Here is one posted in a comment thread by Da Rat Bastid. I just had to bring this story to the main page for the sufficient mockery that the fundies who protested against the shirts deserve!

Evolution not in tune with school

SEDALIA, Mo. (AP) — T-shirts promoting the Smith-Cotton High School band’s fall program have been recalled because of concerns about the shirt’s evolution theme.

*snip*

Designed with the help of band director Jordan Summers and assistant director Brian Kloppenburg, the light gray shirts feature an image of a monkey progressing through various stages of evolution until eventually becoming a human. Each figure holds a brass instrument that also evolves, illustrating the theme “Brass Evolutions.”

“I was disappointed with the image on the shirt,” said Sherry Melby, a band parent who teaches in the district. “I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school.”

The ignorant bitch is a school teacher! Arrrrgggghhh!!!

Excuse me now while I go bang my head against a wall!

This is the biggest bunch of crap I have heard in awhile. The Poop has stated in a recent speech that atheists are responsible for the destruction of the environment.

Excerpt from the Pope’s speech:

“Is it not true that inconsiderate use of creation begins where God is marginalized or also where his existence is denied? If the human creature’s relationship with the Creator weakens, matter is reduced to egoistic possession, man becomes the ‘final authority,’ and the objective of existence is reduced to a feverish race to possess the most possible.”

Micha J Stone of the Portland Humanist Examiner responds:

The irony is that any historical evaluation places the blame for global warming and the degradation of the planet firmly in the lap of Christians and the Catholic church. The Holy Bible, a book atheists firmly reject for good reason, claims that God gave man dominion over the earth. Christians, including Catholics, took these words to heart. They used those words as carte blanche, a justification for all manners of planetary abuse.

Thank you Micha for putting the blame back where it belongs.

Micha goes on to say:

Christianity, and Catholicism, are historically anti-environmental. In fact, if blame is to be placed for the current global environmental crisis, it is to be placed squarely upon the Judeo-Christian tradition. The fact that Christianity is anti-environmental is no secret. Indeed, many Christians have taken a perverse pride in claiming their dominion. For example, James Watt, who became U.S. Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, wrote an influential and damning article entitled “Ours Is the Earth”. Watt, speaking for countless Christians, made it abundantly clear that for believers the earth is “merely a temporary way station on the road to eternal life…The earth was put here by the Lord for His people to subdue and to use for profitable purposes on their way to the hereafter.”

Exactly. Why should they care about the planet while the ultimate cosmic paradise is out there waiting for them in some other dimension?

So Pope Ratzi, I call Bullshit on you once again.

Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, commented:

“This is rich coming from the leader of an organisation that has plundered the world to enrich itself. As he sits in his golden palaces, surrounded by unimaginable luxury and material wealth, he lectures the rest of us about restraint and greed. We have nothing to learn about environmentalism from this hypocrite.”

Terry invites us to Read the whole, inflated, self-serving speech

Then if you care to, you can read though some of the comments in this thread.

We should start a “Catholics Say the Darndest Things” site, beginning with this gem:

God has given man this extra knowledge in order to fullfill prophecy.
by mominah, 8/29/09 21:01 ET

Again, what a bunch of bullshit!

On the heels of horror, the poisonous concept of the afterlife taints the healing:

The children of Beslan five years on

Russian teenager Chermen has his own assessment of why he survived the attack on School Number One in Beslan in which 326 people, 186 of them children, died.

"God wanted to save everyone but He saved only those who had the highest purpose in life. So I know that when I grow up I will become someone great," he said.

On the morning of 1 September 2004 Chermen was just eight years old and running late for the Day of Knowledge, as the traditional start of the school year is known in Russia.

Chermen made it to the commencement celebrations in time, but in doing so was in the school when a group of Chechen gunmen attacked, taking more than 1,000 people hostage.

The militants herded the hostages into the school gym, and there they held them for three days.

Inside the sweltering gym the terrorists refused to give hostages food or water, forcing them to take drastic measures.

"I drank pee. It was tasteless. I also found a piece of pear skin on a floor. It was really good," Chermen told me when we first met. "But mostly I slept."

