Comments by cornbread_r2

Comment #288417 by cornbread_r2 on November 21, 2008 at 11:49 pm

This might be a statue of Saint Florian, the patron saint of Poland, Austria and firefighters.

Comment #288413 by cornbread_r2 on November 21, 2008 at 10:43 pm

Cannot.Stop.Hitting.Replay. Like watching the Kennedy assassination.

I don't think this is Jebus's mom. I'm not even sure it's a female saint...seems to be dressed in military garb. I'm guessing it's one of those ethnic parishes and this is their patron saint on his/her feast day. I can't tell if the little nun in the front row is trying to save the statue or herself. In any case, I'm glad she's OK. I love the way the geezers hot foot it out the door! I'd bet replacing it costs, minimum, 20K USD.

3. Teaching hate in UK schools

Comment #277536 by cornbread_r2 on November 4, 2008 at 12:21 am

I agree with Thomas Jefferson who thought that democracy wouldn't work too well without a well-educated, critically-thinking populace. The US democracy is threatened every bit as much by citizens who think Jebus frolicked with dinosaurs as it is by foreigners on one-way flights.

4. MnIndy interview: Unrepentant science-heathen PZ Myers still intends to prove 'this cracker is nothing'

Comment #211352 by cornbread_r2 on July 15, 2008 at 9:35 pm

Brian English: No. This is the ingenious part of transubstantiation. The cracker is still a cracker because all its 'accidents' such as taste, molecular structure, appearance are those of a cracker. The 'substance' has changed from the substance of a cracker, to the substance of jeebus. So, testing can't refute this belief. The whole concept of substance vs accidents is philosophically dodgy, but just because there's no reason to believe it's true, you can't show it to be false. It's a gap that can fit jeebus. ;)

Bingo! Since the RC Church says that all this takes place on a supernatural plane there can never be any scientific tests applied. The tack I've been employing on another site debating the disrespect of a well-known agnostic receiving communion at Tim Russert's funeral is to: 1) de-euphemize the language and get Catholics to admit that they believe they're actually "eating" the rectum, nasal hair, pancreas, toenails, etc. of Jesus and 2) press them to demonstrate how eating the actual body of no less an entity as god changes the recipient in any perceptible way.

There is one undeniable fact that no Catholic can escape: despite having received communion thousands of times themselves and witness 10's of thousands of others doing the same, not a one of them can point to any immediate physical or spiritual change as a result of their participation. For the most part, it's a routine matter of lining up, eating Jesus and sitting back down--with no change in them or their fellow participants--just as if it was nothing more than a symbol.

5. Lab agrees to test Shroud of Turin for new theory

Comment #183286 by cornbread_r2 on May 21, 2008 at 6:39 pm

Apparently there is another hypothesis floating around that posits that the Catholic Church is responsible for the initial carbon date of the 14th century, or so. As it goes, when the earlier sample was taken the RC Church substituted a piece of cloth dating to the 14th century so that the Shroud would be declared a forgery. Their motive? As I understand it, the Shroud exhibits signs of flowing blood, along with other anomalies alluded to by others here, that point to a living, not a dead body. Therefore, while the Church may absolutely believe that the Shroud is the actual burial cloth of Jesus, it does not want attention drawn to the fact that it doesn't appear he was dead when he entered the tomb.

6. Bible Theme Park Faces Opposition in Tennessee

Comment #180775 by cornbread_r2 on May 15, 2008 at 6:50 pm

'There's a lot of people who would like to go on a trip to the Holy Lands,' he [Bar-Tur] says, 'but only a small percentage do, and that's because of time, money and fear,' he says. 'The idea is that people could come to the park and see a lot of similar ideas and recreations that you would see.'

From what I gather from my sad pre-occupation with religious television programming in the U.S., the tour business is a very important part of the revenue stream. Almost all of the major televangelists offer all-inclusive tours of the Holy Land, many of them several times a year. While they may not make tons off the tour itself, I'd guess the real money is made in a continuing relationship with the purchaser.

By repeatedly emphasizing in their typical advertisement just how safe a Middle-Eastern tour can be, the televangelists inadvertently call into mind just how much this is a concern for the typical American traveler. This new theme park seems to be an attempt to exploit that fear and the growing number of "boomer" tourists by reconstructing the Holy Land closer to home.

