Another blithering apologist

I read these lame exercises in making excuses by theologians, and I don’t understand how anyone can be foolish enough to fall for them. The latest example is by Edward Tingley, who babbles on painfully about how believers are the true skeptics, the true scientists, while claiming that the believers have a deeper, stronger knowledge than mere atheists. Yet nowhere in his ramble does Tingley ever give any evidence or rational reason to believe in his god or any god — in fact, he triumphantly declares that there is no evidence — god exists, but (I can scarcely believe he makes this argument seriously) he’s hiding…hiding in such a way that only someone “muscled up with virtues” can see him. It’s the Emperor’s New Clothes argument all over again.

Even worse, how can we sense this evidence? We need to use a special instrument.

That instrument is the heart. “It is the heart which perceives God, and not the reason”. “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know”. Pascal’s reasons of the heart are meant to take over from an intellect that operates on hard evidence but has run out of it. “The heart has its order, the mind has its own, which uses principles and demonstrations. The heart has a different one”.

It’s all fluff and nonsense. Tingley doesn’t have a skeptical or scientific neuron in his head, and it shows that he’s trying to think with a muscle.

Jeffrey Shallit takes this pretentious airhead down a few more notches. Somebody somewhere is going to have to someday point me to some intelligent arguments for gods, because I’ve sure never found them. And I know, someone is going to complain that I always pick on the weak arguments…while not bothering to tell me what the strong ones are.

Quit stealing our mythology!

Those bastards — the Anglicans are trying to appropriate Dr Who.

A conference of Church of England vicars watched a handful of episodes from the sci-fi series to study its religious parallels, particularly its themes of evil, resurrection and redemption.

Similarities between the Doctor and Christ, as well as whether the evil Daleks are capable of changing, were also examined.

“There are countless examples of Christian symbolism in Doctor Who, which we can use to get across ideas that can otherwise be difficult to explain,” The Sunday Telegraph in Britain quoted Andrew Wooding, a spokesman for conference organising group Church Army, as saying.

Grrr. Be done with it and simply declare that Jesus was a Time Lord, OK?

Speaking of pulling ads…

Let’s not ever turn into Michelle Malkin, mmm-kay? She got Dunkin’ Donuts to pull an ad…because she didn’t like the scarf the model was wearing, and decided it was pro-Islamic.

It was paisley.

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Typical dhimmi traitor in jihadist-appeasing garb

It’s not like the model was saying “Death to America” or “This iced coffee is perfect for cooling me down after a suicide bombing” or even, “Christians, shut up!” She’s not even in traditional Islamic dress — you can see her face, and a bit of her chest. But she is wearing a scarf, and as we all know, good Americans wear only traditional American clothes, which do not include scarves.

Scalzi and Plait have noted the lunacy. Of course, no one has yet noticed the truly insidious part of the story — this Palestinian kaffiyeh nonsense is a red herring. Paisley. Didn’t they live through the 60s? Have we already forgotten? Are we just going to overlook the significance until suddenly we find ourselves in bell bottoms and headbands with the scent of patchouli wafting through the air?

We happy hooligans

My brief summary of the position of apologists for religion, The Courtier’s Reply, continues to rankle the believers, and they continue to make responses that only make me laugh at their cluelessness. The standard rebuttal is to claim that I was making an argument in favor of ignorance in the face of theological scholarship, followed by a laundry list of esteemed theologians … but never, and I mean absolutely never, even the slightest attempt to address the core of my criticism — not once have they presented a solid, confirmable reason to believe in a deity.

Here’s the latest example, and it follows the formula perfectly. How dare Myers accuse Tillich and Buber and Bonhoeffer and Gandhi and Bishop Tutu and Piaget and a long set of dropped names of promoting false beliefs? Yet, as usual, he cannot bring himself to actually discuss the substance of the issue: where is the evidence for his god? Listing invisible flounces, transparent ruffles, and phantasmal frills is simply a confirmation of the validity of my parable.

And yes, I do accuse his honor roll of theological luminaries of perpetuating lies, of credulity, and often, of pettifogging rhetoric. When someone advances remarkable claims of remarkable phenomena, like N rays or cold fusion or polywater (or natural selection or chemiosmosis or endosymbiosis), we demand evidence and skeptical evaluation…but not for religion. God always gets a pass from the people who already believe. They claim the existence of the most powerful, all-pervasive force in the universe, yet will provide not a single shred of support. And worse, this bozo calls the demand for evidence “hooliganism”.

