- "Hitler and the Nazis were socialists, 'Socialism' is in their name!" No. Hitler, the Nazis, Mussolini, and the Japanese under Hirohito were all fascists. Fascism is an extreme right wing political movement. Socialism is a left wing political movement, so Hitler can not have been a left winger or a socialist. Any person who says he was a socialist or a leftist is mistaken and they do not understand what the definitions of 'socialist' and 'fascist' are. Here is a great unbiased article on what fascism is.
- "Democrats were slave owners and they invented the KKK. Conservative Republicans were the ones who ended slavery." The first sentence is kind of true but the second one is patently false. Most slave owners in the south were Democrats and they remained Democrats after the Civil War because they saw the Republican party as the aggressor in the war. And yes, many of those Democrats joined the KKK. These southern Democrats were solidly conservative Democrats and due to their opposition to integration through most of the 19th and 20th centuries they were called Dixiecrats. Once civil and voting rights were passed in the 1960's under LBJ and a solidly Democratic Congress, all those conservative Democrats in the south fled their party to become Republicans because they did not want to share power or even a room with black voters. As for who ended slavery, liberals did that. Conservatives by their very nature do not want to change anything, they want to conserve the past and cling to what was, in this case, slavery and the old ways of doing things. Liberals in both political parties, and yes, there used to be such a thing as liberal Republicans, worked to end slavery.
- "If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" The theory of evolution doesn't say that humans descended from monkeys. It says that humans and monkeys share a single common ancestor. In fact, the theory of evolution holds that all life on earth, plant, animal, insect, bacteria, everything, descended from a single common ancestor.
- "If you don't have religion, then you're a bad person." Wrong. If the only reason you do good is because you're trying to curry favor with or are afraid of a god or gods, then you're not a very good person. We atheists do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. We don't use any made up religion to justify our actions.
- "Hitler was an atheist." No. No matter what you think of Hitler and what he did, he thought he and his political movement was Christian in nature.
- "Martin Luther King Jr was a Republican!" No. King was anti war, pro union, pro family planning, pro voter registration, and anti poverty. He was vilified by Republicans and conservatives while still alive and many opposed making his birthday a national holiday. King could not claim to be a Democrat or a Republican due to the laws governing the separation of church and state but objectively looking at what he stood for and what he opposed, he was most certainly a liberal.
Showing posts with label evolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evolution. Show all posts
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Let me clear up a few things for you
Revisionist history and lack of understanding about basic concepts abound on the internet, especially on Facebook. So I'm here to tell you what's what. I have five years of college under my belt, I went to one of the most politically and religiously conservative colleges in the USA but no matter the political bent of the professors, they taught facts, and they taught me to seek facts, not opinion or conjecture. I studied history and political science at good ol' King College, though now it's King University. I've also kept studying and learning things, especially in field of science since my education in that area of knowledge was lacking due to a string of poor professors who could not make the subjects come alive for me. So, please strap in and learn the real facts about a few things.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Not that sort
The professor from my alma mater who is speaking at the creationist conference that's going to be held in here in Johnson City sent me a message via Facebook. Here it is in it's entirety:
I was sorry to read your posted blog. I wish you had contacted me directly. I do not believe that "creationism" as offered by the ICR is an acceptable view of how our universe and planet came to be. As an astronomer and physicist I am confident of the scientific method as a way of determining truth about such things. I am speaking at the conference to speak against the "young Earth model. I'm not sure how you got the idea that I am a creationist of the sort presented by the Institute for Creation Research. I will present scientific evidence for a 13.7 billion year old universe and a 4.0 billion year old Earth. I hope you will attend.
Sincerely,
Ray Bloomer
He's mad at me for assuming that he's an anti evolution young earth creationist. As for why I assumed that here's my defense:
But now that I think about it, and now that I see 'Dr.' Bloomer's response to my first blog post, the fact is, I'm still livid. He's very patronizing when he assures me that it's okay for him to speak at this event because he's not 'that kind' of creationist. He's the more rational moderate kind which still accepts supernatural explanations for scientific questions. He not the kind that insists that the earth is a little over 6000 years old but he's still the kind that insist that some supreme being who none of us ever saw or can ever be sure exists made everything just for us. He's not your old school 'Of Panda's and People' kind of creationist, he's the more cuddly science accepting creationist because after all, he's got a doctorate from a real live citadel of higher learning, just like Dr. Jason Lisle, the evolutionary theory refuter does.
