Episode 37: Creationism the Third
Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today’s painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works.
Amity: This week I will investigate the fantasy world Marjorie Taylor Green, in Get Thee Behind me, and Lemuel will continue our conversation about the origin of a species in The More you Know
Lemuel: First up - Get Thee Behind Me!
Get Thee Behind Me!
Everyone take a deep breath with me (inhale-exhale). We are going to get through this together.
I want to speak a moment about US Representative from the state of Georgia Margery Taylor Greene. This woman makes me want to say some very rude and uncharitable things but I am an adult and will do my best to engage with this subject in a mature way.
Ms. Greene is a white woman from the south that subscribes to several conspiracy theories and has a long history of speaking some extremely heinous things. I am going to quote her a bit here and I apologize for the thoughts in advance but I think it’s important to give you specifics for context.
LAS VEGAS MASS SHOOTING
In 2017, Stephen Paddock opened fire from a hotel room window overlooking an outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 people. Afterward, Greene suggested that the shooting might have been staged.
“How do you get avid gun owners and people that support the Second Amendment to give up their guns and go along with anti-gun legislation?” Greene asked in an online video. “You make them scared, you make them victims and you change their mindset and then possibly you can pass anti-gun legislation. Is that what happened in Las Vegas?”
“I don’t believe (Paddock) pulled this off all by himself, and I know most of you don’t either,” Greene said.
SPACE LASERS
In 2018, a poorly maintained electrical grid sparked a California wildfire that killed 84 people. In a Facebook post in November of that year, Greene falsely speculated that darker forces were at work.
Connecting a series of scattershot points, Greene suggested a bank controlled by the Rothschild family, who are Jewish, a utility company responsible for the fire and then-Gov. Jerry Brown had a compelling motive to spark the blaze: clearing the path for a high speed rail project Brown wanted. She also floated the possibility that the fires could have been started by “lasers or blue beams of light” shot down from space by allies of Brown who were said to be in the solar energy industry.
“There are too many coincidences to ignore,” she wrote.
OMAR AND TLAIB
In February 2019, Greene appeared in an online video filmed at the U.S. Capitol, arguing that Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan weren’t “really official” members of Congress because they didn’t take the oath of office on the Bible. Both women are Muslim.
“I really want to go talk to these ladies and ask them what they are thinking, and why they are serving in our American government,” Greene said. “They really should go back to the Middle East.”
Tlaib was born in Detroit. Omar was born in Somalia and came to the U.S. when she was 12, becoming a U.S. citizen five years later.
HILLARY CLINTON
In May 2018, a Facebook user purporting to be the mother of a New York police officer falsely claimed that the officer had seen a video taken from the laptop of disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner that showed Hillary Clinton and a top aide cutting off a child’s face. Greene “liked” the comment and replied, “Most people honestly don’t know so much. The (mainstream media) disinformation warfare has won for too long!”
NANCY PELOSI
Greene once suggested in an online video that Pelosi could be executed for treason.
“She’s a traitor to our country, she’s guilty of treason,” Greene says in the video, which CNN first reported. “And it’s, uh, it’s a crime punishable by death is what treason is. Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason.”
She also “liked” a January 2019 Facebook post that called for “a bullet to the head” of Pelosi.
9/11 ATTACKS
In November 2018, Greene shot a video in which she talked about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, referring to a “so-called” plane that crashed into the Pentagon. She added, “It’s odd, there’s never any evidence shown for a plane in the Pentagon.”
She also “liked” a comment posted by a Facebook user in 2018 who falsely argued that 9/11 was “done by our own Gov.” Greene responded: “That is all true.”
PARKLAND SHOOTING
On Feb. 14, 2018, a gunman opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 people and injuring 17 others. One of the most deadly in a string of school shootings in the U.S., Parkland also was notable for the student-led movement it inspired, with young survivors like David Hogg spurring on youth groups around the country to demand that politicians enact new gun legislation.
Since then, a number of conspiracy theories have sprung up regarding the shooting, including the idea that it was a "false flag" operation, meaning it was either faked or the attacker was part of an attempt to weaken Americans' Second Amendment rights, according to a report by The Associated Press.
In May 2018, Greene posted a story about Broward County sheriff's deputy Scot Peterson — who failed to confront the shooter at Stoneman Douglas — receiving a retirement pension.
"It's called a payoff to keep his mouth shut since it was a false flag planned shooting" another social media user comment on Greene's post.
"Exactly," Greene replied, according to a screenshot of the post by Media Matters, which updated its Jan. 19 report a day later, saying that the post had been deleted from her Facebook timeline.
Another comment on her post said, "Kickback for going along with the evil plan. You know it's not for doing a good job."
According to another screenshot, Green responded, "My thoughts exactly!! Paid to do what he did and keep his mouth shut!" Media Matters reports that Facebook post has also since been deleted.
Then, toward the end of 2018, Greene penned a Facebook post saying current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants more school shootings to help spur more gun laws, saying, "This war on our second amendment is going to continue and must be fought. I am told that Nancy Pelosi tells Hillary Clinton several times a month that 'we need another school shooting' in order to persuade the public to want strict gun control."
That post has also since been removed from Greene's Facebook timeline, according to Media Matters.
A few days ago, a March 2019 video Greene recorded before she was elected to Congress began making the rounds on cable news. It shows her following Stoneman Douglas student David Hogg as he walks on Capitol Hill, peppering him with questions about his support for gun laws.
