The infamous proposed Christianist license plate for the state of Florida, the one that said “I believe”, is dead. The supportive faith rays emanating from the prayerful public were apparently not strong enough to overcome the ass-suing beams radiating from the likes of the ACLU.
Boy, so far this day of prayer seems to be working out well for us godless, prayer-free heathens. God must be working in his mysterious ways again.
Naw – it’s Discordia.
The day of prayer has been preemptively subverted by our wild Walpurgisnacht orgies.
Have you been saving all of these stories for National Mumbo-Jumbo Day? This is great!
I prayed to the Flying Spaghetti Monster to kill off the Christianist license plate thing, and now my prayers have been answered. PROOF that the FSM exists!
I pray you’re right.
…
I mean God I hope so.
…
Oh, I give up.
maybe someone was trying to empirically test the prayers. you know how God starts messing up whenever those pesky scientists start peeking over his shoulder as he works.
You think that’s good? Check this out:
http://www.flascience.org/wp/
‘Cause this has nothing to do with intelligent design, no sir! Just “academic freedom!” Wonder if the Florida Baptist Witness knows West was a Moonie….
Not really, the ACLU appears to be uninterested in a public funded Muslim school in your home state which might open the door for more of those types of schools funded by government money in the future, PZ…The dollar bill has a religious symbol on it, your coins have a Christian text on it and the ACLU will not touch those items in court. So the optional custom plates present a possible chance for the ACLU, who are considering a lawsuit because it’s associated with Christian beliefs.
Well, at least with the chritianist plates you could have picked out the cars not to get too close to. You never know if the irrationality extends to their driving habits.
more lions please.
Oh yes, the ACLU is so deliciously eeeevil.
And not only that, but the Florida legislature also voted down a bill this week that would have required ultrasounds of anyone seeking an abortion, and the opposition was chaired by a Republican who said, amazingly, that the state had no business poking into women’s health issues and that men have no business telling women what to do with their ovaries.
Is there suddenly a rationality wave hitting Florida or something?
Eek! Bad bold tags! Bad! It didn’t look like that in the preview, I swear!
Hmmmm. This feels more like April fools.
azqaz (#9) –
You also have to include those christians who drive on the wings of prayer.
With all this praying homework you’ve dished out Prof. How in the hell are we going to have time for feasting, maypole dancing and fornicating?
Ha. The Stephen Colbert pic on the newspaper site has a background graphic that says:
“Separation of Church & Plate.”
Don’t miss the chance to vote in the related poll.
National day of prayer? Ok, not my nation but still – yet another example of uppity nouveau-religious movements trying to overwrite perfectly good Gaelic holidays.
Beltane
May Day
M’aidez
Praying for help?
See this is what happens when people mistranslate French :P
Hmm, May Day … Morris dancing… Morris, MN!
Coincidence???? Just think what fun a multi-armed invertebrate could have with a maypole.
Good down in Florida, bad here in SC. Looks like someone may be pushing it here in SC. Good thing we have our “In Reason we trust” license plates.
Yes, God’s mysterious ways. That’s my favorite.
Not voting in that poll Emmet. It was a stupid stupid question that is loaded and does not address the actual issue at hand.
@12: “Is there suddenly a rationality wave hitting Florida or something?”
I think the National Day of Reason has proven more effective, head to head, than the National Day of Prayer.
Yes, God’s mysterious ways. That’s my favorite.
I like U2’s version better.
I don’t like the way they worded that poll… It leaves it wide open to other sorts of interpretations…
azqaz :
Actually, from what I understand you certainly can know… “Pretty much always.” The belief that the laws of physics bend to your pleasure seems to correspond pretty thoroughly with the idea that traffic freely gets out of your way whenever you want to maneuver on the freeway.
In the abstract, I agree, but considering the context of the article, and the link to the Discovery Institute below the poll, I think one can safely assume that “evidence in class about shortcomings of evolution” is code for “fundagelical nonsense as science”. On that basis, I think it’s legitimate to vote “yes”.
Yeah I see your point but I think answering either way gives them artillery and I wouldn’t be surprised if the person who worded that poll is sympathetic to their Circus and Clown show.
LMAO. This day just gets better and better!
Do I read that right? When a woman ovulates, I can interfere with her reproductive decisions? I can force an ovulating woman to have a baby?
Rev. BigDumbChimp,
I think it’s pretty obvious that the person who worded the poll worded it carefully so that it doesn’t get to the real issue and is inherently biased toward Creationism. I mean, nobody actually believes that teachers should be punished for presenting bona-fide information about areas of any science that are genuinely murky or where theories are incomplete, but that’s not really what we’re talking about. As I say, “evidence of shortcomings of evolution” is creocode for “Biblical Creationism” and I do think teachers should be punished for teaching that as science.
