Entry #071: Gary Chism

Another one of those; Gary Chism is an insurance salesman who works tirelessly to promote creationism in the state of Mississippi. He is also a State Representative - guess which party. Notable for wanting to put a disclaimer on all school textbooks touching on the topic of evolution to point out that evolution is just a theory. The debacle is reported on here, here, and here.

Chism claims – of course – that creationism is just as scientifically respectable as evolution (and not just a religious dogma), as illustrated by the following brilliant argument by cases: "Either you believe in the Genesis story, or you believe that a fish walked on the ground".

Also famous for his campaign to cover up an anatomically correct statue of a stallion outside a strip club in rural Mississippi.

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Diagnosis: Scientifically illiterate moron, Taliban-style religious fundamentalist with absolutely no grasp of critical thinking, reason or sanity. Impact unknown, but he hasn’t had much success with his creationism bills (more so with the strippers).

Entry #070: Jack Chick

Among the more notable loons in our encyclopedia, this amiable fellow is a firmly entrenched acolyte of the abominable William Branham. Jack Chick is of course the guy behind Chick Publications. His tracts deal with various aspects of the Christian faith, including the principles of tolerance and love as well as the Catholics' satanist conspiracy to overthrow God's reign on earth (the Jesuits, in particular, created the Qu’ran, were responsible for the Holocaust, communism and the current conspiracy that controls American media). He doesn’t like evolution either. A representative example is here. The most popular tract is, apparently, this one. I also have a soft spot for this one.

Back in the day, Chick used to draw the tracts himself. Today, they’re mostly drawn by Fred Carter, who is considered covered for the purposes of this Encyclopedia.

Endless hours of indulgence and fascination can be spent rummaging through his backlog. Do visit it.

I am not going to go through in detail the omniprescent homoeroticism in the tracts. Check it out yourself. A longer biography of Chick can be found here. Chick's tract on global warming is discussed here.

The topics vary, but many of them are concerned with God-fearing murderers and rapists ending up in Paradise because they accept the Holy Spirit, whereas the good guys go to hell. Other common targets are rock music, witchcraft, Dungeons & Dragons, astrology, Ouija boards, Evolution, Jews, Muslims,Teenagers, Science (including gravity, which Chick apparently thinks is an atheist myth), the Easter Bunny, North Koreans, the Tooth Fairy, Santa (the message is a little muddled), the Washington Monument, Native Americans, Freemasons, the UN and Satanic books (Tolkien and C.S. Lewis) - among other things. This guy’s got a whole lot of hate and fear to share. There is a documentary available as well.

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Diagnosis: Possibly the most deranged loon in the Western hemisphere. His tracts are widely read, but probably not by the intended audience. Life would have been much duller without people like Jack Chick.

Entry #067: Bruce Chapman

I know you are tired of these tired, old YECs, but this series is supposed to something of a reference work, so we will cover them. Chapman is one of the most over-the-top lunatic anti-evolutionists (blithering idiots) at the Discovery Institute. In fact, Chapman is the president of the Discovery Institute, and seems to believe that this position confers on him the power to pass judgment on science in a manner slightly reminiscent on the infallibility conferred on the pope when he’s helped up on the pope-throne the first time.

This one, an attack on Expelled Exposed (a project committed to exposing the dishonesty and stupidity of the Expelled movie) is a good example of his idiocy. It must be read to be believed (no, I am not going to generate traffic to DI, so I’m linking to a level-headed discussion of the article in question). Like most ID’ers, Chapman knows virtually nothing about evolutionary biology, and even less about the scientific method (not understanding, for instance, that science is done by experiment and evidence, not arguments, and that truth is discovered through careful, controlled research, not through attempts to sway public opinion; the article discussed here is astoundingly ironic).

