Pharyngula::Satan is a reptoid

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Friday, April 08, 2005

Satan is a reptoid

PZ Myers • 10 Comments

Richard Bartholomew has found an explanation for the anti-scientific attitude we are suffering under: it's all a diabolical (literally!) plot.

…demons wished to deceive the world about science, so they decided that the best way to do this was to persuade some flaky New Agers that there are aliens on the moon. When that belief was shown to be inaccurate, that somehow served a masterplan of scientific disinformation.

The source for this idea that UFOs are demonic manifestations intended to deceive us about science is Hugh Ross, creationist, of Reasons to Believe. He's written a whole book about it, Lights in the Sky & Little Green Men: A Rational Christian Look at Ufos and Extraterrestrials (by the way, I love this Amazon review: "If you are looking for a good book this one is ok, but It does get into to[sic] much science mumbo jumbo", and that title really needs to win a prize for irony or something). The logic makes my brain hurt.

Hugh Ross believes some UFO sightings are real.
Only an idiotic, anti-science wanker would think they were aliens from outer space.
Therefore, the only rational explanation is that they are piloted by demons.

Hey, I have a great idea for how to win over devout Red Staters to the Democratic party—we just have turn this logic around and use it against them.

Congressional Republicans are evil robots sent to our time from the future by the Cybernetic Overlords of the Matrix.
Time travel is impossible and the Matrix was just a movie, so only a moron would believe something like that.
Therefore, the Republican leadership are demonic satan-spawn.

It would be especially useful if we could get an influential creationist like Hugh Ross to peddle this idea for us. It shouldn't be hard; looking at the other stuff he says, it's obvious that he'll believe just about anything.

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Comments:

#21281: — 04/08 at 07:45 AM
Not to pile on but 'a rational Christian outlook' that then goes on to equate aliens with demons.

WHY THE HELL DOES ANYONE TAKE THESE PEOPLE EVEN REMOTELY SERIOUSLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#21282: Douglas — 04/08 at 07:47 AM
While the logic is flawless, it is just as easy to replace Republican with Democrat and have it all back fire on you. You need some sort of pseudo-scientific link that makes us think they are "Cybernetic Overlords." Perhaps Dick Cheney's pace-maker...

#21287: Ron Sullivan — 04/08 at 08:45 AM
Dick Cheney's pacemaker, the bump on Bush's collar, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. All of him. C'mon, it isn't that hard. What really happened with Ronald Reagan? Not Alzheimer's; rust. (OK, disk corruption.)

I suppose it could backfire if it does get widely established that the marriage of Ahnold and Maria Shriver is step one in a genetic experiment to breed a bulletproof Kennedy, but it would seem that Republicanism is an associated allele or some such. Maybe it's just an indicator gene, like that jolly jellyfish glow.

I'm still waiting for glowmice to hit the pet trade. I want one. Hmm, fluorescent Republicans? What could one do with that?

#21293: — 04/08 at 09:51 AM
"Therefore, the Republican leadership are demonic satan-spawn."

Correction: Actually Tom Delay is a mutant insectoid selected for resistance to Spectracide.

#21297: Les Lane — 04/08 at 10:13 AM
Nice examples of propopositional logic and why scientists are leary of it..

#21317: Jody — 04/08 at 01:16 PM
As a book bingeing teenager -- alas, now as an adult, I merely consume books, free time being a little sparer -- I picked up a really cool alien invasion sci-fi novel. On the cover, a family cowered in fear as the flying saucer hung overhead and zapped angry energy towards them. About twenty pages in, I remember being intrigued when the author clicked into one of the saucers and their were snippets of thought from the "pilot." Later on, the heroes jet fighter saw the flying saucer "blink" between being a some kind of large, scaly flying mess and back into the sleek, silver death machine. An italicized chapter set with the alien leader revealed him to have cloven hooves.

By three-quarters of the way in, after yet another Jesus is coming sermon, I realized I'd been had. At that time I was in my "Dancing Wu Li-It's all true" phase so I rode through to the Second Coming ending, with a thousand foot tall Jesus throwing everyone into the lake of fire, and some condescending remarks about how everyone should know that flying saucers don't exist but demons were real.

I have no idea if Hugh Ross wrote the novel. In 30 years of reading, it's the only book I've ever thrown away.

#21320: — 04/08 at 01:43 PM
Les:

I understand what you meant to convey, but your "classic" example is a joke, not propositional logic by any stretch of imagination, and the power of propositional logic is not seriously disputable. What makes those Creationist "examples" utterly wrong is the "garbage in, garbage out" effect; if you feed crap to a sausage-making machine, the end product will be just as unfit for consumption... even if the machine itself is soundly designed and operated.

#21402: Ben — 04/09 at 06:27 AM
A Christian book arguing that all alleged UFO sightings have a rational, naturalistic explanation. Meanwhile, everything from cancer remissions to the amount of rain deposited on an area of land in a month can be attributed to varying degrees of divine intervention.

*BOOM*

Dammit. Do they have cheap irony-meters on eBay?

"The great trouble is that the preachers get the children from six to seven years of age and then it is almost impossible to do anything with them." --Thomas Edison.

#21454: — 04/10 at 05:06 AM

Dammit. Do they have cheap irony-meters on eBay?

I should think so. They have everything else.

#21455: — 04/10 at 05:10 AM
BTW, I'll thank you to be more reverential of Rep. DeLay. Since his careful overseeing of the redistricting process, the Bugman of Sugarland now represents me.

The shame is almost overwhelming. I'm not sure what I did to deserve this, but it must have been something really terrible. We can only pray that Rove is really good with the knife between the ribs.