Rep. Broun: Evolution "lies straight from the pit of hell"

[FakePigtails]

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012 ... -hell?lite

[bolding mine]

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun's view that the theories of evolution and the big bang are "lies straight from the pit of Hell" is getting more exposure than he might have expected, thanks to a video that was made at a church-sponsored banquet in Georgia and distributed by a progressive political watchdog group.

The Georgia Republican is already well-known as an outspoken conservative Christian, due in part to his unsuccessful campaign to have 2010 declared "the Year of the Bible." But the latest comments have taken on an extra dab of controversy because Broun, a medical doctor, calls himself a scientist in the video and chairs the House Science Committee's panel on investigations and oversight.

The video clip, distributed by the Bridge Project, was taken from a longer version recorded on Sept. 27 during the 2012 Sportsman's Banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell, Ga. Here's a transcript of the Bridge Project's snippet:

"God's word is true. I've come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I've found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don't believe that the earth's but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That's what the Bible says.

"And what I've come to learn is that it's the manufacturer's handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that's the reason as your congressman I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I'll continue to do that."

Broun's comments were greeted with applause, and they probably reflect how a lot of his constituents feel about the same issues. He's assured of re-election in any case, due to the fact that he has no Democratic Party challenger in next month's election. But how will Broun's latest pronouncements play out on a national stage? Will they have any effect on the presidential campaign? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

[Guest Anonymous]

What stands out to me is 'embryology'. It doesn't seem to fit. Does Broun think that the stork brings the babies? Or are they found under the gooseberry bush?

Edited: Riffle!! Because there's a difference between 'stork' and 'stalk'.

[MonkeyMomma]

What stands out to me is 'embryology'. It doesn't seem to fit. Does Broun think that the stork brings the babies? Or are they found under the gooseberry bush?

Edited: Riffle!! Because there's a difference between 'stork' and 'stalk'.

They grow in the turnip patch. That's where my mom said she found me, anyway. :lol:

[mirele]

Paul Broun is a wonderful example of how fundies treat the alleged sanctity of marriage. He's only been married FOUR (4) times.

Personal life

Broun has been married four times. He has a son with his fourth wife, Nikki, and two daughters from previous marriages.

(citations omitted, go here for the deets and scroll down: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Broun)

[shesinsane]

Paul Broun is a wonderful example of how fundies treat the alleged sanctity of marriage. He's only been married FOUR (4) times.

(citations omitted, go here for the deets and scroll down: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Broun)

That explains why he's going after science. He can't jump on the "gay marriage will ruin my marriage" bandwagon because the other GOPers won't let Mr. Manywives on board. He's got to decry something, why not try science? :roll:

[klavierspieler]

What stands out to me is 'embryology'. It doesn't seem to fit. Does Broun think that the stork brings the babies? Or are they found under the gooseberry bush?

Edited: Riffle!! Because there's a difference between 'stork' and 'stalk'.

The embryology thing is a classic YEC debate tactic. Kent Hovind loved it, and Ken Ham/Answers in Genesis is all over it too. They basically say that evolution claims to be true based on how similar embryos are, plus that evolution claims that human embryos have gill slits like fish and yolks like eggs and tails like monkeys, etc., thereby proving evolution. However, they claim that embryos are really proof for creation. It's all very...um...strange, and kind of hard to describe to people who didn't grow up getting it spoon-fed to them. Here and here are two articles from AiG that talk about "embryology" if you want to get an idea of what he is going on about. And here is a link to AiG's most commonly searched articles on the subject if you want to read even more.

Edited for clarity and for a riffle.

[SayNoToMullets]

Well, the "manufacturer's handbook" bit does put the fundie ideal of a theocracy into context. I thought it was just arrogance. Turns out it's arrogance and delusion.

[mkitten]

The fact that this tool is on the House Science Committee scares the ever-loving shit right out of me. Yikes!

[Knight of Ni]

This guy is making the whole state of Georgia look like backwards and stupid. I just wonder why he even wanted to be on the Science board if he thinks it from the pits of hell. If science is from the pits of hell it doesn't sound like such a bad place to me.

[BlueberryBird]

The fact that this tool is on the House Science Committee scares the ever-loving shit right out of me. Yikes!

Can we start requiring these people to take some sort of basic science literacy test before they are allowed to serve on science committees?

It's bad enough that complicated science issues like global warming end up completely politicized, but I'd like to think that at least *some* of the politicians understand where the line between science and policy. Now we have to genuinely worry about people holding critical poisition while unable to see the line between science and religion.

