Shooting fish in the barrel this one time

Okay. I was going to let this pass, but Olbermann and now Myers has touched on this story about Sherri Shepherd on The View. You may remember her from an actual debate on whether the Earth, the planet we all live on, is flat. Flat.

Sherri "the earth is flat" Shepherd advances the atheist cause for us once again by
demonstrating just how stupid going to church can make you. This time, it was about history: Jesus came before the Romans and the Greeks, the Greeks threw Christians to the lions, and nothing could have preceded Jesus.

It just goes to show, though, that there is no intelligence minimum for the chattering pundit class.

So to explain to the subset of Christians that have this problem, of seeing their religion as the alpha and omega of everything...

• Christians were not the first religion...Judaism is also not the first religion. Nope.

• Greeks went by without Jesus or anything of the like popping up. Despite what Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess want to tell you. If you are learning history from comedy action shows, something is wrong in your life.

• Neither time the Persians invaded the Greek states were they driven back by Jesus...or Moses.

• In fact, Moses may have been Egyptian born, and that may be where the future Hebrew came from.

• Early Buddhist works and ancient Sumerian and Babylonian tales bear striking similarities to many Old Testament stories. (Sorry, for the Buddhist part, I mean the story of Buddha's temptations and Jesus's temptation by the Devil are curiously alike.)

• The world is not 6000 years old. Higher!

• The bible is a severely flawed work.

• The world is freaking round! And not on the back of a great turtle!

• The bible code is bunk.

• Did I blow your minds?

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But back to the first Shepherd event. Flat earth. I take issue with how it was resolved.

That could have been a slip, a gap for someone who had a very poor education, doesn't travel, and...even then you can't look good. The next day was given a pass by the other host, fine, sympathy and the need to work together.

But then she used motherhood as an excuse. She worked hard to bring up her kids and didn't have time to notice the world was round...this is not 19th century, sorry. I can understand being mistaken and ill informed.

But to get defensive like that...just say I never learned that somehow, but now I've learned. Then you tie it into the idea that young or old it is never too late to learn and grow. That it is worth applauding and get people talking, sharing, and getting better informed.

Instead she gets like Sharon Osbourne in a joke Ricky Gervais did on his Fame tour. You see, she was a judge at a musicians contest and a celebrity in the audience was given a joke question about her husband to give at one commercial break. It was all for fun, as were other question given to other judges. So the guy starts the question and, in front of kids, she throws out a bunch of creative profanity. Later she says that when someone goes after our (women's) families, we are like lionesses. She gets applause. The guy was trying to give a jokey fun question that the shows producers gave him to liven the commercial time experience of the audience and she just lost it. And she plays herself as a victim, standing for her man. No. She snapped and screwed up. Own up and show you are an adult.

That is what the whole "I'm a mom" thing feels like to me. It's "I may not know this, but I am all the more noble in my ignorance". Sorry, no. Many parents have made great sacrifices for their kids. She just didn't know something obvious. Britney Spears, Ana Nicole, and Whitney Houston have shown similar shocking gaps in knowledge, no one says they are noble parents for those flubs.

And that is my stupid little rant on claiming ignorance as a virtue. I see it too often, especially from religious people who look down on learning and science. It is an attitude that needs to be countered.