Leviticus Is Just Good Science

Over and over again I hear that the Bible must be the inspired word of God because the rules in Leviticus are so scientific and sane, we should all be following them just for our health.

Bullshit.

For example, this is what passes as scientific in this crowd:

the Law states we are not to eat pork. God will not punsih us if we do. BUT do you know that science has backed up God? pigs are the only animal that doesn't sweat, releasing it's toxins. so when you eat pork you are eating toxins! same goes for the catfish that God warned us against eating. they are the trash eaters of the water. why would you want to eat trash?

Sweating is not how you "release toxins". Sweating is how you modulate body temperature and it's not even that efficient a means of doing so. You do have a way of dealing with harmful substances in your body, it's called your liver. Your liver does not make you sweat.

Also, if eating catfish is eating trash, then eating a cow is eating grass, eating grass is eating sunshine and you should be able to live off of nothing but sitting out in the sun for several hours a day.

Continuing on, I guess this person doesn't get any international news, because all the people that were sickened, seriously injured or killed in Germany due to food poisoning? That was e coli. E coli is not found in pigs. Most outbreaks that don't come from people come from cows. When was the last time you heard about a trichinosis outbreak? (That's an actual disease you can get from pigs.) Never, I would imagine. E coli outbreaks, on the other hand, are common.

Let's examine some other sciencey stuff found in Leviticus:

• Don't wear clothes made of more than one fabric (Leviticus 19:19) You know, because . . . yeah, I got nothing.
• If a man has sex with a woman on her period, they are both to be "cut off from their people" (Leviticus 20:18) Scientifically speaking . . . no idea.
• Don't let cattle graze with other kinds of Cattle (Leviticus 19:19) Because . . . well . . . I dunno.

Then there's this wtfuckery:

• "And the man whose hair is fallen off his head, he is bald; yet is he clean." 13:40
• "And he that hath his hair fallen off from the part of his head toward his face, he is forehead bald: yet is he clean." 13:41

Well, gee, I'm glad we cleared that up.

I May, in Fact, Be Mocking Armless Children

You know, I'm not opposed to people raising their children within their belief systems, even if those belief systems are seriously whacky. (Really, I don't see how you could avoid it.) I do have a problem with people raising their children in a way that's going to seriously handicap them if they ever, you know, grow up and have to interact with the rest of us. That's just mean.

For example:

my girls are being taught to EXPECT the boy to open the door ( and likewise my boys are being taught to open the door).

Wow. Yeah, see, that's not going to work out well if they ever have to visit pretty much anywhere. I mean, if I refused to open a door myself and just waited around for someone with a penis to do so for me, I'd never get into my own house.

Are these children armless? Because otherwise, that's just atrocious. Think of the message being sent here: Honey, yes, boys can go anywhere they want to go, but girls can only go somewhere with a boy, because she can't open doors. Yes, I know you have arms, but you are not supposed to use them. What? Because you have a vagina, that's why! Stop questioning mommy and stand out here in the hail until some man comes by to open the door for us.

srsly.

although the following comment to the post may actually be the holy grail of what the fuckery unrelated to trolling:

To think that for all of history women wore long dresses until about the 1920s. They didn't shave. I've met women who have had problems due to shaving. One women told me she needed surgery due to shaving the underarms(ingrown hairs) and a doctor told me he had a patient who died due to a cyst infection from shaving(his nurse said an old razor was probably used). I was watching an old silent movie on tv(if it was up to me we wouldn't have one-I should have listened to Mary Pride and David Wilkerson years ago). Anyway,in the silent movie the older women wore dresses that covered the ankles and the younger women wore dresses that were just above the ankles. Then I did a study a few years ago, on the fashion industry and when women started wearing pants(Hollywood was involved again). All I know is the law says I have to register my sons 30 days after their 18th birthday for the Selective Service(the Post Office has the paperwork)-women are now taxpayers,I hope they won't have to register in the future. I tell my daughters-in-law and daughter to please let my granddaughters have long hair,as well.

So, to translate:

1. shaving is prevented by long dresses
2. shaving kills
3. ankles
4. pants
5. THE LAW
6. taxes
7. women need long hair.

I . . . well . . . somehow I don't think it's the misogyny that's the problem for that woman's children.

Rings and Surthings

I had the weirdest conversation with The Princess*, my new sister-in-law, when she was in town for my husband's birthday. It's taken me this long to write about because I just wasn't sure how to process it. Translation: I don't know her well enough to know if she was deliberately being rude or if she is just really clueless. I'm erring on the side of clueless, though deliberately rude is a definite possibility.

