The Rapture is now on for Oct. 21st. How many times does one have to fail completely and utterly before they understand they are wrong?

Apparently never, I guess. Remember Harold Camping, the lunatic fundamentalist who convinced a lot of True Believers that Judgment Day was going to occur last May 21st? A large number of truly deluded and easily lead people got rid of all their possessions in order to be ready to ascend to Heaven when the Rapture occurred.

Of course, Camping got it wrong, in that said event never happened.

Well, now he is back and is now completely confident that the Rapture will occur on Oct. 21st. That whole May 21st thing? That was just the last-ditch date for everyone to get their respective houses in order. Oct. 21st is when the Hammer is going to fall. Jesus is really upset with everyone who isn’t a True Believer, and is going to met out the appropriate punishment for our wicked ways.

That is apparently how Camping sees it. Given what a complete and utter lunatic he looked like on May 22nd, I can’t imagine this guy even showing himself in public anymore, much less making yet another prediction that will be shown to be exactly what it is, total horseshit, on Oct. 23rd.

What is it with the human psyche that allows this kind of behavior? How can this guy believe any of this? And how could anyone listen to him and say, “Yeah, he may have been wrong last time, but boy, he is really spot-on this time! Wait until those non-believers see all those earthquakes and Jesus bringing fire and brimstone down on the world!”

I am totally convinced that perhaps a quarter of the human population of this planet is completely insane. They have lost the ability to deal with actual reality, and have retreated into a complete fantasyland just in order to survive. And then, when facts show reality to be something other than what they fantasize, they somehow find a way to rationalize it all away, just so they can maintain their fantasy that they are the only ones that understand and everyone else is in for their comeuppance.

Cross-posted at Pithy Cabbages.

Photo from the Seattle PI blog.

You know, it occurs to me that maybe the Rapture DID happen last Saturday.

It was just that when God started checking the list of who was deserving, it turned out that no one was qualified. Certainly none of these Born Again Christian politicians met the minimum standards to qualify.....

So.... He left.

My vision of how the United States, as run by the current Republican Party, would look in 30 years.

I this is something that has been playing around my mind in the past few days. I am not putting a lot of thought or research into this. This is just how I perceive the U.S. would be run if Republicans had their way, as evidenced by what they are currently saying and doing (that is an important point in my scenario).

There would not be an opposition political party. It would not be allowed. Our government system would resemble the old Soviet Union style of government, but only in form, not in content. Party loyalty would be paramount and no dissent would be allowed, even for trivial matters. All political votes would be expected to be won with 100% margin. The same goes for political elections. They would still be held, but they would be a total sham, with usually only a single candidate on the ballot. Voter suppression tactics would not really be needed anymore, because there would be a total lack of choice about the candidates.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights would still be in force, but by name only. Certain items contained in these documents that would cause an upset in the current system are either summarily ignored or else changed.

The political media would be a replica of today’s Fox News Channel. Every story, every news item, would be in support of the current administration and what a great job they are doing, or else to demean and denigrate anyone brave enough to come out and actually say anything about the system. But there would be much more coverage about the economy and business issues. This would also be a huge propaganda operation, but in support of the huge corporations of the country instead of the politicians. That distinction, however, would be getting harder to make every single day. The rich and powerful that run these corporations would also be, in essence, the puppet masters behind the curtains that told the politicians how to conduct their business. That would be a huge difference from how the old Soviet Union was run. That was power politics for the sake of being in power. The new system in place here would be in total support of the “free hand of the market.” Anything that corporations wanted to do, or didn’t want to do, would find willing supporters in our political system.

There very real stratification of our society would continue where it would reach a point that the upper class of the country would have total control over everything. The middle class would essentially be non-existent. The lower class of the country would be huge. It would be largely uneducated, as the public school system would be dismantled and anyone wanting an education could find it at private schools, but for a price. The rest of the population would resemble the rural America in the 1800’s. Education for the lower class would be at a minimum, and the jobs that would be available would be menial or backbreaking, dangerous work, because that would be all that is available. All the good jobs would be used as gifts for cronies, and the sons and daughters of cronies.

If you have the money, everything is available. If you don’t, then you are truly SOL. There would be little to no social services available. Even what are today considered to be “essential services” would be available at a price, such as health care, fire departments, and law enforcement for crimes against your person or property. This part of our society would resemble the corrupt states where money and bribes would be everything. If you want something, you would have to pay through the nose. For those with the wealth, that would mean little because it would be a drop in their bucket.

We would still continue to have a very strong military that would consume most of the available resources of the country. That would be a major way for the poor and uneducated to escape their particular hell, to join the military. The country would continue to throw our weight around the world, invading smaller countries whenever they did not bow to our sometimes very capricious will. The rest of the world would start to align against us, both economically and militarily. That would not stop us, however, because God is on our side. The United States can never be defeated.

This brings me to the subject of religion. Christianity of the most fundamentalist and militarist type would become the order of the day, and it would be fully supported by the government. If you didn’t subscribe to this particular brand of religion, you could never advance in society or your profession. Other religions, such as Judaism, would be tolerated, but only just. You would not be allowed to practice openly any religion on the “banned” list, and there would be many of those. Harassment, intimidation and physical violence by vigilantes and officers of the law against the others would be openly tolerated if not actively promoted.

The ruling class would be totally oblivious to the rapid decline of the country, of course. When it was noticed, it would be the fault of someone else; such as “old Europe”, Jewish Bankers, the lower class, or whoever the current convenient scapegoat might be that day. There would be very little manufacturing done in this country. All investment in the future will have stopped, as all profits that corporations made will be channeled into the already fat bank accounts and stock portfolios of the already obscenely rich. They will not notice that there are no customers anymore that have the resources to buy whatever products are produced. Most of the wealth of this country would be made by shuffling paper around and very complicated “financial instruments” would be used to build a house of cards upon which the very fragile remains of the economy rests.

I will not continue to what I think would be a very grim and hard landing. Such a system would not be sustainable. I could see several possible endings to such a society. It would not be pretty. Total collapse of a society never is, and one as large as ours would make it that much worse.

That is what I see when I hear how the Republicans say when they are describing their view of the country. I do not believe I am being over-imaginative here. This is what they are saying. I am fabricating totally wild hypotheses, either.

Would anyone like to discuss this?

Oh, man. And these people call themselves Christian.

From Crooks and Liars:

The contemptible American Family Association is no more Christian than Satan himself. The latest remarks from their evil leader Bryan Fischer about how Jesus would have allowed the Cranick's home to burn are just plain evil.

…

We don't know what Jesus would have done if he were in the vicinity of Gene Cranick. We don't generally send rabbis out to fight fires, after all. It's likely he probably would have called out to the crowd for someone to help the man put out the fire. But there is no example in the bible -- NONE -- where Jesus stood by and let someone suffer to teach them a lesson. Jesus suffered, but he did not bring suffering on others. He fed them. He taught them. He led them. But he did not hurt them.
Bryan Fischer's version of Christianity is not one I recognize. It feels far more like Old Testament cruelty, brought down on the poor and disenfranchised in order to consolidate power. It feels like evil.

