TIN TABERNACLES: How Religious Fundamentalists Took Over the Republican Party

By Willard W. Olson

These comments were written in 2005. In some areas, my comments are somewhat dated. The continually aggressive efforts of the evangelical fundamentalists in their quest for political power in the United States has not changed during these intervening years. It has only intensified. The Republican Party as it was once constituted has vanished to be replaced by litmus tests of religious purity. While it can be honestly suggested that the Democratic Party is overburdened by political correctness, the current Republican Party is literally hamstrung by religious correctness. In the process, the vast majority of Americans are being victimized by these extremist perversions. We now witness the destruction of the middle class in this country. Possibly we need look no further than this competition between political extremes to see the causes. The Republicans look for foreign scapegoats ranging from Mexicans to Chinese to Muslims to blame for the current American difficulties. The real blame lies with us for allowing this political swamp to develop. It is a safe bet that neither of these political extremes produces the happiness and security most of us desire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elderberry Press, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 2, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465815521

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TIN TABERNACLES

How Religious Fundamentalists Took Over the Republican Party

Copyright © 2012 Willard W. Olson

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To my devoted wife, Joan, who rescued this manuscript from a stack of my files and papers, re-typed it, and encouraged me to publish it.

These comments were written in 2005. In some areas, my comments are somewhat dated. The continually aggressive efforts of the evangelical fundamentalists in their quest for political power in the United States have not changed during these intervening years. It has only intensified. The Republican Party as it was once constituted has vanished to be replaced by litmus tests of religious purity. While it can be honestly suggested that the Democratic Party is overburdened by political correctness, the current Republican Party is literally hamstrung by religious correctness. In the process, the vast majority of Americans are being victimized by these extremist perversions. We now witness the destruction of the middle class in this country. Possibly we need look no further than this competition between political extremes to see the causes. The Republicans look for foreign scapegoats ranging from Mexicans to Chinese to Moslems to blame for the current American difficulties. The real blame lies with us for allowing this political swamp to develop. It is a safe bet that neither of these political extremes produces the happiness and security most of us desire.

October 25, 2011

Tin Tabernacles

Charcoal, sulfur and saltpeter make a potentially explosive combination. This ancient Chinese invention, we now call black powder, was used by its inventors to produce entertaining fireworks displays. It is a matter of historical record that once the secret of black powder reached the West, it was put to practical use – killing people. It is certainly not my intent to suggest that Chinese history is all sweetness and light while Europeans specialized in homicide. Human history throughout the world in all races and cultures is stained by brutality and conflict. Bloody conflict is not an exception in human history; it is the rule—an integral part of all history.

Charcoal or carbon is a useful substance alone. It has been an essential heating and cooking fuel throughout history as well as a lubricant, pencil lead, fishing rods, golf clubs, and even high performance aircraft parts in its graphite form and the most valuable substance on earth is its crystalline form—diamonds.

Sulfur is useful alone as an anti-bacterial in medicine, Sulfur is also one of the most important elements in the chemical industry. In the past, the industrial might of nations was measured in their production of sulfuric acid.

Saltpeter (potassium nitrate) is an essential ingredient in the curing of meats—bacon and ham as well as an agricultural fertilizer and as an oxidizing component of explosives.

Any combination of science with religion or politics is much like gunpowder. It produces an explosive mix. Science like diamond needs no impurities to shine. Impurities in a diamond not only change its color and brilliance, they usually result in a great reduction in value. Excessive impurities in the crystalline lattice of a diamond cause the crystalline form to collapse into relatively worthless graphite or elemental amorphous carbon.

That is the current dilemma of biological science. There is no place in biology for politics or religion or any combination of the two without the risk of creating a dogma of nonsense. Virtually every recent advance in biology has been confronted by political and religious indignation. Biology should be driven by facts, by open honest observation and discovery rather than fear, prejudice, and primitive superstitions.

Even a short list of current American controversies serves to illustrate the dogma of nonsense that emerges when biological discovery is confronted by either fundamentalist religion or socialist politics. There exists continuing conflict over birth control, abortion, cloning, stem cell research, evolution, homosexuality, HIV, eugenics, intelligence, racial differences, DNA (yes; there are those in the Marxist extremes of political correctness who deny the very existence of genetics and heredity), the genetics of human behavior, vegetarianism, animal rights, adolescent sexuality, and science education in the public schools. This is by no means a complete list.

The religious fundamentalists of the political right and the socialists of the politically correct left seem to believe that they are polar opposites—philosophical enemies. Are they really so different? Granted they have completely different reasons for legislating human behavior or trying to control science. The effects upon good formal biological science are essentially the same. They have the effect of blocking or retarding anything that their respective philosophies find conflicting. The facts or even the truth for that matter is of little importance. The protection of political or religious dogma from the light of discovery or challenge is the real goal. The reason that they are alike lies in the inescapable fact that both arise from the same source—Judeo/Christian theology. Socialists like to think of themselves as morally superior. Witness the grandstanding moralizations of the French and German socialists over the potential for war to remove Saddam Hussein, a madman with overtones of Hitler, Stalin and Mao. There is a reverse proportionality to the historical rise of socialism and the decline of Christianity in Western Europe. The Christians simply quit going to church and became nice, loving egalitarian socialists. They still retain their moral superiority while paying the fruits of their labor to the welfare state instead of tithing to the church.

Christianity has been essentially a political philosophy from day one. The socialists of the 20th and 21st centuries have simply dropped the pretenses of theology. They are, after all, modern technically sophisticated elitists who might look down upon mere colonial primitives believing in ghosts, goblins, heaven or hell. Communism and socialism are not new ideas. These ideologies have been around for centuries—about twenty of them.

There are many good, honest people who might feel this description of their sincerely held beliefs a bit too harsh and hostile. In fairness, some thought should be directed at the historical world of Jesus.

At the time of the life of Jesus his country and its people had been conquered and subjugated by the Roman Empire. Throughout all of recorded history, the Jewish people are depicted as a proud and noble people. The near slavery of Roman occupation must have been practically unbearable. Roman political and social organization was based upon strict social order and privilege. Throughout the empire millions of people were enslaved. Others more fortunate than slaves were poor peasants and if young