Category Archives: Humor
Yet More Fun From the Spam Folder
I get a never-ending barrage of comical comments caught in the spam folder. “Kyra Estle” left me this interesting comment attached to my prayer essay:
GURU means the preacher who removes ignorance – darkness by emitting knowledge – light. The field of the context is important here. If you are ignorant of mathematics, a teacher may remove your ignorance about mathematics by teaching mathematics. Such a teacher cannot be called as Guru. Guru is the preacher who diverts you towards God by removing your ignorance about God. This is the most important field for any human being because it is the basis of every aspect of life here as well as there after death. The final knowledge of God is to know that you are always ignorant of God, because God is unimaginable or ever unknown.
Actually, according to Wikipedia, a guru is “one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others (teacher).” Kyra is correct in drawing the comparison between darkness and light, as the elements of the word indicate coming out of the darkness and into the light. However, why someone would not be considered a guru just because his subject is mathematics is beyond me.
Kyra seems to say that a guru can direct one toward God, but then turns around to say that we’re always ignorant of God because he is “unimaginable or ever unkown.”
Obviously, Kyra’s concept of God isn’t drawn from the Judeo-Christian one. Man is made in the image of God. Therefore, it stands to reason that God is, at least in some sense, knowable to man in that respect. While I agree that it is tough to contain God in a neat box, the fact that man is made in the image of God means that God and man share at least some characteristics. This makes it possible for the skeptic to argue as he does that man made God in his image. Put another way, “if triangles had God, he’d have three sides.”
Either way, that is why I thank God for spam folders. DELETE!
More Spam Folder Comedy
My spam folder has become an endless source of amusement.
This essay on the Jesus Tomb Documentary (from March 2007) generated the following comment:
Check this Out!
2 days ago I received a message from 972-284-0600 / 9722840600 and was convinced the the person calling was a scammer.
I decided to complain to the the number and went nuts.
Anyway, I feel like such a fool Gulf Coast Western -an oil corporation- was calling me back to approve my job application – apparently I got the job!
I think I’m soooo fired!!!!???
Question. What does that have to do with anything I wrote in the essay?
Irony: I’m a Fan
Here is a great example of irony:
Did all you atheists know that there is a whole month the god botherers are dedicating just to pray for us to jump aboard the crazy train of delusion? I didn’t know about this till I saw it on an old classmate’s Facebook profile! The god believers have dedicated a whole month “and beyond” to “Pray for an Atheist”.
Listen you god believing fools, it ain’t gonna do any good. Your god doesn’t exist and no matter how hard you wish, no matter how many magical incantations you say, there will still be an ever-growing population of atheists in this world.
Neslock comments:
I’ve never met an atheist that cares whether they’re prayed for or not (outside of the desire that the person praying do something better with their time). I think this is a subtle play on the idea that “atheists” are really “satanists”; why would any atheist have a “strong objection” to being prayed for, when most atheists just consider prayer to be wishful thinking?
So, you don’t have any strong feelings about being prayed for, but you take the time to complain about it an online forum anyway?
And the author of the post says this in retaliation to a believer:
Why do we mock the believer when he fears that we are going to spend an eternity in a terrible place for merely not being able to believe due to lack of evidence that this Sky Boss really exists? It’s because of how smugly you all think that you have some superior knowledge over us, when in fact you do not. You simply choose to follow some ancient mythology, invented my human beings as a coping device for things they could not explain nor understood. Humans cling to this afterlife belief because they are afraid of death. Christianity is basically a death cult, looking to an unproven afterlife while thinking that this earthly life is somehow not good enough to have lived. (emphasis added)
WOW. It seems to me that it is the atheist who thinks that they have superior knowledge over the believer. The blog I pulled this from, God is for Suckers, is dedicated to:
Commentary, news, and rants on the evils and stupidity of belief in the big invisible daddy in the sky. Illuminating and watchdogging the widespread attempts to institutionalize the theocratic rule of the US. Making fun of believers everywhere.
The whole blog presupposes that the atheist knows something that the believer doesn’t. More irony.
Yet more irony:
Others have said plenty about how prayer can be arrogant, so I feel I should bring up one of my usual points: Faith is a monument to pride, arrogance, and hubris. It’s the act of declaring oneself to be the supreme arbiter of the universe, and the belief that gods bow to the faithful’s definitions of them.
I prefer the humility involved in science.
Humility like PZ Meyers displays?
It’s rather neat that modern scientists know more than God. (source)
This is Dumb
I am a Christian first. But I belong to a wider category of people who are called theists. The only thing that we all have in common is that we believe in a force greater than ourselves, which we believe to be deity, and that we worship.