7. Americans pray at the pump for cheaper petrol

Comment #179777 by cornbread_r2 on May 13, 2008 at 5:56 pm

Barrel of oil = @ $128.00 USD
Barrel of Lourdes holy water = @ $33,987.00 USD

8. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #170743 by cornbread_r2 on April 27, 2008 at 11:48 pm

Apparently the "expelled" movie is doing horribly at the box office and getting buried by the secular reviewers, some giving it like 1 star out of 23,000 possible, or something. And while that gives me great joy, I just want to remind everyone that only mediocre films pass into obscurity. The truly great and truly horrible ones live on, the former as classical inspirations and the latter as classical embarrassments, but live they do.

I'm also writing from West Virginia, where I was raised. While I'm certain no one here would assume otherwise, I just wanted to confirm that not everyone here is like melissa; 80% or more probably are, but that still leaves a few people mostly grounded in reality. By way of survival, we mostly keep our mouths shut and try to blend in with the trees. A few famous West Virginia personages: Pearl Buck, author; Stonewall Jackson, Civil War general; Traveler, Robert E. Lee's horse; Chuck Yeager, test pilot and first man to break the sound barrier; Jerry West and Randy Moss, sports gods; Soupy Sales, bad comedian; Dagmar, early 50's TV personality for whom those bullet-shaped bumper caps on Cadillacs were named (Wiki "Dagmar bumper" for more info); Morgan Spurlock, independent documentary film director, TV producer, and screenwriter, films include "Super Size Me"; Don Knotts aka "Barney Fife", TV personality.

Also, if you ever want to infuriate a West Virginian, who pride themselves on being "Southern", just point out the fact that West Virginia was the only state with the distinction of seceding from the Confederacy during the Civil War. :D

By way of unsolicited explanation of my screen name: it derives from an old southern joke intended to poke fun at education, in general. To wit: A young boy learns in school that the formula to compute the area of a circle is Pi x R2...horrified, he shouts his objection..."NOOOOOO...Pie are round! Cornbread are square!!" It was probably funnier in 1920...

Finally, a sincere and groveling thanks to all you eggheads for your participation on this site. Not only has it gotten me back on the track of a rational existence, taught me how to debate more effectively, taught me just more stuff, in general, in the past few months than most of high school, but you have no idea how confidence-boosting it is to have a resource like this available down here in the coal fields. If there's ever anything I can do for you...teach you how to skin a possum...send you a sack of coal when oil gets too expensive....whatever...just let me know.

9. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162420 by cornbread_r2 on April 16, 2008 at 11:20 pm

Just a note to say that Expelled has been getting lots of ad time in the past 3 or 4 days, even ads on Comedy Central during the Daily Show slot. The TV ads are typically 20-second spots, no real information, just plays on Ben Stein's personality [sic]. I did see an extended trailer on one of the x-tian stations and I'm hoping that one of Stein's statements gets picked up and repeated by every Creationist/IDer on the planet. Stein: "The problem with the field of science is that is absolutely dominated by scientists." What would he prefer...that it be dominated by plumbers?

10. Cult leader Pyotr Kuznetsov tries suicide after realising he was wrong about doomsday

Comment #156125 by cornbread_r2 on April 6, 2008 at 10:32 pm

To be honest and by way of confession, I laughed too. But in my defense, I was picturing a cheese log: the kind with nuts and pimentos stuck to it.

11. Beware the Believers

Comment #155802 by cornbread_r2 on April 5, 2008 at 10:44 pm

Rational_G and speculawyer:

I don't see much I could possibly add that you both haven't already effectively stated earlier in the thread. I agree it's definitely pro-science and I wonder that since the specific "Expelled" references are pretty minimal if they might not have been added just before release to make it more timely: as an afterthought. (I haven't checked all the lyrics yet to see if the word "expelled" was used.)

I do think it will get a lot of air time; and knowing how schtik frequently assumes a life of it's own, I would not exclude the possibility of it being anthemized (possible new word) in some circles the way bits from Fire Sign Theater and others were in the 60's.

Aloha

12. Beware the Believers

Comment #155793 by cornbread_r2 on April 5, 2008 at 9:25 pm

Have a bunch of posts gone missing from this thread? Just curious...