Comments

  1. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ joey

    Can there be meaning without god?

    I would be fascinated to know, given that the physicalist/materialist view does not provide meaning to existence. But in the abscence of both materialism and an imaginary deity(-ies), wherein does it then reside? Or are you implying that the choice is between a materialist phylosophy and another alternative (I am fascinated) philosophy PLUS god. (I get the god bit, I am more interested in what the alternative philosophy may be.)

    (Or SG: Am I missing something?)

  2. Stevarious says

    Nonsense. “Meaning of existence” does not reduce the likelihood of despair. For instance, I (personally) cannot express in words the unimaginable despair I would feel if it was discovered, with incontrovertible proof, that the god of the bible is real and that the ‘meaning of existence’ was that we are all Yahweh wank.

    Again, “meaning of existence” doesn’t exactly mean the belief in any god.

    But it’s what you believe, what you’d like to convince us of, and an obvious example of a theoretical despair-inducing “meaning of existence”, which was the point of my comment. Having a “meaning of existence” does not necessarily stave off despair, and I rather think if more christians understood just how nihilistic their religion was, despair would overtake them in droves. Unfortunately, they are very carefully conditioned from childhood not to examine their beliefs.

    I’m curious, though. How do you square your religious beliefs with your rampant dishonesty? Muslims and Mormons have passages in their holy books that condone lying for the faith, but you don’t really argue like a member of either of those, you sound more like a protestant.
    What would your mother say if she knew you had taken up ‘lying on the internet and making christians look bad worse’ as a hobby?

  3. kreativekaos says

    ‘Why won’t the zombie thread DIE’

    (Are you serious, Myers? It’s amusing to see your comments as you get all ‘fiesty’ every time someone posts,… ‘zombie’. You know– it’s the latest catchy thing to do. :)

  4. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    (Or SG: Am I missing something?)

    I feel like the obvious thing is that animals are the authors of meaning.

    (Just for Ing’s amusement: meaning means what it means because we mean it. Our meaning is meaningful because meaning can only exist via meaning-imparting animals like us; since we are such, our meanings are the real meanings. This ain’t the allegory of the cave; there’s no Truer Meaning, of which our meaning is only a shadow. Rather, the notion of Truer Meaning is — not a shadow, but — a shallow cognitive byproduct of teleologically recursing “what does X mean” where X is “meaning”.)

    For some thousands of years there was some confusion, while animals imagined that spirits were the authors of meaning. Upon realizing that spirits did not exist, some animals concluded also that meaning therefore also did not exist. But this was a non sequitur.

    Meaning began to exist when animals capable of experiencing meaning began to exist. This happened before any animals imagined spirits. Thus meaning precedes spirit.

  5. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    mikmik,

    I gotta point out a couple of troubling things here. When you say stuff like this:

    That is why I [think] many people that say they are determinists but quite happy to find meaning in their lives, are full of it.

    And especially this:

    Therefore, you understand that the lack of free will renders our life devoid of meaning.

    It’s not obviously different from joey’s opportunism.

    You can coherently say you don’t understand what others take as meaning in life, or how they do so.

    But you can’t accurately know that their lives are without meaning. You’d have to live as them, to know precisely what they experience meaning to mean, and then to know whether they report that experience truthfully.

    (Since many people are evidently motivated to make meaning, and also to seek assistance from others when they find this difficult, it is probably safe to take both types of self-report as accurate: the person who says her own life is meaningful probably means it, and the person who says her own life is not meaningful probably means it.)

  6. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ SG

    Thanks, I was thinking up something along the lines of my cat, but you seem to have beaten me to it.

    An interesting comment, of which I don’t recall the author (was it Dennett?) put it as such, IIRC: “Animals often have some very amazing talents. Spiders, for examlple, can spin incredible webs with which they then interact in their attempts to catch prey. On the other hand humans have an amazing talent for spinning a sense of self, an ego.” (I hope I have done the sense of this justice.)

    The point of my cat is that it can interact in a very loving way to me, but also run a whole gamut of, what to me appears to be, emotional states. She certainly cannot have a sense of meaning beyond her biological imperatives (which may include bonding with me as a high ranking cat of her aquaintance) but these are certainly enough. Why have a need for “more meaning” or belief in a kitteh gawd?

    In our case perhaps the ego we have spun may have a built in need of seeking significance and thence meaning in many things (handy in survival). If this mechanism is dragged into other thought processes, we may be trapped in an eternal search for Meaning (capitalised) in more abstract domains.

  7. says

    I love the Lazarrus addon for Firefox. 8 or 10 posts since I started this, then It says “page no longer available” when I hit submit, back button = gone!

    I didn’t suggest you to “turn to God” but rather just reconsider that existence has no meaning. Many atheists still find some meaning/purpose in their lives. It’s a survival instinct, so just continue on surviving.

    I misinterpreted you. Sorry about that. Shit, I’m having a hard time expressing myself here, hmmmm.
    These people here have their own experiences and whatnot, and I see their point, however, when I don’t see their point, I’ve been through the wringer because I was almost 100% sure they misunderstood me , can you believe it? You’re much more polite than I was, although I don’t think many people understand how insulting their attitudes or ideas are, no matter how ‘polite’ one’s language might be. These people do, though. (By saying ‘these people’, I am invoking my constitutional right to make a sweeping generalization, despite the pitfall). I’m not directing this specifically to you, just what my perceptions are, from my experience.
    In my case, their relentless insistence that I had fucked right up(literary license) led me to consider that perhaps I was missing something, because I deduced that in most of the discourse here, they were right quite regularly, so, logically – although fantastic as it sounds, perhaps it was I that needed to understand them , as they most likely had a very good point.
    (And I wonder why people say I am blowing smoke out my ass! Touche, LILAPWL)
    No, what I’m saying is that I’ve learned a lot during my worderboarding sessions, and it took that, for me, to get something through my thick, though nearly hairless, skull ;)

    I’m just sayin’ that’s all, and I don’t want to speak for anyone, or get involved. Just that, when it comes down to it, there is method to their madness. Same with mine, but we won’t get into that ;]
    Holy fuck, did I just type that out loud?!

    So now, QUIT TRYING TO STEAL MY IDEAS! FFS! I can see how our ethics can be derived from the properties of physical reality, with only one assumption, that matter(and energy) exists, or it doesn’t exist, and that existence is therefore more meaningful.
    How’d you like them apples? Yeah, I thought so.

    Yeah, I’ll expound, don’t worry, I LOVE to expound, but later, ‘gators. Or piranhas. We’ll go with ‘zombie debriefers.’

  8. cm's changeable moniker says

    theophontes (坏蛋)

    @ Dhorvath

    Did you check out Lady Gaga vs Judas Priest?

    I did.

    Six hours later, I’m just about finished siphoning my melted brain back into my skull. What the hell was that?!

  9. stoferb says

    I think this picture is metaphorically more true than any of the so called “metaphores” in the bible!

  10. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    Muslims and Mormons have passages in their holy books that condone lying for the faith

    This isn’t as simple as you make it sound. Taqiyya is meant to make people not hate themselves for hiding their beliefs in the face of persecution. It’s not inherently different from crypto-Judaism during the Inquisition. As Mormons were violently persecuted, it would not surprise me to learn that they developed a doctrine of self-defense.

    Certainly, if anyone points a gun at me and asks me if I’m an atheist, I’m going to go with what I figure the safest answer is: “heck no, praise God.”

  11. cm's changeable moniker says

    Pitbull, on the Ron Paul thread:

    I believe the world would be a better place with fewer libertarians. Some of the methods by which I could act upon this belief are not methods recognized as among my legal rights.

    I snorfled. ;)

  12. cm's changeable moniker says

    Oops, sorry, that wasn’t in response to #10. Just cross-posting.

    When will I ever learn to hit refresh?

  13. John Morales says

    ॐ,

    Certainly, if anyone points a gun at me and asks me if I’m an atheist, I’m going to go with what I figure the safest answer is: “heck no, praise God.”

    A position some new commenters take when daring to post here. :)

    (Hard to keep the pretence up)

  15. Akira MacKenzie says

    Question: Why does life have to have a “purpose” or a “meaning?”

  17. Dhorvath, OM says

    Have? I don’t know as anyone here would argue that it has to have anything. Still, I feel like for me at least it does.

  18. Owlmirror says

    I suspect that the reason these philosophical arguments suffer from such confusion is that they involve the use of terms with multiple, and often ambiguous, interpretations, and are often abstractions used to refer to other abstractions. Ambiguity thus leads to perhaps unwitting equivocation.

    What does it mean, to say that something has meaning? I would think that it has, or invokes, cognitive connections to something more than just the obvious (and perhaps superficial). But that’s an awfully subjective result. The interpretation that something like a life has meaning — or has more meaning, or less meaning, or no meaning — is very subjective, and is thus dependent on how many cognitive connections the one making the judgment has, or thinks there should be made, about that life.

    Does existence — not one’s own existence, but existence itself — have meaning? I suspect that applying the term here may be a category error. Or it might refer to how much meaning one can find in existence — which again makes it very subjective.

    One philosopher might say that an unexamined life is not worth living, while another philosopher might say that one should not examine life, but simply live it. I suspect that both perspectives might appeal to different personalities, or to the same person at different times of their life.

    Saying that one’s own life, or someone else’s life is (or is not) meaningful just seems wrong, since there is so much ambiguity and subjectivity involved.

    So, before stating that life is meaningless or meaningful, figure out what it being meaningful actually requires. Maybe it says more about one’s state of mind to make such a judgment — or maybe it says that the definition of “meaning” is being used in the wrong sense.

    I’m not sure that writing all that actually provides clarity, but it helps express the frustration and confusion that I, and perhaps others, feel on seeing this sort of discussion.

    Postscript/Anecdote: a friend of a French philosopher wondered why, given that the philosopher was able to speak with such clarity of thought on the topics he discussed, the books he wrote were filled with confusing, contorted, and obscure phrases. The philosopher responded that other French philosophers scorned clarity, and would not take seriously a work that strove to be easily understood.

    Oh, well.

  19. A. R says

    I was just reading the podcast thread, and it’s great to see that there are ways to participate while preserving anonymity for those of us in positions that don’t allow us to be “out,” especially considering that I would like to participate at some point in time, though I’ll probably be a bit dull and/or just plain stupid on stuff that doesn’t involve hard science/viruses!

    [Crosspost TET]

  20. says

    hi

    I’m here to insist that y’all feel bad for me: my tummy hurts, I’ve lost my appetite*, the entire half of my face where my infected tooth used to be hurts because the painkillers tend to wear off on average 2 hours before I’m allowed to take more.

    *whine whine whine*

    at least it was cheap. 2 dentistry appointments + 3 different kinds of pills = $110 total (assuming there won’t be a surprise-bill coming in weeks from now)

    – – – – – –
    *which I suppose is purely for the sake of variety, since last time I whined about my health it was about not being able to stop feeling hungry.

  21. says

    As Mormons were violently persecuted, it would not surprise me to learn that they developed a doctrine of self-defense.

    Ordinarily I might accept that, but Mormons did plenty of violent persecution themselves, for one, and for the other, didn’t Lynna make a point of mentioning that this policy was also used to feign obedience with, for instance, federal employment laws while also breaking them as hard as they possibly could so that they’d have more unemployed employees, for instance?

  22. Akira MacKenzie says

    Jadehawk…

    Ouch! I’ve been there, dude. I remember after having all of my wisdom teeth yanked (I was mercifully sedated when this occurred) how much it hurt after the Novocain wore off and the prescription-strength Ibuprofen wasn’t doing its job.

  24. A. R says

    Jadehawk: Hmm, I think I can squeeze in feeling bad for you in between plotting Cephalopod world domination and brushing my teeth.

  28. chigau (違う) says

    Timing of comments sometimes interferes with the Flow of the thread.
    “I don’t like this.” was generic.
    It was way too hot today.

  29. Owlmirror says

    @Jadehawk: I do feel bad for you.

    I noticed, last time, that the symptoms in your tummy (and chest pain) might be of a peptic ulcer. Did the doctors/med techs try to diagnose that?

  31. says

    I noticed, last time, that the symptoms in your tummy (and chest pain) might be of a peptic ulcer. Did the doctors/med techs try to diagnose that?

    no, they seemed far more concerned with my heart and lungs than with my stomach (also, suggested that I might have been experiencing anxiety attacks). plus, generic bloodwork.

  33. Owlmirror says

    no, they seemed far more concerned with my heart and lungs than with my stomach (also, suggested that I might have been experiencing anxiety attacks). plus, generic bloodwork.

    Well, <TMI>if your stool seems darker than it should be,</TMI> mention it to them, and maybe they’ll refer you to a gastroenterologist.

  34. says

    bronchitis?
    pneumonia?

    I imagine both of those require coughing up slime, which wasn’t happening

    TBH, my personal self-diagnosis-in-semi-hindsight is that the tooth I just had pulled has been infected for so long, it started spreading the infection elsewhere, and that’s why my left side has been increasingly hurting/ill-feeling.

    if the pain comes back now that the tooth is gone, I will have disproven myself, but for now I’m sticking with that self-diagnosis (which is of course oh so valid, considering I’ve been on assorted painkillers for assorted problems for 2 weeks straight)

  36. says

    It’s not obviously different from joey’s opportunism.

    You can coherently say you don’t understand what others take as meaning in life, or how they do so.

    But you can’t accurately know that their lives are without meaning. You’d have to live as them, to know precisely what they experience meaning to mean, and then to know whether they report that experience truthfully.

    Okay, I see your point, and meaning is subjective. It is pretentious to indicate that I understand what gives meaning to our lives, or existence, and others do not.
    I was thinking along the lines(and I still do) of a person playing the slots.

    If they win, it is not through any talent they possess because they have no control over the random outcome. They have the exact same circumstance afforded everyone, who plays, and whether they win or lose, it is meaningless to say that they are different from the others that are playing, excepting the outcome. It’s just what happens.
    A different thing, winning, happening to them is rewarding, but it does not say anything about their individuality.
    The ability to decide to play a machine that pays out differently, say four sevens and a $ symbol versus guessing a random outcome on a keno game, but in the end, they are all just wagering their money, and trying to find happiness.

    So, to take it further, suppose you started with a number of people in a large enough group, and then sent them out on various adventures. They were not told anything about the others, just that they weren’t in their group. Their environment is making the choice, not them, as to what circumstance they will find themselves in. And the environment they get assigned also will determine what happens to them.
    For comparison’s sake, some others might go wall climbing, some listen to music, etc. I thought of wall climbing as it adds some interesting repercussions to the type of situation, namely one where individual skill can have an effect.
    The gamblers may, or may not, enjoy gambling, and the outcome may, or may not, be fruitful, or enjoyable. Some people that don’t win might still enjoy just playing a game of chance, and although the winners would probably all be happy about it, some might not think the experience of gambling worth the payout because they can’t stand unpredictability, let’s say, or bells and flashing lights might annoy them greatly. Losers: some have fun, some are indifferent – it was okay, or mildly interesting. and others might be pissed that they had had to participate at all.
    The music listeners, they may, or may not, like music, the type of music, etc. Some like crowds, some dislike being around people. Some use it as an opportunity to flirt, or stare at body parts, some want to be left alone to listen to the fucking song(I’m thinking of the movie Slapshot, just to spice up this incessant monologue). I thought this last bit would add some intrigue, ha ha, an obvious reference to ‘events’ of recent import!

    Then, wall climbers. Now we introduce athletic ability, so some are more adept than others, and some might like the opportunity for competing to see who is better, some hate climbing, some can’t climb (weak arms or hearts, like me(hearts physical or courage)), some like watching others climb, blah blah.

    In every instance, no one knows, or even cares what the others get to do, except the whiners, who always think the other people, who they don’t even know what is happening for them, have it easier no matter what, just ’cause it’s something else, and anything else is better than this shit. This is enough complexity, but you can see what I’m getting at.

    It is this: That at no time did anyone express their individuality by selecting what they got to participate in.
    In no situation did they have the choice to express their individuality because they were deterministically conditioned to react the ways they did in each situation. They all arrived with a given set of desires, of skills, of behaviors, already implanted.

    That is my meaning of meaning – not having the ability to express your individuality because on a basic level, non of it was your fault, or choice, and therefore, it is equivalent in nature*.
    Even with my writing this, the opportunity to use the word nature* presented itself to me, I didn’t plan it, and all my allusions and literary devices may, or may not, have seemed pre-planned, to me or you, or even recognizing them and scoffing or applauding, which I am doing, lol, is the result of our choice to comprehend, or choice how to respond, it just happened this way, and it was going to.
    And how about my spell checker? It didn’t recognize ‘pre-planned’, yet it suggested ‘pee-planned’, as if that means something, and then I see it ironically, because we were the result of our parents pee-pees, which gave us our genetic plan. Ha ha whatever. But their ability to show us love, or contempt, or teach us values, was further the result of their parents precondition.

    I’ve tried* to develop this miasma, from a simple start, to a convoluted scenario, but still retain the concept of lack of individual choice to be, or do, different. But I cannot take credit for any of this, or blame, because – you know the rest.

    There may result in different levels of satisfaction and enjoyment, but even that has been chosen per-deterministically for us. All our ideas, and feelings, and fulfillment, or the meaning we derive – it’s all done already for us, and how we treat or feel about our children, everything, is not an expression of individuality because we are just trains following the tracks. Some are different than other tracks, some through desert, some very scenic, but all we are left with, in the end, is our chance to marvel at the scenery, and even then, we didn’t choose whether or not we would find it marvelous. We didn’t choose whether or not it would be meaningful to us, as individual arrangements of matter and energy.
    Without freedom to choose anything different, or feel anything different than we do, it is meaningless, and it is even meaningless to suppose otherwise, that on which we have no bearing, wheels, or otherwise.

    (You see? Just as an aside, it seems to me that everything is punny!)

    Okay! There I go assuming what other people derive meaning, or purpose, from.

    For me, it is only as meaningful as a rock rolling down a hill is to it, it’s just that we are aware of our being in a state of rolling. Some roll through trees, and som[SHUTTHEFUCKUPALREADY]..Thanks, I needed that ;)

    I guess, obviously, that it is me that is deciding if our lives have meaning, because to me, meaning is only available if we freely choose it, not happen to be given it. There, two levels of what meaning means, know what I mean. [SHUTTHEFUCKUPALREADY]

  37. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ Owlmirror

    This debate from joey‘s contention that

    [feelings of no hope] are derived from the premise of physicalism/materialsm. And that we should just start with the premise that there actually is “meaning to our existence”.

    This smacks too much like “goddit” for my tender sensibilities.

    I await for joey to move beyond merely taking his assumptions predispositionally and presenting some credible evidence.

    With regard to your comments:

    awfully subjective …is very subjective, …the one making the judgment … how much meaning one can find in existence — which again makes it very subjective… subjectivity involved … it says more about one’s state of mind …

    I think you’ve pretty much nailed it. We need only note that this subjectivity is not dependent in any way on the existence of a god (or some other kind of supernatural phenomenon) nor on invoking pressupositional premises. It is all very much in keeping with materialism.

    @ Jadehawk

    Get well soon, damnit!

  38. says

    Postscript/Anecdote: a friend of a French philosopher wondered why, given that the philosopher was able to speak with such clarity of thought on the topics he discussed, the books he wrote were filled with confusing, contorted, and obscure phrases. The philosopher responded that other French philosophers scorned clarity, and would not take seriously a work that strove to be easily understood.

    Oh, well.

    I like it, and thanks.

  39. says

    I just realized something. Everyone who insisted, commanded me, that I cannot have free will, raise your hands.

    ;)

  40. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    Everyone who insisted, commanded me, that I cannot have free will, raise your hands.

    I refuse!

  41. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Aww jadehawk :(
    *USB treats and virtual hugs as wanted*

  43. A. R says

    And I’ll use the LOLstar to blow the hand off* the arm of anyone who dares raise it in defiance of Minitrue.
    *With LOLcats, of course.

  47. Matt Penfold says

    I’m here to insist that y’all feel bad for me: my tummy hurts, I’ve lost my appetite*, the entire half of my face where my infected tooth used to be hurts because the painkillers tend to wear off on average 2 hours before I’m allowed to take more.

    Consider taking two different types of pain killer. Paracetamol and Ibuprofen work well together (don’t recommend aspirin, since it might make the socket bleed). Take them two hours apart.

  48. says

    I just posted this on TET:

    “So I tune back in to find the Justin Griffith post in the “Most Active.” Like being punched in the stomach. And then in the comments thread he keeps thanking Josh for educating him and demanding he be allowed a “learning curve.” I don’t think anyone’s ever denied him the time it takes some people to understand, but if you recognize that you’re still learning and that this is a situation in which people are being harmed, you should damn well shut the hell up publicly until you’re confident you know what you’re talking about. Maybe ask people you respect and trust some questions or for some reading suggestions. Maybe do some investigation of your own. But instead you thought it wise to throw in with that post, with no concern for the effects it would have. You haven’t fallen on your sword or anything so ridiculously dramatic; you’ve simply, like many others before you in this, done something stupid and callous.