It's all well and good that 'Dr." Bloomer says he's going to "present scientific evidence for a 13.7 billion year old universe and a 4.0 billion year old Earth," the thing is the people who are attending this conference aren't the type of people who accept science or scientific evidence. Seriously, if they deny the validity of radio carbon dating of fossils and believe that those same fossils were planted by Satan in order to trick us into believing evolution, which by their own admission they think is 'atheistic,' then honestly, who the fuck is this Bloomer guy trying to fool? The rubes and religious zealots who will be in attendance at this conference will hoot and holler him off the stage when he tries to present scientific evidence that refutes their Biblical world view. The fact that he's a believer won't be any consolation to the slack jawed yokels and home schoolers who will be in the audience lapping up this milk of idiocy.
The final indignity in this sordid tale of academic malfeasance is that by agreeing to speak, even if he does so as a counterpoint to the evolution deniers and creationists, at this conference he drags the name and reputation of my alma mater through the mud. He gives my old college a black eye because by speaking at this fiasco he makes it look like King College is a place of higher learning that accepts and endorses the quackery known as creationism. The reason this pisses me off so much is that in the late '70' my alma mater fell on hard economic times and it nearly went under, but it was saved with an infusion of cash from a shitload of conservative, both politically and religiously, Presbyterians. These fundamentalists made the institution over into a more strict Bible based college at the expense of academics, which is to say that they wanted Jesus injected into every subject at the expense of facts. Slowly however things changed after I left in 1985 and while they maintained their religious affiliation they saw the error of their ways and they shifted the focus off salvation and back onto academics. And as a result their reputation began to rebound and until this Bloomer incident my old college was well regarded in academic circles. But thanks to Bloomer's creationism and his embrace of dubious characters like Ham and Lisle, that reputation may once again be in the shitter.
I stand by my original post and the by sentiment expressed therein. And I stand by my opinion that Bloomer is an idiot for appearing at this anti science anti evolution event.
I was sorry to read your posted blog. I wish you had contacted me directly. I do not believe that "creationism" as offered by the ICR is an acceptable view of how our universe and planet came to be. As an astronomer and physicist I am confident of the scientific method as a way of determining truth about such things. I am speaking at the conference to speak against the "young Earth model. I'm not sure how you got the idea that I am a creationist of the sort presented by the Institute for Creation Research. I will present scientific evidence for a 13.7 billion year old universe and a 4.0 billion year old Earth. I hope you will attend.
Sincerely,
Ray Bloomer
He's mad at me for assuming that he's an anti evolution young earth creationist. As for why I assumed that here's my defense:
- He's appearing at a conference that celebrates, nay, champions creationism and that actively seeks to deny and 'debunk' evolution.
- In the mission statement of the conference there is this quote: "Before a person can come to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ a basic question has to be answered: “Who made me?” Before one can believe that God is the Redeemer, God must be understood to be the Creator. This is what the Origins Conference is about--exploring the evidence for God as Creator. By attending the conference, you will be equipped to challenge the problems created by the atheistic evolution worldview that is so prevalent. This conference will not only be a personal help to you, but will also give you the tools to share the answers to these tough life questions with friends and family."
- The conference in question is being spearheaded by Ken Ham, the man behind the anti science anti evolution group Answers in Genesis. Hamm is also the man behind the creationist museum which not only actively discourages people from asking questions which question the validity of the 'science' on which they base their museum, it also, despite all evidence to the contrary, insists that humans and dinosaurs not only walked the earth at the same time, they were BFFs.
- Also headlining this conference is Dr. Jason Lisle, a man who bills himself as an astrophysicist and refuter of evolutionary theories.