Nentuaby:
Yeah, I give the cars with the jesus fish a fairly wide berth in stop and go traffic. I would much rather believe in my brakes doing an excellent job of turning kinetic energy into waste heat than “my guardian angel is watching over me” as the reason I didn’t slam into the car in front of me when I wasn’t paying the greatest of attention while driving. I just don’t feel right abdicating the resposibility to an angel.
Well, in my political tradition, May Day is a day for celebrating the workers’ movements, and is to memorialize the Haymarket Martyrs and the fight to standardize an eight hour working day.
So here’s Billy Bragg’s “There Is Power in a Union” to help celebrate.
Don’t miss the chance to vote in the related poll.
that’s what’s called a strawman poll? Asking if people should be punished for teaching the shortcomings of evolution?
what shortcomings?
The real danger of driving to close to fundies is that, in case of rapture, the cars will be unmanned.
Oh, we agree but for the sake of continuing this …
There are people who think that we “Darwinists” (yes scare quotes damn it) want to silence anything that may question the current theory, valid questioning or not. The poll is worded specifically to play into that, completely ignoring the fact that that is how science works. Questioning. Searching. Testing. When it comes out that the majority voted yes to punish those who question then it s a win for them (granted this is some small local poll, I understand that). If it comes out no, then the poll shows obvious win for ID. Its a lose lose vote. So I chose to abstain. Its the wording that matters even though we know what the “code” is. It’s worded that way to scam the public that doesn’t come here to blogs like this every day, listen to their Pastor as the preliminary expert on what they should think or just don’t have a clue on the subject matter.
If it had been worded
Then a voting I would go.
We agree on subject, just not on a small application.
But that’s my opinion. I’m often wrong, Just ask Mrs. BigDumbChimp.
The real danger of driving to close to fundies is that, in case of rapture, the cars will be unmanned.
I’m willing to offer a 100% guarantee that every single car with a rapture bumper sticker will continue to be driven by its owner — even if rapture happens.
I’m also willing to speculate that the rapture already happened. Unfortunately, only Judge Crater was taken.
that’s what’s called a strawman poll? Asking if people should be punished for teaching the shortcomings of evolution?
It was such a strawman poll that I didn’t vote. If I did, I would be forced to vote “no”. If teachers discover any shortcomings in the theory of evolution, they should certainly point them out. They should also point it out if they find any loopholes in gravity, relativity, thermodynamics, and germ theory. But they should publish their findings in peer reviewed journals first in order to make sure that the shortcomings found are really in the theories and not in their understanding of them.
Hallelujah! THOR be praised!!
qedpro: Strange, I read it as baiting for the no answer because if there are places where there aren’t answers yet then of COURSE teaching that would be favored by scientifically-minded people, but most idiots reading the poll would see people supporting the teaching of this religious creationist crap. I guess they really did their job right when writing that question because there’s basically no angle from which you can look at it and not find fault.
Those filthy atheists! Taking away our right to a license plate that I didn’t know about until recently! Why do you all have to be such NAZIS!
Do I read that right? When a woman ovulates, I can interfere with her reproductive decisions? I can force an ovulating woman to have a baby?
I think it was a poorly-worded way of saying that people who can’t ovulate (i.e. men) shouldn’t be telling those who do ovulate what to do about it.
Emmet Caulfield:
Wow, that has to be about the worst leading question in a poll I have seen in a LOOOOONG time. Should I assume from it that the paper in question has a bit of bias?
Re: the poll… we’re all vigourously agreeing with each other, I think.
If the “outcome” is “yes”, then they say “Oh, the evil Darwinists think teachers should be punished for simply presenting critique of current scientific theories; see, they’re dogmatic!”; if it’s “no”, then they say, “Look, the majority support teaching Creationism!” (I paraphrase, but you get the idea).
I think the former is the smaller beetle (the lesser of two weevils), so the fact that a few people voted and it’s moved toward “yes” from about 50/50 when I first saw it is, IMHO, a good thing.
The honest question in the context of the article, I think, would have been “Do you support the bill?”.
That poll reminds of Colbert’s famous interview question:
Bush – Great President, or Greatest President?
Of course, another possibility is just to have a little fun and make the results obviously ridiculous (like 100k “yes”) and take the almighty piss out of the strawman poll :o)
Someone should have warned the religious what the consequences might be if they prayed for greater understanding, and it worked.
Perhaps the same common sense will prevail when it’s time to vote for the confederate flag tag.
Ha! Love it. My new answer whenever someone asks me for whom I plan to vote: “The smaller beetle”
Or, if asked by a colleague, “The more diminutive curcullonoid.” (Because I have to impress ’em. Not yet tenured, doncha see.)
Gawdammit! Now I’ma hafta get me one a them NASCAR plates.
