Friday, July 31, 2009

Breaking Down Religious Stupidity Part 4

Ahhhh, the final Ron Wyatt clip. This one will be short, which is good because I've got other videos waiting in line since I've been starting these and I want to try my hand at another level of stupid soon.

But now the final of the three Ron Wyatt films sent to me:



REVEALING GOD'S TREASURE - MOUNT SINAI

0:00 - 2:30 - Open sesame!

2:31 - 3:45 - Scripture of the exodus and geography. It should be noted that no ancient egyptian text makes claim to any such event occurring. No plagues. No mass slave revolt. No chase through the desert. Nothing.

3:46 - 4:15 - Evil, evil Muslims removed the pillar that marked place where Ron Wyatt thinks the Red Crossing occurred - even though all it showed is that other people who thought the crossing occurred there could have put the pillar there.

4:16 - 5:27 - Oh, look. An oasis with a bunch of wells. This must be the place the bible was talking about because there's no way any other people could have dug wells or planted palm trees, in the past 2500 years since the exodus.

5:28 - 6:21 - More geography. More scripture. No evidence.

6:22 - 8:06 - The Rock at Horeb. We found a big rock split down the middle and then drew a picture of what it would look like if water were gushing out of it. We're claiming there was water erosion coming from the rock, even though we're not testing any of the stuff we found.

8:07 - 8:39 - Look, a bunch of rocks. Wyatt claims these rocks must have been placed there by Moses and his people. Any evidence to support this? Are you kidding? The Goonies had more to go on than this.

8:40 - 9:56 - The dark rock at the top of the mountain is direct evidence of where God took a huge dump and wiped his cosmic ass on it. Because y'know shadows on the top of a mountain are entirely unheard of. Of course any hard evidence to be found here is on the other side of the evil, evil muslim gate so we should just take Ron Wyatt's word on this.

9:57 - 10:19 - And now we're going to waste time showing the sign and the guard post on Google Earth. Oooooh.

10:20 - 10:33 - Now we look at a bunch of graffiti on a rock. This menorah image was obviously carved thousands of years old even though there isn't a shred of evidence to support this claim.

10:34 - 10:41 - Another Ron Wyatt artifraud. Its a potential piece of a millstone that might have ground up possibly manna that might have existed if the imaginary sky genies had supplied it. Again this obviously couldn't have been left by any one else in the past 2500 years because only ancient jews had the secret of millstone technology. That's why the Egyptians were chasing them down in the Charlton Heston film.

10:42 - 11:37 - Google earth shows us a bunch of rocks that the video claims was an animal pen for sacrifices. Because once again, no other people could have built anything out of rocks either before or after the events being sought after. You know, even when I believed in God, I don't think I ever had enough faith to swallow this much bullshit.

11:38 - 11:48 - We pick up a black rock. Because discoloration never occurs naturally in rocks. Especially areas with high volcanic activity or oil deposits.

11:49 - 13:55 - Another pile of rocks. The video claims this is where the evil Jews built the golden calf. More graffiti on the rock that couldn't have been placed there prior or after the event is all the video offers as evidence. "These marks are unique to Saudi Arabia" as confirmed by another unnamed, generic Saudi Archaeologist.

Ever notice when Ron attempts to get confirmation for anything that would otherwise be met with intense skepticism, there is always an unnamed lab or professional around to confirm these wild accusations. Maybe it has something to do with the reality that everyone Ron Wyatt has worked with in the past, whose names are given, have also come out to expose Ron Wyatt as a fraud.

13:56 - 14:20 - Now everyone should feel bad for Ron Wyatt because he wouldn't get the proper documents before going into Saudi Arabia and wound up in prison for 3 months.

14:20 - 18:42 - Nothing left but speculation and feel good crap about the ten commandments and the ark of the covenant. That's it.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Breaking Down Religious Stupidity Part 3

Upon watching this next Ron Wyatt film, I thought this was going to take forever to review. I already wanted to cut back since the Noah's Ark video took such a long article to defuse all of Ronnie's bullshit bombs. The last one was only 40 minutes long and you can see the article length for yourself. This one is nearly an hour long, and at first I thought it was going to be another long one.

Fortunately, this one has even less "evidence" to support it than the Noah's Ark fiasco and the review will be much shorter since most of it is bible reading and listening to Ron Wyatt speak with no evidence to support his nonsense.

