You are a cruel readership. One of you — I won’t name names to protect the guilty — told me to go listen to this radio program out of Colorado Springs called “Generations With Vision”, by some guy named Kevin Swanson, and in particular to an episode called The Secular Hold is Slipping. He’s a very cheerful, confident fellow, and I listened to several minutes of him lying blithely and loudly. It was…painful. It was a happy idiot gloatingly making stuff up to make himself feel good.
Here’s their summary of the episode.
It’s getting harder and harder to “shut up” the little boy in the Emperor’s New Clothes proceedings. And evolutionists and the secularists aren’t happy about it. Ray Comfort’s Evolution vs. God video is going viral. Kevin Swanson also questions the McMillan new dictionary definition for marriage on this episode of Generations.
It starts off with this assertion that the holy trinity of the humanists consists of evolution, feminism, and homosexuality, and that we’re on the run in all three areas. To claim that, though, they have to mangle all three ideas. Here’s their short summary of feminist social theory, for instance: get rid of all men, get rid of marriage, kill all the kids, and have lots of sex. Abortion is the sacred sacrament of the feminists.
I wish I were joking. That’s literally what they said, in a tone of absolute certainty. How can you even begin to argue with people who are that wrong?
But then they spent most of their time laughing at evolution from a position of unassailable ignorance. They are inspired by Ray Comfort (you know their credibility is shot right there), who is making everyone so mad. They claim he’s interviewed “the big shots”: Richard Dawkins [no, he hasn’t] and PG Myers [who?]. They actually believe he has exposed an absence of evidence for evolution, when all Comfort has shown is his zeal in chopping out evidence that contradicts him.
And then comes the babble of creationist buzzwords and assertions. There is no evidence or data for evolution; there is no evidence for how a non-heart non-lung animal turned into a heart-lung animal. That, at least, is a novel constructed claim, but…have they looked? If anyone mentioned Tinman/Nkx-2.5/csx to them, would they have the slightest clue what we’re talking about? There’s been a lot of work on the molecular evolution of heart-related genes, for instance. That they are ignorant of it all is not evidence that the data is not there.
Their biggest lie: they claim “We would love to know how it happened.” No, they wouldn’t. They believe they already know, that an invisible superbeing simply zapped hearts and lungs into existence, and they deny the truly wonderful explanation backed by the evidence and aren’t even interested enough to try and learn. They are smug little jerks sitting in a puddle of their own urine, unwilling to wash themselves of foolishness.
They make a host of weird claims. “Punctuated equilibrium is where a prince kisses a frog.” What? “Richard Dawkins isn’t a scientist.” They keep talking about all the “honest scientists” who are leaving evolution, but they don’t bother to name them.
Then they try to dazzle their audience with the intimidating authority of math. They trot out Fred Hoyle’s example of 20 amino acids assembling into a protein having impossible odds — wrong. It’s actually quite trivial, and they’re making an error of invalid assumptions. By their reasoning, every bridge hand is a triumph of the impossible coming into existence.
Yeah, they actually say it’s impossible. They trot out the familiar creationist claim that odds of one chance in 1050 can never happen, this magic number of 10 to the 50th power representing an absolute boundary. It’s wrong, and it’s ridiculously wrong.
To crown their demonstration of the power of lying about mathematics, they then announce that “People are not very good at math”. They did manage to prove that claim by example.
And of course they’re making claims that “Honest scientists are abandoning the theory left and right, because there is no evidence. They have no data.” and that “Evolutionists are going away — they’re very desperate.”
I would ask how they know that. They certainly don’t have any evidence for it. The subject of evolution is placed solidly in the core of every competent college biology curriculum; every week new papers come out testing and demonstrating the power of the theory; all of the biologists I know — and I think I’ve got more inside knowledge than a couple of obscure evangelical radio guys in the heart of fundie-land — are advocates for evolution who use it routinely in their work. They might try looking at the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB), the American Society of Naturalists (ASN), the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB), the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE), or the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB), just for a start. Ask them about the people abandoning evolution: they’ll give you an odd look, wonder what the hell is wrong with you, and walk away.
But then, that requires actually peeping out of their little bunker of isolated, ignorant Christianity and actually talking to a real biologist, rather than listening to a lying fraud like Ray Comfort. That’ll never happen.
