Thank you, Dopers and (eventually) Pitters!

The BBQ Pit
1

People who voluntarily expose their beliefs by arguing positions I would have found incredible and indefensible have done a killer job lately of educating me, and I thank them for sacrificing their reputations by shouting to the world what vile beliefs they hold and are willing to defend! I salute you!

In the last few days, I’ve become aware of people who bounce checks and think that’s something to be proud of and people who are chronically late and don’t understand why others find this practice loaded with disrespect. For decades, I’d assumed that such folks just spouted defensive nonsense when anyone criticized such rude and unethical behavior, but I’ve come to realize “Holy shit! No one could defend it at such length, with such detail, if he didn’t actually believe his own bullshit! Holy crap! Holy fuck! People like this actually exist!”

Of course, for me, there’s always a special place in the heart for theists who defend their religious beliefs and practices by explaining thoroughly the reasoning, or lack thereof, that got them where they are, as here
and numerous other threads in the Pit. I realize that some believers consider that it’s the atheists, and particularly me, who have exposed their ignorance in such threads, but for now I don’t care. It’s all to my point—by arguing their beliefs, posters often provide unexpected evidence for the opposing side to marvel over. “This is just unbelievable! I could not have written this myself! People who can type sentences, and have mastered English syntax, actually seem to believe this unbelievable twaddle! You just can’t make this shit up!” So, a shoutout to everyone for exposing their beliefs so openly!

Of course, the Dope is supreme for pointing out the lunacy and stupidity of others, not just that of the posters themselves, don’t mean to diminish that as a source of marvel, but the real joy for me comes in experiencing first-hand why the world is as fucked up as it is, and will remain so for some time. People not only incline naturally towards positions of great dumbth, but will defend them fiercely when called on it. The virtue is not in changing the minds of people defending such positions but to assure oneself that there are really people who defend positions so ludicrous that they must (it seems) be strawman positions. But no! These are actually sincere posts—though there is some question, I admit, as to whether the check-bouncer has donned a subtly parodic persona (on the theory that no one could actually believe this crap) but I don’t buy it finally, because I’ve been shown that posters here do genuinely hold positions I doubt any sensible person would ever hold for a second. So, fight on, ignorance, fight on! Here’s to ya!

2

I rape and torture albino kittens, but do I get a mention in your OP? Fuck no!

Ass.

:wink:

3

Psuedo I am with you with not understanding those with strong religious convictions, but to bundle them with people who take bouncing checks as mark of pride does not seem fair. The religious are buoyed up in their belief by family and large numbers of fellow travelers. How could anyone take pride in bouncing check? To me this is more in the category of being proud of being irresponsible. The check bouncer is clueless to a level I have rarely seen admitted to.

Look at the large number of friends and relatives that read, believe and pass on faulty information via Email and hearsay and compare that to religion. A belief in bouncing checks being okay and no understanding of spending money you do not have and on top of that asking, “Who has never bounced a check” is ignorant to a rarely achieved level. Thank you for pointing this out by the way. That thread is a good laugh and a great example of a WTF.

As far as being late, I use to be late to work very often, but I had a sleep problem and was quite embarrassed about my lateness. I took no pride from it and was fearful I would lose my job over it. It was advice on this board that got be to get over being late. A simple and marvelous solution of putting the alarm clock on the other side of the room, so I had to get up to turn it off. In the last 14 months, I have been late once after averaging being late twice a week. I do not defend my lateness, I only wish to say that for some, getting up was not possible without some additional help. My solution was simple and should have been obvious. I use to do this before I got married, but I had stopped when my wife and I moved into an apartment together once we were engage. I was getting up much earlier than her and I did not want to disturb her. So, it was pure stupidity on my part, but not pride or malice.

As far as being late to a party, I am almost never late, but dude, like it is only a party, don’t sweat it. If it is, dinner or meeting for dinner I can understand getting annoyed and indeed, I get annoyed, but some posters in that thread and prior ones go overboard in their complaints.

Jim

4

Oh, puh-lease let’s not turn this into another atheism ‘n’ religion thread! I went out of my way to include atheists among those who are exposing their belief-"system"s openly to ridicule. The fact that I take great solace from reading the tortuous explanations of religious people, and that I find my own views reinforced by their most detailed posting is hardly to the point here, because I strongly suspect that my most impassioned posts get them going “Gahh, what an idiot! This guy is in the ‘12 items or less’ express lane to everlasting fire!”

“Let he who has never bounced a check among ye hurl the first insult!”

5

It ought not need pointing out that one only becomes upset by things that one allows to upset one. How you frame what you see is all about you.

Wonderful anecdote by Roger Caron (author of ‘Go Boy’): he was in prison. It’s a fact of life that as you walk about the halls, you’ll be called names, be sworn at, etc. He would get angry to the point of fury at all the name-calling. Then one day he changed. Walked by a cell where its inhabitant called him a sunuvabitch. And, said Caron, he thought about it, knew he wasn’t an SOB, decided the name-caller was simply wrong, and proceeded about his day.

And therein lies great wisdom. You can think about events and recast them in a different light. Most situations lend themselves to interpretation; any number of interpretations can be equally valid. You can choose the interpretation that leaves you annoyed and frustrated or the one which allows you peace of mind. Unless you are able to verify all the facts, you might as well choose the interpretation that does not do violence to your own spirit.

Anger is a poisonous emotion; it’s bad for your body. People who allow themselves to succumb to it are contributing to their own destruction.

Or, in the spirit of the Pit, are fuckwits.*

*(I don’t really think that but I gather ‘fuckwit’ is an obligatory part of a Pit post).

