Researchers Clone God, Uncover Theological Mysteries

Early yesterday morning at Columbia University in New York, scientists at the biological theology institute managed the impossible. They had cloned God.

“Everyone told us that it couldn’t be done,” smiled lead researcher Denny McDaniels. “But where’s their God now?” He then pointed at God, who he had cloned, in the corner of the lab.

For years, scientists had always insisted that science could not address theological questions, much less clone God. But in a scene reminiscent of the movie Jurassic Park, the researchers at Columbia University managed to isolate some of God’s genetic material in a surprising, but in hindsight obvious, manner.

No, they didn’t find a mosquito trapped in amber that had once sucked on Jesus’ divine blood. Instead, they took the genetic material directly from Christ’s body.

“One of my Catholic friends mentioned to me that he had eaten Jesus,” said Timothy Lane. “After all these years of saying absurd things like this—’I've just eaten Jesus,’ ‘I just drank the blood of Jesus,’ ‘Jesus sort of tastes a bit like a stale cracker’—it finally dawned on me that perhaps he was being serious. As it turns out, Catholic priests know magic and can turn crackers into pieces of Jesus’ body. This was exactly the kind of breakthrough we were looking for in our quest for cloning God.”

With the cooperation of a rogue Catholic sect, the research team was finally able to secure a piece of Jesus. “Our earlier attempts to get a piece of Christ ran into all sorts of difficulties,” said one of the researchers. “Being scientists, we don’t understand things about god and churches and weird mystical rituals, but we nevertheless had to send in some agents to try to find one of these mysterious Jesus crackers we had heard about.” He continued, “We were probably run out of at least eleven churches before we found one that was willing to cooperate with us. Most of them were horrified when we said we wanted to clone their Jesus crackers. Others were horrified by the way we dressed and acted—we wore Amish-style beards and primitive and somber clothing and continually burst out into song and spoke in jibberish and beat ourselves silly with self-inflicted wounds—from our perches among the scientific elite, this is simply how the religious types seemed to us, so petty and small. Thankfully, in the end, we found a church that really did act in this way, and they accepted us with open arms and gave us full use of their Jesus crackers.”

With the Jesus crackers in tow, the researchers began testing the materials immediately back at the lab. “We took the crackers that had been turned into Jesus and used the latest in genomic technology to scan it for traces of viable DNA material. After a week of scanning, we hit the genetic payload—a full genome for God!”

Of course, the research was not without its ethical dilemmas. “Some of us wondered whether we could be artificially inducing the second coming of Christ, and hence Judgment Day,” said Denny McDaniels. “What if we cloned Jesus, and he woke up all groggy and confused, and then all his angels with the trumpets and shit came down and were all like, ‘Hey Jesus, aren’t you a bit early?’ and then Jesus might say, ‘It’s not my fault; these idiots brought me here early with their dastardly science!’ and then the angels would say, ‘Damn you, science!’ and being scientists who hate god and know nothing of arcane and foolish religious matters, we’d already be off to a bad footing, so certainly waking Jesus early could be problematic for us.”

Thankfully, these ethical problems never surfaced. God was cloned quite uneventfully, and now sits in the corner of the lab with a rather docile expression.

Of course, after cloning the wheat-based crackers that had been turned into Jesus, researchers were confronted with a surprising revelation concerning the nature of God. “We never would have thought,” said one of the researchers, “that God would turn out to be wheat.” Said Timothy Lane, “I think this explains all the seed-sowing parables, if you ask me.”

Illogical Answers in Genesis (Reification)

The young-Earth creationist organization Answers in Genesis (AiG) has started publishing articles explaining various logical fallacies, a practice not unlike a blood-stained lion defending vegetarianism. In each article, the author—Dr. Jason Lisle—attempts to show how biologists and other scientists who support evolution commit these fallacies. That Dr. Lisle frequently contradicts himself and misrepresents both scientists and the logical fallacies can almost go unsaid, given AiG’s reputation for world-class, straight-to-the-shitbag journalism.

I would have written this rebuttal sooner, but I was sick for the past few days and I was pretty sure attempting to read this nonsense would induce even more vomiting than I was already experiencing. At any rate, Dr. Lisle’s second article discussed the fallacy of reification. Briefly, when an abstract idea is treated as concrete or physical, the fallacy of reification has been committed. What I find ironic is that I almost feel as if I am reifying Dr. Lisle in discussing his article and attributing intentions and beliefs to him, as his commentary is so stupid and outrageously wrong that I often wonder whether he is not, in fact, some sort of inanimate man-shaped mechanical object made out of straw and mud.

Now, the examples of the fallacy of reification offered by Dr. Lisle are incredibly laughable.  One example of the fallacy is the following sentence: “The evidence speaks for itself.” He then argues that this is fallacious when evolutionists* say it because evidence cannot actually physically speak, quite oblivious to the fact that no evolutionist who makes this remark actually believes that. Naturally, this phrase is only a fallacy of reification if its metaphorical sense (in which evidence physically speaks) is essential to the validity of the logical argument. For instance, the following argument would commit the fallacy of reification: “The only reasonable interpretation for the existing evidence is that evolution is true, because the evidence for evolution speaks for itself by physically saying, in a squeaky, ethereal voice and with mystical vocal cords, ‘Evolution is truuuuuuueeeeeeeeeee!’ in between bouts of making statues of itself weep and appearing on burnt grilled-cheese sandwiches.” Whenever someone who is not completely insane uses this phrase, of course, they are not being literal. Dr. Lisle is only attacking a strawman here. He’s tilting at windmills. Please take your crazy, Dr. Lisle, and sell it somewhere else. (Watch, he’ll accuse me of reifying “crazy” in the previous sentence.)

