oh yes of course - religion! Definitely irrational... A rambling story of my descent into and eventual escape from religious fundamentalism
I used to be a full-on bible believing tongue talking evangelical. In fact, I joined b3ta whilst still (just about) part of it all and one or two of my previous qotw answers make me cringe immensely!

I was converted at the age of 17, having just about survived a thoroughly unpleasant childhood, the high point of which was finally escaping into care at the age of 14. Actually the children's home I went to was utterly amazing but I digress! Social Services don't get it all wrong believe me...

So anyway, probably because my nickname was Jesus (long hair, bare feet, hippy clothes and permanently stoned) the evangellyfish at my college latched onto me and concentrated their efforts at getting me to one of their church meetings. Once there, I had a very powerful religious experience (probably an ill-timed acid flashback to be honest) where I suddenly and intensely felt the presence of some beautiful and very other being. All my defences fell down and when the guy leading the meeting asked if I wanted him to pray with me, the word 'yes' came out almost involuntarily.
I was rapidly absorbed into church life and suddenly found myself among what seemed to be (and genuinelt was in some ways) a loving family group. I happily handed in my brain and heart at the door and believed the whole thing. hook, line and fucking sinker. I destroyed various things I owned that were considered by various people to be sacrilegious, such as my lovely collection of chinese idols, which I kind of understand, and also lots of music. Including for some reason, a Tracy Chapman CD. I mean what could be blasphemous about that? But anyway, I was baptised and 'filled with the spirit'. The first sign of weirdness was when I got it together with a single mum who was also a believer. I was very young - I was 19 and she was 21. But rather than just point out that maybe I was a little young for parenthood, the bloody Christians decided to brand her a hussy and a whore, distracting me from my holy calling of something or other.
We ended up leaving that church, but we were hooked by that point, so we just went to another one... We got married (in church) and I decided to bible college to learn to be an evangelist. Well, that was an eye opener. The idea of the people there being 'shepherds of God's flock' was quite frankly, terrifying. I was having serious doubts about the whole thing by then, but saw these as temptations sent my way by the devil (yes really) and did my best to ignore them.

In the end, it took several more clashes with scary power loving pastors and other utter dickheads before I came to the conclusion that it was all a big steaming pile of dogshit. Funnily enough I only managed to leave my religion though, once I actually found a church run by genuinely decent human beings. I guess I realised that if I still didn't believe it even then I'd better get the hell out. It still took me a while, though, and was a long drawn out process. I was a born again numbnuts for about 19 years all told...

Not long after I jacked it in I managed to convince my wife that it really wasn't all it was cracked up to be. She promptly realised that religion was the only thing keeping her married to me, so she buggered off with another bloke. Still worth it though! Actually not long after she'd gone I kind of realised the same thing, so everyone was better off. Especially the kids...

All the years of wonderful insightful Bible knowledge, church history and doctrinal understanding is a little wasted on me these days, but it has occasionally come in handy at pub quizzes or more occasionally when arguing with religious idiots... I can honestly say that losing my faith has been one of the best things to happen to me. I'm happier, more fulfilled, more secure and I enjoy life more. I'm even more thankful for what I have somehow. And I get to choose how I live my life rather than trying to shoehorn it into some semblance of bronze age thinking!

TDLR - I used to be an evangelical Christian, but I'm better now.
(teasus likes tea, Wed 16 Oct 2013, 14:28, 33 replies)

balloon cure
A friend of mine absolutely refused to drive anywhere at night because she was worried she would hit someone and not notice.

I always thought I could cure her irrational fear by setting up some empty plastic trash bins and having her bump them with her car at low speeds, to show that it's impossible to not notice even that kind of impact.

The opportunity never came up, so instead I wedged an old deflated child's birthday balloon and some human hair in the underside of her bumper when she was leaving work for the day, figuring that facing her fear was the only way to get past it.
( the prick of misery pierced my foot on a spiiiike on, Sun 13 Oct 2013, 1:52, Reply)

This family of three came to my door one day - a man and woman in their 30s, and their young lad who must have been about 10.
I'd been smoking a LOAD of hashes, and was really tripping.

They were on about some god BULLSHIT or something - I couldn't really hear over the DEF LEPPARD I had playing at top volume on my MARSHALL STACKS, but they were trying to hand me a leaflet that looked like it had a picture of Jesus on it.

I sighed heavily with the burden of having to explain to another bunch of IRRATIONAL THICK CULTISTS about how atheism is the only true way, and that my COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT THINKING and STUDY OF SCIENCE had brought me to the CORRECT conclusion that THERE IS NO GOD! DUMBASSES!

