Christian asks, “Why don’t you allow commenting on your website? Afraid of the truth?
Christian Email About Commenting
I warned Christians on my website contact form their emails would be subject to publication. Hopefully, they are not quite as illiterate as I believe and read the warning.
Dear Christian,
In previous articles, I answered why I refrain from social media, but perhaps the Christian mind is too filled with the spirit to allow my words to penetrate. Perhaps, the Christian only understands vapid adages and idioms. Perhaps Christians, as I suspected all along, do not read. Though all these reasons hold possibility, I still feel compelled to clarify my message and prepared a derivative parable that I hope will allow you to learn.
The Tale of the Custodian & the Dead Christian
While working the late shift at a funeral parlor, a custodian accidentally bumps into a table holding a body covered with a sheet. The sheet slips from the table, exposing a nude man lying on his stomach with a large crucifix protruding from his ass.
Rubbing his chin and frowning, the custodian wondered what purpose this ass-inserted crucifix served. Slowly curiosity moved the custodian toward the anus-probing crucifix until bested by his desire to know, he wrenched the crucifix from the dead man’s ass, which emitted a jazzy ragtime song,
🎶 Well hello, Dolly! Well hello! 🎶
Stuffing the crucifix back into the corpse’s buttocks stifled the song and left the custodian in shock. Had he imagined the singing gluteus maximus? Had this dead rump actually resounded such beautiful lyrics? Not trusting his ears, the custodian again pulled the crucifix from between the lifeless buns.
🎶 Well hello, Dolly! Well hello! 🎶
Having proved the phenomenon, the custodian ran to the phone and called the funeral parlor’s owner, who groggily answered, “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes, sir, but there is something you must see!”
With much pleading by the custodian, the owner agreed to return to the parlor, and sometime after midnight, he dragged himself into the morgue. “What the hell is so important I had to come down here at this ungodly hour?”
The custodian raced to the table as the owner followed, and raising his hands as if to warn the owner to brace himself, he exclaimed, “Just watch and listen.” He then yanked the crucifix from the deadman’s ass.
🎶 Well hello, Dolly! Well hello! 🎶
After replacing the crucifix, the custodian’s eyes widened. “Can you believe it!”
The owner’s face twisted in annoyance. “Let me get this straight. You called me down here in the middle of the night to listen to some Christian asshole sing?”*
The Moral of the Story
Typically, I would not assume the reader is too stupid to divine the meaning of the allegory, but in the case of Christians, where there is no nuance or depth of thought, I feel compelled. You should take from this story that I will unlock the commenting on my websites when I believe one of you idiots has a point or the strong desire to listen to an asshole overcomes me.
Thanks 😊
A derivative of a very, very, very old joke.
This is my boy Vincent: talkin' the talk and pullin' the plug!!
Ah, finally, I get to sound off. Dealing with the "Christian deficit" is almost useless, as you know. But to let these headless morons run around splashing pseudo-intellectual slop on everyone they pass, is, admittedly, a hard discipline to learn.
Truth is, I'm tired of the conflict, and would rather focus on the neurophysiology of belief, with the goal being to understand how people can so willingly truck in so much nonsense. The superficial arguments have all been made, but the curiosities of our brains that hold the key to rational processing failures are left unfunded for the most part. I can simply say that in any debate with a believer, I am more interested in how such person processes information and can twist it into the necessary classic pretzels that come out as religion. This mental exercise with all its crossed-connections and rational fallacies fascinates me. A great part of it is surely biological and wired into our genes, but with all the knowledge we can now access, why is the brain so resistant to reprogramming when the subject is mystical.
As information processing machines, we exhibit nowhere near the precision as a computer (though we do have other gifts not granted -- yet -- to computers). I don't know how many time I have witnessed confusion in simple syllogisms: Whales are huge; whales are mammals; therefore, all mammals are huge.
I often think that if we really wanted to teach children this thing called "critical thinking", it is logically impossible not to condemn all religion as rationally untenable. And I then muse that maybe many teachers fail in its instruction because they know it would quickly lead to a conclusion that there is no support whatever for religious beliefs.
Jumping somewhat off-topic, I am sad that we have no science courses (which bears heavily on critical thinking skills). If I were developing a program to teach the physical world to secondary school students, I would re-brand all elementary courses in biology, chemistry, and physics as "nature study" courses. I would then introduce two new offerings: In the 9th grade, students would take Science I. This isolates "science" as that process used to explore the natural world. For example: What is a controlled experiment, a double-blind study, an empirical vs a deductive examination? What are probabilities and statistical significance. What is a normal curve, a standard deviation, etc.? Students would then learn such concepts as testable hypotheses, the nature of evidence, and over-arching it all -- the moral imperative of intellectual honesty. And learning science is where we best learn critical thinking.
High school juniors and seniors could take Science II. Here students learn to apply the rules of controlled observations and statistical analysis. They would be tasked with running a real scientific study, setting up hypotheses, parameters, data collection, and statistical conclusions. The term paper is the "published", and peer reviewed, article for the school rag. Now these students would learn real SCIENCE, and the true meaning of the word.
And it might even help some of them think their way out of religious indoctrination.