Updated2! Why I mock religion; chicken-fried steak, pie and the Flat Earth Society [View all]

[genwah]

Last edited Sun Jan 18, 2015, 10:40 AM - Edit history (3)

Update 2.0 sorry to all of you who hear voices in your head but I've moved on to the real world here. To those of you who don't hear voices, you may still be psychotic, but what the heck, come join us in actually doing something. Or not doing anything, but whatever. To those commenters I didn't answer, I'll be looking over the stack later, but if I don't, thanks for all the fish.

I really know better than to post here, but what the hell, it's Saturday, I'm bored and good enough at my job so that people aren't yelling at me or diverting the conversation to totally irrelevant stuff. I kinda miss it.

So here's Our Hero (that's me) about 20-25 years ago driving to Death Valley. There's a good reason why it's called Death Valley, but fossils, sex and research stuff; I was driving to Death Valley. On a two lane blacktop since before dawn, at 11-ish I see a needed gas station in a six building town next to a diner that says "World's Best Chicken Fried Steak!" I gas up and go into the diner.

My waitress was smart, and the chicken fried steak was as advertised, real pounded not chopped and formed, freshly fried with real sausage gravy. Okay the grits were instant, but we're headed into Death Valley. As she's taking my plate, the waitress says , "We make two pies a day, they're always fresh." and I really had to say no. Then she says, "Are you here for the Museum or just passing thruogh?" Museum? What?

As it turns out, the Flat Earth Society has their California Regional Museum and Study Center just across the street. Not sure about the "California Regional" part, but they had a big name posted out front. It might have been National HQ or something, but whatever.

To understand my youthful arrogance at this point, I sould tell you, gentle reader, that I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry. I had no background in Astronomy, Astrophysics, Geology, or anything related to whether the earth was in fact, actually flat. But I foolishly thought that, as Lewis Black would later describe, I could just pull out of my pocket the geographic equivalent of "FOSSIL!" and that would end the argument. I tried to find a shorter clip that makes my point, but here's what I found;

?t=3m21s

Let me tell you how wrong I was. This grey-haired, grey-bearded guy had every "fossil" that I was ready to throw. Pictures of the astronauts on the moon? Navigational charts? Maps of time zones? He had 'em ALL, and using a two-value either/or logic he could back his arguments up. In the same way that you can use algebra to prove that 1=2, he had an answer for everything. In a way, I'm grateful to him; I took up a study of logic that lead me into some really interesting Nerdland stuff for about a year.

Four hours later, I stumble my confused Mensa-member brain back to the diner and ask if there's any pie left. Coffee and pie promptly dispatched, the waitress asks if there's anything else I wanted. I said something to the effect of, "that guy across the street is amazing" And she says, "Yeah, Dad's crazy, but I sell a lot of pie."

Did I mention that my waitress was smart?

Yes, I tipped her a lot.

Which brings me back to my point. Yes, I mock religion, and the Flat Earth-ers, and the birth certificate-ers and the climate change denial-ers. But not without an audience. John Fugelsang said on the Stephanie Miller Show something to the effect of (soft quote); 'You never want to confront these people without an audience because you'll never change their minds. What you can hope for is to influence the people watching you.'

My mistake was in falling into the trap of smart-woman-who-sells-pie. Which is why I mock religion. There will never be a convincing, evidence based logical argument that will convert a TRUE BELIEVER into accepting what lead me to post here, of all places. It was a comment by uppityperson, I think this is how you link here, but I don't really want to spend enough time here to know for sure, so here's the recap.

4. I find it incredible that people do not understand a positive reason for spirituality[break]
That they must continue to be nasty to those who may believe in something more than scientific provable pragmatism.

