Theist Point-by-Point rebuttal

[Another brick in the wall]

Any theists interested in posting a point-by-point rebuttal of "Kissing Hank's Ass?"

http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/user/d/r/dryfoo/www/Spritz-yule/hanks-ass.html

[Another brick in the wall]

Never mind, found one: http://www.tektonics.org/parody/hankwhine.htm

For more lame arguments, check out the rest of their site. http://www.tektonics.org/

[Another brick in the wall]

My comments are in blue

Whining About Hank

This morning as I was picking the wings off of flies to see if I could get evolution moving a little faster, there was a knock at my door. When I answered the door I found a well groomed, nicely dressed couple. The man spoke first:
Apparently this idiot doesn't understand that acquired traits are not inherited. If you're trying to breed wingless flies, you have to selectively breed flies with small wings.

Fred: "Hi! I'm Fred, and this is Wilma."
Meet the Flintstones.
Wilma: "Hi! We're here to invite you to come express loyalty to Hank with us."

Me: "Pardon me?! What are you talking about? Who's Hank, and why would I want to express my loyalty to him?"

Fred: "If you are loyal to Hank, He'll give you the natural reward for loyalty; just like if you work for a company for long time and do well, they rightly reward you. And if you aren't, He won’t give you any rewards, but He will just leave you on your own to your own shame.”
Nice try, but the Bible is pretty clear about Hell being a fiery place of eternal torment.
Me: "What? Is this some sort of bizarre mob shake-down?"

Fred: "Hank is a billionaire philanthropist. Hank built this town. Hank owns this town. He can do whatever He wants, and what He wants is to give you a reward for loyalty, but He can't until you are loyal to him."
And who doesn't like being surrounded by toadies and sycophants?
Me: "That doesn't make any sense. Why..."

Wilma: "What do you mean, ‘that doesn’t make any sense’? Do you think these houses built themselves? Don’t you think you should be thankful to the person who built it and let you live here?”
No evidence that the house was built by Hank is provided.

Me: "Well no, I think these houses just sort of flew together in a storm one day."
You see, the world is like a house; almost everything is broken and no one can get a hold of the landlord.
Fred: "I can see why this doesn’t make sense to you then."

Me: "Do you show loyalty to this ‘Hank’ often?"

Wilma: "Oh yes, all the time..."

Me: "And has He given you a million dollars?"

Fred: "Well no. We don’t serve Hank for the reward. We serve Hank because He has earned our trust and loyalty.”
Can I have the money then?
Me: "Huh? But I wanted money."

Wilma: "I suppose if you think these houses came out of nowhere, that’s to be expected."

Me: "Well gosh. It sounds like there’s really nothing in it for me. Do you know anyone who was loyal to Hank, left town, and got the rewards?"

Fred: "Does it really matter? The rewards are not the issue; it is that Hank is a real person who did real things like build your house.”
And what could be more prudent than wasting your time and energy for an uncertain outcome?

Me: "Yeah, but I want money, man. Have you seen the price of beer lately?”

Fred: "I’m sorry, but your priorities seem a bit skewed. Remember, if you don't follow Hank he’ll leave you alone…but you won’t be able to achieve your fullest potential that Hank intends. He’ll leave to spend the rest of your existence in boredom and disgrace.”
More denial of hell.
Me: "Maybe if I could see Hank, talk to Him, get the details straight from Him..."

Wilma: “What makes you think you’d hear any different? Aren’t you just fudging to create a problem?"
Silly me. Everyone knows that human beings never lie and always report the facts accurately
Me: "Then how do you show loyalty to Hank if you don’t see him?"

Fred: "We serve Him and His interests. Don’t tell me you need to see and talk to a person to work for them. Have you ever seen the President of this country?”
I've seen him on TV and in the newspaper. I've heard his voice on the radio, I've seen where he lives, and I know people who have seen him.


Me: "Well, no, but --"

Wilma: "We learned about Hank by the record of what He did in history. The records taught us all about Hank and why we should be loyal to Him – because of all that He did, and because He is who He is."

Me: "Huh. And you just took these records at their word when they said there was a Hank, that Hank wanted you to be loyal to him, and that Hank did all this stuff?"

Fred: "No, we checked out the validity of the record and what it said, and compared it to other records. One of Hank’s officers, Karl, wrote down some of it; there were others, too, but here's a copy of what Karl wrote; see for yourself."
Why didn't Hank write it?
From the Desk of Karl
Be loyal to Hank for He has earned your loyalty by providing you with life and all you have.
Use alcohol in moderation.
Pursue righteousness. Don’t misuse this as an excuse to define “righteousness” in your own image.
Eat right.
Hank dictated this list Himself.
The moon is white and shining.
Everything Hank says is right.
Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.
Don't use alcohol if it becomes too strong.
Eat your wieners on buns, no condiments.
Be loyal to Hank or He'll leave you to your own devices.


