sect (sekt), n 4.  any group, party, or faction united by a specific doctrine or under a doctrinal leader. (Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 1996)

 

 I look forward to being at the Women in Secularism conference next week. The line-up is chock-full of smart, interesting speakers, many of the attendees are friends and colleagues, and D.C. is a great place to spend a weekend. 

Not everyone feels that way. Some of the people who are not going are not just passing on the conference, they’re also criticizing that it’s happening at all. It’s not needed; it’s a waste of resources; it dilutes our mission, they say. 

I have a specific and a general response to all that.  

Specifically – obviously – women (who are over ½ the U.S. population) have been getting screwed by religion since well before whatever fiction writer dreamt up the story of The Fall in Genesis.  (There, Eve is forever blamed for original sin because she… what now? Ate from the Tree of Knowledge? Oh, please. If God were just, he would have given her a medal instead of kicking her out of the Garden.) 

Anyone who can’t see that most of Christianity (for one) has for millennia institutionalized the unequal treatment of women isn’t looking very hard. Catholic women can’t even vote for a Pope, much less be one.

Should women be motivated to strengthen their specific secular position in our society? Hell yes! Or do what? Sit back and take it for another 1000 years? I wouldn’t… 

Which brings me to a general response… 

ANY large group who feels like they have a particular beef with religion (or pseudoscience, or other wacky beliefs) has a legitimate interest in addressing that problem as a group.  

At CFI-L.A.,  we’ve hosted Black Skeptics, Spanish-speaking atheists, gay and lesbian humanists, and others who’ve had specific troubles in our society based on who they fundamentally are. And I say, welcome to our tent. 

Ideally, our whole movement is a coalition of individuals and groups who all have an interest in promoting a secular and reason-based society. And if some of those groups want to get together to fine-tune their methods for dealing with and changing this uber-religious society we live in, more power to them.

How can we help?

 I left for work at CFI Los Angeles Sunday morning while thousands of Catholics prepared to gather for Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrations at the L.A. Coliseum just down Vermont Ave.Our branch hosted author David Layton who talked about the humanistic and scientific aspects of the long-running British TV series Dr. Who. David made a good case that the show does an excellent job of combining humanism, science, reason, and enlightenment values – all while entertaining its audience. The internationally popular Dr. Who is (despite a gap in its broadcast history) the longest running sci-fi TV show in history.

So my day began with the confluence of science, entertainment, and humanism. Not bad for a Sunday morning in Hollywood.

After lunch, a delightful family from (among other places) Orange County, Japan, and England gathered in the Steve Allen Theater for a baby-naming ceremony. Far from a christening, this is a way for secular people to gather, welcome, and express their joy about the birth of a new member of their family. I was honored to preside over a celebration so filled with warmth, humor and love.

Later that evening, my wife and I hiked from our house up to the Griffith Observatory (with family and members of The Heathens) to watch the touchdown of the latest Mars rover, Curiosity. The good people at the Observatory showed the progress of the Curiosity in the Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock, on Star Trek, of course) Event Horizon Theater, and also in the Gunther Depths of Space exhibit. There were probably a thousand people there gathered to watch the U.S. space program lower a car-sized extra-terrestrial laboratory into a very specific crater on a planet millions of miles away. Whoa.

For the third time that day, I was among people who had a deep appreciation for science, reason, and humanity in a way that did not invoke anything supernatural to gain that appreciation. We humans made that art, that child, and that spaceship. People took the risks associated with those creations and accepted those consequences.

All three times the risks paid off.

It was a great day to be a humanist in L.A.

Many who read these pages probably bristle at that description – God Particle – for various reasons: it’s not much of a description at all; it’s got nothing to do with whether God exists or not; and the guy who coined the term, Nobel Prize-winner Leon Lederman , really wanted to call it the “goddamn particle” since it was so elusive. Oh, and on a related note, the eponymous Peter Higgs is an atheist.

God Particle. Please. If anything, the new (overwhelming) evidence for this particle paints God into a tinier corner than he was already in. It answers one more question about how the universe works that God doesn’t. This evidence allows us to focus more directly on a path to more discovery about the nature of mass, time, and space.

