Archive for April, 2009

29
Apr
09

Free eBooks and Wattpad: End to the Old Publishing Regime Part 2

Fortunately I had one lucky marketing surprise and found that it doesn’t matter what you genre you call a novel but if readers get a taste of something they like they will read it.  Let me explain.  As a fledgling author, I made Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot free as an eBook to get an audience and the twists and turns I have seen with my own pitifully small self-publishing efforts is amazing. One of my big surprises was with my Flores Girl on Wattpad. Wattpad makes eBooks available for downloading and reading on smartphones and frankly, I never figured so many people read novels on their phones. And fortunate for me they like Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot (check it out at WWW.iPhone-Novel.com).

To me, the tiny size of an iPhone or Blackbery screen made that exercise impractical at least to my particular mode of outdated fossil thinking. I mean who wants to read War and Peace on a BB?  On the other hand, as a former commuter, I realize that now it makes a lot of sense especially if you are blessed with a younger set of eyes. With your Smartphone you can escape to a world of music and prose away from the other human cattle you are sharing a ride with. And if you don’t like the book, you just download another.

eBooks will happen and like other authors I will have to figure out a way to monetize my writing efforts in the near future. But you know Amazon did not buy Stanza just because they had cash in their pockets.  Nobody knows how this is going to turn out but you can either get in front of the wave or drown in the resultant flood! I’ll swim, thank you!

Flores Girl:The Children God Forgot is now available as a free ebook novel on the iPhone or if you are interested here is the link to Flores Girl on WattPad: http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

On your smart phone just sign up at Wattpad (www.wattpad.com) to install the free app and add Wattcode 125445! There have been over 2 million downloads of Wattpad to date and over three thousand for Flores Girl.

Sarah hears strange voices

Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot is now a Featured Work on Wattpad.com. Flores Girl is a prehistoric adventure novel that is available for free on Wattpad, the World’s Most Popular EBook Sharing Community. Wattpad delivers free eBook novels to your iPhone, BlackBerry, SmartPhones and other mobile devices. Join the thousands of readers that are following the adventures of Sarah and Richard as they unwittingly introduce a small tribe of prehistoric people living in isolation for a half million years to the ultimate modern predator: humanity.

Wattpad

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Or try these sites for the free novel download:

WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI

WWW.iPhone-Novel.com

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28
Apr
09

Of Free eBooks, iPhones and Wattpad: End to Old School Publishing?

Sarah AloneSpeculative fiction is not fantasy fiction, as it rules out the use of anything as material which violates established scientific fact, laws of nature, call it what you will, i.e., it must [be] possible to the universe as we know it. – Robert A. Heinlein

A little while back I wrote:

One of the worst aspects of publishing work in a Web 2.0 world is the myriad tasks the author must undertake. Besides writing the novel the writer must undertake numerous sleazy marketing efforts. In the past that been relegated to the obligatory series of interviews and book signing, assuming that is if the author was lucky enough in his career or her to get to that point.

Today the challenges are different and far more varied. Most of the work still revolves around the writing, editing and marketing of the work. However the marketing piece of the puzzle is a bit of a quandary and requires the greatest flexibility on the part of the fledgling writer. Worse, it is also damn time consuming.

If you go the route of podcasting, which has its myriad appeals and challenges, it requires the author to do production work and possibly the biggest challenge of all: narrating the actual work. The web work can involve a site or minimally a blog for the author’s various fans to turn into. Besides words, structures these endeavors typically require some type of graphics, Search engine optimization and knowledge of key words; all daunting challenges for the uninitiated. If you have money you could have somebody else do it but you still must manage the ongoing mess.

The biggest marketing challenge could be the designation of your work into one of the existing genres. Why? That’s because the genre designation ultimately determines your readers and finally your choices among agents and publishers.