Me: "This appears to be written on Karl's letterhead."

Wilma: "What’s your point?"

Me: "I have a hunch that if we checked we'd find this is Karl's handwriting."

Fred: "So what? When Karl wrote this 95% of people in this town couldn’t read anyway. Most communication was by dictation. Do you have a problem with that? Why not just address the epistemic validity of what is written?"
Fancy verbiage isn't going to save you now, god-boy. Anyway, what's stopping Hank from periodically dropping by to make sure everyone is on the same page?
Me: "I thought you said no one gets to see Hank?"

Wilma: "Not now, but years ago He would talk to some people."

Me: "I thought you said He was a philanthropist. What sort of philanthropist hurts of people just because they're different?"

Wilma: "So you think that Hank ought to give rewards to ungrateful people?"
That's not the issue. Hank is going to punish people who refuse to express loyalty.
Me: "Maybe your friend Karl just made the whole thing up."

Fred: "So prove it. We did our research and we found that all that Karl wrote is sound.”
Apparently you don't understand the concept of "proof."


Me: "But 9 says 'Don't use alcohol.' which doesn't quite go with item 2, and 6 says 'The moon is white and shining,' which is just plain wrong."

Fred: "See, you haven’t done your homework at all. 2 and 9 were both written before alcohol was strong enough to knock your socks off. As far as 6 goes, I suppose you don’t use the word ‘sunset’ in your vocabulary.”
So the original list is clearly outdated. I wonder when hank will get around to editing it.

Me: "Scientists have pretty firmly established that the moon reflects light, not that it shines..."

Wilma: "They’ve also established that the sun doesn’t ‘set’. So what is the problem, exactly? Do you have a problem with phenomenological language?"
The fact the list contains errors cannot be rationalized away. Hank should have clarified it already.
Me: "I'm not really an expert. I don’t even know what that word means."


Fred: "Obviously not.”

Me: "Item 7 is a real trip, though.”

Wilma: "Why?”

Me: "You can use it to say Hank's always right because the list says so, the list is right because Hank dictated it, and we know that Hank dictated it because the list says so. That's circular logic, no different than saying 'Hank's right because He says He's right.'"

Fred: "Well, sorry to disappoint you, but we did check out the claims and as far as we have found, item 7 is valid. If you think it isn’t you need to explain why.”
It's quite simple. Hank's right because he's right because we say he's right.

Me: "Maybe later. I need a beer. What's the deal with wieners?"

Wilma: She rolls her eyes.

Fred: "Oh, yes., Wieners, in buns, no condiments. It was written at a time when there were serious problems with condiments being poisoned by poor processing methods, so Hank included a ban on condiments. Buns are required because when this was written, there were no napkins, and people got the grease from the wieners on their fingers and it caused a lot of accidents. These days since we have napkins and better sanitation, we don’t worry about that law.”
If Hank's in charge of the town, he should have fixed the condiment problem.
Me: "What if I didn't have a bun?"

Fred: "What kind of silly question is that? I told you why the bun was needed. Are you so selfish that you’d risk hurting people just so you don’t have to put up with a bun?"
How the hell can you hurt someone by not using a bun?
Me: "No relish? No Mustard?"

Wilma: “Didn’t you hear a word he said? Relish and mustard at the time this was written was deadly.”
Those people must have been pretty stupid back then.
Me: (I stick my fingers in her ears.)"I am not listening to this. La la la, la la, la la la."

Fred: "I can see we’re wasting our time with someone who lives in his own little world.”
I get that feeling all the time.

With this, Fred escorted Wilma to their waiting car, and sped off. I went back inside for a beer.

[Another brick in the wall]

I don't know why it keeps double posting.

[Another brick in the wall]

http://www.tektonics.org/guest/300proof.html

Most of these are just lame negations, but some of them are unintentionally funny:

ARGUMENT FROM RIDICULOUS COMPARISON
Some people believe that God exists.
Some people believe that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny exist.
Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny do not exist.
Therefore, God does not exist.

I don't see what's so ridiculous about it.

ARGUMENT FROM WILLFUL IGNORANCE
It simply doesn't make sense that an unseen, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good sky-daddy created the world out of nothingness, from magic, essentially, and then punished us for eating a piece of fruit, and then incarnated himself in human flesh and came down to shed his own blood so he could break his own rules, and then went through hell on a temporary basis and then went back into the sky and promised to come back and take everyone who believed in him to this heaven no one has ever seen?
Don’t bother trying to explain it to me or tell me how I’ve falsely portrayed God. I like being an atheist.
Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

[Choobus]

are these pussies too scared to talk about kissing ass, or do they simply see no difference between "Showing loyalty" and "kissing ass"?

