Fundamentalist Innumeracy II
Now, a very brief follow-up to yesterday's bit ("Leaving the Lifestyle, Baby!") about innumeracy among fundamentalist christians.
As Pam Spaulding tells the story ("Daddy D's hissy fit over WaPo conservative columnist Kathleen Parker"), James Dobson, of the so-called "Focus on the Family" organization, was upset when Ms. Parker wrote in the Washington Post that the problem with the Republican Party is that it has been taken over by "the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP", what she refers to as "armband religion". Apparently Mr. Dobson felt that he was being included in the "oogedy-boogedy branch" (almost certainly); such an identification could easily come about from the exceedingly large religion armband he wears.
Anyway, Dobson spouted some words that he seemed sure would put Ms. Parker in her place, words that we don't need to give any more light or air to, except that we were amused to read (quoted at Pam's place, linked above):
That both Obama and marriage won in California and Florida makes it clear that many who pulled the lever for the "change" he espoused also pulled it for the stability provided by marriage as recognized for millennia in all civilized societies.
Oooh, doesn't "millenia" sound a lot like "forever"? It means a thousand years, of course, and "thousand" at time in history has been used to mean a very great many.
Literally–this will come as no surprise–there's quite a bit wrong with the assertion about "marriage as recognized for millennia in all civilized societies."
There's the time-frame, of course. Too many millennia and the idea goes back before the time of Adam and Eve, that god-given model for a perfect "marriage" (did anyone ever see their marriage certificate?). We don't know that Dobson is a young-earth creationist who believes the planet was created in 4004 BCE, but it seems likely.
Regardless, the reference to "millennia" takes us easily back into the ever-popular "biblical" times, when everything was perfect. Including, one presumes, the perfectly bigamous marriages mentioned in the book itself. Oh dear. Perhaps those societies were not "civilized". I'm guessing that the standard in Mr. Dobson's mind for whether a civilization is "civilized" is its opinion about "traditional marriage".
There's also the equivocation over "all", as in "all civilizations". This can be a great deal of fun and lead to many–thousands of!–arguments. Provided he feels he can pinpoint one moment in each "civilization" when his assertion was true, Mr. Dobson will feel justified in saying "all civilizations", realizing that saying it that way also sounds a great deal like "for every civilization for all times". Tsk tsk.
Anyway, the hyperbole continues to grow. I won't be surprised to hear "recognized for millennia" mutate into "recognized for millions of years" sometime soon. It could happen so very easily among those with no sense of what "thousands of years" and "millennia" actually are, and it could be so very, very amusing.