David Barton is a Dolt (Cold Carbon Dioxide for Multi-Lingual Indians Edition)

Right Wing Watch has been hosting a love set of videos of David Barton mouthing off about things he clearly knows nothing about.  That’s certainly everyone’s right to do, save that Barton has been getting increasing attention over the years over the past few years, not only on Glenn Beck’s zany TV show, but with Rep. Michelle Bachmann tapping him to teach about the constitution to other congresscritters.

Yikes.

So what has Barton been noted saying of late? Well, let’s see …

How about how science is always proving the Bible correct?

Barton doesn’t actually demonstrate how the Bible proves global warming is false, but he does mention the oddity of science proving that CO2 actually being a coolant — which, of course, magically proves that science was wrong before about global warming, but right now about cooling.  Or something.

That little tidbit of climate change denialism came, oddly enough, from this particular NASA article about how growing CO2 levels were causing contractions of the a portion of the upper atmosphere. “When carbon dioxide gets into the thermosphere, it acts as a coolant, shedding heat via infrared radiation. It is widely-known that CO₂ levels have been increasing in Earth’s atmosphere. Extra CO₂ in the thermosphere could have magnified the cooling action of solar minimum.”

Aha!  A smoking … or cooling … gun!

Except that science is, y’know, complicated.

Carbon dioxide cools the thermosphere, even though it acts to warm the atmosphere near the Earth’s surface (the troposphere). This paradox occurs because the atmosphere thins with height. Near the Earth’s surface, carbon dioxide absorbs radiation escaping Earth, but before the gas molecules can radiate the energy to space, frequent collisions with other molecules in the dense lower atmosphere force the carbon dioxide to release energy as heat, thus warming the air. In the much thinner thermosphere, a carbon dioxide molecule absorbs energy when it collides with an oxygen molecule, but there is ample time for it to radiate energy to space before another collision occurs. The result is a cooling effect. As it cools, the thermosphere settles, so that the density at a given height is reduced.

Now, none of that actually has anything to do with the Bible. And I suspect that his claims on stem cell research is about is sound as his claim that wrongdoing in science never produces any beneficial results.

Next? How about Thomas Jefferson creating his abridged “Jefferson Bible” in order to convert the Indians to Christianity?

Wow, Jefferson was just out to civilize the Indians? His editing was solely for the purpose of coming up with something simple enough for those savages to understand?

Well, no, it’s not nearly that simple. History, too, is complicated.

Jefferson went through several versions of this abridgment, starting with a stripped down version of Jesus’ moral teachings (The Philosophy of Jesus) and, years later, a chronological abridgment of the gospels, which cut out any of the supernatural elements or bits that Jefferson thought had been added to the work by the evangelists (The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth).

One of the first versions of Philosophy included at the beginning a note, “Extracted from the account of his life and doctrines as given by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Being an abridgment of the New Testament for the use of the Indians, unembarrassed with matters of fact or faith beyond the level of their comprehensions.” Jefferson was not adverse to using secular means to civilize the Indians — in 1809 he welcomed a plan to teach modern farming techniques, reading, writing, and other trappings of colonial civilization, suggesting only after that happened would it make any sense to send in missionaries, rather than the “ancient and totally ineffectual” effort of doing so from the start.

But nothing further came from this plan, nor was any subsequent mention of it made in later versions Jefferson put together. Instead, Jefferson repeatedly wrote his friends about how the accretion of superstition and the supernatural by priests and scribes since Jesus had masked the teachings of Christ (who he considered the greatest of human teachers and philosophers), and that “for my own use” and “satisfaction” he was endeavoring to get to those teachings. Jefferson had little use for organized religion, and with his enemies making all sorts of religious attacks against him, he made it clear to those with whom he shared his abridgment that the works were never to be published, or at least not in any way that included his name with them. (Indeed, it’s speculated that the whole “Indian” bit in one of the first versions was solely as cover in case the work came to public light.)

At any rate, Barton’s claim (echoed elsewhere amongst the Religious Right) that the “Jefferson Bible” was all some sort of Christian missionary work to the Indians is, at best, only a fragment of the truth. Ironic, that. I have very little doubt that, were Jefferson confronted by Barton and his ilk that he’d be appalled. And he’d whup them in a philosophical discussion, too.

Read more here.

And lastly from Bartonn — we know socialism is evil because the Tower of Babel tells us so!

Now, far be it from me to defend the idea of treating people as indistinguishable “bricks” — that’s horrid. Of course, reducing “citizens” to “consumers” is equally dehumanizing. Attempting to beat down or delete the diversity of the nation so that everyone (or everyone who counts) is a conservative Christian, probably white, almost certainly Republican — yeah, that’s pretty awful, too.

So let’s see what the Bible passage in question actually says — because, sorry David, but I just don’t trust you to get anything right. (Love the shirt, by the way.)

¹ Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. ² As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

³ They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

⁵ But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. ⁶ The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

⁸ So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. (Genesis 11:1-8, New International Version, ©2011)

Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t see the above as being an indictment against brick-making.  Perhaps Barton comes from some odd, fringe, anti-brick sect, but God doesn’t seem all that torqued about the whole brick thing.  Nor, without going wildly overboard in the metaphor-making (and why are conservative Christians always so literal-minded about the Bible except when they can twist a desired metaphor out of it), does it seem like the people of Babel are baking bricks in order to stamp out individuality in some sort of proto-socialist movement.

Raise the Proletariat! Raise the Tower! I just don’t see it.

I believe most orthodox teaching about this passage is yet another OT indictment of prideful action, especially against God.  The people of Babel get a bit uppity, a bit above themselves.  And God slap ’em down.  Not a terribly nice portrayal of God, to be sure — especially since He seems a bit worried about the whole thing.  Also, He refers to himself in the first person plural, which also strikes one as odd.

And, regardless, God never says Utterance One against bricks.  Nothing about “If these people continue to make bricks, then their form of government and economy will become as abhorrent to Me.  Also, they may pass national health care, which is an abomination.  Let me break all of their bricks, that they will be scattered and learn the ways of Adam Smith.  I am THE LORD.”

At any rate, at best I can see this as an attack against cooperation (God intervenes to make sure people can’t work together against His interests).  That might be interpreted as an argument against socialism in some fashion.  Or maybe against bilingual education.  But bricks don’t seem to have anything to do with it.

*   *   *

So, three videos, three misses as to Barton saying anything coherent or accurate.  So tell me again why anyone listens to this dolt regarding things theological, scientific, historical, or governmental?

Unless, of course, because he draws conclusions (God hates Science! The Founding Fathers loved God! God hates Socialism!) that they want to hear.

But that would be dishonest, wouldn’t it?  That just couldn’t be the case, then.  Could it?