Another example also pertains to a talking concept, his obsession with the capacity for speech no doubt stemming from his belief in a talking snake:

“Creationists say the world was created supernaturally, but science says otherwise.” Here the person has attributed personal, concrete attributes to the concept of science. [...]

Is Dr. Lisle’s head filled with styrofoam peanuts, glass, and assorted other electrical insulators? How does he even manage to breathe on his own? Or does he have to think very carefully before he does that, too, or else risk accidentally setting himself on fire when he simply means to inhale? Show me just one instance in which the theory of evolution is justified on the basis of the concept of science physically speaking, you ignorant goon!

Even so, if scientists really did believe that science could speak, that beliefs could be “held” in one’s hand, or that the moon was made of omnipotent green cheese, this would have no bearing on the validity or empirical truth of evolution. Nowhere in On the Origin of Species, for instance, does Darwin set forth to prove evolution by describing how, one mystical night, science and evidence came riding toward him atop unicorns made of licorice, both entities wearing toilets for hats, who then informed him with booming voices that evolution is true because they say so, and also that they’d like to please touch his really wicked beard.

But Dr. Lisle’s most stunningly retarded example is the following:

Sometimes in an argument, an evolutionist will say something like this: “Nature has designed some amazing creatures.” This sentence commits the fallacy of reification because nature does not have a mind and cannot literally design anything.

Of course, as any reasonable person can recognize, Dr. Lisle once again has not demonstrated that this remark is supposed to be taken literally because the ignorant boob has not bothered to show how it would be situated and interpreted within a logical argument. Moreover, it is blindingly obvious that an “evolutionist” would not intend a literal interpretation of this statement! Those who accept evolution believe living creatures resulted from non-conscious selection pressures and genetic mutations; someone who insisted that a conscious, personal entity named nature literally designed living organisms would be endorsing a form of creationism, not evolution!  How did Dr. Lisle become so incompetent at using language that he can claim those who accept evolution also reject evolution?

Obviously the problem here isn’t that scientists commit the fallacy of reification; the problem is that Dr. Lisle possesses the linguistic aptitude of a preschooler raised by deaf-mute wolves. His face is planted so far up the ass of his creationist “worldview” that he is pathologically driven to interpret every rhetorical or poetic remark by a scientist as a fallacy of reification, even when that interpretation makes no fucking sense at all and implies that evolutionists do not accept evolution. It’s time to plan an intervention, before this guy overdoses on stupid.

Dr. Lisle also has idiotic things to say about natural selection! He claims that it implies nature has thoughts and feelings and consciously selects which organisms survive. Interestingly, Dr. Lisle is not as big a douchebag when talking about natural selection, because he writes, “This phrase is so commonly used that we might not call it a fallacy providing the meaning is understood by all.” He finally understands! No reasonable person (except a dim-witted creationist) is going to interpret “natural selection” as implying that nature can think and literally select things. Similarly, no reasonable person would interpret any of his other examples of this fallacy in a manner that reifies the problematic term. Somehow, Dr. Lisle thinks that most people would be intelligent enough to not reify “natural selection” (a term misunderstood by plenty of Americans if poll data is any indication), but he thinks creationists are so stone-dumb that they will interpret “The evidence speaks for itself,” as implying that evidence physically speaks. Does he really have such a low opinion of his creationist readers that he believes they can’t understand such a well-known, oft-used phrase? I suppose the worry isn’t so far-fetched; people who interpret the Bible literally probably do have difficulty distinguishing between the metaphorical and the literal, in addition to asses and elbows.

The reason Dr. Lisle seems to think it is acceptable to attribute literal interpretations to the obviously metaphorical statements of evolutionists is rather odd. Here are his own words in explanation:

However, when reification is used as part of a logical argument, it is a fallacy. The reason for this is that using such a poetic expression is often ambiguous and can obscure important points in a debate.

Apparently, if a term is ambiguous and can be potentially misinterpreted and reified in a way that obscures the important points, then the argument is fallacious. Not surprisingly, this is not quite correct. Reification is a fallacy if and only if the validity of the argument depends on the switching of the ambiguous term from an abstract sense to a concrete, physical one—one cannot claim that an argument is fallacious merely because it is ambiguous, particularly when dealing with arguments written in a nonmathematical language like English. If that were the case, one could argue that arguments using the words “live” or “right” are always instances of the fallacy of equivocation because the meanings of these words are ambiguous (”right” can refer to a direction, being correct, and so on). Because languages are always open to ambiguity, demanding that an argument be free of ambiguity, lest it be fallacious, is completely unreasonable. Of course, Dr. Lisle has to endorse such an unreasonable standard because it’s the only way he can falsely misinterpret the metaphorical remarks of evolutionists as fallacious. Because I’m an asshole, I’m going to do the same to him, using some of the sentences and phrases from his article:

Dr. Lisle said, “This sentence commits the fallacy of reification…”  Look! He is implying that sentences are capable of performing physical actions, as “commits” frequently implies performing a physical act! What a foolish moron, so readily using ambiguous language that reifies ideas!

