Cynthia Dunbar took a pounding today on the editorial pages of the usually staid Austin-American Statesman, in a blistering piece that rightfully excoriates her as “an embarrassment who has brought heaping amounts of ridicule to this state,” and “a disgrace to public education and an embarrassment to Texas.”
But on top of her utterly asinine remarks about President-elect Obama (which, to the surprise of no one, were published by Brannon Howse’s home for wayward congenital idiots, the Christian Worldview Network), we’ve been concerned about her ilk for a long time. She is one of the fundamentalist faction on the State Board of Education, and is responsible for putting two fellow idiots from the Discovery Institute in positions of authority to “review” science education standards for the state. A purer example of putting foxes in charge of the henhouse you could not find.
Stephen Meyer’s and Ralph Seelke’s appointments also carry the taint of conflict of interest, as they are authors of the Discotute’s new anti-evolution “textbook,” Exploring Evolution. This is the book intended to replace Of Pandas and People. It has bleached its pages of anything that could be considered ID-promoting lawsuit bait, but still repeats the same bogus claims about evolution the DI has always been making. And Dunbar has been instrumental in machinating this latest assault on science education. As the Statesman editorial also notes, Dunbar “lists herself as an anatomy teacher but won’t tell even the Texas Education Agency at which school she teaches.” Is it any surprise that ideologues can get elected in a neoconservative political climate and freely lie about their own professional qualifications?
There has to be some way to oust this despicable fool from her position on a board she has no business serving coffee to, let alone serving on. I strongly encourage anyone who can to sign up to speak on the 19th. And send a polite but strongly worded letter (or fax or phone call) to Governor Perry demanding he condemn Dunbar for her anti-Obama remarks. (She will, of course, defend herself by waving the flag of free speech, but as so many neocons don’t realize, free speech includes both your right to say stupid shit, and everyone else’s right to nuke you for it.) Dunbar may be the kind of beyond-the-pale ideologue who blossoms rather than shrinks under the heat of scrutiny. But that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t feel the heat all the time. We all should make the loss of this woman’s job our mission.
Office of the Governor P.O. Box 12428, Austin, Texas 78711 Phone: (512) 463-2000 Fax: (512) 463-1849
Yes, there was a blemish on last night, which is that Christian Hate gets to crow about at least one victory. I am a little baffled about the Californians this morning. After all, they managed to deliver the state pretty handily for Obama, giving him no less than 61% of the popular vote there. So how they could have folded to fundamentalist fear so completely on the same night is rather strange. Still, I hope that this is just the beginning of Supreme Court challenges. There’s simply no room for this in an enlightened culture. And an enlightened culture is what I’m sincerely hoping America may start slouching towards during the next (being optimistic here) eight years of the Obama presidency.
But for now, I thought, for schadenfreude purposes, we’d take a look at a little of the morning-after whining from the fundie camp in response to the election. My oh my, I do believe it’s time to call the waaaambulance!
From the American “Family” Association, Donald Wildmon’s homophobic hate club, we get some advice for Christians: “Defend Life, Prepare for Persecution.” Since there’s nothing these people love more than to feel “persecuted,” I expect this is, perversely, good news for them.
[Tony] Perkins says Christians should pray for and return to a biblical model of holiness and righteousness. And believers in America, he adds, should prepare for persecution.
“We are going to see, I think, unprecedented attacks against our faith through measures like the hate crimes [legislation] to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act,” he says. “We’re going to see attacks on innocent human life through the Freedom of Choice Act, trying to erase all the gains that have been made in the pro-life movement. And I think even our freedoms are going to come under attack.”
Obama stated during the presidential campaign that one of his top priorities upon taking office would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act. Perkins says Christians will have to be resolute in defense of what they know to be right.
Hate, fear, ignorance and bigotry, of course, being the top four items on that list of what they “know to be right.” It’s amazing how upset they get when they’re told, by civilized, decent people, that it really isn’t nice to hate those different from you and that you should try to be more compassionate and tolerant. Those are two concepts just not in their lexicon.
