If you’re one of those people I’ve caught saying “I read Blag Hag before boobquake,” then have I got news for you. An old friend is back: Pastor Tom Estes of the blog Hard Truth.
If you’ve forgotten Pastor T. Estes, don’t worry – I had to dig through the archives to remember why the name was familiar. Nearly three years ago, which is eons ago in the blogosphere, I poked fun at a dumb post he made about how atheists are taking over the internet. He made remarks about looking forward to personally finding me and meeting me when he found out I was going to the Creation Museum. I mentioned it was kinda creepy, he responded with threats of suing me for defamation of character, and I spent my Creation Museum trip slightly on edge. He referred to my blog as “Helga’s Battle Axe” because he thought it was clever. We continued to vaguely giggle in the direction of his blog until he packed up his toys and went home.
I honestly shouldn’t care that this random small town pastor decided to come back to blogging, but his first post was too hilariously bad to resist commenting on. What was one thing that encouraged him to return to blogging? He looked at Pharyngula’s traffic and saw that it has recently plummeted, presumably because Christians are awesome and winning. But of course he didn’t figure out that the traffic drop was because Pharyngula moved to Freethought Blogs, despite the giant box at the top of old Pharyngula informing him.
Pastor Tom did figure one thing out – if you want to be a Christian echo chamber without anyone to challenge your beliefs, turn off your comments. How predictable.
Hey! I DID read your blog before “Boobquake” dammit! … it doesn’t make me a hipster, it just means I’m old. :(
BTW, did you ever get a battle axe? If you’re going to be saddled with the name, might as well buy the accessories. :)
Sadly my only weapon is a squirt bottle I have to occasionally use against Pixel.
Possibly the saddest thing about Pastor Tom’s Stalk-The-Atheists-at-the-Creation-Museum blog post is that he had to look up Cthulhu in order to understand your comic. And he still got it wrong.
Seriously, are there still people who use computers who don’t have a clue about Cthulhu? I knew by the age of twelve, back when there was no real Internet, and not from reading Lovecraft stories.
This isn’t like that what’s-his-face guy with the blue eyes and pasty skin from the Middle East who hid in a cave from the revenooers and faked his own death so he wouldn’t have to pay taxes on his prostitute or something. I get it when people look at his self-published biography and get all “WTF? I paid money for this?” This is important, it’s CTHULHU.
I’m sure I’ve got a battleaxe lying around somewhere that I’m not using anymore. Shall I send it to you?
That seem such an elementary mistake, and so clueless of him, I don’t even know what to say.
I do not envy Pastor T. Estes all of the verbal kicks he inevitably receives whenever he opens his mouth. (Hmm… do we have an explanation for his oversensitivity, perhaps?)
I also read you long before Boobquake, but I’m sure you know that. I think the first post of yours I read was about “The Professor and the Dominatrix”,
Hang on, his name is Tom Estes? T. Estes? Testes! Really? You’re not making this up? I could almost believe in the existence of a god. Loki, to be precise!
I once built a staff page for a Lexus dealership, and all their email addresses were firstinitiallastname@website.com. Except one guy: tim_estes@website.com. That was almost seven years ago. I’ll never forget it.
So, he ran away from his moral fight only to return when he thought his opponents were nearly beaten? That’s what I call “character”. Stay classy, bro.
I have a bunch of knives, most of which should be legal where you live, and I can send you somewhere between 1-3 of them. And/or a helmet with horns on it. :)
Might be better, a battleaxe requires a bit of training. Knives are pretty much point and click. ;)
Plus one Pixel. That’s a formidable weapon right there.
I’m a hipster? Dammit, Jen.
From before boobquake…hell, WAY before boobquake.
I don’t think I can make that claim of BBQ (before-boob-quake). But that guy’s site gave me a laugh.
What is the deal with the christian sites and turning off their comments anyway? Well I guess it saves him the trouble of deleting the posts of people pointing out he is doing it wrong.
OH, my favorite part. On the page you first linked to in 2009 he mentions how “the internet is the future”. Wow, way to say hip and current there Pastor T, next up you can upgrade your modem to 56k!
Thanks for making me laugh!
Tim
http://freedomofnonbelief.blogspot.com/
1d3 knives and a random piece of armor? What’s that, Treasure Type H?
Dude, I was readin’ Blag Hag back when it was a zine.
LOL!
No, Treasure Type H usually involves tentacles.
But were you a hipster before it was cool?
Jen, your link to Ye Olde Pharyngula (last link in the post) links to the new Pharyngula.
Also, I wonder what the good pastor will make of the sudden influx of hits from freethoughtblogs, and especially from freethoughtblogs/pharyngula. Will that be enough for him to get a clue?