Anyway, she and my brother-in-law have been married less than a year. I generally hate talking to newlyweds, for a lot of reasons**, and she hit two of them in less than five minutes:

Why don't you guys wear wedding rings? Don't you want people to know you're married?

Why didn't you change your last name? Is this some kind of feminist thing?

So, here's my reply to those questions, feel free to borrow whatever is applicable to you any time you'd like.

1. Wedding rings:

Does anybody even know what the point of wedding rings is, anyway? I guess to show people I'm married, but why does every random stranger need to know my marital status? An unmarried person could buy a wedding ring. It's not like jewelry stores require proof of marriage. A married person with a wedding ring could simply take it off. And I'm still not sure why everyone I meet needs to know whether or not I'm married.

I've been told that my husband will cheat on me if I don't require him to wear a wedding ring. I told them I had no idea circles of metal had such amazing powers.

I've been told our refusal to wear wedding rings means we're not serious about one another. I've been known to say "fuck off". Seriously, seriously fuck off. We've stuck together through both of our chronic illnesses, poverty, and other stuff I don't talk about here, and you're telling me that the ring is what denotes serious commitment? C'mere, I wanna show you something. It won't hurt for long.

So why don't we wear wedding rings? Neither one of us likes the tactile sensation of rings. My husband won't wear any jewelry at all, not even a watch. I regularly wear earrings, bracelets, and necklaces (I'm actually rarely without all three), but rings bother me. I can't really see how "Hey, I know wearing a ring makes you wildly uncomfortable, but you must wear one every day for the rest of your life" means love.

2. Taking my husband's surname.

This is not a feminist thing. Well, actually, some feminists do promote this as a feminist thing, but it has nothing to do with feminism for me. I'd like to say it does. I'd like to claim to be a feminist warrior, changing the world through my bold refusal to change my name, but Hell is all about the honesty***.

I didn't change my last name because I didn't really care about it and I'm lazy about things I don't care about. Actually, thinking about it, I had just spent a very frustrating six weeks getting a new social security card so I could switch jobs and the thought of doing that all over again to change my name was just too much at the time, so I put it off. After a few years went by, I asked my husband if he cared that I didn't use his name and he said, quite reasonably, that while I was welcome to use his name, he didn't see why I should. I didn't become a different person when I married him, why should I have a different name? And, it bothers him to see men stay Mr. John Doe, but women become Mrs. John Doe as if she had to marry John Doe because her parents named her Mrs. John Doe. What if she wanted to marry Frank Doe? It would be tragic!

Yeah, he's as weird as I am.

I've been told that this means I don't love him. I've been told this means he'll leave me, cheat on me, be heartbroken. I've been told feminists are ridiculous, that I hate men and that I'm a bad wife.

People seriously froth at the mouth about this one, more so than the rings.

Multiple people have suggested a "compromise" as if we were fighting about it: hyphenate our names. First of all, this always means I change my name to the hyphenate and he does nothing. Secondly, I have a four syllable Scots/Irish name and he has a three syllable Italian name. Can you imagine?

Mrs. Faith O'Hannigan-Agnoli****.

That's better than Faith O'Hannigan?

People often ask what name our children (will) have. My husband agrees that in the highly unlikely event that we do have a child, they will have my name because I'll be the one doing all the work. This upsets people so much that I've suggested we simply combine our names into one unhyphenated, bizarre Iritalian mix. O'Hannoli, perhaps. Nobody finds that funny, other than my husband.

Anyway, I really want to know why are either of these things anyone else's business? Why does anyone at all care whether or not we wear wedding rings or whether or not I change my name? I have asked people that, but apparently, I'm the rude one for asking.



*No, I really don't like her all that much.

**Hey, you're happy, good for you. Stop pretending you know anything about marriage. Call me back in ten years and then we'll talk all about it.

***Carefully edited honesty.

****Not our real names. Our real names would be even worse. And longer. Much longer.

You Should Have Listened

This was the perfect cure to my very bad mood. Who can be cranky with such snarkilicious fun to be had?

Tony sat on his sofa surfing away on the tube.....

Surfing the tube, huh?

