’22 A To Z Challenge – I

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s not that I’m stubborn.  It’s just that I’m usually right.  I am urged to consider others’ opinions.  I do!  I consider many of them stupid and unworkable.  My darling wife, whose vocabulary is limited to romance novel levels, would not call me

Intransigent

refusing to agree or compromise; uncompromising; inflexible
obstinately maintaining an attitude

Nor

Intractable

not easily controlled or directed; not docile or manageable; stubborn; obstinate:
difficult to influence or direct

I don’t think that I am smarter than others.  It is, perhaps, just that I pay more attention to reality.  I only have a high school diploma, and some work-related post-secondary training.  I am constantly amazed by the ignorance and misunderstanding of people with college and university degrees.

One day, at work, four of us were playing cards at lunch, and the radio played an advertisement referencing the legal code of Habburami.   Two of us perked up, and simultaneously shouted, “Hammurabi!”  A co-worker asked, “How do you know?”  I answered, ”Because we paid attention in class.”

Religion is not the only reason that people believe and say foolish, stupid things.  The education system in North America, more and more, resembles a sewage treatment plant, with about the same type and quality of output.  Something is rotten in the state of Denmark Mississippi, New Jersey, etc.

I am amenable to being honestly and intelligently guided, but I refuse to be blindly led.  I am willing – anxious – to change my opinion if I am offered solid evidence, and well-thought-out presentations.  I will not take seriously, any opinion, from someone who asks things like, “Do Atheists have children?” – or Flat-Earth-type fools who claim that, “Australia is a lie.  It’s not real.  If it was, (sic) people would fall off.”

The Art Of Divorce

An attorney representing a wealthy art collector calls his client and says to him, “I have some good news, and I have some bad news.” The art collector replies, “I’d better hear the good news first.” The attorney say, “Well, I met with your wife today, and she informed me that she invested $5,000 in two pictures that she thinks will bring a minimum of $15-20 million. I think she could be right.”

The client says enthusiastically, “That’s fantastic!  I can’t believe my wife made such a great investment. You’ve just made my day. Now I know I can handle the bad news. What is it?” The attorney replies, “The pictures are of you with your secretary.”

***

“The COVID-19 situation has been especially stressful for the Flat Earth Society.
They fear that the social distancing measures could push people over the edge.”

***

The wife and I recently went on a Sunday road trip, and stopped at a lovely roadside restaurant for lunch.  We finished our meal and resumed our trip.  The wife unknowingly left her glasses on the table, and didn’t miss them until we were 40 minutes down the road.

By then, to add to the aggravation, we had to drive quite a distance before I could find a place to turn around, in order to return to the restaurant to retrieve her glasses.  All the way back, I was my classic Grumpy Old Dude.

I fussed and complained, and scolded her.  The more I chided her, the more agitated I became.  I just wouldn’t let it go for a single second.  To her relief, we finally arrived back at the restaurant.

She got out of the car, leaving the door open.  As she hurried across the driveway to retrieve her glasses, I leaned over and yelled at her, “While you’re in there, you might as well get my hat, and the credit card.”

***

We were attending church services.  About halfway through, I leaned over to the wife and whispered, “I just let a silent fart.  What do you think I should do?”  She replied, “Put new batteries in your hearing aids.”

***

A father is in church with three of his young children, including his five year old daughter.

As was customary, he sat in the very front row so that the children could properly witness the service.

During this particular service, the minister was performing the baptism of a tiny infant. The little five year old girl was taken by this, observing that he was saying something and pouring water over the infant’s head.

With a quizzical look on her face, the little girl turned to her father and asked: “Daddy, why is he brainwashing that baby??”

***

A woman walks up to a little old man rocking in a chair on his porch.
“I couldn’t help noticing how happy you look,” she says. “What’s your secret for a long, happy life?”
“I smoke three packs a day, drink a case of whiskey a week, eat fatty foods and never, ever exercise.”
“Wow, that’s amazing,” says the woman. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”

***

A man and his pet giraffe walk into a bar and start drinking. As the night goes on, they get drunk, and the giraffe finally passes out. The man decides to go home.

As he’s leaving, the man is approached by the barkeeper who says, “Hey, you’re not gonna leave that lyin’ here, are ya?”

“Hmph,” says the man. “That’s not a lion — it’s a giraffe.”

***

Mother’s Standards

Congratulating a friend after her son and daughter got married within a month of each other, a woman asked, “What kind of boy did your daughter marry?”

“Oh, he’s wonderful,” gushed the mother. “He lets her sleep late, wants her to get her nails done regularly, and insists on taking her out to dinner every night.”

“That’s sounds lovely,” said the woman. “What about your son?”

“I’m not so happy about that,” the mother sighed. “His wife sleeps late, spends all her time getting her nails done, and makes them eat take-out meals!”

