Jesus Saves!

I'm a weird guy insofar as when I'm confronted with an issue that I haven't studied all that much, I find myself paying attention to those who have studied it. It just seems like a good way to learn stuff.

In large part, that's why I'm inclined to side with the vast majority of climate scientists on the matter of climate change over James Inhofe, radio talk show hosts and most bloggers, few of whom have demonstrated expertise in much of anything. Does this make me part of the "cult of the expert"? Probably, but that strikes me as being a better intellectual option than the alternative.

On the other hand, believing in global warming doesn't mean that I actually care about it very much. Just because I know that Senator Inhofe is wrong and quite possibly a moron doesn't necessarily mean that I'm not also incredibly selfish and an incorrigibe misanthropist, to boot. I want to make that clear.

The single biggest reason I abandoned Republicanism over the last five or six years is its reliance on ignorance as foundation of political governance. So hearty was the desire of Republican politicians to prove that they're every bit as dumb as their voters, we actually saw a cardiologist turned Senate majority leader diagnosing the brain function of a woman who was a thousand miles away. And he did it from a videotape.

That was more than enough for me. I like to think of conservatism and libertarianism as informed philosophies. Republicanism wants to be seen as anything but, so fuck them. Perhaps that makes me an elitist. I like to think it does.

Which brings me to U.S. Representative John Shimkus, a Republican from the 19th District of Illinois. Congressman Shimkus would very much like to be the Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. That committee would have, as you would think, a great deal to do with legislation on energy and its impact on the environment and public health.

This week we learned a little bit about Shimkus' credentials.

Shimkus already serves on the committee. During a hearing in 2009, he dismissed the dangers of climate change and the warnings of the scientific community by quoting the Bible.

First, he noted God’s post-Flood promise to Noah in Genesis 8:21-22.

“Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though all inclinations of his heart are evil from childhood and never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.

“As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.”

“I believe that’s the infallible word of God, and that’s the way it’s going to be for his creation,” Shimkus said.

Then he quoted Matthew 24:31.

“And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other.”

“The Earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth. This Earth will not be destroyed by a Flood,” Shimkus asserted. “I do believe that God’s word is infallible, unchanging, perfect.”

Following the Republican wave in the recent Congressional elections, the committee will shift from Democratic to Republican leadership.

On Tuesday, Shimkus sent a letter to his colleagues burnishing his credentials by saying he is “uniquely qualified among a group of talented contenders to lead the Energy and Commerce Committee.”

What. The. Fuck? That's the kind of thing I'd expect to hear from the Iranian leadership, if the Mullahs were all born with fetal alcohol syndrome. But this is a supposedly respected leader of the world's oldest continuous democracy, which goes a long way in explaining why democracy is probably on its last legs.

I have no problem with climate change skeptics. A number of them are actually insightful and entertaining, and not a few rely on arguments grounded in science. John Shimkus just isn't one of them. His opposition to reason is predicated on nothing more than superstitious nonsense.

The argument that God isn't going to kill us all in a flood because he has other clever ways of bringing us home really isn't an argument at all. It demands that we presuppose a number of things - specifically biblical fantasies - that shouldn't be presupposed at all. It replaces the scientific method, which can reliably prove or disprove something, with faith, which famously cannot.

I've had this debate with religious folks before. If they assert something based on their faith's doctrine, I usually point out that their position requires proving the existence of their god. They usually reply by saying that I can't categorically disprove the existence of their god, which is true but also beside the point.

In these conversations, I'm not usually asserting anything at all. They are, which puts the onus on them to back up their case with something other than old wives tales. The Bible may indeed be a fine foundation on which to govern one's life's, but it isn't evidence of anything, mostly because it isn't supposed to be.

By it's very definition, faith exists outside the realm of reason and evidence. If it didn't, it wouldn't be faith at all. For example, no one has "faith" in the Law of Gravity because everyone has fallen down at least once. They've actually experienced it. But if you're going to posit that it's possible to fall up, I would expect you to come to that debate armed with something more than verses from the Book of Revelations, which is actually a supposed prophecy of the future. As much as I'd like to, I don't use the July 1993 issue of Black Tail as reference material in very many of my debates.

Just as nobody learns much theology on prom night, theologians aren't very useful in teaching the advanced sciences.Folks,the Manhattan Project wasn't headed and primarily staffed by religious scholars and neither is the current Iranian nuclear program. But if you follow the logic of John Shimkus, both probably should have been.

And that, teenagers, doesn't make him "uniquely qualified among a group of talented contenders" for anything other than a straight jacket.