You are currently browsing Mystro’s articles.
*In the style of the most stereotypical evangelical sermon voice you can imagine
**congregation responses in red
Brothers and Sisters! As I was perusing the web the other day, I heard a disturbing sound!
*Amen
I SAID As I was perusing the web the other day, I HEARD a DISTURBING sound!
*AMEN!
It was the sound of a THOUSAND “believers” promoting the power of PRAY-YER!
*Have Mercy!
The power of prayer? Never before have I heard such a hay-EEN-ous notion!
*Yes, Reverend!
Do they not KNOW God is eternal?
*Hallelujah!
Do they not KNOW the Almighty is ALLLL-Knowing?
*Tell it!
Do they not know that there is a MA-ster plan, greater than the summation of ALL mortal desires and understanding?
*I can feel it, Lord!
You see Brothers and Sisters, –pass the plate around– God has a plan, and as it is God’s plan, it is the greatest plan. And as it is the greatest plan, it stands that any other plan must be lesser, worse, sinful, and unacceptable to the perfect grace that is our Lord!
People promoting the power of prayer do not accept this. They think that God is some wishy-washy, uncertain, fallible, dough-head, just like themselves.
They think that God, upon hearing a prayer will say “Y’know, I did have my Divine plan that took into consideration ever fact, event, and possibility in the natural and supernatural universe, but that Steve from Delburne just prayed and suggested I do things differently. A good thing too. I was so sure I was right, but now that Steve has prayed to me, I can see that his way is better than Mine. I will now alter My plan, that I’ve had for all of eternity and perfected to a degree beyond human comprehension, to more line up with the wishes of Steve.”
What arrogance!
*mmm-Hmmm!
What Hubris!
*Amen!
What Shim-shaming Flimflammery!
*Hallelujah!
I can imagine NO greater SIN than to put yourself above All Glorious and Estimably Hallowed God, thinking that YOUR plans should supersede His. Same goes for “Blessing” things too, or any other request of God, whatever! To think we know better than God how much Grace ought to be dispensed to this, that, and whomever. This BLASPHEMOUS notion that us wretched and insignificant beings could come up with a better plan than God defies all manner of humility, decency, and logical consistency. For Shame!
*Disapproving murmur
These Peddlers of Prayer go on to say that it is a method with which to communicate with God. Communicate with God? What can a finite being possibly tell an entity that knows absolutely everything?
Absolutely nothing, that’s what!
Anything you will ever think or do, God knew you were going to think it and do it before Time began, and you think you need to show or tell God things? HE KNOWS!
What can we take from all this, Brothers and Sisters? Everything out of your control is a part of God’s great plan. If your stocks go bust and you become destitute, Rejoice! 
for God knows it is the best thing that can possibly happen to you. If your loved ones get severely ill and start throwing up buckets of blood, Celebrate! for God’s plan must be the best possible plan. If your child is kidnapped, tortured, and raped, be thankful that your offspring got to be such an important part of God’s awesome plan.
Praying for answers, advice, or changes just shows that you are unwilling to accept the perfectness of God’s divine plan.
A divine plan, by the way, which is meant to be delivered to you via me, but me, being a finite sole myself, requires funds.
So, Brothers and Sisters, stop praying, and start giving me money. It’s God’s Plan!
Halleluja!
*AMEN, Take my money, please!
By far the most awesome depiction of christian moral values/struggle - featuring oversimplification, binary thinking and mythical figures .
For a group that so often harps on (and on and on) about having access to an – pardon me, “the” – objective moral standard, christians have some pretty outrageous double standards when it comes to ethical behaviour. What the christian god does, and is called all good/loving for, would be considered monstrous if done by anyone else.
Some believers may claim that god is a special case, that because of his infinite nature, the same rules don’t apply. Those rules are only for us mere mortals. It’s as if those who use this claim don’t really understand what ‘objective’ means.
If the morality of an action applies differently depending on context – whether Entity A does it or Entity B does it (god vs human), whether it was done in Time X or in Time Y (old testament era vs new testament era), etc. – then it is NOT an objective moral rule. It is a relative rule.
Anytime theists say something like “that was OLD testament, things are different now because of Jebus,” they are admitting that their “god given ethics” are really the worst kind of moral relativism with a little Hocus-Pocus sprinkled on top.
Alternatively, some christians say instead that nothing their god does could possibly be considered monstrous, and
Christian Morality: a hearty thumbs up to Slavery but no to HomoSex, how divine.
the best thing any person could do is emulate the fantastic yummy goodness that is their deity, as much as is possible by us finite beings. My immediate reaction is to rant about the million and one things attributed to the christian god that are about as far from ‘good’ as one can get (examples 1 2 3). This will usually result in the believer switching to the first position addressed in this post (claiming relativism), or dodging the issue by pointing out some happy part of their text (which is dealt with here).
