And they both feature creepy weird aliens!
Here’s Jonathan Rosenberg’s illustration.
And here’s one that apparently made the front page of Reddit last night. I’ll let you guess which one is the creepy weird alien.
Two images of the militant atheist
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Both are brilliant.
I’m feeling very militant today.
I have decided, in advance of the obvious drivel this thread will undoubtedly suffer, to coin a new word:
hippocracy: a society governed by horses.
Homonym humour FTW.
Because if one thing is certain, the endless argument about tone and militancy which this thread will be saturated with being comprised largely of horse governed society is it.
Louis
The have squirrels on Plantain VII? My Jack Russell’s will be pleased if we ever go to visit.
ROGUE APOSTROPHE!!!!!! BURN!!!! MAIM!!!! KILL THE HERETIC!!!!!!
Louis
P.S. Doug Little, I am of course not serious. But dammit, I just couldn’t help myself. Mea maxima culpa.
What is “chipolte spread”? Is it an extra-dimensional thing?
Oh! Gord!!
I molest squirrels (well I try to stop the bastards getting the food we put out specifically for the birds)!
So I’m gonna have to give up atheism and convert to Mayonnism… Mayonnaisism… Mayoism… WhateverTheSlimyYellowStuffism should be called.
*reads*
*strokes chin*
*reads again*
Nope, sorry Louis, it ain’t doin’ anything for me this morning.
I am so tired of all this “just as bad” rubbish. Religious fanatics believe ancient myths (or at least pretend to), they oppose equal rights, they are bigots, they want control over people, and they want our civilisation take several huge steps backwards. To say that atheists and secularists are just as bad is utter nonsense.
It’s midnight in the land of Oz, and I love puns. Hippocracy FTW!
Eastern Oz anyway. Couple of hours to go in the west.
Republicans and Horses ass go well together in my mind.
Don’t save images with text as a JPEG, use GIF or PNG instead. “Let’s try this the fuck again.” (JPEG blurs text and line art due to compression)
Shouldn’t that be Equisocracy? Does it mean I will be proxy to power via my two mares and one spotted pony? Hmmm, what to do with all this power?
I know right? I mean if I have to read one more story about fundamentalist atheists teaching evolution in religion class . . .
richardelguru
Yellow? Yellow?! Where on this planet is mayonnaise yellow?!
Wait, you mean you squids and such really are from another planet?
SECRETS OF THE BIOLOGICAL PROFESSION
The second one isn’t really very accurate. PZ Myers has plenty of political goals. No doubt they are reasonable instead of nutty/evil, but still.
We’ll see who rides who… come November.
Oooh! Here’s our new Neightional Anthem!
You left out the biggest difference:
PatR and his fellow travelers KNOW what god wants and KNOW what god wants them to force everyone else to think and do solely because the voices in their head have told them so.
Or they believe the voices in the head of people who lived and died thousands of years ago. Because being old and traditional makes it even more true.
Tigger #14
Probably on PLANTAIN VII, GALAXY OF INDIGESTION, DIMENSION J-12…
Hey this is Freethoughtblogs, not colo[u]r discrimination blog!
They forgot to say that Pat Robertson caused a hurricane to turn away from Virginia.
It’s only fair to mention the good things he does as well as the bad.
My homemade mayo is usually yellowish…egg yolk, mustard, and sometimes oil with a bit of color.
Louis:
It’s spelled Houyhnhnm, Louis.
Alternately:
“Louis like puns, therefore his statements about politics and science are worthless” <- This is the ad homonym fallacy.
Louis, @2:
Swift already beat us to it: Houyhnhnms.
Don’t we already have Houyhnhnms’ land? That had social structure based on reason though I can’t remember the exact governmental structure. Or equestria? That’s a monarchy.
So I’m kind of dumbfounded as to how this concept is gonna represent me when I say I’m kind of dumbfounded that PZ liked the bottom atheist picture: I mean he does work tirelessly to promote women’s rights, get religion out of schools, provide equal rights to LGBTQ’s, argues for proper education of children and youngsters free of religious bias, etc. I mean he even ate a cracker, dammit!
Aaack. And Myeck Waters beat me to it in a much better fashion!
*slinks out*
When people say atheists are “just as bad” as fundamentalists, what they usually mean is that both groups violate the sacred ‘Doctrine of Religious Equivalency.’
