The only thing redeeming about this is that new book smell.

What. The. Heck. Is. This?

Here on Noice, we love free things. We love them so much we devote an entire tag to it. We love them so much that we bring you copies of The Voice for free every month. Heck, we’ll even give you two copies if you like! HOWEVER, we do not like to get free crap if it’s actually just crap. This blogger’ll take a free slap in the face over what she and many others received yesterday coming into the yard.

Man, they really had us fooled! We saw some man peddling The Origin of Species 150th Anniversary Edition and grabbed it thinking “Hey! One less thing I’ll have to buy for my Science core!” But alas, a few hours later in the comfortable Snuggie™-fied glory of a common room we discovered… aghast! “THIS ISN’T WHAT WE THOUGHT IT WAS! TROJANS, THIS IS A HOLLOW HORSE! ”

Complete with a “special introduction” by some d-bag named Ray Comfort, this version of the out-of-copyright 19th century classic includes gems like:

After much research, I do concede that you won’t find anything in Darwin’s writings that would indicate that he in any way felt blacks were to be treated as inferior or that his views of them were do to their skin color. He just thought that they were closer to gorillas than whites (33).

[on Hinduism and reincarnation] It’s an interesting concept, but it doesn’t deal with your real problem of having sinned against God and the reality of Hell (46).

Buddhism: Amazingly, the religion of Buddhism denies that God even exists (46).

[on Islam] So Islam believes you can earn God’s mercy by your own efforts. That’s like jumping out of a plane and believing that flapping your arms is going to counter the law of gravity and save you from a 10,000-foot drop. (46)

Now, assuming that you are not about to tear out your hair, we pause to ask… what does all this horribly offensive, nutty nonsense even have to do with The Origin of Species? And if you’re not convinced that this free book is a farce: it includes a handy prayer guide for your imminent conversion:

Dear God, Today I turn away from all of my sins (name them) and I put my trust in Jesus Christ alone as my Lord and Savior. Please forgive me, change my heart, and grant me Your gift of everlasting life. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Now misappropriation and misinformation have their place (just take a look at the Long Johnson campaign site) but for goodness sake, if I was looking to convert people I probably wouldn’t try it by giving away bad editions of The Origin of Species at Harvard of all places. Who do these people think we are? It’s not like teaching the South won the Civil War to 7th graders in rural Virginia. Who do you think you’re fooling, Ray?

And Ray, if you really wanted to convince us that you even read through your own edition of The Origin you might want to:

Remember, when you go to toss this book out (or at least the 50 page foreword), please recycle! Green is the new crimson, afterall.