Conservapedia Update

Turns out my link in the earlier post was a dud. Oops! I just fixed it.

I still had to wait ten fucking minutes to access the site-- either they're really popular or their server is shite. But in any event, I was there.

Here's the full text of the encyclopedia's mission statement:

A conservative encyclopedia you can trust.

Conservapedia has over 3,800 educational, clean and concise entries on historical, scientific, legal, and economic topics, as well as more than 350 lectures and term lists. There have been over 633,000 page views and over 15,700 page edits. Already Conservapedia has become one of the largest user-controlled free encyclopedias on the internet. This site is growing rapidly.

Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian "C.E." instead of "A.D.", which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance. Read a list of many Examples of Bias in Wikipedia.

Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America. Conservapedia has easy-to-use indexes to facilitate review of topics. You will much prefer using Conservapedia compared to Wikipedia if you want concise answers free of "political correctness".

Contributions that comply with simple commandments are respected (and improved) to the maximum extent possible. Please improve this website as you use it, and please cite your sources. With your help, Conservapedia will continue to be an online encyclopedia you can trust. This is also a meeting place, and appropriate questions may be posted at Ask questions.

On the same page, you'll find a "Today in History" section. Religious-righters, though, don't tend to value accurate historical knowledge very much (for instance, many Christian fundie-rightists are trying to claim that America was founded as a "Christian Nation" and that all the Founders were fundies like them. In fact, they were largely Deists. . . but anyway). This might explain some of the historical milestones the excyclopedia lists, such as

February 2

Did you know that faith is a uniquely Christian concept? Add to the explanation of what it means, and how it does not exist on other religions.

Not only is that statement completely idiotic, but even by the most liberal (pun intended) definiton, this is not even a historical event!!

Sigh.

The mission statement claims that Con'pedia is "growing rapidly." To see it this was true, I randomly looked up a few topics. Here's what I turned up:

Japan

Group of islands of the western coast of Asia.

Yup, that's the whole article. And yup, he said western, not eastern, coast of Asia.

Judaism

Judaism is the world's oldest monotheistic religion, founded by Abraham around 1800 BC. Most modern day adherents to Judaism (known as Jews) live primarily in the United States, Russia, and Israel.

Their article on Islam is larger, but also kinda schizoid. The first part seems to be quite complimentary to the faith, praising its "simplicity", and could very well have been written by a Muslim:

Islam is a religion of Abraham that has grown to be the second largest religion with over 1.4 billion followers. . .Muslims practice complete monotheism, worshiping Allah and believing Muhammad to be his last and greatest prophet. They live by the Koran, the pure and holy word of Allah that must be treated with the utmost respect. Muslims wash their hands before reading the book, which is considered complete and perfect only in the original Arabic, and burn old copies instead of throwing them away. Muslims follow the five pillars of Islam, which are straightforward and easy to understand. The belief in one god is clear, and encourages familiarity. . . Giving to the poor keeps them from becoming greedy or putting too much stake in worldly possessions. A month of fasting brings them closer to Allah. A pilgrimage to Mecca shows respect for the prophet Muhammad and his journey. Intoxication, gambling, stealing, adultery, and false accusations of adultery along with other offenses, are forbidden and highly punishable. Because Islam is an uncomplicated religion to live by, it is sure to continue in its popularity around the world.

The very next section of the article abruptly switches gears, arguing that Islam is nothing more than polytheistic crap:

Although most Muslims profess belief in a single, almighty God, a substantial minority of accredited Western scholars believe that the Muslim belief system can be traced back to distinctly polytheistic antecedents. Some, for example, have attempted to to link Allah to a moon deity. [1] Others have pointed to the pagan roots of various Muslim prohibitions, such as the ban on pork originating in the 3rd-century AD Damascene cult of the pig-god Jamal. [2] There is some evidence that traditional Muslim scholars have been suppressing this information as well as various recently-recovered scrolls that hint at early Muslim human sacrifice (e.g., at Uhud).

Strangely enough, the article on Christianity is as brief as that on Judaism:

Christianity is a religion that follows the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, as described in the books of the New Testament. It is the world's most popular religion, with over two billion members.

