I get email


Those Australians…they recently ran a segment on their Dateline program featuring their fellow Australian Ken Ham and the Creation “Museum”, which includes portions of an interview with me. Actually, I seem to be the only critic to get any airtime in the show, which is flattering, but I could have used a little more support!

Anyway, the show was recently aired, my name is played up as an atheist opponent of creationist nonsense, and now I’m suddenly receiving lots of email from Australian creationists because they want to persuade me to their foolish cause. And some of them are just weird. I’m including one of the weirder ones below the fold — warning, it’s very long — in which the author uses a novel argument: the zodiac, therefore God.

This ain’t astrology: it’s that arbitrary, human-assigned labels attached to groupings of stars can be rationalized into Christian symbology, therefore, the stars are evidence of the truth of the Bible. It’s one of the sillier arguments I’ve seen. Would you believe that the Sphinx is a Christian testimony, since it binds together a virgin woman (Mary) and a lion (Jesus)? Centaurs represent “Christ’s dual nature”. You can just imagine what he does with Virgo and the Southern Cross.

And then he does the usual thing of claiming that the Bible foretold legitimate scientific conclusions: Somehow, “He [God] set a compass [circle] upon the face of the deep” becomes a biblical explanation that the Earth is spherical. How do you draw a sphere with a compass?

It is grammatically well written, he spells my name correctly, and he uses paragraph breaks, so it’s a step above what I usually get. But behind the superficial courtesies, there lies a brain that has totally stripped its gears and lost most of its connections to reality.

(Also on Sb)

Dear Dr Myers,

Having watched a Dateline program in which you appeared, I thought you may be interested in reviewing some of the scientific evidence proving there is a God and the truth of the bible.

As you may agree, the star signs in our night skies are incredibly interesting and it’s unfortunate they are now mostly associated with horoscopic astrology. As a result, few seem to understand their true origin, significance or meaning. The truth is, they don’t foretell our individual futures, nor shape our relationships. Their true significance is far greater and important than this. The star signs actually testify to the truth of God and His Word, while also foretelling the future of mankind as a whole and God’s plan of salvation for us.

As you may know, the 12 signs of the zodiac (Virgo, Libra, Pisces and Leo etc) have all existed in their present form since ancient times. The Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans all understood them, much as we still know them today. The question is, why did the ancients see amazing pictures, where we simply see clusters of mostly unrelated stars? Not just a few ancients, but accepted and used by most civilisations throughout history.

Of course, while most of the actual star signs are not in dispute, their meaning is. However, their true purpose and meaning can be unlocked by understanding the sequence of star signs communicate a complete story in pictorial form. A story which can be further understood by combining with it the meanings of each of the star names within the constellations. Only then does its true meaning come to light.

Understanding this, the 12 signs of the zodiac and their 36 decans (3 additional star signs associated with each zodiac sign) tell the exact same story as the bible account, but in pictorial form. This is incredible considering the star signs have been known to exist in much the same form for thousands of years before Jesus was even born! Let’s look at a small example of the evidence available to see if this is true.

To determine the starting point within the zodiac circle, we look at two sources. The gospel account itself and the Sphinx in Egypt. The Sphinx is known to be associated with the constellations and means to “connect or bind together” in Greek. Since the Sphinx combines the head of a woman and the body of a lion, while the gospel starts with a virgin and ends with a lion (Christ) this fixes the beginning and ending of the celestial narrative. We begin with Virgo and end with Leo.

Virgo is identified in all traditions, languages and mythologies as a virgin (the mother of Christ was a virgin). She holds a branch in one hand and wheat seed in the other (Jesus was identified with both throughout the bible). Virgo is accompanied by the decan ‘Coma’ which is the sign of a mother and child. What is of particular interest is the name of the mother still signifies a virgin. For example, in Arabic it is ‘Adrenedefa’ meaning “pure and immaculate virgin” while the Persian name also denotes a virgin. A virgin mother who is now miraculously holding a child just like the bible account! Incredibly, the name of the child in Hebrew is ‘Yhesu’, meaning “salvation” and in Egyptian ‘Shes-nu’ meaning “the desired Son”.

The second decan within this group is ‘Centaurus’ who is both man and beast. This perfectly represents Christ’s dual nature who was both man and God in one. His name in Hebrew means “despised” (as Jesus was), with the brightest star in this sign the Greeks call ‘Cheiron’ signifying ‘the pierced’ (as Jesus was). The third decan in this group is ‘Bootes’, which the Greeks called Arcturus meaning “the watcher, guardian, keeper” or shepherd and in Hebrew ‘Bo’ meaning “to come” or “the coming one”. Again all names which perfectly describe Christ just as recorded in the gospel story.

The next star sign is Libra which in Hebrew is named ‘Mozanain’, meaning “the scales and weighing” and in Arabic ‘Al Zubena’ meaning “purchase and redemption gain”. The first star in Libra is named ‘Zuben al Genubi’ meaning “price deficient”, while other stars are named ‘Zuben al Shemali’ meaning “the price which covers”; ‘Al Gubi’ meaning “heaped up high” and ‘Zuben Akrabi’ meaning “the price of the conflict”. In the bible account, man’s sins were weighed in the balance or scales and found wanting, requiring a sacrifice to be made and a price to be paid that we might be redeemed. Doesn’t the picture of the scales still symbolise justice and judgment today, just as in the bible account of Christ’s crucifixion? Libra is accompanied by the decans ‘Southern Cross’ and the ‘Victim’ who is being pierced at the side with a spear. Again this matches the bible account exactly since Jesus died on a cross and after was pierced at the side.

The pictorial story which matches the gospel recorded in the bible continues to unfold throughout all the signs of the zodiac and decans until it reaches the last sign, Leo which symbolises and represents the triumphant return of Jesus Christ. And yet, no one knows when or where the star signs originated or why. Could this be what the statement “let them be for signs” found in the bible meant? The star signs are a witness to the truth of God and the bible. Signs which foretold the future of mankind while outlining God’s plan of salvation in the stars.

In addition to the above, there are many amazing astronomical and scientific facts recorded in some of the oldest books of bible which predate modern scientific discovery by thousands of years. Scientific facts which could not have been observed in ancient times (surely revealed from above) and yet are now accepted by modern day scientists as fact. Not only interesting in itself, but also adding further weight to the truth of the ‘gospel in the stars’ as shown above. The fact the earth is a globe, suspended in space and revolving are only comparatively recent discoveries. Yet all these facts were recorded in the bible over 4000 years ago. “[God] hangeth the earth on nothing.” (Job 26:7) The earth “is turned as clay to the seal” (Job 38:14). The “circle of the earth” (Isa 40:22) and “He [God] set a compass [circle] upon the face of the deep.” (Pro 8:27). Note both Hebrew words here translated ‘circle’ and ‘compass’ mean arch, sphere or globe.

The Bible further indicates in several places that the universe has been “stretched out”, increased in size or expanded since its creation and states there is empty space in the north sky where there are no stars. For example, God “stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in” (Isa 40:22); “My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshalled their starry hosts” (Isa 45:12) and “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place…” (Job 26:7). Although these verses must have seemed very strange when first written, today these facts are generally accepted.

