If anyone is in the Roseville area tomorrow, somewhere near Northwestern College, you might have an entertaining time if you drop in on a meeting of the Twin Cities Creation Science Association. I can’t even imagine what they’re going to say in this one.
God’s Design in Weather
Weather is more talked about
than any other topic. God has
arranged the weather system on
the earth. There are patterns to
this weather. How does a tornado
form? What causes hurricanes?
Why aren’t raindrops larger?
Science is about finding patterns
and then predicting what will
happen. The study of weather
allows us to think God’s thoughts
after him.
What does that even mean? Should someone bring up God’s apparent hatred of trailer parks?
gawd is ur supercomputer lulz
Prediction: the weather is going to be pretty amazing.
Experiment: look at this photograph of a tornado.
Result: Ooooh.
Conclusion: God sure is impressive.
More importantly, how’s god going to use weather to kill atheists and gays?
I want to think god’s thoughts! I want to commit genocide, just like he did in Noah’s time.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
fook mi, i just read this a second time and something occurred to me: if we study weather and the effects it has on, say, rocks… we might just be able to prove that the grand canyon was formed in 5.23 seconds during noah’s flood…
oh wait…
So if god created the tornado, why does he hate trailer parks so much? That would be a study worthy of the discotute.
As an Okie/Texican for the last three decades, I’m still running an unsuccessful campaign to have long lines of dummy mobile homes set up to lead those tornados out to, say, Orla, Texas. They can’t hurt much out there – they certainly won’t topple any trees – and the cacti need the rainfall.
“Science is about finding patterns and then predicting what will happen. The study of weather allows us to think God’s thoughts after him.”
So, doesn’t that mean meteorology is a sin? Thinking god’s thoughts before him? Weather prediction would mean presuming to know the mind of god. Is that why they hate science so much? Because it makes accurate predictions?
Pat Robertson tried his hand at meteorology. He sucked at it.
God seems to hate a lot of people along with the ones in trailer parks. He hates the poor, the sick, the gullible, the ignorant and the unattractive.
He appears to bestow a lot of favor on cheats, liars and criminals, particularly if they are involved in the religion business. Anyone know a poor TV evalgelist?
Surely God’s mind is most clearly revealed in the phenomenon of Virga. There you are, dying of thirst in the desert, while five kilometers above, it is raining. Clean, cool, life-restoring rain that will evaporate before it reaches you. Tantalizing. But it’s a pretty sight for your last moments.
They left out: Why are there rainbows?
Idiots.
An even more important question when you realize how many good atheist-hating fundies live in those trailer parks.
I’d be interested in an explanation, but I have the feeling it’ll be like all evidence we bring in–ignored, unless it (or some twisted interpretation) supports their preconceptions.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
“Weather is more talked about than any other topic. God has arranged the weather system on the earth. There are patterns to this weather. How does tornado form? What cause hurricanes? Why aren’t raindrops larger? How is babby formed?”
Fixed it for them.
I just can’t go back there. The last one of their meetings I went to left me depressed for two days. No exaggeration. One nearly weeps from the crazy. And it is crazy, not stupid. The great tragedy is, a lot of these people are really enthusiastic about learning, are intelligent, with good memories and quick minds. Minds that have been totally high-jacked by fun-house mirror view of reality that makes all of the efforts useless. They have a strangle-hold on a lens that guarantees distortion of every thought they think. I look on these otherwise good and well-meaning people and almost despair. They will let that lens walk them over a cliff before they admit that they are wrong about their god.
Speaking of weather, I sent the ten-day forecast to my girlfriend with a note that the fact that it will be 85 and sunny on Thursday, but 66 and raining on Saturday, as proof that there is no loving god. She replied that on the contrary, this state of affairs is too cruel to be random and can only be the work of a malicious god.
I wonder if that will come up at my alma mater, NWC?
What they are suggesting is something far more sensible.
