Goodbye, OnlySky

I regret to inform you all that an atheist blog network, OnlySky, has announced that they are ceasing publication. We first announced that OnlySky was setting up shop 2 years ago, mentioning that Hemant Mehta had snubbed us casually.

There aren’t any media outlets that cater specifically to atheists,” he said. “All the other atheist specific blogging networks are run by volunteers and people who are passionate about the subject but don’t do business-savvy anything, so they falter and die. This one has digital expertise.

I could cruelly remind them of the irony of that “falter and die” comment, and that despite our lack of business-savvy we yet continue, but I honestly regret that we’re losing such an attractive and well-designed website (and that I’m jealous of their professionalism), and hope that the good writers working there can find new homes. I’ll read them where ever they end up.

The Explanation

If you’ve ever wondered how smart people can get suckered into religion or conspiracy theories, here’s the answer.

I’m just an ape in a post-religion, post-authority, post-trust society looking for a large man to organize my community and tell me who the enemies are.
SMBC

I am bearded and not balding, which hampers my ability to identify with one of the characters in the cartoon.

Martyn Iles clarifies a few things

Answers in Genesis is evolving: the Ken Ham era is coming to an end, and it’s becoming the age of Martyn Iles (although I bet Ham has kept some hooks in place to yank Iles off the stage if he does anything contrary). Their new front man is another Australian with a checkered history — he became a lightning rod in Australia with a rapid rise in popularity, but was not so successful at getting anything done. “Martyn was a fine preacher, but a poor lobbyist,” said a fellow Christian conservative, and then he was kicked out of the Australian Christian Lobby.

Now he’s back!

The fundamentalist Christian organisation Answers in Genesis (AiG), which got its start in Queensland, is closely associated with the new Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. Led by the former Queensland schoolteacher Ken Ham, AiG is part of a movement called “young Earth creationism” that preaches a literal interpretation of Genesis.

Iles’ ascent to “executive CEO” of AiG was a swift one. He spoke at an AiG event in late 2022. Then in May 2023 he was announced as chief ministry officer of the organisation, as well as leader of its Australian office.

By November he had been promoted to executive CEO – with Ham in an “oversight role” as “founder CEO” – and was being groomed to take over one of the world’s largest creationist organisations. In 2022 AiG brought in about US$62m and held US$112m in assets, according to US tax documents. The ACL, by comparison, had revenue of about A$10m in 2022.

Let us all hope he repeats his Australian performance here in America, and flames out quickly. For now, though, he has nailed his colors to the mast with an article on the Answers in Genesis website. He is loudly anti-woke. He shares this position with some prominent conservative scientists, you know.

The person who understands and believes Genesis 1–11 is woke-proof.

Such is the enduring relevance of Genesis. It has the blueprints every generation needs.

Consider the focal points of woke ideologies—race, LGBTQ, identity, environmentalism, marriage, gender, abortion, truth, power—time and time again, the answers are in Genesis.

This is because “woke” culture is an attack on the way God ordered and designed creation.

It’s nice that he’s so clear. “Wokeness” is for racial equality, LGBTQ rights, respect for an individual’s identity, pro-environment, thinks marriage is a choice, regards gender is a continuum, favors abortion rights to protect the rights of women, wants to promote truth through education, and thinks power should be shared. Anti-woke Christians are against all those things. Being in favor of LGBTQ rights and science education and the environment, to name just a few examples, is an attack on the way God ordered and designed creation..

Great. We know where we stand. God is against everything the “woke” stand for. I guess I’ll just have to be against God.

I knew Armoured Skeptic was a kook before it was popular

Here’s a trip down memory lane: remember Armoured Skeptic? I first tangled with him about 9 years ago, when he was part of the YouTube misogynist mob, but his name popped up a few times since, never in a good context. He was a speaker at Mythcon, like all the good little regressive skeptics, and has sunk deeply into conspiracy thinking.

Notice that “skeptic” is in his name; his whole schtick was that as a good skeptically minded critical thinker, he could see right through the perfidy of feminazis and SJWs. Well, his content now includes…skepticism about the moon landings. Apollo 11 was a hoax, for some of the dumbest reasons ever.

There was a time when I was the target of his rants (his videos about me have been removed, for unknown reasons), because I was such a soy boy. It does my heart good to see how far he has fallen, and I’m pleased that I was sensible enough to stop paying attention to him long ago.

I might pay attention again when he starts promoting creationism, though.

