Ah, I love the smell of vitriol in the morning. I woke up to find this lovely screed from “Dan” (with the title line, “Do you get paid?”) waiting impatiently in my inbox. Groggy and sans latte, I couldn’t at first make out the reasons for his venom. But then I spotted two sentences (I’ve put the relevant bits in bold) that gave the game away:
Seriously,
Do people actually pay you to teach their children? You’re seriously one of the least intelligent, least rational people I’ve ever encountered in all of blogs on the internet. I’m pretty confident that my middle school nephew’s blog about kickball and spongebob, and sometimes even spongebob playing kickball, is more coherent than yours. You’re bad at what you do and the points you make, especially in regards to religion, are not scientific or empirical at all. Stop lying.
I read on your blog that you think that science and religion are completely incompatible, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth and you truly have no evidence to support that. You seem to talk about “compartmentalizing” a lot, as if that somehow proves your point. On the contrary, I would think that it takes a lot of compartmentalizing to be a blithering, lying douche bag who has not nearly the scientific knowledge of Polkinghorne, et al. but pretends he does, and as an atheist, can’t admit, that life is therefore ultimately meaningless or that absolute morals do not exist. But instead you have to rely on completely irrational attacks. You lie, plain and simple. Just come out as the fraud that you are and admit that you’re a lonely guy that just hangs out with cats. Don’t piss on the parade of young, impressionable kids that actually follow your blog. And I say this, mainly cause I find and work with young kids that actually think you know what you’re talking about. It’s embarrassing. You’re a dork, and that’s not an ad hominen, I say that mainly because you’re a dishonest piece of work who has to be blatantly dishonest, unscientific and irrational to convince young people of your ridiculous viewpoint. That really makes you a dork. Good science completely disagrees with you, and in years time, I guarantee any viewpoint you support, which I can’t even call scientific, aside from the basic principle of evolution, will be disregarded. You’re truly an irrational, unscientific idiot. I can’t believe some layman actually think that you would know anything about science, aside from some biology.
– Dan, Maryland
My conclusions:
- The most bizarre aspect of this mind-dump is that he constantly accuses me of lying but gives no specifics.
- It’s another religious dude who doesn’t act like a Christian (of course, he could be a Jew or a Mormon, but I suspect not).
- I’m not a lonely guy who hangs out with cats because I don’t have a cat.
- Funniest line: “You’re a dork, and that’s not an ad hominen.” He also misspelled the last word.
- We must be making headway with the young people if I’ve driven him to such heights of fury!
- He hates me because I don’t love baby Jesus. And I should just shut up. Because of reasons.
As per my policy, I won’t disclose the guy’s email address since there’s no direct threat here, but I will send to him the URL of this post and the readers’ comments. So if you have anything to say to Dan beyond what I’ve said above, comment away. There’s no need to reassure me that I’m okay, though, as over the past 3.5 years of doing this website (has it really been that long?) I’ve developed a tough hide about morons like this. (Excuse the ad hominen.)
….i luvya Jerry from Australia
Jerry’s not from Australia
Coulda fooled me. Fellow Wm & Mary alumnus Fred Rainey moved to Sydney, where he is living happily ever after.
Dan is rude, uncouth & full of bile. He is not a person who should be dealing with children. Clearly Jerry is not bad at what he does, & he does publish scientific papers & write books – where are Dan’s great intellectual achievements to be seen?
How sweet & tolerant these ranting Jesus freaks are.
To be generous, perhaps poor Dan is confusing his Hominoidea, Hominidae, Homininae, Hominini & Homo! I know I do!
He’s just gone ape about it!
/@
He needs to stop monkeying around.
Hmm… what’s the next clade up?
/@
Euarchontoglires, perhaps?
Rats, we are speciating like rabbits!
It is entirely possible that Dan is a vision of sweetness and light compared to the average member of his religious organisation.
OK ; “it is possible …”.
OK ; “it is not impossible …”
I pity the kids.
Interesting that some religious people believe that non-belief equals nihilistic despair.
Dear Dan: no, it really doesn’t.
Isn’t it funny how it is always religious people that try to convince atheists of this?
I guess he is right in that ultimately life is meaningless and that absolute morals do not exist. So? As an atheist, I am much happier with establishing a meaning for life in this life and determining a set of morals based on reality, modern wisdom and the needs of society – and updating those morals in the light of experience of new discoveries.
Poor Dan. They got you good, didn’t they?
Many atheist philosophers maintain that absolute morals exist. I happen not to agree with them. But the worst view is that if absolute morals don’t exist, then no morals exist.
“Many atheist philosophers maintain that absolute morals exist. ”
No, they don’t. What most atheist philosophers maintain is that objective morals exist, and that definitely seems true. By ‘objective’, all they mean is ‘not depending on personal opinion’, much in the same way that mathematical theorems do not depend on anyone’s opinion. Indeed, the idea that you need God to have (objective) morality makes as much sense as the idea that you need God to have mathematics.
An important distinction.
Hi Jerry – I’d just like to say that WEIT is a fantastic book, thoroughly engaging, well written and highly accessible. I’d recommend it to Angry Dan. Your blog is a fine extension to your literary output. Keep up the good work.
Take strength from the fact that every rant and rage from the religious is a ‘tell’, revealing an inner turmoil hinged upon a struggle to rationalise ‘what they wish was true’ vs ‘the reality they experience’.
If gods existed they’d have taken away Dan’s internet access long before now.
“If gods existed they’d have taken away Dan’s internet access long before now.” – 🙂
Angry Bird Dan.
WEIT and all others, bemuse yourselves in reading the drivel at Triablogue! There the blogger tells some Alex and me that we only give assertions when that is what he himself does!
Has anyone else here ever read any of that drivel and had the same reaction?
http://igmor.blogspot.com
Errr, why?Why would Joe Random God particularly care about what Dan Vitriol-Spitter is saying on the third rock from the Sun? Does Joe R. God care what humans think of him? Does Joe R. God actually think? Does Joe R. God think that humans are to be pleased, impressed, or terrified into submission? If there were a god of the Internet, Dan might well be doing his malign work by terrifying the children he is responsible for.
…except for post upon post with calm and detailed explanations of what is wrong in the reaoning of Polkinghorne, et al.
It would be difficult to dissect the substance of Dan from Maryland’s mail, though, there being none.
I would really like to know how/ why a person of this type would even end up in a page like this. I like to imagine one of these ‘young impressionable’ kids challenging some regurgitated dogma good ol’ Dan here told them and him going absolutely bonkers yelling -“where did you hear that?; those are lies I tell you! LIES!!”
Hahaha! That’s exactly what I’d gleaned from poor ‘ol Dan’s rant. These ‘just have faithers’ rarely have any sound arguments behind them, that’s why they get so angry: they have to argue a point they know so little about. Poor guys.
This is exactly why understanding speciation is so important.
I don’t wish to defend Dan’s argument, but that actually is one of the better spelled and more readable examples of anti-science bile. Even I get occasional anti-evolution bile in emails, and I’m just a lecturer and researcher. We have fun trying to decipher them. So, Jerry, what I’m trying to say is you seem to be attracting a better class of spluttering, outraged loon.
Oh and, by the way – “I’m not a lonely guy who hangs out with cats because I don’t have a cat” – that was a laugh out loud, thank you!
That made me sad. I just thought: “I hope Jerry isn’t lonely.”
I’m sure Jerry hangs out with hep cats! “Nice!”
/@
Are hep cats the ones that work at particle colliders?
Yes, but they’re interested only in furrmeownic interactions …
/@
(Sorry!)
For that one, you might have to apologize *twice*. 🙂
… in a purrticle collider.
