…and this is a 
I found this comment, left on the blog of the negligible Bryan Appleyard, to be immensely entertaining. It's the combination of hyperbole, unintentional irony, and oblivious incompetence, all spiced with a germ of truth, that makes it amusing.
Myers, like Dawkins when he's tired and especially the gruesome Dennett, survives entirely on scorn and venom. His response to any challenge is simply to increase the number and volume of schoolyard taunts. These guys are intellectual alchemists who have perfected the art of using invective to turn philistinism into apparent sagacity. The formula goes something like this:
Step 1--Begin by describing a philosophical challenge with a mixture of anger and fatigue, much as you would describe discovering a termite in your house after the extermintor had been through and presumably destroyed them all. The contempt must ooze front and center before you even address the argument so that anyone who might be inclined to take the challenge seriously is forwarned and suitably cowed. Don't skimp on the insulting adjectives.
Step 2--Deflect the issue from the profoundly philosophical to the mundane by suddenly talking lab gobbledegook about genes, mutations, etc. Use words like phenotype liberally and try to throw in a diagram. Extra points for insisting Darwin himself was well aware of what you are saying and would have agreed with you unreservedly;
Step 3--Insist that any argument that comes within a hundred miles of religion, no matter how ethereal or tentative, leads directly to biblical literalism, perferably as practiced in the American South. Show in one paragraph how it is the root of every atrocity in history, will lead to the end of scientific inquiry and justifies the bombing of innocent villagers by the U.S. Air Force.
Step 4--Bask in the glow of hundreds of one-sentence comments thanking you profusely for your courage and agreeing you have proven there is no need to read what your opponent said to know that the stupid twit isn't even worth reading.
Step 1 must be a good one, since it's the tactic the commenter is using. I wonder if he noticed?
Step 2 is my favorite. I like his admission that the "profoundly philosophical," to his mind, is untainted with mundane reality, and that when talking about explanations for our origins (which is usually what prompts my scornful interventions), genes and mutations are mere "gobbledygook". I know exactly where he is coming from, then — the land of the ignorant, where people are baffled and resentful of the intrusion of evidence. This must also be why he finds Dennett so gruesome.
Step 3, unfortunately, is way off base. I'm one of those guys who thinks even moderate, liberal theism is wacky in and of itself: I don't need to tie Karen Armstrong to Ken Ham to make her look absurd. I also think people would commit atrocities without religion prodding them on, too. I don't believe the South is particularly deserving of scorn; the Grand Old Man of Fundamentalism operated out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, for instance. I never endorse bombing any villages anywhere, sorry. His diatribe would have been improved if he'd left out this one point, which is so baseless it undermines the rest.
Step 4 has a tiny leavening of truth because there are lots of people who find common ground with me and are predisposed to agree with my interpretation of events, and so yes, this blog is a meeting place for mobs of atheists. So? Unfortunately for my ego, a few of the comments will be disagreements, while most are people wrangling with each other; the long threads get that way because I spark something that leads to discussion and argument. I don't get to accept even all the insults, because I'm mostly irrelevant to the conversation within a few hours of starting it!
But otherwise, I'm afraid people don't have the luxury of completely bypassing my target's words. I link back and quote liberally (gosh, there they are, the commenter's whole screed, right there in my post), and people are always tossing in fresh new absurdities from the source. A perfect example is right there in the post which made Bryan Appleyard indignant: I quoted him at length and rebutted him in detail, and poor Mr Appleyard is simply left mostly speechless, only able to screech that his feelings were hurt at being called a bad writer…and unable to address one whit of the substance of my criticisms.
Comments
Posted by: Pygmy Loris | November 16, 2009 11:43 AM
This is why you can't have a discussion with these people. They think we just throw jargon around without saying anything. Look theists, words like phenotype and mutation have meanings, and we need those words to explain biology. Not using them would be like trying to explain football without talking about touchdowns, field goals, and teams.
Posted by: tsg | November 16, 2009 11:44 AM
In other words, "I don't understand it, therefore it doesn't matter."
I am constantly amazed at how many people really do believe that ignorance is a virtue.
Posted by: Cogito | November 16, 2009 11:48 AM
*Dennett* is gruesome and contemptuous? I'm just finishing up Breaking the Spell, and I have found him infinitely patient, kind, and reasonable. Either I'm reading the wrong stuff from him, or I'm so vicious that a poster boy for nasty atheism seems mild to me. (Or could it be that that poster is talking out his ass?)
