Comments

  1. Tom coward says

    I love Ed Current! He basically states the theist/Xtian position, thereby demonstrating its absurdity!

    This is not a Poe, it is satire.

  2. Alyson Miers says

    That is awesome. As soon as he said “blunt object” and “penetrate” in the same sentence, I knew he was one of us.

  3. recovering catholic says

    Is the quote by the atheist at the end legit? I couldn’t find it by googling…

  4. bobxxxx says

    When he said “So he could rise again to cleanse mankind of our sins” the Easter Bunny appears on the screen with a basket of eggs, followed by a picture of a young woman with the words “sexy coeds Xposed, Freshman Fornication”. Edward Current is a genius.

  5. Occam Himself says

    Wow, gotta interpret it just so… Notice the inherent need to hold onto the bible so someone doesn’t kill him with logic. Why make things simple when you can make them up.
    Side note: True and real god… We need a bus for this fellow.

  6. CrypticLife says

    A nice turn by Ed Current. I find it hard to believe there are adult internet-loving atheists who are just being exposed to him now, but if so check out his other videos. Prayermax 5000 is a great one, as well as the “I’ve converted to all the religions, just in case” vid.

  7. says

    A brigade of ninjas planted explosives, the suicide bombers were a distraction and it was all under a shadow government of CIA-affiliated Freemasons…

    That’s some good stuff there. It’s too bad that the comment about Ron Paul had to be put in there, not because it’s patently untrue, but because it hits below the belt. Sadly, there are Libertarians that believe such kooky things (I know one personally). Then again, there are fundamentalist Christians, snake-handlers, holy rollers, etc. in the Republican party and tarot-reading, crystal-toting, new age, wanna-be “druids” in the Democratic party.

    You guys enjoy the benefit of having a large base so your nuts are more easily hidden from view, marginalized and ignored. We, sadly, don’t have that luxury.

  8. Timebender13 says

    I wasnt sure if he was for real or not at first. Thats how cooky some of the true believers can get: its getting hard to tell whether someone is making fun of them or seriously believes what they say!

    I knew he was faking when ninjas got involved, though. (He was faking, right? RIGHT?!?)

  9. Alyson Miers says

    Of course it was pure silliness. Look at his other videos. I just watched the one about the pink unicorn. Awesome.

  10. jemand says

    The Twin towers weren’t taken down by ninjas! It was aliens! Those planes, well disguised UFO’s that shoved the towers (without collapsing them) deep into the center of the earth! The aliens are currently conducting genetic research on humans as we speak, from deep under the surface. Nearly 1/10th of all “commercial” air traffic is in fact diguised UFO’s!

    lol, but as conspiracies go, I like to bring that one up. As fun as the ninja one, fewer proponents… :)

  11. John Phillips, FCD says

    I love me some Current in the morning. I had to watch it twice because I was laughing so much :)

  12. Tulse says

    Is this guy for real? Or is it satire? It is getting very hard to tell these days.

    If you haven’t run across Poe’s Law before, you’ll find it helpful in making sense of things.

  13. bigjohn756 says

    LOL!! I have seen one other of his vids. Now I have subscribed. I am not certain what the Ron Paul reference means tho.

  14. Richard says

    Lol, Ed Current is really cool. Yes, I agree that the best part is that so many xtians don’t get that he’s mocking them. For any other non-religioids looking to make sure Current is on our side – he has tons of videos on youtube. Watch a few more, I promise the penny will drop. He’s just really subtle, that’s all.

  15. H.H. says

    Lol @ “Now, this explanation is really complicated and uses words I never learned in home school.”

    [cue rants from indignant defenders of home schooling]

  16. Spiv says

    hahaha, that’s even the picture off of “real ultimate power” for the ninjas. Nice reference.

  17. dreikin says

    It’s too bad that the comment about Ron Paul had to be put in there, not because it’s patently untrue, but because it hits below the belt

    Given the surrounding context, I see it as similar to the Masons reference – intentionally no connection to reality, just ignorant stereotypes of the “other”.

    Edward Current’s not exactly too my taste, but he’s still excellent and well recommended!

  18. says

    He sure skates the line. He’s a bit like Steven Colbert who pretends to be a conservative. Current seems to be slicing very subtly.

    Gotta love the slice about the ninjas.

    Gotta love the slice about the other religions knowing that it makes no sense that their religions are mind poo.

    This godless accident loves it! (My Dad once told me that I and his other seven kids exist since the pope didn’t allow the use of condoms. All I could say is fantastic I exist because of delusional beliefs! Sigh, my objective rationality shivers… with a smile. I exist therefore I am).

  19. Shaden Freud says

    “Ask any Ron Paul supporter!”

    Two questions.

    1) What’s with Ron Paul supporters and the 9/11 Truth movement?

    2) What’s with Ron Paul having so many supporters in the first place?

  20. dreikin says

    OT: If the holographic universe theory gets some more supporting evidence, the universe may NOT have come from ‘nothing’*/not have a ’cause’ Given my (limited) understanding of the subject, it would seem:

    • a 2+1D surface is sufficient to describe a 3+1D universe
    • According to big bang theory, we originated from a singularity
    • Black holes are also singularities
    • All the info input into a black hole is completely represented by the fluctuations of it’s event horizon
    • The event horizon of a black hole is a 2+1D surface

    So, potentially, there IS information and causal transference (it would just be really complex to map).

