The anti-science movement includes those objecting to GMOs, vaccines, evolution, astronomy, heliocentrism, and a round Earth. Now welcome to the club the anti-gravity gang. Led by Joshua Feuerstein, these folks reject the description of gravity as a natural phenomenon and insist it is a far darker force.

That is their explanation for the latest divination craze, “Charlie, Charlie.” To participate, one hexagon-shaped pencil is placed on top of another, the bottom pencil resting on a piece of paper. The paper is broken into four quadrants, with words on each square.

Because of the precarious way the top pencil is positioned, a breath or vibration will cause it to rotate. But Feuerstein denies this is due to gravity and the laws of physics. He maintains a demon has been summoned to swing the writing utensil. Behold, Satan in all his graphite glory.

I understand middle school kids being spooked by a stationary object suddenly swaying, especially if it happens by candlelight in the presence of friends. I’m far less charitable to the fully-grown Feuerstein, who presents this game as irrefutable proof of demonic power. On his Facebook page, he chides those who insist a naturalistic explanation will suffice.

The top pencil is placed so gingerly that it can take a while to get the juxtaposition right. But eventually it stays put and the divinatory session begins with words of “Charlie, Charlie, are you here,” or a similar summons. It’s amazing how demons always speak the same language as those conjuring them.

The alleged backstory involves a Mexican demon, which would require allowing that spirits have nationalities. It is also said to go back centuries, though there is no evidence this is anything beyond a contemporary trend. It is, however, the latest in a long tradition of divination that includes barley cakes, tea leaves, Tarot cards, Bloody Mary, and Ouija Boards. These ideas have survived far longer than would seem possible. Science has given us Germ Theory, Pasteurization, the eradication of smallpox, the unlocking of the atom and electron, and launched a manmade object that has left the solar system. And yet educated adults in the 21^st Century insist that a moving pencil is caused not by precarious placement and air, but by an invisible monster.

But nothing extraordinary is going on and no supernatural powers are being accessed. If they were, only one pencil would be needed and it could move without being precariously balanced. Or the demon could bring his own pencil. Or he could open his serpent mouth. For all of the terrifying power Feuerstein and fellow fruitcakes attribute to demons, the devilish minions are incapable of speech. They need seventh-graders with pencils to serve as the conduit.

The sign that there’s nothing supernatural about these types of happenings is that they always occur under restricting, specific conditions. James Hryrick claimed telepathy, but his ability to move objects was limited to nearby telephone book pages. His otherworldly talents vanished when he attempted to slip them by James Randi. Randi exposed the ruse by placing Styrofoam peanuts around the pages. Hyrick’s only ability was subtle breathing, which was revealed when the peanuts moved with the pages.

Similarly, mediums at a séance claim that spirits will enter the room and ring bells or move objects. They allow their wrists to be tied to the chair, and the duped person is permitted to place his feet on those of the medium. The stipulation, however, is that the lights be turned off. This allows the medium to be unseen when he removes his hands from the arm rests, which had been loosened beforehand. Likewise, he removes his feet from his shoes, which had been glued to the floor and hollowed in the back.

In this case, the stipulation is that it be two pencils placed just so. Putting one fork down in place of two pencils won’t work. I experimented a few times by placing a pencil on top of another, and it stayed motionless for as long as I did nothing. But a gust of breath or waving motion caused it to swing. As a control, I tried moving it by summoning the Charlie demon, but the Gateway to Hell remained shut. Maybe if I had tried it in Spanish.

Supporters of Biblical prophecy assert that the events were correctly predicted beforehand. This is used to bolster claims of the Bible’s authenticity and divine authorship.

The most readily apparent problem is that of a source claiming to be its own confirmation. If a contemporary seer produced writings with specific references to 9/11, Michael Jackson’s date of death, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, then claimed to have penned all this in 1995, the unsubstantiated nature of this assertion would be obvious. By contrast, if he made a public pronouncement of all this in 1995, and multiple sources were there to document him doing so, this would be substantial proof of his ability.

With the Bible, it is very difficult to determine precisely when its different chapters were written, so it requires a great accommodation to credit prophecies with having been made before the event. But even if the dates could be verified, the nature of Biblical prophecies makes declaring them valid problematic. Correctly predicting the future is an extraordinary claim, so giving credence to this ability requires that the prophecies be precise and about something improbable or unknowable. “A great king shall rise in the east,” is far too vague, while “There will be wars and droughts” describes the history of the world so far, and thus predicting that those calamities will continue requires no special talent.

