The Year of Magical Thinking

[guno]

“That’s the good thing about science: It’s true whether or not you believe in it. That’s why it works.” So said Neil deGrasse Tyson, joining Bill Nye as players in a strange cultural moment: the resurgence of magical thinking.
Magical thinking, you’ll recall, refers to the misattribution of causality: The black cat meowed, and then I tripped and fell. Two events, no actual connection, but a history of superstition links them together.

Or consider the recent right-wing over the movie “Noah,”, an extended midrash on the biblical tale that dares to treat it as myth rather than as history. Set aside that this is clearly how the text appears to regard itself, omitting crucial details (for example, everyone’s wives) and focusing on the mythic and ethical elements of the story. And set aside, too, the fact that the actual text is far weirder than Darren Aronofsky’s ?script. Let’s reflect on the notion that millions of Americans appear to believe that in 2,034 BCE,, all civilizations were destroyed (never mind those cuneiform records) and all animals on Earth crawled, squirmed or flew into a 300-cubit ark.
This, millions of Americans propose, is fact.


Read more: http://forward.com/articles/195973/the-year-of-magical-thinking/#ixzz2y2q7fHFu

Read more: The Year of Magical Thinking ? Forward.com

 

[guno]

“That’s the good thing about science: It’s true whether or not you believe in it. That’s why it works.” So said Neil deGrasse Tyson, joining Bill Nye as players in a strange cultural moment: the resurgence of magical thinking.
Magical thinking, you’ll recall, refers to the misattribution of causality: The black cat meowed, and then I tripped and fell. Two events, no actual connection, but a history of superstition links them together.

Or consider the recent right-wing over the movie “Noah,”, an extended midrash on the biblical tale that dares to treat it as myth rather than as history. Set aside that this is clearly how the text appears to regard itself, omitting crucial details (for example, everyone’s wives) and focusing on the mythic and ethical elements of the story. And set aside, too, the fact that the actual text is far weirder than Darren Aronofsky’s ?script. Let’s reflect on the notion that millions of Americans appear to believe that in 2,034 BCE,, all civilizations were destroyed (never mind those cuneiform records) and all animals on Earth crawled, squirmed or flew into a 300-cubit ark.
This, millions of Americans propose, is fact.


Read more: The Year of Magical Thinking ? Forward.com

Read more: The Year of Magical Thinking ? Forward.com

As of last year, a majority of Republicans do not “believe in” evolution, one of the most successful explanations of evidence (that is, “theories” in scientific parlance) in the history of science. The data proving evolution is more certain than the data proving why a microwave oven works.
Speaking of Republicans, J.J. Goldberg recently pointed out in these pages that conservatives in America and Israel are now suggesting that we pray to end the drought. Well, at least they’re consistent. If you’re going to engage in magical thinking to deny the scientific consensus on climate change — last year, 10,883 out of 10,885 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals agreed that anthroPO?genic climate change is real, but zero Republican presidential hopefuls think so — you may as well turn to magical means to alleviate it.
Oh, and lest magical thinking be regarded as purely a right-wing phenomenon, we on the left have our anti-vaxxers, who are now endangering the wider population with fresh outbreaks of measles — based on no evidence whatsoever. And then, of course, there’s the reaction to Tyson — the new host of the rebooted, and by all accounts dazzling, “Cosmos” series. Fundamentalists are not happy.

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

And the majority of democrats believe in AGW. And that is doing tangible damage.

 

[Katzndogz]

Such a lack of basic understanding.

A movie producer proposes to make a movie based on a well known writing then departs from the writing to such a degree that the movie bears no resemblance to the writing. His feelings get hurt when it is pointed out that the two have little to no similarity.

It would be like a producer making a movie from the book Gone With the Wind. It would be about a woman named Scarlets who lived in Atlanta. She would be the only female officer in the Union Army. A lesbian who defied convention by taking Mammy as her lover. At some point it's not the same story anymore. Noah the movie, is not the same story as the one purportedly lifted from the Bible. It's dishonest to make the claim that it is.

Noah, the movie, might be a great movie with fine acting and great special effects. It's just not the same story. The two have in common a man named Noah that built a boat. Noah could have entered his boat into the World Cup and come closer to the biblical version.

Instead of taking it on the chin and admitting that license took the Bible story to the ends of a personal vision, liberals lamely claim that the Bible story is wrong. So there.

 

[guno]

Such a lack of basic understanding.

A movie producer proposes to make a movie based on a well known writing then departs from the writing to such a degree that the movie bears no resemblance to the writing. His feelings get hurt when it is pointed out that the two have little to no similarity.

It would be like a producer making a movie from the book Gone With the Wind. It would be about a woman named Scarlets who lived in Atlanta. She would be the only female officer in the Union Army. A lesbian who defied convention by taking Mammy as her lover. At some point it's not the same story anymore. Noah the movie, is not the same story as the one purportedly lifted from the Bible. It's dishonest to make the claim that it is.

Noah, the movie, might be a great movie with fine acting and great special effects. It's just not the same story. The two have in common a man named Noah that built a boat. Noah could have entered his boat into the World Cup and come closer to the biblical version.

Instead of taking it on the chin and admitting that license took the Bible story to the ends of a personal vision, liberals lamely claim that the Bible story is wrong. So there.

No the Christians don't understand the story they think it is literal and true to their cartoonish like "thinking" they have no idea that it was a midrash from the hebrew bible on noah. read the artical again it is from a jewish publication

In Judaism, the Midrash (Hebrew: מדרש*; plural midrashim) is the body of homiletic stories told by Jewish rabbinic sages to explain passages in the Tanakh. Midrash is a method of interpreting biblical stories that goes beyond simple distillation of religious, legal, or moral teachings. It fills in gaps left in the biblical narrative regarding events and personalities that are only hinted at.

The purpose of midrash was to resolve problems in the interpretation of difficult passages of the text of the Hebrew Bible, using Rabbinic principles of hermeneutics and philology to align them with the religious and ethical values of religious teachers.