There’s a reason why praying doesn’t work in modern times. All the satellites.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/76073
Speaking of local newspapers, this was in today’s Mankato Free Press:
http://www.mankatofreepress.com/letters/local_story_121234409.html
Unfortunatly they have a one letter per month policy. It made me wish that my “Stein’s film anti-science propaganda” letter hadn’t already run on Tuesday.
Not only did they not pray hard enough for their license plates, but in 2001 Bush’s spiritual advisor, Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell, claimed the 9/11 attacks were due to ‘failing to pray for the souls of non-believers‘.
Sven,
How about “the inferior curculionoid” or even, for extra pzazz, “the curculionoid inferior”?
I know we shouldn’t mock, well perhaps just a little, but I must admit, for an atheist, this National Day Of Prayer so far has seen a blessed :) day full of schadenfreude for the god botherers. Obviously, we should encourage them to have more of them as it appears that their dog takes note of their prayers in inverse proportion to the amount of praying, or should that be preying, that they do as all our EAC schemes come to fruition. If only…
I wonder how come they never supposed that prayers might be refracted back to earth by the ionosphere?
I was wondering how long it would be before the artificial ring around Terra was responisble for disrupting communications between humans and their illogical gods.
Ooops! Replied to wrong post. Forgive?
If I believed in a god, I would thank it for not making Florida look any worse than we already do.
I think God may be starting to warm up for us atheists… and why not? We’re the ones NOT brown-nosing him for all sort of weird favours!
Remember, your request must be phrased in the form of a prayer. It won’t cost you this time, but you will lose points if you request incorrectly during Double Jeopardy!
The fundwits are having no luck,
Their bill in the House is now stuck,
In the hope that God cares,
They flood him with prayers,
But apparently He gives not a f… air hearing.
Whoops. Wrong thread.
Sorry ’bout that. We now return you to your regular programming.
I’m thinking that Scienceblogz needs a third button under the comment box:
Preview
Post
Pray comment ends up in intended thread
Sven,
Indeed. More websites need buttons that provide posters with divine guidance. Someone should look into it.
I like cutting off & tailgating cars with little fishies on them… by the time these “good folks” get to work, they are so pissed off, their “christian witness” is all screwed up & they spend the rest of the week confessing & feeling guilty about letting the “devil get a foothold”… I have a Flanders type in my neighborhood & he really has to work at not teeing off on me for my antics…
I like cutting off & tailgating cars with little fishies on them… by the time these “good folks” get to work, they are so pissed off, their “christian witness” is all screwed up & they spend the rest of the week confessing & feeling guilty about letting the “devil get a foothold”… I have a Flanders type in my neighborhood & he really has to work at not teeing off on me for my antics…
if they try to ask you why you are reacting like that, tell them you were wondering why they have a sticker or metal model of a vagina on their bumper/window:
http://altreligion.about.com/library/glossary/symbols/bldefsvesica.htm
http://www.halexandria.org/dward097.htm
It’d actually be cool if the license plate had a dry-erase area to write in what you believe in.
Hey! I checked out the poll at Jacksonville
I didn’t vote, but hit the [View Results] link instead.
Classic result:
Total votes: 0
[stupid loaded poll question]
Results:
0% No
0% Yes
Then the kicker…
Results are not scientific.
(no shit, Sherlock!)
I grabbed a screenshot, just fer giggles…
Aw maaaaaaaaaaaaaan, PZ, you got it all wrong. That stupidity failed because I prayed that it would. My prayers can kick their prayers’ idiot asses any day! :-)
At my wedding reception, my brand new father-in-law was headed towards a short stairwell enroute to the men’s room.
He had been drinking a bit and I told him to watch his step going down the stairs. He told me “No problem, Bobbyearle, God is my co-pilot”.
He turned and walked right into the dessert tray.
Some folks really need some kind of “I believe” sign as a warning to the rest of us.
Kudos to RevBigDumbChimp for mentioning South Cackalackee. There probably isn’t a legislature anywhere else in the country more composed of pandering, braying and praying hypocrites than the bunch that meets in Columbia, SC.
Like that town in Georgia that mandates gun ownership, it’s a wonder our SC solons haven’t mandated a plastic Jesus on the dashboard of every car.
But I guess there’s always next year.
And yes, we have our In Reason We Trust plate, but apparently in order to make it palatable, it had to display the American flag, making it a forced display of patriotism
And you pay extra to get the IRWT plate, but the Christianists get their In God We Trust plate for NO ADDITIONAL FEE.
It’s bullshit!
re #70:
Actual church sign spotted in Belmont, MA:
“If God is your co-pilot, switch seats”
Because we all would prefer to have invisible sky-daddies at the controls of our aircraft.
Total bullshit…. but at least we get one