    I have read your blog from time to time in the past,* Justin, but I won’t now. I won’t even comment on that thread, as it’s become another Slimepit outpost. I hope you’ll come to regret that post and make things right.

    *And I’m one of those scary anarchists about whom you seem so ignorant.”

  49. Dhorvath, OM says

    Jadehawk, I think I may need to join you in the toothy hurtiness corner so I have some easy sympathy for your condition. Ouch is no fun at all.
    ___

    mikmik,

    Without freedom to choose anything different, or feel anything different than we do, it is meaningless, and it is even meaningless to suppose otherwise, that on which we have no bearing, wheels, or otherwise.

    Nobody else is me. Nor am I trapped in my life while someone or something makes my choices for me. I am those decisions that have been made via interaction of my environment and mental wiring, making them otherwise wouldn’t be me.

  50. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    I haven’t been to a dentist in 20 years. For most of this time I didn’t have insurance, and so it seemed like a reasonable practice. I have had insurance for the last 6 years, but now I just don’t want to go. Completely irrational, but I can’t seem to pull the trigger on a much needed checkup.

  51. RahXephon, Waahmbulance Driver for St. Entitlement's Hospital says

    So, SC pointed me over here to re-ask a question I had from TET:

    In TET, I used the term “butthurt”, and Sili said xe thought they’d heard the term is homophobic. Now, I’m gay and I’ve never thought of the term as homophobic, but I also don’t think that gay people are immune from saying homophobic things. SC says old man jenkins is here and has written about such terms before, so I’d like to hear why he (or I guess anyone else) thinks the term is homophobic.

    It’s the first time I’ve used the term in at least a couple of years and probably the last, so I have no problem excising it from my vocabulary.

  53. ChasCPeterson says

    Sgt. Griffith closed comments and acknowledged a massive fuck-up, promising another explanatory post later.

  54. Walton says

    Oh – Walton, I don’t know if you’re aware of this Free Speech Debate site, but it looks like it might be up your alley.

    I like it.

  55. says

    Sgt. Griffith closed comments and acknowledged a massive fuck-up, promising another explanatory post later.

    I’m curious about what was at the links you posted just before that.

    ***

    I like it.

    Great. Glad I mentioned it.

  56. ChasCPeterson says

    it was typical early pit action, as described, into which the always classy TylerD dropped the ‘if they’re going to call us misogynists anyway, here’s some real misogyny to chew on har har’ thing.

  57. says

    Consider taking two different types of pain killer. Paracetamol and Ibuprofen work well together (don’t recommend aspirin, since it might make the socket bleed). Take them two hours apart.

    I already am! Prescription-strength Ibuprofen and generic vicodin, which is actually paracetamol + vicodin, so technically that’s 3 painkillers together.

    they just wear off quicker than I’m allowed to re-take them :-(

  58. says

    it was typical early pit action, as described, into which the always classy TylerD dropped the ‘if they’re going to call us misogynists anyway, here’s some real misogyny to chew on har har’ thing.

    Ah. I think I remember that segment. So many came to mind from your description.

  59. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    RahXephon, here is a good, fairly explanatory comment from SGBM (old man jenkins to you) on the subject.

  60. RahXephon, Waahmbulance Driver for St. Entitlement's Hospital says

    @Cipher

    Thanks. I can see now how it can be seen as homophobic. I won’t use it again.

  61. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    No problem, RahXephon. I’m trying to get better at the whole quickly-pulling-up-relevant-comments thing that SG does, so it was just a good opportunity to practice :P

  62. says

    Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe

    I already am! Prescription-strength Ibuprofen and generic vicodin, which is actually paracetamol + vicodin, so technically that’s 3 painkillers together.

    they just wear off quicker than I’m allowed to re-take them :-(

    Have you tried taking them with food? Probably hard to eat without the pain already numbed, but food will slow absorption and spread your peak blood amount to occur somewhat delayed, although the peak levels will be lower.

    Also, have you tried staggering your doses, so that you take one, wait a couple of hours, then the other? I don’t know your dosing sched, but if they are both @4 hours, let’s say, vic -2hrs- Ibuprofen – 2hrs – vic, etc.

    I hope this helps, of course. My brother and I like sitting around and scaring ourselves with recollections of trying to sleep with a toothache.

    That reminds me – have you used and ice pack to freeze the side of your jaw? Plus, anbusol or other. I think it works good for about an hour, and then all the pain it was stifling comes back like it was being saved up! Others here say that doesn’t happen.

    Oh yeah, just thought of another! if you make a paste of aspirin and put it – gently – onto the wound, that really works quite well, I’ve found. Then there’s cloves, they realy can help, and that tastes better than aspirin! Tylenol tastes like a devilsb cesspool, I don’t recommend a paste using that.

    One more thing to mention: aspirin really dissolves quite readily, depending pn brand and time release formulations, so I would try putting a pill on a plate and add several drops of water. I haven’t done it so long, but it might take a minute or two, and if the water is absorbing but it isn’t soft enough, I guess you know what to do – obviously add some more. I just caution you that it can really fall apart into a loose mush quickly, but I suppose you would have the sense to dip some kleenex at it, so I won’t tell you.

    Yes, I no where your coming from, and if makes you feel any better, I have a tooth broken off at gum level, so I am holding off on the surgery. It’s a molar, and I’ve only had to get antibiotics once, in over a year, to get through a bad spell. I’m also quite poor, so I know much that restricts a person’s options.\

    I also like walking around the mall with a very pained expression on my face, holding my mouth, and getting people to ask if I’m okay, Then I tell them everything in such detail that they end up being glad you have the toothache! I’m just kidding, of course, but it might help ;)

  64. Owlmirror says

    [In response to Brian the Catholic apologist on Zinnia Jones]
    [Catholicism is full of stupid word games used to defend/apologize for (patriarchal) faith. Fight equivocation with equivocation.]
    [⚢⚣⚤⚥⚦⚧⚨⚩⚳⚸⚹*clenched fist*]
    [RESIST]

    [Brian:] My position entails that the words “same-sex” and “marriage” cannot be used together since they have no referent.

    Actually, according to Catholicism, they do have a referent. “Marriage” is used, among other things, to refer to the relationship between God and Church — which is to say, between one (to three) putatively-existing putatively male invisible person(s) with magical superpowers, and an institution (which does exist) composed of many male persons.

    It’s also used to refer to the relationship between a priest and the Church: a male person, and an instition composed of many male persons.

    It’s also used to refer to a relationship between a female person and one (to three) putatively-existing putatively male invisible person(s) with magical superpowers; and between a female person, a male person, and one (to three) putatively-existing putatively male invisible person(s) with magical superpowers; and between a female person and an institution composed of many male persons.

    Once you’ve used a term in your superstitious fairy-tales as a metaphor, you certainly have no basis to claim that the term cannot be freely redefined in legal terms to refer to a real-world consensual relationship.

    They are a contradiction in terms

    Not really.

    Now, “rational Catholic”, that’s a contradiction it terms — no matter how much Catholics pretend to praise rationality.

    similar to a “married bachelor.”

    Or in other words, a priest.

    Just being consistent.

    Since Catholicism is not consistent, Catholics cannot be consistent.

  66. cm's changeable moniker says

    Jadehawk, you have Mrs M’s sympathies.

    I remember having an ear infection and literally counting down the minutes until I could take another painkiller. After two days, I got to a doctor, and within six hours, antibiotics took over. Such relief.

    Take the drugs. *All* the drugs. This is why we pay big Pharma. ;)

  67. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    I’m feeling really sad. It’s weird. I’m doing things at home that would normally make me happy, and briefly they do, but then in the middle of doing them or just afterward I go back to being really sad.
    I don’t like it.

  68. cm's changeable moniker says

    Cipher, you just got back from school, right? If it’s any consolation, those shifts were always … unnerving for me.

    (High academe vs. the world I lived in before discovering it.)

    Eventually I managed to connect the two. But I ended up different than I was before I went away. Not, I think, worse, just different.

  69. says

    Cipher, i wanted to say hello. I know what that’s like, and I get frustrated that my feelings don’t improve. I start thinking they never will, that’s I’m stuck like that. It can last months, for me, and has longer, so I’ve wondered if I am ever going to look forward to anything again.
    I just want you to know that I’ve been thinking about you, even though I don’t think we’ve ever spoke, but I’ve been wanting to at least let you know that I’m paying attention, because I know how fucking shitty it gets. Like you said, nothing seems to change.
    I know that when we’re down, that there’s a situation in our brains that is not giving out the right baseline that produces the normal response that makes us look forward to the things we usually look forward to. We ARE doing things right, our fucking brain is off kilter. I’m not trying to be explanatory to you, for you might probably know this better than me.

    I wanted really badly to say hi, and I’m rambling. Just so you know. Fuck’n brain, little low on dopamine these days, in my case – it stays low for too long, it seems. But it’s been worse. Have you been through this shite before?

    Did your paper go alright? I’ve been wondering, anyways.

    I’m making to big a deal, just understand, I think, but tell me if you want, and I’ll understand and just listen.

    Now I will watch, and not go all focused anymore, but I’ll say hi, at least, if it’s okay.

  70. scifi says

    From Karen Armstrong’s book, The Case for God.
    “After the Scopes trial, the fundamentalist went quiet and simply withdrawn defensively,as fundamentalists of other traditions would do in the future, and created an enclave of Godliness in a broadcasting stations, publishing houses, schools, universities, and Bible colleges. In the late 1970s, when this countercultural society had gained sufficient strength and confidence, the fundamentalists would return to public life, launching a counteroffensive to convert the nation to their principles. During their time in the political wilderness, the fundamentalists became more radical, nursing a deep grievance against mainstream American culture. Subsequent history would show that when a fundamentalist movement is attacked, it almost invariably becomes more aggressive, bitter, and excessive. Rooted as fundamentalism is in a fear of annihilation, its adherents see any such offensive as proof that the secular or liberal world is indeed bent on elimination of religion, Jewish and Muslim movements would also conform to this pattern. Before Scopes, Protestant fundamentalists tended to be on the left of the political spectrum, willing to work with socialists and liberals in the disadvantaged areas of the rapidly industrializing cities. After Scopes, they swing to the far right, where they have remained. The ridicule of the press proved to be conterproductive, since it made the fundamentalists even more militant in their views. Before Scopes, evolution had not been an important issue; even such ardent literalists as Charles Hodge knew that the world had existed for a lot longer than the six thousand years mentioned in the Bible. Only a very few subscribed to so-called creation science, which argued that genesis was scientifically sound in every detail. Most fundamentalists were Calvinists, though Calvin himself had not shared their hostility to scientific knowledge. But after Dayton, an unswerving biblical literalism became central to the fundamentalist mind-set and creation science became the flagship of the movement. It would become impossible to discuss the issue rationally, because evolution was no longer merely a scientific hypothesis but a “symbol,” indelibly imbued with the misery of defeat and humiliation. The early history of the first fundamentalist movement in the modern era proved to be paradigmatic. When attacking religion that seems obscurantist, critics must be aware that this assault is likely to make it more extreme.”

    So, attacks like the Zombie Jesus thread only strengthens the resolve of the Fundamentalists against atheists. Essentially, PZ Meyers is shooting himself in the foot.

  72. chigau (違う) says

    <blockquote>paste the words you are quoting</blockquote>
    =

    paste the words you are quoting

    Simple. I child could do it.

  76. A. R says

    SCIFIs BACK!!! [runs around screaming, opens a magnum of 1978 Dom Perignon] We can bash a recycled troll!

  77. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    cm, yeah, I just got home from school. And it’s partly that, and partly the usual stuff, and partly that both of my close offline friends have been too busy to talk to me for a while so I’m feeling lonelier than usual.
    mikmik, thanks. *hugs* That really does help. I am trying to make my brain hold on to the fact that there are people here who care about me too. My paper seems to have gone okay – I’ll find out definitively tomorrow.

  79. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    I think I’ll be taking a boyc…break from FTB for a while.

    Another great choice, guys. Well done.

    Fuuuuuck.
    Gah.
    I had a bad feeling about that announcement from the beginning – I guess I know why now.
    —
    [selfish]This is a terrible fucking time for this to happen. I can’t stand to try to take another break from here right now.[/selfish]

  81. chigau (違う) says

    There are 38 blogs on FTB (if I counted correctly).
    I read fewer than a dozen of them.
    I can ignore Thunderf00t, t00.

  83. 'Tis Himself says

    So, attacks like the Zombie Jesus thread only strengthens the resolve of the Fundamentalists against atheists.

    Why does this scifi idiot think we’re trying to play nice with fundamentalists?

  85. 'Tis Himself says

    chigau (違う) #81

    Thunderfoot won’t be getting a whole lot of page hits from me either.

  86. RahXephon, Waahmbulance Driver for St. Entitlement's Hospital says

    I knew Thunderchrist joining FTB was a bad idea as soon as I heard he was getting his own blog here. He may be an alright scientist, but his attitude when it comes to social issues is about as clueless as I’ve ever seen.

    I don’t know the feelings of everyone around here about it, but Thunderchrist is a huge proponent of Draw Mohammad Day, which I think is incredibly stupid. I’m not talking about being an accommodationist, just that I don’t see a point in going out of my way to offend people I don’t even know and that haven’t done anything to me. If the bug up TChrist’s ass is that a few Muslims have committed terrorist acts, there are about a billion other Muslims who haven’t and never would.

  87. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    From Karen Armstrong’s book, The Case for God.

    There is no case for your imaginary deity other than solid and conclusive physical evidence. Evidence you acknowledge you don’t have. So STFU.

  88. says

    Draw Mohammad Day was maybe cute IMO when it was a spontaneous thing. Once it becomes a tradition now it’s just the majority culture being a dick and shitting on the minority.

    If the bug up TChrist’s ass is that a few Muslims have committed terrorist acts, there are about a billion other Muslims who haven’t and never would.

    Sometimes I wonder if some atheists have ANY friends. Sometimes I also give them that and then wonder if they have ANY “religious” friends. Cause from my casual experience it seems clear Muslims can be as shitty at their religion as Christians.

  89. Janine: History’s Greatest Monster says

    So, Syfy is arguing that we should just give in to the fundamentalists so that we can avoid having them organize and trying to take over.

    Good to see that Syfy is still a fucking fool.

  91. ChasCPeterson says

    Mister insists that this ^ is the only martini, full stop. The rest are…something else, but not martinis.

    This is wisdom. Gin and a tiny droplet of dry vermouth and (usually) an olive; sometimes a twist instead: that’s it.
    Various other all-liquor cocktails served in similar glassware?

    whatever. Who cares.

  92. scifi says

    No, what SiFi is saying is that derogatory stuff like the “Zombie Jesus” is only hurting your cause not helping it. And no, I’m definitely not saying you should abandon your cause. Fundamentalist belief is nonsense and should not be forced upon us nonbelievers.

  93. says

    No, what SiFi is saying is that derogatory stuff like the “Zombie Jesus” is only hurting your cause not helping it. And no, I’m definitely not saying you should abandon your cause. Fundamentalist belief is nonsense and should not be forced upon us nonbelievers.

    What does Shiloh think?

  94. says

    No, what SiFi is saying is that derogatory stuff like the “Zombie Jesus” is only hurting your cause not helping it. And no, I’m definitely not saying you should abandon your cause. Fundamentalist belief is nonsense and should not be forced upon us nonbelievers.

    Wait…why are you using the plural inclusive “US”

    Syfy WE KNOW YOU ARE NOT AN ATHEIST FFS.

  96. Owlmirror says

    So, attacks like the Zombie Jesus thread only strengthens the resolve of the Fundamentalists against atheists.

    There isn’t really anything that will persuade someone who is deeply committed to some fundamental ideology. Lack of opposition makes them smug and confident in their opposition, but, on the other hand, reasoned opposition — no matter how politely phrased — is also seen as an attack that they must “strengthen their resolve” against.

    I kind of doubt that the Zombie Jesus images, in and of themselves, will have much effect on Fundamentalists. PZ posts much more specific mockery and condemnation of religion and creationism. Fundamentalists already know that PZ is contemptuous of them, and they of course return the contempt doubled down.

    Essentially, PZ Meyers is shooting himself in the foot.

    Only if you think that not posting them would somehow make Fundamentalists not “strengthen their resolve” against atheists. I don’t see that as happening.

    In fact, I don’t think Fundamentalists would relent their opposition to atheists even if PZ stopped blogging altogether.

    Do you really think otherwise? Why? Don’t just cite Karen Armstrong. Show even one example where the opposition shutting up caused religious fanatics to calm down; back down; stop being against atheists or other religious dissidents.

  97. throwaway says

    No, what SiFi is saying is that derogatory stuff like the “Zombie Jesus” is only hurting your cause not helping it

    Can you give a clear metric for “hurting the cause” and not a hypothetical of ‘hows’ and ‘whys’?

  98. Sophia Dodds says

    ah… the sweet, dulcet tones of the tone troll.

    Arguments should be like the Whizzo Quality Assortment. Outwardly delicious and wholesome and nice, with all the nasty, painful and dangerous stuff hidden away so as not to offend poor, innocent sensibilities.

    Fair enough – if we were to entertain that notion, how exactly would you propose we conduct discussions/debates/arguments with theists? Keep in mind that said conversation has to be effective, on equal footing (no being steamrolled or having any topics be ‘sacred’ or off the table). In addition, how can one get their point across to someone who is wilfully and stubbornly ignorant of the facts and still come across as being a pleasant individual?

    Coming up blank?
    I certainly hope so, the point being that we’ve all tried the being nice thing, and it’s done diddly-squat. All progress toward equality ever achieved in the past has been at least in part from vocal opposition to the status quo and has been seen as offensive by default. It’s a perspective thing; Think about an issue such as women having the ability to vote, or interracial marriage. At the time, anyone advocating for one of those causes would have been seen as rude, shrill, strident, an upstart, just being argumentative or combative, etc. Nowadays we no longer hold those attitudes (well, nobody with a conscience, anyway) and talking about those issues is seen as normal and not offensive in any way whatsoever.

    In short, offense is only ever a problem when it’s justified. Being offended by the existence of homosexuals isn’t justified. Being offended by affirmative action systems isn’t justified. Being offended by atheists mocking religious thought isn’t justified.

    Existing systems that have no basis in fact should not exist. The way to eradicate these systems is to show people how wrong they are, and mockery is probably the most effective tool we have to do this. Yes, this will be seen as offensive to the people who use those systems, but if even one of those people can see the point of the mockery then it is worth doing.

    Tl’Dr version: Your concern is noted. :)

  100. Sophia Dodds says

    Ing: Either that was an impressively mangled comment, or you’ve just produced a Waldorf-worthy word salad there. My chef training is duly impressed! ;)

  102. Sophia Dodds says

    The best kind! A touch of lemon zest and a dash of ‘intent is magic'(tm) w(h)ine and it could almost have been a Raj special. Tsk.

  103. says

    @Sophia

    Coherant version

    a one two punch of pointing out how absurd the fundamental beliefs are AND pointing out the intellectual dishonesty of not being a fundamentalist worked for me.

    No one did it specifically, but events conspired for force me to face these two points.

  104. Sophia Dodds says

    Ah! Indeed. Get over the initial offense and have the insight to see that the positions you currently hold might not be as correct as you originally thought.

    How to get people to this point is the subject of far too much debate. Personally I don’t think there’s one way – people’s personalities and modes of thinking differ far too much for a single approach to be effective.

  105. A. R says

    Sophia: I see that you know of TZTs most… infamous resident. If you get time, you should really read some of his stuff, it ranges from infuriating, to head scratch-inducing, to the just plain stoooopid.

  106. Sophia Dodds says

    A.R:
    I’ve been lurking on Pharyngula for years adn reading the TZT for as long as it’s been around. I found DH666 to be the most amusing so far ;)

  107. A. R says

    Sophia: Ah, then you have seen the work of one of the greatest word-saladers of our time<abbr title="By the way, are you aware of our secwet codes?

  110. Sophia Dodds says

    (ARGH I’m being stalked by a rogue tautology! Don’t worry, it’s been shot and stuffed and is now being put to use as a decorative prop for a local ATM machine … trying to work in a PIN number line there but coming up short. Derp.)

    (also and. Hypermobile joints plus uncoordinated fingers many typos make.)

  111. Sophia Dodds says

    I’ve noticed there’s a secret code thing going on, but am not entirely aware of the correct usage. I might have to read back and see if I can figure it out, but I’m no sure I have the time or energy right now :P

  112. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    No, what SiFi is saying is that derogatory stuff like the “Zombie Jesus” is only hurting your cause not helping it.

    Citation needed, as always….We know you are offended by TZT pictures cyfy/shiloh. You’ve said so in the past. Who the fuck cares what a presuppositional liar and bullshitter like you thinks? Keep that in mind before your next fuckwitted and evidenceless post.

