Gosh. I have been informed that yesterday’s posting of my crazy email was too, too harsh, and that I’m such a meanie. Well, I resolved to be much nicer as I worked my way through my neglected in-box, so here are a couple more letters I’ve gotten in the last day or two.
Dear PZ,
I find the blatant hostility shown towards God and Jesus Christ defies belief when all either of them (God and Jesus) want is for mankind to have peace on Earth. And peace IS possible if only the emotionally handicapped intelligensia were to open their hearts to the love God has for each one of us – including them – and to look around them long enough to see the awesome beauty of His creation – Mother Earth.
To dwell on the Old Testament only reinforces that God’s TRUTH (religious truth) is not understood as it should be and needs to be by those who are making so much noise against God.
Why do you delight in adding to the negativity in the world by denying God’s existence – the ultimate source of love and wisdom?
Paul of Tarsus said in the New Testament – “Do not worry about those who can kill the body, but be concerned about the One who can kill both body and soul in Hell”!
I trust you are given a revelation in relation to your spiritual ignorance one day and then have the courage to be as vocal about the reality of God as you currently are in relation to Hid non-existance.My thoughts and prayers are with you and all of the other spiritually blind participants of the forthcoming Atheist conference in Melbourne.
God bless you and yours,
Sue Carlyon
Happy Monkey, Sue! I’m not hostile to God and Jesus — they don’t exist, and they provide no love or wisdom. The only revelation that could possibly convert me to believing in your ridiculous phantasm is acute brain damage, so no, thank you.
Have a nice day! :-)
Mr. Myers:
I live in north Mississippi and the way that you and other liberals
criticize small town America is deplorable. You know nothing of this
town nor my state. Of course I am proud of the people in my state for
standing up for what is right.You call it “human rights” for a man to dress like a woman and act
silly and for a woman to dress like a man and act like she has a
pecker when she does not. Most nomral people call it sick and realize
it is sin. Of course the days of 1967 may have caused permanent brain
damage that the next generation inherited. This explans most liberal
policies, or anti-establishment policies I call it.The plain fact is this: Why can liberals not accept that a man does
not wear a dress and that a woman does not wear a tuxedo and ask
another woman to prom, or other engagement? Can you ot see what is
wrong with that picture? Your claim to fame is that you use reason.
What reason? Your reason? What about the truth? The truth and reality
prevails over your “reason” Mr. Myers.This is a sad case indeed and the ACLU should have been chased from
that campus by the football team weilding flaming torches, but that is
neither here nor there.What makes this case so sad is that this young girl is destroying her
life and the liberals, through “reason” are letting her. Satan is on a
role in America and his minions are affecting every core element of
society. There are those of us who have sworn an oath to destroy evil
in this world and to slay Satan and his ideals which includes
witchcraft, idolatry, paganism, homosexuality, etc.We cannot stand by and let the perv of this world destroy this country
that has been so blessed by the hand of God and was even founded on
the principle that everyone has talents given by the Creator.Homoseuality was wrong 6000 years ago after Adam sinned. It was wrong
3500 years ago when God wiped Sodom and Gomorrah from the face of the
Earth for their homosexual satanic lusts. It remains as wrong today as
it was then. The wrongness of things does not change. The only thing
that changes is how man allows the powers of darkness and evil to
overcome his mind to the point taht he see evil as good and good as
evil. The Bible predicted a day when men would see evil as good and
good as evil. That day has come and those who have fulfilled this evil
will be punished along with the demons who influenced these actions.You, sir know nothing of the values of my culture, my heritage. So,
please refrain from making smirky remarks about something you know
nothing about. If you like your sodomy so much, then please set up a
seperate state for it so that the sodomites can go there to be
destroyed rather than bring destruction on the rest of us who do not
tolerate it. Oh yeah. You already have. California is a breeding
ground for Satanic forces. Sodomy, prositution, gayism, witchcraft,
paganism, liberalism, socialism, communism, etc all prevails there and
yet the people are not thankful that God hasn’t already sunk the state
into the ocean.Mr. Myers, your evil influence over young minds and your preaching of
your tolerance of evil will weild a very painful punishment when you
enter hell. You spoke of the fires of hell in pitiful little post.
Remember that it is not the intolerant that go to hell. It is the
tolerant. Evil is not to be tolerated, it is to be destroyed at all
costs. Only the saved go to Heaven, not the unsaved.I hope for your sake, you change your mind one day. I doubt you will,
but people do change. Gays have turned to God and been cleansed of
this sin. Atheists have repented and been cleanssed of their Satan
inspired unbelief. It has happened and will continue to happen as long
as the Holy Spirit is around to slay evil and win souls over to the
right side.I hope you get saved, becuase you have caused many people to go astray
and turn evil. Punishment for this will not be a light entence. Being
evil yourself is bad enough, but when you cause young minds to stray
from God, you received 100 fold the punishment due to you.Better luck next time. Though. Come visit us in small town
Mississippi. You might learn something – like what it means to be
normal.Sincerely,
Your most famous non-admirer
Happy Monkey, rob1, and thank you for the compliment at the end. I’m flattered that my most famous non-admirer is a weird biblical literalist from a small town in Mississippi with a digit in his name.
I remember 1967 well! I had a crush on Janis Joplin, which is probably responsible for my current state of mind. At least, I’m sure you’ll be able to trace all kinds of sins to my memories of paisley and patchouli. I know I do!
I’m glad you have found common ground with me in disliking men in dresses who act silly, especially men in dresses who sodomize small children. You should be an atheist, too!
I do have to take exception to one thing. You have plainly said that I am evil, that tolerance is evil, and that evil must be destroyed at all costs. I know that logic is something you are not familiar with, but that chain of assertions says that you think I should not be tolerated and should be destroyed.
I am making my sad face now. :-(
You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t leave my small town in Minnesota to visit your small town in Mississippi (Silly goose! You forgot to send me your address!), because I’m a little bit afraid to visit a place where human rights are considered a satanic plot, where science is denied, inhabited by people who think I deserve to be tortured and destroyed and young gay girls and the ACLU should be chased out of town by the football team. But you keep on doing what you do to improve the image of small towns in the South! :-) XXOOXX!
OK, better? Happier?
Aww… I knew it! You’re just a sweetie at heart, once you break through the crusty chitinous exterior.
You might want to consider kevlar, just in case they really do want to break through your crusty chininous exterior, though…
Perhaps if the good folks of Mississippi ate more of the first, second, and last of the banned words and did more of the fourth, they wouldn’t be quite so unhappy. As it is, they’re stuck with a lot of the seventh.
What could your most famous person mean by 1967? The civil rights Act? Wherein we recognized that minorities should be able to earn a living, have a home, and generally live a life without fear?
I so love the tolerance we find in the South. Now I need to get back to blacklining my textbooks here in Texas.
Your attempt at being pleasant is not going to foll anybody.
But it did make me giggle.
Wish I could remember 1967 but that was when I was seven months old to nineteen months. I am sure it was eventful, I must have went from sitting on my own to rolling, crawling and walking. I am also sure I spoke my first words during that time. But I have no memories before 1969. And even from that year, they are just fleeting moments.
Hee hee! This could be as good, if you feel like keeping this up, as the Saturday Hate Mail A-Palooza on Daily Kos!
*snicker*
Thanks for the laughs PZ! :D
What a dolt. Everyone knows that normal is urban Alberta (though not Calgary). Everywhere else is just as weird as it differs from my comfortable perspective.
Hug these people. Hug them dry.
[Euphemism week continues!]
I am definitely not nomral. I know how to spell.
Be nice Dr. Myers. God likes nice people. Nasty people get divine spankies for being poopyheads. They’re evil bottoms will be spanked red for eternity by demons who never received the love that they so desired from their Father. Demons need a hug. Give them a hug PZ. Or a spank. But be nice.
hehehe-
“gayism”
PZ that was infinitely more scary than just shouting at them :p
People like the chap in the second letter make me Sad Face :-(
It’s easy to tell which forces are Satanic. They just happen to be the forces I don’t like.
1967? I was 19 and a student at UMM. Good memories.
BTW, rob1…THERE IS NO GOD. I feel sorry for you. It’s obvious you are so poorly evolved that you need an imaginary authority figure as a crutch.
Haha. Teh st00pid. It boynz!
Yeah, they’re not dissolving stereotypes much, are they.
I love my big liberal city!
satan’s “on a role” in america!
this is the best part of the day so far!
You mean that rob1 is more famous than Ken Ham? Casey Luskin? Ben Stein?!
Me thinks it would be appropriate to stage a parade outside rob1’s house showcasing the assorted male clothing styles of history that don’t involve trousers or anything like them.