Posted by: Chuck Morrison | November 16, 2009 11:49 AM
Wow, that's an odd mix of condescending misrepresentation and a total lack of knowledge of either biology or philosophy.
I wonder if there is some equation on the internets already, or if I can coin this as "Morrison's Law:" on the internet, certainty is directly proportional to lack of knowledge. Or perhaps better stated as "certainty is inversely proportional to knowledge"? Fundies are the prime example, but guys like Appleyard aren't far behind.
Chuck
http://www.irreligiosophy.com
Posted by: Alyson Miers
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November 16, 2009 11:49 AM
Dennett is gruesome? What? If Dennett hadn't been so eager to play nice with his audience, Breaking the Spell would have been about 30% shorter.
The connection to reality is tenuous at best here.
Posted by: Jim B | November 16, 2009 11:50 AM
I found that Appleyard reply and read all the comments to it as a result of a link on Andrew Sullivan's website.
While reading through the responses, I noticed that, by and large, those commenting on Appleyard's blog entry were largely a lot of back patters as well.
You see, the difference is that this blog collects comments from people who believe the wrong thing, whereas Appleyard's blog collects comments from people who are godly, appreciate subtle philosophical BS, and are so obviously right they don't need any evidence.
Getting back to Appleyard's criticism, indeed that one phrase about lumps of text was pretty clunky, but he completely bypasses all of the specific points of criticism PZ raised and only rebutted the quality of PZ's slam.
Posted by: Cassidy | November 16, 2009 11:51 AM
I noticed this morning that The Daily Dish jumped all over this. I like Andrew Sullivan, but I just have to skip over anything he tries to say about religion or atheism because it makes me Angry. ...and he has an unfortunate tendency to constantly spell Myers with an extra e.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | November 16, 2009 11:54 AM
I thought Dennett was supposed to be the horseman who had the reputation for being nicer to the theists.
Of course given his philosophical background he probably presents the most challenging argument against religion of any of the four.
Posted by: tsg | November 16, 2009 11:55 AM
I have previously heard this stated as "To be certain of a thing, one must either know everything or nothing about it."
Posted by: Ted Dahlberg
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November 16, 2009 11:55 AM
All glory to our High Gobbledegooker who speaks the infallible truth as always! </sarcasm>
Posted by: raven | November 16, 2009 11:56 AM
I rarely see a fundie xian on the internet who is educated, sane, or intelligent.
The last one was.....well, never really.
Fundie xianity is becoming the garbage can of our society. Victims of unfortunate genetic accidents, mental illness, or minds destroyed by toxic religion all seem to end up there.
Bryan Appleyard is a good example.
It's sad but what can we normal people do? Send in UN relief convoys? They would just shoot at them because they hate the UN.
Posted by: nejishiki | November 16, 2009 11:58 AM
brb, off to the lab to produce more gobbledegook...
In the meantime, want to read the first part of my PhD Dissertation?
"Yvhjdgu wyqgdqvd hjqbvdqguhqdq dbjbdekwhbchjbchjwdw kuhukwhjwbfhjwebf therefore ydyqhjdbqh jbqj dbdbqdbd nanotechnology."
Posted by: squareone | November 16, 2009 12:02 PM
Thanks (profusely) for your courage!
Posted by: thetimchannel.wordpress.com
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November 16, 2009 12:03 PM
I smacked him earlier today for his lack of substance....though not exactly in those words....lol.
He approved the slapdown. Give him props for having comments at all. Look at Andrew Sullivan for total lack thereof. Sullivan throws the crap in the air and then doesn't even have the decency to interact with his audience.
Enjoy.
Posted by: Joe Geronimo | November 16, 2009 12:05 PM
In your reply to step 3, I don't think he was saying you condone the bombing of villages. I believe he was stating that you make the connection that religion condones the bombing of villages.
Posted by: Alyson Miers
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November 16, 2009 12:08 PM
That's probably what makes him so "gruesome." He can not only undermine but subvert the argument from experience, and he can be a perfect gentleman to believers while he does so. That makes him much scarier than the insensitive, baby-eating bullies that the New Atheists are supposed to be.