Has among other things, argued at length that the Pope himself is the true victim in the recent, well, scandals involving the Catholic Church, and has argued (“ranted delusionally” is more appropriate) at length that the health care reform is unconstitutional. Apparently, his talents range wide; here is some financial advice, and here is his discovery that the earth is cooling rather than warming - yes, global warming is a leftist conspiracy carried aloft by the promise of … an endless flow of grant money, apparently. All of it is written with the sharp wit and overwhelming flashes of genius we’ve come to expect from Chapman. And here is some plain old dishonesty and stupidity.



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Diagnosis: Blathering idiot whose misapprehensions of what science is and how it works are simply to deep to be reversible in a lifetime. Has some power, and must be considered dangerous, despite the clownish appearance with respect to intellect.

Entry #066: Joseph Chambers

”The children and youth of America are living in a crisis-type existence. The basic character traits of a healthy, Christian culture have been lost [...] It was not that many years ago when pre-marital sex was utterly taboo because of a simple respect for our sacred bodies.”

Thus begins Chambers’s essay ”Unclean Children Troubled By Evil Spirits”, which you can find here (and the depravity concerns mainly women – Chambers doesn’t seem to be very well-versed in modern views on gender equality). What is the reason for this downfall? Well, it’s the demons. Literally: Out to create a new Sodom and Gomorrah by possessing the children. The gateways are, according to Chambers, occult books such as Harry Potter, cartoons, ”Rock music and other aberrant forms of entertainment [that] are running rampant in Satanism.” (and of course ”Homosexuality and lesbianism is Satan’s ultimate slap in God’s face”).

So who is this guy? Joseph Chambers is the head of Paw Creek Ministries, is proud to describe himself as being a "classical Pentecostal preacher" and operates a two-hour radio program called "Open Bible Dialogue." The website for his ministry is here - a classic study in fire and brimstone, and lots of clever advice for dealing with the immanent end of times.

You can find a total of 78 essays of his here. Among the more appealing looking ones are ”#12 Tattoos & Body Mutilation”, ’#18 Hell is Rehearsing for Armageddon’, ’#29 Do Muslims Believe Obama is "Islamic Messiah?”’, ”#45 Warfare Praying”, ”#65. Signs in the Sun and Moon; 2010” and ”#71. Horrors of Hell! – but there are literally days of good reading material there.

Lots of attacks on other rapturists there (such as this), and even more on Catholics and Muslims (Islam is a blasphemous cult that will be utterly destroyed). See the essay titled ”Islamic radicals and God’s solution”, which sounds uncannily like something that could’ve been a joint-piece by Heydrich & Streicher anno 1942, although not with ”Islamic” in the title.

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Diagnosis: Clinically insane; his influence is probably limited, but Chambers should really be kept locked up and far away from people. This guy needs serious, professional help.

Entry #065: Paul Chaffey

 

Chaffey runs some ministry in Wisconsin (Midwest Apologetics), and teaches (his version of) science at Tri-State Christian School in Galena, Illinois. Chaffey is most notable, however, as a writer/administrator for Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis.

He has also co-authored "Old-Earth Creationism on Trial" with Jason Lisle (to be covered later), a young earth creationist book attacking not biology but - indeed - the "other" strand of creationism, old earth creationism. It is covered here.

For a sample of the level of acumen at work, notice first Chaffey & Lisle define "open-mindedness": "All ideas and theories should be subjected to rigorous self-examination, yet a similar self-critique is long overdue from the old-Earth creationists." (pp.14)

Then notice their main charge against Old Earth Creationism: "Since the Bible undisputedly teaches a young earth, when someone claims that scientific evidence proves otherwise, we can be certain they are mistaken." (pp.153)

They also argue that science presupposes the infallibility of the Bible, for without the Bible there would be no such thing as truth and verification (shades of Troy Brooks here). And on the annoying detail that radiometric dating kinda goes against the idea of a 6000 years old earth: "Additionally, God cursed the earth when Adam sinned (Gen 3:17-18). The Bible provides only a few details of how the world was changed, such as thorns and thistles. Can we be certain that radioactive decay rates were not affected?" And that's pretty much their argument (Ignoratio elenchi is an inference rule for these guys). And in fact, according to Chaffey, he doesn't need to bother with the problem of evil since "only biblical Christianity can make sense of evil and suffering. Every other worldview, philosophy, and belief system fall woefully short." The details are a little unclear.