Yes, they’re studying weak nuclear felids.
/@
“Weak nuclear felids” ROFL!
OMG, too funny! Purrticle colliders and all!
But poor Jerry must really be a lonely guy. He hangs out with virtual cats. 😉
“…you seem to be attracting a better class of spluttering, outraged loon.”
Glad I wasn’t drinking coffee when I read that!
Should we set up a dating agency for them? Breed them up like the silver foxes, to try to make them tamer?
I absolutely thought JAC was a cat owner.
Mind blown.
We’re working on changing that. The local swat team is going to drill a big hole down from the roof into Jerry’s office and we’ll be lowering baskets of kittens into his inner sanctum on a regular basis.
Sort of like those anti-terrorist operations where they lower a bomb through a hole in the roof, got it?
Meow.
Hiss.
Purr.
Now where can we get a really good deal on cat litter?
Ceiling cats?
Jerry,
I can’t believe you don’t have a cat. Please go to the nearest shelter and remedy this situation. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.
The best and cheapest is sold both as expensive cat litter (Feline Pine) and cheaper than dirt “pelleted horse bedding.” The latter goes for about $6/40 lb bag — enough to last my ten cats two weeks, when all are kept strictly indoors. Pine has natural antimicrobial action via chemicals, phenolic compounds, if I recall correctly. In use, urine breaks pellets back down to sawdust. Just remove solid waste, sift sawdust, and, as necessary, add a little more. And I do mean “little.” Those pellets expand many times over when released back into sawdust. Added environmental bonuses: No earthly digging necessary (as with clay litter); 100% biodegradable; 100% easily renewable resource. Oh, and it produces less random dust than many other litters and is less sharp under bare feet than clay.
You shall know them by their love.
Ha, that guy is funny.
It’s amazing how (relatively) long that email was, without making any kind of specific point.
What I’m disappointed with is that he didn’t add a link to the SpongeBob and kickball blog.
Yes– it would be interesting to see what Dan thinks of as a “coherent” website since this one confuses him so.
This page is the #1 return from Google for “spongebob kickball blog”
Which to me suggests that Dan has “reality issues” … as if that wasn’t pretty evident already.
Dear Dan
Jerry Coyne and WEIT readers would pay more attention to you and your objections if you did not bold selected sentences as if they are more important than the rest of your argument. Your sentences should be able to stand on their own without extra emphasis. Your message is full of ad hominem (not “ad hominen”), and it is unoriginal ad hominem.
By the way, hanging out with cats is better than hanging out with Jesus; cats exist.
Fairly sure that’s Jerry’s emphasis.
But I agree he is a moron
You are correct. Please excuse my reading comprehension fail, especially since I did have more than one coffee before I read the post.
Yes, I impled that I put part of the email in bold type, but I’ll fix it to make that clearer.
I’m pretty sure it was Prof Coyne who bolded those bits of text.
I am curious if our hist undertook any further editing, since the email is quite well written compared to many examples of theistic feedback to atheist sites.
Zero content, but not actually painful to read.
… not actually painful to read.”
Unlike my own typo ridden attempt.
Dan – no doubt things can be difficult looking up from one of the lower rungs of the food chain. I do hang out with cats, and thus the only criticism of my fellow U of comrade (Dan, that’s a word derived from “Commie raid”) is that he does not have a cat. So Coyne, get a bleepin’ cat, so Danny boy can get somethin’ right.
Yours in bemused resignation, The Dickster
It is hilarious that he says you have no evidence. It is apparent that he has never actually read your website posts where you provide evidence by the truckload for everything. My guess is that he just reads headlines at most. It is pointless to try to say anything directly to him because he will never read these comments.
Dan has likely heard the demand from nonbelievers like Jerry that theists provide evidence of their preferred deity. A fleeting thought probably fluttered through his skull; something like “well I can use that argument, too”. But Dan didn’t notice the mountains of evidence that WEIT supplies on a regular basis.
Sigh.
Droll. The entire rant is ad hominem. Does Dan have any idea what “evidence” means?
I mean objective, verifiable evidence.
IMHO. it’s a mixed bag. An ad hominem in the truest sense is the response to an argument that relies solely on questioning the character of the person who made the original statement, and fails to respond to the original argument. One cannot start with an ad hominem; e.g., saying such and such is a dog fancier is statement that can be falsified, i.e., you can demonstrate such and such fancies canine company. Now if in response to that argument, the counter argument is well such and such likes goldfish, that response is ad hominem. Otherwise all that is bandied about are baseless accusations or insults.
So Dan here writes an incoherent screed, with baseless accusations, but never really states to which argument he is responding. One could assume the inclusion of the reference to Polkinghorne is the object of this rant but it’s so far down, it is unclear. (Never bury the lede). So one must assume he is starting the argument, and it is his contention that Dr. Coyne is an incompetent scientist and a liar. These are falsifiable accusations (baseless or not) but it requires a bit more evidence than Dan provided.
And I did not consider Dr. Coyne’s closing remark as an ad hominem either. He was not responding to the argument, he was either insulting Dan, or pointing out the obvious fact that Dan is an uneducated lout who is incapable of determining whether someone is a competent scientist or attempting deception. From all indications, Dan is indeed a moron in the colloquial sense of the word. If Dan truly is a moron, (IQ below 70) he would not have the mental faculties to communicate even at that rudimentary level, so at worst, Dan is an idiot.
I took Dan’s diatribe to be in the nature of a rebuttal of Jerry’s various statements and arguments, and fallacious because it was all about Jerry’s perceived character and intelligence with no attempt to address any individual arguments.
Where does a Duns Scotus lie in the hierarchy you delineate?
Also, is “idiot” somehow related to the “id”?
What’s all this about ‘your blog’, ‘blog’ this, ‘blog’ that .. blog..blog..blog?
What IS he talking about?
I must admit though, that I’m rather disturbed by one of Jerry’s remarks:
While we can bicker about the use of the word ‘have’ in this context, I had NO idea that Jerry doesn’t share his life with, at least one, cat. I find this .. well, I’m just lost for words …
I’m surprised too! Why don’t you have a cat Jerry? Mind you I love cats too, and I have one, but I can think of lots of reasons not to have one. Just curious!
Perhaps Jerry prefers his love unrequited. Or maybe Jerry or someone in the family is allergic.
On second thought, even if Jerry did have a cat, most of time the love would be unrequited. 😄
Mine remains so, unless I happen to be on a conference call. Then I get both cats expressing their love vocally and Siamese cats can be quite expressive.
I just thought of something; Why has’nt Jerry, and Ceiling Cat, ever been photographed together?
I don’t “have” a cat that gets fed at my home ; that sleeps in my house ; that even acknowledges me more than half the times that we meet in the street.
But I do regularly get to provide under-belly warm (if slightly mobile) seating for a cat who stays with friends ; said cat will allow me to pet it, purrs in return ; it even sometimes deigns to recognise me when I’m walking down the street and allows me to carry it to Feeding Station #1 (my friend’s house ; we’re sure there are at least 3 Feeding Stations, in addition to the local wildlife).
“Sharing one’s life” can comfortably cover quite a range of interactions.
‘I read on your blog that you think that science and religion are completely incompatible, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth and you truly have no evidence to support that.’
That would have been an ideal opportunity for Dan to provide some evidence that they aren’t incompatible.
Fortunately, spam control software packages offer a preemptive deletion feature that automatically rejects any missive composed by Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope.
Dear Dan, I am not an impressionable young kid but rather a middle-aged and well-educated man. I don’t have to believe what Jerry says just because he says so, or because he has an old book which claims to be true, despite the lack of any evidence to support this claim. That is the beauty of science, I can verify any scientific claim that anyone makes for myself.
