The right to criticize lunacy

At what point are you allowed to say, "That may be your religion, but it's completely insane," without being accused of crossing the lines of propriety?

I ask the question because of a comment made by Pope Francis that many are interpreting as implying that the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists brought their deaths upon themselves. "You cannot provoke," the Pope said.  "You cannot insult the faith of others.  You cannot make fun of the faith of others."

Okay, I admit that it's not nice to do something deliberately that upsets people, but other than that, why should we place religious faith outside of the reach of criticism?  What if the "faith of others" is completely absurd?

For example, consider a story that appeared a couple of days ago in The Times of Israel, which describes a reporter who traveled in Algeria, asking people who they thought were responsible for the Charlie Hebdo massacre.  And apparently the response she got was:

The attacks were done by shape-shifting Jews.

Illustration from Goethe's Werke (1882) [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

"Many Muslims in north Africa," Dana Kennedy said, "are of the opinion that Jews staged the series of terror incidents to make Muslims look bad... (and) that they weren’t just regular Jews that were doing this, but in fact but a race of magical shape-shifting Jews that were master manipulators that could be everywhere at the same time."

Oh, those wily, wily Jews.  Creating such convincing personae as Cherif and Said Kouachi (the gunmen responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attack, who shouted "Muhammad is avenged" after killing the twelve staff members) and Amedy Coulibaly (the self-proclaimed member of Islamic Jihad who killed a policewoman and four civilians in separate attacks, and who deliberately targeted Jews).  

And their response to all of this is that the attacks were by Jews impersonating Muslim terrorists?  What, are the Jews also the ones who are beheading people in Syria right now?  Is it Jews who are responsible for flogging, hanging, or beheading people in public because they've been found guilty by a criminal justice system that would have seemed unfair to Tomás de Torquemada?

I dunno.  It seems to me as if the Muslims are making themselves look bad enough without any outside assistance, from the Jews or anyone else.

And to Pope Francis I would say: if you are not allowed to criticize ideas freely, then how are you supposed to combat ideas that are batshit insane?  Is anyone allowed to claim anything, free of repercussions, because it's under the aegis of faith?  How can he not see that treating "It's my religion" as a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card is tantamount to giving license to lunacy of all kinds?

So while Pope Francis has certainly met with my approval over some of his statements, that encourage dialogue and ecumenism rather than rancor and recrimination, I think this one is ridiculous.  We have to be able to point out the absurdity of beliefs.  Without that freedom, there is no filter for telling fact from fiction, reasonable claims from insanity.

Shape-shifting Jews, my ass.

I know I've said it before, but it's important enough that I'll reiterate: I'm all for treating people with compassion.  We all come to understanding by different roads and at different speeds, and most of us are striving to figure things out in whatever way we can.  But there is no such requirement that we treat beliefs as if they could have their feelings hurt by criticism.  Beliefs stand and fall by the same criteria as any other sort of claim; by their agreement with facts and evidence.  Without that standard for acceptance, you are adrift in a sea of wild conjecture, without a touchstone for reality.

Home town ghost-hunting and squatch-seeking

So I'm excited to tell my loyal readers that I have two opportunities for doing some first-hand investigation.

These sorts of things don't come along often, given that I live in a rather remote corner of the universe.  My house gives new meaning to the word "rural setting."  My nearest neighbors are cows.  I live, no lie, near the original "Podunk."  Yes, Podunk, New York is a real place, and it's just down the road.

Which means, of course, that I'm so rural I don't even live in Podunk. I live in the suburbs of Podunk.

So since hands-on inquiry of paranormal claims requires that there be people there to make the claims, it's not going to happen often around here.  And just in the last week, I have two opportunities, which, believe me, I'm gonna jump on.

The first came my way because of the peculiar experiences of a friend, who lives in the neighborhood on the other side of Podunk ("Podunk Heights").  Now, let me assure you right out of the starting gate that she is an eminently sensible person, down-to-earth, not prone to flights of fancy.  She and her husband bought a house a couple of years ago, and moved in with their two children, who are now three and five years of age.  And not long after they moved in, the children started to report strange stuff.