Life is fast and ya gotta play hard ....that is his motto

Really? My motto is water is wet and ur gonna need a towel.

last night, he was clubbing and this morning he's paying...."4 ibuprofen's and a gatorade...he's got to fuel up and replenish because he's dehydrated from too much alcohol

I . . . I . . . where does the quote end? Is that a quote? I'm a little unsure. In all honesty 4 advils and a gatorade is just a normal morning for me.

head's a pounding, his stomach's turning and life's passing him by....that part he doesn't get

"head's a pounding"? why are you doing this to me? it hurts- my soul.

his cell phone's got ten messages ....."Tony, I just called to remind you of the INVITE" "hey Tony, hope you get a chance to come" "hey bro, heard Sandy Invited ya already, but just wanted to invite ya myself....hope to see ya there"

okay, look, i don't care how you pronounce "you", it is spelled y-o-u. that is one more letter than "ya", i think you can handle it. also, why does "invite" keep getting unnecessary capitals? is it perhaps the capitol of some nation i am unfamiliar with? RSVPia?

It's Easter Sunday....and Tony had been invited to his cousin's church....they are having this drama or some type of special service "for us heathens" Tony had thought

who thinks "for us heathens"? anyone? anyone? is anyone in america unaware that christian churches have special services on easter?

"I know what they are up to?" "I got their game all figured out"

"I'm not their token show pony"

WTF does that mean? "token show pony"? i . . . i . . . my soul, it is weeping.

his head throbs in pain.....

"if I needed God to get women or something I could understand" but he see's

"see's"?! that is an apostrophe, not a decoration!

three text from his newest entree's on his phone....

i can't decide what's bothering me more, the use of "entree" in this situation, or the repeated apostrophe abuse. apostrophes are not used to create plurals, in case you were confused. the "s" does that. the "s" does not need further help.

"hey stud...can't wait to hook up next week" "yo, Tony it's me from last night at Grumpy's....REMEMBER?" "thanks for the drinks, call me when your in my area...we will have to hook up ..ya know?"

Y-O-U

Tony smiles in pride...."I hear ya ladies"..."so many women, and so little time"

i really dislike present tense writing.

SO LITTLE TIME.....boy did Tony have that right

DUM DUM DUM!

flying through the channels ..crashed on his couch, he came to one channel where a man stood speaking to the camera

a news reporter? "flying" and "crashed"? this is the description of an aviation accident.

"Today is the day of salvation, Now is the appointed time, and maybe Last time you are EVER GOING TO HAVE THIS OPPORTUNITY AGAIN" ....

Tony hit the mute and cursed..."shut the heck up dude" "I've heard that all my life, Jesus has been coming back for over 2,000 years....give it a rest"

he didn't change the channel?

His cell phone is buzzing...new text

elipses do not replace words. His cell phone is buzzing, he has a new text. now was that so hard?

"Tony, so sorry you missed us today, .....praying you can come next week"

"Praying for ya Tony, prayed all service cause I thought you said you would come" "75 people gave their lives to Jesus ...it was awesome"

DELETE, DELETE, DELETE

don't blame you, Tony.

as quick as they came....Tony deleted every mention of Jesus and Church, his family was a bunch of "holy rollers" and it was just not on his radar

he had world's to conquer...women to meet

comma, use a fucking comma!

but the last text to come across ....jarred him for a sec

A space! That's all that is necessary, a single space. "but the last text to come across jarred him for a secOND".

"Hey Tony, it's Lizzie, I heard you might be at Church today....got my hopes up again but you didn't make it"

Tony slammed his cell phone shut.....Lizzie has always been his dream girl, but she dumped his butt when she gave her life to Jesus and Tony has resented Jesus ever since

um, sure, okay. Tony got cockblocked by Jesus. that's why we're all atheists. although, in my case, that would have to be a vagblock? Pussyblock? I'm not even sure.

all day long Tony ponders a reply, he hasn't hit delete to Lizzie's Message ..but it's not worth a reply

after a long nap.....his hangover "stealing time"

what does that mean? why is it in quotes? why is my brain outside of my skull, crawling away?

it's 10pm CST .....He turns his tv set back on.....BREAKING NEWS.......JUST MOMENTS AGO....911 call centers started receiving calls reporting hundreds and thousands of missing people

The Rapture occurs at 10pm CST? So, 11pm EST? Good to know.

Tony sat up from his place on his couch, His heart racing....."Tony, someday Jesus will Shout and Call His Church Home"..."and I don't want to miss out" "you can give Your Life to Jesus with Me or NOT but I'm going to be ready with or without you"

Lizzie's former plea... flashes in Tony's mind as he quickly picks up his cell phone and hits SEND ..calling Lizzie's number....NO ANSWER

NO ANSWER. DUM DUM DUM!

Tony dials his brother and sister n law who had text him earlier to remind him of THE

INVITE........NO ANSWER....PANIC sets in....

JESUS Has come and those most closest to Tony are Gone....They Heard the Shout

but NOT TONY,

Why?