It is rather sad that you have chosen to waste so much of what is probably your only chance at life on unprovable beliefs based on an old book which has been shown many times to be factually inaccurate and morally inconsistent, and even absurd.
Nonetheless, maybe you’re right and there really is a god. The only problem for you then is, without evidence, how do you determine you are worshipping the right one, or even that he needs to be worshipped in the first place?
As Homer Simpson said, ‘What if we’re worshipping the wrong god. We’re just making him madder and madder’. It would indeed be ironic if, after all of the time you’ve no doubt spend on your knees in subjugation, you find yourself in hell because you should have been worshipping someone else.
I liked this posting .It brought a smile to my face.
With regard to god as a ‘him’,I am particularly amused by the idea of man being created in the likeness of god.In that case I suppose he would live on a world like ours where he would have EVOLVED all the organs similar to ours. A mouth to eat food, eyes that can only see in one direction ,ears that depend on an atmosphere to work & what about the naughty bits? I think he must have had a slightly smaller brain.No,I’m convinced that he had a smaller brain.Probably he believed in God.
I wonder if god has an appendix and eyes that are wired up back to front as well?
Ah, yes: Mr. Deity and the Naughty Bits! Very funny episode!
“Homer’s Wager”?!
/@
+1
Adherents of the chief monotheisms do not suppose there may be other gods to worship. I think the idea of several gods, or no gods at all, makes no sense to them and will fall on deaf ears.
Does that mean that we’d have to use cattle-prods to drive them out of their cages into the arena to fight amongst themselves?
I’ll see what I can get. Oh, someone markets them as “WASPs”, while ebaY’s first hit for “cattle prod” is a picture of an Alabama police officer from the 1960s – coincidentally a WASP himself. “Quelle surprise!”
So, you accept evolution. Bravo! The bar has been raised for future sputtering loons.
I think this is the core of his problem– and the problem for many who accept evolution while trying to convince themselves it doesn’t interfere with religious faith.
Science has a method for wheedling out the truth; faith does not– when it comes to supernatural claims, the Christian is in the same boat as the Muslim… or Scientologist… or believer in Greek Myths.
This is very problematic for those who imagine themselves saved for what they BELIEVE (and damned for doubt). I remember having the desperate need to convince myself that my faith MUST be good for something back when I was feeling similar cognitive dissonance to Dan. There was always this fear it might lead to non-belief… and ETERNAL consequences (at the hand of a “loving” god –ha!)
Evolution makes it pretty obvious that consciousness is an evolved feature of a material brain. Consciousness evolved because it helps survival and reproduction in those who have it. There would be no “reason” for gods or souls or any other type of disembodied consciousness. Wishing something to be true, cannot make it so! If consciousness could be disembodied, then why wouldn’t we conclude that trees, and rocks, and wind was conscious? How are souls more likely to be real than demons or fairies?
The reason humans invent stories about living after death (when they don’t imagine that trees or roaches or dinosaurs live on in spiritual form) is because they became smart enough to think ahead– which made them realize they will die– just like every other living thing. I think Jerry has caused an iota of this understanding to reach Dan’s consciousness… and now Dan is forced to play the desperate mind-game of the Biologos crowd to convince himself that his magical beliefs are as rational as his acceptance of evolution.
I think Dan’s frothing attempts at rationalizing faith is what we can expect from a lot people in the years to come as the findings of science reveals their sacred beliefs to be as mythological as the sacred beliefs of generations past.
“This is very problematic for those who imagine themselves saved for what they BELIEVE (and damned for doubt).”
I feel this is the perhaps the most pernicious aspect of religion, or at least the religion I grew up with. Being brought up with the idea that merely “believing” the wrong thing could land you in an eternity of suffering is a notion that is fatal to all reason. The very idea is absurd. Who can control what they actually believe? Belief is not really a choice. I can’t just wake up and decide to believe I can fly (or that the Earth is young, etc.) But that is the position many Christians are in. They feel a desperate need to believe they can fly. They know, in some parts of their mind, that they can’t, that they won’t climb to the top of the building and jump off and go soaring away. But they fear that if they don’t believe they can they will be in trouble. So they pretend, they contort their mind into tricks to maintain the illusion, even to themselves, that they do believe it. The resulting cognitive dissonance is painful, and sometimes breaks out with frustration or anger. The normal social convention of not questioning religion props this up, says to people essentially, “If you say you can fly, who am I to question it?”. New Atheists are like someone who simply says, “Great, let’s see you fly.”
Conversely, the absolute best thing about finally getting out of religion is the loss of this painful dissonance. I can’t say how happy it makes me to not feel the pressure to try to fit the world into some pre-defined story that doesn’t really work. I don’t waste any energy “trying” to believe things I don’t. I can spend my energy trying to find things out and let my beliefs be what they may.
Actually I’d bet good money that Dan’s idea of “the basic principle of evolution” bears little resemblance to the reality.
“It’s another religious dude who doesn’t act like a Christian.”
Ah, but he IS acting like a Christian.
Recall the whole Jessica Alquist episode. Aside from the legal question, the whole time that was going on, I kept thinking how utterly ineffective that banner was. The hatred directed toward her is the real Christianity. The sentiment expressed in this email is the real Christianity.
Face it, Dan, and your fellow Christers. The results of your belief system are dismal. L
My thought exactly. We shouldn’t cede the high ground to Christians even to point that they’re “not acting Christian”, when in fact they are.
Who?
Ah, I see. It gets difficult to keep track of so many cases. Well, keep up the good work ; Prometheus’s eagle eventually had to get a new beak-sharpening stone.
Hi Dan,
Many of the readers here at WEIT enjoy engaging with people in a good argument. However, you have not provided the basis for a good argument, but rather thrown a lot of assertions & opinions at Jerry without actually providing any evidence for your claims.
Feel free to join in this comment thread with some of that evidence if you have it, otherwise we will be forced to conclude that your assertions are groundless & you are merely floundering in impotent rage.
Really? Have you seen what’s on the Internet? Have you read a total of, what, three blogs ever? If so, what are the others if they’re even more intelligent and rational than this one? Because, dang, they’d have to be pretty good compared to the calm, clear, consise wordsmith we got hammering here.
Weird how so many atheists seem to be totally happy with life, me included. It’s like we’re the ones that give meaning to our lives or something. I always wonder if the religious that argue this really do sit down to a good meal shared with friends and family and only think, “yeah… Jesus.”
Oh man, the absolute morals thing. That’s not an argument for religion, just wishful thinking. If that’s the case, why aren’t all these atheists, who have no meaning, just raping and murdering all the time?
My one argument against this absolute morality stuff is I have empathy for others. If we just relied on this absolute morality, we wouldn’t have these feelings to be good to other people, we’d heartlessly put the knife down and think oh yeah I’m not supposed to do that.
And going the other way, if there is this objective absolute morality, are you saying religious people really do want to rape and murder all the time, but only the idea of their invisible god is stopping them?
And the “can’t admit” part, that’s sounds along the same lines of “c’mon atheist, you know deep down in your heart that there really is a god.” Thanks for reminding us what we actually think!
Moral certitude and empathy are mutually exclusive. If your beliefs are the only right ones, looking at something from another person’s viewpoint is by definition looking at it from the “wrong” viewpoint. L
I had to parse this a few times after coffee, but got it. Good point!
I don’t know if necessarily mutually exclusive (maybe explain that if you can and I’ll have more coffee.) Moral certitude would certainly mean empathy isn’t necessary.
Empathy requires being able to look at a question from more than one’s one viewpoint.
