My God... So To Speak

[filkertom]

If you can get through this page without one snicker, chuckle, or suppressed groan... what are you doing on my friend's list?

(I particularly adore, a way down the page, the Noah's Ark Scale Model Kit that comes with dinosaurs to show how big the Ark was....)

Comments

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

That _page_? I couldn't get through the first _two words_! :-)

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I fell over around the part about the kid's uncle refusing to eat bananas. :)

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

I couldn't even get through the URL without snickering.

Did you check out their "Stop Landover Baptist" initiative? Quite possibly funnier than Landover Baptist itself.

[miari.livejournal.com]

I did not laugh. There was, however, a growing feeling of nausea the further I read. The second place prize in the middle school section prompted a mild homocidal feeling which I quickly surpressed and replaced with pity for the lad who did the project.

[elisabeth.livejournal.com]

No kidding. But once I'd read it for the fourth time and realized that they weren't joking, were in fact flatly serious... the sadistic streak kicked in and offered this thought: Someone should show this page to Ms. Fish...

Mister Tom, I dunno where you find this stuff, but you're -seriously- frightening me. :P

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the warning. I am drinking hot tea, and the URL would have been enough to have made me snarf it.

"Patricia Lewis displays her jar of non-living material, still non-living after three weeks."

And Generalissimo Francisco Franco? Still dead. How does that disprove evolution?

Now that I'm done being amused, I think I'm sick. Time to read The Panda's Thumb.

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

......wow.

The power of prayer unlocks the potential for resistance.

Gee, if only doctors had known about this YEARS ago!

[pixelene.livejournal.com]

OMG. "Dear Lord, please allow the bacteria in Group A to unlock the antibiotic-resistant genes that You saw fit to give them at the time of Creation. Amen." I have to link to this.

Well, what really got me laughing was ...

[joshbrown.livejournal.com]

1)The seventh grader who 'proved' that women are "Designed For Homemaking" - this kid is going to have serious problems when he starts dating.
2) That praying over bacteria will make them do what you want them to.
And I have to be honest - I am speaking as someone who does believe in G-d, albeit not the same one as any of the people at that science fair do.

Re: Well, what really got me laughing was ...

[ericthemage.livejournal.com]

social sciences show that the wages for women workers are lower than for normal workers, meaning that they are unable to work as well and thus earn equal pay

Um, yeah. The same logic could have been applied to slaves in the 1800s. "Slaves aren't paid, therefore they aren't able to earn equal pay". It's a crime to teach children these things.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

All I get is a webhosting page.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Seriously? The URL is http://objective.jesussave.us/creationsciencefair.html. Hmmm. I wonder if it's blocked outside the US.

What it is, is a summary of a "Creation Science" fair from 2001. To give you a taste, the middle school categories include:

1st Place: "Life Doesn't Come From Non-Life"

Patricia Lewis (grade 8) did an experiment to see if life can evolve from non-life. Patricia placed all the non-living ingredients of life - carbon (a charcoal briquet), purified water, and assorted minerals (a multi-vitamin) - into a sealed glass jar. The jar was left undisturbed, being exposed only to sunlight, for three weeks. (Patricia also prayed to God not to do anything miraculous during the course of the experiment, so as not to disqualify the findings.) No life evolved. This shows that life cannot come from non-life through natural processes.

2nd Place: "Women Were Designed For Homemaking"

Jonathan Goode (grade 7) applied findings from many fields of science to support his conclusion that God designed women for homemaking: physics shows that women have a lower center of gravity than men, making them more suited to carrying groceries and laundry baskets; biology shows that women were designed to carry un-born babies in their wombs and to feed born babies milk, making them the natural choice for child rearing; social sciences show that the wages for women workers are lower than for normal workers, meaning that they are unable to work as well and thus earn equal pay; and exegetics shows that God created Eve as a companion for Adam, not as a co-worker.
Honorable Mention:

"Mousetrap Reduced To Pile Of Functionless Parts" - Kevin Parker (grade 7)
"Dinosaur & Man Walked Together" - Donny Findlay (grade 6)
"Rocks Can't Evolve, Where Did They Come From Mr. Darwin?" - Anna Reed (grade 6)

If you don't get through, let me know, and I'll copy 'em all here. It's... amazing.

[technocracygirl.livejournal.com]

It's a joke, yes? I mean, it's hilarious, but not if it's real.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Well, I suppose we could look on the bright side, that being that they're starting to actually acknowledge the existence of dinosaurs, as opposed to the old scenario...

