I really hate it when people lie.

[tiamatschild]

So the elder of the two cousins is twelve. And she's been listening to this Adventures in Odyssey series she gets out from the library. She really enjoys them.

I just went into her room, where she's listening while she cleans up, to remind her about taking a shower and suggest some lunch, and one of the characters says that there's no transitional fossils known.

Me: ... ....*waits for the other character in the conversation to rebut this fallacy* *not, mind, that 'transitional fossil' is a great term, since all forms are their own forms and not just shifts from one form to another*
Other Character: But maybe we will find them. We've only been looking for a hundred years.
Me: *inward sigh* That's not true, you know. There are lots of fossils known that indicate forms between more ancient species and the ones around today.
Cousin: Yeeeeah. Maybe they weren't known when this was done.
Me: Maybe. But most of the famous ones have been known for several decades at least. Were you recycling these newspapers?

...And, yep. They're from Focus on the Family. Nrrrgh. I don't understand the line of thought that holds that evolutionary theory, of all things, is a key Christian issue. Mind, some of the fucked up power capitalist twistings of the concept, like Social Darwinism, are something that Christians (and all responsible people - but addressing Christianity specifically here) need to engage with, but frankly, I don't see what in heaven's name the degree and mechanism of my biological kinship with the banana slugs in the garden has to do with any of the key ethical or theological issues at the heart of the faith. I suppose you could argue that it has some bearing on whether or not the banana slug is my neighbor...

Comments

[holyschist]

Oh no, driving through an Oklahoma thunderstorm on Monday, this was the only radio station I could get. I caught the episode about trying to convert the silly Ashanti in their isolated village (the one convert suggested merging Christianity with their religion, to which all the enlightened missionaries were all "Noooooooo"). It was pretty condescending and creepy. It also had one character consoling another for his father's atheism. His father is just so stubborn and close-minded!

It is a very, very Focus-y show.

[tiamatschild]

Ooooooh blast it. I'm not exactly surprised. My aunt has a bit of a thing about Focus on the Family. In an unthinking kind of Sheltering the Children way, you know? She was a bit of a wild child herself, and well. I think that's where it comes from, the idea that if she can just keep a closer eye on them they won't get hurt. Which is of course ridiculous.

Iiiiiiick. Iiiiiick. Iiiiiiiiiiick. Ugh, I dislike Focus on the Family so much. So much. It's all just so dishonest and creepy.

Well. I guess this makes a bit more urgent my plans to take them around all the local cultural musuems. (And stress the importantance of listening to and accepting as real other people's subjective reality - but I knew that was important anyway, because their father and his parents have a tendency to deny the subjective realities of. Um. Most people they come across.) At least my other aunt's a member of the Society of Friends.

[holyschist]

Hey, I used to live in their home base town. :) They're pretty creepy, all right.