It renders the notion of God a little more irrelevant.

This step in our understanding of Nature sweeps God aside a tad more because God has no predictive or explanatory power.Science makes wonderfully accurate predictions about how matter and energy interact. It explains with great detail and consistency how life persists, how planets move, how waves behave and scads of other processes that interact with our lives every day.

God (at least the God of Abraham), on the other hand, is capricious, and offers no explanations that shed light on what might happen next. One day devout Christians drown in a New Orleans flood, the next devout Muslims are crushed to death in a Turkish earthquake. What will he do next? We never know.

No, this isn’t a God particle at all. This is a science particle. Science predicted it. Science built the Large Hadron Collider that generated it. And science detected it.

The champagne being poured after this discovery sparkled in labs, universities, and halls of science all over the world while the God partisans search for the next gap of human knowledge to cling to.

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Skeptics are almost always at a disadvantage when doing major media appearances. Many talk shows seem to cater to heavily believer-based audiences, and seek to entertain more than to inform — despite presenting a façade of scientific or journalistic inquiry. Such was the case with my appearance on the Dr. Phil Show on May 25^th.

Now let me preface my criticism below with a quick reality check. Around 80% of Dr. Phil’s studio audience (the day we shot the show) said they believe in psychic ability. While that high percentage of believers may or may not represent his at-home audience numbers, it clearly indicated which direction the fans in front of him were leaning. Dr. Phil was not likely to step on all those fans’ shoes.

Also, though Dr. Phil used language (like the word “experiment” in our demonstration of cold reading) that suggests serious inquiry, the show was clearly structured to entertain his audience, not to fairly present two sides of an argument. Viewed as entertainment trying to keep 80% of its audience happy, the Dr. Phil show is understandable.

The problem is, the show gives the appearance of a serious look at a question: “Do psychic powers really exist?”

It was not a serious look at that question. When the producers (who assured me that Dr. Phil was very much a skeptic) asked me about ways psychics could be put to the test, I offered several possibilities. (After all, our IIG has been testing these kinds of claims for 12 years.) Instead, they opted to have me “psychically” read a group of strangers, which I did successfully.

How do I know I was successful? Three of the ten participants cried because of things I said. I mention them crying not out of any sense of satisfaction, but only to underscore that they were believing in an ability – getting information from the spirits of dead people – I know I do not possess. (By the way, add a camera operator and a segment producer to those at the reading who responded positively and seemed to be impressed by guesses I made. Those were edited out.)

The point of doing that reading (my first ever) was to show that by merely using cold reading techniques, I could convince people I was in contact with the spiritual world. I was not claiming that I was better at cold reading than Rebecca Rosen, the psychic who did the second reading of the group. I’m sure the thousands of readings under her belt have honed her skills well beyond those of my rookie debut. (I’d love to compare her hit rate, and count her total number of guesses.)

All my reading was meant to show was that a fake could be convincing. Yet, this stunning revelation was completely glossed over on the show.

It should be noted that people don’t generally see two psychics in a row and compare them, like in the show. People go to one psychic at a time. Also, the ten participants in the reading were not typical clients seeking out and paying for psychic advice. Normally, psychics’ customers are hugely self-selecting believers. (How many skeptics would pay $500 for a reading?) This lowers the bar for any psychic because her client is wholly uncritical and predisposed to find success in a reading.

I mention all this because the show testimonials comparing me and Rebecca are irrelevant. Even if people had been read by two professional psychics, one would have scored better than the other.

Lest anyone mistake this show for a fair fight, here are some of the ways the Dr. Phil show slanted the discussion toward the psychic side:

1. Invite 4 psychics to the discussion and place them on stage front and center.

(I was the only skeptic, and was relegated to the front row of the audience — physically lower than the psychics. Of course, that wouldn’t have mattered if I’d been given opportunity to respond after each psychic spoke or attempted a reading.)

2. Introduce the psychics with great fanfare. The websites calls them “well-known experts.”

(My description on the Dr. Phil website uses scare quotes in calling me a “professional skeptic..”