This is a very plain example of why I think that trust and understanding between the various factions that are present in American society today is pretty much impossible. For one thing, insane people believe that they know exactly what God is thinking at any one time and therefore, having a conversation with these cretins is pretty much impossible. Logic doesn’t work. Compassion doesn’t work. Shame doesn’t work. You don’t argue with the Mind of God.

Thoughts regarding Pat Robertson.

According to Pat Robertson, God in all His Glory just killed around 50,000 Haitians because their ancestors of several generations ago made a pact with Satan (“and he said, “Okey Dokey”), so they could gain their freedom and not live as slaves anymore.

Do I have that right, Pat? God waited several hundred years to obliterate an entire city because of something their ancestors did? This is the Just and Merciful God I keep hearing you and others like you talk about? You know, based on what the Bible says about the Jews, Moses and the Pharaoh, I would have thought God would have been on the side of the slaves. You remember that, don’t you, Pat? God conjured up a number of plagues to help convince the Pharaoh to let the Jews go. Parted the Red Sea. That's really impressive and dramatic stuff. You would think that God must like helping slaves. But in the case of the Haitians, it was Satan that came to their rescue. And your God was pretty peeved about that, apparently.

I am sorry, but your God sort of sounds like a malicious Motherfucker to me. Your God apparently likes to hold grudges and punish the innocent. He will kill tens of thousands of people at the drop of a hat who probably have no idea what He might be upset about? This is your God, Pat, you sordid piece of shit? This wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Haiti is populated with black people who don’t share your extreme view of Christianity, would it? If I remember correctly, you weren’t very sympathetic after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans and it left thousands and thousands of people, who also happened to be black, homeless if they were weren’t floating face down in filthy water. Is there any connection there at all, Pat? I think at that time, you blamed Katrina on a gay pride parade held in New Orleans. Yes, that certainly makes sense. God should then wipe out the poor, mostly black section of the city because, you know, God hates fags.

Is this what you and George Bush talked about when you used to be able to just call up the sitting President of the United States of America whenever you felt like it? Did you tell George that it was O.K. to invade Iraq where thousands and thousands of non-white, non-Christian innocent civilians would die because of this invasion and the lousy job that Bush and his minions did? Is God fine with that, Pat, you sanctimonious prick?

If that is your God, Pat, then I think you should just go to Hell. You and He will get along nicely.

UPDATE: According to KO on MSNBC, the estimated death toll in Haiti is now up to 140,000. That's two football stadiums full of people, as a way of comparison.

A very angry, anonymous video blogger (with a very cute accent) takes apart Kirk Cameron.

Please check out this link. This is really funny and really good at the same time.

I didn't realize that Kirk Cameron (who was hardly on my radar anyway) is now somehow the spokesman for creationism. Watch this lady take him apart, piece by piece.

(One of these days, I am going to take the time to figure out how to download You Tube videos and embed them directly into my posts here. But, until then, just click the link. It's worthwhile.)

Some thoughts so far regarding, "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free"

That’s the name of the book I am reading. The author is Charles P. Pierce. I ran across the title somewhere during my trek through the liberal blogosphere. It sounded right up my alley, since this topic is one that I have been rather upset about for years and has been, directly or indirectly, the subject of many of the posts I have made here.

I am still working on the book, so I can’t give the complete review at this point. It starts out with a few observations about the Creationism Museum, which depicts friendly dinosaurs with saddles on them and proudly asserts that Noah took all these dinosaurs on the ark with him. (So, are dinosaurs “clean” or “unclean” animals? Because Genesis states that God commanded Noah to take two of every unclean animal, but seven of all the clean animals. That’s just one of the many contradictions in the Bible.)

Here are a few more points that have been made in the first few chapters.

• There are no experts anymore in America. Or that everyone is an expert, which is the same thing as having no experts.

• There are two valid sides to every discussion, each of which must be given serious attention, especially when it comes to the mainstream media, regardless of how idiotic one side might actually be.

• Strong belief in something makes it true. The more believers something has, the more true it becomes. Facts have little to do with anything.

• The mainstream press does not exist to report on facts and truths. They see their job as throwing stuff out there that they have been told and letting the audience decide.

• Our society has always had, and will always have, its cranks. However, where cranks used to be sort of marginalized with a very small audience, they are immeidately given credence by major book deals and being interviewed on television news shows.

• People in the U.S. today don’t really want to be informed. They want to be entertained. And, in search of higher and higher ratings, television continues to entertain us in exactly the method they believe we want to be entertained.


None of this comes as any surprise to me or should to you. I have either concluded the same things myself or have read the same points made in many of the liberals blog sites I read. But it is interesting to see the whole case put together in a single place.

I think this is the aspect of the United States that I am most upset about. Yeah, I am pretty pissed off that we have somehow normalized torture, where torturing prisoners who have yet to be proven guilty of anything is not only acceptable but required, even if those prisoners die or can’t ever be released because they would cause us a lot of trouble after being tortured. But it’s this “dumbing down” of our society that has me the most upset. I degrees in engineering and science, so it is very painful to me to somehow see unsupported, nonsensical beliefs having the same measure of validity as those conclusions reached after decades, and sometimes centuries, of scientific inquiry. It is as if many people in this country really desire to go back to the 16th century. We should toss aside all our gains that we have made as a species, just so we can satisify these crackpots.

The points made above seem to explain something that has really puzzled me in the last few years. I was completely flummoxed by the fact that Republicans and conservatives seem to celebrate ignorance. Oh, that’s not the way they put it, of course. They are more for “the common man.” Who, in my mind, just happens to be rather ignorant and usually rather proud of his or her ignorance. George Bush is a great example. Sure, many people said that he would be the person running for president that they would “most like to have a beer with.” That’s a fine conclusion as far as it goes, but I don’t need to point out that it has very little to do with that person’s qualification for the highest office in the land. Sarah Palin is another fine example of proud ignorance being elevated. “Joe the Plumber”, who is neither Joe nor a plumber, is another. How someone can be plucked from obscurity like that and, all of a sudden, become an iconic figure within the Republican Party dumfounds me to the extreme. I want my leaders and experts to actually have proven experience to show that they can be effective leaders and are knowledgable experts.

I have nothing against the so-called “American Dream”, the Horatio Alger story of the common person overcoming overwhelming odds to hit it big. But in my world, that “common man” overcomes these obstacles with hard work and wisdom. That’s what enables them to overcome everything and ultimately find success. My big example of how I think this should work is Barack Obama. I don’t know how much more of a shining example of a success story we have in today’s world. Well, Sonya Sotomayor is another pretty good example. Both of those people overcame significant societial obstacles, made it into elite schools, produced great grades and worked their way through the system to ultimately reach the highest pinnacle. That’s my concept for how the American success story should work.

On the other hand, Republicans and conservatives seem to think that all that is required is that someone hands success to you. George W. Bush was born with the greatest advantages this country can offer, like being white, rich and the son of a very famous person. He was essentially given several companies by his dad’s rich friends, which he promptly ran into the ground. If he hadn’t started where he did, there would be no way this person should ever become President of the United States. Stuff has been handed to Bush on a silver platter his entire life.