What about the influence of Pleiades, the bands of Orion and the ‘sons’ of Arcturus all mentioned in the bible? All of which anticipated modern scientific discovery by thousands of years.

God is recorded in the bible as saying “Canst thou…loose the bands of Orion?” which implied only He can and will. Garrett P. Serviss, the noted astronomer, wrote “At the present time this band consists of an almost perfect straight line, a row of second-magnitude stars about equally spaced and of the most striking beauty. In the course of time, however, the two right-hand stars, Mintaka and Alnilam, will approach each other and form a naked-eye double; but the third, Alnitak, will drift away eastward so that the band will no longer exist.” (Curiosities of the Sky) How true God’s statement was!

“Canst thou bind the sweet influence of the Pleiades…?” Notice the amazing astronomical contrast with the Pleiades. The seven stars of the Pleiades are in reality a grouping of 250 suns all traveling together in one common direction. Concerning this cluster, Isabel Lewis of the United States Naval Observatory tells us “Astronomers have identified 250 stars as actual members of this group, all sharing in a common motion and drifting through space in the same direction.” Elsewhere Lewis speaks of them as “journeying onward together through the immensity of space.” From Lick Observatory, Dr. Robert J. Trumpler said “… the whole cluster is moving in a south-easterly direction. The Pleiades stars may thus be compared to a swarm of birds, flying together to a distant goal. This leaves no doubt that the Pleiades are not a temporary or accidental agglomeration of stars, but a system in which the stars are bound together by a close kinship.” Exactly, as spoken by God.

God asked Job “Canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?” (Job 38:32) Charles Burckhalter, of the Chabot Observatory, made an interesting statement regarding this great sun. “This high velocity places Arcturus in that very small class of stars that apparently are a law unto themselves. He is an outsider, a visitor, a stranger within the gates; to speak plainly, Arcturus is a runaway. Newton gives the velocity of a star under control as not more than 25 miles a second, and Arcturus is going 257 miles a second. Therefore, combined attraction of all the stars we know cannot stop him or even turn him in his path.”

When Mr Burckhalter had his attention called to the above verse in Job, he studied it in the light of modern discovery and made the following statement that has attracted worldwide attention. “The study of the Book of Job and its comparison with the latest scientific discoveries has brought me to the matured conviction that the Bible is an inspired book and was written by the One who made the stars.” Arcturus and his sons are individual runaway suns and traveling at incredible speeds. Why don’t they crash with other suns or planets? Where are they headed? Only God knows. Indeed they are not runaways and they won’t crash, because God is guiding them as He said.

The wonders of God’s universe never cease to amaze us. More than this. They testify to the truth of God and His Word, while His Word also declares the truth of God and the many hidden scientific truths in our universe.

Of course, there may be some who despite all the evidence provided, will still insist there is no God, purpose or meaning. Theorising that the universe and all life within it simply came into existence on its own and then evolved by chance into what it is today. However, while science is very useful and does provide many answers, let’s not forget how little we still really know and understand. For this reason, much of science remains theoretical in nature and therefore unproven itself. The ‘big bang’ and ‘evolution’ theories are examples of this which lack hard evidence, while contradicting several laws of science, including the laws of causality, thermodynamics, conservation of mass/energy and entropy. Major problems are either ignored or ‘evidence’ simply invented like dark matter and dark energy which have never been seen or observed, because it simply must be there we are told.

For example, causality is a basic assumption of science, considered to be fundamental to all natural science, especially physics. And yet, the ‘big bang’ theory, which is in reality an ever changing model based on many assumptions and unknowns is now being promoted as fact. A ‘theory’ which asks us to believe all matter, energy and living things came out of nothing? However, this goes against the basic law of causality. The universe had a beginning and therefore needed a cause! Has anyone ever observed something coming out of nothing? Let’s not pretend that mass energy has always existed and therefore needed no creator for we know through the law of Thermodynamics that the amount of energy available for useful work reduces and depletes over time. Evolution by chance, which proposes an increase in order and complexity over time is impossible too because it also contravenes the law of Causality as above; the law of Entropy which is defined in Websters dictionary as “the degradation of matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity” and the second law of Thermodynamics which states all things tend to decay and “run down” like a clock.

Based on the lack of evidence, inconsistencies, contradictions and serious flaws, these theories remain unproven at best. It’s time we opened our eyes and minds and started to look at what is right in front of us. The evidence of our God is all around us (even in the stars), proved by a universe and world in which everything is extremely complex, intelligently designed, purposeful, ordered and interdependent. Only then, will we realise we are without excuse.

However, some ignoring these facts have turned science into little more than a ‘faith’ itself? Proclaiming many unproven and unsupported theories to be truth and then insisting we accept them as fact. We are asked to put our faith in the science, since they are sure we will one day find all the evidence needed to prove them beyond doubt. Unfortunately, man has proved to be wrong and unreliable over and over again throughout history and undeserving of our faith.

On the other hand, our God is completely trustworthy and loving and a faith in Him can be based on fact as proved by the evidence all around us. The universe and everything in it has an intelligent design and purpose which could not have come out of nothingness. All life, from the oldest known fossils to living creatures today have complexity and are completely interdependent on each other for life. This tells us there must have been a creator for none of it could have evolved over time (complexity there in the beginning) or by coincidence (complexity and interdependence).

The bible can also be trusted. Written over several thousand years by dozens of different writers there are no contradictions. It is full of prophesies which can be proved to foretell countless events in our history long before they happened and if you study bible numerics, you will learn that there are mathematical laws running throughout the bible which all texts follow, which no writer could have followed knowingly or by coincidence.

Our loving God has made everything perfectly and wonderfully for a purpose. A God who knows us better than we know ourselves and has our best interests in mind at all times. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you” (Jer 29:11- 14)

If you would like a deeper understanding of the gospel message and how it relates to you and me, or are interested in other fascinating topics like the evidence for the Anglo Saxon people being the true descendants of the Israelites, please visit the following link:

http://revealingthetruth.weebly.com/true-gospel-message.html

Of course, please don’t simply accept or reject anything stated above, without first checking it out for yourself with an open mind. Study the attached historical star chart and look up the meanings of the individual stars which make up the zodiac signs for yourself.

God Bless

Kelvin Watts

Comments

  1. elwoodius says

    tl:dnr

    But, really, WTF?? It seems creationists from down here are a particular stripe of idiot.

  2. desertfroglet says

    He’s a Kiwi, thank goodness. We’ve got enough of our own nutters without having to import them from across the Tasman.

  3. Louis says

    I have just read that.

    I will never have that time back again.

    Fuck you, creationists. Fuck you very much.*

    Louis

    *Actually, it’s my own damned fault for reading what I knew would be drivel. Fuck me!

  4. chrisgranger says

    Wow, that really was long. ‘A’ for effort, I guess, but just as much a waste of time as the shorter, less coherent emails you usually receive, like the one from Andre the other day…

    The bible can also be trusted. Written over several thousand years by dozens of different writers there are no contradictions.

    Hahahahahaha!

  5. wanstronian says

    Did he provide a postal address? Somebody needs to get help to him straight away.

  6. Thomas Sea says

    Should I feel proud of Australia’s education system for, at the very least, teaching grammer rather well?

    Nah, the truth is that science still gets treated as some specialist, niche subject, something that doesn’t have all that huge an impact on the world. And that rankles.

