might be cheating." Nothing scientific in my assessment, just instinct based upon empirical events.
In the 1920's a high school biology teacher in the Bible Belt (Clingers of Guns and Holy Writ) was tried and convicted of violating State Law that forbade the teaching of Darwin's "Theory" of Evolution. This was age of John Dewey! The smart set was Daffy for Dewey the tweedy Brahmin Hegelain at the University of Chicago that was bankrolled by JD Rockefeller and stuffed with Prussian Doktors, while Chicago's stockyards slaughtered, processed and shipped every cloven and hoofed mammal stupid enough to get corralled. University of Chicago was south and mercifully east of the Stockyards; thus avoiding the stench of the blood and offal that fattened Americans. Now that is Darwin, boys and girls.
Straight south of the Yards,lived the Catholics: Irish, Polish, Lithuanian, and some Italian immigrants. Many worked in the Yards and the scent of work followed them home. If you grew up south of 47th Street between State Street and Western Ave. you remember the scent. It was not Chanel #5. Yards blended with the sulfuric scents of small steel and fabrication works. Mmmmmm. Mn. Darwin. The Food Chain. At the top was JD Rockefeller, the Heine Professors, Old Jack Dewey, the students and Dewey Lab Rats, right on out into popular culture and political debate.
JD Rockefeller packed his University with American Protective Association (APA) professors. The APA had no use for Catholics. An alternative to Catholic scholasticism was blended and sold and America lapped it up. Dewey's American Education Evolved. This one valorizes science, tests and measurements, lab coats, charts and polls. Everything became a Science, because Inquiry is Alpha and Omega in Dewey Hegelianiam. Dewey became the gold standard of American Progressives -
Prominent twentieth-century intellectuals like the philosophers John Dewey and Theodor Adorno commented on Catholicism's inherent authoritarianism and its potentially debilitating effects upon the human psyche and personal autonomy, suggesting that it weakened individual moral conviction and shaped the sort of "followers" suitable for totalitarian regimes. At the popular level, church teachings on matters of sexuality received much attention throughout the twentieth century, and American commentators on birth control, abortion, and homosexuality—including many Catholic commentators—criticized as repressive the prohibitive church teachings on these issues, emphasizing the centrality of personal choice in matters of sexuality and the church's disrespect for individual autonomy. Certainly not every expression of disagreement with official church teaching can be understood as "anti-Catholic"; nonetheless, many U.S. church leaders and lay Catholic commentators have noted the persistence in these debates of centuries-old distinctions between Catholicism and national identity, suggesting that modern anti-Catholic attitudes have assumed greater subtlety to conform to the norms of civil public debate.
Like those New York Times TV commericials packed with lisping Dudes in horn-rimmed glasses and gel-tricked haircuts -"The Times has the best columnists and that settles it." Inquiry! Politics was an art and now it pretends to be a science.
Actually it is alchemy. That was the goofy attempt to change matter, by schoolmen in the Middle Ages. Every body is a Faustus. He was the academic who sold his soul to Mephistopheles in order to have scientific and alchemical power and dominion over the Pope, his princes and his friends. That got him a disappointing date with Helen of Troy and dragged down to Gehenna with Lucifer's Lads. Today Faustus has a show on MSNBC, whose daffy alchemy turned Al Sharpton into a commentator who sounds like a marble salesmen with mouth full of samples. Makes sense in Dewey Hegelian Alchemy.
Jon Huntsman is equally 'comprehensible' . . .not to me. I had a Catholic education which had us study Dewey, among real thinkers. Dewey remains as important to me as Jon Huntsman. John Scopes was as befuddled by the attention he received for offering Darwin and going to the can for it. I do not believe that Mr. Scopes was as a hard-core an Evolutionist as the abortionists of American Progressive political dogma.
The great sceptic of America who reported the Scopes Trial in its entirety for the Baltimore Sun wrote this about science, belief and the alchemy of power.
[The advantage of Catholics] lies in the simple fact that they do not have to decide either for Evolution or against it. Authority has not spoken on the subject; hence it puts no burden upon conscience, and may be discussed realistically and without prejudice. A certain wariness, of course, is necessary. I say that authority has not spoken; it may, however, speak tomorrow, and so the prudent man remembers his step. But in the meanwhile there is nothing to prevent him examining all available facts, and even offering arguments in support of them or against them—so long as those arguments are not presented as dogma. (STJ, 163)**
Jon Huntsman says, " I believe in Science!" Sounds like a Mack Davis song.
* Usually known as "the A.P.A., " a secret proscriptive society in the United States which became a disturbing factor in most of the Northern States during the period 1891-97. Its purpose was indicated clearly enough by its open activity in arranging lectures by "ex-priests," distributing anti-Catholic literature and opposing the election of Catholics to public offices. . . .Catholic Encyclopedia
**STJ= H. L. Mencken on Religion by S. T. Joshi (2002)
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