Brother Jed to Get His Own Reality Show

I'm weird. Everyone says that you're supposed to miss school. I don't. At least for the most part. But one of the things I do miss is getting to hear Brother Jed. It's been awhile since I've even given him much thought, but he used to pop up on this blog enough that he has his own post tag.

If you haven't been around long enough to have seen my posts on him, he's a campus preacher that pushes Creationism and has an autobiography that illustrates his lack of higher level thought.

So I suppose that it's indicative of the state of American media that Brother Jed is going to be the focus of a new reality show.

It will depend on how the show is done, but this could be absolutely horrible or absolutely hilarious. Given how painfully Jed shoves his foot down his throat and how exploitative reality shows tend to be, I suspect it's going to be the latter.

Response to FINIFID

Apparently the author of You Will be Forced to Become Wealthy decided to respond. If you haven't read the review, go do so. It's an absolutely awful book. It's the worst thing I've read since Brother Jed's book. Then read FINIFID's response. Normally, I'd respond in the comments there, but since the response is so long, I can't without chopping it up, so I'll just post it here.

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FINIFID: Let me again respond, point-by-point, to your reply -

First off, let me apologize for getting the title wrong. As I've pointed out elsewhere on this blog (which I don't expect you to know), I'm dyslexic. A consequence of this is that I often replace words with others as I put things together in my mind. This was the case here. It's not an excuse, but simply an admission of error and that I will henceforth remedy it.

You're absolutely correct that the apparent time I published the blog post would imply I read almost the entire book (and also wrote my reply) in a matter of hours. As you expect, this would be impossible. And given the rather detailed review I gave, it should be common sense that something is wrong with that implication.

The answer is that I started writing the post a few hours after sending Mark the reply. Blogger works in an odd format that it will retroactively arrange and date posts based on the time they were began. Not when they were actually published to the website. The actual post went up late Monday night/Tuesday morning, a few minutes after which I sent Mark an Email telling him so. The Email was sent @ Tue, May 25, 2010 at 2:00 AM .

Thus, there was actually nearly six days for me to read and write. Thus, using this as a basis to claim I did not read your book is unfounded.

If your target audience was truly theists, you've done a horrible job at targeting the correct audience. The amount of your book dedicated to engaging them is minimal. Yet you market this as an atheist book. I'm not even sure you know who your target audience is.

Yes, studying is about repetition. However, right or wrong, things are ingrained into memory if they are repeated. As my piano teacher used to tell me, “Practice doesn't make perfect; It makes permanent.” If your ideas weren't correct, there's no use in “studying” them any further. I could see they're flagrantly wrong from a first pass.

Like it or not, dividing people into your two groups is arbitrary. Sure you can draw a line, but wealth isn't as split as you'd like to pretend. It's a continuous progression. Thus, where you place your line is meaningless. Sure, it can be useful to have a way to talk about things (we draw lines in science all the time, between species, between planet/asteroid), but getting hung up on where you draw the line as you do is what makes it meaningless. As I said elsewhere in my review, getting caught up in the analogy and losing sight of reality is a logical flaw I see all the time with Creationists. It's a mistake you're committing as well, hence the reason I called it out.

Similarly, your argument against the Big Bang is still flawed. Although you claim to know a lot more than you let on in your book (which I highly doubt since further knowledge would reveal the holes I've pointed out) you still manage to get what the Big Bang says wrong. This now makes your argument into a straw man (yet another logical fallacy!). On top of that, you've now compounded your original logical fallacy and added an argumentum ad infinitum. Let me explain since you apparently have problems with “big words”.

As you point out, there are numerous hypothetical alternatives to the Big Bang. Steady state and plasma cosmology (which has been repeatedly debunked at this blog) are “alternatives” in the sense that they have been proposed, but they are not in the sense that all available evidence contradicts them. Your original argument was that you couldn't understand the evidence. Your new argument is that just because you can propose an alternative (regardless of the actual evidence you've ignored), it is equally valid. To then decide between them, you simply default to the ones you can understand (evidence be damned!).

But you've failed to realize the actual implications of this line of reasoning: It's possible to come up with an infinite number of possibilities, all slight variations on themes. Thus, now you're forced to consider all of them as legitimate. Thus, your “logic” falls apart.

The only true way to determine things between such sets is those that have accumulated evidence vs. those that haven't. The Big Bang and evolution with common descent hold all the cards. No other theories do. So your claim that you “have proven that the Universe is infinite” (at least in age) is simply wrong. The entire argument you used was, and still is, a logical fallacy. This makes it useless.

Your argument against my bringing up Quantum Mechanics is profoundly anti-intellectual as well. The entire book is an attempt to present an argument for how our world and our bodies really are. Thus, it must rely on how things really work. Unfortunately, reality isn't determined by what “regular people” know or want to know. So bringing that up at all is an attempt at distraction. You can't simply ignore it because your audience might not understand it. If it's important to the hypothesis, it's important. It cannot be left out.

