What happens when you call up a prayer line and tell them scientists are creating a magnetic field to stop Jesus from returning to Earth? Andrew Milne tried it and found out:
My recent experiences have shown that Creationists will believe pretty much anything, so long as it’s not vaguely scientific or logical.
I put in a call to the Word of Faith Christian Center and spoke to a lady who immediately shared my concern when I told her that I had recently heard news of scientists who were creating a magnetic field to stop Jesus from returning to Earth. We prayed together that these scientists be stopped and that atheism be crushed with the full force of God’s hand.
Poor, poor confused woman.
Then Andrew called up again and told a man Obama admitted to being a Muslim:
In another call to the Word of Faith Christian Center, I spoke with a man who seemed confused, at first, when I told him that Barack Obama had just admitted to being a Muslim and performing the Salaat, as he hadn’t heard anything about it.
I then told the man that I was calling from Perth in Western Australia, and the conversation went as follows:
“You’re a day ahead of us… Do you guys get news before us sometimes?”
“Uh, yeah…”
“So we’ll be hearing about this later? Oh what a tremendous revelation that we were deceived!”Since it had only just happened in Australia (which is “in the future”), he prayed a preventative prayer to stop it happening in the United States.
Creationists, unwilling to accept the fact of evolution, yet willing to believe that the Earth is a giant time machine.
A very good point. Christians are willing to accept completely improbable things like virgin births, miracles, and resurrections without any evidence — then they scoff at people who accept evolution with textbooks full of evidence and insist that “there’s no evidence for evolution!” It’s mind-boggling.
Hallelujah! Another prayer has been answered! Therefore, gawd exists!
Maybe you should change the name of your blog to ‘ridiculous faith’?
They’re not interested in truth, or sincerity. Only in confirmation.
One thing is certain – Andrew Milne is NOT the Messiah – he’s a very naughty boy. Shame on him for yanking those poor xians’ chains.
Yeah…and just think those prayers could have been used for someone who really needed them. ;)
Haha, too right Matthew. ;)
I’ve just been taught a few things;
1) Proponents of evolution are either satanists, ignorant or annoying
2) Humans have fingerprints, apes do not
3) Humans are the only organism with DNA
4) Scientists (well, creative ones.. not these uncreative ‘real’ scientists..) have proved that man was made from dust
http://footbullet.net/2009/04/25/thank-god-for-creative-scientists/
Cheers for the link.
I think that was a daft and immature thing to do. Preying on the weak. Now there are undoubtedly hundreds of christians who think that crap is real and it will be another myth to debunk.
What exactly was the point of this prank calling? Did it give this guy a jolly like Bart Simpson calling for Al Coholic? Did it make him feel superior?
Surely you don’t need to prove that Christians believe things they dont see. Surely it is not needed to point out such false beliefs are essentially easy to start.
So why? I am sure Obama supporters have wroked hard to get christians not to think he is a Muslim. Why would he find it funny to reinforce their misconceptions?
If you want to put reason back in a box, your on the right path by spreading BS for shits and giggles. Grow the F**K up.
Acting like a concerned mother isn’t exactly the height of maturity either.
This isn’t preying on the weak, most of these individuals are wilfully ignorant. It is unlikely that these prank calls will result in anything, let alone anything that hasn’t already been done by their friends and families. There’s no reason not to sit back, laugh at the funny and help reinforce the fact that we can and should be critical of religious belief.
Willfully ignorant? Seems like an oxymoron. Unwilling to open their minds and look? yep unable? Yep
So how does humiliating thier lack of understanding help? It doesn’t.
It helps the person doing the humiliating by granting some psychological relief from the teeth-grinding fact that they must live in a world with such morons. Jokes are rarely told for the benefit of the guy being joked about, y’know.
To a point, I agree with you, at least as far as the Obama thing is concerned. There are already enough people who are anti-Muslim, even anti-anyone-who-looks-like-they-might-be-a-Muslim, because of course “everybody” knows that people with brown skin are terrorists. I do think that prank calls like the above could end up stirring even more hatred in that area. Meanwhile, the Muslim woman and child on the street just want to live their lives without being hassled or worse.
