I bet you guys thought I forgot about this! Way back in August, I posted this genuine bona-fide Astroboy comic book scene and asked if anybody could come up with some good captions. I was expecting to get back to it a couple of weeks later. What I didn’t count on was having to live in a hotel for nine weeks, and then getting hammered by other priorities.

But Astroboy has returned, and he has the best of your proposed captions to show for it!

If you think of any additional captions, go ahead and leave them in the comments. If I get any especially funny ones, I’ll make some more cartoons.

The above image (minus my caption) comes to us from a recent Cracked article. One of my friends insisted that I let you guys try to come up with captions for it. You can see my first attempt, which I rather like.

Can you do better? Just leave your proposed caption in the comments. You also have the option of providing dialog for any of the three characters in the image. I’ll pick the best one (or more) in a few days. All you win is fame, but hey, some people sell their soul to the devil for fame. I’m giving it to you for free.

You probably remember that 1954 Christian activity book that I mentioned a week ago. I only found two good images in it, but I saved the best for last. The above image is also from this book. As you can see, it lends itself beautifully to the addition of word balloons.

In fact, it’s such comedy gold that I was able to come up with eight additional captions for this thing! Seven of these “improvements” follow (I hope you aren’t on dial-up). I just stuck the eighth on the end of the Jerry Bergman article. You’ll want to look at that again, if it wasn’t there the first time you looked.

As before, if you can think of any great captions, put them in the comments. I haven’t had the woman say anything yet. Maybe you can think of that angle.

You might remember Jerry Bergman, who we first encountered a year ago. At that time, he had inked a deal with crackpot creatard Kevin Wirth (Kevin Wirth!) to publish his his latest fantasy novel, Slaughter of the Dissidents: The Shocking Truth about Killing the Careers of Darwin Doubters. Bergman is a young-Earth creationist who lost his job at Bowling Green University for not having sufficient credentials. Rather than accept this harsh fact, Bergman fantasized that he was fired for being a creationist. He took his case to court and lost. He’s been bitter about it ever since.

I see that today’s Toledo Blade has an article about Bergman in the (where else?) Religion section. This article is surprisingly gullible. It doesn’t adhere to any journalistic standards of investigation or reporting. Instead, it just parrots at face value whatever Bergman says. Humorously, the Blade tells us in its masthead that it won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004.

Let’s take a look at their latest attempt to win the prize again. It’s an article titled “Ohio scholar reports bias against ‘Darwin doubters’. 17 cases are detailed in new book”:

Jerry Bergman is a mild-mannered, soft-spoken, and balding college professor, author, and member of Mensa – a group of people whose IQs are in the top 2 percent of the population.

Note the use of “mild-mannered” to imply that he’s a Clark Kent type. Actually, Underdog is more like it: an over-the-top parody even less believable than the original. Also note the Mensa reference, which is the Appeal to Authority fallacy. If he’s smart, he must know what he’s talking about!

He also is a man on a mission, going about his task with the same tenacity as a pit bull in attack mode.

He is Underdog! Just like Underdog, he spends his days pursuing fictional foes, in this case oppressive “Darwinists”, who are murdering the careers of God-loving creationists everywhere.

For the last 30 years, Mr. Bergman, 62, has interviewed hundreds of people in academia and documented cases in which he contends that careers were derailed because of doubts about evolution.

Anybody who would foolishly spend his time trying to disprove evolution is probably going to have a wasted career. It’s like trying to disprove gravity.

The results of his interviews and research are compiled in his latest book, Slaughter of the Dissidents: The Shocking Truth about Killing the Careers of Darwin Doubters, published last fall by Leafcutter Press.

What they fail to mention is that “Leafcutter Press” is just Kevin Wirth. This is exactly what I’m talking about. If you can’t get published by a legitimate publisher, who has an established reputation, then you don’t deserve to be called an academic.

The students, professors, and scientists suffered not because they were advocating the teaching of biblical Creationism or Intelligent Design, he said, but for questioning or debating aspects of Charles Darwin’s famous theory.

In effect, they were demonstrating that they didn’t understand the material. Any loss of jobs is thus due to being unqualified.

Also, the whole reason for attempting to disprove evolution is to then be able to offer up their own version. Creationism and “Darwin doubting” are just two different faces of their fairy tale.

“In 1979, I was let go by Bowling Green State University openly due to my increasing disillusion with Darwinism,” he said in a lecture Monday night at WLMB-TV, Channel 40, Toledo’s Christian television station. The two-hour program was filmed before a studio audience of 60 and will be broadcast at a later date, according to Jamey Schmitz, WLMB’s president and CEO.

If Bergman can’t even get the facts of his own court case correct, then why does he think we’ll believe anything else he says?

He also made a gradual transition from atheism to Christianity after studying the Bible and comparing its explanation for human existence to that offered by scientific rationale – including evolution and neo-Darwinism, he said.

So this tells us that Bergman is so eager to be deluded that he takes a folktale as stronger evidence than all of the sciences. Didn’t they say something at the beginning of this article about Mensa?