Anyway, your quote from a textbook does absolutely nothing to argue against my point. My point was that the energy isn't created. It's already present in the form of chemical bonds which are being broken. You seem to be implying it's magically being created from the matter.

As to your bastardization of the term theory, it's yet another of your logical fallacies. In this case, it's the fallacy of equivocation. A “theory” in layman's terms is not the same as a “theory” in scientific terms. The former means a guess. The latter means “overwhelmingly tested and proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” Your “theory”, as well as Steady State “theory” and many others your attempt obfuscation with, are the former. The Big Bang and evolution are the latter. Conflating the two to attempt to make the former look equal in importance to the latter is a dirty trick used by Creationists and a personal pet peeve of mine.

I did not “totally miss” chapter 6. It was just pointless to address specifically. It was a grand total of three pages. The first page was a summary of points I'd already addressed and the conclusions were little more than bland restatements from them. Not worth writing about, but if I'd like me to edit that statement into my original review, I'll be more than happy to.

In regards to chapter 7, your new claims are not consistent with what you'd said before. Here, you say that supernovae can trigger new star formation. In your book, you claimed that the material given off directly formed the new stars through “broken off pieces”. These two points are mutually exclusive.

I have read chapter 8. My statement still stands based on what is given in the book. Your numbers are completely without justification.

By the way, thanks for not wanting to “give [me] a course in planetary creation and destruction.” I've already had one.

Your response to what I said about life being complex, well, I don't know what to say. You didn't really offer a response beyond maintaining it is simple, without any actual justification and just saying if I knew more, I'd get it. That's not really an argument. It's an excuse not to provide one. I know quite a lot about Biology. Although I haven't had nearly as much formal training in Biology as I have in the physical sciences, I've been debating Evolution/Creationism for eight years and read numerous books on the topic. I've discussed points with many people in the field. In fact, I know it well enough to teach it. Thus, simply responding “learn more” is not really saying anything.

As far as chapter 12 goes, you did claim that the brain is something life needs to achieve for higher organisms (although you never called it by name). Let me quote you:

When complicated and advanced cells began grouping together and created some simple organisms … the need for some central intelligence of that organism had arisen

You then go on to list functions of this “central intelligence” center, most of which are performed by the brain. Thus, without explicitly naming it, you did claim the brain is necessary. My point stands.

Your next rant is on humans and animals being different. I'm not going to bother going through the evidences (you obviously don't care about such things). If you care to find them, I'd suggest looking at talkorigins.org. These issues have already been hammered out in detail with Creationists.

Your confidence is unbounded population growth is merit less as well. Sure, kids will have sex and make more babies. But will the rate at which they continue to have kids be consistent as you assume? Will there never again be a great plague that destroys large percentages of the population? Will resources allow for as many people to survive? You assume all of these won't happen and that the case for now will continue forever, but even optimistic population models include such things. This is a staggering oversight on your part.

I am not in any way closed minded. As I pointed out in my closing, there's a difference between having an open mind and having one that gets soggy when it rains. I prefer to think of my mind as “guarded.” You need to have some actual evidence to be accepted in as more than a hypothetical scenario. But apparently, you like to allow things in based on generalizations and logical fallacies aimed at the masses.

On the topic of heredity: Your now claim that your genes “keep you human”. I get the impression you're pretty shaky on the definition of species. How much divergence does there need to be before humans are, well, not human? Until you start using some sort of system by which your distinctions have some meaning, your point can't be taken seriously. Again, this is a tactic Creationists love to hide behind. I have no respect for it.

By the way, I don't believe in astrology. It's not something I've put on my “About-Me” page. It's something that blogger automatically puts there based on my birthday.

I'll agree that chapter 15 is especially important in establishing your hypothesis. It's the grand unveiling. Given how shoddy your base is for the grand conclusion, I've treated it with due respect. As for chapter 1 of part 2 being important, I just reread it (somewhat more carefully this time). I agree with most the points against religion in it, but it isn't necessary for the rest of the thesis. If you really think it's important, then I think you're confusing the side topic (atheism and the lack of god) with the main one (the LAW).

At this point, your response turns ironic. You claim I summarized in chapter 2 in “two words”. I gave it a whole three sentences which outlined the main points without bothering to respond to them in any way. Yet, magically, you've decided that this amounts to “insults”.

But at this point, you're not bothering to respond to anything I said. Instead, you bitch and moan about me hurling insults, then you have an entire list of your own with a dose of silly psychoanalysis. I absolutely do not “spew [my] accumulated poison”. If you'd read the other reviews I've written, I'm very positive where good things can be said. In contrast, I maintain that the proper response to the ridiculous is ridicule. Given that the second half of your book is based on the first half, and the first half was nothing but logical pit holes, the entire second part is ridiculous. Thus, the second half of my review was more geared towards ridicule, but I'm in no way apologetic for such things.

I take great care to keep your sentences in context. If you care to argue how one is out of context, feel free to actually address it (which you've notably not done through all of your response thus far) instead of simply claiming it. Let's see some academic integrity here.