You might still conclude that you’re right, but you would have been able to consider the viewpoints of others.
But if you’re morally certain in the way that religious people are, you never even consider another view because you already know “the truth”.
BTW, I believe that the most fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals see empathy as a skill and conservatives see empathy as a weakness. L
Interesting idea. I have two friends, both farmers, one every conservative and one very liberal politically. The main difference I see in them is that the liberal one is far more inquisitive about the natural world he lives in, while he conservative one focuses almost obsessively on what he thinks he knows. The conservative one produces more because the liberal one wastes time on experiments and lots of interesting projects while the conservative one puts in hours of drudgery.
The conservative farmer would not be so productive were it not for the inquisitiveness of (e.g.) farmers and chemical engineers who came before him.
The liberal farmer may yet prove to be a latter-day Jethro Tull.
“Oh man, the absolute morals thing. That’s not an argument for religion, just wishful thinking. If that’s the case, why aren’t all these atheists, who have no meaning, just raping and murdering all the time?”
Good point. Absolute morals have to be rejected.
And since US prisons have about 1/10 the ratio of atheists to non-prisoner atheists that they have religious to non-prisoner religious, I think we can safely throw away religious morals as inferior too.
I have been the recipient of such rants as well, having written numerous letters to the editor for our local paper over the years, calling out the local creationists who occasionally get into print. One of these arrived with a packet of tracts, in my US mail many years ago: “I will never believe that humans descended from apes.”
There is no possible dialog with those who utter such drivel. The writer of that sentence told the truth about himself, and clearly admitted that he was placing himself outside of any debate.
The proper response is to hold up that communication for inspection and ridicule, as Jerry has done. But by no means is it necessary to carry on a dialog, for that clearly is not the intention of this sort of correspondent.
I liked this one as well:
I can see him comment on other people’s books:
I suppose Dan doesn’t think much of biology as a science.
It is amusing that Dan claims to accept evolution but has words of praise for the Behe-fan Polkinghorne.
Dan, Behe and Polkinghorne are creationists. You have no understanding of mechanisms behind evolutionary change, do you. You think mutations must be supranaturally managed.
You don’t recognize this Dan. But you just gave us even more evidence that science and religion are incompatible.
This.
I liked the bit where he said that young people think Jerry knows what he is talking about. All is not lost!
Makes me feel all youthful again!
I liked the bit where he said that young people think Jerry knows what he is talking about. All is not yet lost!
Religion is bigotry in its purest form. Up to the age of 16 I was indoctrinated by bigots but could not truly believe.Then I saw the shining light.Simplicity not complexity was the starting point. EVOLUTION.
I laugh at the idea that atheists have no meaning in life.John Lennon said it all with “Imagine”.I love life in the full & have pledged that my final words will be. THERE IS NO GOD.
When I was young I used to envy the bigots now I pity them for not accepting the truth. I cannot understand how they don’t see the light. It is so bright.
Meow
Wow, a love letter chock-full of Christian charity! Man, with religious antagonists like THAT, our work as evangelists of reason is done, for such a diatribe as Dan’s requires no rebuttal, it is wonderfully self-refuting. I have to feel sorry for such a…
…wait a minute, hold on…I smell a possibly playful rat — d’ya suppose Dan is really a writer for The Onion, doing a little side work? If he isn’t, maybe he SHOULD be…
No. A writer for The Onion would be… funnier. Better. More ‘unwittingly’ ironical.
Considered as a fundie rant, Dan’s is rather too long and just not very good. Allso, he can spel.
Thus spoke a man who just wrote a completely irrational attack.
Yup. Blew up my industrial-strength irony meter.
Whew, the projection. Of course this “Dan” doesn’t actually tell where the lies are. Poor thing, it would require him to be honest and well, it seems that many, if not most, Christians can’t handle that. It seems that “Dan” is yet one more maliciously ignorant theist who has nothing but his own lies to keep his faith intact.
Telling where the lies are would also require him to have at least a passing familiarity on the subject, and he doesn’t appear to have that, either.
You are all being too kind and giving Dan too much credit here, I doubt he will understand any of the sarcasm or clever wit used back at him. He sounds like a complete idiot and should be told so in a way he understands.
Dan, you sound like a complete idiot. Your assumptions about Jerry are poorly written and without any foundation in truth. The way you use language to express yourself is confusing and very poor and your “argument” non existent. Whilst mine is far from perfect, Your grasp on the English language seems to have stopped at a level I would expect from a six year old in content and maybe a poor ten year old in terms of grammar, though your spelling isn’t that bad. What exactly are you trying to say? A bunch of insults without substance or backup in the form of quotations or citations is just plain drivel and you have made yourself look very foolish. I think you should turn off your modem and go to the library and shout at the books on evolution and science in there. Less people will see you and it will be less humiliating for you.
That’s a great image, shouting at the books on evolution and science in the library.
I just re-read the whole thing plus Jerrys response and I am in love with the phrase “mind dump”. It perfectly reflects the kind of shit that poor Dan tried to write.
Dear Dan,
I am a dog person but I give Dr. Coyne a pass because he attempts to stretch his mind, at least in non-cat areas. This is something Christians seem not to do, except to stretch their minds to find more rationalizations to excuse God for not answering their prayers or allowing something terrible to happen. Your children could use a dose of the scientific method, so have them read either this blog or another sciency one. It may come in handy some day when you are in a coma and they have a choice between prayer and evidence-based medicine to treat you.
Sincerely, Lady Atheist
He’s got a problem with squids though..
That was fun.
“He hates me because I don’t love baby Jesus. And I should just shut up. Because.”
I think he hates you more because you’re impressing ‘young kids’ (perhaps his own?) with your work. You’re getting to them. It goes back to your point from a day or two ago to just keep plugging away.
Imagine his kid coming to him with a reasoned argument and understanding of evolution and all he has in response is No! erm, magic! goddidit!. He doesn’t stand a chance.
Bravo!
I’m getting mixed signals here, Dan. Tell us how you really feel.
Polkinghorne eh? I guess he stumbled on to one of this blog’s responses to his favorite nonsense.
What a waste of time to write such drivel. Shall I make an outline?
– Stuff to try and hurt feelings.
– I hate you.
– More stuff to try and hurt feelings.
– Lame ass attempt at sounding informed.
– You suck (final attempt to cause hurt feelings).
Just to clue Dan in, it takes more than a random electronic nasty gram from a stranger to make most reasonable people feel sad. Skipping over any actual points of disagreement makes it look like you have no points to make.
Oh no! A random internet bully is mad at me!
Everyone here is just laughing. He failed on all levels.
I’m sorry, Jerry, that you had to wade through this drivel sans even a latte. But I think that buried within it is a great compliment—a “parade of impressionable kids that actually follow your blog.” A parade! Wow! That’s great news. Congratulations to you and to the many who consistently contribute the germane and well-considered posts that one regularly finds here. Dan’s email sounds like the death rattle of someone in grave danger of losing the battle. Hooray! That makes this atheist even happier.
Everybody loves a parade!
Did he actually mean to make a coherent point there? Because all I see is fluff and vague posturing – he accuses you of lying and misleading people and not doing good science, but doesn’t provide a single example. Just another butt-hurt nutcase mad about how you openly challenge religious bullshit.
Where did he get his definition of “dork”? When I was called a “dork” in high school, nobody meant that I was “a dishonest piece of work who has to be blatantly dishonest, unscientific and irrational to convince people of my ridiculous viewpoint.” Hmm.