Given that God hates lots of people, it is valuable to know who God hates the most at any given moment. To determine that, we can study the weather and find who has had the most horrific storms in the recent past. If it is California, for example, then we know that God hates the gays. If it is New York, then it must be the jews. If it is Texas, then God’s chosen people have not been following the true path and need to fix the science standards.
Religion, after all, is all about properly assigning blame.
Just remember that if you ascribe these patterns to any “material” causation, you’re a hell-bound atheist.
At least that’s how it is in biology.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
You should attend PZ, for the comedy alone. I wonder if there is anything like this in the Phoenix area.
http://www.TheNewAtheist.com
“How does a tornado form? What causes hurricanes?”
Why would a god allow any of that stuff to happen?
I’ll answer both questions using creationist logic: 1) Angle farts 2) Jesus flushing the potty
It must suck to live in a trailer park. Not only are you an easy target for a tornado, but everyone laughs at you for living in a trailer park.
You guys are forgetting that Rev Pat Robertson prayed a hurricane away from the Carolina coast. What more proof do you need about how god interacts with weather?
And why does California have such lovely weather, considering how many gheyz and libruls live there?
#5
God must hate poor people :(
OK, I’m English so may be missing something. Please correct me if so. But…
Do people actually choose to live in mobile homes and trailer parks? My impression was that it’s basically the poor and the otherwise dispossessed that live in these places, ie those that don’t have much choice but to do so.
So isn’t that article – particularly lines like ‘Do us a favour and move to Siberia’ quite harsh on said poor and needy?
I am asking this genuinely – I’ve been reading PZ long enough to doubt that he’s the type to endorse that kind of AynRandian compassion failure.
Somebody say it ain’t so.
My guess is that it’s a trap. He’s attracting all the gays and libruls over to sunny CA. When there’s enough of us, he’ll use an earthquake or tidal wave to smite us to ruin. Or maybe locusts and boils.
What are birds? We just don’t know.
I’m not sure if it is trailer parks god hates, or aluminum….
Years ago I lived in Ft. Myers, FL. Not exactly a hotbed of tornado activity, although I did see a few funnel clouds during my decade down there (none that I saw hit the ground – but I apparently did not see all of them).
One tornado decided to take a walk down the main street. Slipped right down the road until it came to a department store that had been converted to an auto shop. Lots and lots of aluminum garage doors. Only after eating the garage doors did it go for the trailer park in the next block. It fed well. It finally headed to the mall, took out some windows at Sears, and took flight into the sky. Fortunately, no deaths or even injuries.
Another brushed by the development I lived in – but only enough to snack on the aluminum gutters of my condo building and the next. It tipped over a BIG tree, then skedaddled…..
So my question to god is “Why do you hate aluminum? Did the conquistadors not kill enough Incans in your name to steal their aluminum figurines to sate you appetite?”
Doesn’t it all have something to do with God and the Angels going bowling?
And Bangladesh…
Yeah, Pat Robertson prayed that hurricane away from his horse farm and it wound up hitting Boston and killing a BU student. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
1) Angel farts
Angelic flatulence? This would imply they have an anus then. Interesting.
“The study of weather allows us to think God’s thoughts after him.”
Is that sentence even necessary? If you’re a theist, then studying everything in nature is just finding out “what God wanted.” The study of geology allows us to think God’s thoughts after him. The study of cosmology allows us to think God’s thoughts after him. Heck, the study of evolution allows us to think God’s thoughts after him. And the study of history! And psychology! And music appreciation! And cooking!
It’s all one big, fat, giant game of catch-up, trying to figure out what God has already thought into existence. Slapping a label like “God’s Design in Weather” on meteorology is like adding “by the grace of God” after every statement, empty and perfunctory and completely divorced from the actual processes and methods involved in discovering anything. It rained today — by the grace of God.
Unless, of course, they’re going to give God some actual input into the content of their study, and decide that tornadoes come from “sin,” and rainbows come from “grace.” And yes, we want to read those abstracts.