Several Old Testament prophecies failed to come true, but I will charitably overlook some of these since they COULD still happen. For instance, Egypt could become a barren wasteland, the Nile could still dry up, and Egyptians may eventually adopt the Canaanite language. As an aside, Egyptians take such a beating in the Bible that it’s no wonder they worshipped cats instead.

While the events in these Egyptian-centered prophecies could still be fulfilled, other future visions centered on people who died without the events happening. In the 26^th chapter of Ezekiel, God promised Nebuchadnezzar that his raid on Tyre will be so complete that the city will be flattened and forever wiped out. However, Nebuchadnezzar and Tyre reached a compromise after a 13-year war, and the city still stands in Lebanon.

Then In Isaiah 7, God tells the king of Judah he will be protected from his enemies, yet the king suffers harm from them in II Chronicles 28:1-8. When Abram entered Canaan, God promised him in Genesis 12:7 that he would bless his offspring with the land. However, per Hebrews 11:13, they were never given this inheritance. God also told David that Solomon’s descendants will rule in Judah forever (II Samuel 7:13-16). Yet this line ended when the Babylonians overthrew King Zedekiah.

OK, so Biblical writers whiffed on these, but what about the ones that came true? Some sources claim over 300 prophecies have been fulfilled. And they have been, as long as one has an extremely flexible definition of fulfilled and some highly-creative interpretation skills.

For instance, God said of Cyrus in Isaiah 45:1, “whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.” Some interpret this to refer to Persia invading Babylon, even though neither country is mentioned in this passage, nor is a time frame offered. Accompanying this claim is a second assertion that the prophecy was made 140 years before the attack. However, there is no way to determine this, as Isaiah was written over a period of several decades, including some years in which the tensions between Persia and Babylon were beginning to bubble. In this sense, even a correct prophecy would be no more chilling than an observer predicting the German invasion of Poland in 1937.

Here’s why all this happened. The New Testament authors, particularly of the gospels and Acts, were attempting to market their upstart religion. They were competing against established brands such as Baal, Ra, and Horus. They needed to be distinctive, so they lifted ancient scriptures and twisted them completely out of context and tried to cram it into contemporary events.

The most energetic of these writers was Matthew, who in his shoehorning attempts often got sloppy with the original text. For instance, he alleges that Jesus being born in Bethlehem fulfills Micah 5:2. But that passage reads, “Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel.” So this refers to the Bethlehem Ephrathah clan, not the Israeli city.

Then Matthew 2:15 cites Jesus’ return from Egypt as being the fulfillment of this prophecy: “And there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.” This quotes Hosea 1:1, but the entire verse reads, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” So Hosea 1:1 is not a prophecy of Jesus leaving Egypt, but a reference to the Israeli exodus.

Next, let’s consider the claim in John 19:37 that Jesus being pierced during his execution fulfilled Zechariah 12:10, which reads, “They shall look on him whom they pierced.” Look, however, at the entire verse: “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.” When John cites this verse, he leaves out the word “me.” So this would require the prophecy to have been made by Jesus hundreds of years before his birth, a miracle indeed. Moreover, Zechariah 12 is a tale of an invading Army. No one reading the account at the time it was written would have taken it to be portending a messiah’s flesh wound.

In the second and 13th chapters of Acts, Luke cites Psalms 16:8-10 as evidence of the resurrection. The psalmist had written, “I have set Yahweh always before me: Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.”

This was a first-hand account of a writer’s concern over his current state. There is nothing to indicate it was a prophecy about a man rising again to sit beside God, nor even a suggestion anyone has died.

We see more of this extreme pretzel logic in Matthew 2:18, where the author claims Herod’s order to slaughter all boys two and under was presaged in this verse from Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, Because they are no more.” Yet, this passage was addressing the Jewish dispersion brought on by the Babylonian occupation, not predicting a mass killing of toddlers. Jeremiah goes onto guarantee the return of these children, eliminating any chance it was referring to murder victims. Matthew was the precursor to Jack Van Impe, as he tried to make any contemporary event fit, no matter how far removed it was from the original context.