    In Adelaide’s CBD we have a Christian Science Institute, which places itself within convenient reach of the university (which is distributed throughout the CBD in a haphazard fashion.) I should go in, ask how busy they get, I’ve not seen many people go in there, and it is just the one building…

    Most laughable line:

    “It is full of prophesies which can be proved to foretell countless events in our history long before they happened and if you study bible numerics, you will learn that there are mathematical laws running throughout the bible which all texts follow, which no writer could have followed knowingly or by coincidence.”

    Pareidolia mathematica.

  7. municipalis says

    A ‘theory’ which asks us to believe all matter, energy and living things came out of nothing? However, this goes against the basic law of causality. The universe had a beginning and therefore needed a cause!

    Evolution by chance, which proposes an increase in order and complexity over time is impossible too because it also contravenes the law of Causality as above;

    There’s a Law of Causality now? That’s an interesting reversion of teleology. Wouldn’t that also imply that every cause has a cause, has a cause, has a cause….? Why is scribbling in God and proclaming “This is the First Cause” any less arbitrary under this philosophy than The Big Bang?

  8. lordshipmayhem says

    My my my, he is an idiot.
    1) He speaks of proof, a concept for mathematicians.
    2) “As you may agree, the star signs in our night skies are incredibly interesting” – as an introduction to astronomy, yes they can be.
    3) “and it’s unfortunate they are now mostly associated with horoscopic astrology.” Is there any other kind of astrology that I’m unaware of?
    4) “As a result, few seem to understand their true origin, significance or meaning. The truth is, they don’t foretell our individual futures, nor shape our relationships.” That we can agree on.
    5) “Their true significance is far greater and important than this. The star signs actually testify to the truth of God and His Word, while also foretelling the future of mankind as a whole and God’s plan of salvation for us.” That’s batshit crazy. The star signs date back to the Greek gods.
    6) “The Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans all understood them,” The Egyptians had their own unique star patterns, and as far as we know, so did the Babylonians. Every ancient civilization (except the Romans, who basically adopted the Greek) had their own different system of star patterns.

    And that’s just in the first couple of paragraphs. This man needs more than a science textbook, he needs a history textbook and a check of his lithium levels – he may be down a quart.

  9. John Kruger says

    Holy pareidolia Batman!

    This person could have done some great in depth analysis of useful things had they not been preempted into proving the assumed conclusion of the existence of a god. It makes me sad.

  10. chrisgranger says

    desertfroglet @ 3

    With this second data point, I think we can hypothesize that Kelvin here thinks he can ‘baffle and amaze people to Jesus’ by writing the longest letters possible.

  11. AshPlant says

    http://revealingthetruth.weebly.com/true-gospel-message.html

    My friends and I use ‘weebly’ to denote going funny in the head. Derived no doubt from the common usage of ‘wibble’ as something a crazy person says so you know that they’re crazy, or as a shorthand for reams of incredible babble. I thought this was an apt appearance of the usage. Even his website knows that he’s thrown a drive-chain.

    Which is a shame. really, because it’s so exhaustively thought out and researched. I do love seeing painstaking continuity in the fiction I read, it’s just a shame to see it applied to real…to…er…

    …never mind.

  12. says

    municipalis:

    Why is scribbling in God and proclaming “This is the First Cause” any less arbitrary under this philosophy than The Big Bang?

    Why, that’s easy-peasy. The universe is like a giant collection of dominoes set up such that it ends with us. It’s a vast machine put in motion with a single outcome: God’s chosen.

    That’d be me. Maybe you. Probably not Jerry Lewis, though. God’s picky that way.

    Now, this has several implications. First, it implies the universe had to be set up with a purpose. A purpose requires intention; intention requires intelligence. For the universe to create us — specifically us, not some other set of creatures that operate in a different kind of universe, but specifically God’s chosen — well, that requires the kind of fine-tuning the Big Bang* simply can’t provide. That requires a God-sized noggin with a God-sized brain.

    That implies the universe, like a series of dominoes set to topple over in a chain reaction, is deterministic. God set it in motion to achieve a specific goal, and that goal was achieved. However, when it comes to us, God’s Chosen, we are not deterministic. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be God’s Chosen, now, would we? We’d be God’s Wind-Up Toys With Which He Is Only Vaguely Amused. And that obviously isn’t part of God’s plan.

    Aaaanyway… What was the question? Oh, yeah! Aaaaaaanyway, God is more parsimonious than the Big Bang because I exist. And starting from the beginning of the universe, what are the odds that I’d exist? The odds are damned near non-existent, that’s what. So for me to exist, there must’ve been a God to plan it that way. I’m a super-special snowflake cupcake that way.

    Also, stars. Stars that form arbitrary shapes in our imagination. That’s why.

     

    * Yes, I’m aware the Big Bang is a misnomer. But the Big Fairly Rapid Inflation just doesn’t seem to have the same punch, you know?

  13. chrisgranger says

    Meh, he just copy-pasted long sections of that email from his website. I retract that ‘A’ for effort. Dr. Myers, you just got his form letter.

  14. koliedrus says

    I used a text-to-speech reader at 3x speed to get through this one.

    It’s not so much that his gears are “stripped”. It’s more like the teeth have been meticulously hammered out of alignment by a schizophrenic jeweler.

  15. AshPlant says

    copy-pasted…form letter.

    Oh…bet you it’s not even his work then.

    Actually, since all this sort of stuff appears to just be passed around from hand to hand between creationists, where does it actually start? The implication is that none of them have original ideas, they just regurgitate what they’ve heard. The actual ideas must just spring fully formed into existence without being guided by the hand or brain of humanity. And then continue to circulate, guided by the hand of humanity.

  16. deludedone says

    after reading 6 paragraohs I started to lose the will to live so ……

    I had always thought that the Sphinx had the head of a Pharoah, and no where have I seen that it has the head of a woman. Of course it has the arse of a lion – but what does that prove? But we do know what comes out of a lion’s arse don’t we? Creationists, the by product of digestion.

  17. Big Boppa says

    Somewhere around the middle of the 2nd paragraph I remembered the adage “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit”.

  18. steve oberski says

    Does this mean you have to live in the southern hemisphere to be saved ?

    I wonder what his take is on the direction of the circular motion of the water when he flushes his toilet ? Does that “prove” god as well ?

  19. McCthulhu, now with Techroline and Retsyn says

    I really want to see the evidence for how the Anglo-Saxons are the true descendants of the Israelites. Nothing like puffing up your patriarchal cracker ego to really reinforce the goddist crap…it could almost make him a Mormon.

    I completely understand the phrase ‘Holier than thou’ now. You come up with an equation: complete batshit ∴ god, and voila! You have a philosophy so full of holes that it looks like it got hit by a contingent of fifteen-year-olds target practicing with birdshot. The pet hypotheses are getting holier and holier as time progresses. There’s an equation in there too somewhere.

    In pareidolia-land, no one knows that stars and constellations aren’t static.

  20. markw says

    …the evidence for the Anglo Saxon people being the true descendants of the Israelites…

    I’ve stumbled upon this “British Israelism” idea before. It feeds into some very nasty anti-semitism and “Christian Identity” views.

    Wiki link

    Goes to show, there’s nothing so crazy, or so nasty, that some religious whack-job won’t believe it.

