Earlier today, Ray “Bananaman” Comfort and Kirk “College Kids are to Young to Remember When I was Famous” Cameron, went viral with their remix version of Charlie Darwin’s smash hit, On the Origin of Species.
These doctored copies were then distributed around the country to be handed out to random-ass people on the campuses of top universities yesterday. That makes sense, because when I think of a fundamentalist Christian jihad, I immediately think of MIT and Caltech. They came to Purdue a day later, since I guess we were a second-round draft pick.
I’d review the introduction in detail for all of you, since they were being handed out here, but I didn’t get one, which sucks. I knew I should’ve taken the long way home today.
However, since turnabout is fair play, I have come out with my own version of the Holy Bible. The SuperFunAdventureBible clears up and confusing or flowery passages and allows the reader to concentrate on the real crux of the Christian faith:
Christians should be thanking me, as I carefully removed (with a utility knife) all of the times the Bible urges people to participate in:
murder (Ezekiel 9:5-6)
genocide (Deuteronomy 20:16-17; Exodus 17:13-16)
incest (Exodus 6:20; Genesis 19:30-38)
abortion (Hosea 13:16)
cannibalism (Jeremiah 19:9)
materialism (Proverbs 14:20)
domestic violence (Proverbs 20:30)
shit-eating (Ezekiel 4:12-15),
genital mutilation (Genesis 17:9-13)
…and Communist party membership (Acts 4:32-35)
Thanks to me, the Christian apologetics have less to apologize over. Now, Christians can concentrate on the central themes of intimidation and greed without the requisite cognitive dissonance.
Yesterday, in a stunning blow to freedom and justice, gay marriage has been re-illegalized in Maine. This anti-civil rights campaign was received large amounts of funding from a number of notorious hate groups, such as Focus on the Family and the Catholic Church, in another example of the Religious Right being neither.
Sure we read in Leviticus 18:22 (and Leviticus 20:13) that “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination,” but that doesn’t say anything about girl-on-girl. And why would it? Yahweh is said to be male, and therefore, by definition, is a big fan of lesbian porn.
Leviticus 11:12 tells us to avoid Maine lobster, and Leviticus 19:27 bans shaving and haircuts, but we ignore those. Why? It all comes from a little thing theologians like to call “exegesis.”
Exegesis is the process of sticking one’s hand up God’s ass, in order to make him talk. Since the Bible is the compiled mythology of wandering Bronze-age goat headers, it cannot be made applicable to modern day without creative interpretation. Say I wanted to convince people of something, like that I had the power to fight off a pack of crazed unicorns (Pslams 22:21), or to go about rationalizing the destruction of an entire race of people, like those fucking Hittites two doors down from me (Exodus 34:11-14). Well, the Bible is a pretty thick book with a large number of whacky statements, so I just need to leaf through it and cherry-pick out some lines, and then pepper them in to my next hate speech/homily to make my personal agenda sound like it’s God’s agenda, much like how I’m about to do.
See, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus explicitly states that homosexuals should be able to legally marry in the State of Maine.
No, seriously. I just leafed through the one of those little green Gideon’s Bibles which tend to pile up in my office, and I saw it there plain as day:
Sure, your bible may be a different edition, and that line may have a different wording, or not be presented in my large, effeminate, cursive script, but it’s just as true as anything else the Bible has to say. God divinely inspired the hand of [this] man to write [in] the Bible. So although it was written by [this] human[‘s] hands, it is is none the less the inerrant word of God. This is true, and I know it’s true… for the Bible tells me so.
“What do you mean?” said a surprised August. Liefeld was not on the list of guests, but about three booths to the right of the door was “Liefeld” in that sketchy, completely linear Rob Liefeld font.
“Oh shit!” said August. He still has a soul, so he worries about other people and their feelings. I, on the other hand, have nothing but my dreams, and apparent they came true. I knew what to do. We were joking about this on the car ride over, what to say if Liefeld were to magically show up. I knew what to do.
I walked up to him and spake: “Hi, my name is Ryan Coons…”
“Hey!” said Rob Liefeld. He didn’t even look up at me; he just kept sketching away at yet another blocky, disproportionate, and overly-linear picture of one of my beloved childhood heroes. This time, it was Wolverine, in a mirrored swipe of Jim Lee’s cover for X-Men #11.
“…I am a huge Captain America fan…” I tell him with jazz hands and a huge fanboy gleam. “…and as such, I demand an apology for Heroes Reborn.”
Rob stops. He gives me an action hero sneer and said, “Hey, it was nice to meet you,” and followed it up with a fuck-off get lost nod. You know, the upward one. I walk off and hyperventalate for a while, because I can only process a set amount of awesome at one time. That’s why it took me four hours to watch 300 the first time.
Rummaging through the boxes when I came across a copy of Lee & Buscema’s seminal text How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. We were in awe.