That or just park a pipe band, in kilts of course, outside their house, the smeg head.
I know this is missing the point, but it makes me so angry for Merikans in modern USA to think the end times in the bible were written for them. You arrogant fuckwits, they were written for people who died 1900 years ago, roughly, and the end of times was supposed to be predicated by the destruction of the Second Temple. Spoiler Alert: The world didn’t end, Revelations is as irrelevant as the rest.
Oh, out-moded-concept on a crutch. Won’t SOMEONE please try to teach these imbeciles how to write their own language? I’m not all that much of a grammar nazi but I counted 16 gross grammatical errors in a quick overview. That included a number of misspellings that his spellchecker should have caught. And that doesn’t even count the times he did not call PZ by his title (since he is so pro-establishment he should know better). I’ve never understood why these people choke on the word doctor.
I would like to point out, however, that he did follow the rules and chose a not to use a banned (this week) word. I would be more impressed if I didn’t have the distinct impression that he thinks that pecker is the correct word for the body part under consideration.
They’re evil bottoms Was obviously meant to be Their evil bottoms. Was being spanked when typing. Distracted me somewhat. Still it was nice. :)
Wit all da librals and civil rites granted back in ’67, no wonder god has picked 2010 to visit another flood on Fargo, ND.
You’re far, far too kind Dr. Myers… Almost like a modern-day Jesus. You know, except for the lack of matter replication, alchemic conversion of dihydrogen monoxide into olive-based ethanol, displacement of mass across the surface of water, and self-regeneration on the scale of surpassing death.
But who needs that crap when we have hovercrafts, box wine, and fast-food? And, of course, Internetz.
I like how rob1 repeatedly complains that you know nothing of his culture, while presenting himself in the most stereotypical way imaginable.
Yes, rob1, we know your culture. We just reject it.
Hahahaha, too cute. I wonder if I should add EHI to my name.
I live in “small town America”. Betcha my town is smaller! (Pop. 79) What I find deplorable is people like you.
Language! You made baby Jesus cry, you know. Tsk.
Making young people do your dirty work, shame. That’s going to cost you heaven points! Wield your own pitchfork, you venerous jackass.
Satan’s acting now? What play or movie?
If you’re going to slay Satan, you best get to hell right away.
And if that talent is looking dazzling in a tuxedo?
Another christian doesn’t know their bible! Yawn.
I have an idea…
Aarrgghh, now that is evil. Bleeuuch.
“There are those of us who have sworn an oath to destroy evil in this world and to slay Satan…”
That sounds like the awesomest job in the world. How can I sign up? And don’t say it’s something lame like “go to church.” I expect nothing less than the most grueling training in counter-witchcraft and communist spotting for that spectacular and important career.
It’s a wonder you get any work done with an inbox like that Pz. I’d spend my whole day reading the stupid and laughing my ass off. Thanks for sharing.
Email number 2 makes me especially sickened. What a nut.
As a child of Mississippi, I would like to apologize on behalf of my fellow statesman. There are some fine small towns in Mississippi, and some fine people there, too. It is unfortunate that the state of affairs in Mississippi education is such that this sort of attitude still prevails today. While I do not reside in MS any longer, I can attest that there are a number of freethinkers who have rejected the religious worldview that is so strongly entrenched there. I still think it will be a long time before MS is hailed as a center for free thought, but it is not as bad as that email might lead some to believe..
Violent, threatening imagery, eh?
Someone’s just begging for a letter to SEED Media.
California sink into the ocean? Haven’t heard that one in a while. Rob1 obviously doesn’t know what right lateral strike-slip fault is.
All rather amusing coming from a guy is reasonably close proximity to the New Madrid Fault, which caused the largest earthquakes in the 48 contiguous states in the historical record.
I’d like to help Sue and rob1 out. Paul writes, (1 Cor 1:19) “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
PZ, consider yourself thwarted.
I think this entry should have been classified under “Humor”.
And “the ACLU should have been chased from that campus by the football team weilding flaming torches”?
Good thing to know the KKK is still thriving in Mississippi.
Awh! Dn’t make sad face. Now you make me make sad face. It looks like this: :'(
“I’m glad you have found common ground with me in disliking men in dresses who act silly.”
You don’t like men in dresses who act silly? =(
What about the Python boys? They wear dresses and act very silly. And what’s wrong with wearing dresses anyway? I’ve worn a kilt before, and the freedom it allows you is quite invigorating.
I think this is my new favourite quote.
Two Fukcwads heard from. I see they teach spelling in Mississippi.
As a greek, (see Evzoni…) I have to object to the assertion that men don’t wear dresses.
Gayism? is that even a real word?
Gayism? is that even a real word?
I see these two emails as strong evidence that there should be an intelligence test required before being allowed to drive an email client, or at least being allowed to email PZ.
Aw, these must be some of the dear, simple little folk who need to believe in God, so please don’t try to take away their faith. It motivates them to do all their good things, and think all their noble thoughts. Clearly.
gayism? is that even a real word?
Wait! You forgot the Satanic force of handwriting analysis!
(Incidentally, how do you calculate the Satanic Force acting on an object?)
Darn, Sue, you came so close to Pascal’s Wager but you flubbed it at the last minute.
sorry bout the multipost, blame AOL, its in fubar mode today.
It is in small town Mississippi,
News to me. I thought they wanted little boys to have the end of their penis removed. Plus not eating pigs, stoning disobedient children to death, hating gays, and 600 or so other meaningless or horrific rules and commandments.
I want a POLL!
I propose the question:
“Did you chuckle at least once while reading non-admirer’s email? (his – not PZ’s reply, and remember that a wince does not cancel a chuckle)”
~~~~~
Surely “gayism” is perfectly cromulent.
Not sure, but dollars-to-doughnuts rob1 figures anything to do with that Frenchie ‘metric system’ will do.
Why does this idiot hate Zeus, Odin, the Easter Bunny, and Mickey Mouse?
The 12th commandment: I before E, except after C, or sounding like A, as in neighbour and weigh.
I guess rob1 was never a fan of Milton Berle and Lucille Ball. [Well, probably not – after all, Lucy married a furriner and Uncle Miltie was one of them Jews who killed Jaaaysus.
Oh, well – Happy Ides March, all.
Bad Xtian!! Silly Xtian!! Why, oh why, do the people who lecture the most about Xtian theology are always the ones who know the least about it??!!
Aren’t you guys always lecturing us heathens about personal salvation? God got out of the nation blessing business when he sent his illegitimate son to die for our sins – no more “my chosen people” crap. So, maybe you should rip that “God Bless the USA” sticker off your rusty pick-up, baby….
How do you “100 fold” buring in hell for all eternity – do they take away one of your coffee breaks? Put you in the cubicle beside Jerry Falwell or Ann Coulter??
“California is a breeding ground for Satanic forces. Sodomy, prositution, gayism, witchcraft, paganism, liberalism, socialism, communism, etc” Wowzer – sounds a lot more interesting than Torquay.
This boy really needs to meet some of the Heavy Highland Games boys–guys in skirts who fling large rocks and throw telephone poles.
For fun.
That’d be a short conversation….
… as you currently are in relation to Hid non-existance
Forgib Sue. She must hab a code.
I can imagine rob1, dawning his cute Christian Superhero outfit, embroidered by his aunt, “rob1, here to destroy evil in this world!”.
Now that I think about it, I’m kind of turned on.
Didn’t Jesus wear a dress??
Well, it didn’t take this christofascist idiot long to get around to the threat stage. Must not be smart enough to write more than a few paragraphs.
Hey Sue Carylong, got some bad news for you!!! Vishnu is very upset that you hate and ignore him. You are scheduled to be reincarnated in the next life as either an earthworm or….a fundie xian. There is still time though. Vishnu loves you.
Hypatia’s Daughter:
Of course not, silly! He wore a robe. Different thing altogether. ;p
Flark these gorram people with a bladed dildo – first up the rectum, then the urethra. They really are a bunch of hopeless retards, if they think “socialism” is “Satanic”. When are we co-opting Oregon and seceding?
Rigid gender roles, gotta have them rigid gender roles.
First the men wear dresses to prom, then woman are wearing tuxedos to, to other engagements! Other engagements!
A woman bends her boyfriend over a chair while he wears a dress and *makes sweet strap-on love* (euphemisms!) to him. This counts as strait!
A butch lesbian puts on a strap-on, and has missionary-style penetrative sex with her lipsick lesbian super girly girlfriend. This counts as gay!
There is no proper way to explain how angry those situations make people like rob1. Its something that translates into clenched jaws, fingernails digging into palms, faces turning shades of red.
Too bad!! If a girl in a tux and/or a man in a dress (other than a priest, of course) makes rob1 angry, reality will make him angry until he dies.
