the tindog coffeehouse

Just in time for this year’s census, Radical Cartography has published a bunch of amazingly detailed (and beautiful) maps and charts from the census of 1870.

The data essentially reinforce what you would expect to find in the first census since the end of the Civil War: The North had a higher population overall, more foreign-born residents, much fewer African-Americans, and was much wealthier than the South. The percentage of men in the West (California, Nevada, Idaho, etc.) far exceeded the percentage of women. And the federal government, whose expenditures were almost completely limited to the military, saw the national debt explode in order to pay for the Civil War.

Below: The Constitutional Population (“Excluding Indians not taxed”).

Below: The “Colored” Population. Almost exclusively located in the Deep South along the Mississippi River and Southern plantations.

Below: The Foreign Population. Notice that the foreign immigrants flocked mainly to the upper Midwest but also to Central Texas. The influx of German and Czech immigrants to Texas is responsible for the incredible barbecue we still salivate over today. In California, of course, most of the immigrants were Chinese.

Below: Church Accommodation. Almost 50% of the total population was either Methodist or Baptist (red striped area and green area, respectively), with smaller numbers in Presbyterian or Roman Catholic churches (blue and maroon areas). In New England, Congregational churches were more dominant (light blue striped area), while the Southwest was divided between Catholics (maroon) and Mormons (black).

Below: The National Debt. Almost non-existent before the U.S.-Mexican War (1846-1848) but then exploding during the Civil War, reaching a height of about $2.7 billion in 1866. It’s interesting to note that only a few years later the Panic of 1873 would plunge the nation into a major economic depression.

Check out all the maps in full size and stunning detail on the Radical Cartography site.

Previously:
Tonight we’re gonna panic like it’s 1873
A presidential view on debt

As the scientific community prepares to celebrate Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday tomorrow, the Vatican appears ready to fully embrace his theory of evolution within the Catholic Church.

“In fact, what we mean by evolution is the world as created by God,” said Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture. The Vatican also dealt the final blow to speculation that Pope Benedict XVI might be prepared to endorse the theory of Intelligent Design, whose advocates credit a “higher power” for the complexities of life.

Organisers of a papal-backed conference next month marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species said that at first it had even been proposed to ban Intelligent Design from the event, as “poor theology and poor science”. Intelligent Design would be discussed at the fringes of the conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University, but merely as a “cultural phenomenon”, rather than a scientific or theological issue, organisers said. …

Conceding that the Church had been hostile to Darwin because his theory appeared to conflict with the account of creation in Genesis, Archbishop Ravasi argued yesterday that biological evolution and the Christian view of Creation were complementary.

This view by the Catholic Church isn’t really anything new.  The Church has had an open mind with regards to evolution going back at least to the 1950s, and Pope John Paul II said in 1996 it was “more than a hypothesis.” And while Pope Benedict XVI hasn’t specifically endorsed evolution as the ultimate truth, he hasn’t endorsed Intelligent Design either.

I’m not Catholic, so maybe I’m not really qualified to be blogging about this.  But I’m not sure how you can say on the one hand that the world was “created by God” while on the other hand, Intelligent Design (i.e. Creation) is “poor theology and poor science.”

Does the Catholic Church believe that God created the universe and mankind or doesn’t it?  From Archbishop Ravasi’s statements, it appears it doesn’t.

So how is that complementary to the Bible?  It isn’t.  As I wrote a couple of months ago:

Christianity can be summed up in four basic truths: (1) God created the universe and everything in it, and humans were created distinctly in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27).  (2) Mankind disobeyed God, causing us to be separated from Him.  Romans 6:23 says that the punishment for that disobedience is death, meaning Hell.  (3) God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth to pay that penalty for us by dying on the cross.  Three days after His death, Jesus was resurrected and now sits at God’s right hand in Heaven.  (4) By repenting of our sin and acknowledging that Jesus is Lord of our lives, we can be forgiven of our sins and reborn spiritually in order that we can live eternally in Heaven.

If you remove any of those truths from the equation, then it’s no longer consistent with the Bible.  Therefore, you can’t as a Christian believe that humans evolved from another organism or species.

However, that is not to say that evolution cannot co-exist with Creation.  Evolution, if you define it as plants and animals adapting over time to their environment, is not inconsistent with the Bible (at least as I see it).  So I can allow for the existence of evolution up to a point.  But again, if you take out that first biblical truth, then all other aspects of Christianity don’t make any sense.

