Dogmatists

A girl from my home church has been following my facebook status and commenting with fundamental woowoo-ness along the way. On Thursday, February 12th, I had a status that said:

"Matthew wishes Darwin a happy 200th birthday!"

One person responded by saying they had toasted a cupcake in his honor. Another friend reminded me that it was also lincoln's birthday. And then this girl, really a young woman, commented:

"Are you being for real?"

Over the internet disdain travels at light-speed. She is a very conservative member of my home church (of which I am no longer a part, and from which she used to not be as fervent a member). Not to mention, she's not the brightest candle on the cake - so it was a little shocking to see her being so brazen: following my facebook status around, after not having talked to each other in probably 8 years, leaving antagonistic/challenging comments on my personal page for all to see.

I quickly responded with the following pithy message:

"of course! he's kind of an important figure for enlightened thinkers and his birthday is worth celebrating for fun"

She responded not with her own words, but with a bible verse ... from the old testament:

"Deuteronomy 6:5 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.""

At this point I decided to send a more pointed response since she continued this in a public place and on my profile page:

I'm not clear which god you're referring to. Zeus? Thor? Ra? Apollo? Quetzalcoatl? Anubis? Mars? Zoroaster? Several of these were also born from a 'virgin.' Osiris, Adonis, Tammuz, Zalmoxis, Odin, and Dionysus were all killed and 'resurrected'. Surely you don't mean jehovah or yaweh? The verse you quote comes from the old testament of the canonical bible. All throughout the old testament jehovah reportedly kills innocent women and children because he's angry that people don't love him enough - it's nice that you approve of that sort of behavior.

The Renaissance occurred over 500 years ago and the enlightenment about 300. I know it's hard, but try to catch up to the times.

It's weird - this girl is older than me, and when we were in the same church youth group together she never seemed to take religion as seriously as I did. I paid quite a bit of attention in church and wanted to learn as much as possible, since everyone around continued to tell me how important god and religion were. Even when I was just starting high school and she was graduating I could run intellectual circles around here just citing bible verses. Of course I graduate and move on to get educated, and she hangs around to get married, get knocked up, and then becomes extra religious/conservative. Why does that happen when people hang around their home towns like that? I guess it's true - an education WILL make you more likely to be liberal and an atheist. Mix a good science education into that and it just can't fail.

Her unoriginal response came back to me tonight. Oh, wait - she's not even mature enough to handle it herself - her husband needed to tackle this problem. Here's what he posted under her name:

Hey Matt. This is Brian. It burdens my heart to read these words that you are writing. Call it “ENLIGHTENMENT” or any other catch phrase you want to name it. It is apparent that your relationship with the Lord is not as strong as it should be. The Holy Bible is the undisputed true Word of God. Everything that has happened in the Bible is all for us. You, me and everyone. God sacrificed his Son for us and I hope that one day you will be able to find it in you heart to make it back into his Grace. God and Jesus love you so much and have made the ultimate sacrifice for you. No one else in this life will ever do what they did for you or will love you as much as they do. It saddens me to see Satan using people like Darwin to steer people away from Christianity. However, I must face the fact that this is Satan’s Earth until Jesus comes back. The most I can offer is prayer. I will continue to pray for you and your family each and everyday. “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” Numbers 6:24-26 NIV

Oh, the joy. Having fundamental christians follow me around is actually a dream of mine. Makes me feel like a mini PZ Myers. As you can imagine my response was strong and swift:

Please stop proselytizing on my facebook wall. I haven't been following your status and commenting on the magical nonsense that you believe in, so don't start invoking the name of satan on my page. you can do whatever hocus pocus prayers/voodoo that makes you feel better in your own bedroom; but please keep it in nash county, thank you.

the bible is most definitely NOT the true word of any god, but the words of fallible men. It is apparent that your relationship with rational thinking is not as strong as it should be. No one has loved and supported me more than my parents, who believe in the empowerment of education, critical thinking, and compassion.

And please, at least stop quoting from the old testament. Something from the apocrypha would be more settling than the old testament...

Proverbs27:15-16 An irritating woman is like a constant dripping on a rainy day. restraining her is like restraining the wind, or grasping oil in the right hand.

Why is it that the fundagelicals always want to pray for you??? And they hurl it like an insult or a weapon, not a compassionate act. There are so many other issues wrong with their responses that it hurts my head just to think about them.

Satan. I mean, really. Satan? Grow up for fuck sake. Stop playing childish games. It's bad enough to have god - but Satan too?

I love how they think the 'enlightenment' is some catch phrase. Open a textbook and educate yourself.

It's very telling that they think the bible is the undisputed word of god. It's actually been quite disputed, and by theologians for quite some time. The bible used to be composed of different books - there are many that didn't make the final cut that you can still buy and read to this day, including the gospel of thomas (the doubting one).