This is also why atheists and strait people generally need to stand by the LGBT crowd when religious bigots give them crap — its everyone’s rights they feel the need to impose upon.
I see that rob has quite the fixation with homosexuality. He’s probably also quite fixated with the phallus.
“This is a sad case indeed and the ACLU should have been chased from that campus by the football team weilding flaming torches, but that is neither here nor there.”
I usually associate burning crosses with this part of the world. But this image fits as well
Methinks rob1 watches too many scary movies (in secret! They are teh satan1zt after all) ’cause what he described would make a pretty decent C-movie.
A sort of cross-over of “Children of the Corn”, ” Dawn of the Dead” and “Frankenstein”. With PZ in a cameo as the good doctor of course.
Mohahahah… I have created… SEALIFE!
Oh wait… thats already been done.
The ACLU does go too far sometimes, but so do some of their sister orgs like ADL/JDL, SPLC, so they are in good company.
Ah, the south, making foreigners, including me, hate America since 1xxx.
Perhaps. But more importantly, is his phallus quite fixated while he’s fixating on phalluses?
Public Service Announcement: The comments of CTC at 60 are solely the opinion of its author and in no way reflect in general the opinions of this blog or its commenters.
But really, no. If it was a riff on the recent dustup it’s a little too fair afield to be an understandable reference; if it wasn’t, some of us really don’t take kindly to such remarks regardless of what the peanut gallery inhabitants at other blogs think.
Rather than violence, I continue to hold the position that the worst thing we could wish on such people is for them to end up being alone and forgotten, occasionally patted on the head and absent-mindedly humored with a “there, there, it’s ok” while they sit with no power and influence and the rest of the world passes them by.
Oh really. Sounds like a member of the KKK.
Hey Xian wingnut. Could you be more specific about who you have sworn to slay? The FBI and Homeland Security would like to know more. They are always interested in death threats.
And, oh yeah, you forgot to put down your name and address. I’m sure it was just an oversight and you really aren’t what you appear to be….A LITTLE BABY COWARD.
Trust me on this, folks. As a Californian, we’re not all budget deficits and earthquakes. We know how to have a good time as well!
If rob1 really wants to fight the works of Satan, then he should destroy his computer and all other trappings of technology post, say, 1800. They rely on the workings of Reality ™, which as we all know has a Liberal bias, and them libruls are all atheist donchaknow!
Does he really not know the tool he uses to read and castigate you, PZ, is an atheist invention (as in, goddidit does not apply)? AFAIK, the only group who really live up to these ideals are the Amish, and they pretty much don’t care what the rest of us do. Never met a proselytizing Amish, anyway.
You guys and girls crack me up more then rob1! Classic, all of it, makes me chuckle. *wipes eyes*
Robes are definitely different from dresses. Guys can have long hair too!
Hmmmm, so, should we tolerate you or not, dear rob1 ?
“I live in north Mississippi and the way that you and other liberals criticize small town America is deplorable. ”
Ah yes, small towns in Mississippi where they were still lynching people openly 40-50 years ago. Why are you so proud of that Rob1?
One mistake, circa the 1960s, Grace Slick was far cooler/sexier/profound than Janis Joplin.
Every year Conservative, small-town America gets just a little bit smaller. Thank God.
My heart and hopes go out to all the reasonable, forward-thinking individuals still stuck in Backasswards, USA.
graygaffer@71:
Not only that but if he only knew who Alan Turing was he’d never touch one of these things again! He would probably have approved of what happened to him though.
If you’re from a small town in North Mississippi then Morris, Minnesota is the big city.
Aw, I don’t like it when PZ has to make his sad face. :(
Akheloios:
Lots of room for argument there. Grace Slick didn’t inspire Leonard Cohen’s Chelsea Hotel No. 2., and the exquisite fineness of Mercedes Benz can’t be topped, not even by the delectable Grace.
“Sodomy, prositution, gayism, witchcraft, paganism, liberalism, socialism, communism, etc”
Somehow I misread “paganism” as “plagiarism.” But wait, plagiarism is actually a sin.
I take it that the definition of “peace” for Rob is what is left after you wipe out everyone that disagrees with you.
There I laugh and laugh, and in comes Sastra and trounces it all in comment 41. So right, so right…
Not only does this not apply to atheist for reasons that should be obvious, it’s not even a rule of English spelling. Here are the real rules, and they hold over 85 % of the time.
In case anyone is wondering, robe is the French word for… “dress”.
X-S
I never thought I’d ever write such a thing, but here goes: I’d actually prefer a candirú. :-S
Sick.
Ezekiel 16:
49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. 50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
ps – I just love having to create a new account just to comment.
It’s because PZ found himself unable to keep up with banning spambots and deleting spam, and because the ScienceBorg Overlords are too stupid to so much as implement a captcha.
I think this just sums up for me that anyone using the word “liberal” as a bad thing is not to be trusted and is likely a kook. This not only goes for religious nutters who post such loving letters to PZ above (lol, are they trying to convert him?). But also those well spoken, full on scientific jargon, athiest/skeptic claiming anti-AGW types as well. And all points in between. Read that: You’re likely nuts! Out-to-lunch! Elevator hasn’t reached all the way to he top! Deluded! Need professional help! Need I say more? Thank you.
I can’t believe nobody commented on this yet. Maybe it’s because of the younger crowd.
I saw somewhere that PZ was born in ’57. I’m one year later. I’m not buying that he had a crush on Janis Joplin. He was just trying to incite comments from the readers, or maybe to piss the fundie off and see what he’d say (she’d say? it would say?). No ten-year old had a crush on Janis Joplin. No way.
I clearly remember that at the age of ten there was a tomboy I found attractive. And there was this kid who knew where his dad’s Playboys were, and several of those women piqued an interest, but Janis Joplin? No way. She’s an acquired taste … hmmm … ok; maybe PZ was wiser than his years. Sorry, never mind.
Those emails reminded me of a quote from a Cheech and Chong skit: “I used to be all fucked up on drugs, but now I’m all fucked up on the lord.”
Well and truly fucked up.
I was puzzled by 1967 too. Not 1965? 1968? But I guess if you can remember 1967 you weren’t really there.
David Horton
All God and Jesus want is for mankind to have peace on Earth
Well, God is omnipotent, so here were are waiting, anyone else like me might change their critical atheist mind if God came down and ended all war tomorrow ?
I mean, isn’t that ALL they want ? Poof, there yah go, sorry about the few millennium of suffering.
You’re amazingly wrong, Kirk.
Caine, born Nov. ’57.
What could your most famous person mean by 1967?
Loving v. Virginia. The striking down of laws against race mixing has obviously destroyed the country by destroying the minds of youth about what is acceptable sexually, and the biology of race mixing and mongrelization will obviously result in dumber members of both races…..or some such nonsense these idiots believe about the “golden years” of American apartheid.
A ten-year-old from the Seattle area easily could. I won’t go into my childhood heartthrobs . . .
I’m certainly glad that Mary Magdalene never wore Jesus’ Tuxedo or britches nor that Jesus wore his hair long like a woman… or hung out all day with a bunch of guys with no wives or girlfriends and was still unmarried and childless by the age of 33.
You’d also think that a god who made everything would be able to bring peace if he so wished, wouldn’t you?
well, I kind of meant it as a joke, but both men & women wore dresses…er, robes.. back in the the good old Jesus days. The religious rights hand wringing obsession that men dress like men & women like women wouldn’t have made a lot of sense to Jesus.
Actually, I did too have crush on Janis Joplin when I was 10. I was far too young to skitter off to San Francisco, but I was quietly into that whole culture at the time.
I currently live and work in a very small town, in the middle of the “bible belt”. Unfortunately, this type of rhetoric is spewed every single day. This type of crap is the main reason I have been questioning my faith….in God and people. I find it very hard to believe that the God I was taught about while growing up would invest so much time and love in people who constantly JUDGE, NAME CALL, and PREACH about how much better they are than those around them….how EVERYONE ELSE in the world is SINNING and they are living a HOLIER THAN THOU life….tired, completely tired of the hypocrisy….and I am surround by it constantly….and this JERK from MISSISSIPPI completely reinforces my negativity towards the CHURCH…I know it is difficult to rid yourself of the teachings one has experienced since childhood, and for the bulk of my 40 years, but when I hear these “christians” show no compassion, no tolerance, no love….contrary to the prescribed teachings of THEIR bible….it makes me want to run from the church faster and farther than I already have.
Looks like a few people are being held up in moderation thanks to this frakkin’ moderation thing… whose bright idea was that? Oh…
* hsbio on I get email
* Kel, OM on The wild bunch
* nigelTheBold on Episode XXXIX: Play ‘Spot the Moron!’