The DoRE states that all religious beliefs are equivalent, in that they are matters of deep personal or group commitment — and nobody should violate someone else’s sense of identity by trying to force them to change who they are, or who they choose to be. In other words, nobody’s religion is ever ‘wrong.’ There is no right and wrong — or, at least, not in any way that someone outside the chosen religion can deal with. There is no “one way.” There are many paths, all of them valid.
So telling someone they’re “wrong” is like telling them their tastes and preferences are wrong. It’s an attack on who they are. It’s judgmental. It’s rude. It’s disrespectful. It’s violent. You’re trying to make people to be like you. You’e trying to force them along YOUR way, not theirs. Change their minds … they die.
So the only thing the Moderate Middle (“Not too much God; Not too little God; We have just the right amount of God “) cares about is that both PZ and Pat Robertson tell people they’re wrong. We both “proselytize,” by seeking to convince or persuade. We both talk about religion the wrong way. We think we’re right and others are wrong. We’re not on board with the “many valid paths” of the Doctrine of Religious Equivalence.
That really frosts their shorts.
For most recipes, I find I can just cut out god entirely. I use my food processor to blend the hell out of a cup of cheap, mixed frozen veggies in just enough water to make a smooth slurry. Add that to the stock, and you’ve got yourself a nice, vitamin-rich thickener, no god required.
I should add that it fills in all the gaps, but with fibre.
@24: Eq
Um… site doing odd things…
@24: Equestria is a hippocratic monarchy. :-)
The second one is brilliant! Of course PZ is just like Pat Robertson.
Aha I have created a controversy!
1) Audley, you don’t like it? YOU DON’T LIKE IT???????? This is clearly because you are TOO MEEN™ and DON’T GET IT™. Obviously I was making a nuanced pun and you can’t read for comprehension. (Hey, it works for Tfoot…well, I say “works”. ;-) )
2) Echidna, thank you {sticks out tongue at Audley for being TEH MEEN™}
3) Cry4turtles, GAH! THAT WORD IS HALF GREEK HALF LATIN!!! NO GOOD WILL COME OF THIS!!! Equus is Latin for horse, Hippo is Greek, and -cracy is a Greek suffice. I shall of course be sending the Black Helicopters of Poorly Remembered Classics Enforcement to your location. (A gentleperson need not know Latin, but they should have at least forgotten it)
4) Stevarious, you are evil. That song…burgle warble gurnle.
5) Myeck Waters, Coralline and =8)-DX, I taught Swift everything he knew. I was proposing the consumption of children ages ago via the medium of a now forgotten pamphlet campaign and a time machine. He’s a bloody copycat that Swift.
6) The point of my “hippocracy” comment was not to make a feeble pun. Well, not only to make a feeble pun, obviously that helped, but to pre-eyeroll (I know I am evil) at what I rather suspect this discussion will devolve into. Yeah I’m feeling pessimistic today, sue me!
The policy of communication that “militant” (YUCK) atheists like myself advocate is a pluralistic one. The precise style of communication we might practise is a more “militant” (YUCK) one. Depending on the situation and varying degrees of Grandma Gambit Applicability, naturally.
I’ve got zero problem with people who wish to approach religious folks with a more softly-softly communication style. Go for it, it works in some situations for some people. Just please, PLEASE realise that this pluralism applies outside softly-softly approaches too. More “strident” (urgh) or “militant” (YUCK) or dare I say “rude” (meh) approaches also have their place and appropriateness. No one I have ever read/listened to who I consider to have an IQ greater than that of a houseplant has ever advocated ALL MEAN ALL THE TIME TO EVERYONE.
I’m just pre-sobbing about the topic. Can we just all get on board with a three things:
A) Women/homosexuals/bisexuals/asexuals/transsexuals/transpeople/people with various disabilities, physical or mental differences from the mean or chronic conditions or even people with more or less of a tan than you and who have funny foreign habits/anyone I’ve forgotten as a general social principle, i.e. not a specific person, individuals can easily be arseholes, no group is excepted, ARE STILL FUCKING PEOPLE DESERVING OF EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY AS YOU.