Bad Math

Something Doesn’t Add Up

Trying to argue or debate with Christian Apologists is like trying to spar with fog. They’re never quite ‘there.’ They move the goalposts, or change the definitions. When they argue their positions, they add just enough reality to make it seem real. 2 + 2 doesn’t quite equal 4. They will claim 3.97 or 4.04, hoping that skeptics will concede the tiny difference.

They hold up portions of the Bible which are historically correct, and then claim that it ALL is. See, the Bible mentions Jerusalem, and Jerusalem exists, so the Bible must be true. It’s when you ask them to prove the existence of Sodom and Gomorrah, that the tap-dancing begins.

A very small percentage of archeology remains after three to four thousand years.
A very small percentage of surviving archeology has been discovered.
Of what archeology has been discovered, a very small percentage of it has actually been dug.
Of the archeological digs, only a small percentage of the total area is actually exposed.
Only a tiny fraction of what has been examined and published, has anything to do with the Bible.
Of the unidentified digs, one of them might have been Sodom, or Gomorrah.

Yeah??! And it MIGHT have been Jephthah’s bait shop and sailboard rental. We’re getting down to dancing on the head of that argumental pin.

A YouTuber complained that Atheists are so closed-minded, that even if they observed a miracle, they wouldn’t change their minds. As Proof, he quoted the story of Christ raising Lazarus from the dead. The Jewish leaders plotted to have both Jesus and Lazarus murdered, because all Christ’s miracles were bad for their business. But that was because they believed that the miracles were real. They accepted Christ’s divinity. The circular reasoning is hardly the best example to refute Atheists with.

One Apologist admitted that Christianity had got many things wrong, but defended its existence as a possible font of additional hunches/intuitions/guesses about the universe and reality, which science could then investigate, and either prove or disprove. Contrary to usual dogma, he insisted that Christianity and the Bible should be viewed as allegory, and not taken literally. What did I think about that?

That idea sounds weak and desperate. So far, EVERY one of religions’ wild-ass guesses/intuitions/hunches has proved wrong. I don’t think that any one of them need make any more. If organized logic and science can’t intuit something new, ‘Conspiracy Theory’ is the new growth industry.

Besides, Religion is the bully on the block. No Flat Earther has ever threatened me with eternal torment in Hell, or even worse, stretched me on a rack, burned me at the stake, or protested at my funeral because I had the audacity to serve in the military to defend my country, just because I thought the Earth was round.

No Area 51 fanatic has ever put det-cord around my neck and blown my head off, tossed me off a 10-storey building, or put me in a cage and drowned me, because I didn’t believe that the government performed an autopsy on an alien there in 1947.

I don’t feel that we should give any sanction or acceptance to most religions. It only validates and encourages the worst among them. They, and their desperate, insecure, ego-driven adherents, can be quite retrogressive and dangerous.

If you can’t take religion at face value, why take it at all? Playing ‘Pretend’ is for children.

How To Be Taken Seriously

PLEASE ENSURE MIND IS IN MOTION BEFORE ENGAGING MOUTH

Whoever you are, whether Christian Apologist, Flat Earther, Immigration Protester, or Climate Change Warrior, to be taken seriously, it really helps if you get your facts straight before you start spouting off.

It does little good for the Pope to insist that the Bible is inerrant and free of contradictions, when one of God’s commandments is, “Thou shalt make no graven images.’ and two chapters later, God instructs, “Thou shalt make two graven silver cherubim, and place them at each end of the Ark of the Covenant.”

I’m all for combating global warming, but a do-gooding tree-hugger recently had this op-ed published; Aircraft exhaust 10 or 11 kilometers above the Earth’s surface is thought to have considerably more polluting effect per person-mile, than automobile exhaust at ground level, per person-mile.

I’m not sure what his point was. Only transcontinental flights go up to 40,000 feet – 10/11 kilometers. The pollution from a few thousand flyers each day is much more than offset by the total of hundreds of millions of cars driving around. He could fight a more down-to-Earth battle. He’s tilting at one little Dutch windmill, when there are thousands of giant wind-turbines ruining people’s lives in the name of ecology.

Your favorite jovial old tundra-dweller recently became aware of ‘Blue Monday,’ the third Monday in January. It’s not something that affects me. A sociologist did a somewhat un-scientific study. He took into account things like the weather – cold and snow, the lack of sunlight for the last month, friends and family visitors who have now left, the shopping hassles of Christmas, back to work after some time off, and now the bills arriving. He felt that Blue Monday would be the day that cumulative depression would be most likely to affect/be noticed/felt by the average North American.

Immediately, the usual suspects began their howling. Psychologists, and counsellors whined that the day somehow belittled people with depression, when it actually raises people’s awareness of the condition and its causes.