This looks and reads like a convention for school kids, so they can sit and listen to a science-y lecture brought down to their level. I don’t see a lot of “scientists” wrangling over differing theories here (Canopy vs. No-Canopy).
It is blasphemy to think gods thoughts for him. I’m not going near that meeting. There will probably be a tornado.
Those damn intelligently designed tornadoes doing the bid of this god to destroy towns, kill innocent people, even the deranged ones who believe in it, and to even destroy it’s houses of insanity (churches). And when the church is flattened along with fifty of the faithful, they give thanks that many lives were spared and they have this god’s blessing to rebuild for the next round of divine mayhem. Isn’t it just wonderful to have this god at your beck and call, whether you need it or don’t? Ah, religion,.
(awe + wonder) x ignorance = god
#29
Well angels and humans were created in his image.
All weather forecasters must be atheists, since they never have a fricking clue as to what God has planned.
Finisterre #22
Mobile homes are quite cheap compared to other forms of housing. In my town a two bedroom condominium apartment (flat) sells for about $100,000. A similarly sized mobile home costs about $60,000.
My theory has always been that tornadoes are not attracted to trailer parks, but created by them. Now that I know that GODDIDIT, we just have to study what kind of evil happens there that needs to be cleared away at regular intervals.
Which begs the question: for what purpose does a god require an anus?
Curiouser and curiouser.
arekksu #24
Birds. These mysterious, beautiful creatures, that came to our planet suddenly in 1962, are still an enigma today.
Finisterre, The term ‘mobile’ may be a bit of a stretch. Yeah, they can say in their best Southern Culture On The Skids voice, “My House Has Wheels” but they very rarely, if ever, are moved once they are set in place. And one of the main differences between a ‘mobile’ home and one built on a traditional slab or foundation is that the ‘mobile’ one depreciates, much like an automobile. And at the end of its mortgage, if it lasts that long, a ‘mobile’ home is more than ready for the scrap heap. There are exceptions, though, rare exceptions.
No, no, no, no. You have it all wrong. You are all complete fools, ignorant of the Lord’s ways. He wants the economic non-elite to live in trailers parks and suffer his wrath to test their faith and encourage others to be grateful for what they have! Can’t you understand God’s love? All good Christian soldiers should move to Tornada Alley to feel the fury of angelic flatulence and prove God’s love! Job would be proud! It’s what Jebus would do!
Trailers are for people who cannot get a mortgage.
For a trailer, you get a real estate agreement; trailers aren’t foreclosed, trailers are repossessed; trailers don’t appreciate in value, trailers lose value just like cars (there is even a blue book for them).
The worst part (and something a lot of people don’t realize): After a few years, trailers become immobile. People find out their lease is up, and they are told to move, and can’t. Basically all you can do is bulldoze the things, trying to move them will destroy it since it can’t take the vibrations anymore.
economic non-elite
I prefer the term economically unsophisticated myself.
I wonder if the TCCSA have considered inviting a PhD in Meteorology to the meeting? You know, to teach the controversy.
Does anyone have any non-anectotal evidence regarding the relative frequency of trailer park tornadic events? Anyone? Ha! Thought not.
Perhaps tornados are God’s way of relocating the poor bastards to placed they’ll be safe? It’s just that most people don’t survive the trip, but you can’t hold the Lord responsible for the poor shape most of these people keep their vessel (body) in.
If only. Using science to understand God has a long history, from Newton to Bacon and Mendel.
Unfortunately far from helping understand God it resulted in eliminating a need for God, as well as proving scripture to be either wrong or arbitrarily allegorical. So modern creationists abuse science by ignoring anything that might contradict scripture.
I find it baffling that if you do believe God created the Earth, and knowing that scripture is man made (whether or not God-breathed) that scripture always trumps Gods actual creation. It takes some skill, intelligence and education to read God’s actual creation, but if half the effort went into doing that rather than into apologetics, maybe we’d all learn something.
Not to mention that your rent can get hiked up until it kills you, but your home may not really be mobile anymore leaving you with no option but to vacate with nothing and little chance to buy even a new mobile.
