Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
The last open thread had some discussion of what other people don’t want you to say on the internet — George Carlin had a few things to say about that censorious attitude (NSFW; you know what he’s going to say.)
With special bonus rudeness below the fold!
Texans can do things right, I tell you: they just booted Don McLeroy off the state board of education in the primary election. Yay!
It’s a step forward, although the rest of the board is still a muddled mix of creationist loons and cautious conservatives.
Or you will be exterminated! You know, Texas has a reputation of being a nasty place full of particularly ignorant rednecks, which I don’t blindly agree with — I know too many smart Texans, and it does have many good organizations, like the Texas Freedom Network — but this is a blight that smirches even that already sooty name. I am speaking of a vicious vigilante organization called Repent Amarillo. Look upon that link and quiver with disgust.
It’s saturated with military imagery: men in uniform, humvees, helicopters, helmets; they compare themselves to special forces; they call themselves the Army of God, and sport Bible quotes glorifying warfare. They aren’t military, but they pretend they are, and bring shame to both our soldiers and their faith. They’re actually just cowardly busybodies who snoop and whine at their neighbors, and harass their employers until they get fired. They are not nice people. They’re actually some of the worst kind of people.
They are a “rabid group of religious nuts” who object to the usual targets of fundie hatred — gays — but also harrass people who visit sex shops, engage in consensual heterosexual activity outside the bounds of traditional marriage, and…well, here’s a list of their targets.
1. Gay pride events.
2. Earth worship events such as “Earth Day”
3. Pro-abortion events or places such as Planned Parenthood
4. Breast cancer events such as “Race for the Cure” to illuminate the link between abortion and breast cancer.
5. Opening day of public schools to reach out to students.
6. Spring break events.
7. Demonically based concerts.
8. Halloween events.
9. Other events that may arise that the ministry feels called to confront.
They also plan to hit:
1. Sexually oriented businesses such as pornography shops, strip joints, and XXX-rated theaters.
2. Idolatry locations such as palm readers, false religions, and witchcraft. Many of the smaller missions listed above may be just prayer oriented missions for tearing down demonic strongholds or they may involve more aggressive use of soldiers and prayer warriors. Some other missions occasionally employed may be “undercover operations” where the groups show up together but are not publicly visible together to effect the outcome of a public meeting such as city commissioners meetings, etc.
Check out their Warfare Map. It includes local Buddhist churches (“False god”), the Islamic center (“Allah is a false god and Muhammad is a false prophet”), the Masonic Lodge (“Masonic rituals and teachings in the upper ranks is based on Egyptian paganism. Full of secrecy. Only evil hides in the dark”), the Universalist Church (“Teaches that everyone is going to heaven. This calls Christ a liar. You cannot be a Christian if you call Christ a liar”), the Unitarian Universalist Church (“Pagan and witchcraft headquarters for Amarillo. Pagan and witchcraft celebrations and rites are performed here”), St Andrew’s Episcopal Church (“Referred to an OUTstanding Amarillo’s (Homosexual activists) website as a ‘gay friendly’ church. In other words, they do not tell homosexuals who attend this church that they must repent of the sin of homosexuality. This is a serious violation of scripture”), and Beavers Gentleman Club (“Total nude strip club”), among many others.
“Repent or perish” is their message. They show up dressed in army fatigues, carrying bullhorns, with ghetto blasters blaring Christian music, and they write down license plate numbers and photograph people doing anything they disapprove of. They are our American Mutawwa’in, petty tyrants of propriety with a bloated sense of their own importance. They are our self-righteous wanna-be oppressors.
Keep this in mind. This is the future the Pat Robertsons, the James Dobsons, the Sarah Palins want for us — a kind of Saudi Arabia that differs only in the name we give our prophet.
…is that too often newspapers think you don’t need a science journalist to write it. Any ol’ hack will do. Take this article on evolution in the Vancouver Sun, which distills modern evolutionary biology into 12 theories, which happens to include Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophy as well as Intelligent Design creationism — which, at least, is pairing intellectual equals. The author, Douglas Todd, is speaking High Crackbrain and making stuff up. It’s all garbage from a buffoon who knows nothing about the field. What, you have to wonder, qualifies him to be writing on science?