Over at that delightful nuthouse, the Christian Worldview Network, columnist Jan Markell reveals another problem they have with Obama: they worry that he’s unfair competition for Jesus!
Two years ago came a charismatic man named Barack Obama who was engulfed in a cult-like atmosphere. Some actually called him “the messiah.” Shrines were built to him. A Web site said, “Obama is god.” There has been a messianic fervor, adoration and a worship-like atmosphere surrounding him. At some rallies people fainted at the sight of him. Young children recorded on YouTube sang songs to him stating he would change the world…
Well, Jan, if you’re actually worried that our president-elect is actually competition that the son of God has to worry about, sounds as if you aren’t giving your God enough credit, eh? Anyway, the above is all followed up by the usual butt-ignorant whining about “socialism.”
And of course, over at the WorldNutDaily, that repository of all things most ludicrous and histrionic that erupt from the crusty bowels of the extremist right, they couldn’t resist this headline:
Hamas praises Obama win as ‘historic victory for world’ Terrorists drafting letter of congrats to be sent directly to president-elect
I’m sure there’s more of this hysteria out there, and if you want to dig it up, please be my guest. Meanwhile, I’m going to sit back, eat myself a heaping slice of schadenfreude pie (thanks for the recipe, Scalzi), with a side of schadenfreude cobbler and washed down with a big old extra-fattening schadenfreude milkshake. Yum!
I can’t really describe how I feel right now, my joy that the nation has taken, at long last, a whopping big fat sanity pill. No, I don’t see Barack Obama as some messianic figure come to save us all. But I do see him not as simply the lesser of two evils, but as a truly engaged and intelligent statesman who does in fact care about this country; who is determined to get us on track to a workable plan for withdrawal from the quagmire of Vietnam II, aka Iraq; who isn’t going to stack the Supreme Court with right-wing ideologues who would wipe away church-state separation as McCain most certainly would have done; who supports science instead of wanting to gut it. Who will restore to America the goodwill of the world, which we had disgracefully lost under the egregious and arrogant leadership of Bush and Cheney.
Cleaning up the last eight years of disaster is a tall order, and I truly hope he’s up to it. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll post more of my thoughts and reflections in greater detail. For now, I just want to rock out.
Oh yes. I understand that Liddy Dole, who ran that grotesque and sickening hate campaign in which atheists were her villains of choice against her opponent Kay Hagan has lost.
Bad news from California though. The forces of Christian Hate seem to be headed to victory. As of this writing, with 5% of precincts reporting in, the “yes” votes on Proposition 8 are ahead by 58.4%. Still, it’s early days yet on that one. Fingers crossed.
In a blatant effort to throw around the weight of this blog’s popularity, which is greater than that of my own blog, I’m going to repost something I wrote in February about why you, yes YOU, should vote today. In the spirit of bipartisanship I’ve decided to cut the more blatantly pro-Obama material that I wrote at the time, but you know I’m thinking it.
If you need to ask — I voted Thursday, with my six year old son enthusiastically in tow.
It happens every four years at about this time: some people (and I won’t name names here) start proudly announcing the fact that they don’t see any point in voting. Why? Well, a variety of reasons, generally including several of these points:
No candidate has exactly what I’m looking for. I don’t respect any of them, and I conscientiously refuse to vote for someone whom I don’t respect.
The two candidates both suck. I won’t vote for the lesser of two evils.
If I refuse to vote, then maybe politicians will get the message that they should offer better candidates, because there aren’t any that I can get behind now.
One person’s vote is so inconsequential that I have a greater chance of being struck by lightning on election day than I have of personally affecting the outcome of the election.
I’m going to hit each of these points in turn.
1. No candidate has exactly what I’m looking for. I don’t respect any of them, and I conscientiously refuse to vote for someone whom I don’t respect.