* Sean O’Doherty on I get email
* Smoggy Batzrubble OM4Jesus on I get email
* PZ Myers on I get email
As a good atheist, I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong, and to change my opinion on the basis of new information. To be amazingly wrong is something I am pleased to be aware of. PZ, Physicalist, Caine: I take it back. To each his or her own. :)
hsbio:
Hi, Hsbio. I understand how you feel. A lot of people here would understand in depth. Many of the people here came from religious backgrounds, some of them fundamental, and believed at one time. If you feel like talking, about anything, pop in on this thread – nothing is off topic, we just talk about all sorts of stuff.
Yes a ten yr old can have a crush, my first was at 9 almost 10, she was older than me, but ultimately rejected me. (the schoolyard was a bad place for me.)
As for Grace V. Janis, I’ll pick Janis. Liked her music better.
Shorter Non-Admirer:
Dear Brother/Sister hsbio,
Don’t let Satan tempt you away from Jesus! I’m God’s missionary on this hellish blog and it’s my job to warn you away from anything likely to expand your mind and cause you to question the brainwashing that has been inflicted on you by the faithful from the moment you were born. Beware, I say! God doesn’t want you to expand your mind, ask questions, discover the thousands of contradictions in His Holy Bible, or realize just how cruel, prejudiced, intolerant and hypocritical the dogma of fundamentalist Christianity can make people. The Christian God wants you to fear difference, hate all but the half-a-percent of the population who think exactly as you do, and dedicate your life to brainwashing your own children.
There’s another world out there, hsbio, and it is dangerous! I’ll bet you can’t even imagine what it is like to live in a world where whatever goes on in your own head is your private business? Can you imagine a place where there’s no divine censor reading your thoughts and looking for ways to punish you? Can you imagine what it would be like to feel free in this world rather than fearful? No you can’t! And for good and Godly reasons.
Turn back to Jesus and your mental prison, it’s a nice safe place and all the other prisoners will be very happy to keep you on the inside!
I will pray for your incarcerated soul
Smoggy
My first thought was that you might introduce peace-lovin’ Christian Sue to Saya-slayin’ Christian Rob and let them quote at each other till one of them turns blue.
Then I thought someone should drop that boy into Bakersfield.
Then I remembered the North Mississippi All-Stars.
OK, that’s better.
@Smoggy #119
Thanks for the humor and sarcasm….very funny, and enlightening….
Kirk:
:D Kirk, I took my Big Brother & The Holding Company: Cheap Thrills album to Catholic school with me to show the other kids at recess. Cover by Robert Crumb, Janis singing Piece of My Heart, well, crush doesn’t cover it. ;) Ya know what they say about girls who grew up Catholic… ;D
Why yes, that was supposed to be “Satan-slayin’.”
Just in case you wondered.
Ron, now with extra Lebanon bologna, yum!
Dear Brother/Sister hsbio @104,
I am but a humble servant, sent wherever my master sends me.
Amen
Smoggy
PS Would you like to buy some BIBLE™
Hmmmmmm the events of 1967. Let me think. Ah yes 17 December 1967 was the day that our Prime Minister, Harold Holt, when scuba diving and was never seen again. Theories and conspiracies abound, from a CIA to Chinese plot, shark attack or he jsut went off to visit Elvis. From the letter writers comments we can now add Fundamentalist right wing Christian wing nuts to the list of those on the suspect list.
Oh and another minor but more personal event happened around that time. I was seven or eight and came to the conclusion that religion was a load of contradictory unsupportable twaddle and asked my parents if I really had to go to Sunday school. Thankfully being quite reasonable and intelligent entities they replied that if I didn’t want to I didn’t have to.
A probable explanation for the horrid spelling. The fellow probably is a fairly good speller (certainly better than I). It was just typos; the typos that result from one-handed typing. The other hand was undoubtedly on his member, wanking away, thinking about all our sinning penis’s being mercilessly tortured in hell, with red hot pokers, and spiders and fire ants, and bot flies, and leeches, and plump, putrid, pulsating, purulent, poisonous, puke-inducing, pustules, and …
Darn(edited), I seem to have sprouted some wood myself!
I was 10 in ’84. Totally had a thing for Cyndi Lauper. Wanted to make Cap’n Lou my father-in-law.
Crushes from my youth: Julie Newmar, Lara Parker.
Because nothing, but nothing, says “Christian love” like a torch-wielding mob.
There are worse reasons to question your faith.
Here’s the biggest question I have, when questioning faith: “What purpose does it serve?” Look at how it is used. You can play a drinking game: take a shot for every time someone tells you how you should behave because “that’s what God wants.”
Sundays will be much more pleasant. At least until noon.
IaMoL:
Mmmreowrrrr. Loved her as Catwoman. She defined statuesque.
Biggest crush from when I was around 10 : The chick that played Mindy to Mork, Pam Dawber.(that is, apart from my English teacher)
I read she’s married to Mark Harmon these days.
Ah yes the ubiquitous celebrity crush, some of mine, Erin Moran, Drew Barrymore, Alyssa Milano, one of the actresses who played the teenage daughters on “Kate and Aly” (cant remember the name right now.) Suppose all that dates me, oh well.
Got y’all beat. I distinctly recall noticing girls are pretty as early as five years old*. Had a crush in kindergarten. I kid you not.
I mean, sure, it was mildly socially awkward when all the other boys were into the trucks good/girls icky stage. But dammit, priorities, people! I mean trucks? What? Don’t get me wrong–they’re fun–but pretty girl-level fun? I think not.
(/*… and seein’ as that’s about as early as I remember anything whatsoever, it’s entirely possible I was lusting after persons with two X chromosomes even well prior to this. And perhaps, considering this possibility, now, it’s really better that I don’t remember… There’s something vaguely disturbing even to me picturing the three-year old version of myself trying to figure out in some weird, largely preverbal way how to put the moves on some hot daycare worker or somethin’…)
This is a special notice to all correspondents who think California is, can or will fall into the ocean. It can be easily demonstrated by simple, intuitively obvious methods that even you can understand that California is rising millimeter by millimeter OUT of the ocean through the action of hundreds of earthquakes each month. Please keep this in mind, as to claim otherwise is to label yourself certifiably stupid and your comments not worth the electrons forming your misspelled words on my computer monitor!
Cowcakes@108
Oh and another minor but more personal event happened around that time. I was seven or eight and came to the conclusion that religion was a load of contradictory unsupportable twaddle and asked my parents if I really had to go to Sunday school. Thankfully being quite reasonable and intelligent entities they replied that if I didn’t want to I didn’t have to.
So you caused the nations brain damage! Everyone knows that correlation means causation!
Sh_t!
jhcliborn just issued a “special notice” that ” California … will fall into the ocean”.
This is terrible!
Warn your friends. Flee for your lives. Keep off the freeways!
Newmar lived in Ft Worth in the late 70’s. A friend I met in the 90’s go’t to ‘interview her for his high school newspaper in 78 or 79. He was, shall I say, enthralled.
I usually fall for brunettes but I had a visceral reaction to Jenny Agutter in An American Werewolf In London due in part to my Lara Parker Dark Shadows crush.
IaMoL, I had more than one Dark Shadows crush, but the main one was Jonathan Frid, Barnabas Collins.
Hmmm… I was 10 in the early seventies, but my first big crushes were on tall, feisty, sophisticated brunettes who could disarm a villain while wearing a catsuit or the miniest of miniskirts. I’m talking Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) in the Avengers and “99” (Barbara Feldon?) in Get Smart.
And as well there was Barbara Eden (I Dream of Jeannie) and, now that I think about it, Elizabeth Montgomery from “Bewitched”. She may have been married to Durwood, but when she wriggled her nose funny things happened to me. Back then the incendiary acronym MILF didn’t exist, but I guess that if it had Elizabeth Montgomery would have been a strong contender (once I’d aged of course).
Dear Sue Carlyon,
Well guess what, Ms. Carlyon, too effing bad! If I ever catch either of those “peaceniks” near me, I’ll beat them to a bloody pulp and leave them for dead. I would have been proud to have hammered the nails into your god on the cross. Good thing God and Jesus Christ are both safe from raging atheists like me as figments of your imagination.
—
Dear most high non-admirer rob”gayism”1,
I hope for your sake that someone teaches you about the male G-spot or makes you curious enough about it to study it on your own so you can get past your hangup with gays and likely with your true self (you are probably gay). God’s a pretty sick puppy to use gays as scapegoats when the real problem is God’s own lust for Satan’s sweet ass. I don’t understand why you would want to align yourself with a deity that is the equivalent of Hitler in space. Wake the f*ck up, rob”gayism”1!