From his bio page. The website for Midwest Apologetics is here. It's a marvel.


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Diagnosis: As kooky as they come. His influence might not be very wide-ranging, but he does spend a lot of effort ”teaching children biblical truth”.

Entry #062: Jack Cashill

Cashill is another one of Worldnetdaily’s columnists and resident conspiracy theorists. A brave journalist and author of several books (e.g. ”What is wrong with California”, a response to the famous ”What is wrong with Kansas”), never afraid to judiciously select which evidence he’ll focus on or for that matter lie through his teeth about. Cashill is reliably moving between the most ridiculous claims and examples of conspiracy mongering of the wingnuts on the far right. His coverage of the Richard Sternberg case is a telling example; this one also gives an excellent illustration of how the minds of creationist believers in the Grand Darwinian Conspiracy work. Cashill also famously reviewed Expelled, but I refuse to link to his review. It’s – predictably – hysterical, extremely sloppy, dishonest and incoherent; even the Kansas Board of Education has had to take Cashill to task for misrepresenting their views (in his ardently sympathetic defense of them). That says quite a lot. His staunch creationist credentials (and dishonesty) is documented here as well.

That he is a climate change denier is hardly a surprise. His linking of this to the ”Darwinist conspiracy” might contain some novelties; again, I refuse to link to the original. But of course this is expected (standard crank magnetism – all the creationist think tanks are also climate change deniers; it’s easy when you already believe that science is a liberal conspiracy).

But Cashill is actually most famous for series of essays concerning his theory that Barack Obama's autobiography ”Dreams From My Father” was ghostwritten by former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers. Again, I’m providing no links.

This is rather priceless. Cashill comes out of the closet as an ... anti-birther - apparently he found himself a conspiracy theory even more arbitrary and insane than the standard birther ones - one according to which Obama comes out as a covert American. Hah, even Joseph Farah himself has admitted that the garbled insanity of Cashill may have contained some misinformation after Cashill procured solid evidence of his birther claims by very incompetent photoshopping.

Cashill's newest conspiracy is here.

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Diagnosis: Utterly unhinged wingnut, delusional and angry and mentally crippled by confirmation bias. His impact is uncertain, but he is, in fact, a modestly popular writer.

Entry #060: Robert Carter

“Robert Carter” is a relatively common name, and indeed – behind “Robert Carter” we can find several worthy candidates for our encyclopedia. This guy is one nice example, but this Bob Carter (the rather famous namegiver to what is currently known as ”Cartergate” disqualifies himself by being British .

The intended Robert Carter is much less dangerous, unfortunately, but not quite toothless. He is head speaker/”scientist” for Creation Ministries International. Apparently he must be a great scientist, since Creationwiki (yes, such an entity exists) points out that ”in a [2007] debate with Rick Pierson that 590 people attended to Carter brought up a stumping question to Pierson that left him speechless, stopping him in mid sentence.” (the question isn’t quoted). His status as a serious scientist is surely bolstered by the fact that ”CMI-Canadian and Canadian churches are coming together to find a way to better equip citizens about the lies behind Darwin's theory. Robert Carter as one of the speakers are hoping to give Christians the knowledge and boldness to uphold scripture and use it for Christ's purpose.” I couldn’t find any peer-reviewed publications from him, however.

He specializes in preaching to congregations, however, and I think this calendar of events from the Minot Baptist Church tells you all you need to know. In particular, his talk "Dinosaurs and the Bible" – planned for all Home Schoolers, but ALL ARE WELCOME!, sounds rather ominous and can actually be argued potentially to cause more than a little harm (this seems appropriate here). He doesn’t really give much heed to facts, but neither does his audience – his honesty and integrity can probably be evaluated from this (sympathetic) report.

Oh, and according to his bio, Carter wasn’t always a creationist etc. His gang can be found here (note the welcome appearance of our old friend Gary Bates, the Christian ufologist, here as well).

