Did you see The New York Times article on how some conservatives are trying to read socially conservative messages into the “March of the Penguins”? One pro-lifer said the movie “verified the beauty of life and the righteousness of protecting it.” Rich Lowry of National Review claimed it promoted monogamy (even though penguins are monogamous only for one birthing season). And Andrew Coffin argued in World Magazine that the movie made “a strong case for intelligent design.” But as conservative columnist George Will observed: “If an Intelligent Designer designed nature, why did it decide to make breeding so tedious for those penguins?”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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50 Comments
Any intelligent designer wouldn’t have put penguins in that godforsaken place to begin with!Conservatives have always contended that nature was on their side. I don’t recall anyone asking the penguins if that was true- they were just busy being penguins!
I was a penguin once and, except for the incompetent leadership, it might have been ok. That’s why I burned my bridges.
If you weren’t a penguin you’re not qualified to wipe my backside. You don’t know anything about it. So your opinion doesn’t matter.
The latest polls tell it all. Penguins 52.11%, Sharks 51.9%. So there. That puts those republipuke lawyers where they belong.
You people are bad. I’m telling.
I was a penguin once and, except for the incompetent leadership, it might have been ok. That’s why I burned my bridges.
If you weren’t a penguin you’re not qualified to wipe my backside. You don’t know anything about it. So your opinion doesn’t matter.
The latest polls tell it all. Penguins 52.11%, Sharks 51.9%. So there. That puts those republipuke lawyers where they belong.
You people are bad. I’m telling.
The movie begins with the narration that this mating ritual has remained unchanged for MILLIONS of years. Surely no conservatives are dumb enough to say it confirms I.D., are they?Nice sense of humor JR.
Good lord, this is the craziest thing I’ve seen in a good long time.
Kos says it best:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/14/3728/04990
“What kind of “intelligent design” would litter the ice with dead penguin babies? I know conservatives cheerlead death in Iraq and turn a blind eye to it in the gulf coast all the while yammering on and on about the “culture of life”, but this is about the most absurd thing I’ve read in a while.
Maybe these conservatives will join liberals in arguing for better pre- and post-natal care and universal health care to lower the infant penguin mortality rates? And since those nuts are now concerned about the Penguin Culture of Life, maybe they’ll put pressure on their patrons in the White House to do something about that global warming that may be killing of those precious penguiins. Here and here.
And after they help us pass the Kyoto Protocols, we can all ponder what kind of sadistic god would purposefully dump these poor, innocent penguins in cold-ass Antartica and make their lives such living hells.”
The only thing conservatives know about nature is how to point and shoot at it.
How can this ritual have been going on for millions of years? The ID’rs have told us the earth is only 5000-6000 years old. Maybe the penguins were mating on another planet and the natives got tired of watching them “do it” and dropped them off here.Somebody is not telling the truth.
All the penguins huddle together to protect themselves from the cold.
If they were real conservatives, they would say, “every penguin for yourself,” and they’d all die.
Wow, in reading the posts I am amazed. I was always told that a liberal meant they were open to everyone and the conservatives were closed minded. However, the posts indicate that if people don’t agree with you they are dumb, crazy and only know how to point and shoot. So, I guess if that is open minded I must really be bad.
As to why would God place penguins in such a cold place, it would appear they survive better there. I guess we should move them to Hawaii so they can enjoy a warm climate. But, yes they do serve a purpose as does everything God placed on this planet and the sum total of all the interactions we will never understand.
LOL! A conservative message!
Galahad: ROFL!!!!! That’s the blog entry of the day!
Darrell,
Being open-minded doesn’t mean that every idea merits equal consideration. Take your post for example….
Heh, thanks, GR.
And Darrell, you didn’t really come here with an “open mind,” did you?
I mean you’re a flaming conservative. So be it. But don’t hide behind “I’m a neutral observer and above it all” mask . . .
