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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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In religious debate or expression the government is not a prime participant, for the Framers deemed religious establishment antithetical to the freedom of all. The Free Exercise Clause embraces a freedom of conscience and worship that has close parallels in the speech provisions of the First Amendment, but the Establishment Clause is a specific prohibition on forms of state intervention in religious affairs with no precise counterpart in the speech provisions. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 92-93, and n. 127 (1976) (per curiam). The explanation lies in the lesson of history that was and is the inspiration for the Establishment Clause, the lesson that in the hands of government what might begin as a tolerant expression of religious views may end in a policy to indoctrinate and coerce. A state-created orthodoxy puts at grave risk that freedom of belief and conscience which are the sole assurance that religious faith is real, not imposed.
[Justice Kennedy, opinion of the court in Lee v. Weisman]
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More articles by PZ Myers can be found on Freethoughtblogs at the new Pharyngula!
Category: Cephalopods • Weirdness
Posted on: March 27, 2011 7:01 PM, by PZ Myers
I find it very disturbing that some artist managed to penetrate the layers of security and multiple deadly traps to produce illustrations of my inner sanctum. The alert level has been increased and security enhanced, so other interlopers should beware. Further breaches will not be tolerated.
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Orac 02.21.2012
Orac 02.22.2012
Tim Lambert 02.01.2012
ERV 02.22.2012
PZ Myers 02.21.2012
Comments
Posted by: jafafahots
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March 27, 2011 7:07 PM
Is that furniture, or just an evil sidekick?
Posted by: janiceclanfield
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March 27, 2011 7:07 PM
Whoa! Beauty way to go...
Love the lab coat too.
Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM
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March 27, 2011 7:10 PM
Delusions of super villainy.
Posted by: Sastra
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March 27, 2011 7:11 PM
You've got your Christmas card.
Inside:
"And what do YOU want for Christmas, my dear?"
Posted by: tresmal
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March 27, 2011 7:12 PM
Umm... are there a lot of underground saltwater aquarium lairs in Minnesota?
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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March 27, 2011 7:13 PM
Cephalopods, colluding to present evidence as if they had evolved.
They serve us well, subverting the truth that God designed them to, well, look evolved.
Hm, so they're serving God? Why not, if God went through the trouble to deceive humanity, save the people who are sure that God really couldn't pull off such a deception while they exist.
Glen Davidson
Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon
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March 27, 2011 7:13 PM
That's just about what my mental model of you in your lair looks like. Do the tentacles bring you treats like bacon and beer and do they and comb your chin for you?
Mine do. I don't know how I ever got along without them.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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March 27, 2011 7:18 PM
I want!
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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March 27, 2011 7:22 PM
'It was at this point I realised that
Mr BurnsPZ had crossed the line from regular, everyday villainy into cartoonish supervillainy, and I wanted no part of it...'Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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March 27, 2011 7:22 PM
That must be the picture on PZ's application to join the Evil League of Evil™.
Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM
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March 27, 2011 7:23 PM
What action do I need to complete in order to join the Atheist League Of Atheism?
Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM
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March 27, 2011 7:26 PM
'Tis, you have no right to post a similar style of joke at the same time I do.
Posted by: Randy (not Randy)
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March 27, 2011 7:31 PM
@9: Bah! He was a rank amateur compared to Dr. Colossos! Bwa ha ha ha ha!
Posted by: ereador
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March 27, 2011 7:36 PM
Remarkably similar to my inner sanctum. How can two such evil sanctums exist? Mine is painted the colour out of space.
Posted by: Jennifurret
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March 27, 2011 7:37 PM
So THAT'S what your basement looks like! No wonder you forbid me to go down there.
Posted by: Larry
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March 27, 2011 7:38 PM
Where are the comely wenches hand-feeding you xtian babies as you devise your nefarious schemes?
Posted by: FiveAcres
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March 27, 2011 7:38 PM
This is wonderful.
Posted by: Kagato
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March 27, 2011 7:41 PM
I assume you have to send your application to Bad Squid, the Cephalopod of Sin...
Posted by: Gretchen
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March 27, 2011 7:43 PM
Doc Ock himself had nothing on this.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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March 27, 2011 7:48 PM
I notice Ol' PZed is looking a little paunchy in that picture.
