If you haven't been keeping up with the New Humanist Advent Podcasts, there are many new ones since I last mentioned them: Ben Goldacre, Martin Rowson, Chris Addison, Ben Miller, Andrew Collins, , Eddie Izzard, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and Laurie Taylor. I do have to mention that Eddie Izzard totally stole my suggestion of celebrating Isaac Newton, and turned it into a weird ramble about how intelligent people have bad parties where there is no bathing and no shagging going on. I think I am horribly offended, even if it is true that very few parties that I've attended have involved bathing or shagging. Perhaps I'm not really offended, but just moderately worried that I've missed out on a lot of very fun parties.
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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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A few weeks ago a hurricane struck the little religious community of Bethany, Okla. A number of pious citizens of the little town were killed. Houses were destroyed — homes in which prayer and devotion reigned. A church was demolished. Only a few miles away is the large, wicked city of Oklahoma City — at least we can certainly assume that, from the religious viewpoint, many sinners live in Oklahoma City. Assuming also (which is a great deal riskier assumption) that there is a God, why should he perpetrate this grim and sardonic joke? The sinners in the big city were left untouched. The godly folk in the little nearby village were punished by the evidences of God's wrath. How do the religious people interpret this calamity? Often and often they explain such calamities as flood, fire and storm by saying that God is angry at the sinful people and is warning them or destroying them for their sins. Was the hurricane in Bethany a sign of the love of God for his faithful worshipers? And God missed an even better chance, if there were a God who wished to punish rebels against his majesty and inscrutability. Just a few hundred miles north and east of Bethany, Okla., is Girard — the home of The American Freeman: and The Debunker and The Joseph McCabe Magazine and the Little Blue Books — the center of American free thought where an enormous stream of atheistic literature and. godless modern knowledge pours forth to enlighten the masses. If there were a God directing hurricanes and he wanted to really "get" an uncompromising foe, whom he has no chance of persuading in the ordinary way, it would have been a devastating stroke for him to send his howling punitive blasts through the town of Girard. It would be a more remarkable suggestion of the avenging act of a God if only the Haldeman-Julius plant were destroyed and the rest of the town left unhurt — and, as good neighbors, we shouldn't wish the Christian and respectable, people of Girard nor those who are respectable and not so Christian nor those who are Christian and not exactly respectable to suffer from our proximity and our propaganda of atheism. Is God a joker? No — let us whisper it — the joke is that there is no God. Hurricanes come upon the just and the unjust, the pious and the impious.
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More articles by PZ Myers can be found on Freethoughtblogs at the new Pharyngula!
New Advent podcasts
Posted on: December 16, 2008 12:54 PM, by PZ Myers
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Comments
Posted by: HadasS | December 16, 2008 1:01 PM
"I think I am horribly offended, even if it is true that very few parties that I've attended have involved bathing or shagging."
Same here. Hopeless geeks, that's who we are.
Posted by: S.Scott | December 16, 2008 1:04 PM
You apparently didn't go to the right college!
Posted by: broxster | December 16, 2008 1:21 PM
"weird ramble" must be a new euphemism for "not funny".
Posted by: Brownian, OM | December 16, 2008 1:24 PM
All you really need is a party with bathing: the shagging will follow, especially if you're the sort to share your tub toys.
Posted by: 1minion | December 16, 2008 1:31 PM
I think a new holiday tradition is in the works here...
Posted by: Bjørn Østman | December 16, 2008 1:33 PM
I know it has more than a hint of paganism, but I really like the idea of celebrating the winter solstice. Bathing and shagging sounds just right for it, though.
Posted by: Flood | December 16, 2008 1:47 PM
Izzard speaks a tragic truth.
Posted by: Karen | December 16, 2008 1:52 PM
I happen to think that geeks throw great parties. Admittedly, they're usually light on the bathing and shagging, but occasionally someone will fall in a fountain or river...
I attended a great party this past weekend, but perhaps it wasn't any fun at all, since my yardstick appears be defective. It was hosted by hairdressers, even - but no bathing or shagging that I noticed. Such a shame...