It’d be even worse if the prank calls were to a radio phone-in. Stranger things have happened.
“Preying on the weak”? They aren’t weak, they’re just christians!
Gah! – to a certain extent I agree with you – this isn’t the most mature of acts. But, if it causes a single current christian who is struggling with his/her faith to say “Do I really want to be a member of a community represented by this kind of breathtaking schtoopidity ?”, then it is a good thing.
Yes – I would rather see someone throw off the burden of religion through well argued, articulate, intelligent discourse, but, if we can save some people by pointing out what a staggeringly dumb thing religion is, well, I see that as a valid route too.
These are people who hate us, many wish us dead or at least to burn in hell. We hope to have open their minds a little. Prank calling is immature and gives us that image.
Its one thing if they come here and act ignorant, but to call their prayer line and crank them lowers us to their level.
Like I said, this is not middle school, so grow up please.
To me this is lower than an evangelical knocking on my door, because the person calling is being decietful, when we are supposedly about truth.
They are trying to save our souls, and we hope to open their minds. A lot of people who come here are seeking answers after being indoctrinated for years. If they see something like this, they might well assume that the church was right and we are just evil, and run right back to their conditioning.
This undermines the entire idea. We want them to consider our arguments with an open mind, and then play childish pranks?
It makes us look mean, when we claim they are. It makes us look decietful, when we claim they are.
This dumb bs makes us into the hypocrites they claim we are.
I’m not sure why you’ve reacted so strongly to this. I certainly don’t believe that any significant number of christians (or religious folk in general) hate atheists, let alone want to see us dead. I think there are probably extremists on both sides who are probably best ignored in any reasonable discussion.
I have some sympathy with your assertions that: “It makes us look mean, when we claim they are. It makes us look deceitful, when we claim they are. This dumb bs makes us into the hypocrites they claim we are.” but I also think that humour is a wonderful weapon to use against intolerance and dogma (particularly in the face of the weapons that christians spent 1,400 years using against atheists, incl; burning at the stake, drowning, beheading, hanging, disemboweling and all the other delights of medieval christendom).
If you’re worried about a crank phone call “bringing us down to their level”, trust me, we ain’t there yet, not by a long, long, long way.
_____
1. The earth has had a magnetic field (as I understand it) since the magma started to cool and our planet began to develop a solid surface. 2. Jebus is omnipotent and can do anything.
If someone screwing money out of credulous people on the end of a ‘prayer line’ is willing to believe that ”scientists are creating a magnetic field to stop Jesus from returning to Earth”, I am going to lose very little sleep indeed over my ‘pointing and laughing’ behaviour, particularly if, as I said before, it causes someone to question their beliefs.
Not refering to the religious history or horror we all know, but in our relation to people who may be looking for something better. This equates us with their tactics, I had really hoped we might act better, but I guess human is human.
If we had a way to make them stop manipulating people for their hard earned cash great, but prank calling isnt helping anyone.
I’m new here, have kept my thoughts to myself for nearly 20 years (on religion). I guess I reacted strongly because I had hopes that here was a group of intelligent people conversing with the hope of opening minds. This makes it seem just like some of thier modern tactics.
To me, taking advantage of ignorant people who have been manipuklated by their religion and are miseducated seems on a par with laughing at Michael J Fox for shaking. It’s weak and lame, the act of a coward. How does it further the opening of minds?
You seem to think most xians are like disabled people, innocent victims, ignorant dupes. Sorry, I consider most believers a bit higher than that, and I don’t think your viewpoint shows a lot of respect to them, either.
I was reading a post here just the other day where at least 5 or six christians all wanted us to burn in hell, and seemed quite eager for the end to come so we could burn.
Thats hate.
And compared to that, having a little fun with someone over the telephone seems downright mundane, no? I mean, on the one hand we have people who want people to suffer and be tortured for all eternity, and on the other we have people who want to have a five-minute laugh at the expense of someone’s gullibility. How you can draw an equivalence between these two behaviors escapes me.