But instead I had an idea.

I crouched down low, pushing my hair out from over my eyes, and straightening my WHITESNAKE T-SHIRT, and I fixed the young boy with my gaze.

Here, I thought, I could plant a seed, perhaps. I could right some of the wrongs his parents' IDIOT THINKING were doing to this vulnerable young man.

Taking a deep breath, I SCREAMED AS LOUDLY AS I COULD at him, SLAMMED my head into his face, and KNOCKED HIM INTO NEXT WEEK.

Hopefully, somewhere along the lines, I'll have done some good.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 14 Oct 2013, 16:47, 9 replies)

Drunk and disoriented
I was fairly irrational and got on Mrs Ducks nerves this weekend I had to share

I met up with an old friend in Bristol and got very pissed. Unfortunately the village where I live doesn't have a late bus service. And a taxi costs a stupendous amount of money. So I got a bus that got me close and walked along a cycle track to my village.

On the walk home the cycle track was pitch black. I just put my iPod on a bimbled along. I thought it was taking me a long time to get to the place where I leave the track but for some reason (cider) I kept on going. At this point I must have disassociated from conscience thought because I realised when I snapped back I had left the cycle track and I didn't know where I was. For some reason(cider) I didn't go back the way I came I continued to walk trying to find out where I was. At this point for some reason(cider) I tripped over a kerb with my hands in my pockets and face- planted the tarmac (split lip, nose bleed (no tissue), broke glasses).


I begged a lift off someone who obviously turned down the opportunity to spend any time with a very drunk bloke covered in blood.
I continued to wander about trying to find out where the fuck I was then Mrs Duck phones to find out where the fuck I am .... an uncomfortable conversation followed. She hung up fully intending to leave me to it but rang back, asked me what I could see (not much... no glasses and very pissed seeing wasn't one of my strong points) She eventually worked our where I was because of a garden centre and came and got me (and she had to wake up and bring my 8yr old daughter). To say I'm in the dog house is an understatement I may be forgiven about march next year.
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Mon 14 Oct 2013, 11:03, 7 replies)

Qharmly d’Oisps
The most irrational person I have ever encountered in all my travels through Time and Space is Qharmly d’Oisps, Prime Qosk of Utat Wohaelminig Canton on the planet Zuggox.

Zuggox is, or rather was (or rather will be) an ancient, stormy planet at the very edge of the galaxy, distant from the spaceways and mostly ignored by offworlders. Over the aeons, it had developed unmolested through various civilizational phases from barbarism through feudalism and had stalled at a sort of mediaeval bureaucracy. The planet consisted of one very large ocean teeming with the kind of sea life that would consider a Kraken a light snack, which encircled its single continent, Fum. Fum was all mountains and jungles, and most of the roughly humanoid population lived either in fortresses built into the mountains, vast networks of treehouses woven into the canopy of the jungle, or ramshackle coastal fishing communities.

The economy of Fum revolved around trade between these three sectors of Zuggoxian society. The mountain dwellers provided raw materials, stone and metal, the shore people provided fresh fish (often risking life and limb in the dangerous oceans of Zuggox), and the foresters provided timber, meat, fabrics and the like. It was a thriving, busy place and the seafood was fantastic.

Zuggox was under the absolute rule of a monarch, appointed every fifty years by the Ceremony of the Borrowed Binders of Ataratarat. I was there under the rule of King Todborong, a fat, indolent, ignorant and rather cruel oaf; that was the problem with monarchy appointed by ancient ceremony, you didn’t have much choice over who wore the crown, and had to accept the judgment of the Borrowed Binders.

Fum was split into three hundred Cantons, each one under the auspices of local Qosks, appointed according to a series of arcane rituals and procedures known as Qoskage. Each canton had its own Qoskelry comprising a Prime Qosk, who was in charge of the Canton, a dozen or so Underqosks acting as administrators, and around a hundred Qoskeens who enforced the law as laid down by the Prime Qosk. Tax evasion, smuggling, prostitution, slavery, gambling and more were all rife throughout the three hundred Cantons of Fum, and all illegal, so the local Qoskelry was kept very busy. The demands on the Qoskelry varied from Canton to Canton, but, broadly, the Mountain Cantons (Utats) had terrible problems with slavery (especially the mines), prostitution and other ‘people crimes’, the Forest Cantons (Reheens) were hotbeds of gambling and drug manufacture and the Coastal Cantons (Graints) were obviously perfect for people trafficking and smuggling.

