Blog Against Theocracy & Science Posted by Oaktown Girl, 06 Apr 2007 03:00 am

Travelogue Against Theocracy

By jimmyraybob

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado is recognized as one of the greatest wonders of the natural world, breathtaking in its incredible splendor as seen from the rim, and at river level. It is not just an icon of beauty, however, it is a solemn witness to the mighty power of God … the beautiful rock strata of the Canyon, with their evidence of deposition under widespread waters, speak of His world-convulsing judgment at the time of the great Flood. Similarly, the mile-deep canyon itself, which could never have been carved out by the waters of the present river, tells of a time when a great damned up lake full of water from the flood suddenly broke and a mighty hydraulic monster roared down toward the sea, digging deeply path it had chosen along the way.

Tom Vail in Grand Canyon, a Different Story (2003)

Thus begins a book about a new myth about an old myth; a book that lays claim to one of the greatest geological marvels and open air textbooks in the world. It’s a book of creative and fanciful musings - at best a hypothesis - presented to fit a creation myth as old as mankind (e.g., Epic of Gilgamesh, Genesis). But it’s more; it’s become a textbook in the science curriculum of the fundamentalist Christian universities and colleges. It’s science – devoid of the encumbrance of the methodology of science – for a new Theocracy.

grand-canyon-jimmyraybob.jpg

A view of the Canyon from Guano Point, East Grand Canyon, Hualapai Nation, AZ.

***********************

Dateline STL (March 28, 2007): I have returned from my Ministry of Geology and Glitter (MOGG) junket to the wilds of the American Southwest and would like to thank our glorious Minister of Justice for extending a gracious invitation to share the results of my fact-finding mission with the Party. First of all, I have to post a disclaimer: In no way shape or form has Jack Abramoff influenced or subsidized any MOGG activities. Second of all, I am pleased to report to the membership that the state of the Southwest is good.

The MOGG entourage first encampment was an abandoned ranch near St. Johns, AZ., complete with Mesozoic Era, late Triassic Period Chinle Formation outcrop décor…

laundry room,
jimmyraybob_toilet.jpg

and bath facilities:
jimmyraybob_3.jpg

This site is located within the Colorado Plateau Physiographic province of what was once western Laurentia (Pangaea) south of the present day Petrified Forest National Park. The Colorado Plateau (CP) is the result of block uplift during tectonic events of the Laramide orogeny (mountain building - Rocky Mountains) that occurred some 70 to 80 million years ago (mya) to approximately 35 to 55 mya [late Cretaceous period (late Mesozoic Era)]. While the Rockies to the north and east were breaking through the overlying sedimentary rocks the CP block was uplifted almost intact with relatively little disturbance to the sedimentary rock units including the Chinle Formation rocks deposited some 210-220 mya – late stage formation of the super continent Pangaea. The landscape we see today is the result of millions of years of erosion by wind and rain and a couple of hundred years of years of erosion by humans.

The Chinle Formation sediments (and Moenkopi Formation), exposed throughout Arizona and Utah, record a vast freshwater continental floodplain & braided-stream depositional setting following shallow-marine transgressive/regressive deposition as recorded in the underlying early Triassic Moenkopi Formation (ca. 248-242 mya). Hint: If you see massive red rocks in Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado they’re likely to be of similar Triassic-age origin. Together, these rock formations record the final assembly in these parts of Pangaea (ca. 200 mya), which would eventually break up sending the continents and the dinosaurs slowly traveling the globe. The free ride for the dinosaurs would come to an end at about 65 mya setting events in motion culminating in the rise of the mammals and such wonders as the British invasion, hockey (threw this in as tribute to Chairman for Life Bérubé), TV dinners, Brittany Spears, sliced bread, Enron, beer and me throwing out my sleeping bag on a small patch of Earth shaped by titanic forces through millennia to be awakened before dawn by the coyote’s howl. So far the southwest was looking pretty good.

An early breakfast – coffee – and the MOGG expedition was off and headed to the Basin and Range and the Sonoran desert. A report will be forthcoming.
jimmyraybob.jpg

Your Humble Servant,

jimmiraybob
Ministry of Geology and Glitter
WAAGNFNP

Trackbacks

  1. 1. Balls and Walnuts - more than you ever wanted to know » Spend some time in the Blogswarm

  2. 2. Stump Lane | Clever, Hilarious, Informative » Blog Against Theocracy: Jefferson’s Wall

  3. 3. VirusHead » Mutating bits of contagious discourse, because language is a virus. » Blog Archive » The Posts Against Theocracy

  4. 4. VirusHead » Mutating bits of contagious discourse, because language is a virus. » Blog Archive » Blog Against Theocracy Bits 1-15

  5. 5. waagnfnp » Travelogue, Part II

Responses to “Travelogue Against Theocracy”

  1. on 06 Apr 2007 at 4:31 am 1. JP Stormcrow said …

    It’s science – devoid of the encumbrance of the methodology of science

    And your point is?