He has twice taken first place in the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year Award, which goes to the top religion reporter in the secular media in North America. Todd is the only Canadian to have received the Templeton.
Hey, the Templeton Foundation puts it right at the top of their web page: they are SUPPORTING SCIENCE. They are all about sponsoring the reconciliation of science and religion (although, perhaps, that should be written as “science and RELIGION“, since we all know where the emphasis lies). It’s just too bad that the results so often belie their claims.
Chopra has another mindless post on the HuffPo, titled Only Spirituality Can Solve The Problems Of The World. I read the whole thing. He’s got some fuzzy definitions, praises god-consciousness, gushes about love, joy, kindness, peace, etc., but overall, it’s the usual vacuous fluff. I am left with one question in reference to the bold assertion in his title.
How?
Just to name a few problems of the world: overpopulation, famine, resource depletion, water scarcity, war, and disease. Deepak Chopra, quick, 30 seconds: how will you solve any one of those problems with spirituality?
Bzzzt, time’s up. OK, clearly you can’t answer questions with that kind of scope. Let’s narrow it down a bit: the aftermath of the Chilean earthquake. How will you fix infrastructure problems with spirituality? 30 seconds.
Oh, man, you suck at this game. We’ll simplify some more. A woman comes into your office looking for medical help. She has breast cancer. In 30 seconds, tell us what spiritual advice you would give her that would actually help her with this disease?
Bzzzt. Oh, so sorry, you’ve been skunked. Better luck next … wait. The judges have made a decision. Really? You’re going to give it to him?
The judges have decided that the correct answer for each of those questions was “No, spirituality can’t fix any of those problems” and that your stupefied silence counts as a legitimate response. You lucky dog, you win the grand prize! We’re going to give you a shovel, a hammer, a bag of antibiotics and vaccines, and airdrop you into a remote African village where you can use your “spirituality” to solve a few problems. Congratulations!
I’ve long held a gripe about science-fiction aliens: they’re always far too unimaginative. I know it’s because SF is rarely about real aliens but is always about ourselves (and is also usually but keeping the budget manageable, in the case of SF movies), but still…the model is always our species, and they can’t even broaden their horizons enough to look at the diversity within the phylum Chordata, let alone examine some of the weirdness in other phyla. And, of course, any alien life form isn’t even going to be at all related to us, so it should be even stranger. Avatar was just the worst example of this trend — and Cameron did not have the budget excuse — but Star Trek and Star Wars were also pretty feeble in biological creativity department.
Examples that buck the trend are rare. District 9 at least modeled their aliens after cockroaches. Babylon 5 had most of their primary interacting alien races boringly humanoid, but had a few oddballs lurking mostly offscreen.
At least here’s one artist who does biologically informed aliens. Here’s one example, check out his gallery.
Have you heard about this strange new web service, Chatroulette? It makes webcam connections between random pairs of people with the idea that it’ll spark interesting conversations. I like the idea, but I haven’t tried it yet myself because a) I’ve heard that mainly what you get is pathetic exhibitionist men who aim the camera at their crotch, or b) people who want to chat about sex and flick past anyone who isn’t pretty enough (I think I’d be subject to rather rapid dismissals), and c) I DON’T HAVE TIME TO CHAT RIGHT NOW. MUST WRITE.
However, here’s an interesting use of the service: this fellow would flash the video, The Symphony of Science at people with a request to give a thumbs up for science. Look, it worked! This video is totally safe for work.
Earlier reports about ChatRoulette had given me some misgivings about humanity, or at least the male half of it. This video makes me feel a little better about it.
I thought she’d just want to know, since she talks about it as one of her hideous personal deformities without knowing what it is called.
Nice video. It takes quite a bit of confidence to be able to do that. I’d make a similar one recounting my flaws, but youtube has a 10 minute limit on their videos.
You know, Rebecca will be one of the speakers at Skepticon III…
Springfield, that is. And you’ll have to wait until November, but it will be worth it. It’s Skepticon 3! Read about the meeting. Peruse the list of speakers. Register now. If you’re rich, help by sponsoring.
I hear there will be a drinking contest between Richard Carrier and Rebecca Watson, which will be an event for the ages. I’m excused because of my advanced age and unfairly fine-honed metabolism.
It’s a fabulously fun meeting. You want to go.
