I don’t know what’s set me off but I’ve just about had it with being nice.
First, creationists are fucking liars. They lie. All they do is lie. I refuse to even give their “belief”, a belief that the world was created in 7 (8, for Muslims) days (either less than 10,000 years ago or millions of years ago, depending on the Creationist), even a modicum of respect. No, I will not respect such a belief because of the story I’m about to tell.
The Geological Society of America, like most scientific organizations, has an annual conference. This conference also includes field trips. This year, they visited Denver, and a field trip was offered to Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs. I don’t need to tell you that said city (Colorado’s meth capital I hear) doubles as the American Christian Fundamentalist equivalent to Jerusalem (a title it shares with Waco, TX, also apparently a hotbed of meth, go figure), but that’s tangential to the story.
This field trip discussed many things, including the rocks, the strata, how the rocks got there, and how the mountains were built. What wasn’t known, by the field trip attendees, was that it was sponsored, and led, by two young earth creationists. They were of course, not acting in that capacity during the trip but when they returned to their lairs of stupid, they callously and cravenly did what this brand of Christian always does.
They lied.
They released a press release that stated that the scientists who attended their field trip agreed with them. They stated mainstream science agrees with their conclusion: that all of the earth’s geography and geology is the result of one singular world-girding, yearlong flood, as depicted in the myth of Noah, because the world is only 6,000 years old.
They fucking lied.
In another exchange, one geologist challenged another during his talk on ammonites. Just read:
Millions of years” was a phrase that also appeared in Ross’ talk on Late Cretaceous marine stratigraphy; many of his slides used normal geologic time, with millions of years clearly labeled on axes. Nothing in his 15-minute talk hinted at nonstandard geologic thinking. Because most of the audience probably did not know Ross’ background, it must have been puzzling to them when the first question following Ross’ talk challenged him on how he could “harmonize this work with [his] belief in a 6,000-year-old Earth.” (This question came from University of Florida geology professor Joe Meert, who blogged about the exchange.)
Ross answered the question by saying that for a scientific meeting such as GSA, he thought in a “framework” of standard science; but for a creationist audience, he said, he used a creationist framework. Judging from the reaction of the audience, this answer caused more confusion than enlightenment. Ross pointed out that nothing in his presentation involved Young-Earth Creationism. But he then volunteered that he was indeed a Young-Earth Creationist.
Twofaced lying [censored]. That’s all these people are. And we’re supposed to respect them? I’d rather drink cyanide laced flavor-aid. I certainly am NOT an advocate for banning them from conferences, but I don’t think they should get away with these lies carte blanche, especially since everything that comes out of their mouth is pretty much a lie. How can you tell a Christian evangelical [fundamentalist*] is lying? They’re awake, and breathing.
The other thing is now, they claim that we are bullying them. By we, I mean we in the LGBT caucus, but it can most definitely be expanded to anyone who isn’t their brand of Christian. During the holidays, they certainly squeal like they’re being fed to the lions because ZOMG atheists put up their own, secular billboards, or don’t say Merry Christmas. This happened to me once, the year I worked retail, and it took every bit of willpower I had not to tell the woman who screamed at me for saying Happy Holidays that I hoped she died painfully in a fire. I would have been fired on the spot. Instead I just said “that’s nice.” This made her angrier but by that time my manager had hustled her out of the store. Not sure I’d have the same will today. But thankfully, I don’t work retail.
But yeah, we gays are just terrible bullies with our intemperate language like “bigot” because you see we’re to respect and tolerate “Bible-believing” Christians in their belief that gay people are the spawn of Satan and everything that’s sick and wrong with the world. That’s what gay conservative outlets like Gay Patriot and GOProud say. We have to be nice. (Both, btw, have hardons for Herman Cain, who pretty explicitly hates gay people. Go figure. I think they’re kapos, myself).
We’re such bullies that they want anti-bullying measures suspended. And those gay kids who have killed themselves? They deserved it. Yes, this is what THEY say. But we gays are the bullies.
Or the men who beat Matthew Sheppard to within an inch of his life, then tied him to a fence, and left him to die in the cold. He did. He suffered. But they got to use a gay panic defense. They’re the victims. What?
Or NOM, the National Organization for Marriage, who squeals and whines about “activists” being “mean”, but uses the most bigoted language possible to lie and scare voters. And they’re so goddamn smug about it.
It’s the smug lying that they do, that is the most frustrating. I refuse to be nice about it anymore. While we worry about hurting potential allies amongst them, they are making the world stupider, and actually leading people to their deaths (either through suicide, or outright murder). And they’re lying about it every step of the way, hiding behind a religion that if I recall my failed indoctrination in, explicitly forbids such behavior. Lie lie lie. Lie lie lie. All they do is lie and I’m fucking sick of it, and fucking sick that they don’t get challenged long and hard on their lies, all the time, every day, all day.
Why do they lie? I mean lie for everything every day and all day? Everything they say is a lie! So why? I'm honestly asking, because they lie to us, and they lie to their fan club.
*edited for clarity
*edited because while I'm very much anti-religion, this is targeting a very specific group. Apologies to blue ardvaark
