Creationism: And the fear of Libel

I wonder how many blogs start with a small introduction and then have nothing afterwards?

Well, good news (for those who care)! I have been busy with a post for the blog. It turned into a 2000 word essay about a creationist talk I attended. It was a glorious piece on the foolishness of the individual who was giving the talk after they reviled them self to be a truly horrible individual.

Bad news, there is the tiniest possibility that it counts a defamation under UK law. So I'm going to be sitting on it until I have had the chance to look a little more into that. Might seem silly but after doing a Google check on this bundle of fun I'm pretty sure the post would attract attention. Pity really; it was the best work I had done in years.

That leaves me with a particularly empty blog.

So here is the article I wrote, changed to be, if not family friendly, at least lawyer friendly.

Top Ten Lies for Toddlers

I wrote this piece last week; but after reading it through I remembered libel was a thing and here in the UK we have really shitty libel laws. But rather than tone down the article I decided just to change a few names. Anything in red is a replacement.

Creationism or Evolution. Many a potential friendship have been shattered by these two theories being brought together, and yesterday, when I was being glared at by about fifty people for speaking up at a lecture; I could feel myself loosing possibly dozens of Christmas cards as I spoke. That thought alone made it all worth while.

I attended a talk at The Moon entitled Captain Birdseye's Top Ten Lies for Toddlers. Because my life is that exciting, and I apparently like to court a flame war on my fledgling blog.

A rather roomy venue for a talk, good acoustics though.

Me and my friend Leigh decided to go; partly to have a giggle at views that aren't our own but also to hear the other side of the Evolution Vs Creationism debate that you don't normally get to hear. Unless it's shouted at you from a crazy woman with home made placards strapped to her, screaming at children that they're going to hell for reading Harry Potter. (True story. She camped out side my High school for years trying to preach to anyone that would listen).

The talk was being given by the aforementioned Captain Birdseye, a Fisherman author & speaker on creationism. He is on a world tour lecturing from town to town. This isn't strictly true however; what he's actually doing is running a one man dog and pony show on behalf of Cheese Fetishist Monthly, a creationist website that he is a Fishman for. To quote from his profile page:

   "I FOOKING LOVE FISH!!!!"

There were many books on sale too, most from Cheese Fetishist Monthly. In fact the majority of his answers from his Q&A boiled down to "Read this book, available in the foyer." As if he doesn't want to give away any spoilers.

It's sequel: 'Cain & Abel - The Smallville Years' is also a good read.

When I asked him how he was paying for his world tour he claimed it was donations from the church group who invited him. However, from the amount Cheese Fetishist Monthly were advertised you'd be forgiven for assuming he was getting paid commission on each sale and special points which he can spend when he goes to heaven.

We were encouraged to subscribe to their magazine twice, with anecdotes about how buying a multi-pack will convert the rest of your family. While selling the book he said: "Though they [the writers] are laymen they make sure they can't be shot down by people who know what they're talking about." At least he's honest.

There were about a hundred people dotted around the large hall but a distinct split was obvious. The front half of the audience looked as if they're about to cry with glee, openly praying that our man Birdseye can continue speaking his slow, half formed sentences one after another (it must have worked, he didn't stop once). The back half of the audience looked furious and were busily scribbling notes, occasionally tutting but generally being more polite than the front half that would come over all aggressive if you did so much as mutter something.

Right now you would be quite right in wondering why the hell I am being such a dick to this man. I went to a free talk that no one dragged me along to (unless you count Leigh). Why am I being so horrible to a man who just wanted to share his opinion when he had been invited to speak by people who wanted to hear what he had to say?

I am not an atheist (agnostic for those of you who care) and am more than open to a spiritual element into a discussion on this subject. I do not have a grudge against any Christians nor any other religions. What I have a problem with are people who use their religion as an excuse for bigotry.  When dogma restricts basic human rights, it's a problem.

"God wants us to do this!" Yeah, sure he/she/it does...

 For the first hour of his talk I was gearing up to give a rather kindly depiction of Captain Birdseye. He was on stage happily giving his presentation.

Yeah, I didn't agree with anything he said, but, I expected that.

Yeah, his jokes were bland attacks on the straw-man atheist; but that too, I expected (and seriously they were piss weak).

Captain Birdseye seemed genial, pleasant and with his soft accent seemed quite charismatic. Genuinely enthused about his subject he appeared to have a love of teaching.

That is, until, the last ten minutes of his presentation and the Q&A afterwards. When he insinuated that homosexual marriage is wrong, a sign of a godless society and was equally as bad as suicide and the break down of society.

He does this with a slide, in which he has two groups, one depicting a society with God (Obviously it's a Christian god), and the other a society without god run by Humanist .

Life With God -or- Life Without God

Meaning of Life -or- Suicide / Abortion

Standards -or- Pornography

Marriage -or- Homosexual Marriage

Laws -or- Lawlessness

Creation -or- Evolution

God's Word -or- Mass Opinion

He was picked up on this during the Q&A in which he clarified he was against gay marriage, saw it just as bad a any form of pornography and suicide and concluded by saying:

"I believe marriage is between Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve." 

The worst part about this? The front half of the audience give him a fucking round of applause. Before then there had been just one lone clapper who would give long standing ovations to any sentence containing the word God. The moment he supports the denial of one groups right to have a ceremony to recognise their love just because they share the same genitals this cross section of The Moon just love him for it. Ironically most of those supporting this bilious claim appeared to be devoid of any love themselves.