OOOh Dark Shadows. My mother wouldn’t let me watch, too sataninny. Caught it at the homes of friends.
I am straight female but I had a crush on Grace Slick when I was about 12.
Martha:
Hee. My grandmother and one of my great-grandmothers were hooked on it. It came on just as I got home from school, too. :D
When ever I read text like those email, I put this running on the background.
A lovely little song by the Wet Spots named Do you take it
I must warn that easily offended will be offended.
Dark Shadows. A hit with the college crowd in my day (but not me).
Caine: Was David Selby(Quentin) chopped liver?
Looking at this picture I never realized how much Hugh Jackman/Wolverine looks like Quentin. I had a few male crushes too, although I was confused if I wanted to be with them or just be them. Kinsey was never in my reality in the late 60s/70s of course.
Yeah, Diana Rigg was amazing too. Of the 3 Angels, Jaclyn Smith was who did it for me (she couldn’t act if a theatre fell on her, poor thing.) But ohhhhh –Valerie Bertinelli made me craaaaaazy.
Bribase @119
Well it was quite a large light bulb that flashed and it’s possible that the prodigious release of photons had a blinding and traumatic effect on observers in a manner akin to watching a nuclear explosion with the naked eye. However I personally feel, and after all it is my revelation so how dare you question it, that the added light levels that briefly raced around the earth illuminated many a dark and fear filled alcove, thus illuminating the true nature of things for those who had the sense to not look directly into the light and burn out their metaphorical retinas.
I vaguely remember 1967. I had a deep crush on John Steed. I discovered the demon weed and sex, which led to a brief dalliance with cutting class. Painted a shocking pink heart on my cheek every day. Mistook the date on my Bio midterm, did it stoned, got an A+, which surprised the hell out of me. [Evidently, when chemically enhanced, my brain is capable of sharp focus.] Got beaten up in an anti-war protest, decided I really, really didn’t like theoretical calculus and really, really, really didn’t like my roommate, whose professed reason for taking up space at university was to get her MRS degree. Good times.
Cowcakes @ 108,
It is a well-known fact that Harold Holt swam out to a Chinese submarine to be whisked away to Peking (as it was then known). It was a decision he came to rue in the 1970s when he was suddenly forced to share his palace with some Cambodian fellow named Sihanouk.
It was Gough Whitlam what the CIA toppled. Governor-general John Kerr was an ex-Agency operative, and he was instructed not to let Whitlam get away with refusing to renew the lease on the US spy base at Pine Gap. Kerr later drank himself to death – or did he?
That is all.
I’d be more impressed if they actually knew their theology. raven already commented on God’s desire for “peace on Earth”, but Jesus is explicit: “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)
Sue, before trying to convert others, read your own holy book.
I grew up in Memphis, TN, which is actually in northern Mississippi. Before Dr Myers was even born, I saw my first men in dresses in a ‘skit’ at my parent’s Cumberland Presbyterian Church. By 1957, I knew I was an atheist – and I knew enough to s stay in the closet, thanks to people like rob1. When I was old enough to fend for myself, I moved to California. I now live in Berkeley, and as someone said, the way the rest of the US looks at CA is the way the rest of CA looks at Berkeley – think of that, rob1! We’re even worse than Hollywood!
PS I finally came out when I turned 60.
IaMoL:
Absolutely not! Oh, he was definite eye candy, and could do brooding and moody fantastically well.
I was always against the tide when it came to the Angels, Kate Jackson for me.
phhht #134: I now live in Berkeley,
Howdy, neighbor.
For self-appointed right hands of God – they sure make the allmighty look stoopid.
Sixty seven? In high school, sitting next to the Redhead in band class, and acing the chemistry and math classes.
I knew role playing games would come up somewhere. They’re surely the cause of all evil.
For self-appointed right hands of God – they sure make the allmighty look stoopid.
For all of those who’ve had the masochistic tendencies necessary to actually read the Bible, is there anything in there specifically against men dressing as women, and vice versa? Didn’t both sexes pretty much just wear curtains back then?
Wait… I live in Normal, Illinois and we know all about being normal. You might say we’re authorities on the subject.
Here in Normal we had a world premier of a gay documentary in our town theater. Our town, our university and all our largest employers have strong anti-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation, gender identity, and a few other things he’d probably have to look up on the Interwebs.
Maybe Rob1 should visit our small town to learn a thing about being Normal.
“sitting next to the Redhead in band class”
I met my redhead at university. Endured a year of stage one sociology to sit next to her.
To address the second letter, the writer should be aware that Genesis 2:17 states:
What shortly follows is:
Doesn’t he find it odd that his “god” is the one that tells the first lie in the bible and it is the serpent that tells the truth? He can suddenly claim that only the New Testament matters, but since he has brought up Adam and homosexuality he has set the precedent for his belief in the OT.
Since it is established so early on in the bible that “god” is not to be trusted, what then does that say of any other statements he is professed to make throughout.
He goes on to order Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but follows it up with “Just kidding!” at the last moment. What we’re seeing here is not only a liar, but an abuser.
But that was all corrected in Judges 11 when Jephthah committed human sacrifice of his daughter and it was happily accepted.
Despite the condemnation of homosexuality, “god” has no issue with incest and sets the offspring of Adam and Eve, and Noah and his family to mate with each other. Lot’s daughters had incestuous sex with him as well.
I wonder if the email’s author has also consumed anything of the water that does not have fins or scales, for that is as great an abomination in the eyes of ‘god’ according to Leviticus.
And wearing of blended textiles… HUGE no-no. That’s a pineapple in the ass for eternity I hear.
Deuteronomy considers rape to be a crime punishable by death, not only for the attacker but also for the victim if they do not scream in the proper setting. An exception is made if the victim in question is a virgin. Then the rapist may pay her father a fine of 50 shekels, and from then on the victim is to be his wife. This would explain the importance of virginity within the culture. It was a matter of life and death among the misogynistic men of the culture.
He also states that Christians have sworn to destroy paganism, yet the history of Christianity has to been assimilate it into the culture as a means of expanding their reach – a type of missionary culture.
Christmas is actually the celebration of Saturnalia, and Easter is a pagan fertility holiday. (I’m sure pretty much everyone here know that, but just in case he’s still reading)
He says that homosexuality is what caused the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but neglects to mention Ezekiel 16:48-50
If I were an American Christian in a town with poor or homeless people this verse would make me very nervous indeed if I were not out there helping regularly.
I’m sure he’s a regular saint though.
I could go on all day shredding this fake religious morality that spews from his vile trap, but I think those are enough examples. The fun thing about dealing with evangelizing Christians is that you can be fairly certain that you’ve probably read more of their scripture than they have.
Sorry for making it so long. But I really can’t stand that effin’ Christian elitism.
Just gonna sneak in a plug for my ranting YouTube channel while I’m at it :P http://bit.ly/cknFiy
Peace.
Sorry for the double post – forced to use IE at work…
I knew it!
It IS an ism!
YOU DERN GAYISMISTS!!!!
Rev. BDC:
What I’m getting here is…gay is a mist!!!1! Uh oh. It’s been misting here, on and off, between snows. Those upright Satan Slayers&trade had better stay inside. Deep inside, like in a closet.
Great post, Mike.
Well fed, arrogant, not helping the poor and needy? Who would that be?
Oh yes, Glenn Beck.
In 1967, I was probably scattered across the land, sea, air, and various other lifeforms.
A man doesn’t wear a dress?
Boy, are those silly scotsmen in for a surprise.
I’ve been to Torquay. I’ve lived in California. I’m sorry to disappoint you but they’re not all that different. Sun, sea, old people trying to get in your way, expensive house, all pretty much the same really.
I was 11 in ’67 and I always considered myself pretty hip. (Only because I had a brother 6 years older than me). I’ll admit that I didn’t have a crush on Janis Joplin. Now…I did have a crush on Vera-Ellen in “White Christmas”. She had the “GAMS!”
If Satan == Freedom…
HAIL SATAN!
I really have to wonder if that second one is a poe or not. it seems a bit too Jesus-y.
Ms. Manners does have a point there.
DLC, you haven’t hung out on many christian forums, have you?
Sorry, that’s just me you’re smelling. What do you have against hippies?
Oooh, Diana Rigg. Still gives me chills just thinking about her. And I’m with Caine. Definitely Kate Jackson.
Nothing. I am a hippie. Patchouli is utterly vile and in my unfortunate experience, people who like it seem to think that dousing themselves with 5 vats of the stuff is just fine.
Born in 1959. Madly in love with both John Steed and Grace Slick at 7. Now a devoted Gayist doing my best to spread the good words of both Science and Gayism in the hinterlands of Californica.
Surrealistic Pillow is awesome at any age . . .