One denier objected to the way the day was chosen, complaining that, “It’s like adding the speed of your jogging to the color of an apple.” And yet psychologists and penologists know that certain colors of prison uniforms and cells help calm prisoners down. One Arizona Sheriff makes his inmates wear hot pink overalls, and violence has reduced significantly.

It should be taken seriously, yet it is no more real that the chubby Santa Claus that Coca-Cola invented. Speaking of people who don’t know what they are talking about, a local radio announcer doesn’t get it. He claimed that, “It is the most depressing day of the year.” It is not the day that is depressing. It is merely the point in time when all the previous depressing influences come together in a confluence – like the perfect wave – and people are most likely to feel depressed.

A newspaper story about a truck crash wrote of ‘semi-tractors.’ (Surely, they are semi-trailers?) In another, a 10-year-old boy wrote to every automaker in the world, and requested ‘decals.’ He got back a hub-cap, hood ornaments, trunk logos, and key-fobs…. because, aside from those little generic warnings on your car windows – auto-makers don’t use ‘decals.’  I don’t know what he (or the article writer) thought ‘decals’ were.

First my Dismantling of Faith post, then all of these, in one week. Does nobody pay attention to the details of reality anymore? It helps, if you want to be taken seriously.

Flash Fiction #174

Copyright –Douglas M. MacIlroy

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I know that I shouldn’t bother, but I’ve been debating some Flat Earthers online.  The Flat Earth Society has members all around the world.  They’re as bad as the rabid Bible-thumpers – which many of them are.  Their minds are made up.  Don’t confuse them with the facts.

If the argument for a globe were a house, they can refute windows, or roofs, or walls, but not the entire building.   And their ‘proof’ against floors contradicts their ‘proof’ against chimneys.

Sometimes these discussions can be irritating.  Sometimes they can be amusing and entertaining, but often, they just go ‘round and ‘round.

***

Don’t be afraid to click on ‘Flat Earthers,’ above.  It’s not a deep Wiki article, just a few thoughts I published on the subject a couple of years ago.  Even the less astute of you may notice that I am willing to plagiarise even from myself.  Rochelle’s photo, coupled with Wednesday’s religious rant, joined forces to give the inspiration for this post.  I slipped in an old, previously published Flat Earth joke, and used the same “Round And Round” hook line from my Nov. 30^th Flash Fiction.  That’s just flat-out lazy.  😉

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

(One-)Liner Notes

I like a good long cuddle with my girlfriend after sex…….
…….It’s the quickest way to deflate her.

Apparently someone in London gets stabbed every 52 seconds….
…..poor bastard

The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach….
….unless he’s a vegetarian, then you can get there through his vagina.

Why was the Pediatrician always losing his temper….
….he had little patients.

One time I forgot how to throw a boomerang….
….but then it came back to me.

What do you call a boring woman with athletes’ foot?….
….anti fun gal.

There’s a new sex position called ‘Delivery Man’….
….You stay in all day, and nobody comes.

How do Flat Earthers travel?….
….on a plane.

I have OCD, which seriously affects my sex life….
….every time a girl gets turned on, I turn them off again

This guy lost his entire left side….
….doctors say he’s alright now

I once got a hand-job from Albert Einstein….
….it was a stroke of genius

Vladimir Putin’s approval rating is 80%….
….the other 20% is missing

There are 10 different kinds of people in the world….
….those who understand binary humor, and those who don’t

How do you stay clean in space?….
….take a meteor shower

Of all my friends….
….I am the most competitive

My wife is always stealing my T-shirts and sweaters….
….but if I take one of her dresses, “We need to talk”

What’s positive about rape?….
….HIV

How did the captain survive the sinking of his ship?….
….He kept a log in his cabin.

What so you call a man with a shovel in his hand?….
….Doug

He digs, she digs, it digs, we dig, you dig, they dig….
….It may not be a beautiful poem, but it’s very deep.

They’re (One-)Lining Up

I told my psychiatrist that I keep hearing voices in my head and creating imaginary people….
….He told me that I don’t have a psychiatrist.

***

My mom said “you treat this place like a hotel”………
……..she will regret that when I give her a low score on Trip Advisor for ‘rude staff’.

***

The book that I wrote about poltergeists….
….is flying off the shelves

***

The only thing that Flat Earthers fear….
….is sphere itself

***

I was arrested last week for stealing helium balloons……
…..the police held me for a while and then let me go.

***

My pet rock is not doing well today….
….I think it is stoned

***

I’ve been searching for my stolen bed…….
………I won’t rest until I find it.

***

My ex girlfriend just found out that I’ve replaced her bed with a trampoline…..
……She hit the roof.

***

My girlfriend had her driving test the other day. She got 8 out of 10……….
……the other 2 guys jumped clear.

***

My optician told me today that I’m color blind…….
……..that came right out of the orange!

***

I’m hoping to find a cure for my hiccups…..
……but I’m not holding my breath.