Dork was such an underwhelming and anti-climactic insult that I can’t help wondering if it was a piss-take
You’re just a lonely guy who hangs out with cats, just admit this whole WEIT affair is just a ruse and a vehicle to spread your kiteh fetish! Your cover has been blown
😛
Angry Dan:
Care to make a wager on that? I’ll happily bet money that Jerry’s opinion on free will will not be disregarded by 3 August 2013.
I say that somewhat cynically, knowing that ongoing research on the subject probably wouldn’t even reach publication in a year. You do not even understand the pace of science, let alone its content.
I think he meant “[several] years’ time” rather than “[a] year’s time”.
/@
Once again a mind numbing tirade from the ‘Oh My Lord’ sycophants brigade of nasty little God-grovellers. Blatantly displaying a complete lack of common decency as is most usual of zealots and bigots. This man’s only hope (and it is a slim hope) is that one day he may be able to dump bible vitriol and become a decent atheist.
I did wonder if Jerry should get together with Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers and similar others to publish a ‘Bible of Bile’. But then I considered the risks of a shelf of these books warping spacetime into a black hole of hate.
Even so I think it would still be a useful resource to copy all the emails of this onto a single website. You could even have awards ‘Looniest email of the week’, ‘Bigot Bingo’, ‘Spelinz is not inpourtint’.
Just a thought.
You want to expose these people but not encourage or enable them.
I’d be careful about giving them too much attention.
It’s all fun and games and then someone, for example, who claims to be the Joker shoots up a theater in Colorado.
Most of these rabid haters aren’t dangerous. Some are, There is no good way to tell the difference except after the fact.
the gal who reads the FFRF crankmail could give it a read on her youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ffrfcrankmail?feature=results_main
That’s great! I have always read these to myself. Even better when read out loud like this! Love. It.
an atheist, can’t admit, that life is therefore ultimately meaningless or that absolute morals do not exist
I admit it! ^_^
“You’re a dork, and that’s not an ad hominen.”
It isn’t. And neither is Jerry’s. Look it up.
Oh man I just thought of something. Wouldn’t it be fun if Dan was one of those people who can’t stand to see people commenting about him, and he comes here at some point today to respond to practically every comment and vent his frustration?! 😀
It’s as if he was staring at a mirror as he typed and paid more attention to the object (or should that be ‘subject’?) of his anger, than to his grammar.
The excessive use of bold type to get his point across indicates a reliance on tabloids for news. His well-thumbed holy babble probably has all of the ‘important’ passages marked with a highlight pen.
He needs help.
It is pretty clear that Dan does not recognize the truth of evolution, how sad. His mindset is that of the typical believer in the Abrahamic faiths immutable, impetuous, and extremely rude.
It’s always the highest level of vitriol coming from the hot-air-bags on the religious right. The bits about Jerry compartmentalizing and lying just don’t make any sense. Its pretty definite that a lot of religious scientists do just that, compartmentalize. And this guy certainly can’t claim to be scientific or coherent.
I am reminded of a public lecture I saw two weeks ago by ultra-revisionist Christian John Shelby Spong (I know I’ve mentioned him too often here recently) who said “I’ve gotten 16 death threats and none of them has been from an atheist”.
Incidentally, Dan, John Polkinghorne probably knows more about quantum physics than Jerry Coyne, but so do Victor Stenger and Sean Carroll.
A suggestion in German to Dan: Lies!!
I’d like to thank Dan for assuming that I, as a WEIT follower, am a “young, impressionable kid”. No-one’s told me that I look younger than my age in oh…25 years, and that doesn’t include the 27 years I was on the planet before that. Dan, flattery will get you everywhere, good on ya’!
Dr. Coyne, I always imagined that you received idiotic letters like that on regular basis. Is there anything special about Dan’s e-mail?
Also, as some posters before me, I’m greatly disturbed by the news that you don’t own/share life with at least one feline. Even your Wikipedia page shows a picture of you holding a cat.
I don’t own a cat for one reason only: I travel too much to take proper care of one. I hate leaving them alone, and catsitters, while many are okay, aren’t a good substitute.
HOWEVER, this week I am cat-sitting at my place for a friend (I’ll post a photo later), and that’s satisfying my long-suppressed feline cravings.
I can certainly relate to that! (I don’t have a cat myself, for similar reasons).
Hey now – I must point a mistake.
No one owns a cat. You may reside with cats, but you will never own one.
One of my favorite T-shirts of all time reads:
Dogs have owners.
Cats have staff.
L
We don’t have a cat per se, because my wife is allergic to them. However, as the only “free territory” in the neighborhood, we enjoy a constant cat parade. Some are friendly, some scat at our mere eye contact. But we love them all, so long as they leave the songbirds but pursue the woodrats.
What, no cat? I’m curious about that.
1. It’s longer than most of the hate mail.
2. He hasn’t threatened to kill you, your family, and pets.
Like a lot of scientists, I’ve been getting death threats on and off for over a decade. Some xians toss off death threats like normal people say hello.
It was part of the reason why I’ve gone from being a xian to being a militant atheist.
When “xian” became synonymous with liar, hater, ignorant, crazy, and sometimes killer, millions of people didn’t want to be one anymore.
Xians like “Dan” make more atheists in a day than Coyne, Myers, Dawkins, and Hitchens do in a year.
… in all of blogs on the internet. …your blog….
.
I see how this e-mail must upset you. “Dan” doesn’t realize that you have a web site, not a blog.
Funniest line: “You’re a dork, and that’s not an ad hominen.”
.
I actually agree with “Dan” on this point. Calling someone a dork is an insult. It is only an ad hominem fallacy if you say “you should disregard his argument _because_ he is a dork.”
Yes, but if Dan is correct on that point, I suspect it’s only because of a technicality completely unkown to him.
“I don’t think what you said means what you think it means”.
I think Dan’s intended meaning is ‘you really objectively are a dork’.
Your viewpoint will be disregarded, Jerry. In “years time”! Years!
Well really, Dan just strung a bunch of insults and lies together and it’s not worth my valuable lifespan to even read it.
The central points.
Life isn’t meaningless. We make our own purposes and meanings. Even the vast majority of xians do this, they just don’t claim to do it.
Dan seems to have chosen to be a Hater for jesus. It’s a purpose I guess, but not a very admirable one. Even a lot of xians wouldn’t want to waste their life on this one.
Well they don’t.
Despite xians hatred of the word “evolution”, their morality evolves and quite rapidly. Their absolute morality changes, usually following the culture they are part of, rather than leading it.
The OT is full of absolute morality that is now illegal, polygamy, slavery, genocide, and the death penalty for a few dozen crimes that aren’t crimes these days. Anyone following an OT biblical lifestyle would be doing multiple life sentences in prison. Warren Jeffs tried it and got life + 20 years.
He says “ultimately meaningless.” His point is that for all the real meaning in your life (and mine) it’s not the really-real meaning. Eventually, it’s all a matter of “opinion,” the argument goes. Hence postmodernism. Ergo Jesus.
But, Jerry, you do have cats, don’t you??
Either Dan is a troll, in which case he misrepresents himself and is therefore lying. Or he’s honest, and therefore either nearing a psychotic break or fomenting intolerance and lies. In no case that I can see is he either supporting the well-being of others or truth.
While I respect Jerry’s approach here on his blog, I choose a different path. People like Dan clearly show that they are being wilfully ignorant. Such people, IMHO, need to be derided and ridiculed as loudly and frequently as necessary to make them shut up and get out of the way. The rest of us would have been so much further along if those losers would have just not gotten in the way.
