Continue reading »]]> On the schedule today are Matt and Tracie.

As cohost, I need to talk here about what I’ll be talking about. Depending on call volume and what Matt’s in the mood for, I’d like to do another dice demo to examine the statement “X is possible,” and what we mean by that.

Is god possible? I don’t know…and I’d like to talk today about the idea “It is possible a god exists.”

Is it? If I have a small opaque bag and ask you if it’s possible for me to roll a 21 with the dice in the bag–can you answer that question without a peak in the bag? I can’t. I could, I suppose, assert that since that many dice could be in the bag, it’s possible; but if they empty the bag, and it’s just 2 dice…then I’m using “possible” to describe things that are actually *impossible*. What are the implications of  using the word “possible” to describe impossible things? Is it correct to say that if a thing cannot be determined to be “impossible” it must, then, be considered “possible”? Or is it more correct to say “we can’t say if it’s possible or not, because we don’t have sufficient information”?

Hope we can discuss it further on the program. We’ll see.

Continue reading »]]> Corey Keplinger from Schenectady emailed us after we took his call on the show yesterday.

I wasn’t rude or offensive. I don’t know why you hung up. To honestly answer Russell’s question… Am I always right? I guess I am, and if I said that last night, Russell would have hung up on me anyway. Matt say’s M&M’s created the universe: How does he know, they did not, since he claims he does not know? Your logic Matt, I am sorry, is self-refuting.

Dear Corey,

Not only would I have hung up on you, I wouldn’t have taken your call in the first place. I had to go back and reread our past correspondence to remind myself who you are. You’ve been emailing us obsessively since 2011. You are constantly rude, trolling, obnoxious, and in love with your own incredibly childish arguments and with yourself.

Saying you are a person who is never wrong is just par for the course — it makes it obvious that you are not interested in having a conversation in good faith. You are trying to deliberately insult the intelligence of our audience. And the thing is, I didn’t remember exactly who you were when I saw your name, but I did instantly connect the name with this kind of crappy argument. You told me that you’ve “only called the show twice.” I call this a lie of omission, since you neglected to mention that you’ve also attempted to initiate email conversations approximately 20 separate times in the last two years, and most of them have wound up in the trash bin very quickly after brief exchanges with various cast members, because you are annoying and dishonest.

Remember that time I hung up on you for being a complete asshole to Jeff?
http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/2012/07/09/how-to-guarantee-that-we-hang-up-on-you/

Remember calling me infantile pet names like “Rusty” for months while I ignored your emails?

You’ve got an unhealthy obsession with our show, your arguments suck, the audience does not like you. I do not like you. Get a life. Find a new hobby. Find something useful to do with yourself instead of constantly pestering us. And above all, give up on evangelism, because you are bad at it. You are in fact, so bad at it that Matt once speculated that you are an atheist pretending to be a Christian for fun.

If you are really a Christian honestly expressing your opinion, then you are an idiot. If you are pretending to be a Christian, then you are a liar. Either way, you are a complete jerk. I do not want to take your calls, I do not want to answer any more emails, I don’t know how much clearer I can make it for you. Take the hint.

Sincerely, Russell Glasser

Continue reading »]]> Part I and Part II are also posted on this blog.

P.R. Claim: Religion fosters family closeness and family values.

Last night I watched “Polygamy USA.” I am aware that polygamous LDS is not standard LDS. And, further, LDS isn’t standard “Christian.” But what I saw that disturbed me, had nothing to do with the differences in these religious cultures, and represented, rather, obvious similarities. It had nothing at all to do with the polygamous aspect of the environment, and everything to do with how religion can strain ties between parents and children—putting distance between them by fostering irrational intolerance.

What I see over and over again, is that religion damages some aspect-X of society, but then successfully spins itself as beneficial to aspect-X. A commonly observed example would be religious groups that promote restricting access to both contraception and comprehensive sex education, as a means to reduce unwanted pregnancy. But sometimes the instances are not so obvious, even if they are just as common. Repeatedly, I see the P.R. claims slide through society unquestioned and unexamined. It appears that all religion has to do is continue claiming it’s good for aspect-X, and after a time, the claim, “it’s good for aspect-X,” takes hold, even among nonadherents.

