# Kanicbird. Yeah, It's probably pointless, but.. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 30, 2009, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711 "2009-01-30T14:37:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/101 "2009-01-31T16:15:21Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > This is not courage. I bet he was pissed that you thought it was, though. I doubt it, as Omegaman was complementing him on having the courage of religious conviction, not his millinery courage. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/102 "2009-01-31T16:16:25Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Though I think kanicbird is-- well, I can’t say, there are ladies present–his/her position isn’t COMPLETELY devoid of logic. Its just that his/her premises are different from ours. > > If you believe in spiritual or mystical connections between persons, and further believe that morality is precisely and only what God ordains, then kanicbird’s position on the sins of the father attaching to the sons makes perfect sense. > > He’s hardly the only person I know who feels this way. Last night, for instance, I overheard a conversation between my uncle and my not-quite-stepdaughter > in which he told her, in all seriousness, that the very act of sexual union between a man and a woman connects them spiritually forever (he was explaining why, in his view, premarital sex is not merely immoral but dangerous). > > Now, I think both **kanicbird** and my uncle are…touched…on issues like this. But they’re not making arguments that are entirely illogical (even though both arguments are idiotic). I dunno this one’s easy. Not all sex results in union. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/103 "2009-01-31T16:17:51Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I dunno this one’s easy. Not all sex results in union. Oh, the uncle in question doesn’t care about that. It’s the act of semen transmission from man to woman that does it. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/104 "2009-01-31T16:26:02Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > You realize that the Book of Jonah is a comedy, right? > > I’m not kidding. It’s meant to be absurd. Ah, I didn’t realize you’d interviewed the author. Otherwise, isn’t it slightly dishonest to claim as dead-earnest truth all the stories which support your assertion that Yahweh smiteth righteously all who don’t do as they’re told when they’re told, and dismiss as comedy a story in which the recalcitrant prophet just gets taught a lesson? > [@Miller](#): > > Well, I guess that makes everything alright, then. From Jonah’s perspective I guess it did - or, compared to, say, being turned into a pillar of salt, as near all right as made no difference. I mean, if you were dealing with a God who was supposed to be extremely quick on the draw with prophets who didn’t do as they were told, and yet you lived to sit bemoaning the death of the shady plant you’d been sitting under, wouldn’t you count yourself lucky? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/105 "2009-01-31T16:34:05Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Ah, I didn’t realize you’d interviewed the author. Otherwise, isn’t it slightly dishonest to claim as dead-earnest truth all the stories which support your assertion that Yahweh smiteth righteously all who don’t do as they’re told when they’re told, and dismiss as comedy a story in which the recalcitrant prophet just gets taught a lesson? Who said I was **dismissing** it? I think Jonah is quite effective theologically because it’s so freaking funny. And while I had the thought that it’s a funny story before I ever took a theology class, I’m hardly the only person who’s had that impression. Googling _Jonah_, _Ninevah_, and _comedy_ brought up quite a fit hits including [this](http://www.ashokkarra.com/2008/02/the-divine-comedy-commentary-on-the-book-of-jonah/), [this](http://www.seekerschurch.org/sermons/19980104.htm), and [this](http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:IhiP4zJq_lQJ:www.fbcdayton.org/sermons/Sermon-012206-Jonah%2520as%2520Comedy.doc+Jonah+Nineveh+comedy&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us). ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/106 "2009-01-31T16:34:59Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > If Mary went along because she felt threatened if she didn’t, it was still rape. Judging God by modern secular morality is just stupid. Every act of God is some kind of coercion. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/107 "2009-01-31T16:36:35Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Your comparison is not apt; that would make **tdn** the _victim_ of his/her father’s sins. _Punishing_ someone for his/her father’s sins in this scenario would be sending the child to prison for something the father died before the child’s birth. Actually, **mswas** ’s scenario would punish _everyone_ for **tdn** ’s father’s sin, and thus it’s doubly stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/108 "2009-01-31T16:38:38Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > Actually, **mswas** ’s scenario would punish _everyone_ for **tdn** ’s father’s sin, and thus it’s doubly stupid. I hesitate to call his scenario stupid; merely ill-thought. After all, the circumstance he described is hardly unheard of; I took it that he merely posted without giving the sitch as much thought as he might have. And by my personal definition, an act can only be sinful if it causes harm to another. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/109 "2009-01-31T16:40:01Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Reading debate on God’s motivations in the OT just drives home the point I’ve believed for years…there is a God, but he’s as capable of caring and devoting love to us humans as we are to ants. > > The most interest anybody develops in caring for ants happens when they hit age 10 or so and make ant farms. They observe the little buggers making tunnels and carrying around bits of leaves, and deem it as cool. Then they hold up the magnifying glass up the sunlight and watch the ants burn and deem it even cooler. > > Then God sees that the red and black ants don’t like each other, and will fight if He dumps their ant farms together into one big pile. He doth deem it the coolest. > > Moses was just the first ant to realize God has fun with acts of depraved indifference. Your own post refutes itself. By the fact that you both perceive ants and have a care for their well-being shows that you are indeed capable of love for them. That you in your maturity see something wrong with hurting ants shows that you are capable of love for them. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/110 "2009-01-31T16:41:43Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Oh, the uncle in question doesn’t care about that. It’s the act of semen transmission from man to woman that does it. So what if there is a condom involved? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/111 "2009-01-31T16:43:54Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > So what if there is a condom involved? I did not ask. I was more concerned with engineering a graceful exit for my kid, who is too damn respectful of her elders for her own good. For Christmas I’d like her to be about 12% bitchier. ETA: Incidentally, I once heard a televangelist espouse the same view, which he explained as the semen (well, he said “male issue”) becoming physically part of the woman who, ah, subscribes to it, as it becomes embedded in her bones. No cite. I had to change the channel before I went into an insane rage. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/112 "2009-01-31T16:48:28Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Your comparison is not apt; that would make **tdn** the _victim_ of his/her father’s sins. _Punishing_ someone for his/her father’s sins in this scenario would be sending the child to prison for something the father died before the child’s birth. I think you’re reading it wrong, and I did give it thought. The problem here is not that I am not giving it enough thought but that others are giving it TOO MUCH thought. Essentially you have to live with the results of your Father’s actions…period…full stop. You are responsible for the world that your Father leaves you. How you react to that is what determines your culpability in the thing. In traditional societies where families were intertwined in ways they are not in modern America this was much more important as families had obligations, not merely individuals. So saying that you are responsible for your Father’s sins is not a cruel and capricious act but merely a commentary on cause and effect. If you do nothing to clean up the Hudson then it’s water remains polluted. Basically you can read it as we are responsible for the sins of our ‘forefathers’. Which is a simple statement of fact. This whole Asshole God belief system that some have is trite and silly, “Rarr your Dad was an asshole, therefore I will send locusts to eat your crops!”, sort of God is just a childish as reading that it’s ok to beat down some ‘faggot’ with a baseball bat because of some dodgy reading of leviticus. You’re either reading it too literally or not literally enough. To a modern deracinated mind it is difficult to conceive of being locked into responsibility for a Father’s sins, but in a tribal society where there is no escape from your ancestors’ choices, it makes a whole lot of sense. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/113 "2009-01-31T16:59:12Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I think you’re reading it wrong, and I did give it thought. > > The problem here is not that I am not giving it enough thought but that others are giving it TOO MUCH thought. Essentially you have to live with the results of your Father’s actions…period…full stop. You are responsible for the world that your Father leaves you. How you react to that is what determines your culpability in the thing. In traditional societies where families were intertwined in ways they are not in modern America this was much more important as families had obligations, not merely individuals. So saying that you are responsible for your Father’s sins is not a cruel and capricious act but merely a commentary on cause and effect. > > If you do nothing to clean up the Hudson then it’s water remains polluted. Basically you can read it as we are responsible for the sins of our ‘forefathers’. Which is a simple statement of fact. > > \*\*This whole Asshole God belief system that some have is trite and silly, “Rarr your Dad was an asshole, therefore I will send locusts to eat your crops!”, sort of God is just a childish \*\*as reading that it’s ok to beat down some ‘faggot’ with a baseball bat because of some dodgy reading of leviticus. > > You’re either reading it too literally or not literally enough. > > To a modern deracinated mind it is difficult to conceive of being locked into responsibility for a Father’s sins, but in a tribal society where there is no escape from your ancestors’ choices, it makes a whole lot of sense. (emphasis mine) Except that Yahwheh quite literally does just that. [Consider, for instance, his murderous, cruel–oh, let’s quit faffing about and call it evil–judgment of the Amalekites:](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2015&version=49;) [QUOTE=whoever wrote the Book of Samuel. J, maybe? Or maybe it was P. Well, at least it wasn’t Q. That’s the Gospels] 1 Samuel 15 Saul’s Disobedience 1Then Samuel said to Saul, "The LORD sent me to anoint you as king over His people, over Israel; now therefore, listen to the words of the LORD. 2"Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'I will punish Amalek (B)for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt. 3’Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'" 4Then Saul summoned the people and numbered them in (E)Telaim, 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah. 5Saul came to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the valley. 6Saul said to the Kenites, “Go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites, so that I do not destroy you with them; for you showed kindness to all the sons of Israel when they came up from Egypt.” So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. 7So Saul defeated the Amalekites, from Havilah as you go to Shur, which is east of Egypt. 8He captured Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. [/QUOTE] Here the Amalekites (apparently at peace with Israel, as there is no mention of a current conflict between them) are being punished for something **their** ancestors did to the **Israelite’s** ancestors, some hundreds of years ago. This isn’t a question of effects following cause; this is a matter of revenge, pure and simple, of a sadist seeking a victim. Apparently God was out of robins to rip wings off of. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/114 "2009-01-31T17:22:07Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Your own post refutes itself. By the fact that you both perceive ants and have a care for their well-being shows that you are indeed capable of love for them. That you in your maturity see something wrong with hurting ants shows that you are capable of love for them. Capable of love, sure. Constantly maintaining love, I don’t think so. Ants become boring after a while. I might move on to goldfish or maybe stamp collecting. If God has grown up, He’s become indifferent. He doesn’t check back with the ants unless they get in His sugar bowl. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/115 "2009-01-31T17:27:07Z")
**Skald** I’d need to know more about the relationship with the Amaleks at the time. But I’d also like to point out that in older times the notion of individuality as we understand it today simply did not exist. People were members of a tribe first, individuals second. The tribe itself was the sovereign entity. So the individuals in this case are Amalek and Israel, not the Amaleks and the Israelites. Evil in this case is just an appeal to emotion, an irrelevant term. If you’re going to judge ‘God’ then you have to accept things within the terms of the mythology you are judging, in which case, anything God does is Good and anything opposing him is Evil. If you said it would be evil for you to behave that way today, that’s different. It would be evil to emulate this story to be certain, but judging the actions as ‘evil’ really has no traction, it’s emotional expression and not an actual moral analysis. For it to be evil in the terms you’re using, it would have 1) have to actually have happened, and 2) have to be carried out by humans sans God. You can’t have it both ways, you can’t have God exist and God be evil, because if God exists and really is the creator of everything then evil is only that which defies God. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/116 "2009-01-31T17:28:44Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Capable of love, sure. Constantly maintaining love, I don’t think so. Ants become boring after a while. I might move on to goldfish or maybe stamp collecting. Right, it’s not a personal love, but you didn’t create the ants either. > [@](#): > > If God has grown up, He’s become indifferent. He doesn’t check back with the ants unless they get in His sugar bowl. This is just too confusing a statement. Either you believe in the God of the bible or you don’t. If you believe then he has constantly communicated with mankind and the ant metaphor is not apt. In that case God doesn’t grow up, but humans do. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/117 "2009-01-31T18:39:33Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Now, I think both **kanicbird** and my uncle are…touched…on issues like this. But they’re not making arguments that are entirely illogical (even though both arguments are idiotic). What makes the arguments idiotic if they’re not illogical? > [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > My point is that courage is easy **if you think** you’ve got people backing you up. bold added Interesting argument. So you’re saying that all you have to do to have courage is to **think** that someone is backing you up? You don’t need evidence of it or any proof that it’s true? If that’s the case, you’ve basically made the case for faith, which is the belief in something unseen and for which there is little or no evidence. Let’s say that someone told you that there are snipers all around you who will kill off anyone who tries to harm you. Would you have instant courage for any activity given this fact even if there’s no evidence that these snipers actually exist? If someone told you that they exist but they hide themselves very well, does that give you more courage? What if you saw glimmers of someone moving quickly out of your sight, would that give you more proof that these snipers really exist? And would it give you more courage? Can you make yourself believe? Try it. What takes courage (or stupidity since there’s a often a fine line between the two) is to believe the first assumption. Then as you say, acting with conviction if you take for granted the first assumption is less difficult. > [@mhendo](#): > > I’m afraid i don’t understand this thread. > . . . > But if you argue with believers _as if_ their non-existent deity were real, then you shouldn’t be surprised when the responses you get sometimes reflect the more bizarre extremes of interpretation. Exactly. The question in the linked thread is: > [@BELIEVERS: why does God act so circuitously in freeing the Hebrews from Egypt?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-why-does-god-act-so-circuitously-in-freeing-the-hebrews-from-egypt/483289/1): > > What are Yahweh’s motives in acting thus? which is pretty much a nonsensical question. If you ask a stupid question, you get answers that are easy to criticize. And **Skald the Rhymer** seems to have made of hobby of doing this with religious questions. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/118 "2009-01-31T18:49:34Z")
Original sin is the ultimate “sins of your father.” That’s a pretty big part of Christianity, so saying that the Christian God isn’t like that is kind of silly. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/119 "2009-01-31T19:21:13Z")
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer] He’s hardly the only person I know who feels this way. Last night, for instance, I overheard a conversation between my uncle and my not-quite-stepdaughter in which he told her, in all seriousness, that the very act of sexual union between a man and a woman connects them spiritually forever (he was explaining why, in his view, premarital sex is not merely immoral but dangerous). [/QUOTE] Sex does unite the 2 into one flesh, or to put it another way both spirits come together into one. Scripture speaks of this many time, even talking about sleeping with a prostitute is the act of getting married (as in uniting your spirit w/ her’s). It is not irrevocable, however, but required divorce or redemption. This is a act of God, not of man (people who have been divorced by man only are still spiritually united.) Each person, once married (or having sex) have a longing to please the other, this is the danger of a uncommitted relationship, once the physical relationship ends, the spiritual longing can no longer be satisfied, and that results in trying out multiple partners to try to do that, which just adds more to the problem. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711/120 "2009-01-31T20:08:53Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Sex does unite the 2 into one flesh, or to put it another way both spirits come together into one. Scripture speaks of this many time, even talking about sleeping with a prostitute is the act of getting married (as in uniting your spirit w/ her’s). No shit? No wonder I feel drained what with my polygamist spirit involved in The Mother Of All Orgies. > [@](#): > > It is not irrevocable, however, but required divorce or redemption. This is a act of God, not of man (people who have been divorced by man only are still spiritually united.) Fuck me! And here I thought I was done paying alimony. ☹ > [@](#): > > Each person, once married (or having sex) have a longing to please the other, this is the danger of a uncommitted relationship, once the physical relationship ends, the spiritual longing can no longer be satisfied, and that results in trying out multiple partners to try to do that, which just adds more to the problem. Huh? Danger? Spiritual longing? Problem? Ever hear of birth control? Or cumming because it simply _feels good_? And that’s not even considering what possible “spiritual relation” I have with my own hand – most loyal partner I’ve ever had in my forty plus years of sexual activity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kanicbird-yeah-its-probably-pointless-but/483711.md?page=7)