Sarah Palin is another fine example of what the Right worships these days, and this is what bothers me the most about Sarah. Like President Obama, she also came from humble beginnings. I have nothing against that. However, her achievements, such as they are, can only be described as mediocre. She stumbled through four colleges before finally getting a degree. She has bounced around every job she has had, and has, to this point, quit on every single elected position she has held. Every time she opens her mouth in an unscripted moment, and even many scripted ones, she induces cringes and embarrassment in those of us that have the slightest bit of self-awareness and who can make somewhat unbiased assessments that are not solely based on ideology. But a significantly large percentage of the people in this country still love Sarah. I am just amazed that this can be so. There are probably a few people that support her because she pisses off liberals. However, in my mind, that is not a very intelligent rationale for wanting someone to be President. There has to be something more, and I guess it is because she is seen as “one of them.” The common folk. Someone who they can relate to. Someone who they would want to have a beer with. And, of course, it doesn’t hurt she is pretty.

Before the election last year, I heard one person (who just absolutely leaked certitude so that it made small little puddles around his feet if he stood still for more than a few moments) say that he wished he could vote for Palin for president, because “she is obviously the most qualifed of the four (i.e., Obama, Biden, McCain and Palin)”. I am just absolutely astounded that any rational person who listened to Palin speak for more than about three minutes could possibly arrive at this conclusion. That is complete nonsense. But this guy was obviously somewhat successful at what he does for a living, so he can’t be an imbecile. He just obviously has very different standards than I do when judging someone. I just can’t figure out how someone can actually have those standards.

So far, the book seems to be describing this in something of a past tense, in that the country is finally recognizing its folly and is slowly pulling back from the brink. However, given what has been going on this year since Barack Obama was sworn in as President, I am not so sure. It seems like the insanity has been ratcheted up a few notches. Public figures are making some absolutely insane statements (such as Glenn Beck asserting that President Obama hates white people and is a racist), and hardly anyone besides the liberal blogs is pointing out how absolutely insane this all is. Maybe it’s the fact of a black man as President that has sent many over the edge. I don’t know. But I do know that it doesn’t appear that the insanity that drives the dialog in this country is going to subside any time soon. I find that prospect very depressing.

UPDATE: I finally finished reading this book. I had put it down for a week or so, and it quickly stretched into a month and a half. Once I picked it back up, I finished it that night.

The second half of the book definitely picks up the pace. The first half of the book is more about generalities. The second part really gets into some specific topics. It has individual chapters on the unfortunate Terri Schiavo media circus. I hadn't realized how bad that was. It certainly had some incredibly negative impacts on other people than just the Schiavo family, such as the people who worked at the hospice where Terri Schiavo was, the judge who was involved in the case, and even the elementary school down the block, which eventually had to close their doors and abandon the school because THEY were getting death threats. Insanity. There's a chapter on global climate change and the very, very real consequences one town on an island in northern Alaska. There's a chapter on the court case involving a small town in New Hampshire, the takeover of the school board there by religious zealots who tried to force the school system to teach "Intelligent Design." I had no idea about the details of that "incident" either. And, of course, no book on the stupidity of the American country would be complete without a chapter on how we got stampeded into a war in Iraq by a bunch of people who had always thought invading Iraq is a great idea, and the terrible events of 9/11 just gave them an excuse.

Unfortunately, this book just has further cemented my belief that this country is on its way down from our lofty perch we held during most of the 20th Century. We are becoming a nation of stupid. We cannot have intelligent debates. Everything is being played to the lowest common denominator. Where we once had visionaries such as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, we now have George Bush, Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann. I guess I can only consider myself lucky to have seen the best this country has had and will not be around to see the final product. Whether that final result is a total and rapid collapse, or a long, slow slide into total irrelevance, I don't know. I don't really care. I just don't want to see what results out of decades of lunatics running the asylum.

Do you get the sense that Republicans will howl in outrage about Obama’s actions, no matter what he does or does not do?

It’s the outrage that counts. It all about being able to be on television, casting as much criticism at President Obama as they can. That's all that matters.

John McCain criticizes Obama for not taking a stronger stand on the Iranian protests and in support of those demonstrators. The only problem is this is the guy who was singing “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” last year during the presidential campaign. McCain didn’t seem overly concerned about the Iranian people then. I guess it’s fine when WE kill innocent civilians of another country indiscriminately by dropping bombs on them, but we can’t let their own government abuse them! What an offense for not supporting them by… doing something! Dropping bombs on them, perhaps. Making as much noise as possible about how evil the Iranian government is, which would give said government all the ammunition it needs to make this into a U.S. vs. Iran confrontation.

To carry that point a little further, during the Iran/Iraq war, which side did the U.S. support? Why, Iraq, of course! That same country we pulverized into tiny little pieces just 10 years later! But who does the Iranian government blame for that war? The United States, of course! And who has been meddling in the politics of Iran since 1953? The U.S., when the CIA helped overthrow a democratically elected government whose actions we didn’t really care for! Does the Iranian government remember that? You get they do! And yet, John McCain, and a whole host of other nutjobs like Lindsey Graham, Charles Krauthammer, etc., are agitating and demanding that Obama “do more!”

These people are not even making sense anymore. They just seize on whatever they can in order to bash the President. There is no consideration about how stupid they are going to look. You really have zero credibility when you desire to drop bombs on a country on month and then are hugely concerned about that same country’s civilians the next.

But, of course, if Obama had taken a different approach on this issue than he has and come out really swinging, going all Macho Cowboy, doing his best impression of George Bush and threatening the Iranian regime with death and destruction, do you suppose these same Republicans would be supportive? No, not for one second to I believe that. They would be out there again, full of outrage that President Obama was meddling and making the situation worse.

There is "outrage" out there that a reporter from Huffington Post asked Obama a question at his press conference. How dare Obama plant a question! That's over the line! Of course, everyone has completely forgotten how Bush used to plant softball questions at his press conference. Has everyone forgotten Jeff Gannon?

You know, I knew when Obama was elected, the Right was going to go nuts. I actually looked forward to it. I thought watching their impotent rage would be rather amusing. And it was, for about a week. Now, these lunatics are just tiresome. Tiresome and ridiculous. To have any credibility at all, you cannot protest every single thing the President does, and be totally outraged every time. It looks like an act. No one takes you seriously, except for the extreme base of the Republican party who will swallow anything and everything, so long as it is critical of Obama and Democrats in general.

This is an old story now, but did you read about the “Christian” who was praying for God to kill Obama?

From Pandagon:

Imprecatory prayer is agreeing with God, and if people don’t like that, they need to talk to God,” Drake told syndicated talk-show host Alan Colmes. “God said it, I didn’t. I was just agreeing with God.”

Asked if there are others for whom Drake is praying “imprecatory prayer,” Drake hesitated before answering that there are several. ”The usurper that is in the White House is one, B. Hussein Obama,“ he said.

Later in the interview, Colmes returned to Drake’s answer to make sure he heard him right.

“Are you praying for his death?” Colmes asked.

“Yes,” Drake replied.

”So you’re praying for the death of the president of the United States?”

“Yes.”