    Also has a potential explanation for some current ‘unexplained’ phenomena – dark matter, dark energy, cosmological constant, etc – all potentially explained by input from the ‘upper’ universe.

    * ‘xyz’ – not scare quotes, just an indication that I’m using a word in a looser-than-usual or not-quite-right manner, instead of the technically-correct version ;-)

  21. says

    The Twin Towers weren’t taken down by ninjas! Or aliens! They were not take down at all!!1!!!1! They are still standing, cleverly hidden by a Someone Else’s Problem Field, with a big fan to simulate the wind blowing through the supposedly-empty space. The inside of the Towers have been gutted, and replaced by a giant antfarm. The combined intelligence of the zillions of ants scurrying through the farm is harnessed by a carefully-designed pile of rotten crocoduck eggs, and feed into the giant invisible rainbow carefully anchored in the gap between the two towers.

    The other end of the rainbow floats around in outer space. Thus the world’s stupidity is safely discarged, preventing the Sun from falling onto the Earth.

  22. Billy says

    At first, I didn’t realize his Poe-status. I guess that’s what makes him Poe…

    Interesting thought: anyone whom you think right away is a Poe is, by definition, not a Poe! Ha.
    (don’t worry, I am not being totally serious in the above statement. I know that “Poe” status refers to what the masses think, not what a single person thinks, yadda yadda)

  23. Teleprompter says

    Edward Current is uproarious. I love his videos.

    And to think, I originally thought he was serious…

    Sigh. But he’s still hilarious.

  24. Curt Cameron says

    For you Ron Paul supporters who are offended, you must not be aware of the 9/11 “Truth Movement.” If you had scanned some of the darker corners of the interwebs from late 2005 to some time in 2008, you couldn’t seem to avoid these nuts, and they all seemed to support Ron Paul.

  25. says

    “Ask any Ron Paul supporter!”

    Two questions.

    1) What’s with Ron Paul supporters and the 9/11 Truth movement?

    2) What’s with Ron Paul having so many supporters in the first place?

    1) There are some who will latch on to someone that fulfills their particular delusion in any way. It’s more fair to say “What’s with some Ron Paul supporters.” The nuts aren’t a majority of us, even though they are outspoken and embarrass us frequently.

    2) Some of us are willing to look past the flaws in a candidate because his message resonates with us. Ron Paul is a Christian, I am an atheist. Ron Paul opposes abortion, I do not. Ron Paul has made statements that indicate that he believes there is a “New World Order” conspiracy, I do not.

    Despite the fact that I see those as character flaws, I still think that the vast majority of what he says is right and that he was the best candidate for President that ran.

    We can’t have everything we want in a candidate, it’s just not possible that a candidate can belong to every “clan” (school of thought, ideology, club, group, etc.) and humans are a very clan-forming species. The best we can do is look for candidates that have favorable views and minimal flaws (or at least flaws that won’t harm anyone but the candidate’s own image).

  26. gypsytag says

    ohh this is going to attract a few libertarians.

    Cry havoc and let lose the dogs of war….

  27. Sastra says

    Ward S. Denker #44 wrote:

    … Ron Paul has made statements that indicate that he believes there is a “New World Order” conspiracy, I do not.
    Despite the fact that I see those as character flaws, I still think that the vast majority of what he says is right and that he was the best candidate for President that ran.

    I usually stay out of the political debates, but this rather startled me. I can understand compromising on a candidates views on religion, abortion, even war. Possibly even 9-11 truther or alt med promoter(though that would be pushing it.)

    But a belief in a “New World Order” conspiracy?

    Not only is this a different level of wacky, but I think it’s a rather significant type of wacky to have in a president of the United States. It’s hard to dismiss as a “character flaw.” I’d put it on the same level as Palin believing that we’re living in the End Times, and the inevitable Armaggedon is a welcome opportunity for those who will be Raptured.

    No … where … near … the … button…

  28. dreikin says

    Billy @38 said:

    At first, I didn’t realize his Poe-status. I guess that’s what makes him Poe…

    Interesting thought: anyone whom you think right away is a Poe is, by definition, not a Poe! Ha.

    Interesting thought. I wonder why that is, and how often it holds? First, as you suggested, let’s word it better:

    1. def: Poe’s Law: definition
    2. def: Poe (n., sing.): (for the purposes of this document) Any statement or document that satisfies the following conditions:
      1. It is within the realm of Poe’s Law, and
      2. Given a sufficiently large group with members representing a bell curve from fundamentalist to non-fundamentalist, there is not enough sufficient information within the item under consideration to identify it as authentic or a parody – ie, the probability of it being either authentic or a parody can NOT be assigned a P ≤ 0.05 based on the average group.
    3. Poe rating (n., sing.): Given a group as mentioned in the previous section, the Poe rating is the expected (theoretical PR – TPR) or actual (APR) average rating received by a given item, using a scale from 0 (“Definitely a parody”) to 10 (“Definitely authentic”), with five being “Can’t Decide”. This is then normalized to the range 0 – 1.0 by dividing by 10.
    4. question: For the set of known Poe’s, what is the average Poe rating for the group of (a) authentic and (b) parody items?
    5. Hypothesis 1: The average PR for parodies will be closer to 1.0 (“Definitely authentic) than the average PR for authentic items.
    6. Hypothesis 2: (reverse Hypothesis 1)
    7. Hypothesis (Null): No difference in average PR.
    8. Guess Statement: Hypothesis 1 is expected to be verified as authentic documents are more likely to contain that touch of insanity/unreality/ignorance/delusion that makes people go “wtf? that can’t be right/real?!?”, due to a potentially greater number of untreated psychiatric illnesses in the fundamentalist groups, some of which believe going to doctors and/or psychiatrists to be unnecessary, evil, a sign of failure on the members’ part, or other similar characterizations.