I teach in a large, diverse district and don't have to worry about teaching earth history or cosmology, but if I taught even 15-20 miles to the south (where I actually live), I would have to be very careful.

[RandomTrivia]

Can we start requiring these people to take some sort of basic science literacy test before they are allowed to serve on science committees?

It's bad enough that complicated science issues like global warming end up completely politicized, but I'd like to think that at least *some* of the politicians understand where the line between science and policy. Now we have to genuinely worry about people holding critical poisition while unable to see the line between science and religion.

[shesinsane]

Can we start requiring these people to take some sort of basic science literacy test before they are allowed to serve on science committees?

It's bad enough that complicated science issues like global warming end up completely politicized, but I'd like to think that at least *some* of the politicians understand where the line between science and policy. Now we have to genuinely worry about people holding critical poisition while unable to see the line between science and religion.

I think it's done by the same people that put Saudi Arabia and China on the UN human rights committee. :roll:

[notacleverpony]

Holy crap, that backdrop! Maybe it's because I grew up watching eeeeeeeebil Disney movies, but all I could think of was:

PK3x2DOoJIc

"I use antlers in all of my DEEEEEEE-COR-AT-ING! (My, what a guy, that Paul Broun!)"

[RandomTrivia]

Can we start requiring these people to take some sort of basic science literacy test before they are allowed to serve on science committees?

It's bad enough that complicated science issues like global warming end up completely politicized, but I'd like to think that at least *some* of the politicians understand where the line between science and policy. Now we have to genuinely worry about people holding critical poisition while unable to see the line between science and religion.

Well, he's in good company. Local tool Todd Akin is also on the House Committee for Science, Space, & Technology, and he's still putting his foot in his mouth. Along with the legitimate rape crap, he's been talking about abortions for women who aren't pregnant, and calling Claire McCaskill's performance in their debate "unladylike" (which probably translates to "didn't defer to my opinions in the debate" or something).

I'm not sure who does the committee appointments (it's been a looooong time since U.S. Government class), but we really need a way to weed out the unsuitable people from committees (or from the legislature altogether).

(edited to fix quotes - but somehow it came up as a new post? Must mean it's time for bed.)

[Vex]

HOW are these people getting into positions of power in the US? Is the country going insane? Do people just hear 'Family Values', dig no deeper and assume the people they're voting into office are good Christians rather than dangerous fundamentalists? Don't constituents care about the fact there are so many elected officials who want to scrap science from schools and take away womens' autonomy over their own bodies?

I don't understand. I know a lot of Americans don't believe in evolution and are "pro-life", but surely the people who believe in science and freedom outnumber the crazies?

It's probably alarmist, but I can't help but feel that if more people don't wake up and realise what these 'good Christians' are really like, America will totally lose any pretence of separation of church and state and crash and burn.

*Edited for riffles

[rhododactylos]

Lurker with a link to share (bolding mine):

Rep. Paul Broun (R-Gethsemane) is in a pretty safe district, being that Georgia’s 10th is about as far-right and uber-religious as they come. Broun is the one, you recall, who is a medical doctor who does not believe in medicine, who runs around yelling things like — and we are not making this quote up — “All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell.â€

This time around, the gentleman scholar from Athens ran unopposed for his seat in the House — but that does not mean people did not oppose him. This post was originally about how 4,000 voters wrote in “Charles Darwin†against Broun, because how sad is that, that the poor libruls have given up fielding candidates and are now just voting for dead scientists.

But! There is more! The charming folks at Flagpole magazine, because that’s what every business is called in District 10, have gotten a full list of write-in votes there, and they are fabulous, and your Wonket people have gone through all 371 pages of them, to bring you the big, grand, super-democratic list of candidates people would rather vote for than Paul Broun. (Okay, and a few other races that didn’t have a Dem on the ticket.)

There will be no more commentary, aside from that there were votes in several D-10 races for Leslie Knope, 2 Chainz, John Coltrane, and, a personal favorite, “My dog, Charles.†No word on whether that was related to another totally real vote cast for “Burning bag of dog shit,†which was specifically against Broun.

I am proud to say I was one of the 4,000 who wrote in Darwin.

wonkette.com/489403/a-childrens-treasury-of-ridiculous-write-in-votes-against-georgia-congressman-and-witchfinder-general-paul-broun

[Anxious Girl]

Didn't God create everything? Wouldn't this everything include hell? So technically wouldn't it be God lying to us, not the ebil minions of hell? :think: Fundie logic confuses me.

