Quickies

Skepchick Quickies, 1.20

Jen

Jen is a writer and web designer/developer in Columbus, Ohio. She spends too much time on Twitter at @antiheroine.

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19 Comments

  1. “Study shows female scientists do more housework than men.”

    That’s because they understand Chaos Theory.

    “Why does God let natural disasters happen?” I thought Pat Robertson settled that question…

    btw: What was it that the Hatians were supposed to have done that makes Pat think they made a pact with the Devil? Was it the actual act of rebelling that was playing into Satan’s hands or was it something they got from Satan that enabled them to win their independence? Did Satan make their flag? Choose their new government?

  2. Vanity Fair visits the Creation Museum and insults Cincinnati in the mix. That monstrosity is not in Cincinnati, it’s not even in the same state as Cincinnati. It’s in freaking Kentucky. Cincinnati is in Ohio. There is a not insignificant river that separates the two.

    And we do have things to be proud of, like our Natural History Museum at Union Terminal, and a world class Zoo that breeds endangered animals better than any other Zoo, and has the world’s largest collection of frozen animal DNA . We also have one of the better fine art traditions in the country, home of Duveneck, and the distinctive nature painter, Charles Harper, as well as the legendary Rookwood Pottery. We also were the first city in the US to have a municipal fire department (which Chicago imported). There is much more.

    Grrrr…. Vanity Fair, I want to smack you now. I will not deny the fact that this town could be better, but I won’t have you bad mouthing it because of the ignorant hill-jacks that live south of our state border.

  3. @ Zapski: Yeah, but the culture of Northern Kentucky is more closely tied to Cincinnati than the rest of the state, and the Creation Museum probably receives more visitors and support from the Cincinnati-OH area than Covington and Newport.

  4. Jen ~ please check your spam box ~ I’m pretty sure that’s where my response(s) to your email have been going. :(

    Vyckie @ No Longer Quivering

  5. @BigMKNows: The culture of the riverfront is closely tied to culture of Cinci, beyond that it fades rapidly. Sure people commute, but they aren’t Cincinnatians. If there are people from Ohio going to the Creation “Museum” it’s likely that they are from one of the outlying communities like West Chester, which are their own municipalities and not part of Cincinnati

    You also have to realize that there is a deep cultural divide between those areas and Cincinnati proper. Hell, there’s a deep cultural divide between east and west sides here.

    Besides, wether or not the Creation “Museum” gets visitors from here or not is not the point. The point is that Vanity Fair said that we have nothing to be proud of. We do. And the Creation “Museum” is not in Cincinnati. Or really all that near to it.

  6. @swordsbane: Satan obviously came in and helped Haitians get out from under slavery’s rule. Because God would never do anything like that. Opposing slavery is obviously opposing God and therefore supporting Satan.

    Duh.

  7. As much as I dislike the creation museum, I dislike this Vanity Fair dude nearly as much. He seems like one of those New York types that is quick to dismiss any place in the US that is not NYC as culturaly bereft and useless. He also seems to assume that everyone who lives in that area shares the exact same values.

    I live in maine and the article reminded me a lot of the judgemental stuff that was written about mainers by New Yorkers and (I just realized I don’t know a word for people from Massachusetts besides Massholes) after the repeal of the marriage equality act. Nevermind that 49% of mainers voted agains the repeal (75% in my city), nope we were all backwards, homophobic, religious nuts.

  8. @Jen: I have driven through your state on numerous occasions. By being in Ohio, the short end of the stick is assumed. The only worse state I have visited was Oklahoma, and that’s just because it’s a wasteland of stupid and red clay.

  9. Mikerattlesnake,

    I’m from NY and I worked at a theatre in KY some years ago.

    All of Kentucky may not be culturally bereft and useless, (though perhaps I’m just trying to be kind to the memory of those KYers I used to know), but the Creation “Museum” most assuredly is.

  10. @Mark Hall: You drove through the middle, din’t you? The southern portion of the state is much more interesting, with the foothills of the Appalachian mountains in the east and the terminal moraine in the west.

  11. @starve2act: Oh I have no doubts about that, but he spent a pretty decent portion of the article insulting everyone from the greater Cincinnati/Kentucky area both subtlely and directly.

  12. I thought the Creation “Museum” article was a good read – but any mention of that place makes me so angry, I was probably just enjoying the fact that someone was belittling it. I really, really, really hate that horrible monument of lies.

    And the “problem of evil” article was brilliant. However, as an American, I was very embarrassed that the most shameful, stupid, and thoughtless replies were all from my fellow Americans. I mean, seriously, “don’t worry about what happens to folks in this world, think only of the next.”? People still think that way? How revolting!

  13. @DataJack: I agree with you about that article.

    My favorite reply was this: “God made man as his greatest creation. In order for humans to be all they can be we must live in a world like this one. ”

    I can almost buy all that “we need suffering to teach us how to be noble” crap… but is this the all-knowing all-doing God we keep hearing about? Is there something he can’t do?

    Couldn’t he simply make us all noble so we don’t have to learn it from the death of children? What kind of a sick bastard says “I know how man will turn out and could even make him that way now… but it’s fun to watch all those buildings come tumbling down and watch them all scurry around like ants.” ?

    And if there’s something God can’t do, then when it comes down to it, he’s a schmuck just like the rest of us. In either case, I’m sure he could have managed a few crushed bodies healed or kept the buildings from coming down in the quakes…. Even stopping the quakes altogether shouldn’t have been too taxing for the guy who created the universe, eh?

    The whole idea that God can eliminate all the suffering in the world but chooses not and that is somehow for our benefit makes me sick.

    Which is better; thinking that there is no God and these disasters are the luck of the draw, or believing that there is someone out there watching over everything that happens, and doesn’t lift a finger when thousands die through no fault of their own?

  14. More than a few of us in Kentucky fervently wish that the Creation Museum was not on our side of the river. Or better, that it was at the bottom of the river.

  15. First, I really enjoyed the thoughtful article about the Problem of Evil. My heart goes out to the Haitian people, but I find the nearly ubiquitous expressions of religious fervor that people made after the earthquake to be really quite nauseating. I find the atheist explanation for the earthquake as merely a shift in tectonic plates to be the most satisfying, and I think that insisting that a loving God allowed all this to happen might be psychologically unsound, like a battered spouse insisting that her batterer really loves her. In short, I thank God for not existing.

  16. @rasmur: I think the battered spouse is a good analogy. Tyrannical dictator is a good one too. When the leader of a country kills his citizens, or turns a blind eye when something (or someone) kills them, creates strange rules without explanation and even hides out so no one can find him, we call him a failed leader at best, and a tyrant at worst, never mind all the good things he might have done in the past (which.. if you continue the analogy… we can’t prove). When God does it, we call him “mysterious” and say “You have to have faith”

    You want to talk dysfunctional?

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