My problem was what the hell do you call Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot? Scif-Fi? Adventure? Romance?  It has all of those elements but what is best for marketing?  An adventure story sort of describes it but there were some science fiction elements as well to the story. After all the core of the story is about the survival of Homo floresiensis on a small tropical island and that is speculative at best. In actuality these small three-foot tall hominids died out 12,000 years ago or maybe as recently as 400 years ago based on some early historical accounts. In any case, nobody expects them to be found alive and well today, at least not with the way China is clear cutting the forests of Southeast Asia. To call it science fiction would really disappoint the hardcore science fiction fans; you know not enough hardware and overall fantasy elements to keep them enthralled to be quite honest with you. I mean if you can’t have sex with an alien then why bother calling it science fiction?

Then I came across the term speculative fiction and the Robert Heinlein definition. The definition seems appropriate for my book but its usage and acceptance as part of the vernacular is no where near as universally accepted as science fiction. As a measure of popularity I did a search fro speculative fiction and turned up only a couple of million hits in Google. Compare that with science fiction with nearly 140 million hits and you have yourself a huge disparity in overall acceptance. So which sandbox do you want to play in, the larger one where you won’t get noticed or the smaller one with a much smaller audience? As I found out perhaps the genre designation is a bit old school and my recent experience with the good folks at Wattpad has drastically changed my perception of the marektplace. I’ll tell you more tomorrow.

Sarah hears strange voices

Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot is now a Featured Work on Wattpad.com. Flores Girl is a prehistoric science fiction-adventure-speculative fiction, oh before I forget romance eBook that is available for free on Wattpad, the World’s Most Popular EBook Sharing Community. Wattpad delivers free eBook novels to your iPhone, BlackBerry, SmartPhones and other mobile devices. Join the thousands of readers that are following the adventures of Sarah and Richard as they unwittingly introduce a small tribe of prehistoric people living in isolation for a half million years to the ultimate modern predator: humanity.  And you can do so right from your iPhone, BlackBerry or other SmartPhone! Flores Girl:The Children God Forgot is now available as a free ebook novel on the iPhone!

Wattpad

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Or try these sites for the free novel download:

WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI

WWW.iPhone-Novel.com

27
Apr
09

Wattpad’s Flores Girl The Children God Forgot Press Release

Get Flores Girl at Wattpadd

2009-04-27 07:55:48 -

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wattpad’s Got Talent!

Wattpad Launches Featured Work Section In Its Redesigned Website

Toronto, Canada, April 27, 2009 — Wattpad, the world’s most popular ebook community, today announced that it is introducing a new “Featured Work” section in its redesigned website. Each month the “Featured Work” section will feature a writer whose work the Wattpad editorial team find interesting. In addition, Wattpad editorial team takes suggestions from members at takes suggestions from members at editor@wattpad.com and is always on the lookout for works of interest.

Writer Erik John Bertel’s new ebook “Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot” has been selected as Wattpad’s inaugural “Featured Work”. “Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot” is about two scientists who unwittingly introduce a small tribe of prehistoric people living in isolation for a million years to the ultimate modern predator: humanity. The novel is about their adventure, combining a clash of cultures, religious ardor with the oldest stories of all: the meaning of friendship and true love.

“Wattpad is an innovative platform that eliminates traditional entry barriers to publishing,” said Erik John Bertel. “The worse fate that can befall an author is to go unnoticed and to never find an appropriate audience for their work. Wattpad enables writers like me to bring my work directly to millions of readers in a click of a button. ”

More information about Wattpad is available online at www.wattpad.com.

About Wattpad

Founded in 2006, Wattpad’s mission is to revolutionize the way people publish and read written works. The material on Wattpad is created by the community of users. Anyone can upload whatever they want to read – a romantic story, a fan fiction, poetry, an essay, a joke, a novel or their own work – and share with the community. All the content can be easily accessed on Wattpad’s website (www.wattpad.com), mobile site (m.wattpad.com) or through the Wattpad application on virtually all feature phones, such as Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG, Sharp, Sanyo, Panasonic, as well as smartphones such as Symbian, Blackberry and Apple iPhone / iPod Touch.

Wattpad has experienced explosive growth since its inception. Wattpad is now the world’s most popular destination to publish, read and share books. Wattpad has delivered billions of pages from its library of over 100,000 ebooks created by the community. With over 3 million downloads, Wattpad is the most popular mobile ebook application of all time.