He was NOT READY

Yeah, Tony, you have to take a shower before Jesus comes. Gatorade and Advil are not going to cut it.

You're Enjoying This Way Too Much.

Last week, I happened to catch the local news and they showed a dog whose owner had abused it, quite creatively and for a long time. As dogs will, it recovered and now has a very nice home filled with toys and treats. For a brief instant, I wanted the ability to rip someone's spleen out of their body and shove it down their throat. It was the video of the dog's tail, weakly wagging at its rescuer that drove me over the top. After all that, a dog will still trust people to make things better.

Rage, I understand. Vengeance, oh, I grok that.

This, not so much. It's a treatise on hell and hell and fiery punishment- everlasting- and I've seen it all before, until we got to this:

"Some people think that hell will only be experienced by the inner consciousness. But hell will be experienced by the body, too. Transcendent, eternal bodies are going to be given to the damned; they will suffer in those bodies forever.

Um . . . oooookaaaay. Why? Why would God, maker of heaven and earth, omnipotent and omniscient, need to give me a new "transcendent" body in order to torment me? It seems a bit, what's the word I'm looking for? Unnecessary? Sadistic? Bizarre?

Seriously, what is going on in the writer's mind that that makes sense and seems worthy of worship?

And this, regarding the degrees of hell:

"So, hell will be a place of unrelieved torment of body and soul in varying degrees. John Gerstner said, "Hell will have such severe degrees that a sinner were he able would give the whole world if his sins could be one less."

Really? After eternity? I guess that's why we have to have new, transcendent bodies, because in this current one, you can get used to anything inside of a few minutes, depending upon what it is, so I give it 1,000 years at the outside before everyone is hell is all "meh, whatever, just another day of fiery torment."

This makes no sense at all:

God never meant for hell to be for people. He made it for the devil and his angels. But people choose to go to hell by rejecting Christ. Some souls are suffering that torment right now, and have been waiting for their resurrected bodies for thousands of years. But even after they receive their transcendent bodies, they will be no closer to the end of eternal punishment than when they first entered hell. No wonder Jesus had to teach about hell!

God never meant for hell to be for people? God's omniscient, right? If he is, the above statement makes no fucking sense at all. Not one bit. If he isn't, well, that kicks the rest of your theology in the teeth. Either way, stoopid.

And, just to amuse myself, God and I talk transcendent, eternal bodies:

God: Here you go!

Me: Hey, neat, what's this?

God: That's your new, transcendent, eternal body.

Me: What does "transcendent" even mean in that context?

God: You know, tranning scendents.

Me: What?

God: Never mind, what do you think of it?

Me: Well . . . I'm a little underwhelmed, to be honest.

God: What? Why? It's transcendent, it's eternal!

Me: I was really hoping to get something better than this. This is just a human body. Like many others. Much like the one I used to have. Do you have anything in Jägermonster?

God: What?

Me: I was thinking gold, with red eyes and red hair. Maybe gold streaks in the hair. Of course, shark's teeth and long, pointed ears, and inch-long claws. That's just standard. I'd be equally satisfied either way with horns, but I'd really rather not be covered in fur.

God: Seriously?

Me: Transcendent!

Whacktastic!

I read this and yelled, "That's whacktistic!" at my desk at work. And then mumbled sheepishly, "Some lady on youtube . . . fell into a fountain . . ."

But seriously, this is so whacktastic I can only assume the Blogging Fairy had it written just for me.

The One Indispensable Constituent of a Good Education

Grammar? Spelling? Logic? A questioning nature?

"The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God."

Ooookay . . .

If the beginning of wisdom and knowledge is the fear of God, then one should never teach anything without this very basic foundational truth either clearly expressed or assumed.

Anything at all? How would one manage this? I can think of any number of subjects entirely neutral to the question of god.

This guy can't.

What then would constitute a good science class, for example? Picture the instructor describing the order, the beauty, the complexity, the expanse, and the glory of the universe, the human body, and the animal kingdom. Then, he lifts his arms and says in a whisper to the class, Silence for a moment! All of you, stand in awe of him! Stand in awe of him! Let us worship the mighty Creator of heaven and earth. Anything short of this is not good science.

Whacktastic! Can you imagine? That's just . . . just . . .O.o

Words, they fail me.

The history professor will discuss the bubonic plague that destroyed 1/3 of Europe in the latter half of the 15th century. But unless he turns around and tells his students to fear the God behind it all, the One who does his will in the whirlwind and in the storm (Nah. 1:3),he has failed to teach good history.

e.e

If the beginning of wisdom and knowledge is the fear of God, then the first lesson in every sex education class should be a discussion on fearing God, because he is the one who first wrote the words, "Thou shalt not commit adultery. . ." And, "Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. . ." And, "The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good."

