To convince, or not to convince?

I recently received an email invitation to attend a local lecture by a man named Rafael Cruz, who happens to be the father of GOP presidential contender Ted Cruz.

I Googled him, and found this fascinating statement:

Evolution is one of the strongest tools of Marxism. Because if they can convince you that you came from a monkey, it’s much easier to convince you that God does not exist.

“They” presumably are the evolutionist communist atheists, who are of course synonymous in the minds of true believers like Cruz and his followers.

Not that it would matter to them, but as a non-Communist, non-atheist who believes in the self apparent nature of evolution, I find the man’s argument insulting and ridiculous.

Beneath his fiery rhetoric, though, is an assumption that reality is not so much about getting to the nature of the truth, but that it’s all about convincing people.

So the converse of his argument becomes: “if they can convince you that you were created by God, it’s much easier to convince you that God exists.”

In other words, whether evolution is to be rejected should depend not on whether it is real or scientifically valid, but whether it undermines belief in God.

I suspect the man is arguing to the convinced, and I think I’ll opt not to attend the lecture.

(I’d say that religious crackpots are the Republican Party’s misfortune, but that might be a microaggression, and I am too steeped in political correctness to do that.)


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15 responses to “To convince, or not to convince?”

  1. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    Ah, the good old evilution vs cretinism debate. Brings back memories of talk.origins circa 1990. Where’s Ted Holden when you need him?

    I haven’t heard of this particular loony before, but conservatives aligning themselves with religious whack jobs is old hat. And deeply discredits the conservative cause. As a libertarian-leaning conservative, and/or conservative-leaning libertarian I find this disappointing and an embarrassment. It’s going to be hard to appeal to the right half of the bell curve with idiots like this.

    Really, is having conservatives associated in the minds of doctrinaire leftists who couldn’t tell a genome from a phenotype
    just to scrape up a few thousand *Christian* votes worth it? Start your own He Man Evolution Hater Truly Christian All American Yee Ha! Apple Pie Party and stop bothering everyone else.

  2. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    So, of course Huckabee actually said something that made sense today.

  3. captain*arizona Avatar
    captain*arizona

    You don’t believe that adam and eve road around on dino the dinosaur? You must be a godless communist or an ayn randist sociopath devil worshiper.

  4. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    Funny thing – I grew up in a very liberal/leftist/socialist environment. I mostly had to figure out how evil communism is for myself,with a little help from RAH.

    I didn’t read Rand until I was around 35, and I’d already had exposure to a lot of political philosophy and economics; Friedman, Hayek, von Mises, Popper etc, and was more or less immune to her more whacko ideas (like that non euclidean geometry is an eeevil plot to subdue and subjugate our precious bodily fluids. Not exaggerating too much, I know some really bizarre Randroids) so I was immune to the weirder elements. I wonder how things would have been had I encountered Rand at a more impressionable age, say, high school?

    Hey, zoneboy, ever read anything that wasn’t by Noam Chomsky?

  5. Kathy Kinsley Avatar
    Kathy Kinsley

    @ Captain – LOL. No I don’t believe that and I worship neither Communism nor Objectivism.

    But, you know, it seems to be a human condition to want to believe nonsense. You might want to take a good look at some progressive beliefs and think again. It’s not always pleasant that “Know Thyself” – but it’s always worthwhile.

  6. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    Eric – I’ve written several longer comments in the last few days that never appeared. I don’t know if they triggered a spam filter or what, but take a look in your spam file and settings.

  7. Randy Avatar
    Randy

    There’s been so much god-talk from so many conservatives these past 30-40 years, one could be forgiven for thinking the Republican Party is a religious organization first and a political organization second. And in a sense, for a certain type of conservative voter, the GOP is a religious organization whose job is to reclaim religion’s power, prestige and influence in the public and private spheres via majoritarian politics.

    Here’s a couple of snippets from a comment I posted here a couple of weeks ago and it’s appropriate here:

    …Beginning several centuries ago, our civilization began slowly migrating from a supernatural understanding of reality to a naturalistic, materialistic understanding of reality. This migration is still in process. The migration was due to discoveries (Copernicus, Galileo, etc.) that challenged the old, supernatural understanding of the world. And this has only multiplied in the last few centuries as we’ve learned so much in the past 400-500 years. The other factor in this migration was the political revolution from the divine right of kings and fealty to the RCC to democratic institutions and self-governance. These two things together have worked together to loosen the grip that religious institutions had on politics and morality for several millennia.