Both kids have said that they've been awakened in the middle of the night by "people."  Sometimes the people stare at them, sometimes they're walking around in or past the kids' bedroom... but sometimes the people actually make physical contact.  Just two nights ago, she tells me, her younger boy woke her up crying, and when she went to investigate, he said that someone had touched his neck and scared him.

Being a skeptic and a rationalist, my friend wondered if it could have been his blanket or pillow, or an edge of his pajama collar, or something like that.  She said to her son, "Was it a light touch, like something brushing your skin?"  And the little boy said, "No, it was a hand holding the back of my neck."

So at this point, my friend understandably freaked out a little.  She told me about it, since I'm sort of the local skeptic, and the suggestion arose that perhaps I could do a little bit of GhostBusting.  There are now apps you can download that do all of the paranormal investigation stuff -- detecting electromagnetic fields, making digital recordings of sounds (so as to pick up EVP -- electronic voice phenomena), and so on.  At first, she said, she was fairly reluctant to try this kind of thing because she was afraid of how she'd react if something showed up.  But given that her kids are having some kind of experience every week or so, she's decided that she may just give it a try.

So I might be called in to do some supernatural sleuthing.  My son, when he found out about this, was psyched, and says he'll be happy to join me.  This is a good thing, because despite being a skeptic, and virtually certain that we won't find anything, I'm also a great big wuss, so if there really was a ghostly manifestation, and I was alone in a dark house, I'd wet my pants and then have a stroke.  Having Nathan around will, one would hope, make this a less likely eventuality.

Now, allow me to reiterate; I have not gone all woo-woo.  One of the reasons my friend wants me to check this out is because we're both rationalists, and are pretty well convinced that the kids' experiences are the results of vivid dreams or night terrors, not hauntings by the Restless Spirits of the Dead.  Whatever happens, it'll be fun, and certainly worth reporting the results back here.


Not quite as close as Podunk is the little village of Newfield.  Newfield is about a half-hour's drive from my house, though, so it's still in the neighborhood, as it were.  And a friend of mine sent me a news story that tells of an encounter a couple of days ago between a Newfield man and Bigfoot.

The story comes from one John Swaney, who was out hiking with a friend in the Connecticut Hill area, west of Newfield, when they heard a terrifying sound.  Here's his account:

It was around 8.30 a.m., about an hour till daylight, an hour or an hour and a half.  We heard a noise... You could hear kind of a woosh!, woosh!, as if you are going through frozen grass.  That’s when we saw it, about 100 yards away, getting off the road and walking under a tree branch toward a thick patch of woods. 

I could see the upper body, and as it was walking, it covered a lot of ground in between, you know, something that you and I would cover in two to three minutes.  This thing was enormous, with solid charcoal-black hair and four-foot-wide shoulders. 

I could see like a shine to it, you could see the muscle mass to it.  Judging by the branches I saw it go under, and going back to that, it was at least 9-feet tall.  It had to duck down a little bit to bet under that branch.  The branch stood at 8 feet and 4 inches.  I never got a good look at the face, which is the most disappointing part of it.  I want to know what the face looks like.  I could see the cheek, the cheek was covered. 

I was so scared that I dropped my hiking equipment, $200 worth, and left it behind.
I was too scared.  I was not about to go to look in the snow.  I just wanted out of there.

This is not the first time that a cryptid has been spotted in the area; the Connecticut Hill Monster has been reported off and on for the past couple of decades.  But this is the first recent sighting I've been aware of.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

I've had this story sent my way twice, and one of the people who sent it to me is my pal John Sullivan, who does the wonderful weekly radio program Skeptical Sunday.  John is not only a skeptic, he's also a biologist, which makes him the kind of guy you want by your side in this kind of investigation.  Once again, we have the piss-your-pants-and-have-a-stroke potential of running into Bigfoot in the woods, so I'm hoping John and I can get together soon and have a look around.