As Donald Rumsfeld might have said, “You go to the polls with the candidates you have, not the candidates you might want or wish to have.” Let’s say you’ve decided to sit out every election until you finally encounter the candidate who’s a left-handed green-eyed atheist libertarian who will institute the flat tax and can sing classical opera. I can guarantee you that you, my friend, will be sitting out every election of your entire life.
But let’s say a candidate finally comes along who’s a right-handed green-eyed agnostic libertarian who will institute some kinds of tax reforms (not the exact ones you want) and plays the tuba. And let’s say the other guy in the race is, hmmm, Fred Phelps. Are you really telling me that you’re going to sit out on principle because you only like southpaws?
There are a lot of people in the world who could be running for president, but only a few of them are. The stronger you make your qualifications that are required to get your vote, the more you are guaranteed to be disenfranchised from the process. Which brings me to…
2. The two candidates both suck. I won’t vote for the lesser of two evils.
Oh, I see. Then you won’t mind if the greater of two evils wins. Suppose you’ve been kidnapped and imprisoned by a sadistic dictator, and he gives a choice between being punched once in the face or being slowly and painfully flayed alive for four hours. Would you say “Ah, who cares? Both things are evil, so either way I’ll get hurt. Pick whichever one you want.” I don’t know about you, but in that situation I’d be saying “Punch me in the face, please!”
In the first place, I don’t buy the fact that both candidates are evil. Like committing to a lifelong relationship with a person of the opposite sex (or same, if that’s your thing), I guarantee that you will never find a person who is without flaws. When confronted with these flaws, you can either say “Sorry, imperfect match detected; no votes for you” or you can take the bad with the good and pick the person who is clearly the best available, warts and all.
In the second place, even if both candidates represent a net dislike for you, that still doesn’t mean that your choice is irrelevant. Again, do you want to get punched once or flayed for hours? Easy choice: pick the outcome which is best for me.
3. If I refuse to vote, or write in “Mickey Mouse” on my ballot, then maybe politicians will get the message that they should offer better candidates, because there aren’t any that I can get behind now.
Yes, of course they will. And then everybody will magically receive a million dollars and a pony from the sky.
Look, I hate to say this, but a vote is not a treatise on the state of our nation. If you want to send a message, start a blog. A friend of mine likes to say that voting has very low bandwidth: each person gets to transmit only one bit every four years. There’s not a lot to resolve there about what your vote “means.”
Most people in this country don’t vote most of the time. There are countless reasons why somebody might not vote. Maybe all the candidates are too liberal. Maybe all the candidates are too conservative. Maybe the voter only supports left-handed green-eyed atheist libertarian candidates who will institute the flat tax and can sing classical opera. Or maybe the voters just couldn’t muster the energy to get off their lazy asses and transmit their one bit this year.
When you’re looking at election results, do you hear those messages? No. The ONLY information transmitted in the election is: “X voters voted, one candidate won by Y percentage points.” That’s it. Maybe you get more information out of news coverage and interviews, but that is true regardless of whether people vote or not.
If the greater of two evils wins, what’s the strongest message that got sent? “Most people prefer this candidate to the other one. He must have done something right.” Then, guess what happens four years later? Both candidates try to be more like the guy who won. Over time, the landscape drifts in the direction that people push it. Not voting, and even voting for somebody that you already know isn’t going to win, rarely has an effect other than that of bolstering the person who wins.
4. One person’s vote is so inconsequential that I have a greater chance of being struck by lightning on election day than I have of personally affecting the outcome of the election.
Sure. This one is true. But there’s a significant fallacy involved.
Clearly there is little chance that the margin of victory will be a single vote, so the chance that YOUR vote is going to make the difference is very, very remote. Conceivably if you just stayed home on election day and didn’t mention it, your influence on the election would be pretty much invisible.
But that’s not all that people do when they announce “I’m not voting because my vote doesn’t matter.” They’re not only choosing not to vote; they’re also proclaiming that not voting is a better option. In doing so, they are, to some extent, influencing others who might agree with their own positions to do the same. And by convincing like minds to also not vote, this is spreading a “don’t vote” meme across a broad population. The act of not voting may not influence the outcome, but the meme certainly does.
