I used to pride myself on how patient I could be. I’m finding recently however that I’m becoming far less so. Not with everyone, I hasten to add, but with religionists, Evangelical Christians in particular.
As I mentioned last time, they have infested my Facebook feed with their inane Jesus-Loves-You Amen BS and now I find they’ve practically taken over a science page I occasionally read called From Quarks and Quasars, a sometimes sensationalist site that collects together science posts from other legitimate sources. It recently published an item called ‘Earth Was Once Entirely A Water World, New Research Shows’, prompting 5.2k comments. Many of these were from cranks trying to show how the finding verifies the biblical flood story, despite the fact the article makes it clear it is talking about something that occurred 3-4 billion years ago. Certified genius Dennis Mears offers this comment (all grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors in the original):
Of coarse it was !! but we don’t need “ new research “ to know what every culture on earth has talked about in their history for thousands of years . We can simply read genesis and learn about it in detail
while Scotty Johnson wades in (pun intended) with:
It’s called the flood, it’s recorded in Genesis in the Bible, Noah and the Ark, kids have been learning about it in Sunday School for years. Scientists should study the Bible first, maybe they wouldn’t be surprised when they discover something.
It’s down to astute reader Gene Steiner, catching the original article’s reference to 3-4 billion years, to correct it:
(In) Genesis 7:24 the great flood covered the whole earth, even the highest mountains; and the waters remained on the earth for 150 days…. Not billions of years ago, but 4500 or so years ago during the NOAHIC GLOBAL FLOOD! We knew that all the time!
This is the line subsequent commenters take up until we get to Tobie Schalkwyk, who offers the insight that the water-covered Earth is the same as mentioned in Genesis 1:
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
And on it goes for thousands more comments. The photo at the top of this post was also shoved on somewhere along the line.
It is the purveyors of this sort of crap that I no longer have any patience for. I want to call them out for their tomfoolery. It’s the same with commenters (Arnold and Don on this blog, Marley1312/Aussiestockman on Gary’s, Revival Fires on Bruce’s) who think atheist sites exist only to provide a forum for their brainless theobabble and Bible-bashing. They can’t be argued with, such is the depth of their ignorance and need to inject Jesus into everything. They bring out the worst in me: snark, bad language and name calling (as you can tell from this very post). I don’t want to stoop to this level, nor is it good for my blood pressure, and so feel compelled to leave them to it. I avoid reading comments and sometimes actually abandon sites I like to read because of the infestations of religious gobbledegook.
I know it infuriates some of you too, but what to do? Let the epidemic spread or resist it? What do you advise?
rejectingjesus, 
With Arnold I delivered an ultimatum: Provide a straighforward, honest answer or consider yourself persona non gratis.
I would have dumped aussie ages ago.
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Ghost ’em. Block away. Stop the spread. Don’t allow them in.
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I tend to think that when you write about religion on a regular basis, it offers an open door for the “believers” to stop by and step in.
Atheists like yourself obviously (and justifiably) belittle biblical text, but by doing so it immediately throws up a red flag to the indoctrinated.
And then, of course, there’s that unforgettable biblical command about “winning the lost.” 😣
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So true. Yet like a dog returning to its vomit…
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They are so exasperating! How do they exasperate? Let me count the ways.
1 – They tell me what I believe. And after they have been corrected, they’re back in a few days telling me again that I believe what they said I believe before.
2 – They are incapable of believing that you don’t believe. Their special book says. . .
3 – Somehow – after number 2 – they declare that I was never a Christian. In my experience, it is those who Christianed hardest that become atheists. Those that dabble in Christianing just change churches or religions.
4 – They complain about “context” but are incapable of understanding anything outside the “context” of their beliefs. The Earth being a water planet 3-4 billions years ago is really about Noah’s flood. Hawking’s imaginary time is actually a different dimension. I’m not saying that’s where God lives, but that’s where God lives. etc.
5 – They are incapable of understanding the difference between a claim and evidence.
6 – They hold to whatever their tradition says rather than accept newer, better scholarship or newer, better translations.
7 – They use the same “research” methods as pseudo-scholars – pseudoscience, pseudophilosophy, pseudoarchaeology, pseudohistory, etc. Wiki explains pseudohistory:
Pseudohistory is purported history which:
* Treats myths, legends, sagas and similar literature as literal truth
* Is neither critical nor skeptical in its reading of ancient historians, taking their claims at face value and ignoring empirical or logical evidence contrary to the claims of the ancients
* Is on a mission, not a quest, seeking to support some contemporary political or religious agenda rather than find out the truth about the past
* Often denies that there is such a thing as historical truth, clinging to the extreme skeptical notion that only what is absolutely certain can be called ‘true’ and nothing is absolutely certain, so nothing is true
* Often maintains that history is nothing but mythmaking and that different histories are not to be compared on such traditional academic standards as accuracy, empirical probability, logical consistency, relevancy, completeness, fairness or honesty, but on moral or political grounds
* Is selective in its use of ancient documents, citing favorably those that fit with its agenda, and ignoring or interpreting away those documents which do not fit
* Considers the possibility of something being true as sufficient to believe it is true if it fits with one’s agenda
* Often maintains that there is a conspiracy to suppress its claims because of racism, atheism or ethnocentrism, or because of opposition to its political or religious agenda
I’m sure I could come up with more. I do wonder if they realize that every interaction I have with them convinces me more that they are as full of shit as their religion is.
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You’re right on every point. It’s fun guessing which of these ‘arguments’ they’ve decided to exercise when they turn up. Exasperating too, as you say. It’s futile arguing with them, when whatever critical faculties they may have had have atrophied in service of their myth.
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Neil, I’ve been impressed with your patience when dealing with commenters. My fuse seems to be quite a bit shorter than yours.
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