The advent of free speech, combined with improvements in the printing press, were a boon for men like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine who used their liberty to overthrow tyranny. These days the press and freedom are going to more mundane uses, such as the sort of thing Stephen Van Eck sent me recently. Taking advantage of a decision to publish my home address in a Skeptical publication (why my PO Box on the site was not usable the past 2-3 years is something I guess will remain a mystery), Van Eck sent me a couple of his homemade pamphlets with a little note, typed using one of those old-fashioned Unabomber typewriters, that read as follows (first paragraph):

So, you want to be a Defender of the Faith, eh? Allow me to help you. I've enclosed copies of two of the tracts that my counter-Christian Ministry uses; and since you're having trouble with money, they're FREE! They should provide you with many happy hours of trying to refute them.

What came along was something that certainly ought to have been free, considering the technical quality: two items of about ten pages each, typeset using that same Unabomber typewriter method, photocopied (not quite right, as some of the letters had to be written in), stapled (not well-aligned, either), and for all I know used by the dog as a training pad before they were packaged. "IMPORTANT INFORMATION ENCLOSED" screams one banner. "May be too intense for some members of the general public," says another. No confidence lacking here from the usual person fitting this profile. But let's not be too harsh, after all. This is a piece of Americana, as valid as the Stuckey's by your interstate or the Burma Shave sign. It's an example of how our freedoms have been used since Franklin used it to do equally important things to encouraging people to overthrow British tyranny.

Oh. Trouble with money? Skeptics seem to have this fixation on my posted request for donors willing to give $70-80 per year. It's no doubt the same joke that's been around since Bakker, but really, with Dan Barker's Freedom from Religion Foundation yanking in $500,000 per year, I don't see where the skeppies need to be complaining. Non-profit advocacy groups are everywhere in religion (and anti-religion) and in politics. People support them because they have no time to be advocates themselves. That's the sort of benefit freedom has given us. And if Van Eck doesn't like it, I am sure Iraq would be more to his liking, where they won't ask for his money, but take it. Or if he prefers, he can time-travel to Mao's Place and give the godless state everything he owns. That's the way the freedom crumbles.

Many happy hours? Maybe a few seconds. Van Eck apparently doesn't realize we've seen all this before. Indeed someone of Van Eck's caliber could spend a few happy years digging up the needed resources to refute what we have on this site, and on companion sites like Miller's ThinkTank, which have literally thousands of pages of material that he has assuredly never laid eyes on. And in fact, not one word Van Eck eeks out in his magnum opii isn't already covered in one of those places. The Trinity? Whoops, check here Steve, and we already dug you on Krishna. Think that's not enough? Here's all the sort of thing Van Eck delivers:

The deificaiton of Jesus, as the religion became primarily Gentile, was probably inevitable, as pagan mytholohgies were filled with god who'd come down in human form, and heroes who were deified as a result of their amazing deeds. This tendency became even more likely due to the resemblance of the Jesus story to the dying-and-rising gods of the pagan Mystery Cults, which then flourished in the Mediterranean world.

Wha ha! You'll see stuff like this laid down without so much as a footnote, heck, not even a name of one of those "dyin' an' risin'" deities. Who ya talkin' 'bout, Willis? Now Glenn Miller and I have done our dances on the graves of such ideas (see here and here) but darned if Van Eck knows, cares, or don't think that his single paragraph is an effective case nonetheless. It's every American's goldurned right to make a Mork from Ork of themselves if they want to, and Van Eck takes full advantage of that right, apparently under the illusion that we are going to be impressed by this stuff. Hey, Steve. Every page? Either me or Miller: Been there. Done that. Wanna fight about it online? Your Krishna stuff is still dead in the water.

Oh, yes. Van Eck added this paragraph as well:

But if you do, please try to stick to the issues, and avoid insult, abuse, and ad hominem, okay? Christians like to claim they're morally superior, and when you succumb to stuff like that, you only discredit (further) your religion.

Touching, isn't it? Well, as we show here, the "discredit" is brought about by a strawman Jesus, and here maybe even a strawman Christian. I don't claim to be morally superior (I have no idea whether I am or not, I'm not out measuring in other people's business), and if folks out there can't stand having their ox gored by satire, they shouldn't go out and make public statements. I imagine Van Eck would cry a river if he was running for office and Thomas Nast had gotten hold of him. As for the discredit: One may as well decide that wearing top hats discredits Christianity and then go out looking for a Christian wearing a top hat. It's just an arbitrary delineation without basis in fact.

Well, Van Eck, here's the deal. You want to discuss issues? Start by refuting what we gave you on Krishna and the link above on the Trinity, which you call "profound in its absurdity." Passing out homemade pamphlets may give you the illusion of being a new version of Thomas Paine, but actually, we find you to be more like the guy at the party who doesn't know he needs to use more soap in the shower.

Van Eck scribbles again -- see here.