What I’m about to discuss is not a problem restricted to religion, but rather a problem that religion compounds. In other words, without religion, there would be one less cause for this harm. Additionally, being a massive and well regarded institution, it has the potential to continue causing extensive damage, more than other ideologies that are not so socially far reaching, nor as lauded.

A person entering into an interracial relationship might encounter friction from racist parents. And such situations do strain family ties. However, “racism,” even for the many complex forms and social issues it raises, is broadly regarded as a negative social influence. When we think of racism, we think of negative things, negative people, negative histories—something we struggle against. But when we think of “religion,” and “church,” and “god,” most of our population still gets a warm fuzzy. And this protects it from examination and criticism. If racism included children’s classes, where the little ones got together with their little friends to sing songs, eat cookies and hear stories, people might be hard-pressed to attack it, as well. “Aw, but I remember all that fun? It was a good time. What sort of malcontent are you to crap upon such good fun? What is wrong with children singing songs? Who has a problem with cookies?” Well, nobody—but are cookies and sing-songs worth the cost to society to continue propagating something like “racism” in our society? Racism isn’t, at least any more, lauded by most people. It’s regarded as an ugly word. But “theistic religion” still sports a halo—without having earned it, and without, far too often, very many people stopping to consider whether it’s deserved. But that’s religion’s main defense: The hope that nobody will focus too closely on what is actually being promoted—the religion, itself. The hope we will be distracted by the red herring claims of all the “good” it does. And make no mistake; it need only toss out a “good” bone that isn’t really that impressive, every once in a blue moon, for people to forgive any atrocity it perpetrates, or any social harm it generates. After all, what is losing your family compared to the comforting memory of a soft cookie? What are 3,000 deaths compared to fun children’s songs with friends? What is threatening children with existential horrors for all eternity to a nice Bible Story Hour?

In sum, then, unlike other issues that strain families, religion is insulated and praised. This is why it is the hydra’s head I tend to focus on the most when it comes to my attempts to dismantle socially harmful institutions and ideologies. Rather than religion promoting family closeness, I see religion actually abusing the family as a mechanism to ensure its own, continued existence. It hijacks family bonds to use as leverage in ways that demonstrate the underlying dishonesty of what it’s actually claiming to accomplish—as I will discuss later, below, in a letter to a viewer.

But back to the television program. The episode I watched highlighted a father and son. It had nothing to do with polygamous aspects of their beliefs. The father wanted his son to go on a mission trip. The son had no interested in doing mission work. For most of us, that would be a small thing. The child isn’t interested in taking the trip. He’s nearly an adult. And there are many other opportunities for a bright, young person to pursue in life. Not going on a temporary mission adventure—well, what does it amount to in the end, really, compared to a father’s love for his son?

Apparently, it amounts to quite a lot. The father was relentless in his nagging about this mission trip, and obvious in his excessive time spent with his “mission boys”—young men who were not his son, who had decided to go do mission trips. The father made it clear to his son that the mission work was necessary to gain his love, acceptance and approval.

This represents emotional blackmail. Aimed at one’s own minor child, over a small matter, it amounts to emotional cruelty.

Don’t get me wrong. I realize it’s no “small matter” to the father—and that’s the religion’s doing, making a mountain of a molehill. Any reasonable person, and loving parent, should be able to see this is a nonissue when it comes to “do I love and accept my child?” and “Is my child a good person, of whom I should still approve and be proud?” A father’s love and acceptance should be light years beyond “I want my child to go on a trip.” It certainly should, by no means, hinge on it. And yet this religion has this father, punitively, spending more time with his “mission boys,” than his own son—constantly showing his son that the only way to earn his love and approval is to conform to his every minor whim. You want dad’s attention? Dad’s approval? Dad’s love? The family’s acceptance? Then you’d better get in line and get with the program and start buying into this religion, because until you start acting like these wonderful other mission boys, you’re stuck squarely on the outside of my love, acceptance and approval.

If this were one stranger to another, I wouldn’t think twice. But when it’s a parent to their minor child—an understanding of human development and social species should make it clear why this is grossly unacceptable parental behavior. Love, acceptance and approval are required by developing human beings who are solely reliant upon parents as their caregivers. It’s very important that children understand these things are secure. Withholding these things from a child and demanding compliance as ransom—in areas that are of little matter—constitutes abuse of parental power and resources. Parents who do this are severely in the wrong. And religion cannot begin to justify such irresponsible parenting.

