From a scientific point of view Noah’s Ark makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Of course that doesn’t stop Christians from claiming to have found the ancient ark, or arguing that it was in fact a real event. I’ve even heard the term Noachian Flood, which I suppose is supposed to sound scientific. Just as scientific as aecg machines I imagine.

Nothing is more laughable than seeing arguments like this though as arguments. Here’s a taste:

Point out that to get two of each kind of animal from every part of the world may not be so unbelievable because of the size of the world at the time. The theory of Pangaea (which basically states that the continents were all connected forming one big “supercontinent”) is probably true. Before Noah’s flood, all of the land masses on earth were all joined to form one continent. This would eliminate the idea that animals would have to cross oceans to reach the ark.

Save it for the people that could actually help you. Like you know the people you do drugs with…err I mean your family and friends. The only thing that that talking about drugs with authority figures, or people that could have something to do with your income, grades, etc. can do is make you look like a loser.

this question=TRAP:

Have you ever used marijuana, or any other illegal drugs?

Tell me now. Why would you answer this question honestly on an application, in an interview, IN CLASS, or when you are getting arrested for being drunk? The correct answer is: YOU DON’T. First of all, its’ against your rights, and your privacy, but most importantly it does you absolutely no good to answer that you have.

Nobody wants to hear about how you got so high on acid that you ran around the neighborhood in nothing but your snow boots shouting about how you can see Double Rainbows making love to a human centipede. This is not impressive, and certainly not funny to anyone that holds your future in their hands.

Moral of the day: Drug use is likely illegal where you live. Nobody is going to give you a medal for admitting that you have “experimented” with drugs when you are arrested, when you are talking in class, or when you are talking to your boss at work.

So…after Lebron left his old Cleveland Cavs for the sunny Miami Heat to form the newest “Dream Team”, Cavs owner Dan Gilbert went into troll mode.

Earlier today this gem was released as a statement to the media from Gilbert:

Dear Cleveland, All Of Northeast Ohio and Cleveland Cavaliers Supporters Wherever You May Be Tonight;

As you now know, our former hero, who grew up in the very region that he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier.

This was announced with a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his “decision” unlike anything ever “witnessed” in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment.

Clearly, this is bitterly disappointing to all of us.

The good news is that the ownership team and the rest of the hard-working, loyal, and driven staff over here at your hometown Cavaliers have not betrayed you nor NEVER will betray you.

There is so much more to tell you about the events of the recent past and our more than exciting future. Over the next several days and weeks, we will be communicating much of that to you.

You simply don’t deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal.

You have given so much and deserve so much more.

In the meantime, I want to make one statement to you tonight:

“I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE”

You can take it to the bank.

If you thought we were motivated before tonight to bring the hardware to Cleveland, I can tell you that this shameful display of selfishness and betrayal by one of our very own has shifted our “motivation” to previously unknown and previously never experienced levels.

Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there.

Sorry, but that’s simply not how it works.

This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown “chosen one” sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And “who” we would want them to grow-up to become.

But the good news is that this heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called “curse” on Cleveland, Ohio.

The self-declared former “King” will be taking the “curse” with him down south. And until he does “right” by Cleveland and Ohio, James (and the town where he plays) will unfortunately own this dreaded spell and bad karma.

Just watch.

Sleep well, Cleveland.

Tomorrow is a new and much brighter day….

I PROMISE you that our energy, focus, capital, knowledge and experience will be directed at one thing and one thing only:

DELIVERING YOU the championship you have long deserved and is long overdue….

Dan Gilbert
Majority Owner
Cleveland Cavaliers

As you can see he is pretty upset. Clearly he felt that he had gotten a little more than just colon cleanse reviews but an anal cleansing for real.

Gilbert also owns the company that produces those obnoxious Fatheads. You know those life sized players you put up on walls that cost $99.99. Lebron has 3 of them in inventory, but they have been trimmed down to $17.41 at Fathead.com. The significance of this move? American Revolutionary War general Benedict Arnold, a traitor who defected to the British, was born in 1741.

This is gonna be some fun stuff over the next few weeks I imagine.

Now, you probably want to go off and do it immediately because you love the pain, but if you actually ever do get laid put more thought into it. Do you think ladies like the taste of Axe body spray? Do you want a blow job, with extra effort? Do you want your BJ finished? Quit putting rank ass stuff on your nuts that will immediately end your BJ. Wash your balls regularly and splash some powder down there to keep them things from getting musty.

This video is one of my favorite performances from him. Billie Jean Live done in 2001 for a 30th anniversary special for him on CBS. Just shows how big he really was when you see the people in the crowd. He had the same effect that Elvis and the Beatles managed to produce on their fans. Herded them in like they were getting cattle supplies and made them fail to control themselves. Nobody could have pulled this off besides him. The video quality isn’t great, but just listening to his music alone doesn’t do him justice IMO. Need to see him dancing too.

This old Jackson 5 tune is also one of my favorite songs, I Want You Back. Here is an old clip with Bill Cosby doing some comedy for the intro.