..."You would like for the president of the United States to die?” Colmes asked once more.

“If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that’s correct.”

This guy is totally innocent of anything, of course, because he is only “agreeing with God” via “imprecatory prayer.” There’s no problem with that at all, of course.

And these are the people who think they should be in charge of this country. You do anything they don’t like, God should kill you.

I really was not aware of how many lunatics were in this country who really don’t care about how insane they sound.

All you Wiccans out there, you are being targeted by the Republican Party!

From Washington Monthly:

Two leading voices of the Republican Party's evangelical wing visited Rock Church [in Hampton Roads, Virginia] on Friday for a forum aimed at recapturing some of the movement's political momentum.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee urged Christians to get involved in politics to preserve the presence of religion in American life.

"I think this is one of the most critical moments in American history," Gingrich said. "We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism."

“Surrounded by paganism…” My. I suppose that sounds terribly frightening to the 75 to 85% of the people of this country that profess belief in a monotheistic religion. I certainly have seen an uptick of reporting about Druidic rites being practiced in my neighborhood. One of my coworkers told me he believed in Odin and Valhalla. He is from Norway, you know. I was just asked if I would be interested in joining a coven, just last week! And I am almost positive my neighbor is a Wiccan! At least, they have a bunch of goats in their back yard. I am sure that means something.

Man, these conservatives are really going off the deep end. I think he is using the word “surrounded” as it might have applied to George Custer surrounding all those Indians.

Did you know that Christians can’t be Democrats?

It’s true! At least, it is true according to those nice people who run Jerry Falwell’s Liberty College. From Washington Monthly:

Liberty University, the evangelical school in Virginia founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, is drawing heat Friday for its decision to revoke recognition of the College Democrats' chapter on campus.

According to the Lynchburg News & Advance, the school decided a week ago the organization "stood against the moral principles" held by the school and therefore could no longer be sanctioned.

Maria Childress, the staff adviser to the club, told the paper the school -- which opposes abortion rights and gay marriage -- had issues with the Democratic Party platform.

Childress says she was told by Mark Hine, the vice president of student affairs, that "'You can't be a Democrat and be a Christian and be a university representative.'"

So, after initially approving the College Democrats club, they changed their minds and revoke the club charter. But, of course, it’s not that those fine folks feel like any political activity and going to college don’t mix. No, it’s only Democratic political activity that is hostile to those values held dear by administrators of Liberty. No open mindedness here, please! No diversity of opinions necessary!

Liberty is a private institution and they can do as they please. But this does absolutely nothing except publicize the fact that "Liberty" U is the closed minded, tribalistic institution that everyone knows it is but doesn’t really talk about. It’s just one more example of the entire “we encourage you to join us, just as long as you believe and act exactly like we do!” mentality that pervades the conservative psyche these days.

I just find it amazing that there were enough Democrats actually enrolled at Liberty to make up a club. To me, that’s a bit like being a gay Republican. You are going to have to dig deep to find some reasons for your decision that you can live with. Liberty, pfftt...

Photo from TBogg.

Wow, is that Michelle Bachmann a dumbass, or what?

One of the things in life that really rankles is dumbasses who happen to think they are so much smarter than everyone else. I used to think Oklahoma with James Inhofe was the state with the stupidest elected official. I now think Oklahoma and Minnesota are now tied. (Texas is running a very close third.)

Bachmann apparently believes that not only is global warming a myth, but carbon dioxide is really, really good for all of us. She is apparently not familiar with the concept that too much of anything is poisonous. From Think Progress.

On the House floor on Earth Day, April 22, 2009, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) argued that threat of manmade global warming doesn't make any sense because "carbon dioxide is a natural byproduct of nature":

Carbon dioxide, Mister Speaker, is a natural byproduct of nature. Carbon dioxide is natural. It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular lifecycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can't even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that's on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that -- that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth.

Oh, my. CO2 is a “natural by product of nature?” Not only is she a dumbass, she’s a redundant dumbass. On Earthday, no less.

Here’s another one of her outlandish statements about global warming, also from Think Progress.

TPM notes that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told OneNewsNow that the U.S. doesn't need environmental advocates such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) because Jesus saved Earth already:

[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she's just trying to save the planet. ... We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet -- we didn't need Nancy Pelosi to do that.

Ah. I see. I… Um… You know, I can’t even come up with something snarky to say about that, it’s so stupid in its own right.

I am just amazed that someone on the Republican side of the aisle hasn’t pulled Bachmann aside by now and told her to sit down and STFU, because she is making herself, and by extension the Republican party, look like a raving lunatic. How did this person ever get elected, even if she is from a very conservative district? If I were from Minnesota, I am pretty sure I would feel obligated to personally apologize to every single person in the United States right about now.

How about that? An e-mail delivery service for those people who have been Raptured away.

Certainly, when Jesus swoops down to carry the deserving off to Heaven (which will no doubt happen any day now), people are not going to have time to stop and do mundane stuff like make sure the stove is turned off or maybe e-mail your friends and relatives, telling them just why they aren’t going to be seeing you around much anymore.

From OnePissedOffVet:

Ya gotta hand it to those Fundo-Xian folks. They're nothing if not thoughtful -- downright thoughty, as my old Granny used to say. They even have a website where the faithful can have a post-Rapture email sent to their friends and family who are "left behind".

Here's the URL: http://raptureletters.com/letter.html -- I didn't make it a clickable link because I don't want to drive up their Google stats. In it you will see the following:

This message has been sent to you by a friend or a relative who has recently disappeared along with millions and millions of people around the world. The reason they chose to send you this letter is because they cared about you and would like you to know the truth about where they went.

This may come as a shock to you, but the one who sent you this has been taken up to heaven.

Etc etc etc blah blah blah

They promise to send out this letter on the first Friday following the Rapture, and every Friday thereafter until...well, I guess until Hell freezes over. Or whatever. And, of course, "free will donations" to the cause are gladly accepted (checks, cash, major credit card or PayPal).

Paypal?!?

I guess either these people have a very dependable automated e-mailing system, or else the people who are selling this fine service aren’t going to be included in Group Ascending but figure that a little pocket change after the Apocalypse isn’t such a bad thing.

I am just amazed at the absolute arrogance and smug certainty that it takes to actually subscribe to this service. Buyers of this are absolutely certain that THEY will be among the chosen and those they are sending e-mails to won’t be. Otherwise, it might be a bit awkward up in Heaven. “Oh, hi, Aunt Harriet! Uh, what are YOU doing here? No, I didn’t mean that. Uh, no. I didn’t send you an e-mail… Say, you haven’t seen Bill Whittaker, have you? I owed him $20 back on Earth.”

And there is also the “gloat” factor involved in all of this. Yes, the sender of this e-mail went to Heaven. You didn’t. Nenernenernener…

I have a bit of an upset stomach right about now.

UPDATE: I actually thought of something that would be even MORE embarrassing. How about the case where you sent out all these e-mails to everyone you cared about (and probably also the ones you didn't like very much, just for the "gloat" factor I alluded to above), and then YOU DIDN'T GET CHOSEN! YOU WEREN'T RAPTURED AWAY! Now, that would be awkward. "Geez, Bill. What's with that e-mail? It said Jesus came down and took you to Heaven last week. Whatcha still doing here? Oh. Yeah, I see... Naw, that's perfectly understandable. I don't always pay my bills on time either."