The atheism atricle is actually very pro-atheist, and I suspect that it must have been written by a disgruntled ScienceBlogs reader and not a member of Con'pedia's target readership. You can read it for yourself; I'm moving on.

Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter was the 39th President of the United States. He was a democrat who served from 1977-1981, after being the governor of Georgia. Unfortunately, his method of leading was not compatible with Congress, as a result he couldn’t get things done. During his presidency he experienced many trying problems such as inflation, energy crisis and worst of all the taking of American citizens as hostages by Iran. In 2002 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace.

Ronald Reagan

. . .Considered by many to be the greatest American President, Ronald Reagan's greatest accomplishments include leading America peacefully through the Cold War, lowering taxes, promoting a free economy, and staunchly opposing socialism and communism, and ending the Cold War in victory for the United States. . .

Yup. . . Reagan led us through the whole Cold War, he did.

Global Warming

Global warming is a phrase which commonly refers to a scientific theory and to political proposals that follow if the theory is accepted. The scientific theory is widely but not universally accepted within the scientific community. Conservatives who are opposed to the political proposals that flow from acceptance of the theory, are properly skeptical of the motivations of the theorists, and challenge the scientific validity of portions of the theory. . . The theory is widely accepted within the scientific community despite a lack of any conclusive evidence, though that is not to say there is no evidence at all. . . It should be noted that these scientists are motivated by a need for grant money in their field of climatology. Therefore, their work can not be considered unbiased, though no more than any scientist in any other field . Also, these scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him.

I was gonna look up more stuff, but me and my family are about to head out for Naomi's birthday dinner. I'll post more on a future blog.

Hello Niggaz!

Black stereotypes. . . Japanese style:

This was actually an American short film made around 2000, claiming to be the pilot for a Japanese sitcom. It was intended as a satire of Japanese America-phelia. Now if only Japanese film-makers did the same for American Japophilia. . .

Happy New Year, Naomi

Hey Nay, remember that birthday rap I sang to you when you when you turned like five or six? Well. . .

You see? You see? That's how far ahead of the curve I am! And I did invent dipping fries in ketchup, dammit!

Anyway, happy birthday, Nay. You have become a man. And to celebrate your becoming legal drinking age, I've posted one last video for you to watch while getting drunk off your ass for the "first" time. Enjoy!

Oh. . . that brings back memories.

Conservatives and their 'pedias

Are you a conservative?
Are you tired of the blatant liberal bias of encyclopedia websites like Wikipedia?
Well, then maybe its time you tried. . . Conservapedia!

Did you try it? Could you get through? No? Same here.

A little backstory might be good about now. For the past couple of weeks, pretty much every member of the Scienceblogs community has been writing about a new conservative website called "Conservapedia." The site was first revealed by Ed Brayton (who is, for my money, the best blogger on the web):

A long time reader emailed me a link to Conservapedia, a conservative version of Wikipedia that promises over 3200 "educational, clean and concise entries" on a variety of topics, all designed to counter their perception that Wikipedia is "increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American."

Another ScienceBlogger, P.Z. Myers, has a nice list of the many fiendish liberal biases that permeate Wikipedia, according to Con'pedia:

The use of "BCE" and "CE" instead of BC and AD in dates.

Wikipedia has lots of articles about trivia, like music and movies.

Some articles use the British spellings for words.

They just want more credit given to Jesus for everything.

The whole worldwide community of English speakers edits Wikipedia; they're going to emphasize American (by which they mean not liberal) opinions.

Too many Wikipedia entries are "gossipy" or sound like something from the National Enquirer.

For those wondering about that last one, Ed Brayton provides a direct quote from the site:

Gossip is pervasive on Wikipedia. Many entries read like the National Enquirer. For example, Wikipedia's entry on Nina Totenberg states, "She married H. David Reines, a trauma physician, in 2000. On their honeymoon, he treated her for severe injuries after she was hit by a boat propeller while swimming." That sounds just like the National Enquirer, and reflects a bias towards gossip. Conservapedia avoids gossip and vulgarity, just as a true encyclopedia does.