6

Well, sure; who doesn’t? The question is, do you think it’s okay? :dubious:

See, so long as you’re guilty about the nasty stuff you do, that’s all right with PRR. Or, at least, not addressed in this pitting.

7

Cite? (You can skip the “torture” part.)

8

However, I have never bounced a check. If I did bounce one, it would hardly be on frivolous luxury items. If I bounce one on frivolous luxury items, I would never have the gall to complain about it. If I did complain about, well I guess I would be so thick headedly stupid that I guess there is not much I would not do.

You want thick headed and stupid to the point of not comprehending, look at most (but not all) of the people arguing in the GD threads against anthropogenic global warming. Their ignorant opinion based on little is somehow worth more than a 5-year study by thousands of scientist using some of the best computers and technologies available to humans across the planet. This is what is driving me crazy right now. I wish I could sit back and take some enjoyment out of it. The nutters who think it is a conspiracy to defraud America really blow my mind.

Jim {See, I respected your wishes and avoided any other mention of religion. It was not easy. }

9

Okay? Okay?!?

It’s fantastic!

10

The OP’s biggest problem, if I may, is that he’s not as funny as he thinks he is, so when he writes something that he believes is drippy with oh-so-luscious-and-insightful irony, he’s actually just being his usual jerkish self who can’t then understand why he doesn’t receive the believed-deserved cheers of approval, leading to yet another post of drippy with oh-so-luscious-and-insightful irony in which he thinks it’s funny to point out that we don’t think he’s funny.

11

Man, you’re one self-righteous bastard. Like a lot of Christians I know.

12

Yes, but who is? :smiley: *

**Psuedo ** has now built up a lot of residual bad will. Many people are going to view any posts he makes with a prejudiced view. I know I do this with a few posters. Nobody in this thread thankfully.

Jim

  • Good example isn’t it?
13

Oh. Me, absolutely. I’m a riot.

In any case, what might not have been a bad thread subject had it been written in a simple straightforward manner will just get lumped in with all of prr’s other attempts at his “but wait, I’m confused, and you are all such noble saints to explain it to me” act. Sarcasm only works when you’re good at it.

14

This thread is already working out a lot better than I’d hoped it would. Who else would like to join Brian and Ponder in forwarding their agenda of responding to anything I post with seething hostility that has nothing to do with my OP? My OP, for those who would like me to expand on it, is that we (all of us here) expose ourselves to ridicule the harder we try to express our philosophies, and that’s a good thing. I probably couldn’t pay Brian and Ponder enough to make them write posts demonstrating their baseless, pointless, freeflowing and general hostility to me: if I asked them politely “Please post something that will serve as evidence that you just don’t, for whatever reason, like me very much, and that your opinions will therefore be nasty ones that I can comfortably reject” I doubt highly they would have complied. But sure enough, they have supplied the above ad hominems that basically support my OP. A tip o’ the salamandrian cap to you fine fellows!

15

Stop it, man! You’re killin’ me!

Yeah, right. :rolleyes:

16

“Seething”? Hardly. That suggests I’m keeping my hostility (I’d actually describe my feelings toward you more as “contempt”, but no matter) mostly quiet and internal, when I’m actually pretty open and casual about it. I’m not burying it under layer after layer of attempted irony, but trying to speak directly and clearly about it.

In my experience, that isn’t what happens. Rather, if the expression of those philosophies is mixed in with a lot of fairly blatant hostility, it’ll earn hostility in return. You’re an atheist? Big deal, me too. Would you like to see religion disappear? Big deal, me too. Your philosophies don’t inspire hostility; you do.

Wouldn’t that be classic well-poisoning? Anyone who responds in the manner you ask they respond is proven not worthy of making a response worth considering. Anyway, if I had responded to such a request, I would have done a search of your recent posts and just quoted you at times where I thought you were deliberately provoking hostility when it was neither necessary nor impressive. I’m confident I can do this without adding any hostility of my own. In any case, how this thread or your posting history relates to check-bouncing escape me.

I challenge you to make your reply to this post absolutely free of irony, sarcasm, mock indignation, disingenuity, tortured metaphors (“salamandrian cap” ?) etc. in an straightforward rebuttal. I don’t think you can do it, but I’ll sincerely congratulate you if you pull it off.

17

It is, isn’t it? All sorts of people you can feel superior to. Nicely done.

18

I thank tdn for his support, incidentally. :smiley:

19

Right, exactly. You would respond to my current OP by bringing up other posts I’ve made in other threads in order to attack my character, and why is that not hijacking and thread-shitting? If I post “I like kittens and the sky is a nice shade of blue today” you’ll come in fulminating about what an obnoxious, arrogant jerk I am, and sneer a bit, piss all over yourself a few times, and feel you’ve accomplished something valuable. You haven’t. I get it that you don’t care for me, and that you don’t like arguments I’ve made in the past, or elsewhere, or you feel you haven’t finished expressing your hostility in those threads. But you’re just announcing your hostility in these ad hominem attacks, and the more you do it, the more firmly you demonstrate that thread-shitting is your life. So, please, carry on, and again, my congratulations. Keep it up, and I’ll knit you a salamandrian cap of your own.

20

But now you are playing the Martyr and that role fits very few well at all.

I think you exaggerate as well. If you started a thread on kittens and pictures, you know as well as I do that you would get overwhelmingly posts about kittens with pictures and a few, “how do I post pictures?” posts.

Come on Pseudo, I seem to be on your side by default, but come down off that cross, it looks very uncomfortable.

Jim