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Diagnosis: Godbotter and pathological Liar for Jesus. Crazy fundamentalist whose extremism might conceivably move the Overton window with respect to some of the choirs he’s preaching to. I'll count him as moderately dangerous, even if his impact is limited.

Entry #057: Russell Carlson

 

Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology University of Georgia, signer of the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism. Member of DI research fellow William Dembski's The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID).

I don’t really have anything in particular on this guy. He testified at the Kansas evolution hearings and doubts evolution, predictably enough, for religious reasons. His main claim to deserving inclusion in the lexicon is as a representative of a relatively long row of fundamentalist religious scientists and compartmentalizers who are able to do science in one field but submerge themselves fully in confirmation bias with respects to others they know less about. In other words, he’s here because science and sanity are fed up with these kinds of destructive cranks.

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Diagnosis: Crackpot with non-negligible influence.

Entry #056: Barbara Cargill

Another stock conservative creationist, the (well-documented) threat posed by Barbara Cargill lies in the fact that she’s on the Texas Board of Education – another David Barton acolyte, and a Cynthia Dunbar sycophant, in other words. A fine example of the acumen represented by this group of clowns, with emphasis on Cargill, can be found here.

As expected, Cargill is a happy peruser of scientific articles she hasn’t read and wouldn’t understand if she did, twisting any new modification of any biological theory to support creationism – especially newspaper articles reporting (”reporting”) scientific findings. For example, the famous New Scientist article ”Darwin was wrong” (on the exact taxonomy of the Tree of Life, hardly surprising), was interpreted as a ”significant challenge” to the theory of Evolution.

She also decided, in her role as a Board of Education representative, that the age of the universe and whether it's expanding was up for a vote by the board members. As you would expect from the Texas Board of Education, the proposed amendment passed.

Here is a good resource on Cargill (and the rest of the reality-haters, denialists and anti-science fundies related to the Texas Board of Education). She's currently the chairman of the board - and continuing in exact same manner as before to continue the dismal history of the TBoE. Although her allies from the McLeroy years are generally off the Board, Cargill is still pushing her anti-science agenda, no more informed or rational than before.

As leader of the school board Cargill led the most recent creationist attempt to change the education standards. Instead of turning to people who actually know the relevant fields (since these won't generally support her creationist views), Cargill instead tried to a coupe of creationist dietitians and businessmen as experts on evolution and appointed them to the board reviewing the science education materials. Since expertise means "agreeing with her", of course.

Interestingly, and hearteningly, this time around even publishers of school textbooks were clear on their refusal to dumb down their biology textbooks to meet Texan anti-science standards.

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 Diagnosis: Utterly moronic, dishonest wingnut – and severely dangerous given her position (yes, to an unitiated being a member of the TBoE might sound unassuming – it isn’t).

Entry #055: Thomas A. Carder

While Christians Against Cartoons, who deemed "Dora the Explorer: Dance to the Rescue" to be potentially the most dangerous and blasphemous cartoon they had yet reviewed, is (probably) a spoof, corollaries of Poe’s Law guarantees that it’s going to be hard to tell. This one, for instance, is not.

Neither is Thomas A. Carder. The ChildCare Action Project is a real organization, and this website – despite the blinking lights and striking design – is dead serious. Officially it is an entertainment media analysis service devoted to reporting on the content of films to parents, grandparents, pastors, youth leaders and more that they might be in a better position to make an informed moral decision on their own whether a film is fit. Carder’s own biography is seriously disturbing as well. So is their Wikipedia page (who wants to bet this one wasn’t written by Carder himself?). Among the factors that make a movie be deemed unsuitable are ”mentioning evolution, using the word God, and slapstick violence” (not to mention such godlessness as the movie featuring scenes in bars and suchlike).

The CAP review of South Park is a good example (Carder emphasizes that children don’t like it, but feel pressured to pretend it’s fun in front of their parents). The one on Natural Born Killers is another representative entry (apparently Carder is as dutybound to view these analogously to how ”Paul didn't ignore the extremes in Corinth”).