    Would you not agree that encumbrances are bad? Gee, do I always have to be the one to bring a modern efficient business viewpoint to things around here? I can well imagine that you’re the kind that thinks the executive should be encumbered by laws and the Constitution as well.

  2. on 06 Apr 2007 at 6:39 am 2. Jams said …

    I have mixed feelings about theological science (if I can even give it such a gracious name).

    On the one hand, it represents a stupidity both frightening and revolting. On the other hand, it smacks of desperation; a theocracy struggling to remain relevant by emulating the language and postures of science.

    I think I’d worry more if scientists started talking in a more theocratic rhetoric (again).

  3. on 06 Apr 2007 at 7:24 am 3. jimmiraybob said …

    An encumbrance (sometimes referred to, particularly in the United States as an incumbrance) is a legal term of art for anything that affects or limits the title of a property, such as mortgages, leases, easements, liens, or restrictions. Also, those considered as potentially making the title defeasible are also encumbrances. For example, charging orders, building orders and structure alteration.
    Wikipedia (4/6/07)

    As councel for science, I would argue that if you want to buy into the science condo then there should be encumbrances on the mortgage to protect my client’s credibility and viability as an institution. We here at Science Acres are a bit persnickety about that.

    …that you’re the kind that thinks the executive should be encumbered by laws and the Constitution as well.

    Of course not. The king’s heart is ruled only by God. I assumed you were speaking of the imperial presidency and not corporate…..if there’s still a difference.

  4. on 06 Apr 2007 at 8:34 am 4. The Constructivist said …

    Thanks for posting scientific evidence of which way the wind is blowing, jimmiraybob. Quick questions: isn’t Brittany the cheerleader from Daria and Britney the current top 25 sign o’ the GNF? (I could never tell them apart.) And I’m confused, is the state of teh SW good or pretty good?

  5. on 06 Apr 2007 at 9:42 am 5. jimmiraybob said …

    …isn’t Brittany the cheerleader from Daria and Britney…

    Drats, there goes my “all things Britney all the time” street cred.

    …the current top 25 sign o’ the GNF?

    I’ll have to refer this question to the appropriate ministry.

    …is the state of teh SW good or pretty good?

    Apparently it depends on the state of my coffee, rushing through my body or still brewing. I will give a final verdict after greater consideration and the presentation of additional evidence.

  6. on 06 Apr 2007 at 10:20 am 6. Seattle said …

    Man, that’s a mighty flat view. What is it about flat that just doesn’t do it for me. I know it’s a plateau, which means it’s flat until you fall off the edge… Do you suppose the geography of Heaven/Paradise is flat? No barriers, no troubles, flat. Flat, flat, flat. Would that make Hell the hill country? Swampy with mosquitoes? Create your own geography of misery?

  7. on 06 Apr 2007 at 12:39 pm 7. Oaktown Girl said …

    Really, really lovely photos, jimmyraybob.

    Not being much of an outdoorswoman, I’d probably be whining a little bit about the accommodations, so good thing I wasn’t traveling with you. (Did you at least get a Continental Breakfast?)

    I like the shot gun holes in the washing machine (too funny). It adds just the right touch.

  8. on 06 Apr 2007 at 1:13 pm 8. James Killus said …

    I have at various times mused at some length on the connections between Creationism, Social Darwinism, Evolution, and Science Fiction. I have many tentative conclusions and speculations, most of them dubious, but I will mention a few that seem pertinant.

    First, people often confuse Darwinian Evolution with Social Darwinism, and it’s worth noting that the social stratum that is most hostile to the former is the one that looks most like it’s losing the latter. There is also a vice versa to that.

    Second, if one were to quiz those who say they believe in the scientific explanations for biological evolution and the geological history of the earth, the percentage who know what they are talking about may not be substantially greater than those who say they disbelieve the science. Indeed, taking my own little survey of the science fiction field, I’ve found it difficult to locate SF stories concerning evolution that were not either 1) teleological 2) Social Darwinist or 3) Directed evolution (usually by aliens, or the like). Stories that illustrate evolution by natural selection tend to be very rare, partly because Darwinism lacks narrative focus.

