Tomatoes: 1, Atheists: 0

August 30, 2012 By 42 Comments

Dammit!

Time to drown my American Atheists membership card in a vat of fancy ketchup…

(via Toothpaste for Dinner)

Filed Under: General, Humor 42 Comments
About Hemant Mehta

Hemant Mehta is the chair of Foundation Beyond Belief and a high school math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago. He began writing the Friendly Atheist blog in 2006. His latest book is called The Young Atheist's Survival Guide.

  • Kodie

    Ketchup is gross and so is your new blog layout.

    • http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/ Hemant Mehta

      Ouch. My feelings.

      • Kodie

        Truth hurts. 

      • Pascale Laviolette

        I’m giving myself time to get used to it, but I miss being able to scroll through one page, rather than having to open several tabs.  Much easier to read through leisurely at work.

        • http://www.cstdbill.com/ Bill

           I agree with Pascale.  Let me just scroll through a single page and go to the next page if I need to.

          <aside>
          Ketchup should be limited to hamburgers and fried potatoes.
          </aside>

          • Patterrssonn

            I worked in a high end tai restaurant once and ketchup was in everything.

          • Pseudonym

            Eeeuw. Ketchup on fried potatoes is disgusting.

            Try garlic aioli some time.

            • http://itsmyworldcanthasnotyours.blogspot.com/ wmdkitty

               Yummm

            • Drew M.

               Mayonnaise is disgusting. Adding garlic and a two-dollar name doesn’t change that.

        • Anon

          Another scroller here. I’m on an ipad and loading new pages is annoying. Save the ‘more’ tag for when you have a ton of pictures or a really long, really esoteric post.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Stephan-Goodwin/676660806 Stephan Goodwin

        Not to mention the cool but illegible banner.  

    • Gus Snarp

      I like ketchup, but the blog layout is driving me nuts.

    • http://www.virtue-quest.com/ Robert

      BBQ sauce, on the other hand, is nummylicious! And usually (though not always) made with tomatoes.

    • http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/ Kevin_Of_Bangor

      Some of us enjoy the new layout.

      • Liberated Liberal

        I do!  I actually didn’t like scrolling through so many pages.

        • Kodie

          I hate clicking on articles that tease that they might be about something interesting but turn out to be a lame cartoon meme. I hate clicking to read what an article is about when I can only see a sentence or two. Most of them were boring to me before but at least I COULD SCROLL PAST THEM if I could see they were of no interest to me. I know you all won’t miss me, but FA, this is a deal-breaker.

      • Coyotenose

         We’ll call you a Reformed Atheist Friender then. The rest of us – the True Believers – will be Orthodox Frienders.

        *nods head offstage to Elan*

      • eonL5

        Some of us never look at the home page. I start with first unread article in my RSS feed and continue forward from there. Solved!

    • Marco

      I agree. I think the problem is with the article chronology going down the left column and then coming back up the right column. It’s usually best to set the articles across chronologically. It’s more like the way we read.

      • Gus Snarp

        Is that how it goes? No wonder it confuses me.

  • Arizela

    I agree with Kodie. Also, ketchup tastes good to some people because it’s mostly sugar and salt. Sure, it’s “based” on tomatoes, but Christianity is “based” on the teachings of Jesus, too. 

  • Valerie C

    Tomatoes = god-made
    Ketchup = man-made, with science!

    /explained

    • Gus Snarp

      Perfect. This thread is finished now.

    • kagekiri

      Isn’t it more like:

      Tomatoes: bred by men to be much more edible and tasty than “what God made”

      Ketchup: science of cooking combines the awesome science-bred fruit with sugar and salt to be even more awesome on fries (though I still love tomatoes in lots of things over or in combination with ketchup)

      Otherwise, we’re kinda falling for the banana fallacy: human selection did the work, Nature/”God” didn’t do anything for edibility or tastiness of most agricultural plants and fruits.

    • Coyotenose

       /salutes in awe

    • http://twitter.com/ylaenna M. Elaine

       SCIENCE!!!

  • http://www.facebook.com/keithacollyer Keith Collyer

    I hate ketchup

    • http://www.facebook.com/keithacollyer Keith Collyer

       I should probably add that I love science

  • ErickaMJohnson

    Ketchup is loaded with salt and sugar. That’s why people like it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=5300663 Ashley Slye Stephens

    Heirloom tomatoes bought at farmers market>ketchup>GMO Frankentomatoes with no taste and mealy texture

    • Pascale Laviolette

      Sure, bash the taste of GMO foods (although that’s arguable), but don’t perpetuate the “frankenfood” nonsense!  GMO food feeds the planet.

      • RobMcCune

        Frankenstein is a perfect metaphor imagine if medicine did monstrous things like put one person’s organs into another’s body or used electric shocks to resuscitate people.

        Oh wait…

      • Patterrssonn

        Well they at least feed Monsanto

      • Frankenfruit

        And bankrupts small farms.

    • Gus Snarp

      Supermarket tomatoes lost their flavor without any GMO technology. They were selectively bred for shelf life and to withstand shipping, using the same kinds of breeding techniques that produce the tasty heirlooms, just with a different goal. They’re also picked green and chemically ripened.

  • GeraardSpergen

    Ketchup would be better if it tasted more like Sriracha.

  • http://www.everydayintheparkwithgeorge.com/ Matt E

    Down with ketchup! Up with tartar sauce, the one true atheist condiment! (Though I must admit, malt vinegar is great on fries.)

  • Stephen Cameron

    I love tomatoes.  Ketchup is ok, I guess.
     

  • MarnieMacLean

    Nope, ketchup is disgusting. Out of season, mass market tomatoes are disgusting, but fresh off the vine or sun dried tomatoes are fantastic. Take THAT theists. 

  • Beadknitter

    The answer is that tomatoes are raw, and ketchup is not. What that has to do with atheism and/or god is beyond me.

    As a side note: this morning I read in Science News magazine they have figured out why all those wonderfully beautiful tomatoes sold in stores today taste like wet paper towels instead of like tomatoes should. In the attempt to breed out the dark green marking on the shoulders, they bred out the major producer of the sugar and flavor. That’s the part that produces it. So, I guess they’ll have to breed those dark green shoulders back.

    Store bought tomatoes. A big OOPS!

  • http://exconvert.blogspot.com/ Kacy

    Bahhahahaha!  I love it!  This reminds me of the Jehovah Witnesses that invited themselves over yesterday.  I told them I didn’t believe in God, and one man said, “Really?!?!?!  Well, explain all this (*Points around our neighborhood*), not the houses, but the trees and stuff.”  I gave him the best biological argument I could muster on the spot.  He simply looked perplexed.  I wanted to say, “Just because I’m not an ignorant hick who uses a deity to explain what I don’t fully understand, doesn’t mean there is no explanation.”  Come to think of it…maybe I’ll say that to my next uninvited visitor.  Someone comes at least every other week.  I think our house is on some kind of proselytism hit list.

  • Stev84

    I don’t like pure tomato ketchup that much, but I do like variations with additional species such as curry or chilli. Even then it’s not good on “everything”, but mostly goes together with meat.