So with that in mind, I present the next of Ron Wyatt's fiascoes:



REVEALING GOD'S TREASURE - THE ARK OF THE COVENANT

0:00 - 2:55 - Standard opening bullshit

2:55 - 11:49 - The first part of this film shows a crap load of geography but absolutely no archeology. What's the difference? Well Marvel comics uses New York City as a setting for a great deal of their comics, but the existence of New York City doesn't show evidence that there is a guy in red and blue spandex swinging from rooftop to rooftop with the powers of a 6ft spider.

11:49 - 12:45 - A bunch of crosses carved into the rock. Unfortunately the cross didn't become an actual symbol for the Christian church until the 13th century so any crosses here really don't mean squat for the veracity of any of Ron Wyatt's claims. There's also a hole in the ground supposedly for Christian foot washing, because you know the Romans and the Jews would have wanted a Christian foot washing station next to the place Jesus was crucified.

12:46 - 13:30 - Here's a broken chunk of iron. It was broken off by an angel on Resurrection morning when he moved the 13 ft stone that isn't there anymore. Any evidence of the event? Nope.

13:31 - 14:42 - Now we go inside the tomb where a fairy tale is being told with absolutely no evidence to support any statement made.

14:43 - 14:55 - "So this is what we have..." Ooh would that be a steaming pile of bull cookies?

14:56 - 15:25 - More geography and more speculation without evidence.

15:26 - 16:02 - Here we have a possible place where someone might have been crucified. The video claims Jesus was done in here. Evidence? Not a shred.

16:03 - 16:31 - A "filled-in fissure" (aka naturally formed indent) is found traveling down the rock. The video connects this to when the earth trembled when Jesus was slain. Geographic evidence to support this claim? None. Why? Do you think he should?

16:32 - 23:00 - Now the video turns really silly and we are treated to a montage of story-telling and artist renderings. Photographs of the "find" will not be shown. No Shit, Sherlock! Instead the video relies entirely on Ron Wyatt's personal testimony.

23:01 - 23:26 - The video shows pictures of Ron Wyatt's excavation and claims this shows he was digging in the right area. Considering he has yet to show any evidence that Jesus was killed here, I don't think that really matters.

23:27 - 24:11 - More scripture and come pictures of cave walls. Oooooh.

24:12 - 31:14 - Ron Wyatt speaks again. Oh. Joy. Ron goes on about how he videotaped four angels opening the Ark and telling him to take the tablets and show them to the world which, for some reason, he hasn't. He also claims to have found the blood of Christ on the Ark and took it to a "lab" (with no name) where two Israeli lab workers (also with no names) found the blood of Christ had only 24 chromosomes and the dried blood was alive when it was put into a petri dish. Any evidence to support any of this ridiculous story? ZERO! I wonder if this stunt would have worked for Geraldo when he went for Al Capone's vault.

31:15 - 32:21 - More scripture and artist renderings. Oooooh.

32:22 - 35:42 - Heeeere's Ronnie! Again he professes that he has tablets of stone and video but that the evil, evil Jews are hiding them in Israel.

35:43 - 38:33 - More scripture and artist renderings. Oooooh.

38:34 - 39:13 - The video talks about Ron Wyatt's discovery of an ivory pomegranate with Hebrew writing on it that says it was for the priests of the temple of Yahweh. The video connects this to the artist rendering of the Ark because the pomegranate means resurrection. What the video doesn't say is:
  1. That the Greeks and Romans used the same icon LONG before the myth of Christ in the myth of Hades kidnapping the daughter of Demeter, Persephone. This is where the Christians got it from.
  2. The relic was NOT from the ark of the covenant dig, but supposedly from King Solomon's Temple.
  3. The writing was concluded to be a forgery.
  4. The pomegranate came from the 13th century BC and not from the time of Solomon.
Another one of Ron Wyatt's mysterious artifrauds (as opposed to an artiFACT). Too bad he didn't go looking for Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. Imagine what he could have found then.

39:14 - 40:36 - Now we see why these lies can become dangerous. More Scripture and Ron Wyatt professing that you have to ignore Man's law in order to follow God's law.

