Narratives

It seems that most progressives have been taught myths about how progress came about in the past. These are the narratives and the texture of the texts that develope a worldview capable of supporting the grand mythological narratives of Evolution. For instance, if a Darwinist is being proven wrong about Darwinian narratives then suddenly Galileo or the flat earth may pop up although they have nothing to do with anything. The irony is that some of the stories used for associative "just like" arguments are not even true anyway.

E.g.,

Like any story, that of Galileo has a plot, characters, a setting and props. The plot is the war between religion and science, and it is presented to us...through the adventures of a charismatic individual. Armed only with a telescope and reason, plucky Galileo stood against the might of the church. He was tortured by the Inquisition, condemned as a heretic, and wasted away in a prison cell; Italian science floundered. The main draw back to this plot is that most of it is untrue.

As the philosopher Aristotle sagely observed, a drama must concern but one action of one man, entire and complete. We know the action. The man is, of course, Galileo. As Bertrand Russell says, “everyone knows” about Galileo. Scientist and hero, he invented the telescope, discovered how the earth moves around the sun, conducted his famous experiment on the (even then) Leaning Tower of Pisa and courageously added to his recantation of the earth’s motion: “Eppure si muove” (“yet it does move”). As it happens, little of this is true either. However, where decisive scientific discoveries are lacking, the myth supplies them: the Leaning Tower and the telescope build up Galileo’s character nicely.

To become a martyr to knowledge, our hero needs an antagonist, and this is provided by the church, sometimes appearing in the form of Pope Urban VII, sometimes as Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, but most commonly as the Inquisition. It is powerful, bigoted and ignorant.

The story has two settings, corresponding to the two dramatis personae. Galileo occupies the wide, sunlit high ground of reason and observation, free from obscurantist dogma and superstition: the realm of knowledge and facts. The church, on the other hand, prefers to live in the cramped monastic cell of religious dogma and faith.

The props are simple. Galileo has his telescope; the church has its Bible. And so the stage is set.

(Six Modern Myths About Christianity & Western Civilization
By Philip J. Sampson :29-30)

You would think that when budding progressives first learn a narrative from a book or their professors that so tightly fits into progressive ideology that they might question it. Is it suddenly so easy to make vast discriminations about science and religion for those who couldn't be intolerant enough to be against peeing on the front lawn before? Now they suddenly have the degree of judgment necessary for intolerance.

Darwinists often use myths originally written by progressive charlatans to support mythological narratives of Evolution. I've been researching some of their associative propaganda to see if it is neccessary to smash the link or to just answer the shift in argument. Examples: disagreeing with the grand narratives of Darwinism is "just like" the Catholic Church's persecution of Galileo or "just like" saying that the earth is flat or disagreeing with gravity and so on and so forth.

Examples:

The immensity of World Youth Day events that took place this summer in Toronto were a vivid illustration of the enduring power of religion. In fact, the vast majority of the human race believes in God.

Surely such a massive consensus enveloping countless societies can't be wrong, can it?

An atheist can take solace in the fact that truth, unlike politics, is not swayed by public opinion. There once was a time when Earth was perceived as being the centre of the universe. Then, 350 years ago, Galileo built a telescope and made the revolutionary discovery that Earth revolves around the sun. The Catholic Church disagreed.

But it was not strictly for this reason that Galileo was persecuted by the Inquisition. His real "crime" was his insistence on communicating his discovery to the general public. It was only under threat of torture that he recanted his position and was sentenced to life imprisonment. ...to automatically point to "intelligent design," ...fails to consider the evolution of science.

(Hamilton Spectator (Ontario, Canada) September 25, 2002 Wednesday Final Edition
Forum; Pg. A15
God is not the answer to humanity's existence
By Vlado Zeman) (Emphasis on false narratives added)

Religious leaders in Kansas who oppose the teaching of evolution August 9, should have learned a lesson from the Galileo incident, when Bible scholars clung to the belief that the sun circled the Earth. In opposing scientific truth, they did much harm to religion's teaching authority. Evolution is not a theory in the sense of a hypothesis. It is a logical explanation of facts.

Galileo caused an improvement in Bible interpretation. Science, rather than harming, will, given time, enhance the understanding of the Bible and religious truth. Conversely, opposition to evolution will cause religion to be discredited again.

(Palm Beach Post (Florida)
August 16, 1999
OPINION, Pg. 13A
Creationists Hurt Religion's Credibility
By Connell J. Maguire) (Emphasis on myth added)

And so on.

I suppose it is too much to hope that those supporting Darwinism would point to specific biological organisms and predict their adaptations given natural selection, as assuredly as one can predict an object's fall given the law of gravity. That would be something. Given their own propaganda they should be able to do so rather easily. If Darwinian principles are just like Newtonian principles then everyone should be able to make great use of the predictive power of the "law of natural selection" just like the law of gravity. For Darwinism is probably about as certain as what goes up must come down.