    Where do you get the idea TZT is about converting fundies to atheism? We don’t convert anybody to atheism. They convert themselves when they realize the babble is lies, and there is no evidence for your imaginary creator/deity, which even you admit. What we do here is to quarantine and mock godbots/creobots like you that infest and troll the blog.

  113. A. R says

    Sophia: Oh, the codes are simple to use, just make a comment about your local weather, then use this code instead of a period: [abbr title=”YOUR SECWET MESSAGE HERE”].[/abbr title] Simply replace the [‘s and ]’s with ‘s. You may use this to hide a message in any other way, of course, or to add annotations to a comment. Appropriate usage of secwet codes would be to do anything you want, unless, of course, it contravenes the authority of the TZT Politburo.

  115. Sophia Dodds says

    Ding! hello brain, it’s nice when you understand things. That’s a very cute little trick :P

  117. chigau (違う) says

    Sophia
    In a sentence <acronym title=”hidden words go here”<exposed words go here</acronym>.
    =
    In a sentence exposed words go here.
    Shorter is better for the hidden words.

  118. A. R says

    PZ: Perhaps a listing of Trolls confined to TZT would be useful? I t could be posted on the same page a the Dungeon. It would certainly help to keep track of them. [X-Post TET/TZT]

  119. Sophia Dodds says

    Like this, I believe. Ugh. Now for a two-hour round trip in this stupid rainy nonsense to go pick up my son and visit my private brain care specialist.

  120. scifi says

    “Wait…why are you using the plural inclusive “US”

    Syfy WE KNOW YOU ARE NOT AN ATHEIST FFS.”

    Read again what I said. “Fundamentalist belief is nonsense and should not be forced upon us nonbelievers.”

    When it comes to fundamentalist, I, like you, feel it is nonsense and, like you I am a nonbeliever in their religious dogma. I never said, I like you am an atheist because that would be untrue.

  122. A. R says

    scifi: You are approaching DH666 level word salad. Beyond that, your last comment was purified bullshite.

  123. chigau (違う) says

    <blockquote>quoted text here</blockquote>
    =

    quoted text here

    So simple, a child could do it.

  125. scifi says

    Owlmirror,
    “Do you really think otherwise? Why? Don’t just cite Karen Armstrong. Show even one example where the opposition shutting up caused religious fanatics to calm down; back down; stop being against atheists or other religious dissidents.”

    I already quoted a very good example by Karen Armstrong in that the Fundamentalists were a quiet group until they felt under attack by the press during and after the Scopes trial. But, I must admit that, now that the “genie is out of the bottle”, it probably is too late. I just think the Zombie Jesus thread just adds salt to the wounds. It only just adds to the Fundy resolve to go back at the atheist opposition.

  126. A. R says

    DAMMIT!!!!!! FOR FUCK’S SAKE I USED YOUR NOT YOU’RE. All hail Tpyos. In other news, that bottle of Talisker that’s been fucking up my late night commenting for the past year has just disappear.

  128. scifi says

    Nerd,
    “Citation needed, as always….We know you are offended by TZT pictures”
    After all this time, Nerd, you still haven’t got it right. I’m not at least offended by the TZ2 pictures. I actually find them amusing. I’m talking about those who do, who you are trying convince you have a right your beliefs.

  130. chigau (違う) says

    attempted translation

    I’m talking about those who do [find the pictures offensive], [those people] who you are trying convince [that] you have a right your beliefs.

    maybe?

  131. Josh, Official SpokesGay says

    maybe?

    aljlkuarl*897e>? blarglaliuldiu2,kj”:9jO98UL2,. gnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNN!

    More likely.

  132. Owlmirror says

    I already quoted a very good example by Karen Armstrong in that the Fundamentalists were a quiet group until they felt under attack by the press during and after the Scopes trial.

    But Armstrong is wrong. Think about it: Before the Scopes trial — in order for there to be a reason for a trial — Creationists were so smug, confident, and pervasive that they had no problem making it the law in Tennessee that teaching evolution was to be illegal!

    Here, read up on the Butler Act.

    • Introduced in the House of Representatives as House Bill No. 185 by John Washington Butler on January 21, 1925
    • Committee consideration by: House Committee on Education, Senate Judiciary Committee
    • Passed the House on January 28, 1925 (Yeas: 71; Nays: 5)
    • Passed the Senate on March 13, 1925 (Yeas: 24; Nays: 6)
    • Signed into law by Governor Peay on March 21, 1925

    Note the huge majorities by which the act was passed, and the (relative) speed with which it passed.

    But, I must admit that, now that the “genie is out of the bottle”, it probably is too late.

    Well, duh.

    Are you really not aware that Christianity is a proselytizing religion? Fundamentalists would never be content to remain a “quiet group”, if they ever had been, which they weren’t.

    Quiet groups do not pass laws which enforce anti-science religious dogma as the law of the land.

    I just think the Zombie Jesus thread just adds salt to the wounds.

    Meh. Creationists have posted to this thread, and not seemed particularly wounded. I suspect that those were less sensitive than you think.

    Those that are sensitive enough to be wounded find enough salt in everything else PZ posts, and they probably don’t even notice the zombies.

    It only just adds to the Fundy resolve to go back at the atheist opposition.

    I haven’t seen any sign of a Fundamentalist saying: “Well! I can cope with all of the blasphemy and opposition to religion, and mockery of creationism, but this! Zombie Jesus! It’s the last straw! Now I’m really going to oppose atheists!”

    Really, now. You’re making as much of a mockery of them as PZ does.

  133. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    aljlkuarl*897e>? blarglaliuldiu2,kj”:9jO98UL2,. gnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNN!

    That’s an easy one. Run it through a spellchecker (swap out numbers for corresponding letters on cellphone):

    actuarial asterisk excuse? blag lazuli odium engorge corpulence ,. gin!

    Scifi is as profound as DH666!

  135. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ A.R

    Heavily overcast with a good chance of rain. And muggy, very muggy. And my A/C has packed up. :'(

  138. Walton says

    I don’t know the feelings of everyone around here about it, but Thunderchrist is a huge proponent of Draw Mohammad Day, which I think is incredibly stupid. I’m not talking about being an accommodationist, just that I don’t see a point in going out of my way to offend people I don’t even know and that haven’t done anything to me. If the bug up TChrist’s ass is that a few Muslims have committed terrorist acts, there are about a billion other Muslims who haven’t and never would.

    QFT. And we also need to remember that Muslims are a marginalized and oppressed group in Western society, and that white Western atheists are speaking from a position of relative privilege here. In Europe, in particular, Muslims are a favourite target of the far right (the likes of Geert Wilders, Nick Griffin, the Le Pens, and so on), for whom anti-Muslim rhetoric is just a convenient cover for stirring up hatred against Asian immigrants. Not to mention that vilifying and othering Muslims tends to increase support for the “War on Terror” and aggressive foreign policy, as we’ve seen on some recent threads. So I’m against “Draw Muhammad Day”, and refused to participate in it, because, to be honest, it feels like we’re simply bullying a minority religious group who already suffer hatred and discrimination.

    I’d argue that insulting Muslims, in a Western country, is qualitatively different from insulting Christians. There’s a difference between insults that target an already-oppressed minority, and insults that target a privileged majority; the former is bullying, the latter isn’t. I’m not saying that one should go out of one’s way to insult Christians either (and I personally find the “zombie Jesus” stuff a little tasteless), but I don’t think that insulting Christians has any comparable negative implications for social justice, given that Christians are the privileged majority in Western societies. (If I lived in a Muslim-majority society in which Christians were oppressed, I might well feel differently.)

  139. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ Walton

    “zombie Jesus” stuff a little tastless…

    Ok, I’ll even the score a bit and post a zombie cephalopod. (I hope Teh Poopyhead is not insulted.)

  140. says

    I think I belong in this thread for a while… after a stupid comment I made here. What I said upset Caine, for whom I have a lot of respect, and at least two other people. I shouldn’t have suggested that victims of violent crime have a “lust for revenge”. I am sorry to all people who were offended by what I said, and take back the notion that such victims share that sentiment.

  141. says

    scottjordan, I only read your comment and not much else just now, but I see the desire to get even, or worse, as a survival instinct gone awry in modern society, but it served a purpose – to eliminate threats. I live in gang central, here in Edmonton, and it is primitive and violent. The ones that are more prone to do violence are the ones that retaliate with violence, and it is ‘the code’ or whatever.
    If someone physically assaults someone else’s ‘woman,’ because of the outrage at hurting a ‘weaker’ person, there is a widespread voiced desire to give that person a lesson. Same with harming kids, you do not want to go there.

    I am trying to say that where there is a lot of violence, there seems to be more desire for vengeance, so I understand where you were coming from.

    But, yes, certainly not everyone operates this way, and I just wonder what your brainz taste like!
    Curious. Seems we can have a desire to punish ourselves for transgressions we feel guilt for. Walton and I talked about being more critical of our own self, and I am like that and ‘wracked with guilt’ as it were. It may lead to desire to punish oneself, or do better next time, or make amends, but I can see a it as a blame the victim, yourself, and in a larger picture, the desire to blame someone manifests itself in our ‘blame someone, anyone, and seek punishment, whether it’s the perpetrator, or the victim, in our morally deprived fundamentalist, conservative political system taking over.

    I used to want revenge, and all around me people expect one to stand up for yourself by ‘teaching that sucker a lesson.’ But I don’t feel that way very much at all anymore. I can see why some may feel insulted by your remark, and rightly so, but there is truth to what you said, as well.

    Fuck, I gotta get out of this neighborhood!

  142. says

    Scifi is as profound as DH666!

    You know when they show the scenes in an animal lab when all the chimps start getting excited and they are all standing on the bars and screaming and jumping?

    That. Alright! And A.R. is breaking out the champagne, LMAO!

  143. says

    Key word, scifi, ‘you’ have a right to your beliefs, but not a right to impose them on others, or not have them ridiculed if you try to promote them!

    You are in correct in that’s the way is it being shush up, not is question what says from it you.

    ;)

  144. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    I’m talking about those who do, who you are trying convince you have a right your beliefs.

    No, you are wrong. Your OPINION is worthless here after the drivel you have spewed over the years. Show us real evidence, or STFU. Without evidence, it is about your beliefs. You are a delusional fool. Which is why you keep lying, about this being a thread to convert folks to atheism. We are the loud shock folks of atheism. We get the attention of folks who didn’t rationalize themselves into their position, and maybe get them to think. Then they see the fallacy of imaginary deities and mythical/fictional holy books. We don’t do conversions. Why do you think we do?

  145. A. R says

    theophontes: Argh, I feel slimy, I just finished a bit of commenting over at the FtB slimepit.

  146. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ scottjordon

    I think I belong in this thread for a while…

    You volunteered to be here? What about the scorched earth,the oppressive Politburo, the backstabbing, the slander, the stench of rotting trolls ..?

    @ mikmik

    Fuck, I gotta get out of this neighborhood!

    I had 12 break-ins in 12 months in my old neighbourhood. Then I got out. One of the best moves I ever made.

    @ A.R

    Justic[i]ar and I know each other well. He can be a really slimy character (though certainly not the worst on ERV). To wit his latest contrivance wrt “slimepit” being a misogynous term. He is bending himself out of shape contriving to show how it is as such.

    He is not really concerned about fighting misogyny on any level. He just wants to feel justified in using sexist slurs. Therefore the longwinded need to prove we are all, at heart, misogynists for not calling out the term “slimepit” as a sexist slur.

    Dang, he should just read the KJV bible’s Genesis 14:10. Even GAWD disagrees.

  147. says

    well, I’m about to run out of the prescribed painkillers, but not pain, indicating that something is not going according to plan. and since the little note I got for how to take care of the extraction site says I’m supposed to contact them if the pain gets worse instead of better, I guess I’m going to stop by there again and see what they can do for me. Hopefully they won’t just redirect me to the ER, cuz I don’t have that kind of money.

    And on a completely unrelated note: someone tonetrolled me on my own blog for being “uncivil” to Pilty. HA HAHA HAHAHAHAHA

  148. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    well, I’m about to run out of the prescribed painkillers, but not pain, indicating that something is not going according to plan. and since the little note I got for how to take care of the extraction site says I’m supposed to contact them if the pain gets worse instead of better, I guess I’m going to stop by there again and see what they can do for me.

    Good luck :/

    And on a completely unrelated note: someone tonetrolled me on my own blog for being “uncivil” to Pilty. HA HAHA HAHAHAHAHA

    Lol!

  149. chigau (違う) says

    Laughter is the best medicine :) :) :)
    (I wonder which dumbass first said that)

  151. cm's changeable moniker says

    417 comments on the Thunderf00t thread and no-one’s yet called him “Blunderf00t”. Too obvious, I guess.

    —

    theoMphontes:

    Justic[i]ar and I know each other well.

    o_O?

    That’s the strangest thing I’ve read all week, and I’ve been reading the Fortean Times. ;)

  154. says

    Hm. I think Richard Carrier just deleted my comment. I’m sleepy, but I’m pretty sure it appeared momentarily (on his sexual harassment post, which is quite good), and then quickly disappeared. I was responding to Thibeault:

    (Or whatever the hell is motivating them to argue against these policies — because even as the keeper of the timeline and reader of nearly everything of note that’s been said on the matter, I still can’t figure that out.)

    Conservatism.

    (This, incidentally, is the mindset at work in Carrier’s piece on vegetarianism. But that’s for another time…)

    Whatever. But odd. Maybe I’m mistaken. I’m not inlcined to try to repost.

  155. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ Jadehawk

    Ouch. If you are in need of a quick fix, cloves are mildly anesthetic and can provide some measure of emergency relief (if you have them in your kitchen at least). You can deaden some of the pain, by placing a clove or two agains the site for a few minutes. (But if the pain is continuing to get worse, you best get to a doctor.)

    @ cm’s

    That’s the strangest thing I’ve read all week,

    Hehe, not really. I should have qualified my statement by adding “online”. We have had several run-ins on ERV, what with the whole “monument” incident. I am a hippiedippymumbojumpbobullshitter for calling people out on sexist language. (Their rationale is that we are all equal, so it doesn’t matter.)

  156. RahXephon, Waahmbulance Driver for St. Entitlement's Hospital says

    @SC

    I just posted a comment there as well, but I’m in moderation. I’m guessing that he knew that the topic of the post has been causing problems with troll infestations from the Slime Dimension and put it to mod everything.

    However, I can still “see” my comment. Yours is totally gone? That is weird.

  157. says

    @SC

    I just posted a comment there as well, but I’m in moderation. I’m guessing that he knew that the topic of the post has been causing problems with troll infestations from the Slime Dimension and put it to mod everything.

    However, I can still “see” my comment. Yours is totally gone? That is weird.

    Totally gone. I didn’t get a moderation message. It seemed to appear (at least I’m pretty sure I saw it) and then vanish. Possibly an error – you’re right: he’d expect the pitizens to be out in full force.

  158. RahXephon, Waahmbulance Driver for St. Entitlement's Hospital says

    @SC

    It’s also possible he might have an overactive spamtrap, and your post did have a link in it.

  159. consciousness razor says

    Carrier’s threads have always been fully moderated, so SC, your comment probably wouldn’t have appeared immediately. Thibault’s comment was pretty soon after the article’s timestamp, so Carrier might have been online at the time to let it through. I haven’t read any of it yet.

  161. says

    theophontes (坏蛋)

    Y’know, I’ve been thinking about this whole religion denialist thing. I’m seriously considering converting to Xtianity And Islamisn And Judeanism And Ceiling Dog ism And Reality Televisionism, and starting a cult.

    I had an ‘experience’ last night, and right in the middle of a hypnogogic state, and ghostly Angel appeared, named Dog the Bounty Hunter, straight up! It was real! What else could it be, but a message from Heaven telling me that all the religion denialists didn’t show up for court for their judgement yet, and even worse, they are flaunting it! If you are not one of the above, religious, dog lover, My Mother-in-law Is Sleeping With My Teacher’s Spouse watcher, or Mormon, then you are late for Judge Judy in the sky’s court, and staying undead is no longer an excuse, mofo!

    Me, an’ danielhaven, and scifi & rajkumar, and someone else are coming to put you back in death if you don’t face reality by the time we hunt you down arrrggggghhhhhhhhh…………

    Y’see, y’see, as soon as my friends get back here and sign up, I’ll .. I’ll … where are you guys, anyways?

    And where the fuck was Rooney, anyways?

  164. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    I know there are several things here I should be responding to, but, I’m procrastinating.

    Attention Zombie Threadizens!

    I need your help!

    I have made a Comic Sans template for the PharynguWiki, but I don’t have either the Comic Sans or Marker Felt fonts installed on my computer, so I don’t really know if it looks right.

    Please go to http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Sandbox and at least have a look at it, and tell me if the Comic Sans appears, and whether it seems to be a reasonable size.

    (I’m wondering because I’ve made it display Comic Sans at 110% font size by default, to appear comparatively less professional.)

    Also, play with the template if you are so inclined!

    Here’s how to use it: Put some {{comic sans|STUPID TEXT}} between the | and the }}.

    To display at 100% font size: Put {{comic sans|YOUR STUPID TEXT|100%}} between the | and the |.

    Instructions also at http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Comic_sans

    TL;DR: all I need is for people to tell me how it looks. But if you feel inclined to take a screenshot of http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Sandbox so I can see just how it looks on your system, that would be extra awesomesauce.

    +++++
    Ignore the BINGO card in the Sandbox for now. It’s not finished yet, but it’s going to be pretty cool.

    Semantic Mediawiki allows us to create randomizing BINGO cards, so it can really be played as a multiplayer game! (On the honor system.)

  168. says

    Linky = FUBAR

    Tanx, iss uber now

    New picture for project

    I think, yes.
    You like skydrive? I frikkin should have signed up for Skydrive when it was intro’d – 25GB free for the first 2 days, I think it was.

    I’ve got Android on my phone, already use Google docs, so I went G.Drive. Good enough, unless SkyDrive has weapons, then I’ll get it.

  169. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    Oh, as should be obvious to wizened wiki warriors, that’s adapted from Audley’s “Cupcake Bingo: Misogyny Edition”.

    Cool shit about this version is it’s randomized (can I say that enough?) and it’s trivial to add new squares (each square is a page in http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Bingo_squares ), which can be used in a Bingo card, or can be mixed throughout multiple types of Bingo cards (libertarian bingo, creationist bingo; some generic squares may be appropriate for almost any bingo game).

  172. cm's changeable moniker says

    A. R, on TET:

    Port is always delicious (until it isn’t)

    Actually … ;)

    Port starts out pretty disgusting and only gets delicious after a few years (crusted or LBV) or many years (vintage).

    Sadly, my parents were neither rich nor aristocratic enough to do the traditional thing and lay down a pipe of port on my birth, since I was born in one the very best years in recent history. :-/

    —

    Theo, ahhh. *nods*

    I can’t understand the pit’s passion for talking about people.

    I’d much rather talk (internet sense, of course) to people. *shrug*

    —

    Jadehawk, my #66 was a piss-poor attempt at convoluted something (maybe humour, I dunno). Rewrite:

    Ouch, you have my sympathies. Mrs M is going through similar shit right now. Keep taking as many drugs as you can/need and hopefully things will get better soon.

  173. cm's changeable moniker says

    Pitbull, it may be randomised, but it’s not uniqued.

    I got 3 “feminist invention”s, 2 “gender pay gap”s, and 2 “culture of victimhood”s, which gives me a quarter of the board for just three tropes. ;)

  174. says

    life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ,
    I just looked at the bingo and the bible study. For the bible study, I have incredible amounts of information, sceptical material from all over, sites like bibleos and CARM, links I’ve saved from science research and news that apply – massive amounts of critical material from varied fields.

    I’m just xurying around setting up my new place so I’ll look for instructions on how to add stub additions, but is there a quick link to instructions I can quickly browse?

    s’probably a stupid question, but I’m an airhead right now. Thanks

  175. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    I know. The random number generator seems to lack a good seed, or else its result is being cached and used for multiple calls.

    There are other ways of doing it, which I’ll try out later.

    But either way it’s going to need more tropes!

  176. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    Oh, my #175 was to cm.

    +++++
    mikmik,

    There’s http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Contents and if you don’t see what you’re looking for then maybe try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents/Getting_started since we use (almost) the same software as they do.

    You may want http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Help:New_page or http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Modifying_text

    Personally I can’t be much help with the fancy shiny editing tools. I never learned to use them since I got involved at Wikipedia well before the “easy” stuff was developed.

  177. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    Again I recommend making an account.

    +++++
    Once you’re signed up and logged in, if you go to http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Special:MyPage/sandbox you’ll be in a space which is socially understood to be “yours” to screw around with. You can do anything there, break everything, no problem.

    You can feel free to break the public sandbox at http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Sandbox too.

    Honestly you can’t “break” anything in a way that isn’t trivial to undo. So, go wild. Learn by immersion.

  178. A. R says

    cm: Yeah, I know. If you’ve ever had unaged Port, you never forget the badness. I must note with a degree of shame, however, that my parents did lay down a pipe of Port upon my birth. And not a bad year either.