But now that I think about it, and now that I see 'Dr.' Bloomer's response to my first blog post, the fact is, I'm still livid. He's very patronizing when he assures me that it's okay for him to speak at this event because he's not 'that kind' of creationist. He's the more rational moderate kind which still accepts supernatural explanations for scientific questions. He not the kind that insists that the earth is a little over 6000 years old but he's still the kind that insist that some supreme being who none of us ever saw or can ever be sure exists made everything just for us. He's not your old school 'Of Panda's and People' kind of creationist, he's the more cuddly science accepting creationist because after all, he's got a doctorate from a real live citadel of higher learning, just like Dr. Jason Lisle, the evolutionary theory refuter does.
It's all well and good that 'Dr." Bloomer says he's going to "present scientific evidence for a 13.7 billion year old universe and a 4.0 billion year old Earth," the thing is the people who are attending this conference aren't the type of people who accept science or scientific evidence. Seriously, if they deny the validity of radio carbon dating of fossils and believe that those same fossils were planted by Satan in order to trick us into believing evolution, which by their own admission they think is 'atheistic,' then honestly, who the fuck is this Bloomer guy trying to fool? The rubes and religious zealots who will be in attendance at this conference will hoot and holler him off the stage when he tries to present scientific evidence that refutes their Biblical world view. The fact that he's a believer won't be any consolation to the slack jawed yokels and home schoolers who will be in the audience lapping up this milk of idiocy.
The final indignity in this sordid tale of academic malfeasance is that by agreeing to speak, even if he does so as a counterpoint to the evolution deniers and creationists, at this conference he drags the name and reputation of my alma mater through the mud. He gives my old college a black eye because by speaking at this fiasco he makes it look like King College is a place of higher learning that accepts and endorses the quackery known as creationism. The reason this pisses me off so much is that in the late '70' my alma mater fell on hard economic times and it nearly went under, but it was saved with an infusion of cash from a shitload of conservative, both politically and religiously, Presbyterians. These fundamentalists made the institution over into a more strict Bible based college at the expense of academics, which is to say that they wanted Jesus injected into every subject at the expense of facts. Slowly however things changed after I left in 1985 and while they maintained their religious affiliation they saw the error of their ways and they shifted the focus off salvation and back onto academics. And as a result their reputation began to rebound and until this Bloomer incident my old college was well regarded in academic circles. But thanks to Bloomer's creationism and his embrace of dubious characters like Ham and Lisle, that reputation may once again be in the shitter.
I stand by my original post and the by sentiment expressed therein. And I stand by my opinion that Bloomer is an idiot for appearing at this anti science anti evolution event.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
May I suggest a coat?
I love the second sentence in the copy in this panel from an old comic book. "It's a cold world...." No shit it's a cold world. If the temperature drops below 75 and you're wearing a fur loin cloth, it's gonna be fucking chilly. Tor was not one of Joe Kubert's finest comic book efforts. 'Cold world' my ass, what the hell were you thinking Joe? Oh yeah, one more thing Mr. Kubert, man didn't walk the earth at the same time as the dinosaurs did, unless you listen to Kirk Cameron that is.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Mortified
I am absolutely mortified that someone I went to college with is stupid enough to believe in creationism. It boggles my mind that someone who went to a four year college can come out of it believing that superstitious nonsense. I added this person as a friend on Facebook the other day because we were acquaintances back at ol' King College and we were both history majors. He was a couple of years behind me and was a nice enough guy. I knew he believed in that Christian mumbo jumbo but I assumed he had enough sense to realize that evolution is true and that creationism and intelligent design are fake science that can't be proven. But I was wrong.
His status update yesterday proclaimed that he was looking forward to going to the creationist museum and to some Cinncinatti Reds baseball games while on vacation. Ok, going to a Reds game is bad enough, not quite as bad attending a Washington Nationals or Baltimore Orioles game, but come the fuck on, the creationist museum? I was hoping was going to go so that he could mock it, as my buddy Keith did last year, but I was wrong again. I asked him via Facebook if he has fallen for that nonsense of creationism and he quoted me back a bible verse and said that yes, he had fallen for it.