Suppose Jerry had made a patently false statement say “2 + 3 = 6”. Would Dan be so upset? No. Ironically, Dan’s frustration stems from the reasonableness of Jerry’s comments. They create an excruciating dissonance owing to Dan’s religious faith. His faith consists in believing without proper evidence. If such evidence was really present faith would instantly become superfluous. Dan would simply believe the evidence. No gesticulations needed. All would be as simple as calmly proving the falsity of “2 + 3 = 6”. Once a person has been fooled into passionately believing without evidence any reasonable criticism of the belief creates an awkward dilemma. Should the cherished belief be abandoned? Alternatively should it be defended? The first proposition is full of pain and soul searching. The second is not. It is only human to avoid pain. Convoluted rationalisations and vicious personal attacks are the only miserable tools lying in the toolbox. What matters is not the truthfulness or even the relevance of what is said in defence of the passionate belief. It is that it dulls the pain. People can show great ingenuity and viciousness in the field of pain avoidance. Reality is nevertheless imperturbable in the face of self-fooling.
Jerry, you don’t have a cat? I am disappoint. 😉
$1,000 says Dan didn’t know what “et. al” meant until reading this blog.
(It’s also “further” from the truth, not “farther.”)
His third-trimester writing comprehension undermines his nonsense arguments before he even articulates said nonsense arguments.
He forgot to add “God bless, and peace and love to all”.
Whilst I do have a science degree (and an LLB in Irish Law, for that matter) it is not in theoretical physics. However, I am aware of the fact that the Rev. Polkinghorne, who apparently ‘got’ religion AFTER his career in science, believes that one of the ‘comparisons’ between science and religion is that, in their pursuit for the ‘truth’, both revise their views in light of new discoveries. This is, of course, balderdash unless one includes utterly indisputable scientific fact that completely contradicts the myths and legends that are religious texts.
For example, even creationists have, in the face of the evidence, dropped from their list of the ‘truths’ of creation, the Biblical description of the earth being flat (e.g. Daniel 4:10-11, Matthew 4:8 and Revelation 1:7). Why they continue to believe any of the biblical myths and legends, in the face of science utterly destroying any semblance of truth in them, only science will ultimately explain.
‘Revising’ the biblical ‘truths’ in religious texts, which are the revealed ‘truths’ of the various gods who ‘wrote’ them, is, in fact, a cessation in belief in those those biblical ‘truths’ that can no longer be sustained in the face of reality.
Again, I ask, as biblical ‘truths’ are continually being shattered by science, what makes anyone continue to believe ANY of these myths and legends?
“It’s amazing how (relatively) long that email was, without making any kind of specific point”.
It always takes Christians billions of words to try and prove that God exists, and then fail miserably.
Dan,-I have been an atheist for 55 years. I have lots of meaning in my life, and I have never raped, killed, or pillaged anyone. Do you know why?–because I am a human and a Humanist,-I live with and relate to other humans; I have a sense of social responsibility;–and besides, the police would lock me up.
Jeez, who’da thunk that Jason Rosenhouse would be the one with a cat. Maybe that’s better than being accused of hanging out with Drosophila. 🙂
Perhaps Dan is suffering from Chick-fil-A overdose . . .
ha!
I’m sure ceiling cat has something to say about this so I’ll wait for this bit of wisdom.
Regarding cats. I love cats but do not have one for reasons similar to Professor Coyne. I live in too small a place for a cat and I’m not there enough. These are my biases.
However, I do “own” a cat, well not completely. I contribute with others to support of a cat. It started with my daughter who gave me a present one Christmas in support of a cat at a local cat shelter. The cats in question have been rescued from hard livin’, often been badly mistreated so badly that they are shy and very wary. Some never let you touch them. So, we sit in their special room with them or visit through the window. It is rare when one buffs your leg or jumps in your lap and stays there. Most of my cats have died there although I’m pleased that one was adopted–Arabella with eyes as hauntingly lovely as her name. My current cat is Patrick. I suppose my “favorite” was Frazier who was a great hall monitor–always at the door, on watch, looking mostly for a hand-out and he received many of them.
It is wonderful to see so many fine “Cat Men” on this site! Ceiling Cat be praised!
Visiting shelter cats is a great way to have cats in your life, whether or not you can have them in your home.
The serious problem these emails underline is how mentally ill bullies, mainly older hostile-aggressive and disinhibited guys, have come to pollute and dominate the internet with their unbalanced behavior.
We manage multiple online discussion groups and they drive everyone else away.
In regular social setting police take care of these folks — no police on the internet.
Without troll control, any website will eventually get overrun with trolls. That is what trolls are and what they do.
Huge domains have become unreadable, i.e. aol and yahoo.
A friend once started a website for people with a serious, incurable, and difficult to treat autoimmune disease.
It didn’t take long for trolls to show up and advise the patients to just kill themselves.
This patient population already has a notably elevated suicide rate.
It still exists but you aren’t going to find it with google. It’s invitation only and heavily vetted.
Our experience includes:
– Zero tolerance, one strike and you’re out
– Active moderation
– It is usually a small handful of unbalanced folks.
While, in our groups we want broad, critical and active, even aggressive, participation – when it crosses over into personal attacks — they’re out.
Any social setting has to have active policing. Turns out the same is true in monkeys!
“mainly older hostile-aggressive and disinhibited guys”
Although I do have a blog and a few controversial webpages, I never get hate mail. All the vitriol is delivered in person. I don’t know if it’s my age, my looks, or Arizona’s testosterone-pumped culture, but nearly every “professional” encounter with a man, whether the person is educated or not, involves a white guy screaming in my face. Doesn’t matter if I’m working a part-time job, photographing wildflowers in the desert, or lying in a hospital bed in the emergency room. The confrontation is inevitable and often immediate…unless my husband is present, of course.
If this sounds like a whiny rant, it isn’t meant that way. I’m just mystified. I never saw this kind of behavior until I moved here 12 years ago. I can’t imagine my father, former teachers, or male friends doing it. But it definitely isn’t limited to the internet.
In fact, age related brain changes lead to hostility and disinhibition in men 45+. In my moderation work it is usually weird older guys who cause the trouble – the Tea Party demographic.
There is a physiological explanation for this.
The behavior certainly isn’t limited to the internet, but it’s more common here since it’s so much easier to isolate yourself from any repercussions thanks to how anonymity and geographical separation.
I think Dan is representative of a lot of Christians… and Muslims. He has been indoctrinated to believe in a god that will torture him for all eternity if he doesn’t believe in said god– and so he must mentally tap dance to keep his belief alive. Jerry’s writings force him to tap dance harder.
Life was easier for the indoctrinated when everyone was assuring each other how good it was to believe. It was easier to convince oneself that one would live happily ever after upon death in those days.
Religionists could just assume that everyone “knew” that those who believed as they did were the most moral. Mormons believed Mormons were the most moral; Jehovah Witnesses believed Jehovahs Witnesses were the most moral; Muslims believed Muslims were the most moral. And Christians assumed they were the most moral.
But with the advent of the internet– such delusions are getting harder and harder to maintain.
Dan,
In commenting at this blog site, you’ve entered an arena where the principal debaters are armed with epistemological concepts, and you seem unaware of epistemology. It’s an old subject, fundamental to all domains of knowledge, and it goes back to ancient Athens at least. Coming here without a knowledge of this subject, you’re like a contestant entering the Roman gladiatorial arena armed only with a two-foot rope. To debate more effectively on the issue you’ve chosen, research epistemology at sites such as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. But be aware that after arming yourself with this knowledge, you might decide that your current position is insupportable.
Jerry, did you mean to insult Mitt and our Mormon friends when you wrote: “It’s another religious dude who doesn’t act like a Christian (of course, he could be a Jew or a Mormon, but I suspect not).”
Try telling any of your Latter Day Saint acquaintances that they are not Christians, you will likely get a bit of an angry response.