The author/publisher is rather unimportant to the main topic, but I never pretended it was. Notice I left It distinctly as an afterthought, separate from the main review. As far as “trying to dig in the dirty clothes”, you mentioning that shows your hypocrisy given you find it important to dig through my profile on a separate page to complain about the astrological notes that are affixed there without my asking. But hypocrisy is apparently rife with you in closing given you continue spewing poison of your own.

In conclusion, I do understand your book. The overall thought process is shaky, but stable, assuming the foundational statements are accurate. Those foundational statements include (but are not limited to) the infinite age of the universe, the creation of new celestial bodies, and the distinctness of the human species from animals. Given that all of these topics (and the ones I originally brought up and you unsuccessfully defended) you display woeful incompetence on and still have yet to support, your entire foundation crumbles, taking the rest of the structure with it.

Given this fact, there's no point in reading it again. I didn't expect you to be happy in hearing this, but your response has only confirmed what I already suspected: You're not really interested in academic, intellectual, or honest reviews. You want shallow praise from people that don't have enough knowledge to actually subject your claims to any real scrutiny. I cannot respect that. Your insistence that I should, and I should politely overlook the glaring holes in your basic knowledge is asinine.

So thank you for your lack of respect. I have no need of it from you. I'd much rather have it from people whose worldviews are built on logic, rational thinking, and evidence.

How long till we start seeing Mars dust arguments?

I'm sure most people are familiar with the astoundingly bad Creationist argument that states there's too little dust on the moon for it to have been accumulating for the past 4.5 billion years. It's so bad, that even Answers in Genesis says not to use it. Of course, this didn't stop the willfully ignorant companion of Brother Jed from using it last month.

But of course, if there's not enough dust on the moon, then there's probably not enough dust on Mars. And with the new Phoenix lander on the surface digging through that dust, I'm willing to bet it's not going to be long before we start hearing "Mars dust" arguments popping up. And I bet they're also going to point to this press release showing that the dust is really thin. Thin enough that the retrorockets that helped give the lander a soft landing was able to blow it away to uncover a solid substrate.

Brother Jed at KU: 5/6/08 - A whole lotta stupid

Brother Jed and his companions made a trip to the University of Kansas today. At one point, we managed to get his older, portly companion on the topic of the age of the Earth. I was there with a grad student in Geology. It quickly became apparent, that despite Jed's companions claims to formal training in Geology are grossly exaggerated and he presented either gross ignorance or outright lies.

For example, one of the claims this person made is that uplift due to plate tectonics has never been observed. This was directly refuted by the Geology student with numerous examples and a quick Google search returns just such measurements from Papua New Guinea's Finisterre mountains.

He also claimed that convection zones in the Earth which drive tectonic activity must be square. A thorough search for this information returned no results. Searching scientific journals returned no results. Even a check against common sense shows how silly this claim is. Just try drawing a square (not rectangle) inside a circle. It requires that the material MAGICALLY change direction with no forces acting on it far from the core. Talk about miracles!

This person also attempted to invoke polystrate fossils (ie, trees cutting through many layers of deposited sediment) as indicative of a young Earth. What he neglected to mention was that these fossils are only found in places where you should expect frequent deposition rates (ie, near rivers or regions of volcanic activity). When actually dated, radiological dating confirms this prediction. Rather, Jed's companion hypocritically dismissed this, after having just previously argued against uniformitarianism.

Many of the other arguments he presented are so poor, that the major Young-Earth Creationist organization, Answers in Genesis, suggests they not be used. Among them that Jed's companion invoked:
- Plate tectonics is fallacious.
- There are no transitional forms
- Paluxy tracks prove that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.
- Moon-dust thickness proves a young moon.

If many of this person's BEST arguments are refuted by even Creationist organizations and simply searching Google, I hate to think what this says of his intellectual honesty and scholarship concerning his other arguments. Nor is his character much better. When presented with contradictory evidence, this person did not provide a rebuttal, but instead chose to reply by calling us "Morons!" I was personally called a "moron" five times.

I never caught this person's name, whoever this Santa Claus look alike, fisher hat wearing jerk was, he's an embarrassment to an already embarrassing ministry. I seem to recall St. Thomas Aquinas having something to say on how disgraceful it is for Christians to show ignorance in science due to it suggesting that they are ignorant to truth in general. Perhaps Jed's companion should learn from him.

Book Review: Who Will Rise Up?

Although it's a book you won't find in the average bookstore, Brother Jed has his own book entitled Who Will Rise Up? (full text of older version available here). Instead, you'll have to order a copy from his ministry or be lucky enough to have him give you a free copy when he visits a campus near you. It took me nearly 2 years of listening to him to get one.

I've listened to Jed enough times to get to know him pretty well as he preached on campus, and although I don't agree with him, I at least respect him because he's far more internally consistent and doesn't tend to pick and choose like most Christians. However, in reading his book, this view has been somewhat shaken as I'll discuss later on.

