Chinahand's Random Stuff

[Chinahand]

My goodness, rich world problems. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g7x5kl5l8o

'I am having a vasectomy as we can't afford a child'

HGV driver Chris Taylor and dog groomer Jemma Wrathmell jointly earn an income of about £60,000 and have been together for 11 years. ... We have had deep conversations where we go through the options and discuss things like school, cost and routine," ... But the conclusion was that the cost was too high.

These people are the privileged descendants of multiple generations that have striven through poverty and disease to raise their children and better their lot. 

All too difficult for these prescious, privileged folk. 

What a culture the modern world is creating. So self obsessed and pernickety it is committing demographic suicide. 

[Chinahand]

I've been fascinated by Biblical Creationism all my life. I can remember a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses sitting in the family kitchen trying to insist that hyracotherium wasn't a horse and therefore God, the baby Jesus and all the angels.

I never got the connection between these two separate things - our understanding of natural science and biblical theology, especially biblical inerrancy/fundamentalism.

Move forward forward 40 odd years and not much has changed. Biblical authority still makes little sense to me and I have spent a portion of my leisure time learning about and being in awe of the natural sciences.

PZ Myers recently put up a post about a Youtube Documentary by Dan Olson and Nathan Landel discussing one tiny part of these issues: the Dinosaur tracks at Paluxy in Texas and creationist attempts to either out right fake or just credulously claim that there are tracks of humans walking with the dinosaurs.It's a well made documentary and an interesting story, well worth an hour and a half of your time, if that is what interests you (guilty as charged).

It also has, about 1/2 an hour in, a piece to camera by Dan Olson which quite brilliantly explains the power of creationism and how, by rooting a definition of science as being what the bible says with the Lutheran idea that each individual's path to God is via their own reading of the bible, creationists could claim ownership of science and technology while damning those evil scientists who's atheist ideology has blinded them to science's biblical truth.

I've started the Youtube video below at this section. It's really worthwhile listening to just that section, but do watch the whole documentary too. It's great story telling taking one minor story and interconnecting it to multiple important issues.

Remember the vast majority of Trump voters are highly sympathetic to creationist views.