Some beef with JaguarJ0nes on youtube.

Ok not really beef per se but just an objection.  Here's a link to JJ's channel he's got some really funny videos about pwning YEC's and their arguments.  Something about his video voice/expressions really sunk in and I laughed my ass off at some of his references.

But he insists that pangolins are totally gay.  Which is crazy, pangolins are totally awesome!

I mean it's a freakin' mammal with scales, freakishly overdeveloped claws, near immunity to ant bites *food source* and it can curl into a spiky ball when threatened.  Its kind of like an armadillo but so much cooler. 

Link to Original.

So anyway I made a little video, slammed it together from clips and nearly pulled my hair out because camtasia kept crashing and the audio splice was absurdly counter intuitive.  At any rate, I got her done and present, in full glory, for your viewing pleasure.

Jaguarj0nes LOVES Pangolins

Proof of God Video Addendum

Here's your embedded goodness.



I also started the channel "Keippernicus" so if anyone wants to subscribe there's still a chance that you could be the first.

Two comments already, probably both from seeing the links over in the comments of Pharyngula.

***Update, I now have 2 subscribers as well. Huzzah! We'll see how long that lasts but I will laugh my ass off if I accidentally become a youtube personality. Everyone who gives a rats should probably watch the video here because it looks a lot better when its not embedded and you can rate all over it if you like.

Sweet.

Oh good they proved it...nyaaaaaat!

200 Posts and this one's a winner!

Thanks once again to PZ Myers for bringing me to inanity via the straight and narrow.

Check this stupid gang bang of nonsense out at: http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/thinkaboutit.php

You start on the 'think about it' screen where you are presented with 4 choices, shown here.


So we have a diagram of 4 possible choices. We'll start bottom right and choose 'I don't care'

Result:
Wow that was easy, they just gave up. Though to be fair the main page of the 'proof' section claims that it does not provide persuasion just logic. I thought this was going to be a challenge but...lets try some other options.

Both 'I don't know' and 'trust does not exist' lead to the same stupid question, posted here.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict this sort of minimalist strong arming is going to dominate the whole proof section. After all if you don't know whether or not absolute truth exists you are forced either admit that it does or go back to the main screen. No argument, no discussion, binary answers to really bad questions.

Now the final of the 4 choices is top left, sitting in for good information we are forced to admit that 'absolute truth exists.' I should amend that its a ridiculous choice but I always liked to diagram the choose your own adventure books to see where your path would inevitably lead.

Allow me to elaborate one step further as, at this point, I have not looked at any of the questions afterwards but I can predict that this whole thing is some variant of what my childhood self dubbed 'a loopy funnel.' We all know where the proof supposedly goes, the only question is how the choices we make or answers we provide will get us there.

In the two or three CYOA games that I plotted out there were certain situations you could run into from multiple paths. One such, that always stuck with me, was walking past a bubbling mud hole where you could jump in, rub some on wounds, throw in a coin or keep walking. And this same stupid mudhole was after a cave, inside the enchanted forest and along the path to the ocean.

Let's see how things progress from here, shall we. If you go with 'Absolute Truth' you come to this screen and get to begin the journey to 'prove' god exists. Heigh-ho, I can't wait.


Let's see how Step 1 enriches our lives, shall we?

******************

I was going to do this point by point but that turned into WAY to many screenshots so I will just diagram it out for you in simple terms and throw a few caps in along the way.

Here's the basic gist of the 'proof' you'll have to click on the image to make any sense of it because it goes across 3 screens.

I know it looks tiny but that image is 3000 pixels long.

The basic format is actually far simpler than I envisioned. Lamentably I was ABSOLUTELY correct in my presupposition that its just a bunch of forced choices. No loops, no redundancies and absolutely no elegance to the whole thing.

Wait, that sounds about right for religious thinking.

Anyway things are pretty tame up until the last part, after step 7 you get a teaser for the penultimate and final proof.

And finally we arrive at...ah fuck it here's the ultra disappointing reveal...

Goats and gonads what a mother lovin' waste of time. That's not a proof its not even a sound idea let alone earth shattering or mind-bending.

I'll get to why it's stupid in a second (besides the obvious) but you have to love the irony of this whole test saying that the immutability of physical law proves the existence of a supernatural deity unbeholden to any such laws.


Actually, I think I am just going to make a video with Camtasia and rip this thing to shreds.

Gingi Edmonds is a sociopath.