Ford Prefect:
:D :D :D
I heard the football team couldn’t be bothered with the ACLU because they were busy packing fudge. I’m sure that means they were sending candy to missionaries to lure … I mean to give the orphans and not some euphemism for an act outlawed in Mississippi.
“people who like it seem to think that dousing themselves with 5 vats of the stuff is just fine. ”
Oh, hell no, two drops is ENOUGH!
Why does Rock Ridge in Blazing Saddles always come to mind when I read goofy stuff like that?
wmdkitty:
You got that right! I’ve always preferred Sandalwood. :)
California is a breeding ground for Satanic forces. Sodomy, prositution, gayism, witchcraft, paganism, liberalism, socialism, communism, etc all prevails there
*stands on beach in NZ, takes out binos, looks back towards CA*
NOW he tells me!
just can’t win, I tellz ya.
More illogical ramblings from deranged, narrow-minded, bible literalist people.
California is a breeding ground for Satanic forces. Sodomy, prositution, gayism, witchcraft, paganism, liberalism, socialism, communism, etc all prevails there and yet the people are not thankful that God hasn’t already sunk the state into the ocean.
I am proud to live in California. It’s a wonderful state. rob1 should more to California.
Sounds like Catholic priests / the Pope are being described here.
It’s Bible Dude!
Too harsh? I really enjoyed that last post. Ah well, you wouldn’t want to offend anyone, right? Isn’t that what this blog is all about?
“I’m glad you have found common ground with me in disliking men in dresses who act silly, especially men in dresses who sodomize small children. You should be an atheist, too!”
That line is brilliant. It’s really irritating how arrogant some people are, like they can choose what others can and cannot do.
*snort* Thanks, Ichthyic, that was a waste of beer. I loved Michael McDonald as Bible Dude.
Sue Carlyon,
Paul of Tarsus also specifically told you to keep quiet.
(1Timothy 2:11-14)
He also taught that Jesus has already returned and had no intention of xtianity becoming a religion separate from Judaism. If he’s such a hero for you, why don’t you become more like him (and Jesus) and convert to Judaism? As for the Old (Jewish) Testament, Paul told his friend:
“You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
Don’t use the New Testament as a basis for your decidedly modern supernatural belief system until you read the damned thing. Else you will appear very foolish and ill-informed.
————–
Rob1 the Mississippian,
Why the clothing obsession?
Are you’re claiming there were no liberals before 1967? Then how do you explain the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights, both of which are ultra-liberal? How do you explain the Emancipation Proclamation?
Please cite the foundational document that explains the principle “that everyone has talents given by the Creator.”
“Homoseuality [sic] was wrong 6000 years ago after Adam sinned”.
You do realize that in the Torah it was Eve that cause the downfall, right? Are you saying homosexuality was OK before Adam existed? Are you saying it even existed while Adam and Eve were alive? Since Adam and Eve had two sons but no daughters, how did they procreate?
“It was wrong 3500 years ago when God wiped Sodom and Gomorrah from the face of the Earth for their homosexual satanic lusts. ”
I’m not sure you have a correct view of the Judaic storyline you cite here. Maybe you should read Genesis 19. While you’re at it, describe what Leviticus 18:22 actually means. And since you’re so keen at reinterpreting verses snatched from the Torah and insisting that things don’t change, you might visit:
Deuteronomy 13:1-4
Ezekiel 37:26-28
Isaiah 2:4
Zechariah 14:9
It’s pretty funny using California as a scapegoat for your hallucinatory screed depicting an homogeneous culture that ignores the majority of Americans. Have you traveled out of the country much? Out of your region, even? Sure doesn’t look like it.
How does Satan inspire Atheism? Since you’re not a Buddhist I must assume that Mara got to you. And how dare you not accept Zoroastrianism! You’re an atheist!
“Punishment for this will not be a light entence. Being evil yourself is bad enough, but when you cause young minds to stray from God, you received 100 fold the punishment due to you.”
Why do you get to tell god what to do? What makes you so special? Because there are so many passages of the bible condemning your behavior, I really gotta assume god hates you.
I’m not sure I ever had a celebrity crush…
Gayism? I lol’d.
@Reyfox 141
Women are forbidden from wearing a man’s robes, turban or sandals; men are prohibited from wearing a veil; otherwise it confuses god. But if you want to try to project it to modern times, women should be killed for wearing pants.
Deuteronomy 22:5
You can’t wear linen/wool blends or linen and wool at the same time
Leviticus 19:19
Women can not wear jewelry, pre-made clothes (because they’re more expensive), or braid their hair.
1 Timothy 2:9-10
Women have 2 head options: veil or shaved head
1 Corinthians 11:4-7
Since robes are good enough for Jesus, I’m sure they’re good enough for other men.
And in the spirit of PZ’s much nicer comments about these loathed issue of their fathers’ loins, I shall keep my comments to them classy as well:
You are a shallow cowardly hind, and you lie. Your virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese. Go, prick thy face, thou crusty botch of nature!
OH PZ! A crush on prayerful Janis?
OH Lord, what was it she prayed for? A Mercedes Benz, a color TV, a night on the town. I don’t know if she ever got the Mercedes, but I’ll bet she got more than “a” night on the town. See, PZ, prayer works! And yet in your hostility and spiritual blindness you reject Jesus and God, and can’t see all of the peace they have brought to Ear…
OH, uh, right.
@176: I had a dyslexic moment and read your last phrase as “thou busty crotch of nature!”
“Dear Head-up-the-ass Crank (Mr/Mrs),
Thanks for writing. Should you ever deign to live life as anything but a temporarily-inflated sheep’s bladder, get a B.A. or B.S. (which doesn’t mean what you think, Buster/ess!) from any college or university that doesn’t mention religion or “patriotism” in it’s name and drop by. I will provide beer, fresh juice, or a range of teas (I have soup if you are hungry). Let’s talk about it.
Till then, feck off.
Sincerely and with best wishes for you and all of your family, unto the very mites infesting your hair and fungus which eek out their wondrous, precarious living between your toes; your fan forever,
— Some Flounder”
When one of my sons was about three, I took him to the store with me, and at the checkout he gave the pretty young cashier a smile and said, “I like your braids. If you give me your address, I’ll send you some candy.”
When one of my sons was about three, I took him to the store with me, and at the checkout he gave the pretty young cashier a smile and said, “I like your braids. If you give me your address, I’ll send you some candy.”
HEY! I still use that line!
*ahem*
did I say that out loud?
OH Lord, what was it she prayed for? A Mercedes Benz
P.Z., you are so fxcking funny that I’m still laughing a god dxmned hour after reading your commentary. Don’t ever stop!
After a brutal day of leaving letters to the editor, commenting on two dozen or more blogs, reading news reports from all over the country, I can get pretty depressed. That’s why I save Pharyngula for last. When I leave here I’m o.k. again. My faith in my fellow man has been restored, I learn several new things, and my spirits are lifted by all the camaraderie. And often, like tonight, I laugh so much I almost vxgemited my pants.
Thank you all.
_richard
1967 was the year in which the world started racing at full speed towards hell:
San Francisco Human Be-In with 20,000 members of the counter-culture assembling.
Be-In in NY’s Central Park, attracting 10,000 peaceniks and hippies.
Draft card burnings and anti-draft demonstrations during Vietnam week.
Martin Luther King Jr. speaks against the war in Vietnam.
400,000 march in an anti-war protest from NY’s Central Park to the UN.
Flower Power Day
Monterey Pop Festival
Summer Solstice Party in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco’s “Summer of Love”
Riots in poor African-American neighborhoods in Chicago, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Baltimore, Newark, and Detroit.
Seven KKK members convicted of conspiracy in the 1964 murders of three civil rights worker.
35,000 anti-war protesters march on the Pentagon.
“Stop the Draft” movement leads to nationwide anti-war protests.
1,000 antiwar protesters try to close NYC military induction center.
Won’t SOMEONE please try to teach these imbeciles how to write their own language? I’m not all that much of a grammar nazi but I counted 16 gross grammatical errors in a quick overview.
I don’t understand why they’re so obsessed with ‘English Only.’ I believe I’d be content with ‘English at all.’
….Never thought I’d feel nostalgiac about California, then this….
That’s one powerful perv! Did anyone get his/her name?
#41:
And remember, when rob1 daydreams of people being chased by “the football team weilding [sic] flaming torches”, he doesn’t mean it literally: it’s clearly a metaphor for an indescribable transcendence.
Walking through the UC Berkeley campus today, I saw the following people tabling and passing out fliers:
-Gays
-New Agey stuff
-LIBERALS EVERYWHERE
-Socialism
-Some rather loud and obnoxious communists
-Homeless guy reading loudly from the bible
-Frat boys in suits
I didn’t see any prostitutes though. Maybe they were the frat boys in suits?
