#619: David DeWitt

Dr. David A. DeWitt, a neuroscientist with some background in biochemistry, is nevertheless on CMI’s list of scientists who accept a Biblical account of creation. Those who suspect a modicum of compartmentalization, dishonesty, and self-delusion are thus in for some easy predictions. DeWitt is a frequent contributor to Answers in Genesis, and responsible for a lot of AiG’s most egregious bullshit on evolution. He has also had some publications in Answers in Genesis’s House Journal, Answers, and his work has been used as a source in Ray Comfort’s legendary “Evolution: A Fairy-Tale for Grownups”, which is not something good people would mention on their CVs.

So where do you take your career when you have a real degree but no real understanding of the method of the field in which you have your degree? Yes, DeWitt is no less than the Director of the Center for Creation Studies at Falwell’s Liberty University, and teaches their mandatory “creation studies” course. You can see a report from an “advanced section” of his class (for biology majors) here, where he uses the movie “March of the Penguins” to illustrate that the penguins that get eaten are the ones who are unlucky (or, more likely, evil), not the ones who are less adapted. Hence evolution is false. Duh.

His book, Unraveling the Origins Controversy, is reviewed here. The reviewer (Rosenhouse) had to take issue with some examples of quote-mining, dishonesty, and distortions. Who would have suspected.

DeWitt and one Jed Macosko were also biological advisors to the free webgame CellCraft, and it sort of shows, in a rather subversive manner. He was also credited in Frank Peretti’s novel Monster, which really tells you all you need to know.

Diagnosis: Standard, zealous fuckwit, responsible for churning out shitloads of ignorant addleheads through his classes at Liberty U, and hence a significant negative force in the world these days.

#225: Tim LaHaye

Timothy LaHaye is an evangelical Christian minister, author, speaker, a primal force at the most insane fringes of American fundamentalism, and one of the more dangerous loons on our list. He has written more than 50 books, both fiction and non-fiction. He is best known for the apocalyptic series of novels titled “Left Behind”, written with former sportswriter Jerry B. Jenkins (Jenkins seems to have actually written the books, though the story and ideas are LaHaye’s).

The Left Behind series depict the Earth after the pretribulation rapture (LaHaye seems to think of the books as something more than fiction – apparently Obama is about to bring on the Rapture). The series includes 12 titles in the adult series, but also juvenile novels, audio books, devotionals, graphic novels, and even video games. It has been uncannily popular, with total sales surpassing 65 million copies and seven titles in the adult series reaching #1 on the Times bestseller lists (Jerry Falwell said, concerning the first book, something to the effect that it was the most important book for Christianity since the Bible). There are also three movies, promoted by Grace Hill Media starring Kirk Cameron (who else). Also look out for a brief guest appearance by John Hagee.

LaHaye has, apart from his literary antics, promoted (or founded) numerous groups to promote his insanity, such as the Council for National Policy, back when he was the head of Falwell’s Moral Majority. In 1979, he helped to establish the Institute for Creation Research, along with Henry Morris. In the 1980s, LaHaye founded the (radically insane) American Coalition for Traditional Values (Andrea Lafferty’s organization) and the Coalition for Religious Freedom, currently run by James Lafferty, the husband of yesterday’s Andrea Lafferty), and the Pre-Tribulation Research Center along with Thomas Ice (covered earlier) in 1998, dedicated to producing material that supports a dispensationalist, pre-tribulation interpretation of the Bible. Tim is also connected to the John Birch Society, and played a significant role in getting the religious right to support George W. Bush for the presidency in 2000 (he has later cast his vote for Huckabee, an outspoken fan of LaHaye’s Left Behind series). He also co-hosted (with Dave Breese) in the prophecy television program The King Is Coming (partially the foundation of his delightfully paranoid mixture of conspiracy theories and batshit crazy Rapture-porn in his book “The Rapture”). LaHaye has furthermore contributed millions of dollars Liberty University, earmarked for its student center and “LaHaye’s School of Prophecy”, which opened in January 2002. He is, finally and unsurprisingly a historical revisionist of the David Barton school, though more extreme.

Oh, there’s more. LaHaye believes in the Illuminati, a “satanically-inspired, centuries-old conspiracy to use government, education, and media to destroy every vestige of Christianity within our society and establish a new world order”. The Illuminati is, in fact, just one of many groups he believes are working to "turn America into an amoral, humanist country, ripe for merger into a one-world socialist state”, together with secretive, cabalistic, satanic groups such as the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, Harvard and Yale universitites, and the Democratic Party. LaHaye described his views in the book “Mind Siege”, written with David Noebel. In fact, according to LaHaye, if you are not a biblical literalist, you are a tool of the antichrist.