  179. cm's changeable moniker says

    Shame? Pffth.

    Only if you don’t pass it. The USB port’s (hee!) to the left.

  180. A. R says

    cm: Port should be coming put of your Left USB shortly. Please ensure that your USB does not touch the table.

  181. scifi says

    Owlmirror,
    “Are you really not aware that Christianity is a proselytizing religion? Fundamentalists would never be content to remain a “quiet group”, if they ever had been, which they weren’t.”

    Quite aware, but you have to realize that they were not politically active as they currently are. Why is that? Probably because they feel under attack by atheism and evolution, which is considered to lead to atheism. Perhaps you are right, though. The Zombie Jesus thread probably isn’t going to make them any more determined to rid the science class of evolution.

    I thought you and others here would find it interesting that Stephen Jay Gould stated that everything in the natural world could indeed be explained by natural selection, but Gould insisted that science was not competent to decide whether God did or did not exist, because it would work only with natural explanations. Gould had no religious ax to grind, he described himself as an atheistically inclined agnostic.

  182. consciousness razor says

    I thought you and others here would find it interesting that Stephen Jay Gould stated that everything in the natural world could indeed be explained by natural selection

    Citation needed.

    Sorry, never mind, wrong godbot, since you don’t do that kind of thing.

    I don’t give a fuck whether Gould ever stated that.

    but Gould insisted that science was not competent to decide whether God did or did not exist, because it would work only with natural explanations.

    I don’t give a fuck whether Gould ever insisted that.

    Gould had no religious ax to grind, he described himself as an atheistically inclined agnostic.

    I don’t give a fuck about whatever he had to grind or how he described himself.

  185. says

    I thought you and others here would find it interesting that Stephen Jay Gould stated that everything in the natural world could indeed be explained by natural selection

    WTF?

    No, most definitely not. That’s the antithesis of what Gould would have said. He called himself a pluralist, and by that he meant that he emphasized the multiple mechanisms driving evolutionary change.

    Par for the course, I guess, that a creationist wouldn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

  186. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    I thought you and others here would find it interesting that Stephen Jay Gould

    You’re repeating yourself Shiloh. You have mentioned that piece of Argument From Authority several times. You don’t seem to understand every scientist is an authority too. Science doesn’t do the authoritarian route. We know everybody makes mistakes. Darwin made lots of them, and so did Gould. It is expected.

    Still no conclusive physical evidence for your imaginary creator, and it remains imaginary, existing only between your delusional ears, until that evidence is presented and accepted. You appear like an wind-up-toy every time you forget what has been refuted, and repeat it.

  187. says

    @177 life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ: Okay, thanks very much for the comprehensive answer. I did create an account, so I’ll go explore now.

  188. Amphiox says

    I thought you and others here would find it interesting that Stephen Jay Gould

    Notwithstanding the fact that Gould said no such thing (hey look, shiffy’s back and lying again! What a surprise!) even if he did, so what?

    Fallacy From Authority remains wrong no matter who says it. (Unsurprising that shiffy, with its binary authoritarian worldview, would continue to use it again and again and again)

    Gould was as wrong about NOMA as Darwin was wrong about mixed inheritance.

    So what?

    And here’s another hint for shiffy, though I know by now it won’t get it.

    What makes Gould’s ideas about natural selection and punctuated equilibrium worth considering while his ideas about NOMA not?

    One is backed up by EVIDENCE, one is not. The authority derives NOT from Gould, but from the EVIDENCE Gould presented.

  191. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ

    The comic sans you linked to looks great this end. (Firefox 13.0.1/ubuntu 12.04)

    @ mikmik

    Your linky is still not working here. It could be a Great fireWall problem (my Tor is off).

  192. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    Thanks for checking, theophontes.

    I think I’m satisfied with it, and I’m going to try to leave it alone.

    (Wish me luck.)

  193. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    Amphiox on Bravo Germany thread:

    And god is far too complex to have resulted from random phenomena.

    Nuh uh!

    My heresy — which will be complete and perfect as soon as I can jam a brontosaurus into it somewhere — is that Yahweh is a Boltzmann brain.

    .
    .
    .
    No, wait. A Boltzmann brontosaurus. There.

  194. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ ॐ

    Yahweh —> Boltzmann —> brontosaurus —> {feeds input into tiny tardigrade brain} —> [this will take some time] —> [might as well make a cup of tea] —> {faint puff of smoke} —[output!]—> Boltzmann walnut!!!

  195. Amphiox says

    Little known fact: brontosaurus was a genius.

    See, that little sauropod brain-case actually housed a quantum brain, with neurons, due to an evolutionary quirk, a million times smaller than those in mammals, so that small space actually houses more neurons and more connections than humans have.

    Also, the brontosaurus type specimen is missing the head, so apatosaurus and camarosaurus had small brain cases and were (relatively – quantum brains, remember) dumb numbskulls, but brontosaurus, well brontosaurus actually had a giant, giant brain. The size of a planet….

  196. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    And!!! Because a mere Boltzmann walnut is so small, it is more likely to spontaneously arise than many other Boltzmann entities — therefore it is favored by Ockham’s razor — therefore it is probably true.

    I hereby papify myself … that doesn’t sound right.

    pope myself? is it like “king me” in checkers?

    I hereby pope myself Pope Juglans I of the One Holy Caffeinated Diastolic Church of Boltzmannbrontosaurusism.

    Please send cash or money order, no personal checks.

  197. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    See, that little sauropod brain-case actually housed a quantum brain

    Well shit now if it’s a quantosaurus I am going to have to rethink all this necessary simplicity stuff.

  198. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ Pope Juglans I of the One Holy Caffeinated Diastolic Church of Boltzmannbrontosaurusism ॐ

    Habemus Papam !!!elebenty!!one!!!

    {flings phrygian cap heavenwards}

  199. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    Thank you, theophontes, your tardigrade soul will not be forgotten by Our Thunder Lizard Lord.

    How’s your sophisticated theology skills? We are immediately confronted with the quantasaurian heresy. I am afraid it may have electrolytes.

  200. Owlmirror says

    everything in the natural world could indeed be explained by natural selection,

    I kinda suspect — in charity to Shiloh’s typical mistyping — that he intended “natural explanations“. That is, Gould was describing philosophical, or perhaps rather, methodological, naturalism.

  201. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ Pope Juglans I of the One Holy Caffeinated Diastolic Church of Boltzmannbrontosaurusism ॐ

    How’s your sophisticated theology skills?

    Well, Your Papiness, I have prepared a very learned screed for just such an eventuality.

    After reading many of these posts deliberating on the very existence of Boltzmann Walnuts ™ , it is such a relief to me to know that it is not my job to change the minds of those who choose not to believe but only give them the truth. It is up to them to accept it. Fortunately, it is Boltzmann Walnuts ™ who will judge the believer and unbeliever alike and a lack of belief will put those in a very precarious position at that very point. Fortunately for them, they all will have a second chance to see the truth and change their ways before their final destination. My Boltzmann Walnuts ™ friends, we have nothing to prove and only truth to offer.

    You can choose to believe this stuff is “pie-in-the-sky” and that is totally up to you; however, when you realize the truth and you need someone to pray with you, please know Teh Boltzmann Walnuts ™ Pope is here. I will be happy to pray with you my friends.

    With the love of Boltzmann Walnuts ™, be blessed!

    I trust this fine speech will serve to dilute the electrolytes. Failing that, I suggest drinking a large glass of milk.

  202. consciousness razor says

    I hereby pope myself Pope Juglans I of the One Holy Caffeinated Diastolic Church of Boltzmannbrontosaurusism.

    Whoah, hold on everybody. Don’t make any sudden moves. When I empapinated myself long ago as Pope Zombie XVI, LILAPWL revealed this prophesy:

    VERILY THEN IT HAS COME TO PASS

    FOR IT WAS PROPHESIED

    THE NEXT TO LAST POPE WOULD BE ZOMBIE XVI

    HARK SINNERS FOR THE END OF THIS SUBTHREAD IS NIGH

    VERILY VERILY VERILY VERILY LIFE IS BUT A DREAM

    FOLLOWED BY AN ETERNAL NIGHTMARE

    It doesn’t take a brontosaurus-level genius to figure out where this is going. But obviously, there can be only one Pope in TZT, and I have not yet be depapinated. So please just go about your business, follow the robots’ instructions, and everything will be perfectly fine.

  203. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ Pope Juglans I of the One Holy Caffeinated Diastolic Church of Boltzmannbrontosaurusism ॐ

    You can now get them in supermarkets everywhere places of worship. (Linky)

  204. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ CR

    A depapination? That sounds really exciting. Just what we need to push up our ratings on FtB!

  207. says

    q@ mikmik

    Your linky is still not working here. It could be a Great fireWall problem (my Tor is off).

    I haz Ububtu iso. Can I haz Mint, or Ubuntu better iz?

    Micro$oft haz Chrome 19.0.1084.56 = linky yummy good.

    I’m gonna dual with Linux later. The time has come. Meanwhile, I’m signed out of my Google account and I get a “Roger that” return on my linky clicky investment now.

    I haven’t run Linux since the time I got XP hacked/rooted and I installed SUSE, 9 I think?. I’ve got Ubuntu and Mint 12 on iso, so I’m … hey, WTF!? To MATE, or not to MATE; is that a question? Mint 13, new spanking brand. Cinnamon looks delicious, so does a coffee and a smoke.
    Overcast in Edmonton, can haz rain later.

    Over

  208. says

    PS The reason I stick with M$ is Dreamweaver & Adobe master 5.5 doesn’t have a Linux version, az far az I can tell.

  209. says

    scifi stopped even pretending to try some time ago. Coming into a forum of scientifically iterate folk and tossing off a NON-quotation from Gould? Good grief that’s feeble, even for a creationist.

    My dog puts more effort into farting. And it conveys more useful information when it farts than scifi puts into a post.

  210. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    Oh My! I have a happy! I am going to hell. GAWD knows I need a holiday!

    Dude [Ed: ce moi, theophontes!], you are not half as funny as you think you are. If you’re going to trash our faith, at least make it funny or interesting. Might as well get a laugh out of it before you spend your afterlife in the Lake that burns with fire and brimstone where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
    Just sayin….

    Teh Blaze is tres droll.
    …

    @mikmik

    My suggestion:

    1. Functionally there is no real difference between Ubuntu and Mint (Mint is based on Ubuntu, which is the biggest and most popular flavour of Linux).
    2. Don’t dual boot (The Pope has determined Immersion is best).
    3. Install Ubuntu/Mint and then add a virtual machine (I recommend Virtualbox)
    4. Install your favourite flavour of windo$e on the virtul machine.
    5. Add all that other stuff.
    6. Enjoy.

  211. chigau (違う) says

    So what does this Pope Juglans business have to do with the Power Structure™ of TZT?

  212. says

    myeck waters = My dog puts more effort into farting. And it conveys more useful information when it farts than scifi puts into a post.

    I can’t smell the difference, actually. I admire your dog’s honesty, however.
    – – –
    consciousness razor:

    Whoah, hold on everybody. Don’t make any sudden moves. When I empapinated myself long ago as Pope Zombie XVI, LILAPWL revealed this prophesy:

    VERILY THEN IT HAS COME TO PASS

    FOR IT WAS PROPHESIED

    THE NEXT TO LAST POPE WOULD BE ZOMBIE XVI

    HARK SINNERS FOR THE END OF THIS SUBTHREAD IS NIGH

    VERILY VERILY VERILY VERILY LIFE IS BUT A DREAM

    FOLLOWED BY AN ETERNAL NIGHTMARE

    Fighting out of the red corner, we have theophontes (坏蛋):

    @ CR
    A depapination? That sounds really exciting. Just what we need to push up our ratings on FtB!

    referee = “Deduct one point from your scorecards for a pap smear below the belt!”

    chigau (違う) = “Look, white smoke coming out of the chimney!”

    myeck waters’ dog = “B-r-r-f-f-f-t!”
    – – –

    mikmik = I can haz Linux and Gate$!
    I just bought Virtual Machine software, which I see runs on MATE Mint(debian) and Ubuntu. Alas, I do learning many nonsenses at sckoolz and muchly tek workz, and all my kitteh’s haz windoze in litter box.

    But, my laptop can haz cheezy OS, and I may go dualism for a philosophy on moi plateau. Ubuntu would run way quicker, and host windose very fast izzit! But, alas, that would make me a libertarian with a free OS will that is virtual.

    OH SIGH, FFS!

  213. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ chigau

    According to my new books: “Opression for Beginners: A Tardigrade’s Guide” and “Dictatorship Made Easy”, the repressive state apparatus (RSA) works best if it is set up as a triumvirate. To wit : State Dictatorship (that’s us! kewl huh?;), Religion, Military. If we can put AR in charge of the LOLstar that will cover the whole military aspect. That just leaves an opening in “Religion”. Now we just have to decide whether SG (Teh Pope) or CR (Teh Anti-pope) gets top spot. We gotta be careful, what with that whole XVI prophecy thingy hanging over our future.

    According to both books we need an “external enemy” to blame our failings on. This might require a “declaration of war”, whatever that is. I hope it doesn’t eat into the budget.

  214. says

    Dude [Ed: ce moi, theophontes!], you are not half as funny as you think you are. If you’re going to trash our faith, at least make it funny or interesting.

    Your faith is fucking hilarious enough on its own.

    You want fucking comedy?
    Atheist versus Christian

  215. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    mikmik,

    If you want a virtual machine, no problem, but there ain’t nothing to fear about dual booting. If you decide to dual boot just be sure you install Linux after Windows.

    As for Mint or Ubuntu, the current Ubuntu release is planned to receive long-term support (LTS), so you could safely and securely go almost five years without doing a whole distribution upgrade or reinstallation.

    Dist-upgrades are apparently seamless for some people, but I don’t like ’em. Too many moving parts. So I would recommend Ubuntu 12.04.

    +++++

    So what does this Pope Juglans business have to do with the Power Structure™ of TZT?

    All I know is the Antipope Zombie XVI must be gotten rid of.

    Unfortunately I do not expect that an icepick will have much effect on a zombie. Perhaps a sufficiently clever logic bomb can convince him to eat his own brain.

    +++++

    You can now get them in supermarkets everywhere

    WTF.

    They are selling the chaosecrated host in supermarkets? This is an affront to the faith. They should only be sold by mail order, through our religious supply franchise stores at 1000% markup.

    Well, Your Papiness, I have prepared a very learned screed for just such an eventuality.

    Excellent! Consuming the chaosecrated host has done stimulated your brainz, I see.

    Fortunately for them, they all will have a second chance to see the truth and change their ways before their final destination.

    Hear that, consciousness razor? Repent now! Your intransigence is only delaying the inevitable apatopocalype.

  216. A. R says

    theophontes: The Dictatorial Guard and Inquisitori will not become involved in this dispute. Please resolve it soon.

  218. Owlmirror says

    According to both books we need an “external enemy” to blame our failings on.

    Yes, it’s that external enemy’s fault that an external enemy is lacking. Darn that external enemy to heck!

    Say, maybe I should volunteer?

    I certainly don’t want to be Pope. Everyone and their doG wants to be Pope. I want to be a Heresiarch. Whoever wins the Pope fight, I will be a heretic to their church: I advocate and preach brontosaurusless Philosophical Zombie Jesus-ism, and quantum Boltzmannbrontosaurusism.

    I stand against you all! You are all wrong on the Internetz!!!!…!!!

  219. A. R says

    Owlmirror: I must warn you of the vast military and intelligence capability that will be at the disposal of the Pope once this is settled. The LOLstar with its compliment of LOLdestroyers and LOLtroopers is quite a force.

  220. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    I advocate and preach brontosaurusless Philosophical Zombie Jesus-ism, and quantum Boltzmannbrontosaurusism.

    Shit, I got in on the wrong side of this thing. I better doublepope myself, and start the One Wholly Caffeinated Stochastic Church of Quantum Boltzmannbrontosaurusism.

    We teach that quantum boltzmannbrontosaurusism is the simplest church because quanta are simple. So simple they are mysterious.

  221. Owlmirror says

    I better doublepope myself, and start the One Wholly Caffeinated Stochastic Church of Quantum Boltzmannbrontosaurusism.

    We teach that quantum boltzmannbrontosaurusism is the simplest church because quanta are simple. So simple they are mysterious.

    NOOOOO! I can’t be a Heresiarch if we’re teaching the same damn thing! That would just make me another damn AntiPope!

    OK, I’m going to teach and advocate quantum Boltzmanngiantlandmegalodon.

    I must warn you of the vast military and intelligence capability that will be at the disposal of the Pope once this is settled. The LOLstar with its compliment of LOLdestroyers and LOLtroopers is quite a force.

    The LOLstar will receive a knock on the door.

    CANDYGRAM FOR MISTER MONGO!

  222. A. R says

    [A. R. wipes soot off of his uniform.]

    Weapons officer, target Owlmirror, low yield blast, one LOLcat only, fire when ready.

    [WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOO]
    [BAM!!!]

  223. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    Pffffff.

    Boltzmanngiantlandmegalodonism is like Dianetics or Mormonism, it’s so obviously contrived.

    Spontaneous sauropod speaks to the soul. You know it’s true.

  224. consciousness razor says

    I better doublepope myself

    You see? He’s clearly an imposter and a heretic! According to the prophesy, I’m the penultimate pope, so no true pope which came after me could be a doublepope, since he would need to be counted twice, making for one more pope than was prophesied which is impossible. I speak with infallibility, so I should know. Anyone loyal to the Reformed Eleventieth Church of Zombie, Scientismist, must eat his brains on sight, even if you just ate and aren’t very hungry.

    A.R.: Keep up the good work. The Church’s 73rd space-flotilla will arrive shortly with a legion of my best robots to guard the LOLstar and handle some of the extra paperwork.

  225. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    Nope!

    According to the John Pauli principle, a doublepope would contain one pope and one antipope.

    We just don’t know yet which is which.

  226. Amphiox says

    So what would happen if a pope and an antipope come into contact?

    Will they annihilate each other is a flash of pure energy?

    (Is this the secret power source for the LOLstar’s main gun?)

  227. A. R says

    It would seem that this religious dispute has gotten a bit out of hand. I am preparing to land 10,000 LOLtroopers. I encourage the disputants to reconsider their positions.

    Amphiox: No, though the LOLstar derrives power from multiple sources, (including a Cat/toast device, a Stormtroopers vs. Redshirts device, etc.) the prime weapon is powered by a device that draws on the sheer stupidity of trolls and slimepiters. In fact, it is the only mechanism that can generate enough power to operate the weapon. We just ran out of the power derived from Raj, but that weird Yahya video PZ posted a day or two ago has nearly overloaded the storage batteries.

  228. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    We know that Jesus was a raptor, which makes him closer related to brontosauruses than any shark, terrestrial or otherwise.

    QED

    So what would happen if a pope and an antipope come into contact?

    Will they annihilate each other is a flash of pure energy?

    Are you saying I shouldn’t touch myself? (That sounds like something a pope would say.)

  229. cm's changeable moniker says

    Pitbull:

    According to the John Pauli principle, a doublepope would contain one pope and one antipope.

    John Pauli II’s exclusion principle prevents them ever meeting, though …

    the inevitable apatopocalype

    Oooh! So close! Capitalise Apatopocalypse, and you’d have won the internetz!!

    (Owlmirror, regardless of your doctrinal position, I’m going to brand you a heretic for using Brontosaurus. Even Stephen Jay Gould could have told you this was wrong. /scifi)

    —

    theo:

    Dude [Ed: ce moi, theophontes!]

    C’est moi. People called Romanes, they go the house?

    You need a grave and a circumflex on très drôle, too. :)

    —

    add a virtual machine (I recommend VirtualBox)

    I absolutely second this recommendation.

    —

    A. R, thanks for the port from the port. Sadly there was none left to pass. [hic]

  230. says

    health update:

    had another dentistry appointment on Tuesday. Apparently, I was experiencing a Dry Socket, which the dentist fixed it by “watering” it, stuffing stuff (with clove-something; I wasn’t paying attention to that part of the explanation, being on the lookout for information as to whether that was going to be a painful procedure, instead) into it, and taping it over. I’m supposed to pull the tape out tomorrow or Friday, or come back if I can’t bring myself to pull the tape out myself.

    So far, that seems to have been effective. I’m off pain-killers entirely, since the remaining soreness in negligible. Also, the assorted other pains also disappeared, meaning I’m going to stick with my previous theory on where all these pains came from

    :-)

  231. says

    test


    Ing




    This is a test:




    Is this a test?








    Zo, theez eez sumtink?


    I have tons of work, school, and installing to do, so I discovered how to make blank lines so we don’t have to use periods!
    Not only that, but you can go to this page HTML Codes, and even better, you can bookmark it to load as a sidebar! Add this page as a Sidebar/Panel

    Oh, you can add rel=”sidebar” to any anchor text. This gives the idea of, oh, let’s say you want to link to some comment somewhere, but the hassle of opening it into a new tab is just so much work. mikmik scaring thunderf00t!