40:37 - 50:37 - Revelation prophesy, Jesus images and the narrator goes on to incite the viewer to break away from "the government" to follow God's law to avoid being given the mark of the beast. Aside from the incitement involved here, the whole mark of the Beast thing should be be a dead giveaway that Ron Wyatt is talking out of his ass. The numbers involved in the "Mark of the Beast", either 666 or the earlier 616, were references to Emperor Nero and Caligula, respectively speaking. Anyone who thinks these numbers have anything to do with modern times or even fabled end times is just talking out of their ass.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Breaking Down Religious Stupidity Part 2

So this bible-humping douchebag gets into an argument with me about the ethics of the Bible and its obvious he has very little clue what he's talking about since he can't even coincide his stupidity with what other Creationist sites say.

So, this idiot sends me, so that I might "see the light", not one but THREE Ron Wyatt videos that have ALL had their comments disabled. Well, the first time I did this, I trashed Ron Wyatt's excursion into the Exodus, which I had to post on a James Randi video.

So now its time for history to repeat itself as I dive back into the monumental stupidity that is RON WYATT



REVEALING GOD'S TREASURE - NOAH'S ARK


0:00 - 2:30 - Title screen silliness and lots of photos. The words "To be testified in time" flash across the bottom of the screen and I can't help but chuckle at how long this introduction is taking.

2:30 - 4:25 - Retelling of the Ark story. God hated all the people so he drowned them and apparently none of them had boats or other sea-worthy crafts. Water covered the earth and all life except that on the S.S. Minnow were saved. After 8 months, the Ark landed on solid ground, all the trees and grass that died were also brought back to life and all the marsupials were FedEx'd to Australia because they were right bastards the whole trip.

4:25 - 5:12 - Ron Wyatt stretches a bit, but not unreasonably, and attempts to redefine where in ancient Uratu the Ark landed (not on Mount Ararat) and it is apparently on a hill that the boat came to rest.

5:13 - 5:56 - A lot of people went to this site before Ron Wyatt and saw the "boat shaped" object in the ground. Everyone who went there before Ron Wyatt said "Prematurely" that it was a natural formation. But of course, Ron Wyatt knew better.

5:57 - 6:58 - A lot of Turkish geography, but nothing else.

6:58 - 7:45 - It is revealed that Ron Wyatt only had 3 days to search for Noah's Ark on his first trip. Remember when they said the other groups that came to the same region came to their conclusions prematurely? Well those expert archaeologists had two days of directly digging in the boat shaped mass.

7:46 - 8:55 - The field comes to "The Ark". How nice of them to draw conclusions before examination. The crew finds a symmetrical shape which they believe could not have been made by nature. Personally, I would have been more impressed if they found asymmetrical book stacking. The area is named after the myth and apparently... this counts... as evidence?

8:56 - 10:00 - People from all over come to the official naming of the site and the video claims its because of the find and not because of the intense tourist attraction Ron Wyatt has created. Yeah, right. And Paul Bunyan Land was named after the discovery of Babe's mummified corpse. "Noah's ark had been found" - again no evidence.

10:01 - 10:25 - Artist renderings of the boat. Ooooooh.

10:26 - 11:00 - Look at this. A buncha rocks. And people are coming in from all over to see this. Nope this isn't a tourist trap. Its a real historical find.

11:01 - 14:05 - Now we're going to talk to a tour guide because they're much more reliable than actual historians or archaeologists and its not like his career is maintained by perpetuating the legend. By the way, he saw a hole in the ground after an earthquake and it was boat shaped. He also saw a lot of lights in the skies. They make sure to take the time to film everything this guy says but for some reason edit the film right before each translation.

14:06 - 15:43 - Ahh. A 20/20 news clip, surely they can be trusted to send us actual evidence that this formation is the actual Noah's Ark. David Fasold is being brought in because Ron Wyatt is tired of ruining his own career. But they did said something about scientific evidence...

15:44 - 16:05 - And awww shit... the guy's using a fucking dowsing rod. And not surprisingly the "iron" this guy is detecting runs all over the boat formation. With all the edits in this film, you'd think these idiots would have the god damn sense to cut that part out.

16:06 - 17:45 - People of "Higher Academic Interest" (e.g. John Baumgardner of the Creationist group IDEA and the only one at the site with a doctorate) start showing up with metal detectors. He finds a piece of iron and ships it back to the states to confirm it is iron. This lump of iron is the only shred of physical evidence they can provide thus far. Of course it is never revealed that John has since declared that this site is NOT a man-made structure but a natural formation just as the original team back in 1960 discovered.