I feel like I’m missing out on an authentic California experience here.
Ah, but it’s not their first language. Their first language sounds like Uggg Grra eeek!
Ingerlish was patiently, very patiently, taught to them by exorcised daemons, as part of the daemon’s everlasting punishment. You need to do something will all the daemons that are being exorcised, and this is the current favourite disposal method. In the past I believe they were shipped into protestant and other heathen’s lands, but that proved too expensive besides making the subsequent invasions and witch burnings very risky.
That works too, even if Will didn’t use those words.
“Gayism”? That’s a thing? I wasn’t even aware that homosexuality was a belief system. Does that make me “fagnostic”?
Anyway thanks, PZ, for reminding me why I absolutely despise the religious mindset.
AJ Milne @117
Oh, I believe you implicitly! That’s where I had my first crush, too. Ahh, Valerie, Valerie! She was the only girl in kindergarten with a pet tarantula. How could I NOT be instantly smitten?
And on the subject of Rob1, well.. I am happier here in San Francisco than anywhere else I’ve lived on this continent. KS, TX, FL, WI, WV, OK, WA, MO, UT. – None of them hold a candle to the freedom, tolerance, and openmindedness I find all around me here. I grew up in the Bible Belt, and I gotta say – Thanks, but NO thanks! I’ve made it to safety here at long last, and I’m STAYIN’.
I don’t even have any weird habits of my own, I’m heterosexual, quiet, I don’t drink or smoke – But all of those are because that’s the way *I* want it, not because some dishonest, hypocritical, holier-than-thou prude is forcing me into their mold. I’m the way I am, and everyone around me is perfectly free to be however they want to be.
And no matter what my personal likes and dislikes are, I am surrounded by people from every walk of life here. Gays, lesbians, trannies, crossdressers, people from every religion (and most especially from none at all.) and from all around the world, all living and working together in peace and harmony.
One of my housemates had a birthday party at my place this past weekend, and it was fantastic! -very- interesting people she hangs around with, I guarantee. ;) We had lesbians, guys (gay and straight!) in little black cocktail dresses, RenFaire folk, and a whole crowd of her co-workers from Pixar. – And somehow we all managed to get along and have fun together. Nobody felt like they had to interrogate anyone else about their religion or sexual proclivities before joining them in the hot tub or sharing a beer with them at the bar, and somehow we all managed to have fun together as equals without threatening anyone with eternal damnation or being chased out of town by torch-wielding vigilante mobs. What a crazy idea, huh?
Why can’t you idiots in your repressive little towns manage to get along with the few people you have in your towns, when we all manage somehow to get along with 10 times that many in even closer proximity to each other?
Ugh.. you’re kidding? People complained that you were too harsh? Oh come on… let’s have a little perspective. Apparently freedom of speech is fine until it’s not.
As Stephen Fry says “so you’re offended, so fucking what!”
Do the gay members of the football team have to participate, or will they be excused?
I think the thing that makes me saddest about really profoundly stupid people (such as the writer of the second email) is that they have no sense of how stupid they are and how deeply embarrassed they ought to be about the words that come out of their brain.
Now now Julie, you know no dern queers would ever be big macho football players.
1967 was the year I was born. Coincidence? Oh, I think not!
Probably just coincidence.
Wow.
Mr. Myers, are you sure you are not being trolled?
#195:
Gay footballers? What a ridiculous idea! Muscular, athletic young men grappling with one another on the field, glistening with sweat, then hitting the showers together afterwards – there’s clearly nothing here to attract men of the gayist persuasion.
Sue has never read the bible. First, God sets up men to fail through his little “gotcha” game in the Garden of Eden. From there it goes down hill for mankind quite rapidly. Even ignoring the phony apocalyptic mass-murder of Noah’s Ark story, it’s still pretty darn gruesome:
And this was in the bronze and iron ages… Imagine if God had advanced technology. Like tanks, guns, bombs, poison gas, effective transportation and food storage (logistics) and a manufacturing base… Imagine the carange then…
A second issue is the splitting off of this gruesome conduct. Sorry Christians, you MUST RESPECT THE OLD TESTAMENT and OBEY ITS LAWS. JESUS HIMSELF SAID SO:
This passage, btw, also makes Paul a liar. Paul said that the dietary laws were null and void. But Jesus says NO RELAXING OF THE LAW. One of hundreds of scriptural conflicts Christians ignore.
But wait, there’s more:
Then we have all the “sword” stuff:
Seriously, does this look like a couple of peaceniks? I ask you, does this look like Jesus and God are a couple nice guys you’d like to have a beer with? Who are all “lovey and peace?”
No. Which is why what Jesus and God really said isn’t taught in Church. Which gets me to the irony of Fred Phelps and his flock of hate.
Fred Phelps, misanthropic and disgusting as he his, isn’t an aberration from the standpoint of obeying the Bible. Rather he’s a purist who, as he claims, is one of the few in America to actually follow the bible while the rest are heretics doomed to burn in hell.
The true aberrations, and I have to agree with Phelps from a fundamentalist interpretation of the Holy Bible, are the cafeteria Christians who’ve thrown out virtually all of the bible and take what they want to reinforce their preconceived beliefs and prejudices. That is, their God has evolved to keep up with a more modern set of cultural norm. Whereas Phelps… He’s a rock-hard purist.
On the subject of the second letter, it absolutely BLOWS MY MIND how much people can freak out about the specific way the fabric I use to cover my body is stitched together. Seriously, people, it’s just clothing! Just fabric and thread! It has no mystical powers, and its meaning is derived from the intentions of the wearer. Fabric. And. Thread. So long as all the appropriate bits (over which I will debate, as I think I should be able to go topless if the guys can) are covered, why does anyone care about a particular arrangement of fabric and thread?
Maybe if it said something. I reserve the right to sneer at anyone still wearing anything with a confederate flag on it, for example, or a blatantly racist or religious or similar slogan. But just how it’s cut? If the bottom is sewn into one tube or two? Seriously?
The crazy is driving me crazy, alas.
Ah, but are you making sure you’re using the right _kind_ of fabric? Because if you’re wearing a linen/wool blend, YOU’RE GOING TO HELL. After all, the Bible says so.
As if anyone cares, but my crushes in the mid-60’s: Singers Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. Actress Gina Lollobrigida. Oh, and mucho kudos to Barbara Eden, my first nocturnal emission. (TMI?)
1967 and nobody mentions Raquel Welch? That was the year “Fathom” was released.
rob1 wrote: “Come visit us in small town Mississippi. You might learn something – like what it means to be normal.”
Interesting.
I recently read an article which pointed out that psychologists have a very hard time distinguishing between ‘delusion’ and ‘genuine religious belief’. It is not surprising that they should have a very hard time, because there is no difference. All of the supposed differences are contrived… and those contrived differences exist only because no one has the courage to tell the truth: upwards of 85% of the population of the USA is insane.
So… over 85% of adult Americans profess to be ‘believers’ of one sort or another… which means that they are deluded…. which means they are insane, to one degree or another. Now… anything that is a feature or property that is representative of over 85% of a population can be said (without argument, dispute, quibble or equivocation of any kind) to define what is ‘normal’. So, in the USA… insanity is normal… sanity is abnormal… and the inmates are running the asylum.
In an insane society, sane people are regarded as dangerous.
Oh, childhood crushes, Diana Rigg, Kate Jackson, Diane Lane, Meg Ryan (I always though Goose had the better deal)…
The bad part is, googling their pictures now makes me realize how old I am.
Well Rob1 is right about one thing. Clearly this is a time when people believe that good is evil and evil is good. Sadly I doubt he’ll ever realize he’s on the wrong side of the equation.
I imagine you with a big smile stretching from ear to ear while typing this. It makes it only better.
Re: men in dresses.
Somebody find me a picture of Jesus in pants.
Weird.
Hmmm 1967 huh I wonder what you are upset about?
To the internet Robin! We haven’t a moment to loose!
Are you upset about a death?
Jan 3. Jack Ruby dies. JFK conspiracy thinker?
Jan 27. Apollo 1 disaster. Are you a space fan?
June 7. Death of Dorothy Parker? No I don’t peg you as a fan of the round table.
July 17. John Coltrane dies. Now that is something to be upset about.
July 21. Death on Basil Rathbone. Holmes fan?
August 15. René Magritte dies. Ah! An art lover!
October 3. Woodie Gutherie dies. Ok, I can see being upset about this.
October 9. Che Guevara killed. Comrade!
December 10. Death of Otis Redding. This is tragic.
Or is it something that happend?