So, just a normal day then. Yeesh. This is what happens when you place your faith in a psycho god figure – you fear everything.
Creationists have been claiming that evolution is on the ropes pretty much continuously for the past 150 years. Yep, annnny day now, just you wait!
Feminists: could you consider keeping just a few men around, please? I promise I won’t be any trouble, and I might be useful for doing man stuff. Like… uh… opening tough jars?
I’m reminded of the experiments where kittens eyes are sewn shut. The visual cortex never properly forms so they have no concept of what reality looks like
There are huge swathes of America where kids minds are sewn shut.
Evolutionary theory dies the day that Jesus returns. Still waiting, goddists.
Feminism:
Step 1 – get rid of men
Step 2 – have sex
Step 3 – have an abortion
You can do steps 1 and 2 or 2 and 3 but step one eliminates the need for three.
Dawkins is not a scientist? Usually they brush off The God Delusion because he’s not a philosopher.
So they might as well stop talking about evolution, right? That would be nice. I wonder what they’ll lie about once it’s finally gone.
Yes, I was wondering about that, too.
How do we get pregnant for our precious abortions* if we got rid of the guys?
And whom should I have all that sex with? I mean, sex with myself is fun, but once in a while I quite like to bed a man.
*At least we can be pretty sure that those guys never had an abortion. Because I’m pretty sure that no woman ever went to have an abortion if the alternative had been, let’s say, having a coffee and a cupcake with your friends. Not that it’s horrible, pregnancy and childbirth are way worse, but there are so many nicer things, which is why I kind of prefer not needing an abortion every single month.
@Giliell:
We do as the lions do, duh: a large group of women keep one male around. We don’t let him near the kids, of course. He’s for breeding purposes only. But we’ll let him eat first, to make him think he’s special.
Fred Hoyle was the astronomer who tried to prove that the Archaeopteryx fossils where fakes, wasn’t he?
And PZ having a PG rating? (Wikipedia-ing it) Sounds reasonable;-)
@5
Well, you see, that’s the only reason the Feminists haven’t taken control of the world and eliminated men. Until Feminist scientists toiling away in secret laboratories figure out how women can get women pregnant, men will have to be tolerated – resented but tolerated.
One may wonder how these straw feminists didn’t realise that getting pregnant just so you could get an abortion wasn’t going to end well for their new society. The explanation is that one must of course take into account the straw feminists’ cute little pink female brains which means they really can’t think at all well.
Yep
The imminent demise of evolution is only 3 years from now.
Prepare.
Crip Dyke
Wait, I thought we kill the kids, too*
*A very tempting idea at around 7am
@Gilliel:
Can’t kill ’em if we don’t have ’em first.
need to keep the male away, though, so he doesn’t get the fun.
Pack it up, evil-utionists, your gravy train to fame, that sweet, sweet grant money, and all those hot scientist babes (or dudes) is over. Now that creationism has shown your precious “theories” to not be worth the PDFs they’re printed on, it’s done. Kaput! Finito! No soup for you!
Ray Comfort – 1, PG Myers – 0
[spikes the ball and does the Snoopy happy dance]
How do we get pregnant for our precious abortions* if we got rid of the guys?
Sperm banks. We’ll inseminate ourselves while cackling and fantasizing about the abortion we’ll be having 8.5 months from now. That is, of course, just until we get the oocyte fusion and sperm banks up and running.
But can we save just a few men? I, um…oh, well, I guess I might as well admit it…I’m straight. (Hides head in shame at not being a perfect straw radical feminist.)
Giliell:
What do you think sperm banks are for?
@dianne
I’ll buy your chosen partner a strap-on. Then you just need to lie back and think of England. That matriarchal, Thatcher-led, feminist, feminist England.
You’ll have the very essence of straight sex right there.
Without, you know, the essence.
Aw, jinx!
Dianne:
Oh, I suppose we could keep a small supply of men in the dungeons, for those who are androphilic.
Right. They read about half of Ursula Le Guin’s “The Matter of Seggri” and took it as a feminist utopia.
Rather like how they read The Handmaid’s Tale and started salivating and/or masturbating.
Then you just need to lie back and think of England. That matriarchal, Thatcher-led, feminist, feminist England.
Erk, ick. Can I fantasize about a matriarchal, Hilary Clinton* led US instead?