Perhaps the most frequently cited prophecy stems from Matthew 1:23, with the claim that Isaiah 7:13-14 foreshadowed the birth of Jesus. However, this verse involved Isaiah talking with King Ahaz about an alliance formed against him by Syria and Israel. (The dude who pulled that off gets my vote for Diplomat of the Millennium).

Isaiah reassures Ahaz that the alliance will fail: “Yahweh Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” This stipulated that a baby named Immanuel, born in Ahaz’s time, would be a good luck sign for the king. It is absurd to deduce that this refers to a baby named Jesus born seven centuries later and intended to be good luck for all humanity.

As to the seemingly more relevant virgin birth reference, this is the result of a transcribing error. The Hebrew word for “young woman” was mistranslated as “virgin” when being copied into Greek.

I only found one alleged prophecy that was specific, unknowable beforehand, and which definitely occurred: The assassination of Sennacherib in II Kings. The substantial trouble is that there is no way to determine when it was written. There are some references in II Kings to events that took place after the assassination, so there’s no way to tell if this was a genuine prophecy or a writing made after the fact to make it look like such. As mentioned earlier in the post, there is a glaring problem with a book claiming to be its own confirmation.

For the past five years, humming, metallic sounds from overhead have been reported in Europe and North America. Unlike Yeti sightings, UFO encounters, and out-of-body experiences, these sky sounds have been clearly captured on video.

Potential scientific explanations include atmospheric pressure or the grinding of tectonic plates. More down-to-Earth possibilities are construction and trains. If that’s too pedestrian, other options are aliens and the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, though the latter would require European nations have something equivalent.

But the idea most frequently raised in alarmist circles is that the sounds are angelic trumpet blasts foreshadowing catastrophes. These will continue until the last trumpet blast, which the apostle Paul wrote would be accompanied by deceased believers in Christ ascending to heaven. Or, in a more NC17 sense, corpses will rise from the ground, these floating zombies owing their existence to a human sacrifice.

At chemtrailsinourskies.com, the site maintainer deviates from his usual overhead concern to trumpet this one. He writes that the dozen or so events captured on video, along with extreme weather, is too much write off as coincidental. “These sounds alone can be dismissed, but together with the earthquakes in uncommon places, along with tornadoes, snowstorms in the desert, and volcanoes everywhere, there too many variables hitting the mark at the same time.”

Even this extreme Magical Thinking is too moderate for reader Garry, who posted Biblical references to trumpets, harps, and organs before segueing into this portent of doom: “Does this give you a clue on who’s making those weird loud trumpet sounds? Wake up people, those sounds are letting us know that the lord is on his way.”

In agreement are the gang at Before It’s News. They announced, “All around us are signs that the second coming of Jesus is near.” Also ubiquitous are confirmation bias, communal reinforcement, and subjective validation.

Before It’s News goes on, noting that the Bible stipulates all must persons must hear the message before Jesus returns, and that trumpet blasts count. Gabriel’s horn cacophony is serving as an “Apocalypse Watch,” preceding the warning that will come when the skies open. The sounds portend a worldwide earthquake, in which one-third of all trees are burned, although humans seem to have gotten a head start on that one. Next, one-third of the ocean turns to blood, causing one-third of all sealife to perish. The standard hail and firestorms follow, and into their wake swarm a satanic army of 200 million minions, massacring a remarkably consistent 33 percent of the world populace. Next, there is a second worldwide earthquake, a rather lazy apocalyptic calamity following visions of demon hordes and scorpion/human mutants.

Prophecyinnews.com notes there have been trumpet reports since at least the 19^th Century. However, it cautions that “the current rash of incidents are something entirely different. They are deafening booms described as only a few feet away. They are described as complex metallic clanging and crashing, sounding exactly like the crushing destruction of glass and metal.”

More important, “The only precedent for these sounds is found in the Bible, where they accompany climactic events. And this is no ordinary trumpet. It is literally the voice of God, as can be seen from a description of the rapture: ‘For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel.’”

So the message is being delivered, when everyone receives it, the world ends. Those who prefer the world remain in place can take solace from the fact they’re forgetting to inform the deaf.

The most frequently-cited wonders centering on Biblical characters are weeping statues and the Shroud of Turin. One is temporary, the other permanent, but both lack scientific evidence for being genuine.

Weeping statues are representations of Mary from which tears are said to be gushing forth. The crying is usually interpreted as her trying to tell us something. A more impressive miracle would be the statue opening its mouth and leaving no doubt about the message. Then again, who these days could understand Aramaic?