The fact that the site needs disclaimers that denies any allegiance both to the Westboro Baptist Church of Fred Phelps and to the hilarious Landover Baptist Church should tell you all you need to know about what kind of project this is. The intensity of the project seems to have abated a little the last couple of years (fewer updates), but it’s still going pretty strong.

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Diagnosis: Completely unhinged, evil madman. Has actually gained some fame and probably some influence. His activities might easily distance potential sympathizers just as much as attract them, however.

Entry #051: John Angus Campbell

Campbell is a retired American Professor of Rhetoric and is a Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture (a branch of the Discovery Institute) and of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design, a professional society dedicated to – you guessed it – the promotion of intelligent design (yes, its the Dembski rubbish, discussed here, here, here and in general here).

Together with Stephen C. Meyer (who is also a Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture) he edited “Darwinism, Design and Public Education”, a collection of articles from the journal Rhetoric and Public Affair (not science; click here to download Barbara Forrest’s criticism).

Campbell is also on the school board in North Mason County, Washington. How he got there splendidly illustrates the tactics of contemporary creationists (as laid down in the Wedge document, for that matter). He ran as ”John Campbell”, and during his campaign did not disclose his links to intelligent design. In an interview he stated that he would not be dealing with curricula, and that he is a "Darwinist" who considers that debating Darwin can engage the interest of students and improve their skills in critical thinking. He was quoted as saying "Rather than demonizing people that believe in ID, I think there are ways people could use their ideas to study Darwinism more closely.” He was subsequently elected. The story is discussed here, and here.

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Diagnosis: Wormtongued weasel and crackpot. Dangerous.

Entry #050: Kirk Cameron

Formerly beloved former child star Kirk Cameron is currently a dysfunctional apologist for the ever moronic Ray Comfort (to be covered later). He claims to have been an atheist who later found Jesus (yes, that one again). Since “Growing Pains”, his most prominent roles have been in the “Left Behind” movies and “Fireproof”. So, yes – he is currently a religious fundamentalist touring with Ray Comfort, possibly the most ignorantly inane road show ever, prominently featuring Comfort’s banana argument and the crocoduck argument.

Vigorously opposed to evolution, and has – together with Comfort – designed a board game (here and here). His project to hand out copies of his and Comfort’s annotated version of “The origin of species” generated this response (among many others).

And of course there is a conspiracy theory here. Cameron is worried that we are currently experiencing a whole generation “brainwashed by atheistic evolution” (I don’t think “brainwashed” means what Cameron thinks it means).

Here's Kirk Cameron trying his hand at American history. According to himself, criticizing Kirk Cameron is the same as criticizing freedom itself. I suppose it is superfluous to point it out, but sometimes Cameron says really stupid things.

More entirely unsurprising incoherence from Cameron here.

Here's Cameron entering hardcore David Barton territory, predictably with the same aptitude for truth and accuracy. A fine summary of the weirdness of Cameron's otherworldly pseudo-history is found here.

Would you believe it, but Cameron has come clean as a hardcore conspiracy theorist, and so thoroughly so that he seems to entertain entering the terrains of Eric Jon Phelps rather than Alex Jones. At least Kirk Cameron’s movie is out.

More Bartonisms from Cameron here.

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Diagnosis: Among the most breathtakingly moronic bozos alive, Cameron manages to make Mel Gibson look moderately intelligent. The Comfort/Cameron superteam is, I suppose, not taken seriously as anything who could even begin to pose a threat. I suspect their popularity is more due to their breathtaking inanity.

Entry #048: Bradley Byrne

GOP, Alabama-style fashion, launched the following astoundingly bizarre series of events about a month ago: First The True Republican PAC ran this ad in the Alabama gubernatorial race, attacking Bradley Byrne (R) because he supports the teaching of evolution in schools.