What is it with Oklahoma anyway?

I don’t really mind insulting individual persons, like the truly insane James Inhofe, senator from Oklahoma. However, one person’s insanity shouldn’t really be used to come to a blanket conclusion regarding a large population of people. But really. I am really beginning to wonder about who votes in the elections in Oklahoma. Do they really believe we are still in the 1700’s?

The state house in Oklahoma is considering a couple of bills. One of them registers their disapproval of teaching modern biology at the Univesity of Oklahoma. The other registers their disapproval that UO has invited Richard Dawkins (the author of “The God Delusion” and “The Selfish Gene”) to speak.

Here are some excerpts from the two bills. (From religionclause.blogspot via Washington Monthly.)

[T]he Oklahoma House of Representatives hereby expresses its disapproval of the current indoctrination of the Darwinian theory of evolution at the University of Oklahoma and further requests that an open, dignified, and fair discussion of this idea and all other ideas be engaged in on campus which is the approach that a public institution should be engaged in and which represents the desire and interest of the citizens of Oklahoma


...[T]he Oklahoma House of Representative strongly opposes the invitation to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma to Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published statements on the theory of evolution and opinion about those who do not believe in the theory are contrary and offensive to the views and opinions of most citizens of Oklahoma.

One very astute commenter at religionclause noted the following:

Umm . . . aren't these two statements in open contradiction? The first statement valorizes the "open, dignified, and fair discussion of [evolution] and all other ideas." The second condemns Univ. Oklahoma for inviting Richard Dawkins to campus, presumably for . . . an open, dignified and fair discussion of his ideas. Seems the OK legislature needs to bone up on it's logic.

I am not a religious person and do not really understand the seemingly basic need to explain the universe in other-than-scientific terms. But I do try to be mindful of other people’s beliefs, and I try not to say insulting things (unless they insult my beliefs, or lack thereof, first). But really, folks. When fundamentalists start objecting to teaching biology, that isn’t being supportive of your religion. That is trying to impose a religion of ignorance on everyone else. I’m sure UO won’t buckle to these small-minded buffoons, but just ponder where a mindset like this might take us. Are we to go back to the days of blood letting (along with getting a haircut) as a way of maintaining good health? Shall we all go back to believing that the Earth is the center of the universe, because do to otherwise would infer that human beings aren’t all that important in the grand scheme of things?

I thought we, as a civilization, had dispensed with this nonsense hundreds of years ago. Sheesh.

UPDATE: More crazy, crazy stuff from Oklahoma. From Americablog.

Dunkley and his father, Daniel Reddy, who live in Tulsa, went to Broken Arrow on Tuesday night for a hunter safety course normally required to get an Oklahoma hunting license....

But when father and son arrived at the lesson, the volunteer instructor, Kell Wolf, asked if any of the students voted for President Barack Obama.

Reddy, a transplanted Californian — and former Marine — raised his hand.

According to Reddy and others in the room, Wolf called Obama "the next thing to the Antichrist" and ordered Reddy and Dunkley from the room. When Reddy refused, Wolf said he would not teach "liberals" and would cancel the course if Reddy didn't leave.

So Reddy and Dunkley left, as did a few others.

I've said it before and will no doubt say it again. The hardcore conservatives of this country have determined that liberals are not even humans. We are not to be tolerated, we are not to be cooperated with, there is nothing that can be gained from exchanging ideas with a liberal... No doubt if people like this were given total control, we would end up sewing a yellow capital "L" onto our clothes.

And people call liberals "angry".

A homophobic fundamentalist pastor gets bashed by a really insane fundamentalist pastor.

Boy. I am just so amazed that so many fundamentalists seem to have a direct pipeline in to God, such that they know exactly what He is thinking on any particular subject. Sarah Palin seemed to have an understanding that God wanted her to get a pipeline built that would go from Alaska to the lower mainland, through Canada. Up until that, I wasn’t sure that God was really that interested in energy projects.

Rick Warren has been in the news a lot lately, due to his views on many things and also by the fact that he will be speaking during President Elect Obama’s inauguration. Lots of gay and lesbian people are not very happy with that choice. It turns out that some people on the extreme right are none too pleased, either. This is from the Orange County Register, via The Washington Monthly.

Southern Baptist Pastor Wiley Drake bashed Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren this week, saying "God will punish" Warren for agreeing to give the invocation at President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration next month.

"I pray He is kind to you in this punishment that is coming," Drake wrote in a widely-released e-mail. In it, the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park pastor criticizes Warren's "recent plan to invoke the presence of almighty God on this evil illegal alien," a reference to Obama.

-snip-

Drake said Warren, also a Southern Baptist minister, is "hurting our denomination, and the Lord's work."

He continued: "God will deal with you on this … God will not wink at this."

Warren did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

"It's an abomination before God and God's going to deal with that," Drake, in an interview, said about Warren's role in the inauguration. "I've gotten several e-mails in response, and overwhelmingly, they have been supportive."

I always get a little thrill of excitement when I see someone from the extreme right turn upon their own. It just shows how little tolerance these people have for anything that doesn’t conform, exactly, to their own points of view. “What goes around, comes around”, I always say. And they deserve it. But it is also interesting to note that Drake, while calling on God to blast Warren into sub-atomic particles, throws in this. "I pray He is kind to you in this punishment that is coming." Uh huh. Yep. That proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Drake is really a caring and compassionate person.

It is just so disheartening to think that idiots like Wiley Drake actually have a pulpit and people listen to him. I swear, people like this would sound at home during the 16th century, going around the countryside and condemning people for consorting with Satan and denying God’s Will. It’s a good thing that accusing people of witchcraft and burning them at the stake or crushing them with rocks has gone out of style, because the mindset behind those actions is still alive and well. Anyone that gets out of line, well then, God is going to take care of you, and fast!

I am not a believer in God, Christian or otherwise. So, as long as the ravings of these lunatics do not affect me or the people and ideas I hold dear, then they can do whatever they like. If they were to all suddenly turn into Whirling Dervishes , that would also be entertaining and just about as useful. But really, if I were a moderate Christian who really cared about my church, I might start fighting back against these fundamentalists. They are really giving God a bad name, you know?

So, can we now discard this notion in this country that science is something not to be trusted?

I really want to blog about something other than politics. It was always my intention to have this blog be about a whole lot of different things, a place on the web that a few people might stumble upon once in a while and say, “Hey, that was kind of interesting. I wonder what else is on here?” Lately, though, unless something has just fallen in my lap, it has pretty much been exclusively about politics. I don’t suppose I can blame myself. It’s been a pretty brutal, thuggish, surreal and ultimately inspiring and history-making two years. I’m so tightly wound about the whole situation that it will probably take some time for me to unwind and be able to actually concentrate and write something worthwhile. Hopefully, I will get there.

