Jim Carlson: Not a master of Irony or socio-mathematical  abstractions

Landover Baptist is a humorist site dedicated to satirizing the garish, perpetually max-volume Americana that is modern Western Christian Fundamentalism in all its glory. See the blog roll for the link.

So when, in our “internetravels”, we stumbled across this site whilst on a search for the abomination that is Professor Giraffenstein (explanation here), we had to admire how a serious Christian site calling for Landover to be shut down could sound so VERY much like Landover itself.

Brilliantly, Jim Carlson the Christian even proclaims himself a ‘Game Theory’ subscriber on his website.

Game Theory, popularized by that guy from A Beautiful Mind and made use of extensively in the Cold War by some of the most right-wing people in America’s short history, asserts that humans are, in essence, only motivated by self-interest, and there is no such thing as altruism. For more, shut up and watch this:

Then again, you have to admit that ‘Do unto others as you would have done unto you’ is purely self-interest based. Certainly makes the whole Christianity thing sound a lot less lofty and a lot more…well…selfish.

Anyway, after a lot of lunging about misunderstanding big ideas, Jimmy-babes turns his attention to those ironic chaps at Landoverbaptist, accusing them not only of lampooning his beliefs (upon closer reading Landover is actually ridiculing organized religion’s own hypocrisy and hate mongering rather than dogma and doctrine) – but also of actually wanting to trick people into thinking they were a real Christian site. At the same time!

Here’s what can only be described as “the” tirade against this apparent double-attack on morality that is Landover Baptist Church. How many howler fallacies can YOU SPOT?

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“The Internet was created by the United States of America – a Christian nation [ref. 1, 2, 3] – and should not be used to spread anti-Christian, secular, or non-Christian propaganda and hate speech. This is our Internet, and we should exercise our position as its owners and as the guardians of civilization to stop its misuse.

“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

– Patrick Henry, American Patriot
“Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord [i.e. Jesus Christ] one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names…”

– Article VII, US Constitution

For this reason, this website was created to try and stop one of the more vile and dangerous misuses of the Internet: using it to mock Our Lord Jesus Christ, His teachings, and His followers. And one site in particular stands out in need of stoppage: Landover Baptist.”

Rest Here:

So, tongue firmly in cheek, we sent Jim Carlson, apparent owner of the site, this:

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Dear Jim,

I’d like to congratulate you on your hilarious and well-crafted parody of a tract against the site Landoverbaptist.org. You had me laughing so hard I almost wretched. You are a comedy genius!

Particularly enjoyed the irony of writing in the voice of a Christian fundamentalist (who would believe in the Garden of Eden, talking snakes, Cain having sex with his mother, a boat full of animals etc) thinking Landover was out to scam people into ‘believing’ their stories. A brilliant irony sir!

From the moment you started with ‘The Internet was created by the United States of America – a Christian nation’ I was on the floor laughing. This is exactly what an ignorant fundamentalist would say!

Of course you and I know that Tim Berners-Lee, an English scientist, created the world wide web (in the form of HTTP) whilst working with CERN in Switzerland (any idiot with access to the net itself would know this in a second, of course) – your brilliant parody allows for the blindness of those true believers who don’t check facts, but just assume something that fits with their agenda! AMAZING WORK!

Quoting Patrick Henry actually made me wet myself a little too – as everyone with an iota of historical awareness know, Henry confined his wife in the basement of his house for her remaining years before she died alone, making him a complete monster in the eyes of history. Putting him up on your ironic article made me cackle like a witch. You are too much sir!

Quoting Article VII of the Constitution was a great move too – not only because the meaning of ‘he Year of Our Lord’ has nothing to do with religion, more the way they used to actually say the year, but more so because of the fact it was signed by George Washington, who also said:

“Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated.” – [Letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792] – I laughed til I stopped. Then I laughed some more.

Thanks for your article on Landover by the way, I have bookmarked it, subscribed to their newsletter and have promoted it on my site. I have also put your site on my blog as a brilliant and inspired example of modern satire on the web. My readers will hopefully have the god taste to shower you with praise as well, for you are very very funny.

All the best from admiring humour fans,

Everyone at The Hypernation

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