At one point he was woken by the sound of an explosion inside the gym. Chermen saw how one of the militants had blown himself up with a grenade attached to his body:

"A terrorist grenade was hit by a bullet. He blew up and his brains hit me in the face. It was horrible. It was fatty and slippery," he said.

The explosion triggered a fierce gun battle between the hostage takers and the Russian Special Forces, who stormed the school in a desperate rescue bid.

[…]

"I can’t forget how the terrorists were killing children, mothers and fathers right in front of us," she said. "They caused us so much pain. I am so angry with them I could kill them. They took the most precious things in my life, my brother and my father."

Laima, another survivor who is also now 14, has made a ritual of her visits to the grave of her best friend who was killed.

"I go to visit Zayka at the cemetery. I sit by her grave and talk to her. I ask her ‘how is life over there? How are you doing?’ I believe she is still near me. For me she isn’t dead."

But others, like Christina, are still troubled by thoughts of those who died.

"I am scared of my dead friends. They come to me in my dreams. They have changed. They are dressed in black. They are angry and say ‘Why us? We wanted to live too!’"

Is the belief in ghosts an aliment to the scars of survivor guilt? No, it is not. And just who was responsible for this act of terrorism? Surprise! A religious extremist by name of Basayev:

Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev has claimed responsibility for the Russian school hostage siege in which at least 320 people were killed. He blamed the Russian authorities for the deaths in Beslan. He further claimed recent bomb attacks on two Russian airliners and a Moscow metro station.  

And sure enough, who does he thank for this bullshit? Yep, you guessed it:

In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate… Who is responsible for the attacks on Rusnya [derogatory word for Russia]? By the Grace of Allah, the Shakhid [martyr] battalion, Riyad us-Saliheen [Gardens of the Righteous] has carried out several successful operations on the territory of Rusnya.

And like any good apologist – the blood is on someone else’s hands, not his own, or his contemptible genie:

What happened in Beslan is a terrible tragedy: the bloodsucker from the Kremlin killed or wounded 1,000 children and adults by ordering the storming of the school to satisfy his imperial ambitions and to keep his job. In the most impudent manner Putin is now trying to blame us for that, accusing us also of international terrorism and appealing to the world for help.

And of course, his demands were reasonable (that is, for a blood-soaked, froth-flecked zealot):

There are facts to prove that:

The mujaheddin made clear-cut and precise demands:

- We demand that the war in Chechnya be stopped immediately and that the withdrawal of forces be carried out;

- We insist that Putin immediately resigns from his post as president of the Russian Federation;

- We insist that all hostages, be it children or adults, go on hunger strike in support of our demands;

Also, the mojahedin set the following conditions:

- We will give water to everyone provided Putin immediately stops the war, sends all his troops to the barracks and begins the withdrawal of his troops;

- We will give food to everyone provided Putin begins the withdrawal of his troops in reality;

- We will release children under 10 as soon as they start withdrawing the troops from mountainous areas;

- We will set others free after they complete the withdrawal of the troops;

- If Putin submits a letter of resignation, we will release all the children and go back to Chechnya with others…

It is blaringly obvious to these crazed monsters (if they had the slightest bit of a brain cell between any of them) that none of these demands would be met.

And all of it palls in contrast to the ridiculous concept that some sort of justice will be meted out by a higher power, that all debts incurred in this life will be settled in the life after, that life unprovable, unsupported by any evidence outside of fuzzy feelings.

It is to weep.

just tell them Jesus was a socialist and Christianity promotes the socialist agenda.

Lately it has been the thing in the media and by our fellow citizens on the far right to call Obama a socialist when few even know what the term means.

Valentine Logar, in her article “Jesus was a Socialist” states:

Our current economic system has some aspects of Socialism including government regulation of certain industries, provisioning of health insurance for the elderly (Medicare), provisioning of care for the poor at a state level (Welfare, WIC, and Medicaid), taxing authority supported police, fire, and aid (911) are all examples of socialist programs. Each is generally found in countries with mixed economies, that is Socialism and Capitalism are both at work. Thus, my first conclusion Barack Obama is not a Socialist he is not even very far left of the middle; he is a Democrat and that is all he is.