    Sounds like a Thesis for someone to take up. Any psych majors in the house?

  29. 'Tis Himself says

    Ron Paul is also a racist. I know that he’s claimed that he didn’t write the racist articles in his newslettera. But they appeared in newsletters with his name on the banner. So either he approved the articles or he’s such a sloppy manager that he doesn’t know or care what gets published under his name. Either way, he’s not presidential material.

  30. says

    Sastra,

    He’s nowhere near a ‘loony’ about it, he’s actually rather tame and when he says it he’s careful to say exactly what he means by it so that it can’t be misconstrued unless someone is actively trying to (which, of course, there are).

    He believes his faith is a personal matter and has no bearing on how the country should be run. That’s the same perspective atheists have. The wall of separation means the same thing to him that it does to us. That attitude is good enough for me.

    Shaden Freud,

    He’s also rather old and traditional. What, exactly, does agreeing with the theory of evolution have to do with running the country? A personal belief that does not impact how the rest of us live our lives may be silly, but it’s hard to fault him for it. You probably don’t care if you garbage collectors accept the theory of evolution either, all you care is that they take your garbage.

  31. Dean says

    What’s wrong with Ron Paul?

    He didn’t mind renting out his newsletter to the most extreme racists around
    His economic ideas are foolish – a little research into the economic turndowns of previous centuries show how bad things would be now if his ideas were implemented
    He’s a paranoid conspiracy theorist
    He couldn’t spell science if you spotted him all the way to the final c
    His views on American isolationism harken back to things in the early 1900s
    Evolution denier/intelligent design/creationist mindset

    Other than that, nothing is wrong. He probably takes very good care of his dog.

    What’s wrong with his supporters? You can’t make a sweeping statement about any large group of people – I don’t see an answer to this question.

  32. says

    Controlled demolition. And the how and why? Well, after the towers were attacked and COULD have fallen the first time, the New York Department of People Safety (or whatever) decided that ALL the tall building in New York were to be pre-wired IN CASE they were attacked again.

    The government wanted to make sure the buildings would fall straight down and not topple over, doing considerably more damage in the process.

    That’s must MY theory. Something VERY HOT burnt in a near oxygen free environment SEVERAL STORIES BELOW GROUND for WEEKS. Thermite/thermate? Pick and choose.

    Enjoy.

  33. Neil B ☺ says

    Just aside from the context, etc: I don’t really think much of Occam’s razor. It isn’t a strict logical necessity, not a formal requirement. It seems to be a hunch, a rule of thumb expressing a hopeful belief about the universe: simple explanations are more likely to be true. Well, what if they aren’t? I know there’s a case that “that’s where we start” as procedure, but really OR doesn’t impress me much. BTW it is a straw man to pretend, that criticism of OR implies the preferability of the opposite etc.

  34. Tulse says

    He’s nowhere near a ‘loony’ about it

    “No where near a ‘loony’ about” a New World Order and a 9/11 conspiracy?!? Believing either of those pretty much defines ‘loony’. There is no fucking way you should want someone like to control one of the world’s largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

  35. Don Smith, FCD says

    I happen to know 2 Ron Paul supporters and both of them feel that there may be something to the 9/11 conspiracy theories. I think the explanation lies in the fact that loons government conspiracy theorists would be attracted to the minimalist government stance rather than saying Libertarians are all loony.

  36. Shaden Freud says

    Ward #53 wrote:

    Shaden Freud,
    He’s also rather old and traditional.

    Prof. George Coyne is older and a Catholic priest, and he accepts evolution. But I digress….

    What, exactly, does agreeing with the theory of evolution have to do with running the country? A personal belief that does not impact how the rest of us live our lives may be silly, but it’s hard to fault him for it. You probably don’t care if you garbage collectors accept the theory of evolution either, all you care is that they take your garbage.

    To reject evolution is to reject a fundamental aspect of science and to espouse a position held almost exclusively by would-be theocrats – a person with that view has no business appointing people who shape national science and education policies and, perhaps more importantly, can’t be trusted to heed the advice and expertise of the scientific community. And I do care if Mr. Garbage Collector accepts evolution, just like I care if any non-scientist accepts it, since the scientific community can’t exist in a vacuum without the support and understanding of the general public.

  37. lytefoot says

    @#58:

    Well, OR doesn’t say that the simplest explanation is probably true, just that it’s probably best. So what do we mean by ‘best’? We mean, in most contexts, most likely to have predictive and explanatory power, most likely to be useful in building theories. In order to get predictive power, we definitely want the simplest theory that fits the evidence. OR relies on a conception of a universe in which “true” is a question for philosophers–from a methodological standpoint, there isn’t any definition of “true” other than “fits all the evidence.” So OR says that the simplest “true” answer is the best answer.