This is a penis . . . What is it, Timmy? Oh, yes, Be not deceived, now, upon arousal, the penis . . .

This, by the way, is what happens when you study Psalms instead of physics:

Last year our family was traveling through Wyoming on vacation, heading west on I-80 in the dead of winter. It was about 8:00 pm and my wife was driving on dry pavement at full speed. I drifted off for what seemed like a moment, when I woke to my wifes screaming, Help me Jesus! Apparently, she had hit a patch of ice formed by blowing snow on a high point in the road, and instantly I realized we were sliding sideways down the freeway. There was only one thing I could do. I joined in with my wife, yelling, Help us Lord. Help us now! Now! Please? It was a very charismatic moment, prayers going up to God in rather disorderly fashion.

In mere seconds, God took the vehicle and moved it onto the center divider where the vehicle plowed through 18 inches of snow for about one hundred feet. As we came to rest, we could not tell that we had stopped, for the snow had covered the entire vehicle like an igloo. Peering outside, I announced to everybody that we had come to a stop. We woke up the children. We trembled, and wept, and cried out to God, Thank you oh God for saving our lives today! And together we sang To God be the Glory. There was somebody else in the car with us. We knew that he was there. He was there!

Yes, god picked up your car, carefully placed it onto the center divider and used snow to slow you down. After allowing you to hit a patch of black ice and go sliding sideways in the first place. That god, such a kidder!

But what happens to a civilization that neglects to root an education in the fear of God over successive generations? It will eventually destroy knowledge itself. Scientists would be unable to distinguish between the science that drops a ball 100 times, and notes that mass seems to attract other mass to itself by a gravitational pull (at a probability of 99%), and the science that takes a look at a rock and calls it 4,325,000,000 years old. With equal levels of dogmatism, they conclude that force equals mass times acceleration, and then look at 600 factors that might cause global warming, and insist that the world will come to an end as we know it in 100 years unless we replace our SUV's with mopeds. A science without the fear of God will produce a hubris that can only end in irrationality

Damn, I used O.o too soon. Apparently, this dude is, with no scientific training whatsoever, qualified to decide what science is true and what science is just silliness. That Stephen Hawking, such a fool!

As one scientist told me recently, There is no essential difference between the science of Darwin and the science of Boyle, Newton, Pasteur and Pascal. What a breathtaking lapse in clear thinking! What exactly did Darwin give the modern world, but one lousy hypothesis concerning origins. Such blurring of science and pseudo-scientific guesswork began with Darwins hypothesis of species-evolution by a survival-of-the-fittest mechanism. While millions of scientists worldwide pursued this new pseudo-science with appropriate levels of hubris, thankfully there were men who feared God like Boyle, Newton, Pasteur, and Pascal who produced multiple advancements in the engineering and medical sciences as they took real dominion over Gods green earth with real observable, measurable, and reproducible science.

Is there something stronger than O.o, because I really need it now.

What happens to the minds of men who wander for 150 years without acknowledging their need for the Creator and His truth? Their scientists will busy themselves with worthless projects like extracting gold from lead, or acquiring clones from unfertilized parthenogenocized zygotes, or building towers that keep falling down. Science without the fear of God will in the end prove to be futile, and fatal in the brave new world without God.

lol wut? First of all, anyone whose mind is wandering for 150 years is living about twice as long as average for today, so good for them. Secondly, last time I checked, cloning worked and "towers that fall down"? What is he referring to? I have no idea, unless he's referring to the Twin Towers, in which case, in poor taste, and nobody builds anything with a contingency for "asshole flying a plane into it".

What happens to a nation that doesn't teach the fear of God as the beginning of wisdom for five generations? What happens to a nation that will not build its house upon Jesus and his words? When the rains come and floods rise, that house will come down, and great will be the fall of it (Matt. 7:27)! That nation will find 37% of children born without fathers, up from 6% in 1960, and half of marriages ending in divorce. That nation will become the greatest debtor nation on earth and inherit the weakest families in the entire western world. Sound familiar?

Really, it says that in Bible? Matt 7:28- and 37% of children will be born without fathers and national debt shall exceed net GDP. I must have skipped that day in Sunday School.

"reserve a lot of pity for the youngest girls that give fellatio"

The post snarked below could very well have been written by this dog.

Yeah, um, I'm not sure what to say about that. I'm not even sure context really helps here, either.