  21. greame says

    Such a shame. The astronomical origins of the constellation and star names are so much more interesting when you understand that they are completely fucking arbitrary.

  22. haslar53 says

    Perhaps our little hairy Kiwi fruit would like to try the thought experiment of re-arranging the position of the stars so that the human brain is no longer able to discern any patterns whatsoever from their new distribution.

    Please come back in a billion years and tell us how you are getting on with the task.

  23. dvoracek says

    “He [God] set a compass [circle] upon the face of the deep”

    This sounds more to me like predicting the magnetic field lines on the sea floor that log the reversals of the earth’s magnetic field that are such important evidence of plate tectonics.

    I’d be really curious to know what the author thought he was talking about.

  24. helenaconstantine says

    1. Sphinx means ‘strangler’ in Greek–a strange sort of connecting.

    2. Every culture, prior to their contact with the Babylonian zodiac mediated through Western civilization, had their own unique grouping of constellations and myths connected with them.

    3. As soon the Christians were able to erect their purpose built churches in the age of Constantine, they decorated with images of the stars, but in a rectilinear grid, not the constellations as they actually appear; they wanted nothing to do with them because they rejected them as ‘pagan’. It hard to tell therefore is the correspondent is merely ignorant or hypocritical.

  25. fmitchell says

    @1:

    Cool! A patch revision of the Bible, after only 2500 years. Unfortunately I can’t find this patch on GitHub or SourceForge. Could someone give me the URL?

    At the very least, could someone tell me whether Adam was created after all the animals (Genesis 1) or before (Genesis 2)? I always wondered which way the project leads would go on that.

  26. grahammartinroyle says

    No, no, no! He’s got it all wrong. The stars aren’t there as constellations telling us all about god’s plans for us. The babble has it right when it says that we can’t know gods plans, the universe IS god. Doesn’t he get that? It’s a different sort of brain is all, the stars, planets, galaxies etc. are just the cosmic neurons that make up the brain of god, thinking vast un-knowable thoughts.

    What does that make us? Either parasites or the equivalent of a brain tumour. Either way, we’d better shut up with all the praying and what-not. If we do attract gods attention, we’ll be excised, and that’ll be the end of us!

    Come on, it makes just as much sense as his explanation.

  27. says

    Wow. The Egyptian Sphynx is male, not female. Bootes means cow herder (bous is greek for cow/ox). Two huge and obvious errors from the outset. Never mind that there was a ton of North African/Arabian and Mediterranean cultural exchange so of course there will be similarities in aspects of culture. We already know that Christian mythology borrows heavily from older cultures, for example. Now if I plagiarize Brahms in my music, it does not mean that Brahms actually plagiarized me via the principle of backwards causality. For fuck’s sake.

  28. Antares42 says

    I was actually quite disappointed when he went from those cute (and meaningless) star stories to the far more boring and off-the-shelf “no evolution because I don’t understand thermodynamics” argument.

    Well, whatever.

  29. lynneggers says

    Ah…. the Gospel in the stars, and one of the more cogent (rofl) explanations I’ve ever seen.

  30. says

    Those of us who began life in Australia hate being reminded that Ken Ham is a “fellow Australian.”

    I see where he accuses you (PZ) of mocking Christianity. It is hard to find any greater mockery of Christianity than Ken Ham’s made up nonsense.

  31. mattand says

    If you would like a deeper understanding of the gospel message and how it relates to you and me, or are interested in other fascinating topics like the evidence for the Anglo Saxon people being the true descendants of the Israelites, please visit the following link:

    Creationist, racist, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

  32. theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen says

    @ jamesmckaskle

    Wow. The Egyptian Sphynx is male, not female.

    Sphynxes. Plural. The Egyptian Sphynxes could be male or female. There was even a (standing) Sphynx God called Tutu. Not to be confused with the Greek Sphynx which was female.

    The Assyrians also had multiple Sphynxes. I have not a clue as to which Kelvin Watts thinks he is referring to. Perhaps he is referring to the Chinese Sphynx? (Link to picture. Warning, you may be turned to stone by the cuteness.)

    (Heh, why are we splitting hairs about the sex of imaginary creatures? ;)

  33. pj says

    The first star in Libra is named ‘Zuben al Genubi’

    Wasn’t that Obi-wan’s long lost brother?

  34. theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen says

    @ Neil Rickert

    I see where he accuses you (PZ) of mocking Christianity. It is hard to find any greater mockery of Christianity than Ken Ham’s made up nonsense.

    That is Dr Ken Ham. And he is a boon to xtianity. At least according to the piglet (from AiG website):

    I was greatly surprised to learn just minutes before I spoke that the university was conferring an honorary doctorate upon me for what the ministry of AiG has contributed to the Christian world.

    (Why do anti-intellectuals need to take on the mannerisms of intellectual institutions?)

  35. jojo says

    I’m really impressed with how long he was able refrain from the racist comment. Normally they like to toss them around liberally. So, um…kudos for the restraint?

  36. says

    Ham’s honorary degree is from some podunk bible college that isn’t even accredited to give out doctorates. It’s meaningless.

  37. Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD says

    You know what honorary doctorates are? A way to get someone for a speech at graduation? No, actually there possibly are some good ones, but on the whole, no you shouldn’t get to pretend you are learned from getting one.

    I must admit I skimmed and then skipped. I have a fondness for astronomy and don’t like it being maligned. I wonder what he thinks it will mean when the constellations change shape in millennia to come as the stars that make them up, which are nowhere near each other, move on their own paths.

    Given the Australian connection, though possibly kiwi, he’s ignoring the local aboriginal star patterns like the Emu. But then that’s par for the course for the hard of thinking. Ignore things that don’t match your presupposition.

    I suppose we in the antipodes have to have some looneys, but mostly they’re not as ubiquitous as elsewhere.

  38. Louis says

    1) Mattand, #40, wins the universe for that homage to Animal House.

    Truly inspirational. You are one of humanity’s great beings for doing that. Any headgear I possess is now extremely doffed.

    2) If I ever make a blog I will run a similar series of email/correspondence based posts entitled “I Get Irreversible Brain Herpes From Fuckwits”.

    3) Dr Ham? Please. That dribbler couldn’t doctor a passable biscuit let alone a thesis. Honorary, absent or otherwise. May his next turd be a hedgehog!

    Louis

  39. Sophia Dodds says

    Oh bloody heck! We don’t have that many of these nutjobs, do we? Ugh. Can we west Aussies over here claim Tim Minchin as our PM and secede? Go away, crazy east-coast peoples, take your Ham-spawning madness, take away any weird fundies we might have crawling in the woodwork and go float off toward Antarctica. Go convert some penguins and leopard seals, they’ve got about the right cognitive capacity to understand your brand of… logic.

  40. Brownian says

    [Brownian settles down behind the blind. Taking care to make as little sound as possible, he opens a stained leather stained filled with nuts, berries, and dried meat of dubious origin. This semi-pemmican, flavoured with the tears of the self-professed saved, will help keep his strength up for the wait. For, as sure as the Earth will continue to orbit the sun—for a little while longer at least—the creationists will come. And he will be ready.]

  41. Louis says

    Brownian, #59,

    …stained leather stained…

    It would appear you have made an error on the internet, and therefore must be a worse person than Hitler.