I was on Zuggox mainly for a holiday, after just having barely escaped from a particularly nasty skirmish in that eternal, annoying war between the Sontarans and the Rutans. I’d been forced to eat Sontaran flesh for several months, and it had given me cancer, which I’d used some of my regenerative powers to cure, and I was weak and needed to recuperate. Somewhere simple and out of the way like Zuggox was perfect, so I settled down in Reheen Shiii Canton where I lived in a lovely little treehouse overlooking the Southern Sea, carving figurines for the Zuggoxian children. Once I was feeling stronger, for a change of scene I moved into the mountains and took up a post as Underqosk in Utat Wohaelminig Canton, and that is where I encountered Qharmly d’Oisps.

He was a strange little man, in appearance nothing to shout about, just a grey rather confused looking chap with white hair. He wore the traditional garb of the Prime Qosk – purple pantaloons, a long black jacket embroidered in gold, an insanely frilly shirt and a quite incredible hat that looked like a cross between a tricorn and a tea cosy. He was my boss for the time I lived in Utat Wohaelminig and I quickly became annoyed by certain irrational views he held onto with the tenacity of a Zuggoxian Scrunge-Crab on a scrotal sac.

Within a few hours of taking up my post as Underqosk I discovered that corruption was rife in the Qoskelry. It varied from Canton to Canton, but all of them were on the make in some way or another, and it was worse in the Utats, as they saw themselves as above the law by dint of their elevated, montane position. Utat Wohaelminig was rotten to the core and Qharmly d’Oisps was in on every racket going. (It was even rumoured that d’Oisps had fixed Qoskage in his favour.) Protection, extortion, drugs, prostitution – you name it, the Qoskelry had it sewn up. They made the Krays and the Corleones look like rank amateurs. At first I was against this – if you’ve seen the movie Serpico, well, that was how it was for me. I even looked a lot like Al Pacino in that incarnation. Unlike Frank Serpico, however, I rolled over and joined in with the other members of the Qoskelry, as I didn’t (and don’t) particularly care about ‘morals’ and it seemed stupid to resist when there was so much money to be had, and so many young Zuggoxian beauties to fuck.

Although he was as bent as a perigosto stick that’s been shoved forcefully up a Venusian Shanghorn’s cloaca, Qharmly d’Oisps was a stickler for rules and regulations. However petty the rule, however arcane the ritual, however pointless the regulation, he would insist on it. For example, when one entered the Hall of Qoskelry it was ordained by ancient ritual that, before crossing the threshold, one had to hop from one foot to another thirty times whilst reciting the Venerated Oath of Qoskage (I won’t bore you with repeating the oath here – I’ll bore you instead by carrying on with this story). This got annoying after a couple of days, but if you didn’t do it you weren’t allowed a tea break so it was best to put up and shut up. Furthermore, all memos and minutes had to be copied five times: one for the Qoskelry files, one for the Royal Palace files, one for the personal files of the Prime Qosk, one for the Grummab and one for the float which got sent round to every other Canton on Fum. This latter would take ages so one was always reading information from other Cantons that was a year, or more, out of date. Oh and the Grummab? That was even MORE pointless! The Grummab was a special breed of Xuggoxian, an obese mutoid retard with the mental age of a baby, which would sit in a circular pit in a special room in the Qoskelry wallowing in its own piss and shit, fed by the Grummab Maid appointed especially for this purpose. (For some reason, it was seen as a great honour to be appointed Grummab Maid, and Grummab Maids were much sought after by the young men of the Canton. Don’t ask me why – I never saw the attraction – they always stank of Grummab shit). Anyway, this Grummab would have to receive copies of every minute and memo issued by the Qoskelry. What it did with them did not matter, no one cared that the Grummab would tear them up, eat them, wipe its ass on them or wank over them. It was ordained by ancient law, therefore it had to happen. The original reasons were lost in the impenetrable mists of time.

Those are just two examples of the ridiculous and, yes, irrational laws and rituals that Qharmly d’Oisps insisted we adhered to rigidly. It was clever of him, really. Such blind obedience masked the level of his corruption from the King, who was blithely oblivious to all the shenanigans going on right under his stupid nose. So d’Oisps was completely rational where that was concerned.

No, his irrationality, the thing that really got on my Time Lord tits, was his unshakeable belief that there was no life on other planets!

Can you believe that?

Even on a backward backwater like Zuggox, they knew that life existed elsewhere in the galaxy. They were visited by offworlders sometimes and had been for centuries. It was a fact of life. Zuggoxians rarely travelled offworld – they hadn’t developed the technology, for one thing; and weren’t particularly interested in anything outside their own little world, for another. But they knew that other populous worlds existed. They knew, though they cared little.

Except the Prime Qosk of Wohaelminig Canton, an otherwise intelligent man of position and influence!

