I don’t know how she does it, but Jen McCreight always seems to find the wackiest of the wack-jobs, the nuttiest of the nut-jobs. You might remember her as the unwitting instigator and spokesperson for Boobquake, where she proved that wearing “immodest” clothing doesn’t actually cause earthquakes. Because that was the theory being suggested by Iranian Friday Prayer Leader Kazem Seddiqi: that “women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray … which increases earthquakes”. And last week she found another moron, but this time from the good ole’ USA: preacher Joseph Herrin.
In his latest abomination blog post, Herrin manages to link hurricanes with Old Testament bible stories before claiming that the BP Horizon oil spill happened because Louisiana is “peppered” with abortion clinics. At least I think that’s what he says. I only got about half way through before my eyes began to bleed. It never ceases to amaze me how stupid people can be. But Herrin’s post wasn’t just random ramblings of a nutter – he had “evidence” to back up his “theories”. Take this image, for example, which shows Hurricane Ike shortly before it hit land in September 2008. Clearly, obviously, Hurricane Ike represents birth:
Surprisingly, though, this is the only photo that has this, erm, “resemblance”. It’s amazing that none of the other 217,000 Google Images results don’t feature a fetus-shaped hurricane.
Sigh. This is the sort of irresponsible, stupid and senseless crap that doesn’t just drive people away from religion, it corrupts the minds of those who believe it. But Jospeh Herrin’s over-active imagination has, thankfully, done one good thing. He has reminded me to do something I’ve been meaning to do for a while: join the Australian Skeptics and the James Randi Educational Foundation. JREF and Australian Skeptics are non-profit organisations that aim to promote skepticism and critical thinking, so that people don’t start believing hurricanes look like fetuses. In fact JREF has a US$1,000,000 prize (donated by Rick Adams, founder of the first ever internet service provider) on offer to the first person who can provide objective proof of the paranormal.