In 1978 LaHaye published “The Unhappy Gays” (a.k.a. “What Everyone Should Know About Homosexuality”), describing homosexuals as "militant, organized" and "vile”, and arguing that gays share 16 pernicious traits, including "incredible promiscuity," "deceit," "selfishness," "vulnerability to sadism-masochism" and "poor health and an early death." LaHaye suggested that Old Testament death penalty for homosexuality would in fact be acts of mercy towards gays, and did as such call his own book “a model of compassion.”

Tim’s wife, Beverly LaHaye, is famous for following up his views on homosexuality. Beverly is the founder of Concerned Women for America, which is devoted to fighting the militant gay agenda and the gays’ attempts to recruit our children. The group has also stated their opposition to publicly funded HIV screening and publicly funded STD treatment (after all, these are effective weapons against homosexuality).

Diagnosis: Absolutely insane, and extremely influential. A real threat to civilization.

202: William Herbert “Bill” Keller

Turns out that Bill Kaysing, the popularizer of the conspiracy theory that the moon landing was a hoax, went ahead and died himself out of an entry in our Wikipedia. Bummer. Thus we jump ahead to Bill Keller – no, not the executive editor of the NY Times Bill Keller, but the televangelist whose records – very predictably – include jailtime for financial acrobatics. After spending time in jail he attended Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. That combo prepares you better than anything to spread the word of God, it seems, and Keller has made a substantial following from his Tampa-based Live Prayer show.

Keller is fond of pointing out, often as sort of an afterthought, that people are on the highway (or “conveyor belt” to hell) – in particular Muslims (nicely unhinged, this one) and scientologists. Regarding scientologists, Keller said (apparently without a hint of self-awareness or irony) that he is “always amused at people who reject the story of Christ and God's simple plan to redeem fallen man, yet buy into the wild theology of cults like Scientology. Christianity requires that you use your God-given intelligence to make the choice to accept Christ as your Savior based on reality. Cults like Scientology requires [sic] that you abandoned all intelligence and blindly believe wild stories based on no facts.” Indeed.

Somewhat bizarrely, Keller emphasized his support for Mitt Romney in the 2008 elections, but in interviews pointed out that Romney, as a mormon, was also going straight to hell (“if you vote for Romney, you are voting for Satan”, Bill pointed out and promptly got himself in trouble with the tax exemption rules).

Keller is, among other things, convinced that Obama is not a True Christian™ because he is pro-choice and because (apparently) of his attitude towards Israel.

Diagnosis: Example of a pretty common breed of godbotting lunatics, but no less a lunatic for that. His particular influence is unclear, but he does apparently have some followers.

189: Thomas Ice

Thomas Ice is the Executive Director of the Pre-Trib Research Center in Washington, D.C. The Research Center was founded a few years ago by Tim LaHaye and Mr. Ice to research, teach, proclaim, and defend pretribulationism. He has also written and co-written over 20 books and articles on the Rapture, and serves as an Associate Professor of Religion at Liberty University. A collection of his contributions to this important area of research can be found here.

Among Ice’s research is globalization. The thing is that globalization is, rather obviously, a reversal of God’s decision to disperse the people of the world after the tower of Babel. Hence, globalization is strong evidence for the imminence of the Rapture. The U.N. is unbiblical for the very same reason. Ice is no consequentialist. Add to globalization the existence of Israel (“No doubt that Israel is God’s super sign of the end-times”), and we have something close to a proof.

Good thing Ice is here to dispel the myths of the Rapture for us (together with one R.A. Huebner). He also rightfully dismisses the Christian reconstructionist Gary North as “Scary Gary” (for his Y2K babble: ) – apparently North was only out to scare us.

A better example of the rigorous scholarship and erudition of the participants in the Rapture debates would perhaps be Ice’s debate with Robert Gundry, recounted here. And surely an article called “Dispensational hermeneutics” must be convincing – not to mention his discussion of God’s hailstones.

Diagnosis: A living, breathing, self-unaware parody of scholarship, Ice seems to be completely detached from reality and sanity. The combination of post-modernist techniques and fanatic Biblical literalism is fascinatingly bizarre, although I guess his impact should not be overestimated.

