I have been lurking at this site for some time now, mainly because I haven’t had anything original to say. That’s not the whole reason though. This comment is being written mostly one handed due to nerve damage at the discs at the C5, C6 and T1 vertebrae in my neck. This has resulted in muscle wastage of my left arm and loss of abduction movement in the middle, ring and little fingers of my left hand. So typing is now a slow process which I no longer enjoy. Surgery is the only remaining option.
This fundie seems to be similar to one of the more outspoken ones we have at the school where I teach. It is a mainstream Protestant school and it is not fundie, however there are a few born-again’ fundie types who blather on about their YEC beliefs. I am what you in the United States would call a shop’ teacher. I spent 17 years as a Boilermaker/Welder in industry before I went insane and became a school teacher.
One of them is a 26 year old trained Chef who works at the school as a Teacher Aide. He saw me reading this site one day during my lunch break and found out that I accept the Theory of Evolution as fact. Immediately I received emails from him about how Evolution is false, the bible is the truth’. I emailed him back once saying that based on my experience in dealing with people like him, I saw no point in entering a fruitless and in my opinion an unprofessional talkfest with him.
Nevertheless in the past few months I have received intermittent emails from him, written by creation ’scientists’ such as Jerry Bergman, Jeffrey Tomkins, Jonathan D Sarfati, and I think a quote mine from Ernst Mayr. I don’t have the time (or the patience) to read their works, but I do know that PZ Myers has called the first three, “lying dishonest dolts.”
Is there anyone out there who can remind me of an index’ that real scientists use to determine the amount of peer reviewed research they do?
On a personal level the thing that still gets under my skin is the smug smirks and the condescension I get from these bigots. I get a real urge to slap the smirks right off their faces. On top of this is that they know I am Catholic and of course we are not Real Christians and that in part explains why I accept scientific evidence. The thing the management of the school don’t know is that these born-againers don’t regard mainstream Protestants as Christians either.