One of the many things that I hope will change for the better in these United States is the view that science is suspect and not to be trusted. It seems as if the United States, as a whole, has come to the viewpoint that ignorance is not something to be ashamed of, but to actually be celebrated. It’s those pointy-headed intellectuals who are causing all the trouble, such as pointing out that the Earth, our Earth, is in trouble and the human race may suffer from our neglect of the only planet we have, or by observing that religious fundamentalists who insist on a 6000 year-old universe are at odds with every scientific conclusion in every realm of science (e.g., geology, cosmology, genetics, archeology, etc.) Somehow, the people who promote logical thinking based on scientific facts and reasoning have become “the enemy.” I find that beyond comprehension, and that must change if (in the short term) we want to remain competitive with the rest of the world and (in the longer term) want to survive as a species.

Knowledge, and the ability to act upon that knowledge, one of the few things that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Oh sure, opposable thumbs really helped. Willful ignorance, on the other hand, is likely to sentence us to irrelevance, if not total oblivion. I hope this distrust of science and the conclusions about the universe we inhabit that have been reached by using the scientific method is discarded as a primary motivation in our country.

Snohomish County, WA Republicans hand out fake three dollar bills featuring Barack Obama with an Arab headdress.

Here's a local political story that has made national headlines. That's not the first time this has happened, but it is fairly rare. I first heard about this at Balloon Juice. Since then, I have seen in my local paper and also on the local newscast last night. Here is a bit of the backstory as related by the Seattle P-I.

A Snohomish County Republican volunteer was caught passing out a controversial kind of currency at the Evergreen State Fair earlier this week: a fake $3 bill depicting Sen. Barack Obama wearing an Arab headdress.

Republican leaders put a stop to the bill's distribution Tuesday, and the county's party chairwoman apologized for what the volunteer apparently believed was "just a real lark."

The bill features a smiling, shirt-collared image of the presidential candidate wearing a white headdress. It reads "the concerned states of America" and "the prince of platitudes" across the top, and bears the signatures of "Teddy Kennedy, Chief Socialism Advisor" and "Al Sharpton, New Spiritual Advisor."

There is an insignia of a camel, and the bill's serial number reads: IBD14UOK. (In other words, "I be de one for you, OK.")

Yeah, that’s not racist or lying about Obama’s religion or anything. A “real lark”. I saw one of those county “Republican leaders” on the local news last night, and this lady was a bit less apologetic than this story makes it sound. She said something like (and I admit I am paraphrasing here) the following. “Well, I am certainly not going to punish anyone for this. We told the person to stop handing them out. That’s the end of it. No one is going to get punished for something that they thought was just in good fun.”

That was pretty much the substance of the interview on the local newscast last night (Channel 5, KING TV, NBC affiliate, August 27). I heard very little in the way of an apology or an admission that this was very inappropriate. It’s all someone else’s fault for getting their little panties in a bunch over some silly, harmless joke. Except “harmless jokes” like that are used with the specific intent on spreading the notion that Obama is some scary Muslim who, when elected, will hand over control of the United States of America to some scary Muslim group.

I really dislike when someone gets caught saying something really dumb, they attempt to write it off a “just a joke.” Yeah, we Democrats never have been ones to take jokes very well. That was the same line that I heard from that insane preacher who was asking “the faithful” to pray for a “rainstorm of Biblical proportions” in Denver this week, just as Obama was scheduled to give his acceptance speech outdoors to a crowd that looked to be in excess of 80,000. Sure, that’s just a joke, folks.

I suppose I should take a bit of heart about all this. It's SO obvious that the Republicans have NOTHING to run on. Nothing. The Iraqis are getting ready to kick the U.S. military out of the country by 2011, I think. There goes our "war on terrah" and "staying until we win." The economy sucks. These people have nothing else left to do besides tear down their opponent. That's it.

As a bit of an aside, Dino Rossi is a Republican running for governor for Washington state. He had a number of commercials last night on television, on MSNBC, during the Democratic National Convention. I thought that in itself was odd. Plus, the message in his commericals was "working with both sides of the aisle", reaching out to all and solving problems, and trying to distance himself from George Bush. I thought that hilarious. Where was all this bipartisanship the last eight years? The only reason that the Republicans are bringing it up now is that it looks like a distinct possibility that they are going to get their clocks cleaning in a couple of months. Some Republicans in Washington have even dropped the "Republican" after their name on the ballot. They are putting "GOP" down instead. Yeah, that's going to fool a lot of people, fer sure. But again, it is a sign that many people WITHIN the Republican party realize, aside from their "never say die" base supporters, their brand is pretty radioactive.

I hope it happens. I should have a post up sometime today about Obama's acceptance speech last night. It was pretty electric.

“I’m for Mike Huckabee, as he is the only true Christian running for president.”

UPDATED BELOW:

I don’t know how many times I have seen a statement similar to this one in print in the last couple of weeks. Mike Huckabee is certainly an interesting phenomenon, and one that might go along way towards splintering the current Republican party into about three pieces. It will be quite interesting to see how this all goes down in the next few years. Yes, the next year prior to the election will be VERY interesting, indeed. However, if Huckabee is indeed the Republican candidate, which is no sure thing, and he loses big time, then the years AFTER the general election will also be very interesting. The uneasy coalition of neocons (who are pretty much only interested in the U.S. throwing its weight around militarily around the world), theocons (who seem to be intent on implementing a theocracy in the U.S.) and the followers of Grover Norquist (who want the U.S. government to essentially go away, and to never pay taxes, ever again) will have shown that it isn’t working anymore. The theocons are wanting everything that the other groups have been promising them for the last 25 years, in order to get their votes.

But that isn’t the point of this post. I am writing about this absolutely insane idea that many Christians seem to hold that, if someone professes to be a good Christian and that Jesus is his main guiding light in everything, including politics, then that person can do no wrong. Never. It’s always the “liberals” and “secular progressives” (the worst thing they can think of to call someone) that are the evil ones, the ones that are the root of all problems. They thought this way with George Bush, even with all the myriad of his obvious faults that have come to light in the last eight years, and they think this way with Mike Huckabee. Even the story that Huckabee freed a serial killer and rapist while governor of Arkansas, just because one of the victims was a distant relative of Bill Clinton and Huckabee was looking to score some political points, and that person went on to rape and kill at least one, maybe two, more people after he was released makes absolutely no difference to the “true believers”.

From Digby:

Which brings us to the genuinely repellent topic of Michael Huckabee. The fact that he won the Iowa caucus chills me to the bone. This is a ruthless, ignorant, and dangerously opportunistic fanatic who is so unqualified for the presidency that no one in the media should have returned his calls. And they still shouldn't.

This is a man so bereft of character he actively worked to free a serial rapist, a seriously deranged sociopath who had also been directly involved in a brutal murder. And why did Huckabee proactively seek Wayne Dumond's freedom? For one reason only: Because his release had become a rightwing cause celebre. Sure enough, soon after Huckabee's efforts succeeded in returning Dumond to the outside world, Dumond raped and murdered at least one, if not two women.

