This is an old, tired joke that has just been posted on the site of a right-wing moron’s radio show. I have heard it quite a few times before, usually by smug nitwits who think they’ve delivered a knock-out themselves.
A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist and a member of the ACLU.
One day the professor shocked the class when he came in, looked to the ceiling, and flatly stated, “God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I’ll give you exactly 15 minutes.”
The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop.
Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, ‘”Here I am God. I’m still waiting.” It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him, knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold.
The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other students were shocked, stunned, and sat there looking on in silence.
The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, “What the heck is the matter with you? Why did you do that?”
The Marine calmly replied, “God was too busy today protecting American soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an idiot. So, He sent me.”
I love this joke. It’s a perfect illustration of the problem of religion. Set aside the inane caricature of a college professor made by someone who has apparently never met one, and look at the ‘hero’, the Marine. There is no reason to believe he is actually on a mission from a god, other than that he claims it. And he has used this claim to justify violence. Isn’t this the way it always is?
Let’s revise the joke. Substitute “radio show host” for “college professor”, and in the opening paragraphs, describe him as reactionary patriot waving the flag for god and country and demanding that his god strike him down if sending men to war wasn’t a righteous cause. Then have the Marine’s actions play out in exactly the same way.
Still funny? Maybe funnier? Or do you still think the Marine should still be arrested for assault?
That’s why I like the joke. It reveals the ignorance of the people who tell it, and it says much about how much of religion is an exercise in rationalizing criminal behavior.
That site also has a poll attached to it. You can tell the man is an amoral jerk by the way it’s worded, too.
One of the terrorists who planned the 9/11 hijackings is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. While in CIA custody, newly released documents reflect that the Ron Jeremy-lookalike was waterboarded 183 times, far more than previously admitted to by government officials under the Bush Administration.
You Hear This Information and Think What?
Who freakin’ cares? He’s lucky we didn’t attach jumper cables to his nads.
84.62 %
It’s horrible, but we needed to do it to prevent further American deaths.
5.98 %
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others should be going to jail over this.
9.40 %
That our country has engaged in torture is one of the great shames of our generation; that we still have these thugs bragging about it is a continuing disgrace. Show them what you think—the people who find this behavior vile must speak up and act.
still overwhelmingly in support of torture.
The inanity of the poll is demonstrated by the fact that none of the choices are mutually exclusive. You could technically believe all three.
It has just as much truthiness as that bit about the person who asked god why there is only one set of footprints in the sand.
You didn’t tell us this jackass is in Nebraska! Are we going to end up with more votes in this poll than there are people in that backward state (that’s saying something, since I live in Texas).
Oh Dear,
Another wingnut bit of idiocy from Nebraska. This time Omaha. At least we folks down in Lincoln know to keep the crazies off the school board.
At least we’re not voting on human/animal hybrids.
-protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an idiot.-
but your not allowed to do it because you will get beaten up if you do by the people protecting your rights…
go figure.
I don’t get it… did God really tell the marine to do it? Why isn’t the marine over seas protecting our rights?.. and how did a marine get into a college?
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
“Sorry, I was taking a walk on the beach. What’s up?”
Heh, just saw that around 60% say that bush, cheny and rumsfeld should go to jail. Nice one PZ!
@#3:
I once was at a comedy gig, where the comedian (Tim Vine), finished on a serious note with this version of the footsteps tale:
That’s a rough approximation of it, but it certainly moved me.
Guy
“God was too busy today”
Wasn’t he omnipotent?
He’ll have some explaining to do to his superiors, over 65% of his visitors now want to send Bush to jail.
That poll didn’t take long to move. Over 60% for the jail option.
“Bullshit, Jesus, Those Are Obviously My Footprints”
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/34168
Agree with much of what you write here pz, but are you sure that “our greatest shame” is torture and not the illegal invasion of a country and its destruction (accompanied by the ‘excess’ deaths of perhaps 1 million people)–the kind of crime for which germany was prosecuted in the Nuremberg tribunals. On the other hand our government has destroyed a region about every 15 years since world war 2 (Vietnam, part Cambodia, in the 70s, and Central America in the 80s), without much comment, so perhaps this is somewhat unusual (i.e. the fact that torture is perhaps being talked about; though we have been doing this through our clients for quite some time; the death squads and all that).
I think the Baueresque “ticking time bomb” justification* for torture has been definitively falsified by the release of the memos. Apparently you have to waterboard someone for a month before they’ll tell you the important stuff. Not much use in an emergency scenario.
*pathetic excuse based on sadistic fantasies.
The moral of the story is that Christians are violent and those who commit violence feel justified if they believe it is god ordained.
A friend of mine showed me this far superior, more accurate version. Of course, he also had to mock the style of these chain emails, so forgive the annoying format.
Fw: Fw: Fw: The Atheist Professor and the MarineThe Atheist Professor and the Marine
>>>A United States Marine was attending some college courses
>>>between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and
>>>Afghanistan . One of the courses had a professor who was a vowed
>>>atheist and a member of the ACLU.
>>>
>>>One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to
>>>the ceiling and flatly stated, “God, if you are real, then I want you to
>>>knock me off this platform. I’ll give you exactly 15 minutes.” The lecture
>>>room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop.
>>>
>>>Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, “Here I am God. I’m
>>>still waiting.” It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine
>>>got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him;
>>>knocking him off the platform.
>>>
>>>The professor was out cold. The Marine went back to his seat and sat
>>>there, silently. The other students were shocked and stunned and sat
>>>there looking on in silence. The professor eventually came to, noticeably
>>>shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, “What the hell is the matter
>>>with you? Why did you do that?”
>>>
>>>The Marine calmly replied, “God was too busy today protecting America ’s
>>>soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an
>>>ass. So, He sent me.”
>>>
>>>The Marine was quickly arrested by campus security and taken to the
>>>local police station. He was tried and convicted of assault and battery.
>>>He served a two-year sentence and was dishonorably discharged from
>>>the Corps. The professor also sued him for the medical expenses of the
>>>concussion, cranial trauma, and spinal damage he recieved from the
>>>punch. The ex-Marine now works at McDonald’s, drinks heavily, and
>>>regularly beats his wife and children.
nkb – Texas? I feel sorry for you. You just got your village idiot back.
Nebraska does have a few redeeming values. The oldest state-wide peace organization in the country (Nebraskans for Peace). Omaha and Lincoln voted for Obama. We just lost one of the great Progressive farm leaders of the last century, Merle Hansen (Farm Aid, Farmers Union, Tractorcade to Washington, etc.)
Unfortunately, I think we also have more churches per capita than any other state. Sad.
Maybe more to the point, it shows what religion is about, getting people to do things to protect an idea. Sometimes terrible things, and yes, sometimes good things.
Oddly, the poll seems to be designed to give us the notion that religion really ought to be about doing terrible things to protect a group idea/identity.
Frankly, I’m inclined to let them be on the the record as voting for torture, or at least for turning a blind eye to torture.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
@7…Seriously? How did a Marine get into college? wow…
I like how all the other students in this scenario sit there in “shocked silence” instead of, I dunno, calling 911. If I saw some douchebag marine attack someone and knock them out cold, I would be calling the police. Just sayin’…
While we’re talking torture, hit this poll at the Daily News too:
Punishment & Torture
“Should the people who developed the torture techniques used on terrorists be prosecuted?
Yes. Torture is wrong, and the United States shouldn’t be doing it.
No. We’re fighting dangerous foes, and we need to use dangerous methods.”
I love the fact that the radio show howt shares a surname with a fictional zombie machete wielding killer.
