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Heliocentric Blasphemy

Updated: Apr 7

Drawn on June 6, 2024 | Published from Miami | Updated on January 23, 2025

MTG judging Fauci's "so-called" science.
Heliocentric Blasphemy

Radicalism begets radical refutation.


Given that many pundits have taken it upon themselves to engage in uncontrollable hyperbole, successfully emphasizing the intense need to counter their truly mind-boggling proclamations has become exceedingly more complicated. As a result, nowadays, calling-out the crazy is like trying to make a point by yelling in a roaring engine room — good luck with that.


With this in mind, consider the insane statements regularly convulsed by loonies like Marjorie Taylor Greene [1]. Regardless of any discontent one may reserve for Dr. Anthony Fauci’s catastrophic communication mistakes during the CoVid-19 pandemic, the Georgia Congresswoman’s attack on the dear doctor was not merely an opportunistic political stunt to raise support from her cynical base. Nor was it exclusively a symptom of her inability to differentiate reality from fantasy. Really, aggressively attempting to personify the body of science through Dr. Fauci was simply an excuse to televise her pathological contempt for Science and its methods.


“Your so-called Science!” [1]

– MTG during a congressional hearing of Dr. Anthony Fauci, June 3, 2024.



Not the best refrain for a requiem.


Today, anti-science warfare has found a seat at the US Capitol, channeled through the despicable rhetoric of these Christian Nationalist crusaders. Though this may sound like an exaggeration, it is difficult to ignore the echo of Pope Urban VIII’s trial of Galileo, the uncomfortable reminder of the blanket purges of Chinese intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution, or even more recent examples of blasphemy witch-hunts in Islamic caliphates like Isis Iraq, Taliban Afghanistan, and Iran.


Imagine this political assault of science as a diluted first step toward Sharia — a downright Jahanam - Ealaa - al'Ard (Hell-on-Earth) ideologically guided by theocrats akin to Saudi Arabia’s inbred Wahhabi Sunni monarchy. This regime would financially flirt with terrorists (domestic & foreign) [2][3], murder journalists [4][5], flog homosexuals, and offer spectacles of amputations by sword in D.C.’s equivalent of Riyadh’s Deera Square, for all ages to enjoy before Friday’s midday prayers [6]. A new age of American malt shop milkshakes and lynchings. Left unchecked, anything non-conformant to dogma, like what you’re reading now, would be illegal and punishable by hudud-like rules of lashes and stoning.


This — This is what MTG’s Christian Nationalism has in store for America: a movement populated by cults of militant cucks eager to fight for junk causes. Each of them, duped lunatics, pledged to rage against centuries of established science & reason, vaccination, and even the shape of planet Earth itself. To be clear, Creation must absolutely not replace Evolution. The predictive power of a conscientiously tested theory delivers so much more to humanity than prophecy ever could, but science, a system of trial, error, observation, experimentation, replication, prediction, and citation is in her crucifixion crosshairs. The heliocentric model is therefore once again under threat from sensationalist sickos like this brand of Republican gas lighters. Were we to ignore the Evangelical verbal vomit for what it is, we run the risk of reliving Galileo’s trial on C-SPAN.



The political advantage of attacking science is a long-term calculation for Christian Nationalists. As is the case for Islam, many tenets of Christianity are simply incompatible with precepts of humanism, which is why denigrating science is essential for the right-wing to successfully rip democracy apart [7]. Apostates such as free women and homosexuals would be the first crossed off the list by their inquisitors who would not spare the rod for researchers either. Just consider the fate of Giordano Bruno: a 16th-century cosmologist who was burnt to a crisp at the stake for heretically proposing to an ironically named Pope – Clement VIII – that stars were like the sun. The effect of rampant theological dogma on individuality and scientific inquiry is lethal.


Failing to denounce these anti-science extremists not only offers an opportunity for its warriors to grow in numbers, but also enables them to act as conduits for spreading other misguided nonsense like homeopathy, Moon landing denial, and agnotological animosity toward democracy.