[RachelB]

I loved the list of write-ins running against him. :lol:

My favorite analysis of how ridiculous it is that Broun has any influence on science policy appears within a broader post written by Eric Garland, who'sexplaining why he's not a GOP voter, despite being squarely in their target demographic:

http://www.ericgarland.co/2012/11/09/le ... te-people/

The most relevant section (though I think the whole thing's worth reading):

Science - One of the reasons my family is affluent is that my wife and I have a collective fifteen years of university education between us. I have a Masters degree in Science and Technology Policy, and my wife is a physician who holds degrees in medicine as well as cell and molecular biology. We are really quite unimpressed with Congressional representatives such as Todd Akin and Paul Broun who actually serve on the House science committee and who believe, respectively, that rape does not cause pregnancy and that evolution and astrophysics are lies straight from Satan’s butt cheeks. These are, sadly, only two of innumerable assaults that the Republican Party has made against hard science – with nothing to say of logic in general. Please understand the unbearable tension this might create between us and your candidates.

Climate - Within just the past 18 months the following events have come to our attention: a record-breaking drought that sent temperatures over 100 degrees for weeks, killing half the corn in the Midwest and half the TREES on our suburban property – AND – a hurricane that drowned not New Orleans or Tampa or North Carolina but my native state of VERMONT. As an encore, a second hurricane drowned lower Manhattan, New Jersey and Long Island. The shouted views of decrepit mental fossil Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma that this is a fraud perpetrated on the American people by evil, conspiring climate scientists is belied by such events and is looking irresponsible to even the most skeptical.

Healthcare - My wife and I are quite familiar with America’s healthcare system due to our professions, and having lived abroad extensively, also very aware of comparable systems. Your party’s insistence on declaring the private U.S. healthcare system “the best in the world†fails nearly every factual measure available to any curious mind. We watch our country piss away 60% more expenditures than the next most expensive system (Switzerland) for health outcomes that rival former Soviet bloc nations. On a personal scale, my wife watches poor WORKING people show up in emergency rooms with fourth-stage cancer because they were unable to afford primary care visits. I have watched countless small businesses unable to attract talented workers because of the outrageous and climbing cost of private insurance. And I watch European and Asian businesses outpace American companies because they can attract that talent without asking people to risk bankruptcy and death. That you think this state of affairs is somehow preferable to “Obamacare,†which you compared ludicrously to Trotskyite Russian communism, is a sign of deficient minds unfit to guide health policy in America.

[Maude]

Holy crap, that backdrop! Maybe it's because I grew up watching eeeeeeeebil Disney movies, but all I could think of was:

PK3x2DOoJIc

"I use antlers in all of my DEEEEEEE-COR-AT-ING! (My, what a guy, that Paul Broun!)"

I just sung that in the character's voices. Thanks! :lol:

[Mela99]

But it was the greeks and romans who decided what a "day" meant... why are they so hell bent on saying that it must mean 24 hours.

I just don't understand; I refuse to believe that everything on the face of the earth is somewhere in the bible with an explanation. The point of faith is that you don't need someone to explain everything. It's so damned conceited to think that unless it was revealed to you, it wasn't true.

I'm a Catholic and I believe 100% in evolution. God doesn't owe me any explanations.

[YPestis]

Eh, it's all a ploy to get votes. The 80's saw the rise of the Right (as a reaction to the social changes in the 60's and 70's). The 90's saw the rise of religious conservatives. Bush and his Brain (Karl Rove) figured out that one doesn't need swing voters to win the election, just a really excited Base. And with the Bush 2004 win, the Republican Party was completely taken over by religious wing-nuts. The Tea Partiers are just one more step towards the Right.

These days, you have to play to the Religious Right them to win as a Republican. With a second Obama win, and a resounding one at that, I think this election showed that people are starting to get turned off by conservatism. The rape thing with the Indiana candidate, who was running against a fellow Democrat PRO-LIFER, was just a spitting contest to see who is more right wing about abortion. However, he forgot that in an effort to chase down a conservative demographic, he has to also keep the moderates happy.

These days, I see the anti-science, uber-focus on abortion and gays really turning off moderate Republicans and others who really only care for fiscal conservatism. If the GOP want to regain these lost voters, I feel they need to regain some sanity with the moderate wing. My husband should also be leaning Republican and should be the type to go for someone like Romney. After all, he is white, married, raised in surburbia, religious affiliated and will soon enter the upper income bracket. However, he feels the GOP is controlled by right wingers with whom he has little in common. Once you lose your such prime demographic, the party can't survive at the national stage.