Help an atheist out

Martin Wagner has been harassed for some time by a particularly looney theist, a fellow who wrote an astonishingly stupid anti-atheist essay, got ripped on a blog for it, and has ever since whined pathetically at the injustice of being criticized and insulted, and has basically made it his task to be a petty pest.

Possummomma has written about this state of affairs, and now Wagner is planning to take legal action. I don’t know that I entirely approve — I think the kook has done a fine job of discrediting himself — but he has a lawyer and is taking legal advice, and it’s not a bad idea in principle for an atheist to make a stand. Wagner has posted his rationale, and is asking for financial help. Check it out, and donate if you sympathize with his position.

Hi, Jack Picknell!

Mr Picknell, at jackaroni1229@yahoo.com, had a little question for me.

From: jackaroni1229@yahoo.com
Subject: Eye for Eye
Date: September 22, 2008 5:27:42 PM CDT
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PZ
Just curious if God has impaled YOUR son on a rusty spike yet?
Jack

Why, no, Jack! He hasn’t.

Let me guess. Catholic? Representing for your faith? I’m sure you make the Pope proud.

Or maybe you’re just a random amoral scumbag.

Roger Ebert: hacked or poor satire?

There is a very peculiar article at Roger Ebert’s movie review site. It may not last long, so I’ve put a copy below the fold. It’s a straight-faced recitation of creationist claims, all nonsensical, all typical, presented as if they were Ebert’s opinion. It could be an exercise in Poe’s Law, I suppose, or it could be the consequence of a little web hacking.

[Read more…]

Alle Terroristen sind Darwinisten

Adnan Oktar/Harun Yahya has been interviewed in Spiegel Online (that’s in German; you might want to read this short paraphrase in English). He says a number of, umm, interesting things.

  • He dislikes Intelligent Design intensely, and sees it as a dishonest form of creationism.

  • The Islamic terrorists aren’t actually Muslim—they are all foreign-educated Darwinist atheists. That includes Osama bin Laden.

  • In the 2009 Darwin year, he plans to celebrate the collapse of Darwinism. I don’t think so.

  • He claims that he can finance sending out free copies of the Atlas of Creation because he doesn’t accept royalties, so the publisher profits heavily. Uh, wait — how does the publisher profit off books that are given away?

As is commonly discovered, arch-creationists are very wacky people.

This poll is an ex-poll, OK?

For the last week, I’ve been getting multiple, daily requests to crash this poll: Do you think Sarah Palin is qualified to serve as Vice President of the United States? We already did it. Other groups have also been crashing it, and it’s also been hacked, last I heard it had votes in the millions, votes cast by scripts, not people. The poll is passed on. It is no more. It has ceased to be. It’s expired and gone to meet its maker. It’s a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. It is an EX-POLL. It has been so thoroughly crashed that our purpose is done, its credibility is undermined, devastated, and blown to flinders. Only an idiot would use this poll to justify an opinion any more, that is, other than an opinion that internet polls are useless.

So you can stop nagging me now, everyone. Find a better poll that hasn’t yet been blasted with a cyberpistol.

Not at your local SBC bookstore

It’s not on my list of required reading, but if you tried to get a copy of the latest issue of Gospel Today at your local Southern Baptist bookstore, you might have a little difficulty: it’s been yanked from circulation. The reason: it features a cover story on female pastors.

“They basically treated it like pornography and put it behind the counter,” said Hairston, according to AP. “Unless a person goes into the store and asks for it, they won’t see it displayed.”

I’d suggest that perhaps it should be treated like pornography, as a literature that can warp impressionable minds in less than desirable ways, but not because it dares to show women in positions of authority. It actually is a little sad to see smart, ambitious women take a path into inanity like that to achieve success…but to silence their efforts? Shameful.

Captured by the Buffalo Beast

How is this for an intro?

The “magnificent P-Zed Myers,” as he’s known by Richard Dawkins, is a fearless heathen. The tagline of his blog Pharyngula reads: “Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal.” He’s publicly desecrated the Eucharist and been chastised by the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue, bucked down libel suits, received countless death threats from religious kooks and he can kick God’s old, white ass with nothing but his mind. Myers teaches biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris. We decided to give him a call.

The rest of the interview may not live up to that level of hype, but then, I was being interviewed by the infamous Dougie, and I was concerned about not overwhelming his special needs.

Like MST3K for fundagelifiction

Many of you already know that Slacktivist has been doing a detailed deconstruction of the first book of the Left Behind series. He has posted a long, painful, entertaining analysis of a few pages in order every Friday for over four years: it’s been like gawking at a major train wreck, since the book is terribly written and an incomprehensible edifice of illogic and anti-realism gussied up with the most appalling lack of imagination.

At long last, he has turned the last few pages of the last chapter. There about 11 more books in the series, I think, and some spin-off books and prequels (I saw one for kids about kids living through the End Times), and I kind of hope for his sanity’s sake that he doesn’t start plowing through them, but on the other hand, it has been an entertaining exercise in the schadenfreude of truly bad literature, and I don’t want it to stop. It seems a little unfair that the one enjoyable part of this series, the demolition of its tawdriness, has to come to an end, while the hacks who created these potboilers and milked millions of undiscriminating, credulous readers continue on, making megabucks on dreck.