Perception is Reality

July 19, 2010

Via Dogwood Tales, I came across I-Spot Annoying Fanboys. It’s a “humorous” look at the people you know who are a little too deep into their lifestyle choices. I put “humorous” in quotation marks only because it’s quite uneven. Some jokes work; others miss completely. They’re equally spotty on their facts. They do make some good points, but they totally miss the mark on others.

Just a few of the annoying fanboys are Sci-Fi Obsessives (29th), World of Warcraft Junkies (11th), Linux Geeks (9th), Audio Snobs (8th), and Bill Gates Apologists (6th).

These rankings are the result of a poll they took. Internet polls are always skewed, of course, but they do reveal something about perceptions. I think a lot of people would agree that audio snobs are more annoying than science fiction fans. Shut up! Nobody can hear the difference between a $5000 speaker and a $10,000 speaker!

So here are some of the other annoying fanboys.

Coming in 7th are Anime Aficionados.

Ispot Annoying Fanboys

They had this to say about them.

Ispot Annoying Fanboys

Coming in 2nd and 3rd are Twitter Twits and Conspiracy Theorists.

Ispot Annoying Fanboys

Number 1 by a wide margin is Apple Acolytes.

Ispot Annoying Fanboys

With a couple of accurate comments.

Ispot Annoying Fanboys

But here is the most interesting result. Ranked 5th, with almost 5% of the vote, is Richard Dawkins Zealots.

Ispot Annoying Fanboys

The first “fact” they have listed under “Did you know” is an example of their sloppy research. The whole “because it says so in a book” claim doesn’t apply to any atheist I’ve ever met.

Ispot Annoying Fanboys

But like I said above, in a situation like this, the facts aren’t relevant. People don’t react to facts they don’t know. People react to what they think they know about a subject. The perception here is that the vocal atheists are no different from obnoxious Christians.

What’s Brazil’s Problem?

July 18, 2010

PZ recently did a post on camel sex. That led me to discover Google Insight. I was curious who is the most concerned about fundies, so I typed that in. I was expecting the U.S. to be at the top of the list, since we have the biggest problem. Nope. We’re a distant second:

The real Brazil nuts are the fundies

Brazil? Brazil? It’s a predominantly Catholic country. That causes no end of problems, but they’re usually not as bad as those caused by the American-style Protestant fundies.

Anyone know what’s going on there? I thought maybe “fundie” was Portuguese for something else (maybe “camel sex”), but Google Translate says no.

Also on the Google Insight page was this table of most-frequent search terms:

Why would you search for fundies? There are too many around as it is.

I’m not sure what those numbers represent, but it looks like I have a large share of the mindset. When people want to know more about fundies, they come here!

Troubled by fundies? Have no fear, Bay of Fundie is here! He can’t stop them, but he can piss them off so much that they whine like the mental children they are and threaten to sue.

This is Why, STOOPID!

July 13, 2010

Jesus died for our flag

I received an email from the “Family” Research Council (and “Family” is probably an accurate description). The email states:

When the North Carolina legislature asked Ron Baity to serve as a guest chaplain at the state house, the pastor of Berean Baptist Church said it was an honor. What he didn’t know was how short-lived that honor would be!

Short-lived? It shouldn’t have lived at all! A legislature has no business establishing a state religion, which is exactly what they are doing every time they open their session with a prayer.

During the last week of May, when Pastor Baity was scheduled to open the session in prayer, a House clerk asked to first review the text.

Well that sounds a little ominous. Why would a government bureaucrat need an advance look at the text of the prayer?

When she noticed the last line, she said, “We would prefer that you not use the name of Jesus. We have some people here that can be offended.”

It doesn’t matter to me whether Jesus is mentioned or not. I’m offended that it mentions God. So what this bureaucrat is telling us is that the state of North Carolina only worries about offending one branch or another of the Abrahamic religions. They all pray to the same god, so as long as we only talk about him, it’s OK.

Well what about non-Yahwehans? I guess the Constitution doesn’t protect Hindus, Jains, and Wiccans. They’re also ignoring the non-religious completely. After all, there are only 34 million of those in America (a mere rounding error!).

But it was Pastor Baity who was most offended.

No. It’s the scores of millions of Constitution-lovers who are the most offended.

When the clerk raised the issue with House Speaker Joe Hackney,[…] Hackney decided that the pastor could offer his prayer—but that it would be his last one. After that, Baity’s services would “no longer be needed.”

Wrong tense. Try “never were”!

But I think Baity is about to have a revelation:

A stunned Baity told Fox News Radio, “When the state tells you how to pray, that you cannot use the name of Jesus—that’s mandating a state religion. They talk about not offending other people but at the same time, if they are telling me how to pray—that’s the very thing our forefathers left England for.”