It may be that I’m misunderstanding the Vatican’s position here.  It could very well be that their view of evolution is similar to mine, which allows for a limited form of evolution so long as it doesn’t interfere with the concept of divine creation by God.

But if there’s any question as to the Church’s beliefs, now would be a good time to clear it up.

Previously:
The faith of George W. Bush
Should evolution be debated in public schools?

This is not meant to be political blog, although with the political season heating up, I’m sure there will be some more political posts in the future. But I did want to put my $0.02 in regarding the recent discussions of the faiths of presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney.

The question comes down to this: (1) to what extent should a candidate’s personal beliefs and convictions be considered by voters when they are deciding whom to vote for, and (2) to what extent will that candidate’s personal beliefs and convictions shape how that candidate will govern should they win?

Republicans won control of Congress in the 1994 midterm elections in part as a reaction to Bill Clinton’s liberal policies–policies driven by a liberal ideology–but the “Republican Revolution” backfired two years later when voters chose to overlook “traditional family values” in favor of economic policy when they reelected Clinton to the White House.

I disagree with this approach. I believe that a candidate’s personal beliefs and convictions (not just his religious faith, but also his set of core values) should be considered, especially when voting for a presidential candidate, precisely because I believe that those core set of beliefs directly determine how he will govern. It’s not enough to ask where the candidate stands on the war in Iraq or the subprime mortgage meltdown or illegal immigration. While those are certainly important issues, how the candidate thinks and what he believes will ultimately shape how he deals with those issues: what kind of legislation he will propose, which bills he’ll sign or veto, what kind of Cabinet he’ll put together, which judges and Supreme Court justices he will nominate.

Mitt Romney stated in a speech on December 6th that he wouldn’t let his Mormon faith get in the way of his presidency, saying he would “put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law.” He compared the scrutiny of his faith to the scrutiny of John F. Kennedy’s in 1960, obviously sending the message that we should disregard his religious affiliation and only focus on where he stands on the issues.

I can’t do that.

There is a difference between Kennedy and Romney. Kennedy was a Catholic, Romney is a Mormon. That’s a big difference. Mormonism is not Christianity. While Mormons may acknowledge that Jesus is the son of God (a spirit child of God, along with Satan), they don’t believe that Jesus was God or that God is the only god. Mormons believe that God became a god over time and the we, too, can all become a god ourselves and have our own spirit children. They believe that after our death, we will all end up in one of three different kingdoms: the celestial kingdom, the terrestrial kingdom, or the telestial kingdom. (See here and here for a good summary of their beliefs.)

The Mormon faith is in direct conflict with what I believe and what the Bible says about who God is and who Jesus is.

Therefore I cannot, in good conscience, vote for a Mormon for President of the United States, despite where he may stand on the various political and economic issues. Would I vote for him for governor or senator or congressman? I don’t know. Being governor is a lot different than being president, so I honestly don’t know how I would vote in that situation. But in terms of the presidency, I just don’t think I could do it.

So what about Mike Huckabee? Certainly in terms of faith, his Baptist faith is in line with what I believe. Some conservatives have begun to criticize Huckabee for having a less-than-conservative record while governor of Arkansas, chiding him for raising taxes and being too lax on illegal immigration. Of course voters will have to decide how important those issues are to them and how his past governing would reflect his future governing.

But voters will also have to decide whether to vote according to their own set of core beliefs or vote for whom they believe can beat the opposition. I would prefer to vote for a candidate who was more closely aligned with my faith and my convictions, not strictly voting for a candidate because I think he’s “electable,” even if it meant that Hillary Clinton eventually won the election. That’s how important my faith is to me.

So, then, would I vote for a candidate strictly because of his religious affiliation? After all, Bill Clinton is also a Baptist like Mike Huckabee. No, not necessarily. As I said, you have to consider multiple things when considering whom to vote for. So I would say that a person’s faith isn’t necessarily a qualifier but may very well be a disqualifier, as I believe to be the case with Romney.

I know there are a lot of politically conservative Christians that would disagree with me on this point. That’s fine. But I just don’t believe in compromising my faith for the sake of winning an election. I just hope there are others out there who feel the same way.