Christ, capitalism, and crime go hand in hand

When you’re watching the Super Bowl, do try to avoid the commercials. Not only is it rampant capitalism, but they’re propaganda for odious organizations. Take those “Jesus gets it” commercials:

The Servant Foundation has plunged millions of dollars into its ‘He Gets Us’ ads, which paint Jesus as an “influencer” who was “cancelled” for standing up for his beliefs. The controversial adverts were shown at this year’s Super Bowl and have been plastered across billboards in the United States over the last year.

But analysis of financial accounts by openDemocracy shows over the last five years the Servant Foundation has also grown to become the main identifiable source of funding for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), described as an anti-LGBTIQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) – an allegation it denies.

You already know that if they can afford a Super Bowl ad, they’re a poisonous organization. They’re pushing Jesus, which is about as awful as pushing heroin. Here’s a local Minnesota example, you’ve probably got these creeps in your neighborhood, too.

A former minister at a large Owatonna church has been charged with multiple felonies after a woman reported he sexually assaulted her while she was a student at the school associated with the church – and again as an adult.A second woman reported he had attempted sexual contact with her, also when she was a student.

Luverne Zacharias, 46, of Medford, faces one count each of first- and second-degree criminal sexual conduct, as well as two counts each of third- and fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, as reported by the Steele County Times.

Zacharias was a teacher and principal at the school; the victim was about 14 years of age when the inappropriate touching began, the complaint says.

The woman told police that Zacharias would meet her in the basement of the school when she was sent to get milk for her classmates at lunchtime and during breaks. He allegedly touched her breasts and genitals over her clothing at first, doing it at least once every day, the woman said.

Zacharias would give her notes, tell her she was beautiful and that she reminded him of his daughter. He also reportedly told her he couldn’t control himself around her, and that she was “like my kryptonite.”

She reminded him of his daughter…so what’s he doing molesting her? It just got worse and worse from there.

The girl also reported Zacharias…to other church authorities. Doesn’t she know that their first thought would be to protect their own?

Court documents state the victim reported the alleged assault to pastors Tim and Cherrie Peterson. They told her they would hold Zacharias accountable for his actions, but told the victim to “think about Zacharias’s family and kids and what they might go through if she went to law enforcement,” the complaint says.

Keep that in mind when the lying Christian ads appear on your screen. Jesus chose the rapists and child molesters.

Scientist sues conspiracy theorists…and wins!

In a bit of happy news:

In a victory for climate scientists, jurors in Michael Mann’s defamation case against Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn awarded Mann $1 million in punitive damages for defamatory comments made in 2012.

In a unanimous decision, jurors agreed that both Simberg and Steyn defamed Mann in blog posts that compared Mann to convicted sex offender Jerry Sandusky, former assistant football coach at Penn State University. They announced that Simberg will pay $1,000 in punitive damages and Steyn will pay the larger $1 million.

Before the free speech fanatics start whining, this is something more than a guy suing someone to stop them calling him names. Simberg & Steyn were trying to undermine significant scientific claims by using ad hominems (hey, I’m actually applying that logical fallacy correctly) against Mann by defaming him. They can’t defeat the science with evidence, so instead they accuse a scientist of pedophilia…with absolutely no evidence for that, either.

Mann’s lawyers pointed this out, too.

“One million dollars in punitive damages makes a statement,” he said in an exclusive interview. “This is about the defense of science against scurrilous attacks, and dishonest efforts to undermine scientists who are just trying to do our job.”

Mann also noted that the trial was about defamatory statements made in an effort to discredit scientists “whose findings might prove inconvenient to certain ideologically driven individuals and outlets.”

“It’s about the integrity of the science and making sure that bad actors aren’t allowed to make false and defamatory statements about scientists in their effort to advance an agenda,” he added.

More than a defense of Mann, this was a trial about defending science. Simberg & Steyn’s lawyers, though, simply resorted to more personal attacks against Mann. Even if those criticisms were valid (they aren’t), they wouldn’t have constituted a good defense of the climate deniers claims. It was just more ad hominem!

But in the trial, these questions about “tenor” around the time of so-called “Climategate” seemed designed to legitimize attacks on Mann.

Roger Pielke Jr., another witness for the defense, called Mann “thin skinned” and “quick to attack.”

Much of the defense testimony seemed designed to “victimiz[e] the victim,” Williams said in his closing argument. For those who oppose climate action, “Michael Mann has become a huge target.”

This strategy of “victimizing the victim” not only shifted days of trial away from Simberg and Steyn’s articles comparing Mann to Sandusky — it also gave the defense an opportunity to put the hockey stick chart, and climate science more broadly, on trial.