Also, the story got somehow distorted. Actually, the marine gets up, takes his rifle and shoots the professor and then everyone else in the room. The professor, who is not quite dead yet, asks “Why?”, and so the marine gives his brilliant answer about god being busy somewhere else. But then the professor asks why he shot his buddies too, and the marine replies: “God told me to”.
Much funnier that way, isn’t it? Or perhaps not funnier, but more believable.
Like PZ, I like this story. The great part is that, even if you were to assume for the sake of argument that it is true, it STILL shows the Marine as an idiot, and the fallacy of the far right. Do we really have to remind our armed services that they are fighting for FREEDOM?
Freedom isn’t free, and apparently, freedom doesn’t really mean freedom. Well, at least according to this story…
That is aside from the fabrication in the first place. As PZ wonders, did the person who invented it even know a professor? Or just what they heard from Horowicz?
Here’s a better Marine story, from before a recent election:
One sunny day in 2009, an old man approaches the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he’d been sitting on a park bench. He speaks to the Marine standing guard and says, “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”
The Marine replies, “Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer President and no longer resides here.”
The old man says, “Okay,” and walks away.
The following day, the same man approaches the White House and says to the same Marine, “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”
The Marine again tells the man, “Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer President and no longer resides here.”
The man thanks him and again walks away.
The third day, the same man approaches the White House and speaks to the very same Marine, saying “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”
The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looks at the man and says, “Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I’ve told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the President and no longer resides here. Don’t you understand?”
The old man answers, “Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it.”
The Marine snaps to attention, salutes, and says, “See you tomorrow.”
Quite aside from the moral reprehensibility of torture, I’m croggled by the idea that they thought it was necessary to waterboard him 183 times. This implies that it didn’t “work” to their satisfaction the first couple of times, so they kept doing it, evidently hoping that this time it would come out different. Isn’t that supposed to be one of the textbook indications of insanity? Trying the same thing over and over, even though it failed before, under the delusion that *this* time it is going to succeed?
Either that, or they really didn’t expect to “succeed”, but they (a) couldn’t think of anything useful to do, and/or (b) kind of enjoyed doing it.
God was too busy protecting soldiers? Whoever wrote that obviously doesn’t know Marines.
I think that the right wing pundits that exploit Marines in the name of their fundamentalist cause would be quite surprised at how very few of the real combat Marines are regularly practicing christians. I never had more than 10-15 percent attend any services for the mystical sky fairy in military operations. Yet another example of them celebrating ignorance.
By the way, it seems common now, among right-wing commenters and radio show hosts, to laugh about waterboarding, to say it’s not torture, it’s not that nasty, etc.
To all those morons, I propose the Hitchens Challenge.
It consists in 3 steps:
1. Shut up on this topic until you’ve taken step 2
2. Try waterboarding. It should be performed on you by competent military instructors, giving you 100% assurance that you won’t be physically harmed in the process
3. Write about your experience
Come on, all the Limbaughs and O’Reillys and Becks and others. Just do it. Turning down the challenge means admitting you’ve got less balls that Christopher Hitchens(*). We’re waiting!
(*) And it was even more traumatic for him, as he’s not familiar with absorbing water (**)
(**) Sorry, couldn’t resist…
No kidding. I noticed that one, too.
And you’re being a sarcastic ass here, right?
if torturing is so damn effective, the 168th time on the guy should at least give you the cure for cancer or disprove string theory
Replace ‘United States Marine’ with ‘international serial killer’ and try the joke again.
@7…Seriously? How did a Marine get into college?
Some of the best students in my physics classes are ex military. As a group they are highly motivated, they turn in work on time, attend class, they have good math skills, they are articulate, they regularly volunteer to help other students. The navy vets have the best training, but the other branches are pretty good students too.
If I had a choice between a class full of high school graduates and a class full of marine vets, I’ld take the marines every time.
I wonder if after a few dozen times you get used to it, and pretty much bored with it? I can see him now having to fake his terrorgasms, in a flat, monotonous voice saying “oh no, please don’t drown me, oh I’m going to die, no, no, you da man…”
@31 & 34…I was quoting comment #7 and asking if he was serious. It’s a ridiculous thing to say.
For the record, I was disgusted by the person who wrote that too. That’s why I questioned it. I was not the one doubting the intelligence of Marines.
and @33…are you seriously saying that marines are serial killers?
He took the bus?
Seriously, as Jim said.
“God was too busy today protecting American soldiers…”
Well, god ain’t doing a very good job of that, is he?
Ahh…okay. Sorry for the confusion.
Tim@7: you’re being a sarcastic ass, right?
The families of 5000 or so US soldiers should have a bone to pick with God’s protection racket. To say nothing of the wounded.
Great job, “God”. If, that is your real name.
How many soldiers have been killed in Iraq?
Wow. Sometimes I really hate being from Nebraska. Even Lincoln, the capital and most liberal town, has a city council overrun with big business “Me First” conservatives. Our “liberal media” newspaper endorsed Bush *BOTH* times.
Ugh. At least here in Lincoln we voted for Obama. There may be some hope after all.
@Liberal Percy: where in Lincoln? I’m out Northwest.
Just voted. We’re pushing 90%. We need to jump a little harder on the Daily News thing, though. We’re still under half.
Just did the poll.
90% say go to jail LOL
Oooooh. I have one.
An atheist is wandering through the forrest and looking for mushrooms. Everytime he finds one, he admires its beauty and the wonder of the natural world. Then he takes some snapshots. He eventually finds a nice lake and starts walking towards it.
He rounds a corner and is terrified to see a bear.
The bear growls and bolts towards him. Because he is so frightened, he runs.
And runs.
And runs.
Looking back, he sees that the bear is still there. In fact, it’s gaining.
The atheist runs and runs and runs and he can hear the bear getting closer.
While looking back, he trips on a root and falls backwards.
The bear is upon him and it raises a clawed hand to strike.
The atheist gasps “Oh God!”
And time stops.
YES?
“Uhm, errrr.”
YOU DIDN’T BELEIVE IN ME, BUT NOW IT SEEMS THAT YOU DO. WHAT DO YOU WANT?
“Well,” says the atheist. “I’m going to die.”
SO? WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO ABOUT IT?
The atheist gets an idea:
“Well, I have no idea whether you’re the Christian God , and I’d rather live than convert on my deathbed…
Could you make the bear a Christian?”
OK.
And suddenly time resumes.
And the bear, which has its paw in the air stops, blinks a few times, and slowly drops its paw to its chest.
Where it meets with the palm of its other paw.
And the bear says:
“For what we are about to receive, may we be truly greatful. Amen.”
What I particularly love about this “joke” is that it’s not enough that the professor is an atheist, but a member of that favoured target of the right wing, the ACLU. Because, I guess, they’re a bunch of godless, loudmouthed, ivory tower intellectuals or something.
I’m not sure they should go to jail(would need a lot more understanding of who ordered precisely what when), but it is clearly a better response than 1 and probably a better response than 2.
I sure am glad I got out of the Marine Corps before god signed up, I’ve got better shit to do than go around knocking out college professors.
Waterboarded 183 times!!?!?!?!?
Even IF you accept that it could possibly be done legally and morally, just think about that for a few minutes…
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Doesn’t the “waterboarded 183 times” sort of contradict the whole “If there was a ticking bomb about to go off…” nonsense?
How many opportunities will you get to torture someone before that bomb goes off?
I’m no Christian, but if that professor was real, he’d be a douchebag for wasting his student’s tuition money by dicking around and whoring attention like that during what is supposed to be educational time. Not a justification for physical violence, but my point remains.