17:46 - 18:07 - The Rorschach test made those who wanted to see timbers, see timbers. Another artist's rendering shows "evidence" (oh wait, no it doesn't) of what the formations beneath the rocks might have looked like if they were actually allowed to dig there. Nearly half way through the best we've got is lump of iron - the most common metal on earth.

18:08 - 18:45 - A third party, located in the states, that never went to the site, looks at second hand dowsing rod data and the VP sees timbers in the Rorschach test too. So of course we must have supporting physical evidence that the timbers were there, right? OF COURSE NOT.

18:45 - 19:10 - More artist renderings of the Ark. Oooooooh.

19:10 - 20:00 - the video flat out lies about the dimensions of the rock formation. The rock formation is 538 ft long, and not the exact 515 ft as described by the video. Nevermind the fact that there is absolutely NO geological evidence of a world wide flood or the distribution of species makes this legend complete bullshit, I guess its those extra 23 ft that would have been too much for the true believers to handle.

20:01 - 20:25 - The ridges on the side of the rock are obviously ship timbers and not natural formations. Also the fact that the mud runs around the formation is apparently more evidence that the formation is man-made. Any REAL evidence of this? Nope. Evidence is a four-letter word to Ronnie boy.

20:26 - 21:45 - Hey look a couple of cute kids. They'll distract you from the fact that we haven't actually shown any direct evidence that this is Noah's Ark and yet we're talking aimlessly about how this would be seen as Noah's Ark if you squinted hard enough. We see a rib-shaped rock and conclude that its an actual rib from a ship. Evidence? NO. Nein. Nicht. Nada. Zilch.

21:46 - 22:30 - Now we're going to look at some rock formations that we're going to say look like they're set at regular intervals even though its entirely obvious even from watching the video that they're not.

22:31 - 22:42 - The pointy rock that sits on the side of the formation doesn't coincide with anything we can find in boat construction so we're just going to say the boat slid into it as the boat settled into its final resting space.

22:43 - 23:35 - Another one of Ron's mysterious artifacts pops up out of nowhere with no archaeological support on where it was located or in what position it was found. It contains 18.36 times as much iron than inorganic carbon and less than one-hundredth of a percent of organic carbon so they conclude its a fossilized deck timber. They also mention nails inside the artifact, but they don't actually show any.

23:36 - 23:49 - Ron REALLY stretches for evidence when they claim that a nearby village kinda sounds like a village of a different name in the Babylonian telling of the deluge myth. Of course they don't mention that the Babylonian individual that sailed the boat was named Utnapishtim, which sounds absolutely nothing like Noah.

23:50 - 24:00 - Now we're going back to fucking Josephus. A little history lesson here. Josephus is proclaimed by crackpot creationists to be a first century historian even though he was born in the later part of the first century. His only history book was written about the Jewish wars. The other book he is famous for, and quoted most often, was called Antiquities of the Jews and is a retelling of Jewish folklore starting with Adam and Eve. The fact that this was NOT a historical book has never once stopped creationists from quoting it as if it were the Encyclopedia Britannica.

24:01 - 24:40 - This has to be the dumbest part of the entire damn film. The video claims that because of the formation's accessibility that it would have been a tourist trap for the people coming to see the boat. And because Noah was such a marketable trade, the video says they sold pottery with the image of Noah on it. Their evidence? Are you ready for this? A pot shard with a rough exterior that they drew on themselves to make it look like a guy using a hammer.

"Amazing Evidence"... My head hurts.

24:41 - 25:55 - Ron Wyatt, unsubstantiatably, produces a cat hair, a petrified turd and a chunk of horn from a hole in the ground. More magic artifacts that have yet to be substantiated. Ron also find a chunk of metal which contains Aluminum metal, which the video says is man-made and thus proves the formation site is also man-made. What is conveniently left out is that Aluminum was never used as a metal until the 19th century. In ancient times, unrefined Alum powder was only used in dyes, not in rivets. So Ron really bombed on that one. You may also notice that he never bothers to test the animal remains he finds.