    In similar thoughts… does anyone else get annoyed with this idea that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”? Ordinary evidence would be perfectly sufficient. What doesn’t serve for extraordinary claims is flimsy evidence. Of course, apparently-flimsy evidence for ordinary claims is normally backed up by experience. If I tell you that my cat puked in my shoe, you’re likely to believe me based on experience of cats and puking. On the other hand, if I tell you that an alien had sex with my cat, you might want some evidence.

  38. says

    That requires not so much a large base as a large pair of pants.

    Upon proofreading it I, too, noticed the phrasing led to an accidental secondary, funnier meaning. I elected to leave it that way for that very reason. ;)

    Dean,

    Your first argument is simply ad hominem, guilt by association.

    His economic ideas are exactly correct and it’s yours that are wrong. His economic advisor for his campaign was Peter Schiff. Take a look at Peter Schiff repeatedly predicting the current financial crisis and the reception he got. Ron Paul has been saying the exact same things as Schiff for years. Watch it and be honest with yourself about the conclusions being reached.

    I’ve written an essay on my own blog about the same things (and you were the one that brought up economics, so don’t claim derail afterward).

  39. 'Tis Himself says

    His economic ideas are exactly correct and it’s yours that are wrong. His economic advisor for his campaign was Peter Schiff.

    Another libertarian trying to push his wacko socio-economic fantasies. Killfile.

  40. WTFWJD says

    How enlightening. Now I understand that avalanches don’t start by themselves, nor do floods, rainstorms, volcanoes, wildfires, housefires, forest fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, or hurricanes. God causes them. I’m going to sue that sumbitch into the poorhouse!

  41. dreikin says

    Neil B @58:

    I don’t really think much of Occam’s razor. It isn’t a strict logical necessity, not a formal requirement. It seems to be a hunch, a rule of thumb expressing a hopeful belief about the universe: simple explanations are more likely to be true.

    For the most part. It’s also often called the principle of parsimony, so yeah it’s not a necessity. There are better ways to state the principle that might address, or make more certain, your views.

    As I see it, OR is thus: “For a set of evidence, the explanation that best accounts for the evidence is most likely to be the one with the least significant set of assumptions, given that it correctly predicts all the data”. One important part is that it’s not necessarily the least number of assumptions – if two explanations require only one assumption each and correctly predict the evidence, then the one with the least extraordinary assumption is most likely to be correct. The other important, and frequently unstated, part is that an explanation should also predict all of the data, and this trumps the first part (stated) part – if it predicts the data better, it wins. (Note that I never said “match” – it has to predict)

  42. Sastra says

    Neil B. #58 wrote:

    Just aside from the context, etc: I don’t really think much of Occam’s razor. It isn’t a strict logical necessity, not a formal requirement. It seems to be a hunch, a rule of thumb expressing a hopeful belief about the universe: simple explanations are more likely to be true.

    As I’ve had it explained to me, Occam’s razor is not making a statement about the universe (ie. that it’s more likely to be simple than not.) Many times, the universe turns out to be far more complex than we thought it was. Aristotle’s 4 elements were ‘simpler’ than the periodic table.

    Instead, it’s an epistemic tool that reminds us that we are “simple” — that is, fallible. When we make our theories and hypotheses more complicated than the evidence warrants, we place ourselves in a position where we can’t be proven wrong. Positing an invisible, untestable dragon in what looks like an empty garage violates our scientific commitment to humility. If we are wrong, nobody can show us. We can’t find out. Our view is unassailable.

    There may actually be an invisible, untestable dragon in the garage. But Occam’s razor has to do with what we’re justified in believing. It doesn’t cut the dragon out of reality. It cuts us down to size.

  43. says

    Another libertarian trying to push his wacko socio-economic fantasies. Killfile.

    Disingenuous much? A statement was made was untrue, I provide evidence to back up my claim that it was untrue, and I’m “pushing” something?

  44. dreikin says

    In similar thoughts… does anyone else get annoyed with this idea that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”?

    Not really – I figure the evidence that aliens had landed would be nearly as extraodinary as the event itself. “The evidence for surprising/interesting claims would be just as surprising/interesting” just doesn’t have the same ring..

    On another note, how about combining Occam’s Razor and Information (my degree? from University of Google)? Science is the search for the best compression algorithm for our Universe!

  45. E.V. says

    Something VERY HOT burnt in a near oxygen free environment SEVERAL STORIES BELOW GROUND for WEEKS.

    OMG, someone better alert those people in the subway and the NYC city service workers, SEVERAL STORIES BELOW GROUND, that they’re working and riding in a near oxygen free environment of tunnels and vent shafts!!!

  46. E.V. says

    Let’s see, I forgot what burning in a low oxygen environment was called… smoldering perhaps? And what was one of the properties of smoldering… hmmm…
    Slow burning? And thermite burns how quickly?

  47. says

    The scary thing is that the first time I ran across one of his videos, I skipped it. It reeked so much of stupid I thought it was real born again stupid! What good camouflage.

    Has anyone considered writing an intelligent design book that’s intended to help make the intelligent design movement look stupid at critical times? You know, you could write something with explosive charges wired to critical paragraphs, then take thousands of dollars from creationists to serve as a testifying witness during a big trial and then – BOOM – lean on the lever and just blow the whole thing to pieces… Wouldn’t that be hysterical?

  48. truckboattruck says

    From Dean, #54:

    What’s wrong with Ron Paul?
    He didn’t mind renting out his newsletter to the most extreme racists around

    He let an idiot run his newsletter while he was a Congressman and full time doctor. He made a mistake. He has owned up to this mistake.