Or, worse still, they might read your comment and think we have also no sense of humour.
Thats not humor.
Want anti-religious humor, try it face to face with open honesty, like George carlin or Bill Mahr. They are hilarious, and dont need to pretend to be xtian to do it.
On a forum filled with christians telling us what is and isn’t right, wrong, real, or funny…
You say “Thats not humor.”
You sound like one of them.
Sure, we can talk about it intellectually with every single christian with his/her beliefs. Learn every little detail about their particular set of beliefs to be able to efficiently argue with them.
Or, we could just prank call the ignorant believers and make them look, and feel, stupid, daily. We could tease them, pointing and laughing at the silly sky-daddy believers. Have youtube videos about how stupid they are.
Just occasionally, I’d prefer the latter. You don’t have to like it, you just have to shut up and realize that there is nothing that unites you and myself besides our distaste for religious morons.
We’re not ‘brothers in antichrist’. We don’t go to the same denomination of atheist church. You and I are individuals that share one common conclusion. Get over yourself.
Ok, THAT was mean.
“there is nothing that unites you and myself besides our distaste for religious morons”
I don’t agree at all. Of course we are not a church, but I think a great number of atheist don’t only dislike the religious morons, but are concerned about those religious morons ruling the world; and are concerned about those religious morons lifes. I would like them embracing a little bit of racionality.
As I understand it -if I have understanded it- Dave here thinks pranking is not a god strategy. I can see your point, Dave, but here i agree with Nzo. Showing how ridiculous can be those xians and laughing at them can be a good way to “de-convert” some people.
I’m just remembering a history here about a child being laughed at at school because he didn’t believe in Jesus, in Europe it’s the other way: xians fundamentalists are laughed at, and a lot of them can’t proselitize without beeing openly ridiculized.
It may not be the fairer way, but I doubt the efficiency of arguing when your audience are rationality-disabled men (and women) .
sorry, “good strategy”, not god. What was i thinking?
Soo, I can make fun of religion as long as I don’t do it to a persons face?
It’s just another form of the same comedy.
That shows that christians are weak, doesn’t it? And gullible! It shows the kinds of people that are attracted to christianity and able to stomach staying inside that institution. Serves them right in a way: growing a brain, the ability to learn, from one’s mistakes and from everything else, and a capacity for reasoning should be a required part of being a human, but clearly it isn’t.
*snerk* *snort*
Hahahahhahahahahaha!
By that rationale, we as a species, probably deserve extinction.
By that rationale, why don’t you start.
Or, you could admit that you made a complete ass of yourself right there by skipping many steps to come to your conclusion.
You sure you’re not one of them?
What a spectacular bit of hyperbole!
Sometimes, a joke is just a joke, and a prank is just a prank. No need to pitch a fit as though this is going to ruin the Church of Athe or give all us Atheists a Bad Name ™.
I’ve often thought about calling those prayer lines–especially the ones where there’s some offer of Miracle Prayer Water or a Prayer Cloth and Super Saved Sham Wow and asking, “So, seriously–what is it y’all are in this for? Exactly by what mechanism does the Super Saves Sham Wow save my soul? Does it have midichlorians?”
That too would be funny, its not decietful. Manipulating the weak minded brainwashed peoples is like picking on a kid with downs syndromne.
You’re just wrong all over the board.
Picking on someone who has a defect from birth is not funny.
Picking on someone who chose to have a defective mind is funny.
You can’t even put together a proper simile.
Boy you are an arrogant ass. What makes you think they chose to have a defect of mind? More likely they didnt know any better, and then were fed BS that someone else rationalized to them. Religions have had a lot of practice at that, thousands of years worth.
Have fun palying your middle school games. I’ll have fun living my life.
I’ll have fun listening to your angry rants at me.
Why shouldn’t I be arrogant? What makes you think that I care if you think I am? I still think you’re one of them, I almost expect you to bust out in some W.W.J.D. rap.
