You all know (or should, if you’ve been reading here) about the Twi**er battle between former baseball pitcher Curt Schilling and baseball writer Keith Law, both of whom worked for the sports television network ESPN. Schilling was sending out unreconstructed creationist tw**ts, the much smarter Law defended evolution, and, lo and behold, ESPN suspended Law from tw**ting for five days (though Law came back in a big way). Why Law but not Schilling? Who knows?
Talking Points Memo, however, reports that Schilling was still distressed by the strong reaction of people to his stupid claims:
Schilling, who’s filled his Twitter feed lately with observations on Ferguson, was apparently left with a different impression. In fact, he said he’s surprised he wasn’t dealt a punishment, too.
I think Schilling has deleted the tw**ts on Ferguson as I found only one, but you can still see it on his Twi**er feed, and it’s pretty much what you expect. TPM continues:
“Keith Law got suspended from Twitter for publicly arguing the point I think, it certainly wasn’t for his opposing view,” Schilling wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday. “I like Keith, just thought it odd he’d want to publicly pick that fight, though I had zero problems with it ESPN took action. I actually thought they would suspend me as well, was expecting it.”
ESPN did not respond to TPM’s request for comment.
Schilling said he addressed the matter because his views had been mischaracterized.
“Somehow someone made it into me not believing in the Theory of Evolution? I never said it, not even close,” Schilling wrote. “I said as a Christian I understand where man came from and how, regardless of whether I can imagine it, God did it, that’s good enough for me.”
Now that’s just bullshit. I’ll reproduce a few of Schilling’s tw**ts again:
Schilling should be suspended for lying as well as public displays of stupidity. (ESPN still hasn’t divulged the reason why Law was suspended from tw**ting.) Finally, TPM reports one more dumb statement from the ex-pitcher:
And Schilling said there was a common denominator with his harshest critics.
“I understand why non-believers get upset at this conversation, because many know in their hearts that if it’s true their future is not in good shape,” he wrote in closing. But the anger? Cussing? Every single follower I blocked had in their profile somewhere ‘Atheist’ ‘Liberal’ ‘Democrat’ or some such label.
Why would nonbelievers think that their future was “not in good shape” if evolution were false? Does he mean that we wouldn’t go to heaven? If so, what does that have to do with evolution? (Perhaps I’m misunderstanding Schilling, but I doubt it.) He’s welcome to say what he wants, but surely some of the opponents were simply people who accepted evolution. (And did he really check all the profiles of his followers?)
Schilling is of course free to say what he wants, but he has to realize that he’s not going to look very smart if he comes down against a solid scientific theory, and then blames the pushback on politics and anti-theism. But of course 43% of Americans are creationists, so the knuckledraggers who like Schilling probably hold him in even higher esteem.
If you look at Schillings’s business history in MA and RI, you’ll see that he has a consistent “consistency” problem. Also, as someone who is an atheist, and who has dealt with cancer, I find myself less worried about my future than some of my religious friends are about theirs. (Although other religious friends find comfort in religion in relation to their illnesses–I don’t begrudge them that.) It’s the theory of evolution and the scientific method–not religion–that’s delivered me and millions of others from evil–and will deliver millions more as we come to understand cancer as an evolving population of cells rather than as a lump of disease.
I recall a story a few years back where Schilling dumped millions on a failed video game company. The cliff’s notes end with Schilling financially ruined. Guess espn gave him a job. I would also like to see if there is any human DNA on Schilling’s bloody world series sock. My money is on tomato DNA.
Just to be persnickety, the bloody sock game wasn’t during the World Series but rather the American League championship series.
Yup, ruined his fortune along with a hundred million in taxpayer money.
Damn. I fit the description. I suppose now I have to go send an angry Tw**t his way.
…and he forgot “intellectual.”
About the time of the Kitzmiller trial there was a butt-hurt creationist who lamented “we are being criticized by the intelligent, educated part of the community”. That’s not the exact quote, but is my best recollection. Wish I knew who said it. I can’t find it via Google anymore.
That was the late Pastor Roy Mummert: “We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segmnt of the culture”. Uttered at or near the time of the Dover/Kitzmiller case.
Thank you.
That would be Ray, not Roy.
“Pointy-headed intellectual,” for those of a certain era. Plus ça change…
Yeah I’m not feeeling the insult there, though I understand in some circles those are the worst ad hominems you can throw at a person.
Sub.
Ah, America, where we care what a former professional athlete said…
I actually thought it was odd that Schilling wasn’t also given a time out for squabbling publicly since they suspended Law. I also wonder if he went looking for those identifiers when he blocked people, or what he would have though about my own tw**ter had I dived in (of which the worst things you could say about it are the questionable name and the fact that I follow Jerry..).
lol.
Apparently Curt found Jesus but somehow still can’t find the fossil evidence.
So I guess it’s much easier to find an invisible guy than it is to find shit buried in the ground.
Yes. MISSING fossils mean epistemological FAIL; MISSING supernatural being, no so much.
Wow, he sounds like Merle in “The walking dead”! (Which is not a compliment, in case you wondered).
I think that’s an incredible insult to Merle.
Oh dear, we know what happened to Merle!