3. Edit out psychics’ poor showing in the live audience reading. Edit out part of Dr. Phil’s criticism of Dougall’s aura read of his (Dr. Phil’s) colors. Edit out my responses to some of the participants’ comments. Edit out my criticism of Dr. Diane Hennacy Powell’s citing of the Stargate Project and to Daryl Bem’s experiments. Edit out my mention of Skeptical Inquirer magazine which addresses both those claims.

4. Edit out shots of two of the three sitters crying during my reading, one of whom later said he didn’t believe my ability. Edit out my reading hits on the camera operator and the segment producer.

5. Allow me to see only the severely edited footage of the Rebecca Rosen reading and the Colette Baron-Reid reading during the actual show, and allow little or no time (respectively) to respond to the techniques they used.

6. Give a vast majority of the show minutes to the psychics and to pro-psychic testimonials with little or no opportunity for rebuttal. (I’ll have specific numbers soon.)

Given the opportunity, I could have easily explained every bit of apparent success each of the psychics had as well as called attention to their misses during their live reads. As we’ve seen for years, people’s recollection of how well the psychics did does not jibe with how well they actually did.

(For example, when Rebecca Rosen said, “I’m supposed to talk about a hummingbird…” – which could mean any number of different things – a woman responded, “Oh my god, that’s my tattoo!” Phil reacts (see the clip) implying that Rebecca knew that this woman had a hummingbird tattoo. She did not. The woman told Rebecca she had a hummingbird tattoo. Throwing random thoughts out there and hoping they land on something is how psychics work. Psychics who talk fast and get a lot of guesses out score more points matching fragments of people’s lives. Hell, the hummingbird guess fits me! We have hummingbirds in our garden where I like to go to relax and smoke a cigar. Is that a hit?)

The bottom line is that the show was presented to me and the TV audience as a sincere examination of whether psychic ability exists. What it was was a biased, slanted presentation that gave huge advantages to the psychics, and short shrift to science and skepticism.

Look, if Dr. Phil wants to emulate Montel Williams and do silly shows full of wild claims and nonsense, he should knock himself out. But if he wants to be taken seriously as a reasonable person, he should reconsider how he presents (especially fringe) issues.

Don’t whitewash an outhouse and call it a spa. 

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I got a fair amount of time to speak and a friendly edit on Penn and Teller’s Bullshit (twice), the WGN Morning Show, and a few other TV shows. But the on-air ratio of us-to-them is usually some overwhelming amount of time on the side of Bigfoot or alien abductors to a few snippets of a skeptic’s detailed explanation.

So when the Dr. Phil Show called CFI  looking for someone to represent the side skeptical of psychic claims, I was pleasantly surprised. John Edward, whom I’ve written about in Skeptical Inquirer, appeared on Dr. Phil this past January, and now they were doing another show with skepticism being represented. Great! The producers described Dr. Phil as being very skeptical, and asked about how the psychics who would also appear on the show could be put to the test. I was overflowing with ideas.

Our Independent Investigations Group (IIG)  has been testing these kinds of claims for over 12 years, and has lots of experience giving claimants a fair chance to shine. (None ever have, by the way.)

Instead of me running a simple test, the producers preferred to have a skeptic “cold read” a group of strangers and then have a psychic – alleged psychic – read the same group. Both would be introduced as psychics. My first instinct was to let IIG member Mark Edward, an experienced mentalist, do the read. When I couldn’t reach Mark, I decided to do it myself.

I have witnessed (at least) dozens of cold readings and am very familiar with the technique. So I crammed the weekend before the Monday they taped the reading, and arrived at Paramount Studios that day walking with a cane. (The idea was to soften the sitters’ hearts so they would root for a positive reading. Buying into the psychic’s abilities is an important part of the perception of success.) I had to do something. I was nervous, and the psychic reading after me was younger, female, and very experienced.

By the end of my 40 minute session with 12 strangers, I had made 3 of them cry and gotten a fairly high percentage of “hits”, i.e. accurate guesses. I left much relieved, and my college friend Joe (who had witnessed the reading) and I both felt like my very first psychic reading (on national TV!) had been a great success. The strangers’ tears were testimony to their acceptance of me as a psychic.