Posted by: Zeno | December 16, 2008 2:14 PM
Since Izzard stole your idea about celebrating Newton's birthday, I think it's only fair that you steal Izzard's cross-dressing schtik. Of course, he did a bad job with the Newton idea, so it's only reasonable that you return the favor by dressing up in tasteless frocks and flower-print sacks. That'll show him!
Posted by: Rey Fox | December 16, 2008 2:14 PM
I'd take the shagging without the party, myself.
Posted by: Richard Harris | December 16, 2008 2:20 PM
(Sniff....) A true geek hates parties.
Posted by: Helioprogenus | December 16, 2008 2:33 PM
Out of curiosity, are there others out here like me who can't stand pod-casts? Perhaps part of it is that I have a short attention span, and it's magnified without seeing something accompanying the spoken word.
Yes, I do listen to the radio, but very little of it is talk, and only about half an hour of NPR every day, although it would be nice for them to remove the obvious Israeli bias in their reporting.
Don't get me wrong, podcasts can be absolutely fascinating, but it's so much easier to retain information upon reading it than hearing it.
Posted by: Joakim | December 16, 2008 2:48 PM
The Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant podcast is brilliant!
Posted by: Ranson | December 16, 2008 3:07 PM
@ #11
I agree. All true geek get-togethers should involve little more than dice, rulebooks, and paper.
...
It's when you get us alone that the bathing and shagging come into it.
Posted by: Maugrim | December 16, 2008 3:10 PM
Helioprogenus: at least you can hear them if you choose to. I'm deaf, and transcripts of podcasts are pretty rare.
Fortunately there are more than enough good written articles out there to keep you and me occupied...
Posted by: Helioprogenus | December 16, 2008 3:37 PM
Well Maugrim, perhaps the rapidly evolving speed of technology will come around to having more podcasts quickly transcribed. But until then, you're right, there are more than enough articles to keep our minds sharp.
Posted by: Marc Abian | December 16, 2008 5:22 PM
That's why I love Gervais and Merchant.
Posted by: j h woodyatt | December 16, 2008 5:47 PM
All the best parties I've ever attended involved both bathing and shagging, sometimes simultaneously. Sadly, now that I'm married, I never get invited to such parties anymore, because A) I can't get babysitters who will stay until 05 hours, and B) the bathing and shagging tends not to happen in a very child-friendly environment, so I can't take the sprog with me.
I'm certain the parties are still happening. We're just not getting invited, PZ.
Posted by: Russell Blackford | December 16, 2008 8:40 PM
Dammit, my supply of such parties dried up (as it were) some years ago when my friends started having kids. There seems to be a view that parties where people bring their kids along should be low on the bathing part and even lower on the shagging-while-bathing part.
Oh well, at least I have the memories ...
Posted by: 43alley | December 16, 2008 9:08 PM
If you want some great anti-religion Eddie Izzard on YouTube, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LtiyefHCe4
Posted by: Patricia, OM | December 16, 2008 10:31 PM
Get on your Harley and head to Sturgis. Bathing and shagging. Drunken puking, swearing and enough leather to make pirates cry.
Or at least there was in 1993, last time I rode through... and watched. *smirk* We took a chase rig loaded with Oregon melons and sold/traded them for an amazing amount.
You should fit right in PZ, beard, great horned viking helmet. There ya go!
Posted by: Cuddly Atheist | December 16, 2008 11:00 PM
When I go to parties with intelligent people, there is always shagging and bathing.
Maybe that's just me...
Posted by: James Dean | December 16, 2008 11:48 PM
You should go to VSS
Posted by: gazza | December 17, 2008 4:27 AM
@Joakim
"The Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant podcast is brilliant!"
I agree - they are just so 'stream of conciousness" with a lot of their stuff.
You can see the genuine philosphical doubt in their podcast as they drift back and forth from religious belief!
Posted by: Horwood Beer-Master | December 19, 2008 3:01 PM
I've been away for a bit and am only just catching up with scienceblogs. Anyways, you might like to know there have been three more podcasts since Laurie Taylor, Marcus Brigstocke (yes you all remember the youtube vid of his that Richard Dawkins uses in a couple of his talks), Mark Steel ('e's from my 'ome town ya know) who's surprisingly funny in this one (I find him hit-and-miss in general), and Ann Druyan, who's really very good.