As I said earlier—this is not restricted to some small LDS cultish outlying ideology. And it just so happened that the same evening I watched the program, I also answered an e-mail from a young woman who is trying to figure out how to come out to her religious mother as an atheist. Like so many young people who write to us, she has similar concerns. She had written in one of her responses that her mother did not ask if she was participating in church while she is away at college, and she speculated that her mother likely was afraid of the possible answer. Here is part of what I offered to her, just before she replied that I had described her situation exactly. And this is, as well, where I note the obvious dishonesty involved in what the adherents claim to be doing, versus what they’re actually doing:

This is extremely common and so weird to me. A Christian parent, specifically, often seems more concerned about how things look, than how things *are*. Often in these homes corporal punishments are used—basically artificial, exaggerated consequence, to control the child through fear. I’m not saying *your* parents hit you. I’m just saying that many Christian parents do, because the Bible endorses hitting kids as “loving” and “teaching.” Anyway, when a parent has a kid come out as atheist, very often, they put huge pressure on the kid to just stop being atheist and come back to church. They treat the child in such a way that it almost seems like you can “punish” someone into believing something; but in reality, you can’t—and who doesn’t know that? Certainly you can be punished into ACTING in accordance with what they want—like going to church and shutting up about your lack of belief. But you can’t control someone else’s actual beliefs using social pressure or threats.

So, it seems clear they’re mainly interested in controlling behavior, and not beliefs. And this is really odd, because the core of Christianity is that it’s all about what you *believe*. What you *do* is not totally irrelevant, but certainly useless if you don’t believe. And it’s interesting that these parents would be quite content to have their kids attend church and keep their mouths shut–and end up in hell, than be honest to them and end up in hell. Basically, they’re saying:

“I don’t care if you lie to me. I don’t care if you go to Hell. Just don’t make me look bad or have to cope with what is really going on.”

I find it disturbing. And I wish I could say that you’re likely misjudging your mom. But you’re likely not. This is probably exactly how she views it. Even if you don’t believe [and will suffer eternity in hell]–it’s all good as long as she doesn’t have to deal with it and can go on pretending that nothing has changed.

Later that night, I posted a blurb about Polygamy USA on a social networking site. And someone posted back to say add this:

I’m an ex-Mormon of 20 years, and I’ll tell you it’s social suicide for a male to decline a calling for a mission. Parents refuse to allow their daughters to date a non-Elder, friends no longer speak to you. Mind you, it gets worse depending on how big the LDS community is around your ward. My friend in Salt Lake City was shamed out of his job for a refusal. I won’t even go there if you decide to leave the church…That’s just the main stream LDS church. The fundamentalist compounds are much, much worse.

Bear in mind that the Mormons, specifically, promote themselves as extremely family-centric.

But it’s so easy to see, it’s not the religion keeping the family maintained. It’s the family keeping the religion maintained. It’s not the family using religion as a tool to stay close. It’s religion using the family ties as tools to control each of the members, and keep them conforming, so much so that even if they no longer accept the beliefs, they will stay in line out of pure fear. Religion isn’t helping families—it’s using and abusing them as leverage. It’s not concerned about family welfare, it’s completely self-concerned.

“Ask not what religion can do for you—ask rather what you can do for religion.” That’s what he religion is all about here.

So, we’re left with this question: How does an ideology that so often abuses family members as weapons against each other, to selfishly thrive, get a reputation of being beneficial to families?

Answer: The best damn P.R. machine you’ve ever seen.

Continue reading »]]> Most days I just don’t have the patience to address the creationist emails we get. Then again, other days I just can’t resist baiting them, and many facepalms ensue.

Round OOOOOONNNNNNEEEEE!

Subject: If you believe science!!! then research

Refer to this

http://www.creationworldview.org/aboutus.asp

Yep. Bad science done by ideologically driven people. Always enjoy reading that stuff, thanks.

Round TWOOOOOOOOO!

Round THREEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Continue reading »]]> I don’t think Christians are evil. But the Christian God is evil, and belief in him runs the risk of non-evil people embracing evil through lazy moral and intellectual concessions to things that do not deserve to be conceded. And the Problem of Evil settles it.