*Not the real HRC, of course, but the one that lives in the minds of Rush Limbaugh and other anti-feminists.
I’ll buy your chosen partner a strap-on.
Hmm…are you trying to seduce me Ms. Crip Dyke?
I don’t get a few big things with Creationism vs Evolution:
1 – even if it turns out that evolution is a massive bag of wrongness, why would that validate your theory? Even when it was believed (in some circles) the earth was orbited by the sun it did not lend any credence to the Helios.
2 – for the last century (largely) there has been a cultural, political and occasional military struggle between East and West. Bizarrely, despite the obvious benefits of being “right” scientifically (or evidentially for a religion) there are no (caveat: I don’t know, maybe there are a couple of fundie countries that completely dominate science) countries, or their body of scientists, willing to throw evolution out. Bear in mind that includes good Catholics, Muslims & Christians throughout Europe.
Not that the absence of dissent is evidence for evolution, but the absence of dissent by ideologically opposed nations who have all seem to come to largely identical conclusions would seem to me to be pretty much the ultimate nail in the coffin.
@dianne
Ack! Hoisted! Hoisted, I am, on my own …um…er…
I’m not going to get out of this gracefully, am I?
Kevin Swanson is an odious creep who says all sorts of mind-bogglingly stupid and hateful things.
Ed Brayton has a post today on how Swanson says that Mark Twain was possessed by demons.
Right Wing Watch has a long list of his greatest hits at http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/kevin-swanson
What’s the point of subjugating all the men just to kill us all off? Think of all the time you could spend gloating! I think Crip dyke’s suggestion @#9 is the way forward.
On an entirely unrelated note, I would like to point out that I am a good cook and an excellent lover, and I don’t much like kids.
“…Abortion is the sacred sacrament of the feminists…
Hmmmmm reminds me of my favorite Gloria Steinam quote.
“If men had babies abortion would be a sacrament.”
lff
@koncorde
Do you know, that’s a damn good point.
ambulocetacean, how nice to see you!
PG Myers is PZ’s counterpart over at Scienceblogs. Oh, there’s plenty of sex there, of course, but mostly it’s couched in talk about molecules and stuff. No cursing, no violence, and none of the really dangerous ideas like feminism.
Ehh, give me internet access and daily outdoors exercise time and I’m down.
Like most people, they believe that the punctuation is supposed to be instantaneous or at least restricted to timespans noticeable to humans. Gould actually thought they still took tens of thousands of years at a minimum – and he really wasn’t good at making this clear.
Hi Caine! Lovely to see you too. I’ll say hello over in The Lounge.
Like… uh… opening tough jars?
Uh-oh, I guess I’m expendable. At our house, my wife opens the tough jars (except the really tough ones that require a require a strap wrench). I’ve got some undiagnosed problem with my hands that weakens my grip.
Moggie @ 2…
[blockquote]I promise I won’t be any trouble, and I might be useful for doing man stuff. Like… uh… opening tough jars?[/blockquote]
I have a tool in a kitchen drawer for that very purpose. I call it my Handy Misandry.
Damn it, tags!
Pffffhahaha :)
What’s the point of subjugating all the men just to kill us all off? Think of all the time you could spend gloating!
Oh, no. You’re not getting us that easily! Everyone knows that it’s the villain who sits around gloating and gives his victim time to escape. The hero kills (only, of course, when necessary and with great reluctance) without an inefficient fuss that would only result in the villain escaping and thus an unnecessary sequel.
The tired old refrain that evolution is being abandoned makes me laugh because I like to point out that Creationism is in a state of chaos. Evolution has converged quite nicely, which, in science, generally indicates that it’s supported by objective reality. Over the centuries, religion has had inquisitions, pogroms, witch hunts, and so forth in an effort to enforce consensus. Despite all that, Creationism has failed miserably to reach a consensus on even broad issues. Meanwhile, evolutionary science, a relative newcomer compared to the big religions, has reached a much more consistent and finely detailed consensus without resorting to barbarism.
Kevin Swanson is one of the lowest of the xian Dark Side bottom feeders.
The No Religions/Freedom from Religion movement has a powerful tail wind.
Kevin Swanson and his myriads of clones and followers. The uglier they get, the more of us they are!!!
Fundie xians created the New Atheists.