Dr. Lisle said, “Science is a conceptual tool that can be used properly or improperly. It says nothing.”  Oh!  Here Dr. Lisle is implying that science says nothing. That is, science can physically speak, and it chooses not to say anything. Only a complete moron thinks science has the capacity to talk or choose not to talk, Dr. Lisle! You should have watched out for that ambiguity there, you fucking shrivel-headed loon!

Dr. Lisle said, “People draw conclusions about evidence and verbalize their thoughts.” Ah! The word “draw” is ambiguous here. He’s saying that people draw pictures of conclusions! Only a swollen-assed baboon would reify the abstract phrase “draw conclusions” (which should mean something like “decide”) into the physical act of drawing with crayons!

As can be seen, when you willfully apply misinterpretations to people’s words merely because they could potentially be misinterpreted, it becomes incredibly easy to find what Dr. Lisle calls “logical fallacies”. Rather than continue in this deep, deep vein, however, I will instead revert back to using real logic to argue against Dr. Lisle, as opposed to the fantasy-land, bullshit variety of logic Dr. Lisle has conjured into his muddled head.  Of course, all of this insufferable stupidity has caused me to wonder whether Dr. Lisle even understands what he is writing. Perhaps he is locked in a Chinese room and merely fed instructions about how to mechanically convert his native language (Idiotish) into English, using only the manipulation of symbols.  For some reason, just calling him a moron doesn’t seem adequate enough—they are at least capable of some rudimentary understanding.

To summarize, Dr. Lisle’s examples of the fallacy of reification are strawmen, as no scientist believes that evidence or science physically speaks. His standard for noting these remarks as reifications is so broad as to include his own remarks and any number of other benign, easily understood phrases in the English language. Finally, his insistence that evolutionists believe a conscious entity named nature designed living organisms is so foolishly ridiculous that it’s a wonder his brain did not implode upon formulating that argument.

For an analysis of this article that wasn’t written by a cranky skeptic who takes out all of his rage on creationists, be sure to check out Ziztur’s assessment, as well.

*Those who believe in evolution are better labeled as “scientists”, “scientifically literate”, or “people who aren’t utter morons”—but I will borrow the creationists’ use of the word “evolutionist” for clarity’s sake.

Faith Insurance

GuideOneInsurance is a special kind of niche-market insurance company.  While some insurance companies cover acts of God; GuideOneInsurance covers godly acts.  It offers “churchgoers” a special FaithGuard insurance plan that covers the following features:

1. Anyone involved in an automobile accident while driving to or from church services doesn’t have to pay their deductible.  [This concession makes no sense to me.  If God strikes down the cars of those driving to a church service, then clearly they have chosen the wrong religion.  I'd only waive the deductible for those who experience accidents while leaving church, as they've obviously chosen the correct religion if God is actively trying to prevent them from leaving.]
2. Up to $750 of tithing or church donations are covered in the event that the churchgoer loses his income as a result of an automobile accident.  Unlike the others, you can qualify for this one even if you weren’t injured while driving to church.  [I mean, Jesus Christ, people.  God wouldn't strike you down if you weren't so stingy and donated more money.]
3. The medical limits are doubled if injured while driving to or from a worship activity.  [As an atheist, even I support the spirit of this benefit, which encourages theists to be injured twice as much as atheists.]
4. Automobile loan payments of up to $3000 will be paid if the insured loses his income, but only if you happen to be driving to or from a church activity. [If you were driving to donate blood or volunteer at a soup kitchen, fuck you.  Your car isn't worth their money!]
5. Memorial service donations of $1000 will be given as a gift in the event that the insured dies in an automobile accident. And you don’t even have to be driving to church to get this one!  [Atheists, of course, will have to pay for their cremation themselves.  In hell.]

It is clear that conservative voters have never heard of this plan.  They’d no doubt have a riot over this insurance coverage, owing to their incessant fears of insurance policies that promote “death panels.”  Here we have a plan that offers incentives for churchgoers to get into automobile accidents and die!  They will literally pay you $1000 if you just drive off a cliff!  These are the death panelists we’ve been hearing about all this time!

The insurance company also offered a similar FaithGuard plan for homeowner’s and renter’s insurance, probably giving monetary incentives to those who accidentally burned their house down while lighting their religious shrines or who flooded their basements after trying to do in-home baptisms.  None of this should be surprising coming from an insurance company that focuses on niche markets, like churches, and whose tagline is “Place Your Faith in the Expert.”  Although I think, “FaithGuard: So easy a primitive, Sun-god worshipping cave man can do it!” is a much better motto.  But only if the mascot is a talking gecko of some sort, or possibly a snake.