Hopefully you will see this before you go directly to the game: Play Super Mario 3 Free Online. For more useful info check out some hotel deals while you wait for your Java to install .

Obama supporters are insane. Yes, that’s right I said insane. If you thought the majority of Ron Paul supporters out there were nuts, just spend a few days roaming the forums and you will see that the Obama supporters, which are now dubbed “Obamanics” by me, are some damned defensive people. They talk to you like YOU are the idiot, when in most cases it is them. Saying odd things like “It’s not fair”, “I’m taking my ball and going home”, and the best of them all: “YES WE CAN!”.

Worst part of all this? Probably 3/4 of the people spouting off aren’t even registered voters. If for some reason Barack doesn’t get the nomination (Pretty likely he will at this point), are all of these people going to go hide back in their holes and wait for another 4 years before they decide to vote?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not against Obama in any way. Bringing young voters to the table is always a good thing. Well…usually I guess. We shall see. The guy obviously can spit mad game at the podium and the more I am exposed to his supporters it is quite obvious that when his collar pops the panties drop, but quit acting like idiots people. This guy is running for president, not the president of your Myspace Club. Obamaniacs are becoming like the outspoken Ron Paul supporters of the week. Your candidate takes the high road, why can’t you?

First let me say this. I am not an English major. I do not care if you are and I have no belief that capitalizing a word like Atheism should piss you off so much in a debate that you have to point it out as part of your point. It doesn’t matter. Please do not respond with remedial grammar lessons of this sort as it has no bearing to the context of the argument. I am not going to correct your typos so don’t bother correcting mine. It is wasted space and just re-enforces stereotypes that I have already described. Apparently most of you are happy to re-enforce them on your own so I really don’t need to point them out anymore.

Now let’s get into the recent comments and go through them one by one.

Mr. Troll,

You can be an agnostic and an atheist at the same time.

See: Atheism vs. Agnosticism

~John

I was very happy to see this brought up. Why? Because it is fallacy. Let me explain why. This instance is just another way to rephrase the made up term of “Weak Atheism”. Atheism isn’t a subjective term. All it means is that someone believes gods, God, deities, etc. do not exist. The same as most people believe there is no such thing as UFOs, mystical creatures, or ghosts. You either believe it or you don’t. You can’t be a “Strong Atheist” and REALLY believe gods do not exist anymore than you can be a “Strong Theist” and REALLY believe that gods do exist. You simply believe it or you don’t. Atheist/Agnostic? That’s a “Weak Atheist” and it is the exact same concept. You can’t BARELY believe that no gods exist. You believe it or you do not. There is no level of belief. The word does not allow that. People you might want to call a “Strong Atheist”, or a “Strong Theist” are just extreme people that are typically just fucking crazy and THAT is their label in the most general sense. They either believe gods exist or they do not. I can understand why the “Strong Atheism” aspect isn’t used as much as I used to see it.

I can understand the need to want to fit in and shelter a bit of the blow of taking on the label of being an Atheist since society has been in the past very hostile towards them. Many might call them anything from devil worshippers to just plain sinner, but ultimately those things shouldn’t matter. I’m as ignorant as anyone, but I don’t believe that atheists are evil people with no soul. No one is really that different except in extreme cases. In fact more and more people are taking the belief that no gods exist. It’s simple to understand. People don’t believe in magic anymore. It can neither be proved nor disproved, but obviously you can say that lack of evidence of a god is proof that none exists as well as you can say that the possibility it hasn’t been proved yet is still there.

The Troll wrote, “I haven’t taken an oath to say that I denounce all powers greater than I and that the possibility of no god existing is what i believe, but I’m not far from it.”

~Me

Crap. I must have missed the whole taking an oath part of atheism. Does this mean I’m not “really” an atheist?

~God Isn’t

Yep. Without the oath and the anti-baptism you aren’t a “True Atheist.” You also need to know the secret handshake.

~Patrick Quigley

These comments really amused me and did make good use of the way I wrote the statements about this subject. Contextually they are right on and it is my fault for wording it the way I did originally. Speaking strictly on the oath issue I should have described it a bit differently. I don’t want these guys to think that I believe they are in some sort of cult or secret society…lol

What I should have said is that I haven’t taken a “Leap of faith” and made up my mind to say that I do not believe in the existence of gods. Much as a Theist would when deciding that they believe there is a god someone that believes there are none has to take a “Leap of Faith”. Only reason I say this is because the idea behind the belief cannot be proven with hard evidence.

I think the 12 steps from Alcoholics Anonymous describe this pretty well. Specifically Steps # 2 and 3:

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Those steps are a “Leap of Faith”. The same way that one has to make a decision to believe in a God, supernatural being, or any sort of Deity, someone who does not believe in the existence of a god, or gods must make a conscious decision too. If the idea of a God wasn’t already there there would be no decision to make, but alas it is there so you have to consciously believe in it, or not believe in it.

Finally these comments from the author himself, Austin Cline (his comments are bolded, mine are not):

From personal experience this is a minority.

