Rob Skiba was a right-wing evangelical preacher who told people that the COVID-19 vaccine was the “mark of the beast”. He bet that he would be proven right, and that his critics would be proven wrong by ending up dead.
You know exactly what happened, right? Is this a little too predictable?
Rob Skiba, an influential figure in flat earth and Christian circles, has died of COVID-19, colleagues announced on Thursday. He had been fighting the virus since at least late August, when he began exhibiting symptoms after “Take On The World,” a biblical flat earth conference. “He has been sick since coming back from TOTW,” a Facebook friend posted in early September, adding that Skiba had been hospitalized for low oxygen levels. One of the country’s most prominent advocates of Flat Earth Theory, Skiba was also skeptical of COVID-19 vaccines and some of the illness’ treatments. On the first day of the Take On The World conference, Skiba authored a Facebook post suggesting that the COVID-19 vaccines were dangerous.
It’s just extra ironic that he caught it at a flat earth conference.
Another person who died recently is the atheist, Tom Flynn.
“He saved the legacy of the Great Agnostic, Robert Green Ingersoll, from obscurity. He carried the torch for atheism, secular humanism, and clear-eyed rationality for decades with his powerful and copious writings and speeches—undoubtedly helping to cause the Rise of the Nones. All while cracking jokes and delighting everyone in his orbit,” said Blumner. “And how lucky we were to be part of it.”
“The death of Tom Flynn is a tragedy of epic proportions for everyone who cares about the equality of atheists anywhere in the world.”
Tom left a rather mixed legacy. Sure, he promoted atheism, but one of the reasons he contributed to the “Rise of the Nones” is that he also drove people away from atheism with his bizarre obsessions with, for instance, hating Christmas (ignore the War on Christmas goof, it’s a secular holiday and that’s how we celebrate it). There was nothing ironic about his death, we all get old and die, and Tom didn’t brag about his invulnerability and the uselessness of modern medicine before succumbing. He also didn’t subscribe to any flat earth theories.
Ken Ham is also sad about the death of Tom Flynn, because now he won’t be able to convert him. Ham got a note from an 11 year old girl and contemplates how Flynn ought to have been as gullible and uneducated as a child.
When I read the news about Tom Flynn, I thought of this young girl and her love for God’s Word and the messages I gave. I thought, “If only Tom Flynn would have had the faith of this child.” As we read in Scripture, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).
Then I pondered how important it is to do all we can to help undo the work of Tom Flynn. Yes, we are not going to give up, we are going to be more enthusiastic (another word Ellie used) than ever to reach these Nones, and anyone else we can, with the truth of the saving gospel.
A truth that has not been demonstrated, and Ken Ham’s biblical literalist cult is fucking weird. But yeah, Ken, keep on flailing about, you might manage to convert children with your childish stories. With Tom Flynn dead, though, he’s going to have to change his personal project to get a different person before they’re dead.
I often think about the times I had with another famous person in secular circles, Bill Nye, and how I prayed for him while he stood in front of me, and how I pleaded with him to receive the free gift of salvation. But sadly, he rejected this, and as far as I know continues to do so. So we need to be reminded to pray for Bill Nye and do what we can to undo all the damage he has done in spreading his anti-God worldview.
You know, Bill Nye does not promote atheism. He’s an agnostic. What he does is try to teach science, which, in an interesting but unsurprising revelation, Ken Ham considers “anti-God”.
Now I’m curious about an ongoing race, though. Ken Ham is 69, and rich; Bill Nye is 65, and well-off; which one will die first? If it’s Ham, Nye isn’t going to say a word, probably, unless he’s poked at by the media. If it’s Nye, you just know Ham is going to be playing up how “well, he’s discovered the truth now!” and whining about how the poor man failed to find Jesus.
We’re all going to end up dead someday, so what matters is what you do when you’re alive. I think I’d rather be a Flynn or a Nye than a Skiba or a Ham, and that’s something I have the freedom to choose, unlike this fantasy about an afterlife.
And this week’s Herman Cain Award goes to… Rob Skiba.
If he keeps ignoring advice from health professionals then my money is on Ham.
This is what Rob Skiba’s fanatical and braindead followers have to say about his self directed suicide by stupidity death.
The kooks are anti-hospital.
They have noticed that people who end up in hospitals, sometimes then die.
Which in their substandard minds means that hospital</b are killing people.
Because correlation is causation.
It never dawns on them that…sick and dying people go to hospitals for medical treatment.
I’m not.
Rob Skiba was a fundie xian conperson and a destructive crackpot.
I’ve been following the current wave of unvaccinated suicides by ICU on various websites, including the Hermancainaward on Reddit and sorryantivaxxers.
95% of the people dying in the ICU are unvaccinated.
99% of them are fundie xians. It’s extremely rare that one of them is not.
They aren’t smart.
They aren’t educated.
They often have multiple children that they leave behind as orphans.
In a lot of cases, they leave the earth in a better place by…dying.
“I took on the world, and the world won.”
Is it at least Alanis Morissette ironic? “Like being dead… on a day you were expecting to be alive.”
On the other hand, a flat-earther catching COVID-19 at a gathering of other flat-earthers seems more “entirely expected” than ironic. If I were looking for the perfect storm of anti-vaxxer, anti-mask, prayer will save us people, I can hardly think of a better choice.
