"One nation, under...a spell"

Meet Pat Condell. He's an Englishman, who loves America. Or, rather, Pat loves the America the Founding Fathers invented. As he says, "before it was hijacked by xian zealots"...

The Parallax model: the genesis of the DI/IDiots

OMG! A book about "hoodwinking" the public? Biblical "literalism" has been done before? Say it isn't so!

At this point, Garwood's narrative becomes a study of how knowledge is produced and disseminated in a complex modern society. The flat Earth idea is proposed and promulgated in Victorian England by a colourful cast of con artists and eccentrics, the leader of whom is a quack doctor and snake oil salesman who calls himself "Parallax." He is a smooth debater and a clever self-promoter who leaves audiences dazzled; the real scientists who take him on have reason on their side, but no sense of how to communicate to a popular audience. Parallax plays the anti-elitist, inviting his audience to use their common sense and focus on the "facts" they all know, while leaving the speculative "theories" of establishment science in the dust. The round Earth, he declares, is merely a "theory" for which no actual proof has ever been found, and is a central part of a sinister conspiracy to undermine piety and true faith by a troop of atheistic scientists and their liberal, pseudo-Christian allies in the established mainline churches. And he's getting famous and making quite a lot of money with this stunt.

Is this all sounding familiar?

MORE

From a book review, on The Vanity Press website, of Flat Earth: the History of an Infamous Idea, by Christine Garwood. She states, "Every educated person in the Middle Ages knew that the Earth was a sphere..."

Until the charlatans and con-men cribbed from the bibble - and so began "biblical literalism"!

It is not a coincidence that, simultaneously, Lamarckians and Darwinians were "shaking the foundation of religion" with critical examinations of "creation in just six days"...

Had we known about this before, we could be rolling our eyes and saying, "Here we go again!"

(Originally posted here.)

Mr. Deity!

If this is the first time you've heard of Mr.Deity, you might consider watching episodes One through Nine first. They are all available on the Mr.Deity webpage, also linked again below the YouTube. Although this is a stand-alone video, you can gain some backstory on the characters that might enrich this experience...



Mr.Deity, episode 10: Mr.Deity and the Seed

Yes, it is about "that Seed" -- Sacred Sperm! My favorite subject! NOT! I love to snark about it a lot, though.

Here is the Mr.Deity webpage, where you can see the first nine episodes, read the FAQs and listen to an interview with Mr.Deity on Humanist News Network.

BTW, here is something interesting from the FAQs:

Brian, what is your stand on Religion?

I am a formerly religious person (non-bitter), and as such, have great sympathies for the beliefs and feelings of religious people. I love the fact that they are concerned with the big issues like Good and Evil, Existence, Creation, etc... I don't always agree with the answers they provide to these questions, but I deeply respect their concern. Our goal here is not to mock religion, but to use it as a foundation for the humor. I'm thrilled that so many religious people have written to tell me that they love the episodes. In future episodes, I intend to turn the tables a bit and poke fun at what I call the "angry atheists" (of whom I am not fond). We'll see if they take it so well.

We "angry atheists" are likely to cringe. But our "moderate/liberal atheists" can jump to our defense...

Actually, you can contact him on his webpage, and nicely express your disappointment in his flawed understanding of atheists' anger. I'm going to!