Comments

  1. MAJeff, OM says

    In going to the St. Matthew Passion a while back, I could tell Bach was an old-school Luther-type Lutheran. The curse for crucifixion was laid clearly on the Jews–indeed, some of the most exciting choral music was the Jews screaming “Crucify him”–while the soloists got all weepy about the murder their loving god demanded.

  2. MAJeff, OM says

    Well, I suppose he could go back in time 300 years.

    Shit, Origin of Species and the Matthäuspassion. Them’s some mad skillz….even without time travel

  3. wazza says

    Yeah, Darwin’s real specialty was physics. He didn’t know anything much about biology at all, or he would have seen the clear evidence of design.

    Also, his initial training as a geologist is just a myth; he just made up all the evidence that the earth is older than 6000 years.

    But don’t tell the christians! I think they’re buying it!

  4. Ichthyic says

    from Wilkins..

    Stein is right: Darwinism causes antisemitism

    Oh, I DO so hope they quotemine him on that, so we can add new and fun links to the thread.

  5. Brad says

    He’s posting from Australia, it was already tomorrow there. We’re just getting tomorrow now.
    We ought to move the International Date Line once in a while, just like the Superbowl and the Olympics. Why should Australia always be ahead? For instance, if the IDL was just east of the middle east, they could be ahead, instead of stuck 2,000 years in the past. No, wait…the IDL is just an imaginary line, not a god. Never mind.
    Happy April 1.

  6. says

    This time travel talk puts me in mind of a droll story from Lewis Carroll (apologies for the length!):

    Half of the world, or nearly so, is always in the light of the sun: as the world runs round, this hemisphere of light shifts round too, and passes over each part of it in succession.

    Supposing on Tuesday, it is morning at London; in another hour it would be Tuesday morning at the west of England; if the whole world were land we might go on tracing [1] Tuesday morning, Tuesday morning all the way round, till in twenty-four hours we get to London again. But we know that at London twenty-four hours after Tuesday morning it is Wednesday morning. Where, then, in its passage round the earth, does the day change its name? Where does it lose its identity?

    Practically there is no difficulty in it, because a great part of the journey is over water, and what it does out at sea no one can tell: and besides there are so many different languages that it would be hopeless to attempt to trace any one day all the year round. But is the case inconceivable that the same land and the same language should continue all round the world? I cannot see that it is: in that case either [2] there would be no distinction at all between each successive day, and so week, month, etc., so that we should have to say, “The Battle of Waterloo happened to-day, about two million hours ago,” or some line would have to be fixed where the change should take place, so that the inhabitants of one house would wake and say, “Heigh-ho, [3] Tuesday morning!” and the inhabitants of the next (over the line), a few miles to the west would wake a few minutes afterwards and say, “Heigh-ho! Wednesday morning!” What hopeless confusion the people who happened to live on the line would be in, is not for me to say. There would be a quarrel every morning as to what the name of the day should be. I can imagine no third case, unless everybody was allowed to choose for themselves, which state of things would be rather worse than either of the other two.

    I am aware that this idea has been started before–namely, by the unknown author of that beautiful poem beginning, “If all the world were apple pie,” etc. [4] The particular result here discussed, however, does not appear to have occurred to him, as he confines himself to the difficulties in obtaining drink which would certainly ensue.

    Notes
    1. The best way is to imagine yourself waking round with the sun and asking the inhabitants as you go, “What morning is this?” If you suppose them living all the way around, and all speaking one language, the difficulty is obvious.

    2. This is clearly an impossible case, and is only put as a hypothesis.

    3. The usual exclamation at waking, generally said with a yawn.

    4. “If all the world were apple pie,
    And all the sea were ink
    And all the trees were bread and cheese,
    What should we have to drink?”

  7. Bride of Shrek says

    Brad @ #7

    yes we Aussies like to feel all superior that we’re usually a day ahead of the rest of the world. Of course, no matter how hard we try bloody New Zealand remains two hours ahead. Of course that comes in handy when I maintain that I only start drinking when the sun goes over the yardarm. That yardarm just happens to be in NZ, our 7th state.(oooh, cue 1,2,3 until a Kiwi retorts that we’re the “Big Island” of their country).