It's beyond me how people can ignore the mountains of scientific evidence so that they can cling to lies of their chosen religion. The earth is not a little over 6000 years olds like the evangelists and true believers say it is, it's millions of years old. You know how we know that? Science. Science has not only proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the earth is millions of years old, it's also given us things like modern medicine, air conditioning, central heat, cars, television, the space program. You know what religion has given us? Fear, hatred, and willful ignorance that is not only stupid, it's dangerous and it kills.
I feel sorry for my old college mate. He's chosen to stay in the shadows cowering in fear of his almighty god while he ignores all the beauty and wonder of science and intelligence. He's chosen to have one fixed thought and position in his life and to try to make all things outside of his religion fit into his rigid Bronze age scheme of things. When we didn't know how things worked we invented a god who loved us and said that he made it all for us. Now that we know better we need to put the metaphor of god and religions in their proper place, the fiction shelf.
This whole business about evolution and science can and should be accepted by "committed" Christians. And for the most part most of them accept evolution and science as facts that are not incompatiable with their faith, I have other friends who are devout believers and they square all this evolution business with their religion by claiming that their god is behind it all, which is wrong but as long as they don't deny evolution is real and happening as we speak then that's a moral victory for science and reason. But I guess there are some people who are just too stubborn to accept the facts.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Oh science, how I love thee
I had some of the shittiest science teachers ever minted in my academic career. My high school science teachers were more more interested in finding time to grab a smoke (Mr. Matlock) and or making sure their toupee was on straight (Mr. Roop). Then when I went to college I fell into a bottomless pit of boredom, jumbled explanations, and idiotic meanderings known as Dr. Burke's 'Jock Physics' class, it was supposed to be a science course for non science people like me but holy hell the class stank and I hated the professor, so I dropped his class. Then I landed in a biology class that was taught by the world's most boring man, Dr. Owens. I made a 'D' first semester in his class and I got a nice big fat 'F' in the second semester. I kind of wanted to like science but with all those bad teachers, they made it almost impossible to do so.
Thankfully as I got older I started reading about things on my own and I started watching science shows and documentaries on TV. And I got hooked on some of Simon Winchester's books, especially the ones about Krakatoa, the San Francisco earthquake, and the one about the guy who made the geological map of Britain. The last one especially moved me because it disproved much of the timeline of Biblical creation and therefore threw into doubt everything in the Christian Bible. So finally starting in my late 30's/early 40's I started to love science again.
And in my new found love of science are two TV shows that make me love science more and more each time I see them and those TV shows are:
Oh man, these shows are the best things ever. They teach you all about geology, plate tectonics, astrophysics, the vastness of the universe, black holes, and a bunch of other stuff you heard about but never took the time to learn about. If you have kids, or you know kids who are remotely interested in science then buy them these DVD's or record them on your DVR if you have one. Then watch them with those kids and when they ask why the shows are different from the stories the Bible teaches, tell them it's because science is truth and Bible stories are metaphors.
Mmmm, science. How I love you.
Thankfully as I got older I started reading about things on my own and I started watching science shows and documentaries on TV. And I got hooked on some of Simon Winchester's books, especially the ones about Krakatoa, the San Francisco earthquake, and the one about the guy who made the geological map of Britain. The last one especially moved me because it disproved much of the timeline of Biblical creation and therefore threw into doubt everything in the Christian Bible. So finally starting in my late 30's/early 40's I started to love science again.
And in my new found love of science are two TV shows that make me love science more and more each time I see them and those TV shows are:
Oh man, these shows are the best things ever. They teach you all about geology, plate tectonics, astrophysics, the vastness of the universe, black holes, and a bunch of other stuff you heard about but never took the time to learn about. If you have kids, or you know kids who are remotely interested in science then buy them these DVD's or record them on your DVR if you have one. Then watch them with those kids and when they ask why the shows are different from the stories the Bible teaches, tell them it's because science is truth and Bible stories are metaphors.
Mmmm, science. How I love you.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Separation anxiety
I watched the Nova presentation of Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial on PBS the other day and while I had seen the last hour the first time they ran it during prime time I missed the first part of it. After having now seen it all in it's entirety all I can say about it is, "Wow. That's the way every documentary should be made. Especially ones about science and the separation of church and state." You can see the film by clicking here and for those of you who don't know what this film is about, it tells the story behind the court case in Dover, PA that struck down the teaching of intelligent design in our public schools.