The average expression of the audience. And that's when they were happy.

Should we be surprised? No. This is the same man who illustrated that evolution doesn't work because a vase of flowers don't magically appear in front of you. Proving that he stubbornly refuses to even open a book on evolution (that wasn't written by someone who he already agreed with).

I'm not going to get into the nuts and bolts of his 'scientific' arguments. They're frankly too dumb to repeat and he didn't seem to understand them himself. The amount of times he repeated "I'm just the messenger, smarter people than me wrote this" or "I don't really know anything" makes me wonder if this isn't some plea for help or an elaborate prank. He also tells the story of how he heard a voice in his head one day while reading the bible telling him its all literal. Well, he says it was God, for all we know it could have been Wonder Dog.

To be fair, I'd take orders from Wonder Dog.

The arguments were not arguments at all though but passages from the bible laboriously read out, backed up with anecdotes about how a couple of scientists don't like evolution as a theory. Looking back at the evening, Birdseye's arguments are exactly like the Chewbacca defence from South Park. Repeat this video for an hour and you will get an understanding of what we went through.

If your interested you can find his lectures and articles quite easily. Go have a chuckle. His conclusion boils down to the biblical flood caused the dinosaurs to become extinct. And that before the flood dinosaurs were remembered as Dragons and other mythical beasties. A gross simplification? Yes, but Birdseye got to deal them out for two hours, why can't I? I'm not here to address the debate at large, just point out how stupid Birdseye's talk was.

I am happy to announce however that he also said some hilarious stuff during the Q&A and confirmed to those of us using logic rather than belief that he was an unpleasant nutter. By this point the room and turned into a reality TV show that could be broadcast on BBC4. One half of the room arguing with the other half. All while Birdseye gave snide remarks and played the audience against one another rather than giving anything approaching an answer. Whenever he was asked a question directly he spent a few minutes going through his various slide shows (often of a book the person could buy) like he was loading his answers from God.

I'm pretty sure I heard a floppy disc drive loading from Birdseye between every question.

All of which culminated in the revelation that before all of creation were collectively kicked out of Eden every living thing was a vegetarian. Even wolves, cats, bats - not ants though, because they're not sentient and that means they don't have souls... or something. To be honest it was hard to pay attention, what with the localised arguments being waged by the members of the audience who had taken it upon themselves to go to each voice of dissident that had spoken up against Birdseye and tried to talk them out of such silly notions such as wanting proof or a reasoned debate..

Anyone who disagreed with Birdseye (myself and Leigh included) were often fobbed off with something completely unrelated to what we asked about and then swiftly ignored in favour of someone who would support him. This man missed his calling to be a politician. When his supporters distracted opposing voice in the room he would make out they weren't interested any more and move on. A classic debating technique known as being a arsehole.

 Two members of the crowd stand out in my mind from the night.

One was a French woman, suited like many others attending. She stood up and explained happily how she agreed with what he was doing and how she had been an fan for years. When she questioned his view that it was the flood wiped out the dinosaurs (she believed it happened earlier) Birdseye proceeded to ridicule and demean her. Not letting her getting a say and going so far as to question the woman's own faith. This went on for well over five minuets, compared to the average response of about a minute whether the person speaking was for or against his views. I could understand one of us gatecrashers getting a dressing down but someone who was an ardent supporter being given such harsh treatment in front of her peers; the worst he dealt out that evening by far, is heartbreaking.

The other person was a younger woman with dreads and understated hippy clothing, she stood out from the uniform suits and sour expressions beautifully. Whenever it was someone's turn to stand up and fight the loosing battle against the unmovable Birdseye she would turn around and give the brave opponent the biggest, most cheerful smile. Trying to will us to keep going on and remind us that we were not alone in this argument. That it was the minority who thought gay marriage, suicide and the collapse of society were linked and you had her full support. I would dearly love to meet her again and thank her. In a sea of bitter scowls and frantic infighting this women was a beacon of Bunnies and Kittens.

No one can get angry when your playing with Kittens or Bunnies. There should be mandatory Kitten playtime for the houses of parliament.

It was an exciting evening even with all it's negativity, once the adrenalin wore off all we could do was laugh. Captain Birdseye is nothing more than a sophist; Not actually invested in intellectual debate or any logical process but only there to convert others to his way of thinking and show up those who disagree with him. For someone who proudly plastered letters and titles before and after his name there was a strong air of anti-intellectualism. He referred to Schools and Universities as an enemy that much be combated. Talking about his love of 'actual science' without specifying what actual science was and constantly attributing human emotions and motives (mostly sinister) to natural processes such as mutations and evolution.

String theory: Famous for its bouts of melancholy and love of Wotsits.

It speaks of a genuine fear of being proven wrong. A fear of loosing a crutch in life. He has put so much into his faith that if you were to take that away he would have nothing. I don't hate him. My problem is when he uses his beliefs to belittle others. My problem is that he's more interested in point's scoring and making money than the intellectual debate. Yes, we went to the talk because we thought it would be on some level, entertaining, but we genuinely wanted to hear the other side and hoped he would put across some interesting points. Not just a show for the true believers to nod along to.

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On a side note, this sort of topic is not going to be the norm (though that's not to say I won't write more serious posts in the future). Just so happens that this is the first thing I've decided to write about.