When I arrived at Paramount the next day for the taping of the actual show, I learned that I, the lone skeptic, would be relegated to the audience while the psychics (billed on the Dr. Phil website as “well-known experts”) sat up on stage with Dr. Phil. I expected to be outnumbered, but thought the psychological disparity of sticking me in the audience was a low blow.

I’m not sure of the timing of when I was revealed as a fake (psychic), but those whom I read – even those who cried – now scoffed at my abilities. Even the psychics tried to pile on with one saying that I am a psychic, though a bitter one. Wow.

So you’re saying that I – a completely science-based skeptic, study a deceptive technique, employ that technique to the degree that believers tear-up at my words, and admit my fakery freely to make a point about how such deception works – am actually a psychic? In the words of Rodney Dangerfield, “Oh you’re way off.”

Ok, I get that Dr. Phil’s audience (about 80% of those in studio, we learned) is mostly believers in psychic powers. Maybe the show is afraid of challenging the views of so many of their viewers. But it would have nice to have a fair chance to do so.

Maybe the edit will favor science in a way I can’t predict.

To find out, tune in to Dr. Phil on Friday May 25^th, 2012 to see how equally the skeptical Dr. Phil presents two sides to a question about skills the world of science is very unconvinced about.

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A recent poll revealed that 43% of those asked thought that God helps Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow win.

He (God) does not.

God, almost certainly, does not exist.

Hold on, believers, there’s another point here!

What should have been asked is whether Tim Tebow’s belief in god helps him win. The answer to that question is: very possibly. But so what? Any strong belief that adds to an athlete’s confidence, resolve, focus, etc. may help him or her perform well. One’s state of mind - especially in pro football which involves playing with pain, risk of significant injury, and millions of eyes watching your every move - can have a considerable effect on performance.

It doesn’t matter whether the belief itself is true or not. Absolute confidence in the Easter Bunny being behind your efforts would have the exact same effect. An athlete who believes a rabbit’s foot, a Power Balance bracelet, or a lucky penny will optimize his performance is on a level playing field with one who believes God, Shiva, or Zeus will do the same.

So Tebow’s believing is what counts, not the subject of the belief or whether it’s delusional or not.

Oh, and another thing.

Since there are plenty of athletes on both sides of every contest openly kneeling, pointing to the sky, and thanking God and Jesus for their success, I think we can see that that playing field is even too. God’s children square off to pummel each other every week.

So who gets the win at the end of the day if all beliefs are pretty equal? The better team! (Usually)

The Denver Broncos at 8-8 (after the regular season) are one of the worst teams to ever make the playoffs. Their win at home last week could have only happened against a team as beat up as the Steelers. But Tebow’s seen his last miracle. The Patriots will eat him up like a Roman lion.

Where will his savior be then?

James Underdown is Executive Director of the Center for Inquiry Los Angeles, and played football for winning teams each of his 4 years in college.

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A death-row inmate is denied an appeal because his attorneys had switched law firms. A letter the court sent to the inmate’s lawyers’ old firm is returned, and the deadline to file an appeal expires before they can respond. The state and an appeals court ignore the clerical miscommunication by saying it’s the state’s prerogative to bar such appeals if the deadline has passed. The man may be executed before all his appeals are heard.

This is no Orwellian nightmare. It’s a real case before the U.S. Supreme Court involving an Alabama man named Cory Maples who’s in jail for murder. Maples is an admitted murderer whose appeal aims to avoid the death penalty, not prison. Even so, all prisoners in the U.S. criminal justice system should get hearings as far as their rights allow - especially when it comes to capital punishment. U.S Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia apparently disagrees.

There are at least three reasons this case should make you shudder. One is that Antonin Scalia, one of the nine U.S. citizens (presumably) hired to ensure some semblance of fairness in our legal system, responded to the draconian earlier rulings by saying (to Maples):

“You have a lawyer. It’s up to the lawyer to follow what goes on it court.”