    Louis

  42. Hairy Chris, blah blah blah etc says

    (Heh, why are we splitting hairs about the sex of imaginary creatures? ;)

    Wars have been fought over less… :-/

  43. tomfrog says

    @Glen Davidson

    everything has to have a cause, therefore the uncaused cause.

    I’m also curious about how they come to the further conclusion that the universe was caused on purpose.
    Maybe this god of theirs made a terrible mistake and we’re the ongoing aftermath and he has nooo idea of our presence.
    That’s one of the problem with gods: you have to make one incredible assumption after the other without having any evidence (ever) for the previous ones.

  44. Brownian says

    …stained leather stained…

    Sigh. That’s what I get for hiring the narrator from “Scandalmakers”.

    And frankly, it’s hard to concentrate on the script when there are three separate threads titled “I Get Email” active at once.

  45. mnb0 says

    I admire the persistence of those who read the entire mail. I hardly made it to the fifth alinea. Scientific evidence? “while most of the actual star signs are not in dispute”? Looks like I have missed something in astronomy class.

  46. chigau (同じ) says

    three separate threads titled “I Get Email” active at once

    *sshh* I think it’s a test.
    or a conspiracy.

  47. otrame says

    [Otrame checks Brownian through her binoculars, amazed as always by his patience and his ability to eat that stuff. She looks back down at the article in ChewToy about the possibility that the recent rarity and poor quality of creationist chew toys is the result of over-hunting with high-powered weapons. This troubles her, because, though MRAs and libertarian chew toys can help keep the teeth sharp and the coats sniny, they do not satisfy the way a good creationist chew toy does. She reflects that only creationist chew toys have the really high-pitched squeakers.

    She checks Brownian again. Still no sign of activity. She sighs and pops another bite of fudge into her mouth, chewing slowly and savoring the flavor.

    Patience is a virtue]

  48. peterh says

    The astrologically inclined/challenged fundies still haven’t tumbled to the thirteen constellations the Sun passes through every year? Couldn’t stay with his New Age Word Salad™ beyond that point; I’ll take it as read there are guffaws & snorts all the way down.

  49. Brownian says

    Zzzsnort! Huh? What? Did you say something Otrame? I was, er, just resting my eyelids for a second.

  50. Gregory Greenwood says

    As you may know, the 12 signs of the zodiac (Virgo, Libra, Pisces and Leo etc) have all existed in their present form since ancient times. The Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans all understood them, much as we still know them today. The question is, why did the ancients see amazing pictures, where we simply see clusters of mostly unrelated stars? Not just a few ancients, but accepted and used by most civilisations throughout history.

    I always find it funny when some astrology-mumbler tries to claim that star signs embody some ‘universal truth’ evident to the vast majority of cultures. Here is a selection of different interpretations of Ursa Major, none of them bear-related, that I borrowed from Wikipedia;

    In Hinduism, Ursa Major is known as Saptarshi, each of the stars representing one of the Saptarshis or Seven Sages viz. Bhrigu, Atri, Angirasa, Vasishta, Pulastya, Pulalaha and Kratu. The fact that the two front stars of the constellations point to the pole star is explained as the boon given to the boy sage Dhruva by Lord Vishnu.

    In Finnish language, the asterism is sometimes called with its old Finnish name, Otava. The meaning of the name has been almost forgotten in Modern Finnish; it means a salmon weir.

    In Burmese, Pucwan Tārā (pronounced “bazun taja”) is the name of a constellation comprising stars from the head and forelegs of Ursa Major; pucwan is a general term for a crustacean, such as prawn, shrimp, crab, lobster, etc.

    In South Korea, the constellation is referred to as “the seven stars of the north”. In the related myth, a widow with seven sons found comfort with a widower, but to get to his house required crossing a stream. The seven sons, sympathetic to their mother, placed stepping stones in the river. Their mother, not knowing who put the stones in place, blessed them and, when they died, they became the constellation.

    In Javanese, as known as “Bintang Kartika”. This name comes from Sanskrit which refers “krttikã” the same star cluster. In ancient Java, this star clusters so popular because its emergence into the start time marker for planting.

    In Shinto, the 7 largest stars of Ursa Major belongs to Amenominakanushi, the oldest and most powerful of all kami.

    It seems that not everyone sees a bear, afterall. What is happening here is straightforward pareidolia, with the cultural lexicon and environment of a given society determining how a group of points of light in the sky separated by vast distances of space are interpreted. Attempts by people like Kelvin Watts to read evidenc of their god into it simply shows the power of confirmation bias to warp someone’s objectivity.

    Still, I must admit that ‘zodiac, therefore (judeo-christian) god’ was a new one on me. Watts was in serious danger of being wrong-but-at-least-original, but he reverted to form at the end by trotting out the same, tired old creationist misunderstanding of thermodynamics, entropy and causation. And while I am on the subject of scientific misunderstanding;

    Major problems are either ignored or ‘evidence’ simply invented like dark matter and dark energy which have never been seen or observed, because it simply must be there we are told.

    I suppose there is no point trying to explain to Kelvin that scientists aren’t asking anyone to take anything on faith here, and that ‘Dark Matter’ and ‘Dark Energy’ are placeholder names? As far as my layman’s understanding of these things goes (which I admit isn’t very far. I will rely on the Horde to correct any particularly glaring errors) data has been gathered about gravitational footprints and red shift effects that seems to support the notion that there are concentrations of mass and types of force at work in the galaxy that we have not currently been able to directly observe – the use of the term ‘dark’ in this instance does not refer to refractive index, but to our relative lack of knowledge about what exactly is causing these seemingly anomolous results. As further experiments are performed and more data is gathered, scientists will hopefully garner a great enough understaning to one day be able to replace these placeholder names with something a bit more concrete. It is hardly a faith position, and does nothing to support Watts’ claim that science is another religion;

    However, some ignoring these facts have turned science into little more than a ‘faith’ itself? Proclaiming many unproven and unsupported theories to be truth and then insisting we accept them as fact. We are asked to put our faith in the science, since they are sure we will one day find all the evidence needed to prove them beyond doubt. Unfortunately, man has proved to be wrong and unreliable over and over again throughout history and undeserving of our faith.

    If he projected any more you could use him as a spot-light…

  51. Nemo says

    How do you draw a sphere with a compass?

    That’s easy. Since you need a three-dimensional compass to draw a circle, then to draw a sphere, you just need a four-dimensional compass. Plus a four-dimensional sheet of paper, with a three-dimensional surface.

  52. Brownian says

    I do hope some prey come along soon. I’m going to be AFK for most of today and tomorrow, and I’d like something warm in my belly for the drive down to Calgary this afternoon. By the time I get back, there’ll likely be nothing but bits of bone, fur, and Owlmirror’s pellets.

  53. Randomfactor says

    The astrologically inclined/challenged fundies still haven’t tumbled to the thirteen constellations the Sun passes through every year?

    They don’t count Judas.

  54. Brownian says

    We are asked to put our faith in the science, since they are sure we will one day find all the evidence needed to prove them beyond doubt.

    Hi, Kelvin? While taking a break from being wrong about stars, you might want to look up the discoveries of both Neptune and Pluto.

    Man, this spoor-chewing is unsatisfying.