Now you get it, moron! That is why you keep religion out of government! It isn’t just so “a few people won’t be offended”. It isn’t even because mixing one religion with government imposes that religion on people of other faiths. It’s because the contamination goes both ways! The taint of religion ruins government, and the taint of government ruins religion!

Now get your taint out of my face. I’m tired of smelling it.

Kevin Wirth Is Like a Piece of Old Farm Equipment

July 7, 2010

Kevin Wirth

Kevin Wirth

When I was growing up, I spent some of my summers on my grandfather’s farm in South Dakota. It was a fantastic place to run around, although my mother was convinced I’d get maimed.

She was always telling me horror stories about how dangerous a farm is. Allegedly one of her cousins or a friend of a cousin or a cousin of a friend of a cousin of a friend was eaten by pigs. Supposedly this cousin was walking on top of the fence, slipped, and fell into the pig pen. The ravenous pigs descended upon her in a piranha-like frenzy. By the time her father could chase the pigs off, all that was left of her was her hair.

Mothers are full of scary stories.

Another such tale seemed to change a bit with each retelling. She didn’t want me to get too close to the grain elevator while it was running. That’s what she called it, but I guess it was actually a hay elevator. It was a conveyor belt. One end was at ground level. The other end was above a door in the roof of the granary. You shovel the hay onto one end, and the conveyor belt deposits the hay into the loft.

She told me that when she was in school, one of the kids at one of the other farms was loading the hay elevator and he got his arm caught on the belt. Ripped his arm clear off! She saw that one-armed boy every day at school from then on.

But then there was the time she told me not to get too close to the combine. Way back when she was in school, there was this kid at one of the other farms. He had been helping harvest the crop when he got too close to the combine. It ripped his arm clear off!

Then there was the time she told me not to get too close to the windrower, and, well, you can guess the rest. I assumed that her school was populated entirely by one-armed boys.

One day I discovered an old wagon out in one of the fields. This required further investigation, so I started climbing all over it. My grandfather came by and said “What are you doing in the manure spreader?”

I ran out of that thing faster than a creationist running from an evolution book.

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Speaking of manure spreaders, I came across our old friend Kevin Wirth on the internet today.

I was searching to see what sort of damage Access Research Network has been doing lately and came across this thread in a forum at the Atheist Foundation of Australia.

One of the members there, who goes by the handle “Eccles”, discovered that ARN was giving away a screensaver of Hubble images. He didn’t really scope out the ARN website too closely. He just downloaded the program and installed it on his computer. He tells us what happened next:

When I downloaded it and ran it, to my horror the images were peppered with BS about “Intelligent Design”. I immediately uninstalled that screen saver, unsubscribed from the site and sent the director, Dennis Warner a nasty e-mail.

Before long, Eccles discovered a very large turd in his email box. It was plopped there, of course, by ARN’s “Director of Turd Disbursement and Misinformation”, Kevin Wirth.

Let’s see what manure Kevin has been spreading in Australia.

I was dismayed to read your email to Dennis (which he has requested that I respond to).

First and foremost, we do not exist to proseltyze [sic] religion or religious views. This is a huge, but unfortunately common mistake about our mission.

The only mistake is that they weren’t able to come up with a scheme less obviously religious than Intelligent Design creationism.

Meanwhile, you should read our mission statement at ARN.ORG. Nowhere in it will you find anything about our intent to promote religion.

Duh! If they told people they had a religious agenda, they wouldn’t be able to sneak it into the schools!

Secondly, we do not knowingly promote “lies” about Intelligent Design as you claim.

Sure you do, Kevin. You flat-out claim that Intelligent Design creationism is not religious. It is by definition. The designer has all of the characteristics of God. Ergo, he is God.

While it is true that ID is consistent with many religious views, we don’t exist to promote religion of any kind.

This statement is patently absurd. My best guess is that Kevin thinks that because ID creationism is consistent with many religions, it is therefore not a promotion of religion. This is the sort of logic that leads high schools to think it is OK to have a prayer at graduation ceremonies. (“It’s a generic prayer, so it’s OK!”)

Our focus is on providing resources related to Intelligent Design, and we are frankly not terribly concerned about the religious background of those who advocate for or against this position. We’re more interested in the scientific and philosophical arguments related to this topic, and are willing to allow others to think and talk about where they think the evidence leads.

There are no significant scientific arguments for ID creationism. And of course he’s willing to let others follow wherever it leads. The purpose of Intelligent Design creationism is to give the faithful a plausible-sounding excuse for rejecting science.

Our main concern here at ARN is that you are being given an opportunity to explore information options about ID not found at very many other web sites.

You know, web sites that are about reality and facts.