The organization of this book is not well organized in the beginning. Topics seem to come out of nowhere and have no coherent flow to them. However, by halfway through the book seem to take on structured themes such as his views on marriage, the school system, why he preaches on campus, etc...

It seems that one of the main themes through the book is a justification for his confrontational public ministry. Jed makes it clear that he feels that colleges are a great bastion of sin and that he has been called to save souls there. He says his methods are to get people to recognize their sins that it may bring them to God. This is, of course, done by the good old guilt trip. He explains the reasoning for this on page 74 when he states

[Martin Luther] was convinced that a man would never see his Savior until he saw his sin!

He also describes what this involves:

The evangelist must impress on them that they are wicked to the core. There is not anything good about them. All their righteousness is as filthy rags in the sight of a holy GOD.

If you've been following my blog for awhile, you've probably heard of Brenda Frei who was in the 30 Day: Atheist/Christian episode. During this, as well as in private, she's said that one of the reasons she dislikes Christianity is that it operates by telling people that they're worthless and in need of salvation. This is also pointed out by Bob Minor in his newest book. Many Christians take exception to this being brought to light, but here Brother Jed exemplifies this.

Yet, on page 229, Jed has the audacity to chastise "guilt manipulators" who takes in large sums of money to fund himself and his ministry. He who guilts others doesn't appreciate the tactic being turned around on him apparently. Oops! Hypocrisy!

This tactic of Jed's also shows a gigantic flaw in his reasoning. To make someone believe in God, Jed attempts to convict them of their sins. However, to believe that the sins are actually sinful, they must first make the a priori assumption that God exists. Little bit of a Catch 22 there. This is where other tactics of preaching love seem to work better. However, Jed strongly condemns those practices as cherry picking the feel good parts.

Of course, Jed's understanding of "love" seems more than a bit twisted. On pages 68-69, he describes his view: To love God is to fear him and hate sin. Love = fear = hate. Rather Orwellian.

Brother Jed seems to like to make up his own definitions for things, which frequently don't coincide with reality. On pg 106, he criticizes people for being "politically correct" rather than enforcing God's word. However he defines this saying,

Being ‘politically correct’ means deciding issues on the basis of membership in a particular group or adherence to a particular ideology, not on the foundation of evidence, merits or morality.

I guess brother Jed is politically correct then given his strict adherence to ideological principles without a single shred of evidence.

The "evidence" he does present is typically a poor generalization. Jed, like many evangelists, insist that they (especially as a teen) felt that something was missing. On page 18, Jed says,

When I was fifteen, I began to recognize an emptiness in my life. Night after night, I can remember lying in bed and thinking, "There must be a book to reveal what life is all about."

To Jed, this emptiness must be a lack of God (as opposed to the obvious answer of raging hormones), and everyone who's lacking God must feel the same emptiness. If everyone feels the same way, this proves that there must actually be a God that's missing from their lives. He reiterates this on 126, saying,

Sonny and Cher sang "All I Ever Need Is You," and "I've Got You Babe." Today they are divorced. Obviously they needed more than each other. They needed a relationship with the God of the universe.

Jed also generalizes, saying there's no such thing as a happy gay (p 35), stating, "You are not gay; you are miserable." I don't think he's looked too hard. On page 45 he claims, "Homosexuals hate God, hate their parents and hate one another." Again, I think Jed's doing a bit of projection.

The abuse of generalizations and poor logic is especially ironic when Jed announces,

Contemporary academics have no dearth of opinions, but lack knowledge and wisdom. They have “thinking” confused with “Feeling.” You often hear these so-called students say, “I feel,” but rarely, “I know,” or, “I think,” or even more uncommonly, “I conclude.” They are unable to define terms, analyze argument or know the difference between influences and causations.

Brother Jed's delusions don't end there. Repeatedly, throughout the book, he shows his delusions of grandeur and overemphasized self worth.

Straight away in the introduction, his wife, sister Cindy states,

Christians have said that they cannot mention the name of Christ around campus without someone bringing up “Brother Jed.”

Jed claims to be personally responsible for great spiritual revivals on several campuses. Yet on pg 40 he says,

Sadly, the conservative revival at ASU did not last. By the end of the eighties, the liberals had once again take over the newspaper, and the Christians seemed to have gone back into the closet.

As should be obvious, Jed doesn't take responsibility for his failures. On page 18, he refuses to even acknowledge that he is responsible for his own behavior of becoming an alcoholic. Rather, he says,

It may have been during this time that the advertisement for Falstaff Beer implanted a taste for it in my subconscious mind.

"OMG! It's not my fault! It was that evul subliminal messegin'!"

Jed also has an amazing ability to give into confirmation bias. He proclaims that Sonny and Cher are divorced because they didn't have enough God, yet ignores the fact that born again Christians have a much higher divorce rate than atheists!

Additionally, Jed doesn't have a high opinion of women. On 166 he claims he's "trying to put you women down, I'm just trying to put you in your proper place."