    I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, apparently Dean, you don’t.

    His economic ideas are foolish – a little research into the economic turndowns of previous centuries show how bad things would be now if his ideas were implemented

    It is nice to learn that a currency that is backed by something and is hard to inflate or devalue is foolish AND that spending less then we take in is also foolish.

    Dean, are you running our banks?

    He’s a paranoid conspiracy theorist

    Evidence, please.

    He couldn’t spell science if you spotted him all the way to the final c

    He is a doctor. What are your science credentials?

    His views on American isolationism harken back to things in the early 1900s

    Yeah, that whole Iraq-war-thing has been such a boon to America! What was Ron thinking apposing that?!?

    He advocates a peaceful and friendly coexistence with other countries — why on earth would we want that?!?

    Evolution denier/intelligent design/creationist mindset
    Other than that, nothing is wrong. He probably takes very good care of his dog.

    Ron Paul is no messiah, and I don’t recall seeing his claim that he is, in fact, perfect. His simple statement that his religious beliefs are a private matter are, IMO, a much better position that that of 99% of American politicians. And as someone who is in his mid 70’s, I think he is doing better than most of his peers.

    You may not agree with any of his political or philosophical points-of-view, but last time I checked, he didn’t march us into war, isn’t trying to force his religion on anyone, didn’t spend us into debt and he fights for personal freedom. I give him kudos for all 4.

    Further, he is a doctor, a veteran and someone who has served his country in more avenues than most — to attack him like he is a piece of garbage that deserves to be wiped from your shoe is douche-bag behavior. Congrats Dean.

  49. Brownian says

    Further to Neil B.’s and Sastra’s comments about OR:

    Occam’s Razor is actually rather explicit in what it claims is the ‘simplest’ explanation, that being the theory that invokes the fewest entities in order to explain the evidence in question. As Sastra correctly notes, it’s a rein on us more than a claim about the nature of the universe. Since it explicitly warns us not to multiply entities or untested assumptions unnecessarily, it forces us to look for explanations among what we already know before we run off to invoke whatever we want ad hoc.

    Though it’s often rendered as ‘the simplest explanation is usually the best’, I think it’s preferable to think of OR as a guide imploring us to choose “the hypothesis that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities.” It’s a method by which we keep theories testable and thus scientific.

    The universe may in fact contain more entities than we’ve accounted for in our theories, but OR handles that by ensuring we invoke new ones only when absolutely necessary.

  50. Brownian says

    I see PZ used OR by deleting the unnecessary ‘R’ in Current’s name in the title of this post.

    *ducks and runs*

  51. says

    the New York Department of People Safety (or whatever) decided that ALL the tall building in New York were to be pre-wired IN CASE they were attacked again.

    I know you’re just parodying the conspiracy retards. But…

    It’s always instructive to ask them about the wires. “What wires?” The wires to all the cutting charges wrapped around all the i-beams. Whenever CDI blows a building, they run assloads (that’s the technical term) of wires between the firing controllers and the charges. And the charges have to be wrapped around critical supports, which usually means knocking big holes in drywall or whatever (CDI usually works in buildings that have been gutted) I feel really bad for all those poor workers in the WTC who were stepping around all the wires and dust and having to pretend not to see any of it. But the guys I really really feel sorry for are the poor schmucks who had to move all the charges up in those annoying elevators, it must have taken weeks of work to set all that up.

    I don’t see why people don’t just adopt “goddidit” as a conspiracy theory. You can’t disprove it. You just can’t.

  52. Jeanette says

    DaveG @55: What is that supposed to do? I went to that link, created an account, typed in Edward Current and clicked subscribe, so now I have a page on there with a bunch of atheism-themed videos, almost all of which are not by Ed Current. I usually get to his and other videos by searching by name, but I still have to do that. What is the point of “subscribing” on there? It doesn’t seem to do anything.

  53. 'Tis Himself says

    truckboattruck #74

    He let an idiot run his newsletter while he was a Congressman and full time doctor. He made a mistake. He has owned up to this mistake.

    He owned up to his “mistake” when he got caught. Do you honestly think that he didn’t spend ten minutes a month looking at the newsletter that came out with his name on the banner? If after the first racist article came out he’d put a little one or two paragraph statement in the next newsletter saying something to the effect “X wrote a racist article in my last newsletter, I will never publish anything by X again and I apologize for any distress X’s article may have caused” then there’d be no problem. But the racist articles were published for years.

    Paul is either a racist or so negligent about his reputation that he doesn’t care what’s printed under his name. Since every Paul supporter claims that he’s an exceptionally smart guy, the odds he’s a racist seem pretty good.

  54. KnockGoats says

    Ron Paul:
    creationist, NWO conspiracy theorist, misogynist, racist, AGW denialist. He’s not just loony, he’s loony in ways that would have been extremely dangerous if he’d become POTUS – and that’s not to mention his loopy economic ideas. (Yes, yes, we all know his favourite economist predicted the asset/credit bubble would burst. So did many other economists, from a wide range of viewpoints, not to mention many non-economists from an even wider range.)

    Isn’t it amazing, BTW, how the “libertarians” will hijack any thread if RP is criticised? If you want evidence that most libertarians, at least, are nutters, just consider the fact that they supported Ron Paul.

