Creationism

Via Neatorama, the story of one incredible hoax:

A Professor at the University of Wurzburg in Germany was fooled by his colleagues in the 18th century. They carved limestone into animal shapes and carved the name of God on them in various characters and hid them on a nearby mountain where Professor Beringer liked to hunt for fossils. Beringer became convinced that the carvings were actually created by God himself. Even when people pointed out that the limestone showed chisel marks, he held to his theory and even published a book on the stones.

Doing a little more digging lead to this site, where more information (and lots of images) was available. An excerpt:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The school board of a small central Ohio community voted Friday to fire a teacher accused of preaching his Christian beliefs despite staff complaints and burning the image of a cross on students' arms, according to the Associated Press.

The back-pedaling and loud protestations of injured innocence by this wack-job's attorney and friends are certainly amusing.

[link] John Freshwater discussed his creationism beliefs, disregarded evolution and failed to follow the standard curriculum while teaching eighth-grade science at Mount Vernon Middle School, board officials said.

An investigation revealed he continued teaching his beliefs even after he was ordered to stop, the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reported Saturday.

The investigation found Freshwater said homosexuals are sinners and branded crosses into some students' arms, the board said.

Freshwater's attorney, R. Kelly Hamilton, said his client's rights to practice religion were infringed and he plans to call for a hearing with the school board to fight the dismissal.

Hamilton said the allegations are "fabrications created by a couple of students … Not a single child has ever been harmed."

"Well, except for the whole 'burning a cross in their forearm' thing, yeah. Except for that." continued Freshwater later. "But that was really just, um, a science experiment. Yeah! That's it! That's the ticket!

"You can ask my wife - ah, um, ah... Morgan Fairchild!"

All I can say is that if my kid had come home with anything at all fucking burned into his arm by his teacher, then I would have gladly gone to jail for assault. However, the teacher would have gone to the hospital with multiple injuries and burns made with the same tool that he used to burn my child.

PZ mentioned this the other day, but I was busy, so it wasn't until I was playing catch-up with his site and BoingBoing this afternoon that I went to check out the link:

'Big Science' is always suppressing The Truth with their blatant pro-evolution anti-wacko agenda: from the fact that UFOs built the pyramids to the reality of creationism and fact the universe is "Turtles All The Way Down". It is time to fight back and urge schools to Teach The Controversy with these intelligently designed t-shirts.

And now through the 30th they're having a 25% off summer sale! Excellent!

I ordered one of the "UFOs Created the Pyramids" t-shirts and a hoodie with another of their designs.

Have fun!

Jim Downey

(ACPA-london) Excitement is growing in the Northern England town of Huddlesfield following the news that a local man saw an image of the Big-Bang in a piece of toast. Atheist Donald Chapman, 36, told local newspaper, "The Huddlesfield Express" that he was sitting down to eat breakfast when an unusual toast pattern caught his eye.

"I was just about to spread the butter when I noticed a fairly typical small hole in the bread surrounded by a burnt black ring. however the direction and splatter patterns of the crumbs as well as the changing shades emanating outwards from this black hole were very clearly similar to the chaotic-dynamic non-linear patterns that one would expect following the Big-Bang". "It's the beginning of the world" he added excitedly.

Ever since news of the discovery made national headlines, local hoteliers have been overwhelmed by an influx of atheists from all over the country who have flocked to Huddlesfield to catch a glimpse of the scientific relic. "I have always been an Atheist and to see my life choices validated on a piece of toast is truly astounding" said one guest at the Huddlesfield Arms hotel.

I understand it was horrible. Andy Rooney's fangs speared from his demonic slash of a mouth, ripping the Christian flesh off of poor, poor evangelist Tony Didlo's throat, spilling his blood in the street like a fountain. Then Andy Rooney howled like a wolf and started rooting around in Didlo's guts while he cried for mercy from the curmudgeonly old atheist. Random atheists on the street - you know, because there's so many of us - cheered as Rooney smeared blood all over his face and swung a loop of intestine around and around, smacking the whimpering, dying Christian witness repeatedly in the face.

Then he went to the Super Bowl and enjoyed the game, leaving the evangelist dead in the streets of Phoenix, like us atheists always do when we come across defenseless Christians.

[Baptist Press] PHOENIX (BP)--As thousands of people thronged Phoenix for the Super Bowl, a small contingent of Christians spread out across the metropolitan area to share their faith in Christ.

One of them had a chance to talk with Andy Rooney, the commentator whose curmudgeonly complaints wrap up the weekly "60 Minutes" program on CBS.

"I was standing on a corner and turned around and there was this little old man walking across the street," said Tony Didlo, a member of Grace Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Des Moines, Iowa. "I knew right away it was Andy Rooney."

Didlo held out a Gospel tract and asked Rooney if he had received one yet.

"Yeah, I've got one of those," Rooney replied, according to Didlo's account of the Jan. 31 encounter.

"Sir, do you believe in God?" Didlo asked.

