Why the Fundies Hate "Cosmos" So Much

[stromboli]

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/27/cosmic_terror_why_neil_degrasse_tyson_has_religious_fundamentalists_so_freaked_partner/

The first episode of the new Cosmos graphically illustrates this with the story of Giordano Bruno, a 16th-century monk who argued that the sun was a star like all the rest, and that every star had its own planets and its own living beings. Bruno wasn’t a scientist, as the show makes clear: his cosmological views flowed from his mystical, pantheist theology, not from evidence. But that made no difference to the Inquisition, which imprisoned and tortured Bruno, and when he refused to recant, burned him at the stake. His statue still stands in the Campo dei Fiori where he was executed, facing the Vatican as if accusing those who murdered him.

There’s also Bruno’s contemporary, Galileo Galilei, the astronomer who discovered the moons of Jupiter and argued for the heliocentric solar system. As a reward for his revolutionary scientific work, he was judged suspect of heresy by the Inquisition and forced to abjure his own work under threat of torture; his books were banned and he was sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life. The story of Galileo’s persecution is so well-known that I’d hesitate to retell it yet again, if it weren’t for the fact that church apologists like Jay Wesley Richards are still defending and soft-pedaling it.

In fact, even Bruno’s torture and execution still have their defenders, like the creationist site Evolution News and Views, or professional outrage-monger William Donohue of the Catholic League, who ludicrously claimed that the Spanish Inquisition was a good thing. A Catholic cardinal, Angelo Sodano, likewise said in 2000 that the inquisitors who condemned Bruno “had the desire to serve freedom and promote the common good and did everything possible to save his life.”

But this kind of persecution isn’t just a relic of ancient history. While we’re thankfully past the days when scientists could be stoned in the streets or imprisoned by church tribunals, the anti-science spirit is alive and virulent in the world today, waving away facts that disagree with its ideology and seeking to silence or intimidate those who speak inconvenient truths.

We can see this most clearly with one of the most urgent issues confronting the human species, the danger of global climate change. While it’s a matter of uncontroversial fact among scientists that the burning of fossil fuels is changing the Earth’s climate in perilous ways, climate science is far less accepted among the public, driven by fierce resistance from those who have an ideological reason for disbelieving it.

The renowned climate scientist Michael Mann, whose work forms the basis for United Nations climate reports and the famous “hockey stick” graph that illustrates global temperature rises, has been the subject of continual harassment by conservative legislators, including frivolous subpoenas by Ken Cuccinelli, the former right-wing attorney general of Virginia, accusing him of scientific fraud. In other localities, the right-wing response to climate change has reached epic levels of head-in-the-sand denial, such as when the North Carolina legislature passed a lawforbidding science to be used in forecasting future sea-level rise.

The theory of evolution is, if anything, even more convincingly established than climate changeâ€"if only because it has the benefit of over a hundred years of diligent scientific work in support of itâ€"yet it too runs into roadblocks of resistance from religious conservatives.

A Pew poll from last year found that a majority of Republican voters are creationists, and church-state separation groups routinely hear reports of creationists working as teachers in public schools and preaching their beliefs in the classroom. Just last month, Bill Nye the Science Guy publicly debated Ken Ham, a creationist who believes the universe is only 6,000 years oldâ€"which is, for the record, considerably younger than the oldest cities on the planetâ€"and who wants to build a theme park dedicated to the genetically and geologically impossible proposition that every species on the planet is descended from just two individuals who sailed on Noah’s ark.


We haven't left the Middle Ages. The only reason the fundies aren't stoning scientists in the street is because we have some better laws now.

[Solitary]

Actually, they just hate the truth and facts. Solitary

[SGOS]

I surprised they don't just take credit for the insights of Bruno, Galileo, and Johann Kepler (who was covered at great length in the original Cosmos series).  While they were condemned, jailed, or excommunicated, they were members of the church and/or the priesthood, and were only seeking to understand how God worked.  All of them should be honored for their contributions.  So why doesn't Christianity just claim the glory and point out that it was the church that led the way during the enlightenment?  It would be an excellent way to apologize to the world and gain some respect.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

The truth is probably closer to just plain jealousy that they know that they're really dumb so they put on the front of saying dumb shit, but in reality they know scientific advancement is real. This is a game to attempt to force everyone else to be as dumb, but it's not working.

[josephpalazzo]

As some theists told me the other day after episode 1, the producers of Cosmos have declared war on religion. I'm wondering what's he saying after epi 2 and 3...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

As some theists told me the other day after episode 1, the producers of Cosmos have declared war on religion. I'm wondering what's he saying after epi 2 and 3...

The funny part is he isn't saying anything they haven't heard before, or would have heard if they'd watched some science programming.

Or read a book.

[josephpalazzo]

The funny part is he isn't saying anything they haven't heard before, or would have heard if they'd watched some science programming.

Or read a book.

That's the problem, they don't read scientific books or watched scientific programs. They are insulated in their own bubbles.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

That's the problem, they don't read scientific books or watched scientific programs. They are insulated in their own bubbles.

The bumper stickers around here say "Nobody needs more than one GOOD BOOK."

[Mermaid]

The bumper stickers around here say "Nobody needs more than one GOOD BOOK."

That is terrifying.

[SGOS]

That is terrifying.

A guy I knew in AA used to say at meetings, "Everything I need to know about living my life is right here in this book (The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous).

I often thought if you threw out all the crap, it was a place to start.  That is assuming you were starting at square one and had no coping skills or sense of morality whatsoever.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

That is terrifying.

The trucks come with rifle racks. The cars are big gas hogs, because "God created this planet and he won't let it go to Hell."

[Atheon]

They're threatened by reality because they know their religion is fantasy.

[josephpalazzo]

They're threatened by reality because they know their religion is fantasy.

Quite the contrary, in their delusions, they take their religion as real, and everything else as the work of Satan.

[stromboli]

Quite the contrary, in their delusions, they take their religion as real, and everything else as the work of Satan.

It is amazing how deep people get into their beliefs. I worked with a guy that had a very good job who, at the behest of the Mormon church, gave it all up to run a cannery- just because the bishop requested it. He ended up selling his very nice home and living in relative poverty, the last I saw of him. I am pretty sure the bishop did it just to fuck with him. I've seen women put up with incredible abuse and belittlement because their priesthood bearing husbands had the gawd given authority to do so. So much shit in the name of religion.

[pioteir]

"the North Carolina legislature passed a lawforbidding science to be used in forecasting future sea-level rise" - only in America..... ;/

I think that these fanatics that attack the show just do so to gain attention to their fucked up ideology. They have to remind the people and themselves of their beliefs so they and we won't forget them. They jump at every occasion to stiir some shit up. They don't fear Tyson and the show because to them it's bullshit.