Cent A. Cent B.

My two cents. My two survivalist cents.

So, survivalism is plagued by paranoia, bad science, fundamentalism, fear, wishful thinking, some more fear and a lot of leaps of logic. People prepare for all sort of things, biblical prophesies, planetary changes, terrorism, economic collapse and the so-called mayan prophesy-- whatever the fuck that is. So it is easy to come to the conclusion that the whole thing is just stupid.

It isn’t.

Well, the mayan stuff and rapid polar shift are pretty retarded, and in a nuclear war we are all fucked, basement-full-of-spam notwithstanding.

BUT

The whole preparation thing is just a logical continuation of the reasoning that makes you carry a spare tire on your car and having a fire extinguisher at your office: sometimes shit happens, and a back up plan can make a potential disaster a mere inconvenience.

So this is my (very personal, very non-expert) advise.

a)Prepare for things that can actually happen. Home fires and disease-transmiting mosquitoes are not nearly as epic as a meteor impact, but they happen all the time and kill a lot of people so:

b)Start small. Don't get me wrong, a self-sustainable ranch in Idaho would be fantastic (I say that from the bottom of my heart and without a microgram of sarcasm-- that would be just amazing) but small, daily changes of lifestyle have a big impact. Really simple stuff, wear a seatbelt, go to the dentist regularly (if shit hits the fan, you won't be able to fix your cavities, do it now) take first aid basic training, and:

c)Get fit. All that tacticool stuff is not going to count for shit if you can't run a few kilometres. Survival situations, whether a riot getting out of control, an earthquake or a flood tend to include a lot of walking. And I mean A LOT of fucking walking. Walking all day, for days. Probably carrying:

d)A backpack. They call them bug-out-bags and you can buy one online. A BOB is the one thing you pick as you leave your house in an emergency. Think of the things you would want to have in that situation and put them in a bag. Chances are you already have 99% of the things you need, scattered all over your house; you just need them all in a bag you can pick up and run. Include energy bars, a change of clothes (you'll be surprised how often that is overlooked), a first aid kit, a radio, a flashlight, a multitool, water and means to get water.

Must of all: think. Think what can actually happen where you live, how can you cope with it to reduce the damage. No point  being ready for a snow blizzard if you live in Panama-- unless the polar shift nonsense actually happens.

ALSO

I know shit about finances, lets get that out of the way. Stuff is outright arcane to me. But I figure this much: the key not to get fucked if the economy goes (further) to shit is not being in too much debt. Live by your means and try to owe banks as little as you can. Sounds obvious really, but must if not all of us are perpetually paying off a loan: mortgage, car payments, credit cards and the like. Healthy finances start by spending what you earn, if not a little less.

Bottom line: investing time and effort into physical fitness and skills is probably the first thing to put on your list. You will carry those things with you at all times. Second is to give banks the finger as hard and often as you can. Even you are not into survivalism, that is a solid advice on it's own right.

Lancer

So why evolution?

The thing is, I have recently learned a little bit about the creationist controversy in public education in the US and to be honest, I found it very odd. I mean, evolution as a theory stopped being controversial a long time ago in scientific circles and is now considered a pretty fundamental aspect of biology.

Then again, it is just an aspect of biology. Why is it so important anyway? What does it have to do with conservatives or Christianity?

Well, I understand it like this: the bible says god created man and animals and everything else over a period of time described in the book of Genesis. That conflicts of course with reality. But a lot of things in the bible do, and Christians and Catholics always find a way to ease that conflict: they say it is either symbolic, a translation issue, a matter of interpretation or just god working in mysterious ways.

Why not do that with evolution? Just say the talking snake and the ribgirl are symbolic and be done with it. A compromise: the bible says something that does not really make sense in the real world but it is still true because it is an allegory. They do that with a lot of stuff anyway.

Creation however, is different.

You see, if the creation myth described in Genesis is not literally true (snake and all) then there is no original sin. That is the core of the issue and the part where we (are supposed to ) depart logic and start proving myths with myths. Because without the original sin, the story of Jesus Christ is suddenly not so powerful. After all, if Jesus did not die (but not rally) on the cross to rid mankind from the original sin, then why? Or did it redeemed us of all sins? (in which case, sinning ahoy).

So man evolving pretty much negates the need of Jesus Christ.

We must also take into consideration the mentality in which the death of a person atones a sin: it is the mindset of a time when people offered animal sacrifices to make things right with an angry god. That is really common among old religions and is now universally regarded as primitive at best. But check out the Deuteronomy. This is particularly interesting because it sheds some light as to why Jesus was the Lamb of God. It was a sacrifice made by god to calm the anger of an offended god-- which just happens to be himself.

That is titanically weird on it's own right, but we must go back to the point where I was going: creationism is the attempt to give the creation myth of Genesis some varnishing of scientific legitimacy. It fails catastrophically, of course.

Evolution denialism is almost unique to the US, and it creates quite a few conundrums. If you take evolution out of the equation of the way you understand biology you end up with a very funky version of it. And you are forced to make ever more outlandish statements just to keep the whole thing as consistent as possible.

Imagine someone stating that they don't believe in say, cellular division. Listening to the way they explain how plants grow and how wounds heal would be pretty crazy.

It is very similar with the explanations given to biology without evolution, you get a worldview that just doesn't fit the facts. It messes everything up.