Naturally, the FaithGuard policy is highly illegal and discriminatory.  Thankfully, the company has recently settled a court case after being sued by nontheists, and the in-depth, legal details of the FaithGuard insurance plan are no longer accessible from their website, indicating its pending removal.  Now people of faith everywhere will no longer feel so free to drive so recklessly, knowing God and illegal insurance policies are no longer protecting them.

Of course, the company claimed to welcome all applications, no matter the religious affiliation, sex, race, handicap, or familial status.  Although I’m sure those who attend mosques or temples felt quite welcome by the website’s frequent use of “church” and “churchgoer” in discussing the FaithGuard policy.  And I have to wonder whether they’d really donate $750 to a tithing Satanist’s place of worship, or if they’d instead send the claim to an adjustor to try to find any legal loophole with which to deny it.

Needless to say, I’m happy with my AtheistGuard insurance policy: Anyone in an accident while driving to or from a science- or education-related event gets a free lollipop!

Thanks to the affable Friendly Atheist for the story.

Evolution? Not in OUR School!

Not too long ago, a High School in Sedalia, Missouri, prevented its band students from wearing a T-shirt with an evolutionary motif.  The shirt said “Brass Evolutions 2009″ and depicted the popular image of a long line of evolving hominids, with a monkey all the way to the left gradually evolving into modern homo sapiens, except that the hominids were also holding various brass instruments that evolved along with them.

Why is this so offensive?  Apparently, the good people of Sedalia, Missouri, are offended by evolution!  One of the teachers in the district went so far as to say, “I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school.”  Well, I hate to say it, but if the school has hired a moron of this lady’s caliber, then she is entirely correct that this school should not be associated with evolution.  Why, after all, should we sully evolution’s good name by associating it with a school filled with incompetent goons?  If the shirts could have talked, they likely would have been complaining more than the idiotic parents were.  “Get me off the torsos of these creationist fucks!”

The assistant superintendent, believe it or not, is an even bigger idiot:

Pollitt said the district is required by law to remain neutral where religion is concerned.

“If the shirts had said ‘Brass Resurrections’ and had a picture of Jesus on the cross, we would have done the same thing,” he said.

First of all, this is simply retarded.  Everyone knows that if Jesus were on the cross, he wouldn’t be able to play a brass instrument.  His fucking hands are nailed down.  Second of all, brass instruments can’t be resurrected, most notably because they aren’t alive, but also because you can’t resurrect anything.  Third, Jesus would have totally been a bass player.

But the question remains:  Is evolution a religion?  Only if you redefine religion in such a way that it applies to virtually anything.  In an effort to prevent future offense, I can imagine the shirts will say nothing about the religions of physics, chemistry, animal husbandry, biology, textiles, or psychology.  I recommend a picture of a bunny rabbit—an unevolved bunny rabbit, mind you—to help quench the insatiable and retarded anger of the residents of Sedalia.

And yes, the residents of Sedalia are retarded.  A recent letter to the editor confirmed this fact further.  The letter says:

Recent events regarding certain contraband T-shirts have brought me to a realization. Sedalia has not had a good book burning in many years.

Right on, buddy.  Sedalia hasn’t had a good witch-burning in years, either!  This surely explains the proliferation of witches in modern times!

…other kinds of blasphemous material plagues the bookshelves of our schools. Pages and pages of literature that pollute the minds of our children with theories such as evolution and those that discuss unholy acts such as abortion and homosexuality. On top of that, kids can now access the Internet and all of its “wholesome” content.

I think this man was born out of his mother’s ass.  How dare kids learn things in school!  What the school needs is to fill the library with books that don’t talk about men lying with other men (Lev. 18:22), or dashing infants’ heads on rocks (Psalm 137:9), or daughters getting their father drunk to fuck him (Gen. 19:32).  The library needs books like the Bible, that don’t have unholy content like that!

It could be the first step in a final solution to removing Satan’s “grasp” from our “throats.”

This is perhaps the most bothering sentence in the whole letter.  Why on Earth does he have inscrutably random scare quotes around the words grasp and throats, but not Satan?  Apparently he’s using grasp and throats as figurative (is he mentally grasping our spiritual throats?), but takes the existence of Satan quite literally.  No, of all the words in that sentence, surely grasp and throats are the least literal and most figurative!  Personally, I don’t think this guy has a “grasp” on “reality” and I wish someone would grasp his “throat.”

Illogical Answers in Genesis (Introduction)

The creationist organization Answers in Genesis (AiG) is perhaps best known as the group that brought us the creation museum, an impending sense of doom for the future of humanity, and the world’s largest bucket of cognitive dissonance (only slightly smaller than the world’s largest ball of twine).  However, I was delighted to learn that AiG is apparently branching out from its expertise in stupidity; one of their authors has been writing a series of articles about logical fallacies!  Even better, the article will focus specifically on logical fallacies made by “evolutionists” (i.e., scientists).  Of course, creationists have been unintentionally writing about logical fallacies for ages, as their arguments are typically nothing more than lengthy strings of incomprehensible jibberish and invalid reasoning.  But now, after years of such indirect tutelage and so much direct experience in the art of idiotic arguments, the AiG now considers itself an expert in this field.  And if the old elementary school adage is correct—It takes one to know one!—then the creationists certainly have the advantage when it comes to logical fallacies.