The PoE came up on yesterday’s show, and in response to the show we got some correspondence from an atheist who’s having this very discussion with a Christian friend. As we see from the friend’s responses, theodicy isn’t so much an exercise in rebutting the Problem of Evil as making excuses for it. It often falls back on appealing to God’s incomprehensibility to the minds of mankind. That God created minds incapable of understanding his cunning plans and mysterious ways, while simultaneously mandating our eternal punishment for rejecting him based on our failure to understand him, pretty much counts as the greatest dick move in the history of everything. (Or it would, if God existed. Fortunately, he doesn’t.)

Anyway, as these conversations usually go, the hypothetical Crime That You’d Really Think God Should Stop, Because Come On — the rape of a child — ended up on the table. This one always ends up being the example, because whether theist or atheist, child rape is something that anyone who isn’t utterly diseased between the ears can agree crosses the moral event horizon into utter irredeemability. The Christian will still look for a path to redemption here, and this fellow instantly resorted to the most common defense of the PoE: the Appeal to Free Will.

The power of free-will allows evil. Omnipotent meaning “state of being all-powerful” does not necessitate God has to correct evil for it is a result of the free-will he gave us. I believe omni-benevolent is generally given as an attribute to God, which He is. He is all perfect and flawless in essence. Evil came out of the free will he gave us. The Omniscient aspect is something that none of us can comprehend as humans because none of us have it. Thus, He knows what is best permanently and can see things with a perspective that none of us are even capable of seeing them. His action (or what may be perceived to us as non-action) are all a result of His omniscience which may be played out in timing and setting. I don’t see this contradiction being valid.

This explanation shows how freely Christians toss around the three “omnis” and play with the definitions of them until they are more or less meaningless. Immediately after describing omniscience as “something that none of us can comprehend,” he then presumes to comprehend it by explaining that God “knows what is best permanently” and is just way way smarter than us. But this is a dodge, not a response, because it not only appeals to an unknown but an admitted unknown. Seriously, he’s saying no less than “Because none of us can understand God’s ways, you’re wrong in saying they’re wrong and I’m right in saying they’re right.” It’s self-evidently absurd.

The appeal to free will is the very worst example of theodicy there is, for many reasons. First, it excuses God’s inaction by taking into account only the freewill of evildoers, not their victims. As Tracie said to a caller a few weeks ago (and which has now become the all-time most quoted line from AXP), “The difference between me and your God is that if I could stop someone raping a child, I would.” What kind of moral monster sits back and watches the most helpless and innocent victim have her life destroyed, solely because of some perverse notion of the inviolability of free will? Doesn’t the victim’s free will — which is presumably screaming “I do not wish to be raped, please, kthxbai!” — matter? Who wants to worship the patron god of child rapists? And this is the same deity from whom Christians insist I have gotten my morals?

The appeal to free will also conflates will with action. Free will only implies the ability to desire a thing. It doesn’t imply an ability to act on that desire. There are many things I cannot do because of the very nature of the organism I am. I would like to be able to teleport. I would like to live to be 1000 in perfect health. I would like to be the meat in a Jennifer Aniston/Jessica Chastain sandwich. (You’re welcome for that visual.) Does the fact I cannot do these things mean my free will has been taken away?

In short, free will is the most common, but dead worst rebuttal to the PoE there is. It doesn’t even appreciate the problem.

In the follow-up, you watch in despair — rather what it must look like to witness a school bus plunge off a bridge — as this Christian contorts himself into thinking up ways in which the rape of a child can fit into God’s Great Plan. It’s truly monstrous, but it presents as clearly as anything could that what Christians consider most important, even when considering life’s darkest and most inexcusable evils, is that when the dust settles, their God emerges untarnished and every bit as worthy of fawning worship. Try to read this without too much headdesking.

I do agree that there are a lot of tough circumstances that are capable of making anyone question whether there is a loving God that exists. It is truly amazing that suffering can be so prevalent in our world.
After doing some investigations myself, one question that I really had a hard time answering is, “what is just?” … How would we define a just God when He has created everything and breathed life into all things? If you do believe in a God, then you would believe that He had the power to give it to us, then He also has the right to take away life. You see it in the Bible many times when God is not happy, and He allows things to happen in order to bring people back to the right path.

