New Charity will pay "New Atheists" to "Get A Clue"!

[Synnical]

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/09/a_mind_even_if_its_just_a_coup.html

. . .

What binds these intellectual unfortunates together is an impoverished ideology: New Atheism. It’s sad to note that a few percent of our brethren, a fringe really, live in intellectual squalor. How can you help alleviate the crushing metaphysical poverty of New Atheism? You can send a New Atheist to school. That’s why I’m starting the first New Atheist educational charity:

"Give-a-Clue."

"Give-a-Clue" is the first charity dedicated to providing New Atheists with what they need most desperately: a rudimentary education.

For a few dollars a day, "Give-a-Clue" can help a New Atheist of your choice get a clue. You can sponsor a New Atheist to begin a lifetime of education. You can choose to send your Atheist to a public university (just pennies/day) or to an Ivy League university (a hundred bucks/day), and you get to pick the course of study! Imagine your New Atheist sitting in a class in freshmen logic, or introductory theology, or rudimentary history, or elementary philosophy of science. Imagine his eyes opening in astonishment at the world of reason and logical discourse. He’ll learn to read critically, to question his own ideas as well as those of others, and to communicate with words instead of expletives.

Your New Atheist will write you each month; you can enjoy the satisfaction of reading for yourself how your immature beneficiary will grow and mature. You’ll watch — first-hand! — as your New Atheist gains perspective and grows intellectually. Oh, at first, the letters may be difficult to read. Spittle, casual obscenities, and desecrated communion Hosts may be all you’ll get. But have faith. As your New Atheist learns, he/she (you can choose a boy or a girl!) will mature into someone who can analyze evidence, adhere to logic, and formulate arguments. Watch with joy as they cast off New Atheism and embrace the examined life.

A mind, even if it’s just a couple of pounds of meat, is a terrible thing to waste. So please join me and a host of caring people to help rescue our hapless New Atheist neighbors from a life of witless dogma. Find it in your heart to spare a few dollars.

Give to "Give-a-Clue." Give until it hurts, because if New Atheism prevails, it’ll hurt a lot more.

Please, let me send you letters, how do I become one of these New Atheists??
:rofl:

-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale

[laconicsax]

1. Sign me up!

I'd love a second degree. Of course the 'you get to pick the course of study' could be an issue, but how hard could it be to fake your way to a theology degree while taking meaningful classes on the side?

I too could learn to analyze evidence, adhere to logic, and formulate arguments! If they picked me, I could review all of the evidence for the Abrahamic god, apply logical reasoning, and formulate arguments that rely on an absence of both in pursuit of a theology degree!

I mean, if I had a theology degree, I could finally stir up shit in R/T by posting quote-mined straw man arguments that were debunked three years ago and accuse atheists of 'bad theology' whenever they dared to quote scripture to refute my claims about scripture. I'd be unstoppable!

[immoderate]

2. If this were The Onion, it would be a brilliant piece.

Theists offering to send atheists to take logic classes at Ivy League colleges is hilarious. OTH, this is stranger than fiction.

--imm

[onager]

3. "..because if New Atheism prevails, it’ll hurt a lot more. "

:rofl:

It's not really a good idea to give the game away so blatantly. Or as we History Geeks like to quote...

"It is bad manners to interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - Napoleon

Thanks, Cindy. You deserve a Napoleonic Order of the (Atheist) Eagle for all your work in here.

[rrneck]

4. The first rule of research:

Play with somebody else's money.

[moggie]

5. It's Michael Egnor

I should have guessed from the tone. He's the poster child for misplaced arrogance: the wikipedia entry for Dunning-Kruger effect ought to carry a picture of his smirking mug. His arrogance can be partly explained by the fact that he's a brain surgeon, since self-doubt is a hindrance when you're sawing open people's heads and rummaging around in the contents. But he's mistaken to believe that his competence in one field carries over into others.

Some evidence of past Egnorance:

He thinks evolution is irrelevant to antibiotic resistance in bacteria

His best evidence of the value of the "design inference" in medicine is... the discovery of the structure of DNA! Because, apparently, this involved reverse engineering, so DNA must have been "engineered".

A response to an Egnor challenge is apparently invalid unless you use exactly his badly chosen search terms

Despite being a brain surgeon, he doesn't believe that ideas are a function of the brain

He gets spanked so often, I'm beginning to suspect he enjoys it.

As for this latest rant, can't he at least try to remain consistent with past Disco Institute propaganda? Has he forgotten that universities are godless places which discriminate against honest creationists, and turn out brainwashed "Darwinists"? Doesn't he know that the higher someone's education, the more likely they are to accept evolution?

I wonder how many of his readers will think "hang on, he complains about professors, and then claims that what they need is a university education? Huh?"

[and-justice-for-all]

6. I think the clue phone is for them...

no such thing as 'New Atheist', Atheism has been around for as long as religion has; if not longer. Because we are all born Atheist, are we not? We learn or are taught religion.

Reason will when and religion will someday be destroyed, we can not continue to exist in this religious tribalism, it will end up killing us all.

[Deep13]

7. Anyone desecrate a communion host lately?

:wtf:

[Deep13]

8. I think I might be able to get a clue if I were paid enough.

Just saying.

[realisticphish]

9. oh, so close

maybe another 20 bucks would get me a clue... no, no, doesn't seem so. Perhaps a 50?