Normally, one would think that watching a creationist explain logical fallacies would be like watching an old woman with osteoporosis explain powerlifting: both can explain the subject in the abstract, but as soon as they attempt to actually do it, they fall crumpled to the ground in helpless, quivering lumps after giving themselves a hernia and shitting their pants.  In reality, though, reading an AiG creationist’s thoughts about logic isn’t quite that bad.

It’s worse.  Reading AiG’s series of articles on logic is literally worse than an old lady herniating and shitting herself while sustaining a serious, life-threatening injury.  If the ethical theory of utilitarianism holds any merit whatsoever, then it would take at least 43 nearly-dead old ladies with shit-stained pants for their suffering to outweigh the untold horrors released upon the world by this ghastly and grossly incompetent treatment of logical fallacies.  Such is the unimaginable stupidity of these articles.

Now, of all the grease-painted mimes scrambling out of the clown car that is AiG, a young-Earth creationist astrophysicist named Jason Lisle has been given the daunting task of explaining logic.  He seems to be the perfect man for the job, as even his own credentials appear to be logically contradictory.  The guy studied astronomical objects that are measured in distances far exceeding a few thousand light years, in which case it took light from some of these objects millions and billions of years to reach us, and in spite of this believes the universe is a few thousand years old.  Either this guy thinks the speed of light is significantly faster than its currently accepted value, or else he thinks the universe is the size of a fucking shoebox.  Being a creationist astrophysicist is almost like being a historian who thinks the world was created just a few seconds ago.  (Incidentally, even getting a doctoral degree in the history of a few seconds ago is slightly more difficult than getting one for creation science, which generally requires little more than holding a Bible, refraining from drooling excessively, and paying $10,000 to Kent Hovind.)

According to his biography page, Lisle is interested in developing models of stellar aging and cosmology—that is, he wants to ignore current models of stellar aging because they contradict a literal reading of Genesis!  But the biography page continues by saying, “Creationist thinking in these areas is still very preliminary.”  If by “preliminary” you mean outlandish, idiotic, totally incompatible with the evidence, and bordering on insane, then I agree.

Needless to say, Jason Lisle is probably an expert in logical fallacies and contradiction, given his abundant personal experience and capacity to resolve a PhD in astrophysics with young-Earth creationism.  However, his introduction to the logical fallacy series is just a puff piece going over the basics of logic, so I won’t bother discussing it here, as this is no doubt familiar territory for those of you who have mastered the ability to use a toilet.  I will, however, briefly mock it.

To lead off, Lisle says:

I have often thought it would be fun to carry a little buzzer that I could push when someone makes a fundamental mistake in reasoning. Of course, that would be impolite. However, we should all become familiar with logical fallacies so that our mental buzzer goes off whenever we hear a mistake in reasoning.

Yes, and I have often thought it would be fun to throw my bloody feces in peoples’ faces whenever they make a fundamental mistake in reasoning.  Because this is impolite, though, I will refrain from doing so and will only throw mental feces covered in blood.  In fact, I will throw the greatest conceivable mental bloody feces, which will no doubt immediately pop into existence as soon as I mentally unleash it, owing to the validity of the ontological argument.  As such, I ask you, dear reader, to envision Jason Lisle’s face covered in the greatest conceivable bloody feces each time I rebut one of his horrid arguments.  Throughout the coming months, there will be many occasions for imagining his bloody, shit-faced visage, as I will regularly dissect and eviscerate each article in his series about logical fallacies.  Be on the lookout!  Coming up soon: the argument from reification.

Liberal, Missouri—City of Atheists

Most atheists daydream about living in a democratic atheistic society.  What a joy it would be to not be blessed when we sneeze, or to not be jolted from sleep at 7 AM on Sunday morning by Jehova’s Witnesses!  However, if I were attempting to create a city for atheists, I would follow some very important rules:

1. Do not use force to prevent theists from living in or entering the society.  (Theists love to be martyrs—you’d just be giving them what they want!)
2. Do not put your atheistic utopia in Southwestern Missouri.  (In Southwestern Missouri, the churches are the size of Super Walmarts, and they even have a better selection of produce than most Super Walmarts.  In fact, some of the Megachurches probably have Super Walmarts inside them, in just the same way that Walmarts often have fast food restaurants inside their doors.)
3. Do not, for any reason, surround your atheist city with barbed wire!  (Making your city look like a concentration camp sort of kills the mood, you know.)

And though these rather obvious rules for founding an atheist city are quite well-known, the atheist town of Liberal, Missouri, still violated each and every one of them, dooming it to failure.

I first learned of Liberal, Missouri, from my friend Ziztur, who detailed the history of the city in her blog.  Needless to say, as St. Louis natives we were amazed that an atheist city once existed right under our very noses.  Or at least 300 miles to the southwest of our noses!

Unfortunately, the city did not last very long, at least not as an atheist utopia.  As soon as the Christians heard about it, they immediately besieged it, surrounding the city with churches and attempting to infiltrate the town.  In the end, the freethinkers were outnumbered.

Of course, I am glad the city failed.  It is not ethical, much less reasonable, to foist a certain worldview on a town and then prevent anyone who disagrees from living there; that sort of xenophobia and totalitarianism should not be associated with atheism.