For more information, please visit www.wattpad.com.
###

Press Contact
www.wattpad.com
press@wattpad.com

Wattpad

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

In USA Today:

http://content.usatoday.com/topics/article/Places,+Geography/Towns,+Cities,+Counties/Toronto/0dUJeQLcW8bcs/1

Flores Girl:The Children God Forgot is now available as a free ebook novel on the iPhone

25
Apr
09

Readers Respond to Flores Girl Free eBook on Wattpad

Sarah Alone

Rave reviews from the readers about Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot, which is now a Featured eBook at Wattpad!

From Rachelle: “I just read your Flores Girl eBook and I really loved the story very much. I just want to ask when you will release its sequel?”

From Dustin: “I really enjoyed reading your book and cant wait till the sequel is finished.”

From Freelancer79:  The Flores Girl is a very well written book that captures the imagination of its reader with current events and plausible outcomes. I have already recommended this book to all my family and friends. You will find it hard to put this one down or wait for the sequel!!!

From Leanne: I absolutely loved your novel and finished in a day and am now stuck with an emptiness within myself as I wonder when the sequel will be out?

From Rich: Very gripping adventure with Sarah and Richard on the tropical island. I am very much looking forward to reading the sequel when it comes out!

From Nidhi:  An amazing Book , Real Addictive & Wonderfully written!!   Absolute Masterpiece !!! Waiting anxiously for the sequel.. Keep the good work going!! Kudos..

From Arkie51: Really great free Ebook, can’t wait for the sequel!

Wattpad works on most phones from Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Apple, LG, BlackBerry, HTC, O2, Sagem, Alcatel, Sharp, Toshiba, BenQ-Siemens, Panasonic, Pantech, VK Mobile and others. Over 1,000 phone models supported.


Wattpad

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Or try these sites for the free ebook download:

Check out: www.IPHONE-NOVEL.COM

22
Apr
09

The Flores Girl Free eBook Novel is a Featured Work at Wattpad

Sarah hears strange voices

Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot is now a Featured Work on Wattpad.com. Flores Girl is a prehistoric adventure novel that is available for free on Wattpad, the World’s Most Popular EBook Sharing Community. Wattpad delivers free eBook novels to your iPhone, BlackBerry, SmartPhones and other mobile devices. Join the thousands of readers that are following the adventures of Sarah and Richard as they unwittingly introduce a small tribe of prehistoric people living in isolation for a half million years to the ultimate modern predator: humanity.

Wattpad

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Or try these sites for the free novel download:

WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI

20
Apr
09

Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot Part 3 is now on Wattpad for Free: Wattcode 128012

This goes into the category of who would have thunk it but since adding Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot Part 1 to Wattpad I have had over 1400 downloads with 29 recommendations. Part 2 is number 4 on “What is Hot” at Wattpad so this great news. Now its time to add Part 3 and I promise to make the entire novel available in the weeks ahead. For the uninitiated and those not that enamored of their Smart Phone, Wattpad is a site that installs a free application on your iPhone and BlackBerry allowing you to download and read free novels. I tried it myself and while this is not my preferred format for reading a book, after all I’m old school so I’m still a fan of dead trees, if you commute or are waiting forever at a doctor’s office this is a great diversion. Highly recommended to have one book saved on your smartphone just in case you face a dreaded hour of boredom and Flores Girl is just the novel to engage you.

Or try these sites for the download:

WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI

WWW.WattPad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

14
Apr
09

Harry Potter and Disappearing iPhone eBooks on Scribd

You can almost hear the dinosaurs taking their last disgruntled breath today and, yes, I am referring to the RIAA (the old record industry association) and the publishing industry . Their outdated thinking and allegiance to both vinyl and dead trees stands in the way of progress and a seeming tsunami of technology trends. JK Rowling publishers were frothing at the mouth against Scribd, a social publishing site, for stealing their crappy Harry Potter books and sharing them online as eBooks. As far as I know, the Potter novels are not available as a legitimate eBook but I can’t say I have looked very hard other than at the Amazon site.