But Jesus was indeed a socialist, which when told this many fundies pop a vessel, and go off on all kinds of tangents trying to deny that fact. I found these in various discussion threads about whether Jesus was a socialist:

(this one being rather pathetic and funny at the same time)

Asker writes:

Socialism and socialists tends to be rather unGodly secularists that have a creeping atheism about them.

Guess Jesus was a creeping atheistic ungodly secularist???

And here,Jen Y says:

… let me share my wisdom: Jesus was not a socialist. We are used to Satan quoting the Scriptures and taking them out of context even to Jesus himself.

You could confiscate -not tax, you could confiscate – the wealth of the upper 5% or the upper 10%. You could confiscate the wealth of the upper 40% of the people in this country. You could do it one time only because they’d have nothing left – and you could run the government for less than a year, if you confiscated their wealth. There simply isn’t enough private wealth to take a portion of it and make everybody else in this country rich, which is what socialism implies. What the social justice, the economic justice, the way they use the term in order to sell it, it’s very clever rhetoric, but it doesn’t end up working that way. Everybody ends up being taxed because there isn’t enough private wealth generated for the government to take it every year and make a substantial difference in the lives of people who are not wealthy, it just isn’t the case. Never has been the case.

Jen seems to think that socialism = everyone being rich. More of Jen Y’s rambling can be found here.

I’ve been looking around the internet and you can get these conservative fundies really riled up when you tell them that the Jesus character they worship was a socialist. Try it sometime in general conversation with your fundie friends and family and watch them go berserk, telling you that you don’t know the Bible, don’t know who Jesus really is, etc.

In her article titled simply “Jesus was a Socialist”, Valentine Logar states:

Jesus was the first Socialist, this isn’t really a question, but a statement of fact based upon the New Testament Bible. In fact I find it an interesting phenomenon that those who are most vocal in their rejection of social programs to assist the poor and displaced of our society are the very same who in most cases call themselves the “Moral Majority” and espouse Christian values as the basis of their political stance. Nevertheless, let me return to my proofs of why Jesus was the first Socialist, how I have arrived at this conclusion.

I am going to start with Mark Chapter 10:21-25 21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. 23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

So here, we have a very good example of Utopian Socialism in action with Jesus telling the wealthy young man the only way to follow him and gain heaven was to give away his great wealth to the poor, in other words redistribution of personal wealth to those with great need from those with great riches. Naturally, this must be very difficult for some to swallow, notice that the young mans face ‘fell’ when told he must give away his wealth to follow Jesus. Here though is our first proof, we must have no personal wealth beyond our needs; Socialism seems to be de rigueur.

Ms. Logar goes on to provide more examples here.

Ned Lawrence has broken it down to ten reasons why Jesus is a socialist:

1. Jesus owned nothing. 2. Jesus argued for the dissolution of the family and the establishment of communes. 3. Jesus loved all people regardless of ethnicity or class. 4. Jesus revolted against the imperial government, established religion and finance capitalism (usury). 5. Jesus taught that we should act as one body, one blood. 6. Jesus taught that his kingdom (ie nation state) is in the heart and not below the feet. 7. Jesus taught that we should fight for Justice and ‘turn the other cheek’ to petty morality. 8. Jesus was a laborer and a teacher. 9. Jesus practiced healing and forgiveness. 10. Jesus taught that you can’t be an imperialist and a disciple at the same time.

Yes, our fundie friends, Barrack Obama is NOT a socialist. But, like it or not, your Jesus character was a socialist! If you say he wasn’t, then you are in denial or a liar.