    Finally, while the state of scientific education in this country is indeed horrible, causing many people to advocate the teaching of “critical thinking,” I have never been able to find someone whose notion of “critical thinking” skills did not map very closely to the skills that they themselves happen to possess.

    This includes me, of course.

  9. on 06 Apr 2007 at 2:32 pm 9. T said …

    Great Photo commentary. I love the tongue in cheek voice.

  10. on 06 Apr 2007 at 2:34 pm 10. spyder said …

    The landscape we see today is the result of millions of years of erosion by wind and rain and a couple of hundred years of years of erosion by humans.

    But “they” keep putting bricks in the wall around me that tell me the whole shebang is only around 6500 years old. Oh damn, there goes another brick in the wall.

    …the current top 25 sign o’ the GNF?
    A quick intelligence gathering reveals that this is more appropriately aligned under the top ten weirdest anime in the universe, rather than impending signs of the GNF.

    Stories that illustrate evolution by natural selection tend to be very rare, partly because Darwinism lacks narrative focus.
    Ray Bradbury’s Sound of Thunder being one of those. Damn butterfly, why did it have to be in that one spot at that one moment??? Oh wait, that is begging the wHoly other question.

  11. on 06 Apr 2007 at 2:47 pm 11. christian h. said …

    Thanks, jimmyraybob. I love good travel stories. Especially from areas I’ll never travel to because I much prefer sleeping in a bed… We anxiously await your continued report, then.

  12. on 06 Apr 2007 at 3:16 pm 12. spyder said …

    where oh where are you??? we are looking everywhere….
    Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

  13. on 06 Apr 2007 at 3:22 pm 13. christian h. said …

    Sorry, spyder, that beautiful picture is slightly too large for the comments box. Do you want to post a link to the full picture?

    [JP: I went ahead and reduced it - 500 pixels width seems to be about the max - have not tested to get exact number]

  14. on 06 Apr 2007 at 4:51 pm 14. Oaktown Girl said …

    At least for now, you can see Our Name on the blogswarm list at the Blog Against Theocracy HQ. Check it out (scroll down - we’re “old skool” cuz we’re just that cool!). There are some other things you can do over there as well, (but I can’t do them myself right now because I’m at work).

    Don’t forget we’ll have new posts all weekend long in support of BAT Week(end). And because we are the WAAGNFNP and everything we do is BIGGER, uh, I mean, GIANT, we will be taking BAT Week(end) into Monday as well.

    Hooray for us! And big thanks Blue Gal and to all the folks who organized this important and timely event.

  15. on 06 Apr 2007 at 9:22 pm 15. The Constructivist said …

    Thinking back to my one road trip through the U.S. west, it struck me that Salt Lake City had the best radio stations of any of the cities and listening areas in which I was listening to the radio. I was going to try to make a case that theocracy can be good for us–at least in that respect–but then I remembered that the radio in Colorado Springs was even worse than the Utica radio I grew up listening to (and liking at the time, not knowing any different, poor me). So no, no good points to theocracy I can think of. Carry on.

    Well, those roads in Salt Lake City were pretty wide.

  16. on 06 Apr 2007 at 10:51 pm 16. jimmiraybob said …

    Well, those roads in Salt Lake City were pretty wide.

    I always wondered why the small towns out west had such wide main streets. I met a guy up in Lander, Wyoming that runs a team of horses and a wagon and he told me that the width of the street was determined by the radius that a full team and wagon could turn. I’ve seen it in action - seems to be the case.

  17. on 06 Apr 2007 at 10:54 pm 17. jimmiraybob said …

    …because I much prefer sleeping in a bed…

    You don’t know how good a bed feels until you’ve slept on the ground for a week or two. Pretty much the same for showering.

  18. on 06 Apr 2007 at 11:04 pm 18. The Constructivist said …

    Gonna do/blog that skywalk thingie? Or stop by Fredonia, AZ? (I think it was AZ. If I weren’t lazy, I’d look at a map)

  19. on 07 Apr 2007 at 6:03 am 19. jimmiraybob said …

    Gonna do/blog that skywalk thingie?

    Yes. The first photo above, a view of the Canyon from Guano Point, East Grand Canyon, AZ, is from an official state tour (tourist bus) that the WAAGNFNP MOGG team was able to negotiate (paid for ticket) with the Nation of the Hualapai.

