And it is so cute and adorable. A while back, I laughed at the theocrats of Christian Governance. Apparently, the exposure stung, prompting one of them to write a whiny little rant. Here’s how it begins:

It has been very interesting engaging with atheists over the past couple of weeks. They came looking for us, finding our website, it seems, due to exposure by a PZ Myers, a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota. Mr. Myers is brash about his own atheism, declaring that his website is about “Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal.” If these people are his “disciples,” he, as a professor, should be thoroughly embarrassed.

What, you may ask, could people have done to embarrass me? As he rages on and on, what really annoyed him is that people asked for evidence to support his claims, and are out to make creationism look silly. As if that is difficult.

These atheists would also demand that you lay out the material backing up your position. If you told them to go and look for it themselves because you know how easy it is to find on the internet, or if you even just tell them, that if their interest is genuine, they should just keep reading your own website, you again got accused of not having a defense, of not having rational reasons to back up your claims.

On numerous occasions, I accused these atheists of engaging in guerrilla warfare, trying to wear down their enemies by sucking them into a long, drawn-out battle, demoralizing them at the same time with fraudulent accusations and sarcastic, mocking criticism. I am sure that if I bothered to look, I’d find a book somewhere called “Atheist Battle Strategies Against Christians.” The tactics used by some of them were so repetitive and robotic, as though they were brainwashed disciples of some cult leader.

Poor fellow. I can see why he was getting battered about with demands that he back up his claims: he’s wonderfully evasive. It’s a pointless cranky essay in which he gripes about being asked for evidence, yet never actually gets around to mentioning what the evidence is for, let alone actually telling us what his evidence is. Oh, right, it’s somewhere else in the dominionist glurge on the website. Read it all to find out…that no, it isn’t.

I think you should start out your day with tales of fatherhood, since I did. Sometimes my mailbox is a very depressing thing.

• What do you do when your son has seizures? Take him to religious authorities for diagnosis.

  “When my son first began suffering from this problem I took him to sheikhs to recite Qur’an on him but most of them became scared when they heard the female voice telling them that she was a royal jinn and that no one can exorcise her unless Turki dies,” he said.

  The father said a sheikh advised him to tie his son’s arms and legs with iron chains and to read Qur’an on him. “We did this. My son became quiet but is totally unaware of what is happening around him. He does not talk and is now unable to harm anyone,” he added.

  He’s been kept in chains in the basement for six years. Therapy successful!

• A father has to discipline his children. When Mousaa Sidime’s 13 year old daughter balked at doing her mandatory prayer routine — this apparently wasn’t just some quick “I lay me down to sleep”, but something tedious that the girl hated — he responded with a slap. A slap that required calling the police.

  “When we got there the girl was bleeding around her nose and she has been in a coma ever since,” David said.

  The situation has been resolved and she’s out of the coma. She’s dead.

  Prayers work! Now an innocent little girl is in heaven, getting slapped daily by a god who wants more of those prayers and praises.

• Daddy knows best what to do with little girls’ uteruses, too. Let’s not ever allow abortion under any circumstances, because there’s never any case where a girl would be better off with an abortion. Like this heartwarming case of paternal concern.

  It’s a simple story. A neighbor of a 13 year old girl expressed his natural urges and raped her. She got pregnant. Said neighbor had gotten his rocks off, he was done with her, and told her that it was not his responsibility. The little girl had no support, could get no abortion (this is in Peru, where abortion is almost completely prohibited), and in total despair, tried to commit suicide by throwing herself off a building.

  But wait! This story isn’t awful enough yet. She didn’t die. She did suffer serious spinal injuries, though, and in a real surprise, she didn’t lose the pregnancy. So the hospital refused to operate to save her from paralysis because it would put the fetus at risk, despite the fact that a therapeutic abortion was recommended in her condition. No go.

  LC: I Have To Tell What Happened To Me from Center for Reproductive Rights on Vimeo.