Weeping statues are usually frauds to drum up attention and money, though a few are caused by natural phenomenon such as condensation or a chemical reaction to air. When done as a hoax, olive oil is usually employed since it never dries.

An Italian skeptic with the preposterously wonderful name of Luigi Garlaschelli explained how it works. A hollow statue made of a porous material is glazed with an impermeable coating. The statue is then filled with a liquid, with the porous material absorbing it and the glazing keeping it from flowing out. Next, the glazing is imperceptibly scratched under the eyes, causing drops to come forth.

A simpler, lazier method is to smear blood or oil on the icon. This, or just about any technique, will be effective when used on the devout. They already believe on faith, which is impervious to logic, facts, reason, and persuasion. Augment this with the thrill of witnessing a miracle and having to travel a long distance and stand in a long line to do so, and belief is a virtual certainty.

It is noteworthy that skeptics are seldom allowed to examine the statues or take samples from them. When that has happened, the ruse has collapsed. Statues in Quebec had been weeping blood, and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporters were allowed to put it to a scientific test. This revealed that the blood had been mixed with pork fat, which liquefied and ran when the room temperature rose due to the body heat of the faithful.

Mary also showed up in a California tree, with this turning out to be a fungus. She has also visited oil stains, doors, and my Froot Loops this morning.

The most nauseating manifestation of Mary’s presence was though a comatose teen girl in Massachusetts. The child had been unresponsive and bedridden for 11 years after nearly drowning. The family garage became a makeshift chapel, with miracle seekers stopping by to receive healing after seeing the girl and a weeping statue. The statue could cure every malady except for the one which afflicted the girl who lived adjacent to it 24-7. A window was added to the garage so throngs of onlookers could stare at the vegetative girl and pray that she channel God in order to help them find their car keys.

Her mother allowed 20/20 to take a sample of the oil, with the analysis revealing it to be 80 percent vegetable oil and 20 percent chicken fat. In fact, skeptic author Joe Nickell, who penned a book on weeping statues, reported that all he statues he ever encountered were the result of fraud or condensation. Of significant note, neither he nor any other investigator has ever seen an object start to spurt liquid.

While weeping statues can pop up anywhere there’s an adequate olive oil supply, seeing the Shroud requires a trip around the world, unless one lives in Turin.

This piece of cloth has an image of two men on it, one frontal and one rear, with the heads meeting in the middle. The Shroud was probably an artwork from the 14th Century employing red pigment and vermilion paint. Art historian Nicholas Allen, using only techniques and materials available in the Middle Ages, replicated making the Shroud for his doctoral thesis.

The assertion that the image is of Jesus wrapped in a blanket poses serious issues. There are a lack of wraparound distortions across the torso, thighs, and lower legs that would be consistent with a man being wrapped inside. If the cloth were genuine, the face and body would barely be recognizable as such.

As it is, the head is a bit large for the body, the nose is disproportionate, and the arms are too long. But hey, you try hanging on a cross and wearing a crown of thorns for 36 hours and see how peachy you look.

Even if the Shroud had been a malformed man’s burial linen, radiocarbon 14 dating proved it was less than 700 years old. This spurred an ad hoc hypothesis that a blaze in 1532 screwed up the carbon dating, an assertion void of fire science reality. In fact, samples for carbon dating are completely burned to CO2 as part of the procedure.

Meanwhile, University of Turin professor Alberto Carpinteri explained the dating discrepancy this way: “Neutron emissions by earthquakes could have induced the image formation on the Shroud’s linen fibers, through thermal neutron capture on nitrogen nuclei, and caused a wrong radiocarbon dating.”

Other than subatomic influence from natural disasters, other pieces of evidence put forth by the Shroud Crowd is that the cloth contains both AB blood and pollen grains found only in Israel. However, blood blackens when aged, while the “blood” on the Shroud is red. Another miracle, perhaps. Furthermore, the red blots were subjected to a series of tests by forensic serologists, with the results indicating it is not blood.

Even if it were, it could have come from anyone who ever came in contact with it. Likewise, the pollen could have been added by anyone who ever handled the Shroud, either by chance or deception. Though doubtful, it could mean that the Shroud had been in Jerusalem at one point, though this fails to establish that it is Jesus’ burial garment. Nickell, who also wrote a book on the Shroud, cites more circumstantial evidence. He notes the complex herringbone weave is inconsistent with what was used for burial in Jesus’ time and place. Hebrew law also dictated cleansing of the corpse before wrapping, and bodies don’t bleed days after death.

