Miscellanea Agnostica

Birth defects, handicaps and disabilities are — according to the apparently-religionist Virginia Delegate (legislator) Robert G. Marshall — caused by mothers having had prior abortions. The Washington Post reports on his primeval, Old Testament-style thinking (WebCite cached article):

Virginia Del. Robert G. Marshall apologized Monday to people with disabilities for remarks suggesting that women who have abortions risk having later children with birth defects as a punishment from God.

Marshall (R-Prince William) made the comment Thursday at a news conference calling for an end to state funding to Planned Parenthood. …

“The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion who have handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the firstborn of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,” Marshall said.

“In the Old Testament, the firstborn of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord,” he added. “There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest — and with the knowledge that they have in faith, it’s been verified by a study from Virginia Commonwealth University — first abortions, of a first pregnancy, are much more damaging than later abortions.”

While it may seem Marshall’s point was scientifically supported, in fact, it was not:

The VCU study he referred to was published in 2008 in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health and suggested that there is a higher risk of premature birth and low birth weight in children born to women who have had an abortion.

The study did not say anything about “handicaps.” It mentioned only low birth weight and premature birth. Thus, this study’s content actually had nothing to do with Marshall’s claim.

Marshall has been veering away from these remarks since he said them, as the Post explains (cached):

Marshall, appearing shaken by criticism gone viral, said his remarks had been shortened in some news reports and twisted out of context. …

“No one who knows me or my record would imagine that I believe or intended to communicate such an offensive notion. I have devoted a generation of work to defending disabled and unwanted children, and have always maintained that they are special blessings to their parents. Nevertheless, I regret any misimpression my poorly chosen words may have created as to my deep commitment to fighting for these vulnerable children and their families.”

Delegate, your words were in no way “taken out of context.” What you stated was that “handicaps” in subsequent children were a consequence of having had an abortion previously. Those are your words. The “context” does not change the meaning of those words. What the “context” also does not change is that the study you cited as support for your view, did not actually support it.

Thus, Delegate, your complaint that you “were taken out of context,” and the fact that you claimed scientific support that you did not really have, makes you a double “lying liar for Jesus.” Welcome to that club.

Hat tip: Religion Dispatches (which does a good job of explaining the errors in Marshall’s theology).

It was, I suppose, inevitable that other Christians would finally begin defending the stupid and insulting comments by Marion “Pat” Robertson about the earthquake in Haiti, which I blogged about already. Other Christians cannot, apparently, simply let the man’s stupidity and ignorance go. Because he is a Christian and because he’s being criticized, they feel compelled to defend the asshat. This item comes from the Associated Baptist Press (WebCite cached article):

As several religious leaders criticized Pat Robertson’s comments blaming Haiti’s massive Jan. 12 earthquake on a pact supposedly made by its people with the devil, one came out to defend him.

Gary Cass, chairman and CEO of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, issued a statement saying that while Robertson’s comments made him an “easy target” for criticism, they are essentially theologically sound.

Cass believes the criticism Patty has been getting has nothing to do with the ignorant or hurtful nature of what he said, but merely because it made them uncomfortable:

Cass suggested one reason Robertson’s message is so unpopular is that it forces people to face the spiritual dimension of their lives.

“As long as everything is going well we live as if we are never going to die,” he said. “Then crisis hits and death slaps us in the face. Rather than humbling ourselves and searching our hearts like the Pilgrims did, we lash out at God and anyone who dares insinuate Him into our lives.”

Cass goes on to explain how Robertson is correct:

“A simple reading of the Bible shows how God uses natural disasters to further his purposes,” Cass said. “Earthquakes, floods, famine, locusts, etc. they’re all there, but man hates it. Rather than humbly acknowledging that God’s ways are not our ways, man rails against and accuses God. The last thing they will do is cry out for his mercy in Jesus Christ.”

On top of that, another, better-known theologian cited in this article, Albert Mohler, did criticize Robertson for saying what he said, but at the same time insisted his remarks were nevertheless sound, as ABP goes on to report:

A Southern Baptist scholar faulted Robertson for “over-claiming” the meaning of a single event, but also affirmed his theology.

