Half of Tea Party Rejects Climate Change and Evolution
Activism, Headlines Thursday, September 22nd, 2011
By Luiza Oleszczuk | Christian Post
Approximately half of Tea Party members do not believe in evolution and climate change, according to the newest poll by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). That could be an issue in the 2012 elections, researchers say.
The study found that some 69 percent of all Americans believe there is solid evidence for global warming and nearly 57 percent believe in evolution. However, within the Tea Party, 50 percent of the affiliates reject the idea of global warming and 51 percent do not believe in evolution.
“Americans who identify with the Tea Party and white evangelical Protestants strongly reject evolution,” said Daniel Cox, PRRI Research Director. “In fact, roughly one-third of these groups believe humans and other living things were created within the last 10,000 years.”
The study, which concluded in the midst of presidential campaigns, also suggests that these results might be significant for the 2012 GOP presidential contenders.
“While most Americans say the issues of evolution and climate change do not strongly influence their support of candidates, these issues are symbolically important for two groups that play an outsize role in Republican primary politics: white evangelical Protestants and members of the Tea Party,” said Dr. Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute. “The challenge for Republican candidates is to talk about these issues now in a way that will not hurt them later in the general election.”
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Short URL: https://reteaparty.com/?p=3442
Climate Change and Evolution are outside the core principles of the Tea Party. Each member/candidate can have their own thoughts in these areas but has no impact on the Tea Party Platform.
Climate change is a scientific debate overshadowed by politics, but the fact that we reject most of real science in favor of rebranded Creationism is too much to bear. Perhaps we do not have the faculties to govern ourselves.
Of course not! That is why the global elite have decided that we must become serfs again and be governed by them, as they are all so intelligent and wise. I think I’ll pass. Since the beliefs of the great unwashed are too much for you to bear, you can always choose to leave the planet and come back in a more homogeneous, pasteurized, sterilized time period.
The climate change debate has assumed that changes in the climate require a governmental, hence political, response. And, it’s the political response that’s being challenged. The Earth’s climate has been changing ever since the planet formed 4.5 billion years ago but only now do we have the hubris to believe we can direct those changes. The current debate isn’t about whether the climate is changing, it’s about who (if anyone) should pay to try to keep it from changing and who should receive those payments… and there are a lot of hands out.
As for evolution, anyone who doubts that we humans as well as all other life on this planet evolved over the last 3.5-4 billion years is simply being willfully ignorant. 150 years ago there may have been some doubt, but after the discovery of DNA in the 1950s it’s obvious that all living organisms share an evolutionary beginning. No amount of superstition or mythology can obscure that simple fact. But, as in all things, some folks have a vested interested in maintaining superstition and mythology–it’s how they make a living, conning other folks into giving them money. I expect survey results like this to persist for some time yet.
As a Tea Party supporter, I both believe in the naturalistic theory of evolution, at least in its broad outlines, and reject the theory of anthropogenic global warming. Climate change is a natural phenomenon which has been occurring on earth for billions of years, and there were times before the Industrial Revolution when the earth was significantly warmer than it is at present.
I recommend the British documentary film “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, which can be found on YouTube, for a good layperson’s look at the topic.
Also, some religious persons will take exception, but it is my view that most fundamentalist types don’t *really* believe that the earth is merely several thousand years old and was created by God in a week, that all life except one man and his family along with a male and female of each species who took refuge in a boat was subsequently exterminated by God in a genocidal flood, yada yada, etcetera.
For many people, I think professing “belief” in the Bible stories serves as a convenient means of expressing commitment to a generally “conservative” worldview, as well as a social device that gives people a reason to come together with others in their community in churches, Bible groups, etc. Because if you look at self-identified Christians broadly, including the “born again” fundamentalist types, they don’t really live their lives as if they thought this stuff was true. They tend to have extramarital sex, divorce, over-eat, swear, etc., about as much as the rest of us. It’s like comedian Doug Stanhope said — people choose their own Christianity:
So anyway, I’d take the statistic about evolution with a grain of salt. But it’s a bit unfair to pick on right-wing Christians for their wacky beliefs. When was the last time you saw a story about how many northern California Democrats believe in the healing power of crystals, or think a country can tax itself into prosperity?
Climate change I can understand questioning…but evolution, really? Sad and ignorant.