So Podunk and environs turns out to be a happenin' place of late, affording me a not-to-be-missed opportunity to prove that I'm more than an Armchair Skeptic.  I'll definitely report here what happens during my ghost-hunting and squatch-seeking adventures.

Unless the results are positive, in which case my next-of-kin can take care of it.

Secular indoctrination and spoon-bending

It used to be that when I was accused (usually because I teach evolution) of "indoctrinating students into a secular, materialist, rationalist worldview," that it would set my teeth on edge.

And yes, the above is an actual quote.  However, the same charge has been levied against me, and other science teachers, using a variety of verbiage.  Teachers should not teach students to doubt, to question authority.  By adhering to an evidence-based, rationalistic approach, we are calling into question faith and spirituality.

Worse still, public schools are "atheist factories."

On one hand, I question the extent to which teachers really can create seismic shifts in students' worldviews.  With very few exceptions, the kids in my classes who come in religious, agnostic, and atheist leave my classes (respectively) religious, agnostic, and atheist.  It takes more than forty minutes a day for 180 days to undermine an entire belief system, even if that was my goal (which, incidentally, it isn't).

On the other hand, though, the critics do have a point.  We science teachers are promoting rationalism as a path to knowledge.  And we damn well should be.  Rationalism has provided us with the medical advances, engineering, and technology that the majority of us are happy enough to use without question, regardless of the fact that they were produced by a methodology that has nothing whatsoever to do with faith or divine inspiration.  If you want to call what I do "indoctrination into a rationalistic worldview," then have at it.

What's funny is that a lot of the extremely religious get their knickers in a twist if someone steps in and tries to teach students a different spiritual, non-evidence-based set of beliefs.  It's okay to let religion into public schools, apparently, as long as it's the right religion.

As an example, consider the odd bedfellows that have resulted from decision by the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics to allow a self-styled psychic to come in and teach telepathy and telekinesis to high school students.  (Hat tip to the wonderful site Doubtful News for this story.)

Here's how the story was reported:

Mentalist and mind reader Gerard Senehi recently partnered with the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics to offer classes meant to help students develop life skills like self-confidence and answer tough questions about themselves, such as “Do you have the courage to pursue what you really care about?” and “How much do you have a sense of direction and purpose in life?” 

The program, called The QUESTion Project, kicked off with a Dec. 19 performance at the school where Senehi dazzled students with tricks like bending wine glasses, spinning spoons in other people’s hands and making accurate predictions about the future. 

Edward Tom, the school’s founding principal, was also impressed by how well Senehi managed to keep the students’ attention. "The whole purpose wasn’t to give kids a magic show," he said. "It was to let them know the power of belief, that there are so many things that are possible…"

No, Mr. Tom, you're right about that.  It isn't a magic show.  In a magic show, the magician is clear on the fact that what (s)he is doing is an illusion.  Senehi claims that what he's doing is real.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

This has appalled a number of people, including the very religious (who don't want evil stuff like psychic powers influencing teenagers) and secular rationalists (who are appalled that such claptrap is being presented as reality, and in a science center, no less).  Both, of course, are right, although in different senses.  Such a performance could influence students' beliefs.  Stage magicians (which Senehi is, even if he won't admit it) can be terribly convincing.  They only become famous if they're good enough that you can't see how they do what they do.  Presented with an inexplicable trick, and the message, "You can learn how to do this, if you try hard enough!", I can see how people (not just teenagers!) could get suckered.

Which is why people like Senehi should not be allowed anywhere near school-age children.  Adults sometimes have a hard enough time telling fact from fantasy; encouraging teenagers to further blur this distinction is irresponsible.

Magician and skeptic Jamy Ian Swiss put it most succinctly.  In a piece about Senehi, Swiss said, "If you tell the audience you’re doing anything other than tricks, …you’re not doing entertainment. You’re doing religion."

And to anyone who objects to his characterization of what Senehi is doing as religion, allow me to point out that as a set of bizarre claims with zero evidence, psychic beliefs are clearly religion.