I DO feel sad though, that I never once met an “evil, godless, liberal” professor who pushed his viewpoint on students in class when I was in college. With all these fundies howling about them, I’m starting to feel left out. :(
Guy G@ 10 – I’ve heard Tim Vine do that one as well. I was surprised to later find out he’s a pretty devout Christian.
I’ll let him off though because he clearly keeps it to himself. He was “outed” when a journalist who must have known him personally (his brother Jeremy presents the BBC’s flagship Newsnight show) asked him for a comment on the atheist Christmas carols event in London a few months back. Even then he didn’t mention his religion himself, though – the comment was a sort of “live and let live” type.
Christophe Till @ 30 – A British actor called Rupert Penry-Jones actually underwent waterboarding in controlled conditions to be filmed for TV spy drama Spooks. He said he had believed US reports that it “wasn’t that bad” beforehand, but afterwards said it was the most terrifying thing that had ever happened to him.
And he did it for just a few minutes, once.
I’d find you the direct quote but my work computer is completely fcking up and it’s already taken me about half an hour to post this!
I think the correct answer to the Ticking Time Bomb ™ question is: Torture someone who in your opinion looks like he might have planted it. He’ll confess whether he did it or not. And meanwhile, the bomb will go off, and now you can CYA by telling the public that you got a confession from the guy who did it.
On the less depressing side: Choice 3 is now up to around 92%. Good crashin’!
I get the feeling that this joke was not written by a marine and is pretty offensive to anyone in the armed services in general. Now if you replaced “marine” with “knuckle dragging, piss beer swilling dip-shit wannabe who couldn’t make it through day one of basic”, then it becomes believable, but not particularly funny. It is my understanding that real marines have far more self-discipline. I say this with no military experience on my part.
A central tenet in the mythology of the Right is that liberty doesn’t naturally belong to every individual. Rather, to them, liberty is granted to us by the grace of warriors who deserve to snatch it away at any moment. This is one of the problems of having a military class rather than a citizen militia. The fascists on the Right, like the National Socialist Worker’s Party in Weimar Germany, believe that our poor soldiers are stabbed in the back each day by Godless liberals at every opportunity. They always tell themselves masturbatory stories like this, about when brave soldiers stand up to evil atheists. They told themselves these stories in Weimar Germany, and the fascists are telling the same stories now. The next step is correcting the ills of the country by bleating out liberty to the evil atheists and soft liberals at home and beating up and intimidating those who spit on the solders each day. Because soldiers, although hated by the backstabbers at home, are the fount of liberty. Humans don’t have natural civil rights, they are merely granted to an ungrateful populace by the grace of the troops, according to this view. Any decent soldier, however, will laugh at this paradigm, which is mostly popular among the fascist circles in the civilian world. Paranoia and violence are at the core of the fascist mentality.
I was most amused by the tie-in with ACLU membership. What does that have to do with this fable? Aren’t our military and the ACLU fighting for the same thing?
Indeed. I know quite a few “evil, godless, liberal” profs (probably am one myself) but have never heard anything about them pushing their viewpoints on students (I had one prof who used to talk a lot about his liberal views, but we were never pushed). Shoot, we even have one of the “100 Most Dangerous Profs” on campus, but the reports from his class is that he doesn’t go off topic, and never pushes.
In fact, the only reports of any profs bringing up religion inappropriately are for my christian colleagues.
This foreheadspankingly inane story certainly grows in the telling. I don’t recall the ACLU, Iraq and Afghanistan being mentioned the last time I heard it. I don’t think god’s proxy smiter was a marine, either. The professor, I guess, is the same sap who regularly starred in Jack Chick’s tracts. At least with Chick you get guffawsome pictures with it.
One of the stranger things about the fact that this mythology has developed within the “Right” at all is that we don’t have a military class in the US at the expense of a citizen militia. Rather, we have a citizen militia that contributes a very large percentage of the total standing military force.
fixed now
As of Wednesday at noon midwest time:
You Hear This Information and Think What?
Who freakin’ cares? He’s lucky we didn’t attach jumper cables to his nads.
6.42 %
It’s horrible, but we needed to do it to prevent further American deaths.
1.15 %
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others should be going to jail over this.
92.43 %
Huh? How would a straight Christian know who Ron Jeremy is?
BTW, I have to admit that I am indeed one of those profs who has in fact talked about controversial unrelated to my course during class.
A few years ago I was teaching organic chem, and mentioned something about this is something they could do while doing the soduku in the newspaper, or reading the comics. That was fine, but then I went too far, and complained about the fact that the campus newspaper had recently discontinued my favorite comic strip. That had nothing to do with the material in class, and I was injecting my personal bias.
Yep, I went there. I was almost tempted to write to Horowitz to let him know that I should be included in the list of the most dangerous professors, because I have injected my unsubstantiatable personal opinion about a topic unrelated to the course. I mean, that’s what the list is about, right? It’s not just a witch-hunt to sort out the evil commies, right?
This story does illustrate the prejudices of the majority of this radio host’s listeners. A professor (intelligensia) who belongs to the ACLU (liberalism) and is an atheist (non-believer) challenges God and is punched out by a Marine (sworn to protect God & country) who served overseas (hero) for challenging his beliefs.
The fact that the Marine has just committed a CRIME seems obvious but, of course, they’ll overlook this. It makes them feel good, just like when they punched that sissy back in grade school.
Please recall the Bushian official (probably Rove) who said “We’re an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality.” You may have wondered just how empires go about making their own realities. What is the secret of such god-like power? Well, now we know one of the secrets: torture.
The function of torture is not to acquire correct information; its real purpose is to imposed desired illusions. A false confession isn’t false to Big Brother, if it’s the false confession that Big Brother wanted. That, to Big Brother, is reality control; proof of Big Brother’s divinity.
This explains why torture becomes an end in itself. Godhood is habit-forming.
Of course, you could also read “we’re an empire now, we make our own realities” as saying, “we’re a gang of thugs, and self-deluded too.”
Mindless ill informed rhetoric such as this, only serves to fuel the fires of ignorance within any society,replace Atheist with, Blacks, Gays, Women or Jews and the humor is not so obvious.
If the religious think it’s amusing story, see if they can find the humor in this.
On December 26th 2004 a earthquake triggered a series of devastating tsunamis, killing 275,000
people,the vast percentage of these were helpless women and children .
Many died begging Allah, Buddha, Vishnu and Jesus to save them, but to no avail,I suppose their god
was to busy, even to send a Marine to help?
On August 23rd 2005 Hurricane Katrina caused severe and catastrophic damage along the Gulf coast
killing 1,836 people,many, elderly Christians, slowly drowning in their attics while they prayed for their god
to save them .Once again god was conspicuous by his absence and no Marine (marines) were present
to do his bidding.
Perhaps the marine should have waited to see if god could have accomplished the simple task without
assistance,it would seem that saving innocent lives his way beyond gods ability.
Grmpf. Forgot to close the very first blockquote.
I find these stories very irritating. This particular one, the ‘brave kid vs the Professor’ is just like the other one where the Professor is trying to teach the class about evolution then decides to pick on somebody who believes in god. He demands the kid give him evidence and then the kid says ‘Is there evidence for light?’ and related garbage. Eventually the professor admits defeat and the kid gets a huge round of applause from his fellow students.
This is the best the religious nutcases can do, which is rather heartening. But it’s still annoying.
LanceR #42
Don’t forget to vote for the pro-science candidates in Lincoln school board elections! Especially Lanny Boswell, that’s the only race where the creationist was ahead in the primaries. Volunteer! Get the word out!