This isn’t an academic issue; the use of memes that say “do vote” or “don’t vote” has been used very effectively by special interest groups. For instance, one of the reasons that the religious right has been so successful at gaining disproportionate influence in government is that they have organized communication channels, mailing lists and church announcements and such, which mobilize their congregants to vote. This is a big message that DJ Groethe of the Center for Inquiry drove home for me once, showing materials such as Mind Siege, which end-times crackpot Tim LaHaye uses to frighten fundamentalists into voting (and also sen
ding money). The basic message is that if YOU PERSONALLY don’t take action IN THIS ELECTION, then the fags will make gay marriage mandatory for everyone and the evilutionists will jail all dissenters.
Strictly speaking, this isn’t the truth. But the effect that this message has is very real. And likewise, sending the inverse message to people — that voting is stupid and a waste of time — ALSO has a genuine effect on overall turnout. Memes have a ripple effect. Maybe your vote won’t sway the election, and maybe your message about not voting won’t sway the election either. But people who are persuaded not to vote also have this tendency of replicating the meme and encouraging other people not to vote.
So, in fact, I choose to believe that my attitude about voting — in addition to my vote — makes a difference. It’s a straight up Prisoner’s Dilemma decision: “cooperate” and vote for the best alternative you can locate, even if it’s inconvenient, or “defect” and stay home. Though your vote may not count, everyone who agrees with you and stays home will practically translate to one half of a vote for whoever they believe to be the worst candidate.
On the other hand, few things delight me more than hearing somebody whose position I disagree with say “I don’t think I’m voting in this election.” Sure, I’d prefer that they decide to vote for my candidate instead, but given that a complete reversal is a semi-rare event, I want to encourage them to continue “protesting” the opposing candidate by not voting for him. “Go, dude!” I say. “Keep registering that protest and not voting! Refuse to vote for your former party because because the candidate is not a crazy enough apocalyptic dominionist! That’ll show those jerks who’s boss! And if necessary, I hope you continue to not vote for as long as it takes, even if it’s your whole life, until you get exactly what you want.”
So in conclusion, don’t just vote: convince those with whom you agree to vote. And make sure that the people with whom you disagree are good and surly about their candidates this year.
Yesterday on the TV show I mentioned that as soon as I confirmed the info about signing up to testify at the SBOE hearings, I’d post it here. So here you are.
Despite the defeatist attitude from some people that I criticized heavily yesterday, it is vital that the pro-science contingency deliver a massive turnout of voices. Certainly, McLeroy and the other brain-dead creotards on the board won’t be swayed. But according to the TFN, there are two potential fence-sitters, who have in the past voted with the conservatives, but whose votes are not necessarily assured on this matter. As the TFN says, the fundies have declared open war on science here, and have made the weakening of evolution education a priority. They need to know just how much opposition there is to their idiocy, and they need to hear it from as many of you as can take the 19th of November off. Adjust your schedules accordingly and be there. Like, it’s only the edumacation of a entire generashun that’s at risk here.
Lest anyone think my mention of Nazi Germany in my California Prop 8 post was over the top, I have officially been outdone by this alleged spokesperson said in his breathless support of Prop 8:
The link to the video is here. These people are desperate.
I’m starting a bit of a tradition here. Whenever Ray Comfort posts about atheists (he’s rather obsessed with us, some might claim it’s to the point of protesting too much), I write a response and as he’s not always keen about posting dissenting views, I copy it over here to our blog.
Ray’s latest post is partially correct and partially incorrect – but it’s worth offering some commentary. Give it a read and enjoy the response below…
Ray,
I care very little about whether or not any of these individuals were atheists or not. The truth of a concept is not at all influenced by the number of people who accept it, nor their popularity, nor the strength of their conviction.
It’s very telling, though, that you do seem to care – as if you’re bound and determined to show the ‘truth’ of Psalm 14:1 (the second, lesser-quoted half of that verse, in particular).
