Very often on this blog, I have used Randall Munroe's xkcd comic in order to underline som view of mine or some interesting idea. Today, let me treat you to a real classic, dating way back to 2006 - the very year that xkcd was launched.
It is not clear to me whether the Senator appearing in the comic is intended to be someone in particular or just a generic Christian conservative Republican. To show the timeliness of the comic, still today in 2014, let me remind readers of the recent U.S. midterm elections and pretend that the person in question is the Oklahoma Republican Senator James Inhofe, who took office in the U.S. Senate 1994, and who was reelected earlier this month for his fourth full term. Congratulations, America - a lovely choice!1
Inhofe is best know as an aggressive anti-environmentalist and anti-scientist. He suggested in an oft-quoted Senate floor speech in 2003 that "manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people". Regular readers of this blog will probably find his suggestion outrageous, but he does have evidence for his view. This evidence appears in the Bible. Here is what Inhofe said in a radio interview on August 2, 2012:
- Well actually the Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that "as long as the earth remains there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night," my point is, God's still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.
Footnote
1) Or not.
Kul och jag utbrister: Vad skönt att vi inte har någon sådan galning i vår riksdag!
SvaraRaderaVänliga hälsningar
Nanotec
"It is not clear to me whether the Senator appearing in the comic is intended to be someone in particular or just a generic Christian conservative Republican."
SvaraRaderaI interpret it more generally. People refer to authority as justification of their beliefs and this is happening everywhere. It puzzles me how otherwise rational people will often refer to authority in order to "justify" their beliefs or claims. I recently got annoyed with a collaborator who didn't care to justify a formula because, in his words, "the other [important] guys had also used it in their paper". The senator in the xkcd comic could very well be substituted with any authority figure who dictates what people should believe, be it religious or not.
Coincidentally, I put this very same xkcd comic on the top of my web page a few weeks ago.