"No, I'm an atheist," Rooney said. "I think it's sad you people believe in that stuff."

Didlo tried to pursue the conversation, asking if the existence of creation didn't imply a creator, but Rooney's cameraman stepped in between them and said, "We've got to go."

"He wouldn't let me go any further with it," Didlo said. "I was surprised he thinks people are totally off their rockers for believing in God."

Florida State Board Of Education member Donna Callaway gets it so wrong that it's painful to read.

[link] Donna Callaway, a former middle school principal from Tallahassee, told the Florida Baptist Witness that evolution "should not be taught to the exclusion of other theories of origins of life."

She also said she hoped Christians would pray over the issue. "As a SBOE member, I want those prayers," Callaway said. "I want God to be part of this."

Evolution is not a "theory of origins of life", number one, and number two, the Christian God cannot, by law, "be a part of" the Florida State Board Of Education - unless you rescind the United States Constitution, or secede from the union.

But you've all heard this before, time and time again. It's been said, over and over, a thousand times or more. The facts are always the same; ignorant Christian creationist who does not understand what evolution is, or what science is gets elected to the school board. Then they convince other ignorant Christian creationists on the school board to "teach the (nonexistent) controversy" by reading the religious tracts put out by the Discovery Institute, WoTM, or Dr. Dino. Overworked civil-rights defenders like the ACLU and FFRF take the school board to court and win. Many indignant news stories and op-ed columns are written about the evil atheist plot to persecute innocent Christians by teaching science instead of Christian mythology in - ahem - science classes. Overwrought email chain letters get forwarded to everyone and their grandmother shouting about the nasty atheists and their evil plan to barbecue all the Christian children in the public school system for the crime of being Christian.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Things like this make me tired. It feels like we're bailing out a leaky boat with plastic beer cups. I mean, were doing something, going through the motions, making a lot of noise and fuss, but the reality of the situation is that the boat is filling up too fast. I fear that we are sinking, and that there is not a lot we can do to prevent it.

Still, we'll keep on bailing because what else can we do?

I just read a disturbing bit of news on Wired Science about how the Texas science curriculum director was fired for forwarding an email from her work account about an upcoming speech being made by a person critical of Intelligent Design.

Here's a 9 minute trailer from the movie Expelled due for release in February 2008. Oh boy, I can hardly wait. Pay attention and you will notice part of this trailer was filmed at the Voter Issues Conference sponsored by the Family Research Council. If the FRC's involvement hasn't sufficiently raised the alarm, how about two of their more infamous spokesman, James Dobson and Tony Perkins?

The FRC is a Christian political organization that promotes values such as anti-homosexual rights, prayer in schools, abstinence only education, teaching creationism in science class instead of or along side evolution, ending women's reproductive rights, anti-birth control and even stopping stem cell research that could better the lives of millions of Americans. Hmmm. I wonder why the FRC is so interested in the movie Expelled and Intelligent Design?

Some of you may already be licking your chops in anticipation of tomorrow's (Tuesday 11/13 8pm EST) PBS special called Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.

Others may be upset and ready to complain of bias.

I expect the program to be enlightening, educational and entertaining. As you can see from the second trailer posted, not everyone is happy about this event. The Discovery Institute is doing it's best to predispose creationist proponents towards their usual anti-science mindset.

Brilliant:

About Project Pterosaur
Mission Statement

The goal of Project Pterosaur is to mount an expedition to locate and bring back to the United States living specimens of pterosaurs or their fertile eggs, which will be displayed in a Pterosaur Rookery that will be the center piece of the planned Fellowship Creation Science Museum and Research Institute (FCSMRI). Furthermore, the rookery facility will establish a breeding colony of pterosaurs in order to produce specimens that could then be put on display by other regional institutions or church groups.

By doing all this, we hope to accomplish three goals:

1. Support Creation Theory by showing the incorrectness of the philosophy of Evolutionism.
2. Educate the population about Creation Science.
3. Create excitement about Creation and the Bible in the public.

Absolutely brilliant satire. Here's another taste:

Why is it that I want to tag every religion-related post with "Stupid Human Tricks"?

*Sigh*

Anyway, Happy Birthday, everyone! According to your friendly neighborhood creationists, today is Earth's 6,010th Birthday! Yay!

The really sad part? 43% of your fellow Americans (assuming you're here - the rest of the world already knows how crazy we are) basically agreed, saying the following statement was true: That God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.

So, when do we get cake? I need something to buffer the bottle of vodka I just got to help me forget this...

Jim Downey

(Via MeFi.)

Via MeFi, word of the self-made mummies of Japan:

For three years the priests would eat a special diet consisting only of nuts and seeds, while taking part in a regimen of rigorous physical activity that stripped them of their body fat. They then ate only bark and roots for another three years and began drinking a poisonous tea made from the sap of the Urushi tree, which contains Urushiol (same stuff that makes poison ivy), normally used to lacquer bowls. This caused vomiting and a rapid loss of bodily fluids. Finally, a self-mummifying monk would lock himself in a stone tomb barely larger than his body, where he would not move from the lotus position. His only connection to the outside world was an air tube and a bell. Each day he rang a bell to let those outside know that he was still alive. When the bell stopped ringing, the tube was removed and the tomb sealed.