I submit proof of her status here and now with a link to an article penned by her regarding the fate of one Dr. George Tiller. The article was written one day after said doctor was murdered during church services, just in case you haven't been paying attention.

Several things caught my eye about this craven witch's attempt to justify no moral outrage over the man's murder.

In addition to being a hit man for hire, Tiller also offered funerary services to mothers that paid him to off their kids. While most clinics in the nation are content to just rape and scrape, Tiller took his practice leaps and bounds beyond the norm and peddled abortion packages that included photographing, footprinting, handprinting, baptism, cremation, and arrangement for autopsy.

Oh, god forbid the man actually help his patients (the mom's) by sparing them the trouble of making arrangements seperately. Not every baby that was aborted was brought in by some cracked out mom on meth laughing about gettin' her baby sucked out. Late term abortions are often carried out because they represent a threat to the mother.

So finding out your 8 month baby will kill you unless it is aborted is bad, having to make the choice to save your own life is worse and then wanting to see that it is interred according to your wishes before you have even seen it's little face is probably a fucking nightmare from which I am glad to have been spared. Gingi, you cunt, why can't you think about anything besides your own miserable preconceptions?

My second point of contention comes from this section:

Murder is murder, and it is something that we pro-lifers inherently deplore. But I can't help but note - and my history is rusty so pardon me here - I'm trying to remember, did anyone mourn Lee Harvey Oswald when Jack Ruby gunned him down?

Allow me to translate this segment into rational person thought: Group A abhors action M except when Action M is committed against practioners of Action M.

Allow me to translate this into how my brain parses such a nonsensical statement: I Gingi Edmonds, pro-life cunt, do hereby announce that my hypocrisy is not some quiet error in judgement but a bold and contradictory proof that my brain does not work correctly. After all how can you inherently deplore an act SELECTIVELY.

If I denounce racism *except against people who are themselves racist* then I am a hypocrite. The way to unravel this is simple, and Ms. Edmonds the sea witch could take a hint by applying some logic to her own views. IE racists are assholes, however being an asshole racist does not justify asshole racism towards you (the asshole racist) but nor does it preclude the fact that you are a racist asshole.

I mean, think about it. Someone just shot a Nazi guard manning the gas chamber at Aushwitz. I should feel bad about this? George Tiller the Baby Killer's acts are every bit as vile as the Nazi war criminals who were hunted down, tried, and sentenced after they participated in the "legal" murder of the Jews that fell into their hands.

Asinine, short-sighted, never-read-a-fucking-psychology-or-history-book drivel! You say you oppose murder, inherently, yet you can just shrug it off so easily? I daresay you ought to amend your beliefs and opinions or you SHOULD oppose the murder of a nazi warcriminal. After all murder is murder, right Gingi?

No, because your opinion trumps rationality and fairness and any sort of intellectual effort to actually grasp the complexities of the abortion debate. Sorry Gingi wingi, don't hurt your little bwain cells by actually using them.

Now nevermind the implications of groupthink or the fact that most of the nazi's who committed warcrimes were every day folk I just wanted to further elucidate the hypocrisy before we reach the crown jewel of Gingi's stupidity.

Instead of scrambling to feverishly denounce the pro-life community ("Anyone who thinks Tiller's death is in any way a positive thing is not a true pro-lifer"... huh?) we should be looking at a very serious fact: If every single pro-lifer who is currently falling all over themselves to publicly mourn the "loss" of this abortionist displayed just a fraction of that outrage over just ONE of the children Tiller murdered on a regular nine to five, Baby Killer Tiller would have been put out of business long ago and he would not be dead today.

Yes this article goes on but this part bears special mention. Tiller was not a murderer, period. He was a doctor. Doctors perform procedures and prescribe medicines for the health of their patients. What the anti-choice folk don't realize is that bronze age conceptions of life/death, right/wrong and good/evil should not be universally applied to anyone who disagrees. America is not a christian nation, we are bound by secular law and not your craven theocratic nonsense.

Now I acknowledge that their should be limits and checks on abortion (as there are with ANY other medical procedure) but forcing a woman to bear a child that will put her in personal danger is wrong. Forcing a teenage girl who got knocked up by her boyfriend because her parents wouldn't spring for birth control is WRONG. After all if a mother does not want a child what hope does that poor child have without a mother's love?

It gets worse. Much worse.

