You know, when you stop to think about it, this strip really isn’t that funny — it’s cutting a little too close to the truth. Ladies of the readership, you may vent your frustration here.
George Carlin is showing signs of his age, but he’s still sharp.
This one was in a London pub…the jealousy, it burns.
Remember Sally Kern, the Oklahoma legislator caught on tape babbling about the gay conspiracy? It’s worse than it sounded: it seems Kern has a gay son who she has essentially deleted from her public life.
And these are the people who claim ownership of the word “family”…
Here’s something even worse than the self-destruction of her own family: Kerns is the sponsor of Oklahoma House Bill 2211, the “Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act”. You can tell from the title what it is: a bill that would privilege religious opinions over scientific information in public school classrooms. The story is all over the Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education page, as you might guess. The bad news is that the HB 2211 has passed in the House and is on its way to the Oklahoma senate, where we’d better hope it gets shot down. Here’s what it does:
The bill requires public schools to guarantee students the right to express their religious viewpoints in a public forum, in class, in homework and in other ways without being penalized. If a student’s religious beliefs were in conflict with scientific theory, and the student chose to express those beliefs rather than explain the theory in response to an exam question, the student’s incorrect response would be deemed satisfactory, according to this bill.
The school would be required to reward the student with a good grade, or be considered in violation of the law. Even simple, factual information such as the age of the earth (4.65 billion years) would be subject to the student’s belief, and if the student answered 6,000 years based on his or her religious belief, the school would have to credit it as correct. Science education becomes absurd under such a situation.
Oklahomans, call or write your state senators NOW.
Somebody please restore my faith in humanity and reassure me that Christvertising is satire.
That’s the sentiment Terry of Rapture Ready expressed. Don’t believe me? Here’s the direct quote:
There are two important statistics to note:
1. Each month about 160,000 people visit Rapture Ready.
2. Every year, the mortality rate claims around 1 percent of the population.Internet usage by the elderly is somewhat lower than that of the general population, but it still means that hundreds of you people who are reading this right now will not be here the same time next year.
For you folks who become part of the mortality figures in the coming days, I commission you with the same task: When you meet the King of Kings, please ask Him to pour His grace and guidance on this web ministry.
You unsaved folks who happen to be reading this article and think it is total nonsense, you are pure gold to this cause. Once you meet your unfortunate end, you’ll cry out 10 times louder from bowels of hell than a saved person who might be distracted by the glories of heaven.
Charming, eh? That isn’t the worst of it. He wrote this missive after his mother’s death a few weeks ago. Before she died, he asked her to go tell Jesus to send more traffic to his website.
Seriously.
I have a mission for all of my readers here on Pharyngula, too. I want you to stay alive. You don’t have to continue reading this site, unless you really want to; traffic is not that important. But if, as you are going about your daily life, you happen to meet someone who thinks Rapture Ready is a wonderful resource, I want you to be sure and tell them that they are a demented fuckwit. Just for me.
The critics of atheism seem, without exception, to be lacking in imagination. Over and over again, what we hear from them is desperate attempts to pigeonhole atheism as just another religion; they squat uncomprehendingly in their hovels built of faith and peer quizzically at the godless, seeking correspondence with their familiar theological nonsense, and crow in triumph when they find something that they can sort of line up with their experiences. “They want more people to think rationally — why, that’s evangelism!” Never mind that you could, with the same legitimacy, argue that when one person mentions to another that it is raining, they are attempting to evangelize their precipitational worldview. “They are so damned sure that they are right — they’re fundamentalists!” Jebus, but I’m tired of that “fundamentalism” claim: it’s the surest sign that you’re dealing with a clueless, dissembling, frightened apologist for religion when they start flinging the “fundie” accusation at atheists. And yes, it is exactly like accusing the fellow who walks through the door in a wet raincoat, to the sound of raindrops pattering on the roof and the occasional distant boom of thunder, of being a fundamentalist rainist because he can show you the deluge.
The latest entry in the dead-eyed zombie moan category of the standard atheism-is-a-cult criticism is John Gray’s complaints about “the atheist delusion”. There is no thought, no creativity in it; it’s simply another tedious retread. By finding a few opportunities to stretch the meanings of words, he wedges atheism and religion into a forced propinquity; then he tells us how awful, wretched and wicked this amalgamated godless religion is; and then, of course, he complains that atheists dare to find religion unpleasant, never mind that his entire critique depends entirely on labeling atheism a religion. I swear, sometimes I think it’s the defenders of the faith who have the lowest opinion of religion, since they all seem to believe that all they need to do is tag anything with the label of “religion” or “belief” and presto, they’ve killed all of its credibility.
Well, I’m facing the consequences of my little fall yesterday — all day and night yesterday I could feel every little muscle in my back slowly knotting up in protest at the unkind treatment they have received. On top of that, I really have to finish my Seed column today (And I will! I am determined! It Shall Be Done!), and I have to spend some time working with the humane society this afternoon, which means I am tired, cranky, and under pressure … so go read these carnivals for a while, or talk about something else. I’m either going to stew for a while and explode in an ornery rant about something, or I’m going to soothe myself with some cool science (I’ve been reading up on an interesting phylum I knew nothing about before, and I’m also itching to write that up), or maybe both. Until I erupt again, entertain yourself with these:
Also the Tangled Bank is coming to Tangled Up in Blue Guy on Wednesday, 19 March. Send those links in to me or [email protected] soon!