    Fuck, eet didn’t work!!!!!!!!!!! But, you just add the html code for carriage return or space and you get a blank line. At the page, you can bookmark it to open in the sidepanel, and for some reason, it must have javascript to make it do the ‘load in sidepanel’ when bookmarked. It must be easy to do some stuff like this as bookmarklets, so I’ll add it to my todo list.

    First, though, I’m gonna install OSX Kitteh and kill several birds with one stun. Linux:Winslowz = resolved. Internal:External enemy = fuck you fanboyzzzzzzzz, apple rulezzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!!!!!

    Oh yeah, I’m to lazy to run for Poop right now, I’ll wait for the LILAPWT gratificational force to collapse the PapPauli exclusive prince Ippel, first.

  232. Owlmirror says

    (Owlmirror, regardless of your doctrinal position, I’m going to brand you a heretic for using Brontosaurus. Even Stephen Jay Gould could have told you this was wrong. /scifi)

    Ha! I teach and advocate Brontosaurusless Philolsophical Zombie Jesus, and BoltzmannLandMegalodonism. There is no Brontosaurus, so I can’t be using it!

    Boltzmanngiantlandmegalodonism is like Dianetics or Mormonism, it’s so obviously contrived.

    You’re just mad because you know that BoltzmannLandMegalodon can snack on your silly sauropod.

    Spontaneous sauropod speaks to the soul.

    My soul can’t hear anything speak just now; it’s to busy listening to the theme of Jaws at thunderclap-loudness. Would spontaneous sauropod like to leave a message? Maybe “OHPLEASENOHELPHELPNOGOAWAYSHARK” ?

  233. cm's changeable moniker says

    Ermm. Right, mikmik. Erm …

    This Is Just To Say

    I have eaten
    the plums
    that were in
    the icebox

    and which
    you were probably
    saving
    for breakfast

    Forgive me
    they were delicious
    so sweet
    and so cold

    — William Carlos Williams

    *Toodlepip all!*

  234. chigau (違う) says

    Whatever.
    You folks figure out your hierarchy.
    I’m still 2ICBDFL (or whatever it was) and I still don’t have my uniform :(

  235. Sophia Dodds says

    Ah, popes. Always reminds me of high school, where myself and the rest of the social misfits drifted together and formed the Sisterhood of I am a Fish. I was the Almighty Penguin, my friend was the Poop (Pope). We attracted a lot of people who otherwise wouldn’t have had many friends and spent lunchtimes engaging in all sorts of ridiculous banter and mockery of the nastier specimens of the popular girls.

    Good times :)

  236. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    [blurt &apology;]

    Instead of keeping a blog, I carry around a notebook, in which I write various screeds, rants, and, like, wry little observations ( I guess they used to call such a thing a”log”). I have identified a short list of essays, diatribes, notes and briefs which I had planned to write, but know now that I’m just not going to. But because I am solipsistic, I want them to live forever on the Internet. If one of these topics interests you, it’s yours.

    •Nobody Ever Really Wins a Fight Against a Dog.
    •Photosynthesis is the Most Important Thing That Has Ever Happened
    •Hoaxes Perpetrated By Idiots Are Still Hoaxes
    •Free Will is Moot. Or Not.
    •The Best Snack Ideas That I Have Ever Had in Gas Stations and Convenience Stores
    •PreDarwinian Evolutionary Thinkers
    •The Cracker Barrel™: An Aptly Named Culinary Experience
    •A Pound of Walnuts is Too Many Walnuts: Tannins, Herbivory, and You
    •On the Overappreciation of Cheeses
    •Why Libertarianism is Stupid and Dangerous
    •Mr. Miyagi: Far Wiser and More Compassionate Than Yoda
    •Christmas Sucks
    •Does It Matter if Jesus Really Existed or Not?
    •Group Selection and Communism: Working it on Paper
    •Is My Anti-social Nature Compatible with My Nominal Socialism?
    •My Favorite Reasons To Hate Def Leppard
    •Lots of Things Run Poorly When Run Like Businesses, Including Many Businesses
    •Let’s Parse My Credit Card Policy
    •Genghis Khan: Defying the Asian Stereotype

  237. scifi says

    PZ Myer,
    “No, most definitely not. That’s the antithesis of what Gould would have said. He called himself a pluralist, and by that he meant that he emphasized the multiple mechanisms driving evolutionary change.

    Par for the course, I guess, that a creationist wouldn’t know what the hell he was talking about.”

    PZ, I got this from Karen Armstrong’s book, The Case for God. She got it from Stephen Jay Gould, Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (London, 2001) P. 6.
    Here is what she said word for word:
    “Stephen Jay Gould followed Monod in his discussion of the implications of evolution. Everything. in the natural world could indeed be explained by natural selection, but Gould insisted that science was not competent to decide whether God did or did not exist, because it could work only with natural explanations. Gould had no religious ax to grind; he described himself as an atheistically inclined agnostic but point out that Darwin himself had denied he was an atheist and that other eminent Darwinians–Asa Gray, Charles D. Walcott, G. G. Simpson, and Theodosius Dobzhansky–had been either practicing Christians or agnostics. Atheism did not, therefore, seem to be a necessary consequence of accepting evolutionary theory, and Darwinians who held forth dogmatically on the subject were stepping beyond the limitations that were proper to science. Gould also revived, in new form, the ancient distinction and complementarity of mythos and logos in what he called NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria). A “magisterium,” he explained, was “a domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools, for meaningful discourse and resolution. Religion and science were separate magisteria and should not encroach on each others domain.
    (The magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what is the universe made of (fact)and why does it work this way (theory)? The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry”)
    The idea of an inherent conflict between religion and science was false. They were two distinct magisteria that “hold equal worth and necessary status for any complete human life: and…remain logically distinct and fully separate in line of inquiry.
    But the new atheists will have none of this, and in his somewhat immoderate way, Dawkins denounces Gould as a quisling. They adhere to a hard-line form of scientific naturalism that mirrors the fundamentalism on which they base their critique: atheism is always a rejection of and parasitically dependent on a particular form of theism. The work of the new atheists has been exhaustively criticized, notably by John F. Haught, Alister McGrath, and John Cornwell. Like all religious fundamentalists, the new atheists believe that they alone are in possession of truth; like Christian fundamentalists, they read scripture in an entirely literal manner and seem never to have heard of the long tradition of allegoric or Talmudic interpretation or indeed of the Higher Criticism.”

    BTW, your accusing me of being a Creationist is getting long in the tooth because it is a false accusation. I am firstly an agnostic and find it amusing that both the theist and atheist believe their belief is correct the correct or orthodox one, i.e, the theists believes the universe was started by a creator, the atheist says, no, no, no, it was started by natural means and that a creator god doesn’t exist. Both are very Smug in their views which, like I said, amuses me because neither one can show the evidence to prove their position. Both are basing it on FAITH.

  239. says

    You’re quote Karen Fucking Armstrong to tell me what Gould thought?

    Here’s Gould himself, you dishonest moron:

    The “pluralists,” on the other hand—a long line of thinkers including Darwin himself, however ironic this may seem since the fundamentalists use the cloak of his name for their distortion of his position—accept natural selection as a paramount principle (truly primus inter pares), but then argue that a set of additional laws, as well as a large role for history’s unpredictable contingencies, must also be invoked to explain the basic patterns and regularities of the evolutionary pathways of life. Both sides locate the “grandeur” of “this view of life” in the explanation of complex and particular outcomes by general principles, but ultra-Darwinian fundamentalists pursue one true way, while pluralists seek to identify a set of interacting explanatory modes, all fully intelligible, although not reducible to a single grand principle like natural selection.

    I don’t give a flying goddamn what Karen Vapor-For-Brains Armstrong said. She’s a vacuous bliss-ninny who probably never read a word Gould wrote outside of Rocks of Ages.

  240. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    I am firstly an agnostic

    No, you are a theist. You believe in a creator. That is a theist or deist stance. Agnostic would mean you don’t believe in a creator, and wouldn’t throw a snit-fit when we call your creator imaginary. Consistency isn’t they name…

    I am firstly an agnostic

    There is no case for god, as there is no conclusive physical evidence for one. God isn’t mental wanking. God is real if it exists. The realm of science, not sophistry.

    Both are basing it on FAITH.

    No, no faith, as without evidence the creator not existing is a CONCLUSION and fact.

  242. consciousness razor says

    Karen Armstrong’s book is less useful than toilet paper. Why should we care what it says? You may as well quote the Bible or one of your favorite books about NDEs. If the claims are false, what is the point of doing it? You need to cite evidence, not books.

    Everything. [sic?] in the natural world could indeed be explained by natural selection, but Gould insisted that science was not competent to decide whether God did or did not exist, because it could work only with natural explanations.

    It is not the case that everything in the natural world could be explained by natural selection. Some biological and almost all non-biological phenomena could not be explained by any kind of evolutionary selection process.

    NOMA is a load of bullshit. What do you think would be an example of a religion having something valuable to offer about “questions of ultimate meaning and moral value”?

  243. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Can I ban scifi for stupidity? Huh, can I, can I?

    It’s your blog. *makes sign of banhammer*

    Screwed up my copypasta for the second blockquote in #240. It was supposed to show Armstrong and her book of baaaaad sophistry.

  246. chigau (違う) says

    Jadehawk
    My brother solved his tooth problems by having them all pulled.

  248. scifi says

    conscious razer,

    “Karen Armstrong’s book is less useful than toilet paper. Why should we care what it says? You may as well quote the Bible or one of your favorite books about NDEs. If the claims are false, what is the point of doing it? You need to cite evidence, not books.”

    Just as I thought. This blog is a wasteland of closed minds. I rest my case.

    Nerd of a redhead,
    “Can I ban scifi for stupidity?”

    If there is anyone that should be banned for stupidity, you should be the first to go.

  250. scifi says

    PZ
    “Jeez, but I despise lying pseudoscholars. Can I ban scifi for stupidity? Huh, can I, can I?”

    Jeez PZ, you are as dumb as the rest of your cheer leading bullshitters. I haven’t seen an intelligent response from you yet. I have watched your lectures and find them nothing more than arrogant rants from someone who thinks he knows it all, but, in reality, knows little. You would be smart to take some knowledge from Socrates.

  252. A. R says

    [Exasperated parent sigh]

    Yes, PZ, you may banhammer Scifi. Just don’t make a mess all over the new carpeting.

  255. consciousness razor says

    Just as I thought. This blog is a wasteland of closed minds. I rest my case.

    I’d have no problem if you gave it a rest.

    What exactly do you think I’m being closed minded about? I responded to the claim that everything natural could be explained by natural selection. Was I not supposed to do that? Are you going to acknowledge that the claim is false?

    Would you answer my question about Armstrong’s claim about religion/NOMA?

  259. chigau (違う) says

    SamStrange
    Yeah. I think you need something a little more butch.
    (can I still use “butch”?)
    Cary Grant?
    Errol Flynn?

  261. scifi says

    Conscious razer,
    ““Karen Armstrong’s book is less useful than toilet paper.”

    This comment says it all. I have read a number of her books and they are well researched and extremely well written. It is obvious to me that you have never really read any of her books and, instead have closed your mind to her because what she has to say doesn’t fall into your neat little atheist universe. As soon as you read her name, you closed your mind and did not read what I quoted from her on Stephen Jay Gould.

  262. says

    This comment says it all. I have read a number of her books and they are well researched and extremely well written. It is obvious to me that you have never really read any of her books and, instead have closed your mind to her because what she has to say doesn’t fall into your neat little atheist universe. As soon as you read her name, you closed your mind and did not read what I quoted from her on Stephen Jay Gould.

    YEAH YOU HEARD WHAT SHE SAID ABOUT GOULD!? WHO ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE!? HER OR THAT HACK GOULD!?

  263. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    You would be smart to take some knowledge from Socrates.

    “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.”

  264. chigau (違う) says

    copy and paste
    consciousness razor
    not
    Conscious razer
    unless you attempting “witty”, in which case you need to work on it.

  267. consciousness razor says

    I have read a number of her books and they are well researched and extremely well written.

    This is either not well-researched or it is not well-written:

    Everything. in the natural world could indeed be explained by natural selection.

    Pick one or the other. It cannot be both. She either wrote an incredibly misleading statement even though she knew better, or she herself did not realize how incredibly stupid a statement it is because she didn’t research Gould’s views well enough (except, perhaps, well enough to get the gist of his bullshit about NOMA). This is a blatantly, mind-bogglingly stupid thing to say. Do you understand that? Do you understand that fucking Stephen Jay Gould was not in the habit of saying blatantly, mind-boggingly stupid things?

  271. says

    As soon as you read her name, you closed your mind and did not read what I quoted from her on Stephen Jay Gould.

    Actually, it was seeing your ‘nym that put me off first.
    Having prior experience with reading your comments, at this point I just mentally substitute “blah blah blah blah” for whatever you write and scroll down to see if anyone interesting has commented.

  272. John Morales says

    scifi belongs in the dungeon.

    (Also, it’s a wannabe pseudoscholar, at best)

  275. scifi says

    Conscious razor,
    “Do you understand that fucking Stephen Jay Gould was not in the habit of saying blatantly, mind-boggingly stupid things?”

    Thank you. You just made my point. I stand by what I quoted. All you have to do is stop and THINK instead of being stuck within a your narrow atheist viewpoint to find that what was quoted of Gould makes a whole lot of sense. Your narrow thinking is no better than the narrow thinking of theists. Neither one has evidence to support their beliefs.

  277. consciousness razor says

    Thank you. You just made my point.

    hahaha, what’s your point?

    I stand by what I quoted.

    Because you’re an idiot, but if that’s what you want to do, be my fucking guest. So what is your point, exactly?

    Your narrow thinking is no better than the narrow thinking of theists. Neither one has evidence to support their beliefs.

    What the fuck do you think you know about my “thinking” or how “narrow” it is?

  279. Amphiox says

    I wonder if shiffy realizes that PZ’s opinion of Karen Armstrong was formed by reading her books, and IIRC, he has actually blogged about her writings in the old Sciblogs site.

    shiffy has, of course, circled back again to another set of its same old pitifully dishonest and already-discredited arguments, again ignoring all the responses that had previously been given to it in the past (and this is even if we give it the benefit of the doubt regarding sockpuppetry and exclude all the replies given to the zombie Shiloh (SSSOOOUUULLLLSSS….)).

    Though I must say, by trying an fallacy from authority using Armstrong as an authority on Gould to support a fallacy from authority using a deliberate misinterpretation of Gould, while simultaneously dismissing and refusing to acknowledge a direct quote from Gould himself as an authority on Gould, shiffy has managed the almost inconceivable feat of topping itself in intellectual dishonesty.

    Please ban this pathetic liar’s ass, PZ.

  281. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ Owlmirror

    You are now officially: Public Enemy Number One.
    A spiffing new uniform is being mailed to you as we speak.

    @ cm’s

    Je parlez ne pas Francaise, je parlez Argot – QUA!

    @ chigau

    Still overcast.

    @ Sophia Dodds

    Welcome on TZT, where the world is your oyster.

    ….

    Re: scifi

    It would have been nice to see scifi in a cagefight with a godbot. Some things are just meant not to be. *sigh*

    {gives thumbs down sign}

    [meta] TZT is merely a purgatory, not a free pass for life, eventually the inmate is either redeemed or banhammered. (Anyhow, Socrates would only put so much energy into people who refuse to learn – before sending them on their way.)

  284. Sophia Dodds says

    theophontes:

    Thankyou. Apt metaphor too, I detest oysters but can see their culinary relevance to other people :P

    I’m torn on banning scifi, it’s a persistent one. Now that raj has mooched off into the ether the chewtoys are getting a little thin on the ground.

  287. says

    So I have a question.

    My girlfriend doesn’t think that focusing on pronouns is all that important to the feminist cause. Is she a sexist too?

  288. consciousness razor says

    My girlfriend doesn’t think that focusing on pronouns is all that important to the feminist cause. Is she a sexist too?

    Dismissing something which perpetuates sexism by comparing it to things which you (or someone else) think is more “important,” for whatever reason, is sexist. I don’t think it matters whether anyone considers her “a sexist,” but that is a sexist thing to do.

    What you did isn’t just about “pronouns” anyway, as you made explicit.

  289. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    You’re just mad because you know that BoltzmannLandMegalodon can snack on your silly sauropod.

    Can not!

    Because your hypothetical megalodon would be more massive than my actual factual* brontosaurus, a Boltzmann megalodon is less likely to spontaneously exist.

    This is why the Boltzmannbrontosaurusism is true; a Boltzmann brontosaurus is the simplest** of all Boltzmann entities!

    +++++
    *proof of his existence: he caused Noah’s flood because the others were fucking snobs who wouldn’t let him join in any dinosaur games.

    **okay, simplest which is also worth recognizing as a god!

  290. says

    @consciousness razor

    What I made explicit is that there are more important things to focus on. I did not say that grammar is irrelevant. I said that there are more important issues and that focusing on smaller stuff makes people switch off because they think it is petty. That does not mean that it is petty. It just means that people stop listening to what you have to say.

  291. says

    My girlfriend doesn’t think that focusing on pronouns is all that important to the feminist cause. Is she a sexist too?

    she’s enabling sexism.

    what’s “a sexist”? (as in: “a sexist” as opposed to what, realistically speaking? seeing as there are no non-sexist people?)

  292. says

    @Jadehawk

    How do you define a feminist? My girlfriend considers herself a feminist and is active in the community, volunteers for Planned Parenthood, etc. Is she not a feminist because she does not agree with you on every single issue?

  293. says

    What I made explicit is that there are more important things to focus on.

    and you base this on what, other than it being apparently a popular opinion in your social circle?

    focusing on smaller stuff makes people switch off because they think it is petty.

    and you base this on what, other than it being apparently a popular opinion in your social circle?

    and specifically, can you show that more people are turned off, both in the short-term and in the long-term, than actually listen and work to minimize these micro-aggressions/contribution to the maintenance and creation of sexist bias in society?

  294. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    jamesmacdonald, how about you try responding to what Jadehawk actually said, instead of a Strawhawk?

  295. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    James, when your fucking girlfriend (whom I feel sorry for, if your performance in your last thread was in any way representative of your character and approach to life) comes to talk to us about her views in this thread, her sexism may be relevant. Right now, you’re trying ineptly to use her as a shield for your shitty arguments, and you’re shooting yourself in the foot by doing so.

  297. says

    @Jadehawk

    I base it on the same thing you base your assertion on: experience. Is it a peer reviewed study? No. Then again, neither is your claim.

    How exactly do you plan to make people use gender neutral pronouns? Personally, I don’t think shouting them down and calling them sexist is the way to go.

  298. says

    @Jadehawk

    I think a sexist is someone who doesn’t believe in gender equality. I’m sure you have an extremely nuanced definition that is the correct definition, though.

  299. says

    I base it on the same thing you base your assertion on: experience.

    in other words you have no grounds on which to refute me, since your experience doesn’t trump mine.

    How exactly do you plan to make people use gender neutral pronouns? Personally, I don’t think shouting them down and calling them sexist is the way to go.

    watch me not care about your personal, unsupported opinion. considering that “shouting”* and pointing out sexism is exactly what lead to gender-neutral terms and loss of support for gendered slurs here on Pharyngula, and is having a similar effect in some meatspace communities, I see no reason not to continue with what works, unless shown evidence that it works less than it causes harm.

    – – – – –
    *you’re using that word wrong, btw.

  300. Emrysmyrddin says

    mythbri summed it up well in the Drama thread at #401. I shall re-paste so you don’t have to go to the trouble of scrolling back through your embarrassment.

    mythbri
    27 June 2012 at 7:21 pm

    @jamesmacdonald

    This is why it’s frustrating to try to have discussions about advanced feminist concepts with people who refuse to even grok the basic premise (that women are people who deserve to be treated as such). It’s like trying to discuss literary criticism with someone who’s still trying to understand what a metaphor is. It’s like trying to work through a calculus problem with someone who’s still pre-algebra. It’s like trying to discuss genetic sequencing with someone who still hasn’t learned basic cell structure. There are basic feminist concepts that inform discussion of more advanced concepts, and it seems impossible to move forward when people without a basic understanding quibble about the advanced stuff.

    You are wandering into a Bigfoot thread without seeing the Patterson-Gimli film, traipsing into a discussion of homeopathy with the cry “But it’s just herbal medicine, amirite?”, tripping over yourself into a talk on stem cells with the notion that they’re made from dead babies.

    If you aren’t JAQ’ing off, go and take a look at a feww things I’ve provided below, think about what you have learned, and then come back to the table like a grown-up.

    On the existence of ‘chill girls’

    On ‘my wife/girlfriend/black friend/gay friend/token pal sez nuh-uh!’

    On ‘I think, as someone who’s just butt in to the conversation without bothering to educate myself on the issues first, that you’re Doing It Wrong’

    Aaaaaand finally, the biggest cluebat of all.

