Conservapedia has a variety of effects on individuals and society at large which will be subsequently elaborated on.2
These same paranoid Christians who created this site also want to rewrite their own holy book, which is just as well since most of them don't follow most of its dictates anyway. The want to make the bible more conservative because apparently the bible, which instructs us to kill those who work on the Sabbath, kill gays, kill those who worship other gods, sell our daughters into slavery (sexual and the other kind), cut off our foreskins, kill disobedient children, subjugate women and to commit many other heinous acts, is too liberal.3 They want to translate it with a conservative bias because modern translations have a liberal bias and translating the bible with a bias is wrong. Uh…yep, pretty much.
Conservapedia is conservative in every sense of the word. In its attempt to look legit it includes articles on math and science but in so doing it does two things, it 1] includes ridicule of the subject where it can, claiming its purpose is to undermine Christianity and 2] gives very little actual information on the subject. For example, the Conservapedia science page talks about how early scientists were creationist Christians while modern American scientists are “…more atheistic as a group.” Also the Wikipedia article on math is really long while the Conservapedia math page is short, which is good because math is boring.
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Notes
1I wish I were making this up!
2This is one of Conservapedia’s favorite bits of fear mongering. They frequently include this claim in articles about things they oppose, homosexuality, atheism, etc. and then fail to elaborate on the effects they mention.
3I wish I were making this up!
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Sources:
Conservapedia
http://conservapedia.com/Conservapedia
The Conservative Bible Project
http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project
Conservapedia: Science
http://conservapedia.com/Science
Wikipedia: Mathematics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math
Conservapedia: Mathematics
http://conservapedia.com/Math
I've never understood this particular impulse, but I know the creationists do it a lot. It's as though they see words themselves as the weapon, so they spend a lot of time and effort trying to redefine the terms of the discussion. They don't seem to understand that the underlying ideas, and the actual facts, are what's dangerous to their narrow view of the world. They completely fail to engage the actual threat, and while I suspect it's wilful ignorance to some degree, they seem to have no understanding that people can comprehend words in an altered form, or figure anything out for themselves. It's fascinating, and scary, to watch.
ReplyDeleteMan, that King James Version of the Bible sure was translated by liberals. In 1611. In England. Okay. Sure.
ReplyDeleteWow, these people are fringy, even for the fringe.