“Coons! You need to buy that!” shouted Mike. I was thinking about it, because I’ve wanted a copy of that for some time now. “You need to give it to him!”
“You’re right! Rob needs it more than anyone!” I said.
“That’s why we’re here Coons,” said Mike. “The planets have aligned.”
“What’s this?” asked Javier, the dude who was working the booth we were at.
“We’re going to by a copy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, then he’s going to give it to Rob Liefeld,” said Mike.
Javier was awestruck.
“How much is this?” I ask.
“All trades are five dollars, but if you’re giving that to Rob Liefeld, then I…I…well, I can chip in,” said Javier, digging through his wallet. “Here’s two bucks.”
I give the man three.
“I’ll be back,” I tell Javier.
I waited for a bit, I wanted him to forget about me, I wanted him to think he was in the clear and have him let his guard down. Also, I fully expected to get thrown out for these shenanigans, and I wanted Mark Millar to sign my copy of Superman: Red Son, and that wouldn’t be for another few hours.
In the mean time, I took the time to personalize his gift.
On the blank front page, I wrote:
Rob,
I know you aren’t willing to apologize right now. This manual will help you in you future endeavors. Please study it carefully, and consult it before rebooting another comic title. If you still wish to apologize for “Heroes Reborn,” you can do so by emailing me at YellowHatGuy@gmail.com.
Let’s make things right.
Sincerely,
Ryan Coons
Then, I slipped my business card in between the pages, to make sure that Liefeld knew my name, website, email address, and cell phone number. Then I put his gift in a nice bag…
…and I was ready.
“So, you’re going through with this?”
“I have too. It needs to be done,” I said.
“What are you going to say to him?” asked August.
“I’m not going to say anything,” I told him. “I’m just going to set it in front of him, and then walk away.”
“…and then what?” asked August.
“I don’t care,” I sad. “I don’t care what happens. You can watch if you like.”
I started sweating pretty bad, and started to hyperventilate. “You okay Coons? You gonna make it?” said August.
Immediately, I regain my composure.
“No, I have to do this. I’ve waited thirteen years for this,” I tell August.
So I walked over to Rob Liefeld, who was busy ignoring everyone in the entire convention center. I set the package in front of him, and patted it a few times, and the walked away. According to Mike, the following ensued:
“Rob didn’t look up, but the bald guy did, and pulled it out and showed it Liefeld. He shook his head and got all pissed off. Then the bald dude opened it up and red the inscription, and busted out laughing, and laughed for like, five minutes straight, and Liefeld’s face just tightened up and he just got more and more pissed off.”
Babies won’t mind if you abort them, so go right ahead. Sure, they might haunt you, but since when was that a bad thing? I mean, they owe you.
Don’t look at me like that. Don’t shoot the messenger. No, seriously, don’t shoot me — I don’t think this way. These are the thoughts of Doreen Virtue, a “fourth-generation metaphysician and clairvoyant spiritual healer, with B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in counseling psychology,” a faculty member of the American Institute of Hypnotherapy, and an advisory member of the Depossession Institute.
In addition to multiple TV appearances, Doreen Virtue has written a number of articles in popular publications, and penned forty-eight books and cartomantic aids with a lowball combined sales estimate of 500,000 copies. Among these, is The Care and Feeding of Indigo Children, which is one of the seminal texts in Indigo studies. As I will demonstrate later, there is a shadiness to many of these claims.
The nefarious Dr. Virtue channels the power of the Dread Dormammu to cast "Magic Missile," dealing 1d6+1 points of force damage.
Stevie* was the one that introduced me to the machinations nefarious Dr. Virtue, as she bought her books, attend her workshops, and became one of her evil henchmen. It’s all she would talk about, and she became more and more detached from reality with each phone call. For every problem, Doreen sold a product, and Stevie was sold on its central theme, that if you bought enough of them that you’d gain a couple of extra senses or mental powers “like the X-Men.”
I thought that these chinsy Hay House books, like Doreen’s were silly nonsense enjoyed by harmless hippies. After seeing what they had done to my friend, did I see their true, malevolent nature — that it is indeed, a monstrous institution, like some sort of low-budget Scientology.
I knew what I had to do.
I began to look into this Dr. Virtue, and it became eerily captivating. Imagine if Hunter S. Thompson were to watch Tetsuo: The Iron Man, through a kaleidoscope. This accurately describes how Doreen must view the world. That’s when I landed upon this gem:
Several years ago, a woman named Melissa became pregnant by a man she adored and loved. However, the man wasn’t interested in a relationship or a baby. Melissa didn’t tell her young son, Liam, that she was pregnant. However, one day Liam drew a picture and handed it to his mother, explaining that it was a portrait of his little brother (Melissa only had one child at the time).