  Hey! What happened to the rapist baby daddy? I don’t know.

It all sounds so depressing, doesn’t it? Unless, of course, you’re a happy and oblivious member of the patriarchy. Then it’s all cool.

I just have to remind everyone now and then that we are trying to raise money for science education in the public schools, and I do have a donation page where you can pick specific grant applications you like and give them your cash.

If you’re feeling competitive, there’s also a leaderboard page where you can see the contributions made by other science blogs. Pharyngula is leading, of course, but I’m feeling lonely…I seem to be the only participant from Seed Media so far. You might think about doing some nagging yourself and tell those other ScienceBlogs to get in the act and join the group.

Some of you have already noticed the big banner in the left sidebar (those of you who have adblock installed probably haven’t) announcing that we’re participating in DonorsChoose this year, the charity that takes your donation and directly hands them over to specific projects teachers have proposed. It’s one way to try and compensate for the deplorable state of public education financing in our country. I’ll be reminding you all a few more times in the future, but just keep it in mind — if you’ve got a few dollars to spare, pass them on to teachers and kids who really need them.

A few articles published in the newspapers today have hit me right in a few sore spots, making me crankier than usual and compelling me to write a few new rules for science journalists. Pay attention.

This first story is titled Male infertility gene discovered. It does an OK job of describing the actual study and even gets into the nuances farther in, but the lead is awful.

Rule #1: Do not describe genes by the disease they cause when broken. This is a gene that contributes to male fertility. There is no infertility gene. If a man has a missing, damaged, or mutant form of this fertility gene, he may have problems conceiving children.

Rule #2: Get some perspective. Deeper in, the story casually mentions that only 4% of men with fertility problems have a mutant allele of this gene. This is a non-story. Hundreds (at least) of genes contribute to fertility. What this is is a routine tale of a clinical observation, part of normal, ordinary science, that may be the grist of the scientific mill, but isn’t worth a superficial news item about one datum. How about writing a story about genetic factors in general that affect fertility? That would at least have some context. As is, this is an inflated press release.

Here’s another news item: New study claims ADHD has ‘direct genetic link’. It’s far less impressive than the headline suggests.

Rule #3: Comprehend the science first. This study does not show a direct link. Instead, it finds that children diagnosed with ADHD are more likely to have a spectrum of diverse genetic abnormalities. Cause and effect are not demonstrated. Specific ADHD-related genes are not identified. It shows a correlation between one measure of physical health and another measure of neurological properties.

Rule #4: Learn this simple principle: genes affect how your body responds to environmental factors. Finding an allele associated with a particular physiological state does not mean you have described a cause. We also need to know how that gene acts, what triggers a particular pattern of expression, and what the gene changes in the cell. There are forms of genes that only have deleterious (or advantageous) effects given certain conditions; that effect must be described as a consequence of both the gene and a certain background or environment.

There. I feel better getting that off my chest. I just get so annoyed at this tendency for the media to focus on simplistic discrete causes that are split into a black & white nature or nurture false dichotomy.

Last month, I mentioned this sad and inspiring story of Mike Celizic, who had been diagnosed with cancer and given very little time to live. I’m sorry to report that Mike Celizic has died. Here is the last email he sent to me; it’s a little embarrassing that he’s saying more about me than himself, but that seems to be the kind of fellow he was.

Dr. Myers:

I’m not given to firing off emails to people who are overwhelmed with same. But I’m dying of lymphoma – I’ve got a few weeks – and I want to tell you how much I’ve learned reading your blog and how much enjoyment it has brought me. I’m a writer for the MSM, and it’s been a delicate balancing act for years to not be blatantly the atheist I am, lest I upset the readers, or, more important, the bosses, who quail at the mention of the topic.

I’ve written an entry on deciding not to undergo more treatment. With my last post, I’ll expose my beliefs and let the cranks and fundies weep and wail and gnash their teeth and rend their garments. I’ll be rejoining the ecosystem – anyway, my ashes will – and won’t care.

