The Freedom from Religion Foundation has a project to put a quarter-page ad for their organization into each month’s issue of Scientific American. Their first one appeared last month, featuring the Honorary President, Steve Pinker:
They asked me to do the second one (I think they want scientist types), but with a less wordy quote. I sent them a bunch of quotes and photos, and they used this one, which I’m told is on p. 21 of this month’s issue:
Do you think they’d put my quote on a Chipotle bag? LOL!
Yeah, the best picture of me was taken in 1973, too.
Sub
//
Love it! Yes, get that quote on a Chipotle bag. What a hoot that would be.
Can you get Hili in the picture?
Yes, funny…all animals are atheists!
I guess that is why they don’t go to heaven – like we human atheists and gingers, they have no souls. 😉
The guy that went to heaven confirmed there were dogs and butterflies.
Did he mention whether there were any parasites there?
Butterflies are parasites — at least, as far as the plants the larvae feed on are concerned. Indeed, many plants produce toxins to reduce predation, but the butterfly larvae have not only evolved resistance to the toxins but use the toxins for their own defense. If that ain’t parasitism, I don’t know what is….
b&
Well, when you get down to it, most life forms are parasitic in some way.
Heaven and the Pearly Gates: pair o’ sites?
How ’bout cats?
I should update my statement then with “aside from the guy who went to heaven & saw dogs & butterfly’s…..” Then ask them to explain why they say animals don’t go to heaven but this guy saw them.
Or on London buses! It wouldn’t be the first!
They should put your quote on a Lululemon bag as the recently took heat for a slogan: “Sunscreen absorbed into the skin might be worse for you than sunshine. Get the right amount of sunshine”, forcing the company to issue a statement that the slogan was not research based.
Lord almighty I am sick of living in a world that rewards credulousness and stupidity. If you want to sell a product, one near-certain successful marketing technique is to slather it in woo.
I liked that it did get a reaction though. That gives me hope, that someone looked at the bag and said “WTF! I’m going to make a deal about this BS!”
I suppose that would be the silver lining.
But now I’m right back to being a pessimist, imagining that most people won’t take that disclaimer seriously.
Sunshine is all natural. How can it be bad for you?
Exactly!
Now where’sy chewing tobacco…
Yep, just like melanoma …
Being eaten by an alligator is also “all natural,” especially for egrets.
And vacuum. The most natural thing by volume. Stars and planets are just rounding error.
/@
Nice!
That is a great quote. It’s pretty much what it all comes down to.
Why Scientific American? Is that not preaching to the converted? The quotes are good enough to be advertised in more general media.
Terrific. I might even frequent our local (bland) Chipotle for a chance to get a Jerry quote bag. Yes!
Nicely said, Jerry
(Pinker may have the hair, but we know who has the boots!)
Cheers
I believe Pinker also wears cowboy boots.
Jerry’s not exactly lacking in the hair dept., either:-)
Excellent, you have the correct answer!
Full marks for you
They both wear boots and look good in them too and serious, like “We are in the business of reason…what business did you say you think you’re in?”
Agreed
“Do you think they’d put my quote on a Chipotle bag? LOL!”
I wonder if Chik-Fi-La could be hornswoggled into retiring the Holstein cows and have you and kittehs on billboards answering the question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”.
(I wonder if Chik-Fi-La is of the same mind as Hobby Lobby.)
I think Chik-Fil-A makes their employees pray every morning:-(
Do you know that for sure?
My Georgian bf says it’s common knowledge in the South, but he’s never actually seen them do it.
I’m going to compile a list of funny things that are “common knowledge in the South.” That oughta make for some anthropologically fascinating reading.
I’ll bet that would be one funny lust but, seriously, google Chick Fil A and prayers and you’ll find that this seems to be accurate.
I’d probably try to phrase your quote differently…and come up with something longer and less punchy…and with more zombie intestines…
…which is why the chances of my mug appearing in SciAm will (and likely should) remain on a par with a Western sunrise for the foreseeable future….
b&
“Faith is the lazy man’s claim to knowledge.”
I wonder if Carol Blue would be amenable to a photo of Hitch, captioned with:
“Assertions made without evidence may be dismissed without evidence”?
And Dawkins:
“The palatability of a proposition has no bearing on its truth.” (Unless Dawkins comes up with something better.)
Where are the boots? We need more boots.
+1
A picture of Jerry without showing the boots or a cat just isn’t right.
He needs Puss in Boots!!
LOL! Jerry’s secret porn stash.
Excellent – glad to see them doing these ads. Jerry and Steven are great reps for reason, can’t wait to see who else they get. Wish the FFRF would have picked a different design though – that color scheme, yikes!
Amen to that. Regrettable layout, color choices and typography from 1987. Great quotes though.
I bet they could post a request on Reddit/Atheism and get a great graphic designer for free…
I agree. Perhaps there is some marketing theory where that layout and color choice is a good thing: jarringly grabs your attention, no such thing as bad attention, etc. But the layout is a bit of an eyesore to me on an otherwise excellent ad.
You should have been the first one! How many other people are both scientists *and* censors-of-the-year?
I would love it if the Romans had a “Censor of the Year” award. Making the office of Censor in the Republic was a big deal. All the offices had age restrictions and pre-requisites and Censor was a pretty good one to hold.
A quote of yours that I keep around is:
“We know no more now about the divine than we did 1000 years ago”.
“I sent them a bunch of quotes”
Let’s see the runner up quotes. I’m sure we’re familiar with them but it’d be nice to see a little list.
+1
How about
“Apologies to my friends up north, even if they do install the toilet paper backwards.”
– Jerry Coyne
I had to fix some just yesterday in a public restroom.
Diana – don’t you mean washroom ( in Canuckspeak) 🙂
Depends on where you’re from. Where I grew up (English speaking Montreal) a lot of folks said “bathroom”, even if there was no bathtub or even shower.
I’ve always said bathroom, though lots of Americans say restroom.
is washroom Canadian? I also say bathroom or when I’m in NZ I just say toilets.
Not all of us install it backwards- LOL.
Great quote, great ad!
Scientific American–interesting choice. Perhaps they think they’re most likely to find new members in a readership like that?
In religion, faith is a virtue. In airplane engineering, faith is a vice.
There, anti-elitistified it for you so the common person on the street can relate 🙂
In the UK, a vise is a vice. 😉
/@
From this I can only conclude that in airplane engineering, while faith is a vice, a vice is a virtue…
Nice! Quote is def Chipotle-worthy. 🙂
In engineering a vice is a virtue.
In torture a vice is a vice.
(USers might spell it vise)
I’ve long believed we should clamp down on vice 😉
You should all watch your tongs…
Yes, US usage: Vise is a tool, vice is a regrettable behavior/tendency.
Dawkins would say: “In science, faith is a great cop-out”, but, of course, your quote packs more punch.
A mark of honor!
I like the Ambrose Bierce’s way of putting it in The Devil’s Dictionary:
FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
In Reason We Trust.
I really like that. So much more than the ‘in G*d we trust’ that was thrust upon the American population in the fifties, during the Cold War.
As an outsider, it appears to me to be so much more in line with what your Founding Fathers had in mind…
And make no mistake, what your founding fathers had in mind is considered a great legacy world wide, from Rwanda to Slovenia, I think, it is what makes the USA still something to be emulated….
I never heard washroom till I moved to Canada. Toilets to me always seem like actual bowls, but I know a lot of people use it for the roomd.