So to the people who would eliminate "rationalist indoctrination" from science classrooms, let me ask: what would you put in its place?  If we allow spiritualistic and faith-based beliefs to guide what we do in schools, we have stepped onto that fabled slippery slope.  Do you really want kids to sit through presentations by people who claim that they can learn how to do telepathy and bend spoons with their minds?  Are you honestly comfortable with allowing any and all faith-based belief systems to guide instruction?

If not, maybe the safest thing for all of us is to let science teachers keep on with the rationalism, and leave the faith stuff -- of all flavors -- to the homes and the churches.

Allahu akbar, Frosty!

Islam has had some serious problem with its PR in the past couple of weeks, what with the Charlie Hebdo massacre, a series of Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria that left an estimated 2,000 dead, a horrific incident involving a ten-year-old female suicide bomber, and the flogging of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi for "insulting Islam."

So let's do a little thought experiment, here.  You're a prominent Muslim cleric, and you read the litany of bad news.  You're concerned not only about how the rest of the world views your belief system, but how Muslims themselves must feel when they hear about the atrocities being done in the name of their religion.  What do you do?

1. You make a strongly-worded statement repudiating violence in the name of religion.
2. You put pressure on religious and governmental leaders to consider human rights reform.
3. You encourage your followers to donate money to groups that are fighting terrorism.
4. You open a discussion of the passages in the Qu'ran that encourage such behavior.
5. You issue a fatwa against snowmen.

If you picked #5, you understand the leadership of Islam all too well.  Muslim leaders have been far more willing to mess around with prohibitions against random behaviors than to stand up against the horrors perpetrated in Islam's name.  (Some leaders have done so, fortunately; there have been several Islamic groups who have spoken out, especially regarding Charlie Hebdo.)

But in theocratic Saudi Arabia, mostly what we've heard on the topic of human rights, freedom of speech, and eliminating terrorism is: silence.

But woe unto you if you build a snowman.  Saudi cleric Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid said that it was forbidden to build a snowman, "even in fun:"

It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun...  God has given people space to make whatever they want which does not have a soul, including trees, ships, fruits, buildings and so on.

So now snowmen have souls?  What, did this guy think that Frosty the Snowman was a historical documentary?

While some Muslims are shaking their heads about how ridiculous this is, there are a lot who apparently think this is perfectly reasonable.  "May God preserve the scholars, for they enjoy sharp vision and recognize matters that even Satan does not think about," one responder wrote.  "It (building snowmen) is imitating the infidels, it promotes lustiness and eroticism."

My opinion is that if seeing snowmen makes you feel lusty and erotic, you have an entirely different problem, unrelated to matters of religion.

[image courtesy of photographer Thomas Cook and the Creative Commons]

And seriously.  Do they really have that big a snowman problem in Saudi Arabia?  It's no wonder that Satan hasn't thought about it.  Last I looked, Saudi Arabia is basically a big desert.  Prohibiting snowmen in Saudi Arabia is about as reasonable as me, up here in the arctic wasteland of upstate New York, issuing a fatwa against palm trees.

But rationality has little to do with this.  If Islamic leaders keep tightening the grip on every move their followers make, even in realms that have little to do with reality, it'll obviate them of the need to focus on the real issues.  It reinforces the message that Allah is watching, that he knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows when you've been bad or good, so be good or you get 1,000 lashes on your bare back.

Even if it does convince most of the rest of the world that the worldview is, at its basis, completely insane.

An aura of divergent thinking

First, let me just say that I love my students.

Far from conforming to the slacker, disaffected teenage stereotype, I find that nearly all of my students are natural questioners, are interested in the world around them, and are willing to be engaged with learning.  We as teachers have only to hook on to that energy, avoid putting a bell jar over the flame of their inborn curiosity, and half the battle over "higher standards and academic achievement" will be won.

Take, for example, my Critical Thinking classes.  An ongoing exercise we do once weekly through the entire semester is media analysis; students submit an analysis of an example from popular media, as an illustration of some concept we've studied during the previous weeks.  We look in turn at print media, audio/visual media, and online media, but other than that, there are few strictures on what they can turn in to receive credit for this project.

