Fun with the godly loons

Minneapolis’s own little broadcaster of inanity, the evangelical radio station KKMS (Remember them? These are the guys who hosted a debate between me and Geoffrey Simmons, and when that didn’t go so well, let Simmons debate dead air, where he fared better), is having another wacky program this afternoon at 4pm Central, on “Refuting the Arguments of Atheists.”

David Aikman, Broadcast Journalist and Author will offer effective ways Christians can respond to the claims of atheists and why the new atheism is a threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Listen in and get refuted! Call in at 651-289-4499 or 888-332-5169 and testify! I’m sure this guy will persuade droves of atheists to let Jesus into their hearts.

Manufactured controversies vs. the real edge of science

There’s a clumsy little two-step move creationists like to make: first, point to dissent in the scientific community over real and often interesting issues at the edge of knowledge, and second, swap in their dissent over basics, like common descent, and pretend that the scientists are actually sharing in their ignorance-based concern. John Timmer has a good summary of a few genuine scientific arguments, contrasted with the bogus arguments creationists pretend are important.

There are some good and interesting questions out there. The creationists, and I include the phonies at the Discovery Institute among them, never ask them.

One other point Timmer brings up at the end: should the real scientific controversies be part of the public high school curriculum? He thinks not, and I agree — I’d rather the high schools prepared students with a general understanding of the most basic principles, rather than rushing off to pursue details with which the students won’t yet be able to cope, anyway.

Your daily exercise in the free expression of your opinion, i.e., poll crashing

The Catholic church is always ripely ridiculous, and it’s a fine fillip on the rococo elaborations of their dogma when some silly news organization tries to turn them into a poll. Here you go, two, count ’em, two polls at once on the absurd entity called the Virgin Mary. You get to vote on “Do you believe the Virgin Mary has appeared as an apparition?”, which is silly as it stands, but then there’s also this ambiguous question, “Are you surprised the church officially recognized the Virgin Mary sightings from the 1600s?”. So we’ve got “do you believe in ghosts with hymens?” and “are you really surprised at how stupid religion can be?”.

I had to vote no on both. Vote according to your reason now!

(By the way, don’t expect dramatic shifts in the results on this one — they’ve got over 150,000 votes each right now.)

New book contest!

Hey! Carl Zimmer is giving away free copies of his brand new book, Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) — all you have to do is ask a good question in a comment to stand a chance of winning one.

I don’t need to enter; my copy is sitting on my desk right now, begging me to read it. I keep barking back at it that I want to, but I’ve got 3 exams to give in the next week, and there is no time right now. And then it reproaches me with those big gentle puppy-dog eyes and weeps sloppy proteoglycan tears and threatens to adhere permanently to my shower tiles. It’s persistent and ubiquitous, so everyone better read it soon.

Eternal injustice

Sid Schwab considers the meaning of eternal torment. Even a moment’s thought should make anyone realize that eternal punishment, besides being literally unimaginable, cannot possibly be just. Yet this principle is dogma in Christianity — Jesus himself said, “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment” — and even worse, those who are good and are admitted into heaven are going to be eternally aware of the torments inflicted on their unsaved fellows, and will be going out to witness the punishment of the wicked (according to St Augustine, anyway…I hear he’s a fairly highly regarded source on doctrine.)

I suspect that the truly good would be in rebellion against such a tyrant god, but then, we always knew Christianity was a death cult for sheep, that rewards submission to the odious and the unlikely.

I’d add to Schwab’s rejection of the principle that it isn’t just eternal punishment that is a problem, but the whole idea of eternal life. There can be no such thing. People change all the time, and the I that is here now will not be the same I that could exist in 20 years; my mortality is a part of my being, and removing that would be an event so traumatic and so life-changing that it would produce an identity even more substantially different than the vast revolution I went through 51 years ago, when I gastrulated. Immortality is meaningless and achieving it is impossible.

That’s not to say we don’t want a long life and will fight off death as long as we can. It’s just that life itself represents a kind of incremental dynamism that can’t be frozen without destroying it.

California public schools require teachers to sign a loyalty oath?

And it’s actually enforced? Two teachers have been fired for refusing to take an oath…an oath that was put in place during the McCarthy witch hunts. Apparently they just left it on the books, but now it’s a hook that can be used to eject troublemakers.

You know, like those rabble-rousing, dangerous Quakers.

The most incredibly ironic thing about this whole controversy is that non-citizens are not required to sign it. Says Marianne Kearney-Brown, one of the fired teachers, “The way it’s laid out, a noncitizen member of Al Qaeda could work for the university, but not a citizen Quaker.”

That’s America for you: the important things are the superficial, meaningless expressions in service of great ideals, and if it means throwing away the actual implementation of those important ideas like civil rights, freedom of expression and conscience, and a faith quietly and sincerely held in order to promote noisy but meaningless demonstrations of loyalty, so be it.

God arrested!

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Omnipotent, omnipresent supernatural being (left) deigns to be arrested for raping children.

It’s a rough era for deities. This one seems to be subject to ordinary mortal ills, like wrinkles and graying hair, ordinary mortal temptations, like having sex with young girls, and also, surprisingly, is powerless before minor material obstacles, like handcuffs. Odd, isn’t it? He should stamp his foot, and the earth cracks wide and his foes tumble into the depths. He ought to wave his hands raise a whirlwind that sweeps away his enemies, scatters their guns, and hurls their squad cars into the sky. But no, they always turn out to be fragile meat with no special abilities, and the most tawdry, revolting tastes.

Wayne Bent, AKA Michael Travesser, AKA minister of the Lord Our Righteousness Church, AKA the Messiah as revealed by God, has been arrested. How do you arrest a supernatural being, I wonder?

I hope they’ve built a special prison cell for him out of an adamantium/eternium alloy, with a special guard detail of angels and demons. Nothing else could possibly hold messiah.

A little psychiatric help might also be in order.

Portland, how could you?

Portland, Oregon is a beautiful city and a great place to live, but hoo boy, does it have its share of wackos. The latest: some credulous nut wants to practice acupuncture…on the city. He has semi-randomly associated regions on the map with organs (the Willamette River is a kidney?), and is sticking giant acupuncture needles in the ground to shift the flow of chi.

I hope this guy does not get funding for such stupidity.