At one of my talks this weekend, I was asked if there was a list of secular charities somewhere…and alas, I didn’t have one off the top of my head. Now I have one: Techskeptic’s Data Daily: Atheist Charities. Give!
This must be why he used a flood, last time.
For the first time ever, my talk at UCF actually had protestors. Here’s photographic evidence:
They were just lining the sidewalk at the entrance to the hall where I spoke, silently playing with their rosary beads. We invited them in, but none bothered — they quietly disappeared sometime around the time it started. We also had a couple of security guards sitting in the back of the room, whether to make sure the rowdy atheists didn’t do something evil or to protect us from the fierce horde of prayerful Catholics, I don’t know.
I’m flattered. Thank you, devout true believers of Florida — you made me feel so special.
Cynthia Dunbar has written a book. It’s typical wingnut nonsense: it “refers to public education as ‘a subtly deceptive tool of perversion’ and calls the establishment of public schools unconstitutional and ‘tyrannical.’” It goes further and says that…
…she believes public schools are unconstitutional because they undermine the scriptural authority of families to direct their children’s education. Her own children have been privately educated and home-schooled.
Typical and unsurprising so far. It’s a shame that she’s abusing the intellectual development of her own children, but unfortunately, she has that right. At least she’s not harming other kids…uh, wait a moment.
Cynthia Dunbar is on the Texas State Board of Education.
Dunbar has served as the state board’s District 10 representative since 2006. Her district covers 16 counties in Southeast Texas, including half of Travis County. She is a member of the board’s instruction committee, which oversees curriculum and graduation requirements, student assessment programs, library standards, and the selection of textbooks.
America’s method of governing public education is severely broken when a kook and hater of public schools like this can be one of the top administrators of educational policy in one of the largest public school systems we have. And that she is evaluating textbooks and curriculum…I am appalled.
The Texas Freedom Network is on the case. I think we need something deeper than just booting this destructive lunatic off the board of education, though — we need sweeping structural change all across the country so that the only people put in charge of schools are those who have an interest in making them better. Do you think a corporation, for instance, would succeed if it promoted people to positions of power who openly admitted that all they wanted to do was destroy the company from within?
It must be the season. The godless are popping up all over.
Strange Doctrines is back after a hiatus. I suspect he was off in mystic Tibet studying the rituals of Dormammu.
Go say hello to the Hooping Humanist. He’s even got a picture of me!
I don’t know if we want to encourage this: atheists are also busting out in song. The Midwest Humanist channels Monty Python.
You can turn your godless musical talents into fame and glory: Q Transmissions is running a musical contest. They’ve already adapted some lyrics from Miss Prism, which you can listen to. If you must.
Austin Dacey is an interesting fellow who has written a book on the non-religious basis of morality, The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), and he is going to be on Atheists Talk radio this morning at 9am Central time. He’ll be talking specifically about the Islamic threat to secular government. Tune in! I suspect he’ll have something to say about the UN resolution to condemn defamation of religions, but if he doesn’t, call in and ask. This is another day of traveling for me, so I’m going to have to miss it, but you probably don’t have that excuse — and if you do have an excuse, do like I will and get the podcast later.
Yeah, I get odd threats. Apparently, I can now expect every Christian in the country to now inundate my university with mail accusing me of Marxism and telling us that evolution is dead. It’s kind of a threat; if it happens, then I’ll post Bonnie’s full headers and we can wage a little internet war. I suspect, though, this will be nothing but a damp squib from an ignorant kook with delusions of competence.
Professor P.T. Myers
Dr. PZ Myers
Division of Science and Mathematics
600 E 4th Avenue
University of Minnesota, Morris
Morris, MN 56267Dear Mr. Myers,
I am writing to you concerning the email campaign you instigated against the Creation Museum and the Cincinnati Zoo and your personal vendetta against Mr. Hamm.
I don’t know what your ultimate agenda is in propagating a writing campaign to a Zoo in a state you don’t live in and your taxes don’t support, but your ignorance is apparent. How someone so intolerant and closed minded could possibly be considered educated is beyond my comprehension. What scares me more is that people like you are teaching our children. You don’t teach science. You indoctrinate with propaganda. Darwin has about as much evidence proving natural selection as you have in proving there is no God.