I have found that religious folks who self label as “Christians” usually maintain that Mormons are a non-Christian cult. LDS members, on the other hand, are insulted at such a notion and will quite emphatically state that they are indeed Christians. They call their religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. http://www.lds.org/?lang=eng
I believe you are grasping for a term for Dan and his angry brethren. “Young earthers” or “fundamentalists” might be one that Dan would be happy with and Mormons would not be insulted by.
Our young earth fundi friends are the angry, defiant and loud form of Christianity who seem to practice a gospel of self righteous fury and consider tolerance, acceptance, and love to be “lukewarm water that should be spat out.” Rev. 3:16
Most traditional protestant Christians ie Methodist, Lutheran, Reformed, Presbyterian, Episcopal, or United Church of Christ folks would not have written such an email as Dan’s. Sadly traditional congregations seem to be mostly withering away as Dan’s type of Christianity continue to attract ever more followers. (Why does angry, ignorant, rhetoric seem so appealing to the mob?)
I know this is all a bit of “how many angels dance on the head of a pin” stuff, but really Mitt would be miffed if you left him out of the Christian camp.
Toyon, and some white supremacists attend the Aryan Nation Church of Jesus Christ Christian.
To be honest with you, I don’t understand what it means to “act like a Christian”. Does that mean you have to diss and ditch your parents (especially your mother), talk grown men into leaving their families to wander around with you while you insult them when they don’t get the meaning of your allegories, kill fig trees when they won’t give you fruit off season, condemn whole towns to everlasting torture in fire just because they don’t want to hear your sermons, tell tales using slavery as a format and forget to tell everyone that slavery is morally wrong, and last but not least, ask people to eat your flesh and drink your blood so they’ll live forever?
THAT kind of acting like a Christian?
There is no admirable set of qualities that comprise acting like a Christian. I wish people would just drop that saying.
On Facebook there was a story about a Muslim woman whose face had been sprayed with acid, whom a court had granted the right to have the same done to the sprayer. The question was, should she? I was astonished at the number of Americans who said she should. I posted that I hoped none of them claimed to be Christians, in view of what Jesus had reportedly said about such things. I was roundly told to mind my own business, that this has nothing to do with religion.
Religion, I guess is about telling me and my de facto husband of eight years that we can’t get married. Sigh.
She chose not to have him sprayed. I think some of the commenters were disappointed.
There also seems to be a bit of a correlation between how religiosity and support for capital punishment. Justice is synonymous with revenge in the eyes of religion, it seems.
I disagree with Americans and Christians on more things than not, but I would certainly have had the guy sprayed with acid. (Assuming there wan’t an alternative of a lengthy prison term). Otherwise the bastard has got away with it and might well do it again. I doubt revenge would make the victim feel any better, but IMO the offender does not deserve any consideration.
Strange, I don’t normally side with the ‘eye-for-an-eye’ ‘lock-em-up-forever’ camp, it’s just this particular cowardly crime that got me going…
Mitt only cares about building his personal wealth and fame just like the great and vast majority of other mor[m]on herders. Checkout all the exmor[m]on sites on the web. To find out about the systematic fraud at the foundation of the moronic faith and to be aware of the mode of operation of their current regime checkout the tactics they used and still use by reading Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows
Hey, that’s just like every other religion!
You mean to tell me “they” were right after all these years? Every person from any religion that I’ve discussed religion with has explained to me how all the other religions are wrong. I finally concluded that I only believe in one less religion than any of them do. Now you’re going to tell me they’re all alike, anyways? Yow!
That Dan is one of the new, shockingly obnoxious fundamental-type christians is obvious. That he might be guiding young children to adulthood is frightening.
I just don’t understand why there is such vitriolic talk between left & right these days — actually, the most bombastic remarks come from the right. Sorry, lefties, you don’t get away free either, though you do tend to sound more sarcastic than pugnacious when you’re ranting away.
There, a pox on both your houses.
Nice segueway from religion to politics.
All too true about “the left and the right.” The right has lots of money, guns, and zealots, so they are pugnacious [and obnoxious] as hell. They also find they are immune from the laws restricting the rest of us many times, so they do felonious things that seem to stump law enforcement.
The left, on the other hand, chronically broke financially, has suffered serious defeats the past couple decades, and aging and dwindling numbers. Unlike the right, the left finds law enforcement ready to bust them for even the appearance of inpropriety, so they take refuge in sarcasm and harsh rhetoric. This renders many of their undertakings ineffective.
At least you’ve found a way to feel superior to everyone.
Dan is a coward.
He is another person hiding behind the skirts of Mother Internet, while screaming and crying.
If he was so certain that he is right and righteous, he would print out what he wrote, and take it to church and receive commentary from the clergy there, as to its “Christian Values”.
C’mon Brave Dan. Take what you write to church, and have it critiqued.
“Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged”
I might also point out that the style of Dan’s rant is precisely in the style of Rush Limbaugh and hate radio. Rush Limbaugh and his spawn have done more damage and corrosion to American values and virtues than any other force in the history of our United States.
“It’s an embarrassment” is a faux belittlement, much-used phrase by Rush and cohorts that cued me to the source of Dan’s style.
Poor Dan, he’s not dealing with his dissonance well. He’s just reaching out to shoot the messenger, a classic response of the weak minded to learning the depths of one’s ignorance.
For the record, Dr. Coyne has written a great book on evolution that makes science accessible even to the willfully ignorant.
I read this blog every day, as much to share Dr. Coyne’s deep understanding of biology and for his appreciation for cats. I make this point, even as a dog lover. No cheezburger for Dan.
What no one here seems to get is that Dan is right. Why is he right? Because he is…
(thunderclap)
DAN FROM MARYLAND
Guys, guys- I’m glad we all see the important part, the lead that Jerry buried:
He doesn’t have a cat. We need to send him pictures of cats to fill the cat-shaped-hole-in-his-heart.
Are you with me?
Oh, you’ve all been doing that for a while anyway?
…Carry on then.
Spamming his inbox on a regular basis, yes…
Holy crap, I couldn’t stop laughing when I read this email!
Spent some time mentally crafting a reply for Dan’s benefit, saw all of these and decided I couldn’t improve on what’s already here. Of course you have a tough hide by now, Jerry. You can’t talk about “why evolution is true” and even go so far as to write a book laying it all out clearly and scientifically without incurring the kind of viscerally vituperative attacks that ignorance can produce when people’s cherished belief systems run up against incontrovertible science. And I write not as one of those impressionable young people that Dan is so afraid you will corrupt, but as a mature-in-years holder of a Ph.D. in an area generally considered to be rigorously analytical and mathematical. I enthusiastically recommend your book any time the subject comes up. But I well know from reading student evaluations that even if 29 students in a class of 30 give me glowing reviews, the one that thinks my teaching sucks is the one that can get under my skin. So I’m glad yours is tough. With a tough hide, one can have a LOL moment reading “You’re a dork, and that’s not an ad hominen (sic), I say that mainly because you’re a dishonest piece of work who has to be blatantly dishonest, unscientific and irrational to convince young people of your ridiculous viewpoint.” I try to avoid name-calling, so I won’t comment on what a moron the writer of this sentence reveals himself to be,
Apropos to nothing in this discussion, I saw a headline on Wired Science, “Cross your Fingers: How to Watch NASA’s Mars Rover Land on Sunday”. The idea that crossing your fingers would be a suggested part of watching the landing stuck me as funny in more than one way and made me think of starting some kind of prayer campaign for the Rover landing. “National Pray for the Mars Rover Day” has an amusing ring to it, maybe followed by “Pray for The Large Hadron Collider Day”.