  55. Gregory Greenwood says

    [Gregory surreptitiously approaches Brownian’s hide]

    Pssst, Brownian – I got you that .50 cal sniper rifle of reason with the explosive bullets of snark you wanted. This puppy will put down a bull First Cause Argument with one shot at a mile distant.

    But remember, if you get caught for over-hunting creationist chew-toys, you don’t know me. I hear Otrame is on the look out for Horde members hunting out of season…

  56. Brownian says

    We are asked to put our faith in the science

    Also, no one is asking you to do anything. You don’t like the science? Then shut up and die from an easily treatable infection, nutritional deficiency, or surgically treatable injury. You’ll be home with Jesus, and we’ll be rid of your shit.

    Win-motherfucking-win.

  57. fastlane says

    I skimmed it, saw the ‘second law of thermodynamics’ and skipped the rest.

    Reading the comments of those poor souls (see what I did there?) that actually read it (thanks for taking one for the team), I think I made the right decision.

  58. Nemo says

    while the gospel starts with a virgin and ends with a lion (Christ)

    No, no, you’re thinking of Aslan.

  59. Weed Monkey says

    In Finnish language, the asterism is sometimes called with its old Finnish name, Otava.

    That actually means only the seven stars of Big Dipper or Plough or whatever. I don’t recall the whole Ursa Major having a Finnish name at all.

    But I won’t be hunting for sources right now to fix the Wiki, it’s on the to do-list.

  60. Richard Smith says

    It has to be more than sheer coincidence that otherwise seemingly random clusters of stars associated with various myths and legends from Greek, Roman, and Egyptian cultures (to name but a few) can be linked with a central biblical figure whose own story is associated with various myths and legends from Greek, Roman, and Egyptian cultures (to name but a few)!

    Therefore God.

  61. Weed Monkey says

    I mean, of course it’s now known as Iso karhu, but that’s not traditional.

  62. Brownian says

    But remember, if you get caught for over-hunting creationist chew-toys, you don’t know me.

    Not me. I stay within my limit.

  63. otrame says

    It has to be more than sheer coincidence that otherwise seemingly random clusters of stars associated with various myths and legends from Greek, Roman, and Egyptian cultures (to name but a few) can be linked with a central biblical figure whose own story is associated with various myths and legends from Greek, Roman, and Egyptian cultures (to name but a few)!

    Therefore God.

    Yeah. I remember reading a book by a “diffusionist”, i.e. someone who believes that most new items in human cultures are invented only once and get diffused through cultural transmission, rather than being invented in several different places. In the diffusionist view, for instance, agriculture was only invented once, and spread to all the other loci of early agriculture (skipping all the places in between for reasons never explained).

    Yeah, I know. When confronted with the difficulties of explaining how agriculture got spread to continents across rather large oceans, he insisted that a few individuals in small boats might have made such a journey (true enough) and passed their culture on to the benighted inhabitants of said isolated continents (highly unlikely–strangers wandering around on beaches who can’t understand you could be considered lucky if they are only enslaved, especially since various really important gods are always needing new sacrifices). He cited the Maya pyramids (even though they look nothing like Egyptian pyramids and are constructed in very different ways) and the fact, wait for it…

    The fact that both Egyptian and Maya iconography have crescent shapes as important symbols. How, he asks, it that possible unless an Egyptian travelled to the Americas?

    Seriously.

  64. David Marjanović says

    The stars move.

    The Bible says (by means of rhetorical questions) that humans, or at least Job, cannot move the stars.

    Therefore, God.

    Is that on the “Hundreds of Proofs of God’s Existence” page yet?

    Thank goodness I gave up reading stupid shit for Lent.

    Thread won.

    That’s easy. Since you need a three-dimensional compass to draw a circle, then to draw a sphere, you just need a four-dimensional compass. Plus a four-dimensional sheet of paper, with a three-dimensional surface.

    It’s true!

    I do hope some prey come along soon. I’m going to be AFK for most of today and tomorrow, and I’d like something warm in my belly for the drive down to Calgary this afternoon. By the time I get back, there’ll likely be nothing but bits of bone, fur, and Owlmirror’s pellets.

    And Owlmirror chews methodically.

  65. Brownian says

    Just clear the vermin out, don’t hold back.

    The problem is that they don’t know they’ve been bagged. They’re oblivious. It’s like punching a cow in the face. It’s too dense to even know it’s been hit.

    Take the asshole scifi, for instance. He’s fucking unable to understand the arguments he makes (he just copies and pastes from others), and when he doesn’t understand your response, he simply lies about what you’ve written.

    I’ve eaten smarter livestock.

  66. says

    God is recorded in the bible as saying “Canst thou…loose the bands of Orion?” which implied only He can and will.

    Now this is a well-known mistranslation. What it originally said, translated correctly, has God saying “Canst thou…loose the bands of Urion? This is God instructing his chosen people to loosen their belts and open their robes before urinating.
    “How to take a dump” is covered in Deuteronomy 23:12.

  67. otrame says

    Makes you wonder, yeah? Why they needed “how to take a dump” in their holy book?

  68. Dave B. says

    Ah! Here it is! A great walk-thorugh of the New Testament stuff as solar mythology. Read this a few years ago and thought it was pretty convincing. Solar Mythology and the Jesus Story. Includes lots of pretty pictures taken from the Starry Night program to back it up, too!

  69. Richard Smith says

    @otrame (#87):

    The fact that both Egyptian and Maya iconography have crescent shapes as important symbols. How, he asks, it that possible unless an Egyptian travelled to the Americas?

    Difficult to figure if that’s “better” or “worse” than my favourite (although mine probably loses points for its source being “too easy”) from von Däniken, pondering how on Earth primitive (and non-European, likely) people could have known enough to draw a representation of a human skeleton long before the X-ray was discovered…

  70. mobius says

    AND (!!!) no randomly capitalized words. Definitely a step forward in creationist posting.

  71. skybluskyblue says

    Although the writer includes paragraph breaks and generally uses proper grammar, no one here is convinced because of the “evidence” and “logic” used to attempt to convince us.

    This reminds me of the “adept writers” that use the writing skills they have honed over years to attempt to convince unsuspecting mothers of autistic children that somehow vaccines are to blame. In this case unsuspecting ignorant godbots may be convinced because he happened to pay attention in his English class but not his science or logic classes.

    I wonder if an absolute requirement to get 80% in science basics to graduate high school would help put people like him out of business.

  72. says

    In South Korea, the constellation is referred to as “the seven stars of the north”

    No. It’s from Chinese, 北斗七星 and actually means “the seven stars of the northern dipper. This has been borrowed by the Koreans and the Japanese.

    In Shinto, the 7 largest stars of Ursa Major belongs to Amenominakanushi, the oldest and most powerful of all kami.

    Amenominakanushi is hardly mentioned in the old texts, nothing concrete is known about him from there. He was built up and fleshed out only in modern times and incorporated into the Emperor worship practices (but I would still hesitate to call him the “most powerful of all kami”). At the same time, he was then also identified with the “seven stars of the northern dipper”. But the Dipper was first, even in Japan…

  73. juice says

    Would you believe that the Sphinx is a Christian testimony, since it binds together a virgin woman (Mary) and a lion (Jesus)?