My one complaint would be that the award of $1.1 million was not adequate. The bad guys, Simberg & Steyn, are backed by a whole vast industry with deep pockets, and that much money is just loose change to them — they’ll extract that much from their sofa cushions.

It’s no reward for Mann, either. I’ve been through this particular wringer with one petty, low profile accusation, and it required paying a lawyer hundreds of thousands of dollars to win. This was a big case — I imagine all Mann has won financially is more debt. But it was worth it!*

* At least, that’s what the lawyers say.

Encouraging news from the young’uns

I may have to give my students extra credit just for being born. They’re all “Gen Z” (personally, I’m not a fan of lumping people into these cohorts), and polls are showing some heartening trends.

A new poll demonstrates that younger Americans are decidedly more progressive, less religious, and more likely to describe themselves as LGBTQ than other generations.

In fact, Generation Z adults in the survey were more likely to identify as part of the LGBTQ community than to say they were Republicans.

Now that is hope for the future! I would love to live in a world where gay people outnumber Republicans, while aware that LGBTQ+ people can also be conservative. I would say that Republicans ought to be dreading the future, except that they already do — it’s their nature — but also, Democrats need to wake up and smell the coffee too. They Dems haven’t been doing a great job of securing progressive bona fides.

On political ideology, the poll found that Gen Z voters were more progressive than all other generations, with 43 percent describing themselves as liberal, 28 percent as moderate and 28 percent as conservative — versus 31 percent of adults overall who said they are liberal, 34 percent moderate and 33 percent conservative.

On which party they supported, a plurality of Gen Z’ers said they were either independent or unsure of what party they supported, with 43 percent expressing one of those two views — a higher rate of those combined options than any other generation besides Millennials, among whom 44 percent said the same.

Other good news:

Gen Z voters also expressed less religiosity than Americans overall in the survey. According to the report, 33 percent of Gen Z respondents said they were religiously unaffiliated, versus 27 percent of adults overall. Only Millennials expressed less affiliation with religion than Gen Z’ers, with 36 percent of that generation defining themselves that way.

Hey, atheists: same thing I said about Democrats. If you ignore progressive values, this demographic change won’t help you.

Conservatives, at least, don’t understand what’s going on. Here’s that notorious twit, Tim Pool, making a prediction that conservative Christians will win out, because they “have babies.”

There are a few obvious problems with his reasoning.

  • This is a poll reporting an ongoing demographic shift. Since conservatives and Xians have always been enthusiastically fertile, where did all these gay godless GenZs come from? If millennials and GenX spawned all these GenZs, why didn’t their dedication to reproduction produce a generation just like them that swamps out all those LGBTQ+ weirdos already?
  • LGBTQ+ is not a uniform sterile mass. LGBTQ+ people have children all the time. They are diverse, they have diverse ideas and desires about childrearing, most of them have all the biological equipment needed. That they are more deliberate and thoughtful about it doesn’t mean they won’t reproduce.
  • All people respond in complex ways to their environment. There are signals bouncing around all over in our culture that affect our decisions, and one of those signals is that conservative Christians are simply terrible, ugly, hateful people who make their children miserable. If you want to encourage a more viable ideology, that’s what you have to change. The Tim Pools of the world are only making it worse for Christians by being so repulsive.

I think I’ll just rest easy, knowing the kids are mostly all right.

“Real Immunity Homeoprophylaxis Program”

A quack found a gullible market.

A midwife in New York administered nearly 12,500 bogus homeopathic pellets to roughly 1,500 children in lieu of providing standard, life-saving vaccines, the New York State Department of Health reported yesterday.

Jeanette Breen, a licensed midwife who operated Baldwin Midwifery in Nassau County, began providing the oral pellets to children around the start of the 2019–2020 school year, just three months after the state eliminated non-medical exemptions for standard school immunizations. She obtained the pellets from a homeopath outside New York and sold them as a series called the “Real Immunity Homeoprophylaxis Program.”

The program falsely claimed to protect children against deadly infectious diseases covered by standard vaccination schedules, including diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (covered by the DTaP or Tdap vaccine); hepatitis B; measles, mumps and rubella (MMR vaccine); polio; chickenpox; meningococcal disease; Haemophilus influenzae disease (HiB); and pneumococcal diseases (PCV).

Ms. Breen is a crook who deserves to have the book thrown at her — she has been fined $150,000, so I think she got off easy. I would point out, however, that you know the people who took the stupid pills knew exactly what they were doing, explicitly and knowingly avoiding giving their kids a real prophylactic, and that they ought to at least get a token slap. Their kids have been kicked out of school, punishing the victims, until the parents provide genuine proof of vaccination.