I'm sorry, what more do you want? This is the world as we know it, that's not enough? Why the fuck not? The answer to 'we don't know enough about the world we live in' is to LEARN MORE ABOUT THE WORLD WE LIVE IN!!! What the Hell is wrong with scientifically proven pragmatism that you find it insufficient for your needs? Do you need an Invisible Friend in the Sky? Because there are professionals looking into why people feel that particular need. And maybe there is a genetic/evolutionary.biological need that we as a species have for an Invisible Friend in the Sky, but can we at least make one that doesn't call for killing abortion providers and journalists and cartoonists? I mean we as a species have made Invisible Friends that are telling us to do all of this crappy stuff, can we make one that feeds and clothes the poor among us? One that says taxes are okay because what is Caesar's should be accountable to Cesar? Oh, wait, I've heard that last one somewhere...it would be nice to fix some roads and bridges and the Caesar stuff

So, yes, I mock religion, in part because we have people in space who have never seen a rainbow bridge carrying a particulary brave Nordic individual to Asgard. And a large city with golden walls whose streets are lined with gems has not yet been apparent, maybe it's past our satelites and probes and Voyager and stuff. And maybe God is real and he just needs a star-ship

I will continue to mock whatever, God, Jebus, Mohammed, but only in front of an audience, because I will never convert the by now must be deceased Flat Earth guy who ran the museum and study center, but because there will be an audience and maybe a few of them will look into actual science and maybe even math and logic. Peace.

P.S. IOKIYAR but I'm not so in for all of you, here's my background. There is a scene in the movie "The American President" where the Rethugs rejoice over q pic of the president's girlfriend behind a burning US flag. I've never been at the burning of the flag, but I have been at protests in the Center of thee World, San Francisco, against the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. I keep a low profile in election staffers because my sign said "Yet another Chinese-American Jewish Bisexual Sado-Masochistic ex- porn star for PEACE" I keep a low profile when I work for a campaign, I walk precincts and phone bank, but I'm allergic to B-roll.

I only point this out because DU is really a bunch of whiny people who will follow any OP to snark and distract from what the OP's author intends, instead of actually DOING SOMETHING.

I get it,doing stuff is hard. And I know better than to post stuff here, but saying reality isn't enough? There are rooms with soft walls for people who aren't so fond of reality.

Anyway, it's not as if anyone will see this, because an OP needs what 4-10 Recs to make it to the Greatest thread? I've never gotten that nany recs and I doubt I ever will because I'm not a member of the club.So, whatever, but how can scientifically provable stuff be not enough? What, you want ice cream on top of that?


UPDATE! Okay all of you listen up! Really, yikes! This is why America can't have nice things! Because my one little post managed to drag the Democratic Party, Jon Stewart, and some kind of supposed difference between religion and spirituality because if you're the only one hearing the voices in your head you're spiritual, but if you have a gang then it's a religion, or something. Whatever, just don't kill people, okay?

My point was, and still is, that I had an encounter with a smart waitress and her smart father whose opinions could not be changed with facts. My point is that there is no point in trying to reason with religion and/or spirituality on their side is worth attempting because reason doesn't enter into the equation. When faith or spirituality or karma or whatever enter into the discussion, there's no winning with facts, science or truth. That stuff just doesn't matter. Or the earth is really flat. Which actually wouldn't bother me, since I can't afford to go anywhere if the earth was round anyway.

So my bigger point is what are we doing here? I can't believe that the one thing I post that gets any kind of attention is about the woo-woo stuff.

This place is called the Democratic Underground. When you're underground, that kinda means you're DOING SOMETHING. And the Democratic part would, I hope mean something, too.

Who here is organizing and registering voters? Why is there not an organized effort to actually DO SOMETHING? Is it here and I haven't found it? I don't spend much time here, it's just mostly a link dump and not an action kind of place. Am I wrong? Is there a secret room here that organizes voter registrations, letters to the editors, and maybe even outright street actions? Is there a secret password to get into the DU action people? Because if the only post I get any response to is whether religion/spirituality/tofu and not what can a bunch of us do to actively change the political crap that is happening then really this is not a Democratic Underground.

P.S. Whatever. I've been banned by bigger paces thqn this/ The racist Big Bad Orange baned me more than once, their internal stalkers are really good