For these people, “god” answers the question “why is there something instead of nothing? Why is there order instead of chaos?” So just by the fact that there is a reason hurricanes form and rain falls as droplets, this is supposed to be evidence that there is some cosmic mind putting the rules into place and making sure they’re followed. I’ve actually heard some fundies say that god is responsible for the strong nuclear force that holds atoms together, and that without god all reality would dissolve into incoherent, meaningless chaos. Basically it’s the classic appeal to incredulity: “I can’t imagine how all of this came to be, so my god must be responsible.”
Sastra: “If you’re a theist, then studying everything in nature is just finding out “what God wanted.” The study of geology allows us to think God’s thoughts after him. The study of cosmology allows us to think God’s thoughts after him. Heck, the study of evolution allows us to think God’s thoughts after him.”
Therefore, PZ and Dawkins and every other evolutionary biologist are theologians!
The National Organization for Marriage was right! There *IS* a storm coming!
Sigh. *facepalm*
Well that explains the eighty days straight of rain we get in the winters!
God must hate Washington and Oregon. It’s probably all the godless, amoral hipsters and crafty types in Portland.
Damn you, indie kids!!
Well they are doing “design science,” they’re just so intent upon hating god that they don’t know it.
That’s how ID is science without doing a damn thing. Convenient, no?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Has nobody mentioned lightning rods on church steeples?!?
I would almost be tempted to go. Heck, I’ve got the day off tomorrow and have nothing better to do. But I know that if I attended, I would probably be almost immediately driven into Lovecraftian madness.
So, what decides if it rains or not tomorrow, if god spits or swallows?
Oh no, my Ray Comfort Billbo Comic strip isn’t even an exaggeration anymore.
It’s impossible to satirize these guys!
Science is about finding patterns and then predicting what will happen. The study of weather allows us to think God’s thoughts after him.
Soo… science allows us to figure out stuff before it happens. Religion allows us to rationalize after it happens. Hmm. No, I think I’ll go with the science, thanks.
Although I’ve not studied it in any detail, I’m pretty sure the “evil” of which you speak revolves around the existence of malt liquor and Trans Ams in trailer parks.
Anybody wanna start a betting pool on how many Bachmann bumper stickers will be in the parking lot?
“Got to get me a trailer park,
So I can haul my world around”
A partial answer to Finisterre.
Just because it’s nonsense as posted, the word I meant to write was “Billboard”. Apologies for two comments.
Ray Comfort Billboard Comic
How about God’s inordinate fondness for causing droughts in Red States?
HMMMM maybe I don’t have anything else planned though I’d feel better if more atheists were going.
Sure, PZ, dis St. Paul which is closer to Roseville.
Anyhow, I will miss this event even though I live in St. Paul just south of Roseville.
Perfect.
That’s only a couple of blocks from my apartment. I do believe I’ll wander on over, do some deep breathing, and make my way in.
I’m a biochem grad student and have been getting spoiled by working with reasonable people all day. I need a dose of the ridiculous to keep me on my game.
You know what God must really hate? Lightning rods.
(And by “hate”, I mean lightning rods simply reject God’s love or some crap.)
“Weather is more talked about than any other topic.”
I think their celibacy/prudeness is showing. Weather? the most talked about topic? what kind of land are THEY living in?
@Alex #38
To shit on his creation?
We’re there dude!
(If the link doesn’t work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dcmFGQwoFc)
No more so than people who live in apartments. Mobile homes often cost more than living in an apartment because you have to pay for the home itself plus the rent on the land. Granted, some mobile homes are pretty shitty and shoddy, but then so are some apartments.
(Personal anecdote: I considered it an upgrade when I moved from a series of apartments to a double-wide mobile home years ago. Back in apartments now, though, due to a layoff and foreclosure.)
I’ve seen this pattern and I predict plenty of “teh dumb” accented by distortion, lack of comprehension and a big fat helping of lying.