#152: Ron Godwin

Falwell’s bulldog (executive assistant) and one of the extremely dangerous, highly delusional and frighteningly influential and powerful Sun Myung Moon musketeers in the US. His goal is, as is Moon’s, a “rejuvenation of Christianity”, which basically means right-wing theocracy, Afghanistan style. Moon actually thinks he is the Messiah, out to establish a worldwide government that abolishes the separation of church and state. And Godwin, together with Robert Grant (chair of Christian Voice) and Donald Sills, are his disciples – Moon apparently assigned to them the following pyramid scheme-like task: “You will be like the three disciples of Jesus. Each one of you will put your self in Jesus' position and multiply three disciples of your own. Then your number will grow to a team of twelve. With twelve people of your character and determination, at this level, you will be invincible. Your catch phrase will be that American Christianity needs resurrection more than revival. Let us resurrect American Christianity.”

Godwin is also the executive vice president of Falwell’s Liberty University, and – through his connection to Moon – has been the vice president of (and is still heavily associated with) Moon’s own personal wingnut periodical, the Washington Times. In fact, Moon has bailed Liberty University out of financial trouble, and seems to have a lot of influence there. Godwin is also former executive director of the Moral Majority.

Diagnosis: Highly delusional cultist; baby-eater vile. Godwin isn’t particularly flashy or famous, and seems to have sailed under the radar of many loonguard activists. He seems to wield a dangerous amount of power, however.

#125: Jerry Falwell Jr. and Jonathan Falwell

The incomparable, irreplaceable Jerry Falwell may finally have decided to sod off for good, but his more than mildly deranged offspring has decided to continue to run shop for their father.

Jerry Jr. is chancellor of his dad's Liberty University, and has a long reputation for questionable behavior – I guess you can do whatever you want if you think about Jerusalem while doing it. He has, following the sterling example set by his father, continued to run the university in the spirit of liberty.

You can read more about him and his university, including a summary of a mind-numbing interview with Glenn Beck, here.

He has some interesting views on climate change, for instance, for instance inviting Monckton to speak at Liberty as a way to expose students to both sides of the climate-change debate:
“A lot of our students come from public schools where the truth of global warming and the science of global warming is not always known […] Christians have a calling by God to protect the environment”, so they should therefore should have a complete view of the global-warming debate: “Many Christian young people are susceptible to the claims of the vast majority of environmentalists today who use pseudo-science to promote political agendas in the name of protecting the environment when their real goals are destroying freedom and destroying the economies of the western world.”

You nailed it there, Jerry.

His brother Jonathan, on the other hand, is the senior pastor at the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia (and vice-chancellor of the Liberty University). He inherited his father’s column at the Worldnetdaily (Listen America) and hosts the weekly television show Main Street Today. He is a severely truth-challenged Christian reconstructionist. He seems to be getting (recurringly) into trouble for his claims that pastors should preach and support political movements without giving up their tax exemptions.

His website is here. You can learn more about him here.

Diagnosis: There is no better description for these Liars for Jesus than to point out that they are rather “Falwell-like”. They inherited a lot of influence and power, obviously, but it remains to be seen whether they have the ability and charisma to retain it.

#117: Cynthia Dunbar

Perhaps the most influential loon in our Encyclopedia, at least in 2009-10 – her antics caused severe, maybe irreparable damage. Hopefully, her power to do harm may have abated, but I’ll be reluctant to write her off.

Dunbar is a lawyer and author in Richmond, Texas and currently a Republican representative on the Texas State Board of Education. She is a graduate of Regent University School of Law (Pat Robertson's university) and teacher of law Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. In other words, she has a fake education, and her lack of real knowledge or understanding is displayed by her utter stupidity, lack of knowledge and understanding, her anti-science anti-intellectualism, ignorance, dishonesty, zealous conspiracy theories and general wingnuttery.

In 2006 she won the Republican nomination for the Texas State Board of Education for District 10, claiming that people voted for her because she supports teaching intelligent design in science classes. So what else does she stand for?

Her book “One Nation Under God” argues (asserts) that the Christian religion should be more prominent in the public square and championed by the government. She is herself a homeschooler, and also claims that public education is a "subtly deceptive tool of perversion" and that "the establishment of public schools is unconstitutional and even 'tyrannical'." (here
- because, of course, they disagree with respect to whether schools should actively promote Christian reconstructionism of Barton’s or DeMar’s styles, or creationism).