But it also seems to me that that the fact of the matter is, a reliance upon the Almighty was very much a part of the founding our nation. That’s just a fact, pure and simple.

It’s true. Many of the founding fathers were religious. In fact, there was quite a diversity of Christian sects throughout the colonies in those days. That’s why the First Amendment, protecting religious freedom, was so important to them. So then why is Kevin trying to circumvent that protection by getting creationism taught in the schools?

We also make a distinction between Creation and ID. Creationists openly advocate connections to religious texts while ID prefers to focus on scientific and philosophical considerations

We’re religious. We just don’t focus on it!

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that simply because Intelligent Design is consistent with the idea of a “God of the Universe” that we are attempting to shove that thought or any other religious notion down your throat.

That’s misdirection. He doesn’t have a specific religious goal. ID creationism’s purpose is to provide cover for others to get God into the schools and other government institutions. That’s just those folks’ “academic freedom”. Guess what, Kevin. Facts and data are academic. Religious beliefs are not. Nobody has the “freedom” to inject religion into the classroom.

Pick Up Some Meat At Fudd’s

June 30, 2010

I’m making stew tonight, but we’re low on ingredients. Could you do me a favor and pick up some meat at Fudd’s on the way home?

I'll take mine in a cracker, thanks

(BTW, This picture makes me think that we should be worshipping Bugs Bunny instead of Jesus. That way we wouldn’t need to rely on transubstantiation during mass.)

Asshole Jesus

June 24, 2010

I’ve seen the original versions of these pictures floating around the internet for quite a while now. They’re somehow supposed to “inspirational”. I find the whole idea that there’s an invisible guy following me around and watching everything I do to be quite creepy. Maybe that’s just me.

Anyway, I found these recaptioned versions over at Boredville. These captions are much more appropriate.

Jesus is an asshole

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Jesus is an asshole

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Jesus is an asshole

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Jesus is an asshole

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Jesus is an asshole

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Jesus is an asshole

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Jesus is an asshole

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Update: 7/5/10

I was able to track down the original source for these drawings. They’re done by a fundie named Larry Van Pelt, who lives in Niceville (really!), Florida. You can see all of his original drawings here, although why you’d want to is beyond me.

You can find more of these great recaptioned versions over at Know Your Meme, in the “Jesus is a Jerk” sub-meme of “LOL Jesus”. You really should go over there and check out the others. Some of them are way funnier than the ones I’ve reproduced above.

The Great Textbook War

June 17, 2010

I have a Bible and I vote!

I heard a great documentary on public (read: socialist) radio tonight. It’s called “The Great Textbook War”. It’s about a controversy in Kanawha County, West Virginia in 1974 about some new school textbooks. You can find the documentary’s download link in the sidebar of their website.

The whole thing sounds eerily contemporary. The one difference is that racism was one of the underlying issues of the 1974 controversy. Teabaggers aside, that is much less of an issue today.

You’ll hear the roots of our modern culture war playing out in microcosm. The textbook war of ’74 turned violent toward the end, with Christians justifying the violence with quotes from the Bible. Sadly, that was also a precursor of what we see today. Extremist fundie violence is rare in this country, but as any dead abortion doctor will tell you, it does still happen.

As for the controversy itself, listen with an open mind. The conservatives make one or two good points. I might agree that maybe the books went just the slightest bit too far. Including the writings of Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver, for example, would certainly be appropriate at the college level, and maybe even 11th or 12th grade. It isn’t clear from the documentary which grades included their writings.

Likewise, raising the issue of moral relativism is OK, even desirable, at any of the high school grades, but kids may not be equipped mentally to process such an abstract thought at a younger age. Again, the documentary does not tell us at which grades that issue was raised. (That is one of my few gripes with the documentary.)

Other than these points, I am completely on the side of the “liberal, academic, socialist elites” who tried to shove progress down the throats of a backward county in 1974. And who continue to do the same to a backward country in 2010.

Tea Party Jesus

June 15, 2010

From Tea Party Jesus

Delaware Republican congressional candidate Glen Urquhart

BoF reader Barbara tells me that she has a new favorite web site: Tea Party Jesus. As you can tell from the above illustration, the web site brilliantly puts the very words of the brain-dead wing of the Republican party into the mouth of Jesus.

Here are my favorites just off of the first two pages. Enjoy. Then go check out the rest at Tea Party Jesus.

From Tea Party Jesus

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From Tea Party Jesus

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From Tea Party Jesus

American Fundie Association’s Bryan Fischer

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From Tea Party Jesus

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From Tea Party Jesus

“Journalist” Cliff Kincaid

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From Tea Party Jesus

Prescott Arizona city councilmean Steve Blair

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From Tea Party Jesus

South Carolina state senator Jake Knotts