When one theist says something stupid, it makes all of us look bad. Witness:
Many women who dress inappropriately … cause youths to go astray, taint their chastity and incite extramarital sex in society, which increases earthquakes. Calamities are the result of people’s deeds. We have no way but conform to Islam to ward off dangers. (source)
So said Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi, a hardline Muslim leader.
All this time, I thought it was because Iran was situated near a nexus of faultlines. Silly me!
What is Going on Here?
In a previous post, I highlighted some hilarity from my spam folder. It looks like I got some more. A user calling himself “names of jesus” posted a link to this website, which apparently can’t decide if it is a skeptic site, or an Evangelical site.
It opens thus:
There were at smallest amount three historical characters with similar names who lived in Galilee in the earliest century, whose lives were pasted together by the Apostles to create the mythical Jesus Christ. The names were |like to Yessu, Yessui, and Yeshuah. One was indeed crucified by the Romans, but he was merely a common criminal. One in truth had disciples, but he was stoned to death by his own people for heresy. The third was the son of Mary of Nazareth, the result of her adulterous relationship with a Roman soldier called Pantheras. So, no Virgin Mary, and no real Jesus Christ.
I’m thinking skeptic site. Then, after listing many of the names of Jesus from both Old and New Testaments, it continues:
My name and who I am does not matter. I am only a sinner saved by the grace of God and I just want to tell you that Jesus Christ loves you. God loves you, no matter what evils you have done. You and I both deserve to go to hell because of our sins, but He sent His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to bleed, suffer, and die on an old cursed tree for your sins. Jesus died on the cross of Calvary for you. Satan(the devil) hates you and wants your soul to burn in the lake of fire forever. Satan wants you to stay in bondage to your sins, but Jesus came to save your soul. He wants to be your Saviour and Lord.
What?? I thought this site was a skeptic site. Above, it just said there was no historical Jesus. Who, then, has saved the webmaster’s soul?
He then continues with a plea to the reader to give his life to Christ. Well, if Christ doesn’t exist, why would anyone do that? If this is a skpetic site, then it is a clear example of Poe’s Law (much like Landover Baptist Church). If it is an Evangelical site, then the introduction undercuts the conclusion and they need to rethink what message they’re trying to convey.
For now, I call Poe’s Law.
I Have No Words for This
The following comment was attached to my “A Few Things Atheists Need to Know About Christians” post, but was caught (with good reason) in my spam folder:
Hello, I was reading another thing about this on another blog. Interesting. Your perspective onto it is diametrically contradicted to what I read earlier. I’m still pondering on the opposite points of view, but I’m leaning to a great extent toward yours. And irrespective, that’s what is so wonderful about modern-day democracy and the marketplace of ideas online.
It came from someone who named himself “online matchmaking” and listed a lesser-known Christian singles website as his homepage. Advertisement, anyone?
I mean, seriously: “diametrically contradicted,” “I’m still pondering on the opposite points of view,” and “modern-day democracy and the marketplace of ideas online?” Who talks like that?
Irony
On the radio, DJs record and play things from various media outlets for their sign on/sign off routines, usually without telling us where it came from. One DJ in my hometown would play a favorite quote of mine: “Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.” I have no idea where it came from, but it was the first thing I thought of when I read this:
Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people’s business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you’d want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live.
This would be from the great philosopher Jesse “The Body” Ventura. It was quoted in Playboy‘s Novemeber 1999 issue. I’m relaying the quote from here, not from the original source. Just in case my wife reads this, I want that to be perfectly clear!
Anyway, Ventura’s statement pretty much tips the irony meter. I’m glad he lives by the Golden Rule, but the Golden Rule’s source is religious. The most common phrasing of the rule comes from the King James Version of the Bible (Mt 7:12)! It may not have originated with Jesus, but Jesus did make it famous.
Way to not let religion guide your life!
This is Weird . . .
Fail Blog titled this “Church Sign Fail:”
All I see is truth. No fail here at all.
Failbooking Gets Theology Right
Recently, I’ve become a huge fan of the site Failbooking.com. The premise is to highlight really bad or stupid Facebook status updates. It’s part of the Cheezburger Network, which began with the hilarious site I Can Has Cheezburger, which publishes pictures of cute cats with sarcastic but poorly spelled captions, popularly called lolcats.
Normally, sister sites Failbooking.com and Failblog.org are notable for horrid theological mistakes. But this one gets it right:
Back Rome Again 
The Omnipotence of God is Like a Tomato Plant
Apr 27
Posted by Cory Tucholski
On my post titled “Things God Can’t or Won’t Do?,” a reader left this comment that found its way into my spam folder:
Omnipotence of God, tomato plants. Omnipotence of God. . . tomato plants. Yeah, I see how you got there.
Posted in God, Humor
1 Comment
Tags: Comment Spam