When Mr. Bergman was denied tenure after seven years on staff at BGSU, he challenged the decision through the university’s own system and then in civil court alleging religious discrimination.

But his evidence for discrimination was as strong as the evidence for human origins in the Bible.

His appeals were rejected and Mr. Bergman said filing suit was the biggest mistake of his life.

Rejecting all of science and believing the Bible instead is a pretty big mistake, too.

University and court officials did not take his claims seriously and put shockingly little effort into reviewing or understanding his arguments, he said.

Obviously, the court’s standards of evidence are as high as the university’s. If only Mr. Bergman could learn to apply such standards to himself. But of course, that would mean giving up his comforting fantasy that he is a victim of discrimination.

The lawsuit turned out to be “the kiss of death” in academic circles, Mr. Bergman said, not only shattering his promising career but also ruining his marriage, which soon ended in divorce.

I’d guess that Bergman’s inability to produce any credible evidence to support his creationist claims is probably what killed his career.

Publicity over the lawsuit, however, led other academics to contact him with similar stories, he said. He has since compiled a list of 3,000 cases alleging discrimination due to religious beliefs, and personally has interviewed more than 300 people in such situations.

I have no way of knowing if any of those cases are legitimate discrimination. I do find it telling, however, that the creationists have been unable to publicly produce more than a couple of borderline cases out of all of academia. They had an entire crappy movie to make their case, and they failed.

That topic was brought to the mainstream’s attention last year when actor, comedian, and attorney Ben Stein released the documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

And only managed to embarrass himself.

While Slaughter of the Dissidents explores 17 cases of alleged religious discrimination, it is just the first book in a five-volume series Mr. Bergman has planned. The second book is almost done and the third volume is 80 percent completed.

This came as a bit of a shock to me. The book is ranked #673,419 in sales on Amazon right now. They couldn’t have sold more than a few dozen. I guess if you’re deluded enough, you’ll continue on a dead end path forever. Come on, Bergman, don’t stop at five! Your fantasy is wilder than Harry Potter, and there are seven of those. Come on! We know you can beat J.K. Rowling!

Each book, true to form for academia, has about 1,000 footnotes.

Citing 1000 crackpots is no more credible than citing one.

When he tells people that doubting Darwinism can lead to discrimination in universities, Mr. Bergman said he gets two responses, neither sympathetic to his cause: “First, it’s not happening. Second, yes it’s happening and it should be happening.”

Both responses are legitimate. Creationists haven’t presented any compelling cases of discrimination yet, so it probably isn’t happening to any great degree. Secondly, if you think the Bible explains life better than science, then you have nothing to contribute to science. Go join a seminary and leave the fact finding to the big boys.

“It’s unlikely today that an out-of-the-closet Darwin doubter will survive in academia,” he said.

Meaning they aren’t fit for their environment and deserve to go extinct. If Bergman doesn’t understand this concept, BGU was right to fire him.

And there’s much at stake because a PhD requires a huge investment in time and money, averaging nine years of school and $300,000 and $500,000 in costs, he said.

So why would you waste all that pursuing something you aren’t qualified for?

Rather than risk losing everything over one’s personal beliefs, Mr. Bergman said he advises people to “stay in the closet until things change” and to seek change through legislation.

If you can’t prove your claims with data, just go where science is unheard of: The legislature!

In a question-and-answer session after his talk, he said one way to help bring about change is to propose a state constitutional amendment that would allow educators to raise questions about evolution.

Sure! Let’s take the science out of science. Anybody can make any wild claim, and the schools will have to teach it.

He predicted it would be overwhelmingly approved because free speech and scholarly debate in academia are being stifled by just a handful of “Darwinian fundamentalists.”

Wow! Just a few “Darwin fundies” are managing to oppress the entire educational system of the whole world! Because, after all, evolution is just an atheistic fantasy that has been perpetrated on the world, and millions of good scientists everywhere have mounds of evidence supporting the Biblical account of creation, but they can’t get published anywhere!

Persecution.

They love to feel persecuted.

The first was suggested by Brian. The second was suggested by OtherRob. Good job, guys!

In that recent Carnival of the Godless article, I mentioned how some Christians were upset that another blogger called Kirk Cameron a loon. Somehow they think that their ideas, even the craziest, are somehow immune from criticism. They frequently throw around words like “respect”.

Really?

You guys want respect?

Then why don’t you start giving it?

The above image (minus my “improvements”) is from a 1954 Christian activity book, found by Starlen (more at his Flickr stream). I love this respectful quote:

His god cannot help him.

This man must know about Jesus.

Where is the respect for other people’s beliefs? They disrespectfully assume that non-Christians have false and inferior beliefs. They also disrespect these people by trying to change them.

You cannot receive respect until you give it.

BTW, if anybody has any other funny captions for the above image, just put them in the comments.

As you can see, Snogger wins the grand prize of no money and no prizes, but all of the fame that accompanies getting his caption selected by an obscure blog.