    Religious conservatives find themselves in the unenviable position of being the modern day equivalents of buggy whip manufacturers during the rise of horseless carriages. They are tied to an old order that is discredited to one degree or another in the minds of more and more people. Religious support for segregation; Jim Crow; the religious imagery of the KKK; the RCC sex abuse scandal; their flogging of creationism in the face of evidence to the contrary; etc.; have all worked to discredit religion’s standing in the public sphere. And due to the confirmation bias believers have toward their beliefs and institutions, they can’t understand how these events or positions of the past and present have undermined religious authority.

    The entire comment can be read here, the seventh one down:
    http://classicalvalues.com/2015/06/when-it-stopped-being-against-the-law/#comment-121146

    Evolution is part of that migration from a supernatural understanding of reality to a materialistic, naturalistic understanding of reality. If evolution is true, then there likely was: no Adam and Eve; no original sin; no fall of man; no need for divine atonement for original sin; no need for Jesus to die and resurrect for mankind’s sins. For fundamentalists, if the Bible isn’t factual, then what’s the point. They have to deny evolution in order to maintain their entire religious belief system.

    Full disclosure, I’m an atheist who was a life-long Southern Baptist until just a few years ago. Coming to understand evolution and accept it as true certainly played a role in my journey from believer to atheist. But it wasn’t the only thing, that’s for sure.

  8. Eric Scheie Avatar

    MMM thanks for letting me know about that! I found your comments, inexplicably buried with a bunch of spam ads for Birkenstocks, and unburied them. Your comments are always appreciated.

  9. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    I’m an atheist, and have been as far back as I can remember, I’m old enough that I was punished in kindergarten for refusing to say grace over my High C and graham crackers. I’ve been the guest speaker at the Boston Atheist Discussion Group. That said, it doesn’t bother me that a lot of people believe in god, as long as they keep it private, and get it out of politics.

    Note that I think the mainstream atheist types who get excited about trivial matters like if the currency says “In god we trust” on it are idiotic jerkoffs. I want to deal with the real issues, like creationism being taught as alternate science. “teach the controversy” Bullshit, ain’t no controversy except for you Christholes making one up. Some form of evolution is science, creationism is religion. Teach it in comparative religion courses, along with gorbal worming.

    Notes:

    Yeah yeah, Darwin wasn’t perfect, and got a lot of things wrong, and didn’t know a lot else. Still, it’s a great start, one of the crowning achievements of Victorian science (along with Maxwell’s Equations).

    Science, like life, evolves. Y’all cretinists can stuff that in yer bacterial flagella and smoke it iffn you don’t like it.

  10. Kathy Kinsley Avatar
    Kathy Kinsley

    I’m agnostic. Don’t know, and don’t care. I figure if there’s a god(dess) he or she (or they) can give me some proof. Outside of that, I stay secular.

  11. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    Big difference between being agnostic and believing the Earth is 6000 years old, talking incendiary shrubs, a universal flood, a loving, personal god who will burn you forever if he doesn’t like what you do with your genitals, and the rest of it. Oh, and thinking the above is some sort of basis for a science class.

  12. Simon Avatar

    Explanation for Prohibition:

    Love of Pot might interfere with your love of God so it must remain banned.

    Devil’s Weed dontcha know?

  13. Simon Avatar

    Man Mountain Molehill July 27th,

    “Atlas Shrugged” was very popular in my High School in Omaha. About ’60 to ’62 IIRC.

    Never read even excerpts ’till the 80s.

  14. Simon Avatar

    And Riemann is a Communist plot?

  15. Simon Avatar

    Randy,

    I think the actual facts on the ground Re: Prohibition have done a LOT to discredit religion.

    “If you will learn to pray perfectly God will send you a vision.”

    “Take this pill – you will get visions.”

    And of course the ever present enforcers backed (at one time) by the church. There is nothing like immediate danger to remind you of who the dangerous people are. Who wants to see you in jail.