I get email

At the end of February, I’ve mentioned that a flack from Answers in Genesis will be appearing in Morris. I guess the local hosts of that event are a little worried that I might breathe fire over their little church, so they just sent me a note.

Professor Myers,

I am the local coordinator for the Answers in Genesis conference which will be held in Morris on Feb. 27 and 28 featuring Dr. Terry Mortenson. I realize that there is a lot of real estate between our opinions on this subject. My hope is that we create a respectful discussion about this issue which will be challenging.

I would like to meet with you, at your convenience, to discuss the conference, the schedule, and how we can make it a positive experience for all members of our community.

How odd and annoying. I’ve attended creationist events in town before, and they should know by now that I don’t cause grief, at least not during the talks. So I wrote this back to him. I always believe in being honest and straightforward with people, even creationists.

Hmmm. Well. I can guarantee you that I and the people I will be bringing along to the event will be quiet, polite, and entirely non-disruptive; we’ll do nothing but observe, take note, and possibly ask a few simple questions, and we’ll follow any restrictions you want to place on us. You can ask your friends at Answers in Genesis; I led a group of 300 students through the Creation Museum, and we did not run riot or create any real problems for the staff or other attendees. We’ll do the same here, although we definitely won’t have such a large contingent this time around.

But I have to be honest with you: there will be no respect for this nonsense, and I do not consider bringing in dishonest incompetents to miseducate and misrepresent science to be a positive experience for our community. We will respect your right to have discussions of this sort and will in no way impede your ability to present creationist dogma to your audience, but I will not agree in any way with any of it, and once I step away from your church grounds you can expect that my criticisms will be thorough and fiery and will not include any pretense of respect for Answers in Genesis or the Morris Evangelical Free Church.

I don’t quite see the point of meeting. You know my position, and I know yours and Terry Mortenson’s. It is your event and I do not expect any accommodation for actual, honest science in it, nor do I demand it. Since I have promised that I will create no obstacles to your agenda, there really isn’t any good reason to discuss anything about it.

I hope they weren’t misled by my prior instances of polite behavior into somehow thinking I’m nice, or something.

Oh, look what will be happening in my backyard

A representative from Answers in Genesis will be speaking here in Morris, Minnesota! And none of the scheduled talks conflict with any of my classes! Not that I’ll go to them all — I do have limits on how much BS I can be served before gakking up chunks — but I’ll go to some, and will live-tweet the foolishness and blog up the events afterwards. My introductory biology students will also get some extra credit for attending.

Sunday, February 27, 2011 to Monday, February 28, 2011
Dr. Terry Mortenson

Schedule

Note: Any overlapping times indicate multiple, simultaneous sessions

Sunday, February 27, 2011
9 a.m. All Sunday Sessions will be held at Morris Area Elementary School
9 a.m. Music Worship
10 a.m. Dr. Terry Mortenson Creation vs Evolution: Why It Matters
6 p.m. Dr. Terry Mortenson Dinosaurs: Have You Been Brainwashed?
7:30 p.m. Dr. Terry Mortenson Noah’s Flood: Washing Away Millions of Years
Monday, February 28, 2011
11 a.m. All Monday sessions will be held at Hosanna Worship Center
11 a.m. Dr. Terry Mortenson The Seven C’s of History
(Grades K-6)
12:45 p.m. Dr. Terry Mortenson Why and How to Think About Origins
(Grades 7-12)
6 p.m. Dr. Terry Mortenson Origin of Species: Was Darwin Right?
7:30 p.m. Dr. Terry Mortenson Ape-men: the Grand Illusion

More Information

Contact Information

Bart Graves
320-589-2808
bart@mefc.net

Notes

Location for Sunday sessions:
Morris Area Elentary School Concert Hall

151 S. Columbia Ave.
Morris, MN

Location for Monday sessions:
Hosanna Worship Center

46303 State Hwy 28
Morris, MN

This event is a combined ministry of
The Morris Evangelical Free Church
Hosanna Worship Center
Morris Community Church

It’s nice to see the centers of indoctrination into religious stupidity — the Morris Evangelical Free Church, the Hosanna Worship Center, and the Morris Community Church — boldly standing up to admit their participation in crimes against reason. And now you know the kind of folly we face here in rural Minnesota.

From the crazy part of Minnesota

Minnesota State Representative Tom Hackbarth is a Republican. How can you tell? By his deranged behavior.

A security guard at a St. Paul Planned Parenthood clinic called the cops last week after he spotted a Republican state lawmaker with a loaded gun in the parking lot. But the pol says he was only “checking on” his online girlfriend, who he thought may be on a date with another man — a claim police have not been able to corroborate because the man did not have a phone number or address for the woman.

Because that’s how married (but putatively in the midst of a divorce) Republicans look for their girlfriends: by hanging out in Planned Parenthood parking lots with a gun. It’s totally charming that he didn’t know her address and phone number, since they were just “online” friends — I guess he was just bringin’ the real by stalking her with a gun.

I am really amused by his disclaimer.

“I was not a jealous boyfriend,” he said. “I was just trying to check up on her. It’s totally a misunderstanding.”