It's amazing what they find.  Once tuned in to a few basic principles of media analysis, high schoolers rapidly become adept at sorting fact from fiction from outright bullshit.

As an example of the last-mentioned, take a look at the site one of my students submitted last week, a little gem called Reading Auras.  In particular, she drew my attention to the page, "Aura Dating for Seniors -- A New Way of Looking at Love."

If you're sitting there thinking, "No... that can't mean what it sounds like...", unfortunately, you're wrong.  This is precisely what it sounds like.

This site is suggesting that senior citizens find new love by comparing the color of their aura with that of a potential significant other.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

It starts out in a remarkably condescending fashion:

One of the more interesting applications of this knowledge is in dating, with special emphasis on senior dating.  Seniors are less familiar with the Internet and because of this they might not be able to give an accurate or complete description of their personality details and likes and dislikes.  Neither they would [sic] be able to describe too well what they are looking for in a partner.

Now that we've established that once you pass the age of 65, you are no longer articulate, let's take a look at the solution:

The aura personality map, in this case, would work like an automatic scanner that reads and translates all that the seniors could not put in words.  Besides, matching the auras is much more accurate in finding the right partner than any other method.  This is because each color of the aura would provide information about the person that would be a better guide to find the right person. 

The relationships that come out from aura colors matching are more meaningful for it is based on the vital energy sources.  This means there would be a better chemistry between the matched senior dates right from the beginning, which in turn would have better chances of developing into a long term significant relationship.

Well, this is correct in one sense; if I was re-entering the Dating Game, I'd want to know right away if a potential partner thought I had a nice-looking aura, because no way would I want to become romantically involved with someone who sees nonexistent halos around people.

On this site, we also find out that it's not a good thing if you have a brown aura, unless it's "caramel brown," which means that you're "fun;" that you can compliment your aura readings with reading a person's tongue, because the tongue's "size, shape, color, and topography" tells you a lot (for example, if your tongue is blue, you have circulatory problems); that your pets have auras, and that if you tune in to your pet's aura (s)he will "show more pleasure than usual;" and that children are naturally adept at seeing auras, and we should encourage them in this rather than dissuading them by silly old narrow-minded rationalist nonsense like teaching them to sort fact from fantasy.

This last-mentioned is at least within hailing distance of the truth.  There is one skill at which children outstrip most adults by a mile, and that's divergent, creative thinking.  A study by Robert McGarvey, which gained traction largely because of its use as an example of how schools fail by the phenomenal speaker Sir Ken Robinson, shows that by one measure of divergent thinking, preschoolers score 84% -- and second graders an average of 10%.  This is, Robinson says, because by second grade, kids have already learned "that there is one answer, and it's in the back of the book -- but don't look."

In my experience, though, you can resurrect this long-suppressed ability for creative critical thinking, but it requires teachers to do something that many of us find pretty scary -- to let go of the reins some. Turned loose on academics, most students can re-engage their curiosity and capacity for divergent thinking quickly.  Take, for example, a recent study that showed that when students are given the opportunity to make choices about what they read for their classes, they read more often and more enthusiastically.  Who wouldn't?  It doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar to see that autonomy is a motivator.  As literacy advocate Pam Allyn put it, "You become a lifelong reader when you're able to make choices about the books you read, and when you love the books you read.  You tend to get better at something you love to do."

But our response, as educators, has been to tighten down more, to place more restrictions on how students learn and on how they demonstrate that they have learned, all behind the rallying cry of "raising standards."

As my student's analysis of the aura website showed, when given the opportunity to dig into a topic, students are capable of doing so with gusto.  My student's presentation of her media submission to the class began with the statement, "This may be the most extreme example of confirmation bias that I've ever seen -- these people are literally seeing what they want to see."

But are we, as educators, doing the inverse of that -- not seeing what we would prefer not to see?  More student autonomy, more divergent thinking, more ways of getting to answers, more ways of expressing them?