Posted by: AJ Milne | November 16, 2009 12:10 PM
While this probably frequently captures the sentiment, I think it's also sometimes or partly, also:
'Dammit, stop talking about stuff that's factual, relevant, and which will reveal me to be the emptyheaded, incompetent, shallow, and woefully mentally unagile moron I actually am. If we keep this to vapid philosophical generalities and inanities, I believe I might just be able to fake actually having something to contribute... Indeed, I might even be able to preen, project myself as having some sort of wisdom, or at least imagine I have done so... Bring in that stuff, where definitions can be pinned down and such ugly and unmalleable things as facts can be seen actually to matter, and we'll actually be playing tennis with the net again. Worse, I might have to grapple with information I was previously unaware of, possibly even be brought face to face with my own glaring inadequacies in coping with the same. Much as the rest of you live with that day to day, to the various degrees that you must, I'm too much a coward even to face that, and am not the least bit interested in getting any better at it anyway, insofar as I fear it probably won't lead where I want to go. So just stop it already.'
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | November 16, 2009 12:11 PM
In other words, "I don't understand it, therefore it doesn't matter."
These folks take argument from personal incredulity to an art form.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
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November 16, 2009 12:12 PM
Feh... more useless background noise from the "he's just so MEAN" camp...
It's getting more and more tiresome, yet somehow more and more common... If it becomes clear that one can't argue with the substance of what you write, just whine about the tone and perceived lack of civility (which frankly is usually nothing more than a lack of patience for people who can't be bothered to read, fact-check, or otherwise research anything regarding the subject being discussed).
I remain unimpressed with that
linelack of argument.Posted by: C. S. King | November 16, 2009 12:13 PM
"Extra points for insisting Darwin himself was well aware of what you are saying and would have agreed with you unreservedly;"
These types are so used to taking everything on Authority. They just can't grasp the fact that, unlike religion, science thrives on adding to what its respected figures didn't know, or even outright proving them wrong.
Say that Charles Darwin had made a deathbed conversion to the idea that all life forms emerged fully formed from Hillary Clinton's ass. According to the theistic way of thinking, modern biologists would now be exquisitely interested in the Secretary of State's colon to the exclusion of all that other genetic "gobbledygook."
Posted by: raven | November 16, 2009 12:16 PM
For anyone who thinks my comment that fundie xianity is the garbage can of our society is snark, it isn't. It is just an ugly fact.
The cultists are holding down the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder and their families and communities tend to be permanent disaster areas of drugs, teen pregnancy, low education, one crisis after another etc.. None of Palin's kids went to college. One daughter got pregnant from some guy she barely knew. Her oldest son was in trouble with the law and joined the army.
To make matters worse, the stats for the fundies are getting worse, not better. And they have no way to cope with this. Their solution to unworkable toxic religion is real simple. More toxic religion. Plus electing brain dead politicians just like them.
At the rate they are going, we will be sending in peace corp workers and foreign aid in a few years.
Posted by: Peptron | November 16, 2009 12:18 PM
@AJ Milne:
This is funny you bring that, because I have always been under the impression that all that religiosity, but also all that general distaste for facts (like the anti-vaccination movement), was a direct result of the entire "let's protect the self-esteem of our children by telling them that all view points are equal in value and that there is no such thing as being wrong".
Then you end up with people that reach adulthood with a form of narcissistic defense of trying to sound of high intellect but in ways that cannot be directly shown to be wrong, therefore letting them increase their self-esteem with little risk of it being put in jeopardy with facts.
Posted by: David Estlund | November 16, 2009 12:19 PM
Alright, folks, we're all on board for mocking Mr. Appleyard's pogrom, but I sense a general lack of obsequiousness toward Mr. Myers. We need to get together and post more oohs and ahhs; otherwise we'll never validate these folks' claims.
Posted by: Discombobulated | November 16, 2009 12:20 PM
Haha, it took him 10 months to come up with a comeback, and the best he could muster was "PZ's writing sucks!"
Oh my, how will the Cephalopod Overlord (PBUH) ever recover from such a ferocious verbal lashing?
I recommend ſucking a healthy woman daily.
Posted by: formosus
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November 16, 2009 12:21 PM
Awww. Somebody found a thesaurus for the first time.
Posted by: charley | November 16, 2009 12:22 PM
Step #4 about the commenters never reading the opposition made me laugh. Those of us who followed the link of commenter thetimchannel in the bear thread read step #4 before PZ even posted it.