So what is this "proper place" he's talking about?

Let's take a look at how he describes his wife:

By God's grace, I have not failed to cherish her and give honor to her as the weaker vessel. (p 162)

After ten years of marital bliss I have an obedient and loving wife... (p 255)

Jed makes it very clear that women are inferior to men and that obedience and making babies is their primary function. He even goes so far as to praise Phyllis Schafly (p 168).

On page 78, Jed wonders, "So how is it these “Christian” girls are so convinced that I called them whores?"

Gee. I don't know. Perhaps it's because you actually say they're "worse than whores".

The way he describes his daughters isn't much better. He describes good parenting as making sure your kids fear you saying of his second daughter,

By her second year she was coming when we called, fearing the rod and being quiet in church. This made her a greater blessing to the family.

Having a daughter that can do tricks like a dog because she's afraid of getting hit is a blessing. Of course, since Jed thinks that love = fear, this shouldn't be in any way surprising.

It's a very twisted little realm he lives in, but although Jed claims not to like Fred Phelps, his views seem astoundingly similar at times. He claims that ills are blamed on a lack of holiness:

Many of the mastectomies performed today may be a result of God’s judgment on women for using their breasts as mere sex objects and not desiring to have a baby, much less nurse one. (p 112)

Calamity and disasters are usually the natural consequences of violating God's Moral Law. (218)

As if that doesn't sound familiar.

So what have we seen so far? Jed is egotistical, hypocritical, misogynistic.

But at least he knows the bible. Right?

Wrong.

Jed frequently bemoans the fact that

…I don’t remember a teacher, administrator or student ever suggesting prayer or Bible reading in high school except commencement. No one ever talked to me about a right relationship with God. (p 18)

To support the idea that this is the function of school, he summarizes Galatians 3:24 as saying, "our schoolmaster [is] to bring us unto Christ."

It's been awhile since I've read the bible, but I certainly didn't remember that and I expected that if that were really what it said, I'd be seeing Creationists quoting that passage all the time. So I checked. What does Galatians really say?

So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.

I don't see anything about "schoolmaster(s)" in there. The closest thing is "the law". But what law?

The rest of Galatians 3 is talking about divine Law, the Law God gave in the OT. Not the law of the Caesar and the government.

So why does Jed decide to twist this? Because it doesn't fit into what he wants to believe. Many Christians use this chapter as well as others, to suggest the "new covenant" after Noah's flood which superceeds the original laws of the OT. Since Jed's dead set on keeping all of that, he selectively cherry picks, rationalizes, and distorts what doesn't fit that view. For shame!

And although Jed shows astounding ignorance of the topic (carefully sidestepping it in this book and bumbling his way through it on campuses, Jed just can't refrain from taking a jab at evolution on his way out the door, saying,

“Our eyes are so staggeringly complex that evolutionists cannot explain how they could have evolved by chance selection. Its functional design, structural economy and specialized parts make the human eye about the most dependable visual imaging instrument in the universe.”
Pastor Glen concludes, “The human eye is so complicated that it can function only as an integrated unit. Which means it’s scientifically impossible for the human eye to evolve piecemeal, as natural selection requires, because the eye is totally useless unless fully developed.”

Looks like the typical IDC Irreducibly Complex argument from ignorance. And what willful ignorance it is given that eye evolution is well explained! Why the silly attack on evolution though?

Like so many others, Jed views evolution as the root of all evils in society. As if, before 1859, the world was a magical fairy tale land full of lollipops.

The rest of his science is pretty bad too. Brother Jed clearly states he has no interest in taking responsible stewardship for the planet, instead insisting,

In contrast, visionary Christians are having large families and training them to take dominion upon the earth because we know overpopulation is not the problem facing humanity, but the problem is underproduction. In the next generation we will have the manpower and influence to regain control of our culture and its institutions.

"Breed! Breed! Take over the land! If we run out of food, we can just make more! Magically since we're running out of usable farmland and overfishing our oceans! But who cares because I believe in God and that God will make everything wonderful!!1!!eleven!"

Yep. Delusional. Egotistical. Misogynistic. Hypocritical. Out of touch with logic, reality, and common sense. All of these things describe Brother Jed. For the most part, I'd realized all this before ever picking up his book, but after reading it, it's quite clear that this understanding of him shines through in the text.

My reading list

Since the topic came up of what's on my reading list, I figured I'd make a post to keep track of such things. I'll try to keep this updated.

