Why Do I Love PZ Myers? August 23, 2010

Why Do I Love PZ Myers?

By Guest Contributor
August 23, 2010

Even in the face of death, he takes the time to remind us all not to “waste our time with prayers” for him.

Gotta stick to your principles even when things get rough 🙂

Get well soon, PZ.

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  • i like how he faces, even this, with humor.

  • Richard Wade

    Yes, courage and humor are always his companions. I hope he recovers quickly and without discomfort.

  • Reginald Selkirk

    Yes, his three companions are courage, humour, and ruthless efficiency…

  • Hitch

    His four companions are courage, humor, and ruthless efficiency…and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope…. Wait, I’ll come in again.

    All the best to him.

  • JoeBuddha

    … and an almost fanatical devotion to Cthulhu!

    (Missed it by *that* much…)

  • sailor

    Yes, his post was great and very funny for someone. I wish him swift recovery, he has two things on his side: Modern medicine and that he does not believe in woo.

  • Wow. I just got into your blog Hemant, and a few others including PZ Myers over the last month and a half or so. You guys and the others have become one of the points in my day that I really look forward to, and first Mr. Hitchens and now PZ Myers.

    I hope for a good full recovery for both.

  • Roxane

    My husband, who is completely alive and well and just got back from a backpacking/fishing trip in the Rockies despite the fact that he is much older than PZ, had serious heart surgery a couple of years ago. There is no reason to abandon hope, since they caught it before he keeled over.

    Nevertheless, it made me very sad–especially since he is at risk at the same time as Hitch.

  • gwen

    May the force of Science be with him, and the excellent medical staff!

  • wright1

    PZ Myers is one of those loud, unapologetic atheists that make the quiet ones like me feel uncomfortable. For that alone, I am grateful to him. I wish him and his family well.

  • Entropist

    “I entered the Lager as a non-believer, and as a non-believer I was liberated and have lived to this day. Actually, the experience of the Lager with its frightful iniquity confirmed me in my nonbelief. It has prevented me, and still prevents me, from conceiving of any form of providence or transcendent justice… I must nevertheless admit that I experienced (and again only once) the temptation to yield, to seek refuge in prayer. This happened in October 1944, in the one moment in which I lucidly perceived the imminence of death… naked and compressed among my naked companions with my personal index card in hand, I was waiting to file past the ‘commission’ that with one glance would decide whether I should go immediately into the gas chamber or was instead strong enough to go on working. For one instance I felt the need to ask for help and asylum; then, despite my anguish, equanimity prevailed; one does not change the rules of the game at the end of the match, nor when you are losing. A prayer under these conditions would have been not only absurd (what rights could I claim? and from whom?) but blasphemous, obscene, laden with the greatest impiety of which a nonbeliever is capable. I rejected the temptation; I knew that otherwise were I to survive, I would have to be ashamed of it.”

    ~ Primo Levi, from The Drowned and the Saved

  • He’s (from what we deduce anyway) facing heart surgery, a routine procedure.He is not facing death.That’s just silly hyperbole.

  • Fear
    Surprise
    ruthless efficiency
    almost fanatical devotion to the Pope
    and nice red uniforms

    (last bit at mark 1:29 in this skit)

    Anyway, I hope PZ’s procedure is successful and he recovers quickly.

  • Reginald Selkirk

    Nevertheless, it made me very sad–especially since he is at risk at the same time as Hitch.

    Yes, so many of the prominent gnu atheists are suffering at the same time. PZ has heart difficulties, Hitchens has throat cancer, and Sam Harris is suffering from a recent outbreak of rampant demagoguery (see his commentary on the Park51 Islamic center).

  • J. J. Ramsey

    FYI, David Wood set up a fundraiser for the British Heart Foundation on PZ Myers’ behalf: http://www.justgiving.com/notpraying

  • BrianE

    Why is god killing all the prominent atheists just before The Rapture? Doesn’t he want them to suffer here with the rest of us? Hemant, buckle up man, and you better get in for a check up!

  • Silent Service

    I wish it wasn’t such a pain in the arse to post messages over at Pharyngula. I can never get there from work.

    All our hopes are yours PZ. I’m even more glad that my son and I were able to tour the Kentucky Krackpot Museum with you. It sounds like your rampaging anger will have to slow down for quite a while. Next time I hope to get to hang out at the designated watering hole so you can tell us how your heart grew three sizes and you saved Christmas that day (from the christians, no doubt).

  • ManaCostly

    No prayers, huh? Well, he didn’t say nothing about alien abduction and then healing him with lasers!

    I’ll call them right now.

    (Yes, no message of support here. I’ve already told PZ himself, telepatthically)