Posted by: Von Krieger | November 16, 2009 12:34 PM
Well, considering this is PZ we're talking about, I think we as a whole would be less prone to oohs and aahs and more into ias. Like so:
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu ftaghn!
Posted by: Rey Fox | November 16, 2009 12:36 PM
Big words make my brain hurt.
Posted by: SEF | November 16, 2009 12:37 PM
I see that in the (domestic chore doing and TV-watching) gap since my seeing a 0 reply blog entry and actually getting around to making the point I was going to make, someone else has already made it (Joe Geronimo in #15)! But I'm going to reiterate it anyway - because it bears repeating and PZ's ego is a robust beast. ;-)
Unfortunately, PZ, that's almost as obliviously incompetent and self-referential of you. That "rebuttal" doesn't fit with the others because it doesn't match up with the point actually being made in the step 3 you're quoting.
You would have to be able to say, instead, that you'd never accused religion of "justifying" such bombing. And I don't think that's true - largely because religion does have a long history of pretending it has justification for its various atrocities! Not, of course, that it's the only source of "justifying". Merely a very prolific and "effective" one, what with its omni-wotsit, higher-power, mysterious-ways pretentions.
Posted by: Allegra | November 16, 2009 12:39 PM
"because I'm mostly irrelevant to the conversation within a few hours of starting it!"
Excellent point. You can't control atheists, and I haven't noticed you trying.
Posted by: Ryan F | November 16, 2009 12:41 PM
One sentence comment agreeing with P.Z.
Posted by: SteveM | November 16, 2009 12:42 PM
Not exactly the same, but possibly a corollary to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger
Posted by: Darren Garrison | November 16, 2009 12:55 PM
Philosophy defined-- "making up shit about something when you don't know how it works." So, yes, "lab gobbledegook" is the enemy of philosophy.
Posted by: John Pieret | November 16, 2009 12:59 PM
That's funny. He acts like he just discovered PZ's post. Last April I also blogged about Appleyard with a link to PZ's takedown and Appleyard left a comment asking "who is this Myers goon?"
http://dododreams.blogspot.com/2009/04/pusher.html
It looks like he's been nursing this grudge for a while.
Posted by: LexAequitas | November 16, 2009 1:00 PM
I'm mostly irrelevant to the conversation within a few hours of starting it!
A few hours? What an overinflated ego. . . I'd say it's usually somewhere between 20 and 40 minutes.
Posted by: Peter G | November 16, 2009 1:06 PM
The comments section of Appleyard's blog would appear to reflect point 4 much more accurately than this blog. In fact I didn't see one comment that wasn't just sycophantic agreement. There doesn't appear to be any sort of discussion at all. To paraphrase the Napoleon quotation at Appleyard's site: Never interrupt Bryan Appleyard when he is writing. Four sentences and a sentence fragment.
Posted by: strangest brew | November 16, 2009 1:07 PM
Meh!
Appleyard is a tosser
always has been
always will be.
Not a clue and a stodgy scribbler of trite non-erudite codswollop pretending wit and cleverness...so sharp he could cut himself.
To much in the sway of apologetics to actually make a valid point, or even make a courageous stand, waste of pixel space.
Just not worthy...simple like so.
Posted by: skylyre
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November 16, 2009 1:10 PM
Wow. Here I am thinking that #3 was a compliment! That takes some skillz yo!
PZ Myers- Possessor of the super-human ability to tie religion to every atrocity in history, in ONE paragraph! Dun dun dun!
Heh.
Posted by: Richard Eis | November 16, 2009 1:18 PM
Isn't it amazing how we are constantly causing rifts over disagreements, while all worshipping at our great leaders' feet and agreeing with his every word.
Funny that.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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November 16, 2009 1:18 PM
Well, it would have to be a very long paragraph.
Posted by: nigelTheBold
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November 16, 2009 1:20 PM
I've noticed that those without a rational argument often resort to "philosophy," but really mean, "sophistry."
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky
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November 16, 2009 1:22 PM
There is a hell of a lot of junk philosophy out there but not all of it junk. I would for example suggest that Hume, Popper, Quine, Kuhn and Lakatos are all philosophers very worth reading.
I've heard from multiple philosophers that the ultimate goal of a philosopher thinking about X is to put X on firm enough ground that X splits off into its own branch and is no longer classified as philosophy. This has happened with a fair number of different areas (math, sciences, psychology, political theory, linguistics to name a few). A serious part of the problem is that many modern philosophers are aiming to keep their disciplines within philosophy indefinitely and when something from another area looks relevant they engage in intellectual xenophobia.