Pewee @23:
Isn’t it interesting that the first response is worded to lead one to believe that only “terrorists” were ever tortured? They neglect the majority of terror suspects who are not terrorists. The Post is a dangerous little rag.
Am I allowed to replace ‘God’ with ‘Allah’ and ‘Marine’ with ‘religious police enforcer’ and see if the joke still works?
And see if the same people still tell it?
Please?
So the morals of the story are:
People associated with learning and free speech are bad;
People associated with war are good;
When faced with an challenge theist not only resort to violence, but excessive violence (all the marine had to do was give a slight shove for the same effect);
People who believe they hear God are violent;
Even if God does exist, he is not omnipotent, as He is simply unable to protect both the soldiers and knock the professor of the stand at the same time;
God is ineffectual, even though he is devoting His entire attention to the soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan, they are still dying and being hurt;
God is cruel to his followers, because if the marine really did hear God and act on God’s orders, it is still the marine who is holding the bag. The marine would be kicked out of the class, most likely expelled, and probably slapped with an assault charge, which would not only ruin his civilian future, but would cripple his military career;
God still won’t provide tangible proof of his existence.
I think that story does a wonderful job teaching about God.
Washington Times is running a similar poll. It could use some sane input:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/polls/2009/apr/interrogation-techniques/
Jim @ 34:
No surprise there. Once out of the service, I bet a physics class is like a picnic in Wonka Land by comparison. Recent HS grads think physics is hell, but they don’t have the proper frame of reference :)
Currently >94% for sending the three mouseketeers to prison. Good work!
Some of us sent this guy some emails; he’s now posted them at the bottom of his “joke,” along with a comment about how he appears to have stumbled into a bed of militant atheists.
What a dingleberry.
@ Guy #28
God was too busy protecting soldiers? Whoever wrote that obviously doesn’t know Marines.
May be he does know Marines. Marines would think that God only has to protect soldiers, since jarheads are deluded enough to think they can take care of themselves.
And as for the class scenario:
After about two minutes of silence, about 40% of the class has wandered off and most of the rest of the class is twittering/text messaging
After about four minutes, the geek in the first row complains that “this is not on the syllabus”
After about five minutes, the really clueless ones are asking “Is this going to be on the test?”
By seven minutes, most of the remaining class is asleep
And by the time the Marine decides to act, the geek has complained to the department chair, who rolls her eyes, sighs while realizing that she will never hear the end of this unless she acts now, and is standing at the back of the room in time to witness what transpires.
Then the campus cops arrive…
There are some good responses on that page now:
“Mr. Sadlemyer,
“I am not amused by Mr. Voorhees’ “joke” that is currently on his page hosted on your website.
“Jokes about violence in the name of God or about Marines assaulting people for expressing their freedom of speech are not funny. When I think of Marines, I think of people I can respect who defend our Constitution and our freedoms. This “joke” is disrespectful to the Marine Corp in its presentation of a Marine who does neither. It also mocks atheists and professors by setting up such a caricature. The “joke” also belittles God – why would an omnipotent being need anyone’s help?
“In his bio, Mr. Voorhees claims that he has common-sense and is not controversial and has no political agenda. I believe this “joke” refutes those claims.”
Christopher
“The marine joke is pathetic. It just reinforces the stupidity of claiming that a god supports the use of violence. It just proves that religion is stupid. There are no gods, it is all made up BS to control people. Why grown adults belive in this garbage in this day and age is beyond me.”
Chris
“So your God is so weak he can’t knock over a college proffessor without help? And if he was protecting American soldiers, how come almost 5000 of them have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? He sounds like a bit of a pussy to me.”
J. A.
“Wow, Scott. You really need to take a step back from your personal jihad. I have never ever been ashamed to call myself Xtian, but I feel ashamed that you call yourself a Xtian.”
Trev
“So the point of this story is invoking a deity makes it okay to hit people?”
WS
The host chimes in:
“It seems I have awakened a den of militant atheists! Oh, well, it’s important to believe in something, even if it is a belief that I stink.”
Good work. The poll now has 94.77% giving the right answer.
Scott Vorhees is responsible for the stuff that he puts up. If you have a problem or questions you can always email him.
scottvoorhees@clearchannel.com
scott@kfab.com
or the other addresses on the contact page.
*sigh*
You attach jumper cables to *nipples*.
Sheesh. Kids these days.
They should should have just given me five minutes alone with him. I’ll get your answers.
Also extremely offensive to real-life soldiers. See http://abumuqawama.blogspot.com/2009/04/worrisome-veteran.html for discussion of unfair mischaracterization of vets.
Also extremely offensive to real-life soldiers. See http://abumuqawama.blogspot.com/2009/04/worrisome-veteran.html for discussion of unfair mischaracterization of vets.
There are a couple of these things over at Snopes, this one has the “atheist professor” challenging god to keep a piece of chalk from breaking after he dropped it to the floor.
This one has the Marine story, as well as the same story with a SEAL instead of a Marine.
I’ve had those BS stories forwarded to me by relatives, and I always reply with links to the Snopes page, and a “Sorry, if you’re trying to convince me, you’ll need to try harder next time.”
I really feel like informing them that I’d be more than happy to attend church services, just as long as Jebus is actually there that morning, in person, walking on wine, that was once water. Healing the sick and sighting the blind, or at least passing out white canes and well trained German Sheperds.
And to give you all an idea about the depth of credulity I’m talking about,
someone in my family won’t lick envelopes because she’d heard of this.
Hmm. I actually *like* having my “nads shocked”, so to speak, but only under controlled conditions and by people I trust and who know how far they can and cannot go. But I know how it feels, and I would most certainly NOT wish for it to happen to anyone who doesn’t enjoy it, even if it was Hitler himself.
That being said:
Who freakin’ cares? He’s lucky we didn’t attach jumper cables to his nads.
3.92 %
It’s horrible, but we needed to do it to prevent further American deaths.
1.07 %
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others should be going to jail over this.
95.00 %
95%! Hell yeah!
As I read this I could only think,… another bad joke by another dumb radio talking mouth yada yada and then as I went to add my support to the poll I received a huge shock, this was the radio station my father worked at for 35 years as a radio engineer. Growing up it was always boring and conservative, you know Paul Harvey kind of boring and conservative, but they did a great job with local sports (go huskers, ahem) I had no idea they had taken a nasty turn to conservative radio jabber. I suppose I shouldn’t be suprised, after all there is a reason I moved away.
Funny how he calls the negative responders ‘militant atheists’, right after posting a description of a militant Christian. Now compare the two. Which one is/are behaving like civilized people – the atheists who write emails to complain, or the Christian who thinks his God needs a testosterone dope swinging his fists to make a point? Ok, the Christian is behaving correctly assuming he has read carefully what sort of behavior his God demands and endorses. God just doesn’t appreciate civilized behavior.
Naughtius Maximum @ # 41: How many soldiers have been killed in Iraq?
icasualties.org currently lists 4,592 “coalition” deaths in Iraq, 4,274 of them from the US.
Iraqi death tallies are much less precise, and rarely sort out soldiers from civilians, but the more plausible totals come to well over 1,000,000.
Almost 4PM, and it’s now at 95.27% for criminal charges! Something tells me it isn’t just Pharyngulation driving this poll.
Take that, teabaggers. This is what popular will looks like. :-p
From a former Marine here, thank you.
As someone else pointed out to #7’s comment
WTF?
BTW, the first time a heard a version of this story was over 20 years ago when I was still a theist. Even then I thought it was a really stupid story that made Christians look like violent psychopaths.