Huckabee's championing of Dumond's release - Huckabee never read the court documents or appeals from Dumond's victims - is enough to demonstrate that he has neither the judgment or moral character to be a dog catcher, let alone president. But since then, Huckabee has made it his business repeatedly to lie about his involvement in Dumond's release - which would never have happened without his efforts. So let's not mince words here:

Huckabee is hardly a better candidate for president than Wayne Dumond himself would be, if he were still alive.

It is said in his defense that Huckabee has only slept with one woman since he married (and for all I know, maybe his whole life). He doesn't drink, and he doesn't smoke and he reads the Bible. In other words, Huckabee meets the minimum standards to be a fundamentalist Christian preacher, even if these qualifications are mostly honored in the breech. But whether one finds such behavior laudable or pathetically stunted, they are irrelevant. They are hardly positive character traits for a US president. Sober judgment, however, is. But Huckabee has none. Integrity is. But Huckabee has none.

Some of the worst crimes against humanity have been carried out by people who were absolutely certain they were carrying out “God’s Will”. I won’t go into all the obvious examples again. I will pull one out of somewhat recent (given the length of human civilization) American history. General Robert E. Lee was in charge of the military of the Confederate States of America. He was, by all accounts, a God fearing person whose motto was “God, Family, and Virginia”. He firmly believed that God was on the side of the CSA and on his side, personally. He prayed constantly, seeking divine guidance in his struggle with the North, otherwise known as the government of the United States of America. Yet, this person was responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides, and was essentially a traitor to his country. Yet, he was convinced that God was on his side, as were all his followers.

You can see how well that all turned out.

The lesson that is constantly forgotten is that being a Christian does not automatically make you infallible or even “a good person”. The very fact that Christians see other Christians as being infallible make them blind to faults that are obvious to everyone else.

UPDATED: More on Huckabee and Southern Baptists from Frank Schaeffer at HuffPo.

Mike Huckabee wants to be our president. He doesn't know about foreign policy. But he believes every word of the Southern Baptist interpretation of the Bible. Here is what he believes. God is angry with us and has always been. He was pissed off with us from day one. He was so pissed off that He wrestled with making a choice between killing all of us in a flood or saving just one family -- Noah's -- so that later God could sacrifice His only Son to save everyone descended from the one family he didn't kill and/or send them to hell for eternity. God did this because Adam and Eve, not to mention Noah's great, great grandchildren-that's you and me-didn't live up to God's pre-creation expectations. Cheerful, huh?

I was a zealous evangelical back in the 1970s. When you are a zealous anything -- evangelical, Marxist, feminist, capitalist, Democrat, Republican, whatever-you express your zeal by lying. The lie is always the same lie: to say that you're certain about things, that you are right, and others wrong. They are so wrong that they are evil! This is a lie because truth is elusive. Nothing is as simple as any zealot, of any persuasion, thinks it is.

Huckabee represents the half of us who are waiting for Jesus to "rapture" us and believe that the other half are second class citizens that God is just biding His time to gleefully destroy and torture for eternity. Thanks but no thanks Iowa.

The top seven things I would like to ask Fundamentalist Christians.

Everyone seems to make lists at the end of the year. I am not sure why this is. Maybe it just puts some sort of order onto chaos. Maybe it’s just a tradition. Anyway, here is my entry on the plethora of lists at this time of the year. Here is my list of questions about which I would like to have answers from Fundamentalist Christians who believe that every single word of the Bible is true, and only true to their particular interpretation, including that the Earth is only around 6000 years old.

1. Fundamentalist Christians put mankind at the center of the universe, it seems. Everything revolves around us, just as humans would have believed 2000 years ago when we had no idea of what the universe we live in actually looks like. Yet, if you take a look at what we know of the universe now, even the galaxy we live is in just a speck in the vastness, and it takes light, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, over 100,000 years to get from one side of that one speck to the other. There are a hundred billion stars in our galaxy. There are billions of observable galaxies in the universe. Why would God bother with making such an immense and scarcely comprehensible universe, and at the same time, be concerned with every single individual and whether or not we believe in Him? This just seems so incredibly petty and small of a God that could create such a universe.

2. If, as you maintain, every single word of the Bible is “God’s Truth”, how do you explain the numerous contradictions and other inexplicable actions taken both by God and by his faithful? There are very obvious examples. Did Noah take two beasts of each kind? Or, was it “clean beasts thou shalt take to thee seven and seven, the male and his female”(Genesis 7.2)? It can’t be both, can it? Or, the famous question of, who was Cain’s wife and where did she come from, if Cain and Able were the only people in the world after Adam and Eve? Cain built an entire city and populated it only with his offspring? An entire city? Sounds pretty doubtful. I find the story of Joshua destroying the city of Jericho very cruel and bloodthirsty. Because Jehovah (God by another name) “gave” the city to Joshua (Joshua 6.1), it was acceptable then to destroy the city and either kill or expel all the city’s inhabitants, who had done nothing wrong in the least? That is a terrible, terrible thing to do to innocent people. Likewise, God commanding Abraham to kill his son, just to see if he would do it, seems like a terrible thing for God to do (Genesis 22.10). I would call that the ultimate “no win” situation. The Bible contains many requirements for burnt offerings, killing of those who are unlike you, etc. I want to hear how the Fundamentalist Christians explain all these very troubling and contradictory passages in God’s Truth.

3. Was the physical nature of the universe actually different than it is today? Having the sun rise in the west and set in the east is a physical impossibility and one, if it were actually to occur, would cause a catastrophe that would essentially destroy the Earth. Did this really occur, the Earth rotate in the opposite direction? Was the refraction of light impossible prior to the Great Flood? The Bible (Genesis 9.14) states that the rainbow is God’s promise that He will not destroy the Earth again by floods. Did the physics of light and refraction change? And, just as an aside, where did all the water go that was used to cover up all the surface of the Earth such that no dry land remained?

4. Much has been made about the animals that Noah took with him on his Ark. Fundamentalists have been forced to accept the existence of dinosaurs, since there is overwhelming evidence that they existed. The Bible never mentions them, but they must have existed. Therefore, fundamentalists, rather than try to work out how the Bible might be incorrect about time scales, just incorporated them into their own version of “The Truth”. That is, Noah took all the dinosaurs on the Ark with him. No further thought is required for this improbable hypothesis, it seems, but leaves unanswered the huge size of the beasts involved and the sheer numbers involved. It would be absolutely impossible to house even two of each kind of the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and other animals that we know existed, given the Ark’s stated size (Genesis 6.15). Besides, maybe dinosaurs were “clean beasts”.

5. I want to know where Neanderthals fit into the picture. Neanderthals are just like dinosaurs. There is undeniable evidence that they existed in Europe and the Middle East, for over 100,000 years. Yet, Fundamentalist Christians ignore all this evidence, as it is just too difficult to work into their accepted biblical narrative. Neanderthals were definitely humans (not monkeys or apes) but not homo sapiens, either. They used tools. They buried their dead. Like the dinosaurs, did Noah carry Neanderthals on his Ark? Fundamentalist Christians like to make much of the hoax of the Piltdown Man (conveniently forgetting that scientists were the ones who uncovered the hoax, not Christians), but are totally silent on the subject of the Neanderthals.