And how much of that reluctance comes from our conviction that there should be only a single way to learning?

It seems fitting to end with a quote from Sir Ken Robinson:

We have to go from what is essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is based on linearity and conformity and batching people.  We have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture.  We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it's an organic process.  And you cannot predict the outcome of human development.  All you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.

Speaking out for Raif and Soheil

As a blogger, I am thankful every single day that I live in a society where I am free to write, to criticize, to be provocative.

I try not to offend, but I know I occasionally do.  On those occasions where the offense was my fault, when I cross the lines of propriety, I apologize.  Because that's how civilized, rational people act.

Not so in many parts of the world.  There are dozens of countries where to write what I write, to be who I am, would be to take my life, liberty, and safety into serious risk.  Yet there are still brave individuals who continue to speak out, who are willing to put their lives on the line for the sake of freedom of speech.

Such a man is Raif Badawi.  Badawi is a Saudi blogger who set up a network for freethinkers, and who made plain his views about the control the religious establishment has over the Saudi government (i.e., total).  And last year, Badawi was arrested, tried for "insulting Islam," and sentenced to ten years in jail and 600 lashes.

His lawyer filed an appeal.  The judge responded by increasing his sentence to 1,000 lashes.

Raif Badawi [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Yesterday, Badawi was brought out into the city square in Jeddah, stripped to the waist, had his wrists tied to a post, and was given fifty strokes with a whip on his bare back.

Only 950 to go, which are to be given in sessions of fifty lashes each, every week for the next twenty weeks.

What are you implying, Saudis?  That your Allah is so weak, so fragile, that a blogger who criticizes him deserves to be whipped?  That a single man with a computer is so strong by comparison that the only response is to give him a sentence that probably will never be completed, because he'll have died of his injuries first?  Badawi's criticisms of you, your regime, and your religion were mild, so let me up the stakes.

Your leaders and your judges are barbarians.  Their acceptance of violence for thought crimes makes them no better than the Inquisition.  Your religion and your holy book, which do mandate such penalties, is a skein of lies that is one of the worst things that the human race has ever invented.

Is Allah outraged?  Good.  Because Je Suis Raif.

In Iran, another blogger is likely to be hanged soon, for similar "offenses."  Soheil Arabi, a thirty-year-old writer from Tehran, was convicted in August of "insulting the prophet of Islam" and "sowing corruption on the earth" for posting material critical of Muhammad on several Facebook pages under assumed names.  Had he been found guilty of being critical "while drunk or when quoting others," he would "only" have been given 74 lashes in the public square.

But instead, he confessed, probably under torture, and the judge handed down the death sentence.  Arabi said that he is "remorseful," but under Iranian law, that doesn't make any difference.

Soheil Arabi [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

So once again, we have a lone man who has so much influence that his posting on Facebook is going to make people question their reverence for the Prophet?  That'd imply that the Prophet must not have much going for him, if he can be so easily insulted.

But yes, that's what they're implying.  And it is likely that soon Arabi will find himself standing on the gallows, with a noose around his neck and a black hood over his head, all because he did not show enough respect for a worldview that merits none.

Je Suis Soheil.

Human rights include the right to think freely and to speak freely.  A religion that can be destroyed by questions and criticisms deserves to be.  The vicious barbarians currently in charge in Saudi Arabia and Iran are, perhaps, correct to be afraid that such freedoms would represent a threat to their power; when people are given an opportunity to point out the evils in society, they can no longer be painted over with a coating of sanctity and holiness.  The inhumanity and outright cruelty become obvious to all.

And you'd think that the crowd that witnessed Raif Badawi being whipped yesterday, that the ones who may soon witness Soheil Arabi hanging by his neck from a rope, would have the same awakening, even if seeing such horrors make them unlikely to speak out.  But now that we have the internet, now that such things cannot be kept hidden away, now that people can speak and write and interact with others across political borders and barriers of religious ideology, such criticism cannot be crushed forever.