So, Justice, a man’s life now rides on his lawyer’s diligence in monitoring his former employer’s clerical staff to ensure they forward mail in a timely fashion? I wonder how many people in the United States make regular contact with their former employers to insist they get their mail.

Hell, Alabama will still probably lethally inject the guy even if he does get a proper hearing. Alabama, although ranked only the 23rd most populous state, is ranked 6th in executions since 1976 with 54. (This is many times higher than all of Europe, Canada, Mexico, and Japan combined.) One must wonder why Alabama has such a high proclivity toward the highest punishment.

The third reason this case is problematic is the death penalty itself. It is sentenced unevenly throughout the U.S. - state by state, and racially, at least, and I’d bet by the economic status of the accused. (Are there many wealthy accused murderers executed?)

There are many reasons the death penalty has been outlawed in most of the civilized world. The callousness by which it is enforced is only one of them. Antonin Scalia, in opposition to other conservative Justices Roberts and Alito, is the embodiment of such callousness. Shame on him.

And shame on the 34 states who still hold the power of life and death over their inhabitants. This ancient, fatally flawed system must go.

p.s. A ray of hope appeared in another L.A. Times story across the page from the above. After serving 25 years for allegedly murdering his wife, a Texas man was freed after DNA evidence showed that another man was responsible. He’s lucky Antonin Scalia didn’t sentence him.

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 When I got a call from a woman named Lindsey inviting me to appear at the Moment Church during their Sunday evening service, some warning bells went off in my head. She sounded like a nice enough person, but why would they want me, a career atheist, to even be at their church, much less have a voice there?

This ain’t no UU Church, by the way. Moment’s  “what we believe” statement of faith on their website represents what I would call pretty hardcore Christianity – God is the ubiquitous, all-knowing creator of the universe; the bible is inerrant; you get to heaven through Jesus; marriage is between one man and one woman. You get the picture.

I’ve always been an experience junkie, so I said yes. My friend Spencer, an ex-cop, half-jokingly asked me if I wanted to borrow an old Kevlar vest. I laughed and said no… thought about  lunatics with guns for a second, and said no again. Was I missing something here? Could these people be for real? I asked them if I could bring some other secular types along and shoot our own video — just in case something memorable happened. They said yes to both. That eased my mind a bit, but I still wondered if there was something up their sleeve.

Moment’s Pastor Tony Wood called on the Wednesday before to talk about how he’d like the service to go. He emphasized that he didn’t want this to turn into a debate or argument. It would be more of a chat that might build some bridges between our very different communities. That sounded fine to me. It meant less preparation and less stress.

I’ve accompanied CFI L.A. Chairman Eddie Tabash many times deep into the hinterlands of fundamentalist Christianity for his formal debates, and have been in lots of heated theological discussions with red-faced, veins-a-bulging Christians incensed at the idea of someone so casually blaspheming before them. That’s an evening you have to be in the mood for.

The ride down to Orange County from CFI  in Hollywood was full of speculation about what might happen. Karl and Craig, two CFI members keen to experience this encounter, ran through a litany of arguments our side has been using on apologists for ages – just in case it turned out to be an ambush. I was like a boxer going through a pre-bout warm-up.

The church itself is in an industrial park in Irvine, which immediately brought back memories of a double exorcism I once attended at a church in Sacramento – also in an industrial park. Location’s where the similarities  ended, though. Moment Church sublets from a larger church that has many of the bells and whistles that mega churches have – live, big-screen overhead projection, a slick P.A. system featuring light-show elements and a smoke machine, and streaming video.

When we finally found the front door (there were a couple of Spinal Tap tries) we were all greeted warmly and I was allowed into the pre-service briefing. They run their Sunday services pretty tightly, and I told them their script reminded me of the Oprah Show, which I had been a guest on. Tony seemed impressed by this, but neglected to ask me what the show topic was. (The topic, incidentally, was “Should you have sex before marriage?” As a Chicagoan in my mid 20s at the time, I felt it an obligation to represent the Ayes.)

The crowd of 200 (250?) seemed young – lots of teens and twenties – which explained the band opening the service with some (Christian) rock and roll, the big screens, and the text-in-your-questions format.

