In two previous articles about how Western societies are being swept by the wave of Woke ideology. It’s out in the community, spreading fast and destroying people, starting with Lefties, as have such revolutions of the Left in the past.
But saddest to me has been seeing it penetrate into science. The Social Sciences, Humanities (or “Liberal Arts” as the Yanks call them), Art, Politics (of course),…. all that I can shrug at and say, “but of course”.
But science?
One of the science writers I’ve followed for years is Robert Zimmerman, who first came to my attention years ago with superb books on the Apollo 8 mission, Genesis and contributions to Robert Zubrin’s, The Case For Mars, the argument for humans settling that planet.
He continues to write fascinating stuff about space and space exploration at his own blog, Behind The Black. So I was a little stunned to read this from him a couple of months ago:
And not just Zimmerman. In one of my favourite TV documentaries – the 1999 BBC series The Planets – there were a couple of lovely interviews with one Carolyn Porco.
Her first job was with the Voyager imaging team as it explored the outer planets in the 1980’s.
In one of the interviews she described being all alone in a TV room one night watching the unfolding pictures of Saturn as the Voyager probe moved away from it in 1981 after the famous flyby.
It was enchanting, as were her reactions.
So the following was sad to read:
He lists a number of other such personal incidents. And these are scientists responding from within their scientific worlds. That’s sad. And it will turn out to be as bad for the subject as it has been for those other academic areas.
See also:
No Minister 
The University of NSW Science Dept has instructed staff – scientists – not to try to date Aboriginal history but instead refer to it “since the Dreamtime”. Seriously, this is not 1 April.
You could argue that it was some 40+ years ago when they changed the description of the year in the Western calendar from BC/AD (Before Christ/Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord) to BCE/CE (Before/Common Era), presumably to avoid offending non-Christians, atheists, agnostics and committed secularists that the first crack in the wall appeared. But then the practice of dating our calendar from the (incorrect) year of Jesus of Nazareth’s birth is rooted in the religio-political construct of Christendom that has been chipped away since 1789 until the point it is almost non-existence. Except, ironically in the USA, where conservative religious views about abortion and the acceptable borders of the modern state of Israel as per Christian Dispensational orthodoxy hold real sway.
Mind you, in absolute epistemological terms there is a case to be made that even the supposedly immutable bedrock-Realism “science” of Mathematics is a social construct. As per Blackadder trying to teach his man servant:
Your helpful and reasonably friendly moderator decided to help you out on making that more readable – since you’re obviously too fucking lazy to do it yourself. 😉
Spotted by my kids the other day….
And the rejoinder….
Oh – and this…. isn’t a joke anymore…
But they were Imperialistic colonisers! 😳😂
And the Semitic Ancient Near Eastern Hebrews (enslaved by both the Egyptians and Babylonians, but unbowed) get lumped in as a foundation of “Western Civilisation” when it suits conservatives.
Well for the last fifty years at least. I think you’d have to plough into the 1950’s to find Republican Country Clubs that excluded Jews.
Whereas nowadays the entire term “Judeo-Christian” results in a massive spit-take on the Left.
You know who never use the term “Judeo-Christian”? Jews.
The term originated with Friedrich Nietzsche who coined Judenchristlich (“Jewish-Christian”) to describe Jewish converts to Christianity.
Like much of the debasement of Christianity, Judeo-Christain was used in Cold War America to set the god fearin true Amuuricans apart from the godless communists.
It has no place in theology. Read “The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition” for an explanation of how Judeo-Christianity was an American political invention.
It parallels the way Republicans have become became the White Grievance Party.
Yes, I was thinking about that when I posted it. Until the Holocaust came to light Jews were typically “other”, even if just in some small way among even polite society. But since then and the founding of the modern state of Israel (which occurred in large measure because the shock of the Holocaust caused many countries to buy in to the idea that a Jewish homeland was a necessity), Jews are part of “us”. Including among conservative Christians which has most certainly not been tn3 case in the past. But fellow Semites and monotheistic Arabs? Nope…
Is one of the dangerous narratives that I think the likes of Netanyahu, and some of the ugly goons of the Israeli far right are pushing, similar to the old apartheid regime in South Africa that they are somehow a bulwark for freedom, democracy and Western Civilisation in their region…and reinforcing the not-so-subtle neo-colonialist racist message that their opponents are children, inherently incapable of acting reasonably. Hence you need us to keep on doing what we are doing.