    These links are not the be-all and end-all. They are the start of your education. Fly, my pretty. Grow your brain before mine explodes. Why am I angry? Maybe after a little reading you’ll work it out.

  302. Amphiox says

    So, jamesmacdonald pulls out the old “but my girlfriend/wife/sister/mother/aunt/female-acquaintance-of-undefined-providence” gambit.

    Predictable as clockwork.

    Sheesh. Do these misogynists every thinking of saying something new? Are they even capable of such a degree of independent thought? No different from the creationists with their endless spinning wheel of repeated rhetorical tricks.

    Unsurprising, really, since it is the same authoritarian mindset underpinning both.

    Quite pitiful, too.

  303. says

    @Emrysmyrddin

    Before I go any further with you, feel free to acknowledge that you attributed something to me that I did not say, and then you proceeded to rage while doing so.

    Cheers.

  304. Sophia Dodds says

    To reiterate what people are saying – nobody is free of sexism, because no society on earth has a system in which all genders are equal. We all do sexist things.
    This is not to say we are ‘sexists’, just that even the most militantly self-reflectively aware person who supports the feminist cause will, on occasion, slip up and do something sexist.

    In other words, we all do dumb things. What separates the allies form the stupids is how we deal with criticism when it’s aimed at us. Stupids get defensive, deflect attention away from the topic, nitpick and generally ignore the first rule of holes. Allies accept the criticism, re-examine their own prejudices and make sure that their position is a tenable one.

    It’s possible for such criticisms to be mistaken, but you can only determine this by genuine and non-defensive self reflection.

    So yes – your girlfriend is doing a sexist thing when using male pronouns as default, but it’s only a problem if she refuses to consider that it is, in fact, sexist.

  305. Emrysmyrddin says

    And, yes, james, I was specifically referring to you in the other thread when I was talking about ‘cunt’ being gendered, because I used your name in the post, because it’s not like we’ve been avalanched with the piss-poor excuse that ‘it’s OK, we’re English’ all throughout the thread AND previous threads ad nauseum.

    Oh, wait. I didn’t and we have. Well, fuck me. Comprehension, much?

  306. adamgordon says

    I said that there are more important issues and that focusing on smaller stuff makes people switch off because they think it is petty

    You have no evidence for this claim.

    NONE.

  307. Emrysmyrddin says

    Pronouns are important. Slurs are important. You failed on the pronouns and then after my post you failed on the slurs. Go read, idiot.

  308. says

    @Jadehawk

    Look at Amphiox’s post. This is precisely why this particular section of the community is gradually turning into a caricature of feminism. I’m suddenly a misogynist for questioning whether time is better spent on issues more important than how we use our pronouns.

    I mean, really?

  309. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    How exactly do you plan to make people use gender neutral pronouns? Personally, I don’t think shouting them down and calling them sexist is the way to go.

    Did it work on you or didn’t it?
    Since you “already admitted” to being wrong for assuming hotshoe was a man because she was “aggressive”, are you going to work on not assuming people’s genders (through the use of gender-neutral pronouns or other means) in online conversations or not?

  310. says

    @adamgordon

    That there are more important issues than pronouns? I didn’t think something so obvious required evidence. I think sexual harassment is more important. Don’t you?

    By the way, where is your evidence? I see a lot of people asking me for evidence, but I don’t see much being provided for their claims.

  311. says

    I think a sexist is someone who doesn’t believe in gender equality.

    then implying that anyone suggested or implied that you or your girfriend sexists is a strawman. you do both however enable sexism.

    and anyway, since mind-reading is not possible, we can never really know if someone is sexist; and if we took people’s stated beliefs at face value, there would be virtually no sexists left. and yet, there still would be all this sexism in our culture, apparently perpetrated by non-sexists. how is that a useful definition?

    I’m sure you have an extremely nuanced definition that is the correct definition, though.
    of course I have a “nuanced” definition of the word. that’s what it means to be past the sociology 101 level. the question is, why don’t you?

  312. Emrysmyrddin says

    You’re tramping in with size elevens asserting that We’re Doing It Wrong in a subject you clearly have no experience in. Yeah, really. You don’t get to set the argument, because it is clear that you don’t have a clue.

  314. says

    @Cipher

    I didn’t admit I was wrong because you pointed it out. I’m fully aware of the fact that we all say things that are sexist, oftentimes without being conscious of it. I do try to avoid it and will continue to. That does not change the fact that I think focusing that issue right now is counterproductive.

    You can agree or disagree, but it’s silly to say that I’m being a misogynist, as some have said.

  316. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    jamesmacdonald, the idea that you’re a misogynist probably comes from reading more of your posts on the previous thread too.

    I’d say it’s a coin flip. There’s a lot of stuff you’ve said which makes you sound like an obvious misogynist.

  317. adamgordon says

    You’re tramping in with size elevens asserting that We’re Doing It Wrong in a subject you clearly have no experience in.

    But but but he’s totally been involved with the field of Sociology before! How could he possibly be wrong?

  318. consciousness razor says

    What I made explicit is that there are more important things to focus on.

    You made it explicit that you were basing your assumption the commenter was male on a lot of sexist fucking shit about women not being aggressive. Does it sound like this is about fucking pronouns now, asshole?

  319. says

    @Jadehawk

    We don’t enable sexism. We simply burn more fuel on issues we feel matter more. And as I have said, I think focusing on grammar is in some ways counterproductive right now. That does not mean that it should never be addressed, however.

  320. says

    That does not change the fact that I think focusing that issue right now is counterproductive.

    focusing on this issue, right now, in this conversation, is counterprodutive to what, exactly? what other supposedly more productive conversation could we be having with you? the one about how horrible it was that rebecca watson mixed up two people who called her two different sexist things?

  321. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    I didn’t admit I was wrong because you pointed it out.

    Oh, really? If no one had mentioned that it was sexist of you to assume hotshoe was a man, you wouldn’t have blithely kept on referring to her as “he.” Which is totally backed up by the fact that when initially questioned about it, you responded that you’d put money on it.

  322. says

    @conscious razor

    That is not what I said, razor. And any objective observer knows that is not what I said. I said repeatedly that men are generally more aggressive. I also said that women are clearly capable of being aggressive and sometimes can be more aggressive than men. But on average, men tend to act more aggressively.

  324. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    We don’t enable sexism. We simply burn more fuel on issues we feel matter more.

    Like telling feminists who care about microaggressions to STFU about it.
    Awesome.
    I’m so glad you’re on our side!!11

  325. says

    @Cipher

    I said I would put money on it. I didn’t say that I would keep doing it. In other words I was saying, ‘If I had to guess…’

    As far as whether I actually would have kept doing it, I can’t honestly say. I don’t catch myself doing it perhaps as often as I should.

  327. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    We don’t enable sexism.

    You do; you’re doing it right now. What we don’t know clearly is whether your girlfriend thinks you’re doing something useful right now, or whether you just asked her whether she thinks harassment or gendered pronouns are more important and then you jumped to a bunch of other non sequitur conclusions from her reply.

    We simply burn more fuel on issues we feel matter more.

    This is almost certainly a lie. You’re burning a lot of fuel on this already. I’d like to see you link to some other discussion online, anywhere, where you’ve spent more energy on some other issue of sexism.

    And as I have said, I think focusing on grammar is in some ways counterproductive right now. That does not mean that it should never be addressed, however.

    Yet for some reason you’re acting right now like it never should be addressed.

  328. Sophia Dodds says

    Right. So because there are women being harrassed on a large scale, everywhere, we shouldn’t talk about smaller issues that are relevant to us, here and now.

    Sure, the larger issues are very important and require discussion. Nobody disagrees with that. The small issues, however, ARE STILL ISSUES.

    Just because you’re personally not interested doesn’t mean you can redirect the conversation somewhere else when you’re called out on being an arsehole. Deal with that first, then we can go have the grown-up conversation that you seem to be craving.

    Remember, we can FIX the small issues. The bigger ones we can talk about, but require action on a larger scale. By ignoring small issues you’re missing huge opportunities to chip away at the foundations of the problem itself. Don’t be an arse.

  329. says

    @Cipher

    I didn’t tell them to shut up about it. I said that I think there are more important issues. People are obviously free to focus on issues they feel are important.

  330. Amphiox says

    You are a misogynist, jamesmacduffer, because you don’t consider women not being treated as equal human beings to be a problem upon which time should be spent to address.

    You are also an intellectually dishonest liar who has a fondness for strawmanning, seeing as I didn’t even mention the word “pronoun” in my post.

    Your pathetic attempt to deflect from my point regarding your hackneyed use of the standard misogynist tactic of “my girlfriend said/did X” is noted and recognized for what it is.

    You are also no longer worth my time or effort to engage, nor deserving of the effort or regard for the accurate use of your ‘nym. I reserve the right to talk about you whenever I want to, but I won’t be talking to you anymore.

  331. consciousness razor says

    I’m suddenly a misogynist for questioning whether time is better spent on issues more important than how we use our pronouns.

    At the very least, you’re a disingenuous fuckwit. I strongly doubt you give a shit at all about the “feminist cause.”

    Now that you mention it, what were you doing spending a boatload of fucking time today making a huge stink about Watson’s confusion of one asshat with another? Don’t you have more important things to do, for whatever fucking cause you like? Men’s rights or something?

  332. says

    @life

    I’m taking the time to explain why I feel it is less important. It’s really not the same as what you are suggesting.

    And if I haven’t replied to you, I’m not avoiding your posts. I obviously have a lot of people to reply to.

  333. Amphiox says

    Macduffer’s still going on and on with its transparent and shameless attempt to deflect from the real issue at hand by wanking on the pronoun side-issue.

    A standard ploy of the intellectually dishonest, seen in creationists, misogynists, and libertarians all the time.

    Pathetic.

  334. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    I didn’t tell them to shut up about it. I said that I think there are more important issues. People are obviously free to focus on issues they feel are important.

    You know we’re capable of noticing it when you backpedal, right?

  335. says

    @consciousness razor

    Yeah, I’m a straight white male. I was busy fighting for a man’s right to hit on women in elevators. That’s what we Whitey McCunterson’s do.

  336. adamgordon says

    I obviously have a lot of people to reply to.

    Yes, we all see how very busy you are advancing ‘our’ feminist causes by…minimizing feminist causes. Seriously, that’s all you’ve done here.

  337. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Whitey McCunterson

    Stop being dishonest, you fuckwit. Nobody fucking called you that.

  338. says

    @Emrysmyrddin

    You don’t get to take the moral high ground after jumping in with both feet without reading the thread. Still waiting for you to acknowledge your fuckup.

  339. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    You don’t get to take the moral high ground after jumping in with both feet without reading the thread. Still waiting for you to acknowledge your fuckup.

    The irony is literally painful.

  340. Walton says

    I’m suddenly a misogynist for questioning whether time is better spent on issues more important than how we use our pronouns.

    It doesn’t make much effort to avoid defaulting to male-gendered pronouns. When you don’t know an individual’s gender, don’t assume it. Is it really that difficult?

    Yeah, I’m a straight white male. I was busy fighting for a man’s right to hit on women in elevators. That’s what we Whitey McCunterson’s do.

    What? :-/

  341. Emrysmyrddin says

    “Why are you worrying about the homeless in London when people live in shacks in Mumbai?”

    “Why are you worrying about poor nutrition in schools when there are starving children in Africa?”

    “Why are you expressing your distaste for creepy hit-ons when FGM exists?”

    This is what you sound like. Social justice is not a zero-sum game. You can work on the Big Stuff but the foundation you build that work on comes from the ‘Small'(pff) Stuff. Getting why it’s patronising to boot in and tell us what we should and should not be discussing in this tiny corner of the internet, now? Or do I need to put it as:
    “Why are you wasting time over Twitter comments when real live actual criminal cases are going on RIGHT NOW?!1?”

    …before you realise your cognitive blindness?

  342. says

    @Cipher

    What exactly do you think is being implied when I’m asked if I should be out fighting for men’s rights? By inventing ‘Whitey McCunterson’ I’m just blending in with the crowd. I mean, that’s how this community disparages people who disagree with their agenda, right?

  344. Emrysmyrddin says

    #342 – you have no context for that phrase. Do you enjoy displaying ignorance, or are we getting special treatment today?

  345. says

    Gosh, James, look what I just read over in the drama thread:

    Hey I’m normally a lurker and I’ve only been reading for about a year, but i wanted to say that this thread is the reason that I love this blog and the people who comment here. The lack of “civility” is what made me more comfortable being an atheist and feminist and for picking sociology as my field of study. Just thought I would pop up and say Thanks Ya’ll!

    also, fuck any sort of “civility” that means you may argue in bad faith and be totally fine, but as soon as you utter a bad word your argument is invalid.

    Okay back to lurking

    We hear this sort of thing quite often. Seems people aren’t all that put off.

  346. Walton says

    I mean, that’s how this community disparages people who disagree with their agenda, right?

    No.

  347. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    By inventing ‘Whitey McCunterson’ I’m just blending in with the crowd. I mean, that’s how this community disparages people who disagree with their agenda, right?

    Keep lying, shitstain

  349. Sophia Dodds says

    @cipher

    That’s what we Whitey McCunterson’s do

    Stop being dishonest, you fuckwit. Nobody fucking called you that.

    Projection.

  350. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    We’re all hurting the feminist cause and becoming a caricature because we are all lying like James just did about unknown shit and also because we care about issues that James agrees are valid and he is JUST SAYING.

  351. says

    @Emrysmyrddin

    You wrote an entire post about gendered slurs and then said you would give me a lesson in etymology at the end of said post. Gee, I fucking wonder why I thought you were referring to me.

    It’s a mystery.

  353. consciousness razor says

    Yeah, I’m a straight white male. I was busy fighting for a man’s right to hit on women in elevators. That’s what we Whitey McCunterson’s do.

    I asked you what you were doing. This is your answer?

  354. stuartvo says

    I actually agree with the critics that all this fighting over things like harassment policies is a distraction from the greater goals of sceptical/atheist movement (such as it is).

    The thing is, it’s the critics that are causing the distraction on the first place!

    I’d call it ironic, but they know exactly what they’re doing, they’re just being dishonest about it.

    There are bigger issues to fight than sexual harassment at conventions. But how can we fight these issues if we don’t have our own house in order first? And how can we claim any moral leadership if we’re willing to throw half the human population under the bus to achieve our other goals? And why, when it’s clear that the solution to this particular problem is quite straightforward, is there so much resistance to it? (Rhetorical questions all)

    It’s like there’s a massive fire in a skyscraper, and the local fire-fighting company has been called to extinguish it. But every time they’re about to leave, some petty arsonist sets fire to the fire-house! The fire-fighters can’t leave until they’ve first secured their base of operations.

    And then, to add insult to injury, it’s the arsonist who keeps asking why the bigger fire isn’t being extinguished!

  355. Emrysmyrddin says

    Apparently I do repeat myself. It causes my blood pressure to skyrocket, but that’s just me.

    James: Pronouns aren’t important!

    me:: “Oh, these words that spurt from my mouth, I have no control over them, they just spill out in a sparkling Perrier froth of shite and bunnies, they’re just words, they don’t mean anything, it’s not like our entire interpersonal interaction mechanism is dependent on them, or anything.”

    James You said I said cunt!!1!

  357. says

    @Jadehawk

    No, they weren’t directed at me. They are merely caricatures of the people who don’t entirely agree with your righteous cause.

  358. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    No, they weren’t directed at me. They are merely caricatures of the people who don’t entirely agree with your righteous cause.

    Stop being passive-aggressive, slimeball. What the fuck is your problem? Precisely. What the fuck is it?

  360. says

    @Emrysmyrddin

    Nice try. Your rant was about gendered slurs. You snipped that part. Try again, fuckhead.

    It’s clear civil… I mean tone trolling is pointless.

  361. says

    They are merely caricatures of the people who don’t entirely agree with your righteous cause.

    what exactly are they “caricaturing”?

    and what “righteous cause”? do you even fucking remember the context of when these terms were used?

  362. consciousness razor says

    I actually agree with the critics that all this fighting over things like harassment policies is a distraction from the greater goals of sceptical/atheist movement (such as it is).

    Fuck you.

  363. says

    @Cipher

    Sure, I’ll stop being passive aggressive. Being the only civil participant is getting a little tiresome. I might as well just be aggressive.

  364. Emrysmyrddin says

    And you were the only English idiot on that thread? FFS. I should have realised that you were The English Person, default, and that anyone wishing to be included in that umbrella term of ‘English’ needs to fill out a triplicate.

  365. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Is that supposed to be a threat? Adorable. Answer the fucking question. What the fuck is your actual problem?

  366. says

    jamesmacdonald, I don’t even understand what your point is. :-/

    he doesn’t have one. he came into the drama thread complaining that PZ and Rebecca were mean to some dude on twitter, argued some semantics of a tweet, was called out for using a male pronoun on someone he didn’t know the gender of (turned out he did it because aggressiveness is apparently a sign of maleness), and then spent the rest of the thread arguing about whether or not he admitted that was wrong, whether or not we should be talking about pronouns at all , and whether or not having a MA in social sciences makes one a sociologist.

  367. Emrysmyrddin says

    My rant (I prefer diatribe) was about Words Aren’t Context-Less Magical Pixies, but anyone who is this obtuse can’t be expected to read for comprehension, I suppose.

  368. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    I’m taking the time to explain why I feel it is less important.

    A lot of time, too.

    It’s really not the same as what you are suggesting.

    Since your previous sentence did not contradict me, it’s not clear how “it’s really not the same as what [I am] suggesting.” Evidently it is exactly what I’m suggesting.

  369. Emrysmyrddin says

    Now, any substantive reactions to the many links provided to you, or more JAQ’ing?

  372. says

    Jadehawk:

    do you even fucking remember the context of when these terms were used?

    Remember? He wasn’t around at all when Rutee first came up with McStraightserson or whatever it was, and doesn’t know anything about that particular post or thread.

  373. says

    @Cipher

    A threat? Oh, get a grip. I was indicating that I was going to stop being civil. Had I not acknowledged it, I would have been faced with countless fuckwits pointing out that the bastion of civility is now using naughty words.

    And do you really expect me to answer such a stupid fucking question?

  374. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Right, Caine :) Because he totally doesn’t even know what this whole thing is about!
    I’m a little puzzled about why he’s so worried about the terrible fates of those who may disagree slightly with our Righteous Cause(s) when he already claimed he is a fucking babe in the woods on the subject, actually, but hey. Being a Sociologist™ means you’re not pathetically ignorant about anything ever!

  375. Emrysmyrddin says

    No, I’m Scottish.

    Then why the fuck did you take the bit about ‘In England, cunt is gendered’ to be All About You??!

    The fact that you referred to me by my fucking name tipped me off.

    Yes, Cupcake, because you insisting that It’s All Good, Yo, when insisting that assuming a male poster based on ‘aggressiveness’ is Just All Fine has nothing to do with the toxic assumptions about gender essentialism which prop up the shitty structures that drag us down as a damn species every fucking day. Hey! You used a ‘he’ and you meant all sorts of other assumptions by inference with that usage, reinforced by your later idiot posts. Fuck. It’s like words mean something. What would the study of the meanings of words be? If there’s no word then I think we should invent one.
    Fuck’s sake.

  376. says

    @Jadehawk

    Because I was trying to have an honest discussion, only to be bombarded by insults. It’s difficult to have a rational conversation if ten people are calling you a ‘fuckwit’ or some variation of it.

  377. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    And do you really expect me to answer such a stupid fucking question?

    Do you want the real answer to your stupid fucking question? What I expect is that you will continue babbling nonsensically, peppering your twaddle with idiotic sexist shit, then pretending you never said it and also APOLOGIZED ALREADY JEEZ until PZ gets bored and banhammers your ass.

  378. says

    james, stop fucking around, and answer my questions:

    are you under the delusion that calling yourself feminist, and even doing some feminism 101 activism, means one cannot at the same time enable sexism?

    focusing on this issue, right now, in this conversation, is counterprodutive to what, exactly? what other supposedly more productive conversation could we be having with you?

    They are merely caricatures of the people who don’t entirely agree with your righteous cause.

    what exactly are they “caricaturing”? do you even fucking remember the context of when these terms were used?

    why do you imagine yourself to be civil?

  379. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Because I was trying to have an honest discussion, only to be bombarded by insults. It’s difficult to have a rational conversation if ten people are calling you a ‘fuckwit’ or some variation of it.

    Cry some more.

  380. Emrysmyrddin says

    My bp alarm has genuinely gone off now. Cheers very much. Go read a few provided edumacational links and become a better person. If you don’t, well, you ain’t a loss, frankly. I’m done.

  381. says

    Because I was trying to have an honest discussion, only to be bombarded by insults. It’s difficult to have a rational conversation if ten people are calling you a ‘fuckwit’ or some variation of it.

    but you weren’t honest, and I don’t see how insults stop you from answering substantive responses. civility is not the lack of use of bad words, it’s the lack of disingenuous evasion of argument, like you’ve done with your fucking around about your use of a gendered pronoun when unwarranted. it’s also not civilized to use bigoted slurs, like you’ve done now.