25:56 - 28:40 - Was Ron lying? You better believe it. But in case you don't the Ark Discovery Group (the ones producing this film - so you know they're going to be honest) says they used a metal detector to find metal rivets, but instead shows a "cresent-shaped" lump of black rock in the ground which it claims was an iron washer. It looked like another petrified turd to me. A lab result shows Aluminum metal and Titanium metal and claims that this shows that these were man-made metals. This is incredibly bogus. Titanium was not discovered as a metal until the late 18th century. So the idea that either Aluminum or Titanium were either used purposefully in ancient metal rivets is the very definition of ridiculous. So instead of realizing that this metal was modern, the crackpots prefer to believe that these metal shards, that were obviously not planted by Ron Wyatt (Like his chariot wheels at the Red Sea Crossing), were instead evidence of ancient man's superior knowledge of metallurgy.

Holy shit. This article is getting long.

28:41 - 32:22 - Anchor Stones. In the interest of saving time (and my sanity) I'm just going to direct the people reading this to the wikipedia article which states that these hoaxes were all carved from local rocks. Even Wyatt's buddy Fasold realized this.

32:23 - 34:17 - Something else that Ron Wyatt couldn't substantiate.

34:18 - 35:05 - Ron makes the unsubstantiated claim that he has found Noah's house and his wife's grave. The video claims Ron had the sarcophagus of Noah's wife exhumed and then it all mysteriously vanished without a trace leaving only a hole in the ground as his evidence. I defy anyone to come up with the name of the company that did the digging.

35:06 - 37:05 - Despite Ron Wyatt begging for validation on any channel that will air his nonsense, no reputable organization buys or supports this garbage.

Done.. Finally..

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Sunday, July 26, 2009

Breaking Down Religious Stupidity Part 1

I've done this a couple times on YouTube, but now I'm going to be putting this up as a regular segment of this blog. I'm especially targeting the videos that have conveniently disabled leaving comments.

Edit: The first time link is broken. I am attempting to use SeekTo as YouTube does in their comments section, yet I have no idea how to accomplish this.



A LETTER FROM HELL

0:00 - 0:45 This is intense because the music says so. The words are badly edited with the vocals. A fictitious student sent a fictitious letter to another fictitious friend from a fictitious place and we're supposed to take this as a serious matter.

0:45 - 0:50 Zach held back his love for sweet, sweet man-flute juice.

0:51 - 1:06 Translation: The rest of the story is uninventive and boring. But I'm going to keep talking low so that it sounds intense.

1:07 - 1:12 Here is that fictitious letter in its entirety. Oh I'm sorry. This is supposed to be serious and intense.

1:13 - 1:20 "A Letter from Hell" will stay on the screen longer and keep creeping forward because this video is sooo intense.

1:21 - 1:57 Josh is *gasp* scared and panting while *gasp* reading out his fictitious letter. *gulp* This is just *gasp* sooo intense. Remember Gather 'Round? That was done with more conviction than this pile of shit.

1:58 - 2:35 The fictitious angel drags Josh away when his name wasn't in the Book o' Life. Are you sure it wasn't the Blair Witch? JOSH!! JOSH!! Oh my god. We're all going to die! Damn!

2:36 - 3:03 Damn, Heaven is run by bureaucrats. Should have slipped the maitre d' a C-note, Josh. C'mon. What do you think they pass the plate around in church for?

3:03 - 3:56 Oh man the music is getting more intense here. Why didn't you tell me about how to become a Christian? I mean, how hard could it be? All you have to do is ignore the archeological evidence, the astronomical evidence, the biological evidence and the total lack of biblical evidence and surely you could have sent me to a doctor who knew how to give me a quality lobotomy. Damn you Zack. Damn you for not telling me how to hate gays like myself.

3:57 - 4:30 They're coming for me, Zack! We've traced the call! Its coming from inside the house! The hills have eyes, Zack! Don't say his name three times in front of the mirror! GO!! GET TO THE CHOPPER!!

4:31 - 4:55 The heart I left with my physical body is bursting with fear. THIS IS SO SCARY!! AAAAAHHH!!!

5:00 JESUS!

5:01 - 5:35 The best part of the video. That's a quality horror film name.

5:36 - 6:48 You need to warn your friends and family of the train coming down the tracks at them... even though they're standing in a field, 15 miles from either civilization or train tracks.

6:49 - 8:20 Some old radio broadcast of either a reading from the bible or a reinterpretation of it. Not that it makes much difference. Its just boring.

Not much here. Just scary music and scary readings.

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