Polls show atheists on the rise in America

Atheist groups are growing all over the United States, challenging stereotypes and confronting what they consider a big backslide in the separation of church and state. They are chatting online, picking up trash along “adopted” highways, and advertising on buses and billboards. In South Florida, they recently picketed a prayer meeting in a public safety building paid for with tax dollars. “We’re growing by leaps and bounds,” said Bob Senatore, a retired teacher and one of the early members of the Florida Atheists and Secular Humanists, or FLASH. “The attitude is, ‘If we don’t do something about it now, we’ll be living under a theocracy.’” Polls show non-believers are on the rise in the United States, even in places like Florida, where, as Senatore sees it, “There’s a church on every corner and a fish on every car.” [...] The American Religious Identification Survey recently found the number of people who claimed “no religion” had nearly doubled nationally over the last 18 years, to 15 percent. They were the only demographic that increased in all 50 states. Some attribute the surge to outrage over former president George W. Bush and his courting of the religious right. Others mention a slew of best-selling books about atheism that have recently fueled debate. But there’s no doubt the Internet is playing a role too. It offers atheist dating services, and helps nonbelievers meet up — people who might otherwise remain “loners.” [...] For others, atheism is a cause. Along with freethinking and agnostic groups, they are beginning to lobby Congress on everything from stem cell research to civil rights. The Secular Coalition for America represents 10 such organizations. Executive director Sean Faircloth said the coalition was particularly interested in bringing down state laws that give special privileges to religious-based services. Groups like his took note when President Barack Obama nodded to “non-believers” during his inaugural speech. “We’ve gone from where we essentially could communicate only with Congress, to now, where we have some open doors at the White House as well,” Faircloth said. “I see tremendous progress and I feel real hope for the future, that you’re going to hear more of us.”

You go, baby…

Health Care Debate Based on Total Lack of Logic

Heated partisan debate over President Obama’s health care plan, erupting at town hall meetings and in the blogosphere, has more to do with our illogical thought processes than reality, sociologists are finding.

The problem: People on both sides of the political aisle often work backward from a firm conclusion to find supporting facts, rather than letting evidence inform their views.

I sort of fell into that illogical thinking process myself when first considering Obama’s health care plan. I was working backwards considering the worst possible scenerios and then working my way back to the beginning to make some sort of sense out of my conclusion that I based on stories I have heard from random people, and my own negative personal experiences with military health care insurance. Both sides need to stop relying on “irrational beliefs” and consider the actual information and analyze it all rationally before coming to any conclusions.

The result: A survey out this week finds voters split strongly along party lines regarding their beliefs about key parts of the plan. Example: About 91 percent of Republicans think the proposal would increase wait times for surgeries and other health services, while only 37 percent of Democrats think so.

Irrational thinking

A totally rational person would lay out – and evaluate objectively – the pros and cons of a health care overhaul before choosing to support or oppose a plan. But we humans are not so rational, according to Steve Hoffman, a visiting professor of sociology at the University of Buffalo.

“People get deeply attached to their beliefs,” Hoffman said. “We form emotional attachments that get wrapped up in our personal identity and sense of morality, irrespective of the facts of the matter.”

And to keep our sense of personal and social identity, Hoffman said, we tend to use a backward type of reasoning in order to justify such beliefs.

Most people who cling to irrational beliefs are less apt to consider opposing ideas and opinions, possibly because they aren’t really certain about how true their beliefs actually are and if they hold steadfast without listening to any other options, they can be right in their own minds no matter what side of the fence the “believer” sits on.

. . . past research by Dolores Albarracin, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has shown in particular that people who are less confident in their beliefs are more reluctant than others to seek out opposing perspectives. So these people avoid counter evidence all together. The same could apply to the health care debate, Albarracin said.

“Even if you have free press, freedom of speech, it doesn’t make people listen to all points of view,” she said.

We need to examine ALL the facts in order to make a clear and rational assessment of any issue, including the current health care reform bill. And we cannot be afraid to say that something that our side proposes is not good, and when the opposing side makes a good point about something.

Just about everybody is vulnerable to the phenomenon of holding onto our beliefs even in the face of iron-clad evidence to the contrary, Hoffman said. Why? Because it’s hard to do otherwise. “It’s an amazing challenge to constantly break out the Nietzschean hammer and destroy your world view and belief system and evaluate others,” Hoffman said.

Get the facts you need.