You are quite free to believe what you want to believe, but unless Hitler was your mentor, you should know that you have NO RIGHT to interfere with other organizations or businesses that want to colaborate just because you disagree with their arguement. This only proves your hatred of people of faith. What are you afraid of?
It is teachers like you that have exploded the growth of home schooling. It is professors like you that have encouraged the installation and growth of faith based and Christian Colleges. So for that, I guess I have people like you to thank. Thank God my children will have somewhere else to go. I don’t want them learning the fairy tale of evolution, I want them to be free to investigate ALL available arguments. All of them. I mean, the theory of evolution is all you have? Seriously? Science isn’t in the box, professor. You can’t prove evolution and you can’t prove creation. No one can. So why can’t we talk about both? We rehash the same dead, unproven, broken theory when there are so many other questions out there to be asked, researched and experimented with? That sir, is intolerance. That is bigotry. That is ignorance.
I don’t think the Cincinatti Zoo will be thanking you. As a result of your hatred and intolerance toward anyone that says “bless you”, The Cincinatti Zoo has lost a very valuable partner,and a lot of visitors to their website.
I would like to point out to you, Mr. Myers, that you are not the only one who runs a blog,and you are not the only one who can write.
I may not be a professor, but I know how to write a press release and I know how to advertise. That’s my business. So here’s what I will do for you.
Let’s see how your school handles an email blitz from Christians (which I will point out to you sir, comprises of approximately 97% of the population of the United States). I am suddenly motivated to hit every one of my news sources and let them know how marxist you are. I want every parent in this country to know exactly what dangers their kids face, risking having you as a professor in that school. I want them all to know that it’s not good enough to indoctrinate just the students in your lecture hall. You want to make sure NO ONE gets exposure to any possible answers.
I want all those Christian families to think twice before ever considering sending their kids to University of Minnesota . . . and don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get plenty of credit for their decision. Email campaigns can work both ways professor. Oh, I know your school is not the only culprit and you’re not the only marxist professor teaching in our colleges. However, we can start with this one.
Evolution is a failed hypothesis. It cannot even be scientifically tested. You know it, and most of your radical scientists know it. And this kind of attack from you is just evident of the death throes of the false theory of evolution. Much like the snake trying to get one last bite as you cut off it’s head, it knows it’s dying . . . it knows it’s not going to win, but it’s going to try like hell to do as much damage as it can before it dies. Real scientific, doc. Darwin is your god. We have proof that he is dead. Mine is not. You have no proof that he doesn’t exist. You won’t let anyone try to prove it, which I guess answers what you are afraid of. Let the kids discuss it professor. What are you afraid ot? Research is the mother of discovery.
Ninety-seven percent are Christian in this country, professor, think about that. It’s a well known statistic. . . I know state taxes don’t pay ALL your school’s bills.
You can post this on your blog, you can laugh or throw it away, delete it . . . I don’t care. It is of no consequence to me. I just wanted to let you know how I feel and what I’m about to embark on. Because marxists are not the only ones afforded freedom of speech and freedom to inquire in this country. If freedom to bully others is an ammedment I haven’t heard of yet, then I guess we both share that right as well.
I hope this doesn’t offend you, but I end most of my letters this way . . . God Bless you. You are the one who needs it.
Respectfully,
Bonnie Cox
People are responding to my request to avoid stealing or damaging nativity scenes with the suggestion that adding to a nativity scene ought to be ok. Maybe so; note this fine Catalonian tradition and examples of reverent statuary that belong in your local religious display.
A columnist for the Cincinnati Enquirer is quite irate about the fact that we squelched the zoo/creation museum deal. If you read his article, you’ll discover a theme.
The live Nativity at the Creation Museum will have an actual, living, cud-chewing camel. Frightening.
There will also be goats and sheep. Terrifying.
Cuddly lambs might seem harmless to the average visitor, but some people are scared witless by the possibility that some innocent, devout secularist could accidentally wander onto the grounds of the Creation Museum and get exposed to radioactive Christianity or other dangerous ideas that should be outlawed.
The writer, Peter Bronson, hammers on this idea over and over — that scientists are afraid of creationists. By imputing a false motive to our actions, he goes farther and farther astray into never-never land, building up this astonishingly elaborate house of cards.