This is from a cracktastic series purporting to teach women about men? proper behavior? technical terms for blowjobs?

Maybe the labels for this post will help:

fellatio, handicaps herself, mental afflictions,screw her way to the top, self-importance withers, stroke her ego, teen sex, worthless girl

I've accidentally viewed some fetish porn* that left me feeling the same way those labels do.

Moving on to the post:

Precious granddaughter, I continue describing potential mistakes. In the words of a radio ad in my youth, ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.’ Fortunately, your parents have taught you to avoid what follows. Permit me, in the interest of eliminating ignorance, to describe what likely happens to a girl that experiments and participates sexually with boys.

I feel like this was written for Playboy, if Playboy had been around in 1832.

So, anyway, what happens when a "girl", and I'm really hoping he means "teenaged girl", "experiments and participates sexually with boys"? Keeping in mind of course, I was 15 when I began experimenting -for science!- and participating sexually with boys, so I actually know the answer to this question.

She handicaps herself. She can’t associate normally with peers that are focused on developing and maturing themselves with adult skills, values, and attitudes.

Does anyone know any teenagers that are "focused on developing and maturing themselves with adult skills, values, and attitudes"? Anyone? Bueller? Anyway, I graduated top 2% of my class, got 5s on all three AP exams that I took, got a 1520 on my SATs and when I left college, due to financial issues, I had a 3.92 gpa.

Her mental maturation slows. After enough encounters it virtually stops. She then passes into her adult persona with mental development still locked in adolescence. Acting as mature adult women act and deal with the subject of sex seems foreign to her.

I left college at 22, 19 credits shy of graduation**, in order to help support my mother and younger sister after my father left. I worked two jobs and frequently didn't eat in order to help buy asthma medication for my sister and heart medication for my mother. My sex life was one of the few bright spots in my life at that point.

She absorbs a sense of girlish worthlessness except when desired sexually. It pushes her mindset to drop feminine and absorb masculine values.

I'm not removing links or footnotes or anything. There is no proof offered, no outside opinions, just assertions pulled out of grandpa's imagination. I don't feel worthless except when desired sexually. Actually, I get more self affirmation out of earning achievements in video games than in being sexually desired.

What grandpa is talking about is the dual mindfuck of the patriarchy. If a woman has sex and enjoys sex and seeks out sex she is a worthless slut. If a woman does not enjoy, have or seek out sex, she is frigid and worthless. There's just no winning for women in a patriarchy, and as long as you continue to try to play the game, you will be miserable. The answer, of course, is to reject the patriarchy, not your sexual nature.

Her will power doesn’t mature. It doesn’t embolden her to resist masculine assaults on her feminine spirit.

I think what he means here is that will power in women is purely a matter of resisting sexual advances from men, which are assaults on her very soul. Hey, buddy, have you ever had consensual sex? Are you sure?

She becomes afraid to refuse sex for fear of being disliked. Can promiscuity be far behind when teen girls are so plagued with anxieties?

I'm not even sure why promiscuity is a problem, really.

Her hopes and dreams die as she shifts her hopes toward attracting and holding masculine attention today.

Mmm-hmmm. All that from a little fellatio, huh?

She turns more to thinking as boys think. She seeks more stroking of her ego, as she learns how to live with being treated like trash. She cries for attention.

First of all, there's nothing wrong with how men think. (And they say feminists hate men!) Apparently, grandpa needs ego strokes, lives with being treated like trash and cries for attention. No wonder grandpa hates the ladies, if this is his inner life.

After she enters the workforce, self-defense pushes her to adopt the strategy of ‘screw my way to the top’. She fails to develop belief in herself that she can do it any other way.

Sure. You show me a study, asshole, because I've never actually seen this. I have seen, and been, sexually harrassed at work, but that's not something I did, that's something that was done to me. Possibly by grandpa here.

And here's the truly cracktastic part:

Honey, other girls must look out for themselves. You owe them respect as a person but little else until the bonds of friendship arrive in your life.

"Hi! We're the Bonds of Friendship and we'd like to see if you have any interest in attending our Sunday service . . ."

However, reserve a lot of pity for the youngest girls that give fellatio and a lot of sorrow for those that do it in public. They doom their futures much faster and dramatically than other girls.

Um . . . wut? How young are we talking, grandpa? Should the FBI have any interest in your hard drive? Do you regularly visit the Dominican Republic with Rush Limbaugh? And "in public"? Who's giving blowjobs in public? I . . . I'm a little concerned.