The site, as reported by too many ScienceBloggers to list by name, was founded by creationist Andrew Schafly. As one would expect, the site has become a soapbox for antiscientific nonsense. From John Lynch:

The following is the complete entry on Darwin:

Charles Darwin was born in England to a Christian family on February 12, 1809. He is the founder of Evolution. After spending some time on the Galapagos Islands and studying the animals that lived there, he came up with his theory of "natural selection" and published The Origin of Species in 1859.

That's the enitre article on Charles Darwin, the whole fucking thing. Their treatment of evolution isn't much better. Here's a driect quote from the site, again provided by Mr. Lynch:

The Theory of Evolution, introduced by Charles Darwin in his book On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, published in 1859, is a scientific theory that explains the process of evolution via natural selection. The basic principle behind natural selection, states that in the struggle for life, some organisms in a given population will be better suited to their particular environment and thus have a reproductive advantage, increasing the representation of their particular traits over time. Evolution has been largely discredited, though it is still taught in schools due to activist judges.

But the process of natural selection is not an evolutionary process. The DNA in plants and animals allows selective breeding to achieve desired results. Dogs are a good example of selective breeding. The DNA in all dogs has many regressive traits. A desired trait can be produced in dogs by selecting dogs with a particular trait to produce offspring with that trait. This specialized selective breeding can continue for generation after generation until a breed of dog is developed. This is the same as the "survival of the fittest" theory of the evolutionists. Many different types of dogs can be developed this way, but they can never develop a cat by selectively breeding dogs--that would be macroevolution. Natural selection can never extend outside of the DNA limit. DNA cannot be changed into a new species by natural selection. ....

Supporters propound upon the Theory of Evolution as if it has scientific support, which it does not. They switch tactics when pressed against the wall with solid scientific proofs against the Theory of Evolution by stating that evolution is "only" a theory. Using this flip-flop approach they try to have it both ways. They claim scientific support when none exists, and they claim it is only a theory when the theory straddles them with outlandish, impossible conclusion that violate scientific truths. Evolutionists simply ignore reality, slink into denial and walk away when presented with the scientific facts.

Speaking of activist judges, here's Mr. Brayton's reproduction of Con'pedia's article on "Judicial Activism:"

There are two major types of judicial activism practiced in the United States' court system:
1. Liberal judges striking down laws that uphold core conservative American values
2. Liberal judges refusing to strike down laws that subvert core conservative American values

The most famous example of this is Roe v. Wade

As a physicist-in-training, I was really pissed off by their entry on the theory of relatvity (courtesy of Chad Orzel):

Unlike most advances in physics, the theory of relativity was proposed based on mathematical theory rather than observation. The theory rests on two postulates that are difficult to test, and then derives mathematically what the physical consequences should be. Those two postulates are that the speed of light never changes, and that all laws of physics are the same in every (inertial) frame of reference no matter where it is or how fast it is traveling. This theory rejects Isaac Newton's God-given theory of gravitation and replaces it with a concept that there is a continuum of space and time, and that large masses (like the sun) bend space in a manner similar to how a finger can depress an area of a balloon. From this proposed bending of space the expression arose that "space is curved." But experiments later proved that space is flat overall.

I had long, beautiful hair once. . . then I read this, and ripped it all out.

Now you may be wondering, "Why doesn't Jeremy just quote from the site itself? Why is he ripping off the hard work of real blogger?" And thus, we return to the beginning. . .

If you tried the Con'pedia link at the top of the page, chances are that you, like me, sat for five fucking minutes waiting for the site to pop up, only to get a "This page cannot be displayed" message. According to Mr. Brayton, Con'pedia is blocking IP addresses. Apparently, a few people got together and decided that, well, Con'pedia is a self-parodying website anyway, why not make parody entries for the site? At least that's what they say: it actually looks like their trying to block their critics. I'm sure this is the case, seeing that even though I did not vandalize the site, or even attempt to visit it until today, I've been blocked, likely for visiting the highly critical ScienceBlog websites.

And as a result, I have, once again, completely missed the boat.

If anyone does does get through, be sure to comment on what horrors you have witnessed.

I'll See You in Hell!