I’ve been trying to think of an ‘atheist equivalent’ to this so-called joke, and came up with a scenario where a Christian professor comes into class, looks up at the ceiling, and says “God, I know you are there, and are protecting me at all times.” Suddenly a student comes up, and clocks the guy, who lies unconscious for a few moments. When he comes to, he murmurs “Why did you do that?” The student answers “I’m an atheist. Where’s your God now, smart guy?”
Funny? No. Not at all. Makes a point? Not one in favor of the student. Even though he’s technically on my “side,” I can see that.
It’s not funny either way, and neither joke makes the student look good. It shouldn’t matter which ‘side’ you’re on.
Poll appears to be completely pharyngulated now.
Who freakin’ cares? He’s lucky we didn’t attach jumper cables to his nads.
3.54 %
It’s horrible, but we needed to do it to prevent further American deaths.
1.07 %
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others should be going to jail over this.
95.39 %
@Sastra (#93): Actually, in context, that was pretty funny…
Fwiw, I first heard this basic story as a child, and was unimpressed by it, despite having a very religious upbringing. I wanted miracle stories, not morons with an axe to grind.
The atheist, though, was just some evil atheist on a podium, and the guy who knocked him off was a farmer, or laborer, or some such thing. And it wasn’t as violent, the guy just muscled the atheist off-stage. The setting might have been Russia, and I’d not automatically assume that it didn’t happen, given the piety and intelletual turmoil there in the past few centuries.
In a social psychology sense, it’s easy to see what happened. The unassuming pious folk were put into an uncomfortable position regarding their shared beliefs. The bully relieved the tension by coming up with a pitiful excuse and a lot of affirmative speech and action. And the townspeople were grateful to be able to return to their unquestioned beliefs.
Same thing on the web, of course, but the story in its current form is clearly a fiction. The one I first heard may have been true, but even as a religious child I found it less than enchanting.
So what possibly happened as a lame defense of woo, which undoubtedly would have cut the tension of the situation, has been retold and fictionalized beyond any chance of its being an actual account. Anyone who is relieved at such a pathetic fiction is truly snatching at straws.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
I’m going to further address this point a bit, because it needles me. In my Guard unit, three of the guys on my team are former Marines. We take the piss out of them of course, because they’re former fucking Marines, but all three of them have BA degrees and one is about 1/3rd of the way through an MA*. Additionally, one of the officers in my unit, also a former Marine, has a JD, and so of course must also be a college graduate, although I don’t know anything about his undergrad background.
To be fair, we just lost another former Marine, and he didn’t have a degree, so the Marines among us haven’t always been 100% degreed. But they are right now.
I think it’s funny how the Professor is an atheist AND a member of the ACLU. What do the two have to do with each other?
It’s a stupid joke and everyone in it acts stupid. The prof is stupid for parading his atheism and ACLUness around instead of teaching whatever the class is supposed to cover. The Marine is stupid for assaulting the prof. God, if he exists, is stupid for not zapping the prof with lightning (ain’t gonna be no atheists in that class if that happened).
Jesus and Mo consider god defending himself.
The military can be a good way to help defray college costs. I know of kid from a very small, very poor town in the UP, who, using the military help avilable before, during, and after his undergraduate degree, ended up with a MD degree, and getting his 20 years in with one reup. Not bad, being able to “retire” at age 40 without any educational loans over his head.
Nerd,
I spent six years in the Navy and then six years getting a bachelors and a masters. Between the GI Bill and financial aid, I owed nothing at the end of my schooling.
Isn’t “Nebraska Superstation” a tad oxymoronish?
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Greeks got it. Christians don’t.
No “Nebraska Superstation” a not tad oxymoronish. More pleonasm.
Dammit. You go to all the effort of using a long word, and you mess up on basic grammar. If I didn’t know better I’d say some god had cursed me.
‘Tis, glad to hear that. Debt free is nice. I always enjoyed the vets when I taught. They weren’t afraid to come in for help, and were very focused.
ashamed to be from nebraska.
proud to pz-roll that survey :D
i’ve never heard of that station, so it must not be too super.
I’ve always thought that the more appropriate finish to the marine/soldier anecdote would be something like this
“the marine approached the platform and knocked the professor down, but the professor, who also happened to be a Viet Nam and Desert Storm vet, caught the marine by surprise as the soldier went for his second punch and whupped his sorry marine arse. Then security showed up and the psycho marine was hauled away.”
I love the ACLU, but I have to mention that without their efforts, Oliver North might well be in prison right now, rather than on TV.
Deacon Duncan over at Evangelical Realism did a nice takedown of this fable a while back:
http://realevang.wordpress.com/2007/08/28/how-god-really-works/
#93:
Try this joke.
A minister was out walking, when he came across a child with some newborn kittens. He asked the child: “Are these good, Christian kittens?” and the child answered: “Yes.” The minister left feeling very good.
A few days later, the minister was out again, with a freind, when he passed the child who now had a sign saying “Free Kittens.” He commented to his friend: “Watch this, it is so cute!” and asked the child if they were good, Christian kittens. The child said: “No.”
This took the minister by surprise and he said: “Last time, you said they were good, Christian kittens!” The child responds: “But now their eyes are open.”
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” -Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England
Posted by: Evolving Squid | April 22, 2009 5:46 PM
I think that is pretty close, but maybe
“…caught the marine by surprise and subdued him with as little injury as possible”
or perhaps
“…knocked the professor unconcious. Upon seeing the honor and dignity of the marine corp being disgraced by this disturbed young man, the other marines that were taking the class subdued the disturbed young man and called his commanding officer to report him.”
I like his thoughtful, rational response to people criticizing the joke:
“It seems I have awakened a den of militant atheists!”
This despite the fact that several were from Christians. But he’s such a good Christian, he doesn’t let facts get in his way.
96% the right way first thing this morning. Well done, overnight patrol.
Successfully crashed:
Who freakin’ cares? He’s lucky we didn’t attach jumper cables to his nads.
3.12 %
It’s horrible, but we needed to do it to prevent further American deaths.
0.99 %
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others should be going to jail over this.
95.89 %
They don’t even mention the other things Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to, like kidnapping the Lindbergh baby and sinking the Titanic.
How??
I hear he’s actually Lord Lucan.
Here is a poll that for once doesn’t need to be pharyngulated. It’s about this:
The Daily News asks:
The Rev. Brad Braxton may well be the most overpaid parasite in the world.
Doctorb @ # 111: … without their efforts, Oliver North might well be in prison right now …
If you look into the legal technicalities, a strong case can be made that the Repubs who took North’s testimony (under grant of immunity) systematically over-stretched their inquiries so as to cover North’s wretched disgrace-to-the-Corps butt by making any further prosecution a blatant violation of due process. Save your bile for them, not the ACLU. (Not that ACLU doesn’t deserve a few gallons, but for other sins, of omission & commision.)
Current poll percentages:
Those with a jumpercable+nads fetish — 3.00 %
Those with cognitive dissonance — 0.99 %
Those who aren’t sadistic religitardz — 96.01 %
I’ve received this “joke” via email a couple of times. I now automatically delete anything I get from the senders.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others should be going to jail over this.
96.11 %
#93
I disagree. That was funny a hell.
Agree with much of what you write here pz, but are you sure that “our greatest shame” is torture and not the illegal invasion of a country and its destruction (accompanied by the ‘excess’ deaths of perhaps 1 million people)–the kind of crime for which germany was prosecuted in the Nuremberg tribunals. On the other hand our government has destroyed a region about every 15 years since world war 2 (Vietnam, part Cambodia, in the 70s, and Central America in the 80s), without much comment, so perhaps this is somewhat unusual (i.e. the fact that torture is perhaps being talked about; though we have been doing this through our clients for quite some time; the death squads and all that).