When I first found out about his ridiculous views, I tried to argue him out of them, by simply pointing out that I was an offworlder myself, and had direct experience of life elsewhere in the cosmos. He dismissed this as the mere fantasy of a lunatic. I then tried the old argument about the infinite size of the universe and the certainty of other forms of life within it, but the cunt wasn’t having any of that either.

Eventually, driven to distraction by this idiot’s idiotic views, I cut short my holiday (I was more or less over the cancer) and all but dragged Qharmly d’Oisps into my TARDIS for a whistle-stop tour of the universe. I showed him the majestic blue crystal caverns of Metebelis Three. I showed him the golden beaches and shimmering seas of Florana. I showed him the echoing desolation of Oseidon. I showed him the steaming jungles of Tigella. I showed him the utopian excesses of the Eknuri. I showed him all of this and more – and STILL he denied it! He said it was ‘some sort of drug induced hallucination’ so in the end I got pissed off with him and dumped him on late Twentieth Century Earth where he ended up in quite a senior Cabinet position, you probably know him, grey haired chap, rather boring, took the name of – bugger, I’ve forgotten, was it James Callaghan or John Major? Or someone else? Doesn’t matter.

I still can’t quite get over his irrational views about life on other worlds. I mean, how stupid can you get? I for one am living proof that extraterrestrial life exists!

What a twat.
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Sun 13 Oct 2013, 19:57, 6 replies)

Sort of a pearoast
but it still makes my mind boggle and it happened over a decade ago.

I was discussing with my ex girlfriend how I was having trouble finding a job. I had finished university and was working in Woolworths whilst trying to get a better job.

HER: "There are more jobs in London, why don't you move down here?"
ME: "I would, but I'd need a job first so I could afford to move down."
HER: "No. I live in London and I don't have a job!"
ME: "Yes, but you have a flat."
HER: "Well if I can have a flat in London without having a job, why can't you?"
ME: "Errrr. Your Dad BOUGHT your flat for you."
HER: "I really don't see what that's got to do with anything...."
ME: ".....Really?"
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 10 Oct 2013, 12:59, 16 replies)

Moon Hoax
This isn't (directly) about people who think that the Apollo Moon landings were faked. They're not (necessarily) irrational, just ignorant, gullible and too lazy to actually think about it properly.

I discovered that one of my work-mates was one of these poor deluded fools, but he was also someone who was interested in an intellectual debate over a couple of beers. I was happy to oblige, and told him to gather any supposed evidence he could find, so I could point out why it was invalid.

He duly turned up at the pub with some printouts from a website he'd found. I started to read it, looking for all the usual cliches - no stars in the sky (chuckle), flag waving (chortle), wrong shadow directions (guffaw). But it quickly became apparent that this was something different, and far stranger.

The website he'd found was claiming, apparently seriously, that the Moon itself didn't actually exist. The fact that we think we can see it in the sky was an illusion, a conspiracy perpetrated by the shadowy powers that control our lives. Yes, the Moon is a hoax. Clearly we can't have landed on it, since it doesn't exist.

I have to admit that I found it hard to know where to start with my rebuttal...
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Tue 15 Oct 2013, 11:10, 25 replies)

Cyclists.
For fuck's sake, you're a menace to everyone else and a danger to yourself. Get a PROPER fucking vehicle you bunch of lycra-clad cunts.
( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Mon 14 Oct 2013, 20:46, 12 replies)

People complaining about the NHS and why healthcare is better abroad
Admittedly inspired by a post last week, but fits here rather well.

I'm personally in the "yay NHS" camp, but I acknowledge not everyone agrees with me. I realise that those with horror stories have a right to their opinion that maybe the NHS isn't so great and we would be better off with private insurance because the UK system of NHS only and private insurance being BANNED BY LAW means we do loose out on access to some of the higher quality.

Wait, what's the Skippy? Private medical insurance in the UK isn't BANNED BY LAW in the UK?

That's right, if you hate the NHS, fuck off and take out private insurance. I fail to see what's wrong with having both options. If you're complaining because the NHS sucks and you can't afford private, on what planet would you get the private stuff at NHS prices? Bothered about your taxes paying for it? Technically they do, but due to the NHS private insurance is actually pretty good value in the UK because it has to compete with free rather than "go away and die", which is less popular than "free". So you're no worse off, probably better.
(GothicTechie, Mon 14 Oct 2013, 18:33, 26 replies)

My mother is SO irrational!
Back in '96 just before I hit the big four-oh, I made my first - and what turned out to my last - trip to London. We had to go see my grandparents, something about needing their signatures on documents that would allow ma to legally disinherit me. Can't say that bit was fun - but hey-ho, who's gonna turn down a freebie trip to pommieland?