Intelligent design, for those of you who don't know or who need a good laugh, is the Christian answer to evolution. It used to be called "Creationism" but it had to change it's name to intelligent design after a court ruled that creationism was nothing more than religion masquerading as science in public school classrooms. Both theories hold that life on earth is too complex to have ever evolved on it's own over time and therefore some life sprung into existence fully formed and it did so through a creator or intelligent designer, i. e. God. It's important to note that there is no body of scientific work to back up any claims made by the backers of intelligent design and that no reputable college, university, or think tank is doing any sort of research into proving that intelligent design is a valid scientific theory.
On the other hand most every university, college, think tank, and scientific group is out there every day working and proving the validity of evolution and the evolutionary process. Some small minded sound science hating Christians, and to be fair there are Muslims who join them in their beliefs, hate the theory of evolution and do not want it's precepts taught or advanced. They do this in spite of the fact that Darwin's theory of evolution has been proven to be correct time after time and that every day it becomes clearer and clearer that Darwin was right when he theorized that all living things descend from a common ancestor. The small minded religious idiots say that Darwin is counter to what they read in their Bible or Koran and that god created all things and that we sprang from his hand and not from a common ancestor.
They also claim that the earth, despite all evidence to the contrary, is only 6000 or so years old and that man and dinosaurs roamed the earth together.
Some of them also claim that Kirk Cameron is a good actor as well. I would disagree with them on all of those assertions.
While watching the documentary on the Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board case one thing becomes clear, the push to teach intelligent design along side evolution in the Dover, PA biology classrooms was nothing more than a push to get a particular religion taught in public school. The board members who wanted a statement that said that evolution was not the only theory that explained how life on earth came about clearly state in the film that they want their Christian view of things pushed on others. In other words they wanted to break down the wall that separates church and state.
"Now why would that be a bad thing?" you might ask. "After all most of the people in this country are some form of Christian, aren't they?"
You'd be right. Christians, despite what some of them say, are in the majority in this country when it comes to religion. All the other religions come in a distant second compared to how many Christians there are. So why shouldn't they be allowed to teach their doctrine of how their god created life on earth in public school classrooms which are funded by your tax dollars?
Reason number one is their theory of intelligent design doesn't hold any water. It relies on the supernatural to explain how life comes about and adapts to it's surroundings. And it's not a scientific theory, it's a theory based on faith, not provable scientific fact.
Reason number two, and this is the clincher, is if you allow a religious doctrine masquerading as science to be taught then which religion gets to be the one that is taught? I'm sure the Jeebus loving evangelicals would not want a Muslim theory of how life came about to be taught. And if it's decided that only a Christian theory is taught, which sect of Christianity gets it's views pushed in the class room? Would the Free Will Baptists be comfortable with a Quaker based theory of how life arose? Would a conservative United Methodist be okay with a liberal Presbyterian teaching a brand of creationism? I'm sure the Roman Catholics wouldn't want a snake handler teaching biology to their kids.
And that's why it's best that no religion, none at all, not any sect of Christianity, not Judaism, not any form of Islam, not the Rastafarian religion, no one, be allowed to teach their unscientific version of biology, or chemistry, or math, or history, or language arts, or anything in the public schools. It's best that since we all believe differently when it comes to religion that no religious viewpoint be taught in public school classrooms. The place for the teaching of the religious viewpoints is in the home and in whatever church you go to and not in the public schools.
In the small rural school where I went to high school we had many a preacher come in and give sermons, especially if there was a revival going on in town somewhere and it made me furious that they were allowed to do so. It made me mad not because I was an atheist at that time, I in fact was a believer back then, it made me mad because they were pushing one religion to the exclusion of all the others.
Religion has no place in public schools and if your faith in your churches power to make believers out of people is so low that you have to use the schools to troll for new converts then I feel sorry for you and your church. Schools are supposed to be places for learning, not for religious indoctrination. And the biology classroom has no place for crack pot quasi supernatural theories put forth by religious whack jobs. They may hate Darwin and the theory of evolution but it's been proven to be correct time after time and their theory of a god who creates new species fully formed out of whole cloth is as nutty and the theory of spontaneous generation or the theory that the earth is flat.
