Our tranquility was once again shattered by blaring sirens and lights flashing on the wall display of our Retard-o-tron™. The blinking letters on the wall said WorldNetDaily.
WorldNetDaily (WND) is the flamingly creationist, absolutely execrable, moronic, and incurably crazed journalistic organ that believes in and enthusiastically promotes every conspiracy theory that ever existed. WND was an early winner of the Curmudgeon’s Buffoon Award, thus that jolly logo displayed above this post.
We were directed to an article written by Ben Kinchlow, whose work we’ve mentioned a few times before — most recently Evolution Leads to Eating Babies! There’s actually a Wikipedia article about him.
Kinchlow’s latest is Religions of the godless. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us, and the italics — Kinchlow uses them a lot — are his. He begins with a definition of “religion”:
Religion: 1) A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe … and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs; 2) a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects; 3) the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices.
Note that ellipsis in definition number one. Could Kinchlow be sliming us? It’s difficult to imagine that a preacher would do something like that, but just to be on the safe side, we’ll check. We know the online dictionary he uses, and their definition of “religion” has five sections. Ignoring 4 and 5, which he omitted, here’s definition number 1, and — this is shocking! — the part clipped out by Kinchlow is shown in red:
Religion: 1) A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
So Kinchlow left out the supernatural part, and also the part about rituals. Surely he knows better — he’s a television evangelist. Why would he do such a thing? As we said in our last post about Kinchlow’s writing:
When a creationist reaches for the dictionary, you know two things: First, he has no other non-scriptural reference books; and second, he’s going to select the least appropriate definition he can find.
We won’t get bogged down over this dictionary stuff, but we’ll keep in mind that Kinchlow is intentionally distorting the meaning of religion. Okay, let’s read on. After that deliberately-slimy definition, he begins his essay with this:
Hmmm … agnostic, atheist, evolutionist, secular humanist? According to these definitions, apparently agnosticism, atheism, evolution and humanism are religions with devotees committed to their cause and who cleave to, and practice, their beliefs with all the fervor of the “religious fanatics” they claim to despise.
Yes, evolution is a religion — if we use Kinchlow’s intentionally fraudulent definition of religion that ignores the religious (and unscientific) components of supernatural agency and rituals. Hey, Kinchlow is an honorable man — if we define “honorable” to mean “published in WND.” You see, dear reader, it all depends on definitions.
There’s not much point in going on, because we already know how worthless the rest of Kinchlow’s column is likely to be, but there may be something we can pluck out that’s so egregious it’s worth mentioning. In that spirit, we’ll continue. He then tells us what (in his mind) is claimed by agnostics, atheists, and secular humanists. We don’t care about them, but in that same paragraph he says:
The evolutionists, by faith (a belief that is not based on proof), say, “Our theory (a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural) is … we crawled out from the primordial ooze onto dry ground – and voila!”
Again, Kinchlow conjures up phoney definitions to support his phony preaching. Faith is usually defined as a belief not supported by evidence or (in the case of something like math) by logical proof. And you already know that a scientific theory is a wee bit more than a conjecture. He continues:
The above definitions of religion are crucial to a proper grasp and sound understanding of what we know as Western civilization.
Somehow, we doubt that Kinchlow’s garbage definitions are crucial to anything other than his style of preaching. Anyway, let’s move along. In this next excerpt, the italics are all in the original:
The challenge presently before us is the disintegration of our society due to a deliberate, or unconscious, rejection of the same basic moral principles that have governed Western societies for centuries. We are witnessing the erosion of the standards on which our societal mores rest. Right and wrong are becoming a matter of opinion.
The major disintegration we’re seeing here is in Kinchlow’s preaching, and that seems to be due to his faulty definitions. Another excerpt:
One of the factors contributing to this precipitous deterioration of our society is the mistaken idea that the Bible is about religion and religious activities. Nothing could be further from the truth.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Okay, Kinchlow, we give up. If it’s not religion, then what is the bible all about? Here it comes:
This Judeo-Christian “Book,” unlike some other “holy books,” is not about establishing religion, but about creating order from disorder, control from chaos.
Oh. That’s good to know. On with the article:
Try, for a moment, to imagine a society bereft of just this one element: “Do no murder.” (“Thou shalt not kill.”) If an estimated 32,000 people kill themselves and another 18,000 are murdered every year in a society (America) where it is wrong to kill, imagine the rampant carnage absent a cultural, societal ban against killing.
Jeepers, he’s right! If everyone believed in evolution, the streets would be knee-deep in blood. Save us, brother Kinchlow!
The article goes on a bit, but we’ve given you the good stuff, so this is a convenient place to stop. We are grateful to the Retard-o-tron™ for leading us to this information.
Copyright © 2012. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
There is a bit of truth in his explanation of what the Bible is. Particularly
the Old Testament.
It was created to unite a group of tribes into a nation with the help of
their Persian conquerors/ occupiers. The Persians whose offspring today in Iran work to destroy Israel.
Japan may have knowingly copied the Jewish strategy at the turn of
the last century. In one generation the Japanese united themselves into
one pride filled nation, uplifted the Emperor to god status and proclaimed the superiority of the Japanese race over all others.
SC…I hope you are wearing your garlic clove necklace when you visit
that website. 🙂 Just reading your reports on what gets posted there
gives me the willies.
“This Judeo-Christian “Book,” unlike some other “holy books,” is not about establishing religion, but about creating order from disorder, control from chaos.”
Another way of looking at this is an authoritarian regime that controls every aspect of life, human and otherwise, and puts to shame the regime imagined in “1984.”
Well, at least he admits that it’s really about control, not some higher purpose.
That’s something, right?
We can just quote mine that sentence from now on, right?
This Judeo-Christian “Book,” unlike some other “holy books,” is not about establishing religion, but about creating order from disorder, control from chaos…
And here I was about to hire ClosetWorld! I’ll instead schedule a free at-home design consultation with a biblical expert like Mr Kinchlow today. I especially can’t wait to hear his household hints on organizing pornographic magazines, which can tend to clutter up a place.
Curm:
good catch on the ellipsis in the definition of “religion.”
As always with creationists: check the ellipsis!
Anonymous said: “As always with creationists: check the ellipsis!”
But remember the ellipses are not always there. Check everything!
You know a creationist is lying when you see his ellipsis musing.
(Okay, don’t say it. I’ll go to bed now…)