As a fledgling author, I made Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot free as an eBook to get an audience and the twists and turns I have seen with my own pitifully small self-publishing efforts is amazing. One of my big surprises was with my Flores Girl on Wattpad. Wattpad makes eBooks available for downloading and reading on smartphones and frankly, I never figured so many people read novels on their phones. And fortunate for me they like Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot. To me, the tiny size of an iPhone or Blackberry screen made that exercise impractical at least to my particular mode of outdated fossil thinking. On the other hand, as a former commuter, I realize that now it makes a lot of sense especially if you are blessed with a younger set of eyes. With your Smartphone you can escape to a world of music and prose away from the other human cattle you are sharing a ride with. And if you don’t like the book, you just download another.

eBooks will happen and like other authors I will have to figure out a way to monetize my writing efforts in the near future. Nobody knows how this is going to turn out but you can either get in front of the wave or drown in the resultant flood! I’ll swim, thank you!

Oh if your interested here is the link to Flores Girl on WattPad: http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

On your smart phone just sign up at Wattpad (www.wattpad.com) to install the free app and add Wattcode 125445! There have been over 2 million downloads of Wattpad to date and over a thousand fo Flores Gril.  Or you like you can go to WWW.FREE-SCIENCE-FICTION.COM

WWW.iPhone-Novel.com

Technology Blogs

11
Apr
09

Flores Girl: The Children GodForgot Part 2 is now on Wattpad for Free: Wattcode 126442

This is actually pretty exciting news at least for fans of novels. Since adding Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot Part 1 to Wattpad I have had close to 600 downloads with 10 recommendations.  It’s number 2 on what is hot at Wattpad so this great news. Now its time to add Part2 and I promise to make the entire novel available. For the uninitiated and those not that enamored of their Smart Phone, Wattpad is a site that installs a free application on your iPhone and BlackBerry allowing you to download and read free novels.  I tried it myself and while this is not my preferred format for reading a book, afterall I’m old school so I’m still a fan of dead trees,  if you commute or are waiting forever at a doctor’s office this is a great diversion. Highly recommended to have one book saved on your smartphone just in case you face a dreaded hour of boredom and Flores Girl is just the novel to engage you.  I looked at some of the other offerings and the offering du jour  appears to be more vampire stories, a sad state of affairs but hey, you know what they say about imitation.  Jeez, they suck blood and are non-human, get over it people!

Anyway take a look and try Flores Girl on Wattpad.  For fans of my rants well I’ll think of something in a little while.  Right, now it’s Obama spending our money and the Republicans attacking him while in turn offering no real alternative plans to spending trillions.  Sad state of affairs and millions of Amercians out of work.

08
Apr
09

Flores Girl Sci-Fi Novel is now Free on Wattpad for the iPhone and BlackBerry

I just made the Flores Girl:The Children God Forgot science fiction novel  available for free to read on your iPhone and BlackBerry.  On your smart phone just sign up at Wattpad (www.wattpad.com) to install the free app and add Wattcode 125445! There have been over 2 million downloads of Wattpad to date.

Let me know how the reading experience is for the iPhone and I am going to check it out on my own Blackberry. I tried to format it properly but you just never know. For example, I notice the paragraph breaks aren’t working.   For a long time I couldn’t imagine reading an entire novel on a mobile phone but if you got time to kill, such as a long tedious commute, it can be a real life saver.  Just don’t read it while driving!

For those with a Kindle my first novel in the Trilogy, Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot, is now available on Amazon at a very reasonable price: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UE6MDY

I would give it away for free for the Kindle but Amazon is funny about free giveaways!

Update:  A week later I have had over a thousand downloads!  Flores Girl is a big hit and Number 2 at Wattpad! Thanks!

WWW.iPhone-Novel.com

06
Apr
09

Shimkus: More Global Warming and Fundamentalist Folly

Fundamentalists are not just a threat to the study of evolution and biology but their special brand of ignorance can lead us to extinction. A congressman named Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) shows us how science and Fundamental ignorance can combine for some bad science and unintentional entertainment.   Here’s a quote:

“The Earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth. This Earth will not be destroyed by a flood… God’s word is infallible, unchanging, perfect.”