Even if evidence pointed to the cloth coming from the Middle East two millenniums ago, this would fail to establish that it is an image of Jesus rising. No explanations are offered for how the image was impressed onto cloth through a physical resurrection. Holes in the cloth would be better evidence than an image on it.

Believers generally attribute all this to the miraculous. These miracles include the Shroud Jesus precisely resembling how he is portrayed in Middle Age European paintings, as opposed to how a First Century Israeli more likely appeared.

If doomsayers had a .001 winning percentage, I wouldn’t be writing about them.

There have been predictions about the imminent destruction of the planet for as long as Man has been aware of his mortality. As the year 1000 approached, some Christians crucified themselves as a sign of repentance and a way to connect with Jesus, since they were sure the end was near. A millennium later, some were convinced that nuclear bombs would set themselves off and we would be collectively fried.

Most panicky prognostications are religious in nature, though some involve aliens and a few attempt a more scientific spin. There are two main types of doomsday predictions: The vague assertion that the end is coming, and the one that pegs a day or at least a year. I have seen online commentators insist Earth is doomed due to gay marriage, a cross being removed from a public park, or a busy hurricane season. These pronouncements are reactionary at best and gain no traction. To get a doomsday cult of your own, specifics are needed. For maximum attention, assign a date for Armageddon.

Some of the better known of the last 20 years include Aum Shinri Kyo (1995), Heaven’s Gate (1997), the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandants of God (1999, altered to 2000 when that apocalypse came and went), The Lord Our Righteousness Church (2007), Harold Camping (2011), and the Mayan calendar brouhaha (2012). When ATF agents surrounded the Branch Davidian compound, David Koresh told his flock this meant the end was nigh. Jim Jones adopted similar tactics when his empire began crumbling.

Let’s examine one of the reasons people come to this way of thinking. The Lord of our Righteousness Church is led by Michael Travesser, a former Seventh-Day Adventist. He now refers to that denomination as a “daughter of the great harlot” referenced in Revelation. The great majority of Christians who read Revelation come to a different conclusion, or none at all, about who these harlots might be. This highlights a crucial point about Christian portents of doom. Books like Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation, with their vivid imagery, and lack of proper names and known places, are open to wide interpretation. This is why people analyzing the same script come to such different conclusions.

Ronald Weinland of the redundant Church of God Preparing for the Kingdom of God has picked dates in 2008, 2012, and 2013 as the time it all comes to an end. One of his failures was explained away by clarifying afterward that he meant the beginning of the end would start on that day.

But clairvoyant Christians aren’t the only players in the End Times Lottery. A partial list of doomsayers over the centuries includes:

• Psychics (Gordon-Michael Scallion and Edgar Cayce)

• Seers (Nostradamus)

• Astrologers (Richard Noone and Jeanne Dixon)

• Proponents of the theory that Neptune’s mystery neighbor Nibiru is about to smack Earth (disciples of Zecharia Sitchin)

• Iconoclastic, self-important astronomers insisting that the alignment of Jupiter will trigger massive earthquakes (John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann).

When the end date approaches, some believers commit mass suicide to attain a higher plane, while others feel they will be spared death and snatched to paradise.

While the tactics are similar through the ages, Doomsayers adapt for the times. The 1950s saw the advent of UFO-related cults, such as the one led by Marian Keech. She gathered followers in her home on Dec. 21, 1954, to await salvation from flying saucers, which would spare them from Earth’s fiery end. When the alien rescuers failed to arrive, Keech told her followers their faith had saved the world. She got away with it, as the cognitive dissonance was especially strong. The deeper the investment of time and emotion, the stronger the rejection of alternate truths. Some followers of William Miller reacted the same way when they woke up on Oct. 23, 1844, to find the planet still here.

Marshall Applewhite, however, took no such chance. He instructed dozens of Heaven’s Gate followers to swallow a mix of cyanide and chocolate pudding so their souls would ascend to an alien craft being shielded by the Hale Bopp comet. As far as we know, it worked. No one is here to tell us otherwise. But the subsequent destruction of Earth hasn’t happened.