—————-
I million people? Where did that number come from? Rosie O’Donnell? Would that not be a great portion of Iraq?
Besides, Vietnam was a setup. The French left us holding the bag and we did what we had to do, but the communist lovers protested loud enough to be certified pests – some of which (Jane Fonda, John Kerry) should have been charged with treason. We could have won Vietnam if it had not been for the blowhard politicans, the communist loving university professors, and the pot smoking hippies. The biggest mistake ever made in this country was not listening to McCarthy. It’s too late now.
Does this mean that conservatives can prosecute Obama for treason (turning capitalism into socialism) after the next election? Does this mean that the DHS will now target left wing extremists in the next administration? Does this mean that the next administration will spend $400,000,000 of tax payer money to fund pro-life causes overseas?
Be careful what you “change”, it could come back to haunt you in the next administration.
See this
Yes.
Ahem. It is fascinating though just how closely mainstream American “conservatives” associate with the people like the Knoxville shooter.
Got to love those modern-day parables, the re-affirmation of faith that comes through the vicarious triumph deep in the realms of the blur between fiction and reality. Beyond all else, they are a window into the soul of a believer. And you can see what threatens them most – in this case it seems to be those “elitists” who have shaken off God to the point where what they cherished is mocked by others. The “atheist holiday being april 1st” parable and the college professor who is outwitted by “evil is the absence of good”.
Dear Mr Right wing extremist, Please explain why a mexican like you would believe such things.
Are conservatives in America that fucking retarded that they think that what Obama is doing is socialism?
I am not a mexican. I am a European American (white).
Are conservatives in America that fucking retarded that they think that what Obama is doing is socialism?
Why yes, Kel, some of them are. I’m finishing up a last semester of transferrable units at City College of San Francisco, so that I can teach animation in public schools, not just private ones. CCSF just lost a lawsuit to Jews for Jesus for thinking they could block their hateful asses from proselytizing on campus in what is essentially a public space. The day I learned they lost that suit, on my way to class, a team of three people were busy handing out badly xeroxed images of Karl Marx, in an effort to smear Obama. I pretended to play along. “So, is Obama a socialist marxist facsist nazi communist?” I asked. “Why yes, that’s not the half of it,” they replied. “Then you’re out of your minds,” sez I. “You don’t have to shout,” Sez high schoolish daughter of Mom with leaflets. “Who’s shouting? I’m just laughing at you!” “Well, we’re laughing at you and your long hair, you dirty hippie!” And then, they decided it was time to leave. Now, I don’t have a sign around my neck that says “wizard, not hippie,” but I did try to engage them on their ideas, not their appearance. I certainly did not offer to teabag them, because such people would swallow anything, and I like to feel that I am, somehow, at least somewhat special, and besides, I have some standards. Remember, in America, we got the religious undesirables. Australia got much the better stock.
We have our fair share of morons too. You can’t have them all…
Nebraska Superstation, I hate defending this station but as my father was the radio engineer at this station for ~35 years (he retired in the mid 80’s) This station always had top numbers in the midwest and is one of those AM stations you can get reception on a long way away. It is an Omaha station but I remember going on vacation and having people come up to my dad in Wyoming, Idaho, and Canada saying they listened to his station (the call letters were on the side of his truck) Other than that, no so super.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Dick Cheney of course was on the news with baseless assertions that the torture yielded vital information and therefore is a good thing. I say round up the bastards who claim (a) waterboarding is not torture and (b) is essential to protect the nation and give them a good dose of their own medicine. I hope the Attorney General goes after these people; we need to show the world that we can police ourselves.
@Ken Cope: I wouldn’t agree that Australia got the better stock – ooooh no – not enough immigrants yet. It sounds like you need to get a local chapter of the church of the FSM to distribute flyers stating the truth about those loonies on campus.
#51 – such a professor doesn’t exist, the second point of the email is to vilify universities, the ACLU, intellectuals, and atheists and view them as anti-patriots and anti-American.
But any time I see this on a forum or an email, I declare the poster/sender and everyone who cheers it on, to be a completely ignorant fool, a violent retard with potential to cause unimaginable damage.
#51 – such a professor doesn’t exist, the second point of the email is to vilify universities, the ACLU, intellectuals, and atheists and view them as anti-patriots and anti-American.
But any time I see this on a forum or an email, I declare the poster/sender and everyone who cheers it on, to be a completely ignorant fool, a violent retard with potential to cause unimaginable damage.
When you eventually prosecute Bush at the Hague, you will be committing gross hypocrisy if you do not also prosecute the fuckheads from the other side who send in the human bombs to specifically target civilians; the fuckheads who slaughter and kneecap each other in Gaza (and I don’t mean the Israelis); and the fuckheads who execute homosexuals in Iran. Among others.
IOW Ahmadinejad at least has to fall alongside Bush, or Bush walks free if you are not to be guilty of a gross double standard. Get it?
So, I was raised Unitarian, we tell jokes as teaching stories… compare the one about the Marine with the following:
A Christian is drowning. He prays to god to save him. A rowboat approaches, and a man calls out to him, “Do you need some help?” The Christian replies, “Thank you, no, God will save me.” Shortly, a larger boat, a yacht, approaches, and the skipper calls to him over the side, “Do you need help? Only I’ve got this life preserver here…” But the Christian says, “No, no, God will save me.” Finally a helicopter flies over, and a man on a loudspeaker yells, “You down there! In the water! Let me throw you a rope!” And the Christian shouts back, barely audible over the sound of the rotors, “No! Go away, God will save me!” And so the Christian drowns. He goes up to heaven, and he speaks to God. He says, “God, I believed in you, why didn’t you save me?” and god says, “I sent two boats and a helicopter, what more do you want?”
So, how do these two compare? In both jokes, human agencies substitute for the hand of god. But why does the Marine story seem blatantly immoral, while the latter is a useful parable for theists?
It seems to me that the distinction is this. In the story of the drowning Christian, the human agencies are acting out of empathy and basic decency, and are by the very nature of such acts doing god’s work. On the other hand, the Marine acts first in the belief that he is doing god’s work; only from the belief that god would expect such actions can any morality be construed.
Some of them are exactly that blind/ignorant/stupid/insertlabelhere that they
thinkbelieve* that what Obama is doing is socialism.*Thinking isn’t really a strength of the particular folks that I’m blanketstatementing here.
Yes, you’re not at all racist…
I think the most interesting question about this is: what does this guy know about Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s penis, and when did he know it?
Dear moronic right wing extremist:
1. Please locate a copy of the US Constitution and read it. There are numerous free copies available online.
2. Please cite where in the Constitution it defines making changes to the country’s economic system as treason.
3. Please define “socialism” and explain how it differs from communism.
4. Please cite specific platform positions, statements, or policies enacted by the Obama administration that are socialist in nature.
WOW! you people are pretty much the scummiest people in the world. You cry because some puts some info on the web you don’t like, I hope you all pull your heads out your asses. But what most of you don’t understand is the fact that it takes some level intelligence (which none of you have) to understand that idea and prowess of a Higher Deity.
As usual, the religious assholes get it backwards. It takes no brains to believe in imaginary deities (or pixies, elves, santa, or tooth fairies), but it takes brains to question the evidence. Or, in the case of Yahweh, the lack of evidence. And some of us require hard physical evidence in order to have a belief in something. Just as would be expected from rational people.
Which one are you talking about? Odin or Ra?
I guess we can assume from this then that said radio show host does not believe god to be omnipotent?
#148 Yes, that’s it exactly.