But none of this is a reason to reject philosophy as a whole or the people who study it.
Posted by: Janine The Ineffable, OM | November 16, 2009 1:24 PM
Well, it would have to be a very long paragraph.
Please do us all a favor and break it up into paragraphs. I would hate to have to take a break and try to figure out where my place was.
Posted by: cag
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November 16, 2009 1:27 PM
I think Appleboy has a point. For instance the only text we need is the bible. After all when a Xtian is told that
means that the universe is geocentric they will in many cases reply that it is allegorical, just a metaphor. After much consternation, I have had a revelation, and now realize that the above quote actually is the complete unabridged instructions for brain surgery (but only on Xtians).The truth of this is that the quote is just empty words and the Xtian brain is just empty. Qed.
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky
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November 16, 2009 1:27 PM
Regarding the Dennett matter I finding him to be vicious, I think this may be related to what Dawkins frequently complains about: Negative remarks about religion are frequently taken to be vicious or rude or extreme even if they are quite mild. This occurs even for statements that would be acceptable if they were stated about politics or sports or many other things.
However, I've never seen that apply to Dennett. Also for what it is worth, some very religious friends of mine have read Breaking the Spell and there was an interesting breakdwon. The very religious Jews didn't have a problem with it nearly as much as the religious Christians. (Total sample size is 2 Jews and 3 Christians so this is purely anecdotal). I wonder if there is some difference in the attitudes about religion in the different religions that is coming into play. In particular, I suspect that the much larger Christian emphasis on faith makes Dennett's argument in Breaking the Spell much more disturbing since the book is primarily an argument for rational inquiry into the nature of religion.
Posted by: Richard Eis | November 16, 2009 1:43 PM
You mean like "Don't believe in God? you're not alone" ??
Posted by: skylyre
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November 16, 2009 1:45 PM
"Well, it would have to be a very long paragraph."
Yeah true. You'd probably muck it up with all your phenotype gobbledegook.
Posted by: EB | November 16, 2009 1:45 PM
"talking lab gobbledegook about genes, mutations, etc."
Simply breath-taking. Besides the fact that this is sickeningly contemptuous of science, what is he trying to imply? That PZ and others are just waving their hands with all those sciency fact-thingys to cover up their ignorance/radical agenda/lack of answers/etc. or does he consider it just a rhetorical crutch to make your opponents look stupid? What a claim...
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | November 16, 2009 1:47 PM
Myers and Dawkins: Prickly at worst.
Hitchens: Fiendish and Gruesome.
Harris: Affable but dangerous (like a friendly ninja).
Dennett: Cuddly like Santa Claus.
I will not hear Dennett trashed in this manner!
Also: "sub-verbal sack of shit"? This compelling trope is surely deserving of a Pulitzer! Actually, in a yo mama battle, Strangest Brew would drink Appleman's milkshake.*
Hear that Appleman? You got served. What are you going to do now?
*I would willingly pass mine over, because I am lactose intolerant.
Posted by: Sastra
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November 16, 2009 1:51 PM
Directly? No. But I'm not sure how ethereal, tentative appeals to something "out there somewhere" which is "Higher than ourselves" and which requires "leaps of faith" because it goes "beyond reason" but it's very, very important that we believe in it anyway ... is going to put the brakes on "letting go and letting God."
Oh, wait, I see. Moderate Appleyard understands God far better, and practices religion much more meaningfully, than the fundamentalists do. He needs to tell them that, because otherwise they will get extreme.
Appleyard never said that you endorsed bombing villages: he accused you of claiming that religion is
"the root of every atrocity in history, will lead to the end of scientific inquiry, and justifies the bombing of innocent villagers by the U.S. Air Force."
Ha, ha. PZ got something wrong. And now he can't bask in the glow of our approving comments.
Which means Appleyard got (something else) wrong.
Posted by: skylyre
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November 16, 2009 1:52 PM
To Josh and Richard:
Like the other day when my coworker thought it appropriate to yell out "Wash me in your blood Jesus!" as a mood booster for the morning huddle (Yes, I need a new job.)
When I replied that was kind of disgusting, I become the bad guy. *sigh*
Posted by: Lynna | November 16, 2009 2:03 PM
From this description I have to deduce that PZ has not yet oozed enough contempt, because, as far as I can see, the Ken Hams of the world have not been suitably cowed.
