Sunday, March 23, 2008

Did PZ Lie?

The atheist PZ Meyers has accused student Stuart Blessman of lying and called him a disgrace to his university. Blessman wrote of his proximity to Meyers as Meyers was ejected from the screening of EXPELLED. His views were posted on artsandfaith.com and LookingCloser.com. This triggered a massive retribution of atheist hate mail, visited upon blog host Jeffrey Overstreet, who received 4000 responses in one day.

Here's the unasked question for this situation: Did PZ Lie?

Now somebody must be lying. At least according to PZ. But we can't know due to the lack of empirical data - videos, other bystander witnesses, etc - who the liar is.

So we are unable to judge, without betraying prejudice, who is lying.

But the interesting part of the question is as follows: What would keep Meyers from lying? Meyers openly rejects Christianity and its attendant ethics. So exactly what are his ethics? And how often do they change? Being moored to nothing absolute, why are his ethics not questioned, while the student is roundly and profanely condemned?

In fact, for evolutionary tactics, lying would be considered a viable and valuable means to an inevitable end, the supremacy of PZ and his particular philosophy. There is no discernable ethical reason for PZ NOT to lie, under the worldview of evolution.

I'm not saying that he did. Or didn't. But there is no reason for him not to.

And I repeat, we are unable to judge, without betraying prejudice, who is lying. But someone is; PZ says so. So maybe he'll provide some empirical evidence for his claim. Or maybe not.

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