de-conversion

“…and lo, I looked, and the Pale Horseman did pick up a few bucks on the side…”

Okay, I’m going to go a bit off-script here, and throw out a rant.  A rant that, despite truly heroic efforts on the part of my inhibitory circuits, I simply cannot withhold.  I normally like my posts to be more polished than this, but what the hey.  Consider this a brief follow up to my earlier post about how to handle Facebook.  A personal aside, if you will.

One of my relatives just posted this link on their FB page, that showed up in my newsfeed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j321v_3dwUM.

It shows a scene from the recent unrest in Egypt in which, due to either a lens-flare or Photoshop prankster — and really, who the hell cares which, the ghostly image (well, kinda sorta, if you squint real hard) of a horse and rider appears to move through the crowd.

Needless to say, the people posting this and commenting on it are getting “goose bumps” and “chills” declaring for all to know that “God is REAL!!”  It is, they are quite sure, one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  These are very nice people, and they are not kidding.

Oh, dear me.

All I can say is that its striking, unsettling, and not a little scary just how credulous people can be.  I’ve been a skeptic so long I tend to forget that. I tend to hang around atheists and agnostics, or at least fairly nonreligious people.  I read nonreligious books and blogs.  It’s easy to loose touch with how almost indescribably, painfully eager some people are to believe.  I mean criminy – even from within the framework of an evangelical Christian worldview, there is nothing whatsoever that requires one to believe that this video is real.  It’s a Horseman of the Apocalypse?  Seriously?  Is that really the best explanation here – even if you are a Christian, does that even make sense?  Wouldn’t one expect a Horseman of the Apocalypse to be more, well, apocalyptic than that?  What, is he the Horseman of Crowd Control? Conquest, War, Famine, and uh, Teargas? Are they moonlighting, maybe?

(For the record, I did not myself comment on this FB thread.  That would be an unpleasant experience for all, shall we say.)

It is times like these that I am very grateful for online communities such as this one.  It can be very lonely out there.  Skeptics are still, despite everything, a rare breed.  More than that, critical thinking itself is a rare skill.  Their interpretation of this video is nonsensical even from within their worldview.  It just packs an emotional punch, so it must be true. It’s kind of amazing our species has made it this long.

Okay, <whew>  I feel better. Thanks for indulging! I can wipe the spittle off my computer now!

- Richard

February 10, 2011 at 12:11 am Richard 20 comments