Whilst ma busied herself at the fancy legal-eagle place, she sent me packing with a shiny new £1 coin and told me go get lunch. I was flabbergasted and almost wet myself with excitement! It had only taken nearly 40 years but ma had finally let me have MY OWN MONEY, to spend HOW I WANTED! Maybe, I thought, just maybe, if I could show her how responsible I was by buying lunch and returning to the correct place, at the correct time, wearing ALL my clothes, she might just hold off on giving away all my inheritance.

Off I set on my mission. I wandered around a bit and found myself near Leicester Square. There were burger bars, kebab shops, cafes - loads of places for an starving Aussie to get some tucker. I went into a kebab place and ordered a huge doner with all the trimmings. But the bugger wanted five pounds for it. I told him I only had one pound coin and he started laughing at me. I asked him what I could get for one coin and he gave me a bit of bread with chilli sauce. It was disgusting! But I showed him! I ran off with my pound STILL IN MY POCKET!

Now I was hungry AND broke. I wandered around a bit more and started to notice something - all these poms were just chucking their rubbish on the street, there were no bloody bins! Bonza! The road outside McDonalds yielded 12 squashed nuggets, two half-eaten Big Macs and shit-loads of milkshake remains. I was stuffed. And all for free! But there was more, I found a mountain of pizza crusts outside another place, there were so many that I stuffed a load in me rucksack for ma.

Things were looking up. I could head back to the fancy lawyer's office with my pound coin AND a free lunch for ma everyone else. As I was stuffing the last load of crusts into my baggie, a dirty old grogged-up tramp started harassing me. He kept shouting that they were HIS pizza crusts and that I had stolen them. I mean what a flaming moron, eh? Anyone could see they were mine - I'd put them in MY bag. But the tramp kept coming at me, shouting even louder that I'd nicked his dinner.

Well I wasn't having this. I placed the bag down and faced him head on. He swung at me, missed and fell on the ground next to me. Well of course I wasted no time. I was completely naked in under six seconds, and grabbing my greasy cock in one hand, I pissed all over the filthy fucker! But then this cunt gets up and screams something like 'Ah, so it's a pissing contest you're wanting?' And the bastard pulls off his kecks and starts pissing on ME! Can you bloody believe it? He also managed to drench all me clobber! Fuck this, I thought and grabbed my bag and rand off down the road, leaving my piss-soaked gear on the pavement.

When I arrived back at the legal place, I ignored the sheila on the front desk and ran up to find ma in the offices. There she was standing over a big old oak desk with a fancy pen in her hand. The lawyer-bloke was saying something like, 'Are you sure Mrs F****olme? You know you don't have to do this.' And that's when I called out to her.

'Don't do it ma!' I screamed. 'Look, I'm back, AND I've got lunch for us all AND I've still got my pound coin!'

Ma and the fancy bloke looked up at me. Ma weren't happy to see me without clothes again but she didn't know what I had in my bag! I ran over to the big old desk and dumped 100's of pizza crusts all over it.

'Look ma! Free lunch!'

I flopped onto one of the chairs and looked up at them smiling. Then for good measure I placed the pound coin perfectly in the centre of the desk.

Ma looked at me strangely. 'Yes Mr Caruthers,' she said, 'I am quite sure I want to do this.'

And with that she signed a few pages and walked calmly out of the office. Never saw her again after that.

The Caruthers chap made a call, 'Please can you come and escort Mr F****olme out of the building, get someone to clean up this godawful mess, and for crying out loud, find the man some clothes.'

And that's how I found myself wearing a suit 3x too small for me, stinking of piss and sleeping in Leicester Square.
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Mon 14 Oct 2013, 12:55, 14 replies)

People spend 48 weeks of the year saving up to spend 2 weeks somewhere nice.
That's 96% of your time, to have a nice 4%, that makes the other 96% look awful.

In a rational world, you'd spend your two weeks off somewhere really crappy in order to make the rest look good


***EDIT*** Note that as someone with an engineering degree, I approximate a year to 50 weeks in order to make the maths easier. That's just how we roll.
( prince-igor si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses, Fri 11 Oct 2013, 14:30, 17 replies)

People who spend ages on a particular site complaining that the site is no longer worth spending ages on.

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Fri 11 Oct 2013, 12:42, 5 replies)

And one about my ex-girlfriend
Driving to my mum & dad's one winter's day, snow and ice everywhere... pulling out of a t-junction to turn right, I encountered a small patch of ice. After a good few seconds of flailing at the steering wheel and managing not to hit anything, I breathed a sigh of relief.

