Quit stealing our mythology!

Those bastards — the Anglicans are trying to appropriate Dr Who.

A conference of Church of England vicars watched a handful of episodes from the sci-fi series to study its religious parallels, particularly its themes of evil, resurrection and redemption.

Similarities between the Doctor and Christ, as well as whether the evil Daleks are capable of changing, were also examined.

“There are countless examples of Christian symbolism in Doctor Who, which we can use to get across ideas that can otherwise be difficult to explain,” The Sunday Telegraph in Britain quoted Andrew Wooding, a spokesman for conference organising group Church Army, as saying.

Grrr. Be done with it and simply declare that Jesus was a Time Lord, OK?

You have been very, very naughty…

…and you deserve to burn in hell for eternity. It really doesn’t matter what you’ve done — you’re damned. Take The Good Person Test and find out! It’s standard evangelical Christian nonsense in which they hammer on any niggling divergence from absolute perfection, followed by quotes from the Bible that prove that if you fibbed once, you deserve eternal torment.

One fun thing about this “test” is that you don’t have to take the bait — go ahead, deny committing any of the sins they want to accuse you of, and then it will announce “The Bible says all men are sinners, until you’re ready to admit that you can’t continue this test.” So what do we need the test for?

The perils of travel

I’ve made the journey to Seattle (actually, Auburn, where many of my family members live), and have discovered that access to the internet is spotty in the west coast suburbs — there are wireless servers everywhere, but at the same time, everyone has gotten savvy and protects them with a password. How cruel! Fortunately, I’ve talked one of my nephews into handing out their home network password to a known internet provocateur, so maybe I’ll have some access this week.

Alas, I’m too late to remind you of Atheists Talk radio — I’m sorry if you missed it, but really, it should be a habit by now. Catch it on their podcast instead!

It’s not too late to remind all that I’ll be speaking before the Northwest Science Writers Association tomorrow, Monday, 2 June, from 7-9pm at the Pacific Science Center Laser Dome. Come on out! I don’t have any other specific plans, so if anyone wanted to grab me and drag me out to a pub afterwards, I could be willingly abducted. Make suggestions for specific places in the comments — someplace near the Science Center and not too far from public transit, please — and we’ll do it.

If you can’t stand me, maybe you’ll like Carl Zimmer better. He’s talking on Tuesday at Town Hall Seattle. It’s $5 admission! My talk is free…now I feel so cheap.

I’ll also be speaking on Friday at the Seattle Skeptics, but you’ll need to buy a $30+ dinner to hear that one, and you’ll need to make reservations soon. A-ha — I’ve one-upped Carl!