Hopefully now that the idiot, draft dodging, murdering, lying, thieving, sound science hating George W. Bush is out of office maybe the religious right will slow their efforts to make our school children stupider. Bush asked, "Is our children learnin'?" I hope we can answer, "Yeah dumb ass, they're learning sound science and not that creationist mumbo jumbo you thought should be taught along side evolution."
Intelligent design, for those of you who don't know or who need a good laugh, is the Christian answer to evolution. It used to be called "Creationism" but it had to change it's name to intelligent design after a court ruled that creationism was nothing more than religion masquerading as science in public school classrooms. Both theories hold that life on earth is too complex to have ever evolved on it's own over time and therefore some life sprung into existence fully formed and it did so through a creator or intelligent designer, i. e. God. It's important to note that there is no body of scientific work to back up any claims made by the backers of intelligent design and that no reputable college, university, or think tank is doing any sort of research into proving that intelligent design is a valid scientific theory.
On the other hand most every university, college, think tank, and scientific group is out there every day working and proving the validity of evolution and the evolutionary process. Some small minded sound science hating Christians, and to be fair there are Muslims who join them in their beliefs, hate the theory of evolution and do not want it's precepts taught or advanced. They do this in spite of the fact that Darwin's theory of evolution has been proven to be correct time after time and that every day it becomes clearer and clearer that Darwin was right when he theorized that all living things descend from a common ancestor. The small minded religious idiots say that Darwin is counter to what they read in their Bible or Koran and that god created all things and that we sprang from his hand and not from a common ancestor.
They also claim that the earth, despite all evidence to the contrary, is only 6000 or so years old and that man and dinosaurs roamed the earth together.
Some of them also claim that Kirk Cameron is a good actor as well. I would disagree with them on all of those assertions.
While watching the documentary on the Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board case one thing becomes clear, the push to teach intelligent design along side evolution in the Dover, PA biology classrooms was nothing more than a push to get a particular religion taught in public school. The board members who wanted a statement that said that evolution was not the only theory that explained how life on earth came about clearly state in the film that they want their Christian view of things pushed on others. In other words they wanted to break down the wall that separates church and state.
"Now why would that be a bad thing?" you might ask. "After all most of the people in this country are some form of Christian, aren't they?"
You'd be right. Christians, despite what some of them say, are in the majority in this country when it comes to religion. All the other religions come in a distant second compared to how many Christians there are. So why shouldn't they be allowed to teach their doctrine of how their god created life on earth in public school classrooms which are funded by your tax dollars?
Reason number one is their theory of intelligent design doesn't hold any water. It relies on the supernatural to explain how life comes about and adapts to it's surroundings. And it's not a scientific theory, it's a theory based on faith, not provable scientific fact.
Reason number two, and this is the clincher, is if you allow a religious doctrine masquerading as science to be taught then which religion gets to be the one that is taught? I'm sure the Jeebus loving evangelicals would not want a Muslim theory of how life came about to be taught. And if it's decided that only a Christian theory is taught, which sect of Christianity gets it's views pushed in the class room? Would the Free Will Baptists be comfortable with a Quaker based theory of how life arose? Would a conservative United Methodist be okay with a liberal Presbyterian teaching a brand of creationism? I'm sure the Roman Catholics wouldn't want a snake handler teaching biology to their kids.
And that's why it's best that no religion, none at all, not any sect of Christianity, not Judaism, not any form of Islam, not the Rastafarian religion, no one, be allowed to teach their unscientific version of biology, or chemistry, or math, or history, or language arts, or anything in the public schools. It's best that since we all believe differently when it comes to religion that no religious viewpoint be taught in public school classrooms. The place for the teaching of the religious viewpoints is in the home and in whatever church you go to and not in the public schools.
In the small rural school where I went to high school we had many a preacher come in and give sermons, especially if there was a revival going on in town somewhere and it made me furious that they were allowed to do so. It made me mad not because I was an atheist at that time, I in fact was a believer back then, it made me mad because they were pushing one religion to the exclusion of all the others.
Religion has no place in public schools and if your faith in your churches power to make believers out of people is so low that you have to use the schools to troll for new converts then I feel sorry for you and your church. Schools are supposed to be places for learning, not for religious indoctrination. And the biology classroom has no place for crack pot quasi supernatural theories put forth by religious whack jobs. They may hate Darwin and the theory of evolution but it's been proven to be correct time after time and their theory of a god who creates new species fully formed out of whole cloth is as nutty and the theory of spontaneous generation or the theory that the earth is flat.
Hopefully now that the idiot, draft dodging, murdering, lying, thieving, sound science hating George W. Bush is out of office maybe the religious right will slow their efforts to make our school children stupider. Bush asked, "Is our children learnin'?" I hope we can answer, "Yeah dumb ass, they're learning sound science and not that creationist mumbo jumbo you thought should be taught along side evolution."
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Stupid is mighty strong
I was going to write a post about my heart attack and I was going to use an old punchline for the title but when I googled (suck on that you Google goons, I didn't use a capital letter when I made a verb out of your company name) the punchline, something most disturbing came up.
It seems that a blogger had already used this particular punchline for a post he had written. Now that in and of itself would not be a bad thing but what was bad about it was this blogger had used this punchline as a title for a post that he wrote that was part of his ongoing series of posts that deny the Holocaust took place. This blogger, who I will not link to or name for fear that someone will find him and give him the attention he craves, had found a picture of another well known blogger, one who is left leaning but not one I read or link to, and posted this picture on his hateful little blog. He wrote that the left leaning blogger who's picture he posted did not look like he was of the Jewish faith. And because this left leaning blogger did not look like a typical caricature of a Jew then that helped prove his point that the Holocaust could not have happened because the Nazi's would have missed so many Jews because they all looked so different from one another. It was like getting hit in the head with the claws of a claw hammer when I read that. I looked to the side of this blog and I noticed that he had linked intelligent design websites, anti Darwin websites, and other anti Jewish and anti Holocaust websites.
I quickly clicked off his blog and back to mine. I felt dirty, and not the good kind of dirty either, after looking at such idiocy. I immediately went to the tools tab and erased my web history so as disinfect my computer.
And then it hit me, even though we've come a long way as a people, we did after all figure out which plants and animals we can eat to stay alive, fly to the moon and back, and invent the internets, we've still got a long long way to go.
Of course the Holocaust really happened. They are still finding mass graves over in Europe for christsakes. (Ouch how many sins did I just commit there? Not capitalizing the name of our alleged savior and using his name in a sentence about the mass graves of some Jews who may have been related to the people who killed him.) Or maybe it didn't happen and all those dead Jews were just pulling a prank on us, they are masters of comedy after all.
Of course evolution is real and ongoing. No matter how much they try to deny it, it's a fact. Evolution is scientifically sound and Darwin has been proven to be correct many many times over.
Of course intelligent design is nothing but nonsense. It's a creationism pig wearing lipstick. A pig in lipstick is still a fucking pig. The earth is not 6000 years old, it's millions and millions of years old. In fact, it's older than we can even fathom because our brains have not evolved enough yet to grasp just how old our earth really is.
The thing that gets me about idiots like this guy is that we know the earth is old because of a little thing called carbon dating. We, well scientists who are way fucking smarter than me, use carbon dating to accurately determine the age of things. Now if something should happen to one this idiot's loved ones and they were murdered and the body was not found for let's say years and years and then one day they found it, they would determine the date of death using carbon dating. If the killer of his loved one was convicted in part because of the carbon dated evidence then this idiot would say "Hooray for carbon dating!" And then he would turn around and say the very thing that helped convict his loved ones killer was not something that could be used to determine the age of the earth.
Bullshit. You can't pick and choose what is proveable by the scientific method, either something can be proved by it or it can't. Either you accept the FACT that earth is millions of years old or you don't. Either you accept the FACT that the Nazi's and their minions slaughtered thousands and thousands of Jews or you live in a state of denial.
After I get all worked up about someone spouting stupid racist ignorant shit on their blog I remember that we are evolved enough in the USA to allow a modicum of free speech. And free speech means all people, even ignorant idiots, are allowed to speak and say what they like.