  55. says

    Huh. I like a good send-up of fundies as much as the next person, but based on what I’ve seen, I don’t think Ed Current is very funny. His timing is awful, and his ideas aren’t very insightful. I’ve only seen a couple — maybe someone can point me to one of his better vids?

  56. Jeanette says

    DaveG @55: Never mind, I figured it out. (In the unlikely event that there may be someone out there who’s as technologically inept as I am, you click on the Ed Current video and can subscribe from there.)

  57. Matt7895 says

    Edward Current is great, and I appreciated his mention of Ron Paul too. I’m astounded that there are atheists on this blog who are Ron Paul supporters… the man is a bigot and a religious nut.

  58. Emily says

    I always appreciate the comparison of religion to a conspiracy theory– after all, some Christians ultimately attribute the 9/11 attacks to God’s desire to kill pagans, gays, and feminists.

  59. Neil B ☺ says

    Thanks for intelligent and mostly convincing responses about OR. However I noticed use of “best” which is a tricky word, not clear as to what it means by itself. Also, about evidence for believing etc: it is not necessary IMHO to either believe or not, it should be on a continuum and qualified in various ways. Really, someone may tell you what happened and you have no idea how to check, you make a judgment call etc.

    In any case, get a kick out of this weird singing religious green gremlin. But wait a few minutes before jumping to conclusions:

    http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.rawilson/browse_frm/thread/8a0baecf5fe92c05#

    http://www.fiveshock.com/ran/scary.html

  60. Neil B says

    PS: About libertarians, ironic how they deign themselves the most rational political movement, is it?

  61. thuvia says

    This is the first time I’m run across anything by Curent and I thought he was a real fundie until I saw the Easter bunny and the porn vid cover. Thanks for turning me on to him, now I can’t get enough!!

  62. Feynmaniac says

    Neil B,

    Just aside from the context, etc: I don’t really think much of Occam’s razor. It isn’t a strict logical necessity, not a formal requirement. It seems to be a hunch, a rule of thumb expressing a hopeful belief about the universe: simple explanations are more likely to be true.

    There is a formal statement of Occam’s Razor, the Minimum
    Description Length Principle
    .

  63. truckboattruck says

    From ‘Tis Himself, #81:

    He owned up to his “mistake” when he got caught. Do you honestly think that he didn’t spend ten minutes a month looking at the newsletter that came out with his name on the banner? If after the first racist article came out he’d put a little one or two paragraph statement in the next newsletter saying something to the effect “X wrote a racist article in my last newsletter, I will never publish anything by X again and I apologize for any distress X’s article may have caused” then there’d be no problem. But the racist articles were published for years.
    Paul is either a racist or so negligent about his reputation that he doesn’t care what’s printed under his name. Since every Paul supporter claims that he’s an exceptionally smart guy, the odds he’s a racist seem pretty good.

    Geez, just want I wanted to be involved in today… a Ron Paul discussion…

    The newsletter was published before the internet came into existence, which might not seem like a huge deal, but monitoring its content wasn’t just a simple mouse-click. Do I think it is possible that this man was a full time Congressman and practicing physician and didn’t monitor a newsletter with his name on it? Yes. Absolutely. As I’m willing to bet that Congresspeople are quite busy; I know that doctors can be extremely/blindingly busy to a fault. Again, it was before the internet. He had shit to do. And more so as evidenced by the fact that all of the articles from this newsletter that contained these comments bear no similarity or resemblance at all to his other writings.

    So yes, I will give him the benefit of the doubt. Nothing he did before, during or since suggests he shares those ideals… actually, his actions, writings and comments show the opposite viewpoint.

    And I’m not arguing for him to be President, I’m simply offering a bit of defense as I think he deserves a modicum of respect as I’ve never gone to war for my country, I haven’t delivered a literal ton of babies, I haven’t been a Congressman… and I haven’t been able to keep a healthy relationship for 5 years, let alone the 50 that he and his wife share.

    And just a quick note for those that lean Left here — a good number of Libertarians are atheists. We are you, in a sense. We don’t all believe crazy stuff and we aren’t knocking down doors to get rid of public education or to abolish the Federal Reserve. Conversely, we realize that you all aren’t forcing us to ride bikes everywhere and/or eat tofu. How about a freaking olive branch once in a while.

  64. Pierce R. Butler says

    The crowning touch didn’t even come from Brother Curent: that “Sexed-up Atheism-Dawkins” ad provided by YouTube-Google was hyphenatically-miraculous!

  65. Pierce R. Butler says

    truckboattruck @ # 97: The newsletter was published before the internet came into existence… Do I think it is possible that this man was a full time Congressman and practicing physician and didn’t monitor a newsletter with his name on it? Yes. Absolutely.

    Before the Internet, there was something called the grapevine. Since Paul had a newsletter published under his name for many years, with frequent racist content, either he didn’t care to check on what was being done to his own reputation, or not one of his readers ever thought it worth mentioning to him, or he never associated with any of his readers. None of those possibilities reflects well on his judgment (as if the majority of his political positions hadn’t long since forced a conclusion on that…).

  66. 'Tis Himself says

    truckboattruck #97

    Do I think it is possible that this man was a full time Congressman and practicing physician and didn’t monitor a newsletter with his name on it? Yes. Absolutely.

    If you believe that you must be a libertarian or brain-damaged in some other grotesque way.