The thing that burns me the most is this assumption that a god has done more for me than anyone ever could or will. Bullshit. My parents are the ones who fill that spot. They have loved me more than anyone ever could love me, and they are the ones whose actions reflect that love.

At least we can hold out that they think this is Satan's earth until some mythical figure comes back to save them. Hope they have fun waiting. In the meantime, they can hole themselves up and stay away from doctors or hospitals or scientists when they get sick, since they seem to think that the scientific method is used by Satan. We'll see whether or not they're able to give up modern medicine.

Dogmatists can never seem to reconcile that cognitive dissonance.

Lewis Black on Religion and Science

Some things are better left to the comedians:

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Creationists

Why do they clamor about and scream 'academic freedom'? Creationists and ID proponents use their airtime and article space to complain about academic freedom, instead of ever offering their solid, scientific evidence for why they should be given time in a SCIENCE classroom.

I'm so tired of it - here's a tirade I commented on a blog by infamous ID'er Casey Luskin in US News and World report today. I hope you understand my frustration:

How is it that someone who thinks that the world is trying to censor their point of view, takes almost 7000 words in an opinion piece to never ONCE put forth the evidence for their claim?

You act like science is a democracy. Science is, in fact, NOT a democracy - it is constantly discriminating against ignorance and poor methodologies, logical fallacies and plain old ideologies. Theories and models MUST hold up to scrutiny and observable fact. When they do not, they are discarded for newer, updated models that better explain our natural world/universe.

The fact that the universe is 13.6 billion years old, that our planet is ~4.6 billion years old, that single-celled organisms can be found ~2 billion years ago, that the fossil record shows emerging organisms with greater complexity over time, that we're all related genetically in proportion to our morphological similarities and complexities, that religions, myths, and ancestor worship has been around since cro-magnon man, best support a model of evolution and a natural means of origin of life.

If you want to take the unknown and say that a god did it, fine. Humans have been doing that for eons. You're just playing the 'god of the gaps' - whatever mystery exists, whatever we don't understand, you're claiming is just a god. Nevermind that people can't agree whether it's Zeus, or Thor, or Apollo, or Athena, or Jehovah, or The Flying Spaghetti Monster. For years we've been closing the gaps on these gods, explaining things like where the rain comes from, why the grass is green, why developmental defects occur, how the sun 'comes up' every day, how we evolved from simpler life forms. But if you want to hold out your superstition, there's no logical argument that says you're committing some intellectual fallacy.

However, getting backed into a corner and exclaiming, "Well, you can't PROVE a god DIDN'T do it!" doesn't do anything to help your case. With that kind of reasoning, I'm as justified in declaring, "Well, you can't PROVE that Santa Claus DIDN'T do it!" It's equally nonsensical.

Of course, this is when it always hits me. I realize it. You don't believe in 'intelligent' design because of any scientific reason. You believe it because it supports a model that you want to be true - that you WANT to believe in. And therein lies the rub.

Ultimately, I can't reason someone out of something that they didn't reason themselves into in the first place.

And on that note, have fun on sunday suppressing the truth for your magicman in the sky.

Happy 200th Birthday, Chuck!

Even though I'm still sick, quite tired, and about to hit the sack, I wanted to publicly wish Charles Darwin a happy 200th birthday! Interestingly, he also shares his birthday with Abraham Lincoln.

In light of the momentous occasion, I'd like to share a quote by the famous biologist, Theodosius Dobzhansky: "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."

Thank you, Darwin, for changing the way in which we view our past, and showing us what our future is capable of.

It's a brewin'

Tim Minchin is a comedian/musician from Australia who knows how to rock out to the skeptical perspective. The following clip is from a live show in London just last year. It was taken down for a while, but he recently put a better quality copy back up for all of us to enjoy. This is an original, fictional beat poem, but as you'll hear, all stories are pulled from things we've heard kooks talk about every day. In this case, all the woo you can think of is rolled up into one paranoid hippy named Storm. As the woo gets thick, just listen to Mr. Minchin whittle it back down.



I'd like to throw a dinner party and invite Tim Minchin. I'll find a hippy for him to debate too.

Skeptics R' Us

I got my first issue of Skeptical Inquirer today!


There seems to be lots of good stuff inside. I can't wait to read the commentary on science and the new Obama administration. And there seems to be a fun one about the capacity of Enceladus (one of the moons of Saturn) to support some form of life as we know it here on earth.



But I'm sure that the most enjoyable article will be about science and antiscience in America: how lack of science informing the decisions we make leads to consequences where people suffer.

This is one of the best-late xmas presents I've gotten so far! (My awesome mom got a year's subscription for me)

If Broadway did Booty-licious

'Baby got back' is the quintessential adolescent song from my middle school years. Who would have thought someone could put this in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan?