Todd Starnes, Fox News wingnut, must really love insects, because he’s begging his god to send more.
When the public schools tell students that our Founding Fathers were a bunch of terrorists: Send the hornets, Lord! Clear the field! When a teacher tells a little boy he can’t pray over his meal: Send the hornets, Lord! Clear that field! When the Pentagon tells them to take down a cross on a Christian chapel: Send those hornets! Clear the field! When the Supreme Court says they know better than God: Send the hornets, Lord! Clear the field! And, when the president says that America is no longer just a Christian nation: Don’t send the hornets, Lord. Send the mosquitoes and the gnats, and the bumblebees and the lightning bugs and the cicadas! Send every critter you got, Lord! Clear the field!
Unfortunately, this is not going to work.
Our revolutionary war did spawn a lot of terrorists and terrorist acts — just ask the descendants of the loyalists who fled to Canada. But then, maybe his god is a god of propaganda rather than truth, so we’ll get hornets for describing reality.
Students have the right to say prayers over their meals, so it’d be more sensible to send lawyers to defend their rights, instead. But hornets, lawyers, no big difference.
That Pentagon story…it was about a non-denominational chapel in Afghanistan. Seems reasonable that a single facility frequented by soldiers of any religion ought not to advertise a narrow focus. But then, maybe Starnes’ god is just an asshole, so the hornets would be coming.
The Supreme Court didn’t say they know better than any gods: they said gay and lesbian couples deserve the same rights and privileges as straight couples, which Starnes interpreted as violating his gods intolerant, bigoted nature. But maybe Starnes worships the same god as Westboro Baptist, so we’ll still have hornets to look forward to.
Sorry, Todd, but I’m not a Christian, and I’m American…not only that, I’m an older white straight male American, the kind that counts most with Fox News, America, and America’s older white straight male god, so nope, America is not a Christian nation. He can try to send the mosquitoes, gnats, bumblebees, lightning bugs, and cicadas but this is Minnesota, and they’ll soon freeze to death. Maybe he should wait until the spring? But sending mosquitoes to Minnesota in the spring is kind of redundant.
But I’m afraid the real fly in the ointment of Mr Starnes’ invocation is that his god doesn’t exist and doesn’t answer prayers, so his efforts are entirely futile. While my sacrifice to Cthulhu to afflict Fox News Republicans with hemmorhoids has been working wonderfully.
PZ Myers, proctologist.
That guy has ants in his pants, I think.
Well, we could probably use a plague of healthy bees.
All that, and he leaves out the traditional plague of locusts? Uh oh. Starnes really doesn’t know how to appeal to his genocidal deity – he should be praying for swarms of killer bees.
But does he have an inordinate fondness for beetles?
I presume this religious lame-brain thinks his God created mosquitoes. Since they kill animals, by driving them from sources of water, or by spreading disease, but provide no other environmental services that cannot be filled by less nasty insects, how does he justify his god’s idiocy?
“And when we can’t burst into people’s homes and demand that they pray in your name: Send the hornets, Lord! Clear the field! When we can’t burn witches: Send the hornets, Lord! Clear the field! When homosexuals start walking around like they’re real, complex human beings who just want to be able to live their lives: Send those hornets, Lord! Clear the field!”
He’s not an entymologist, he’s just another psychotic asshole.
entomologist. Sorry.
Yeah, I don’t quite get how hornets, gnats and the like are supposed to ‘clear the fields’. That’s, like, what locusts DO. If there were a Designer, locusts would exist precisely for the purpose of being used to clear the fields of the enemies of that Designer. So appealing for all these other annoying critters to be sent makes even less sense than the bigotry that is obviously behind these fervent prayers.
Send the mosquitoes and the gnats, and the bumblebees and the lightning bugs and the cicadas!</cite
He seems to have wasted all the hornets on all the other stuff, since I would grade all of these as slightly less threatening and painful than the hornets he's been sending everywhere else. I mean, I'll give you the mosquitoes purely on the basis of their bearing of diseases, and maybe gnats, for being annoying, but lightning bugs? cicadas? bumblebees? Hornets freak me out a lot more than any of those. Unless there are some venomous cicadas that I do not know about, or electric lightning bugs or something like that…
So if there really came a plague of hornets, could this guy be put on trial for murder? Or is it okay in this case that the courts don’t think Biblical sorcery has any power in the real world?
Also left out the most terrifying, horrible Biblical plague: the vicious.. frog.. Oh no, it’s raining frogs, they’ll eat our.. houseflies?
His god doesn’t have a great aim, so watch out, Toronto!
Could you make it frogs instead of hornets? Your god apparently thinks they are just as bad, and it would make me very happy…
PZ Myers: Proctologist specializing in head removal.
re 9:
I guess he’s saying God will clear the fields of gnats, bees, etc in order to send them to attack the heathens.
I guess
???
That is the step-right-before-the-last-one that fundie idiots don’t see.
If they were ever to take over and make any country a Christian Utopia™, they would shortly go back to their old behavior of infighting amongst sects. Protestants against Baptists; Lutherans against Methodists; 7th Day Adventists against Pentecostals; etc.
It’s not all bad. I wouldn’t mind more lightning bugs.
Hummingbirds eat gnats, so we need those. Mosquitos, on the other hand, I think the world could live without.
Starnes isn’t from the Midwest is he? If you have a field near a swamp in this region (a combination we are not short on) you will see all of these critters.
Do you want ants Todd? Because that’s how you get ants!
Anne @18.
Well, sure, if you take the narrow, vertebrate point of view.
But what about protozoans, eh? Are you saying they don’t have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of another mammalian host to colonize? Plasmodium falciparum would be right outta luck without mosquitoes as a vector, ever think of that? Totally mess up their life cycle.
“It’s the ciiiiircle of liiiiife, and it moves us allllll”
We need the mosquitoes to feed the fish. Think of the great fishing following Starnes’ magical deluge of fish food!
Bats also eat mosquitoes.
k_machine@11:
MUAH HA HA HA HA!
:rubs forefeet together with evil glee:
Though I don’t know any better than the insects WTF “clear the fields” means. Religious ecstatic preaching needs repetitive nonsense phrases, I guess? This guy needs a better songwriter to come up with his hooks.
Oh, my God, not the lightning bugs . They might, uh, uh….. keep us up at night? Not so much late at night, but late evening. Beware of bioluminescence!!!!! Next, it will be a plague of butterflies. Then a plague of walking sticks…..
Okay, so if I tell a friend of mine to go commit a crime–say, mass murder–and he goes and does it, I’m liable for the crime. This is pretty clear case law.
Similarly, if I tell someone to go kill someone else, I can still be charged, even if they refuse the order, because I obviously was attempting to commit murder by proxy.
So, is it reasonable to arrest this assclown and charge him with conspiracy to commit homicide? His only available defenses would seem to be based around acknowledging that his Invisible Friend isn’t real.
K_machine @ 11
Well, to be fair, frogs do have dirty little lips.
Please don’t be so quick to eliminate mosquitoes. I’m rather fond of swallows, bats, lizards, frogs, fish and dragon flies, all of which depend on a mosquito supply.
But yes, I hate mosquitoes too. Selective area control may be the answer. I can’t wait for this technology to mature and get to the consumer level, if it ever will.
The most important part: his magical invocation of hymenopters is not working. God is not giving a fuck about him.
(IIRC the God of the Bible delivered pretty quickly, without any of the “later” “maybe” shenanigans He does now…)
Yeah, I get most of this. Even cicadas can be annoying, especially if they’re the 17-year variety. But wtf is up with the lighting bugs? The only thing I can figure is he wants to use them as kiddie bait. Get those little fuckers outside with their jars for a good long while and before they know it they’ve been bled dry by all the mosquitos. Bwa-ha-ha!!!!!!!
Even the Christians who think Starnes is an idiot are still thinking that god might do something anyway.
Well, if I were out in a field and it was suddenly rife with hornets, mosquitoes, gnats, et al, I’d certainly clear out pretty fast.
I wonder if he’s aware that, according to a few OT scholars, Plague was one of the several lesser gods in the Semitic pantheon. Nah, probably not. Anyway, he could pray directly to Plague, saving Yahweh all that trouble and getting the same effect.
Boy howdy, and it’s a blessing, let me tell you. There are times when the mosquitoes drive us off the porch of our little cabin in the firewoods. Then the sun goes down, the bats start swooping around, and no more mosquitoes. They make fast work of it.
christian fundies (the only kind of fundie I know anything about) seem to think they are living in some kind of faerie tail world full of magic and wonders and if they pray hard enough and believe hard enough and preach loud and long enough they will really see “Santa” and he will give them presents and life everlasting. If they don’t or can’t he will come and torture instead.
So absurd and small and sad is the world of their dreams.
uncle frogy
I like bats and swallows, and fish are necessary. Okay, the mosquitoes can stay. But I don’t have to like them.
I used to support gay rights but then I got stung by a hornet. Now I support Family Values!
But seriously, this hornet-summoning guy leaves me with the same kind of question as chemtrail theories: won’t the hornets sting everybody, not just the godless liberals?
I also can’t help but wonder if Starnes owns any stock in bug spray companies.
Nah, these are god sent hornets. They won’t sting you If you paint your door jams with the blood of a lamb.
So God is simply waiting for Obama to say this completely true thing, and then he’ll cure Colony Collapse Disorder? Nice! Plus a bunch of creatures that already exist in America, for bonus spider food.
Say it more often, Obama!
About the lightning bugs thing… I wonder whether he thinks lightning bugs cause lightning? That would be no more ill-informed and irrational than his other beliefs.
Is it weird that I’m disgusted by the fact that he’s using insects as the arbiters of his god’s wrath? Insects are fascinating animals with a long, storied evolutionary history and a massive number of unique adaptations. I doubt this idiot or his friends have any real appreciation of the biology of insects and just see them as pestilence to be thrown at their enemies.
Second, am I the only one who’s disturbed by the fact that he’s asking his god to attack people for saying things he doesn’t like? The first three things he talks about are standard christian persecution complex and historical revisionism stuff, but the last two stand out as particularly repellant. He’s asking his god to attack people for not buying into christian dogma. If the government doesn’t let christians force their beliefs on gay people, then Starnes’ god will kill them. If the government says that it’s not going to give preferential treatment to christians and you don’t have to be a christian to be part of the government, then Starnes’ god will kill them.
Does he even realize how self-centered and entitled it is to demand that society only take his beliefs into account? Probably not, considering that he apparently thinks that because he’s “right”, he can do whatever he wants to people who disagree with him.
Death worshipper.
For people who like insects and their various roles in the cycles of life, this “drone” that dispenses predator insects to deal with crop pests looks like fun.
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2015/s4338353.htm
Freemage #9:
The metaphor Starnes is using is about clearing a battlefield, i.e. driving the enemy army away by means of a (presumably) huge swarm of hornets. It’s from Exodus 23:28.
So then the hornets come and they… build nests, gather food, care for their offspring like hornets do. Big deal. Does this guy know anything about entomology?
The signature was the best thing I think I’ve ever read on the internet. So funny! Thank you! I needed that tonight.
Why is he not asking for any arachnids??
I am sure Australia can spare quite a few.
BTW insects are cousins to sea-living arthropods, so if we are lucky, Zod may send some lobsters. Yum!
Bumblebees are nice. Send more of them.
This fruitcake’s mind is stuck so far in the past he not only thinks T. rex is the newest model from the Teh Sky Faerie’s Critters Creation Factory, but that the insects are still the Meganeura with almost metre-sized wingspans. †
If I saw a hornet — well, probably any insect — with a wingspan of almost a metre, I’d, ah, “clear the field”. Or at least duck…
† Yes, I know Meganeura and T. rex are separated by something like 200 million years, but that’s a boring fact and so doesn’t count.
If Obama could summon a cloud of cicadas and fireflies just by affirming America’s religious diversity, I’d vote for a third term. State of the Union addresses would be amazing.
Oh, yes, please DO send us more bees! Preferably those fat, fuzzy honeybees, as they’re not only useful, they’re bloody adorable little things!
We had a hornet in the house this past weekend, but it crawled into a ceiling light fixture. Presumably it cooked up there, since it never crawled out. Send those self-exterminating hornets, go ahead.