*Fetish porn is awesome- if you happen to have that fetish. If you don't, you're left feeling confused and vaguely skeeved. "I know this is supposed to be sexy, but I have no idea why-" *tilts head to side* "Nope, that didn't help." *tilts head in opposite direction* "What, how many penises does that guy have?"

**Technically, I could have graduated in 4 years, but the program I chose, international business finance with a minor in Spanish, was, like so many, a 5 year degree. It's not uncommon these days.

Atheists Are Fatties

[trigger warning: discussions of body size, use of the word "fat". please enjoy this delightful otter instead.]

Having run out of pseudo intellectual bombast regarding atheists, conservapedia has decided to go with "fatty, fatty, boombalatty!"

I am not kidding you.

Atheism and Obesity

According to the Gallup Organization, "Very religious Americans are more likely to practice healthy behaviors than those who are moderately religious or nonreligious.

The cite, btw, is this:

Very religious Americans are more likely to practice healthy behaviors than those who are moderately religious or nonreligious. The most religious Americans score a 66.3 on the Gallup-Healthways Healthy Behavior Index compared with 60.6 among those who are moderately religious and 58.3 for the nonreligious. This relationship, based on an analysis of more than 550,000 interviews, is statistically significant after controlling for major demographic and regional variables.

Yes, 8% is quite a number there, isn't it? It's huge! Fat, even!

The Gallup study gives some insight into the above average health habits of the very religious and not necessarily the health habits of atheists. The reason is that the Gallup organization defines a non-religious as a person where "Religion is not an important part of daily life and church/synagogue/mosque attendance occurs seldom or never. This group constitutes 29.7% of the adult population."^[4] While many Western atheists are non-religious, not all non-religious people are atheists.

What Schafly is trying to tell you is that atheists are around 5% of the population, and I'm not even sure if that's the adult population specified above. This poll has nearly 30% of the entire adult population as "nonreligious". Notice a problem here? Schafly named the article "Atheists and Obesity", but that's not what this poll is about at all.

So why "Atheists and Obesity" rather than "The Nonreligious and Obesity"? Simple. And it's not just that Schafly hates atheists with an unsettling passion. A large portion of Andy's target audience considers themselves nonreligious. A certain percentage of evangelical Christians are proudly nonreligious- they have a relationship with Christ, you see. Not a religion. At all. Also. Too.

Two of the major risk factors for becoming obese according to the Mayo Clinic are poor dietary choices and inactivity, thus given the above cited Gallup research, it appears as if non-religious are more prone to becoming obese than very religious individuals.^[8]

Two "of" the major risk factors. (Always check every word with conservapedia.) This is the Mayo Clinic's article, and here are the listings of risk factors for obesity, not in order of importance:

Inactivity

Unhealthy diet and eating habits

Pregnancy

Lack of sleep

Certain medications

Medical problems

Huh. Now why would Andy only mention the first two? Easy. Those are the reasonably controllable, "it's your fault your fat" risk factors. He doesn't want to go after pregnant women, because he opposes any control over pregnancy at all, insomnia is difficult at best to treat, and medications and medical conditions aren't anyone's fault. Plus, it's a little difficult to tie insomnia or corticosteroids to what Andy thinks the religious are benefitting from.

The Bible declares that gluttony is a sin.^[9]Furthermore, the Bible declares the physical body of Christians to be temples of the Holy Spirit.^[10] Therefore, it is not surprising that many very religious Christians would leave healthy lives.

See, you just can't tie corticosteroids (infamous for causing weight gain) to gluttony and temples, ergo, not an important risk factor.

Here's the thing. Religious, in the context of this poll, means actively attending church, probably more than once a week. A thing which is certainly easier to do if one is not suffering from a medical condition. Any number of physical and mental illnesses cause weight gain, and those same illnesses would make attending church difficult to impossible. So, while not attending church, or social functions in general, may be correlated with obesity, correlation does not equal causation.

That's to say nothing about fat shaming in this country. The obese are less likely to attend social functions overall, due to a desire to avoid real or perceived fat shaming (most likely real). So, while an obese person may be less likely to attend church (be religious in this context), it's not nonattendance causing the obesity, it is obesity causing the nonattendance.

None of which Andy even bothers to think about, because why bother when you can call atheists fatties?

the noted Evangelical preacher Rick Warren recently made a public commitment to lose 90 pounds.^[22] Have you seen any of the prominent atheists make such a pledge?

lolwut? You just can't beat conservapedia for straight up, eye crossing wtfuckery.

The rest of the article is pictures of fatty atheists interspersed with pictures of, I kid you not, Chuck Norris. This conservapedia entry snarks itself from here on out, so I will let you get on with your morning.