That drew some attention, but is perhaps to be expected from The True Republican PAC who are batshit unhinged fundamentalist uneducated loons of the worst sort anyway. The appalling turn came with Byrne’s response. The predictable godbottery apart, Byrne also pointed out the following:

“As a member of the Alabama Board of Education, the record clearly shows that I fought to ensure the teaching of creationism in our school text books. Those who attack me have distorted, twisted and misrepresented my comments and are spewing utter lies to the people of this state.” (read more here)

I am not sure Byrne really knows what ”distorted, twisted and misrepresented” means, but notice that the True Republican PAC’s attack was not that Byrne favored teaching evolution (i.e. science) exclusively, but that he defended teaching evolution at all. For Byrne is, in fact, a proponent of teaching the “controversy” (manufactroversy), which he promptly pointed out. But as it turns out, maybe he isn't.

That’s not really the point, however. The appalling thing isn’t really Byrne’s views or non-views. The appalling thing is the situation – the lunacy of his putative voters – that makes offering this reply appear to be a necessary thing to do.

So this entry doesn’t really indict Byrne per se, but Byrne as a symbol for the unhinged lunacy that apparently runs rampant among Alabama’s GOP voters, voters who apparently support Byrne’s official statement or even the Republican PAC on this. The loon of the day is the State of Alabama.

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Diagnosis: This is bad. Really, really scary.

Entry #043: William (Bill) Buckingham

Buckingham is the creationist strategist behind the Dover Area School District Board of Education’s decision to “teach the controversy” (i.e. try to wedge in religion in schools), the process that lead to the famous Dover Trial. This bizarre series of events got rolling when the Board voted 6-3 to "challenge" evolution. Under the leadership of Buckingham they added a one paragraph disclaimer to the local high school biology curriculum, garbling the regular curriculum with "teach the controversy" and promoting the "scientific alternative" of intelligent design and using the "textbook" Of Pandas and People as a reference. Buckingham mentioned creationism and raised objections to proposed use of the textbook Biology written by Kenneth Miller and Joseph Levine, describing it as "laced with Darwinism" and saying it was "inexcusable to have a book that says man descended from apes with nothing to counterbalance it." The dissenting members of the school board resigned in protest and the measure carried. Buckingham had previously wanted to use Of Pandas and People in the classroom to teach both sides of the creation-evolution "debate”.

Buckingham’s testimony during the trials (proudly displaying his almost complete ignorance and lack of intelligence) is discussed here. Even the defense during the trial attempted to distance itself from Buckingham. The creationists attempted to claim that ID is science, not religion; Buckingham was less concerned about that distinction, trying instead to argue (unsuccessfully) that "nowhere in the Constitution does it call for a separation of church and state” (a claim the Discovery Institute has later defended). He summed up the trial, the main issue of which was whether ID is science or thinly disguised religion, by famously declaring "Two thousand years ago someone died on a cross. Can't someone take a stand for him?"

See also the entry for Alan Bonsell.

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Diagnosis: Taliban fundamentalist, madman and crackpot; exasperatingly ignorant, blathering idiot. Fotunately he is stupid enough to harm the ID movement more than help it.

Entry #041: Nancy Bryson

Bryson holds a Ph.D. in physical chemistry and was for a while a teacher at Mississippi University for Women.

Creationist (intelligent design) and witness for the minority at the Kansas evolution hearings (a general discussion of the hearings can be found here). Claims that she used to accept evolution, but that critical studies turned her around (yes, that canard). Currently a “creationist icon”.

Notorious for giving a presentation on creationism (mostly the argument from design and the unlikelihood of evolution since if there is no designer then evolution must be just random chance) at the university, “very warmly received by the students.” Afterwards, however, she was severely criticized by biologist professors and subsequently left the university (circumstances are unclear – her faculty evaluations were bad, and she claimed that she was harassed and realized she would never get tenure). Her story was picked up and publicized by the American Family Association and resulted in some outcry from fellow creationists. Bryson has subsequently achieved status as one of ID’s Expelled Martyrs. Currently she is used as one of the most notable examples of the discriminations (“hate crimes” against the religious, according to Jerry Bergman) against dissidents by “evolutionists”, and proof of the major “atheist and materialist conspiracy” that currently infests science.