Either way, they are shit

[Another brick in the wall]

http://www.tektonics.org/parody/fundyath.html

You believe that extra drippy ice-cream is a logical proof against the existence of God, because an omniscient God would know how to stop the ice-cream from being extra drippy, an omnipotent God would have the ability to stop the ice-cream from being extra drippy, and by golly, an omnibenevolent God wouldn't want your ice-cream to be extra drippy.

Yeah, this is so analogous to pancreatic cancer.

When you were a child, someone came down with a deadly disease and prayed and prayed for God to take it away. God did not remove the disease and your friend died. You ask other Christians why they had to die when they were such a nice person and never harmed anyone. Dissatisfied with their answers, you suddenly decide that there is no God and that all Christians are nothing but lying, conniving con artists and hypocrites....all that is except for your friend who died.
Good job dodging the question, guys.

You believe that planes, computers, calculators, compasses, etc, were "all obviously designed," yet the human body, being intricately more complex was "obviously a product of biological evolution." It seems the more complex the apparatus, the more obvious the "fact" that it was not designed.
What can we infer from the "design" of the malaria parasite?

You think that every scientist who believes in Creationism and doesn't mindlessly accept evolution as a fact is a "kook," but you believe that Francis Crick (Nobel Prize winning co-discoverer of DNA), who reached into his nether regions and pulled out the "theory" of Directed Panspermia (which states with absolutely no support that aliens seeded the earth with life - see the movie "Mission to Mars"), is a great evolutionist scientist.
I'm not holding my breath for a creationist to win the Nobel.

Last of all -- you write this website a letter which includes a rebuttal to the above listing!
Hey! Oh, you sneeky theists!

[Another brick in the wall]

The Argument from Bodycounts

A lot of theists are happy to point out the atrocities of officially atheist movements like Communism. First of all, if machine guns had been around in the Middle Ages, wars of religion would have probably wiped out much of humanity. An uprising of Protestant peasants in Germany led to the death of about 100,000 people- pretty impressive for guys armed mostly with pitchforks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_War. The Crusades lasted over 200 hundred years. Only religion can get people that riled up for so long.

Secondly, it wasn't atheism per se that led to the communist atrocities. It was the blind fanatiscism of people who thought they were absolutely right.
That's the common theme in all atrocities: people who believe they are performing a necessary evil. It's easy to justify death when you "know" you're right.

Finally, it isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of theism when they say "well, atheism led to the death of way more people than X."

[Daniel]

The Argument from Bodycounts

A lot of theists are happy to point out the atrocities of officially atheist movements like Communism. First of all, if machine guns had been around in the Middle Ages, wars of religion would have probably wiped out much of humanity. An uprising of Protestant peasants in Germany led to the death of about 100,000 people- pretty impressive for guys armed mostly with pitchforks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_War. The Crusades lasted over 200 hundred years. Only religion can get people that riled up for so long.

Secondly, it wasn't atheism per se that led to the communist atrocities. It was the blind fanatiscism of people who thought they were absolutely right.
That's the common theme in all atrocities: people who believe they are performing a necessary evil. It's easy to justify death when you "know" you're right.

Finally, it isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of theism when they say "well, atheism led to the death of way more people than X."
It's hatred that leads to atrocities and I've seen more hatred on this forum than on any other place on the internet. :(
You should check out the Christian forums.

[Choobus]

The Argument from Bodycounts

A lot of theists are happy to point out the atrocities of officially atheist movements like Communism. First of all, if machine guns had been around in the Middle Ages, wars of religion would have probably wiped out much of humanity. An uprising of Protestant peasants in Germany led to the death of about 100,000 people- pretty impressive for guys armed mostly with pitchforks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_War. The Crusades lasted over 200 hundred years. Only religion can get people that riled up for so long.

Secondly, it wasn't atheism per se that led to the communist atrocities. It was the blind fanatiscism of people who thought they were absolutely right.
That's the common theme in all atrocities: people who believe they are performing a necessary evil. It's easy to justify death when you "know" you're right.

Finally, it isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of theism when they say "well, atheism led to the death of way more people than X."
It's hatred that leads to atrocities and I've seen more hatred on this forum than on any other place on the internet. :(
that's only because you are here dickwad. You are the cause of all the hatred, therefore youo must be either JEsus or the devil (or, perhaps, just a foolish little prick). If you fuck off, the forum will be a happy happy place. If you do not wish to fuck off, try posting something that makes sense and does not seem as though it were written by a gang of drunken retards with fat stubby fingers.