Europe Against Fundies

Of course Europe isn’t against novelty pants – but it made you look. didn’t it? Actually, the Council of Europe is directly challenging creeping creationism:

Reuters:

PARIS Council of Europe to vote on creationism next week

(Reuters) – Europe’s main human rights body will vote next week on a resolution opposing the teaching of creationist and intelligent design views in school science classes.

The Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly will debate a resolution saying attacks on the theory of evolution were rooted “in forms of religious extremism” and amounted to a dangerous assault on science and human rights.

The resolution, on the agenda for October 4, says European schools should “resist presentation of creationist ideas in any discipline other than religion.” It describes the “intelligent design” argument as an updated version of creationism.

Anne Brasseur, an Assembly member from Luxembourg who updated an earlier draft resolution, said the vote was due in June but was postponed because some members felt the original text amounted to an attack on religious belief.

Only minor changes have been made to the initial draft.

You can contact your MEP to voice your support for the resolution here.

Klaatu Barada Nikto?

Oh, ffs, what now, dammit? Haven’t we got enough to be going on with?

The meteorite crater in Carancas, Peru

On top of everything else – you know, the usual tedium, war, disaster, death and pestilence – have aliens invaded too? It’d be bloody typical.

The Peruvian authorities are warning people not to visit the site of a suspected meteorite strike in a remote area of the Andes after 600 people succumbed to “headaches, vomiting and nausea” caused by inhaling gas at the scene.

According to the BBC, the impact occurred on Saturday night near Carancas in the Puno region, around 800 miles (1,300km) south of Lima. Locals reported “a fireball in the sky coming towards them” and the subsequent falling to earth left a 98ft (30m) wide by 20ft (6m) deep crater.

The sizeable dent then began to emit “fetid, noxious gases” which seriously affected curious sightseers. Local resident Heber Mamani told the Beeb: “It [the suspected meteorite] is buried in the earth. That is why we are asking for an analysis because we are worried for our people. They are afraid. A bull is dead and some other animals are already sick.”

The government has accordingly dispatched a team of scientists to Carancas to investigate. Geologist Honorio Campoblanco “discarded the possibility that the symptoms would have been caused by any form of radiation”, but urged the powers that be to prevent people getting too close to the sickness-inducing pit. ®

I don’t know what the actual story behind this is – it’s not known where the gas is coming from though it might well have something to do with heightened geological activity in Peru following the recent huge earthquake. It might not too. That’s what’s so weird and interesting about these stories.

But if it were an alien invasion, I’d blame religion, or what passes for religion in certain circles.

No doubt there are some Heaven’s Gate wannabes who worship Vogons or something who’re convinced that it’s the pilot ship of a galactic fleet that’s coming back from the future to rescue America and who’ve already sent a greeting party down to Peru.

The Scientologists, for example, have been trying to attract aliens for years.

The fundies, as you’d expect, are already declaring it to be yet another sign of the impending End of Days. Even I have to admit to secretly hoping that if it is aliens it’s an invasion of super-intelligent space squid.

It would explain so much.

Oy. Sometimes we humans’re so stupid and gullible we deserve everything that’s thrown at us.

Comment of The Day: Praise Reality and Pass The Ammunition

PZ Myers has written a cracking polemic suggesting, in short, that we atheists should all become a lot more aggressive in attacking the root of religion, unreason.

Go read it, it’ll give you a little Monday morning backbone to face another week of dumbassed people. It prompted Jim Heber to comment:

When I am tempted to become mesmerized by the brainpower spent on erecting the magnificent edifice that is theology, I remind myself that a lot of smart people can speak Klingon.

They even wrote dictionaries about it.

But you know, it’s still made up!

Just because a subject has lots of information written about it and just because it’s internally consistent doesn’t mean it’s real, or true.

Posted by: Jeff Hebert | September 17, 2007 1:43 AM

That one’s going right into my own personal anti-unreason armoury.

Once A Conman…

A brilliant bit of blogging here from Dan Savage, who’s found disgraced “pastor’ Ted Haggard up to his old deceitful tricks trying to bilk the public:

[…]

…the man who heads up the defunct charity Families With a Mission—the charity that’s going to take a 10% cut from all “tax deductible” donations to the Haggard family—would appear to be a registered sex offender.

Scratch any given fundy, find a crook.

Wife Wanted: Don’t All Rush At Once

The godly wife

I’m sure we’ll all envy the the lucky lady who bags this catch, girls. She’s in for a real treat. From the blog formerly known as Baptists for Brownback:

Single White Republican Christian Male

I am a single White Christian Republican Male- Straight and 6?4. I am a born again Christian Republican Baptist and jolly good looking if God will permit me the small sin of vanity. I am looking for the White Christian Republican Woman of my dreams.

Aren’t we all?

Hey, I hear Ann Coulter’s still single, I can’t imagine why. A possibility, d’you think? She has the ‘white’ part down pat.

A man has too many things to contend with and needs the most perfect woman to compliment his life.

Oh I know, the poor loves, how they suffer. All that shoe-lace tying, laying down the law and bum-wiping, it taxes the mind and the soul in the worst way.

I have been seeking this perfect woman since the harlot I was with decided she needed more and looked around whilst I was working. Her need for company (a penis) stronger than her need for loyalty and devotion. Well one is best rid of something like that anyway, aren’t they? I looked in the Catholic ranks for such a woman and found that most were fat with smallish moustaches and seemed to favour black and waving their arms around a fair bit. They certainly seemed to love children and had armies of the scruffy little urchins around them…all of them sporting miniature moustaches and fat little pot bellies. The total black look did look serious but frankly the moustaches and obesity turned me off.

