Religious Crackpot Of The Month: June 2007

See, I really didn’t intend for Religious Crackpot Of The Month to be a regular thing. I thought, I’ll just do it once, and call it “of the month” anyway. But then, the new month rolls over, and almost immediately a perfect Crackpot sends a long and brilliantly angry email to Pharyngula, one of my new favourite blogs. I’m not going to go through and address each claim individually, as that would just be tragic, but let me just show you one or two of the best bits. You should read the rest yourself, because it’s more or less solid insane gold from start to finish.

I mean, a lot of it is just gibberish. Have a look at this, for example. I’ve found that if I turn my mind on its side and think in just the right way (and not to hard) then I can get this to sound like semi-reasonable logic (try it; it soon passes):

16. DNA of humans differ/vary by about 10-12% from each other. 50% of human DNA is identical to the DNA of a banana. Humans and apes have no common ancestor.

You have to get yourself into a frame of mind where individual words and what a sentence sounds like are more important than the actual concepts being discussed, and then you have to repeat the phrase “if human DNA is so similar to a banana’s, we shouldn’t be surprised if it’s similar to an ape’s” over and over until it sounds like it makes sense. And this is just ingenious:

18. There is no real vestigial/useless organ. There is no junk DNA. Note: Males' nipples "arouse" women.

It particularly entertained me when I read this:

29. Atheism or evolution does not provide a solid foundation for morality. If there is no God, there is no good nor evil.

Because, yeah, it’s true. But then, the Bible doesn’t tell me what football team to support, so I guess that’s not true either. But this is my favourite one of his arguments, by some way:

11. The Earth is not millions of years old. Notes: Magnetic field decay; Archaeology; History, other "Time limiters." Ancient people were as smart as modern men. Evolutionists have no excuse. DNA cannot exist in natural environments longer than 10,000 years; yet, DNA have been FOUND in Neanderthal bones, insects in amber, Dinosaur fossils, etc. A dinosaur fossil was discovered still having soft tissue and blood cells.

DNA in amber? This Crackpot thinks Jurrasic Park is a documentary!

Well, okay, so fragments of DNA have been found in amber. Fragments. Small little strings of genes which scientists aren’t at all sure are preserved ‘as-was’. That’s hardly at odds with the fact that DNA decays over time, is it?

26. Evolution is science fiction (a myth). It is similar to the story of the Centaurs (horse-men) and Mermaids (fish-women). I don't believe in Centaurs and Mermaids.

No, but you do believe in Jurrasic Park. It’s not fair. I want to get emails like this. Maybe I should write one of those suddenly fashionable atheist books.

Lastly, I leave you with one of the postscripts from the above email:

Notes for Jews: Your Messiah (Saviour) has arrived over 2,000 years ago: He is the Son of God who became a man (while still being God), suffered and died on the cross, and lived again from the dead; was prophesied in Isaiah 53, and in the book of Daniel.