Currently Reading:

The City & The City by China Mieville

Already read:

Science of Diskworld III: Darwin's Watch by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen

Finding Darwin's God by Ken Miller

The Neptune Files by Tom Standage

Parallax: A Race to Measure the Cosmos by Alan Hirshfeld

Myth of a Christian Nation by Gregory Boyd

Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman

Who Will Rise Up by Brother Jed Smock

God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens

Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel

DNA by W. Craig Reed

Death From the Skies! by Phil Plait

Breaking the Spell by Daniel C. Dennet

Your Inner Fish by Niel Shubin

Galileo's Daugher by Dava Sobel

Perfect Rigor by Masha Gessen

Only a Theory by Ken Miller

You Will Be Forced To Become Rich by FINIFID

Eerie Silence by Paul Davies

A Tear at the Edge of Creation by Marcelo Gleiser

Denialism by Michael Specter

The Sun's Heartbeat by Bob Berman

Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman

Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins

The Gender Knot by Allan Johnson

Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan

Relics of Eden: The Powerful Evidence of Evolution in Human DNA by Daniel Fairbanks

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

Einstein's Jury by Jeffery Crelinstein

Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless by Greta Christina

Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman & Ralph Leighton

At The Queen's Command by Michael Stackpole

Teaching Outside the Box by LouAnne Johnson

The Purity Myth by Jessica Valenti

Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

Manners and Mischief: Gender, Power, and Etiquette in Japan by Laura Miller & Jan Bardsley

Snuff by Terry Pratchett

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Redshirts by John Scalzi

Among Others by Jo Walton

Still on List:

When School Reform Goes Wrong by Nel Noddings

Not in Our Classrooms by Eugenie Scott and Glgenn Branch

Humanism for Parents by Sean Curley

Evolution vs. Creationism by Eugenie Scott

Misquoting Truth by Timothy Jones

Thank God for Evolution! by Michael Dowd

Edward Tufte's books on Data Visualization: Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information, and/or Visual Explanations: Quantities, Evidence, and Narrative.

Abandoned:

Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind by Richard Fortey

"We're going to need a bigger boat"

For the first 3 years of my college life, I attended what is now Missouri State University (was then Soutwest Missouri State). For the most part, I don't miss it. However, aside from catching up with friends from there, there are the occasional things that MSU does that are pretty damned cool.

This past semester, MSU's Pastafarian group got together at the public forum on campus (where Brother Jed can often be seen), to construct a gigantic cardboard pirate ship and hold "Noodlefest".

Here's some pictures from the event take by friend Emily Sommers.

Jesus makes you bullet proof

Tragedies seem to be a wonderful time for the religious right to spout their propaganda.

While Phelps may be the one making headlines for his vitrolic comments, he's far from the only one. Others like Brother Jed, Pat Robertson, and the rest of their ilk aren't far behind the Phelps family.

The Virginia Tech shootings have brought out another round of idiocy from them.

PZ Myers has already seen pundit Debbie Schlussel blaming Muslims. As soon as it was revealed that the shooter was Asian, she attempted to use that to reenforce her xenophobia.

Over at Answers in Genesis Ken Ham blames atheists and evolution.

Brother Jed was on campus again yesterday with a flock of his followers. One of them claimed that the students that died, did so because they didn't believe in Jesus. As if belief could stop the bullets.

EDIT: Looks like Phelps will be protesting at the funerals of those that died at Virginia Tech.

Jesus thinks you're an idiot too...

For those that aren't familiar with my school, KU has a large open area where many groups will advertise their events. The space is open to anyone that wants to use it and is typically called "Wescoe Beach". It can be used for anything from promoting races for student senate, to Brother Jed preaching his own version of eternal damnation.

He was out on Wednesday, although I didn't have the time to listen to him. Friday, however, saw a live action reenactment of the crucifixion, complete with a large cross, and an actor in a loincloth holding onto some nails in 30º weather while people chanted at him.

Not exactly what I'd be doing for fun, but it sure sounds better than what religious groups in the Philippines do. Apparently when they reenact the crucifixion, they do it for real. Real people. Real nails.

But if having nails driven through your hands isn't enough, you can try beating yourself with chains or having someone beat you with glass embedded wood.

I'm not particularly religious, but as I understand it, the whole purpose of Jesus' sacrifice was to save us from this very sort of punishment. So perhaps this is just my silly overly critical atheism speaking, but wouldn't rejecting his sacrifice to do it yourself be something of an insult?

Something Positive

Growing up, I never was much of a comic person. But a few years ago, one of my now ex-girlfriends turned me onto a modern form of these illustrated stories in the form of internet comics (aka webcomics). The first one she got me into reading was one called Something Positive. I've been following it for about three years now and it's quite a bit older than that.

Since I started, I've gotten fuzzy on much of the background and what happened, when. However, recently, SP featured a strip that echoed very strongly with me. The story arc was entitled "Holy Ghost Stories" and the first strip of it can be found here.

If the comic itself doesn't get the point across to you, then read what Randy put in the newspost:

to my Christian readers: I am sorry. I am sorry many of you do get stereotyped or find yourself having to defend your faith against those who've been jaded by the batshit insane. More than a couple of you ... felt this storyline was portraying Christians as the likes of Phelps. This was not my intent. However, I have some awful news for you.

The problem of being lumped with them won't go away until you become more vocal.