During the Hearings, her story was by her supporters taken as evidence for the lack of academic freedom in that science curricula systematically exclude evidence for theism. By scientists her story was taken as evidence for incompetence and mixing religion with science. Bryson admits that her views on evolution is based on religion rather than science.

A discussion of Bryson’s role in the Hearings is here.

A sympathetic website, with links, is here.

This entry also indicts other witnesses for the minority, such as James Barham, an MD in classics and “independent scholar” who used to believe in evolution and materialism but who reasoned his way to Jesus and ID (surely a pattern of argumentation here). Christiancinema.com calls him a “Scholar and author specializing in evolutionary epistemology”. His basic argument is: “evolution leads to materialism and no meaning or purpose with life; God exists, and thus there is purpose; hence materialism is false, hence evolution is false” (yes, with the fallacy).

Entry #036: Troy Brooks

The guy behind the infamous “4 step perfect proof for God of the Bible”. The argument is according to Brooks completely deductive (a word he doesn’t understand) and relies on no unquestionable assumptions. It is really quite interesting why he doesn’t do a better job of it – if you allow his hilarious fallacies to count as logically valid deductions, I suppose it would be relatively easy to prove the existence of God from any unquestionable assumptions, not only his dubious ones (the system needed would hardly be sound, but that is another matter). Among his “uncontroversial” assumptions are e.g. that evolution cannot be the whole story since it doesn’t account for “the spiritual and soulical” and “Even the unsaved exhibit an improvement in conscience, but since they reject Christ for their salvation which is an eternal choice, they are condemned to Hell for all eternity and permanently separated from God. They won't change their mind later after they are resurrected.” But enough; read it for yourself – every sentence in this proof is a worthwhile quote:

(notice also the change of goalposts from proving that God exists to challenging atheists to disprove the God of the Bible in step 3).

Here is the gist [this is the first paragraph of the “proof”]: “God said He proves Himself by observing nature. Let's see if He is right. 1) Something can't come from that which does not exist, so the universe requires a cause [yes, he assumes the cosmological argument]. 2) The universe can't always have existed because a) heat death would be far greater than it is, and b) mankind would have approximated into that alleged past eternity and not still be sinning to the extent it still does along the exponential progression of conscience we are clearly on. What other option is there than the uncaused (uncreated) created? [yes, his proof really assumes that argument from ignorance is a valid inference method]. Atheism is utterly destroyed and morally [?] bankrupt because it has no answer and never will. You would have to be God (having omniscience) to know if God exists when you hold out having to know all things to be sure. You are saying you won't accept proof of God unless you are God. Wow!”

Basically the argument is “we are continuously improving morally (we are morally better now than we were 5000 years ago, say); since we aren’t perfect yet, the universe must have existed for a finite amount of time; therefore: The Biblical God.” [yes, an implicit premise is "if the universe has existed infinitely, then humans must have as well].

It is discussed here. Don’t miss Brooks himself showing up in the comment section!

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Diagnosis: Inane bozo. Probably insignificant but representative of a real and substantial class of bozos out there. Manages to provide evidence that elementary critical thinking should be on any elementary school curriculum, though.

Entry #034: Pat Boone

Singer, actor and writer Pat Boone was hailed (by the conservatives) as the conservative alternative to Elvis Presley back in the 50s. Currently, he is a political commentator, Christian activist and preacher, and a columnist for the fringeloon magazine WorldnetDaily. He is an ardent young earth creationist and has had several stabs at disproving evolution, such as this one; he uses the tried and dishonest “it’s only a theory”, “there is no evidence”, “Darwin recanted on the deathbed” fallacious arguments from authority (his authorities are uniformly preachers and Boone praises their credentials as award-winning missionaries and staunch Biblical literalists) + some novel ones I have, for obvious reasons, never seen before. Another attempt is discussed here (updated here). Boone later wrote an editorial in the form of a fairy tale where a young Prince Charming was seduced by a dwarf, got AIDS, and then overdosed.