I know this is a huge loss for Tiller's family and they need our prayer and support. I'm sure they are grieving bitterly, and it is heartbreaking to think of the pain that they must be feeling. It is ultimately tragic that Tiller did not have an opportunity to properly prepare his soul to face his Maker. Unless some miracle happened, he left this life with his hands drenched with innocent blood.

So much worse. Yes let's console the family by posting screeds saying that he deserved it (Tiller's family can fucking read your article, she devil) and that having not 'prepared his soul' is now burning in the anguish of eternal hellfire. It's dumbfounding she can so brazenly condemn this man for acts of supposed barbarity and then righteously announce that god will allow him to suffer for an infinite period of time. Even if every aborted fetus came to term, lived to be 100 years old and suffered being beaten or raped every day for that span of time the misery inflicted on a single soul in hell would be infinitely worse and for an infinitely longer time.

Yes, the wrath of Gingi Edmonds is tame compared to that of her imaginary sociopathic deity.

The man chose his fate the moment he dismembered his first infant. I'm not embarrassed to say what the punishment for the crime is anymore than I'm embarrassed to admit that child killing is a crime.

And so much much worse... Let's take another look at the supposed mercy of the christian god. During Noah's year long boat ride the 'source of morality' drowned every human being, man, woman, child and unborn alike. Put your fucking god on trial if you're so against abortion.

And yes, somehow it gets EVEN worse than I could believe possible.

Did I want him to be gunned down in church - even a hypocritical, Molech-worshiping fraud of a church like the one he was attending while shot? No. I would have much preferred him being tried and convicted in a court of law that is consistent with medical science and personhood as defined in our Constitution. We can prevent the atrocious acts of violence against abortionists by holding them accountable to their actions.

Yeah, we can protect doctors who perform abortions (side note what is with dickhole religious nuts throwing 'ist' onto words they don't like to describe people. darwinist, evolutionist, abortionist...lame) all we have to do is prosecute them for murder. Take a look at their orderly medical records to prove their guilt and lock them away or have the government execute them for us. Not safe, not freedom, not in my fucking country, bitch.

There is no doubt that Tiller deserved to be executed for his crimes. I just would have preferred a state sanctioned lethal injection, hanging, firing squad, electric chair, good old fashioned stoning, what have you.u.

What odious pit of hell coughed you forth, gingi edmonds. What vile pool of satan's smegma did you climb out of to plague this world? How in the motherfuck can you A) Justify death penalty but not Abortion, B) Consider 'good old fashioned' stoning better than being shot to death?

You are sick as fuck if you honestly think that anyone deserves to be bludgeoned to death from flying rocks.

Observe, if you dare, what a stoning looks like.

If that video doesn't sicken and scare the shit out of you I suggest you go talk to a psychologist.

I mean, I personally would not shoot an abortionist, but who am I to impose my morality on someone else? If you are against shooting abortionists, then don't shoot one, right? Hmm, suddenly pro-choice rhetoric doesn't sound so warm and fuzzy and virtuous, does it?



Thank sweet buddha that this is almost over. Gingi you ass, what fucking world do you live in where the odious spew that comes out of your mouth and your fingers actually makes sense?

People like you are why people like me despise organized religion and its practioners with such passion. You are an evil woman for suggesting that murder, stoning and hell are all justice in your eyes. And you make these claims simply for political points despite the fact that a man is dead for the crime of doing his job.

Tiller was killed by a pro-choice act. Pro-lifers need make no apologies. Both men are guilty of bloodshed and this tragedy is a sad but all-too-real testament to the biblical truth that those who live by the sword, die by the sword.

Finally we reach the end. I bolded two phrases here because they stand out to me. Reading this article has made me sick to my stomach and I am tired of even processing the words because to do is causing me physical harm. I do not think that pro-lifers should apologize, they should examine. Really examine their beliefs and what they truly hold as moral and virtuous. Should it not give you pause that you want fetuses to live but are prepared to allow full grown people to die whether by vengenance, the state or some divine retribution?

I empathize and I know the idea of baby-murder turns the stomach of every rational human being but fetuses are not humans. The life of the mother should take precedent over her unborn children and a victim of rape should not have to endure the curse of raising her attacker's child.

The second bold phrase is there not as a call to examine but a call to action. Doctors, even abortion doctors, have saved more lives than every priest of every sect who ever walked this earth. Medicine, anti-biotics in particular, has allowed the human population to swell and grow like never before. Literally half of everyone on earth could not survive without our current understanding of science and the progress it has brought us.