“W(ow)! (Y)ou people are pretty much the scummiest people in the world. You cry because some^one^ puts some info on the web ^that^ you don’t like(.) I hope you all pull your heads out ^of^ your asses. But what most of you don’t understand is the fact that it takes some level ^of^ intelligence (which none of you have) to understand ^the^ idea and prowess of a Higher Deity.”
Teh splchckr, it is no substitute for Freshman Comp.
Thanks for illustrating the point so effectively.
#134
Look at a map sometime. Protip: European doesn’t mean white. Moron. I’m also curious that you self-identify as European, yet consider Socialism treason.
#148
You’re seriously arguing that the folks who posited Thor’s Mjolnir as the source of lightning are more intelligent (whatever that means in context) than scientists who study the actual, physical basis for lightning? Nice. I never knew make-believe was the highest form of intelligence.
Good God. All this over a joke. And so much hate. Wow.
The “joke” portrayed a fantasy of violence towards atheists, professors and ACLU members, and as such contained an implicit threat of violence. And yet you accuse us of “hate”?
I admit with shame that I grew up among people who would have found such a joke to be funny.
amk hit the nail on the head.
Who would of thought? An atheist, liberal who is also a professor.
Wow, that’s impressive – a conservative who can spell “atheist”. Of course, there were only two mistakes in one line (would have, not of, and atheist (no comma) liberal professor). Better than average, I guess.
Congratulations, you are now overqualified to be an editor at Fox News.
Someone who is throwing the phrase “Militant Atheists” around should have better hate mail than that guy had.
“So the point of this story is invoking a deity makes it okay to hit people?
WS”
Whoa, that guy sounds like a real nutter. Hope he doesn’t get his hands on a gun.
What is even funnier is that he is just thrilled that he finally hit the big time by registering the avg. number of hits that the atheist minority somehow log daily on this site. Hope he enjoys his 15 minutes before he heads back to his loathsome, shrinking, right wing base.
It’s true. After reading the emails he received, I was struck by the fact that the most (and only) militant thing on the site is still the Marine’s battery of the professor.
This whole issue is funny over a joke. If you dont like it, ignore it and move on. If you like it, smirk about it and move on. Not worth the stress arguing about it. You liberals want Bush & his men jailed for toture, but Obama wont let the origional 1979 Iranian hostages sue Iran for the torture they suffered for 444 days in 1979-1981. The president of Iran was an “interragator” back in 79. Secondly while torture is immoral, you need to keep in mind that the Geneva convention states that spies, sabatours, and terrorists are NOT allowed protection under the Geneva convention. The protections only apply to conventional soldiers fighting under a flag of a specific country. Not those bombing people under the name of allah. So yes torture is morrally wrong, but totally legal. So any charges brought to Bush or anyone else the past 8 years will not nor should not stand up in a court of law.
AS for Atheism or beliving in God, it is a personal choice each person will need to make for themselvs. Neither side has the right to make life difficult for the other side. Look at this logically, 1, if there is no God then when we all die it is irrevelant what a person thinks. they are dead. Beliving or not belieivng in God will make no difference.2. If there is a god, then beiliving in God will make a difference in the person’s after life. If that is the case, then beliving in “God” is a good insurance policy.
3. In the 90s my first daughter passed away as an infant. If I choose to belive in God to help me grieve her loss and hope for to see her again on the other side can help me., its my personsal belief and no one’s business. If there is no god then when I die someday it wont matter and once again its no one els’es busness either. So this whole argument is a waste of time and not worth the stress. have a good day.
Actually Europeans are white. If an African American is black, then what is a European America? Fine, I’ll redefine myself once more: I am a English Irish Native American since I have the bllod of all three in my veins. Okay, so I’m not all white by blood. At least I’m still southern and proud of it. At least in the south we still have real states, not like Vermont who betrayed American tradition and became a bastion of left wing self professed socilaists.
Have you ever noticed that before the early 1950s the United States’ history was different in a classroom than it is today? Have you ever noticed that absolute good and absolute evil used to exist? Have you ever noticed that definitions of words changed? What happened?The extreme left wingers in Universities could not get their pro-soviet messages out to adults, so they chose to prey on youth to chnage the country. I congradulate them. They have succeeded in killing America – their primary goal of communism started with the classroom. The first order of business was getting rid of God, after that, anything patriotic – all in the name of diversity. I have to hand it to them. Though they were sneaky and crafty, they actually pulled it off.
Now it’s our turn!
Ready or not, 2010 will be a year to never forget in politics, Conservatives will reclaim this nation once more and once and for all and put America back the way it was.
Then instead of waterboarding captured Islamic terrorists, we will make them read atheist blogs and watch PBS and CNN. We may even make them listen to Nancy Pelosi. Now, that’s real Torture!
Only Americans who reject Marxist socialism are castigated as ‘right-wing extremists’, therefore I am a right wing extremist. So be it.
http://www.renewamerica.us/analysis/jon/090423
————
BTY, the joke was great. I read it before online, but it’s been a while. It least it portrays professors and marines accurately. And ea , Marines are smart enough not only for college, but to kick the crap out of stupid atheists who think they are not. Some of my friends are soldiers, some involved with special forces,and they have what it takes to survive. They may not conform to evolution, but they can know what real life is like.
I have one friend who voluteered for Iraq and Afghanistan on his own free will. He asked to go when he was not required. This is his fourth tour of duty. Twice in Iraq and twice in Afghanistan. He once told, me orders or not, if he sees Bin Laden he will kill him – no mercy, no questions asked. He will be shot on sight.
It’s odd that Bin Laden is this great warrior, but hides like a chicken. He knows we will kick his flea bitten butt.
I still say 10,000 cluster bombs across the Pakistan border will solve most of the Taliban’s attitude. A suitcase nuke hidden on “crashed” military plane wouldn’t hurt none.
Bin laden- may the fleas of a thousand camels find your cave.
Have a nice day.
Hey! Who knew it was douche bag hour?! Free round of whisky for everyone!
Fuckin idiots.
And of course none of those fine folks would ever be atheists, right?
Of course not…
I don’t usually like to insult people, but you sir, are an idiot.
A question for anti-interrogators:
Your husband/wife/children were kidnapped by Islamic terrorists and the captors said that their heads would be chopped off at 10:00 am next Thursday.
Now, you as family memeber know for 100% sure that the captured Islamic terrorist sitting three feet from you in the government interrogation room knows where your family members are, at what length would you go to find that information?
Would you torture or would you pamper? Which method would get you the information?
A question for our right wing extremist. Are you an asshole, or the bung hole of an ass? Answer carefully.
It’s a false choice. There’s means of interrogation that can be used to get information that’s NOT torture.
Fuckin wingers.
He’s a pool of santorum.
FYI
Who freakin’ cares? He’s lucky we didn’t attach jumper cables to his nads.
4.09 %
It’s horrible, but we needed to do it to prevent further American deaths.
1.13 %
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others should be going to jail over this.
94.77 %
OK RWE, say you are in the room with the terrorist. Afterwards, you find out that your husband/wife/child hadn’t been kidnapped, but had an amazing story that starts with a flat tire, yadda yadda yadda, never any problem, all a big mistake. Oops, make that inteligence failure.
And the ‘terrorist’, he was just some cabbie who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, with a name that matched one on sombody’s list.
How do you feel about what you would have done? Should we be making these kind of mistakes easier to commit?
right wing extremist #165:
Why would I be in a ‘government interrogation center’? Even assuming I had a right to be there (for example, I was an intelligence operative of some kind), what, precisely, is the intelligence that lets me know this guy knows where my family is? Is this intelligence reliable? What guarantees do I have that the rest of terrorist buddies wouldn’t change their location because they know he was captured?