I’m probably reading a bit of disappointment into this along with the surprise. Christian creationists seem to enjoy thinking of themselves as martyrs for the cause, persecuted for righteousness sake. But the only guy who got in trouble was the evolutionist.
No fair. How can you play the martyr when you get off scot free?
It must be some consolation to him that he provoked FURIOUS ANGER in the LIBRUL DEMCRAT ATHISTES though. He certainly came off as bragging about it.
Yeah, he is probably bummed that he now had no way to cry persecution.
Perhaps what CS means by “I believe in the theory of evolution” is that he believes someone named Darwin wrote something along the the lines of common decent. But obviously READING about natural selection or any of the thousands of studies that support Darwin’s abstract is not something he is wont to do. Perhaps he got his science hat from Megan Fox.
It would be nice if ESPN could let us know what Keith Law did that was so taboo he was banned from Tw**ting for a spell. Maybe they just didn’t appreciate CS being pegged as a complete fool and uneducated twit?
I’m sure Keith Law is as well aware as any that what keeps the money flowing for his salary is ESPN’s serving as a garbage pit for all the low-life brainless whose high points of the day are brawling in barely literate twitter & ESPN comment threads. This takes a certain amount of continual riling up, an unfortunate cost of business.
Right. There is nothing wrong with being a complete fool and uneducated twit, especially if you are a sports “hero.” To be fair, Schilling was just sharing something he endorses, even if it is conservative nuttery, not picking a public fight with a coworker, per se. Law was pointed in his responses but hardly uncivil – I wonder of the argument had been sports-related if Law would have faced any sanction from his employer, but for the “stick to baseball” comment which I guess I can see would be inappropriate whatever the topic. I have a feeling that was the line Law should not have crossed.
Darn AutoCorrect! Leave my HTML tags aloooone!
Employee A says some stupid shit on an extracurricular matter on his own time. Co-employee B picks a public fight with A about it and insults him. ESPN hasn’t explained why it did what it did, but my guess is it doesn’t want its employees slagging each other in public, regardless of who is right or wrong on whatever issue they’re fighting about. But if that’s what it is, ESPN should just say so.
LOL.
Giving respect to ideas that are unworthy of it is disrespectful of the intelligence of the person holding the mistaken view. It presumes that they are too infantile to understand reality.
Much better: speak honestly and intelligently and don’t worry about offending sensibilities. Nobody has a right to not be offended. Truth matters.
Dare I say, “amen” to that … ?
Law got the best of it: Eppur si muove.
Please be careful…you could be giving knuckledraggers a bad name.
I just finished reading the daily paper and what do I see in the opinion page but an article under the heading – Schools should teach creationism too. So yes, I’ll be busy responding to that right away.
Really! What paper? And which creationism are they promoting? Maybe something cool like the Hopi Spider Woman myth? Or just boring old Hebrew genesis? It’s as if these people enjoy handing the Church of Satan the right to pass out their coloring books!
American kids don’t get the message that the Judeo-Xian creation myth is but one of many, many humans have concocted through the ages, and is not at all the most interesting or poetic of them. I don’t think science class is the place for it, but putting “our” myths into context subverts religiosity nearly as well as science does.
Which I guess is why we don’t get that exposure.
Quite right. Our indigenous population has creation mythologies, a number of them, within the overarching mythology called the Dreaming or Dreamtime.
Equal time would be fair.
I am sure I heard once of a Native American creation myth wherein the entire world was created from beaver poop. The pesky problem is that I can’t remember where I read it or find any evidence that such a myth exists. Bummer, as it makes more sense than flowering plants being created a day or two before the sun.
Well, at least it exists here on this thread now. What it’s also got going for it is an equal amount of evidence to the Genesis myth. Anyhow, they weren’t there, so I say the Beaver Shit myth should get equal time; from here forward it shall be referred to as the BS creation story. I’d even bet the odors of the early Earth were closer to that of beaver poop than they were to a well kept garden.
“Schilling should be suspended for lying as well as public displays of stupidity.”
On a sports network – seriously? I’d think such a ban would be no more likely to succeed there than it would within a political party.
I was joking, of course.
There was a time when I had wished that we were somehow related…. Not so much anymore.
Apparently, Schilling’s skill as a big game pitcher is inversely proportional to his intelligence. The Mike Tyson of baseball. I do still consider his Bloody Sock game one of the most memorable performances of all time, but as is often demonstrated in post-game interviews, most of these guys would be better off never talking to the press. This whole thing brings to mind that quote about fools, mouths, and doubt.
Schilling, as any other American, is entitled to believe any damn fool thing he wants. And he can tweet same (within certain boundaries, of which crazy-assed religious speech is not one).
Oddly enough, my personal cranial anthropometrist and phrenologist, having seen photos of Schilling, claims that Schilling is perhaps of a Neanderthal type, yet less developed.
Nothing wrong per se with asking questions or with not getting it. But they are fake rhetorical questions and he doesn’t give a hoot about getting anything.
Former manager had the money quote on Schilling:
“He’s a horse every fifth day, and a horse’s ass the other four.”
I may have been missing the point of baseball, but if evilution is true, shouldn’t baseball pitchers have evolved to have one arm and one ball (detachable)? How do they explain that, huh?
Errr, is the ball back in their court? Pitch. Field. Whatever they call the playing area. Diamond?