“Do I believe that God punishes nations?” Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said on his daily radio program Jan. 13 “You bet, the same way I know that judgment falls upon individuals.” …

Mohler said Robertson “is absolutely correct in speaking about the sinfulness of the people of Haiti.”

Almost unbelievably, Mohler goes on about Haiti’s “dark” nature:

“There is no doubt that Haiti is a very dark place, where voodoo and all kinds of idolatry and all kinds of dark magic, all kinds of enslaving forms of religious belief are very prevalent,” Mohler said. “It is a dark place. It has been a dark place for a long time. The poverty there is not just because the nation started off as a rather impoverished nation, but because of the behavior pattern, beliefs, that have led to a society that has been virtually ungovernable for much of its history and really has embraced so much darkness.”

While this sounds obviously racist … and I have no idea how racist Mohler might be … he turns and tries to justify this statement by generalizing what he said:

However, he said, Robertson could have said the same thing about every human in every country. “All of us are sinners,” Mohler said. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Apparently this statement justifies Mohler condemning just about any nation for just about any kind of immorality. Logically this means, of course, that Haiti is no better or worse than any other nation. In other words, his condemnation of Haiti as “a dark place” is basically meaningless, since every country is “a dark place.”

If anyone by now believes the Religious Right and its various proponents … of whom Cass (a protegé of the late militant dominionist D. James Kennedy) and Mohler (president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which over the years has educated much of the R.R.) are high-ranking members … have anything even remotely valid to say, they’re as delusional and insane as the rest of the R.R..

Lastly, by continuing to insist that Haiti is under a “curse,” based on an old legend that has never been verified, this makes both Cass and Mohler members of my “lying liars for Jesus” club.

Brit Hume of Fox News offered some unsolicited advice to the beleaguered Tiger Woods … and in the process, revealed his ignorance of religion. The (NY) Daily News reports on his stupid comments:

Fox News’ Brit Hume irks Buddhists by wishing Tiger Woods convert to Christianity — for forgiveness

Fox newsman Brit Hume is evangelizing to Tiger Woods — and upsetting some peaceful Buddhists along the way.

Hume, speaking on Fox News Sunday, said he wants the beleaguered golfer to convert to Christianity because he believes Buddhism leaves no place for the “redemption” Tiger needs.

“Whether he can recover as a person I think is a very open question, and it’s a tragic situation with him,” Hume said.

“The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith,” Hume continued. “He is said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith.”

Hume said his message to Tiger would be, “Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’”

Like most Christians, especially of the Religious Right sort, Hume has no clue how any religion other than his own works. I’m not a Buddhist myself, but even I know that the reality of Buddhism is that it has a great deal to say about both forgiveness and redemption. “Forgiveness” figures prominently in Buddhism, especially in that it helps ameliorate attachments. Here, for example, is a Buddhist meditation on it. As for “redemption” in Buddhism, that is integral to one of the core principles of Buddhism, Nirvana.

As is typical of Christians, Hume assumes Christianity to be utterly unique … so much so that no principle it deals with can possibly be found in any other religion. Unfortunately this is erroneous.

I’m fairly sure that Buddhism can find a better way to deal with the sin of adultery, in any event, than Christianity can. After all, the faithful Christian, Gov Mark Sanford of South Carolina suggested that, if adultery was good enough for King David, it’s good enough for him.

Finally, Hume’s claim that Buddhism offers no forgiveness or redemption, and only Christianity does, places him in my lying liars for Jesus club.

Update: Courtesy of Religion Dispatches, here is a Youtube video of Brit Hume revealing his brazen ignorance — and as RD suggested it might be called, “Christian chauvinism” — to the planet:

Or should I call this the Twelfth Post of Christmas 2009?

Well, it’s official. The “war on Christmas” is over, at least for 2009. We have no less an authority on this than Jan Brewer, Republican governor of Arizona. As reported by the Phoenix New Times:

Governor Brewer Puts the “Christmas” Back in “Christmas Tree,” and Makes it Official: Christmas Celebrates the Birth of Jesus

Governor Jan Brewer made it official today: Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, Hanukkah is an eight-day festival of lights, and state employees can celebrate either holiday as they see fit.

Brewer signed Executive Order 2009-11 today, which puts the “Christmas” back in “Christmas tree” for state employees after it was renamed a “holiday tree” by former [Democratic] Governor Janet “the Grinch” Napolitano — sending right-wing bloggers into an anti-gay tirade last year.

