The above is a funny diagram from the blog of Jessica Hagy. That’s her whole shtick. The entire blog is Venn diagrams and x-y graphs scribbled onto index cards. Some of them are pretty funny.

You ought to read the comments people left on that post. It’s a replay in microcosm of all of the comments people have left on my Duggar articles.

It’s some kind of bizarre coincidence that the first time I encounter her blog the diagram featured that day is of the Duggars! It’s also kind of fitting. It gives me a way to close off that chapter in this blog’s history.

Unlike some of you, I moved beyond the Duggars a long time ago. For me, they were just brief stop on this expedition through Fundieland. They were a strange specimen to tag and release. This blog never was about the Duggars, at least no more than it’s about Shirley and Squirrely. Little did I know that the Duggars would be responsible for about a quarter of my traffic and half of my comments. There have been very few days when they weren’t occupying one of the spots in the Recent Comments list. They give new visitors a distorted view of what this blog is about.

The time has come. The time is now. Jim Bob Duggar, will you please go now!

Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes, because he was sick of him. That’s all people identified him with. At one point Conan Doyle even forbade people to mention Holmes’ name in his presence.

I had been planning for a while to shut down the Duggar threads on August 7th. When I saw the above diagram, I thought that would be a great opportunity to shut it down now. I ultimately decided to stick with the original plan. You have one week to say your goodbyes.

It’s been a while since I participated in a Carnival of the Liberals, so I figured I was overdue. The latest edition is up over at Cult of Gracie. It’s a good source for a variety of liberal topics. Go check it out.

The one that caught my attention, though, was “The Evangelical Re-Invention of John McCain, and the Sad Paradox of Fundamentalist Family Values” over at Submitted to a Candid World. It says (in part):

McCain attempts to mask his endorsement of the religious right mainline by couching it in the rhetoric of “local control” - let the states/cities/towns decide issues like abortion, gay rights, and science. This is a thinly veiled attempt to pass the buck, and a tactic commonly used by McCain to exculpate himself from endorsing far-right positions by nominally devolving the issue to others who he knows will make the (religious-)right decisions. McCain won’t destroy women’s rights: his Supreme Court appointees will. McCain won’t endorse homophobic bigotry. But he will idly stand by [while] states do it. McCain won’t teach creationism. But he will subtly endorse it, and let others teach it if they want to.

We’ve looked at The Coral Ridge Hour before. The program seems to encapsulate fundiedom more than many other pray-TV shows, so we’ll probably examine a few more of them in the months ahead.

The Coral Ridge Hour stars now-wormfood D. James Kennedy (DJK), who was one of the more extreme fundies. He’s the guy who gave us Darwin’s Deadly Legacy, which blamed Nazism on Darwin. Just like L. Ron Hubbard is still writing books years after his death, DJK is still making TV shows. His ministry is taking old sermons and packaging them into new shows. The shows consist of a 15-minute DJK rerun, then a 10-minute newsmagazine-style exposé of some horrible affront to Christianity (usually atheism or evolution).

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

The show opens with DJK’s daughter, Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy, who knows a cushy job sponging off of her father’s legacy when she sees one. She says:

[M]y dad realized early on that science had been hijacked by unproven atheistic philosophy. In this timely message, he shows how all of creation cries out the truth that in the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.

We then cut to old footage of DJK. This sermon is called “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made”. He says he wants to tell us about a scientific discovery so monumental that it rivals all of the great discoveries of the past, yet almost nobody has heard of it! Suppression! It must be suppression! I’ll bet those evil atheistic scientists who run the liberal media are to blame! Thankfully, we have DJK to tell us the story:

But something happened on the way to the 20th century. And that is the entire scientific enterprise was hijacked in the middle of the 19th. Of course, I am referring to Darwin’s theory of evolution. And the whole scientific enterprise has been hijacked into a naturalistic or materialistic view of the world. “Naturalism” means there’s nothing in the universe but nature; there’s nothing supernatural. “Materialism” believes that there’s nothing in the world but matter.

He then tells us that some of the recent discoveries in molecular biology are astounding. He tells us that Michael Behe has made some amazing discoveries. He then parrots a bunch of Behe’s irreducible complexity nonsense. Therefore, molecular biology proves God’s existence!

Here’s a question for the Discovery Institute, Access Research Network, or any of those other “academic freedom fighters” out there: If “intelligent design” isn’t religious and isn’t creationism, then why is a religious guy (DJK) using it to “prove” creation?

Freedom to Impose Religion

After DJK’s forgettable sermon, they next show us a video report about Darwin’s thugs (the ACLU) and the Dover creationism trial.

Dr. Norman Geisler, author of Creation and the Courts, starts us off:

Evolution is the kingpin of atheism. If evolution is disproven, atheism is disproven, cuz they don’t have any other explanation.

According to Dr. Geisler, atheists apparently know that there is a god, but as long as they have evolution to cling to, they don’t have to admit that. It’s a good thing I have Dr. Geisler here to tell me what I believe.