    Really its just a pain in the arse when it comes to conducting any sort of business with Europe etc as you end up making phone calls at 2 am. On a more fiscal downside it cost me about $250 in phone call charges on the 1st of Jan 2000 to skite to all my European friends about their backward calenders.

  8. wazza says

    actually, NZ only claims Melbourne and Adelaide…

    Also, I love the name “bride of shrek”… I assume it refers to certain filthy australian habits involving sheep, ie the hermit ram known as shrek?

    For anyone not in on the joke, we love each other, really, except when there’s a game on

  9. Bride of Shrek says

    Actually I should be paid a commission by the NZ tourist board. I’ve lost count of the amount of people I’ve recommended to go there.

    So, even if this is OT, all Pharyngulites should seriously consider New Zealand for a holiday. Its breathtakingly beautiful, the people are friendly, awesome Maori culture,its reasonably priced and there’s lots of sheep. Pity they can’t play Rugby.

  10. Bride of Shrek says

    Oh and the Bride of Shrek is because that’s my hubby’s nickname because he’s big, ugly and got a funny shaped head (no really- he reckons its because he’s a Geordie and he’s been headbutting people since he was 5).

    PS You can have Adelaide.

  11. Strakh says

    Hmmm, just as I’ve always suspected!
    Has anyone alerted Ian Gould? Now he can put a face to his sickening paranoia.

  12. Torbjörn Larsson, OM says

    Yeah, Darwin’s real specialty was physics.

    No no no – don’t you realize his evil biology permeates all of science?

    He was responsible for giving Maxwell the idea of marrying electricity and magnetism, a heathen idea – it is unthinkable for christian doctrine to join two so closely related forces. [And then marrying with the weak force constitutes bigamy. Modern physics, ruined by Darwinism!]

    All of this inspired the blasphemer Einstein in turn to marry time and space, which are two separate kinds altogether, constituting the worst possible unnatural act. I suspect the very idea opened up a rift in the universe that passed Darwin’s house and time, allowing him to become the Dark Time Lord of science.

    Don’t you see how it all fits? Darwin himself took all those fossils painstakingly collected on the Beagle trip and placed them so later scientists would find them in the order predicted by his devilish ‘theory’.

    He messed up though. When he came to the Cambrian he slipped on the naked and wet shore cliffs when exiting the rift, dropped the remainder of his stash in the sea (thus revealing the gap in his ‘science’) and fell back in time to cause the Big Bang at the end (start) of the rift. Two explosions with one stone!

    That death bed story is just a viral story of militant atheists trying to make him look anywhere near human. The truth is he was growing horns, tail and a forked tongue at the time due to his manimal genetic experiments (a technique he could have picked up around this time).

  13. Torbjörn Larsson, OM says

    Yeah, Darwin’s real specialty was physics.

    No no no – don’t you realize his evil biology permeates all of science?

    He was responsible for giving Maxwell the idea of marrying electricity and magnetism, a heathen idea – it is unthinkable for christian doctrine to join two so closely related forces. [And then marrying with the weak force constitutes bigamy. Modern physics, ruined by Darwinism!]

    All of this inspired the blasphemer Einstein in turn to marry time and space, which are two separate kinds altogether, constituting the worst possible unnatural act. I suspect the very idea opened up a rift in the universe that passed Darwin’s house and time, allowing him to become the Dark Time Lord of science.

    Don’t you see how it all fits? Darwin himself took all those fossils painstakingly collected on the Beagle trip and placed them so later scientists would find them in the order predicted by his devilish ‘theory’.

    He messed up though. When he came to the Cambrian he slipped on the naked and wet shore cliffs when exiting the rift, dropped the remainder of his stash in the sea (thus revealing the gap in his ‘science’) and fell back in time to cause the Big Bang at the end (start) of the rift. Two explosions with one stone!

    That death bed story is just a viral story of militant atheists trying to make him look anywhere near human. The truth is he was growing horns, tail and a forked tongue at the time due to his manimal genetic experiments (a technique he could have picked up around this time).

  14. Ichthyic says

    So, even if this is OT, all Pharyngulites should seriously consider New Zealand for a holiday

    fuck the holiday, I’ve been making plans to migrate there permanently for a couple of years now.

    money is set, paperwork in transit.

    just hoping everyone else isn’t thinking the same thing.

    got my heart set on the North Island; maybe doing some work out at the Poor Knight Islands.