And the problem with that unprincipled strategy is, that as easily as the bigots accepted Jews, Judaism and modern Israel into the fold, they can easily ditch them again, and we are back to the mentality of pogroms, the Dreyfus Affair and untermensch again. Indeed, (and finally linking it back to the broader concerns of your original post), the death-ro-Israel movement in the radical left is an indication of where things may head.
Mind you, Bibi strikes me as such a hardline guy who obviously believes in the Zionist project (and fair enough, I’m committed to the NZ project!), he likely expects Gentiles to act like anti-Semites as their default setting, and anything else is a temporary bonus.
“(Judaea-Christian) has no place in theology”.
What, in sociology-cultural terms? Yeah,ok. And in theology to the extent that much Christian theology, especially German from Schleiermacher in the 1830s on, has explicit and tacit anti-Semitism permeated throughout it, yeah, ok.
But as per Albert Schweitzer and the (first) Quest for the Historical Jesus (1905), the founder of Christianity was a 1st Century apocalyptic Jew. So too the Apostle Paul. And historical Jewish scholarship has been reclaiming them as significant Jewish figures who shaped their world’s.
And whatever else Christians share 80% of their active canon with Judaism. Sure, the two (and Islam) may be irreconcilable in belief and practice and the best they may ever achieve is an uneasy non-aggression agreement. But they are more alike than dissimilar, and in Tanakh/Old Testament scholarship especially there is a shared scholarship.
And that’s not even taking into account the cartoon theology of Dispensationalism, which, for all its nonsense faults, has brought Christian conservatives and Zionist Jews together in an almost insoluble bond of admittedly dubious, contradictory and cynical shared interests.
And in theology to the extent that much Christian theology, especially German from Schleiermacher in the 1830s on, has explicit and tacit anti-Semitism permeated throughout it, yeah, ok.
Kimbo, it started long before then. It goes back to the early foundations. As a lapsed catholic, I need to look it up to be certain, but I am sure we blamed the Jews for murdering Jesus up until Carnal Roncali became Pope and exonerated them. But I don’t think most Catholics got the memo until Benedict issued it again.
And whatever else Christians share 80% of their active canon with Judaism.
Nope, just the bits that suit them, more like 10% of the OT.
They use Leviticus to condemn gays while wearing clothes of mixed thread, chowing down on veal poached in milk, followed by a great big plate of prawns.
Course, they often ignore Jesus, too. American Christians love erecting 10 Commandments everywhere they can, but they do not show the same veneration of the Beatitudes.
Finally, I cannot let this pass.
the founder of Christianity was a 1st Century apocalyptic Jew
Jesus did not found Christianity, he explicitly stated his mission was to the Jew, not the Gentile, thus keeping him firmly within the bounds of Judaism. Christianity was founded by a Roman Jew, Saul/Paul, not by Jesus. Christianity was founded by a fantasist who had never met Jesus.
Yes, well I’m sure Kimbo will enjoy dealing with those stock claims.
Funny how a thread about Science has turned into a religious scrap.
On the other hand, given the new Religion Of Woke, perhaps a theological bunfight is entirely appropriate?
Is Gustavo the same as David with whom I got into a discussion that stretched for miles a year and a half ago?
http://nominister.blogspot.com/2019/02/on-cardinal-george-pell.html
If so, no I’ll pass on a lapsed Catholic talking uninformed ignorance that Calvinists such as myself only pay attention to 10% of the Old Testament, or that Saul/Paul of Tarsus, like Jesus too, wasn’t a…First Century apocalyptic Jew. I chose my words carefully on that matter but as per usual, it was wasted on the hasty reading of Mr Contrary. Which just goes to show can take the lad out of Irish Catholicism, but you can’t take the Irish Catholicism out of the lad! 😳😂
Did I mention – with respect to you and your wife, and kids, Tom – that we in Geneva don’t give a crap what pronouncements they presume to make from Rome on behalf of the Universal Church, even if it is John XXIII, the one Pope we Protestants have had any time for in over 500 years? 😂
Tom Hunter discovers humans are fallible. Film at 9.