God hates Whiskey Tango. Trufact.
Hence him designating trailer parks as hurricane and tornado magnets.
#72:samefag
Not sure if I want to take advantage of this newfangled Anon posting…
There’s no point in going to that meeting. Nobody’s going to show up. I have been assured repeatedly that nobody actually believes that God makes it rain, and that such beliefs are simply a strawman invented by us atheists. Therefore, the announcement must be some kind of hoax.
Or perhaps you’ll show up there and find a bunch of tweed-jacketed sophisticated theologians discussing Plantinga.
Screechy Monkey, I think you may be framing your comment with a thick layer of sarcasm! Yum.
Argh. Blockquote fail. Again!
The notion that disasters are attracted to mobile homes is not true. It’s sheerest superstition – like lucky rabbit foots or astrology or a building without a 13th floor. Mobile homes get in the disaster news because for many decades, in most of the US, mobile homes had the weakest building codes. This made them dreadfully vulnerable to any disaster, and dirt cheap to build. So huge staggering numbers of crappy mobile homes were built. Now people who buy them tend to be poor – and mobile homes tend lose value quickly – and they usually require one to rent pad space. So the people that buy them tend to stay poor, and have little choice but to keep living in their mobile home no matter how old and unsafe it becomes. So mobile homes aren’t more likely to be struck by disasters – they’re just more likely to be severely damaged or tossed about by any disasters that come their way.
(I know, it was a joke, it was funny, etc. It still doesn’t get a free pass.)
Tempting, however the “Free Will Offering” from a group as such sounds more like “Cover Charge.”
Just going through the comments, if Big Hairy Mike and a few others are actually planning on going, I may actually make it there. I am guessing this will be a small event and I could possibly take two creationists at once if we get jumped, Big Hairy Mike and a couple others should be able to handle the rest.
Here in eastern Kentucky, like eastern Tennessee, West Virginia and the rest of the Appalachian mountain region, trailers are common because they fit on the extremely narrow lots that are the only flat land in this steep hill region.
And while double-wides and “manufactured homes” are often the second-home residence of choice in vacation-home meccas in the Southwest, in true Tornado County of Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky trailer parks are indeed the home of the poor who have no options.
Snowflake Designs
Doesn’t everybody realize that God spends a lot of time designing snowflakes?
Just look at a this gallery of snowflake pictures. All are unique and very intricately designed. These must be the result of conscious design, and since many people scoff at the notion of a sub-God in charge of the weather, the designer must be the big guy, God, himself.
Also I forgot to add about Snowflakes Design that most snowflakes exhibit symmetries based on the number 3. This is not an accident, it is God sending us a message about the Holy Trinity
Poe
That’s a stupid question. Everybody knows that raindrops are the exact size and shape of Baby Jesus’ tears.
Also, sometimes someone who buys a piece of property will buy a relatively inexpensive trailer house and live in it while they build their real house. Sometimes this plan gets aborted, though (financial reverses, for instance), and they end up in the trailer house a lot longer than they expected, the house never gets built, and the trailer house is eventually replaced by….another trailer house.
@Glen D:
If *you* had trailer trash nagging you all day (give me this, give me that, look after me, let me into heaven, etc) wouldn’t you happily send a tornado and put them in hell?
More importantly, how’s god going to use weather to kill atheists and gays?
Surgical strike hailstones.
Oh, and lightning. That’s been the classic standby since Zeus.
llewelly@#79
Good fun at parties, are you?
Everyone understands why mobile homes are more vulnerable. No one thinks anything is attracted to them. Get a sense of humor.
Meteorology students also like to claim there is a ‘bubble’ keeping interesting weather away from their location. You can go yell at them for that too.
What?
You dare entertain the thoughts of the lord, your creator and destroyer? No mind that you couldn’t know I wasn’t done with them. Blasphemers! Feel my wrath! Eat hubris, puny human!!