I’m not surprised that you’d want to make veiled appeals to authority, but it seems very dishonest of you to point out reasons why these people weren’t atheists when it is clear that they weren’t believers in anything remotely resembling the God you believe in…which makes them atheists with respect to your God, just as you’re an atheist with respect to Zeus.
That said, there is a slight bit of anachronism and selective quoting going on here. You seem to overlook many things, not the least of which is that a human life can’t be summed up in a simple quote. People change. People represent themselves differently, at different times, to different people. People express ideas using the conventions of their contemporaries – and people, for various reasons are not always comfortable publicly expressing their most private thoughts. The common views about gods during the lives of the individuals you cite were very different from those of today and it is a disservice to misrepresent this.
For example, you may be able to find quotes from me from when I was a Christian. You may even be able to find people who knew me during that time, and quote their assessment of my thoughts and beliefs. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m an atheist now. Additionally, I find it curiously hypocritical that you might claim that I was never “really” a Christian – as evidenced by my eventual apostasy – and yet you attempt to twist the views of the individuals above in order to make them appear less atheistic.
I have no reason to debate whether or not these individuals were atheists, agnostics, deists, Christians or whatever – because it doesn’t matter. We can’t know what was in their minds (or hearts, if you prefer), we can only take the information available and make a reasonable guess at what they believed, or disbelieved. By picking and choosing quotes from different eras of their lives, one could easily make a case for any number of beliefs.
I’m curious though, do you think any of these individuals were Christians when they did their greatest works? Do you think they believed in the ‘one true God’ you believe in? If so, how do you explain their clear contempt for Christianity and the God of the Bible? If not, what Biblical basis do you have for holding them in a significantly different light from atheists?
As far as I can tell, the Bible is pretty clear about which God is real and how Jews and Christians are expected to view the character of those who reject that God in favor of other gods or no gods.
If the individals in question are all, according to your belief, given over to a reprobate mind and destined for hell – why would you bother to attempt to venerate them and reclaim them from the ‘atheist’ label?
Despite that, here are some quotes and comments on the individuals above, just to stretch the point. I am not claiming these people as atheists, I am simply providing reported quotes that give us more information about what they did or didn’t believe. Additionally, these quotes may not be correct as the internet (as evidenced by this blog source) is cluttered with good information and bad:
Thomas Edison:
“My mind is incapable of conceiving such a thing as a soul. I may be in error, and man may have a soul; but I simply do not believe it.”
“I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.”
“I cannot believe in the immortality of the soul…. No, all this talk of an existence for us, as individuals, beyond the grave is wrong. It is born of our tenacity of life — our desire to go on living — our dread of coming to an end.”
About Col. Ingersoll (The Great Agnostic), Thomas Edison wrote:
“I think that Ingersoll had all the attributes of a perfect man, and, in my opinion, no finer personality ever existed. Judging from the past, I cannot help thinking that the intention of the Supreme Intelligence that rules the world is to ultimately make such a type of man universal.”
—–
Mark Twain:
“There has been only one Christian. They caught him and crucified him–early.”
“If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be–a Christian.”
“The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive…but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born.”
“I am plenty safe enough in his hands; I am not in any danger from that kind of a Diety. The one that I want to keep out of the reach of, is the caricature of him which one finds in the Bible. We (that one and I) could never respect each other, never get along together. I have met his superior a hundred times– in fact I amount to that myself.”
———-
Robert Frost reportedly became more pious in his later years, although…
“Elinor Frost, his wife, thought he was, like her, an atheist. In 1920 (the couple had then been married twenty-five years) Frost confided to Louis Untermeyer:
‘Elinor has just come out flat-footed against God conceived either as the fourth person seen with Shadrack, Meshack, and Tobedwego [sic] in the fiery furnace or without help by the Virgin Mary. How about as a Shelleyan principal or spirit coeternal with the rock part of creation, I ask. Nonsense and you know it’s nonsense Rob Frost, only you’re afraid you’ll have bad luck or lose your standing in the community if you speak your mind.’”