"The Bible is the word of God, and God is infallable. The Bible makes no mention of dinosaurs, therefore, dinosaurs don't exist"

"Look out!"

[SQUISH!]

"Oops! Sorry, Reverend. Good thing that giant calf-bone that just landed on you doesn't really exist."

Actually ...

[joshbrown.livejournal.com]

The Bible does mention dinosaurs. If you read the book of Genesis in the original Hebrew, on the fifth day, G-d creates "giant lizards". Do you know what that translates into in Latin? Dinos Sauros.

[poltr1]

I suppose it's encouraging that faith and science are not mutually exclusive. Even Einstein had belief in a superior entity. But the report of this science fair had me groaning. Can it even be called science if some of it is ruled out due to assumptions (i.e. the influence of faith)?

Now, I wonder what Ned Flanders' boys contributed? :)

In the meantime, I'll go Googling for those microscopic pictures of water that was blessed by Buddhist monks -- the ones that were featured in What The (bleep) Do We Know?.

Page 2

[poltr1]

In the meantime, I'll go Googling for those microscopic pictures of water that was blessed by Buddhist monks....

Found it. Or at least the scientist who took the pictures: Dr. Masaru Emoto. Here's his website.

And here is a page on the What The Bleep website that describes his work.

Yeah, they look like snowflakes. Coincidence?

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Um....eep?

[jslove.livejournal.com]

If I thought this was a hoax, I'd have laughed a lot.

It's not a hoax. I read it with a horrible sinking sensation. I guess I groaned. Did you know that Pokemon disprove evolution? It says so right there, so it must be true. It's the project of a fourth grader. I have a daughter in third grade, and the thought of subjecting her to that "curriculum" makes me quite angry.

"Thermodynamics Of Hell Fire" - Tom Williamson (grade 12) This has been done before. Heaven is hotter than Hell. The temperature of Hell is in the range of liquid sulfur, while the light levels in Heaven suggest a temperature quite a bit hotter than that.

It's hardly scripture, but there is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis to explain that and a few other details: if disembodied souls require a higher energy level to sustain them, then Hell could be simultaneously the temperature of molten sulfur and (to a soul) a frozen wasteland, as some have reported. It would also explain why so few of them hang around here, which is much colder than Hell.

I pity the engineering school which admits Mr. Williamson. Perhaps he'll go into the Ministry instead.

If there is a Heaven and a Hell, these people are toast. smallship1 points out the places to look in this posting. These are not good works; they are their antithesis.

[mrlogic.livejournal.com]

Hey Tom. You might want to reassure folks that this site is, in fact, a very clever satire.
Many people have eventually realized this even though it is almost impossible to tell.

The people, links, and organizations promoted on the site are virtually all fake, but they've got false fronts deep enough to fool the casual checker.

[jslove.livejournal.com]

If this is satire, I was taken in. Not by reading the papers in detail, but by the general tone of the site. I'm not going to examine it in sufficient detail to have a real opinion of the site either way, at this point.

The problem is, I know people who really are this bad. Not that they would have the chops to put up this web site, but they are that far out to lunch, or farther, no joke. That's why I took it seriously.

It's like the declassification of the cold war, with people who were there shuddering and saying that Dr. Strangelove was almost a documentary. There are people this far over the top in the creationist camp. If they thought it would be a good recruiting tool, they would put up a site like this one.

I realize that by being taken in here, I've blown some of my credibility for "personal experience", but the ones I have met were not putting me on. It helps/hurts to have relatives in the deep south, far from the bastions of liberalism I call home. Not that all my relatives are like that, no, but they provide reasons to go there rather than fly over.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Fake? But I really want to read this one:

"Geocentrism: Politically Incorrect" - Richard Cody (grade 9)

[janet-coburn.livejournal.com]

You're gonna try to tell me THIS part of the site isn't parody?

Paedobaptism Is "Wack:" Towards A New Urban Waldensianism For the Young Generation
I dropped by our main auditorium yesterday while taking a much-needed respite from some vexing research into the history of Baptist succession, vis-à-vis Waldensian protoanabaptism, to investigate Pastor Fred Hoskins' Cinco de Mayo party, which had attracted quite a few curious people from the local Catholic community seeking to learn more about Jesus. Besides wanting to sate my hunger with some corn chips and avocado dip, I was also curious to hear what sort of music Fred had lined up; I find his ministry most intriguing in the way he repurposes popular forms to spread the Gospel to the youth. When I came in, he was performing a hip-hop song, or rap, with Mr. M.C. Eschatology of the rapping group Jiggy4Jesus. ("Jiggy" is an urban-youth term meaning "to be in touch with what's happening" -- apparently, it's been lately added to the OED; I shall have to see that the Mt. Fellowship library gets new volumes!) While I have heard some rapping before, I had never given much thought to its value in correcting the spread of erroneous doctrines in today's generation. However, after hearing the song that Fred and M.C. performed, I have had my eyes opened to the pedagogical possibilities of this modern form of syncopated doxology.