In that situation, neither method has much hope of getting accurate information in time. If I torture, it may take, for example, 183 waterboardings before he gives anything up at all, if he ever does, and then what he gives up may be a wild goose chase. If I use non-torture interrogation techniques, then I may not get anything useful either – but I at least haven’t sunk to the same level as the terrorists.
And, of course, that’s leaving aside the fact that, if this interrogation was conducted in any way professionally, I would be excluded from it – for being too emotionally involved, as it’s my family who has been kidnapped.
Some people will believe any crap.
Read this.
(Pascal’s wager…)
Does it really not occur to you that their are possibilities other than “god of Abraham” or “no god”? What if Odin doesn’t like worshippers of false gods? What if an actual extant god doesn’t like people making cynical calculations?
Perhaps we should perform a full cost benefit analysis of all possible religions? Then I’m having trouble seeing beyond the promise of seventy two virgins… ;)
Nothing resembling this has ever happened outside fiction. You may as well ask what we’d do to prevent the zombie apocalypse.
Read this.
The phrase “anti-interrogator” to describe those opposed to torture is idiotic. Nazi Germany used torture – but their best interrogator never touched a prisoner, never raised his voice. American WW2 interrogators have commented that they got more out of a prisoner with a game of chess than today’s do with torture. Torture makes people say whatever they think will end the torture, regardless of whether that is true. Evidence obtained by torture is almost entirely false. This was proven centuries ago. See e.g. Voltaire.
Read this.
Ah, I see. It only makes sense to claim that torture is immoral, unethical, or illegal when there’s no point to it. As soon as your husband/wife/children are in the hands of terrorists, all bets are off! What a fun and informative game!
Let’s play some more (note: italics used to denote situations which are like, totally holy shit freaky ’cause it’s like, your own family, dude!):
Man, those are almost too horrible to contemplate, even for someone who watched the first Saw! Let’s put Georgie back in office and have him pre-emptively kill all the Muslims, the North Koreans, and the Germans too (the latter just in case they get any more funny ideas about global domination)!
A question for RWE:
Someone else’s husband/wife/children were kidnapped by Irish terrorists and the captors said that their heads would be blown off at 10:00 am next Thursday.
Now, this guy as family member knows for 100% sure that the Irish guy (your brother/father/son/fellow serviceman etc) sitting three feet from them in the government interrogation center knows where their family members are, to what length would you believe they should go to find that information?
Would you suggest that they torture or would you suggest they pamper? Which method would get them the information?
Please explain your answer.
Thank you.
I couldn’t resist, P.Z. Your suggestion for a story is up at my blog — and it appears the first commenter didn’t catch that it’s parody.
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/i-dunno-is-this-story-humorous-true/
Drat! I’ve created a Frankenstein, a hoax story that people won’t immediately dismiss.
Remember people: “A nation fighting for its life, cannot afford to be squeamish about its methods.”
Winston Churchhill, 1942.
He is regarded as one of the best leaders in the 20th century if not the world.
Who’s side are you on?? First you save the nation and later we sit down & decide what we should have done better.
Besides, In evry war America has been in our guys have been tortured. I dont recall any of the North Vietnamese soldiers being prosecuted for tortureing John McCain or any other soldier torted by enemy soldiers during the Viet Nam war.
Dude #177, to summarize what you’re saying, we shouldn’t be ‘squeamish’ to use torture, even though it doesn’t actually really work all that well, if at all, and, in order to win this ‘war’, we should become the very thing we’re trying to fight against.
No, sorry, I don’t agree, for reasons that I hope are strikingly obvious.
“They do it too” has never been an acceptable excuse for illegal or immoral action.
Let’s look at the Vietnam War. It’s true that the North Vietnamese haven’t prosecuted anyone for war crimes, certainly not publicly. But the US did.
Although war is inherently an atrocity, for some reason the idea that wars can be fought “humanely” persist, so soldiers are supposed to refrain from all sorts of activities. In general American troops do, with a few glaring exceptions. Since the 19th Century the US has had a record of prosecuting its own personnel in instances where atrocities were perpetrated. During and after the Vietnam War 220 cases were brought, and 121 men convicted, on charges ranging from rape to mass murder, as well as several instances of filing false reports to cover up atrocities.*
*W.R. Peers The My Lai Inquiry. New York: Norton, 1978. Page 387.
I’m absolutely not disagreeing with your argument about “they do it, too,” but look at the outcome for, for example, Lt. Calley. And that’s actually quite a small number of cases and convictions (of whom, and how did those play out in the end in terms of punishment?). In the end, it’s enough to make people very reasonably wary of being whistleblowers. And if the Winter Soldier testimony of the people in IVAW is any indication, the atrocities are not exceptions. Which is not even to mention the context of criminal, imperialist aggression as part of a broader imperialist project, or covert operations, or…
So, again, I agree with your general argument, but am unconvinced by the claims about the US specifically. It’s interesting: the rhetoric of justice sought and obtained is quite positive in the sense that it reflects a clear rejection of at least some acts, but at the same time it doesn’t reflect the real history, and in fact offers a fig leaf of sorts.
“God was too busy today protecting American soldiers…”
Heckuva job, Goddie!
So, are you alleging Churchill advocated torture?
BTW, Let’s look at some American history regarding the Geneva Convention. In the months following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, German submarines used the Atlantic Seaboard & the Gulf Coast as their own hunting grounds. Allied merchant ships were sunk left & right, many times within sight of our own coastline. During these hectic and scary days a German submarine dropped off a commando team just off the shores of the Southern Atlantic or Gulf Coast. The mission of this team was to travel throughout the South, and do anything they could to disrupt the war effort. Blow up bridges or railroad tracks for example. However they ended up getting caught becuase a small town nosey old person did not know them and called the authorities. The FBI interrogated them. Did they end up sitting out the war in a POW camp with other AXIS soldiers, sailors or airman? Nope Spies, terrorists, & sabatours are exempt from rules of the Geneva convention agreements. They were executed by firing squad. No questions asked by people after FDR & Truman was out of office after the war. no complaints. Once again I do NOT have a problem with the FBI solution to the above problem. But as far as I am concerned, if Obama wants to close down Gitmo, and no one wants to take these terroists except nations unfreindly to the US, like Chaves South of our border, then the firing squad was good enough for the German commando team, is also good enough for the Guantamino Bay terror cells. They were NOT captured fighting in uniform of a nation’s flag but as terrorists fighting in civilan clothes.
You all are a bunch of tools. GOD BLESS AMERICA and the soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors protecting her.
Who’s this god you speak of? And where in the bible does he proclaim that the US of A is her favourite country??
Asshole.
I don’t speak of a god. I speak of God. The creator of all things. And I would bet that He doesn’t have a favorite country, as He created all mankind in His image. We may have fallen away from Him, but He will never leave us.
So, wait. I’m confused. As one of those soldiers that you refer to, are you asking your god to bless me, or are you calling me a tool?
*citation needed*
Also, God isn’t a god?
“God’s” goons as Brown Shirts
You xian Taliban throughout Ameristan are the moral equivalents of your islamic brothers in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. Your absolutist morality is immoral through and through.
You act out a script from Dante: a mindless cacophony of vacuous souls trapped in their own vicious circles of self-loathing. You true believers need not imagine an existence filled with pain and hatred — it is within you.
Torture abroad? We’ve had enough of you home-spawned torturers. We have seen your xian goon squads thrive, especially active against women, because secular police powers and government at all levels are too weak or too complicit to protect everyone’s rights —
The de-divinization of western culture is our task for the next 100 years.
the anti_supernaturalist