Thursday, November 05, 2015

NO SURPRISE HERE: BECK'S FANS LIKE CARSON'S THEORY

I thought there might be a mass right-wing rush defend Ben Carson now that he's being ridiculed for saying, in a 1998 commencement speech, that the Pyramids were meant for grain storage -- a belief he defended today. I thought conservatives, many of whom don't believe in evolution and most of whom don't believe in human-caused climate change, would defend Carson largely because, as The Washington Post's Michael E. Miller points out, Carson offered this opinion in the context of biblical literalism:
“I think of some of the things that Joseph did as the prime minister of Egypt. Here was a man who was basically able to save the entire world with his big thinking: building grain reserves that would last for seven years of famine. Can you imagine having the technology, the wisdom, the knowledge to be able to do that? We can’t do that now. He was able to do that back then.”

Here, Carson appears to be referring to a passage in Genesis where “Joseph stored up grain in great abundance like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring it, for it was beyond measure.” According to the Bible, Joseph then fed Egypt and the rest of the world during the seven-year famine that followed.

“Now, my own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain,” Carson continued....

Carson appears to be interpreting the Bible literally, and concluding that the pyramids fit the bill as Joseph’s grain silos.
But over at Free Republic -- where Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are much more popular -- there's some mockery:
Doctors, as a whole, are generally ignorant of much outside of their profession, having spent the entire first third of their lives trying to become doctors.......................

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Thank God for The Donald, otherwise this wingnut would be leading the polls.

Who was the Dem candidate who said he saw UFOs years ago? Kucinich? Same boat.

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the way he talks, his past, his demeanor, there is something mentally wrong with the guy.

It should be obvious to anyone who’s had experience with mental illness in family or friends, and I have.
But not so much at Glenn Beck's Blaze, where the comments are overwhelmingly pro-Carson:
Ohhh no! Someone who might have a different interpretation of the Pyramids. This shows how closed minded liberals are. Laugh and make fun of…

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Exactly right. They love to talk about open-mindedness, but they are the most close-minded people in the country.

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I always laugh at how arrogant we are as a people, thinking we have everything all figured out- until evidence shows we were wrong, then we change our mind… then we again laugh at people because we think we have it all figured out… and the cycle repeats. Nobody has any idea about half the crap we claim is “settled science”.

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really all he says is the big open areas inside the pyramid might serve to hold grain. What is the big heresy? Why couldn’t they serve multiple purposes? Grain for afterlife maybe?
closed minded half educated modern elitists.

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this is coming from the people who think an unborn baby isnt a human being

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What? Is Ben Carson running as the President of the Historical Foundation, or the President of the United States? Why does this even matter? How does his opinion of anything ancient make a difference about whether or not he qualifies to be the President?

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Climate change is real or you’re a denier; cops are out to get black people; Islam is a religion of peace; vast right-wing conspiracy.

But Carson is a crazy.

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His theory isn’t really that ‘quirky’, i’ve never heard it before myself, but you don’t have to be a genius to take a second and consider it and see that it is completely plausible. Considering that Egyptians marked every tomb, and the great pyramid had zero markings, add the fact that there is never any record of it being a tomb or burials found there, and then look at the design with the shoots flowing in, it is similar to how ancient peoples used caves, only this is a sort of man made cave, and the pyramid being the most logical engineering design to use. But, alas you are correct, the closed mindedness of the left is what is most astounding.

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It’s funny…these same MSNBC stepford wives didn’t bat an eyelid when Obama said he’s stop the oceans from rising.


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Harry Reid is one of their icons…..ever read up on what Mormons believe?

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He makes sense. I do love when they make fun of anything outside the special bubble. I as a Messianic Jew believe Dr. Carson’s theory is one of the best.

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Do they sit in stunned silence as every word out of the Clinton’s mouths are lies? These are contemporary lies that can be PROVEN false not something about the dang pyramids!!! Heck, a lot of educated folks can’t even comprehend how they moved, cut, positioned those stones without modern equipment and who cares?

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He answered it honestly and directly.

That is exactly what is missing from most politicians.

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Many people have the same reaction when I tell them we were created by God. They are speechless that I would have an opinion counter to theirs.

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Anything the libs can distract from the issues. If Ben does come out and say the earth is only 4000 years old, that’s the only thing anyone is going to talk about for the rest of the campaign. They’ve been hoping for something to knock him out of the running no matter what.

Hillary can be a criminal, but let a man think God created the earth -- he’s unfit to run the country.
So will this finish Carson off? It'll hurt him, but he'll probably remain competitive in the GOP race, because there are so many Republicans who think the way he does. He'll definitely get through this if he responds to questions about what he's said by casting this as a dispute between faith on the one hand and secularism and political correctness on the other.

But I hope this is a wake-up call to the casual observers, including many independents and Democrats, who, according to Gallup, have positive feelings about Carson:
Political novice Ben Carson retains his formidable edge in popularity over his Republican presidential rivals, with a net favorable score of +59 among Republicans nationwide. But Carson is popular not only with Republicans, he also has a net favorable score of +21 among national adults -- the highest of any candidate from either party.
And if this does sink him, I don't think the beneficiary will be Rubio or Bush -- it'll be Trump, or maybe one of the other people in the God-bothering "lane" (Ted Cruz, or maybe, at least in Iowa, Jindal or Huckabee). The reason? Republicans are still crazy. There are multiple varieties of Republican crazy, any one of which might prevail.