So you’re saying that back when you started reading it… you had issues? -_^
I haven’t read Pastor Estes blog because, whatever with him. I’m surprised you ridicule turning off comments, though. No one is under any obligation to accept comments on a blog. I turned mine off because I was tired of men calling me things, not to mention rape threats. (If they want to insult me now, they have to go find me on Twitter.) My feeling was that if people want to leave comments, hey, it’s a big internet. There are plenty of places to do that.
I’m certain pastor whoever is a silly loser, but not for that reason.
If I read your blog now, and had to Google what “Boobquake” was, what does that make me?
Yeah, they nearly always do that.
It is the only way they can keep convincing themselves they’re “winning”.
Better to turn off comments that to edit your comments and then pretend never to have said some stupid and offensive things, a la Greg Laden.
I started reading you after Boobquake, but I didn’t put 2 and 2 together until later.
T.Estes won’t get any traffic from me. I don’t visit blogs that don’t allow comments. It’s rude and defeats the whole purpose of blogging.
Estes wants to say things about other people, but goes out of his way to deny them the opportunity to respond. He’s also not blocking comments about him so much as refutations of claims that he chooses to make public.
In your case, it’s about safety and shutting down scummy cretins. In his case, it’s about dishonesty and cowardice. That isn’t just conjecture; his other actions support my statement.
Maybe he can retrain as a paralegal and get a job with the law firm of Ferreth and Jobs: http://www.ferrethandjobs.com (Company motto: “Is your business in the right hands?”)
TEstes for this preacher? I’m afraid that’s assuming facts not in evidence my friend!
Someone who tries Google first rather than Wikipedia?
Looks like the only reason Pastor Tom came “back” is because of his hatred for the gay community. Look through his most recent posts.
While I read his bigotry, it’s actually sad. He has a beautiful family. Too bad his children will grow up to be bigots just like him.
And yes, it is cowardly to disable comments.
Some of us aspire to do a little more than the minimum we’re forced to, and differentially respect others who do the same.
HAH he has deleted the post you link to, but has a new post not only attempting to reframe the old one as being more reasonable than it was, but also brimming with tears over the laughter he invited. Stay classy!
This must be my PUNishment.
What the hell is boobquake?
Bookquake.
For a giggle, check out President Obama; NOT the Friend of Gays, his last article before the hiatus, posted 2009/10/12. It begins:
If you have the stomach for it, keep reading till you get to the part where he explains why most gays wouldn’t want to be in the military anyway.
oh hey, I remember that one.
and by “remember” I mean it’s seared indelibly into my memory, no matter how hard I try to forget that “book” O.o
Hate to necro what probably should be a dead thread, but I saw this just a few minutes ago. Checked the link to TEstes’s site, and it doesn’t point to anything any more. Way to take a lesson from Conservapedia: deep burn anything embarassing. Stay classy, TEstes.
Actually, it hasn’t pointed to the article Ok, So Why Come Back to Hard Truth? for several days. But the article is still there, at http://hardtruth.squarespace.com/home/2012/5/9/ok-so-why-come-back-to-hard-truth-updated.html . It would seem that he hasn’t mastered the art of changing an article title without having the URL change.
I was wondering just what he had updated, since nothing was flagged, and I couldn’t see any obvious changes. Well, in the original article, as quoted by PZ on Thursday, he wrote, “I wondered over to Pharyngula…” but in the updated article with the new URL it now reads, “I wandered over to Pharyngula…” There could of course be other improvements, invisible to my unsophisticated eye.
“Pastor Tom did figure one thing out – if you want to be a Christian echo chamber without anyone to challenge your beliefs, turn off your comments.”
Or you can just selectively edit, censor, delete, and ban. FfTB Stylee.
Different action; same result: false consensus.
False Equivalency Troll’s False Equivalency is noted.
It’s really pitiful. His first post was all about gloating and attacking, and now the whiny little grub is claiming persecution of Christianity because he got laughed at personally for being stupid.
To make it even sadder, he’s jabbering that Pharyngula and the responses are insignificant… even though HE is the one that repeatedly revisited the site to get more persecution complex fodder. Shows he takes it pretty seriously.
So much for Christian honesty.
And now it’s gone, because the reasonable response to being hilariously wrong is to destroy all evidence that you ever said anything.
But that’s not even the best part! There’s a new post from a few days ago, making the exact same claim about Obama’s stated support for gay marriage. Why learn anything from past embarrassments when you can just disappear them instead?
I faintly remember Estes and his two psychophants on his blog. Has it been 3 years? I have to wonder if he is still naively unintelligent.
Hehehe best book review ever!
^ This. Hehehe. :D
Hi would you mind sharing which blog platform you’re using? I’m going to start my own blog soon but I’m having a difficult time choosing between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal. The reason I ask is because your layout seems different then most blogs and I’m looking for something unique. P.S Sorry for getting off-topic but I had to ask!