Gross Fact of the Day 10-14

Oreo cookie(and all sandwich cookie) filling is made out of just sugar and lard. Try it: mix 1 part Crisco with 3 parts sugar. That's all it is. Think about that next time you see someone eating a "Double Stuf."

Premiering "Gross Fact of the Day"

Today we're introducing a brand new feature here at DIFGTBAG, something I like to call, "Gross Fact of the Day." In this feature you will learn a new tidbit of mostly pointless, and gross, trivia regarding things you consume or participate in on a daily basis. So here we go, I now bring you today's gross fact...

Wednesday, October 12, 2005:

Did you know that every time you flush, your toilet expels a 4-foot plume of vaporized excrement into the air, which you then breath?

Atheism for Dummies

Last night I was watching "Real Time w/Bill Maher" and the issue of religion came up during a discussion about Bush. On the panel were Salman Rushdie, Ben Affleck, and Andrew Sullivan. Andrew Sullivan was upset at Bill Maher, pointing out how atheists like Bill and myself tend to dismiss believers as "idiots." This is true. We absolutely dismiss them as idiots, probably unfairly in many cases, but being idiots is NOT my main problem with believers, my biggest issue with them is that they are hypocrites.

Andrew Sullivan was making the point that most Chirstians are hard working, generous, caring, just generally good people, and the reason is the values they learned from their religion. I'm willing to give him that one, that's absolutely true. He also made the point that for most of these people, it's not about taking every word in the Bible literally, but it relieves them of wrestling with the things that man cannot know, the existential questions about "why we're here" and what happens to you following death. That's where the hypocrisy comes in, and this is my primary reason for being an atheist: IN HIS OWN WORDS he described these as "things man cannot know." Well, if they're things man cannot know, then you are obviously admitting that YOU DO NOT KNOW, that these are questions that man does not, cannot, and will not ever have the answers to. So if that's the case and you know it, WHY DO YOU PRETEND TO HAVE THOSE ANSWERS?

It is completely mind-boggling to me that in this day and age people still cling to this pathetic, archaic belief system that there's an invisible man in the sky who created, controls, and watches over EVERYTHING. That's idiotic, particularly in the face of all the overwhelming scientific evidence that it's mostly bullshit. But then again, when it comes to people en masse, stupidity is clearly the rule rather than the exception. But I don't blame anybody for being an idiot, I blame them for being so blindly fucking ignorant. And when they say shit to me like, "It's about faith," sorry, that's a fucking cop-out. You say "It's about faith," and I hear, "I don't have any fucking clue what I'm talking about." And most of them don't. They really do take it on faith, they make NO EFFORT WHATSOEVER to find out the facts for themselves, they just go to church every Sunday and blindly believe whatever comes out of the preacher's mouth, and that's just plain ignorant. How can they take something they believe in so deeply so lightly? Because they're fucking hypocrites, that's why.

I'm not at all saying that being a believer makes you a bad person. I am simply saying that you SHOULD NOT just "take it on faith" that the Bible is factual history. The people who think the Bible is literal fact, clearly idiots. Sorry, but there is NO FUCKING WAY that bullshit is fact. Those people are living in a fantasy world, filled with angels and pixies and magic and shit.

And the worst offenders of them all? The creationists. These people ACTUALLY WANT YOU TO BELIEVE THAT ADAM WAS CREATED FROM NOTHING AND EVE WAS BORN FROM A RIB OUT HIS CHEST. And they want to call it "intelligent design." Sorry, but there is absolutely nothing "intelligent" about that story(not to mention that Eve WAS NOT the first woman in that story, a fact that was actually EDITED OUT of the Bible, and very few of these people will be able to tell you that). Anyway, one of their biggest issues with evolution is that, and I quote, "It's random." They actually believe that the billion-year process of evolving from one species to another, getting stronger and smarter every time, being able to adapt to changing climate and food sources, they actually believe that is random. IT'S THE COMPLETE FUCKING OPPOSITE OF RANDOM, MORONS!!! It's called "natural selection," because the weak fall by the wayside, while the strong prosper and multiply. It's not random. Random would be a butterfly turning into a buffalo. Random would be a rhinocerous turning into a parrot. In one step.

There are already school districts whose boards of education have approved the teaching of "intelligent design," mostly in the south, and it's slowly spreading. This is completely outrageous to me. Public schools are funded by the government and this particular government was created on the principle of the separation of church and state, right? And what is their main argument? That THEY believe in it, and THEY should have a say in what their children are taught. This is true, I'll give them that, they SHOULD have a say in what their children are taught, EXCEPT THEY ALREADY DO. You want your children to be taught creationism, SEND THEM TO PRIVATE SCHOOL. What? You can't afford private school? TEACH THEM AT HOME YOURSELF. Then you can make them just as close-minded and ignorant as you are. These people want to act like they have no options in the matter, that the only education available to them is public school. In some cases this may be true, but of course the loudest of them are not poor, they are solidly middle class or up.

These people simply want to push their beliefs on everyone who doesn't believe in the same thing as them, and that's wrong. That's NOT what "religious freedom" is, that's NOT what freedom of expression is. The constitution of this country makes it free to PRACTICE your religion, NOT to force it on others, which, the way I see it, is the primary goal of many Christians. Christianity is pretty much the ONLY religion that actively recruits new members. The ONLY religion that works in an empirical manner, the notion that "the Word is good and it must be spread to every corner of the globe, whether they like it or not." This is arrogant, ignorant, and fascist. I've NEVER had a Jew knock on my door to "spread the Word of Yahweh." I've NEVER had a muslim knock on my door to "spread the word of Mohommed," and neither has ANYONE, because they DON'T actively seek converts, they let converts come to them.

Sure, the intrinsic values outlined in the Bible are inherently good, but all the bullshit surrounding it is INCREDIBLY BAD. Those core values are inherent in ALL religions, NOT because of any divine wisdom, it's just COMMON FUCKING SENSE. OF COURSE you should honor your parents. OF COURSE you shouldn't kill or hurt anybody. OF COURSE you shouldn't take things that don't belong to you. OF COURSE you shouldn't fuck your neighbor's wife. These are NOT brain-busters, these are simple things that any layperson should know, and they DON'T have to get it from any book.

So Andrew Sullivan and the like, all I have to say to you is SHUT THE FUCK UP. You be ignorant on YOUR side of the fence, and by all means you are welcome on mine, BUT LEAVE YOUR FAIRY TALES ON YOUR SIDE. I don't want or need to fucking hear it.