As Pastor Tony prayed before inviting me up to the stage, it occurred to me that they were taking a bit of a chance on me being there. I was largely an unknown element to them. But I saw no reason to change the warm and fuzzy tone of the service by going off on a rant –  maybe with examples of the gospels contradicting each other, or by explaining how free will can’t exist if God is omniscient. These people really did sound sincere, and I had been listening hard for ulterior motives in the tone of their voices! So I relaxed and had a good time.

The interview went well, I thought. Tony seemed genuinely interested, and I don’t think I offended too many of those in attendance.  I threw one bone to the non-believers in the crowd when I said “You (Christians) stole Christmas from us (non-Christians who celebrate the winter solstice).” Whether Tony knew what I was talking about or not, he didn’t bite, and we rolled respectfully onward.

After the interview, the dozen or so atheists in the crowd politely sat through a heartfelt sermon about prayer that used background music for added effect, and then retired to the lobby for a few post-service pics and some abbreviated theological discussion.

Both camps went to the same restaurant afterward, ate amongst their own (we had beer, thank goodness), then reconvened for more discussion. Some of the kids that I spoke to wanted to know about paranormal investigations I’d been involved with and actually seemed fairly skeptically minded. I tried to underscore for them the similarity between belief in the paranormal and belief in the supernatural. (See my ReasonFest talk here)  I’m not sure if they saw the connection, but the conversation was enjoyable in any case.

I never did pick up on any sinister ulterior motives they might have had for inviting me there. Maybe they just wanted to pray for someone as outwardly hell-bound as me. It’s hard to take offense at that, even if I do think praying is a waste of time.

It seemed to me that these young evangelists are less angry, more tolerant, and more open to interacting with their secular neighbors than their parents’ generation. Time will tell if those qualities will ever find their way to elections, school board meetings, and their treatment of good people who don’t share their views. It’s a start, though. It is a start.

If you want to see the video of what happened, have a look. Thanks to Bruce Gleason for shooting this footage:

Crazy as it seems, there are people sincerely buying into the (alleged) biblical prediction that this Saturday, May 21st will usher in the rapture - the taking up to heaven of God’s selected devotees. The rapture will be followed by months of apocalyptic battles that will culminate in the destruction of the earth. ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. (What’s for dinner?)

I spoke to one believer recently who was in L.A. on Hollywood Blvd near the Chinese Theater giving out literature warning of the impending holocaust.

In my best non-accusatory tone, I asked what made her think that the rapture would happen.

Rapture Lady: The bible says it will happen… so it will.

Me: So you’re convinced the bible is 100% accurate?

RL: Of course. It’s the word of God. It’s infallible.

Me: How do you explain the many contradictions in the bible?

RL: There are no contradictions in the bible.

Me: Have you ever read the bible?

RL: Parts of it…

Whoa. Here’s a person holding a poster warning people of the Bible-predicted end-of-the-world at one of the most visited spots in the state of California, and she hasn’t actually read that bible?

Me: Did you read the Gospel parts where there are all kinds of discrepancies between the authors about what happened at the tomb… among other things?

RL: I don’t believe you.

Me: I wouldn’t expect you to. You’ll see if you read the stories when you get home.

RL: Why do you want to take that away from me?

Me: I didn’t write the book. You said the bible was 100% accurate. I’m just asking how it could be 100% accurate and disagree with itself.

At that point, some other Christians approached and started accusing her of being a false prophet. That was my cue to exit, but before I left, I asked her what she was going to do if nothing happened on Saturday, May 21st.

RL: I guess I’ll have to reexamine my life as to why I wasn’t taken.

Me: What I mean is, what are you going to do if nothing at all happens… to anyone?

RL: That’s impossible.

Me: I guess we’ll see…

We’ll see excuses like we saw from the Millerites, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the never-ending supply of doomsayers who all share being wrong in common. But the rapture folks ought to say something after spending tens of thousands of dollars on billboards. (CBS outdoor advertising told me that the billboard a mile from CFI-LA costs $3000-$5000 per 4 week cycle and that the display itself can cost between $500 -$1000 to have made.)