Congratulations, Snogger!

I found this old ad with Sonny and Cher pushing Bibles. I decided we need to make them say something, so I added the word balloons. If anybody is game, help me fill those in. I did come up with something myself, but I’m not convinced it’s funny enough. Whatever we come up with should somehow tie in with the theme of the ad.

We aren’t tied to Sonny speaking first. I can change the order of the bubbles. I can also change it so only one is speaking, or one or both is a thought bubble, or even one speaks, then the other, and the first one speaks again. We can even have one or both speak and then a caption at the bottom that adds further explanation or snarky editorial comment. Don’t feel constrained by what you see here.

So here it is again. They’re advertising the DVD, which will be released in October. I decided it was time once again to point out how foolish this film is. I looked through the promotional graphics that I had previously downloaded from their web site, and I found the “patriotic” (idiotic is more like it) poster displayed below. Actually, that’s not exactly how the poster originally looked. The text was inaccurate, so I fixed it.

One of those crackpot creationist institutions dedicated to dismantling everything that has been accomplished since the Enlightenment and plunging us all back into the Dark Ages is called Access Research Network. I think the only research these morons are trying to access is that done by Joseph Goebbels:

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
—Attributed to Goebbels

ARN has just published a press release promoting their year-end top ten list, “Top 10 Darwin and Design News Stories of 2007”. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights.

As is typical of press releases, there is a quotation from one of their head guys, in this case Kevin Wirth, Director of Media Relations. He says:

Part of our mission at ARN is to help educate the public about issues relating to Darwin and Design. Not only are there a lot of moving parts to this issue, but it also suffers heavily from significant mis-information.

Yes. Most of it coming from fundie disinformation sites like ARN.

The news reports we’ve cited in our Top 10 News Stories this year reflect many of those concerns…. One of the things we’ve noticed is that the probability surrounding the notion that life arose spontaneously and evolved over eons is straining the limits of credulity among observers who are not heavily invested in Darwinian speculations.

OK, smart guy. Who are all of these so-called scientists who reject evolution? I’m waiting. And don’t give me that list of mathematicians and physicists you retards have been pedaling for the last few years. Who are the life scientists? You know, the people who actually study biology.

[T]he level of biological complexity being discovered in early life history provided another challenge for Darwin’s molecule-to-man theory in 2007.

Now which theory would that be? Darwin never proposed a “molecule-to-man” theory. He merely described how one species (that already existed) could evolve into another. I told you ARN was a creationist disinformation site. The origin of life (abiogenesis) is a separate issue.

Well-preserved jellyfish fossil finds in Utah confirm that the modern form of the jellyfish existed nearly 200 million years earlier than previously thought. This leaves an insufficient amount of time for complex life to have developed only via the Darwinian principles of random mutations and natural selection.

Then it’s a good thing that modern evolutionary theory abandoned Darwinism as the sole explanation decades ago. Once again, this is creationist disinformation at work. In fact, almost all creationist claims are rooted in this one disinformation tactic.

The press release then starts quoting Dennis Wagner, ARN Executive Director:

We have a whole generation of people who have been raised according to Darwinian fairytales, like ‘human and chimpanzee genetics only differ by 1%’….

They then cite a study that indicates that the genetic difference between chimps and humans is closer to 6%. I fail to see how that’s relevant to their argument. Science marches forward, unlike Biblicalism. If you read the article cited, everything about it supports evolution. If ARN is going to try to shoot down evolution, they should try to find a study that actually does so.

These are Darwinian ‘arguments from ignorance’….

Wagner also noted that several new books in the ARN 2007 Top 10 Darwin and Design Resource list such as Michael Behe’s The Edge of Evolution and Mike Gene’s The Design Matrix are causing a healthy shift in the debate from ‘Darwin versus Design’ to ‘Darwin and Design.’

You can’t shift something that doesn’t exist. There was no “Darwin versus Design” debate in the first place, at least not among scientists.

The debate has been highly polarized for generations because you have one group claiming everything can be explained by Darwin…

Those would have to be the creationists. As I explained above, they’re the only ones who are still fixated on the antiquated notion of “Darwinism”. Real scientists have long since moved on to the Modern Synthesis of genetics and evolution.

…and another group claiming everything can be explained by design.

Those would also be the creationists. They must be a very confused group of people, having polarizing debates among themselves like that.

These new books are revealing that scientific evidence is now indicating life bears the hallmarks of both.

No. These new books are revealing that the authors are incapable of understanding modern biology, and are therefore resorting to “God did it”.

Wirth concluded, “As we monitor scientific discoveries and reports in the news, I think we’re beginning to see a growing trend overall that the sufficiency of Darwinian explanations to describe how life evolved is turning out to be substantially inadequate in a growing number of fields, particularly in the areas of genetics and molecular biology.

Look, Clowndick. If you’re just now seeing that “Darwinism” is inadequate to explain everything, then I suggest you throw away your 1920 textbook and learn some modern biology.

This is the last one of the set.