"Why are you supporting red-flag gun laws that attack our Second Amendment rights? And why are you using kids as a barrier? Do you not know how to defend your stance? ... He's a coward," she says of the then-teenage shooting survivor, claiming that his leadership efforts have been funded by billionaire George Soros.
SANDY HOOK SHOOTING
The Dec. 14, 2012, mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut claimed the lives of 26 people, including 20 children between the ages of 6 and 7. It prompted widespread debate about gun control, and also a large number of conspiracy theories.
On June 2, 2018, Greene posted a link to an article on The Gateway Pundit about Hillary Clinton's email server. In a Media Matters screenshot of the post, a commenter claims that Sandy Hook was a "STAGGED [sic} SHOOTING."
Greene liked the comment and replied "That's all true."
The post is no longer on Facebook.
Another comment said, "None of the school shootings were real or done by the ones who were supposedly arrested for them," including the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. Media Matters reports Greene agreed with the commenter to the Facebook post, which is no longer available on her timeline.
Q-ANON
In a 2017 video, Greene called QAnon "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out." As recently as December 4, 2020 - when she had already been elected to congress - she retweeted another conspiracy theorist who wrote “"I can't say I've ever seen any 'conspiracy theories' from the QAnon community… In fact, I've seen a refreshing and objective flow of information being surfaced by a decentralized community of millions of people who are researching and reporting on news that so-called 'journalists' refuse to cover.”
On the floor of the House on February 3, she lied about changing her beliefs and whether she had said these things since being elected. She was rewarded with a standing ovation from the Republican caucus.
When it came time for the Republicans to vote whether or not to discipline her, they opted not to, prompting Nancy Pelosi to hold a vote of the entirety of the house of representatives. It was only at that point, when the people whose deaths she had actively campaigned for got a say, that she was censured and removed from her posts on the Education and Labor Committee and the Budget Committees.
This woman should be removed from the legislature entirely. She is a danger every day she walks into the Capitol building. With no committee assignments she is now free to wreak havoc in a multitude of ways and has made statements indicating that this is what she wanted - martyrdom and free-time. Isn’t there some saying about idle hands?
Next up: The story behind Creationism in The More You Know
The More You Know
Last time we discussed the different kinds of ideas that are classed as Creationism. In this segment we will try to understand the actual reason for all the fuss.
Let's go back to what Creationists are defending: A literal interpretation of the creation story that starts the Bible. Two stories begin the book of Genesis. One is filled with details about the origins of the universe, a six day cycle of creation that culminates with the creation of Mankind, male and female and the serious charge that they are stewards of creation, maintaining balance and order. This story tells of man and woman created simultaneously, of a world where there is no killing for food because all life is vegetarian.
The second story, In Chapter Two and Three, is about the origin of man, but also about the origin of evil. It starts with the creation of man, and the creation of woman from man, and their being left to tend a special garden with metaphysical trees.
A wily serpent, deceives the woman into partaking of the fruit of a tree forbidden by God for consumption. The forbidden tree was marked by God as the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The serpent deceived Eve by telling her a modified version of the truth: that the fruit of the tree will make her wise like God. She eats it and passes it to her husband, Adam. When they eat it they experience a great deal of shame at their nudity, and put on clothes made from fig leaves. God happens to be walking in the Garden, when he discovers Adam and Eve hiding because they naked. God puzzles out what has happened, and blights the couple with curses, as well as the serpent. Then, concerned that the human pair will eat from the Tree of Life, making them immortal, God banishes them from the Garden of Eden.
Was this story ever meant to be taken literally? It is one of two detailed creation stories in the Book Of Genesis. Both stories are different, as is the Christian cosmology in the opening chapter of the Gospel of John. The Genesis stories are very similar to other stories in their time, and have similar characters to other earlier creation accounts. Ancient Akkadian seals that predate the earliest available Biblical texts show a man and woman, a serpent, and a tree, This might be the earliest representation of the same story we read about in Genesis.
There are other Creation stories that include the Adam and Eve characters, and even later characters like Noah. The difference is that the story included in the Bible is meant to represent the ideas of the early culture that became the Jewish people, and was added to the Christian and Islamic faiths.
Adam is a farmer, an occupation that was foreign to the nomadic shepherds that became the Hebrew people. His two sons are Cain, a farmer, and Abel, a shepherd. Wicked Cain kills righteous Abel, and is punished by God. This notion of the right living is validated later in the story of Jacob and Esau, when both birthright and blessing go to Jacob, the shepherd, and not Essau, who builds a city.
The Creation-Eden story is told with almost no details, and is meant to read like a fable. Why explain everything, and does God put these dangerous trees, with such dire consequences in the middle of the same garden where he puts Adam and Eve? Why is the Serpent evil? Why is God simply strolling around the Garden, and who is he speaking to when he says, “We.”or, “Let us”? The story is not meant to answer all the questions, it's meant to give a framework to ideas about the origin of evil, why man is different from animals, what his place on earth is.
Our modern origin story is a scientific one, but it was also shaped by cultural forces too. The ideas that made up Victorian philosophy and ideology; that's why the idea caught on. It fit very much into the dynamic at the time. No one thinks much about the racial and social aspects of evolution, or enough so that we can separate the idea of Evolution from Darwinian evolution. More on that next time.
Amity: That brings us to the end of this week’s episode. If you like it, please subscribe and leave us a review - and share it with a friend.
I’ve been Amity and he’s been Lemuel, and we urge you to stay in and do something good.