  15. clinteas says

    Sorry for the shameless crosspost,but had to be done : Vaccines cause autism,now live on CNN,interview with some dude who knows it for a fact !Theyre having some Autism day there today.What a tragedy to have that on wordwide TV!!! And you think fox is bad……

  16. says

    I posted at midnight 1 April, NY time, so there. It was 1 April here for 15 hours already.

    And why aren’t all you folk commenting on my blog? PZ doesn’t need your traffic. Read meeee

  17. marc buhler says

    I thought we just sent John over there – is he back already?

    Can’t keep a good man up, I guess.

    (signed) marc

    (…. was he on the wrong side of the road with his motorbike the other day I wonder?)

  18. Ichthyic says

    Sorry for the shameless crosspost,but had to be done : Vaccines cause autism,now live on CNN,interview with some dude who knows it for a fact !

    heard it from some guy’s brother’s nephew’s cat, you mean.

    I hope you’re joking, but I doubt it.

    man, will this bogus shit never die.

    The media seems to love to resurrect this inanity every year, and each year, it gets shot down again.

    might as well make it into another fucking holiday.

    oh wait, it already is a holiday of sorts…

    anywho… in the “better safe than sorry” dept.:

    http://www.askquestions.org/details.php?id=6083&gclid=CJC10rS0uZICFQjOiQodDjsgYg

  19. Peter Ashby says

    Hey Bride, anytime you guys want to become the West Island of New Zealand, you only have to apply. Helen Clark will pop over and place her foot on the prone body of your ex PM, all your states will become provinces and we can see how many ex Wallabies make the All Blacks. Might have to Gerrymander the cricket but.

    As for dateline shenanigans Umberto Ecco once wrote a rather interminable novel about it called The Island of the Day Before. it sits on my bookshelf, but somehow rereading the other books always seems preferable to picking that one up again.

  20. Loki says

    fuck the holiday, I’ve been making plans to migrate there permanently for a couple of years now.
    This. Fortunately for you I’ll be on the South Island.

  21. wazza says

    Well, you can’t have it! It’s mine!

    eh, who am I kidding, I hardly ever leave Wellington…

    which, by the way, is a very cool city. Come visit some time.

  22. Fernando Magyar says

    Its breathtakingly beautiful, the people are friendly, awesome Maori culture,its reasonably priced and there’s lots of sheep. Pity they can’t play Rugby.

    Their sheep can’t play Rugby? Bummer ;-)

  23. wazza says

    Aussies are always surprised at that…

    because, of course, over there they’ve interbred so thoroughly that it’s hard to tell where the sheep end and the humans begin

    :P

    but seriously, farmers use their sheep for rugby tackling practise, and there is evidence (Ball et al, 1978) that sheep can learn the basics of fending and feinting.

  24. wazza says

    Anyway, how did this get to be a thread on how great NZ is?

    We should be discussing what happens when Darwin gets to travel in time.

    Personally, I suspect he would have used this power to finish his research on barnacles.

  25. EyeNoU says

    Bride,
    I have been tossing around the idea of a short vacation in Australia for several years. If you only have 3-4 days to visit, where would you go? Thanks.

  26. Fernando Magyar says

    but seriously, farmers use their sheep for rugby tackling practise, and there is evidence (Ball et al, 1978) that sheep can learn the basics of fending and feinting.

    Do you think we could send the Miami Dolphins over for spring trainng? Nah, I’ll bet the sheep would out play them.

  27. wazza says

    you’d never catch them wearing all those pads…

    ENU: the best place to go is NZ, as discussed above. Australia’s just like hell, except the beer’s warmer.

  28. EyeNoU says

    wazza
    Yes, but good beer is generally quite palatable warm. It’s the nasty American mass-produced swill that makes you gag if it isn’t ice cold….

  29. wazza says

    Nonsense. Lager as a whole is best served chilled, and the fine Belgian beers are always served cold in a chilled glass.

    Only an englishman could commit the awful sacrilege of intentionally warming beer!