6. How do all the heavily cratered objects in our solar system, such as the Moon, Mercury, and all the various moons of the gas giants, fit in with the theory that the Earth is only 6000 years old? Were all these other bodies already present, such that they reached their heavily cratered state (craters inside of older craters inside of older craters) prior to the Earth being created? It is not possible that these bodies were bombarded with millions of objects during their formation and the Earth was not. 6000 years is not enough time for even such as a geologically and meteorologically active place such as our Earth to fully erase the evidence of such bombardment. Where did all these bodies that impacted the major bodies in our solar system go, and why aren’t we hit every week or month by such an object?

7. There is ample geological evidence, which is visible to the naked eye and takes no formal training to understand, that discounts the notion of a very young Earth. How do Fundamentalist Christians explain things like the Hawaiian Islands, where the land building mechanism is easily observable? 6000 years is obviously not enough time for a volcanic “hot spot” in the crust of the earth create the chain of islands, each of which rises hundreds of thousands of feet from the ocean floor. Did God create all these islands and then just happen to create what just looks like geological evidence that would explain their creation? How are there fossils of forests and animals in Antarctica? Why are there places in Colorado which have dinosaur prints fossilized in solid rock, but are inclined at almost 90 degrees perpendicular to the surface of the Earth? How does the Bible explain plate tectonics and continental drift? Mountain ranges like the Himalayas just happened to be placed at the junction of these plates that are pushing against each other?

All attempts at explanations that the Bible seems to hold so dear seems to me to be an attempt my man who had very little knowledge of the actual world he inhabited. I can’t see any reason why I should take the story of Noah any more literally than I would a story from the Indians of the Pacific Northwest. They have a legend about the time when Whale fought with Bear, and much was destroyed. After putting many varying pieces of information together, it appears that this story was an attempt at explaining a very large earthquake and subsequent tsunami, which also inundated the coastline of Japan in the 1600’s or 1700’s, I am not sure which. The Native Americans of that time were attempting to explain something that they had no explanation for. Why is it not likely that the miracles and odd happenings in the Old Testament are along the same line? I cannot see that the inherent nature of our earth or our universe, or the fundamental laws of physics, changed since biblical times. So, why is what is in the Bible any more compelling than the legends of all the other religions?

I suppose religion is an individual’s way to try to get a handle on the universe, the uncertainty of our society, and, the ultimate question, what happens when we die. Obviously, our species has an inherent need for those kinds of explanations. We do not like uncertainty. But if you consult Occam’s Razor, the explanations that are coming from science, even though they are very, very strange (such as, how can an electron be a particle AND a wave at the same time), seem to make more sense to me that postulating a benevolent being that created the entire universe but seems to care about whether or not we believe in Him, on an individual basis.

So, apparently the Rapture is not happening anytime in the near future.

Jerry B. Jenkins, co-author of the Left Behind series of books, is also an owner of the Phoenix Mustangs, which, I take it, is a minor league hockey team. This guy is so confident that the End Times Are Near!, he is talking with local officials about building a $40 million hockey area (for minor league hockey?) and an adjacent hotel. Yep, that certainly sounds like a person who is all ready to be raptured away. Maybe he just doesn’t know what do to with all the money he has raked in and is being philanthropic toward that highly abused and underreported group, Canadians Possessing No Other Employable Skills.

This story is done with a little more snark at Whiskeyfire.

Huckabee, President for the Moronic Apocalypse. The Moracopalypse. Dumbageddon. And the worst part is that I agree with HTMLM -- this is the best the GOP has to offer: a fan of the Left Behind books. Wheeee.

UPDATE: Just thinking, the guy made millions from books that explicate his sincere idea that the world is going to end in a couple of years. Fine. OK. But then he goes and invests millions in a hockey arena.

This clearly suggests that according to the Bible, the only sport that will survive the Apocalypse is ice hockey. Quick, everyone, grow mullets and forecheck, and ride that Zamboni to your Eternal Reward!

In which I receive yet another sign that we non-believers are not very welcome in today’s society.

This last week, I was meeting with a lady about a work related subject. I know her rather well, and perhaps I don’t consider us friends but we do get along well together and have worked together on many occasions. We were meeting at a Starbucks, and had our computers and notes all laid out for the better part of two hours.

As we were packing up to leave, I asked her if she was traveling much. She laid out her impressive travel schedule and said something about not knowing if one major trip would occur or not. Here is how the conversation went after that. (This is paraphrased, of course. My memory isn’t that good that I can remember a conversation word for word.)

Her: Well, I am not worried about it. If I don’t go, I know that I wasn’t meant to go.

Me: What do you mean?

Her: I know that someone is looking out for me and there is a reason that I didn’t go.

Me: Oh. Well, I am of the opinion that life is just one long string of accidents. One of my favorite quotations (unfortunately, I cannot remember the source) goes, “The universe is just one of those things that happen from time to time.”

Her: So, you think there is no meaning in any of this?

Me: No. Life just happens.

Her: Boy, that must suck. Why do you bother? (Exact quote)

Me: What?

Her: Well, you don’t have to do anything. You don’t even have to be nice to people.

Me: No, that’s not correct at all. There are standards and civilities. I have my own moral compass. Have you ever heard of the Golden Rule?

Her: Naw, that’s hogwash.

There was more, but that was the gist of it. As you can see, she is a very outspoken person. She pulls no punches in work related items, and she obviously doesn’t in other matters as well. I let it drop, as we need to work together, probably for the rest of our careers. However, while driving home, the more I thought about it, the more frustrated I got. Here is someone who has known me for years and we get along fairly well together. But the first moment that she discovered that I didn’t believe in some “higher power” and that there was an inherent, external meaning in all aspects of life, then she immediately discounted every value I maintain for myself. What I believe is worthless, unless it is backed up by some belief in a higher power. And, for her, it was obviously the One Christian God.

I cannot fathom this approach to life. Many people seem to think that if this life doesn’t have some basis, some EXTERNAL meaning, then it is worthless. What a load of rubbish. Life is what you make of it. It can be terrible and depressing. Or, it can be fulfilling, inspired and uplifting. Life is what you make of it. I do not understand why people must force an external framework on it for them to feel happy and secure. There isn’t meaning in a newborn baby? Or inspired works of art and music? Or watching a hummingbird flit around the garden? The list can go on and on. Yet, many people seem to think that if they don’t have the Christian God backing up their every move or are able to look forward to heaven, then everything is worthless.

I was reading a newspaper story the other day, which was really heartbreaking. An older couple had already lost their house, due to the very serious illness of the wife. I believe it was cancer, and she was probably not going to survive it. They truly were going through some terrible times. But one quote by the husband threw me. He said something like, “Our faith is the only thing that is keeping us going. If we didn’t have that, we might as well jump off a cliff.”

I found that astounding. If there isn’t a God or a Heaven, we might as well all kill ourselves right now....

I suppose that one statement, along with the conversation I had with my co-worker, shows why the Religious and the Non-Religious will never understand each other. They can’t understand why we non-believers want to go on living if we don’t believe in any supernatural deity. We can’t understand their view that, if they don’t have this belief, they would find life not worth living.

Just another reason I find living in today’s society so damn depressing.