As written, Ms Brewer’s executive order makes it sound as if the very existence of the United States utterly depends upon Christmas:

WHEREAS, the spirit of good will which has been found each December has been at the heart of our ability to live as one people despite differing faiths and backgrounds;

Honestly, Governor, I’d had no idea Christmas was so important. You’ve certainly set me straight! It’s the solemn duty of every red-blooded American — of whatever religion, or of none — to worship Christmas! Thanks for that clarification.

OK, enough of the sarcasm. Immediately after this “Christmas-is-our-patriotic-duty” implication, Ms Brewer goes on to completely misrepresent the facts:

WHEREAS, the Constitution does not permit the government to tolerate or engage in hostility toward religion, and the United States Supreme Court has affirmed that the public celebration of religious holidays, and the acknowledgment of religious origins, does not offend the Constitution;

That isn’t at all what the Supreme Court has said … as, for example, when SCOTUS ruled against Ten Commandments monuments in e.g. McCreary Cty v. ACLU of KY. Brewer is overstating her case here. Then she says:

WHEREAS, state and local officials in Arizona (and elsewhere) in the past have attempted to strip both Christmas and Hanukkah of their meaning, including establishment of policies forbidding state employees from placing religious items of celebration at their desks, re-naming of Christmas trees as “holiday” trees, and renaming of Menorahs as “candlesticks;”

Excuse me, but there is no way that either Christmas or Hanukkah can ever be “stripped of their meaning.” Renaming things in no way diminishes their metaphysical nature or their function within Christianity or Judaism. Names are, after all, just names. What something is named, in no way alters its spiritual nature, whatever that might be.

Both of these misrepresentations are enough to place Gov Brewer in my “lying liars for Jesus” club.

At any rate, I’m glad to see that Brewer declared victory for the Religious Right in the ongoing “war on Christmas” trope. Maybe it will put an end to this fake, staged dispute.

Despite it being based on fraudulent claims, this year’s edition of the fake “war on Christmas” continues apace. There is no controversy, except in the delusional minds of the Religious Right. Yet they keep on lying about it, and those lies are evident even now in this story from CNN:

Who’s winning the war on Christmas?

Republican Rep. Henry Brown of South Carolina introduced a resolution this month asking that the House express support for the use of Christmas symbols and traditions and frown on any attempt to ban references to the holiday.

“Each year, I could see a diminishing value of the spiritual part of Christmas,” Brown said. “It would seem like another group would go from the Christmas spirit to the holiday spirit.”

“What I’m afraid of — if we don’t bring some kind of closure to this continuous change, then in 20 years it will almost be completely different from what we see today … and so we would lose the whole emphasis of what the very early beginnings of Christmas was all about.”

Rep. Brown is lying here. There had been no reduction in the observance of Christmas, anywhere in the country. That this is essentially a fraudulent claim, has been noted:

Barry Lynn, an ordained minister and executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, isn’t keen on the prospect of congressional action.

“Resolutions like this come up because there is this bizarre view by some members of Congress that there is a war on Christmas and that they have to be the generals in some responding army,” he said.

“My advice to the lawmakers would be promote any religion you have through your private acts, and don’t try to ‘help’ the baby Jesus by passing a resolution on his behalf. It is arrogant and ridiculous at the same time,” Lynn said.

Another lie the R.R. likes to tell about Christmas, can be seen later in the article:

Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow for policy studies with the Family Research Council, which promotes Christian values, said the “pro-Christmas side” has made progress in recent years.

In some circles, he said, “Political correctness is preventing people from even sayings [sic] ‘Merry Christmas.’ “

The problem is, there is no concerted effort being made anywhere in the US to prevent anyone from saying “Merry Christmas.” It is not happening. I dare Mr Sprigg — or anyone else — to document any such campaign has occurred over, say, the last 5 years.

Fact is, he cannot do it … because it didn’t happen, and is not happening now.

Elsewhere, people who adhere to the “war on Christmas” trope are even trotting out the canard that other people not saying “Merry Christmas” to them frequently enough, somehow ruins the holiday for them (as seen, for example, in this story in the Kane Cty (IL) Chronicle):

At this time of year, pastor Brice Quinn does not want to be wished “Happy Holidays.” …

Not acknowledging the specific holiday takes away from its significance, he said.