Yep. It didn’t fit into his theory of macroevolution by viruses from outer space suddenly flooding the genomes of everything, leading to mass extinctions and evolution near Pokémon speed among the survivors.
Thank you, I just read all the comments there and watched a YouTube video without sound.
O NOES
I have an idea
I hereby decree:
1.) All sex with a feminist is lesbian sex. That includes a gay guy wanking while dreaming of Julio Iglesias.
2.) Every time your reproductive system does anything that is not procreating is an abortion. Lack of functioning reproductive systems will count as 2,4 abortions a day. Every abortion is worth 1 internet point.
3.) Men are called “Strawberry Margarita”.
4.) Kids are called cupcakes
If you can’t argue with the science, just wish it away. The power of positive thinking will protect me.
But it’s not enough to simply wish away the science. The real problem at the heart of faith is that weird beliefs are difficult to hold when you’re alone or a small minority. Creationists desperately crave reinforcement of their beliefs. And they clearly value authority. This is why science is so threatening to them. These are people in positions of authority contradicting them. They have to either tear these people down or claim that they’re on their side. They want the authorities to back their claims.
I have an Internet.
For you.
1 Internet cookie.
What on earth am I supposed to do with the 100,000 internet points I’ve gained so far today? Please tell me they equate to air miles…
butbutbut
where does this leave Brownian?
3.) Men are called “Strawberry Margarita”.
4.) Kids are called cupcakes
Perfect! That means I go home to a strawberry margarita and a cupcake at the end of the day.
Every abortion is worth 1 internet point.
Um…can I get any points for performing abortions? Because my window of opportunity for having one is closing fast…
where does this leave Brownian?
Gay lesbian sex with Brownian. What’s the problem?
@dianne, 48
While I totally agree, the important part for me is whether the line gets any shorter.
The line. The long, long line. That’s the problem.
The line. The long, long line. That’s the problem.
Hmm…(moment of deep thought).
Ok, everyone, here’s how it is:
Gay sex with Brownian, line forms at right.
Lesbian sex with Crip Dyke with or without her magic programmable vibrator, line forms to the left.
Steamy pile of anything goes with Louis, straight (no pun intended) up the middle!
That should decrease the wait for everyone and increase the variety as well.
@47: Um…can I get any points for performing abortions? Because my window of opportunity for having one is closing fast…
If you’re referring to menopause, I think that qualifies as “Lack of functioning reproductive system”, so relax: you’ll soon be racking up points on a daily basis (like my wife and I have both been for over 20 years).
Same here. But I have changed a flat tyre on the car, oh, must be at least 3 times in 22 years, and it’s well known that that task absolutely requires a Y-chromosome!
You don’t. You say, “You’re a fucking moron,” (or whatever actually suits you) and then wait for the civility police to show up, whom you may smack with your special civility police-smacking glove.
F, I never got a Civility Police-Smacking Glove™, Are they standard issue or do you have to purchase it? To think I’ve been doing it wrong all this time.
Nice to know I’m a Strawberry Margarita. Would’ve preferred to be a Brojito or a Man-Hattan (geddit, aaaaahahaha – ok, sorry) but I realise I’m not the one making the rules because Penis™.
Now, look, my soon-to-be-Femistasi Vagylon Bra-lek overlordesses: as my doctor wife is shaping to be the major breadwinner and I’ll be primary wrangler of Leeloo Multipass, our little female cupcake (and any subsequent cupcakes), can I please not be dungeoned or ground into a fine paste to feed your millions of cats? I promise to be quiet, plus I make a mean sammich.
They equate to internet air miles. which means you can use them for talking to people on the other side of the pond ;)
@F
Surely one of them should have come with the GGMC uniform? I can’t find mine anywhere!
*searches frantically*
If you’re referring to menopause, I think that qualifies as “Lack of functioning reproductive system”, so relax: you’ll soon be racking up points on a daily basis (like my wife and I have both been for over 20 years).
But that’s so…passive. I want to be actively promoting the Feminist Agenda for Gonads (TM).
I have seriously been considering seeing if PP or some similar organization could use an internist for pre-op screening and medical abortions. But only after my kid’s grown and no longer in the way of the pro-slavery death squads. I’m not brave enough for that risk.
My favorite is still Wretched Radio with Todd Friel, whose crowing accomplishment was interviewing Christopher Hitchens for his imaginary gameshow.