Has anyone heard of the Blasphemy Challenge? Check out the video:

Here's more from the so-called "Rational Response Squad's" website:

You may damn yourself to Hell however you would like, but somewhere in your video you must say this phrase: "I deny the Holy Spirit."

Why? Because, according to Mark 3:29 in the Holy Bible, "Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin." Jesus will forgive you for just about anything, but he won't forgive you for denying the existence of the Holy Spirit. Ever. This is a one-way road you're taking here.

And as it's gameshowy title implies, there's even a prize:

. . . record a short message damning yourself to Hell. . . upload it to YouTube, and then the Rational Response Squad will send you a free The God Who Wasn't There DVD. It's that easy.

A couple of caveats. First off, why must one use the exact words "I deny the Holy Spirit" in order to win? Why not simply say "I am an atheist?" which implies the statement "I deny the Holy Spirit"? By the logic of this "Rational Response Squad," if I were a Jew or Muslim or even a Unitarian, I could simply (and truthfully) claim that "I deny the Holy Sprit" and snatch one of those spiffy DVDs from the clutches of those evil atheists.

Second. . . I don't know about you, but I severely doubt the rationality of a group whose name seems more befitting of a legion of superheroes (albeit very rational and responsive superheroes). Normally, I'd write it off as a joke, but based on the posted video, I don't think these guys are trying to be funny.

In fact. . . I just plain don't like these people. Not only do they seem to be witlessly smug, but they also take what could, at best, be seen as a mildly satrical jab way too seriously:

"Initially we wanted to find a way to allow atheists to come out of the closet, speak up and show other people that there are people that think like this," Brian says.

"We wanted to do it in such a way where we stripped the power from religious institutions that instill fear in people," says Brian. "And we did that by blaspheming the Holy Spirit, by showing that we are not scared of this unforgiveable sin."

Yeah. . . those religious institutions are shakin' in their boots.

"Oh no!" says Religious Institution #1. "It's. . . The Rational Response Squad!"

"Look out!" says Religious Institution #2. "They're. . . sending themselves to hell."

"Um. . . oh no?"

Still, regardless (or perhaps because) of the silliness of this whole project, I would like to submit my own text-based, non-denying blasphemy (after all blasphemy is blasphemy regardless of its distribution medium. . . that and I don't photograph well). Here it goes:

Dear Holy Ghost,

You dumb fuck.

-- Jeremy K.

I'll see you in hell.

Is this why he called the second Terminator "Judgement Day?"

He did say he was "King of the World," and now he's gonna prove it. . . or at the very least, get rid of his biggest competitor:

In a new documentary, Producer [James]Cameron and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, make the starting claim that Jesus wasn't resurrected --the cornerstone of Christian faith-- and that his burial cave was discovered near Jerusalem. And, get this, Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdelene.

No, it's not a re-make of "The Da Vinci Codes'. It's supposed to be true.

Here's the link.

I, too, think this shit played out with The DaVinci Code, and even when the novel was at the height of it popularity, this all seemed to me like nothing more than a faddish bout of pretend atheism. This irritates, since I am an atheist, and as such continue to wonder why people are still shocked when someone starts questioning official biblical history, especially considering that modern religious skepticism arguably began with Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus back in 1670.

I can't help but picture good little Christians picking up a copy of DaVinci at Coles, palms sweaty, heart pounding, hands shaking, thinking to themselves "I'm so dirty!"

But I digress. . .

It's a funny combination, with pretty strong comedy potential-- hell, I've already made two puns in the past five minutes. It doesn't look like anyone has taken advantage of the parody potential yet, so for now I'll just post this remarkably prescient Mad TV sketch:

Yes, Nay, it's a video. And yes, Nay, the Terminator sounds like Kermit the Frog. At least I can spell. Prick.

An interesting comment

Got an interesting comment from Naomi on my last post:

This is a blog, not a 'lets post videos we find mildly entertaining" log.


FUCK YOU FOR BEING A SPELL CHECK JEREMY. THATS RIGHT. PRICK.

Naomi, all I have to say to that is. . . It's Spellchecker, Nay. Spellchecker.

You're welcome.

How Superman should have ended

It truly is.