    Actually, if you believe some scholars (and that Jesus existed) there was a reformer rabbi who went by the name of Yeshua ben Pantera (Panther) who is thought to be a Jesus Christ candidate.

  74. says

    The Sphinx is the intersection of a natural limestone ridge, a bit of masonry and brickwork, and the face of King Khafre. It was mutilated not by Napoleon’s troops, but by Khafre’s successors.

  75. F says

    I counted one fact which is partially correct. Everything else is wrong, wrong, wrong, in every bit, at every level.

  76. cconti says

    Part of me is happy to see that the US doesn’t have the exclusive on religiously induced mental illness. At the same time the other part of me is sad that these beliefs are not confined to the US.

    I have to say that this is the first creationist rant I have ever read lacking misspelled words, all caps sentences and poor grammar throughout. Probably the product of a better public school system.

  77. pyrobryan says

    I gave up about 4 paragraphs in. From PZ’s description, I was confident that the rest of the email would be just as nonsensical. He seems so determined to repeat the virgin mother mythology, has anyone ever told him about the dozens of other “saviors” born of a virgin throughout mythology?

  78. Gregory Greenwood says

    pelamun @ 97;

    No. It’s from Chinese, 北斗七星 and actually means “the seven stars of the northern dipper. This has been borrowed by the Koreans and the Japanese.

    Darn, wikipedia has failed me. Still, the point I was trying to make in the original post (sadly incompetently, it seems) still stands. The socio-cultural significance of a given constallation is not divinely ordained – it varies from culture to culture based upon the mythology and practices of those societies.

  79. says

    Google has seen fit to place an astrology ad at the top of the page. xD

    #73 Nemo:
    My brain is now trying to construct a model of that.
    Damnit, I need Full Immersion, so I can hook my brain up to a virtual 4D world.

  80. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    I read this while listening to brand new music purchased for my brand new iPod (Thanks, student loans!) and discovered quite an amazing thing: Creationist gobbledygook doesn’t make me nearly so concerned for the future of humanity when the White Stripes are blazing, overloud, though my ear canals.

    In fact, I didn’t even take it all in – somehow I missed, “No Contradictions! It’s True!” until I hit the comments. Instead, I largely seemed to have heard…

    [With apologies to Jack & Meg: ]

    In some respects

    I suspect you’ve got

    A respectable side.

    When pushed and pulled

    And pressured,

    You seldom run and hide.

    But it’s for someone else’s benefit

    Not for Thinking you’re able to do.

    And until I realize that you’ve realized

    I’m gonna say these words to you:

    You don’t know what Logic is

    You just do as you’re told.

    Just as a child of ten might act

    But you’re far too old.

    You’re not hopeless,

    Or helpless

    And I hate to sound cold…

    But you don’t know what Logic is

    You just do as you’re told.

  81. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Oh, which, I hope it was obvious, was my internal narrative, not the words of Wonder-Lord Kelvin, the Absolute Zero of Thought.

  82. changeable moniker says

    Kiwi, huh? I fired up Stellarium and switched “Starlore” (under “Sky and Viewing Options”) to “Maori”, and …

    No constellations. (OK, one: I get the Sail of Tainui low on the horizon.)

    Oh, wait, that’s because I’m the Anglo-Saxon hemisphere. Lucky me.

  83. catnip67 says

    This bloke is just trying to make the South Africans & Americans feel better about the loons they have to deal with.

    What score would he get on the Daniel Haven Scale?

    I have just read that.

    I will never have that time back again.

    Fuck you, creationists. Fuck you very much.*

    Louis

    *Actually, it’s my own damned fault for reading what I knew would be drivel. Fuck me!

    I admire your focus and dedication to the task. I gave up about 30% through when my brain exploded

    Is he saying god is a horse?

    Perhaps he thinks Pharlap was a god?

    The implication is that none of them have original ideas, they just regurgitate what they’ve heard. The actual ideas must just spring fully formed into existence without being guided by the hand or brain of humanity

    That’s how creationism works. Idea was passed down from on high 5000+ years ago & all creative thought or development ceases.

    I wonder what his take is on the direction of the circular motion of the water when he flushes his toilet ? Does that “prove” god as well ?

    You’re assuming he has a flushing toilet

    At the very least, could someone tell me whether Adam was created after all the animals (Genesis 1) or before (Genesis 2)? I always wondered which way the project leads would go on that

    I want to know who adam was supposed to be fruitful & multiply with before eve was ripped untimely from his rib cage. Was it the beasts in the field? Is Yahweh into beastiality? Can somebody point me at the constellation that answers this question?

    What does that make us? Either parasites or the equivalent of a brain tumour. Either way, we’d better shut up with all the praying and what-not. If we do attract gods attention, we’ll be excised, and that’ll be the end of us!

    Come on, it makes just as much sense as his explanation.

    Actually, you make more sense than him

    Now if I plagiarize Brahms in my music, it does not mean that Brahms actually plagiarized me via the principle of backwards causality. For fuck’s sake.

    Unless you do as an enterprising editor of the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy did to the encyclopaedia Galactica, and send a copy of your plagiarised score back through a wormhole to before Brahms’ time and then sue him for breach of copyright…..

    @ Sophia Dodds #58

    Tim Minchin as PM. I like it. As for secession, you may end up with more nutjobs than you bagain for. Really, it’s Queensland you want to innoculate with some penicillin to eliminate the nutjobs (hey, is that what XXXX is really for?)

    Maybe this god of theirs made a terrible mistake and we’re the ongoing aftermath and he has nooo idea of our presence.

    Sneezed out of the nose of the Great Green Arklesiezure. Live in fear of the time known as the Coming of the Great White handkerchief!

    We don’t have a bag limit on Pharyngula. Just clear the vermin out, don’t hold back.

    Creationists are not as cute as deer. And they are plague proportions. Shoot, people, Shoot!

    Makes you wonder, yeah? Why they needed “how to take a dump” in their holy book?

    When someone’s that stupid….
    There’s possibly instructions on how to breath as well

    I just reread that as “how to take a dump in your holy book”, and the thought crossed my mind that you would not be able to tell the difference

  84. fireweaver says

    @44: theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen wrote:

    “(Why do anti-intellectuals need to take on the mannerisms of intellectual institutions?)”.

    There is a saying to the effect that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
    Except in their case, I’m not sure if it is flattery or mockery.

  85. says

    (Why do anti-intellectuals need to take on the mannerisms of intellectual institutions?)

    There’s only so far you can regress in a generation. It’s a concession made to progress that they hope to revoke.

  86. TimKO,,.,, says

    Star
    Sta + r (3 + 1 = 4)
    Subtract the 1 from 3 and you have 2, which means two As
    =
    Staa
    Add the 1 in front of the 4 = 14
    Add the 14th letter of the alphabet
    =
    Staan
    Unscramble = SATAN!!!!
    OMG, don’t look at teh stars

  87. Charlie Foxtrot says

    So, hang on – surely Crux would be a pretty important star sign (well, asterism) then, by this account? You know, it being something that kinda looks like that christian symbol thingy, (except without the emaciated corpse nailed to it).
    So why would it be stuck down in the Southern Hemisphere where only the godless heathens could appreciate it until someone invented sea faring boats?
    I’m gonna need me some sophisticated astro-apologetics here…

  88. John Morales says

    TimKO,,.,,

    OMG, don’t look at teh stars

    But… but… but how will we know then they are right?