Didn’t the god botherers at one time think there was a curtain of fire below the Equator that stopped people going any further .
Raven @ 3
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blockquote> They have noticed that people who end up in hospitals, sometimes then die.
Which in their substandard minds means that hospital</b are killing people.
Because correlation is causation.
It also doesn’t help to have Alex Jones telling them that hospitals (which Jones insists are empty) are killing people and blaming it on COVID for the health insurance money—that is, when the doctors and nurses aren’t having drug-fueled orgies in break rooms.
No matter how ill you become in the future, DO NOT enter the satanic hospitals with their death protocols! They are systematically killing off those who know the truth. If you are told that you have the “coronavirus”, gather all of your loved ones together and pray harder than you have in your lives.
Great idea, take the family with you!
@ 7 davidc1
Didn’t the god botherers at one time think there was a curtain of fire below the Equator that stopped people going any further .
IIRC there was an assumption that it got too hot for humans to cross the equator. I think this dates back to Ancient Greek times. I think the fire was poetic license.
OTOH there was also a competing story of a Carthaginian who circumnavigated Africa.
Good grief…I’m three years older than Ken Ham…
It’s not just the outright fundies. See https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/hampshire-vaccine-fights-misinformation-roil-gop-80619056
The money quote…
The from someone elected to the New Hampshire legislature.
“And it burns, burns, burns, that curtain of fire.” [cue the mariachi band]
Since I find myself posting again, I also wanted to comment on “we all get old and die”. Flynn was born in 1955, and a lot of people that age will have many years ahead of them, possibly even productive ones. Some will be alive in 2055 assuming current life expectancy, and who knows, maybe a lot longer.
I won’t hold it against Flynn for hating Christmas. I can take it or leave it myself. Does anyone know the cause of death? Wikipedia doesn’t say.
whheydt@11
The organized mass murder consists of rightwing media outlets telling gullible people not to get vaccinated and wear masks, often contrary to what the media people themselves are doing. (But I guess it’s not the largest mass murder. It is certainly appalling, not least because these murderers will escape any sort of accountability.)
Not true.
The vaccines with living organisms with tentacles cost more money. And, you have to ask for them.
Jrkrideau @ 9 Pharaoh Neko – one of the last pharaos before the Persian conquest – hired Phoenicians who sailed down the Red Sea to circumnavigate Africa. It took them two years, they had to stop to seed and grow crops for the food to last the rest of the journey.
They mentioned the sun started to travel the “wrong” way around the sky on the southernmost part of the journey, -evidence they were telling the truth- but Herodotos did not believe it.
Raven @ 3
The dead are obviously harvested for the ingrediens of Soylent Green, which is then provided to “Them”(TM)*, to artificially extend their life spans.
* The identity of “Them” is not clear at this point. The librul elite? A sect within the Catholic church? The reptilians? My money is on ze joos.
Y’all might like a Richard Thompson song “Now That I Am Dead”
https://youtu.be/WQidiw2JnLo
birgerjohansson @15: The sun always goes from east to west, unless you’re going really fast.
The Phoenician expedition (sent by Necho II) was at least 250 years before the Persian conquest. When the Phoenicians rounded Cape Horn, going west, they saw the sun on their right, i.e. to the north. Herodotus didn’t believe them, because he didn’t know the Earth was spherical.
Oops, wrong continent. It was Cape Agulhas (SE of the Cape of Good Hope).
You know, I fondly remember a time, not so long ago, when I used to use Flat Earthism as an example of something that Creationism was as ignorant as. Because, see, nobody still believed in Flat Earthism.
Ah well.
I don’t believe that Hamm got a letter from a little girl. It’s always better to assume that liars lie.
Ray Ceeya (#1) –
Allen West did not succeed at being the next Herman Cain.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/11/politics/allen-west-covid-texas-republican-governor-race/index.html
OT
Is it just me, or have comments on The Infinite Thread been closed?
@3: So, like all cowards, they’ll make a challenge that they would fully expect to be taken seriously if they had won, but now that they lost, they won’t swallow their pride. What a surprise.
@14: I’d totally pay extra for an eldritch injection. Shoggoth, here I come!
@20: I did the same, and had the same grousing. However, it actually works just as well now. You point to flat Earthers and say, “When you tell them they’re wrong, notice what they say back to you. Notice how they are making the same arguments to you that you are to me. Hint, hint”.
“It included claims about vaccines containing living organisms with tentacles …”.
Why do I have a vision of a mad scientist rubbing his hands together while going “Excellent”.
Apparently, the sub-reddit HermanCainAward is having what one might presume is the intended effect of frightening some people into getting vaccinated. I suppose if rewards or other inticements as well as threats of job loss doesn’t do the job, being made an object of ridicule might do the trick…
See: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/business/money-report/reddit-channel-posts-stories-of-anti-vaxxers-dying-of-covid-scaring-fence-sitters-into-getting-the-shot/2685195/
Re: raven @ #3…
In a macabre sort of way, I hope they follow through on the anti-hospital bit. It’ll keep them from tying up ICU beds that could go to people who need them and haven’t been deliberately stupid.
@ ^ whheydt : Agreed.
@ 18. Rob Grigjanis : Or are outside our solar system, watching our Sun move around our galaxy frames of reference and all..
@23. stroppy : I just posted on it FWIW.