    The guy is a politician. If something is going out with his name on it, he will want to know what it says. Because if it says something that could hurt him he wants to know about it before it goes out. It takes me about 10 minutes to read a four page (quarto) news letter. Let’s say that Paul’s reading speed is half of mine. He can’t take 20 minutes out of his busy month to read a newsletter with his name on it? You might believe that but I doubt you’ll be able to convince too many other people about something so silly.

    I insulted your intelligence in my first paragraph. That’s because you insulted mine with your “Paul was much too busy to read his own newsletter” bullshit.

  67. says

    Re: Ron Paul and his racist newsletter.

    If you are too busy to read the newsletter with your name on it, take your name off of it. I am astonished that a group of ideologues who endlessly honk about “personal responsibility” would make such lame excuses for a major lapse (if that’s what it truly was). And who are these racist friends who convinced him to let them put his name on their rag?

    And now for something completely different:

    What’s really great is knowing that several youtube xtians have added him as a ‘friend,’ unaware of the blatant satire.

    I’m not sure if it’s still up but some years ago I checked and saw that some creationists have also continued to link to the “Darwin disproved” hoax page from their creationists sites without realizing it was a hoax. And a physicist named Alan D. Sokal wrote a hoax article “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity” that some post-modernist and deconstructionist nitwits continue to cite in their own papers. It’s delightful when idiots parody themselves.

  68. Aaron says

    Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter controversy –

    I’ll admit, as he admitted – numerous times after 2001 – that he should have paid closer attention to what was being published under his name. It was wrong, but nothing else that has ever been attributed to him has ever borne sentiments like those.

    Lets consider this in comparison to some other popular issues this election cycle, that I’m sure will get plenty of you riled up:

    *** Someone, or some people, used Ron Paul’s name to publish a newsletter in which numerous derogatory comments were made. You ask “And who are these racist friends who convinced him to let them put his name on their rag?” Ron Paul, nor anyone else, can name who wrote these articles. Some close friend these writers were.

    *** Barrack Obama was and is at the very least a family friend of Bill Ayers, who is an self-admitted terrorist. It is even known as fact, that Ayers has contributed to Obama’s campaign.

    So in short, Dr. Paul is loosely connected to a filthy piece of writing (no actions – nothing but words) by a completely unknown author, and Barrack Obama is connected by friendship and campaign contributions from someone who set bombs to destroy property and harm living people.

    I’m a Ron Paul supporter. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, and I don’t like Barrack Obama or his policies, ideas, etc. But I don’t think that the Ayers controversy is anything that should soil Obama’s reputation, and I don’t think that this stupid newsletter should soil Paul’s reputation. Look at their deeds, not political friends. All of Paul’s writings, introduced legislation, speeches, etc. back up his claim that those are not his thoughts.

  69. Aaron says

    Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter controversy –

    I’ll admit, as he admitted – numerous times after 2001 – that he should have paid closer attention to what was being published under his name. It was wrong, but nothing else that has ever been attributed to him has ever borne sentiments like those.

    Lets consider this in comparison to some other popular issues this election cycle, that I’m sure will get plenty of you riled up:

    *** Someone, or some people, used Ron Paul’s name to publish a newsletter in which numerous derogatory comments were made. You ask “And who are these racist friends who convinced him to let them put his name on their rag?” Ron Paul, nor anyone else, can name who wrote these articles. Some close friend these writers were.

    *** Barrack Obama was and is at the very least a family friend of Bill Ayers, who is an self-admitted terrorist. It is even known as fact, that Ayers has contributed to Obama’s campaign.

    So in short, Dr. Paul is loosely connected to a filthy piece of writing (no actions – nothing but words) by a completely unknown author, and Barrack Obama is connected by friendship and campaign contributions from someone who set bombs to destroy property and harm living people.

    I’m a Ron Paul supporter. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, and I don’t like Barrack Obama or his policies, ideas, etc. But I don’t think that the Ayers controversy is anything that should soil Obama’s reputation, and I don’t think that this stupid newsletter should soil Paul’s reputation. Look at their deeds, not political friends. All of Paul’s writings, introduced legislation, speeches, etc. back up his claim that those are not his thoughts.

  70. truckboattruck says

    Nice to see the personal attacks don’t stop. How very Christian of you, Tis Himself. Question: Have you walked in the shoes of a Congressperson? Or in the shoes of a doctor running a practice? I know people from both lines very well and, as a point of order, a physician friend of mine routinely works a 100+ hour week. Simply doing the math would suggest that that doesn’t leave much time for anything else outside of sleep, let alone being a Congressperson and/or dealing with a family.

    Again, I happen to give people the benefit of the doubt — esp. when everything they’ve ever produced in their entire lives is in stark contrast to the off-issue being discussed.

    You don’t have to respect or give two-shits for Ron Paul, but when I saw people attacking him in a manner I felt unjust, I spoke up. I would imagine you would do the same if you were in a similar situation.

    And yes, I do believe him ignoring his newsletter was a monumentally bone-headed mistake… and his punishment for that sin: People call him a racist til the day he dies.

  71. Tulse says

    Simply doing the math would suggest that that doesn’t leave much time for anything else outside of sleep, let alone being a Congressperson and/or dealing with a family.

    So lemme get this straight: The excuse is a doctor in Congress doesn’t have time to do his job right?

