Holy War

Looks like you're gonna get some angry letters this week... [goats.com]

In Response to evilaltor (#5069):

Well, I'm sure goats: the R&D department have come up with something to deal with all those angry letters in an automatic fasion by now.

In Response to jettaboy20 (#5079):

Yes.

I think it looks something like this.
'>/dev/null'

Or possibly
'/dev/random'

In Response to zamphir (#5080):

the only catch is that you need some kind of filter

In Response to zamphir (#5080):

Argh.

Let me try that again.

'>/dev/null'
or
'</dev/random'

The filtering is easy. Anything that comes in and doesn't match 'Jon, you're a GENIUS!!!' or 'OMG, th@s 50 fny!'.

In case just reading that strip isn't exciting enough for you, take the Battleground God [philosophers.co.uk] quiz to see where you really stand...

I only bit the bullet once, and I disagree with their thinking on that one....

In Response to phillip (#5140):

I took one hit and bit one bullet.

This is surprisingly good, as I strive to hold mutually contradictory opinions about almost everything - especially that the rules apply to everyone including me, except for the rules that I don't like at the time.

Which hit, and which bullet? I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

And I disagree with the hit, anyway. Some things are proveable and some things aren't. The fact that we choose not to take the effort to prove something doesn't mean it is unproveable.

There can be no rational discussion of unproveable things.

In Response to zamphir (#5141):

I took a hit and 2 bullets.

I would argue about them though.

My hit was rational inconsistency over the loch ness monster existence and the god existence without external evidence.

I don't believe that any definition of God or of the Lock Ness monster put the belief in them into a similar category and so I see no rational inconsistency. A belief in a God (which we know little about it from a physical sciences point of view) without external evidence is way different to a belief in a massively large sea going animal with no external evidence as we know a lot of rules that the animal must follow and a lot more that it probably does follow.

Then I got a couple of hits, one for the serial rapist question where I thought the guy was justified in believing he was doing Gods work, how could he not be if he held the belief that he was? Doesn't make sense to me that they would hold my answer as a bad thing. Surely it would be much more irrational and have worse implications if I was to say that he was not justified in believing his own beliefs. For this reason alone I believe that I couldn't have answered that question either way without being hit or taking a bullet.

I can't remember the other bullet now. bah!

oh yeah it was the fact that I implied that any discourse of God cannot be done in a rational fashion. Well duh!, they didn't define God and multi cultural awareness has lead me to see that there are many different definitions. I can certainly answer the questionaire based on my definition but I can't talk to someone else about God unless we agree what the definition of God is. As I have said before most people you talk to about God duck the question by saying it is some energy thing that they don't have to answer to and so on (stinky hippies). Obviously a discussion about God with them will be a waste of time as they are too scared to define it for themselves let alone for argument.

In Response to phillip (#5140):

Hah! unscathed!

Just accept that your believe in God is not logical and hence not necessarily justified, and that just a being can be considered god/God doesn't mean that being has absolute power to change any/everything....oh...and morality is independent of faith

In Response to Dynedain (#5147):

Right so it depends entirely on your definition of God.

bah! cheap arse losers with their stinky quizzes.

do they have any more? hehehehe

In Response to tor (#5148):

Next time you should use the force.

In Response to tor (#5143):

I think I did very similar to you - I bit 2 bullets, no direct hits:

"Congratulations!
You have been awarded the TPM medal of distinction! This is our second highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.

The fact that you progressed through this activity without being hit and biting very few bullets suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and well thought out.

A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that implied a logical contradiction. The bitten bullets occurred because you responded in ways that required that you held views that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. However, because you bit only two bullets and avoided direct hits completely you still qualify for our second highest award. A good achievement!"

Basically, the bullets I bit were due to my interpretation of the word "justified" in relation to someone's beliefs - as far as I'm concerned, if someone believes that their god wants them to kill people, they are perfectly justified to believe that. It's action in those circumstances that to me would not be justified.

In Response to Lonely Goatherd (#5149):

I bit 1 bullet, no hits, and I definately disagree with the bite. Tells me that i'm consistant, but it would be considered strange to the populace, well, I think religion as a whole is strange to the populace.

The reason you made it through with such ease Zamphir, is that while you hold such contradictory opinions, you hold them consistantly with your other contradictory opionions.

In Response to coolhand (#5166):

Yeah. well. When I was young I was told that consistancy was the hobgoblin of small minds.

I thought 'Hey, sounds like a fun job!'.

In Response to tor (#5143):

I got the hits and bullet for the same things. Bah. There is a big difference between disproving the existence of a large animal, and the existence of a nonphysical being.

Oh, and the one about God being able to change the rules of logic. Why not? Some all-powerful being God would be, not being able to create whatever logic God so chooses. I strongly disagree that that is a bullet. I had that part reasoned out when I was 8 years old.

I may have to rethink the rapist one, and reread the wording. Not much for morals, myself.

In Response to zamphir (#5167):

Apologies for the off-topic-ness of this, but "hobgoblin" reminded me of a funny and offensive joke:


Q. When is a dwarf not a dwarf?

A. When he has his head up a fairy's skirt - then he a-goblin.


This has been a post for the Anti PC League...

In Response to derFunkenstein (#5223):

How can you enjoy reading the strip, and take that stand?

If you are offended enough by Jon and Phillip's stand on the war enough to refuse to give them money because of it, how can you stand to read the strip regularly? It's got to offend at least as much on a daily basis.

In Response to evilaltor (#5191):

Too bad it's too late for the world's funniest joke... The goblin is much funnier than the one about "Make sure he's dead." [laughlab.co.uk]

In Response to derFunkenstein (#5223):

Sheesh it's a shame you won't cough up the cash. Now we'll have to treat you like a baby seal [goats.com].

In Response to zamphir (#5225):

Now that you mention it...hmmmm...no, it doesn't offend me that much, and probably not nearly as much as it should. I'm a greedy capitalist and I voted for Bush, rather than a socialist and/or voted for Nader, but I can still have a sense of humor. The two aren't mutually exclusive...unless you're Al Gore.

In Response to derFunkenstein (#5237):

besides, my wife bought a Fish t-shirt right before Christmas. So he's still getting money from my family, just not from me. :D

In Response to derFunkenstein (#5237):

If you're too cheap to buy a membership, that's one thing.

Trying to mask that cheapness as some sort of 'moral' or political stand, on the other hand, is something much less respectable.

In Response to tor (#5234):

You do realize the irony in that since the goatherder won't cough up the cash, that he won't understand what you are talking about?

Although if he went here [cafeshops.com], he could see it.

In Response to Dynedain (#5558):

Yeah that was my plan... I win the argument as he can't follow it no more, unless he pays up, in which case I win the argument.

Face it, I just wanna win...