I don’t know if I should encourage these things — they are of the devil. At least the intent in this contest to create anti-creationist LOLcats is good. Your goal is to make a funny picture with peculiar grammar that mocks creationist ideas, and win fabulous prizes. Go for it!
There is a church in Romsey, Australia which is getting lots of attention because they offer a “Sci-Fi and Fantasy Friendly Church Service,” where people dress up as fantasy characters and wave light-sabers around while quoting Buffy and Bilbo. It’s a weird story, because every church service offered everywhere is fantasy friendly, so what’s the big deal? Obi-Wan and Gandalf are both Jesus-figures, anyway.
Predictably, though, some stuffed shirts are outraged, which just fills me with more appreciation of irony. Says the Baptist minister who hears voices in his head and promises escape to an imaginary paradise after death,
“I don’t have a problem with people enjoying sci-fi, but church isn’t the place to encourage escapism and fancy dress,” Mentone Baptist minister Murray Campbell said.
“It is the time where real people with real lives need to hear the real God speak his word, the Bible.
Another of the men wearing a dress speaks up:
Catholic priest Gerald O’Collins said: “There should be no need to dress it up.
“There is a magical story there already – We just have to start selling ourselves properly.”
At least he’s honest—yes, religion is all about selling magic. The Romsey church is embarrassingly blatant about it, which is nothing new — but their real crime is making the silliness obvious by inviting comparison with openly fictional stories.
Carole Smith is a Wiccan who worked for the TSA at the Albany airport. Her coworkers didn’t much care for working alongside a witch, so they complained.
…her former mentor in on-the-job training, officer Mary Bagnoli, reported that she was afraid of Smith because she was a witch who practiced witchcraft. She accused Smith of following her on the highway one snowy evening after work and casting a spell on the heater of her car, causing it not to work.
Well, now. If I were her supervisor and Mary Bagnoli told me that story, I’d be checking her locker for a bottle of hooch. What else, did someone at work complain that she turned them into a newt?
I am not the supervisor, though. What the TSA did, after hearing this story and struggling with a little workplace drama, was fire Carole Smith. It seems to me, though, that Smith was keeping her batty beliefs out of the workplace, while it was Bagnoli who was engaging in a little ludicrous harassment. Either way, I came away from this story feeling a little less secure.
I find it very disturbing that some artist managed to penetrate the layers of security and multiple deadly traps to produce illustrations of my inner sanctum. The alert level has been increased and security enhanced, so other interlopers should beware. Further breaches will not be tolerated.
Uh-oh. This is a frightening art project in which children were asked to draw figures from the Cthulhu mythos. Didn’t they know that contemplating elder gods always ends in insanity, a mysterious disappearance, and haunted rooms spattered with slime?
They produced some fascinating pictures, too. Scary stuff. There’s a kid or two that might need psychotherapy.
How can our news media get the story so completely backwards? MSNBC is reporting a correlation between religiosity and obesity, which simply can’t be true. Aside from the difficulties of going from a correlation between two complex phenemona to an assumption of causality, we have it from an unimpeachable, objective source that the opposite is true.
That paragon of scienciness, Conservapædia, has been arguing that atheism leads to obesity, and for proof, they have photos of grossly pig-like PZ Myers contrasted with slim, muscular Christian Chuck Norris. This is, of course, also evidence for their claim that “excess weight impairs brain function.”
PS. As many of you already know, the word “conservapedia” is a filtered term here, because way, way back, the Schlafly consortium had their crack team of home-schooled kiddies spamming us with spammy links to get their page ranking up. I strongly recommend that any mention of them be spelled “conservapædia”, because they also really, really hate those effete European spellings.
If I were, I would say ian murphy can has congress.
I endorse Ian Murphy, because he is pissed off about the right things.
I think I read this in a Dungeons & Dragons manual. It’s a magic spell called Agnihotra that puts a shell around you to resist nuclear fallout when an atom bomb goes off, only in this case, it’s real…well, as real as the delusions of a freaky Hindu mystic can make it, which isn’t very. But at least it’s illustrated and explained!
When a nuclear device is detonated, it gives rise to raja-tama predominant vibrations of the Absolute Cosmic Fire element. Discordant subtle sounds accompany these frequencies. These subtle sounds have a subtle harmful effect on the mind and intellect of the people in the vicinity of the nuclear attack. It can range from depression, to negative thoughts, to fogging up of the intellect.
When the ritual of Agnihotra is performed, it gives rise to sattva predominant vibrations of the Absolute Cosmic Fire element. The fire created from Agnihotra disintegrates the raja-tama particles and therefore purifies the environment at a spiritual level. It also creates a subtle protective sheath around the person performing the ritual. This sheath is highly sensitive to anything related to the Absolute Cosmic Fire element and from the subtle dimension this sheath looks reddish.
The raja-tama predominant Absolute Cosmic Fire particles (emanating from a nuclear device detonating) strike in a very harsh and callous manner. The protective sheath intuitively knows in advance when they are coming near it and as a reflex action it sends the Absolute Cosmic Fire frequencies from within it towards the raja-tama predominant particles with tremendous force. This destroys the raja-tama predominant Absolute Cosmic Fire particles which give rise to the sound frequencies. As a result, the destructive Absolute Cosmic Fire from the detonated nuclear device loses its power.
I think the author has only recently discovered the word “subtle”, and kind of likes it even if he isn’t 100% clear on what it means. This is also the first time I’ve heard that one of the serious effects of fallout is that it emits sounds that make you depressed.
In addition to subtle diagrams, there are subtle tables that tell you the degree and duration of your protection depending on your spiritual level (see, I told you! It’s D&D!) It doesn’t, however, tell you how they determined the degree of protection from fallout that you get — they must have sent teams of mages into radiation filled chambers to get the LD50. It is also unfortunately missing the specification of the material components required to cast the spell; you probably need to pay up some cash to get all the details. But who wouldn’t want to make sattva vibrations to zap the raja-tama particles?
I guess I should at least acknowledge it. How about a little song?
I do get strange complaints sometimes.
Dear Mr Myers,
My fathers name was Helmut Max Karl Ritter.
However, in Australia, due to people’s inability to pronounce his name correctly, he suggested that they call him Tom, Dick or Harry. Henceforth, they decided to call him ‘Tom Ritter’.
I take sincere umbrage at your rants against a Thomas Ritter, and the fact that you call him Tom Ritter and therefore everyone else that responds to your comments, calls him Tom Ritter.
If I do a search for the name Tom Ritter I do not expect or appreciate finding such vitriol as yours (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/01/tom_ritter_has_figured_out_the.php)
Please remove such offensive materials as I find it completely inappropriate and deeply disturbing, and in essence, it is a disservice to my father’s name and his history. If you do not wish to remove it, at least rename it appropriately as it is ‘supposedly’ about Thomas Ritter, which would have nothing to do with my father
Kind regards,
[Name removed] (daughter of Helmut (known as Tom) Ritter).
So her father, Helmut “Tom” Ritter, is an Australian. The crazy Tom Ritter I wrote about is a creationist school teacher in Pennsylvania. There is no connection other than the similar name.
I suggest that she instead write to the wacky school teacher and point out that his antics are bringing dishonor to the distinguished name of Ritter, and leave me out of it. I’m busy. I’ve got to write letters to the Herbalife con artist Paul Myers, the Canadian songwriter Paul Myers, the British graphic designer Paul Myers, and the Texas Attorney Paul Myers and convince them all to change their names.
I’m going to suggest that they change it to “Tom Ritter”.