Their one true god is ignorance

Apparently, there’s a growing problem in the US.

Growing vaccine hesitancy is just a small part of a broader rejection of scientific expertise that could have consequences ranging from disease outbreaks to reduced funding for research that leads to new treatments. “The term ‘infodemic’ implies random junk, but that’s wrong,” said Peter Hotez, a vaccine researcher at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. “This is an organized political movement, and the health and science sectors don’t know what to do.”

Yes, yes, yes, I agree, there is a terrible strain of motivated ignorance running rampant in the nation. I rather resent the idea that this is an emerging problem — it’s been around as long as I’ve been alive, and longer. The focus shifts is all. The current focus in this article on vaccine disinformation is a symptom of the same old arrogance that fueled the anti-evolution movement. The people who promoted that nonsense are now the same people pushing climate change denial and COVID conspiracy theories — they’ve just expanded their Bible colleges and built conservative think tanks that are somehow regarded as reasonable sources of opinion, and they’ve set themselves up in institutions like the Federalist Society that have acquired the authority to corrupt the fabric of our government.

Don’t even try to imply that this is something new. We’ve let the seeds of decay incubate for many decades. Now news stories deplore this situation on one hand, while on another, in other news stories from the same organizations, they’ll blandly cite the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute or or the Cato Institute or, god help us, Republican Party figureheads as sources, never questioning ho they’re building up the reputations of these fallacious “authorities.” They don’t question. So when some Republican liar says a trivially recognizable lie, like the following, they just report it and don’t say what’s wrong with it.

As a result, many people felt betrayed when COVID vaccines only moderately reduced the risk of infection. “We were promised that the vaccine would stop transmission, only to find out that wasn’t completely true, and America noticed,” said Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chair of the Republican-led coronavirus subcommittee, at a July hearing.

No. No credible authority claims a vaccine will simply stop transmission with 100% certainty in its effectiveness. Brad Wenstrup is a liar and a fraud. Brad Wenstrup is an asshole. The media won’t say that, despite it’s truth, and so the infection spreads. Even in an article reporting on the deplorable state of critical thinking, a news source can’t bring itself to state the facts. They are still obligated to pander to the know-nothings who buy the crap they advertise.

They’ll never openly recognize the common fuel that drives this American problem: a fanatical religiosity. This problem will never go away as long as we continue to grant churches unwarranted privilege.

There are jerks on Mastodon, too

It’s too bad that social media has to have that “social” component — as we all know, Hell is other people. I got some comments on this post about the ongoing atrocities in Israel/Palestine on Mastodon that earned someone an instant block. Look at this facile nonsense:

@escarpment@mastodon.online
@pzmyers It says in your profile you are an atheist yet you still seem to have been convinced by the religious moralizers that there exists a clearly defined objective standard of good and evil, which there is not.
@escarpment@mastodon.online
@pzmyers Also, though many people claim half-heartedly to condemn both Israel and Hamas (which in my view is unjustified), they spend the majority of the time and effort condemning Israel, therefore tacitly endorsing Hamas. They hold rallies against Israel, not against Israel and Hamas. They bring cases to the ICJ against Israel, not against Israel and Hamas.


First, they argue that because I’m an atheist, I can’t recognize good and evil. Those are religious concepts only! As if an atheist can’t have a moral standard based on entirely human values, and as if religious values aren’t totally fucked up and invalid. Checkmate, atheist! You are not allowed to condemn violence and genocide, because you don’t have a holy book telling you what’s right!

Next, now that they have established themselves firmly on the moral high ground vs. the trough of futility and despair that is the atheist position, they go on to read my mind. My condemnation of Israel and Hamas is “half-hearted”? Say what? I despise both with my entire heart — even an atheist and humanist can regard terrorist violence as brutal and cruel. That’s their justification for suggesting that I am “tacitly endorsing Hamas”?

No, I am not. I think both the Hamas leadership and the government of Israel should be dragged before the Hague and receive their just punishment. The difference between the two is that 1) right now, the Hamas leadership is being bombed into bloody gibs, and 2) my country is actively supporting the state-run terrorism by Israel, so I feel that condemning the violence my government is “tacitly endorsing” is more important today. There’s also the fact that the Palestinians are clearly the underdog, with about 24,000 dead citizens so far.

No matter, though: my perspective as an atheist and humanist is that no one should be butchering either Israeli or Palestinian civilians. No one should be arming the butchers, either.