Skeptophilia (skep-to-fil-i-a) (n.) - the love of logical thought, skepticism, and thinking critically. Being an exploration of the applications of skeptical thinking to the world at large, with periodic excursions into linguistics, music, politics, cryptozoology, and why people keep seeing the face of Jesus on grilled cheese sandwiches.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

"Gotcha" proselytizing

A frequent reader and commenter on Skeptophilia sent me a note a few days ago, with a link and the cryptic comment, "Gordon, I think you need to take a look at this."  At first, I thought the link was to my own website -- but underneath the link was an explanation that the individual had discovered the link by accidentally mistyping the website address as skeptophilia.blogpsot.com.  (Bet it took you a while to notice the misspelling, didn't it?  It did me.)

So, anyway, I clicked on the link, and was brought here.

To say that I found this a little alarming was an understatement.  Had someone gone to the lengths of purchasing a website name one letter off from mine, to catch off guard the unwary (and possibly uneasy) skeptics and agnostics who thought they were going to visit a site devoted to rationalism?  I've been the target of negative comments before, from angry believers in everything from homeopathy to hauntings, and certainly have gotten my share of hate mail from the vehemently religious contingent who are bothered by the fact that I am an atheist who is completely, and confidently, "out," and am unapologetic about teaching evolution in my biology classroom.  But this seemed kind of out there even for those folks.

Fortunately, my wife, who is blessed with a better-than-her-fair-share amount of common sense and a good grounding in technology, suggested that I try to type in SomethingElse.blogpsot.com.  So I did.  I first tried the address for my fiction blog, but put in the deliberate misspelling for "blogspot."  It brought me to the same place.  Then I tried "CreationismIsNonsense.blogpsot.com."  Same thing.

So apparently, the owner of this ultra-fundamentalist website, with its babble about the Rapture and Armageddon and the literal truth of the bible, had just bought the domain name "blogpsot.com," so that any time anyone makes that particular misspelling in heading to their favorite blog, it takes them to that site.  I was relieved, actually; the thought that someone would go to all that trouble to target me in particular was a little alarming.  (And evidently the fact that on the homepage of the "blogpsot" site, there is a link for "The World's Biggest Skeptic" is just a coincidence.)

However, you have to wonder if the person who owns the site really is laboring under the mistaken impression that this is an effective proselytizing tool.  Can you really imagine someone who is trying to check out the latest post on his/her favorite blog on, say, sewing, and lands here -- and then suddenly goes all glassy-eyed, and says, "Good heavens.  I get it now.  The bible is true, the Rapture is coming, and I'd better repent right now."

No, neither can I.

And when you think about it, the door-to-door religion salesmen that periodically show up in our neighborhoods are the same kind of thing, aren't they?  A little less covert and sneaky, that's all.  But they're trying to accomplish the same thing -- catching you off guard, getting a foot in the door, spreading the message. 

And my previous comment about its being an ineffective tool is probably irrelevant, really.  It's like spam emails.  If you send out a million emails, and your success rate is 0.1%, you've still made money, because of the extremely low overhead.  Same here; you get volunteers (in the case of the door-to-door folks) or unsuspecting drop-ins (in the case of the website).  Most of the target individuals say no, or hit the "Back" button -- but the fraction of a percent that don't are your payoff.

The whole thing pisses me off, frankly, because it's so sneaky.  Even if it wasn't targeted at me specifically, it just seems like a skeevy way to get converts.  But to a lot of these folks, how you convert people is unimportant -- the essential thing is to convert them in the first place.  If you can grab people when their rational faculties are not expecting it, all the better -- because, after all, rationality is the last thing they want to engage.

4 comments:

  1. I think we could find a way to make that site have some major fun. Maybe do some sort of repeating referral... to a porn site, or something of that nature. It is definitely a heinous website, regardless of their dipshit message.... it just looks bad. I love the photographs of the Holy Land, just as when Jesus was there. I am afraid they took better pictures back then...not. And it wasn't a dessert then. Ooops. Time to go wash the eyes with bleach. Bad website, bad evangelicals, bad!

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  2. This is a common technique for pornography sites as well. Interesting.

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  3. Did you notice his faith is supposedly based on the proof he found of thousands of Biblical prophecies coming true? Which brings us right back to the Babel Fish, doesn't it? Poof!

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  4. [Good thoughts, Gordon. Saw this bit on the net.]

    Pretrib Rapture 101

    This crash course is needed for this 2012 election year. The "rapture" is known theologically as the "pretribulation [or "pretrib"] rapture." It's a secret coming of Christ, said to happen years before the Second Coming, that reportedly can occur at "any moment" and can evacuate all true Christians from earth to heaven before the "great tribulation" found in Matt. 24, Rev. 7 etc. - end time escapism unknown in all official theology and organized religion before 1830!
    Conservative evangelicals had long assumed that 19th century British teacher John Darby was the "father" of dispensationalism, the most popular aspect of which is the same "rapture."
    Journalist/historian Dave MacPherson, focusing more than 40 years on locating long forgotten "rapture" documents in England etc., has found evidence destroying many such assumptions and, even more monumental, has run into pervasive dishonesty in that fanatical 182-year-old, mass-marketed-in-America theory - the fans of which are not above distorting and even deleting "rapture" facts on Wikipedia!
    Curious? Google articles like "Pretrib Rapture Politics" (if the rapture doesn't happen before the election!), "Famous Rapture Watchers," "Pretrib Rapture - Hidden Facts," Pretrib Rapture Diehards," "America's Pretrib Rapture Traffickers," "X-Raying Margaret," "Edward Irving is Unnerving," "Deceiving and Being Deceived" by D.M., "Pretrib Hypocrisy," and "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty." MacPherson's "The Rapture Plot" is the most detailed, accurate, and highly endorsed history on the same "rapture."
    Excellent theological works that demolish pretrib rapture doctrine include Joe Ortiz's "The End Times Passover."
    Here's hoping that all of you will get A+ in this course!

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