Posted by: BlueIndependent | November 16, 2009 2:06 PM
I agree 100% with #1. This guy's steps 2 and 3 are atrociousin every way. Steps 1 and 4 are a given for nearly ANY blog in which someone has a particular perspective that he/she espouses. Why he seems to give a crap and think he himself is not doing the same is, as usual for theists, insufferably hypocritical. But his explanations for steps 2 and 3 are unbelievably honest admissions (that he apparently doesn't recognize as such) that they simply don't care what we have to say or why it's valid: We use big words they think we just made up to fill space, dare to illustrate concepts visually, and generally give a damn about their haughtily assumed ability to parse ancient derived-from-inaccurate-oral-tradition texts for meaningful bits of anything for application to the sum total of life experience.
These people seem to have never been challenged substantively on anything, ever. And they think they be consequence deserve to be taken seriously and to be passed through university without nary an objection to their way of thinking. And most of these idiots are the same people crying about how children are taught that everyting's OK and nobody fails in school...does the projection *ever* stop?
Posted by: NewEnglandBob
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November 16, 2009 2:08 PM
Here is my one liner, and it is far better than anything that cretin wrote on his awful blog:
Bryan Appleyard needs to simultaneously get laid and undo his lobotomy.
Posted by: Dr. P | November 16, 2009 2:19 PM
Sastra,
Heh, heh;that's why I love this place...low on sycophants,plenty of cranky dissenters...it's like herding cats.Posted by: Die Anyway
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November 16, 2009 2:22 PM
"Myers, like Dawkins when he's tired and especially the gruesome Dennett, survives entirely on scorn and venom."
Out with the four horsemen, in with the three pit vipers. PZ Myers, the rattlesnake of atheism.
For a minute there I actually thought the Appleyard article was a Poe: "by suddenly talking lab gobbledegook about genes, mutations, etc. Use words like phenotype liberally and try to throw in a diagram."
But then I figured out that he really was saying that's a bad thing. Sigh...
Posted by: lose_the_woo
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November 16, 2009 2:28 PM
So basically, don't confuse you with the facts. Ok. Got it.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | November 16, 2009 2:53 PM
Deflect the issue from the profoundly philosophical to the mundane
I think I see what's going on here... At the point where someone tries to make a "profoundly" philosophical problem have some connection to "the mundane" reality - that's cheating. Because...?
It might have something to do with the evaporative nature of bullshit when its supporting evidence is examined, or something like that.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | November 16, 2009 3:09 PM
nejishiki writes:
"Yvhjdgu wyqgdqvd hjqbvdqguhqdq dbjbdekwhbchjbchjwdw kuhukwhjwbfhjwebf therefore ydyqhjdbqh jbqj dbdbqdbd nanotechnology."
Ia! Ia! Shub-Niggurath fghtan!
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | November 16, 2009 3:17 PM
Joshua Zelinsky writes:
Negative remarks about religion are frequently taken to be vicious or rude or extreme even if they are quite mild.
There is no such thing as a "mild" negative remark about religion. After all, it's extremely important to the creo, and anything that even looks like it might be doubtful or doubt-inducing is a threat. Threatening a creo's faith, even if it's just asking "how do you know that?" is vicious and rude to them, because you're asking questions they know they can't really answer. Religion, basically, buys the creo an infinitely deep well of insecurity, ready to explode into a geyser at the slightest pinprick.
It's also nearly impossible for creos to consider any negative remark about religion as less than vicious and threatening because of religion's own history of such remarks escalating into bloody slaughter. After all, if you believed in something that had been the topic of gigantic wars for thousands of years, you'd be a bit sensitive on the topic because you might wonder if that pinprick was going to unleash a pogrom against you, or if you were going to have to gird on your flaming sword yet again.
Sucks being a creo, huh? But it's a lifestyle choice.
Posted by: Tulse | November 16, 2009 3:25 PM
Marcus, don't forget the umlauts!
Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath fghtan!
(The umlauts are extremely important -- if you don't pronounce them, you're actually asking Shub-Niggurath for a donut.)
Posted by: Peter G | November 16, 2009 3:41 PM
"Deflect the issue from the profoundly philosophical to the mundane" Permit me to translate: "Deflect the issue from the truly incomprehensible to the things we just don't understand."