  382. says

    @Jadehawk

    You are out of your mind if you think I’m going to appease you by answering your questions now. It is impossible to have a reasoned discussion with anyone on here.

    No wonder the likes of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins don’t see eye to eye with PZ these days, considering he represents this ‘community’.

    I wondered why PZ had gone off the rails in the last year. I can only guess that he is trying to impress a community of spiteful morons.

  383. says

    It’s difficult to have a rational conversation if ten people are calling you a ‘fuckwit’ or some variation of it.

    Amazingly enough, James, that doesn’t happen when people are actually making an effort to be rational in a discussion. It does happen when someone shows up and proceeds to show off their fuckwittedness.

    Just like you’re doing now, matter of fact. Jadehawk has quietly posed you concise questions, more than once. She’s being *very* patient. Why don’t you just stop with the constant fuckwittery and answer?

  384. says

    You are out of your mind if you think I’m going to appease you by answering your questions now. It is impossible to have a reasoned discussion with anyone on here.

    yes. not answering questions tends to make discussion impossible. but that’s your choice, so don’t be dishonest about who is making discussion impossible.

    No wonder the likes of Sam Harris

    watch me not care about what racists think.

  385. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    You are out of your mind if you think I’m going to appease you by answering your questions now. It is impossible to have a reasoned discussion with anyone on here.

    Do you think this is anything other than transparent, James? You aren’t answering her questions because your answers are inadequate and you know it.

  386. says

    @Jadehawk

    I haven’t been disingenuous, Jadehawk. I didn’t choose to focus on this topic.

    And I would love to know what bigoted word I used. I’m sure this is in the Pharyngula r00lz somewhere, but I may have missed it. Like I said earlier, not offending you is like negotiating a minefield.

  387. Walton says

    No wonder the likes of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins don’t see eye to eye with PZ these days, considering he represents this ‘community’.

    Sam Harris is an anti-Muslim bigot and a very shallow thinker. And Dawkins, while not as bad, has moments of cringe-inducing Clueless White Man-ness (see, for instance, his comments about Elevatorgate). If PZ did “see eye to eye” with them, I wouldn’t hang out here.

  388. says

    @Jadehawk

    Sam is a racist? Give me a break. He must fucking hate himself too, since he said he should be profiled.

    Do you just parrot whatever PZ says?

  389. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    I didn’t tell them to shut up about it. I said that I think there are more important issues.

    Here’s what happened:

    [mythbri:] And you made the assumption that hotshoe is a man, by your use of the pronoun “he”. I have no idea if hotshoe is a “he”, but the assumption that the default gender of people you encounter on the internet is “male” is another example of routine sexism.

    (I typed this as quietly as possible, so that you wouldn’t think that I was screaming.)

    [james:] Yep, by using the more common pronoun ‘he’, you have deduced that I believe in male superiority.

    [adam:] *sigh*

    jamesmacdonald, why is this your first response, instead of something along the lines of ‘sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed that hotshoe was male. I’ll avoid making that mistake in the future’

    Reasonable people respond to being called out with an apology.
    You responded by doubling down.

    [james:] Why don’t I apologise? Because I think there are far more important issues that are worth addressing. Because I think focusing on something like this turns the feminist cause into a caricature and undermines our (yes, I am a feminist) position on issues of real sexism.

    mythbri correctly pointed out that the default usage of male pronouns is an example of routine sexism. That is true. That should be uncontroversial. Indeed you even later acknowledged as much: “We both know it’s more common because we live in a patriarchal society.” But first, for some reason, you pretended like mythbri said something mythbri did not say.

    In response to you doing this, adam suggested you should apologize for assuming that hotshoe was male. Not exactly an onerous suggestion.

    You responded by declaring that you would not apologize because you think there are other things that are more important. Somehow, the existence of sexual harassment means you should not apologize when you inaccurately assume someone’s gender.

    This wasn’t even an abstract discussion of priorities. You said something impolite, adam suggested you should apologize for it, and instead you declared that it wasn’t important enough to apologize for. In effect, that is very much like telling adam to shut up about it.

    But even if we were to grant, for the sake of argument, your claim that it’s not in any way telling anyone to shut up — it was still a totally unreasonable, indecent, and sexist way to respond to someone pointing out that calling a person by the wrong gender is worth apologizing for.

  390. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Sam is a racist? Give me a break. He must fucking hate himself too, since he said he should be profiled.

    Do you just parrot whatever PZ says?

    What? Two seconds ago he was just trying to appease us!

  391. says

    I didn’t choose to focus on this topic.

    actually, yes you have. you have started the topic of whether we should or shouldn’t be engaging in activism against such microaggressions as incorrect/unwarranted gendered pronoun use, and you have been repeating yourself alternately with contradicting yourself ever since.

    And I would love to know what bigoted word I used.

    jesus fuck, you’re dense. does “Whitey McCunterson” sound familiar?

    Like I said earlier, not offending you is like negotiating a minefield.

    that’s not actually true, especially since the use of gendered slurs has been mentioned throughout the drama thread. and if you find not using sexist language “a minefield”, you might want to re-consider just how non-enabling of sexism you can possibly be, if such basics are beyond you.

  392. Walton says

    It’s difficult to have a rational conversation if ten people are calling you a ‘fuckwit’ or some variation of it.

    It’s difficult to have a rational conversation when you won’t give a coherent answer to anyone’s questions, and when it’s impossible to tell what point you’re trying to make.

  394. says

    @Walton

    No, Sam is not anti-Muslim. And allow me to point out to others that Islam isn’t a fucking race. His point applied to anyone who could conceivably be Musim. Guess what? That applies to white people too, like him.

  396. says

    @Jadehawk

    You mean when I used ‘Whitey McCunterson’ to parody the kind of shit you see on this website? If you want to call that bigoted, go right ahead. Don’t expect anyone outside of this place to take you seriously.

  397. says

    is point applied to anyone who could conceivably be Musim.

    which is everyone, which in effect would mean random profiling. since he’s against random profiling, even though it has shown to be far more effective than non-random searches, it’s obvious what he meant by “anyone who could conceivably be Muslim”, and it wasn’t the actual correct answer of “everyone”.

  398. Walton says

    Do you just parrot whatever PZ says?

    I don’t speak for anyone else, but I have been calling Sam Harris a bigot for a couple of years now, long before he and PZ argued about profiling. Harris has been making viciously anti-Muslim comments for years, including claiming that the West is “at war with Islam”. He’s also an apologist for torture and military aggression.

  399. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ jamesmacdonald

    Richard Dawkins

    Teehee. The person who came up with the phrase “Dear Muslima”? You are using a “Dear Muslima” argument, so it is rather ironic that you bring it up like this.

    (Do we really need to explain to you why this type of argument is vapid and counterproductive?)

  401. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    You mean when I used ‘Whitey McCunterson’ to parody the kind of shit you see on this website? If you want to call that bigoted, go right ahead. Don’t expect anyone outside of this place to take you seriously.

    Do you have advanced training in cluelessness?
    We don’t call people cunts around here. It doesn’t make sense to “parody” our language by using language we are explicitly, notably opposed to.

  402. Wowbagger, Vile Demagogue says

    jamesmacdonald wrote:

    By inventing ‘Whitey McCunterson’ I’m just blending in with the crowd. I mean, that’s how this community disparages people who disagree with their agenda, right?

    No, you fucking clueless shitstain, it isn’t. Have you worked out why yet or are you truly that fucking stupid?

  403. says

    keep on saying cunt as if it were an “insult” equal to “whitey mcstraighterson”; it totally is more important to do that than to answer my questions, and it totally is burning energies not on enabling sexism but on More Important Issues Than Whatever You’re Doing Now

  404. says

    You are out of your mind if you think I’m going to appease you by answering your questions now. It is impossible to have a reasoned discussion with anyone on here.

    Translation: I can’t actually answer your questions, so I will now double down, and toss a lot of fuckwitted shit in the air for the purposes of distraction.

  405. says

    @Walton

    Wow, you just spouted one lie after another. It would be worth taking a trip to Sam’s website and looking at the ‘Response to Controversy’ section. That’s where he deals with morons who quote him selectively.

  408. Nightjar says

    Islam isn’t a fucking race […] anyone who could conceivably be Mus[l]im

    Hm.

    Wouldn’t that then be, like, everyone?

  409. Wowbagger, Vile Demagogue says

    jamesmacdonald wrote:

    Like I said earlier, not offending you is like negotiating a minefield.

    Not for anyone who treats women as people it’s not.

  410. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    By inventing ‘Whitey McCunterson’

    you are going to get yourself banned, even here on TZT. You don’t get to use that word anywhere on Pharyngula. It is not okay.

  411. says

    No wonder the likes of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins don’t see eye to eye with PZ these days, considering he represents this ‘community’.

    Oh FFS. Harris is not thought highly of by most of the people here, who have applied critical thought to what he says. A lot of what he says is bigoted shit.

    As for Dawkins? The man who came up with Dear Muslima? Seriously? I have news for you, James – Dawkins is not a prophet and we don’t worship him. He posts here on occasion, you know, and found himself being ferociously argued with during Egate.

    He’s far from perfect, and suffers from a considerable amount of privilege blindness.

  412. says

    @Jadehawk

    PZ has built a cult of personality and I think you pretty much parrot whatever he says, even when it’s demonstrably false.

    “Certain people should be profiled, including me.”

    Pharyngula: “RACIST!”

  414. says

    PZ has built a cult of personality and I think you pretty much parrot whatever he says

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    you’re truly, truly, precious. definitely like the time I was told I think there’s a War On Women because the Democrats told me to believe it.

  415. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    You’re crying because I didn’t parody you accurately? Fuck me, break out the world’s smallest violin for PZ’s sycophants.

    I’m laughing at you, dumbass, for being so fucking inept you can’t even be a juvenile fuckhead without tripping over yourself.

  416. Wowbagger, Vile Demagogue says

    If jamesmacdonald is going to continue, we’re going to need a new, bigger bingo card to cover all of his fails – I predict he’s about to begin trying to tell us that ‘cunt’ isn’t a misogynist term because he lives in the UK.

  417. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    Do you have advanced training in cluelessness?
    We don’t call people cunts around here. It doesn’t make sense to “parody” our language by using language we are explicitly, notably opposed to.

    You’re crying because I didn’t parody you accurately?

    No, Cipher is pointing out that your attempt at parody is subpar, because it differs too much from the target you’re attempting to parody, and thus doesn’t make sense.

    Parody can be quite amusing when it’s sufficiently accurate.

  419. says

    Like I said earlier, not offending you is like negotiating a minefield.

    Riiiiight. Don’t use gendered, racist, homophobic or ableist insults or slurs. When called out for fucking up, take 2 seconds out to think about what you did, say “sorry, I didn’t realize I was doing that, thanks for pointing it out” and move the fuck on.

    You won’t even fucking admit it’s YOU who has focused solely on the use of the male default, not everyone else.

  420. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Remember when you said I was evading? You’re taking hypocrisy to new levels.

    …said JamesMacdonald, while still not answering the simple questions Jadehawk asked him. Or the questions posed to him in the other thread.
    —
    Ah, fuck, it’s four in the morning.
    I don’t wanna leave! JamesMacDonald is too much fun!

    (That’s not a compliment, James.
    On the other hand, I could be shaking with rage at a different variety of troll instead of giggling at James’s fuckery, so maybe it is a compliment of sorts.)

  421. Wowbagger, Vile Demagogue says

    jamesmacdonald, many of the posters here – in this thread in particular – disagree with PZ on more than a few issues. To try and claim he has a ‘cult of personality’ or that everyone who posts here is ‘parroting’ what he says/writes you’d have to be, well, a clueless fucking idiot who hasn’t done his/her homework.

  423. says

    PZ has built a cult of personality and I think you pretty much parrot whatever he says

    :snort: So says the fuckwit who admitted is clueless when it comes to FTB.

    Rather obvious you haven’t been around for all the arguments a/o disagreements with PZ.

  424. says

    Remember when you said I was evading? You’re taking hypocrisy to new levels.

    oh honeycakes, what do you imagine I’m “evading”? your disingenuous “but he said he should be profiled, too, is he self-hating” question? as if it weren’t begging the question and a strawman of anything I said?

    i do wonder though. why do you think “self-hating” is some sort of gotcha that invalidates an argument? did they not teach you about internalized oppression in your social science courses?

  425. says

    @Wowbagger

    You mean the same way they disagree with Sam Harris and call him a racist, or Dawkins and call him a misogynist? These people don’t just disagree with someone. They label them and discredit them forever.

  427. says

    Yes, because I came on here to debate the use of pronouns.

    to this thread? yes, you absolutely did. no one made you, and similarly no one made you double down when it was pointed out to you originally that your use of the male pronoun was unwarranted and based in/promoting sexism

  430. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    You are out of your mind if you think I’m going to appease you by answering your questions now. It is impossible to have a reasoned discussion with anyone on here.

    Now we know who is being disingenuous.

  431. says

    That’s what you think is going on with Sam, internalized oppression?

    lol

    what part of “disingenuous” and “strawman” did you not understand?

    you’re the only one who keeps on repeating the mantra of “self-hating” as if it meant something important in arguments against promotion/enabling of sexismt, racism, etc.

  432. consciousness razor says

    PZ has built a cult of personality and I think you pretty much parrot whatever he says, even when it’s demonstrably false.

    You’re the one who brought “personalities” like Harris, Dawkins and PZ into it. You did that instead of answering some simple fucking questions or just making some kind of rational fucking argument, without citing your stupid fucking authorities or making baseless fucking accusations about us. And you wonder why rational discussion is so fucking difficult.

  433. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    Aside to everyone except jamesmacdonald:

    Notice how

    You’re crying because I didn’t parody you accurately?

    is another example of the recently observed [noted on TZT 11] pattern,

    “I will speak falsehoods about you, and if you object, then you’re just weak / tone-trolling / crying about people being mean to you.”

    The way disagreement is taken as weakness — I’ve been calling it falsehood-hazing, because of the target is expected to demonstrate stoic strength and quiet endurance by not responding to the untruths.

  434. says

    @Jadehawk

    Made me? No. Pressed the issue relentlessly? Fuck yes.

    It was either apologise or talk about it until I was blue in the face. I chose the second option. It’s ironic that the term ‘entitlement’ is tossed around here so frequently, given that you all thought you were entitled to an apology.

    Oh, the fucking irony.

    @Caine

    Piss off, you mewling twit. I’m not about to agree to forceful demands.

  435. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    These people don’t just disagree with someone. They label them and discredit them forever.

    Intriguing! It’s so refreshing to hear sweeping, definitive statements about our behavior from someone who admittedly doesn’t know shit about it! So during that whole nasty fight we had recently that you don’t know shit about, did we (apparently as a monolith) label PZ and discredit him forever, or were we all actually in perfect harmony with him?

    Oh, and james? Your little “I won’t appease you” routine? It’s making you look even more ridiculous than you already did.

  437. says

    It was either apologise or talk about it until I was blue in the face. I chose the second option.

    we noticed. the question is, why? what would it have cost you, to apologize for inadvertently doing something sexist?

    It’s ironic that the term ‘entitlement’ is tossed around here so frequently, given that you all thought you were entitled to an apology.

    “we all” weren’t, and you didn’t actually need to either apologize or argue; that’s a false dichotomy. you could have also just left. but you chose to continue arguing about why you didn’t need to apologize. in fact, if you’d simply said “oh, I guess I was wrong to do that”, and not argued any further, the conversation on that particular topic would have been over, even without an express apology. but you didn’t even admit directly to wrongdoing, to jumped directly into whining that you already admitted to have been wrong while at the same time arguing that it shouldn’t even have been mentioned because blah blah.

  438. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    I’ve given up on having a rational discussion. Against my better judgement, I decided to get down in the dirt with you instead.

    And in no way is it completely, ridiculously obvious that you just can’t respond to the questions being posed to you.

  440. Walton says

    Wow, you just spouted one lie after another. It would be worth taking a trip to Sam’s website and looking at the ‘Response to Controversy’ section. That’s where he deals with morons who quote him selectively.

    Do you deny that he is an apologist for torture? Given that he wrote an entire damned post called “In Defense of Torture”, I think it’s hard to disagree with this. And in his “Response to Controversy” he confirms it:

    My argument for the limited use of coercive interrogation (“torture” by another name) is essentially this: if you think it is ever justifiable to drop bombs in an attempt to kill a man like Osama bin Laden (and thereby risk killing and maiming innocent men, women, and children), you should think it may sometimes be justifiable to “water-board” a man like Osama bin Laden (and risk abusing someone who just happens to look like Osama bin Laden). It seems to me that however one compares the practices of “water-boarding” high-level terrorists and dropping bombs, dropping bombs always comes out looking worse in ethical terms.

    […]

    We often drop bombs knowing that innocent people will be killed or horribly injured by them. We target buildings in which combatants are hiding, knowing that noncombatants are also in those buildings, or standing too close to escape destruction. And when innocent people are killed or injured—when children are burned over most of their bodies and live to suffer interminable pain and horrible disfigurement—our leaders accept this as the cost of doing business in a time of war. Many people oppose specific wars, of course—like the war in Iraq—but no public figure has been vilified for accepting collateral damage in a war that is deemed just. And yet anyone who would defend the water-boarding a terrorist like Khalid Sheikh Muhammad will reap a whirlwind of public criticism. This makes no moral sense (to me).

    Again, which is worse, water-boarding a terrorist or killing/maiming him? Which is worse, water-boarding an innocent person or killing/maiming him? There are journalists who have volunteered to be water-boarded. Where are the journalists who have volunteered to have a 5000 lb bomb dropped on their homes with their families inside?

    His argument, as I understand it, is this: Our governments already kill and maim innocent people, by way of “collateral damage”, in the course of fighting wars. (True enough.) He argues that, if we think this is justifiable, we ought also to think that torturing people is sometimes justifiable – since it is not necessarily worse, and may be less bad, to torture someone than to bomb their home and kill their family.

    The obvious flaw in this argument is that it assumes that we already think that killing and maiming people as “collateral damage”, in the course of fighting terrorist organizations, is justifiable. I don’t. I don’t think any part of the “War on Terror”, including the invasion of Afghanistan, has been remotely justified. For one thing, bombing Muslim countries and massacring civilians has likely engendered more hostility to the West and made the problem of terrorism worse, not better. And even if this were not so, I’d rather be at a higher risk of terrorism (which poses a far smaller statistical risk to my safety than do, say, car accidents) than countenance my government killing, maiming and destroying in my name. Countless people have been killed, countless refugees displaced, countless children left without parents, countless homes and communities destroyed, in the name of America and its allies’ “War on Terror”. Our governments’ reaction has been vastly disproportionate to the actual problem of Islamic terrorism, and it has not done a damn thing to make us safer.

    On criticism of Islam:

    Some critics of my work have claimed that my critique of Islam is “racist.” This charge is almost too silly to merit a response. But, as prominent writers can sometimes be this silly, here goes:

    My analysis of religion in general, and of Islam in particular, focuses on what I consider to be bad ideas, held for bad reasons, leading to bad behavior. My antipathy toward Islam—which is, in truth, difficult to exaggerate—applies to ideas, not to people, and certainly not to the color of a person’s skin. My criticism of the logical and behavioral consequences of certain ideas (e.g. martyrdom, jihad, honor, etc.) impugns white converts to Islam—like Adam Gadahn—every bit as much as Arabs like Ayman al-Zawahiri. I am also in the habit of making invidious comparisons between Islam and other religions, like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Must I point out that most Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains are not white like me? One would hope there would be no such need—but the work of writers like Chris Hedges suggests that the need is pressing.

    This is a simplistic strawman of his critics’ views.

    The point is this. Muslims in Western societies are a marginalized and oppressed group, and are frequently targets of hatred and discrimination. They are particularly targeted by the far right – the likes of Geert Wilders, the Le Pens, Nick Griffin and so on – for whom attacking Islam is a convenient rhetorical cover for promoting a xenophobic, anti-immigrant agenda. It’s all very well to point out that some Muslims are white, which is true; but it’s also true that, in political discourse, hatred of Islam is often linked with opposition to immigration from Muslim-majority countries. The far right know this perfectly well, and they promote hatred of Islam knowing that the effect will be to further stigmatize particular non-white immigrant communities. And the anti-Muslim rhetoric of far-right activists like Wilders is often disturbingly indistinguishable from the anti-Muslim rhetoric of Harris and his fellow-travellers.

    I don’t know whether Sam Harris is personally racist. But his words and actions are having the effect of promoting prejudice against an already-vulnerable, racialized minority. And in a world where immigrants in Western countries are already treated horrifically badly – read up on the appalling conditions in UK and US immigration detention centres, and the way our governments treat asylum-seekers who are fleeing persecution in their home countries – promoting prejudice against minorities is a dangerous thing.

  441. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    It was either apologise or talk about it until I was blue in the face. I chose the second option.

