You’ve been on the edge of your seat, waiting for the question

Ray Comfort’s new “movie”, The Atheist Delusion, is available for download today. It’s another of his ambush interview shows, where he and his handheld camera go to random people on the street, he asks a loaded question of some sort, and then he pretends to have stunned them with some deep insight, aided by selective editing of the video. It’s cheesy and dishonest, and really boring — it’s the same way he’s made his previous schlocky messes.

This time, he’s been promoting it for months with this kind of promise:

kirkcameron

ATHEISM DESTROYED WITH ONE SCIENTIFIC QUESTION. Right. Like ol’ Ray would recognize science if it were a miniaturized complex electronic device that he could hold in his hand and then use to edit and upload video images to a larger network of computers accessible to the entire world, or something.

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I’m just going to call him the Amazing Racist from now on

He’s done it again. The Amazing Atheist is very upset that people are calling him a racist because he says racist things, so he’s made a video in which he demands that everyone stop calling him a mean name. His argument for why calling him a racist is unjust is basically that he claims everything he said was true…but then, that’s what every racist says about their arguments.

He claims there are two main reasons people accuse him of racism, and then proceeds to make the same old racist arguments with greater vehemence, like that will persuade. The two things he tries to defend are:

  • He’s pro-gentrification. He argues that it improves neighborhoods, and that is a good thing, which is true. The problem, though, is that it does so in a way that does not benefit the people in those neighborhoods. He even acknowledges that gentrification displaces people: he argues that it makes no difference, they’re living in a “shithole” and they’ll just move to a different “shithole”. Treating black people as a fungible mass is racism. You don’t deny that you’re racist by ignoring systemic effects of historical oppression and acting as if current oppression is no big deal.

  • He claims that black culture is a victim culture, and boy, does he ever hate victim culture. Feminism is also a victim culture, don’t you know. Apparently, victim culture is whenever a group or person that has been targeted for victimization actually speaks up and complains about the problem, says the atheist complaining loudly that he’s being victimized by SJWs.

Martin Hughes notices the irony.

Here’s the point I want to make absolutely clear. I don’t particularly care whether you label The Amazing Atheist a racist or not. What I’d like to say is that when The Amazing Atheist talks about race, he simply does not know what he’s talking about, and a lot of his fan base doesn’t, either. He’s an ignorant asshole.

And either one of those things is fine. I like ignorant people who will admit that they are ignorant, and I can stand assholes who actually have the intelligence and knowledge to logically back up their condescending tone. But the two of them together is as annoying as nails on a chalkboard.

And this combined with the fact that he is a hypocritical crybaby is grating. I can stand crybabies. Just be consistent about it. But the crybabies who go out of their way to label other people victim cults for hurting their feelings…and hypocritically sets up a victim cult of hundreds of thousands that caters to their every sniffle…. I’m sorry. I don’t get that.

I also don’t get that the Amazing Racist has never really said anything compelling or interesting about atheism, but has become popular by raging against feminism and minorities, neither criticisms that are particularly well-supported by atheism (and many of us would argue that they are antithetical to the humanist implications of godlessness), yet he sets himself up as a prominent, representative atheist.

Cancer is old, news at 11

In a mildly interesting discovery, a toe bone from a 1.7 million year old hominin has been found to bear an osteosarcoma. The poor individual would have been suffering with pain when they walked, it might even have killed him (not the toe, but the possibility of metastatic cancer) and it’s suggestive that there might have been some social care for them.

hominin-cancer-bone

But you know what’s not interesting at all? That cancer has been around for millions of years. That’s old news.

The precise origins of cancer have been a source of debate due, in part, to the scarcity of historical evidence. Possibly the earliest reference to the disease is attributed to the great Egyptian physician Imhotep, who lived around 2600 B.C. In his writings, Imhotep describes an affliction characterized by a “bulging mass in the breast” that was resistant to any known therapies.

Errm, Dogs get cancer. Mice get cancer. Whales get cancer. Reptiles get cancer. Sharks get cancer, despite myths you may have heard. Insects get cancer.

That an old mammal got cancer is not surprising at all. And while the subtitle might claim that the observation “could have important implications for modern medical research”, the article doesn’t say what those implications are. It can’t, because there aren’t any.

I just find myself annoyed that here is a thought-provoking but ultimately anecdotal datum that humanizes our distant ancestors and might have some implications for the history of human social behavior, but it’s getting shoe-horned into the trite and pragmatically false paradigm that it’s a discovery that could lead to the Cure for Cancer. Stop the hype, please.

Could someone tell Bill O’Reilly the first rule of holes?

He’s doubling down on his slavery remarks.

BillSgFox

He’s also freaking out with paranoia. He invited a couple of his odious pals — Geraldo Rivera and Eric Bolling — to whine at each other in their very own little safe space (on Fox News!) about how persecuted they are by liberals who want them dead.

I don’t want them dead. I’d be content if they were fired for incompetence and I never heard from them again.

What’s also annoying is that they keep patting O’Reilly on the back and telling him he’s a “historian”. He’s not. He’s a hack who has a ghost-writer churning out conspiracy theory books that he slaps his name on. I like this comment: “History isn’t just a word, it’s a discipline“. O’Reilly isn’t qualified to use it.

If he were a historian, he’d know that Abigail Adams wrote about the slaves building Washington DC.

it is true Republicanism that drive the Slaves half fed, and destitute of clothing…whilst the owner waches about Idle, tho his one Slave is all the property he can boast, Such is the case of many of the inhabitants of this place.

Not much has changed, I guess.

I also rather like this paraphrase of O’Reilly’s claim.

Never forget: they were slaves, with all the deserved horror that word evokes. Americans stole people’s freedom and dignity and used them for profit.

Which is also a nice summary of modern Republicanism.

Resign, Bill.

A numerical reminder

I just saw this, and it’s important to keep in mind.

rethugs

I know some people are unhappy that they didn’t get the presidential candidate they wanted, and have declared that they will never vote for Hillary Clinton.

Fine.

Refocus.

You aren’t going to get Bernie Sanders this time around. You aren’t going to get Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, either. But if you could work to shift the balance in those lower level offices, you can make a difference.

A tree poll!

I mentioned that one of the dignified trees in our yard was marked for death — we got the detailed diagnosis. It’s Dutch Elm disease. We have some guys coming by on Monday to hack it to death and haul away its dismembered limbs.

But it’s not all sad and grisly news. We’ve also talked to the city, and they’ve given us their list of trees to be planted around town this fall (the number is how many of each they have on hand), and we can get on the list and name a preference.

10) Accolade Elm
10) Acer Sienna Maple
5) Hackberry
5) Deborah Maple
5) Thornless Hawthorn
10) Cathedral Elm
5) Ivory Silk Japanese Tree Lilac
10) Siouxland Poplar
5) Ironwood
5) Bur Oak
10) Northern Acclaim Locust
5) Silver Maple
5) Willow Weeping

We’re going to do some research ourselves, but I thought I’d be lazy and ask all of you readers — which ones do you like and why?