Generalizing about atheists over all based on personal experience is rather like generalizing about blacks or Jews based on personal experience. Anti-Semites and racists do it all the time, but their claims of “personal experience” don’t excuse them. Why do you think it’s OK for you? Would it be OK to say “Jews are typically greedy” or “Blacks are typically criminal”? Of course not — and it’s not OK to generalize about atheists, either.

You ARE an Atheist. You know why you have that philosophy.

1. Atheism and atheist are not proper nouns and should not be capitalized.

2. Atheism is not a philosophy.

Unfortunately there are many that say they are Atheist although they have serious doubts that no higher power exists.

There is nothing about being an atheist which requires that a person be absolutely convinced that no gods exist,

That is simply all I was pointing out.

You obviously don’t know what atheism, yet you presume to judge atheists through broad, unfair generalizations. That’s what I am pointing out. When you generalize broadly about atheists in the way you did, you are telling reader not to take atheists seriously and not to treat them as equals or with consideration. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t say “all” atheists — using “typically” and “most” is more than enough.

Now there is really no defense for me on most of this. I’m just going to ignore the nitpicky stuff here so don’t expect me to respond to some of it. It is true that I made broad generalizations about atheists. Like I said before I did it on purpose and for the effect. It doesn’t matter if you are an atheist, or a snake worshipper. Apparently the offense that atheists take from stereotypes is more than I had expected. Also, the understanding about my original post and being taken out of context was not expected either. It did provide a nice little argument and subsequent comments to the story and the post.

To be honest with you I feel no need to apologize. I’m just not going to. The political correctness in society today sickens me to no end so I’m not going to apologize when I do not mean it simply because things I said were taken the wrong way. You could have looked at my original post and taken it with a grain of salt like it was intended. Much like I would if a black comedian spent his whole act making fun of white people. That doesn’t offend me whatsoever as a white person so I’m not going to hide observations of my own for fear that someone will become offended. Take the stance that you have and just call me ignorant if you please. My comments should really not drive you to be so offended. I respect your beliefs and I enjoy the uniqueness of different gorups. The funniest things in life are the differences in what people believe and the little personality traits that we observe.

I do appreciate the fact that all of the people have taken it upon themselves to stand up for their beliefs. I have no problem with that and I certainly don’t have anything against what they do believe. Anyone can take pot shots at me for being white, or anything else including my beliefs by throwing stereotypes at me.

As for taking an atheist seriously…That isn’t something that is my responsibility to spread. This blog isn’t about being fair, or nice. It is about stereotypes, plain and simple. It is about the way people act online in various communities. I take offense to nothing, but it does not surprise me when others take offense and try to defend themselves. I am glad that most of the comments tried to stay a bit level headed, and am grateful to have a chance to talk with you all. For the most part I respect your opinions and the help at clarifying anything I may be off on. My “Know it all” aspect is nothing more than an online personality. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I thank you for this conversation very much. For the theme of my blog this is a real life experience for those who read it to learn from. Whether I get owned, or own anyone is irrelevant. Someone reading this should be able to learn from it.

Related posts:

The Religious Debate, The Religious Debate Revisited

Let’s just give a bit of background about me to clear a few things up. I went to a Catholic school from Kindergarten through graduation. That right there should pretty much tell you that I am not a practicing Christian anymore. The majority of Atheists are ex-Catholic school kids that just got sick of all the doom and gloom of the Catholic Church as well as the disbelief in the concept of magic (ie. miracles). You can add me to the list of disgruntled Catholics, but I really don’t have any affiliation to Atheism either. I’m not against what anyone believes, nor do I really care to convince anyone that what I believe is right either. Let’s just say that I think a lot of religious beliefs are ridiculous to me. Label me Agnostic, Christian, Atheist, whatever.

Now on to what this is really about. My original post was simply an observation as to how the various labeled groups tend to debate this subject online. No more, no less. There are great debaters on every side of this argument. I just chose to pick on the ones that are clueless. Yes, I’m a jerk, and frankly I like to stereotype people. Just read my About page to see what I mean. If people want to debate they should actually understand what position they have taken before talking about it.

I used a broad brush stroke on certain groups here. Mainly Atheists and Christians which was purely intentional. It is simply because the”debate” is usually laughable. Again, here are the stereotypes I am going to use. Atheists tend to think they are superior to Christians online because they use logic. It is more common than not in my experience to see Atheists resort to calling some random Christian names or resorting to mocking them because they don’t agree. Just look at this popular Atheist message board and tell me that the group there is receptive to debate when a Christian shows their ugly head. It has nothing to do with whether I agree with the concept of Atheism, or Christianity. It’s the fact that the whole debate is just not educational on a message board when I see it. The smart ones don’t bother to join the debate which leaves us with all the idiots.

The Religious Debate shouldn’t be an argument of right and wrong and escalate into name calling. A real debate happens when someone says one thing, someone who opposes it responds with a logical answer, and the debate continues from there. It isn’t about being Atheist, Christian, Agnostic, or anything of the sort. The labels are meaningless. If I say there is no God then you try to convince me there is. If you have to say Christianity in your response, or call me an Atheist at any point the debate has failed.