I Guess the Horoscope Changes Sent Some People Right Over the Edge

I just had this conversation. For reals:

Caller: I'm sending a fax to [redacted], is his secretary there?

Me: No, there's nobody in his office right now.

Caller: Where is she?

Me: She had to run out to the notary.

Caller: Is [redacted] there?

Me: No, he's at a closing.

Caller: I need to send a fax, but I'm not putting a cover sheet on it, could you stand by the fax machine and get it?

Me: No, I'm sorry, but I'm answering phones right now.

Caller: What should I do?

Me: If you put a cover sheet on it, I'll look for it when I'm done answering phones and put it in his box.

Caller: There's no other way to do this?

Me: Not really, no.

Caller: I don't just want these rambling around the office. These are client accounts.

Me: Sir, we're a law office. We get confidential faxes all day long. If you put a cover sheet on it, I will personally make sure it gets to [redacted].

Caller: Okay, I'll put a blank sheet of paper on top.

Me: Please put his name on it, so I'm sure it's for [redacted].

Caller: I can't do that! *click*

Why I just had this conversation, I have no idea. I do have an idea what's going to happen to that fax. I'm going to put it in the top box, which is not [redacted's]. [Redacted's] box is at the bottom. Standard procedure for mystery faxes is to put them in the top box. Basically, each attorney looks at, and if it's theirs, they take it, if it's not theirs, they initial it and move it down a box. If it doesn't belong to the person in the last box, they initial it and we put it in the mystery fax file. Nobody is particularly quick about this. [Redacted] should get that fax sometime in March.

By the way, I'm the new (or very old) 13th sign. (Yes, I know, it really only applies to people born after 2009, but fuck you, I'm special.)

Comments - I Do Get Those

The following comment makes exactly as much sense as this fashion choice. Now, pull your eyes away from the shiny red codpiece and read the post.

I don't get PZ's amusing emails, but I do occasionally get amusing comments, always on old posts, for some reason.

This comment is from a post in May, Act Now to Receive the Antichrist:

I believe in the one God the Father, maker of the heavens and earth.

Does that ever bring me back. If you're from a Protestant or nonChristian background, that's the beginning of the Nicene Creed, which is recited at every mass. Considering that I attended Catholic schools exclusively, I attended mass 6 days a week. I probably said that thousands of times. Actually, the official Catholic version is I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, but wow, blast from the past for me.

One needs to only look around and see his beauty. I surely don't believe that everything came from evolution but there is a divine power at work in the creation and the future.

So, you're scientifically illiterate. Good for you. I look around and see beauty, too, I just don't need an invisible superpower to make that amazing.

The problem lies in the free will God gave us all and the ability to interpret it. Over time mankind has abominated God's promise and turned it into their own self-fulfilling idea of what they want without regard to their fellow man.

You know, your god is supposed to be omniscient. That means he knows everything that will ever happen. Why give us free will if he knows that the inevitable end of that is a great many of us hurting ourselves and each other and then spending forever in hell. Think about that for a second. Really think about that. God knows that free will ends with millions suffering an eternity of torment and does it anyway. This god of yours really isn't a very nice guy, is he?

Humankind lives for one thing and one thing only - themselves. Witness the cruelty, strife, wars, torture and unspeakable things man has forced on fellow men.

Sure. Witness also the art, the music, the selfless acts of love and generosity as well. We're bad, sure, but we're good, too. And religion has done nothing to end the cruelty and strife. If anything, religion has encouraged war and unspeakable acts (see also: Crusades, The). And the greatest torturer of all? Your god, for giving me the free will that will land me in hell.

God gave us his promise that if we but believe in him and his Son we will escape what is coming (look around) as long as we keep faith.

*looks around* Um, what's coming?

Yes we will be persecuted but God will protect us and reward us. The rest of the world will, literally go to HELL forever.

Again, your god is a douchebag. The biggest douchebag of all time. And you're a douchebag for enjoying his douchebaggery. Wait, I'm sorry, DOUCHEBAG.

Put your hormones aside and look inside for reason and faith.

My hormones? Atheism is hormonally modulated? What . . . I don't . . . what the fuck?

Too many of you will not make it to the other side and scoff those of us believe it to be true. It's not too late.

For what? Also, I do believe hell is the other side, the undesireable other side, but the other side nonetheless. I've never understood the promise of "eternal life" Christianity makes so much of. According to you, I get eternal life either way, you're just promising a less physically painful eternal life. (I gotta tell you, eternity praising God is just as unappealing to me as an eternity of torture.)

Anyway, Arthur, so long and thanks for all the lulz.