Posted by: Kel, OM | November 16, 2009 3:58 PM
What I found most fascinating about that is him trying to make it seem that PZed is philosophically lacking at the same time he shows himself to be completely lacking in any scientific knowledge. Somehow I think he's missed the point of what's going on here, though that's hardly surprising. It seems that what we say and how it's interpreted can be polar opposites at times.
Posted by: D | November 16, 2009 5:59 PM
Your comments on Step 2 took the words right out of my mouth, as it were! (It's my favorite, too.) As a Big-Time Internet Philosopher with a teensy bit of a background in theoretical physics, it never ceases to amaze me that people do not see the connection between studying wisdom and, hey, being wise. Philosophy isn't something only to be studied and pontificated upon - that's a subset that we in the biz call "philosophology," a clunky ivory-tower tradition that is to actual philosophy what music theory is to playing the violin.
In other words, if your philosophy doesn't tie itself down to the mundanity of everyday life, then yer doin' it rong.
Posted by: speedweasel
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November 16, 2009 6:14 PM
What a devastatingly revealing comment.
Well, to paraphrase the most excellent Dr. Ben Goldacre, you have to love comments..
Ignorance; because an education was just something that happened to other people.
Posted by: TheThomas | November 16, 2009 6:34 PM
Appleyard is not saying that you support bombing, but that you--as a liberal--will link any religious idea to the bombing of innocent indigenous peoples of wherever. That the religious ideas support bombing brown people.
Posted by: Tim Harris | November 16, 2009 6:40 PM
I have written to Andrew Sullivan about his carefully un-endorsed quoting of that comment (although he does say it tries to describe PZM's - with the 'Myers' deliberately spelled wrongly as usual - 'schtick'), and remarked that it was a rather craven way of going about things. I also suggested that he should read carefully PZM's explanations of biological matters because they were extremely well-written and clear. AS is not, I think, a bad person, although he has endorsed some very bad things, but he can be nasty in a petty, disingenuous and underhanded way when he feels like it, particularly when he feels threatened in connexion with his religious beliefs.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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November 16, 2009 6:47 PM
Bryan Appleyard needs to simultaneously get laid and undo his lobotomy. - lose_the_woo
Yes, but where would you get a sex-worker who would accept him as a client at any price - let alone one who is also a qualified brainsurgeon? (Though I note that the British ex-sex-professional and blogger "Belle du Jour" has just outed herself as Dr. Brooke Magnanti, a research associate in developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology at the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health - acronym BIRCH, I kid you not!)
Posted by: Frost | November 16, 2009 7:17 PM
I've always wondered how one is supposed pronounce iä. Getting it wrong could be very offensive to the Old Ones, presumably, and one could end up being eaten last. (The horror..)
I mean,the "¨" could just be a germanic umlaut, though I'm having some trouble figuring how that could work here. In german umlaut a back vowel turns into the associated front vowel when there's an i (or e or j IIRC) in the next syllable: Mann -> Männer, and so forth, but where does that lead us, I do not know. My 3 years of studying german have left me with a rudimentary ability to read newspapers and restaurant menus, a deep knowledge of the synopses of all the Sissi films and a working, active vocabulary perhaps large enough to order a "Big Mäc" and buy a train ticket, but not much else.
Or it could be a trema, most often meaning that the a should be pronounced apart from the i, as in naïve or cöoperate.
Or it could be that the Old Ones speak Finnish or Swedish and ä = [æ].
Or it's just a heavy metal umlaut that can be safely ignored (except for a few hearty guffaws / nauseated gags depending on the ridiculous/horrible quotient of the word in question. Blue Öyster Cult is just silly, Häagen-Dazs is sickening in its frankenstein-like deformity.)
I also think that someone, somewhere uses ä to denote schwa, but can't remember who or where...
Of course one must also accept that the words are anyhow just an approximation of a language too horrible and alien to be truly spoken by us mere humans.
I'm sure I've left out many, many alternatives I've never even heard of, so doom seems inevitable. Oh, the huge manatee... :P
Posted by: dave | November 16, 2009 8:22 PM
Folks, I can assure you that scientific logic isn't everything. I was just shopping at walmart the other day when I noticed this box of sugar crisp cereal for kids. Normally, I would never even consider that crap. But there was this enticing picture of a smiling cartoon bear on the front of the box, and I must say, that he endorsed that cereal with such an expression of sublime certainty and trustworthiness, that I just had to buy it. I know what you're thinking: just another inbred moron punked by a smiling cartoon bear. But... it tasted great! I will never doubt that awesome bear again. The bear's word is truth! Just goes to show you that logic isn't everything, 'specially after a few beers.
