On Saturday, September 2, 2023 at 1:00:23 PM UTC-4, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
On Fri, 1 Sep 2023 21:55:19 -0700
Mark Isaak <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
The winner of the Voting for July Chez Watts was:
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Category: God and the Art of Automobile Maintenance
Evolution is to atheism as auto repair is to atheism.
That is an absolutely horrible analogy. Anyone who has contorted themselves to reach a largely unreachable exhaust manifold
bolt, bashing their knuckles, dusting their eyes with a rain of large crusty flakes of rust, only to ultimately have that most inaccessible
of bolts snap off still holding the manifold firmly in place, knows
for a FACT that there is no god, no matter how loud and intensely
they reference him along the way.
Back in the heyday of Chez Watt, Harvest Dancer (who played the same role
as MarK Isaak does here) wrote the following when announcing
the June 2013 winners:
"Winning authors and nominators are invited to come forward for credit / blame as appropriate."
--
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/vmy46boX-Vc/m/IK8-nbbOAzgJ
Re: Chez Watt Ballot, July 1, 2013
Jul 9, 2013, 2:17:20 PM
I nominated the one you read above. May the reactions be in the spirit
of Harvest Dancer's words.
"If there is a god, why must he be sane -
he's probably a raving fruity,
out of his tiny brain"
God is Mad - Los Albertos - I expect youtube will have a vid somewhere.
I'd rather it didn't. It is a stopper of all meaningful discussion that is relevant to talk.origins,
unless one wants to take seriously David Hume's suggestion about the universe having
been spun from the belly of an infinite spider. Even then, the connection is a stretch.
Explanation: "tiny brain" precludes the attributes of the God of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic
tradition, even the one that arises from a literalist reading of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. When one gets to Chapter 20, there is even
the case of someone shaming God for threatening to punish
an innocent man, and God acknowledging the reproach, albeit
in a high-handed way.
God gets better in the OT as time goes on, even acknowledging that
Job had told the truth about him, even though Job had railed at God
for allowing so much evil in the world.
A close second:
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Who was the founder of Christianity? I think the founders were
certain Old Testament prophets and the 12 Apostles.
Which 12, I wonder. Is it supposed to include Judas? Or Matthias, his replacement
by the remaining 11? Or Saul of Tarsus, a.k.a. St. Paul, appointed by Jesus
and the Holy Spirit? He called himself "The last and least of the Apostles."
Poor Old John the Baptist, always getting overlooked.
--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.
Poor Jesus, even being overlooked by you.
By the way, there is a tiny sect of Gnostics called the Mandaeans,
who make John the Baptist the founder of their sect, and they
rate him more highly than Jesus.
Peter Nyikos
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