Hoffman’s idea is based on a study he and colleagues did of nearly 50 participants, who were all Republican and reported believing in the link between the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and Saddam Hussein. Participants were given the mounting evidence that no link existed and then asked to justify their belief.

(The findings should apply to any political bent. “We’re not making the claim that Democratic or liberal partisans don’t do the same thing. They do,” Hoffman said.)

All but one held onto the belief, using a variety of so-called motivated reasoning strategies. “Motivated reasoning is essentially starting with a conclusion you hope to reach and then selectively evaluating evidence in order to reach that conclusion,” explained Hoffman’s colleague, sociologist Andrew Perrin of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

For instance, some participants used a backward chain of reasoning in which the individual supported the decision to go to war and so assumed any evidence necessary to support that decision, including the link between 9/11 and Hussein.

“For these voters, the sheer fact that we were engaged in war led to a post-hoc search for a justification for that war,” Hoffman said. “People were basically making up justifications for the fact that we were at war.”

Their research is published in the most recent issue of the journal Sociological Inquiry.

Then we can consider the hotly debated Health Care Reform bill that has many people in a tizzy with their jumping to conclusions and nightmare scenerios based on irrational, tightly-held beliefs from all sides of the political spectrum.

The proposed health care plan has all the right ingredients for such wonky reasoning, the researchers say.

The issue is both complex (no single correct answer), emotionally charged and potentially history-changing, while debates often occur with like-minded peers in town hall settings. The result is staunch supporters and just-as-staunch critics who are sticking to their guns.

“The health care debate would be vulnerable to motivated reasoning, because it is, and has become, so highly emotionally and symbolically charged,” Perrin said during a telephone interview, adding that images equating the plan with Nazi Germany illustrate the symbolic nature of the arguments.

In addition, the town hall settings make for even more rigid beliefs. That’s because changing one’s mind about a complex issue can rattle a person’s sense of identity and sense of belonging within a community. If everyone around you is a neighbor or friend, you’d be less likely to change your opinion, the researchers say.

“In these one-shot town hall meetings, where you have an emotionally laden complex issue like health care, it’s very likely you’re going to get these ramped up emotionally laden debates. They’re going to be hot debates,” Hoffman told LiveScience.

We must bring all the facts to the table for discussion.

To bring the facts from both sides to the table, Hoffman suggests venues where a heterogeneous group of people can meet, those for and against the proposed health care system overhaul. And at least some of these gatherings should include just a handful of people. In groups of more than about six people, one or two members will tend to dominate the discussion, he said.

For either side, logical arguments might not be the key.

“I think strategically it’s important that the Obama administration and advocates of a health care plan really pay attention to how people feel and the symbolism they are seeing, and not just the nuts and bolts of the policy,” Perrin said. “People don’t reason with pure facts and logic alone.”

In other words, most people just aren’t that smart and rely mostly on feelings and emotions. In order to calm the masses, Obama and his administration better start addressing those irrational beliefs and fears.

Here’s my mail selection of the week:

“Contrary to popular misconception, biblical Christian faith is not blind. It is reasonable, evidence-based, and testable”

Then Mike goes on to quote his “evidence” from the Babble:

“(2 Thes. 3:2, Heb 11:1, Isa 1:18, etc.)”

2 Thes. 3:2 — And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith.

Heb 11:1 — Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Isa 1:18 — Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

These passages were so obviously written by unreasonable delusional humans. The “reasoning” provided in the last passage you provided is simply a bunch of pretty adjectives and analogies of basically, nothing.

Sorry Mike, but Bible passages are NOT “reasonable, evidence-based, and testable”. Your beliefs are based on faith and your contradictory and inconsistent mythology book that was written by many human beings in ancient times. Nothing “evidence-based” and nothing “testable” concerning the existence of your god and zombie Jesus has been found to date.

There were three men came out of the west, their fortunes for to try
And these three men made a solemn vow
John Barleycorn must die
They’ve ploughed, they’ve sown, they’ve harrowed him in
Threw clods upon his head
And these three men made a solemn vow
John Barleycorn was dead – John Barleycorn Must Die

Among UFOlogists, crop circles are considered to be actual evidence of alien visitation.

