FYI: This is one of the essays that I wrote before PZ Myers – The Desecration Delusion but in typical dyslexic (and procrastinative) form am posting now – after the fact, and after the act.
Recently PZ Myers paid Christianity a tremendous compliment. He paid Christianity a compliment by ripping a page out of a Bible.
He describes the occasion thusly (the post refers to PZ Myers in the third person but it was “Posted_by PZ Myers“):
“The introductory schtick to my talk at the Seattle Skeptics meeting last night was to take a Bible and read a bit of Genesis, making the point that it was vague, wrong, and useless (I also ripped out the page and waved the pathetic thing around a bit, which had several people asking if they could have the bible defaced by PZ Myers afterwards). Then, of course, I summarized some small bits of the story of eye evolution to demonstrate that science has a much deeper and more powerful origins story than that little scrap of piss-poor poetry that half this country wants to make the backbone of our science curriculum…if a god had chosen to tell primitive people how the universe came to be, he/she/it could have done so in just as awe-inspiring a way as the false myths we’ve got.”
I am at a loss to understand what the point was, except to say that he was clearly appealing to the emotional (and intellectual?) maturity of his audience who could not wait to have their hero deface the bible further. This certainly gives us a window into the preaching to the children’s choir that goes on at the Seattle Skeptics meeting. One could only hope that some, many, or most of the Skeptics were embarrassed by such anti-intellectual tomfoolery.
As I pointed out in an essay about Prof. Richard Dawkins (here) the Bible states that the universe had a beginning, that it consists of time, space, and matter, that it expands, that the earth hangs on nothing, that it is circular, that the Pleiadian star system is bound together by mutual gravitational attraction, that the Orion system has a belt, to name a few facts (Genesis 1:1; Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22; 42:5; 42:44; 45:12; 51:13; Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15; Zechariah 12:1; Job 26:7; Isaiah 40:22; Job 38:31; Job 38:31).
At any rate, besides expressing his personal prejudice, who knows what Prof. PZ Myers’ topic was. Apparently, for his purposes, the purpose of mixing science and atheism, Genesis was vague, wrong, and useless. But what is it with the tough guy, let us say, ripping a page out of the Bible? PZ Myers paid Christianity a compliment by proving that he is safe and sound besmirching the Bible in a majority Christian country whose government is premised on Christian principles. He knows that the overwhelming majority, by orders of magnitude, of Christians, and Jews, who hear about his childishness will just shake their heads and maybe even pray for him. The authorities are on his side: no, beatings, no jail time, no executions as would surely occur if he were a real tough guy and went, for instance, to Afghanistan and tore a page out of the Qur’an. In fact, I would bet that he would not even have the guts to do that in the safety of America even amongst his immature admirers.
PZ Myers appears to make the same mistake as many skeptics do, he faults the Bible for not stating more about his particular field of interest. Scientists put the Bible down for not stating more about science. Historians put the Bible down for not stating more about history. Archaeologists put the Bible down for not stating more about where we may uncover artifacts, etc., etc., etc. Yet, the Bible’s message is not about science, history, archaeology nor about anything else that we may be specifically interested in. Its message is about the human condition, sin and salvation. What it does state about, for instance, science is not only accurate but has served as the foundations of the very same modern fields and methods of science that PZ Myers et al use as a facade for pushing atheism (see my essay Protecting the Science Classroom).
And so, in America he can deface a Bible, keep on expressing his prejudice at will, and still make a nice living by passing off atheistic-activism as if it were science.