In the rape case you mentioned, I agree, why should a child have to endure something so horrid? That is a question that is hard for us to answer. I think about it in a similar way as mentioned above, if God had strucken him dead on the spot, would he have been just in giving the rapist another chance at redemption and everlasting life? If he stopped him and let him live, would he have had a drive to change his ways or would he be constantly driven to find another chance at doing such a thing? I believe that God finds ways to console the victim and to provide His love to the child, while also providing those instances where the rapist will suffer in guilt through all his confrontations with those around him. A lot of the time, I believe God’s solutions are long term and utilize time as another dimension. We like to see instant justification, but we do not have the element of time as a visible parameter that we have to work with, so we find it instantly “unjust” since we have no idea what the future holds. This goes back to the statement I made earlier about “what is just?”. We have part of the picture and truly cannot assess or define it without having all of the cards shown on the table, so to say.

Still here?

Okay, let’s consider…

…why should a child have to endure something so horrid? That is a question that is hard for us to answer.

No. It is not a hard question to answer. It is the easiest question to answer that one could ever be presented with in an average three score and ten years of existence. The answer is: “There is, without exception, never a circumstance in which a child should have to endure sexual violation of any kind.” If you disagree, or think there are possible exceptions, then you suck at being a person. That is all.

I believe that God finds ways to console the victim and to provide His love to the child, while also providing those instances where the rapist will suffer in guilt through all his confrontations with those around him.

Oh, so he believes this? Well, jolly good show, old bean. Has he ever sought to confirm it? He says he did “some investigations.” What were they? How many childhood rape victims has he ever interviewed, to ask about all the ways God “consoled” them and made their attackers feel guilt and shame? Did these victims agree that the rapist’s valuable lesson in learning the feelings of guilt and shame was worth their getting raped (assuming any such feelings actually arose)? So the whole horrific exercise was just something that the rapist really needed, in order to learn some kind of empathy lesson, and their role as victim was simply to be a tool for that end?

“Happy to help, God! I hope that poor young man has learned a valuable lesson! Anything else I can assist You with once I stop bleeding?”

Were the victims consulted by God on this first? “Excuse me, innocent child. But there’s this fellow who has a deep, sociopathic need to rape kids, and rather than simply erase it from him — because, you know, [echo] FREE WILL [/echo] — I’ve decided he needs to actually go through with it and then feel bad about it to learn that lesson, and, well, you’re as good as anyone for that. So, what do you say? A little rape? I mean, it would really help him out. Look, how about a pony? I mean, if he doesn’t kill you, because that could happen, and I could stop it, but like I said — [echo] FREE WILL [/echo]!”

This guy hasn’t thought about this. He hasn’t done any “soul searching.” He has simply concocted an elaborate series of excuses that allow him not to think about any horrible troubling thing, so that he can, at all costs, preserve his faith in a totally just God who does everything right all the time, even when his way of doing everything right looks like an unforgivable fuckup to us (because we cannot understand his multi-dimensional ways).

Now, let us take this whole ghastly exercise in finding the silver lining in the cloud of child rape, and marry it to an attitude prevalent in conservative Christian culture: the obsession with sexual “purity,” and the tying of (almost always a woman’s) entire personal worth into her level of sexual experience. Just today I read an article in which famous kidnapee and child-rape survivor Elizabeth Smart talks about the psychological damage she’s having to overcome from her experience, and the way her religious culture’s attitudes contributed to that damage.

Smart was recovered while she and her kidnappers were walking down a suburban street, leading many Americans who followed her story on the national news to wonder: Why didn’t she just run away as soon as she was brought outside?…

Speaking to an audience at Johns Hopkins about issues of human trafficking and sexual violence, Smart recently offered an answer to that question. She explained that some human trafficking victims don’t run away because they feel worthless after being raped, particularly if they have been raised in conservative cultures that push abstinence-only education and emphasize sexual purity:

Smart said she “felt so dirty and so filthy” after she was raped by her captor, and she understands why someone wouldn’t run “because of that alone.”

Smart spoke at a Johns Hopkins human trafficking forum, saying she was raised in a religious household and recalled a school teacher who spoke once about abstinence and compared sex to chewing gum.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value,” Smart said. “Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.”

So: marry “God has a plan we cannot understand, and besides, evildoers need to learn lessons” to “YOU, WOMAN, ARE UNCLEEEAAAN!” and you have a pretty comprehensively shitty deal for the victims here, don’t you?

