Don’t tell Jerry Coyne. I am disturbed to see that cats are intruding on the cephalopod domain.
Although…if I were a squid, I think I’d just see this as snack delivery.
I assign a fair bit of writing in my courses, but because it’s all about biology, the papers I get back might be full of cryptic words like mek and src and neoplasia, but they tend to have a straightforward narrative and avoid ambiguity…and since I’m at a good liberal arts college, most of the students are competent writers. But then every once in a while I get a glimpse from my colleagues of the world outside my mechanistic and straightforward world, and I feel a small thrill of horror. You should read the whole student essay, but here’s the concluding paragraph.
Because knowing what it knows now, it will never know peace. It will only know humiliation. For there are no limits on the number of Grade Change forms I can request, or if there are, I plan to collect them like an ignorant naturalist on a well-trodden shore and submit them in perpetuity.
Yeesh. The tortured syntax, the ambiguous referents, the vague threat of drowning the poor victim in paperwork…I do not want to live in that universe.
But still, this one is still the all-time champion worst.
First thing you notice is the breakdancin’ Jesus, and then the eye moves to Catholic priests clapping politely, and then the brain shuts down. What is this alien event? Why…huh…ack…processor failure. Overload, overload, overload.
(via Movin’ Meat, appropriately titled for the image)
In email, Libby Anne passed along a little jewel from her youth: some radio propaganda against that horrible demonic portal to evil, Dungeons & Dragons. It’s a radio show called Castles and Cauldrons, with a special introduction from James Dobson, warning you kiddies about the dangers of those role-playing games and their non-Christian magic and mysticism, which will lead them into contact with demons and satanism. It’s a two-parter, with summaries of Part 1 and Part 2. Warning: it’s laced with commercials for Focus on the Patriarchy.
They play a version of the games I’ve never encountered. These games give you actual magic powers that allow you to summon demons and control people and eradicate your enemies and read people’s minds. They sure seem a lot more powerful than Christianity.
He has really left the building. As you may know, he departed freethoughtblogs rather acrimoniously, took a few potshots at Natalie, and returned to his old blog. He also created a second blog, which I guess I’ll recommend to you: Loftus Unleashed.
I have no idea what is going on in his head. I don’t think I want to know, but I hope he’s got a few real-life friends to help him out.
It truly does, and someone has caught us out and published a stunning exposé that reveals the horrible, awful behavior that our goddess, Nature, endorses. You must read “God Hates Checkered Whiptail Lizards!!!” and weep. This is but one page of a devastating revelation.
(Also on Sb)
Poor dinosaurs. They’re constantly getting dragooned onto the side of stupidity: the creationists love to pretend that dinosaurs frolicked with human beings, no doubt because damning them as a myth would remove them from the profitable lunchbox and Saturday morning cartoon market, and leave them without any tools to appeal to youngsters.
But now they’ve gone too far. There is a theme park in Virginia that imagines (key word, that: if only the creationists would recognize the imaginary nature of their mythology) that Yankee soldiers discover a lost valley populated with dinosaurs, and try to draft them to fight in the War of Northern Aggression. The dinosaurs will have nothing to do with it, and instead fight for the Confederacy. Of course. Dinosaurs are obsolete antiques with itty-bitty brains, so it’s only natural that they’d side with the South.
Hallelujah! At long last, we can reconcile Jesus and science — all we need is to know a little quantum physics. Very little quantum physics. So little that we can get it all wrong, and it really doesn’t matter. Heed this call to improve the world by having Christians embrace physics!
It is time for the spiritually faithful to openly support the acceptance of this new science, which is called quantum physics theory. It replaces Newtonian physics theory, which is based on concepts developed in the 17th century when scientists separated themselves from the Church of Rome to avoid being burned at the stake when their discoveries were at variance with the teachings of the church.
Uh, hey, what? I had no idea that Newtonian physics was a cop-out to avoid conflict with Catholicism. The things you learn on the interwebs…
The Newtonian physics the-ory describes most day-to-day physical phenomena well, but does not support concepts of intuitive, spiritual or other "nonphysical" phenomena, such as electricity and field theories.
This is getting weirder and weirder: electricity is non-physical? It’s an intuitive, spiritual phenomenon? I know James Clerk Maxwell was a devout evangelical Christian, but he managed to keep all of that out of his work.
I think you can see where this is going: wicked Catholic-appeasing Newton doesn’t support spirituality (which is already ridiculous and ahistorical), but quantum physics does.
Quantum physics theory sees the universe as an infinite, interactive field of energy patterns (quantum holograms) in which the true intentions of humankind influence the application of infinite sources of energy in our physical world.
See?
I don’t think quantum physics includes human intention as a factor at all. This sounds more like Deepak Chopra’s version of physics, i.e., total bugwackin’ nonsense.
So how does this guy justify this idiosyncratic version of physics? By personal experience, of course.
I have personally experienced and observed the moving of physical objects, the changing of chemical compositions and the healing of sickness by means of true intentions, alone. I foresee a near future in which each of us "who does not doubt in his heart" quietly and without ostentation, helps to keep turning the wheels of industry, transportation and electric generation, as required. How many Christians truly believe in the teachings of Jesus?
I look forward to our bright future in which the prayers of devout Christians cause the turbines of dynamos to whirl about telekinetically, generating free godly energy for us all.
If you doubt this, you do not truly believe in the teachings of Jesus, who was all about magic-powered industrial machinery.
Did you know that Rick Santorum thinks atheism leads to beheading people?
“They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is a government that gives you rights. What’s left are no unalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do, and when you’ll do it. What’s left, in France, became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that. But if we do, and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.”
Which led me to a crazy thought…maybe the atheist symbol should be a little guillotine. I understand there’s a peculiar trend in religions to use an execution device as a fashion statement, so it would fit right in.
It would also be of some practical utility to cigar smokers.
And what overt hostility to faith does Obama have? Did you see his prayer breakfast remarks? He’s so fucking pious I don’t want to vote for him.
