Dr. Paul Broun, a Republican congressman representing Georgia's 10th district and chairman of the powerful United States House Science Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, made headlines in 2009 for his failed attempt to proclaim 2010 "The Year of the Bible."

Testifying recently before Liberty Baptist Church congregants at the 2012 Sportsman's Banquet, Broun, who is a medical doctor by trade, made it clear just how significant a role the bible plays in his everyday decision-making.

"As your congressman, I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington DC," Broun told attendees after suggesting all other public officials should follow his lead.

Broun, who, again, is a top ranking member of the United States House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, tells the crowd the bible has done much more than teach him how live a good Christian life — its opened his eyes to the reality obscured by such things as empirical data and scientific consensus.

He once "believed" in things like evolution, the Big Bang theory, and embryology, but no more: Now he knows those things are "lies straight from the pit of Hell."

He continues:

And it's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don't believe that the Earth is but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That's what the bible says!

That the House Committee on Science seats a hardcore biblical literalist should come as no surprise, considering another prominent member of the committee is Rep. Todd "Magical Vagina" Akin, but that hardly makes it right.

[H/T: TPM, video via The Bridge Project]