Apart from anti-evolution, his columns are filled with the standard delusional moron stuff – Christians are a persecuted (particularly by the ACLU) minority in the US (discussed here and here), defense of torture (discussed here - the ignorance and dishonesty is astounding, even for a wingnut) and similar stuff.

He got attention for the claim that Democrats and others who were against the president during the Iraq War could be questioned for their patriotism – under an interview on this, he expressed his outrage against the opponents of George W. Bush (namely the Dixie Chicks) that their criticisms of the president showed they did not "respect their elders". He also vigorously defended Mel Gibson after the actor was recorded making an antisemitic rant.

He is also a vocal opponent of gay rights, and won some fame for his tasteful comparison between equal rights activists and the terrorist attacks in Mumbai (Boone apparently thinks that the “homosexual jihadists” should be sent to concentration camps because they are anti-freedom, or something like that); discussed here and here.

He is also a birfer (i.e. Obama is not a natural born citizen, but a Kenya-born Muslim, and hence not eligible for being a president). More on Boone's birferism here.

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Diagnosis: Complete moron; hateful, dishonest, zealous bigot and loon. Impact uncertain, but he is probably read by a lot of people who are initially sympathetic to his views – whether he comes across as spurring them onwards into wingnuttery or helping them come to their senses by displaying purefied idiocy is unclear.

Entry #033: Alan Bonsell

Young earth creationist and former Dover School Board President. Bonsell was, together with the more famous Bill Buckingham, the strategist behind the Dover curriculum - which was later judged to violate the Establishment clause in the famous Dover trial. Bonsell was apparently the one who had read up on the subject before the curriculum was passed and wished evolution and creation to be taught “fifty-fifty” (initiating campaigns to convince concerned teachers). Bonsell is also a known fan of the reconstructivist work of David Barton (see the entry for David Barton in the Encyclopedia), having distributed Barton’s book “The Myth of Separation” to several board members.

One of the notable events during the Dover trial was when Bonsell initially testified that he did not know where the money had been raised to donate sixty copies of “Of Pandas and People” to the school's library. He admitted later that the money had been raised in William Buckingham's church, and directed through Bonsell's father so that it might be donated anonymously.

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Diagnosis: Liar for Jesus; crackpot who is unable to recognize the difference between fact and opinion; despite his previous anti-scientific campaigns, he seems to be relatively neutralized by now.

Entry #028: Don Bierle

President of Faithsearch International and another Liar for Jesus. Claims to be a “former skeptic” (the claim is kinda undermined by the fact that his MA was in New Testament Studies) who has become an evangelical, fundamentalist whackjob whose shtick argument is that since there are lots of copies of the New Testament around (written only a couple of hundred years apart and based off of each other), then it must be literally true. Author of several books on creationism and is an ardent campaigner for it, giving numerous talks and presentations. Accepts Behe’s and Dembski’s discredited arguments for ID (and the Bible) at face value and rejects evolution (which he certifiably does not understand, mixing it up with ‘everything must have occurred by chance’) through an argument from incredulity. Briefly discussed here.

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Diagnosis: Dishonest (unintentionally?), pernicious godbotter; impact unclear, but he is probably a minor figure.

Entry #025: Leo Berman

Berman is a State Representative (R-Tyler) of Texas, most famous for ardently fighting for allowing the Institute of Creation Research to grant degrees. Unhappy with the fact that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board ruled that the “Institute” couldn’t do so, he attempted to pass a law that would allow private, non-profit education institutions to grant degrees without the board's permission or any regulation whatsoever – which must be one of the stupidest ideas ever advocated and would effectively have undermined any degree from any educational institution in Texas. Berman deserves an entry in the Encyclopedia for this reason alone. Also a die-hard creationist (of course).

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Diagnosis: Ardent and zealous nutjob; has already proven himself to be a threat to education, science and critical thinking.