Yeah. Just checking. With a gun. That’s how we all monitor our wimmin.

Are you surprised that his district overlaps with Michele Bachmann’s?

Attention, godless UMM students!

We’re off to a late start, but the first meeting of the UMM Freethinkers will be held tomorrow, 25 October, at 7:00pm in the Moccasin Flower Room of the student union. I should add that if you aren’t a student, but are an interested member of the Morris community who would like to get together with fellow infidels on a regular basis, you’re invited, too.

I’m not sure what exactly the meeting will be about, since it’s entirely student run, but I’ll be saying a few words at the event. Come on by and help us plan our imminent takeover of the universe!

The Curse of Morris

At first, it was a distressing slithery whisper, like a krait loosed in the room; then a sensation, an itch, as if an assassin were trickling arsenic into my ear; and then apparently the assassin decided to get sadistic and switch to sulfuric acid. I woke up and blinked at the alarm clock; the glowing red LEDs balefully informed me that it was 4:30am. I creakily rose out of bed, went to the window, and pressed my ear against it. It wasn’t a horrible dream. It was true. It was…hymns. Cheesy hymns, played mechanically on an electronic carillon.

Normally, I can cope. These well-insulated Minnesota houses muffle the outside noises well, but it was a clear morning and the pre-dawn silence carried the sound particularly well that day, enough to disturb my sleep. Normally, it’s enough that I keep the doors and windows closed all day and stay inside to avoid the intrusion of nonstop hymns and patriotic songs every half hour from the Vortex of All Evil a few blocks north of me, which if you think about it, is a bit oppressive right there. It’s summer here in the upper midwest, the weather is good, I wouldn’t mind taking my laptop out on the shady deck to work, except…the hymns. It’s at its worst when the weather is sweetest, but I must admit, at least when the tornadoes are storming, the noise is drowned out. My Minnesota pallor is going completely unchallenged this summer, again.

I’ve mentioned this nightmare before. It’s a seasonal nuisance — when the weather turns pleasant and we step outdoors, we’re quickly driven back in by the noise. There seems to be nothing we can do. The Vortex is a ‘charitable’ donation to the local Catholic cemetary by an obnoxious community pest, and it’s all wrapped up in Christianity, both in purpose, location, and content. That means it is protected and beloved by sanctimonious asses who don’t have to live near it.

Here it is.

i-1e54a5ad077a3ba84eac8b28e14eed52-thechimes.jpeg

It doesn’t look like much, does it? Yet there it stands, a monument to evil, a grim and horrible stake surmounted by horns of chaos. I’m sure that if you pulled it up, if you could, you’d find it rooted deeply in Christian Hell, and that every night demons rise from the ground and dance horribly around it. It’s convenient that it is located in a cemetary, because only the dead can rest unperturbed by its presence. If we had a Minnesota Stephen King, he’d be writing terrifying stories about the ordinary townsfolk of a small town being warped and poisoned by emanations from the mysterious malign artifact; an HP Lovecraft of Morris would be troubled by the unholy sounds, and would be writing “<ding> ph’nglui <dong> mglw’nafh <ding> Cthulhu <DONG> R’lyeh <DONG> wgah’nagl <DONG> fhtagn <ding>”. We’re living on the Plains of Madness.

In case you’re wondering exactly where this hellish place is, here’s a map. You can probably guess where I am and where the Pillar of Pandemonium is located.

i-c34e571abc5483634aacb186eafaa951-maptoevil.jpeg

I show you this for two reasons: as a warning, first of all. Shun this place if you value your sanity. Tourists, there’s a nice little campground several miles away on the Pomme de Terre river; stay there, you’ll be out of range of the malefic sonic curse. Beware, beware the throbbing heart of evil in Morris.

The second reason is hope: if a reader out there is in the Air Force Reserve in the region, and is ever out flying around in an A-10, please save us. A volley of Hellfire missiles followed by some napalm to make sure would be delightful.

Otherwise, I’m converting to Islam just so I can build a minaret somewhere central to where city council members live, and send a muezzin up to howl through a loudspeaker five times a day. Surely they won’t mind, especially since it would be less frequent than our damnable Catholic alternative.

Tarryl Clark for Congress

Let’s hope Tarryl Clark can pull it off: she’s the Democratic candidate running against Michele Bachmann. She has a fairly sensible, centrist agenda so maybe it will work…but then, they could pull a mangy muskrat out of the Mississippi and run it against Bachmann, and it would be an improvement.

She doesn’t have a catchy campaign slogan yet, though. May I suggest “Tarryl Clark: Not Crazy” as a possibility?

God is the god of death and destruction

I’m home again from Iowa, but there was a moment where I just about turned around. Coming up into Minnesota, there is a nice big billboard with the following message on it.

i-01f526e310a4a9d04de392cb19a01dc4-god_sign.jpeg

I did a double-take and thought about going back around to get a photo of it, but decided it wasn’t worth it, as there really wasn’t any place to pull over safely. That was a rather vile message, but then, this is Christianity we’re talking about, and this was on I-35, which seems to be a focus for religious insanity.