Well, boo-fucking-hoo. Does Mr Quinn truly believe himself to possess the power to force everyone else he meets to say the words “Merry Christmas” to him, because for them not to do so, ruins his holiday? How insane is this kind of thinking?

Enough already with the steady stream of lies, and the presumption that many Christians like Mr Quinn have, that they possess the authority to force others to say certain things to them … or else!

Bill O’Reilly has ramped up his war to force every American to observe Christmas just as he does … regardless of whether or not they are Christians. This time, he sent his producer Jesse Watters to interview school officials in Chelmsford, Mass. who have set policies about a “winter holiday fair” which they don’t like. While Watters appears impressed with himself for his Mike Wallace-style “ambush interviews” and O’Reilly claims this ambush was somehow “fair and balanced.” However, neither of them appears to understand some salient facts:

1. In case you didn’t know it, Mr Watters, Chelmsford school officials don’t work for you — really! — and they are not answerable to you. They do not have to talk with you. You cannot presume yourself to possess the power to force them to speak with you. Oh — and Mr Watters — I’ve watched Mike Wallace. I’ve watched him all my life. And trust me, you’re no Mike Wallace.

2. Mr Watters, you say you’re trying to “help the children.” Woops. You’re not. You’re just saying what you want to say and presuming to speak for the children of Chelmsford, so that you can rationalize being there and asking questions of people as though you’re their boss, when you and they know you are not. You don’t even live there, so you have absolutely nothing to say about Chelmsford’s children. To assume that authority is astoundingly irrational of you … and it’s a lie. (So welcome, Mr Watters, to my “lying liars for Jesus” club.)

3. The people at the school board meeting — who are residents of Chelmsford and do have a say in the matter — nevertheless appear to have problems with fallacies. That “80%” of Chelmsford is Christian, does not entitle them to force everyone else to behave like Christians. That’s a philosophy known as majoritarianism, and it’s based on the fallacy known as “appeal to the masses.” It doesn’t grant you veracity. What it does is show that you can use numbers to bully others.

4. Also, that schools don’t allow sales of candy canes within their halls, in no way prevents Chelmsford families — and their children — from celebrating Christmas however they wish, in their homes and churches. It just doesn’t.

5. One parent claimed celebrating Christmas inside the school is “education.” Woops. It’s not. It is, instead, indoctrination and also forced religious observance. Both of these are illegal in US public schools; but even if they weren’t, they would still be thoroughly unethical.

Note to Mr O’Reilly and Mr Watters: I honestly hope you both keep up your campaign to force each and every American to celebrate Christmas — which is a Christian holiday — regardless of whether or not they are themselves Christian. It just makes clear your goal: The voluntary or involuntary conversion of everyone in the US to Christianity. By all means, continue living down to all my expectations of ardent and furious religionists. With your every word and your every move, you continuously display your complete lack of character, morals, ethics, and integrity, as well as your contempt for freedom and rationality.

Rick Warren — about whom I’ve blogged many times, the fundamentalist preacher who built a megachurch in southern California, and created the lucrative “Purpose-Driven” publishing empire — just revealed his complete ignorance of freethought and atheism. According to the Raw Story:

Not believing in a Supreme Being takes more faith than believing in one, according to Pastor Rick Warren. “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist,” Warren told Fox News anchors Steve Doocy and Martha MacCallum Monday.

Warren puts forth arguments against atheism which are so old and tired that he has little rational excuse for trotting them out yet again. I’ll go over them one by one:

“You know, Steve, if I’m walking down a mountain and I see rock out of place and I go ‘that’s an accident.’ If I’m walking down a mountain — on the trail — and I find a Rolex that’s evidence of design,” he explained. “It actually takes more faith not to believe in God than to believe in God.”

This is known as William Paley’s “watchmaker analogy,” a teleological argument, which is fallacious, and for several reasons. One of those failures is that it’s based solely on a subjective determination of what must have been “made.” Subjectivity can never be construed as objective veracity. Another failure is, one can know a watch is only human-made because one can walk into a factory and see them being designed and crafted. When it comes to the Universe, however, it is not possible to watch an “intelligent designer” (or deity) manufacture a new universe. (At least, no one has yet done so … and I don’t expect it ever will happen.) So, Rick, strike one!