Bingo!
I think the reason for the nym change was that “David” flounced out of NoMinister with loud denunciations about how the blog had declined with my arrival and ongoing presence, and is usually the case with such dramatic LANCB’s, came toddling back with a new nym and logo from Breaking Bad – for extra coolness.
Sorry, is that…sarcasm?
Yeah, yeah, papist-boy. The 17th chapter of the Book of Revelation/The Whore of Babylon back at ya! 😳😂
Don’t you just love ecumenical discussion? 😂
O Lord, save Thy people, and bless Thine inheritance! Grant victory to the Orthodox Christians over their adversaries, and by virtue of Thy cross, preserve Thy habitation.
Is Gustavo the same as David with whom I got into a discussion that stretched for miles a year and a half ago?
Nope, not me. That went on waayy too long. You produce Jesus, I’ll believe.
I seem to remember on about 5 occasions in that thread trying to get from you an example of falsifiability test we could apply to your beliefs and you had no idea what I was talking about. Was like teaching Baldrick to count!
So if I can’t produce proof of Karl Popper and his work through you I doubt I’d be able to satisfy your particular intellectual…foibles re Jesus. 😳😂
And no, I’m not buying at this stage the story you aren’t David. But I am open to be convinced by…credible evidence and witnesses. 😳😂
If so, no I’ll pass on a lapsed Catholic talking uninformed ignorance that Calvinists such as myself only pay attention to 10% of the Old Testament,
So you don’t wear clothes of mixed thread? You don’t eat bacon or prawns? You beat your children? you would force your daughter to marry her rapist? You think you can see all the kingdoms on Earth from a hill in Judea? Sickness is caused by sin, not germs? You have sold all your worldly goods and given the proceeds to the poor? You have cursed your parents?
Do you still make a burnt offering? Do you murder strangers? How many foreskins did you have to collect to pay for your wife? Do you still execute non believers? Do you love the sinner, but hate the sin? Or do you think God is right to kill all the sinners? Just how much smiting can you do in a day?
Don’t need to have a lapsed Papist set the narrative on how a Calvinist applies the moral, civil and….ceremonial aspects of the Mosaic Law, and how we distinguish them, thanks very much. Especially when you are plagiarising the screen writers of the West Wing making a hero of President Josh Bartlett as played by Martin Sheen, asking a bunch of rhetorical questions.
But if you are really interested – which you are not – check out Walter Kaiser Jr, and the application of Old Testament law and the principle of middle axioms. Hence the Apostle Paul could instruct an urban Gentile church – who were not circumcised or bound by dietary law – that, as per Moses, they should not muzzle the ox that treads the grain…when they didn’t have any oxen, but they did have others working for their well-being.
Was that message approved by Michael Servetus?
And Gustavo/David does a google search…and comes up with the most predictable response possible.
So much for “Tom Hunter discovers humans are fallible. Film at 9.”, but then none of us expected your new-found wry acknowledgement of the foibles and follies of human nature to last long.
But for what it’s worth, no, I’m not expecting non-trinitarian heretics to be burned at the stake. much less executed. Which is hazard a guess is more humanity than a number of radical critical left wingers would show to their ideological foes if they ever got their hands on power. You’ve mentioned “Servetus” so I’ll parry “body count” fencing back at ya with Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot…
All right people. I’m calling it on this one, as much fun as it is to watch Kimbo play with his ball of yarn.
Either you go back to the topic of how Woke Politics and politics in general is fucking even with Science and Scientists, or into the spam bin with ya!
It’s not like you won’t have the chance to have at it again about religion. Might even put up a special post about the subject. 😇😇😇