Despite these theistic tactics being flawed, they still distract from the actual topic at hand, allowing the believer to forget their arguments have been obliterated. Then the dance starts all over again.
So instead, today I would like to highlight a more fundamental part of christian dogma, one not so easily shrugged off. Here is yet another fantastic video from DarkMatter2525 showing what it would be like if firefighters “saved” people the same way Jebus does.
Inconsistent standards disqualify christianity from any claim to objectivity, while burning/torturing/killing “not saving” non believers disqualifies it from any claim to morality. This “god” is nothing but an evil and fickle tyrant.
I no sooner published my first word rant and immediately more common travesties of language sprang to mind. Part two will be more of a rapid fire format, as there is a lot of ground to cover.
..And Get One Free!
As alluded to in Part 1’s final paragraph, ‘…and get one free’ tacked on the end of a sales pitch is marketing verbal violation at its worst. ‘Free’ means ‘at NO cost’. When advertisements use it, they mean ‘at no ADDITIONAL cost’. This a huge and very important distinction. “If you pay $, you get x and a FREE y” is incoherent as getting the “free” y is dependent on you paying $. I have no idea what there hasn’t been a massive class action suit against all major corporations for false advertising.
May Or May Not…
‘May’ and ‘may not’, when used like this, mean the same thing: that the outcome under discussion is not certain. It is redundancy with no extra information. It is fluffy language without even the ignoble goal of sounding unduly reputable. I’m not saying the two terms are always perfectly interchangeable. Rather, in the cases where they are, one is sufficient while both is a waste of words.
Swearing
Words are tools, and when one hears a swear word used exquisitely, it’s like watching a master carpenter strike in a nail with one blow without the tiniest dent left on the surrounding material. It can be magical. Unfortunately, most people have no grasp on the art of swearing at all. Its more like watching the spazoid kid in shop class rain hammering death on a 2×4 until the bent and twisted nail is lodged sideways in the now mangled lumber.
Literally
‘Literally’ does not mean ‘a lot’ or ‘extremely’ or ‘I’m not joking even though this is an unbelievable story’ or any variation or combination of these. Not even close. Literal is the opposite of figurative. That’s it.
‘I pissed myself laughing’ means a)figuratively ‘I laughed a lot’ b)literally ‘my laughter was so great that I lost control of my bladder and urinated into my pants’.
Note that one could have laughed more in situation A than in B. ‘Literally’ has nothing to do with quantity, seriousness, or truthfulness. It dispels any notion of metaphor and hyperbole and instructs the listener to interpret the words plainly.
Supposably
This one isn’t even caught by my spell checker. I am so depressed. ‘Supposably’ is NOT a word. What you are looking for is ‘supposedly’. To test it out, look at the root word in each case. ‘Supposed’. Yup, that’s a word. “The supposed “good guy” just robbed a bank”. Now try ‘supposable’. Nope, definitely not a word.
Irregardless
Another one that just isn’t a word. I don’t know how this started, but I’ve heard some otherwise brilliant people use this horribly stupid non-word. It makes me sad on the inside. ‘Regardless’ means without regard. Putting another negating prefix ‘ir’ in front would be like a double negative in math, they would cancel out. ‘Irregardless’ would be as intelligent as Bill & Ted’s “un-un-heinous”, if people actually meant it that way. But users of ‘irregardless’ don’t mean it that way. They use it as if the ‘ir’ accentuates the ‘less’, so they’re actually being even dumber than Bill and Ted. That’s impressive, and not in a good way.
No one is perfect, and one’s grasp of language should always be growing. Unfortunately, one of the pitfalls of being creatures of habit, people are not apt to realize their common mistakes, unless they are expressly pointed out to them. Please, if you know someone who uses fluffy language indiscriminately, throws out buzz jargon without thought, or continually says things that just don’t make sense, tell them. Or send them to this rant. Education and awareness are our best weapons to combat this plague of verbal misdeeds. Also, feel free to make additions to this word rant in the comments section. Together we can save language!
…Or at least fend off its impending doom a little bit.
–Addendum–
A couple of recent encounters reminded me, quite painfully, of one more common and egregious misuse of language
Seen
‘Seen’ requires another verb used in conjunction with it to be used properly. I have seen many strange things. This is what will be seen today. It is never allowed to be used as just a regular past tense of ‘to see’.
“I seen a movie last night.”
NO NO NO! You did NOT ‘seen’ a movie! You saw a movie last night! Now go sit in the corner and think about what you have said! You can come back when you can conjugate ‘to see’ properly.