While Warren scoffs at atheists, he seemed to respect every other belief system. “The are 600 million Buddhists in the world. There are 800 million Hindus. There are one and a half billion Muslims and there are 2.3 billion Christians. The actual number of secularists in the world is actually quite small outside of Europe and Manhattan,” said Warren.

Warren’s appeal to numbers … i.e. there are billions of “believers” but nowhere near as many non-believers, ergo, believers must be correct … is fallacious. This fallacy goes by many names; formally as argumentum ad populum, and less formally as the appeal to popularity, the bandwagon fallacy, appeal to consensus, democratic fallacy, appeal to the majority, etc. It fails, because reality and veracity are not up for a vote. That many people believe something does not automatically make it true. At one time nearly all human beings thought the Earth was at the center of a universe only a few thousand miles across; we have, however, found this is not so. If one followed Warren’s reasoning, we’d have dismissed Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo as mindless cranks and would still think we were at the center of the universe. So, Rick, strike two!

Bashing on atheists isn’t new for the pastor who has also compared gay marriage to pedophilia.

Warren is wrong here, folks. Gay marriage has nothing to do with pedophilia. It can’t … because marriage (of any kind) is a partnership between adults capable of entering into a contract; while pedophilia is an adult having sex with a minor. The two are completely and totally unrelated — and by definition. So, Rick, strike three — you’re out!

But wait, there’s more!

In April of 2007, Warren told Newsweek that he “never met an atheist who wasn’t angry” and that “far more people have been killed through atheists than through all the religious wars put together.”

While it is true that 20th century massacres and atrocities have killed more people than anything prior, and not all of them were done for religious reasons, keep in mind that these were political regimes, not religious ones.

The medieval Church which orchestrated the Inquisitions, was primarily a religious organization. The wars in the Middle East known collectively as the Crusades, had at least some religious motivation. The invasions of Europe and the Middle East by central Asians, under Genghis Khan and then under Timur the Lame — in their time the single most devastating conflicts in all of history, which were not exceeded until the 20th century — were partly motivated by religion: In Genghis Khan’s case, because his Mongol gods of heaven told him he would be a mighty ruler, and in Timur’s, because he wanted to spread Sunni Islam in places which were, in his day, primarily Shi’ite.

As for people like Hitler, who orchestrated the Holocaust, it hardly seems possible for him to have repressed and then slaughtered so many Jews, if not for centuries of Christian-inspired anti-Semitism. One can, therefore, also chalk up the atrocities of the Third Reich — at least partly — to religion.

Not to mention the fact that, while Warren condemns — and dismisses — atheists as “angry,” I definitely see a lot of sanctimonious anger on the part of lots of religious folk, too. Including himself! So, Rick, not only have you struck out, you whiffed an extra time!

If anyone isn’t clear, by now, what kind of bellicose, sanctimonious, ignorant creep Rick Warren is … well, you now have your evidence. He’s also proven himself a hypocrite by dismissing atheists as “angry” without acknowledging the religious are often just as angry, if not moreso. (Note to Rick: Your own Jesus specifically, clearly, explicitly, and unambiguously ordered you, as his follower, never to be hypocritical. So I’d be careful if I were you.)

Hat tip: iReligion Forum at Delphi Forums.

… or maybe I should title this post “War on Christmas 2009, part 3.” I could also title it, “Fox News Brazenly Lies.”

There will be no holiday displays in the Washington state capitol this year. No Christmas tree, no menorah, nothing … at least, according to Fox News, which at the moment is alone in reporting this:

Washington State Bans Holiday Displays Inside Capitol

The new rules — set to take effect Dec. 1 — came after repeated protests from The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Washington-based atheist group, over holiday décor inside Capitol campus buildings in Olympia.

The nativity crèche and the menorah are no longer welcome inside the Washington state Capitol after Gov. Chris Gregoire banned non-government displays, including religious ones, from inside the building.

Wow! Sounds pretty draconian, doesn’t it? The Washington state government has bent itself wholly to the will of one of those vile “atheist groups.” Right?