What has she achieved? As a member of the Texas State Board of Education, in March of 2010, she proposed and won ratification of a number of modifications to Texas K-12 social studies curriculum, including the removal of Thomas Jefferson and mention of the Age of Enlightenment (i.e. any implication that reason should be the foundation for authority; more here). More precisely, the previous formulation:

- “explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present.”

was changed to

- “explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone on political revolutions from 1750 to the present.” (important enlightenment thinkers such as Aquinas and Calvin were added, in other words)

So Thomas Jefferson, who favored separation of church and state, had to go. On the other hand, a new focus on the "significant contributions" of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the civil war was added. Furthermore, the study of Sir Isaac Newton was dropped in favor of examining scientific advances through military technology; and she suggested an amendment to the effect that the anti-communist witch-hunt by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s may have been justified.

Another curriculum amendment describes the civil rights movement as creating "unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes" among minorities, and at the same time drops references to the slave trade in favor of calling it the more innocuous "Atlantic triangular trade".

Dunbar says these are important steps to overturning what she believes is the myth of a separation between church and state in the US (she is, with DeMar and Barton, explicitly endorsing the view that the United States was ultimately governed by the scriptures.) In fact, she thinks government should be guided by a “biblical litmus test.” She endorses a system that requires “any person desiring to govern have a sincere knowledge and appreciation for the Word of God in order to rightly govern.” (in other words theocracy, Taliban style). Here is her prayer before the board voted to distort history for Texas’s kids. And here is an intelligent discussion of the system that allows such loons through to positions of influence. Another of her public prayers is discussed here.

If you have children in Texas, you should move.

She is, of course, a pathological liar, but I suspect it is unintentional – this nitwit wouldn’t be able to distinguish truth from falsity if it hit her with a shovel.

She has also written (for the Christian Worldview Network website) that a terrorist attack on America during the first six months of an Obama administration would more likely "be a planned effort by those with whom Obama truly sympathizes to take down the America that is threat to tyranny." As if ayatollah-sycophant Taliban theocrats such as Dunbar would be able to distinguish tyranny from freedom.

She is also a birfer who thinks Obama is, secretly, a muslim.

Diagnosis: Total moron, and probably one of the loons that has caused the most harm of all the loons covered thus far. She is off the board now (she didn’t run for reelection), but much damage has been done, and it doesn’t mean she won’t reappear elsewhere.

Also indicted is fellow board member, Democrat Rick Agosto, who aligned himself with the Taliban on most issues concerning education. Do not forget him. The abominable Ken Mercer will get his own entry (Barbara Cargill has already got hers). As mentioned, Dunbar was not herself running for reelection in 2010, and her handpicked successor Brian Russell (equally lunatic) lost the runoffs. At least a glimmer of hope for the future of sanity in Texas.

#13: Matt Barber

Our lucky 13th loon is Matt Barber. Barber is a columnist at Worldnetdaily (where do they find these people, seriously?). Also policy director for cultural issues at DC-based Concerned Women for America (an anti-gay organization), and spokesman for Liberty Legal Alliance. Very, very concerned about gay people, convinced gay marriage is unconstitutional and that there is a gay conspiracy out there (and Obama is in on the conspiracy because the Supreme Court didn’t quite agree about the unconstitutionality (yes, that’s the reasoning)). Barber has absolutely no insight into how the legal system works, which does not prevent him from commenting on it with brazen confirmation bias, fact-twisting and outright lies. Argues for taking children away from gay parents. Like so many of his ilk, Barber is also a moral relativist when it suits his purposes. Also has a serious persecution complex and is worried about gay jihadists.

A (typical) quote in advance of the 2008 election: ”If Bill Clinton was the first black president, Barack Obama, if elected, will be the first "gay" president. No, I don't mean he'll personally decorate the West Wing, open a bathhouse in the Rose Garden or take up with Barney Frank. I mean he'll be the most radically pro-homosexual, anti-family president in history. He's very quietly pledged as much to the homosexual "Human Rights Campaign" and other fawning members of his homofascist fan club” (note the interesting characterization of Obama voters in the last sentence).

Trivia: try to find the logical structure of the argument presented here.

Diagnosis: Moron; paranoid lunatic with a severe persecution complex; probably little impact beyond the group who already agrees with what he says (i.e. no power to persuade anyone).