You never want to be open minded to the point where your brain falls out of your head. That’s how you get creationism, ID, and the invented “controversy” about evolution.
One day the zoo-keeper noticed that the orangutan was reading two books– the Bible and Darwin’s Origin of Species.
In surprise, he asked the ape, “Why are you reading both those books”?
“Well,” said the orangutan, “I just wanted to know if I was my brother’s keeper, or my keeper’s brother.”One day the zoo-keeper noticed that the orangutan was reading two books– the Bible and Darwin’s Origin of Species.
In surprise, he asked the ape, “Why are you reading both those books”?
“Well,” said the orangutan, “I just wanted to know if I was my brother’s keeper, or my keeper’s brother.”
Do apes often repeat themselves when talking to humans?
Darrell,
Since you’re posting on an ID topic and you seem to be pro ID, I guess you must also be a Christian who leans towards fundamentalism.
I think Mark Twai summed the situation up nicely:
You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons,sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky,people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitivestories, and you say that WE are the ones that need help?
Here’s a joke:
A creationist and an ID person gets in front of people and explain that their religious-based myths and pet theories should be taught in science classes. The creationist insists that you should also be taught his religion-based creation myth, because his is the “one true religion.”
Hilarious!
Haha GetReal,
I don’t know why that happened. If I had hit the paste button twice, you’d have thought the whole joke would have been there twice. I guess it’s just another example of the imponderable mind of God and his hidden purpose for the repeat.
ROFL GetReal…sadly, I bet it’s NOT a joke..ROFL
Good theories are logical but their implications can be unpredictable. Mediocre theories are logical and their outcomes predictable. Bad theories are illogical AND their outcomes predictable. I wonder what type of theory ID is?
Please explain what LOL & ROFL stand for. Please?
Tracy,Laught Out LoudRoll On The Floor Laughing
that first on should have been spelled “laugh”
Tracy,Try this…http://www.stateofmindgames.co.uk/rob/netstuff/abbrev.html
Thank you. It’s not a sin to be ignorant, it’s just damned inconveinent.
I wonder if it ever occured to Darrel that they survive better in the cold BECAUSE THEY EVOLVED that way.
NoJo,Thanks for the site! Ever so much better than the Sm**ly faces and “emoticons” my grandkids think are cute!
The Times article also talks about these animals being such good monogamous (sp?) parents. Then why did God create other species that will doink anything and everything in sight?
Tracy asks:
“Then why did God create other species that will doink anything and everything in sight?”
They exist so that God could create Republicans to legislate their behavior and spout hypocritical moral values to shame them, while covering up their own doinking.
Brian,Loved the Mark Twain quote. Do you know which of his works it’s from?The way I heard the story was that when Lucy the chimp was taught to sign, one of the first things they asked her was what she thought about evolution. With a horrorstruck expression, she replied that no ape could possibly degenerate that much! No ape ever fought a war, cheated his fellow apes or put his own or any other species in cages!
Brian,Loved the Mark Twain quote. Do you know which of his works it’s from?The way I heard the story was that when Lucy the chimp was taught to sign, one of the first things they asked her was what she thought about evolution. With a horrorstruck expression, she replied that no ape could possibly degenerate that much! No ape ever fought a war, cheated his fellow apes or put his own or any other species in cages!
Jed,
I think I misattributed the quote to Mark Twain (he said sheepishly). It appears to really belong to Dan Barker in Losing Faith in Faith. In my defense, the website I found it on attributed it to Mark Twain. I should check my facts…sorry.
The ape story is too funny. Another one that is pretty funny involved researchers giving one of these ASL apes pictures of apes, pictures of people, and a picture of herself. She was asked to put her picture into the pile where it belonged. She put it in the “people” pile.
Brian,Sorry about the double post!Thanks for correcting that, it’s a terrific quote and I’d hate to not credit it to the real author.Good story! That ape was obviously a creationist.