Well, no. Fox goes on to explain this isn’t quite what they just said it was (emphasis mine):

The rules, which were officially signed into order by Washington’s Department of General Administration on Oct. 30, still allow the annual state-sponsored holiday tree inside the Capitol rotunda.

In case you didn’t catch the importance of this, I will repeat it: Contrary to the content of the headline and lede of this story, there will still be a Christmas tree in the capitol rotunda in Olympia.

That’s right, folks … this means Fox News lied, and was brazen enough about their lie, to include the evidence of their lie in the body of their story! But to add to the brazenness of this lie, the story picks up again at the presumption that there will be no holiday displays in the capitol, as though the sentence I just quoted had not been there:

“The state government caved to a select few Scrooges or atheists, where 95 percent of U.S. citizens celebrate Christmas,” said Ron Wesselius, a resident of Olympia, Wash., who has previously displayed his nativity scene inside the Capitol and who challenged the state in court over the new rules.

Let me help you a little, Mr Wesselius: the “95% of citizens” in Washington state, actually have their state Christmas tree! Why are you denying this?

When I said I assumed I’d have several “war on Christmas” blog entries in 2009, I hadn’t expected to have three of them already before the end of November! This promises to be a contentious holiday season, folks. They’re even weaving lies in order to propagate their “war.” How very nice — and Christian — of them to do so. This also places the staff of Fox News in my “lying liars for Jesus” club.

I blogged early this year about disgraced evangelical pastor Ted Haggard’s then-new effort to rehabilitate his reputation, step behind a lectern again, and thump his Bible once more. He has continued this effort, and recently led a prayer group in his home in Colorado Springs. Along with that (of course) he made himself available for media interviews. In the course of one such interview, Haggard told a whopping, demonstrable lie. KMGH-7 TV in Denver has the story:

“I was always well aware of my own personal struggles, but my desire was to be more Godly,” said Haggard. “I was never a religious right, hateful, anti-gay guy — secretly running off, except right at the end. I’d say right at the end, before the crisis. That did develop a little bit stronger.”

There are many ways to show this to be a lie … i.e. that he was, in fact, always “right” and “anti-gay.” But one example is the following quotation by him, during an interview in late 2005 with Christianity Today:

“The biblical argument could be made, but not in this particular case. In Washington, D.C., our argument has to be the fact that the greatest benefit to society and to our culture and to the children of our nation would be to instill in our Constitution that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. It would be devastating for the children of our nation and for the future of Western civilization for us to say that homosexual unions or lesbian unions or any alteration of that has the moral equivalence of a heterosexual, monogamous marriage.

This is assuredly both “right” and “anti-gay.” And note, he was saying it not merely as a “Biblical” principle, but because that’s what he genuinely believed to be in the best interest of children and civilization.

Welcome, pastor Teddy, to my lying liars for Jesus club.

Kirk Cameron and his mentor, preacher Ray Comfort, have come up with a roundabout way to condemn the teaching of evolution. They’re distributing copies of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, but with their own introduction, which essentially says that the rest of the book is evil, racist, sexist, Holocaust-promoting crap.

CNN filed this video report on their strange propaganda campaign:

Given that Darwin himself died many decades before the Holocaust, Comfort and Cameron’s position that Darwin somehow supported it, is absurd on its face. It’s safe to say that pretty much no one living in Darwin’s time could even have dreamed of such a thing ever happening.

As for Darwin being a “racist,” that’s an anachronistic interpretation.

And I’m not sure that Biblical literalists such as Comfort and Cameron should even be going anywhere near the issue of Darwin — or anyone else for that matter! — being “sexist.” The Bible itself is chock-full of outrageous sexism, as anyone can find out just by opening it up. (Here’s a fairly comprehensive catalog of scriptural passages which clearly call for women to be treated as inferior. So on that score we have yet another example of the pot calling the kettle black — which is hypocritical, of course, but then, fundamentalist Christians like being hypocritical, in spite of Jesus’ clear injunctions against it.

These lies about Darwin and evolution quite naturally place Cameron and Comfort in my lying liars for Jesus club.

Update: The Primate Diaries blog lists several specific lies that Comfort told in his “introduction” to On the Origin of Species.