Some make more than one donation
Many make none
Have you contributed?
Posted on 11/26/2012 3:30:07 PM PST by Kaslin
Let the Blood Games continue.
Only weeks after election 2012 and years before election 2016, in a routine interview, a glossy pop magazine popped Florida Senator Marco Rubio with an oddball question: How old do you think the earth is? Rubio responded a bit clumsily and noncommittally. Smelling blood and opportunity, the wolf pack bared fangs and chased.
Their game is either to force Rubio to affirm a personal belief the earth is 4.5 billion years old—disturbing some of his religious supporters--or to mock and stigmatize him and others who could harbor any delusional uncertainty—damaging him with a different part of the electorate.
The snarling pack imposes a totalitarian demand: No matter whether you’re intelligent, you engage the real world, you offer solutions to problems, and you attract and persuade citizens to support your vision and solutions; the pack demands to know if you have any hidden reserves of unsavory, illogical faith. Deny it or be tarred and marginalized.
The pack’s position, stretched to its logical end, amounts to demanding that politicians reject belief in God’s divinity and supremacy. That is, it countenances loyalty only to a god who exercises no will or power beyond passively upholding the principles set forth in Science 101.
Before reflecting why that is necessarily so, consider some of the other malignancies exposed by this flare up.
First is the premeditated bad faith of an upscale publication. The random question is untethered from public policy, from issues in the US Senate, or measures Rubio might pursue. It arose from a singular goal unrelated to reporting current events: GQ wanted to conjure a killer question, something that might damage a popular potential GOP presidential candidate. It’s easy to imagine the query came from a group brainstorm over lunch: “Think, people…how can we trip him?!”
Second on the list is the poisonous effect of unresting, perpetual attack machinery. Scarcely had the interview hit GQ’s website and newsstands when it ricocheted across the blogosphere and commentariat, with sneers from the left and defenses from the right. Barack Obama is two months shy of putting his hand on the Bible for a second term. Yet, already an anticipated candidate for 2016 is under manufactured attack for how he might read that book’s teachings.
GQ forced the exchange, the left media took up the cudgel, and then a celebrity hack of liberal economics at the Grey Lady weighed in. Now, it’s volleyed about on social media. Is it any wonder so many ambitious politicians opt for the duck and cover art of saying nothing about anything?
Ugliest of all is the totalitarian, anti-faith direction this attack takes our politics. A western Democratic organizer cited the GQ interview on her Facebook page to spread the smear. When I commented critically, a number of her friends suddenly appeared and pressed to know how old I think the earth is.
Their interest in getting a term-limited state lawmaker on record was surprising, but more troubling were their justifications for the question’s relevance: The earth’s age is determined by scientific measurements of carbon, radioactivity, and other phenomena. Those technologies also inform the operation of nuclear reactors, radiation therapy, and a host of other modern processes. If someone believes in a literal account of biblical creation, then he’s a threat to modernity and our comforts.
Oh, really? Do you see where this insanity goes?
Do you believe in the Virgin birth? Then how can we trust you with oversight of HHS programs and youth sexual education? If you won’t swear allegiance to the principles of biological reality and sexual autonomy then you are a freak and a menace.
Do you believe there was a purifying flood as the Bible describes? Is that established in the geologic record? How can you be trusted to oversee the Department of the Interior, the Geological Survey or BLM?
Did Moses part the Red Sea? You must be kept away from the National Weather Service.
Do you believe Jesus walked on the water to his disciples in the boat? Then how can you oversee a Navy that relies on conventional flotation physics to design its ships?
Do you believe He ascended after His resurrection? You are disqualified from commanding the Air Force: It relies on Newtonian physics for its understanding of aerodynamics.
Do you believe in resurrection at all? How can we trust you to make life and death decisions if you believe life is just a dress rehearsal and we all get a do over?
Only creativity limits the attacks on traditional faith and the grounds to exclude believers.
The gambit’s offensiveness and sinister portent is obvious. The canine-Pavlov types pursuing Rubio may understand the logical ends of their position or not. But the logic leads, whether they grasp or not.
So, let me hazard an answer to the GQ interviewer. It’s directed to the specific question, but adaptable to those that are sure to come.