Posted by: Eamon Knight
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March 27, 2011 7:51 PM
PZ, dude: that throne room looks like a significant tripping-and-impaling hazard, and I don't just mean for your hapless victims. (Like those two tentacles right in front of the Seat of Cephalopodness).
Posted by: QuestionAuthority
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March 27, 2011 7:51 PM
Damn. That's ten kinds of awesome wrapped up in tentacles! Enjoy it while you can. Once Cthulu realizes you crashed his pad, he'll be pissed....
Posted by: Akira MacKenzie
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March 27, 2011 7:52 PM
"Ahhhh Mr. Ham. You have a nasty habit of not thinking."
Posted by: duynguyenm
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March 27, 2011 7:53 PM
I don't see no blood on your white lab coat, evil atheist.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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March 27, 2011 8:00 PM
Ooooooooooh.
Posted by: Callinectes
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March 27, 2011 8:02 PM
Reminds me of Tears of a Sea Cow.
Posted by: mxh
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March 27, 2011 8:12 PM
Which Minnesota lake is that under?
Posted by: crowepps
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March 27, 2011 8:29 PM
Hmmm, but are they fake or alive and real? If real, they wouldn't remain static and in the way, but rather gracefully efface themselves in front of authorized users so as not to be a nuisance. Now unauthorized users, there's your tripping and impaling.Posted by: Chaos Cryptic
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March 27, 2011 8:29 PM
Best thing on the internet,
handstentacles down.Posted by: Blondin
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March 27, 2011 8:36 PM
"Come come, Mr Bond. You derive just as much pleasure from killing as I do."
Posted by: Joel
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March 27, 2011 8:39 PM
The style looks familiar...like I'm half expecting you to walk up and tell me how urgently important it is for me, your Friend, to go find some missing pages from some magic portal book, probably only possible once I master a base-5 numeral system and work out the correct sequence of levers and pulleys that control the Rube Goldberg locking mechanism on the front gate.
Posted by: otrame
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March 27, 2011 8:43 PM
But Chtulhu is always pissed. The Elder Gods do not pay any attention to the doings of mortals. So the outcome is the same no matter what. Might as well enjoy while you can. The stars change every day and one day...
Posted by: Jeanette Garcia
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March 27, 2011 8:50 PM
Aha! The mad scientist. I like the lab coat.
Posted by: burnett210
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March 27, 2011 9:20 PM
Where is your "mini me"?
Posted by: Die Anyway
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March 27, 2011 9:23 PM
What does it say about me that I just made that my wallpaper? And I'm not even that much intrigued by cephalopods, more of a chondrichthyes
kind of guy. But there is just something about that drawing that deserves more than one look.
Posted by: alenonimo
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March 27, 2011 9:28 PM
You have a underwater room in Morris, Minnesota? Sweet!
Posted by: Frank b
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March 27, 2011 9:29 PM
Larry #16 Fewer supervillians would have comely wenches around if they had trophy wives like PZ has.
Posted by: cicely (Inadvertent Phytocidal Maniac)
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March 27, 2011 9:49 PM
*applause* for the artist! Possible revenue stream in selling prints?
-
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlFS8c_lRUV_gWYMXBCYj2kTHvIg3igjpU
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March 27, 2011 10:13 PM
I feel....
betternowyessssss...
much better
Posted by: Athena
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March 27, 2011 10:39 PM
That's not what the basement of the Science building looked like when I was at UMM. Does the dean know what you've built there? Hmmm?
Posted by: feralboy12, der Ken-Puppe Sie außerhalb in 1983 verlassen
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March 27, 2011 10:40 PM
Do you sound like you're underwater when you talk, like Mer-Man?
I would think that would make it difficult to take lecture notes.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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March 27, 2011 10:41 PM
I'm reminded of the scene in The Wiz where the Wicked Witch of the West sings "Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB9nm-Vjv-4
Posted by: PKMKII
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March 27, 2011 11:28 PM
Now someone needs to do one in which PZ has tentacle arms/legs himself. And then invoke rule 34 on the matter.
Posted by: Anubis
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March 27, 2011 11:32 PM
Scientist super-villians are the best!
Posted by: Deimos
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March 28, 2011 12:15 AM
Awesome. I've always had a thing for evil squid gods.