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UPDATE: Meant to add this to the post. It seems apropos.

5 comments:

M. Bouffant said...

"Can you imagine having the technology, the wisdom, the knowledge to be able to do that? We can’t do that now. He was able to do that back then.”

Wait, somehow over the last few thousand yrs. we've lost the technology, ability (& wisdom) to preserve grain in storehouses?

Talk about yearning for a Golden Age that never existed.

mlbxxxxxx said...

Stuff like this will not destroy Carson, but it will stop him from breaking away, and it may be all that stops him. IMO, he's always had a ceiling (call it the "nutball" ceiling, or maybe the nutshell) and I think he's close to it but he's got plenty of money and motivation to remain in it until the bitter end. I think he's the VP pick for whomever is able to pull together a plurality out of this mess of a GOP primary.

Steve M. said...

I've been thinking Carson actually could win the nomination, but I really can't imagine any plausible candidate -- well, maybe Cruz -- picking him as VP, precisely because of the nutball factor (and the "I have no freaking idea what I'm talking about" factor). Rubio wouldn't. And Trump is too secular to like him.

Ten Bears said...

Now is about the time I get a big chuckle out of telling these less than sufficiently evolved that perhaps ten thousand years ago when the sides of the pyramids were covered with flawless virgin white marble the reflected light could be seen and used to anchor a glide path into the Sinai desert from as far away as Mars...

Funny thing about the ancient semetic empires of the middle east, the Assyrian and Mesopotamian (Iraq, Syria), the older Egyptian and Persian (Iran) and over all that territory the far older Sumerian: we have physical evidence they existed. Massive monuments, irrigation that works to this day, ruined cities comparable to many around the world today, written records lain down in stone.

Israel? Men, not so much. Couple of books of folklore, some genealogical tables. That Jesus dude (DFH)... the Romans were meticulous record keepers, recorded a census of Palistine for hundreds of years: no Jesus, Mary or Joseph. Nor mention of "Israel". Joseph Smith looked in his hat.

Folks, if we don't get over these irrational dependencies on adolescent fairy tales, this mass delusion - psychosis - over whose dog has the bigger dick, we're not gonna' make it. End of the road, extinction.

There are no gods, there will be no Rapture, and there is no Planet B.

Feud Turgidson said...

I like the comment by the Blaze reader who invites fellow readers to consider the cray-cray hoohoo kloud kookoo nonsense of Harry Reid, Mormonism. Glen Beck, the founder & owner of The Blaze, is himself Mormon.

Neither Beck nor Reid was born to parents who claimed to be Mormons. Beck was born to practicing Roman Catholics, & chose LDS as his church as a fully grown adult. Reid was born to parents he's called "agnostics", & he chose LDS as his church as young adult.

President Obama also was not born to parents who claimed the religion he now claims for himself, "Protestant Christian": he's described his mother as "detached from religion", his step-father as oblivious to religion, & his father as "a confirmed atheist".

I suspect those 3 belong to a distinctly minority portion of American adults who claim or admit to having some religious belief with a label. IOW, I think Ben Carson is much more representative of the typical American who claims an identifiable religion.

Carson was born to a mother who was a practicing 7th Day Adventist. That's an offshoot of Baptist Christian. Baptists get lumped in with Protestant Christians, which is the largest doctrinal religious grouping in the U.S. by far. The various groups that make up PCs are generally considered, to the extent people think about, distinct from a range of other groups each of which in their own orthodoxy accept that Jesus son of Mary is significant within their doctrine. That range encompasses all orthodox practicing Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jews & Muslims.

The Blaze's reader's point about how nutty Mormonism is, is well-taken considered, as they say, 'in the abstract', and certainly against what's scientifically proven, likely provable, and expert historical research and journalism. However, I don't see how it's all that clear considered in context - that is, as one necessary outcome or product that comes from comparing orthodox Mormonism to any other Middle-East desert-based monotheism, whether one of the Christ as son of God monotheism, or Judaism, or the big one over their, the McDonalds or Walmart of ME religious doctrines, Islam.

We're all guessing here, but IN THIS CONTEXT, I don't see how Steve M. makes his case that if & when Carson leaves, 'his' support in this race falls to Trump, mostly, largely or even materially. I been ponderon' on why Trump is so committed to Ben-bash; it now seems standard in his daily patter. That fulminate of mercury to anyone else in the Clown Car race. I think it's not, or not just, that Trump is oblivious or risk-takinv or holds a death wish for his campaign. IMO it's because Trump a) knows most Carson supporters will never support a pagan, b) Trump figures he knows his supporters and they eat this up, c) he caps at 25-30% of the pre-primary voting crowd, and d) it's MATERIAL for gawd's sake - in the same way Jon Stewart dropped to his knees to thank baby Jeebers for Trump entering the race.