Ponderings of sanity

There are many things to be said about debating in online forums. One, that you learn early on, is that it doesn’t take much effort to find the fruitcakes. It really doesn’t. The people who firmly believe that the World Trade Centre was brought down by explosives, as evidenced by the “indisputable fact” that it “fell faster than gravity”, because just look at that YouTube video. The people who believe you’re going to hell not just because you don’t believe in God, but because you haven’t performed the 54-day version of the “Rosary Novena” (a type of prayer) and that TV shows made since the 1960s are so unforgivably immoral that they must be the work of Satan Himself. The people who equate taxation with slavery and socialism with atheism. The people who believe that oil is not derived from ancient organic matter but instead is simply “produced” by the Earth’s core. The people who proudly challenge you to disprove their three-paragraph thesis on why the entirety of science on evolution and cosmology is flat-wrong and the literal Biblical account is the only possible alternative.

One person I encountered had a pet theory on the nature of photons (particles of light): that each in fact comprises an electron and a positron in orbit around each other. Facts, such as the one where photons have no mass, unlike electrons and positrons, do not pose a hindrance to such theories, I’ve discovered. The idea, more generally, that experts in the field have been looking into this sort of thing for quite some time, publishing multitudes of peer-reviewed journal articles along the way, is of little concern.

Not that I’d wish to put you off online debating, but as you’re encountering these varied and interesting specimens, you’re bound to pick up a few insults, depending on what fascinating theory you’re being unreasonably sceptical of. As a change of pace from the usual names I get called – leftist, liberal, socialist, atheist (which at least is true), materialist or totalitarian – I’ve recently been called a “Bushbot”. This is an interesting and somewhat disturbing thought, considering some of the stuff that’s popped up in my George Bush “Out of Office Countdown” off-the-wall calendar.

Not even Bush though can match some of the wisdom of the Internet, which I’ve decided to share with you:

“In addition, the Earth is continually producing oil, because “Peak oil” was a carefully crafted myth. Oil does not come from dead dinosaurs as you skulls full of mush have been brainwashed to believe.”

“Scientists are usually the last to know about anything”

“A price chart is how I make my living….It represents truth.”

“A truth to point, all the Atheists I know have no children and it is always due to thier Atheistic mental state as compared to normal (spiritual) people. I know 7 Atheists; three couples. Sure many Atheists do produce children but certainly a large number possessing the Atheistic mind, refuse and will therefore generally NOT pass on either their genetic or social make up to the younger generations.”

“The constant social and technological progress resulting from the constant advancement of the metaphysical mind set means that we now have societies full of people, some of whom now can survive to adulthood with all alorts of personal shortcomings. This obviously includes Atheists.”

So now you know.