--Winston Churchill
New (to me) author: Charles Stross.
I'd heard good things about his novel Accelerando, tried to read it, and succumbed rapidly to Quicksilver disease. (I named that syndrome after the first novel I got it from, Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. It has one symptom, but it's a dilly: the more you read, the stupider you feel, until you're too dumb to turn the pages.)
But I thought I'd give the guy another chance...there were far too many people telling me to read him. So I took Glasshouse out for a spin from our local library...and loved it to pieces. I bought Iron Sunrise next and I gotta say it rivals the Hyperion series for the title of Ken's Favourite Space Opera.
So I'm reading the man's web site and soaking up knowledge by the minute...until I came across his diary entry for January 16, 2006. A whole different kind of knowledge was revealed to me. Behold, the Wisdom of the Fundamentalists:
"I can sum it all up in three words: Evolution is a lie"
"One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn't possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it."
I almost choked reading that. I mean, c'mon, that can't be real, can it? I almost expected this quote to finish "they'd probably point to that YELLOW BALL in the SKY and say THAT was it..."
"all the evolutionists, tell me something. i know how the big bang "has happened, but tell me, wouldnt an explosion, especially one that size, take away life instead of allow it? think about it. ex: the a-bomb, the h-bomb, grenades, cannon balls (when fired from a cannon of course), mines, rocket launchers, and anything and everything in between. they all have taken lives."
Oh, dear.
"several million years for a monkey to turn into a man. oh wait thats right. monkeys dont live several million years."
That almost convinced me! Oh, but this one's classic:
"Everyone knows scientists insist on using complex terminology to make it harder for True Christians to refute their claims. Deoxyribonucleic Acid, for example... sounds impressive, right? But have you ever seen what happens if you put something in acid? It dissolves! If we had all this acid in our cells, we'd all dissolve! So much for the Theory of Evolution, Check MATE!"
Mining the comments for more gems, we move from science into social studies:
I am a bit troubled. I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed. My son is only 16 and I really don't think he's ready to date yet. What's worse is that he's sneaking some girl to his room behind my back. I need help, God! I want my son to stop being so secretive!
As if these weren't enough, I then found this site, continually updated with the latest in fundie wisdom.
And I gotta tell ya, I have SO MUCH to learn. I'll give you an example.
[about a girl being born with mental disabilities]
This girl is like a leper so what she needs to do is try and find god if she really believes she can be healed from this state, she will be healed from this state Most afflictions like this are caused by sins committed while still inside the womb. If she can repent for what she does god will embrace her and make her as human as you or me but if she chooses not to she'll always be like this god tests every one of us [emphasis added]
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Now, everybody, before you go off the deep end, I know that not everyone who believes in God and/or Jesus automatically believes all this....stuff. I'm just sayin', the people who do believe stuff like this scare me. A lot. As someone mentioned on Stross's site, stupidity is curable, if the afflicted wants it to be. ("If she really believes she can be healed from this state"...oh, never mind.) Stupidity mixed with ego is almost incurable and can be deadly. And while I'd argue most people of faith aren't this irrational, it seems like a sizeable minority are.
Remember, these are all real quotes culled from around the Internet: Christian fora, and atheist fora where Christians often venture in search of hearts and minds.
[spelling and grammar unedited]
What do the other human persons here think ? No doubt someone will object, saying something obviously ridiculous like, but atheists are persons. But clearly this is mistaken because anybody without a well developed belief in God is obviously not a full human person. What could be more obvious than that ? How many full human persons do you know without a well developed belief in God. Obviously none, because if they were full human person they would have a well developed belief in God. Now some people might object to killing atheists for there (and obviously it is there and not thier as they are not whos but whats ) organs but think of all the full human persons that would benifit from the organs and the medical research that could be done on these non-persons. How could anybody object, they are not human persons and if you think we should not kill them then that is just because of out dated ideas and because they must really just want people to suffer. For shame on you ! So what do people think ? Should we kill these atheist human non-persons for the benifit of fully human persons ?
Here's another:
What do doctors who perform abortions deserve?) I vote death..... It will be a double whammy... kill the murderer and we will be one less liberal too.
There are a bunch more in this vein. I pray to God (ha-ha) that one of these types doesn't move in next door to me. I'm not even an atheist, strictly speaking, but since I don't believe in the God these folks do, I don't think it'd matter much. And I can play the part of someone continually washed in the Blood of the Lamb--I can play that part very well--but it's draining.
My prayer: God in Heaven, please deliver me from these Your followers.
4 comments:
Dear God, why have thou forsaken me, allowing me to read this post by Breadbin? What have I done to deserve this...
When Mr Breadbin started to talk to his wife about this, she shuddered and said "please don't tell me this. I can't take knowing this"
Well, then I read this blog, and I think that it reminds me of something. What is it...
Jews drink the blood of the righteous.... no that's not it.
All people who do not follow Allah should die....no that's not it.
Non-believers eat small children....no that's not it.
Hmmm - it's eluding me. Maybe it's that these people truly believe what they are saying. Maybe it's the thought that these people think that you should die, because they believe that they are the 'fully humans'.
And you aren't. What's the 'English' word for Jihad?
I weep for this world some days...
Thomas: just consider it your cup, and drink it aaaaaaalllll up.
Love, it's interesting to me that you don't hear about atheists, even the fundamentalists like Dawkins and Hitchens, arguing we need to kill the religious. Christians like the ones on that site think atheists are Evil, with the capital E. Most atheists seem to think those Christians are not evil, just stupid (or Stupid). Personally, I'd much rather be thought of as stupid.
Incidentally, the same seems to hold true politically: Liberals think conservatives are Evil; conservatives think liberals are stupid.
Wow!! Holy irratioanlity and ignorance.
These people are the ones that will be the end to our beginning if we allow them any credibility. If we are to move on as a human race, we need to leave these childish notions behind.
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