“The values of science and the values of democracy are concordant, in many cases indistinguishable. [...] The fact that so little of the findings of modern science is prefigured in Scripture to my mind casts further doubt on its divine inspiration.”

– Carl Sagan, in The Demon-Haunted World chapter on Science & Hope, 1995.



Faith is an authoritarian’s best friend. Faith serves as a spiritual connection between the material and the immaterial, chiefly exempting believers from the need to scientifically rationalize their promulgations. When faith is fused to ideology, we get religious doctrine: the moral rulings from the immaterial. So how is it at all logical to attribute matters of faith to science?


Faith in science – a popular non sequitur as misleading as claiming to have faith in democracy – is a circulating misconception born from numb complacency to complex systems. Unlike scripture, democracy is neither static nor absolute. In fact, to stay relevant with changing times and behaviors, all its bells and whistles must constantly be tested and diligently re-examined. We protest, we vote, we legislate, and we test our methods of attaining equality, sometimes by painstakingly mediating trade-offs in competing resources. Though complicated at times, democracy, in effect, is mechanically scientific, which may explain why people tend to lose faith in it. Indeed, if loudmouths like MTG struggle to understand science, how could they possibly grasp the first thing about democracy?


Given the growing, outspoken hostility toward science, the short-term consequence is clear. By quite literally not understanding the scientific process — subsequently openly hating and attacking its breakthroughs like medicine and climate modeling — researchers will have to turn to private corporations for funding more than ever before, further cementing the public’s distrust in the very methods they’ve been conditioned demonize science for using in the first place.


Didn’t like seeing Pfizer in the funding section of your peer-reviewed vaccine study? Well too bad buster. With government grants on the verge of freezing [8], there will now be more room for ‘big corporations’ in the paper's acknowledgements.


In the end, Greene is yet another spokesperson for a ministry of tyrants, an Evangelical clergy madly resolute in dawning “the whole armour of God, that ye (Christian Nationalists) may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil (apostates & blasphemers).” [9] As it stands, democratically protected human rights are under threat from populistic epistemophobes, so please ponder this carefully:


The United States of America may be facing its first true Christian reformation. Would it not be a waste to sacrifice centuries of civilizational progress on superstition?

 


[1] C-SPAN (ed.) (2024) Complete heated exchange between rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and dr. Anthony Fauci, YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/TTSG_xlJvFQ?si=fvwxVUchdaJhBs0e (Accessed: 2024).


[2] Department of Treasury (ed.) (no date) Evidence of financial links between Saudi Royal Family and Al Qaeda, The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/documents/evidence-of-financial-links-between-saudi-royal-family-and-al-qaeda (Accessed: 2024).

“In the interview, Mr. Hamad asserted that the Saudi High Commission for Aid to Bosnia, funded in large part by members of the Saudi royal family, hired him and other known al Qaeda members and provided money, vehicles and supplies to them during the Bosnian conflict and afterwards.”


[3] Epstein, J. (2022) Trump says he’s ‘financially supporting’ January 6 defendants and will look ‘very favorably’ about full pardons if he wins the 2024 election, Business Insider. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-says-hes-financially-supporting-january-6-defendants-2022-9 (Accessed: 2024).


[4] Jamal Khashoggi: All you need to know about Saudi journalist’s death (2021) BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399 (Accessed: 2024).


[5] USA: Reporters without borders (RSF) condemns Trump’s threats to imprison journalists during a potential second term (2022) RSF. Available at: https://rsf.org/en/usa-reporters-without-borders-rsf-condemns-trump-s-threats-imprison-journalists-during-potential (Accessed: 2024).


[6] France 24 (2021) Sharia law around the world, France 24. Available at: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210820-sharia-law-around-the-world (Accessed: 2024).


[7] Conservative policy wish list:


[8] Wadman, M. and Kaiser, J. (2025) Trump hits NIH with ‘devastating’ freezes on meetings, ..., Science.org. Available at: https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-hits-nih-devastating-freezes-meetings-travel-communications-and-hiring (Accessed: 23 January 2025).


[9] ‘Ephesians 6:11-14’ (2024) in King James Bible.

All audio is AI generated.

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