———-
With regard to Susan B. Anthony, I have no reason to doubt that she was a deist. Her continual references to Providence and the God of Providence represent the common language of deists in her time.
———–
Finally, it’s curious that you acknowledge Hemmingway’s atheism only to use it as a tool to imply that this is a testimony to the truth of the words of Jesus and the perils one finds in a life lived without a personal relationship with Jesus – yet, you just finished pointing out that these others were also lacking this personal relationship, yet they didn’t suffer the sad fate of Hemmingway.
You go from implying that belief in some sort of deistic god is enough to justify good works, and then spin the final assessment as testimony to the futility of a life without Jesus.
This is the grand lie. This is hypocrisy at its finest. It’s this self-righteous, selective thinking that you engage in to malign those who don’t share your views. It’s transparent and pathetic. And while you ma
y not print this, it doesn’t change the fact that while some atheists may have misrepresented these historical figures as atheists (a charge that may or may not be accurate depending on the quotes used and the definitions involved), you’ve made an accusation of intentional falsehoods – while presenting a convoluted mess of misrepresentations that either represent the grandest lie or an intellectual laziness of staggering proportions.
I just checked the latest post from Ray Comfort and submitted the following response. I’m doubtful that he’ll post it and I’m very doubtful that we’ll ever have any sort of dialog…but, darn it, I just can’t stop trying. I guess I’m a bit more masochistic than I thought.
For those that don’t want to read Ray’s post, the short version is: the OT and NT gods are the same, righteous, perfect and equally stern in their pure justice. This version has only a single change…I’ve actually provided the link to the wiki, as I can pretty much do whatever I want to do here.
—
Thanks, Ray…for (almost) preaching the very sermon I’ve been preaching for years.
So many Christians (and many non-Christians) dismiss the Old Testament view of God in favor of the cheek-turning compassion of the New Testament version. The mistakenly think that the NT version is better, softer or more kind.
There’s just one tiny area where we disagree (actually, there are several beyond this, but I’m only addressing the comparison)…you think the OT and NT versions are equally good, righteous and perfect. I don’t.
While some non-believers might agree with you, but opt for ‘equally bad’ as the appropriate description, I simply don’t agree. The NT doctrine is far worse.
Your cartoonish oversimplification of the wages of OT sin being “Hell” is not consistent with Jewish tradition and not Biblically supported without anachronistic reinterpretation of the OT. The very understanding of death and what happens after death is rather nebulous in the OT and much more vivid in the NT. This renders the NT version of God far worse than the OT version – because the immoral doctrines of original sin is compounded by the unjust concept of eternal punishment for finite ‘sins’ (though you’ll probably point out that sins against a God are necessarily infinite…that’s just a convenient interpretation that isn’t supported theologically, logically or Biblically).
The idea that it is just to punish people for their thoughts, doubts or disbelief is a perversion of any reasonable concept of justice. The system is further polluted by the claim that it rewards belief, regardless of, or in preference to action.
While you’ll find this sad, possibly offensive and may even refuse to publish it, I have no problem at all asserting that my moral values are superior to those of any character in the Bible, including the various characterizations of God. In fact, I’d argue that the God of the Bible may be one of the least moral characters in that entire collection of ancient writings.
When you sacrifice your humanity, your decency and your rational sense of justice in order to claim that the tyrannical acts of a more powerful being are intrinsically just, appealing to the banality of ‘might makes right’ – you’ve lost the battle.
The Euthyphro dilemma begins to make this point about fiat-morality…but it’s worth extending.
If you’re so impressed with the Sermon on the Mount, I’d be curious to hear your take on my response to it.