Via Pandagon, a nice little news story tied to our friends at the Creation Museum:

Columbus, Ohio (AP) --
The man who plays Adam in a video aired at a Bible-based creationist museum has led a different life outside the Garden of Eden, flaunting his sexual exploits online and modeling for a clothing line that promotes free love.

After learning about his activities Thursday, the Creation Museum in Kentucky pulled the 40-second video in which he appears.

Yup, because you know, he can't have had a life at all prior to being Adam. But here's the best, and funniest, bit:

"For the Creation Museum, I did what I did as an actor. It doesn't necessarily mean I believe in evolution or a believe in creation," Linden said. "I'm hired to get a point across. On the flip side, if I was hired to play a murderer, that doesn't mean I'd go out and kill somebody. It's make-believe."

Remember Matthew LaClair, the junior at Kearny High School who taped his history teacher preaching in the public school classroom? I wrote about it here last year. Well, the Kearny board of education have settled the dispute.

[link] As part of the settlement, in which neither side admits wrongdoing, the New Jersey regional office of the Anti-Defamation League will start training teachers and students in September about keeping church and state separate in public schools, and about “the distinction between the scientific theory of evolution and the religious doctrine of creationism.”

Good for them for doing the right thing. I still think that they should have disciplined the history teacher preacher, David Paszkiewicz, but this is still a good thing.

Cograts, Matthew. Way to stick to your guns on this. And kudos to your parents also who backed you up and followed through.

Humu Kon Tiki has a brilliant post up about a satire on the Jack Chick religious tracts, titled "TIKI: A PLAGUE UPON THIS LAND". Complete with photo set. Enjoy!

(Via BoingBoing.)

Jim Downey

Well, shoot. There's 2 minutes and 5 seconds of my one and only life I'll never get back. I could almost feel my brain cells atrophying as I watched this. Creationist Chuck Missler takes evolution-denial to a hilariously all-time low.

I sure hope that we make it through the next few years because shit like this is just depressing.

From CNN:

SISTERS, Oregon (AP) -- During his eight days as a part-time high school biology teacher, Kris Helphinstine included Biblical references in material he provided to students and gave a PowerPoint presentation that made links between evolution, Nazi Germany and Planned Parenthood.

That was enough for the Sisters School Board, which fired the teacher Monday night for deviating from the curriculum on the theory of evolution.

"I think his performance was not just a little bit over the line," board member Jeff Smith said. "It was a severe contradiction of what we trust teachers to do in our classrooms."

Helphinstine, 27, said in a phone interview with The Bulletin newspaper of Bend that he included the supplemental material to teach students about bias in sources, and his only agenda was to teach critical thinking.

(If you just want to get to the point and avoid much background bio, read just the first and last paragraphs.)

Now, I am not a philosopher, did not study philosophy in school or in college (took a logic course to satisfy that requirement), and have no formal or informal education in philosophy. What I have are my brains and my experience. I have noticed that in plenty of areas of life I have reached conclusions of personal philosophy about which people spent the time to write complete tomes. Anyone else here experience this?

Like Brent, around the age of 16, I abandoned faith as nonsense. It was a gradual procession throughout life but got a kick start with my father (the ordained, born-again, intermittently evangelical Presbyterian), when I was around 12 years, who said to me with no viciousness mind you, 'I've done what I think is right in bringing you up but you obviously can't accept faith as openly as I have. You have a different path to follow and you need to find that on your own.'

So, now that science seems to be closing in on a genetic or at least developmental basis for homosexuality, the Religious Right is taking an interest. Why? So they can stomp it out, of course.

Now, I'm not gay, and I don't have kids, so in one sense I don't have a dog in this fight. But saying that is like saying that I don't care what happens down in Gitmo, just because the likelihood of me ever winding up in that situation is nil.

Besides, I like the hypocrisy of how the Religious Right will disavow the power of science to determine truths about some things, and yet embrace other aspects of science when it conveniently fits with their agenda.

Via Andrew Sullivan, comes this piece by Albert Mohler, The President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary: Is Your Baby Gay? In the article you find some remarkable comments:

Boy, if you thought that the recent Conservapedia stories were a good example of bad science, just wait 'til you see CreationWiki! It is like the self-organizing black hole of stupid. As they describe the project on their homepage:

Evolutionism is the belief in the theory that life on Earth is simply the result of random, natural processes, and ultimately attempts to explain the existence of humans by means other than divine creation. The theory of evolution (or general theory of evolution) is a philosophical perspective that stems from an atheistic worldview. In contrast, creationism is the belief that the universe and life on Earth were created through a supernatural act of God. The creation is described by cultures all over the world where one central theme is found to emerge - order from chaos.