So even though the founder of Liberal had good intentions, his attempts to homogenize the population artificially were highly unrealistic and silly.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions, after all.  You’d think that as soon as he had to string barbed wire around the town to keep out the theists, he’d realize that maybe he’s going a bit too far:

G. H. Walser has bought the Waggoner’s addition to the town of Liberal. The readers of the Liberal two years ago will remember that this addition was the great bone of contention between the Liberals and the Christians. The addition was laid out by Mr. Waggoner for the purpose of inducing immigration of Christians who would be strong enough to out number the Liberals and defeat the enterprise. That was prevented by a high post and barbed-wire fence which was immediately put on a strip of land adjoining the town…

Clearly, the enterprise was quite silly.  Today, it would also be illegal, not unlike trying to create an atheist apartment building by preventing theists from moving in.  Thankfully, such practices are not allowed under various equal opportunity laws.  It should not be a surprise that totalitarianism, authoritatianism, dogmatic ideology, and xenophobia can be extremely dangerous.  The former USSR has certainly taught us that.  Atheists can be every bit as cruel and silly as theists if you give them a crazy political ideology and a little bit of unchecked power.

Why the founder thought a barbed wire fence could stop the spread of ideas is beyond me.  Why he put his atheist utopia smack dab on the buckle of the Bible belt also confuses me.  It’s almost as if he were thinking a bit too freely.

Nevertheless, even if the town had been successful, it probably would have been a tremendous bore, for the founder wanted to create a town that had no churches and no saloons.  As one who comes from the Christopher Hitchens school of inebriated thought on atheism, I find the town’s disrespect toward saloons contemptible and despicable, and I have half a mind to stab you in the eye with this broken beer bottle I’m now wielding in my hand!

Of course, the Christian description of the town was naturally exagerrated, characterizing atheists as an immoral lot according to an editorial by the preacher Clark Braden in the 2 May 1885 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  Of course, his description of Liberal, Missouri, makes the town seem like New York—as if that’s a bad thing!

The boast about the sobriety of the town is false. But few of the infidels are total abstainers. Liquor can be obtained at three different places in this town of 300 inhabitants. More drunken infidels can be seen in a year in Liberal than drunken Christians among one hundred times as many church members during the same time.

You had me at “drunken infidels”.  Can you imagine a town full of inebriated atheists?  It’d be amazing!  It’d be an amazing meeting!  In fact, it would be almost exactly like what I experienced at The Amazing Meeting 7in Las Vegas!  It’s time to move!

Swearing is the common form of speech in Liberal, and nearly every inhabitant, old and young, swears habitually. Girls and boys swear on the streets, playground, and at home. Fully half of the females will swear, and a large number swear habitually….

What the fuck do you have against swearing, you slack-jawed motherfucker?  I bet he’s one of these people who think using curse words shows a lack of creativity.  Bullshit.  Some of the highest forms of creativity have involved curse words.  Do I really need to provide a link to George Carlin’s “The Seven Words You Can Never Say” bit?  In fact, saying that those who curse lack creativity is so stale and cliched that it itself is an uncreative and dim-witted thing to say,  you bloody shit-eating trout fuckers!

A good portion of the few books that are read are of the class that decency keeps under lock and key….

I can only imagine the filth the good citizens of Liberal were reading!  I personally have plenty of indecent books that I hide within a locked chest wrapped in chains and buried under a six-foot pile of padlocks and sharpened knives.  The book contains such highly violent and sexualized books as The Old Testament and the Koran.  It also contains some books I’m simply embarrassed to have owned and read, like Atlas Shrugged and anything by Michael Crichton or John Grisham.

These infidels…can spend for dances and shows ten times as much as they spend on their liberalism. These dances are corrupting the youth of the surrounding country with infidelity and immorality. There is no lack of loose women at these dances.

The town has drunken infidels and loose women?  Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, why am I still living in St. Louis?!  More and more, the town of Liberal, Missouri, is making the night life of New York City look as attractive as a night out in Branson, Missouri.

Since Liberal was started there has not been an average of one birth per year of infidel parents. Feticide is universal. The physicians of the place say that a large portion of their practice has been trying to save females from consequences of feticide. In no town is slander more prevalent, or the charges more vile. If one were to accept what the inhabitants say of each other, he would conclude that there is a hell, including all Liberal, and that its inhabitants are the devils.

If abortion, inebriated atheism, and sexual debauchery are wrong, then I don’t want to be right!  Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven!  Milton’s Satan has never been more correct!

Of course, in all likelihood the truth is somewhere in the middle.  Some in the town probably drank some whiskey on the sly, angry at having to choose between living among Christians or living in a town with no bar.  Some women in the town probably slept around with everyone, while others didn’t—just as we find in pretty much any town.  Realizing that these exagerrations probably trend toward some sort of normal medium, though, is hardly exciting.  For my own tastes, I prefer to remember Liberal, Missouri, as a town led by a foolish but well-meaning founder, filled to the brim with loose, drunken infidels, but soon corrupted and overrun by foolish, well-meaning, loose, and drunken Christians.