Room 3 Synopsis: Perils of drunk driving. Two cars are smashed up in an obvious wreck. Very happy demon hops around on both cars like a monkey. Paramedics remove one person from one car, who is horribly disfigured, while the passenger is dead. The driver stumbles out of the other car, obviously dead drunk and ranting about how unfair it is. He stumbles away. Demon continues to feel gleeful. Most disturbing moment: Actually I thought it was a little weird that the car driven by the drunk was the one that got HIT, rather than the one doing the hitting. But it was plausibly pointed out that he could have run a red light and been at fault. Still, I find it hard to believe that he is the only one completely unscathed. Ambiguous moral message: God will sort out the bodies, but most people are hell-bound anyway, so the guy in the passenger seat probably belongs to the demons now. Police are pretty useless, though, as they didn’t make any effort to stop the idiot driver.
Room 4 Synopsis: Part 1 of the abortion drama. Girl and boy love each other very much, but the idiots do it without protection. Boy assumed girl was using birth control; girl of course was not. Girl announces that she’s pregnant, and also that she will have an abortion. Boy is distraught, not wanting her to kill his baby. Girl browbeats boy into going along with her to the abortion clinic for moral support. Most disturbing moment: Actually this one wasn’t particularly disturbing to many of us, as none of us heathens are particularly opposed to a little good old-fashioned lust. I’d assume that these kids are victims of an abstinence-only curriculum, although that’s not they angle the actors put on it. Their message is that no amount of precaution can save you if you decide to have sex. Ambiguous moral message: Women are bitches. Not all that ambiguous, actually.
Room 5 Synopsis: The abortion drama continues, as the hapless boy attempts to sit with his girlfriend in the operating room waiting to kill their baby. The boy freaks out and runs from the room, unable to live with himself. The girl, realizing that she’s all alone, has second thoughts about this. However, the doctors won’t let her leave, and forcibly perform and botch an abortion on her, causing her to bleed to death. The everpresent demons, of course, enjoy this immensely. Throughout the scene, a tape loops on some overhead monitors, showing some of those scary post-abortion videos with little fetus arms and legs. Most disturbing moment: Obviously I was most bothered by the portrayal of how abortion doctors act. Because, you know, they’re not there to satisfy their customers or anything… you came in for an abortion, and damn it, YOU. WILL. GET ONE. Oh, and as the patient dies the doctors say “Oh well, we lost another one. We’ve got lots more to get to today!” Too bad there’s no such thing as malpractice in the Christian universe, or they could stop abortions easily! Ambiguous moral message: In case the idea of killing your baby doesn’t put you off abortion, we now guarantee that you’ll be dead too. Abortion is almost certainly riskier than child birth in that regard.
Room 6 Synopsis: I may have forgotten some by now, but for my recollection the next one is a two part molestation drama. One girl is distraught that her sister died. A friend is trying to console the survivor. The girl reads a suicide note stating that her sister was molested to death by their creepy uncle. It is implied that the mother was never present because she’s always spending time with her lesbian lover, so we get a twofer here. At that moment, the creepy uncle himself walks in. The fair-weather friend immediately leaves, despite the next potential victim begging her to stay. The creepy uncle begins making advances. Then the boyfriend barges in on them, and in a fit of rage, shoots the uncle. Fade to black. Most disturbing moment: Did I mention that the other girl just decided to walk out, leaving her so-called friend alone with a known molester? Who the hell DOES that? She wasn’t acting scared or anything, just a fairly cold “I’m uncomfortable with this situation, I have to go.” Ambiguous moral message: So wait a minute, a molesting uncle is a bad thing, that’s not much of a stretch. What’s up with the boyfriend? Are they applauding his actions? Or is he dancing to the demons’ tune too? I don’t get it.
Room 7 Synopsis: In part 2, the girl goes to her sister’s funeral. She’s distraught, so another friend (not from the last scene) offers her sleeping pills to help her relax. Next, dear old lesbo mom shows up, and the girl tries to embrace her mother, only to be snapped at for telling lies about her brother and trying to break up the family. Mom leaves, girl cries. She takes some sleeping pills… AND THEN DIES. (Well, I assume.) Most disturbing moment: Um, well, dear old mom was kind of a ringer for Hillary Clinton, I guess. Ambiguous moral message: It doesn’t matter how much pain you are in… if you attempt to seek help through medical prescription, YOU WILL DIE.