Frank Manion (some shyster stooge from Pat Robertson’s anti-ACLU group called American Center for Law and Justice) says:

[The Dover school board] didn’t mandate the teaching of intelligent design in biology class. What they said was there are criticisms of evolution from a scientific standpoint, one of which is something called intelligent design…

BUZZZZZZ!!!! Loser!! Oh, Manion contradicts himself in the same sentence! What a moron! Intelligent Design isn’t science. It’s not even scientific! It’s entirely religious, with a thin veneer of scientific buzzwords painted on.

…and if you’d like to read more about this, there’s a book in the library that we have provided that you can read.

Yes, the book was Of Pandas and People a religious creationism book. God damn these people are stupid! I guess when they only talk among themselves, nobody notices. Does a town consisting entirely of morons have a village idiot?

Next, we get to listen to Dr. George Grant, author of Trial and Error: The American Civil Liberties Union and Its Impact on Your Family:

The ACLU has a stake in the argument over Darwinism, simply because the ACLU has a very distinctive religious and political agenda, rooted in a revolutionary worldview that comes from Darwinism. The whole intent of the ACLU is to change our society, to make it into something new, something that the old Christian foundations of America could never allow.

Cool! A secret agenda! I bet they’re all Freemasons, too!

Finally, they give us [M]Ann Coulter. As if this program didn’t lack enough credibility:

Einstein would not be allowed to teach in a school today, because he referred to God.

Two things are wrong with this sentence. The first is that old lie that Einstein was a theist, at least in the sense that fundies understand it. This has been debunked. Second, notice how [s]he’s implying that the mere belief in God is enough to disqualify somebody from teaching. That’s a massive persecution complex [s]he has there.

To have, you know, these hacks like Eugenie Scott come in and say “Oh that’s not real science. Unless you keep God out, it’s not real science.” It’s preposterous.

What’s preposterous is to have a hack like Ann Coulter pass judgment on Eugenie Scott’s credentials. That’s like Charlie the Hamster saying Luciano Pavarotti can’t sing.

I found this picture at the same web site as the Grant’s Pass Caveman (see next post). What sort of person would want this combination?

He should have had the images on the opposite legs. Then it would appear that Jack Nicholson is looking at Jesus and is probably responsible for his death.

Last week, the Third U.S. Circuit Court overturned the FCC’s $550,000 fine against CBS for Janet Jackson’s scandalous nipple show. We aren’t qualified to properly understand just how horrible this development is. We must turn to the fundies, who will tell us just how damaged we were by seeing said nipple. OneNewsNow has generously come to our aid with this proclamation of gloom: “FCC Feeling Muzzled by Courts”:

Penny Nance, special advisor to Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin, says the Third U.S. Circuit Court’s ruling yesterday was stunning on many levels, considering that the Super Bowl striptease incident in question spawned millions of complaints from parents and concerned citizens all over the country.

Oh, where to start? (1) It’s distressing that the FCC is run by a fundie whose primary mission in life is to fine a broadcast network for the accidental (and very brief) exposure of a non-sexual body part. (2) It wasn’t a striptease. (3) I doubt there were “millions” of complaints. But even if there were, it’s a meaningless number. 99% came directly from the Parents Television Council. They hardly represent the country as a whole.

Nance argues that it represents further legal efforts to severely hamper the FCC’s mission of protecting decency on the broadcast airwaves. She explains that the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled against the federal agency’s fining of TV broadcast networks for airing of “fleeting profanities” during awards shows in 2002 and 2003.

This is why you need the courts — to rein in an out-of-control government.

The best part of this article, though, comes from the comments! Let’s take a look, shall we?

The real problem is not that it was just a half-second episode or that it was not bleeped out. The real problem is that it is just a way to open the door for more of the same for a longer time period the next time. Ever heard the old saying “Give an inch and they will take a mile” Just like the homosexual agenda, there was a time when no one would “come out of the closet” but little by little they did and look at the mess we have now involving that issue. As for me: let morality rule.

Janet Jackson’s nipple: Marching in lockstep with the homosexual agenda!

Go FCC and do your job well! There was no need for the nudity regardless of the length of time and for the perverts that say get over it or that didn’t hurt anyone - pay for your sick porno crap because decent people don’t care for it on our television. We were not watching one of your porno channels, we are not accustomed to such trash.

Then don’t look at this, you’ll go blind:

A few of the comments supported the court’s decision. I’m surprised that OneNewsNow didn’t delete them:

Score: Victorian censors: 0
First Amendment: 2
Hurray for freedom.

and…

If your precious darlings were caused permanent harm by a 2 second flash of a woman’s anatomy, I suggest you spend more time being a parent and less time reading internet websites. Your priorities are as screwed up as the FCC’s.

also…

It was less than half a second folks!!! If that’s going to damage a child’s mind there is something wrong with the child.