Reminds me of the  ignorance in Afghanistan where President Hamid Karzai on Thursday signed into law legislation that okayed the husband’s raping of  their wives.  These are the guys Obama wants us to protect?  Ignorance like this you can’t make up and to think everybody blames the atheists for the sorry state of mankind.

Okay,  so here’s the Shimkus performance:

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/04/worst_persons_in_the_world.php

Last week at a House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Shimkus tried to argue that the United States doesn’t need a cap-and-trade system to limit CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. I’m not a fan of cap-and-trade system either but  I do think it was folly years ago to rig the CAFE standards to the benefit of trucks and SUVs. That bit of forward looking thinking worked out so well for our overall energy independence and our auto industry, didn’t it?  Still this particular argument borders on the brain dead and here is Shimkus’s newest take on rapid rise of CO2 in our atmosphere:

SHIMKUS: It’s plant food. … So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? … So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people who want to save the world are saying.

Plant food? Even a child knows too much of anything can be bad for you and this is from a member of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.  Want to know how screwed we really are? Take a gander at this satellite photo showing a chunk of the ice shelf the size of Jamaica separating from the Antarctic and heading out to sea:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45636000

But don’t worry it’s part of God’s plan! Why?  Shimkus said so!

For those that care my first novel in the Trilogy, Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot, is now available on Amazon for the Kindle Reader at a very reasonable price:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UE6MDY

Or you can read the novel for free on your Blackberry RIM on Wattpad just go Wattcode 125445!

02
Apr
09

Creationists Fail Science 101 and so goes America

Here is a recent exchange with another ID fan in response to my blog yesterday. This type of thinking really scares the hell out of me for the future of this country as a global technology leader:

“So do the math and by multiplying by millions of years, and use a calculator if you must, to see how the earth is constantly changing over time.”(From my blog-EJB)

“but you are assuming that the area the mountain is in now was once flat. If God created the mountain at a certain height 6,000 years ago then it growing today does not tell us how old the earth is.”  – McCoville, Intelligent Design advocate.

My Response – You’re right if you assume god had a certain sensibility regarding landscaping but the presence of marine fossils on the top of certain mountains indicates that they were once at sea level and with their present rate of accretion that had to be more than 6,000 years ago.

And lets take this out of the realm of the earth for a moment. Look at the lunar landscape with its myriad craters that you can see with your naked eye. Now if you follow the Bible the moon was also created six thousand years ago, actually after the earth on the fourth day according to Genesis and all of those meteorite and asteroid collisions had to occur in that tiny time frame. Why isn’t the earth pockmarked to the degree the moon is? Why? Because those impacts occurred billions of year ago and the forces of atmospheric erosion, which are lacking on the moon, eroded most of their presence on the earth over that time.

If you don’t believe in an old earth you now have to account for the moon being created at a different time before the earth and I don’t believe that is the normal reading of scripture. Or you have to create a scenario in which god bombarded the moon but chose to spare the earth, you know one of “his” miracles. Not to be blasphemous but god was pretty liberal with his miracles during biblical times but you have to admit “his” modern day miracles have kind of paled in comparison. Or just maybe god likes craters and he created the moon that way just to mess with us. Funny, we just witnessed a comet collision with Jupiter during our lifetime though so that thinking is a bit suspect. Kind of convoluted thinking in any case wouldn’t you say? Sorry, you have to face it, the Bible makes for a very poor science book.

My last comment said it all.  Where do these Creationists learn science? Did they just fall asleep during the geology lectures in school or were they never taught any critical thinking because they were home schooled? How do they selectively turn on and off  what they consider true science or do they care?  Do they just listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio?  I don’t get it but almost half of Americans reject evolution. That means half of all Americans are not capable of critical scientific thinking.

Now their comment to me is that I am the one who has been spoon fed and accepted the humanist belief system including Darwinism without my own critical review or personal introspection.  Not true, I spent some time in Catholic School and immediately began discounting everything they taught me the minute I escaped their clutches, including the concepts of heaven and hell.  I did so as I slowly began to find my way in the real world. First, the natural world just did not make sense to me as taught by the priests and nuns.  Furthermore, their shocking abuse of parochial school students as personally observed did not jive with me either.  And while I did not experience the sexual abuse that was inherent in the Catholic School system, I can tell you that nobody, including myself, was exempt from the numerous forms of physical punishment that was perpetuated upon the student body by the clergy.  I can also tell you that celibacy gives you a lot of pent up energy and a certain zeal that needs to be vented upon unwary sinners. In my case, being left-handed I was subjected to regular physical beatings because I had the temerity to use my left-hand to write and draw.  You know, the old school superstition regarding the left-hand being sinistral or evil thinking from the middle ages.