Congress Endorses Shouted Accusations, Immediately Descends Into Chaos

In a fateful decision, Congress has decided that it is now formally acceptable to shout, “You lie!”, or any variant thereof, at any time on the Congressional floor.  After Representative Joe Wilson was rebuked this week for his outburst during President Obama’s speech, several members of Congress from both parties decided the action taken was too harsh and unnecessary.  As a result, Congress convened and elected to revoke any future rebukes, rejoinders, condemnations, or spankings, giving politicians the right to speak their minds at any time.  While this decision at first appeared as if it would have little effect on the daily affairs of congress, in practice the decision’s ramifications have been devastating.

It turns out that politicians lie.  A lot.  If you were to shout every time a politician lied, you’d never stop shouting.  As such, congressional sessions now sound like this:  “YOUUUUUU LIEEEEEE YOUUUULIIEEEE LIIEEYOUUUULIEEEELIIEEEYOUUUUULIIEEEE!!!”  Clearly, this is in stark contrast to how congressional sessions sounded in the past: “BLARRGGHHHHHHHH! LIPSTICK!”

“Obviously things—YOU LIE!—are a bit different now,” said Democratic Representative Dave Starky.  “Things are—oh, I lie?  No, YOU LIE!—a bit more hectic now.  Many have even taken to shouting ‘Fire!’ during crowded Congressional sessions—sometimes even in the absence of fire!”

Like blaring cicadas awakened from thirteen years of dormancy, Congress has been yelling obscenities and accusations for four straight days now, barely pausing to take a breath.  The noise is so bad that even the cicadas have been complaining.  “I’ve been stagnant for over a decade now,” said Chuck the cicada.  “So yeah, I wake up and I’m kind of grumpy, and I’m just trying to sing to some of the ladies.”  He shakes his head.  “But how am I supposed to sing to the ladies with all this racket?  Some of the lady cicadas are even going interspecies; I swear I saw one of my exgirlfriends fly into Joe Wilson’s mouth as he was emitting what appeared to be some sort of erotic insect cry.”  We here at Saintgasoline.com can neither confirm nor deny these rumors at this time, although it is true that at least one Representative has flown to Argentina with a certain winged companion.

Republican Senator Joy Turgasco, in between her angry shouting, spoke to us about the Congressional phenomenon.  “The word liar is being used so much that it has almost completely lost its meaning here,” she reported.  “You can see all these regression patterns and nested hierarchies of accusations of dishonesty.  Bob calls Joe a liar, Joe says that Bob is lying about his lying, and then Bob says Joe is lying about his lying about his lying.  After about seven of these regressions we don’t even know what the hell we’re saying anymore, really, but we do it anyway.  This is how we make progress in Congress.”

For a few hours following the acceptance of the new rule, however, Congress had become exceptionally quiet as a result of Democratic Senator James Barnes.  In the midst of all the accusations of lies and dishonesty, Barnes suddenly blurted out, “I’m lying right now!”  Everyone immediately stopped, looked around, and scratched their heads.  One Senator tentatively ventured, “You…lie?  Or not? Or both?”  James Barnes, a former philosophy professor, had foiled them with the liar’s paradox.

The silence, unfortunately, was short-lived.  After hours of deep reflection, another representative shouted out, “No paradoxical self-referential remarks are allowed!”  Barnes, who was quite familiar with the resolution Congress had reached on the matter, knew that no such rule had been established, and shouted out, “YOU LIE!”  He immediately followed this up with, “Whoops!”, but not before having his plaintive cry drowned out by a resuming torrent of obscure shouting and incessant wailing and gnashing of teeth.

The Death, and Subsequent Resurrection, of the Atheists

Atheists, like captive pandas, are reknowned for having little interest in breeding.  (Also like pandas, atheists are universally rotund and enjoy sitting in one place for sixteen hours eating bamboo shoots.)  Now, this is not to say that atheists have no interest in having sex.  We are interested in sex in spades, possibly even in clubs, hearts, and diamonds, too—such is the great extent of our love for sex and our willingness to participate in it.  Atheists do not, however, want children.  They require too much time and effort to raise—time and effort that detracts from the time that could be spent having sex or eating bamboo shoots for sixteen hours.

As a result of our prolific indifference toward breeding, Ed West has proclaimed that “atheists are a dying breed.”

Essentially, his article argues that the number of atheists will dwindle because of atheists’ fondness for not having children.  Meanwhile, the religious crazies are breeding like, well, crazy.  The atheists thus stand no chance, and will soon be overrun by theists as their numbers continually decline.

It is telling, of course, that the author did not actually refer to data specifically detailing the increasing number of people identifying as nonreligious, atheist, or agnostic.  For whatever reason, he seems to think indirect data about the birth rates of various religious persuasions is more relevant, perhaps because the direct data actually detailing the growth of atheism directly contradicts him.  It is indeed useful to ignore better data when it conflicts with your thesis!  This is, after all, how I am still, after all these years, able to maintain that my genitalia is larger than a medium-sized dog. I just never look down, you see.