Posted by: Evader
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March 28, 2011 12:37 AM
It would be rad if this picture become the one that creationists use when depicting you as evil!
Posted by: A Bad Idea (♀)
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March 28, 2011 1:08 AM
Since I didn't see it in the portfolio, here is the link to the largest published size: http://ethicallychallenged.deviantart.com/#/d3cknj3
I second Evader. I eagerly await the pamphlets and websites using this as "proof" of your evil plans.
Posted by: m.espositoii
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March 28, 2011 2:15 AM
If only we can get similar variants on the other great famous Atheists. I'd love to see one of the in-his-prime Hitchens in a massive Library, or a Safari Styled Dawkins with pelts of his greatest beasts of the Savannah.
Oh yeah, Harris and Dennet deserve they're shakes too, but I really can't think of any good ones for them.
Posted by: tiger-salad
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March 28, 2011 2:25 AM
@#38
Honestly, I want that image as a poster.
Posted by: sidhe3141
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March 28, 2011 2:33 AM
Careful, using a sanity-shattering and life-draining color scheme is evil but also an OSHA complaint just waiting to happen. I go with mirrors; there's nothing like decor that lets you see how your scenery-chewing looks from all angles while showing you if the inevitable hero is right behind you.
Posted by: JohnnieCanuck
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March 28, 2011 4:04 AM
Found a higher resolution close-up at the deviantart link from #47, which gives me hope that Milek has the means to make a very nice desktop image from his fine work.
Posted by: emergingpheonix
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March 28, 2011 4:41 AM
I want this as a poster badly. Instead I'll prop my computer up on my bedside tables, acquire all necessary sex aids and tissues and fantasise about PZ and his squidly orgies. All those tentacles! and PZ directing the whole depraved event. Sign me up.
Posted by: opposablethumbstoo
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March 28, 2011 5:01 AM
Every curve imbued with evil. This is what Gaudí should have been designing, instead of that Sagrada Família nonsense.
Inspired.
I take it The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife is hanging in the bedroom?
(PS and veering OT: I just this minute found out that the established English-language version of Hokusai's title is Rong in a very menz-style way - she's not the fisherman's wife at all, she's the shell-diver herself)
Posted by: opposablethumbstoo
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March 28, 2011 5:04 AM
um, you guys probably all knew that. It was just news to me.
Posted by: GravityIsJustATheory
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March 28, 2011 6:28 AM
Posted by: otrame | March 27, 2011 8:43 PM
Is that the American or the British meaning of "pissed"?
Posted by: PenguinFactory
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March 28, 2011 6:29 AM
To be honest, this wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.
Posted by: agenoria
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March 28, 2011 8:34 AM
Looks like the Nautilus.
The Origin of the Squid? - Plarchie: the giant plastic knitted squid
Posted by: greame
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March 28, 2011 9:52 AM
Has anyone read 'City of Saints and Madmen' by Jeff Vandermeer? It contains a delightfully squidy account 'History of the King Squid'. It's fiction, so I don't know how accurate the squid info is, but "Each leg containing exactly eight million tiny bumpies" made me laugh. (That being the testimony of a deranged tribesman who is then ripped apart by the actual narrator who is writing the hisory). A review of the specific short story,
"It is hear that I first learned of such a dread insanity as Squidanthropy, where the sufferer believes him or herself to be a squid in truth, usually to terrible results. I shudder at the thought of being inflicted with such an illness and found it to be a rather dark ending to two informative chapters filled to the brim with interesting trivia and odd stories"
Posted by: Darreth
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March 28, 2011 10:05 AM
LOL! It looks like a cover to a novel. Perhaps a Sherlock Holmes story or something out of The Wild Wild West. Kudos to the Photoshopper!
Posted by: KillJoy
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March 28, 2011 10:28 AM
Janine @ #11
A murder would be nice, of course.
KJ
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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March 28, 2011 10:52 AM
What? I've never read such...moving words. Where can I find out more?
Nah, just yankin' your chain.
Asserted without evidence, and in fact in the face of evidence to the contrary. Neuroscience demonstrates that the Platonic soul, ideal and abstract, divorced from its material conveyance.
Again, asserted without evidence, before devolving into vague incoherence. Light is electromagnetic radiation, carried in discrete packets called photons, which behave as both wave and particle, more or less. We are clearly not made of photons.