[/Dueteronimously Leviticus]
By the way, a trailer can be a fine home. I’ve lived in a few and while a couple were wretched, most were comfortable, convenient, cost effective and handy. And they have a free bonus. Because of the need to use space efficiently and conveniently is paramount in a small space trailers are full of clever solutions and adaptations. I’ve adapted some of those ideas to permanent homes and thought I was clever for having done so. You can too.
All I’m going to contribute to this conversaion is Juvenile humour:
It should be Twit Cites Creation Science Association. Cause they cite twits!
Hur hur…. yessss….. let us never speak of this again.
Didn’t you see the Family Guy episode about the Big Bang? God needs an anus so he can let off a great ginormous FAAAART!!! and light it. The resulting explosion creates a new universe.
As every bible-believing meterologist knows, clouds are not some sort of devilish “water condensation”, but are actually made of dust from God’s feet (Nahum 1:3), and are completely satisfied with the explanation of rainbows being some sort of visual aid that God uses to remind himself to turn off the faucet (Genesis 9:13). It will be fascinating to see how this idea is expanded upon to explain “why raindrops aren’t larger”, and other questions for which creationism is uniquely qualified to handle. Really, this has a lot of potential for pure AWESOME. Please, please, please: somebody go there, take field notes, and report back!!
and thunder is the sound of God bowling, and rain is God’s pee, yadda, yadda, yadda….
I wonder if there also just happens to be a larger proportion of people living in mobile homes in the parts of the US that are prone to tornado strikes. That would magnify the effect as well.
I can’t any info, though. Google-fu fail.
llewelly @ #79 – I thought this “tornadoes are attracted to trailer parks” was some American oddity, perhaps based on a common observation of natural disasters that had happened to fall disproportionately on trailer parks in some period of time. Thanks for the explanation – I didn’t know what people were referring to.
It follows that God hates churches.
When Boston started filling with lightning rods many church representatives screamed that they were thwarting the will of God. Ben Franklin responded (paraphased) that he can’t be that great of a god if his will can be thwarted by a small piece of metal. He went on to point out that if lightning is god’s wrath then god must really despise churches since their steeples got struck more often than any other kind of building.
His point was driven home rather forcefully when a lightning strike on a steeple set off a gunpowder cache hidden under the church causing the church to explode. It didn’t take long for even churches to adopt the lightning rod.
Minnesota. Seriously. Talking about the weather is a competition sport here. We’re talking to the IOC about getting it added as an exhibition in the next Winter Olympics.
Addendum: The exploding church in question was in Italy.
My niece is a graduate of Union University which was devastated by a tornado a year ago. Eighty five percent of the university buildings were damaged or destroyed, yet there were no fatalities. The community pulled together to create a spectacular recovery. My niece sees god’s hand all through this! Shouldn’t god have rebuilt a few of those buildings as a show of his miracles? And I forgot to consider that there were about twenty fatalities throughout the region (but no Union students). Oh, and the little detail of the students who were injured, some seriously. Of course some of the students were becoming too materialistic and were so happy when god took everything away from them, books, clothes, furniture, computers, classroom notes. god is just so good!
Trailers are so powerful, they create tornados.
Well known fact.
I will actually be near Roseville tonight. If I am around there near that time I will at least stop by and scope it out.
“If, as they say, God spanked this town
For being much too frisky,
Why did He burn His churches down
And save Hotaling’s Whiskey?”
Poem on 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, in which
the city’s largest whiskey distillery was left unscathed
It doesn’t rain much in Las Vegas; so, I guess that means God is okay with gambling.
Then, again, I was raised Catholic and Bingo and pull-tabs were always a good thing.
They apparently presume they know science.
I hate creotards.
K did anyone besides me actually go?