    It’s not clear why you think this is admirable.

    It’s ironic that the term ‘entitlement’ is tossed around here so frequently, given that you all thought you were entitled to an apology.

    Where’s your evidence for this?

    I think it’s apparent that several of us think the decent thing to do would have been to apologize to hotshoe for addressing her as the wrong gender. That’s just a reasonable way to act.

    You responded by declaring that you would not apologize because you think there are other things that are more important. Somehow, the existence of sexual harassment means you should not apologize when you inaccurately assume someone’s gender.

  442. consciousness razor says

    I’ve given up on having a rational discussion.

    How long ago do you think that was?

  443. says

    It’s ironic that the term ‘entitlement’ is tossed around here so frequently, given that you all thought you were entitled to an apology.

    that’s actually a very interesting way of using two different meanings of a word to pretend equivalence. it’s like when believers talk about faith or conflate the two meanings of natural to make it sound as if “man-made” and “magical” were equivalent.

  444. Walton says

    PZ has built a cult of personality and I think you pretty much parrot whatever he says, even when it’s demonstrably false.

    Actually, I think PZ often gets it wrong on the subject of Islam. PZ has enthusiastically supported “Draw Muhammad Day” every year, for instance. I oppose it, and said so at the time. I do not think that white Western atheists should go out of their way to mock the sensibilities of a marginalized and oppressed religious minority.

    This doesn’t stop me supporting PZ when he gets it right, though – as he did recently when he dismantled Harris’ ridiculous argument for racial profiling.

  445. says

    I’ve given up on having a rational discussion. Against my better judgement, I decided to get down in the dirt with you instead.

    Hahahaha. Ah, no, that won’t work, James. You would have had to started out with a rational discussion. That never took place. You decided to whinge about a mix up on twitter, taking the side of someone you don’t know, and you weren’t remotely rational about it.

    You insisted an apology was necessary, even if it were a matter of confusion on Watson’s part, then flipped the fuck out when called out on sexism-enabling behaviour, claiming that no, an apology wasn’t necessary at all, what with it being a mistake!

    Jesus, rational is the last thing you are, James.

  446. says

    ou insisted an apology was necessary, even if it were a matter of confusion on Watson’s part, then flipped the fuck out when called out on sexism-enabling behaviour, claiming that no, an apology wasn’t necessary at all, what with it being a mistake!

    and then towards the end he claimed that mistaking one person for another wasn’t something for which one needed to apologize. except apparently when RW does it.

  448. Louis says

    Am I allowed to post here without being a member of the PZ Myers cult of personality?

    If I agree with PZ about one topic and not another do I still get the PZ Myers Cult of Personality Newsletter and Perks? I mean, the Airmiles are really useful.

    If I find many, if not all, of the hivemind/echo chamber/cult of personality claimers to be laughably wrong about the subject they usually devolve to this drivel about, is that further evidence that I am a Cultist?

    Is it just me that’s getting seriously tired of this and feels a deep urge to go down the pub?*

    Louis

    * I will grant that this is kind of a normal state for me. However, in this case I REALLY feel the need to drink heavily until the stupid people go away.

  451. Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation says

    “Certain people should be profiled, including me.”

    Pharyngula: “RACIST!”

    Ah, thank you. How nice of you to answer my question earlier. It’s wasn’t directed at you, so you didn’t really have to (and really, instead of doing extracurricular you should work on your backlog) but now at least we got the word from mr. in no way faking his credentials on a napkin with crayons sociologist that yes, the idiot trolls use painfully transparent immunization techniques because they do indeed think that shit flies and that we are more stupid than a ghost pepper-flavoured lube.

    That is of course if we can believe mr. in no way faking it even though he doesn’t know a thing about the field about his credentials. Which leads me back to some simple questions he didn’t answer earlier:

    When you say: “for picking sociology as my field of study.” Does that entail reading “The Blank Slate” and nothing else? And did you do it while high, drunk or otherwise mentally impaired?

    See – I even bolded it for you!

  452. says

    When you say: “for picking sociology as my field of study.” Does that entail reading “The Blank Slate” and nothing else? And did you do it while high, drunk or otherwise mentally impaired?

    wrong person. dandy_lion was the one who was “picking sociology as my field of study”. james was the one who was already a sociologist, for being nebulously “involved in the field”.

  453. Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation says

    At, thanks Jadehawk!

    Sorry about the misattribution. The question was of course for our darling little James.

    I can only say to my defence that’ve been up all night with a defunct digestion system (you don’t want details on this one, trust me) and I’m a little hazed from lack of sleep and nourishment.

    I will strive not to confuse “cunt” and “femnazi” mix persons again.

  454. says

    Theophontes, #399,

    Teehee. The person who came up with the phrase “Dear Muslima”? You are using a “Dear Muslima” argument, so it is rather ironic that you bring it up like this.

    (Do we really need to explain to you why this type of argument is vapid and counterproductive?)

    I called the ‘manky Scots git’ out on using that exact fallacious argument, back in the drama comic opera thread, here. It’s another example of his incredibly arrogant sense of male entitlement for him to declare how he is better informed on how other people should fight their battles, and to decide what’s important and what isn’t.

  455. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    This blog is a wasteland of closed minds.

    Nope fuckwit, you have the closed mind, which can’t look at the evidence. Open mind does not mean believing your blather of fuckwittery. It means following the evidence. And you have no evidence. Scifi/Shiloh, perpetual loser due to extreme lack of evidence.

    I haven’t seen an intelligent response from you yet.

    Fuckwitted idjit projecting again. Not one intelligent post, which requires leading with evidence, not OPINION.

  456. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Fundamentalist belief is nonsense and should not be forced upon us nonbelievers.

    Sorry, you are a theist/deist. You only lie and bullshit when you claim otherwise. You aren’t agnostic. You have found your imaginary creator. Everybody but you sees that.

  457. says

    But the new atheists will have none of this, and in his somewhat immoderate way, Dawkins denounces Gould as a quisling. They adhere to a hard-line form of scientific naturalism that mirrors the fundamentalism on which they base their critique: atheism is always a rejection of and parasitically dependent on a particular form of theism.

    Yawn. “A particular form of theism” = any mention of GOD.
    Parasitic? PAY YOUR OWN FUCKING TAXES.


    ∴ Strawman²

  458. Walton says

    UK news: The government is adopting changes to the Immigration Rules which penalize poor people for being poor. Among other things, those who want to bring a spouse or partner to the UK from outside the EU will have to show that they have an income of at least £18,600 – meaning that the unemployed, and those on low incomes, will be excluded.

  459. 'Tis Himself says

    Let me see if I have this right.

    Rebecca Watson made a mistake and therefore should abjectly apologize to the MRA because otherwise he’ll suffer a complete loss of social status.

    James MacDonald made a mistake but doesn’t have to apologize because he’s a Scottish sociologist with a feminist girlfriend and besides we’re all uncivil or aggressive or Campbells or something.

  460. Louis says

    It’s a Thursday isn’t it? The painful nature of reality always grates on a Thursday.

    Walton, some days it’s not worth getting out of bed. My recommendation: start drinking heavily.

    Louis

  462. Walton says

    Walton, some days it’s not worth getting out of bed. My recommendation: start drinking heavily.

    Louis

    Alas, I have a mock interview this afternoon (in preparation for my real pupillage interviews in a week-and-a-half). Turning up to an interview drunk is not generally considered an advisable practice, or so I’m told.

  463. Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation says

    It’s a Thursday isn’t it? The painful nature of reality always grates on a Thursday.

    Good point. “This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays” sums up this day pretty good for me at least.

  464. life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ says

    Walton, my advice is to not take Louis’s advice.

  465. says

    “Just as I thought. This blog is a wasteland of closed minds. I rest my case.Just as I thought. This blog is a wasteland of closed minds. I rest my case.”
    Yeas, just as you always thought, even before you arrived, even before you said one word on Pharungula, even before you got a second chance on TZT instead of getting banned outright, even while you donned your earplugs and ignored all argument in rebuttal to your insipid, time worn platitudes and, even while you, yet again, use a quote from a desperately biased and easily refuted “authority” as your fallacious debating point; you still conclude that it is we who are the ones with closed minds. (Even though I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt re:intelligence)
    NON SEQUITUR, FUCKHEAD


    “Jeez PZ, you are as dumb as the rest of your cheer leading bullshitters.
    I told you, eet eez bool-sheetairs el MATADORES”


    chigau (違う) says:
    27 June 2012 at 10:43 pm
    scifi
    Nerd

    knows how to blockquote

    so he’s smarter than you.

    And….



    I know how to make blank lines.

    scifi zero; atheists – game, set, and match, and gasoline/petrol/phosphorous.

  466. Louis says

    Walton, ahhh yes, in that case no, perhaps not. best of luck to you though.

    LILAPWL, in general or just this specific instance?

    Louis

  467. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    drink heavily until the stupid people go away

    Trust me, I’m highly experienced at this technique. It doesn’t work.

  468. Louis says

    Rev BDC,

    Oh I trust you, but I fear you are not trying hard enough. Only a True Drinker™ can pull this technique off.

    I’ve never met one though, they all put sugar on their porridge.

    What worries me now is that your experience implies I have to grow and deal with reality as it is and try to effect the small amount of change I can rather than view things through the hazy mix of Jagermeister and Self Loathing (oh that is SO a cocktail).

    I disagree with this and would like to point out I have several degrees, and am male, and am interpreting your rudeness as you being a banana, and thus you are a Cult of Personality Member and can be dismissed because I don’t like what you are saying. So there. With bells on.

    Louis

  469. Louis says

    P.S. Oh yeah, and Jadehawk, I wish it worked that way too. Sorry for forgetting to reply appropriately! :-)

  471. Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation says

    Jagermeister and Self Loathing
    I thought Jägermeister was self loathing. Is this one of the drink recipes that goes: “Take a beer – add one more beer”?

  472. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    I have read a number of her books and they are well researched and extremely well written.

    They are based on presupposition, not evidence. There is no evidence for you imaginary deity, and your shilling of the fuckwitted shows us your fuckwittery. You don’t understand that since you are a fellow presuppositionalist, do you?

  473. says

    OK, why are you guys always so gleeful about telling people I’m wrong and that there is no cult of personality here? What if I want infallibility and my own cult of personality? Can you at least get me those on Christmas?

    By the way, Jamesmacdonald has been banhammered. He was getting so blue in the face I was worried about his health.

  474. Louis says

    PZ Myers,

    We like it because it makes you cry, and no you can’t have them for Christmas, you’ll get a lump of coal and an orange like always. AND you have to share that orange with the other bloggers. We’re mean like that. NOW BAN ME BRO!!!! I DISAGREED!!!! SHOW THE POWER OF THE DEEP RIFTS™!!!!

    Louis

  477. Louis says

    I have my own button? I am so touched I now agree with everything you say! I take it all back? Entirely appropriate and consensual hug according to the triple signed and witness “Application for Hug” form I submitted twenty years ago to the Hug Police in anticipation of a moment just like this?

    Louis

  479. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    and am interpreting your rudeness as you being a banana

    does that appeal to you….

  480. Louis says

    Oh don’t go off on a tangerine. Orange you grapefruit I’m just talking to you?

    Louis

  482. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ Xanthë

    Dawkins has such a large, and generally highly deserved, reputation for his contributions to science and the atheist movement. Sadly he is only human and has a blind spot about this issue. (Perhaps because he really is so focussed on some of the BIG and OBVIOUS cases of misogyny?)

    It is not my job to defend him, but rather to point out that perhaps because of his high regard in the community, his mistakes are amplified in the damage they can do to our common cause. jamesmcdonald (RIP) is a case in point (and there will be many more amongst teh MenZ). He clings to the beacons of the atheist movement as shining examples even where they are sounding off-key.

    @ ‘Tis

    FIFY: Campbells STUART!

    @ Walton

    Turning up to an interview drunk is not generally considered an advisable practice, or so I’m told.

    IIRC: Oxbridge students may both carry swords and demand beers during tests.

    @ PZ

    and that there is no cult of personality here?

    What about: Our Dear Leader, Teh Tardigrade?

  483. Louis says

    So disagreement is not a banning offence but bad puns are? Hmmmmm.

    A plane full of spit crashed into the sea. There were no salivas.

    I was playing the piano the other day and an elephant walked into the room and started crying. I said “do you recognise the tune?”. He said “no, I recognise the ivory.”.

    I went to the train station the other day I said “I’d like a ticket to Paris, please.”. The clerk said “Eurostar?”, I replied “Well, I’ve been on telly but I’m no Dean Martin.”.

    Venison’s deer isn’t it?

    ZOMG I AM PUNNING UNCONTROLLABLY!!!!!

    Louis

  484. says

    Walton says:


    28 June 2012 at 6:19 am

    UK news: The government is adopting changes to the Immigration Rules which penalize poor people for being poor. Among other things, those who want to bring a spouse or partner to the UK from outside the EU will have to show that they have an income of at least £18,600 – meaning that the unemployed, and those on low incomes, will be excluded.

    There could be no more appropriate way to celebrate Her Majesty’s Jubilee.

  485. Sili says

    Alas, I have a mock interview this afternoon (in preparation for my real pupillage interviews in a week-and-a-half). Turning up to an interview drunk is not generally considered an advisable practice, or so I’m told.

    You sure?

    I thought alcohol abuse was a prerequisite for becoming a barrister.

  486. says

    No wonder the likes of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins don’t see eye to eye with PZ these days, considering he represents this ‘community’.

    Spoken by a chap that desperately wants to have this ‘community’s’ attention.
    Need I mention the textbook behaviors of the a-social schizoid personality?
    We should send him for personality profile.

    Do other people accuse you of being manipulative?Do consider yourself having a strong love for approval and praise?Are you quick to anger when your expectations are not met?Are you often uninterested in the feelings of others?Do you often see things in black and white terms? In other words, something either is or it isn’t, with no gray area inbetween.Are you prone to bouts of anger?Do you consider your needs to be more important to you than the needs of others?Do you sometimes profit at the expense of others, without being bothered by the pain or damage you may cause them?Do you take actions without thinking about the consequences?Have other people accused you of being cruel to animals or people?Do you ever steal things from stores or people’s houses or reputations?Are you often critical of weakness in others, particularly classmates or coworkers?Do you have trouble not taking criticism personally?Do you often feel uncomfortable in social situations?Do you frequently reassure yourself that you are deserving of praise?Do you tend to lie a lot?Do you find yourself exaggerating your achievements to win the respect of others?Do you have a big fear of rejection (of any kind, not just romantic), and cover it up with belligerence?Do you occasionally or often dress or act provocatively to gain attention?Do you have a hard time throwing things away, even if they are old and worn out?Do others accuse you of being rigid or stubborn?Do you often get stuck on the details while missing the larger picture?Do you have intense feelings of inadequacy and helplessness?Do you avoid working in teams because you are convinced that others are too careless and will not work to your standards?Have others accused you of being arrogant?Are you often critical of weakness in others, particularly classmates or coworkers?Do you frequently reassure yourself that you are deserving of praise?Do you tend to lie a lot?

    The subject’s behavior is demonstrative of at least one instance of each of questions, with the mean being multiple displays of any one, in this thread alone.

    Looks like I nailed that one:
    Cluster B personality disorders are those that include symptoms of dramatic or erratic behaviors (counter-social behaviors). These personality disorders include

    antisocial personality disorder,
    borderline personality disorder,
    histrionic personality disorder,
    narcissistic personality disorder.

    Is it just me, or does anyone see a pattern among the trolls here?

  488. chigau (違う) says

    Curse my need for sleep!
    Oh well, maybe jamesmacdonald’s girlfriend will comment.
    —-
    pitbullॐ #286

    Interesting.
    lilandra is Aron Ra’s wife.

    Really???
    Linky?

  489. says

    I FORGOT!
    I am in a position to undermine the opposition’s position due to my double agent status (covert) by having infiltrated an enclave and gained acceptance and trust.
    Owing to their limited knowledge and compromised critical evaluatory skillset, and my profound deviousness and boolsheeting mastery(Black Hole belt with Gamma Emission Cluster), I have inserted myself into their Ministry of Propaganda Propagation Propellment by submitting my intent to design poster and brochure material for their upcoming campaign.

    H*pe M*****n has asked for submissions, by about July 8th, for the design of a poster and brochure cover to promote their work in the community. The theme is ‘Helping others through Jesus,’ and I aim to include subtle(very subtle and recognizable by only the Ξlite of the яesistance ™)

    Like putting the A in somewhere, and stuff.

  491. Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation says

    Really???
    Linky?

    Here – there’s some room for a very wishful “I hope it’s just a nymming coincidence” – but not much.

    She seems to write a bit more coherent when prepared and on home ground though.

  494. jeffret says

    So, I’ve got a few questions and this seems to be the place to ask them.

    A little while ago, there was a lengthy argument over telling women precautions to avoid rape. The thread was well over and done by the time I could get through it, so I thought I’d ask for some clarification here. I understand that the typical rape precautions are flawed for for a number of reasons, including: a) they don’t really work, b) they are a form of post-rape slut shaming, and c) they contribute to an oppressive climate for women. But most importantly, that the only contributor to rape is that a rapist chooses to rape.

    Clearly, though, we’re not at that point. Rapists, unfortunately, still rape. I notice that the author of “Schrödinger’s Rapist” discusses the precautions that she takes.

    Are there things that a woman can do to reduce her risk of rape?

    What are these things?

    For a more personal approach, what precautions do you take? Are these meaningful or symbolic?

    Are there things that are reasonable without being overly oppressive or shaming?

    (Ultimately, of course, the whole decision on what actions to take has to be personal.)

  495. says

    Are there things that a woman can do to reduce her risk of rape?

    Yes suicide. It’s the only one I can think of that will work for all situations and is a guarantee /snark

    Not reasonably no. Most rapes are from people you know, family or friends. You cannot reduce this

    What are these things?

    You are rather presuming the answer to the first question aren’t you.

    For a more personal approach, what precautions do you take? Are these meaningful or symbolic?

    Rape is about power not sex. 90 year old women are raped, children are raped. These precautions are symbolic. And frankly the ones that do exist (avoid areas known to have rapists) are signs that society has profoundly failed since we have areas that are publicly known for not being safe and for being prowling grounds and yet no one addresses this problem. For some reason that there are areas we see as “Prone to be raped zones” is seen as a problem for women not for the police.

    Are there things that are reasonable without being overly oppressive or shaming?

    No. Any that are valid fall under common sense everyone does to avoid danger in the real world and is belittling to even list (REALLY AVOID DARK ALLY WAYS!?) or so broad and vague that it exists just to find a reason why someone was raped.

    The methods people suggest amount to: don’t be poor, don’t stand out, don’t freely travel.

    It’s bullshit.

    (Ultimately, of course, the whole decision on what actions to take has to be personal.)

    Yes it is. The most personal one I can think of is the decision to rape someone.

    Let me ask you a question. Do you ever notice something lying out on a seat in someone’s car in the parking lot that is valuable? If so is your first instinct to check the doors to see if they’re locked so you can take it? Or do you not even look in other people’s cars in the parking lot? Locking the door prevents honest people from stealing, “rape prevention” prevents non-rapists from raping.

  496. says

    Rape prevention rules are like the law in authoritarian states. They exist to lull people into a false sense of security. Everything will be alright, they say, as long as I follow the rules! But the rules are nebulous, poorly defined, and intentionally vague so the state can decide to fuck over anyone for whatever reason. This reality is too painful to be tolerated, so the state gives the “rules” that people follow and like religious ritual they believe it will keep them safe. It also removes blame from the state, people turn on their neighbors and shame them thinking “well if only they hadn’t been so naughty”.

    This behavior is fundamental to oppressive systems: either arising naturally or intentionally designed. Systems like Nazi Germany or Korea for example do not succeed and weed out dissidents via the police state; they rely on people’s willingness to turn in their neighbor. When people stop doing that the power is lost and talk of unrest and calls for reform or rebellion start to grow louder and louder.

  497. 'Tis Himself says

    I just made a post about the MacDonald vs Campbell feud and the intertubes eated it. I has a sad!

  498. jeffret says

    Yes suicide. It’s the only one I can think of that will work for all situations and is a guarantee /snark

    That’s why I was careful to say reduce rather than eliminate.

    Not reasonably no. Most rapes are from people you know, family or friends. You cannot reduce this

    This feels wrong. Yet, I can offer no evidence to deny it, no recommendations for how to avoid this. Perhaps it feels wrong, simply because it runs counter to “commonly accepted wisdom”. Perhaps, even more so, it feels wrong because it means that everyone is inevitably powerless. But, perhaps that is reality and the feeling is just a mistaken attempt to feel like we really have some control.

    Hmmmm….

  499. jeffret says

    You are rather presuming the answer to the first question aren’t you.

    What I wrote was intended to be shorthand for, If there are things that a woman can do to reduce her risk of rape, what are those things? That seemed a little clunky, but in a system that doesn’t indent the one below the other, it does become presumptive.