That lets Tom Friedman out, godly conservative though he be. Poor Tom, he’ll be shattered. He’s been practicing his foot tapping and wide stance especially. But all is nopt yet lost…

Next I wandered over to the Mormon camp…They did not drink, smoke or otherwise engage in poor habits ( a plus in a limited world of pluses for Mormonism) . I chatted up a few likely candidates who looked clean and shiny…teeth white and lustrous hair pull back into bouncy pony tails. Their neat dresses starched and white and smelling like fresh air and sunlight. A man, could be easily swayed by such walking candidates for Christ. That is: until they opened their mouths.

Why? Do Mormon girls have their larynxes altered so as to sound like holy corncrakes or do they just have a horrible accent?

“I gotta marry a prophet and an’ ah cain’t stend ‘im…”

But no, it’s not that, it’s much, much more serious:

Yes those sweet lips with the whitest white of teeth just heartbreakingly close enough to steal a kiss…were talking about some bloke called Joseph Smith and how he found tablets that were from the Lord Thy God and now conveniently lost for all time. Their tiny white hands, from years of White breeding with White…the tiniest of blue veins visible…were elaborately used to punctuate the foul non God and his non angel moron(i).

“Their tiny white hands, from years of White breeding with White…the tiniest of blue veins visible…” Go on, say what you really mean.

Mormons are vampires, aren’t they?

Heartbreakingly attractive and yet condemned just as their foul cult is [see – vampires, like I said: P] I was so tempted to ignore their stain of sin but in the end God just said “No”…and I turned away from these sinful temptations.

Why didn’t he stake them then, the fool? Now we’re all going to get bitten by bloodsucking satanic hellspawn and it’s all his fault…

Who would have thought it would have been so hard to find a worthy vessel to carry my seed? Sometimes the ladies I met had all the right values…were pro life and seemed deeply committed and the moment I thought maybe she was the one, she would turn around and ask me for a light for her cigarette? One of the Catholics would no doubt ask me to borrow my razor had things progressed. The Jehovah Witness girls laden down with blue and green books had arms like caber tossers and preened about smugly believing that she would be one of the reputed 144,000. The Buddhist girls reeked of incense and patchouli and most of them looked like they were cultivating small tropical rain forests under their arms and bragged of lesbian encounters. They had more armpit hair than hair on their heads and perhaps in a few case, self immolation might have been advised.

He says that like he thinks religion is a bad thing.

The days went by and the list of candidates grew slimmer. Unitarian girls with big frizzy hair and buck teeth prancing about claiming God’s love of everything and the stunned look on their insipid brainwashed faces when I told them, that just wasn’t true!

Of course not, how silly! Lordy, everyone knows God hates liberals.

Jewish girls with shrill screeching voices, loud and obnoxious flaunting sexuality as though it were a virtue. Their dark secret plans fully laid out for the Sabbath weekends with Goy boyfriends who have money and fat mama’s at home wringing hands at the shame this would bring.

Oy, such a mensch! He’s looking more atrractive all the time. I simply can’t believe he hasn’t been snapped up yet.

Plain, run of the mill flat chested protestant girls with bitter dour dispositions to match…Surely these women must know that a man needs a warm smile…a pleasingly soft generous body to yield to him. Surely some of these tight screwed calculating females understand a man needs a gentle welcoming face? I scratched those off the list as well.

Poor loves, they must be devastated. How will they ever recover from knowing they’re so horribly unattractive?

Pagans, militants, feminists and anyone with ginger coloured hair. Not worthy to be in the same room as me let alone a matrimony bed waiting for my precious seed.

Damn, I’m out of the running? So soon? My red-headed militant feminist heart is broken.

[…]

Are you out there?

Respond here please…a photograph will be sent on request. Yours in Christ.

Curiously enough for such an equal opportunity bigot, our ardent young swain doesn’t mention nationality, thus leaving the door open for a nice Orthodox babushka-in-embryo looking for a godly spouse. He’d better prepare for the inevitable stampede; I hear those poor bereft Eastern European ladies just love them some arrogant provincial yank.

But there’s a mystery here. Who is our lost lonelyheart?

Is it the stunningly handsome Brother Billybob Neck? Is it the mature, debonair, yet devout Brother Yancy, he of the distinguished, greying temples? Or could it be (be still, my beating heart) the Prophet himself, CC Davis II?

Surely not: a prophet would never play around on his girlfriend. Would he?

As a heterosexual I enjoy spending time with my lady friend, Karen, who I have known since Jr. high school. Sorry, Ladies, I am not looking for a romantic encounter. Friends from both genders are always welcome.

But wait – could Karen be that harlot that our hero mentioned? If so it’s lucky that the author had his very best friend to er… comfort him in his heartbreak.

I enjoy working out in the gym, wrestling, and broadway shows. I own a Interior Design firm with my best friend, Gary, who I met in college

Like David and Jonathan, obviously – one’s male friends are so important to the mission of the Godly man, as many respected senators will personally attest.

Nothing, but nothing says good, solid husband material like close, patently platonic male friendships, a love of musicals and a talent for co-ordinating furniture fabrics. What woman could ask for more?

So ladies, get your applications in now, before he’s snapped up like a dozen hot donuts by a hungry undercover men’s lavatory cop at 4am. Oh, how I wish I could apply for myself, but of course I am damned by my unfortunate genetic heritage and helotry.

My heart is broken. I may never get over this mortal blow.