***

I bought a pair of shoes off a drug dealer……..
……..dunno what he’s laced them with,
………but I’ve been trippin’ all day.

***

I just bought a book called, “How To Avoid Being Ripped Off.”….
….best $100 I ever spent.

***

Someone just told me to stop acting like a flamingo………
……..so I had to put my foot down.

***

I turned to drink when my girlfriend left me….
….I like to celebrate in style

***

My doctor told me that jogging can add years to my life…….
……he’s right; I feel 10 years older already.

***

Breaking News….
….Ne ws

***

Just saw an ad that read, “TV for sale, $1, volume stuck on full high.” I thought to myself….
….I can’t turn that down

***

Scientists have recently discovered a gene that causes shyness…….
……they found it hiding behind two other genes.

***

My friend told me that he’s been constipated for two years….
….I think he’s full of shit.

***

I once dumped a cross-eyed chick….
….I thought she was seeing someone else.

***

My doctor gave me six months to live, so I shot him….
….The judge gave me twenty years.

***

My friend sent me an empty email….
….His message was clear….

Flat Earth – Flat Out Foolish

Recently, a rapper with so much artistic creativity, that he named himself B.o.B., claimed that the Earth is flat, and went head to head with Neil DeGrasse Tyson about it. In a battle of wits, he was soon out of ammo.  It’s like bringing a knife to a – tank battle.

Soon after, I found a post titled ‘Flat Earth – the Truth. Why it doesn’t matter’ at this site.

Click on over if you enjoy incomplete thoughts, rambling construction, mis-spelling and –punctuation, reverse logic, no stated truth, conspiracy theories, or, just see below..

He had one (almost)good idea. He felt we shouldn’t worry about arguing whether the Earth is flat or not, because, “it’s not worth discussing until we sort the important stuff out such as not being ruled by psychopaths and switching to sustainable energy before we all die.”

Sadly though, short of revolution, there’s no way these can be accomplished without involving politicians, and discussing this stuff is how we judge which ones are capable. If the stand-up comedian from Nome female Governor of Alaska intentionally uses the non-word ‘squirmishes’ as a talking point, the word doesn’t matter, but the fact that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, does.  If not, here, on a small thing, where else, on a large scale, where it counts??

To elect a Flat-Earth believer, would be like electing Joey from ‘Friends’, who regularly said ‘supposably’, instead of ‘supposedly.’ George W. was ‘misunderestimated’ by voters, and elected, and then led around by his WMDs.

The ‘belief’ in a flat Earth is as strong as any religious tenet.  Like any religion, it is fractured into many sects, each one believing some theory more bizarre than the last.  Since they deny that Earth is a sphere, gravity can’t attract toward the center.  Somehow it just pulls ‘down.’

When interviewed, the leader of one group was asked why the Earth then doesn’t fall ‘down.’ He answered that the plate-shaped planet rests on the back of a giant tortoise.  “But then, the tortoise would fall ‘down’ also.”  Nope, he replied, it’s tortoises all the way down.

To explain gravity, another Flat-Earth group claims that the world is constantly rising, like an elevator, pushing things toward the surface. We’ve all felt that pressure as an elevator moves upward, but it doesn’t take long till it and we are moving at the same speed, and the pressure disappears.

For gravity to persist, the planet must not only be ‘rising,’ but constantly accelerating, moving faster and faster. It would take about three days before it reached the unreachable speed-of-light limit.  But if you don’t believe that Earth is ball-shaped, or that gravity exists, then you probably don’t believe in Newton’s, or Einstein’s daydreams either.  They do believe in some strange things though.

Warning – Here Be Dragons   😳

FLAT EARTH – the TRUTH. WHY IT DOESN’T MATTER

First – why I think it’s a psy-op. (but the psy-op is not the truth, that’s just my opinion.) The bottom line, on two angles, is “who does it benefit?” If the Earth really is flat, who did it benefit to lie about it? Nobody as far as I can tell, it’s a pointless lie. But if it’s the flat earth theory that’s a lie, who does it benefit? The government, cos now anyone that says, “I don’t trust the government” sounds like some nutcase who believes the Earth is flat. Next time we say “I think 911 was an inside job” some bell-end is gonna reply, “yeah, you probably think the Earth is flat as well. The other point is, give the theory the benefit of the doubt again – even if the Earth is flat – so what? That would be a massive lie, and have literally astronomical implications (yeah, I’m proud of that!) but it’s still just a harmless lie compared to hiding abusers in government positions and false flag attacks to justify amoral wars to install central banks and steal resources. So forger about it, it’s not worth discussing until we sort the important stuff out such as not being ruled by psychopaths and switching to sustainable energy before we all die.

The truth is – it doesn’t actually matter.

A few like this, and Trump could start looking good. And I didn’t even say a word about the shit that some Christians believe.