So did I reject god? No, I rejected the men who claim to speak for god.  Every major religion has the stink of man about it and not the rarefied air of  god.  To me, nature speaks more of god than any holy book as interpreted and manipulated by mortal man. So again, I ask what of science in America?

Here was McCovilles response:

“Marine fossils at the top of the mountains…. Noah’s flood. Again, the moon has the marks because that is how God made them, have you seen the meteorites hit the moon or are you taking the words of men by faith that it happened? God’s miracles continue to happen today, you fail to recognize them as such. I never said the Bible was a science book, I only stand by the claim that it is infallible and science continues to agree.”

Should have seen the proverbial flood coming but you can see my response in the blog.   In any case, if 50% of Americans are thinking like this then we are so screwed as a nation.

For those that care my first novel in the Trilogy, Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot, is now available on Amazon for the Kindle Reader at a very reasonable price:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UE6MDY

Enjoy!

Erik John Bertel

01
Apr
09

There is No Darkness Like Hovind’s Creationist Ignorance

This is a recent exchange that was initiated by a creationist chap, named Andrew Sandstrom, who took exception to an old Blog posting I wrote about Sarah Palin and the Republican Expelled Creationist gang. If you have followed my writings you know I wasn’t particularly receptive to the Republican’s fundamentalist religious preoccupation as cynically perpetrated by Karl Rove.  Here is Andrew’s reply to me:

Intelligent Design is very limited when it comes to a creationist point of view. It’s assuming that the earth is billions of years old, when it really isn’t. (Here we go again! -EJB)

The Geological column and several key theories brought it about. And assumptions that places like the Grand Canyon take many many years to form. (And this is an interpretation, not fact. It’s never been proven.)

Our dating methods have been proven wrong a long time ago. Although, once evolution started leaking into mainstream media and everyone had started to accept that the earth is billions of years old, nobody dared question our modern-day methods except darwinists. (Not sure what the point was with this comment- EJB)

And now we’ve been repeatedly fed this bull crap about how the earth is billions of years old. We’re now looking upon every other theory as immediately dismissable.

Watch Kent Hovind’s creation series. You’ll find that the modern-day creationist views are ‘very’ different than ID. ID is still a way for humanists who don’t believe in a God but also don’t find evolution a very reliable theory to explain life. Ex: There was a designer, but it’s never showed itself to us. (This guy is hard-core so of course you can’t trust humanists -EJB)

You can believe whatever you want, all I’m saying is that evolution is an interpretation of the FACTS. Grand Canyon existing is a FACT. That it was created over millions or billions of years is THEORY. It cannot be observed so it cannot be proven.

In short: Show a little more respect to another person’s beliefs. Just because you believe in evolution doesn’t mean you’ve come along more intellectually.

Oh, and Kent Hovind’s website: http://www.drdino.com

(One of Hovind’s articles is titled “The Grand Canyon, Things That Make Evolutionists Look Stupid,”  see name calling is not relegated solely to intellectuals -EJB)

My Response:

“There is no darkness but ignorance” and this is especially evident when religious zealots talk about scientific observation. You realize that with the advent of laser and computer technology and now through GPS, we can actually measure mountains rising and tectonic plates spreading apart, right? Or don’t they teach these scientific facts in your religious compound? (Okay, I was being bitchy but these denials are so hard to take early in the morning!)

For example, the massive Indo-Australian plate is still moving at 67 mm or for you metric phobes, about 3 inches a year. That very same plate is still pushing up the Himalaya Mountains. So do the math and by multiplying by millions of years, and use a calculator if you must, to see how the earth is constantly changing over time. So don’t give me that crap we haven’t seen it. You might as well argue that the GPS in your car doesn’t work while you are it. Speaking of which, I didn’t see my car being built but it’s a pretty safe assumption it was built by Americans in a U.S. factory (?) and not by angels in heaven (hopefully not by devils but that could explain a lot!) And yes, I do buy American!