Of course, I can understand why Mr. West would think atheism is spread genetically, from parent to offspring.  After all, no atheist has ever come from a religious family.  Nor has a formerly religious person ever become an atheist.  In fact, the gene for atheism is right on the X chromosome, right next to the genes for becoming a professional wrestler, finding Jay Leno funny (a very rare allele), and enjoying sweater vests.

Actually, no.  It turns out atheism isn’t a gene.  It’s more of a meme, or an idea that can be spread through a population.  The author mentions Dawkins, so you’d think he’d have heard of this concept, as Dawkins invented the term. And the really great thing about memes is that they aren’t necessarily passed on by sticking your dick in a wet, damp hole and then producing insufferable offspring that continually make noises and expect to be fed.  They can be passed on through a more efficient, though certainly less pleasurable, manner than sex: by writing books, giving talks, and saturating a culture with your viewpoint.  Naturally, birth rates are not the only means of passing on memes. 

Now, according to the direct data I mentioned earlier—the data concerning changing trends in religious belief (and not the irrelevant and indirect data trends about birth rates)—the number of atheists is in fact increasing, at least in America.  Here are quotes from the 2008 Aris study, right from the second page:

The U. S. population continues to show signs of becoming less religious, with one out of every five Americans failing to indicate a religious identity in 2008. The “Nones” (no stated religious preference, atheist, or agnostic) continue to grow, though at a much slower pace than in the 1990s, from 8.2% in 1990, to 14.1% in 2001, to 15.0% in 2008.

But wait, don’t stop there!

Based on their stated beliefs rather than their religious identification in 2008, 70% of Americans believe in a personal God, roughly 12% of Americans are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unknowable or unsure), and another 12% are deistic (a higher power but no personal God).

What this means is that those who identify as nonreligious are increasing in numbers, and that the number of atheists is actually underreported, as more people are liable to answer that they disbelieve in God rather than identify as an atheist. The number of people identifying as atheist grew from about 500,000 in 1990 to about 1.6 million in 2008. Surprisingly, atheism is spreading even in spite of the fact that sterile, neutered pandas outbreed us. It’s almost as if atheism spreads in a manner that doesn’t involve sexual reproduction. Who would have thought that?!

So keep breeding, theists. And we’ll keep teaching your kids science and showing them the righteous light of atheism.

As an aside, Ed West also writes, “Personally I find the New Atheists’ anti-Christian aggression tedious: criticising people for their privately-held religious beliefs shows a lack of class and maturity…” and he is entirely correct. We must never criticize or argue against a privately held belief, or else we lack class and maturity. This is why I will expect Mr. West, who is so clearly a classy and mature kind of guy, to respect and refrain from arguing against my privately-held belief that he is a fucking tool.

Jesus Christ Hates Black People

I’m sorry, I just had to do it.

Atheism in the Workplace

A few weeks ago, one of my coworkers randomly asked me whether I prayed as I passed by her desk.

Now, I’m a raging atheist, but I had to consider her feelings in my response.  After all, you only ask people to pray if someone is dying or sick.  How could I tell her that prayer is what lazy fools do in place of action in a polite way?

I paused for a moment, and then I said, “Erm, no.”

“Oh?  Why not?” she said, her curiosity piqued.

Normally this is where I would say, “Oh, because I don’t waste my time on foolish things,” but I had to restrain myself.  Afterall, I can’t alienate my coworkers with my seething rage at religious claptrap.  I already alienate them enough with my unruly facial hair and exotic body odors.

“Well, I don’t really believe in God,” I said.  As soon as I said this, I almost felt psychic, because I could suddenly predict exactly how she would respond.  This is, after all, how every religious person responds to someone who has just admitted he does not believe in God.

“What? Why not?!”

Why this is the universal response to expressed disbelief in God confuses me.  I mean, when I meet random people who tell me they believe in God, I don’t stare at them, jaw agape, saying, “WHAT?! WHY?!”

At this point, I really wanted out of the conversation.  Having a theological debate in the workplace is almost never a good idea.  So I did what anyone else would do in my position.  I lied.

“Oh, I don’t know why.  I just don’t think about it that much.”

I then promptly walked away really fast to the furthest point in the building from her desk, huddled into a corner in the fetal position, and cried.  I write a fucking skeptical blog where I routinely mock religion and proclaim my atheism loudly, and I told her that I “don’t think about it that much”.  Wow.  If I had been hooked up to a lie detector (and if accurate lie detectors actually existed), it would have exploded from the strain after I said that.

The good news is, however, that I avoided any conflict!  But maybe I should have just went on one of my atheistic rants.  I can’t imagine that endearing me to anyone in my workplace, though.  No, I’ll just have to settle for expressing myself with skeptical bumper stickers on my cubicle wall and occasionally expressing disdain for herbal medicine.  Still, though, I feel guilty, almost like I’m going to some sort of atheist hell, where I’d be tormented by Richard Dawkins poking me with a pitchfork, for so baldly lying about the extent of my atheism.

Of course, if this had happened outside of work, I would have felt much more free to rant at length about it.  I can’t wait until the day it is no longer considered inappropriate to criticize religion!  In this future utopia of rainbows and puppies, you can express disbelief and no one bats an eye, much less feel offended that you have a mind of your own and have different ideas and beliefs!  But alas, this is pure fantasy!