  30. Eljay says

    Well don’t know about Darwin time traveling but i do know recently NEITHER Aussies or NZealanders can play rugger worth a damn!
    Well sometimes the all blacks, got a soft spot for them when they are not playing the Bokke.
    If you want to dispute the fact of your rugby prowess tell me how did your boys do in the world cup hey?
    As to that warm swill the Brits call beer: it was one of the prime causes of the British empire: they scoured the world for a non emetic beer and a plate of food that did not look like blanched cream of wheat. When they found it they thankfully went home.
    I still blame most the Northern Ireland problems on warm Guiness.
    Oh and enjoy April 1st guys, its going to be a long day.
    Displaced Safrican in Memphis

  31. Lilly de Lure says

    Wazza said:

    Well, you can’t have it! It’s mine!

    eh, who am I kidding, I hardly ever leave Wellington…

    which, by the way, is a very cool city. Come visit some time.

    I went on a tour of NZ for my honeymoon and like a lot of brits on this thread am also looking to emigrate there permanently. Since Wellington was by far my favourite city of all, I might well be taking you up on that offer at some point!

    :-)

  32. windy says

    We should be discussing what happens when Darwin gets to travel in time.

    The real question is, will he use his powers to scoop Wallace? Probably not, since it would be bad form.

  33. Chad says

    Where are all the pro-expelled commentors? Pointing out Expelled is nothing more then evangelical christian hate speech/rhetoric meant to belittle anything percieved as anti-christian, a little to close to the truth?

  34. Dr Benway says

    Wasn’t Darwin responsible for the Good Friday Mass which included the words “perfidious Jews” until 1959, and which likely played some role in the Easter pogroms?

  35. says

    I looked into emigrating to NZ in the 80s; however, their policy was NO SINGLE MOTHERS! I was an undesireable, and the fact that I had always been self-supporting, even since my divorce, was irrelevant.

  36. says

    The real author of evolution is actually Satan, you know (at least the creos take the trouble to account for evolutionary discoveries, albeit through crediting Satan, while IDiots have no explanation for a consistent science like MET).

    So yes, of course Darwin is all a part of the plan to kill humans, including the Jew Jesus, and Jews through the centuries. Plus, for anti-Catholic Xians, the pogroms and persecution of Jews by Catholics is just another manifestation of Satan, which shifted more toward Darwin as the world moved away from fundamentalist truth.

    There’s no problem with the (real) idea internally, then, and just so long as science can be neutralized by lies and governmental machinations, then evidence becomes no problem either, since evidence is no longer required.

    Better get around to destroying science, then, all except for devotional internet usage, and televangelizing. That science exists for God’s sake, so it’s good, while evolution exists for Satans’ sake, and is evil.

    Glen D
    http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

  37. says

    Haven’t you heard? People didn’t kill each other or hate each other before Darwin was born. Everything was peaceful and everybody was nice to each other.

    This goes along with the fact that nobody ever had sex ever before Bill Clinton busted out his cigar.

  38. Robert Thille says

    I spent 3 months bike touring NZ after college. I agree that Wellington was a nice city, but a seriously hilly bitch for a bike tourist :-)

    I think my favorite city was Queenstown, but as a software enginner, I seriously doubt I could find work there.

  39. Lilly de Lure says

    Robert Thille said:

    I think my favorite city was Queenstown, but as a software enginner, I seriously doubt I could find work there.

    Queenstown is set in an unbelievably beautiful location I’d agree and I loved the adventure sports that you get there, but personally I found it a little touristy for me – hence my preference for Wellington (I can see how the hills would be a literal pain in the ass for a cyclist however).

  40. Peter Ashby says

    Elijay well I have a soft spot for the Boks, as a Kiwi living in the UK I owe them a lot for beating the English in the last RWC. That would have been hell on earth, even up here in Scotland.

    As for Queenstown, nice setting, shame about the place and if you want to live there, make sure that you are either rich or are earning shitloads (unlikely in NZ).

    And for cycling, Wellington and Hills, no probs. Live in Island Bays or the Hutt Valley and your commute into Central Wellington will be dead flat. From the Hutt you can even take your bike on the train anyway.

    Though if you want to live anywhere North of the Central city then yes, you will have hills to deal with. Good for the thigh muscles. I no longer cycle but I grew up in West Auckland and the steep winding hill they went up in the Commonwealth Games road race I used to cycle up going home from school every weekday. If you can’t handle hills, don’t move to NZ.