The only bright spot in this sorry chapter is that this idiot was from California and not from around here in Tennessee. I know we have our share of evolution denyin', Jew hatin', pricks who think that NASA faked the moon landing on a soundstage in Arizona, but it's nice to see that other states have their share of those people as well.
When I see those idiots online or in person it makes me want to blow a whistle and shout, "Okay, all of you OUT OF THE GENE POOL NOW!!!" But I know that that is not possible because stupid is mighty strong.
It seems that a blogger had already used this particular punchline for a post he had written. Now that in and of itself would not be a bad thing but what was bad about it was this blogger had used this punchline as a title for a post that he wrote that was part of his ongoing series of posts that deny the Holocaust took place. This blogger, who I will not link to or name for fear that someone will find him and give him the attention he craves, had found a picture of another well known blogger, one who is left leaning but not one I read or link to, and posted this picture on his hateful little blog. He wrote that the left leaning blogger who's picture he posted did not look like he was of the Jewish faith. And because this left leaning blogger did not look like a typical caricature of a Jew then that helped prove his point that the Holocaust could not have happened because the Nazi's would have missed so many Jews because they all looked so different from one another. It was like getting hit in the head with the claws of a claw hammer when I read that. I looked to the side of this blog and I noticed that he had linked intelligent design websites, anti Darwin websites, and other anti Jewish and anti Holocaust websites.
I quickly clicked off his blog and back to mine. I felt dirty, and not the good kind of dirty either, after looking at such idiocy. I immediately went to the tools tab and erased my web history so as disinfect my computer.
And then it hit me, even though we've come a long way as a people, we did after all figure out which plants and animals we can eat to stay alive, fly to the moon and back, and invent the internets, we've still got a long long way to go.
Of course the Holocaust really happened. They are still finding mass graves over in Europe for christsakes. (Ouch how many sins did I just commit there? Not capitalizing the name of our alleged savior and using his name in a sentence about the mass graves of some Jews who may have been related to the people who killed him.) Or maybe it didn't happen and all those dead Jews were just pulling a prank on us, they are masters of comedy after all.
Of course evolution is real and ongoing. No matter how much they try to deny it, it's a fact. Evolution is scientifically sound and Darwin has been proven to be correct many many times over.
Of course intelligent design is nothing but nonsense. It's a creationism pig wearing lipstick. A pig in lipstick is still a fucking pig. The earth is not 6000 years old, it's millions and millions of years old. In fact, it's older than we can even fathom because our brains have not evolved enough yet to grasp just how old our earth really is.
The thing that gets me about idiots like this guy is that we know the earth is old because of a little thing called carbon dating. We, well scientists who are way fucking smarter than me, use carbon dating to accurately determine the age of things. Now if something should happen to one this idiot's loved ones and they were murdered and the body was not found for let's say years and years and then one day they found it, they would determine the date of death using carbon dating. If the killer of his loved one was convicted in part because of the carbon dated evidence then this idiot would say "Hooray for carbon dating!" And then he would turn around and say the very thing that helped convict his loved ones killer was not something that could be used to determine the age of the earth.
Bullshit. You can't pick and choose what is proveable by the scientific method, either something can be proved by it or it can't. Either you accept the FACT that earth is millions of years old or you don't. Either you accept the FACT that the Nazi's and their minions slaughtered thousands and thousands of Jews or you live in a state of denial.
After I get all worked up about someone spouting stupid racist ignorant shit on their blog I remember that we are evolved enough in the USA to allow a modicum of free speech. And free speech means all people, even ignorant idiots, are allowed to speak and say what they like.
The only bright spot in this sorry chapter is that this idiot was from California and not from around here in Tennessee. I know we have our share of evolution denyin', Jew hatin', pricks who think that NASA faked the moon landing on a soundstage in Arizona, but it's nice to see that other states have their share of those people as well.
When I see those idiots online or in person it makes me want to blow a whistle and shout, "Okay, all of you OUT OF THE GENE POOL NOW!!!" But I know that that is not possible because stupid is mighty strong.
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