While I understand your point, I don’t think it’s such a strange thing to say. I, like thousands of others I suspect, will be doing some mental equivalent of crossing my fingers at 10:30PM PDT on Sunday night. I have absolutely no belief that my intense feelings of hope for a successful landing will make the slightest bit of difference to the outcome, but I still can’t help doing it. It’s like last night when I was watching Gabby Douglas’s floor routine. I was feeling tense and rooting for her every step of the way, even though by that time I already knew she’d won the gold! It’s just empathy, I guess.
Yeah, I do that too, of course. It’s one of those commonplace things that can seem funny when you step back for a moment and think about it from a different angle.
I am going to start urging my Christian friends to pray for scientific experiments just to see what their reaction will be.
Strictly speaking, to allow for light-speed limitations, you should cross your fingers four minutes before the actual event, or 8 minutes before you see it ‘live’ on TV….
Excellent point.
I don’t know – some letters like this seem to be from folks who are somehow near the tipping point themselves. I’ve seen on a few occasions believers tracking down what they believe to be a worthy opponent to test themselves.
Most go right back into the wading pool, of course, but for some, this sort of pugnacity ended up being a phase on their journey out of belief.
Hi Dan-
When you’re done reading all this, I am hoping you will be able to send us over 150 comments from people who supported and admired your rant. Then maybe we can all be pen pals!
Lies make baby Jesus cry…
Dan is a prime example of (I suspect) a self-serving Christian imbecile who gets his information primarily from the pulpit and Fox News. His lack of information, abhorrent ignorance and towering irrational hatred, are emblematic of Christianity today. Dan is a prime example of why those young people are abandoning his bigoted factless faith in ever growing numbers and join the ranks of the happily unchurched.
I, for one, encourage men like Dan to continue to spew their puke, simply because their continued presence on the side of opposition to reason will hasten it’s demise.
This, more than most of what Dan had to say, stands out as logic-defying to me, and not just because he gratuitously uses “piss” instead of the more usual “rain”. If Jerry has a parade of young people following his website, in what sense could he be accused of urinating on them? Presumably they’re here of their own free will (in the sense of not having a gun to their head, I hasten to add!) and appreciate what Jerry has to say.
It seems to me that if anyone is receiving a golden shower from Ceiling Cat, it’s Dan himself, because he’s reacting very badly to having his cherished but unexamined beliefs challenged by calm, relentless logic.
Incidentally, the basis of morality is the quality of one’s relationships to other people and nature, for the full development of all. It’s better than divine commands.
It’s very odd. He doesn’t mention Jesus or God, and it’s not at all certain that he’s on about them.
And he says
“Good science completely disagrees with you, and in years time, I guarantee any viewpoint you support, which I can’t even call scientific, aside from the basic principle of evolution, will be disregarded.”
– which if I read that correctly, means he does support “the basic principle of evolution”. So what exactly is he (without any evidence) saying?
Now that you mention it, the whole spiel is not very individualized, is it? It is almost a one-size-fits-all frothing at the mouth. Dan could send it to practically anybody anywhere with a little tweaking. I think we are all looking for something specific in his “argument” but it is mostly froth.
Dan,
Did you have enough toweling to soak up the spittle on the keyboard and monitor, or will you have to buy a new laptop …
Goodness, angry man. You must of taught some critical thinking to his kids who can now debate circles around his beliefs.
Dan is like so many people who infest the internet nowadays: A flamer who writes things to people he would never consider saying to their faces. Like aggressive drivers who do things in traffic they wouldn’t even think of doing if they were “just another pedestrian.” Don’t lose any sleep over it [unless his notes start showing up on your doorstep instead of your inbox].
Disappointing that Dan forgot to add any of the nearly obligatory sign-offs so beloved of his fellow ranters, such as:
Rot in hell
Burn in hell
Eat bleach
Die of cancer
Be forcibly penetrated in any number of unpleasant ways (I) in hell forever (II) here, right now
All he could come up with is “stop writing this stuff”.
Should Jerry send him a checklist to help him choose?
Why exactly does life require a meaning? Various sorts of communication usually have meanings but not even they actually need one.
This is a well known sentence with no meaning that I can discern, it is beautiful without one. There are other things than meaning which have value; beauty, sport, cats. I don’t see why life is valueless unless it is assigned meaning.
Humpty Dumpty would disagree with you!
But otherwise, yes, but…
/@
I’m pleased that you mentioned Joseph Campbell. If ever there was a great mind and a truth-sayer and a devotee to intellectual honesty, it was Campbell. He did not believe in a personal god. I think Dan could learn much from his writings and his interviews. They’re pretty straightforward and not hard to follow at all. Dan will learn that things like the bible are simply works of mythology, like the Iliad. In fact, studies have demonstrated that the bible might be a rip-off of the Iliad. Plagiarism wasn’t frowned upon in those days, but was a creative process in parody that was actually encouraged.
I think it’s a good idea to offer Dan some sources of logical thought. Once in Moses Lake, Washington, I talked with a Methodist minister who was secretly an atheist – his main woe was that he didn’t know any other way to make a living, so he continued to preach. Another Methodist minister in Los Angeles wrote a pamphlet almost fifty years ago now titled “Why I Left the Ministry and Became An Atheist.” My father and I once met with him, and he told quite the tale of going through changes once he had read something that challenged his faith, and ended up chucking the whole kit & kaboodle. A typesetter for E. Haldeman-Julius’ “Little Blue Books,” publisher of many things atheistic and socialistic, including ex-priest Joseph McCabe’s works, started out with Haldeman-Julius as “just a job.” Reading the manuscripts he was setting into type made him realize the god story was a bunch of hooey, too. So don’t give up completely on the Dans of this world – if there is any chance they will “look at the other side” there is always a chance they will see the folly of their ways.
On the other hand, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink; You can show a fool his folly, but you can’t make him think.” The thinking part is still up to the Dans.
Some years ago, an Member of the Westminster Parliament (I forget who) accused anther MP on the other bench of “Getting all mimsy” about some matter (again, I forget what).
There is a very strict code of insult in the House of Commons: insults are allowed, but they have to be correct and an MP is not permitted to directly accuse another of any wrongdoing, e.g. an MP may not accuse another of lying, but accusations of “terminological inexactitude” or “sophistry” are.
Quite correctly, the insulted MP responded that he cannot have been “mimsy” about anything, because the only thing that can ever me considered to be mimsy is a borogove.
Dan- correction on my last entry- now you need to find another 47 supporters (total 197) to match Jerry. Waiting for the pena pal list…..
My impression is that Angry Dan isn’t on the level.
Dan wouldn’t know good science even if an apple landed on his head!
Dear Dan,
I actually agree with you. Dr. Coyne is a total dolt for not owning a cat. To think of all the moggies he could have rescued from shelters by now!
Another thing, Dan. Arguing science usually involves something called…..science. You know, published studies and all that. If you want to win an argument, try posting some. Otherwise your words are all hot air.
That will be $20, please. You see, most of us get paid to do or teach science. Dr. Coyne has offered his services for free – dozens of articles with in-depth explanations and examples of evolution.
You can thank him for posting this stuff for free anytime you’d like.
What?? I’m supposed to get paid??
Yes, don’t you feel cheated now? 😉
Yes, but in actual cash.
Oops! NOT in actual cash.
Either is good for me [G].
That guy has serious issues.
Dear Dan,
Just in case no one else pointed it out, you made a typo, writing “good science.” It’s clear that you actually meant “god-science”, which isn’t science at all but merely religious apologetics. (You can look that one up, it the term “apologetics” is new to you. Related only to use with religion, it has absolutely nothing to do with “apology.” Go figure.)
DocAtheist