At that point my girlfriend turned to me and said "What are you doing?"
"Skidding!" I said.
"Well don't!" she replied, crossly.
( skullfunkerry In case of implosion do not look into implosion, Thu 10 Oct 2013, 15:37, 4 replies)

worth a repost (pearoast is for cunts)
I was at a family gathering and I was chatting to my cousin. She was talking about some new kittens she had just bought and was appalled that she HAD to get them vaccinated. Her vet would not accept anything else. Our conversation went something along these lines

"but vaccinations are good things shurly?" I asked
"no they can produce side affects, it can't be healthy putting viruses into our bodies"
"you mean you don't agree with all vaccines...you don't believe all that guff about the MMR do you?"
"well yes I do"
"but it has been proven by the medical profession that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and any side effects, I could find you loads of peer reviewed papers right now on my phone to back this up"
"well you know me, I believe all sorts of things,I mean I don't think they really landed on the moon"
I was flabbergasted at this. This was one of the more stupid conspiracy theories. At this point the normal discussion turned into me ranting and raising my voice and generally being a bit of a twat about it. Then she said the thing that they all say "I'm entitled to my opinion"

Well yes you are entitled to your opinion. But being so irrationally closed minded to never listen to absolute a irrevocable evidence that proves that "your opinion" is a bag of shite lowers the collective IQ of the world

Mind you she is a Christian as well so it goes without saying she can hold conflicting dumb ideas in her head.

And just to answer the question I was asked last time she is quite amazingly fit which apparently lets her off ;)
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Thu 10 Oct 2013, 13:47, 16 replies)

Religionists (it's all peas now)
So, no one knows what happens when we snuff it. The overwhelming likelihood is not very much. Ever been unconscious? Or not born?

But no – when offered an incomprehensible, inconceivable jumble of superstitions, fairy tales and bogeyman stories rewritten recycled and Chinese whispered down the ages by control freaks and charlatans - you are CERTAIN beyond all doubt that despite all the vast wonder of all existence there is a creator, who (while having a universe to run) is obsessed with your every move thought and action. Oh and you can wish for stuff too.

An all powerful intangible invisible friend and protector – sounds pretty cool. You must be immune to all illness, earthquakes and injury then. No?

Our essential natural urges are shameful and evil?

Your creator is jealous, intolerant, violent, vindictive, spiteful, pernicious and vengeful – but he loves you?

I should terrify my tiny innocent child with assurances this invisible character is waiting in the shadows to punish him for questioning any of this whilst conversely insisting he only deals in truth and that ghosts and goblins are just camp fire tales?

You insist you require no proof for this but continually strive to find bolt-on bits and bobs of science that support your crackpot ideas - the same science that you continually deny.

If my crackpot jumble of superstitions varies even slightly from yours we should devote all our energies to annihilation in a manner that contradicts the few worthwhile parts of your crazy code of divine conduct?

We have the technology to split the atom and unravel DNA but your preference is to split humanity into one half who believe dinosaurs were a prank and another half who believes women should be bundled up and passed around like parcels by men who think it’s a splendid idea to chop off rather crucial bits of anatomy.

We see ourselves as an advanced civilisation yet it was twenty or so years after landing a man on the moon before we realised wheels on a suitcase might be helpful.

Doesn’t bode well does it?
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Thu 10 Oct 2013, 12:26, 3 replies)

HI, I'M TED NUGENT, I HAVE 9 CHILDREN FROM 7 DIFFERENT WOMEN I SHIT MY PANTS AND I'M RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT.

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Wed 16 Oct 2013, 12:19, 1 reply)

Vicarious Living.
Having coached my daughter's soccer and teeball teams now for a few years I've seen some truly irrational and inappropriate behaviour.

I've had to escort 2 dads off the pitch after they had a verbal and then physical altercation over whether a player was offside. At an Under 6's games, where there are 4x4 players and NO offside rules. In front of their kids and ALL the other parents. On a pitch about 1/6th the size of a full sized pitch. One of them refused to leave the ground until I threatened to call the cops (as per club protocol).

I watched a dad berate his son continually after he *just* missed scoring a goal, having tackled an opposition player to get the ball, run with it, passed it a couple of times and then been in place for a beautiful cross and shoot. I made sure he got man of the match.

I've had a dad who worked away 5 weeks and 1 off. He was on the committee. Every 6 weeks he'd turn up in his committee shirt to tell all and sundry that he was "in the committee" and do little else.
One week I pointed out another dad to him. One that had been going out onto the diamond every single week to tell the young players where their positions were. Not once did I ask that dad to do that - he simply saw a need and filled it. And he wasn't on the committee!