Before this Saturday ends and the excuses start to fly as to why the long-awaited rapture didn’t happen, here are my official predictions for what the good believers will say after midnight:

                    Underdown’s Top Ten Excuses 
                   Why the Rapture Didn’t Happen

10. Slipped God’s mind. (He does have a universe to run!)
9. God decided he didn’t want all those Christians up there with him after all.
8. NBA and NHL playoffs are still going.
7. Bible authors took public school math - got the date wrong
6. Satan too busy with Bin Laden arrival
5. Rapture billboard invoice still not paid off yet
4. Christians apprehensive about naked flight skyward
3. The mere THREAT of the Rapture turned the entire world virtuous
2. Huh? Rapture? OMG, what the hell were we thinking?!
1. What God really meant was that he May start the Rapture on the 21st

See you Sunday!

 

  Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear announced today that Ark Encounter is expected to open in 2014. The creationist theme park will feature a 500 foot-long replica of Noah’s Ark containing live animals, a replica of the Tower of Babel, and a first century Middle Eastern village. See the     full story here     :  

Hey, it is a wacky news story from a primitive land!

The whole endeavor would almost be funny except for a few problems…

First and most obviously, Noah’s Ark almost certainly did not exist, and if it did, there’s no way in hell that two of every animal (and 7 of some, according to   Genesis 7:2 ) ever made it on to a huge pre-Iron Age boat. I won’t even waste the time to ask why God drowned everything that couldn’t tread water, or to argue the impossibility of 8 adults (Noah, his 3 sons and their wives) feeding and caring for hundreds of thousands (millions!) of animals in a vast windowless barge for   over a year !

It couldn’t happen… then or now. (By the way, the folks behind this project believe there were dinosaurs on the Ark as well. At over 100 tons and up to 130 feet long, just feeding and housing an Argentinosaurus might get to be a headache. And you thought elephants had an appetite…)

Ok, so what’s the problem with a bunch of fundamentalist Christians spending their own money on a fantasyland that promotes their unscientific view of the world? The act of propagating unsound religious beliefs is not illegal. If it were, the police wouldn’t have time to write a jaywalking ticket on Hollywood Blvd.

The real problem is that the backers of this abomination - Ark Encounters LLC and Answers in Genesis - will receive massive tax breaks from the state of Kentucky for bringing tourist dollars to town. Under the Kentucky Tourism Development Act, developers can recover up to 25% of the cost of a project, in this case almost $40 million!

  So, Bluegrass State residents, your tax dollars will be:  
  • Promoting Fundamental Christian religious beliefs  
  • Denying multiple aspects of modern science  
  • Lining the pockets of at least 2 religious organizations  
  • Implying the tacit endorsement of the state of Kentucky that this bible tale is true

But all is not lost.

If we evidence-based citizens can’t find a way to stop this monstrosity from being built, there will still be a bright side to all this ridiculousness.

They will have to build it.

And they will have to run it, and in that process, they will discover how truly insane the notion of Noah’s Ark is.

So in the spirit of competing belief systems, I dare them to build this land ark (Lark?) - but I dare them to build it the way the holy book   says it should be built.

I dare them to use (   at latest ) 4000 year-old technology and materials to construct the thing. I dare them to follow the bible’s directions to install one and only one window - and to coat the whole ark inside and out with pitch (tar).

I dare them to staff the ark-proper with only 8 workers, and fill that sucker up with as many large mammals as they can cram inside. Can they load up the hold with food enough for a year and make it the whole way without spoilage and without refrigeration? Hmmm?

Let’s see the 8 zookeepers dispose of the tons of dung and manure that will quickly build up every day. They’ll have to administer to any sick or injured animals in between all the shoveling.

If they really want to be true to the tale, I dare them to launch this thing in a lake or a river so the gigantic craft will have to be more or less watertight and support its own massive weight. Tsk tsk… no electric bilge pumps to keep the SS Lark off the bottom!

And finally, I dare all the good Christian visitors to plop down their hard-earned money to wind their way through this cramped, dark, methane-filled nightmare where animal hell has become reality.

Bring the kids, so they can see what God hath wrought!

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