He does get one part halfway correct, though. He quotes another article on the Enquirer:
“Asking me to ‘tolerate’ this kind of worldview is akin to asking me to ‘tolerate’ illiteracy. Both are problems of education and intelligence. Creationist thought is … naïve, it is anti-intellectual, and it harkens back to pre-enlightenment thinking. I don’t have any tolerance for that.”
Got that? Creationists are stupid, illiterate, naïve and backward.
Naïve and backward is quite correct; they are promoting bad old ideas that have long been disproven. I do not think creationists are stupid — creationism is a deficit that you can overcome — and most are literate to some degree. If only Mr Bronson actually understood what he wrote, because it explains so much more than his “fear” thesis. We react as we do to the proposals of creationists because they are wrong. We aren’t afraid of such absurdities at all, it’s more of an intellectual commitment to addressing falsehoods.
Once again, though, the creationists have caught me brandishing my cyber pistol.
“It’s a little sad that the zoo would cave in to a cyber war,” Ham said. He believes most of the protests came from people who don’t live anywhere near Cincinnati – instigated by P.Z. Myers of Minnesota, a “godless liberal” blogger-atheist who has made a hobby of spiteful attacks on Christians, Christmas and the Creation Museum.
“They’re the ones who are being intolerant,” Ham said. “We’re not afraid of creationists going to the Zoo and seeing their messages about evolution. People have to stand on their own beliefs. It’s not up to us to say you can’t go to this place or that place.
And a fine, entertaining hobby it is, too.
And they make it so easy when they mischaracterize everything so grossly. Did anyone say people can’t go to the Creation Museum? Did anyone block the ability of the Creation Museum to sell tickets? Is anyone afraid of the Big Dumb Ham? Why, no. All that happened is that they were told they can’t borrow the good name of a legitimate educational and scientific institution when they are shilling for their museum. That’s it.
It makes me wonder: If the science is so unshakeable, what are they afraid of? Why wouldn’t they welcome a debate? Why not encourage open-minded exploration? Isn’t that what scientific inquiry is all about?
Again, abandon that premise. We are not afraid. The real issue is that this is a settled scientific question, long resolved and with growing evidential support, and there is little point in continuing the discussion.
Anyone who has had kids knows this situation: when they discover the word “why”, they learn that it is a tool for starting an unending conversation. Give ’em an answer, and they just say “why” again; explain that, and it’s “why” again; the game keeps going until the adult gives up in exasperation. We all know that the kid is not trying to think or get a complete answer — he just wants attention. We can answer for a while with patience, but at some point we have to stop and insist that the child exhibit a little more honest curiousity to trigger more answers.
Creationists passed the point of honest inquiry long ago. I would suggest to Mr Bronson that he go through his little essay and try replacing every instance of the word “afraid” with “exasperated” and he might see his way through to a little more truth.
Or maybe not. The rest of his essay reveals that honesty is not a word he’s interested in.
The obvious adult answer to the protesters is simple: If you don’t like it, don’t go. Buy your ticket to the zoo and enjoy the Festival of Lights. Your experience will not be contaminated by the opportunity to see the Creation Museum’s live Nativity. There is no proven scientific risk of catching contagious Christianity from merely touching a ticket.
But it seems like the only thing Americans have really perfected in the past 30 years is the art of being mortally offended by ridiculous trivialities. So here we go again. Some insecure secularists get scared by ideas they fear, and off we go – another brick wall of political correctness must be built to shield feeble minds from taboo thoughts and theories.
I suppose next they will try to ban Santa Claus because all that stuff about reindeer pulling his sleigh pulled across the sky has not been peer-reviewed in a scientific journal.
Christ would probably be outlawed too by the Secular Police, but his name’s on the holiday.
I repeat: nobody said you can’t go to the Creation Museum. Nobody is worried that you’ll catch Christianity from a poorly done pseudo-museum. Nobody is threatening to ban Santa Claus or Christianity, either. But these baseless accusations are just so useful to inflame the martyr gland of the poor Christian majority. I have to feel sorry for them — their sense of self-worth seems to reside in a belief that they are persecuted for their beliefs, and it’s just so hard to maintain when you’re a dominant majority trying to force-feed religious absurdities on people with educations.
