Diggers find E.T. in New Mexico — no, seriously

As skeptics, we’re prone to doubting those stories that are told and retold over long periods of time, often taking on mythic proportions. The video game world has its own share of such urban legends, though few as impactful as this one.
Continue reading “Diggers find E.T. in New Mexico — no, seriously”

Diggers find E.T. in New Mexico — no, seriously
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What Does the Donkey Say

Some Christians just can’t leave well enough alone, apparently. They have to Jesusify even weird meme songs like What Does The Fox Say. The River Christian Reformed Church is responsible for this particular mess.

Wow. Really, wow. May your god have mercy on your souls and not throw you in the pits of eternal suffering for making bad things worse.

If you want to see the equally ridiculous but less offensively Christified version, go here instead. Hat tip to Christian Nightmares.

Happy holidays, everyone!

What Does the Donkey Say

I Get Email Too: On religious symbols, double meanings, and passing

In my FtBCon talk Mission Creep, I briefly touched on the episode in my life when I wore a plain silver crucifix hoping to “pass” as Christian in my predominantly French Catholic town:

Chi Rho, the "Monogram of Christ", one of the earliest symbols of Christianity
Chi Rho, the “Monogram of Christ”, one of the earliest symbols of Christianity

I felt isolated. I felt like I had to “pass” as Christian. I put on airs of being a Christian, wearing a plain silver crucifix, hoping that was enough to camouflage what was going on in my head. I justified wearing it, mentally, because I really liked the Castlevania game series — a game that used what scattered religious iconography it could slip past the censors at Nintendo of America. The cross was used as a smart bomb that killed all the enemies on screen; and there was a throwing weapon that was originally a cross-shaped boomerang but whose graphics had been altered to avoid the overt parallel. I was amused that I was wearing an icon that to me represented a video game I liked, but to everyone else a symbol of their devout faith.

It turns out I wasn’t the only one. This part of the talk, among a few others, resonated with one of the viewers and they wrote to me to express appreciation that their own life’s trajectory to and through deconversion worked much the same way. They mentioned that their wearing of the cross took on other stealth meanings as well, which I pressed them on. They agreed to my publishing their story here, in hopes of sparking a conversation.

I stopped believing that God was unambiguously good a long time before I stopped believing in the existence of God.

Basically, I read the story of Abraham and Isaac in my Illustrated Story Bible and the idea that what God wants = what I should do was immediately and unambiguously undone by the news that God had asked a guy to stab his son and set the son on fire for him. That was when I was about six years old.

Continue reading “I Get Email Too: On religious symbols, double meanings, and passing”

I Get Email Too: On religious symbols, double meanings, and passing

Warwick Davis explains the importance of computer backups

I’m in a seriously bad way after working a ridiculous marathon shift overnight when some server issues kinda turned into a perfect storm. I might need a few days to recover and catch up on sleep. So have something fun.

I loved Warwick Davis as Willow Ufgood when I was a kid. Probably saw that movie a dozen times. Today I learned something new about him: he really loves Youtube videos of cats.

But who would remake the turtle videos, Warwick? WHO!?

Warwick Davis explains the importance of computer backups

Math or maths?

A linguist American living in the UK explains the difference. Apparently there’s a folk etymology built up that “math” is plural because “mathematics” ends with an S. But that’s not the only reason something might end with an S — there’s also the collective noun, like “linguistics”.

Interestingly, she’s gone native, saying “maths” despite knowing better, just to avoid the fight. I’m thinking now about other language patterns or other “in-group signals” that people might evince just to avoid a fight despite knowing better.

Math or maths?

"But I'm a nice guy!"

Okay, if you haven’t already seen this video that’s been floating about recently, you probably should. I see this absurdism, and reductio ad absurdum of the entire Men’s Rights Movement, as a defense mechanism against the completely counter-intuitive pushback against feminism. I mean, how else do you deal with ideas that are so patently absurd as that women are somehow oppressing men by trying to get the same rights as them?

But I’m A Nice Guy from Scott Benson on Vimeo.

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"But I'm a nice guy!"

Welcome to day one of the 14th b’ak’tun

Milk expiry: DEC 21 12. Caption: Well played, milk, well played.
Milk expiry: 2012.12.21. Caption: Well played, milk, well played.

Travelling today. On precious little sleep, too. My sleep schedule has been a complete shambles recently — been only getting a few hours of sleep a night, discontinuously, for at least a week. And I know I can’t sleep on planes, so today might be a bit rough.

I had previously blogged about how patently incorrect the whole idea of a doomsday on December 21, 2012 was. Now that the day has come and gone, and all those doomsayers are eating crow (or, more likely, shutting up for a month or so until the whole “we were wrong again about the apocalypse” blows over til the next big ridiculous prophecy comes along for them to latch onto), I wanted to say something about how horrid the meme and its counter-memes were.
Continue reading “Welcome to day one of the 14th b’ak’tun”

Welcome to day one of the 14th b’ak’tun

Welcome to day one of the 14th b'ak'tun

Milk expiry: DEC 21 12. Caption: Well played, milk, well played.
Milk expiry: 2012.12.21. Caption: Well played, milk, well played.

Travelling today. On precious little sleep, too. My sleep schedule has been a complete shambles recently — been only getting a few hours of sleep a night, discontinuously, for at least a week. And I know I can’t sleep on planes, so today might be a bit rough.

I had previously blogged about how patently incorrect the whole idea of a doomsday on December 21, 2012 was. Now that the day has come and gone, and all those doomsayers are eating crow (or, more likely, shutting up for a month or so until the whole “we were wrong again about the apocalypse” blows over til the next big ridiculous prophecy comes along for them to latch onto), I wanted to say something about how horrid the meme and its counter-memes were.
Continue reading “Welcome to day one of the 14th b'ak'tun”

Welcome to day one of the 14th b'ak'tun