Another adaptation to the modern day is offering a more plausible-sounding scenario, such as asserting that a dwarf planet or asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. This is distinct from scanning the cosmos for such a phenomenon in order to be ready with defensive measures. Doomsayers, by contrast, dissect the Old Testament, Nostradamus prophecies, or other cryptic texts, then shout that rouge heavenly bodies and mass extinction are hurtling our way.

Then we had the alarmist concern about the Large Hadron Collider creating black holes that would gobble Earth and its inhabitants.

For most of Mankind’s history, we had no idea where we came from, why we were here, or where we were going. This left us primed to create and embrace myths, as way to find meaning in it all. While all the questions aren’t answered, astronomy and biology give us a good idea of how we got here. Astronomy and physics, meanwhile, let us know how it might end. This should mean the end of doomsayers, but cataclysmic events require some persons to square them with the Bible or Nostradamus, and interpret it to mean that it’s almost over. But every generation has seen catastrophic events without the world ending.

Another factor is that some people feel more important to think they are living in the last days. Also, it can be exciting to think the end is coming, especially when it’s also the beginning of something better. Accompanying many doomsday beliefs is the notion that a savior is coming to reward the faithful. These saviors have been many, but the best-known is Jesus. People still think he’s coming back, in some cases to help the South rise again.

Jesus hasn’t returned, but several others have filled the messiah void. Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi had a sizable following in 17th Century England. It was a huge blow to many of his believers when he converted to Islam. But other followers rationalized that the conversion was part of Sabbatai’s plan to bring Muslims to Judaism, or Jews to Islam, as part of a unifying plan that would precede the Rapture. There are people in Turkey, called Dönmeh, who still anticipate Sabbatai’s return.

If you know of anyone who would like to read this, let them know now. Markbeast.com warns that they have only until summer 2016 to do so.

The Intelligent Design movement is a transparent charade to foist creationism on public school biology students. Owing to its complete lack of science, this attempt has failed.

The major feature of Intelligent Design is the appeal to ignorance, where lack of evidence for one view is falsely claimed to constitute proof of an alternate position. The bulk of Intelligent Design planks are negative evidence arguments against evolution. But even if a legitimate question is raised against a component of evolution, it is a non sequitur to conclude that God must therefore be squeezed into the equation. The other side never explains how their proposed method works. While there remain questions about the origins of the universe and of organisms, the unexplained is not inexplicable. Admitting that we don’t yet have all the answers is a better alternative than invoking the supernatural.

Still, ID backers will point to order in the universe as proof that God did it. This is faulty thinking because it assumes God is only way for order to be attained. It is circular reasoning to cite order in the universe as proof of God while citing God as the reason for this order.

ID also relies on personal incredulity. I have heard its proponents declare, “There’s no way I can believe that something as wonderful as a mother holding her newborn is just the result of a series of chances.” Or, “You cannot tell me that beautiful mountains surrounded by evergreens and flowing streams came from anything but God.” However, a person’s inability to conceive of something is not an argument for its nonexistence.

That’s enough about the lack of evidence for design. Let’s look at the lack of evidence for intelligence. Consider these examples:
• The 2004 tsunami that left a quarter of a million people dead.
• The species of wasp that paralyzes its prey with a painful sting, then eats it beginning with the part farthest from the brain. This ensures the victim endures the maximum amount of mental anguish and physical suffering.
• The mouths of toddlers contain their most sensitive nerves, so they frequently put objects in them as a way of trying to make sense of everything. This leads to about a dozen preschool children dying each year after swallowing button cell batteries.
• Eventually life on our planet will vanish through an event such as an asteroid impact, the sun burning out, or Earth’s magnetic field reversing.

If all this is by design, it speaks poorly to whoever drew it up. British naturalist David Attenborough was asked how he could see a Bird of Paradise and conclude that it was anything but the beauty of God’s work. He could do this in part, he responded, because nature also features parasitic worms that destroy the eyesight of sub-Saharan African children.

Sometimes ID proponents will point out that we wouldn’t be here if there was no carbon, or if the sun was twice as close or twice as distant, or if gravity were 20 percent stronger, or dozens of similar arguments. They will say the odds of all this coming together are one in 100 billion, so it could never have happened without divine intervention. This is more faulty logic because it again assumes no other factors could be in play. Furthermore, there are at least 100 billion planets, making the idea of one of them beating 100 billion-to-one odds entirely plausible. Moreover, if some of the items on these lists had been different, it could have resulted in life developing elsewhere.

