New Atheist activist Hemant Mehta posted a blog entry entitled, “Ricky Gervais Hilariously Deconstructed a Tweeted Threat from a Christian Fundamentalist.”

Here was the tweet:

"YOUR SCIENTS WON'T HELP YOU WHEN SATAN IS RAPING YOUR BRITISH ASS!!! I'LL BE LAUGHING". < I want to give this tweet a Knighthood. — Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) August 19, 2013

And Mehta informs us:

Gervais said the person who sent it to him was a Creationist from Texas. And then he spent several minutes trying to unpack everything the man said…

C’mon people. Can Gervais and Mehta be any more gullible? Is there ANY evidence this tweet came from a “Creationist from Texas?” Is there ANY evidence this tweet came from a “Christian Fundamentalist?” How did these champions of critical thinking ever rule out the obvious alterative explanation?

This is a Poe.

Let’s start with the all-caps “Scients.” Really? These guys get taken in by Poe 101? What’s more likely? A “Creationist from Texas” never once read the word “science” and gets it hilariously wrong by trying to spell it like it sounds to his ignorant ears? Or a Poe, using the oldest lolz Poe tricks in the book? Then again, these Gnus are probably still oblivious to the way Dawkins was Poe’d.

Secondly, I’m someone who follows the Gnus somewhat regularly over the years. As such, I was aware of Ricky Gervais, but did not pay him much attention. After all, the man is simply not that famous (at least here in the States) and is not a serious thinker.

Which leads me to wonder just how many “Creationists from Texas” would even know who Ricky Gervais is. My generous guess would be 1%.

What’s more, even though I recognized Gervais’s name, and knew he was some type of atheist comedian, I did not know he was British. Just learned that fact. So, let’s think about this. Among that generous 1% of Texan creationists who have even heard of Ricky Gervais and know he is an atheist, just how many also knew he was British? Again, I’ll be generous and say it’s 1%.

Okay, so we’re supposed to believe that among the teeny tiny percent of Texan creationists who know of Ricky Gervais and know he is British, that this tiny population had within it someone who was so infuriated at the comedian that he used Twitter to seek out Gervais and used all caps to inform Gervais he’d be laughing at him getting raped by Satan. And this just happens to be the same man (the only man?) who spells “science” as “scients.”

I can think of a much more likely scenario. Gervais, a Gnu comedian, is relatively well known among the New Atheists, especially those who are into Poes. So one of these Poes, who probably follows Gervais’s tweets, writes something he/she knows that Gervais won’t be able to resist. Nice and parsimonious.

To top it all off is the irony of the whole tweet. In fact, Gervais picks up on it:

This is my favorite bit. “YOUR SCIENTS WON’T HELP YOU WHEN SATAN IS RAPING YOUR BRITISH ASS!!! I’LL BE LAUGHING.” So this silly [expletive] is there, too! He’s there! So he’s a fundamentalist Creationist who’s lived his life by the Old Testament. He dies. He finds himself in Hell. He sees me being raped. It cheers him up! Like he’s over it already!

Ricky thinks he has discovered an irony there, when it’s obvious the irony was all part of the Poe in the first place. Poes love to add the ironic twist to their messages (such as verbally abusing their target and ending with a “Love in Christ”). That Poe must have been tickled pink to see Gervais get the joke.

I’m endlessly amused when the Gnus are constantly patting themselves on their own backs about how rational and skeptical they are, yet they never fail to be taken in by obvious Poes. Hook. Line. And sinker.

There’s a sucker born every minute.

What explains this constant gullibility? I submit it’s merely because their minds are enslaved to their stereotypes about Christians. They desperately lean on the crutch of their stereotypes. Tell em something that validates their precious stereotypes, and they will lap it up like a floppy eared puppy.

But…….hold on. Let me check something.

Ah.

Remember the time when the New Atheist community fell for the fake Kim Davis twitter account? I do. The same Hemant Mehta found it necessary to stop the bleeding and tried to steer the Gnus away from embarrassing themselves further by falling for the Poe.

Mehta actually listed the evidence it was a hoax, including:

The capitalized words and misspellings throughout the account’s timeline are the hallmarks of what you’d do if you were trying to imitate a Christian fundamentalist. In other words, it’s *too* error-filled to be accurate.

Well, well. So Mehta knows that “capitalized words and misspellings….are the hallmarks” of Poes. He knows.

Yet he passes this one off as legit.

Y’know, maybe the issue isn’t one of gullibility. Maybe its about deception and dishonesty. That is, Gervais and Mehta don’t really think the tweet came from a creationist in Texas, but who cares? It’s not about being fooled because of an adherence of negative stereotypes. It’s about using deception to purposely perpetuate negative stereotypes. After all, for activists, the ends justify the means.

Lying for Gnutopia is just part of an activist’s good day’s work.