People assume most Christians are heavy-handed, pushy, intolerant bigots bent of dominating any other culture or idea and supplanting it with their own whims because, for the most part, the ones who speak up the most ARE heavy-handed, pushy, intolerant bigots bent on dominating any other culture or idea and supplanting it with their own whims. It sucks. It's horrible. And it's the what everyone of any faith, political idea, or lifestyle has to deal with. People always focus on the loud minority who ruins everything. And like any other group, the only way you can combat this is making your views and, in this case, your kindness and actual testimony louder than the hateful prattle of those hurting your beliefs.

I find myself in full agreement with everything Randy says here. I make no secret about the fact that I'm an atheist and don't think highly of religion, but I'm not one to look down on anyone until they've earned it.

Religious zealots like Phelps, Brother Jed, Pat Robertson and the others definately fall into this category. And unfortunately, they're so vocal, that they drag everyone assosciated down with them. The trouble is that the supposed "silent majority" pretends this isn't a problem. I'm not sure why. Perhaps the moderate, intelligent, Christians out there are hoping that if they ignore the problem it will go away.

Perhaps it's time to take a lesson from us scientists. We've been finding out that hoping the crackpots will go away doesn't work. Next thing we know, they're trying to force their inane ideas into schools and the government. Many scientists are just now waking up to the problem we've let fester.

Are moderate Christians really willing to make the same mistake?

And it's not even a full moon

The past week has seen two prominent street preachers hitting the campus here at KU. The first was a set of black preachers from Soul Winners Ministry. Each whore a bright red shirt with "No homos in heaven!" written on them in gaudy yellow letters. One preached while the other filmed it.

The preacher was very loathe to answer any questions and instead ranted on any topic he felt like. This didn't make him any fans in the crowd. Ironically, the Gideons crowd was also handing out their little green bibles that day (I haven't collected enough to make my bandolier yet), and many people in the audience threw the bibles at him as well as one spectator who got a carton of eggs (but ended up missing his target every time). The most creative objects getting tossed around were balloons made from condoms when the preacher started ranting about abstinance.

I saw a few members of SOMA there, but they tended to sit back and laugh as opposed to engaging in the egg and bible throwing (although I did hear that the condom balloons were the work of one of our members).

Ironically, when asked what church the team was from, the cameraman replied by saying they weren't from any particular church. I wonder why he decided to lie. Perhaps he was secretly ashamed of how foolish he and his preaching partner were looking? Would this also be why they both took off their homophobic T-shirts before departing?

The crowd finally started dying down as other Christians started protesting his hateful version of God and the war of ideologies was on! But of course, this isn't much fun given that most people had already made their mind up on which version of the fairy tale they want to believe.

I thought those two would be the end of the fun, but on my way to class Monday, none other than my favourite street preacher, Brother Jed was out in front of Wesco Hall. My first question to him referred to this post in which I was wondering if, given that Jed has the same anti-gay stance as religious idealogue Fred Phelps, that if Jed's daughter who is now in military service were to die, if he felt that it would be justified for Phelps to protest her funeral?

Jed dodged the question muttering something that was inaudable, but gave the general impression that he didn't think too kindly of Phelps. This was encouraging at least, to see that extreme right wingers aren't as unified as they pretend to be.

From there, the crowd asked why we were in Iraq in the first place. His response: "To kill the Jihadists" because, according to Jed, Islam is a religion of intolerance and hate. Interestingly enough, when confronted with several passages from the Koran directly contradicting this, Brother Jed refused to admit his error. Not that I expected any less from him.

Next, I pressed Jed to show just how strong his holier-than-thou facade was by recounting his college years in which he engaged in far more "immoral" acts than any atheist I've ever met. I've got to say, even if an astounding hypocrite, Jed is a fanstastic story teller. You could really see him reliving his sexual exploits in the back seat of his father's car at the drive in, as he recounted them, spittle flying from his mouth.

In telling his life story, he also went through his years as a hippie and revealed the event that led him to become a Christian. It happened while he was meditating on a shore in North Africa during the sunset. As the sun set in front of him, he looked over his shoulder and noticed the full moon was rising at the same time.

This he said, could not be the result of random chance. It must be design! I pointed out that it has more to do with basic geometry which he could have learned in an introductory astronomy course, but he brushed this off as well.

This design argument led into his usual argument of how, since his eyeglasses were designed, that implied a designer, and as such, since his eyes were far more complex than his glasses, they too must be designed. Good ole argument from complexity! This led him to decide to read the Bible (athough admittedly, he said he had only skimmed the Old Testament) and accept Jesus as his savior.

In response, I pointed out that if you flip a coin a trillian times, the resulting sequence of heads and tails is ridiculously complex, but was the result of random processes. Thus, complexity in and of itself is a poor argument for design, unless of course, he wanted to argue that the result of a coin flip is not random and that God is actually determining what it should be every time. He mumbled something about coin flips being determined by natural laws which he didn't really know too much about, but it wasn't really important since God made all the laws anyway.

