So it looks like Robert Sungenis is no longer willing to just give poorly attended lectures and enter stacked debates, but has decided that he needs to go Hollywood with his poorly founded, ignorant, and paranoid ramblings. Seriously, they’re trying to make a documentary, Expelled-style. I’m not going to lie: I’m scared. Not scared of what he has to say, not scared of his challenge to science, not scared of dissent.
I’m scared of all those Good Christians™ of America will see this crap and think that God mandates that we give equal time to this “theory.” It scares me to see the world slipping backwards, the public’s hearts more easily swayed by rhetoric and conspiracy theories than good, evidence-based, exciting knowledge. Superstition and paranoia is so much easier than the truth for far too many. Sungenis is charismatic and assertive enough that this stands a chance of having someone listen – and what then? With the death of the American (and, by proxy, Canadian) space program, will we ever look up at the night sky and be humbled as Sagan did when he waxed poetic? Or would we allow those gaps that contain God to grow?
"There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." - Carl Sagan
How can we make science capture the imaginations of people the way that these cons can? It becomes more and more clear that the only way forward is to proactively prevent these blatant attacks on science. We need to be loud, active voices for rational, skeptical thinking. Anyone with any iota of skepticism will easily see through Sungenis’ fallacies, and misrepresentations.
I fear for the ones who don’t.
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