If you’ve got a spare 30 seconds, which I can’t imagine you do, here’s my take on my decision. No need to respond. I just wanted to say thanks, not tootle my flootle.

So, thanks. Your writing means a lot to an army of people. Keep it up.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38771115/ns/today-today_health/

And that’s how an atheist can face death.

Tristero thinks he has refuted my denial of the existence of souls by citing Otis Redding’s soul, but I reject his refutation! He has done it by the sneaky tactic of a strategic redefinition of “soul”, away from ‘magic essence of personal identity independent of the material substrate of the brain’ to ‘smokin” hot passionate musicality’, and I must call shenanigans. Shenanigans, I say!

I could be refuted, however, if Redding’s soul were to possess my body and set me to crooning “These arms of mine” down the hallway right now.

Actually, there are many moments when it would be useful to be possessed by Otis Redding. He never does.

Most Christians are merely misguided and lazy thinkers; I don’t have any particular animus against them, and just wish they’d grow up. However, there’s one kind of Christian that makes me furious and fills me with an angry contempt. I have been known to make the most militant atheist response in my repertoire when I encounter them: I might snarl briefly and leave them to rot in their hateful ignorance.

These are the people for whom I reserve the term “demented fuckwits”. They are the apocalypse-mongers, the cheerleaders for Armageddon, the monsters who take great satisfaction in their patently stupid belief that the world is going to end soon in a Jebus-spooge of Biblical volume. They aren’t just the cretins who fearfully foretell a coming tribulation, but the ones who think it will be a wonderful thing for chaos to erupt and sinners to die horribly so that they, as they believe, will get to sit in a celestial choir singing to drown out the screams of the suffering in Hell, and on their breaks will have the privilege of looking down and chuckling at their well-deserved torment. Anyone who crows about a “laaake of FIIRRRRRRRE” and loves the Jesus of death and damnation is a psychopathic creep in my book, and I want nothing to do with them.

So why do my cruel, cruel readers send me pictures like this? They know I have to watch my blood pressure!

They call it “Family Radio”. It’s some obsessed fundamentalist lunatics taking joy in their predicted annihilation of everyone else. Yes, they predict the world will end on 21 May 2011. I hope they divest themselves of worldly goods and find themselves broke and shivering and homeless on 22 May; I hope the authorities take their poor deprived abused children away from them and give them a decent life, free of the poisonous religion of their parents.

At the very least, I hope an auto body shop is looking forward to charging them for the van repainting job that will have to be done on the 22nd.

I almost wish that Harold Camping’s hell were real, so he could rot in it.

By the way, that van? It was parked in a VA Hospital lot, outside a clinic that specializes in patients with mental illness. That’s all they need, these vile parasites to prey on their wounded minds.

Here’s a little chat with the president of the Montana tea party, Tim Ravndal:

Dennis Scranton: “I think fruits are decorative. Hang up where they can be seen and appreciated. Call Wyoming for display instructions.”

Tim Ravndal: “@Kieth, OOPS I forgot this aint(sic) America no more! @ Dennis, Where can I get that Wyoming printed instruction manual?”

Ravndal has since been ousted. Don’t joke about murdering gays where the liberals might notice!

At least we can dismiss her latest fluff in the first sentence:

Is physical science – as some people say – omnicompetent? Can it (that is) answer all possible questions?

“As some people say” is one of the more perniciously lazy phrases in the English language. And setting up a straw man as the starting premise of an article is not encouraging. The answer to both is no. We don’t know all possible questions, and science is just a tool. A very successful tool, but one with no alternative in sight (and Midgley certainly offers none).

To be fair, Midgley goes on to chatter about some very unfortunate hyperbole from Nicholas Humphrey, who seems to think we’re close to solving all of science’s questions, which is also an extraordinarily silly statement to make. But I can safely say that her questions are still ridiculous.