    (Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!)

  89. Charlie Foxtrot says

    Oh hey, lookit that! I forgot about procession – turns out that the Southern Cross was visible two thousand years ago in those parts, just above the horizon.
    Well, I guess that’s me back to church then. Bugger.

  90. scifi1 says

    Aaaaaarrrrggggghhhhhh – heeeeellllpppppppp!!!

    Brownian, PZ, please note.

    I AM NOT scifi.

    I am scifi1.

    I didn’t realise that nom de comments could be sooo similar.

    Don’t hold with his POV etc…

    I would hope that the (few) postings I have made would bear that out.

    Wasn’t even aware that there was another ‘scifi’ posting.

    And, yes, he is an asshole.

  91. theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen says

    @ catnip

    I want to know who adam was supposed to be fruitful & multiply with before eve was ripped untimely from his rib cage. Was it the beasts in the field?

    Lilith

    back through a wormhole to before Brahms’ time

    Actually, Satan can invert the course of nature and hence place the consequent as the antecedent. This explains why pagan fairytales look so incredibly like the xtian fairytales. Satan plagiarised jeebus stories and then placed them earlier in history to confuse the unworthy. (I wish I could make this shit up!)

    Shoot, people, Shoot!

    The pigster, Ken Ham, believes he is “weaponising” children by giving them books on apologetics.

    From the piglet (Link to Aig):

    I am always so excited to see people’s response to the resources at our conferences. To me it’s like equipping an army for the spiritual battle—in this instance, equipping an army with “weapons” (books and DVDs) to do battle with the forces of darkness as Christians defend the Christian faith and proclaim the gospel.

    Also, it’s thrilling to see kids being “resourced”!

    “The spiritual battle” is rather an old idea. I recall being told about it by a xtian friend about 25 years ago. He described hordes of demons (much like the “Swart Gevaar”) come to do battle in a “Revelations” style end times battle. Something inside me snapped at that point and I lost all of the (not much to begin with) respect I had ever had for xtianity. I also lost most of my esteem for my friend and things never came right after that. Sad, he was otherwise a good person and very intelligent to boot.

  92. harbo says

    Pity really
    He started out with names that should have led him to light of reason, not the screaming woo of his
    “believe first, ask questions later”

  93. theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen says

    @ scifi1

    May I suggest a nom de guerre here:

    scifi1, Pharangulite Myrmidon of Teh Ebil Oberlawd Poopyhead.

    Pfft Myrmidon:

    The Myrmidons of Greek myth were known for their skill in battle and loyalty to their leaders. … Myrmidon later came to mean “hired ruffian” … or “a loyal follower, especially one who executes orders without question, protest, or pity – unquestioning followers.”

    (I know them from Achilles, but I also love the later definition. :)

  94. theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen says

    {theophontes follows the long line of used condoms along the edge of the wetland, … until coming to a long line of people trailing off into the distance.}

    theo: WTF?

    otrame: [whisper] Shhh, Brownian is in his hide, hunting godbots… [/whisper]

    theo: What is the point in whispering if the trolls can see the people all queuing for him anyway?

    otrame: [whisper] They really are that stoopid. [/whisper]

    theo {takes out and checks tickets, looks at queue.}: You wouldn’t perhaps know if … er …

    otrame: [whisper] Have no fear young tardigrade, the Brownian never sleeps. You will get your Ghey Seks soo…

    theo: Shhhhh!

    otrame: [whisper] Eventually … [/whisper]

  95. chigau (同じ) says

    These fucking “I get email” threads need subtitles, like identifiers for the “Why I’m an atheist” threads.

  96. says

    Gregory Greenwood #105

    Darn, wikipedia has failed me. Still, the point I was trying to make in the original post (sadly incompetently, it seems) still stands. The socio-cultural significance of a given constallation is not divinely ordained – it varies from culture to culture based upon the mythology and practices of those societies

    That goes without saying. It’s just that some of us have severe SIWOTI syndrome..

  97. scifi1 says

    @theophontes

    My thanks for the suggestion. There are parts I like and parts I’m kinda ‘meh’ about.

    “Skill in Battle” – like! (Oh ego. Oh hubris!)

    “Unquestioning Follower(s)” – meh! (Oh ego, etc…)

    Yes, I’m a picky, ungrateful bastard!! But the overall idea of a nom de guerre?

    I like….!!!

    Then again, at the risk of sounding like an 8yr old – “I had the name FIRST!!!! Waaaahhh!!!’,’,’,’,’,”

  98. theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen says

    @ scifi the first

    “Unquestioning Follower(s)” – meh!

    We have a pretty good tradition of wearing our victim’s comments as spoils of war. (Heads on sticks being illegal.) We often get accused of being “mindless PZbots” or “living in an echo chamber” (that last even by apologist atheists). So don’t worry about it that, it is sheer sninyness if ever there was. Anyhow, the general implication would be as the Greek warriors (who had serious hubris).

  99. says

    I wonder what his take is on the direction of the circular motion of the water when he flushes his toilet ?

    Australian WCs tend to be of the “wash-down” pattern, as opposed to the syphonic pattern common in the USA. Instead of being drawn out by a partial vacuum created in the trap, the contents of the basin are forced out by the descending flushwater. This has the advantage of being all but immune to blockage (as the waste pipe is full-bore 100 mm. all the way) at the cost of the only water in the basin being what actually forms the seal of the trap. The exit from the basin is backwards (and up, over the weir of the trap and through the wall to a sewage pipe on the outside) rather than downwards; so there is no circular motion of water as would be seen in a syphonic closet.

  100. Granny Weatherwax says

    Not to strain at gnats, but does he realize that the Greek sphynx had wings as well as a lion’s body and woman’s head? I suppose he’d have that symbolize the Holy Ghost or something. Or that the Egyptians gave their sphynxes other animal heads, such as rams? Things with horns tend to be Satanic, don’t they? And finally, how about the fact that the Greek sphynx was an evil, human-devouring monster? Well, okay, that does make it a good metaphor for the Christian Church…

  101. scifi1 says

    @theophontes

    Ahh. Sorry. Get it now.

    Irony meter was in for servicing (again!! – it gets hammered when reading stuff during the day!).

    Funnily enough, I REALLY liked ‘scifi the first’.

    Will ponder nomenclature further, depending on further posts from the ‘imposter’. BTW, you will know him/her/it ‘coz s/he/it is thru and thru ugly while I am as your posited Greek warrior (at least, I am now!)

    Thank you for your assistance. I will slay a goat in your honour!

  102. scifi the first (formerly scifi1) says

    @theophontes

    Goat slain.

    Name changed – ta for the input.

    As scifi the first, I am now entitled to start my own dynasty. (And the hubris goes on and on and…)

  103. says

    Job 38:31 Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?

    Why can’t people take these passages for what they are – beautiful examples of poetry written by humans, and not evidence for a god?

  104. drbunsen le savant fou says

    Really, it’s Queensland you want to innoculate with some penicillin to eliminate the nutjobs (hey, is that what XXXX is really for?)

    Nonononono. Queenslanders drink XXXX because they can’t spell “beer”.