I see that I have now been properly labeled. I since I now have the label, you don’t have to listen to anything I say. But, I will have to say your posts have done nothing but prove my post.
Darrell,
So when your kid says they found a dime under their pillow the morning after they lose a tooth and that they believe the good fairy has left the dime, I’m supposed to be “open-minded” and accept the kid’s explanation as equal in weight to my own…that the kid’s mother put the dime there while the kid was asleep.LOLOLOLOLOL
Darrel you’re free to be anyone you want to, but no matter who you are, the whole ID thing still makes me LOL & ROFL. Sorry, just wanted to use the LOL thing now that I know what it means.
Why don’t you check into theistic evolution? It’s the greatest thing since the Big Bang!
Quick whit GetReal. I like it.Now, why did HE create species that often eat their own young?
Tracy,
In fact God has been undergoing evolution himself for quite some time. The Bible doesn’t present to us an unchanging God as most fundamentalists would have us believe. The Bible presents the story of OUR “evolving” understanding of His nature (if he exists). God was first a desert deity exclusive to the Jews…and by the time of Jesus, God had “evolved” into a deity more concerned with how well we treat EVERYONE else..not only “His” people, the Jews.
This type of thinking leads you to believe that our understanding of God will continue to evolve. After all, Lincoln said..even though Jesus NEVER did…”as I would not want to be a slave so I should not want to be a master”…never a truer example of our own understanding of who God is continuing to evolve.
Tracy,Theistic evolution is as close to the real thing as man is going to get. If man believes in God, than theistic evolution makes perfect sense.If not, than man just “happened”; something I have my doubts about. But that’s just my opinion.
Right on Brian & JR.I believe that evolution IS God’s plan. I don’t know how an intelligent progressive thinker could come to any other conclusion. I’m also an advocate of “common sense religion”. Middle of the road stuff. That’s why I’ve declared myself the King Of Mediocrity.Read all of the stuff on this blog from both sides of the isle and know the truth:THE REAL TRUTH IS USUALLY SOMEWHERE RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE! The extremists never shut up long enough to figure this out.
“Quick whit GetReal. I like it.Now, why did HE create species that often eat their own young?”
Nutrition. The larger, more developed brains of the people who had common sense, and believed in evolution and science are extremely tasty.
More talk about food! I’m hungry! But shouldn’t there be scrambled eggs with brains?
Oh! Pookie gets it! That’s what the penguins are for!
Seems there is another JR
Re: the thread; what makes more sense, that nature evolved penguins to live and suffer the extreme conditions in which they live (evolution)…..or that some god thing dumped these creatures at the end of the Earth, so far from most of the rest of “creation” that they were only discovered less than 150 years ago?
Forgive me a bit, I may not quote scripture to dot and tittle here……
“and God brought each creature into the garden unto Adam to see what he would call them” (again probably not dot and tittle)
Wow, guess them pengins had themselves a pretty big swim from Eden to Antartica……and then back again to get on the Ark!
All that said it is a bit encouraging to see Republicans latching on to wildlife and nature………even if it is for antrhopomorhic, religion based political reasons. Any time Republicans see nature and not an oil well or a parking lot or a housing development I call that hopeful!
If God is limitless, why do we put so many limits on Him and His creation? Because we want to limit each other.Evolution is science trying to understand the natural mechanisms in life; spirituality is trying to understand why there is life in the first place. Two completely sepearate ideas that need to be taught seperatly.
It’s “jot”, Mr. JR, sir.
Puny (Anon)–
Now you’re so rattled you’re not even making sense.
Don’t you have to go retake eighth grade or something?
Why is there life in the first place? That’s easy; so preachers could go on television, drive fancy cars, wear Armani suits and advise the president! Of course, if life happened all by itself, all those phonies would be forced to get real jobs.
Jot is correct Jana, I stand corrected. But don’t call me sir!
Tracy — wouldn’t you be Queen of Mediocrity, instead of King? Or is there something you want to tell us?