Mysterious phenomena reported from Great Britain beginning in 1980. Large, wide circles, sometimes more than 100 feet in diameter, have appeared overnight in fields of grain. The grain in the circle is not dead, but the plant stems are flattened and sometimes darker in color than the surrounding grain. The first report of the circles appeared in the Wiltshire Times on August 15, 1980. It told of several circles that had appeared in the oat fields of John Scull farm near the town of Bratton. A year later a set of circles was discovered in Hampshire, near Cheesefoot Head. Unlike the earlier set, which had been randomly placed, this second set of three circles was in a straight line.

So…the pattern became more intricate.

Most of the circles have been reported from the southern counties of Hampshire and Wiltshire, the same area already noted for its monolithic structures such as Stonehenge and Avebury. There are some occasional reports of similar phenomena in France, Canada, Australia, and the U.S. Between 1980 and 1987 approximately 120 circles appeared in the original area west of London. Then a dramatic increase occurred in 1988 with 112 reported. Over 300 were reported in 1989 and in 1990 over 1,000.

More patterns emerge. It seems that the media attention fanned the fires, so to speak.

Over the years, the original circles gave way to ever more complex patterns, called "pictograms," which included circles arranged in geometric patterns, rectangles, crescents, and dumbbell shapes. In the case of concentric rings, the grain is sometimes flattened uniformly, at other times in contrary directions.

Explanations of the phenomenon include giant hailstones, crazed hedgehogs, too much or too little fertilization, and UFOs. There was even a suggestion that the circles may have been formed by helicopters flying upside down, but the absence of widespread helicopter wrecks disproved any dangerous practice of this kind. It is well known that small rings in grass meadows and lawns are known to be caused by mushrooms, but there is no evidence that the giant crop circles result from any known fungi. One theory that is distinct from speculations of paranormal effects is that of physicist George T. Meaden. He proposes a theory of atmospheric vortices that are electrically charged.

And here’s a real kicker for ya:

In 1991 Doug Bower and David Chorley claimed to have personally produced more than 250 of the circles. With the assistance of the British tabloid Today, they created a circle and invited Pat Delgado, the author of a popular text on the phenomenon, to inspect it. Once he pronounced the new circle genuine, the hoax was revealed. Other hoaxers had also produced circles that were judged genuine. However, those who believe in the mystery of the circles have suggested that hoaxing would only account for a few of the more than 2,000 circles. No one has been caught making a crop circle and none appear to have been left half finished. Additionally, it seems difficult to create some of the more complex pictograms in the dark. To date, monitoring of the area has failed to catch the formation of a circle on film or instrumentation.

I just have to shake my head at those last three sentences. Firstly, none of these blokes are taking an advert out in the local column, are they? Second, why would any of them be half-finished? Thirdly, I can give this about 5 minutes of thought and answer the ‘more complex pictograms’ query.

You build a model, like someone designing a city. Wouldn’t need to be that complex, it’s a matter of scale. Once you figure out the pattern you want, you can use thread, spools, and rulers (and any other small measuring devices) to plot it out. In programming, it’s called pseudo-code – you put a skeleton together and flesh it out. Besides which, it’s easy to see that the fellows doing it (obviously it’s not just Bower and Chorley) have gotten better as more circles were drafted onto fields.

This is a basic skeptics model: you test to see if a human being can replicate the event. If this is so, you then assume a human did it. Because 10 out of 10 times, that’s exactly what happened. In this case, it’s more like 99.99%, because on a humorous note, there IS one other species who has been at the root of this phenomenon (huge hint here: it wasn’t ET, baby):

"The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," Giddings told those assembled. "Then they crash. We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high."

For a less humorous (and more bizarre extrapolation), check this site out. Just a taste, mind you:

According to the theory of Fosar and Bludorf these crop circles appear precisely as a result of hypercommunication through magnetized wormholes in the DNA, and this would explain the magnetized anomalies aspect of this phenomenon.

And I’m pretty sure that one’s not a Poe.

This the Apostate, shaking his head, signing off