It was 5th grade atmosphere science mixed in with, wasn’t He clever! Well if the creationist guy from the creation science fair didn’t remember me before today he will most certainly will remember me from here on out. :
Ouchimoo,
I went too… sat in the back left corner. I taped it on my .mp3 player. Here’s a verbatim transcript of the guy who introduced all of the upcoming creation science talks…
“In November we have Jerry Bergman who is the author of Slaughter of the Dissidents. He himself was a victim of persecution because of his beliefs. His book takes up where Expelled the movie left off and it documents many, many cases of persecution of creationists. Dr. Bergman and PZ Myers the arch evolutionist from Minnesota Morris are going to debate. It will probably be the Friday before it will probably be on the campus of the University of Minnesota and the topic is going to be “should Intelligent Design be taught in schools?” If any of you know PZ Myers, he has a website that just belittles creationists and he invented the Flying Spagetti Monster- which is his god. It should be interesting. His cheering squad are going to be there, the campus atheists and secular humanists are going to co-sponsor it so they’re going to come and cheer their hero on and we expect that their hero will get beat.”
I wonder if PZ knows about this “debate”? It also seems like PZ’s getting more and more scary- inventing FSM?
I’d post my recording somewhere but maybe I’ll just summarize the god associations the speaker made throughout her talk. What did you think of her saying that the US’s judeo-christian religion base lets people explore science while the hindu and buddhist Bangledeshi residents suffer because they’re religion doesn’t allow them to come up with methods to forecast natural disasters- so people die. And that the muslim religions “if god wills it” gives a sense of “whatever happens happens” so they don’t study science.
I really wouldn’t have cared about her statements, except that 2/3 of the people in attendance were under the age of 13. I think it was kind of a field trip for homeschoolers. And you’re right- I saw her and her husband at the Har Mar creation science fair… and debated her for an hour on the age of the grand canyon. She know’s her science fairly well- and can teach it down to a level that kids understand… which is scary because she also feeds them all that “god planned it that way” bullshit.
Damn, I wish I could PM you. I’d like to have a copy of that audio you got. I was sitting in the middle third row from the back. *Red sweater* I felt a little better when I heard the four boys behind me commenting sarcastically throughout the presentation. I say it made me feel better because that was how I acted when I didn’t believe this crap but was forced to go to it anyways. Otherwise yes, as far as we could tell, almost everyone there was home-schooled and these presentations are monthly.
PZ’s debate? Yeah I was “WTF why didn’t PZ have this up on his blog yet?” I was talking when the guy was announcing this so I missed the “will probably be”. Nice.
I was with my bf and a friend from UofM’s CASH and after the building started clearing out we talked ourselves into going back in to talk to her. Russel, who was from CASH, wanted to ask her specifically that natural disaster thing. (I was too floored by that inanity that I really didn’t think I could bring it up without making myself sound like a complete asshole. Summarizing what she said was that Judeo-christian religion was all about helping people. Which is why we have hospitals named “St. Jude” and “St. Anthony”. And how nun’s ran orphanages and care centers. Her specific branch of Christianity was looking for God’s inspiration to get science up and running *These people are Creationists, mind you* and it was unfortunate that those other countries didn’t care enough about their people to put warning systems up like we put up tornado warning sirens. Yeah. Absolutely bogus. (at least she’s not “Hurricane Katrina happened because of gays!”) I also asked her why she knew a fair deal of science and she told me that she was a science teacher for young kids. And that she and her husband used to be evolutionists, but then sat in on a four day ID conference and it “made so much more sense”. I asked her if she spent that much time on evolution and she said yes. I realize I asked a stupid question after it came out of my mouth. Lastly, I didn’t know that was her husband. We talked until everyone cleared out and he refused to come up to us and tell us to leave. He shut the lights off on us instead. LOL, either he’s kind of an impatient jerk, or we had made enough of an impact at HAR MAR he didn’t want to get within 10 feet of us. After we left they all gathered and talked for a while, I’m sure to blow us off and reaffirm their bogus ideas.
As all good Xians know, hurricanes are God’s way of punishing man’s sinful and hedonistic ways. Tornadoes, on the other hand, are the work of Satan pretending to be God because they usually happen in the Bible Belt. Like the story of Job, they are allowed to happen in order to test the faith of Christians.
(sarcasm)