I do confess to a visceral and life-long dislike of bow ties. I can’t see why people who wear them don’t just go whole hog and put on a red clown nose, as well.
I’ve paid him no attention whatever. I’ve never, to the best of my recollection, seen him on television nor heard his voice. If he’s written anything, I haven’t read it. I didn’t watch his debate with the young-earth creationist Ken Ham. (For that matter, I’ve never paid any attention to Ken Ham, either. I’ve never seen him on television, nor heard his voice, nor read anything that he might have written.)
But it’s been impossible to escape hearing Bill Nye’s name. I’ve been unable to avoid being aware that he had a debate with the young-earth creationist Ken Ham.
I’ve even been told that Ken Ham’s defeat at the hands of Bill Nye represents the defeat of my young-earth creationist views. Which is rather peculiar, since I hold none.
I made a joke a week or two ago about having been informed that I’m a young-earth creationist. Someone — I’m sorry, but I don’t recall who it was — was surprised by that, saying that he had seen no evidence of my holding such views. He’s right, of course. He’s seen no such evidence because there is no such evidence. I’m not a young-earth creationist and, so far as I can recall, have never been one.
However, over the years I’ve read several statements from people whom I don’t know in which those people have informed their audiences that I believe the Earth to be only a few thousand years old. Which is true, if you believe 4.543 billion years to be just a few thousand.
I continually learn shocking things about myself from hostile strangers who post about me online.
A few weeks ago, for instance, I read an appalling story from a woman who posts anonymously on an ex-Mormon site. It seems that I was so irritated several years back with her criticisms of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that I wrote to her husband, demanding that he use his patriarchal authority to silence this uppity female.
Now, beside the fact that I remember no such incident, there are some other problems. For example, I don’t know who this lady is, nor who her husband is. Most importantly, though, I would never, ever, ever have said such a thing. Ever. The notion of male-female relations presumed in such a hypothetical command from me is so far from the way that I think that such an idea would never enter my mind. (I told my wife about this supposed incident, and she guffawed out loud. As would anybody who actually knows me . . . or her.)
But then again, who am I to contradict an anonymous stranger on the internet regarding my own personal history or beliefs? Who could possibly have a more accurate notion about such things than somebody who really hates me but probably hasn’t ever met me? And surely nobody who posts anonymously online would ever say something that wasn’t true.
Posted from London, England
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