Another question that was posed was, what was his favourite biblical story? With no hesitation, he jumped up, and spittle dribbling onto his chin, he told us of Soddam and Gommorah. He went through the entire story with his usual fervor, giving us quite the show.

But perhaps the best part, was his demonstration of why homosexuality was wrong. And it involved props! From his bumper sticker laden briefcase, Jed pulled out two extention cords, saying that you could only get heat and power one way: by sticking the "male" end into the "female" end. He butted the two male ends together chanting "no no homo" and similarly, with the two female ends, chanting "no no lesbo", claiming that no power could flow this way. I pointed out that as long as the metal parts were touching, power flows just fine, and with the two female ends, it still works, as long as you get a few "accessories". The crowd laughed, realizing that Jed's metaphor was shot. I don't think Jed understood though. Sadly, I think his grasp on electric circuits is as weak as his grasp on basic astronomy.

But his fun with power cords didn't end there! He then extended the analogy claiming that one was Michael Jackson and the other was "a little brown boy" visiting Neverland ranch. Brother Jed seemed to really get into this one with some strange sort of strange fascination as he played with his cords.

Eventually, I had to leave, and I headed off. As I got back to my room, it occured to me that I failed to get a clarification on commandment VI according to Jed on whether or not this applied to gays. I'm pretty sure it does, but I'll just have to ask next time he come around.

Ironically, it was exactly three years ago today that I last saw Jed when I was at MSU. Perhaps he only comes out at this time of year. Coincidence?

I know a few people that took pictures at these events, and I'll see if I can't get them at some point.

Sin against nature?

In Terry Pratchet's novel, Monstrous Regmient, Pratchet discribes his fictional country in which the God, Nuggan, has died but echoes remain, handing down new abominations to the priests. But these abominations keep getting more and more senseless, oysters, rocks, and the color blue (thus devout Nugganites avoid looking at the sky).

But sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Earlier I posted Brother Jed's 10 commandments, the majority of which were senseless. But it's easy to brush Brother Jed off as a bit deranged.

However, it's another thing when a major church does it. We can understand the biblical 10 commandments as being pretty solid but perhaps no so solid is the insistance that birth control is a no-no to some religious sects, as is the restriction of gay marriage based on a single sentence from the bible. But it seems that God's given a notice to bishop Richard Chartres of the Church of England saying that taking planes for holiday travel is "a sin" against nature. I'm all for cutting down on pollution, and support the idea of this, but it sounds to me that bishop Chartres is taking this a little too far. Perhaps he forgot that commandment about not worshiping false idols (like nature).

The 10 Commandments (according to Brother Jed)

I've mentioned a certain funadmentalist preacher by the name of Brother Jed Smock before. He tours college campus and condemns everyone to hell with his fire and brimstone preaching.

As we say in Missouri, "He's a hoot."

So much so in fact, that I tend to skip my classes to smirk at Smock. Back in 2003, he came to Missouri State University's campus (formerly Southwest Missouri State) on October 31. I was in attendence at that time and happened to catch him when he was first setting up.

I proceeded to listen to his sermons for the better part of 5 hours. In that time, he explicitly named ten things that would earn you a one way trip straight to Hell. These ten no-no's became known to my friends and I as "The Brother Jed 10 commandments" and I share them with you now (the current high score is 8.5):

---

Thou Shalt Not...
I. ... drink to intoxication.
II. ... hug, kiss, or have sex before marriage.
III. ... masturbate.
IV. ... listen to Rock & Roll music.
V. ... wear tight pants.
VI. ... be a lesbian (especially a communist lesbian, that's totally unforgivable/
VII. ... be a member of a fraternity or a sorority, for lo, it is worse to be in a sorority than to be a whore because at least whores get paid.*
VIII. ... get any part of your body pierced besides your ears.
IX. ... disco dance.
X. ... be a designated driver, for this is like driving the bus to Hell. **

* - This comment was made just as a Christian sorority had walked up to lend support to Brother Jed. They promptly left.
** - At this point I started a chorus of "The wheels on the Hell Bus go round and round..."

Irony in the making?

Although he's not as flamboyant as our favourite Fred Phelps, there's another evangelical preacher out there that has a soft spot in my funny bone. That preacher is Brother Jed Smock. Instead of protesting at soldiers funerals, Brother Jed's favourite bible-thumping ground is college campuses. I've caught him numerous times at my last school in Springfield Missouri and he's already been to KU this school year (although I missed him here).

Every once in awhile, I check his website to see what fun new things he's up to. Today, I noticed this bit here:

Our oldest daughter, Evangeline (20), has joined the Army. She will report for duty right after our School of Evangelism in early September. She will be trained as a warrior and will study to be a Chaplain's Assistant. She wants to go to Iraq to be where the action is.

My question is: If this Evangeline is killed in action, will fellow fire and brimstone preacher Phelps show up at the funeral of Brother Jed to protest laugh gleefully at her death?

Note: I certainly do not wish for the death of Evangeline or any other of our nation's military. I'm merely speculating at a potentially ironic situation.