Ultimately, Melissa made the difficult choice to terminate the pregnancy, without telling Liam. About a week later, Liam said that his little brother told him, “I decided not to come yet, but I’m okay, and I love you.” The little brother said that he was taking care of Melissa like a guardian angel until he was ready to be born as a child. When that time came, both the little brother and Liam would take care of their mother.
–Doreen Virtue; excerpted from The Crystal Children, pg. 49.
I figured that was a good place to start as any. From the notes that I’ve taken from the couple of her books that I’ve stumbled across, I believe that I can generate six months worth of posts.
Rest assured, gentle reader, my story with Stevie has a happy ending. I, and later, her boyfriend kept poking at her, asking more questions than she could find adequate answers for. Then, by the grace of Carl Sagan, through the noble works of the Amazing Randi and his Foundation, she was freed from oppressive yoke of crystals, trinkets, and doublethink. Having repented her ways, Stevie enrolled in a Ph.D. program in biomathematics, where she furthers mankind through her studies of plant interactions.
For this, I am fortunate. I realize that this situation only turned out well because she was surrounded by people who had the tools and the talent to deal with the situation.
I’m a scientist. It’s my job to ask questions and solve problems. But not everyone has had the training I’ve had. Some young lad somewhere may be in the same situation I was, and would seem powerless to stop it. He is not powerless, for I will aid him.
In a world where blind obedience was made the highest ideal… and questioning is reprehensible… justice will have a new name!
I, Ryan Coons, as part of my Crusade of Justice, and acting as the Purveyor of Truth, vow to stop the machinations of the nefarious Dr. Virtue!
One day back in undergrad, I was peacefully watching Adult Swim in the dorm lounge, working on some electronics homework, when Stevie entered and declared me to be one of the Indigo Children.
I closed my book, to give my undivided attention to stopping the rape of reason that was to follow.
I’ll go into details later, but she’d read in a book that there were these people, “the Indigo Children,” who were “rebellious, purposeful, highly intelligent; creative, intuitive, frustrated with authorities and bureaucracy; and psychically powerful” people with “big “wise” eyes.”
I don’t see how my eyes are “wise” though; all they do is record the light reflected from objects and give cool squinty-action hero stares to scare off popped-collars at bars, while WD40-ing women’s nether-regions.
Stevie argued that since I met all criterion for being an Indigo, I had to be one. I explained to her that I had no psychic superpowers, and that I was “…just a man and his will to survive.”
Her eyes lit up.
“See? You’re rebelling against the labels that people give you! That’s such an Indigo thing!”
She was spared my wrath only because she was a friend, and I wanted to commit egregious acts of carnality upon her person.
I was no stranger to this argument. As a youth I was enthralled by NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries, and tales of UFO’s, Area 51, and the like. The conspiracy theorists were notorious for creating logic traps. They would use loaded statements as the basis for an argument, so that the outcome would be what they wanted to hear, guaranteed. For the sake of argument, let us ask if the US government has covered up the fact it’s hiding a crashed UFO in Area 51. If the government admits there is a UFO, then we know it exists. If the government denies the UFO, then they acknowledge the cover up, and the fact the UFO exits. This argument is and was the core of UFO documentaries, and is a textbook logical fallacy.
This is bifurcation, commonly known as the black-and-white fallacy, the either/or fallacy, or the false dilemma fallacy. Assume that we are given three things, p, q, and r. We must choose between p, or q. Now if p is also r, and q is also r, we would then select r regardless of our choice of p or q. I have illustrated this point in Table 1. This is all a fancy-pants way of saying that “I want you to be something, therefore, you are.”
Stephen Colbert would later go on to make this a running gag that he used on damn near everyone. The use of loaded questions is a tried-and-true method for generating responses which, though meaningless, can appear convincing as long as the audience doesn’t think about what is being said.
I explained to her why she was wrong, even drawing the truth table, but this was only further proof by her reasoning. Undaunted, Stevie referred me to a website, which I read. I knew she was too good to be true.
I knew what had to be done.
I, for one, am constantly sickened by hucksters and their feel-good bullshit, demanding all of your time, money, and only receive doublethink in return. Besides, I was Christian at the time, so I already chock-full of doublethink. I couldn’t possibly take on any more.
That is why, I, Ryan Coons, as part of my never-ending crusade of justice, and as part of my required duties as the Purveyor of Truth, will expose, torment, and mock the people behind the Indigo Cult. I just want them to feel bad about themselves, and make their world a darker, bleaker, place, until they collectively acknowledge that they have done this to me, and make amends. I am fully aware that this will not happen. This is similar to the Planck problem, that:
“An important scientific innovation rarely makes it ways by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning.” — Max Planck, from The Philosophy of Physics (1936).
Though I cannot cure Indigoism, I can hopefully contain it and prevent it from spreading. Those currently infected with this thinking will eventually die off naturally, and their hopes and dreams will go with them.