I’ve seen some ID proponents point out that a baby elephant will eat its dung in order to ingest the bacteria needed to digest food. What, they argue, outside of Intelligent Design could cause a creature to do something as seemingly unnatural as consuming dung? I’m unsure, but it is more appeal to ignorance to automatically credit this to God. And it seems that, rather than creating a mechanism whereby the pachyderm will feast on feces, that an intelligent designer would have made it so that the animal need not eat it at all. Why not have a full buffet ready for him each day?

Another argument is that an organism’s complexity could only be the result of a creator. By this point, you likely recognize that as more circular reasoning. Besides, the more complex something is, the more chances there are for something to go wrong. The very complexity and inherent defects of structures suggest a lack of intelligent design.

Many creatures that seem exquisitely designed are the product of millions of years of incremental changes in inherited characteristics. Changes which enhanced survival and reproduction led to complex organisms with adaptive features. We see only the winners, not the harmful mutations that led to extinction.

Intelligent Design is no more science than is alchemy or geocentrism. A legitimate scientific idea can be confirmed or disproven through experiment or observation. There exists no method to examine or falsify Intelligent Design claims. Intelligent Design supporters have yet to tell us how the process works and there are no papers explaining Intelligent Design in any peer-reviewed scientific journal. Also, a theory must be fluid when necessary, and corrected if faced with conflicting evidence, a distinction conspicuously lacking in Intelligent Design.

Thanksgiving 2002 featured stuffing and yams, but was otherwise untraditional for me. It was in Hawaii, so there was no crisp air or colored leaves. My only family within 5,000 miles was my wife, so it lacked the usual reunions, festive atmosphere, and Nerf football games. And, unlike most turkey days, two Mormon missionaries showed up at my door.

I invited them in. I don’t recall their opening spiel, but know it failed to mention that God lives near the star Kolob with a harem of goddesses. From this celestial perch, he sires billions of spirit children, who assume fetus, angel, or demon form. God was also a man at one time, but elevated to deity status by being so Mormon. None of this was brought up, nor was the secret password they used to get into heaven while wearing protective nightshirts.

I did mention some of this to them, and to their credit, they acknowledged it. When pressed, they also expressed belief in an extreme form of evolution, as they thought they could in time become gods reigning over their own planet. Otherwise, it was a standard religious presentation, attempting to explain why we are here, where we are going, and what it all might mean.

We ended up becoming acquainted fairly well. They came over a couple of times when I hosted social gatherings. We enjoyed each other’s company and, as a bonus, they left the beer supply untouched. The one issue was that I wish they would have just concentrated on being people and not Mormons, although I realized they were literally on a mission. Once, they were trying to justify a position by reading the Book of Mormon and I grabbed the Bhagavad Gita and quoted from it. I noted these words would mean nothing to them since they weren’t Hindu and that their book meant nothing to me since I wasn’t Mormon.

Their book was authored by Joseph Smith, who claimed to have found golden plates inscribed with a long-forgotten language. When I asked the missionaries where these plates were, they told me God took them back. Smith translated the tablets to Martin Harris, who demanded a sheet be placed between he and the reader, out of fear of the plates. Mrs. Harris grew tired of this taking place in her house and snagged 116 pages’ worth of transcripts. She noted that if Smith had these plates, and the ability to translate them, he could to it again. Smith then received a new revelation in which God warned him evil men would get hold of those 116 pages and twist their meaning, so to avoid translating them again.

This adaptability continues today, as the church president is able to hear God’s voice. Dictates are altered and even superseded after these divine encounters. This is quite distinctive from other Abrahamic religions, which pride themselves on being unyielding and stubbornly unchanging. I have to give the Mormons some credit here. Being able to change with the times and potentially consider new evidence and social norms is preferable to the way it’s done in most beliefs. It’s certainly better than some Baptist preachers I’ve seen, who praise the “unchanging, inerrant word of God,” while holding aloft the fourth revision of the King James Bible, which itself only came about after 16 centuries of edits, omissions, embellishments, debate, redrafts, holy wars, and council votes.