I've had an opposition teams parent screaming and shouting at me because I've asked them to move from behind our goal as they've been yelling at their players and our goalie. Even though I've pointed out that it's against the rules.

Kids + Sport (seems to) = Irrational behaviour from some parents. Particularly those parents who are trying desperately to relive their youth via their children.

What's really scary is how much more full-on it gets as kids get older!
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Mon 14 Oct 2013, 11:22, 12 replies)

Religious types who argue with science types
and use religious dogma as some kind of trump card against hard proven facts.

My dear old ma is closer to God than I will ever be, so I'm not about to try and disabuse her of her faith this close to the final curtain (who am I kidding, she'll be here another 20 or 30 years at least) but we've had some discussions, I the science flag bearer and she the Jesus lover.

Her opening Gambit- 'Where did the world come from if God didn't make it?'

Me: 'A conglomeration of rock bunched together from an accretion disc of matter that formed in a gravitational orbit around the sun.'

Her: 'And where did the sun come from?'

Me: 'Hydrogen atoms forming a dense cloud until the compression initiating fusion'

Her: 'And where did the hydrogen come from in the first place?'

Me: 'All matter was created in the big bang'

Her: 'AND WHO MADE THAT HAPPEN?'

Me:.......er...no one.


Which used to piss me off, as she thought she had won. Except later on I found an answer in science-

'It happened because of random fluctuations in the fabric of quantum space/time'.

I ask:- what of Dinosaur fossils? 'Put there by God to test the faithful. Funny patterns in rock which scientists present in a certain way to confuse us and get more funding for their 'work''

I ask Why has He not shown himself? 'God needs faith, faith needs no proof. Proof would be the opposite of faith, therefore to save us from hell, he can never prove to us He exists.'

He apparently seemed fairly happy to appear in a burning bush, personally smited a lot of Philistines, took Jesus on a reverse bungee up to heaven in front of witnesses. And then there's the 'miracles'. I think I saw some of these mind control techniques used in, oh what was it, 'The Wizard Of Oz'?

Says she, 'The Bible is proof of God's will.'

But it was passed down as an oral tradition for hundreds of years, translated several times, is still 'interpreted' even after all this but it's OK, because God causes people's thoughts to go the way he wants them to. I think that's what SHitler and countless other megalomaniacs said to themselves.

There was also that unbelievable attempt at spin-doctoring where some bishop said that noncery by the church was a good thing because it taught the victims valuable lessons about forgiveness.

Religion being about guilt and control and submission and indoctrination is not a basis for any free-thinking person. Sheep away if you will but don't try your rubbish marketing techniques on me.

Oh, and if Jesus and God and Judgement Day are unprovable bollocks then I'm hardly going to agree that ghosts/tarot/horoscopes/homeopathy/crystal healing are valid topics for discussion.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Sat 12 Oct 2013, 23:36, 7 replies)

people who blame the tories, or corporations, or the republicans or welfare cheates, or immigrants on why things are bad
This is missing the point. If the world is awful, violent, stupid and dysfunctional, it's because people in general are awful, violent, stupid. and dysfunctional. It's a reflection of our shortcomings. You, me, the lot of us. It won't change because we will go extinct long before humans evolve into something better equipped to deal with managing a planet. And even if they do, we'll all be long dead.
I recommend avoiding other people if at all possible. And carry a stick.
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Wed 16 Oct 2013, 17:32, 8 replies)

Jehovah Witnesses
They call sometimes and ask about God, wooden canoes and will you marry this ethnic lady, etc. Usually the reply is no, I'm busy doing more important things - like sleeping, but once I let them in!
I had read a pamphlet of theirs and finally got annoyed about it so I sat 2 of them down in the front room and turned on the DVD player. The conversation went like this;
Me- "So one day we will enter heaven and be good mates with lions, tigers and bears right?"
J's- "That's right, this is Gods plan, all of his creatures will exist together in peace, you know, the lamb shall dwell with the Lion"
Me- "You don't think that those ideas might be responsible for seriously screwing some people up then?"
J's- "How can it? These are Gods commandments and he only wants our happiness"
Me- "Watch this then"
I played a film called "Grizzly Man" and selected some of the best bits. For those of you who aren't familiar this is about a Californian dropout who repeatedly journeyed to Alaska on his own and mingled with Grizzly Bears in their habitat. The footage involves some shit-inducing moments when he is charged by adult Grizzly's and can only scream at them to make them go away. It is then that you remind yourself he is alone with only a camcorder (and insane). Eventually he 'made the trip' with a girlfriend near winter and both were killed by a Grizzly attack.
"Well there you are - Gods great plan for us" I said, thinking I could always give them a kicking outside to make them feel better.
They were quiet for a bit then realised it was time to go
Difficult to figure if it was them or me who were irrational on that day.
(luckylife , 0 guests and 3 bots are online, Tue 15 Oct 2013, 14:57, 8 replies)