In what can only be a sign from the Lord of the importance of my inchoate research, the song they performed was called "Baby Got Baptism" and was about the very same erroneous doctrine of paedobaptism (or "infant baptism") that many of the Waldenses themselves endeavored to correct -- and which, sadly, is still promulged throughout most of the world. Fred was kind enough to give to me a CD with the song that included printed lyrics -- co-written by him and Mr. Eschatology, a few verses of which I'll reproduce here (do not be put off by the unusual spelling; it is part of the hip-hop vernacular):

She got baptized but she don't know why
All she can do is coo an' cry
'Cause when a girl gets elected inna bitta haste
An' don't know His Saving Grace
She gets sprinkled
Inna shallow font
No full immersion, just a front
She's not Jesus acceptin'
Ain't nuttin' but a baby wettin'
No, gotta axe Him be your Save-ya
Your Faith professa'

Tha Bible tried to warn yall
Nevermind your Pope, who's all
"Me so holy!"
Well, forget ol' St. Austin
Council of Mela don't mean nothin'
Mark sixteen, sixteen... belief before ya get tha sheen

Ya gotta know Him
To get tha ball rollin'
Ya met, wet, then born again with no regret

I'm tired of heresies
Saying baptism's all you need
Salvation is by Grace through Faith, ya know
But baby knows zero, so

Mothers (praise!), fathers (praise!)
"Suffer them to come to Me" (hallelujah!)
But sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle don't do a thang
Baby got baptism

An excellent argument against the error of paedobaptism. I think I shall play it on Sunday during my sermon so the congregation can become jiggy to urban youth hermeneutics.

Well, this one is just....

[miketheman.livejournal.com]

... a bad parody of Sir-Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back". Reading through it, I could actually hear the tune playing and sang along in my head.
It's catchy, I'll give them that.

[janet-coburn.livejournal.com]

I mean, you skeptic types are *so* gullible.

[ericthemage.livejournal.com]

How about this one?
http://www.creationbootcamp.com/

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

Almost spewed half-eaten meatball on my monitor after seeing this one:

Jonathan Goode (grade 7) applied findings from many fields of science to support his conclusion that God designed women for homemaking: physics shows that women have a lower center of gravity than men, making them more suited to carrying groceries and laundry baskets; biology shows that women were designed to carry un-born babies in their wombs and to feed born babies milk, making them the natural choice for child rearing; social sciences show that the wages for women workers are lower than for normal workers, meaning that they are unable to work as well and thus earn equal pay; and exegetics shows that God created Eve as a companion for Adam, not as a co-worker.

And go figure, they're baptist... Like the friend of mine who thinks the man of the house should do all the working outside the home to support the woman- (not in this day and age, my friend..) and who also thinks that a married man shouldn't be friends with another female... ::rolls eyes::

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Bloody...hells.

I can't decide whether I should be laughing or whimpering.

[armb.livejournal.com]

Please let this be a joke. I mean, it is a joke, but please let that be deliberate.

ARG!

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised if this was a joke, but it’s an awfully good (bad) one if it is. It never ceases to amaze me how people who have no clue of what science is about can screw it up so badly. Logic and consistency are lost on these people. And the fact that they accept the Bible as literal truth automatically makes everything they talk about suspicious. I mean why should science have to be consistent, their bible is not. I didn’t just groan at this site, I howled and shuttered. I am ashamed to be on the same planet with them. But then I really am not, because I am sure their planet is flat and mine is a sphere. And their universe has the earth at its center with Heaven above and Hell below and... arg!

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I'll tell you this much: If it is a parody site, it's a brilliant, multi-layered one, extending across several sites. The further I get into it, the loonier it gets... and the crazier the sites it links to get.

Oh, and: Fenton would mop the floor with "Lambuel".

[mrlogic.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is multi-layered, and extremely well-done.

[skipjim.livejournal.com]

I found myself praying to a being I'm not 100% sure exists that this site was a joke........

But then again I have discussed this sort of material with at least one coworker in the recent past.