OKAY! AGAIN. . . THE BASEMENT BRAIN CHRISTIAN

Yes, I’m at it again, knocking the poor damn Christian who seems awfully afraid of me, my kind, and our knowledge, even though we are the smallest fragment of the American population. What do they fear that they would create a program on the Fox “misinformation” Network called, “Faith Under Fire”? Now just how much sense does that make unless they are truly pathological in their fear of science and it’s truths and atheism and it’s truths? For such a small number of individuals, we certainly cast a huge shadow on the fundamentalists’ minds, don’t we? In their paranoia, they project their own desire to stifle us onto those who oppose them. If it wasn’t so damned predictable and dangerous, I’d laugh at how clearly they represent the paranoiac mind.

So here we go again. We ask the question, “Since we now know from several independent sources that Bush mislead us into Iraq in order to enrich his friends at Haliburton and etcetera, how can he still be popular with his fundamentalist friends, his right wing Christian block of voters?”

Seems we need look no further than into the structure and function of the brain as expressed, this time, in Carl Sagan’s COSMOS to which I am finally coming to the end. Nothing new here, but constant repetition is the only way the truth gets through the neocon brain and the brains of its Christian supporters. Again, we find that the Christian is old fashioned, backward really, and less farther along in evolution than some of the rest of us. Zinger, eh?! Why do I say this?

Sagan speaks of the triune brain, the fact that the brain has evolved through time with the deeper parts being buried under the cerebral cortex, the civilized brain which has formed over and out of the more primitive bits of brain. And we also discover that “What distinguishes our species is thought. The cerebral cortex is a liberation. We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited behavior patterns of lizards and baboons.” (p. 278) Then Sagan points out that “Down in the basement [of the triune brain] are the functions our remote ancestors mainly depended on—aggression, child-rearing, fear, sex, the willingness to follow leaders blindly.” (p. 278) And right there you have it!

Fundamentalists, with their emphasis on family values (instinctive child rearing practices), aggressive warfare as a way to spread their beliefs, preoccupation with sexual matters, fear of everyone different from them, and their willingness to blindly follow George Bush demonstrate that they are still in the thrall of their more primitive brain functions. The rest of us certainly have the same values in some respects, but many of us have moderated our animal selves with more rational, higher brain functions.

The irony, I repeat again in this blog, is that the Christian right doesn’t see how they are still mightily influenced by the very evolution which they fear to accept. That is the way it has always been—those unable to face the unknown and the new will forever be dominated by them.

Here’s some more information about their dependence on primitive brain function. Talk about fear and aggressiveness, about stubbornly protecting your reptilian turf. In this week’s U.S. News and World Report (June 13, 2005, p. 14) we learn that even Bush’s own Republicans are “arguing that Bush is stubborn and arrogant. ‘His act is wearing thin,’ says a top-drawer GOP adviser. . . . It’s always I’m right. You’re wrong. Bush needs to respect other points of view, especially from those within his own party,’ says the adviser. ‘I don’t mind people having convictions, but there is another side to every argument.’ ”

And what are freedom-loving Americans to make of the aggressive animal stubbornness of Christian Republican Representative Sensenbrenner (or is that, Senselessbungler) who chairs the House Judiciary Committee and who angrily shut down his committee on Friday rather than listen to testimony which didn’t agree with his point of view on the Patriot Act?

Isn’t our Republic in danger when the party in power won’t even listen to the other side of a debate? But, hey, that’s the primitive brain at work. I tell you, these fundamentalist types (think of the criticisms of Bolton, another fundamentalist) are petty tyrants, and they are blinded by their religious training to any views but their my way or the highway brain shutdowns. If Sensenbrenner can act so repressively in public, imagine what they all must do out of the light of day to suppress freedom of speech and the free flow of information absolutely necessary to the functioning of a democracy? I don’t think they can be trusted with our freedoms.

Well, if Republican fundamentalists and neocons are in the thrall of their brain stems rather than their higher-functioning cerebral cortexes, what can be said of people with higher functioning brains? Edward Albee, the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, in another U.S. News and World Report (June 13, 2005, p. 24) said, “Art is by nature political. It helps us to use our conscience fully. If you think more intelligently, you’ll vote more intelligently. I’ve known a lot of creative people, and none have been Republican.”
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“Anybody who thinks of going to bed before 12 o’clock is a scoundrel.” —Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) Does Johnson’s saw sing harmonious hums with that old saw from the 60s, “Never trust anyone over thirty!”? I liked the sound of that old saw until I turned thirty mese’f.