Train satation turnstiles being introduced?
The Queen Mary being retired from srevice?
Christian Barnard and the first heart transplant?
First flight of the Concorde?
Pink floyd, The Doors, and Jimmy Hendrix release debut albums.
Hmmm some good some bad. Seems like a normal year to me. Unless you are upset about Loving v. Virginia in which case you are just a racist idiot.
Rule #1: If you don’t like the stereotype, stop living up to it.
@corvustristis #202: You answered your own question. Once people invent completely arbitrary rules for what has to be covered, it’s hardly surprising they come up with equally arbitrary rules for how to cover it.
PZ,
Is that a Christian (TM) woman trying to scold you and teach you about the Bible? Oh, well she’s hell bound now.
1 Timothy 2:12
By the way, I was not being smug in 210. I really want to see a picture of Jesus in pants. Preferably a pair of Wranglers, with cowboy boots and a flannel shirt. Also a picture of him in Uggs and a mini-skirt would be interesting.
Back c. 1967, when I was vur’ small, I did see a music magazine with an article contrasting Jopin and Grace Slick— “Fire v. Ice” sort of thing. I chose Ice then, and while bad, bad things later happened to Gracie (see mid-’70s photos)…my taste for her type has never wavered. Though I do prefer 5’9+… I believe my niche acronym is BRDYTW (T/C): Bookish Reclusive Dangerously Younger Train Wrecky (Tall/Cachexical).
I propose that PZ attempt to outsource his responses to emails to someone different every week. For example, he could ask Karen Armstrong or Alistair McGrath to correct bad theology for a while, or ask the ones who can not be named to fr*me away at them. Some of them may be willing if the request is phrased correctly, e.g. I’ve never understood your point; maybe you could demonstrate it here…
Most importantly, I feel this may be amusing, at least for a while.
“Sue Carlyon,
Paul of Tarsus also specifically told you to keep quiet. (1Timothy 2:11-14)”
It’s a near certainty that Timothy is a forgery.
Christ on a pogo stick, you’d think these people would learn to read their own bible. That’s attributed to Jesus, not Paul. Mathew 10:28:
…but apparently, it was OK before? Actually, I can see that, with just God and Adam around, it would be normal. After all, they’re both blokes, nobody’s around to see them up to male-male shenanigans – where else is Adam going to get relief?
So how is it possible to destroy a soul?
And isn’t that kinda the point of some Eastern religions…the destruction of the soul?
I know if my soul was in Hell, destroying it would be a mercy.
Or is this another case where the Bible doesn’t mean what it says? “Destroy the soul” means keeping it alive forever? Like “three days and three nights in hell” means thirty-six hours, and “that day you shall surely die” means you live for 600 years?
Atheist
Weird
Well, I was just bitching about “weild” – Hell, if you’re gonna incite football teams to wave objects about at followers of gayism, the least you can do is spell it right. Tho’, I suppose, it wouldn’t matter to said football team, who are probably illiterate. I mean, really – use the effing spellcheck; just because you’re delusional does not mean that you shouldn’t learn Engrish as She is Spelt.
PS: In the word “atheist”, the “ist” is a suffix, trumping that i-before-e rule.
PPS: And nobody asked what the 11th Commandment was! Guess…
“They’re more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules…”
No one ever seems to include in the list of ass-kickin’ women detectives Anne Francis, TV’s delightful Honey West. Not only could her Cobra easily outrace Emma Peel’s Lotus Elan, but she kept an ocelot as a pet.
You know, in MS you have to pay a fee for a license to fish. Too bad they don’t require one for breeding.
Start breeding fish then! Besides being tastier and smarter than the letter writers, you would be helping the local economy, and eventually, once the fish have taken over, the world.
Well, Krok me sideways! I hadn’t read this thread when I posted in another about a photo of PZ with a lady who I thought has a remarkable likeness to a certain dead singer
No wonder PZ is looking at her like that!
MikeyM:
Oh, I adored Honey West when I was a kid. Anne Francis was a take no prisoners delight. She was also fantabulous as the innocent sex kitten in Forbidden Planet.
Gee, I’m sure rob1 does not realize how much of the technology used to e-mail his love letter was developed by sodomite prostitute gay witch pagan liberal socialist communist Californians.
How can you diss Eddie Izzard? I’ll have to disagree with you on this one.
I remember when the religiocrats got their undies in a bunch over a drawing of Jesus laughing when it appeared in the late 70’s. How dare someone show a happy Jebus?!!Now there are many drawings of happy, smiling Jebuses. This won’t go over well, even with all that Catholic homoeroticism on display in Cathedrals everywhere.
You see, now I feel like I’m not doing my police duties well. I was born in 1958, and at the age of 9, I’m pretty sure I didn’t have a crush on anyone outside of 4th grade. I do remember Heather (classmate, means nothing to you, I’m sure), and I did think the song “Michelle” was incredibly romantic… That’s about it.
That was the year we all hopped in the family Olds Toronado and drove from Sacramento to Montreal for the World’s Fair. Kept having flat tires and vapor-lock.
For the record, I still think Rubber Soul is a fine album. That was the summer of Sgt Pepper’s, though. Three kids, all trying to figure out just what the hell Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds meant.
(Gawd, I’m a sentimental schmuck.)
MikeM
IaMoL:
I remember that well. The drawing was in Playboy! *Where are my pearls?* The laughing Jesus figured predominantly in a wall collage I did. :D
I don’t know if rob1 is from Fulton, MS, but I am. I can honestly tell you: it’s hypocritical, to say the least. The high school used to host “Womanless Beauty Reviews,” where male students, athletes included, would wear formal dresses and compete. One of these “pageants” was held, in Fulton, last year to raise funds for Relay for Life… http://eu-es.facebook.com/event.php?eid=71482444947&index=1
tsg @ 223: “They’re more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules…”
Very true, but a decent guideline for much of teh Engrish. Big stoopid language, Engrish.
blf @226: Start breeding fish then!
Start breeding
fishghoti then!“Oh yeah. You already have. California is a breeding ground for Satanic forces. Sodomy, prositution, gayism, witchcraft, paganism, liberalism, socialism, communism, etc all prevails there and yet the people are not thankful that God hasn’t already sunk the state into the ocean.”
Hmm I look out my window here in California and find it hard to believe that god hates me. It is a beautiful 72 degrees outside. The San Francisco skyline and Golden Gate bridge are glistening in the sunlight. The prostitutes do not go cold in their little skirts, the gays decorate with beautiful rainbows, the witches have peaceful ceremonies in the redwoods, the pagans share their gods with us and we enjoy their food, the liberal San Franciscan’s now have universal healthcare, the socialists are trying to prevent public transit cutbacks, the communists are putting on a play, and rob1 is welcome to come, but I doubt he will. Although he would chase a young girl in a tuxedo out of town with a ‘football team weilding flaming torches’, we would not chase him out of our town here in California.
Start breeding fish then! Besides being tastier and smarter than the letter writers, you would be helping the local economy, and eventually, once the fish have taken over, the world.
I like the cut o yer jib, sir.
may you and yours be eaten first!
#230 Smartbrainus – The beginning of that sentence threw me, too, but if you read the rest of it, he is talking about the clergy of the Catholic church.
I don’t think he’s dissing transvestites.
Since talk of language has snuck (or is that sneeked) into this thread…
WARNING! Irony meters must be removed to a distance of at least 25 metres before proceeding. I will not be held responsible for sproinging.
~~~
The following is from a package of glow-in-the dark plastic letters. In the past, I’ve bought things for odd reasons – this was the first thing I bought for the instructions!
The text is exactly as it appears on the package.
NIGHT LIGHT
Child intelligence development toy
This product has to learn characters,
and the game is in the integral whole.
Can let the child know English from
the game, and can the freedom const-
itute arbitrarily single phase.
This product has the night light the
result, and can glue to stick be used
as the decorations, is a the style gather
the game, amusement to an ideal toy for,
promoting the child study English.
INSTRUCTION
1 Use scissors will with send the gum
of a to shear some piece
2 Will shear the gum of a to stick in the
letter of alphabet back
3 Can as one’s pleases constitute
arbitrarily single phrase
rob1 needs to get the hell out of the closet.
@akshelby
I’m aware of that…the post was tongue-in-cheek. In any case, both the Pope and the Devil wear Prada.
Dear rob1,
God has a whole Universe to run, but don’t worry, he still takes the time out of his day to fixate on your pee-pee. It hasn’t been in anyone’s butt, has it? HAS IT? That would be bad, and it would make God upset. Not as upset as he would be if your pee-pee touched another man, but still very angry. God is very concerned about your pee-pee, rob1.
Doug, wow
I hate to link to this site, ok no I don’t.