  20. on 07 Apr 2007 at 9:07 am 20. JP Stormcrow said …

    Stories that illustrate evolution by natural selection tend to be very rare, partly because Darwinism lacks narrative focus.

    I think the story Epilogue by Poul Anderson was a nice example of understanding evolution. In it, human astronauts come back to Earth very far in the future due special relativity time effects (this is a bit lame, but basically just a device to get a human observer there.) They find a world with a totally mechanical “biosystem”, which evolved from mining barges that had programs to use some of the extracted mineral to build replicas of themselves. (Mankind had destroyed itself and much of the carbon-based ecosystem in some manner - I forget how.) It was written in 1962, so it was also quite the early appreciation of the potential of computing.

  21. on 07 Apr 2007 at 10:17 am 21. JP Stormcrow said …

    The Colorado Plateau, a place uplifting (and uplifted), especially for those unencumbered with conventional theistic explanations for everything they look at. I also find it to be a sobering place for reflecting upon the place of man on the earth and in the landscape, now and in the past - well captured in jimmyraybob’s images.

    Let me add - a view to Monument Valley from Muley Point in fading light (though it is uncapturable on film, and most certainly on film by me…)
    Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
    What you don’t see in the picture are the road up/down, the Moki Dugway, a joy to drive with two intense acrophobes in the car, and the nearby Goosenecks of the San Juan - pictured below by a better photgrapher.
    Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

    … and finally, you can never have too many petroglyphs.
    Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

  22. on 07 Apr 2007 at 10:21 am 22. spyder said …

    Thanks for fixing the image above. Now we have a relative guide for size i can use–500 x 500 pixels, correct??

    I always wondered why the small towns out west had such wide main streets.
    I have some access to this history, in that my grandfather and his two brothers were part of the USGS teams of the late 1800’s and first half of the 1900’s to lay out towns and cities all over the west (great job for BIA trained Indian kids). Their later work was vile and horrible (Rocky Mountain and Hanford, as well as TVA and Chevron refineries), but the township surveys and street layouts were cool. The story goes that three sets of factors were taken into account to determine the width of streets. First was the need for ditches to carry runoff and sewage “out of town.” Second, was the need (as mentioned above) for horse-drawn stages, coaches, and wagons to be able to navigate around one another. Third, was the problem of mixed vehicular traffic with the advent of automobiles and electric trolleys.

  23. on 07 Apr 2007 at 10:40 am 23. jimmiraybob said …

    In the last petroglyph, is that a depiction of the gathering of WAAGNFNP faithful witnessing the first instant of the GNF in the upper right hand corner? Have we been forseen?

  24. on 07 Apr 2007 at 10:59 am 24. JP Stormcrow said …

    In the last petroglyph, is that a depiction of the gathering of WAAGNFNP faithful witnessing the first instant of the GNF in the upper right hand corner? Have we been forseen?

    Well it is either that or Spring Break!

  25. on 08 Apr 2007 at 10:57 am 25. The Constructivist said …

    JP, do you have a link handy to teh Clark(e)’s grafix novel? That there is one in-joke that’s worth giving new members a chance to enjoy for themselves!

  26. on 09 Apr 2007 at 10:00 am 26. VirusHead said …

    Great photos!!

    More rocks from the Valley of the Gods…

  27. on 13 Apr 2007 at 10:32 am 27. jimmiraybob said …

    Just testing…

    HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 19
    94TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

    Submitting to the qualified voters of Missouri an amendment repealing section 5 of article I of the Constitution of Missouri, and adopting one new section in lieu thereof relating to the right to pray.

    Introduced by representatives Bearden (sponsor), Jetton, Lembke, Day, Wilson (119), Smith (14), Bivins, Sater, Kelly, Baker (123), Munzlinger, Fisher, Ruestman, Nolte, Dixon, Ervin, Wood, Jones (89), Dempsey, COOPER (120), Self, NIEVES, Wells, Funderburk, Icet, McGhee, Thomson, Stevenson, Moore and Schad (co-sponsors).

    So that’s how they’re passing their time since they’ve failed in getting creationism into the schools…

    HOUSE BILL NO. 911
    92ND GENERAL ASSEMBLY

    Introduced by representatives COOPER (155) (Sponsor), Reinhart, Davis (19), NIEVES, Phillips, Emery and Hunter (Co-sponsors).

  28. on 13 Apr 2007 at 11:07 am 28. christian h. said …

    Well, this one went through with no problem. I believe once one of your posts has been “moderated” (as opposed to despammed - I have no idea which posts go to moderation as opposed to spam) further posts should not land in moderation anymore. I think…