If you mean something other than light, then use another word.
More inanity. I suppose you think you're being poetic. That's...sad.
Again, you're either plainly wrong, or you don't know what words mean.
If you're proselytising, and indeed the fact that you label yourself 'atheist' but then go on to proselytise (perhaps, in your limited mind, you think you've stricken a blow against the censors that be), suggests a level of duplicity endemic to Christianity. If so, then the next time you pray to Jesus, could you ask Him for a dictionary?
Posted by: greame
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March 28, 2011 10:57 AM
@61 "Love and Light is all there is :)"
So what part of the Oort Cloud is love? I know it's not very bright there.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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March 28, 2011 11:06 AM
Forgot to finish the above sentence. Neuroscience is pretty busy nailing the lid on the coffin of the concept of a 'soul'.
Not that you'll read any responses. You're one of those Christian 'Nicky Nine-Doors' pranksters.
I suppose I should thank you, though; I've never before noticed the similarity between Christian thought and a flaming bag of dogshit left on the porch. That imagery will aid me greatly in insulting and mocking others with your beliefs.
Posted by: Anri
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March 28, 2011 11:12 AM
CitationLithium needed.Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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March 28, 2011 11:13 AM
Prove it with conclusive phsyical evidence, or shut the fuck up, like the loser you are should do in the presence of their betters. If you have no evidence, then it is just delusional thinking on your part.Posted by: chigau (◦_◦)
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March 28, 2011 11:20 AM
Skeptical Atheist was banned on March 17.
what gives?
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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March 28, 2011 11:24 AM
@Chigau
skeptical atheist was banned...Skeptical Atheist is the newer and improved model of brainless pony fucker
We're not friends
Posted by: chigau (◦_◦)
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March 28, 2011 11:27 AM
Ing
I thought it took more than a slight 'nym change to fool the filters.
meh. what do I know?
Posted by: broboxley OT
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March 28, 2011 11:35 AM
Since no one else has asked the obvious question, where is the tiolet paper holder?
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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March 28, 2011 11:35 AM
Face it Skeptical Atheist-- I'm better at metaphysical speculation than you.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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March 28, 2011 11:56 AM
@Chigau
But he has GOD on his side!
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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March 28, 2011 12:02 PM
Well it is an end of something. It certainly is the end if what you are talking about is the threshold after which the biological functions that define "life" no longer occur in an organism.
For a second I thought that was going to be a musical metaphor: a movement in the song cycle of being-- a coda which yields a prelude to a greater symphony.
Is the illusion of conscious identity so complete really? Who are YOU?
What is love and what is "light" here? We are not merely abstractions clumsily sketched in the parlance of fools. We are a delicate and dynamic set of interactions between complex and mysterious components, matter so amazingly interdependent as to be as a singular incidence of some biological phenomenon never to repeat in all time.
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.
All you need is love...
Curve of the earth horizon or event horizon? Either way, it's still a metaphor. Death *isn't* either of those things. It's death. And you don't know what it is to be dead because you've never died.
Us? There is no us, and there is no me outside of the experience of this entity we refer, for simplicity's sake, as "me" while likewise there is some shorthand for the being over there on your end of things tapping love and light and all that shit.
No shackles have ever been needed. This spontaneous creation is a happening. The flower of this is my tenuous illusory being.
"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm."
Do you like... poetry?
I too am a big fan of nothing.
Posted by: chigau (◦_◦)
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March 28, 2011 12:03 PM
I think broboxley's question about toilet paper is better metaphysical speculation that anything skeptical atheist has said.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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March 28, 2011 12:07 PM
Well it is a more important thing to know after all.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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March 28, 2011 12:10 PM
A sawbuck says it is.
Posted by: Epinephrine
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March 28, 2011 12:22 PM
Wow, that is a powerfully ironic name, Skeptical Atheist. Did you grow up on Htrae?