As to the Mormon president’s chats with God, these revelations led to a ban on warm drinks, though a further vision excepted hot chocolate. Following another celestial chat, Brigham Young announced God had forbidden miscegenation, and that this could never change for any reason. This later changed for some reason. There was also a proscription on black priests, which was overturned in 1978. While there theoretically can be black Mormon priests, blacks and Mormons are disinclined to act on this.

Mormonism is Christian, in that it believes in the deity of Jesus and in the Bible, but it is a distinctive subset. There are also splinter Mormon groups, sort of a spinoff-of-a-spinoff, like Good Times. These include fundamentalist sects that force 14-year-old girls into polygamous marriages, and which forbid most members from owning property. We also have the Strangites, whose founder unearthed the REAL undiscovered book, as unoriginal a launching point as there’s ever been for any sect. Then there is the Temple Lot, which teaches Jesus will return to Independence, Missouri. This is opposite of most apocalyptic visions, in that it announces the place, but not the time. Other subsets focus on ingesting peyote or extreme fealty to Israel, or are based on the suddenly-found 116 pages.

The most obvious difference between Latter-Day Saints and mainstream Christianity is the Book of Mormon. This is an interminable series of stories about the ancient peoples of America, for whom there is zero archeological, historic, or scientific evidence. With its length, battles, and super powers, the Book of Mormon is analagous to the Lord of the Rings, except for being awful. The ancient America inhabitants included Jesus, which means Mormons are awaiting his Third Coming. Unless his appearance in ghost form a few days after the crucifixion counts, in which case we’re up to anticipating the Fourth Coming.

In these battles, the Lamanites and Nephites kill and vanquish each other in a series of skirmishes, with the victor each time being the one that acted most obsequiously to God. Nephites win the war and the defeated Lamanites are cursed with bronzed skin. This strongly insinuates they were the ancestors of Native Americans, making it much easier to drive them off the land since it wasn’t theirs anyway.

Not only is there no archeological evidence for these people, there is no proof that cattle, horses, donkeys, pigs, sheep, and elephants were here at this time, and all those are mentioned in the Book. There are also references to brass, iron, and steel, with no evidence those metals were in use in ancient America.

There are more disconnects between the Book and reality. For instance, there are no similarities between Native American languages and the tongues of those in the Near East, where Smith purports the Lamanites and Nephites emigrated from. Also completely lacking is any DNA evidence suggesting that Native Americans and ancient Near East persons are connected.

To counter all this, the Mormons’ only evidence is their claim that Joseph Smith was an uneducated yokel who would be unable to write anything like the Book of Mormon. If true, this would be a sign that someone else wrote it, but it’s hardly a reasonable segue to conclude that God was the author.

In another substantial break with other Abrahamic traditions, Mormonism is polytheistic, although ambivalently so. It believes other gods are out there, but Mormons worship only the Bible one and feel he is in charge of our universe and is the only one it’s worth trying to contact or please. As such, it remains unclear what benefit it is to the Mormon Church to have these gods. Smith and Young may have had some role in mind for these extra deities, but the ideas never came to fruition. One plus for the church is that bolsters its claim that we can all be deities with our own planet.

This brings us to the Mormon afterlife, which teaches that people and sprit entities reside eternally in one of four tiers. They, of course, go to the Platinum Level, along with God, Jesus, and angels. The next level is for Billy Graham, Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama – folks good enough to be religious, but not worthy of Latter-Day Sainthood. Level three is for almost everyone else: Me, Johnny Depp, Heinrich Himmler.

There is a fourth level, their equivalent of Hell, which they teach is freezing as opposed to fiery (and which thus sounds more ominous to me). Other than Satan and his demons, the only other confirmed resident appears to be Judas. This is based on the idea that Level Four is only for those who see the full glory of God, then reject him. Seeing the full glory of God is reserved for Moses, the apostles, angels, and elite-status Mormons. The fourth level is used to keep Mormons in line, but it would seem to remove any incentive to join the church. Those outside are guaranteed unending bliss in Level Three. Why risk it by becoming a Mormon and potentially backsliding all the way to Level Four and eternal misery?

While Latter-Day Saints have on paper ended their discrimination against racial minorities, women are never allowed in leadership positions and homosexuals are strongly condemned. Still, with gay marriage having arrived in Utah, it is possible for the world’s two openly-gay Mormons to wed.

An exorcism is a religious rite aimed at driving a demon out of a person, place, pancake, or wherever else he takes up diabolical residence.