If that’s the case, I’m proud to be a hooligan.

Kookfight!

Abby has a classic battle of the kooks. In one corner, Leonard Horowitz, a raving looney who begins the debate with an official denunciation of Duesberg, speaking as the mouthpiece of god, arguing that HIV/AIDS is the designed product of evil militarists. In the other corner, the calmer, but still goofy, Peter Duesberg, who claims that the HIV virus cannot possibly cause AIDS. They don’t like each other, and Horowitz is particularly shrill.

And just to make it even more hilarious, the venue: this is from a recording of some New Age health nut radio program, and the commercials that intrude are for weird things like Himalayan Salt Lamps (They’re ionic! They’re natural!) and Health Magnets (the North Pole has special healing powers) and hemp as a dietary supplement (I’m sure it’s high in fiber).

It’s funny until you realize that there are people who actually believe this crap, then it becomes scary.

You need to see Horowitz’s introductory rant, which mds transcribed.

I, Dr Leonard Horowitz, respecting and representing thousands of scientists and physicians worldwide whose voices have been neglected and silenced, as a diplomatic officer for the World Organization for Natural Medicine, as a representative of God, knighted in the Sovereign Orthodox Order of Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem, as a Levitical priest in the bloodlines of Moses and Yeshua the Messiah, I do hereby indict you, Dr Peter Deusberg, for the deaths of millions of people worldwide, for your role in the creation of AIDS, as well as in the disinformation that sustains this, and related medical genocides. This official indictment condemns you for the mass killing and pharmaceutical enslaving of millions of people to AIDS, infectious cancers, and myriad immune pathologies, resulting from your and your collaborators’ manipulations, creations and disseminations of viruses, using genetic modifications and vaccinations, you conducted or abetted. You, along with your colleagues, including Dr Robert Gallo, prostituting virologists and molecular biologists, working for the National Cancer Institute, and paid by Litton Bionetics, a biological weapons contractor for the United States military, having advanced the special virus cancer program during the late 1960s, through the 1970s, are hereby held accountable for the people, and to God, for these crimes against humanity, resulting in this global tragedy of the pandemic now called AIDS, for other cancers, and other autoimmune illnesses that are now devastating populations. This indictment is served publicly and officially, with accompanying evidence of the official contracts, actions taken and payments made to you, published in the Special Virus Cancer Program Reports, that have been now made public during several investigations by many independent investigators. This official indictment, served as a humanitarian action, prays to the courts of Heaven and Earth that you will be punished to the fullest extent of the law, both man’s and God’s, and condemns you, for eternity, for the mass slaughter and enslavement of humanity to HIV/AIDS, and these other illnesses.

Try measuring that on the Hovind Scale.

Nazis, gays, and Bryan Fischer

Shorter Bryan Fischer: Because the Nazis really hated homosexuals, they are nothing like the Religious Right. Or maybe it’s that because the Nazis were gay, they didn’t hate homosexuality enough, as the Bible clearly says you should.

I don’t know. It’s a confused mess of butchered history, so who knows what this guy is trying to say. He sure seems fascinated with butch Nazis abusing effeminate beautiful boys, though.

Biology needs to explain gravity?

Is your lunch hour safely over? If not, wait a while before watching another interview with Ben Stein. I can’t believe what an idiot this man is; it’s not just that he’s ignorant, but that he has these bizarrely inappropriate notions about biology. He complains about “Darwinism” because it doesn’t explain why are there laws of gravity and thermodynamics, or where physics and gravity come from (Bonus lunacy! He claims Darwin said gravity was intelligently designed!). He keeps making these insane assertions in interview after interview, too; does he ever think, or notice that gravity is not a product of biological processes? Did someone tell him gravity was produced by sucking or something?

We all know, after all, that gravity is actually produced by the 4th dimension, which is not what you think it is. Just ask a smart rabbit, who even shares some other sentiments with Stein.

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(Whatever you do, don’t send that comic to Ben Stein — he might think it’s a serious hypothesis.)

Mike Norman is a piker

That guy, Mike Norman, with the t-shirts implying Obama is a monkey is selling them for $15 apiece. Doron Braunshtein is also selling an anti-Obama t-shirt…for $250. This one isn’t as overtly racist — it just says “JEWS AGAINST OBAMA” — but it’s also not worth the money, and Braunshtein’s attitudes, revealed in the story, are rather bigoted themselves. Proud Jews shouldn’t vote for someone with the middle name “Hussein”?