Only claims of indignation and scorn can come to those who deny that secular knowledge is a far greater force for good than any religion cooked up on a mountain or through the smoke of some chemical hallucinogen. Science, knowledge and rational thought are the pillars upon which our civilization stands.

Will you side with those who are laying the bricks or those with the hammers, wearing crucifixes around their necks?

A quick word about living in the Southern USA

Friends there's no escaping the bigotry and the hatred, nor the scornful glares of those people who think their purported moral superiority transcends basic human decency.  Even a mild dose of this bullshit is enough to ratchet my mood from slightly anxious to seething cynicism.

An anecdote to highlight my frustration:

Yesterday at a gathering of friends my wife and I shared a conversation with a youngish grandmother, aged around 50 or so.

The event was to commemorate the recovery of a neighbor's daughter whose foot had been crushed in a car accident.  The injured girl was projected to be off her feet completely for 20 weeks and at just over 10 was able to hobble around with a brace on.

Sunshine and the cool sweat-covered drinks made the affair pleasant and calm.  Though most of those in attendance were strangers I felt like I was in the company of friends.  Now the young grandmother was interested in sharing stories of travel and adventure.

She talked about a 6 week journey across 30 states with her grandparents.  We spoke of the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas on the honey moon.  We shared with this woman the taste of noodle soup in Bangkok, the mangrove swamps of Costa Rica, our various trips to Europe and a certain midnight stroll across the dark continent.

As we shared I made an off hand remark that our honeymoon was last year.  Our two and a half year old daughter ran around on the grass making people smile and soaking up attention like a sponge, as usual.  The wheels began to turn in the head of our fellow story teller and rather than have her struggle with the implications I explained.

"We were only married last year, and Alex was born before that."

Straight, simple and perfectly mundane.

"But is she your daughter or?" The woman asked.

"As far as I know," I joked.  Her expression turned sour and she did not laugh.

From that moment the lady who had spoken with us, who had been delighted to hear about our lives turned utterly indifferent and quickly shifted her attentions to every other party guest EXCEPT for my self, my wife and our daughter.

This is why atheists get angry at christians.

Gotta love the Jehovah's witnesses.

So they stopped by again. This time they dropped off some literature of the awe inspiring and life-changing variety.

Buahahah. No it's all just propaganda but it includes some pretty pictures.

Check it out.



I know I know my scanner was built circa 2001 and it's impossible to square up anything thicker than an envelope. Anyway I did some flipping and found all the usual gibberish. One segment did catch my eye though.

Take a gander.





Now this is a spurious argument at any rate, any book written by the creator of the universe would stand out so far from human endeavors that there could be no possible confusion. That's pretty standard from the files of 'Blatantly Obvious' but allow me to illustrate nonetheless.

Let's say you've got a class full of kindergarten age kids. There are 50 kids total. You ask every one of the 50 kids to draw a picture of a mountain using only a pencil. Keep in mind all of these kids are aged 4 and 5 years old. Now we add a complication. The 51st painting will be done by a master artist who has done nothing but draw mountains with pencils for the last 20 years. The Artist's skill is unparalleled throughout the entire world and no one doubts this.

Would it be hard to distinguish the work of the Artist from the 5 year olds? Would a practiced expert be able to set his or her work apart from a bunch of semi-conscious children still working up the motor skills to properly brush their own teeth?

You betcha. Now let's consider an alternative scenario including the same bunch of kids and the Artist.

This time instead of actually drawing the mountain the task becomes this: Describe the proper way to draw a mountain so that another person will be able to draw it for themselves. Duration, depth and length are all up to the discretion of the person writing the instructions.

Again, would it be difficult to distinguish between the kids and the Artist? Of course not, it would be trivial. But how could we tell? Well without trying to sound patronizing or mean you could look at vocabulary, sentence structure, knowledge of the drawing technique itself could all be employed.

Now if you take the Artist out of the picture then things can get a little more muddled. Disagreements between just the kids would be common place. Some would no doubt be easily distinguished as better than others but there would probably be a few that stood out. Unless there was an art prodigy or some fluke there would be the possibility for debate for at least a few of the paintings or a few of the instructions.

There would be also little doubt, based on the work of other 5 year olds, that the work was written by someone about 4-5 years of age. No matter how hard you try to rationalize or play favorites there is just no way that a 5 year old could produce expert quality art.

So that's why the bible doesn't do it for me. Because it wasn't written by the Artist, if there is an Artist he or she or it sure as hell hasn't left any instructions for all us 5 year olds.