Religious zealots chose to conveniently ignore the facts and look for weakness along the fringes of science hoping beyond hope to see some personal glimpse of God. Albert Einstein tried to do the same and he failed miserably by the way so I don’t think you’re going to fare much better. That’s why we call it faith by the way. And faith is fine but don’t tell me you have the right to teach this ignorance in a public school. It’s important to separate the teaching of science from the preaching of faith and you just have to look to the Taliban to see where religious ignorance will lead you.

Oh, as to the link to that Creationist site look if you must for a needed laugh but it’s more of the usual Creationist denial and crapfest material. I like the negative article about the chickenosaurus, which is an attempt by biologists to turn genes on and off to recreate a ancestral dinosaur from it’s descendant: a common everyday chicken. For example, they have been able to grow teeth in chicken embryos which is pretty impressive by playing around with a few genes. As to the ethics of doing this, well that is another matter. Here’s a better link:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2009/03/10/will-jurassic-park-ever-really-come-true/

Finally, as to the state of my intellectual development, well I am reminded of an old Archie Bunk quip when Meathead commented to Archie about how Archie should be wanting more for his children. To paraphrase Archie’s comment he said “didn’t the gorilla parent want more for his children but there they are, still a gorilla.” I have accepted that there is so much we don’t know and more importantly, in our present physical manifestations as human beings, so much we will never know.  In short, I have embraced uncertainty unlike my creationist fundamentalist friends and any supposed intellectual superiority on my part melts away upon personal introspection and a simple gaze at the night skies.

Erik John Bertel




Get the Free Flores Girl e-Book at FloresGirl.com

Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot is an exciting speculative adventure story about the discovery of a new prehistoric people by two scientists, Sarah and Richard. Their discovery is threatened by both religious zealots and marauding industrialists. Download the e-Book in PDF, Mobi and Microsoft Reader formats. Honest it is free at floresgirl.com. Just click the chick!

For More Pro-Evolution Rants go to www.thefloresgirlblog.com

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April 2009
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Flores Girl Twitters

  • There is an old Danish proved that says "The one you love you punish.”Join the Flores Girl Twitters, Quotes from the Novel4 hours ago
  • I just want to tell you that your book is amazing. I finished reading the first part in two days. I couldn't put it down. - Flores Girl FanJoin the Flores Girl Twitters, Quotes from the Novel23 hours ago
  • In the drying puddle, a trail of small footprints traces the journey of a band of small people trudging off to the hilltops.Join the Flores Girl Twitters, Quotes from the Novel2 days ago
  • Tattooed and drenched in cheap knock-off perfume, the young women were finding his intoxicated ramblings very amusing.Join the Flores Girl Twitters, Quotes from the Novel3 days ago
  • Rather than fight, she offered her throat to the horrors but their bloodlust would not be satiated with a sudden and clean kill.Join the Flores Girl Twitters, Quotes from the Novel4 days ago
  • Download the free Flores Girl Science fiction adventure eBook for your iPhone, RIM or other Smart phone at Wattpad http://short.to/bua9Join the Flores Girl Twitters, Quotes from the Novel5 days ago
  • He allows his hand to glide down her back, finding his way to the curve of her buttocks and with one small motion tucks her hips in closer.Join the Flores Girl Twitters, Quotes from the Novel6 days ago
  • You’re her friend, it’s that simple knucklehead. You’re probably the only living being that has ever befriended that poor creature.Join the Flores Girl Twitters, Quotes from the Novel1 week ago
  • I loved Flores Girl!I fully believe that you could take any subject from apples to zombies and flip the popular view into something unique.Join the Flores Girl Twitters, Quotes from the Novel1 week ago
  • “Why am I here?” Sarah cried aloud to herself while shaking her head against the spiraling winds. – The beginning of Flores GirlJoin the Flores Girl Twitters, Quotes from the Novel1 week ago

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