  72. melior says

    Sorry, but Ron Paul is well-known as one of our long time local Congressmen here in Houston, and there’s simply no way anyone can say they are rational and also a Ron Paul supporter unless they’re seriously undermedicated.

    The claim that Ron Paul had no idea what was being said in his own newsletters is just too laughable. He’s been cranking those out since at least 1978, calling it variously Ron Paul’s Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report, and The Ron Paul Investment Letter. They’re chock full of supportive words of advice for militia members, rightwing glibertarian loonieness, and all kinds of insane rants against blacks, Joos, black Joos, Teh Ghey, MLK, and the secret one world government plans of the Trilateral Commission. Oh, and how you can Profit! from Gold!

    Down here, he regularly appears on kookoo-bananas Alex Jones’ radio show to rant about conspiracies by the Trilateral Commission, the “industrial-banking-political elite” and his paranoia that the US, Mexico and Canada are going to create a unified currency called the “Amero”. He prides himself on voting no on every bill in Congress, no matter what it is.

    You might get a more sympathetic response if you try one of the fundagelical creationist sites though. They’re used to suspending disbelief.

  73. Graculus says

    simple explanations are more likely to be true.

    That isn’t what Occam’s Razor actually states, so the poster rejecting Occam’s razor on these grounds is rejecting a strawman.

    Occam’s Razor is “Don’t multiply entities unecessarily”, it says nothing about the potential for complex interactions between those entities.

  74. truckboattruck says

    Tulse, no, you didn’t get it right. In fact, it appears that you’ve misunderstood the argument entirely.

    Anywho, let’s apply Occam’s razor to this Ron-Paul-is-a-racist-it-says-so-in-his-newsletter thing.

    Which offers the simpler explanation:

    1. That a service veteran, sitting US Congressman and physician — with 30+ years spent in public service and running a family practice, someone whose very livelihood (on multiple fronts) depends on him being liked by the public as a whole — decided to out himself as a racist in his newsletter in a voice that completely differs from every other piece he had written or from any speech he had delivered.

    or…

    2. That this same person simply ignored said newsletter due to time constraints as others wrote racially charged pieces?

    IMO, the first option seems improbable given that Paul was a sitting public official and practicing physician while the 2nd option seems highly plausible given the many items I’ve stated above. Obviously, many here, along with those who lead perfect/mistake-free lives, will continue to disagree.

  75. WTF says

    I’m non believer and Paul supporter. He says what needs to be said as far as government, the free market, the economy(he predicted this crisis), and war(is against it). Yeah I think he’s a creationist, which is laughable, but like someone said earlier his good far exceeds the bad. Obama is better poison than Mccain, but Ron Paul was ideal for me.

  76. IhateRonPaul says

    Ward S. Denker: So you’ll just take the word of proven liars that for one day, and one day only, a steel frame building could collapse due to fire while for all the rest of time it can’t? And that a plane could move “more as a liquid than a solid” through a hole far too small to fit the plane?

    Please! Anyone who claims to know what happened on 9/11 is going too far. But the only claim we know not to be true is the “official” story, which is clearly false.

  77. says

    “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is interesting, because it is probably unavoidably true in any attempt to reason about the world, but is against the simplified version of how we talk about science working (as falsification).

    Someone on a comment thread here gave a good example of how we need the principle. If a friend in the Yukon called and said they had a moose in their garden this morning you’d accept it as true. If a friend in Toronto told you the same you’d think they were kidding but if they showed you paw-prints you’d accept it. If a friend in Honolulu said they’d had a moose in their garden and showed you paw-prints you’d assume they faked the paw prints to mess with you.

    And it is the same in science. If someone finds remains that look like rabbit bones at a location in Great Britain amongst stuff dated some time after the Roman conquest, that would be taken as good data for the spread of rabbits. If someone had what looked like rabbits in the Precambrian people would look pretty closely for other explanations before accepting it.

    Bayesian statistics formalises this sort of reasoning quite nicely.

  78. Africangenesis says

    It is rather strange Ron Paul is the libertarian that has became nationally prominent. His religious faith and susceptibility to conspircy theories and anti-abortion stance are not typical of libertarian, so these must appeal to a broader constituency. I know I thought his run for the Republican nomination was counter productive. I thought that mentally he had slipped, his message was shrill and repetitive and he made a bad choice to exploit the enthusiasm of the 9/11 truthers rather than disassociating himself from them.

    BTW, I don’t think the racism that got into his newsletters is generally known in the libertarian community, this is the first I’ve heard of it.

    While I appreciate the advantages of and desire for a hard currency, I don’t see any practical proposals that would serve the purpose of today’s global economy. Gold’s value is too speculatively subjective. Even the US economy in the wake of the oil crisis of the 70s became too energy efficient per dollar of GDP for energy to serve as a basis of the currency. Perhaps a basket of commodities is the solution, however, as we have seen in the recent crisis their price is prone to huge swings based upon economic expectations. I’ve listened to Ron Paul’s comments when the Federal Reserve chairman comes before the congressional committee, and he repetitively makes the same points and doesn’t think outside the box. Yes, the current fractional reserve banking system is largely responsible for the economic crisis, but this isn’t the only way to run a fiat money system.

  79. progressive homeschooler says

    Brilliant! I do wish he wouldn’t perpetuate the outdated stereotype of homeschoolers though. Homeschooling really has gone mainstream.