Not sure that this poster for a “zombie” shoot at a gun range in Rockville, Maryland needs much in the way of commentary.
I suppose we could ask, as did the author who put this up over at Little Green Footballs, if the “zombie” pictured in the poster reminds us of anyone in particular.
Bluth,
Picture of the yearned-for coin at the top of this, showing three high points of evolution in action…
That’s an intriguing idea for a ministry. You could call it Evolutionary Outreach, or some such. Care for a little help on the Missionary Curriculum? Your outreachers could start by refuting the idea of “young earth” anything, using nothing but the insights of the early Church. Now I know that some would start with Augustine, purely on account of his star power and his instinct for the mot juste — Until you ask me, I know what time is… — good stuff, there’s no denying it — but I’d lead off with Boethius.
“The whole of…life in one simultaneous present!” No waiting around, as the misleading time-scale of evolution suggests to the restricted human view: what need has God of our calendars? It’s all now to Him, and when He kicked off the process of evolution, He saw it all, in its entirety, much as a spy satellite from its superior perspective sees Dogpatch and Hogswaller Hollow in one clear, simultaneous image, however much such a view is denied to the earthbound critters down below. Just as we understand that He made the whole world as He made each little bit of it – Atlanta and Tuscaloosa and Snoggins Creek, in one mighty flash – so He made all of time when He decreed the first instant into being. What blasphemy to suggest that He would have had to wait for evolution to do its, to Him, instantaneous work, and what compounded blasphemy to suggest it just because we can’t see what He can! What blasphemy upon blasphemies to suggest that six thousand years – or six trillion, for that matter – would matter to Him any more than the six miles between Dead Snake Corners and Mulberry Crossing would have delayed the Creation itself?
Once your missionaries have made that point, and have received their milk and cookies in grateful thanks, then is the time to serve up some Augustine for dessert (or as a parting aperitif, as it were). “Since, therefore, you [“you” is God, despite the lower case lèse majesté] are the cause of all times, if any time existed before you made heaven and earth, how can anyone say that you abstained from working?…It is not in time that you precede times. Otherwise you would not precede all times.” [Confessions, XI, viii] And I (if it were up to me) would then trample any lingering doubts with this last philosophic toad-stomper: “You are being in a supreme degree and are immutable. In you the present day has no ending…” [Confessions, I. vi]
That’s what I’d do in your place – but you must manage your Ministry as you are Called, and I hasten to beg pardon if my helpful zeal on your behalf should perhaps be taken as presumption.
Natasha,
I’ve been wrong before, but I suspect our native Paul Brouns are not going to upend The Good Ship America (though their equivalents elsewhere could do serious harm). What I do worry about, however, is the growing influence of the pseudosciences.
Just to make myself feel better, I looked at a few social science PhD dissertations (god, I love the internet).
I don’t mean to pick on anyone (I really don’t; she’s just doing what she’s been told), but check this out:
Let’s imagine all but one extramundane belief has been destroyed for a particular individual, due to cognitive/epistemic/psychic/social reasons. And that one belief is this: “In the Year -13770 a creature with the body of a rodent and the head of an alligator came down from Mount Syphilis and impregnated a mermaid-like being who was working on a jigsaw puzzle that was complete except for a single piece. In the ensuing encounter between these two lovers, the final piece of the puzzle, without which global peace and happiness could never be attained, was lost…”
I hereby posit that this very belief would be adopted and over time become very near and dear.
Nat,
I think I will turn over the N. American wing of my mission entire, if ever the funding comes through. Of course God would see time as a Tralfamadorian, only from infinitely further back, and would never be so crass as to ask, “Are you mating, yet?”
Bim,
The implications of the study you cite are staggering. If the author’s suspicions are true, why then the way crime is defined could even affect the crime rate!
Bluth,
About that funding: are you thinking of paying me by way of tithes, or the far more generous secular processes used by the United Way et al?
Damn. Did we? I got two in my change this afternoon, and I didn’t even look before I spent them. I’ll look more carefully next time.
Nobody likes them; rather than squirrel them away, I think most people change them for proper money as fast as they can.
Squirrel,
Harrumph. “Proper money.” Harrumph. All this talk of austerity, and yet HMG continues to cast pearls such as these into the barnyard…
Bim,
Sanguine, that. Here is CNN anchorbabe Deb Feyerick asking Bill Nye if global warming didn’t maybe cause the soon-to-be-just-missing-us asteroid.