I don’t think the fundies really are worried about the child. It’s the adults who are so scared of the nipple. To them, I say: Don’t look at this next picture. Don’t imagine your hand slowly caressing it. Don’t think of your tongue sliding deliciously around its perky firmness.

The headline over at fundie “news” site OneNewsNow is:

Teen’s Mother Forces Her to Have an Abortion

The story is pretty much encapsulated in the headline. A 16-year-old girl wanted to have the baby. Her mother pressured her to get an abortion, which is ultimately what happened. OneNewsNow is wailing and moaning like this is the worst thing ever.

Apparently the fundies don’t like it when somebody else tells them what they can or can’t do with their own bodies.

One of my pet peeves is people who think that aliens built the pyramids. Frankly, as a member of the human race, I’m quite insulted. We’re an amazingly ingenious lot. If there’s a problem to solve, we generally get around to figuring it out.

Vaccines? We invented those. Rocketships and submarines? We made those too. Radio, television, and satellites? We solved all of those. Ziplock bags? That was us too.

Even in the ancient world, we were masters of our domain (so to speak). Agriculture? We did that! Irrigation? Humans! Domestication of livestock? Nailed it! Gods and religion? Another human invention. (That last one probably should have stayed in the workshop a little longer, though.)

That’s why it’s so insulting to have some uneducated twat try to deny us one of our greatest achievements: The construction of massive pyramids with little more than levers, wheels, and inclined planes.

The pyramids really weren’t that difficult to build, from an engineering perspective. Sure, there were definitely a few tough problems that had to be solved. There are several pyramids in Egypt that show the earlier attempts. They weren’t so good. But the engineers learned. Once the problems were solved, it was just a matter of implementation. And that is the true marvel of the ancient world.

Managing a project on that scale with the huge workforce and supply problems they had would have been impossible if not for that other human invention: Bureaucracy. Yes, that’s one thing the Egyptians had (made possible by another invention: Writing). Contrary to popular belief, bureaucracy doesn’t guarantee inefficiency. It’s often impossible to get things done without it.

But There ARE Real Limits

I was thinking about this pyramid situation just last week. You see, there are real limits in the universe. As far as we know, you can’t go faster than light. You can’t get any colder than zero Kelvin. And you can’t convince a creationist that he’s wrong.

My recent article, “Reality Denialism and the Limits of Belief“, grew out of this situation. I realized that the reason some people think that humans couldn’t have built the pyramids is because those people have a misconception of what life was like back then. They don’t appreciate how sophisticated Egyptian society already was, and they don’t appreciate just how much work you can do without power tools. That makes a human construction of the pyramids beyond the technical limit of belief for the human-made-pyramid deniers. Since they can’t conceive of any way humans could have done it, the only other explanation that makes sense is aliens. Aliens always have advanced technology with flashing lights and cool whirring sounds. Surely, somebody who has flashing lights and cool whirring sounds can build anything.

But as I said, there are universal limits. I was confronted with this when I had to fix my iPod. You may recall my earlier article about how God works in mysterious ways, such as through iPod repair. The little Toshiba hard drive I ordered arrived last week. I knew, of course, that the thing had to be smaller than the iPod, in order to fit inside of it:

As you can see, the hard drive is a bit narrower and shorter than the iPod.

OK. So far, so good. But check out this side view:

Are you freakin’ kidding me?! That’s a god-damned hard drive, and it’s barely the thickness of a couple of quarters! I just assumed that the thing would be almost as thick as the iPod. Sure, there has to be room for the logic board, but they can make those fairly thin. In fact, the hard drive goes between two layers of foam, which they use for shock absorption. So the inside of your iPod is so spacious that they have room for the logic board, the battery, the hard drive, and two freakin’ layers of foam!

I don’t think you comprehend what’s going on here. The significance of what I’m saying. The ramifications for human society.

Do you have any idea how big a gigabyte is? Sure, it’s a billion bytes. But do you comprehend just how big a billion is?

• One billion seconds ago was the year 1976 CE. (There were still liberals in America!)
• One billion minutes ago was the year 106 CE. (John McCain wasn’t even born!)
• One billion hours ago was the year 112,147 BCE. (Humans were living in caves!)
• One billion days ago was the year 2,737,718 BCE. (Humans didn’t even exist!)

So a gigabyte is huge. And there’s thirty of them in that tiny drive!

Some things go beyond the credible.

I don’t care how ingenious we are. We can’t be that good.

This hard drive has to be alien technology. That’s the only possible explanation.

After all, it makes a cool whirring sound.

Today’s favorite comment comes to us from Brian. In the comments to the article “Carnival of the Godless #96”, Brian writes:

For being people who supposedly have the universe all figured out, Christians sure can be a narrow-minded, petty lot given to deplorable excesses of bitching and moaning. … Apparently the comfort of an eternal life spent in blind worship to a tyrannical universal overseer is insufficient to squelch one’s urge to be an asshole in the here and now. Go figure.