{"id":923,"date":"2007-02-02T17:00:37","date_gmt":"2007-02-02T22:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=923"},"modified":"2007-02-12T04:19:41","modified_gmt":"2007-02-12T09:19:41","slug":"what-makes-people-act-like-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=923","title":{"rendered":"Repent, Believer!"},"content":{"rendered":"

From this site<\/a>:<\/p>\n

So. DM of the Rings. Very funny (even to someone who’s never played D&D – Cyberpunk and Paranoia for me). Turns out the author is part of a family of rabid homeschooling creationists. I expect my heroes to have feet of clay, (although Darwin didn’t by all accounts). But when a random cartoonist turns out to have brains of crap it’s rather depressing. Frankly I was expecting him to be a christian- he’s American after all, and homeschooling, for all sorts of reasons, is really popular over there, but creationist? That I can’t overlook.<\/div>\n

What? What the heck? Now, if someone were to pan this site as un-funny or boring, I would have nothing to say against them. But this? This makes no sense to me.<\/p>\n

Let’s go through this a bit at a time:<\/p>\n

“Creationist”<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are the “The world is 5,000 years old” creationists. Then there are the “the universe is billions of years old and was created by God” creationists.<\/p>\n

I’m one of the latter. There are, in fact, lots and lots of distinctions between these two groups, who get along about as well as creationists and evolutionists. What if I’m an evolutionist but I subscribe to an inflationary model of universe expansion instead of a non-inflationary one? What if I agree with evolution but think God created the first replicating organisims? What if I think the God just created the process of evolution and let it run on its own? How far are my beliefs allowed to differ from those of others? Am I allowed to believe in God and still be one of the cool kids?<\/p>\n

Or is the goal here Ideological Purity<\/em>?<\/p>\n

“Rabid.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right. What makes me rabid? Have I ever hinted at, spoken of, or in any way broached the subject here or anywhere else? Have you spotted me trading flames with others in alt.philosophy.evolutionists.are.dumb? You have not. I have no animus towards people of other faiths (or of no faith) and see no reason for them to have any towards me. <\/p>\n

“homeschooling.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

My wife double-majored in Special Education and Elementary Education, and also minored in Art. Where might I send my children that they would have a teacher with such qualifications, such dedication, and a class size of 3? <\/p>\n

“Brains of crap.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is left as an exercise for the reader. Does this site look like the product of an imbecile? Even Einstein insisted that “God does not throw dice”. More to the point, even Einstein believed in God<\/em>. (Sometimes.)<\/p>\n

“depressing”<\/strong><\/p>\n

If this is all it takes to depress you, then your life must be grim indeed. <\/p>\n

What I find depressing is that people will dislike each other and fight with one another for no damn reason at all.<\/p>\n

“he is an American after all”<\/strong><\/p>\n

A sin of which I will repent the moment a more suitable alternative is offered.<\/p>\n

“but creationist? That I can’t overlook”<\/strong><\/p>\n

This website is dedicated to the love of a unique hobby<\/a>, a facination with videogames<\/a>, an appreciation of anime<\/a>, and a desire to make others laugh<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Note my blogroll. Fledge<\/a> is a Muslim. Then there are a couple<\/a> of Atheists<\/a>, a Messianic Jew<\/a>, and a Mormon<\/a>. I consider all of them to be friends. My blogroll wound up that way on its own, and not out of a desire to perform some sort of multi-culti scavenger hunt. (I didn’t really think about it until I tried to make this joke<\/a>.) These are all people with whom I can enjoy these hobbies, despite our differences on what are often deeply personal and sensitive issues.<\/p>\n

Who is tolerant, and who is a zealot? <\/p>\n

Now – back to… whatever it is we do around here.<\/p>\n

LATER: Comments are closed. Thanks to lots of people for so many kind words but… let’s do something else, eh?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From this site: So. DM of the Rings. Very funny (even to someone who’s never played D&D – Cyberpunk and Paranoia for me). Turns out the author is part of a family of rabid homeschooling creationists. I expect my heroes to have feet of clay, (although Darwin didn’t by all accounts). But when a random […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}