#596: Donald Crosby

Donald Crosby (not the philosopher of religion) is a colorful local pastor in the town of Warner Robins, Georgia. He is most famous for getting himself arrested for protesting (disorderly conduct and “excessive noise”) the fact that the local school's mascot is the Demons (in honor of a WWII squadron), saying that the school's demon logo just encourages children to evil: “I don't scare easily. Lock me up as many times as you have to lock me up. Even kill me if you have to. I'm standing up for Jesus.” Now, in all fairness he was arrested on dubious grounds – but there is little doubt that he would benefit from a little help and friendly attention. Apparently he angrily criticized other Christians who, he says, are singing in church while their children are being taught to praise demons: “Demons aren't lazy, Christians are,” he howled, and asserted that the city of Warner Robins must repent for its praising of demons. More here. As for the WWII squadron thing, Crosby responded “A demon never has a good connotation. Never. If you look it up in Webster’s Dictionary, there’s nothing good about a demon.” So that settles it, then.

Diagnosis: Insofar as his immediate surroundings also perceive him as a loon his efforts may be described as harmless and charming; his potential harmful effects would be to draw attention away from the equally bizarre and insidious views held by less overly brash and noisy individuals in positions of more power.

#530: Paul Broun

Paul Collins Broun, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 10th congressional district (Tea Party Caucus), and one of the most delusionally insane fundamentalist loons in the political system – he has also announced that he’ll be running for Senate in 2014, and quickly followed up the announcement by reaffirming his commitment to the beyond crazy.

Broun has a medical degree from the University of Georgia, an institution he has later dismissed as a “liberal bastion that should be eliminated, save for the football team.” Broun, you see, hates freedom and liberty, and he is known for repeatedly trying to impose legislations to limit freedom based on his religious convictions. In 2009 he proposed legislation that would have proclaimed 2010 “The Year Of The Bible,” a bill to ban the sale or rental of sexually explicit materials on U.S military installations, a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and a bill that will stop abortion and counteract the “clone-to-kill” mentality apparently running rampant in the US. Here’s Broun trying to pass off as a Taliban Harry Potter and cast magical spells that will make Obama more God-fearing (yes, he did try to use sorcery against Obama, and yes, the incident is insidious).

Broun is also a climate change denialist who calls man-made global warming a conspiracy perpetuated by certain members of the scientific community (the motives are of course undisclosed). He has also tried to argue that clean energy legislation will cause southerners to die from hyperthermia. With that level of understanding of science you can perhaps guess where he stands on evolution. Indeed, ”[a]ll that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology [keep in mind that Broun has a medical degree] and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.” So it’s another conspiracy. He continued: ”[t]here are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.” The latter was all of the ”lot of scientific data” he cited. Broun, by the way, is also on the House Science Committee. Less surprisingly, he is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

He may, however, be most famous for criticizing Obama’s call for a civilian national service corps and suggesting that Obama might use it to establish a Marxist dictatorship: “That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did. When he's proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist” (he later stood by the remark). No, Broun does not have the faintest clue what ”Marxism” is, but hey: he doesn’t like Obama, and he doesn’t like Marxism; hence, Obama is a Marxist, and Obama is, by the same token, apparently poised to become a dictator – in fact, according to Broun, Obama is ”trying to uphold the Soviet Constitution”. Then again, Broun’s criterion for ruining America is, apparently, that you think America is “run by man” rather than by God, which may imply (I don’t know) something about God being a Marxist since He is running America and America is according to Broun currently socialist. Broun is also a semi-birther, answering “I don’t know” to questions on whether he believed Obama was a US citizen or a Christian (instead affirming that he did know that Obama was a socialist).

Broun also believes that CAIR is involved in terrorism, based on, well, it is a little unclear, but imaginative paranoia and bigotry was certainly involved, as was the WorldNetDaily, which is the same thing. These factors must certainly have been involved in his celebrated “fruits and vegetables” remarks in relation to a 2011 report by the Centers for Disease Control that claimed Americans were not eating enough fruits and vegetables: “Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said people in America are not eating enough fruits and vegetables. They want all the power of the federal government to force you to eat more fruits and vegetables. This is what the federal CDC – They (sic) going to be calling people and finding out how many fruits and vegetables you eat (sic) today. This is socialism of the highest order!” You can watch the event here. It is discussed here. It seems to sum up pretty nicely how Broun’s mind works.

Unsurprisingly, Broun opposes transgender health coverage. His reason is that he ”likes being a boy.”

Diagnosis: Theocratic troglodyte who genuinely believes that he possesses magical abilities, but who prefers to respond to the parts of reality he doesn’t think he likes by trying to outlaw it. Completely insane, and very dangerous.

#108: Creflo & Taffi Dollar

Creflo Dollar is a televangelist and a central figure in the Name it and Claim it movement. Taffi is his wife. Creflo Dollar’s real name is, believe it or not, “Dollar”, and he teaches you... that Jesus wants you (him) to be rich.

He also claims that the Bible promises some kind of "Believer's Rights", which would give his followers his powers, such as making the bread last really long and raising the dead. Controlled experiments have at present failed to corroborate the latter hypothesis, but such things do not really concern Creflo’s ilk or followers.

Creflo and Taffi lead an extremely extravagant lifestyle (private jets, Rolls-Royces and so on). His church’s financial records are currently under investigation (here and here).

Diagnosis: Might be a complete fraud, but I have no concrete evidence that these loons don't believe what they preach. Although the popularity of the prosperity gospel televangelists seems to be in decline, these people have shitloads of money on their hands, and would have been dangerous in virtue of that alone.

#57: Russell Carlson

Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology University of Georgia, signer of the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism. Member of DI research fellow William Dembski's The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID).

I don’t really have anything in particular on this guy. He testified at the Kansas evolution hearings and doubts evolution, predictably enough, for religious reasons. His main claim to deserving inclusion in the lexicon is as a representative of a relatively long row of fundamentalist religious scientists and compartmentalizers who are able to do science in one field but submerge themselves fully in confirmation bias with respects to others they know less about. In other words, he’s here because science and sanity are fed up with these kinds of destructive cranks.

Diagnosis: Crackpot with non-negligible influence.