B) Sometimes, just sometimes, a policy about responsible behaviour/usage of something is not directed at you personally but at a subsection of humanity who cannot really be trusted to sit the right way around on a toilet. You may or may not be an individual member of an identifiable group at which this policy is directed. See above. Groups =/= individuals, individuals =/= groups. Hurrah!
C) Sometimes, juuuuuuuust sometimes, what “worked for you” in a more complex situation than you might appreciate is not universally applicable. This applies to you and me equally. Isn’t that special? We get to disagree here, but as things are increasingly complex and/or poorly defined, the amount of shades of grey increases. It is therefore possible to occupy different positions perfectly reasonably. Try to avoid the narcissism of small differences (which would solve oooooh 99% of these debates).
Louis
How do you reason with someone who doesn’t believe in magic?
It just doesn’t make sense that something could come from nothing, without magic.
Glen Davidson
Audley @7
Maybe he meant
Houyhnhnm humo(u)r, FTW?
Oh, fiddlestix, Myeck Waters beat me to it…by a loooooong way.
@scrutationaryarchivist
Chipolte sauce is something like chipped beef, except that it’s made from Nick Nolte. Chip-olte!
The Second one I’ve had on my computer for quite a while now, I forget where it comes from but it’s absolutely brilliant. I’m not a big fan of Reddit but like any internet forum they can be used for good as well as evil and shoving cognitive dissonance in the face of the believers who never gave it a second though counts as “Good” to me.
Louis @4,
Holy shit you’re right. How’d that get there.
Doug Little,
It happens to the best of us. I once did grammar. Its true’.
I blame the Jews, blacks, women and Teh Gheyz for disturbing the balance of a fragile little mind and inserting commas and apostrophe’s anywhere they want to.
Louis
^ my fragile little mind by the way, oh fuck, just smack me, I was making a joke at my own expense and ballsed it up.
Louis
…Conflates philosophy of Jesus with Ayn Rand’s? That doesn’t even begin to make sense! They’re diametrically opposed!
Jesus: “Love thy neighbor, because I said so.”
Ayn Rand: “Screw thy neighbor, because it makes sense to, because of blah blah blah dodgy premises.”
Hmm, this seems to discount that you do things like:
“Supports teaching actual science to children.”
“Supports abortions as a woman’s choice.”
“Supports LGBT rights of marriage and adoption.”
“Doesn’t think he’s God’s mouthpiece and therefore infallible.”
Etc.
With the chart as it is now, you could probably stick most “moderate” religion followers on the left. It lacks specificity to your humanistic beliefs.
Vis a vis Robertson’s constantly lauding “God’s” tsunamis,
they left out:
In a hippocracy, all those against homonym humour vote neigh.
Hippocracy? Homonym? Hmmm, lets ask Mr Horse…
So, OT.
The first has a pretty common punchline, but I do love it for the intergalactic comparison on how ridiculous religous mythology can be, and of course the usual gloating over the eternal suffering of unbelievers trope.
Formally ushered in by the Four Horses of the Apocalypse.
And a horse governed society excretes……?
–
Wherever the mayonnaise has been left out in the sun too long. And wherever our tyrannical equine overlords have pissed in it.
They piss in everything, you know.
–
Top tip for fellow atheists: wrap a bunch of duct tape round your squirrel. It’s far less likely to split when you “molest” it.
Sastra @ 26
Or, more likely, most Americans are too intellectually ill-equipped (i.e. “stupid”) to handle religious arguments, so they hand-wave the issue away by falsely equivocating fundies with atheists then go back to the Lay-Z-Boy to watch Dancing With The Stars and stuff their faces.
So wait, I make a prediction that this thread will devolve into a pathetic, hypocritical argument about the applicability of certain tones in certain circumstances and you motherfuckers do not oblige me?
FUCK YOU INTERNET!
You have made me wrong on the internet. I shall not forget this. I will have my revenge, oh yes I will.
Louis
“How do you reason with someone who doesn’t believe in magic? It just doesn’t make sense that something could come from nothing, without magic.”
Oh that is all win. Thank you, G.D.
My lame entry:
hypocrasy: government by spiced-wine drinkers.
I love PZ almost as much as anyone here, but the second comic is disingenuous. Both PZ and Pat Robertson have a long list of political agendas (as has been pointed out already), it’s just that PZ’s political agenda is far far more moral than Pat Robertson’s.