All too frequently when the horrible/insane/incoherant practices/beliefes/consequences of religious dogma are pointed out, one hears responses that try to dodge the point rather than address it directly. One of the most common of these dodges takes this approximate shape: “Why do you even bother? It’s not like religious people ever do anything harmful in this day and age. And if they do, those harmful actions are never based on their religious beliefs. You’re obviously just full of hate for people not like you, so I now get to disregard your point.” Typically, believers will also throw in a reference to some other part of their religion’s teachings which sounds nice and lovey dovey. Can’t have a problem with lovey dovey, can you?
First, I want to stress that this IS a dodge. It doesn’t matter if I happen to be the most hateful person on the planet or if the idea I’m attacking isn’t currently held by anyone alive today. Nor does it matter that Belief Y is a good one, if we are discussing Belief X. In rational discussions, one must challenge the actual points presented. It is meaningless to quibble over the context around them or to focus on something else. Plunging your head into the sand is not a valid reasoning technique.
Alternatively, one could concede the point and admit that said dogma/practice/belief is indeed horrible/insane/incoherent. Then you could start a second discussion to try to argue that the dogma’s despicable nature doesn’t influence the world in any meaningful way. While this would be acceptable, it’s rare that a theist is will allow that any of their core religious ideas are either loathsome or inconsequential, much less both.
Much more likely, the theist will refuse to return to the main topic until this non-sequitor is dealt with. In either event, I would like to share ProportionalResponse’s reaction. The suggestion that religion today is harmless would be laughable, if it wasn’t so spirit-crushingly sad. Here is a link to the full image, should you wish to study it more carefully.
This dodge neither reflects reality nor addresses the topic actually under discussion. It’s a cheap diversionary tactic of the desperate and/or lazy. Users of this dodge may leave, give their heads a shake, and come back when they’re ready to say something meaningful.
I hate the word ‘utilize’.
There is an art form to selecting words. One mustn’t be drab, nor overly verbose. Large words should be used for clarity and precision in terms of expressing one’s intent. They should NOT be used to merely for the sake of making the speaker sound smarter or more official. As my wonderful philosophy professor once lectured, this makes your writing [or speaking] ‘fluffy’. It takes up lots of space, but has little substance. Further, if one is hellbent on using an impressive sounding word, make damn sure it means what you think it means. When people violate these two rules, I think back to that professor and how I ought to correct the culprits in his honour. Guillermo, this post is for you.
The first example of the misuse of words comes straight from the lecture that ultimately inspired this post. ‘Utilize’. This word is the epitome of ‘fluffy’ language. There is not one instance where the word ‘utilize’ adds any meaning that could not be derived from the word ‘use’.
Indeed, the only time ‘utilize’ is used is when the speaker/writer wants to sound smart and gain extra credibility without earning it. Try it out. The next time you hear someone say ‘utilize’, check the context. They are most likely trying to convince their audience of a) their position, b) their intelligence, or c) their import. Further, if you take their sentence and put in ‘use’ instead of ‘utilize’, you will find that not one iota of meaning has been lost.
Let us compare this to another pair of words: ‘end’ and ‘terminate’. Like the set in our example, they are synonyms. However, there is an important difference. Compare the following:
“My job was terminated today.”
“My work day terminated at 4:30 today.”
The word ‘terminate’ has a sense of finality to it that is not present in ‘end’. In our first sentence, ‘terminate’ conveys that the speaker was fired, that their job is no more. It is a valid use of a large word.
The second sentence doesn’t sound right, though, as the speaker is merely speaking of what time they finished their job that day. This conflicts with the extra meaning associated with ‘terminate’. As the message doesn’t contain the extra meaning, it is an incorrect application of the larger word. Read the rest of this entry »
He’s been gone a long while, but I am thrilled to say that NonStampCollector has returned with another fantastic cartoon. And for his triumphant return he has treated us all with a two parter looking at the story of Noah. I have missed NSC’s formidable skill at highlighting how immensely ludicrous christian stories are, all the while being hysterically funny. Bow your heads and give thanks to tonight’s patron saint of ripping religion a new one: NonStampCollector
Brilliant. Myles is a fantastic youtuber who is a biochemistry student out of the UK who is currently writing his PhD “Non-Enzymatic Transcription of Nucleic Acids and the Control of Gene Expression using Mutant Riboswitches by Synthetic Guanosine Analogues” (say THAT three times fast) and continually uploads wonderful experiments that entertain and educate and inspire learning (next run to the grocery store, I’m most definitely getting some red cabbage). On top of all that, he debunks asinine claims that can potentially harm society (and you thought I only went after religious nut-bags). Well, I’m running out of parentheses, so without further ado, here’s Myles on the B.S. that is homeopathy.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…