Posted by: Escuerd | November 16, 2009 9:31 PM
Hehe, didn't Charles Darwin once comment that "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge,"?
Not quite as precise (or satisfying) as stating it as an inverse proportion, but probably more accurate.
Posted by: Nebula99 | November 16, 2009 10:02 PM
@Escuerd:
You just quoted Darwin!! Appleyard was right!!! You're all Darwin-worshiping caustic meanies!!1!11one!
Although, why I even bother with parody when Dave just pulled one off and did it better...
Posted by: Steven Sullivan | November 16, 2009 10:13 PM
Tim Harris wrote:
"AS is not, I think, a bad person, although he has endorsed some very bad things, but he can be nasty in a petty, disingenuous and underhanded way when he feels like it, particularly when he feels threatened in connexion with his religious beliefs."
The word you are looking for is *bitchy*. HTH.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | November 16, 2009 11:23 PM
Out of nowhere comes D @ 64, saying
Friend, you have no idea how long I've been waiting to hear someone say that within earshot.
Kinda like the idea that any tool should not only be useful but comfortable to grasp and to apply to the work at hand. It should be stout, able to take abuse. Also reasonably easy to maintain. A really good tool is the one that will get the job done when no other will and it does so with relatively negligible effort.
Thanks, D. You made my day. I hereby award you one InnerTubes. (Don't ask me where I got it.) ;-P
Posted by: cmflyer
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November 16, 2009 11:52 PM
When I read the comments on the Appleyard blog, I could smell Earl Gray tea and pipe smoke through the monitor. And there were nauseating British philosopher accents.
Posted by: eyespy | November 17, 2009 12:08 AM
Reminds me of another step-by-step procedure I heard of once...
Step One: Cut a hole in the box...
Step Two: Put yo junk in that box...
Step Three: Make her open the box...and that's the way you do it!
Posted by: Caine
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November 17, 2009 12:24 AM
D @ 64:
*applause* You're a Big-Time Internet Philosopher with a teensy bit of a background in theoretical physics that I'll be happy to read.
Posted by: llewelly | November 17, 2009 12:59 AM
Didn't you stop to wonder why a bear was offering sugary treats to children?Posted by: FlameDuck | November 17, 2009 1:13 AM
You really shouldn't use big words, if you don't know what they mean. There's also the little matter of pots calling kettles black.Posted by: Richard Eis | November 17, 2009 4:25 AM
-Didn't you stop to wonder why a bear was offering sugary treats to children? -
Pedobear!!!!
Posted by: ConcernedJoe | November 17, 2009 6:15 AM
Philosophy (say as a subject taught by a sincere, knowledgeable, honest, competent teacher) can provide one with insights into the method and means of good logic and some pretty thought provoking shit that actually can help you understand life and how to pro-act/react to it better.
But recondite crap especially that that has at its end some apologetic or explanation of the supernatural simply is a ghastly waste of time. This stuff one can use only self contained within the subject - if you are insane enough or had no other life or goals related to the real world.
#64 D says it and I agree. I give my 2 cents as an old engineer/science student to 2nd the truth of D.
Posted by: Jason A.
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November 17, 2009 9:33 AM
You see, the problem is he wants to be on the same level intellectually as everyone else in the discussion, but he's not, so the solution is to drag everyone else down to his level rather than try to elevate himself up to theirs. It's a common attitude, people should limit themselves to accommodate others in the name of fairness because fairness should be something that arises without having to work for it. Person X is 'just as good' as person Y in every possible respect, and screw you if you do anything to suggest otherwise.
Posted by: Ben | November 17, 2009 3:25 PM
MediaCurves.com conducted a study among 332 viewers of a news clip regarding laws in Europe that prevent teenagers from using indoor tanning beds. Results found that the majority of viewers who use tanning beds (64%) will tan indoors less after watching the video. After seeing the video, an overwhelming majority of viewers (87%) thought that there should be laws restricting teenagers under 18 from using indoor tanning beds.
More in depth results can be seen at:
http://www.mediacurves.com/Religion/J7632-AtheistBillboard/Index.cfm
Thanks,
Ben