  41. Janine, ID says

    Darwin can not only travel though time, Darwin could also make time go wonky. Darwin justified racism. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was released in 1859, thus justifying slavery in the United States. This sudden appearance of slavery and racism caused a split in the Baptist ranks with the SBC being corrupted by this new atheist philosophy. Also, this sudden appearance of racism and slavery in the United States brought the American Civil War between the devoutly christian Unionist and the racist atheistic Confederacy.

    Damn but this Darwin fellow has powers far from those of mortal humans.

  42. Lyle G says

    The international date line was suggested by a Norwegian named Alex Andersrag. The International date line is therefore the Alex Andersrag time band.

  43. says

    I have been tossing around the idea of a short vacation in Australia for several years. If you only have 3-4 days to visit, where would you go? Thanks.

    I’d check out the airport duty free shop. Maybe take in some Aboriginal culture at the souvenir shop. Have some traditional Mcdonalds. Head back through customs and have your bottle of natual spring water (manufactured by a cola compay) confiscated. Get back on your plane and head back home. You’d only need a day. If you really wanted to spend 3-4 days splurge on a taxi and head into town. You might have enough time to see your whole hotel. If you’ve flown to Sydney I recommend the famous landmark of the Coca-cola sign in Kings Cross.

  44. skyotter says

    huh. a time-travelling Darwin makes a lot of sense. now we can deduce that it was Darwin in his serpent guise who offered an apple* to Eve. AND he planted all the Cambrian fossils. must have done, right?

    *yeah i know, it was really a quince. blame Darwin for that, too. he hated apples, see, and wanted them to have a bad name …

  45. John Scanlon, FCD says

    With all this Australia-NZ cosiness going on, I’m reminded of something a little OT. Saw Robert Mugabe on the TV news last night (when it was still only April 1st here), and it struck me how much he looked just like (Australian ex-PM) John Howard. Partly it’s actually the head shape and features (shelf-like lower lip, anyone?), but perhaps it was also that Mugabe was sitting there, not making eye contact with anyone, waiting to hear the official election results – just like Howard the last time I saw him on TV. They both knew months or years in advance that the election was democratically unwinnable, but fortunately Howard wasn’t going to unleash the army on the populace when the loss was announced. And unfortunately, in all likelihood, Mugabe is.

  46. spirax says

    Australia is a big place. You won’t cover much in three or four days. I’d just choose one or two areas you especially want to visit. Maybe the Great Barrier Reef? My choice would be Uluru (Ayers Rock). You can get a connecting flight from Sydney. Sydney + Uluru would be a good combination. Urban Australia contrasted with the outback.

    Sydney is the usual city that most tourists visit. You’ll get the ‘postcard’ sights of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Opera House etc. The nearby Blue Mountains are spectacular. Melbourne is easy to get around and IMO with more things to do than in Sydney. The Great Ocean Road is a big tourist attraction but you’ll need to hire a car.

    Queensland is a tourist favourite with Australians and overseas vistors alike. I’d stay in Cairns or somewhere along that stretch of coast. From there you can visit the Daintree rain forest and the Great Barrier Reef. Lots of zoos with crocodiles.

    I love Tasmania for its spectacular scenery. Cradle Mountain is a world heritage area and if it’s natural beauty you want to see, you won’t do much better. However, it is trickier to get to and with 3 or 4 days you don’t want to spend too much time travelling.

  47. spirax says

    Oh, further to above. It will also depend on what time of the year you visit. It’s best to avoid North Queensland during the wet season although you will get big savings on accommodation. Central Australia in summmer is very hot during the day and very cold at night. Southern Australia anytime really but best in either Autumn (for Melbourne, Tasmania) or Spring (for Sydney).

  48. wazza says

    On the other hand, if you want to visit NZ in three or four days, I recommend flying into Queenstown, taking the jetboat tour upriver from glenorchy, then flying up to Rotorua and enjoying the lovely smell of sulphides, then driving from there to Waitomo and checking out the caves.

    There are far better places to go, but generally they take longer to get to/enjoy. All these places have tourist infrastructure, and the drive from Rotorua to Waitomo will let you see some of the countryside, as will the subsequent drive to Auckland for your flight out.

  49. Deloise Landreneau says

    Ths s my frst tm vst hr. I fnd s mny ntrstng stff n yr blg spclly ts dscssn. Frm th tns f cmmnts n yr rtcls, I gss I m nt th nly n hvng ll th njymnt hr! kp p th gd wrk.