FFS, this shit is depressing. Have a kitty.

The Problem of Evil doesn’t merely reveal Christianity’s moral failings. It’s the headshot that takes Christianity down for good and all, as the polar opposite of a moral belief system. Really, it’s over. Walk away from this evil, Christians, I implore you. It will be the best for you, and probably good for some little one you love.

Continue reading »]]> Today, Jeff and Martin (that’s me!) did the show as host and co-host for the first time in at least ten years! It was an absolute blast, we had a number of very good calls, and the technical glitches that occurred — no opening music or background graphic — kind of made the whole affair feel more authentically like things were ten years ago. (Said glitches happened because neither John nor Frank were in the control room today, leaving Shelly and the remaining crew to pull some mildly panicked double duty. That they got things eventually running smoothly was quite a feat.)

Anyway, discuss and stuff.

Continue reading »]]> Greta Christina noticed that I had posted an email last week with “Godless Perverts” in the title — as a reference to one of many attempted insults tossed out by one of our commenters. That post had little to do with Greta Christina’s regular meetup group, which is actually called “Godless Perverts,” so that seemed to have caused some confusion.

But hey, being Godless is fun! Perversion can, apparently, also be fun! So since some of you might might actually like to look into these events, the following is a guest post from Greta.

As one of the hosts/ organizers of the Godless Perverts event that was discussed here a few days ago, I feel like I should explain what exactly that’s about.

The Godless Perverts are actually based in San Francisco, not Lawrence, KS. We host readings/performance events, social gatherings, and panel discussions looking at sex and sexuality from an atheist perspective: looking at the intersection of sex and sexuality with atheism, skepticism, materialism, science, etc., as well as looking at religion and sexuality from an atheist perspective.

In April, we took the show on the road for the first time, and hosted a Godless Perverts Story Hour event at the Reasonfest conference in Lawrence. The name was chosen (a) to be funny and entertaining, and (b) as part of reclaiming the words “godless” and “pervert” — both of which get used as marginalizing words, to marginalize atheists and sexual minorities (kinky people, poly people, LGBT people, etc.).

All of which makes it seem somewhat stuffy, so I’ll assure you that it isn’t: the Godless Perverts Story Hour readings/ performance events can get pretty wild. Good times. And I’m still scratching my head over the idea that our existence proves that atheism is unfalsifiable. m-/

-Greta

Also as a reminder, Greta’s sexy new book, Bending, is available now in many convenient formats!

Continue reading »]]> Aww, Ken Ham has his tighty whities in a twist. You know what I have to say to that?

So I suppose you’ve all seen that mind-numbingly horrific and awful 4th grade Christian “science quiz” that’s been making the rounds on Facebook? The one that’s totally real, and that makes anyone operating at higher than a room-temperature IQ see red with rage for the way it’s poisoning children’s minds with miseducation that qualifies as outright intellectual abuse?

Well, of course, to the microcephalics at Answers in Genesis, always looking for a chance to play the martyr, this is just more horrible abuse of Christians by those mean old intolerant atheists. The usual litany of cretinous, projection-heavy self-pity ensues.

These secularists want to impose their anti-God religion on the culture. They are simply not content using legislatures and courts to protect the dogmatic teaching of their atheistic religion of evolution and millions of years in public schools. There is something else on their agenda: they are increasingly going after Christians and Christian institutions that teach God’s Word beginning in Genesis.

Well, since you idiots already went there, fine, I’ll play. You’re damn right I’m intolerant. I’m intolerant of ideological lies being passed off to children in the guise of education, stunting their development and limiting their opportunities for the future. I’m intolerant of anyone who would shut down the natural inquisitiveness of a child’s wonderful mind with the corrosive ichor of dogma. I’m just as intolerant of what you teach as I would be if a child was taught Holocaust denial, or flat Earth “theory,” or the idea that ancient astronauts genetically engineered Adam and Eve from cosmic pixie poop…and for exactly the same reasons: it’s false, and stupid, and stupidly false!

Stop filling kids’ heads with pernicious lies, and smart people will stop attacking you. Because you aren’t getting any attacks you haven’t richly earned.

(PS: And isn’t it no surprise at all that Hammy tries to use this latest manipulative martyrdom ploy to solicit funds for the “school” in question?)