That Paula Radcliffe
should have a T-shirt to commemorate her London Marathon toilet incident. It might say

"I race showing all pee, pal"
(ubergeekian, Mon 14 Oct 2013, 10:59, 5 replies)

Walking to the tube station with the missus the other week
Ahead of us was a large woman (think Amorous Badger's type) wearing a distinctive blue and red dress that rang a faint bell with me for some reason. I asked my better half:
"Don't you have a dress with that pattern?"
"Are you saying I'm fat?"
"..."
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Sun 13 Oct 2013, 21:53, 2 replies)

Female Paranoid Hearing Impairment
Why oh why does the "fairer sex" have the ability, when they don't quite hear something, to mishear it in the worst possible way ?

So, 2 minutes beforehand, you've had a hug and kiss, she goes upstairs, for some reason I need to call something to her up the stairs, such as "Don't forget we're going out tonight", and by the miracle of FPHI these innocent words turn into "Did I tell you I'm planning to leave you tomorrow", or similar.

Does this not strike anyone as somewhat irrational ?

Women, you're great, but if you're not sure of what I was saying, the chances of it being horrible (unless we're half-way through an argument) are very, very, very slim - so why is that the option you go for by default ?
(TheImmortalJenkins, Sun 13 Oct 2013, 14:32, 8 replies)

Telling stories about not liking a persons choice of theism is irrational and illogical and goes no where.
It is dull. Debate is futile, don't like religion start killing the followers, Islamists, Christians, Pagans all of them. As the bible says, if thine religious nutter offends thee - rip them out.
1) tell them it is god's will for them to die.
2) Kill enough of them, then if gods exist then surely those gods will have to intervene for their followers.

Science has no place trying to disprove deities, so don't use science in a theological debate. Theology will however try to hold science back from it's goals and to continue to spread it's silliness regarding science and established theories.

Example. "Evolution is just a theory." answer. "So is gravity, but you are not floating away." or "Fuck off simpleton, I cannot be bothered."
( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Sun 13 Oct 2013, 12:41, 7 replies)

I've just been for a piss.
Not a major event in any life really.
But I Live on my own and, while enjoying said voiding of bladder, I burped. That's it, I burped.
There was no thundering fart, no embarrassing follow through, just a simple eructation.
Why the fucking fuck did I say out loud, "Excuse me!"?
Am I irrational or just socially conditioned?
(Docofair, Fri 11 Oct 2013, 23:10, 12 replies)

People who go out of their way to look like complete twats.
Now, I'm no bastard love-child of Jean-Paul Gaultier and Vivienne Westwood, but what in the name of fuck possesses people to wear things like knitted hats with ear flaps? How much if a cunt do people look like with lensless glasses as a fashion accessory? "Ironic" haircuts? What's that about? It's not me getting old and miserable, people seem to take pride in looking like total bell ends.
I saw a teenager wearing a bow tie the other day - almost spat coffee all over my orange PVC kilt...
(SigourneysBeaver took off and nuked the entire site from orbit on, Fri 11 Oct 2013, 14:51, 8 replies)

I was recently reminded of a former acquaintance
Dave was one of those 'friends of a friend' that no-one would admit to being a friend of. The story that was brought to mind recently concerns his discovery that most women's toilets were far cleaner and more pleasant than the corresponding men's facilities. This became quite a bone of contention with him, and many was the rant we had to listen to about how sexist this was and how this was all the proof he needed that womankind had won the War of the Sexes and had now completely subjugated all men.
So, he took action. Did he inveigle other men not to piss on the floor? Did he reproach them for throwing used paper towels anywhere but the bin? Did he criticise them for not flushing the toilet properly? Of course not. Instead, he would use the women's toilets and pride himself on making them completely unusable for others until they had been thoroughly decontaminated. His favourite trick was to bend over, clutch his ankles and spray shit over as much of the cubicle as he possibly could.
He thought of himself as a hero, someone boldly taking the fight to the front lines in the war against the oppression of men. Coincidentally, he also didn't like any 'people of colour' as they were all uncivilised, filthy beasts, not worthy of being called human.
( wakeupandsmellthebacon, Fri 11 Oct 2013, 11:17, 21 replies)

Mumsnet.

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Thu 10 Oct 2013, 19:35, 1 reply)