So to the people in power in Saudi Arabia and Iran, I have this to say: your days are numbered.  You may be able to torture or kill your citizens for thought crimes now, but the number of people who are willing to put their lives at risk for the right to speak out is growing exponentially.  And they have millions of supporters worldwide who will make sure that the message gets out there.

Je Suis Raif.  Je Suis Soheil.

Zombie nanobots from hell

For the latest reason that you should avoid being vaccinated, as long as you have zero understanding of science, we have:

The medical establishment puts nanobots into vaccines, which then eat your brain.

This, at least, is the contention of one Jim Stone, who runs a site called Environmental Terrorism.  And it turns out that the nanobot doesn't eat your whole brain, it just destroys the part of it that allows you to go to heaven:

(A) virus they are creating will attack the “God Center” of the brain and destroy it! He tries to sell it by saying that this will stop suicide bombers by people that believe in God but of course this is just the sell job.  He says it will take somebody that believes in God and turn them into a “normal” person!  So if you’re a Christian it will make you no longer believe in God and Jesus Christ which is your key to eternal life!  This is the pure evil that is the new world order government running the US!

Well.  Isn't that special.  But in the parlance of the 1980s infomercial, "Wait!  There's more!"

There have been many reports about nanobots being developed that will destroy people. This report actually identifies that nanobot and what it is based upon. Once this nanobot is received via a tainted vaccine, it inserts DNA into your cells which instructs your own cells to produce more copies of itself and THAT is how it replicates. And it NEVER backs off, it simply orders your own cells to keep producing it until your cells die from being over worked doing exactly that. And it’s completely verified this thing came from a lab in 2007.

You have no idea how relieved I was when I read the last sentence, because I got the majority of my vaccinations before 2007.  Which, presumably, is why I still have a brain.

Who would do this evil stuff, you might ask?  And of course, the answer is:

The Jews.  But you probably already knew that.

I plan on asking my wife, who is Jewish, why she would do such a thing.  I mean, making me eat matzoh balls, which in my opinion taste like chicken-flavored play-doh, is one thing.  Infecting me with a microorganism that eats my brain is quite another.

Then Mr. Stone shows us a picture of the nanobot that does all of this nasty business:

When I saw this, I said to my computer, and I quote:  "What the fuck?  That's a bacteriophage."

But this doesn't stop Mr. Stone.  He claims that this creature didn't exist prior to 2007, which will surprise the hell out of my AP Biology students because I've been teaching them about bacteriophages ("bacteria-eating viruses") since 1994.  It's also quite natural, and completely harmless unless you're an E. coli bacterium.

You'd think that an amount of research that's as microscopic as the virus itself would be sufficient to convince Mr. Stone that his claim is complete and utter horse waste.  Starting with the fact that it's called a "bacteriophage," and not a "brainophage."  But no.  Not only is this thing going to turn you into an irreligious zombie, you can tell it's a Jewish nanobot because of its shape:

(T)heir little hexagonal leg patterns and star of david phage bodies (are wreaking) havoc on the rest of mankind.  And on that note, I may have stated above that the reason for re engineering a phage to do the job rather than a known infectious virus would be to make good and sure it could not spread to other people in the wild, but I can´t help but imagine that such a profoundly Jewish looking micro organism would not be selected simply for its appearances.

A passage which, I suppose, demonstrates why Mr. Stone himself is immune.  If you don't have a functioning brain, that would presumably make the Jewish brain-eating nanobot virus less interested in infecting you.

At the end, we get the coup de grâce:

(E)verybody must make their own decisions about vaccines.  I’m not a doctor and cannot give you medical advice.  All I’m saying is that evil men control the medical system and they already have a virus that can change your brain so you no longer believe in God!

Have a nice day.

So, there you have it.  The least plausible reason yet that the anti-vaxxers are suggesting that you not get vaccinated.  At least it's more fanciful than Jenny McCarthy and her hand-waving "vaccines cause autism" nonsense.  Given a choice between Jenny McCarthy and brain-destroying nanobots, I'll take my chance with the nanobots.