Room 8 Synopsis: We got herded into “coffins”: little narrow rooms in a line of four each. They locked the doors and told us what happens when you die. Most disturbing moment: Some of our members are particularly uncomfortable with small spaces, and others are averse to being touched much. I didn’t have much of a problem. Ambiguous moral message: None yet, but it’s obvious where this is going.
Room 9 Synopsis: It’s heaven! Yay! We made it! The room is brightly lit and covered in cotton. TV monitors play happy messages interspersed with graphic scenes from “The Passion of the Christ” to show who made it possible for us to get here. Most disturbing moment: Well, it’s the Passion of the Christ. I mean, seriously. Ambiguous moral message: Heaven is kind of boring and plays bad movies.
Room 10 Synopsis: Hell! Oh noez! A very dark dungeon with demons banging on bars! One of them freaked out some kids by coming out of the dungeon and getting up in their face. Most disturbing moment: The message is, of course, that all the dea
d people from the previous scenes ought to be here. That includes the girl who got shot by the rampaging kid, and the one who was molested by her uncle, and the victim of the car crash. Ambiguous moral message: In case you haven’t noticed by now, Christianity is all about buying the religion and has nothing to do with whether you’re innocent or guilty of anything in particular. In fact, the molested girl deserves hell no less than the creepy uncle.
The final room
Okay, so finally we get to The Conversion Room™ so we can all make “The Choice.” A spunky twenty-something woman was on hand to tell us all about the opportunity of Christianity. There were two doors, one unmarked door on the left, and one in front of us that said EXIT. Spunky McCurlyhair told us that if we wanted to accept Christ as our savior now, we could go through the door on our left and sign pledges.
Unfortunately, Spunky didn’t have very good crowd control skills. For starters, there were seven very rude people in the back who kept on quietly cracking jokes. Be quiet, you people! I’m trying to learn about Jesus! But never mind about us, few people were paying very close attention, which prompted Spunky to tell us all, “Ok, it’s really important to focus, people!” IMHO, when you get to that point you’ve already lost the battle. I felt kind of bad for her.
We were, of course, really hoping that we seven would be the only ones standing on our own. Sadly, though, fewer than half of our group of fifty went in the door on the left. Undaunted, Spunky said, “Okay, now you people are still left here for one of two reasons. Maybe you’re already secure in your faith in Christ and don’t think you need another affirmation. But let me tell you, it’s important to go out and spread the gospel…” She droned on like this, and by the time she was finished explaining possibility A, she either forgot or was too rushed to acknowledge possibility B: “Or you’re all hellbound heretics! What is WRONG with you people?” That remained unsaid.
I had heard that in previous years, ACA members have wound up getting in arguments with members of the cast after the show, and I for one was really looking forward to that… only it never happened either. With the ginormous crowd, the girl was forced to keep herding us along after our time was up. As a result, we wound up having to go through the door on the left anyway, rather than approaching the one marked EXIT. It made no sense to me… surely it would be symbolically powerful if us heretics got unceremoniously dumped outside and separated from everyone else. But no, there was a big guy standing right in front of the exit, and we just decided to leave quietly on the left. Mustn’t slow down the conveyer belt.
As we went out, we of course got to march right past all the deer-eyed people who were busy signing commitments to Christ. (“By accepting this agreement, you are explicitly granting the right to 10% of your lifelong income… offer not valid in California and Norway.”) It was kind of goofy, really… they’re sitting there trying to recommit to their god, and all the rest of us are filing past staring at them, as if they were the last skit for the evening.
Final ambiguous moral message, which sums up Hell House neatly:
No matter how much you might be terrified of hell, no matter what they may have in store for you, just rest assured that being there can’t be nearly as bad as the long wait to get there.
The Atheist Experience is a weekly live call-in television show sponsored by the Atheist Community of Austin. This blog features contributions from current and former hosts and co-hosts of the show.
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November 7, 2008 at 5:15 pm 
Kazim 
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