Posted by: chigau (◦_◦)
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March 28, 2011 12:25 PM
#76
Good luck collecting on that bet.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmOr4GOVGpr5ueQxuweF2nCrrpHU1lWLRM
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March 28, 2011 1:15 PM
Hey, PZ, chill out, I won't tell anybody that your trained sharks patrolling the surrounding waters are willing to look the other way for a chunk of seal meat, or that your laser turrets are easily disabled by a mixture of 1 part matte varnish, 1 part turpentine and 1 part burnt sienna watercolour paint, or that your alarm system has a blind spot behind that big bronze tentacle sculpture, third one counting from the throne with a 10 minute window between patrolling drones and suitable lighting conditions for a quick pencil sketch. Honest, you don't have to move out of there yet or change anything at all ;]
I'm glad some of you commenters here like the picture. What's up with the supervillain stuff though? It was such an innocent concept, PZ sitting under the sea, able to watch all those animals that capture his imagination so... In a chair that suits his aestethic preferences... Does he really look evil? I was aiming for relaxed and peaceful. Dang, must be my own evilness coming out unintentionally. But that's the part I really like about picturemaking, how ideas get a life of their own once they pass through a viewer's retina.
Evader
"It would be rad if this picture become the one that creationists use when depicting you as evil!"
Dude, surely such shining evamples of morality would not resort to copyright infringement and stealing artwork to further their agenda, now would they? Hey, I'd sure enjoy suing them for that while quoting commandments at them.
To JohnnieCanuck (#51), emergingpheonix(#52) and other people who want posters and wallpapers:
I painted the piece for PZ as a way of expressing my gratitude for providing me with loads of interesting reading material. The picture is his now to do what he pleases with it. I sent him a full res version that would make nice prints. He didn't show it here, maybe he doesn't like the idea of emergingpheonix with a life-size cardboard cutout,in bed, surrounded by used tissues and sex aides? Anyway, I'm not gonna sell any prints, PZ calls the shots here, it was his present,whether he wants to keep it for himself and roll around in his own lifesize cardboard cutouts (crickets chirping) or sell prints and make MILLIONS (applause), or publish the full res version so people can make their own posters and desktop wallpapers (standing ovation) or sell prints and donate the dough to a charity of his own choosing (crowd goes wild, hot chicks throw bras on stage) it's his business, I just painted the damn thing.
Peace out and thanks for the comments.
Posted by: sidhe3141
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March 28, 2011 1:44 PM
Is there any kind of relevance here? SA, next time you drop evangelispam (since you can apparently get around the filters), could you at least drop it on a post with one of the atheist tags?
Posted by: fcaccin
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March 28, 2011 1:58 PM
"I find your lack of lack of faith disturbing"
(tentacle chokes lesser being)
Posted by: itinerantlibrarian
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March 28, 2011 2:27 PM
Awesome. Definitely need to have it printed and framed. It is very much you, Dr. Myers.
Best, and keep on blogging.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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March 28, 2011 3:59 PM
Pilty, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times:
I'm no longer an altarboy, and even if I still was, you can't fuck me in the ass, so stop asking, you sick fuck. I don't care how entrenched in your religion the tradition is.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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March 28, 2011 4:07 PM
Sorry everyone. I didn't mean to air dirty laundry, but Piltdown Man is just so persistent, and doesn't understand that no means no.
Must be a theological thing.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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March 28, 2011 4:30 PM
"PZ has done disgusting things, so he must be wrong" is an argumentum ad hominem.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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March 28, 2011 4:33 PM
Oh, and... "dead babies" really does mean dead babies: babies that died a natural death after birth.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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March 28, 2011 4:37 PM
I've autopsied animals too! I used to want to be a vet, actually.
That wasn't what put me off it. I just kind of lost confidence in myself at some point and forgot about it until it was too late. I had other concerns that became more pressing.
I dunno, you shut down the parts you don't need to get something done. The question is whether that thing is something to get done or not then, rather than how one feels about the thing.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmOr4GOVGpr5ueQxuweF2nCrrpHU1lWLRM
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March 28, 2011 4:37 PM
Apt... Yep, cuz you know SOOO much about me :D
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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March 28, 2011 4:50 PM
People are less fun when they're trolling.
:(
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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March 28, 2011 4:57 PM
It's because you don't paint enough pictures of child molestation. Catholics are unable to become excited by anything else.
Like how Catholics shut down their sense of justice and decency so they can pray for personal favours from their god without suffering crippling cognitive dissonance?
Posted by: ChromosomeTwo
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March 29, 2011 7:01 AM
Sharon Stone, eat your heart out! Please don't uncross your legs.