A Log Fit For Burning

BanjerDan sent this message to the Motherscratchers’ myspace profile:

This is Dan Mazer from J. B. Beverley The Wayward Drifters. We’ll be playing in Cleveland on May 29th, on the way to Milwaukee. We’re trying to find a venue for Friday the 30th.

–Dan

I replied to him :

Hi. This band broke up 5 years ago. My advice would be to stay away from Detroit if you’re looking to get paid or if you’re looking for an audience. I don’t know of a single bar in town that actually pays bands. And unless people were told by other people that your band is cool they won’t be able to figure out for themselves if they should like you or not. I’d say the best course of action in Detroit would be to not step on the brake until you get to Kalamazoo. Check out the Kraftbrau brewery or the Bell’s brewery (right across the street). Or take 80/90 from Cleveland straight to Chicago. There are hundreds of venues to choose from. Stay away from The Mutiny in Chicago and you’ll be fine.

Keep pickin’

I wish I could have honestly told him something different. There was a slogan that said “Say Nice Things About Detroit”. I tried that once. Didn’t end up saying much.

Dear shoe manufacturers : children’s shoes that squeak like dog toys with every step : bad move

"There’s that ham shop"
"But they don’t got that kosher ham"
Overheard lunch conversation

Cowboy in a neon green vest dragging 2 shovels down the middle of Brush : downtown Detroit

Homeless guy’s done jerkin’ off. Sleeping now.

Homeless guy with no shoes on his back on the sidewalk masturbating : downtown Detroit

Low-flying plane over downtown Detroit

Nixon speech writer Ben Stein came out with a movie this weekend which is basically designed to scare people about the theory of evolution. It claims that “Darwinism” leads to atheism and eugenics which lead to the holocaust and therefore it is dangerous. I place Darwinism between quotes because to use the phrase “Darwinist” to describe a biologist is sort of like calling astronomers “Saganists”. It’s part of an attempt to use language to frame science as a religion and it’s been so successful that my spellcheck recognizes the word “Darwinism” but not the word “Saganists”. What’s more, the movie claims that Big Science is run by a cabal of atheistic “Darwinists” who are actively working to silence the science of creationism. Creationism has a new name these days, they’re calling it “Intelligent Design”. The argument is that some things are irreducibly complex, meaning that if you took a part away the thing would be useless. There’s no way it could have evolved. The two examples I’ve seen given the most are the complexity of the bacterial flagellum and the human eye. Plus, things look like they’ve been designed. Therefore, god must have made them the way they are. But they’re not calling it god these days, they’re calling it an “Intelligent Designer”. Now, I could point out that even to the layman just saying “God did it” doesn’t exactly smack of the scientific method. I could point out that science is about trying to describe how the observable universe works and once a scientist comes up with an idea about how the observable universe works then the idea has to be tested and tested and tested again and other scientists spend their whole life trying to figure out problems with the original idea and when they find a problem then they throw out the problematic bit but keep the parts that still seem true and so our scientific ideas about life and the universe and everything are always changing as new information comes to light and if every time you come across something that seems so complicated that we couldn’t possibly understand it you declare that “god did it” then you bring the whole process to a grinding halt because you can’t test the validity of a being which has never been seen, heard, touched, smelled or measured in any way and who seems to live only in the minds of men. I could point out that Ben Stein’s new movie has been totally debunked. But I won’t point those things out. Because I want to point this out : this has absolutely nothing to do with real science. You could watch videos where people who sound like microbiologists talk about how we know that an intelligent designer must have made things the way they are because the bacterial flagellum motor is so complex that it couldn’t have happened any other way. But you won’t see videos of people who sound like scientists arguing against the heliocentric theory of our solar system. You won’t see Ben Stein making documentaries advocating the “other side” when it comes to string theory or the theory of relativity. Because it’s not actually about science. It’s about the fear that we actually are apes. It’s about Christianity. Make no mistake. When these people talk about an “intelligent designer” they’re not talking about Allah or Wotan or Zoroaster. They’re talking about Jesus and his dad. They just can’t come right out and say it, though. They have to disguise it as science because they want to undermine the theory of evolution in the minds of schoolchildren because it scares them. Because we are apes. Because we share a common ancestor with the tree in my backyard and the bacteria in your stool. Because we might turn into something else in the future. Because when you realize that then it becomes very hard to believe that we’re made in god’s image. And if we’re not god’s chosen animal then maybe we don’t own the earth and maybe we can’t do whatever we please with it. Maybe we’re not actually separate from nature. Maybe we’re part of it. Because we’re apes, after all. This scares people. People who make a living telling you that man is a sinful creature who was created in the image of god are threatened by the idea that maybe our ancestors didn’t look so much like us. And if we weren’t created spontaneously as fully-formed people by a benevolent god then maybe the bits about what happens after you die aren’t true either. Maybe this is the only life we have. And religion is Big Business. And if people stop believing the things that other people made up about what happens to your consciousness after you die then maybe people will stop showing up at church. And maybe the offering plate will stay empty. And people won’t pay the church to turn electric candles on so that the ghost of their great uncle will make it out of purgatory. And maybe a whole lot of people will stop obsessively ruminating about what happens to themselves after they die and start worrying about what happens to the earth and successive generations after they die. And maybe Benny Hinn will have to get a real job.
I was going to make this a longer post about how the bible makes claims that the earth is flat. Isaiah calls the earth a circle. Circles are flat. Jesus and the devil go to a high mountain to see all the earth. Daniel speaks of climbing a tree high enough to see the whole earth. No matter how high above a ball you get you can only ever see half of it at a time. I was also going to talk about how the bible says that bats are birds and the passages which speak of the sun revolving around the earth. I was going to talk about how in Genesis god creates light on the first day but doesn’t create the sources of the lights until a few days later. I was also going to talk about how the authors of the bible thought that the moon was a source of light rather than just a reflector for the sun. Then I was going to talk about how you won’t hear creationists screaming that we should “teach the controversy” about the discrepancies between what the bible says and how things really work unless it’s about the theory of evolution. But it’s nice out and I’m getting bored. So go rent a hotel room and read it for yourself.

Something something, damn dirty ape.

Something something cold dead hands.

Amen

I was gonna write about the Tower of Babel today but I’m really busy and it’s nice outside and I have to take a dump. So I give you this quick lesson instead :

Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.
Leviticus 19:28

You might think that I’m going to use this to rail against people who get religious tattoos. No so. I’m thinking that maybe ol’ Jeebus and his dad and their pet ghost had it right. I give you video evidence to bolster my claim :