Our best science says the earth is 4.5 billion years old. I don’t have a good reason to question that. I don’t know what a “day” is in the account of Creation. But I do believe in a God of miracles and mysteries. So I’m not going to scratch your inquisitional itch by denouncing anyone’s literal belief in the biblical account.
Does that trouble you? Why? I accept the laws of science and physics, and I admire the people who work to understand and reveal them. If, as a public official, I propose to substitute prayer for research, Bible verses for nuclear codes, or religious rites for rigorous testing, then, you can get concerned.
But until that point, the faith I hold somewhere in my mind and heart is between me and my God. If you want to force me to sign a loyalty oath denying it, you can go to Hell, figuratively speaking.
“Even scientists don’t KNOW the answer. I’ve read sources that put the age of the universe at 15 billion years. Why would our own solar system be a mere 4.5 billion? What was going on for 10.5 billion years before the earth was created?”
You might find if you read “The 12th. Planet” by Z. Sitchin an interesting answer to that question, it sure helped me with a lot of questions I had
The Bible is absolutely silent on the age of the earth and universe. Some ‘scholars’ have made their interpretations of what they believe the Bible indicates, however, it is still an assumption of what is meant. With the Bible silent on the age of the earth, the age of the universe, and life on other planets, they all can be whatever they turn out to be. As stated, even scientist do not agree on the age of the earth. So a simple I don’t know is perfectly acceptable to me.
New stars and galaxies are constantly forming; old stars and galaxies are constantly dying; we see this through telescopes. Our sun was not the first one formed.
The Earth is old enough for the United States to have accumulated $16 trillion dollars in debt and too young to support 47 million Americans on food stamps.
Next question.
"I'm quite sure that it's a big number."
"How old do you think my shoes are?"
[Pointed] "How old do you think the First Amendment is?"
[Buckleyesque] "Why not ask yourself if your time is better spent asking that question of Prince Charles?"
I’m still trying to figure out how old the planet Kolob is!
These folks, with their determined and belittling censorship, reveal their fear of real "freedom of conscience," as protected by the First Amendment, and their devotion to a totalitarian ideology.
In the words of George Mason: "The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth. A legislature must not obstruct our obedience to Him, from whose punishment they cannot protect us. All human laws which contradict His laws we are in conscience bound to disobey."
The correct answer is the earth is as old as it is.Now it depends on what the meaning of is is!
>>I’m still trying to figure out how old the planet Kolob is!<<
As Ronald Reagan might have said: “I really don’t know. It was already there when I got there.” /humor
"How old do you think it is? In the 1790's John Phillips said it was 96 million years old.In 1862, Lord Kelvin said it was between 20 million and 400 million years old.
In 1856, physicist Hermann von Helmholtz said it was 22 million.
In 1892, astronomer Simon Newcomb said it was 18 million years old.
Soon after Newcomb, Charles Darwin's son George, an astronomer, said the earth was 56 million years old.
In 1911, physicist Arthur Holmes labeled a rock sample from Ceylon to be 1.6 billion years old, and in 1927 presented his range of the earth's age to be 1.6 to 3.0 billion years old.
In the 1940s, Holmes had a change of heart and along with E.K. Gerling and Fritz Houtermans, began to measure lead isotopes in meteorites, of course, to determine the age of the earth.
Thusly after Houterman dated the Canyon Diablo meteorite, he placed the earth's age at 4.5 billion years, give or take 300 million years.
So in the span of 220 years, "science" has moved the target from 95 million years to 5 times that, to 50 times that -- with enough waggle room in the latter to accomodate the first 5 guessers, er, scientists.
Lord Kelvin was convinced he was right. Holmes knew he was right. Houtermans knew he was right. So in another 220 years, what will be the new age of the earth?
So I ask you again journolist, how old do you think it is?"
Seriously, when have you heard any politician called on the carpet for believing any other religious content than Genesis 1-11?
MSM now has a mission to oppose God. Evil.
The devil must have put it there. Is Canyon Diablo close to U.S. Hwy. 666?
Since Obama claims to be a Christian, why not ask him and get the “authoritative” answer - I’m sure this one isn’t “above his pay grade”...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.