Nat, I’m thinking that if we are peddling truth, as opposed to comforting fantasy, it ‘s going to have to be 100% funded with subsides. On which, after I hit that motherlode, I can’t think of anything better to fritter away nine thousand fortunes. So the short answer is neither. It’s going to be a free service at point of access. Like the great, and soon to be late, NHS.
On the other hand, if you can figure out a way to sell evolution to doubting Tomases and Tomasisnas, well… you don’t need my help. If you know how to do that you might as well cut to the chase and take over the world.
Natasha,
Thank you!
From our trusty old friend Wikipedia: “Feyerick earned a bachelor of arts degree in English literature from Barnard College in 1987. While an undergraduate, she wrote for the Columbia Daily Spectator.”
English Lit! (From Barnard, no less, and supplemented by journalistic dabblings at Columbia.) So…perhaps she once said to herself (in a prior incarnation): “I am a sick woman…. I am a spiteful woman. I am an unattractive woman. I believe my liver is diseased…” Or: “Nikita, blight of my life, pyre of Des Moines…”
Something like that. Before she decided to turn her attention to scientific elucidation and phenomenological edification via the big network of coaxial cables.
Bluth.
No problem with the Doubting Thomases and Thomasinas. Brother Dawkins himself has said — well, tweeted — that Thomas is the patron saint of scientists. It’s the “Blessed … that have not seen, and yet have believed*” who are the freaking problem… unless… unless… Say — do you think we could sell dispensations? Indulgences, even? That could balance the books in no time flat.
John 20:29
Nat,
Dispensations. Hmm… So, for, say, a hundred bucks we could sell a document, kind of like those engraved invitations to The City of Washington on inauguration day that the Obama campaign sent out to anyone who sent them a few dollars, and this document, in fancy print, and maybe with some sort of seal or device stamped on it, would officially remove any doubt or suspicion whatever from the holder that she or he was in any way the product of evolution? A kinda, get off the monkey hook card. Not for free, of course, but at a reasonable price.
Could there be a refinement possible. For those who go in for sexual selection, but between consenting homo sapiens only?
Or would it be more of a Get Out of Time card? For you the arrow moves in mysterious ways? You are hereby awarded a fully comprehensive limit to your history of a mere six thousand oh so special years.
I’m thinking we could flat move some of those. All a question of the price points vs the quality of the card and how high the ink is raised, and the width of the gilding the presentation frame, of course.
But we might need to think about possible blow-back if one of our certificatees whelps a bona fide mutant. Maybe a get-out clause in small print on the back? Something along the lines of just because it ain’t never happened yet no how no way don’t mean it cain’t jump up for the first time tomorrow. In good, indecipherable legalese, of course.
Nat,
But he’s on the back of the tenner. has been for ages, (Still.) along with a hummingbird (?) and HMS Beagle sailing off into the sunset. (Sunrise?)
One of which, lately Squirrel’s. can be yours for a mere thirty dollars.
The fiver’s got Elisabeth Fry, not because of chocolate, but prison reform; the new fifty (never see those!) has Boulton and Watt apparently.
Squirrel,
See, the hummingbird moves too fast for counterfeiters to copy. As for the Beagle — well, is the sun on the west side of the bill or the east, silly?
Bluth,
Now we’re getting somewhere! A sliding scale is definitely in order. The time thing could get tricky: our market already knows where to buy cut-rate sempiternity. But the mutant-whelping bit is easy: each certificate grants the purchaser a small but real chance of producing a Genuine Miracle Child, but only if the parents are properly married. The fine print on the back states that the warranty does not cover the occasional Satanic Spawn of fornication.
Nat,
Also Amulets! That exempt the wearer from the effects of climate change! Wear one of our glass ‘unmeltable iceshelf’ amulets and rising seas cannot get you wet! Or a sweet furry Unsinkable Polar Bear, and no extreme weather event can harm you! (Flood tides and extreme weather that could have happened anyway you know it could because ha ha you can’t prove it and some science guy somewhere said so once -even though he recanted later but that doesn’t count- excepted)
Bluth,
Such Amulets…The reconstructed face of Lucy: $12.99 in Genuine Acrylic Crystal, $99.50 in 14 carat Gold Clad Cedar of Lebanon, all the way up to a whole lot of shekels for Rarest Polar Bear Tooth…
It’s all I can do to not quit my day job today…