They can’t make heads or tails of the real world. They’ll be led around by preachers sucking the money and life out of them. They might as well be a source of a good laugh for those of us not so gullible.
I think even the downs syndrome kids would find this funny. Except your comment likening these religious idiots with them.
I’m so glad you approve of the planned joke. What are you, the Institutional Review Board of Research Involving Human Subjects?
Preying on the weak.”… or praying on the weak?
now thats humorous.
This is just another example of how many christians get there info. I would like to know how many each of these told these stories to. because they fit in with what they want the truth to be, I would bet they made the rounds pretty fast.
I need to find someone in Australia who will be willing to send me the winning lottery numbers. One amazing thing is that the phones work across time so we can talk to future Australia. The phone company should put that in their commercials.
So, so ashamed to admit that I was almost as naive. I believed anything a pastor said from the pulpit. Didn’t think the holy servants required fact checking.
Another example of “If you open your mind too much, your brain will fall out”.
haha, funny of someone to use a Tim Minchin quote in something relevant to me.
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I just watched this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXC8VldIKEc
Here’s a man in his fifties arguing the blatant nonsense and totally oblivious to the holes being punched into it by his guest.
Whenever I see such pigheadedness in the face of reason, I get depressed because it seems that trying to wean humanity of its ludicrous Bronze Age tribal god(s) is an exercise in futility.
A new show idea……
Atheist Cranck Yankers! LOL!
Well since I never heard about Obama admitting to being a Muslim the guy’s prayers must have worked.
You all really find this funny?
Mildly amusing. 30 Rock is funny.
Usually, tweaking gullible people is funny as hell. It’s not strictly, y’know, mature, but people weren’t meant to be serious all the time. The urge to transgress is built in to the monkey, so to speak, and it’s better this sort of basically harmless outlet than beating up the object of one’s frustration.
To me it is not funny at all. If it were amongst friends joking, i would find it funny. This however strikes me as the act of a coward, like leading a blind man into traffic.
Oh come on everyone’s done that haven’t they?
How is this anything like leading a blind man into traffic?
Your sense of morality must be completely off to think that teasing someone who’s voluntarily delusional somehow is the same as killing a blind man.
Sick, twisted person.
It’s because they are not voluntarily Delusional, but religiously brainwashed. How do you figure indoctrination is volutary? Religion convinces people they need god, need salvation, and few have the rational skills or education to defend themselves.
Many people are raised in the “faith” brainwashed from birth. You think that is voluntarily delusional. Maybe you need to get out in the real world sometime and open your eyes.
Do you really think that poor slob on the prayer line had a clue as to how ridiculous that whole magnetic field thing was? No, and his conditioning is so severe that he bought it as science’s satanic power. So how is it humpurous to pick on someone like that?
Its like leading a blind man into traffic because first of all, he trusted the person talking to him, and second he did not have the tools to understand or defend himself.
Weak argument all around.
The main point being that you liken this to attempted murder.
You don’t see any difference in teasing this person and leading a blind man into traffic?
Really, this is not the place for you, as Daniel said below. Try rotten.com.
“It’s because they are not voluntarily Delusional, but religiously brainwashed. How do you figure indoctrination is volutary? Religion convinces people they need god, need salvation, and few have the rational skills or education to defend themselves”
Are they voluntarily delusional? I would say that needing a god is indoctrination, believing that “scientists were creating a magnetic field to stop Jesus” implies voluntarity.
But anyway, I do think that humour can help to face indoctrination
You need not engage in the activity. I know I don’t. But I’m not about to crap all over someone’s fun because it comes at the expense of someone else’s gullibility (when nobody is harmed). While Nzo is being a little blunt about it, IMO, (s)he’s right; the things to which you are drawing equivalencies and similes are not even on the same moral playing field. Crank calling at worst causes hurt feelings, shame at being duped or fooled; pushing a blind man into traffic or mocking a Down’s Syndrome kid are utterly incomparable acts.
Your stupidity is becoming more of a spectacle, but yes, this is funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKt1oarjzRY
Ned rocks!
This is extremely immature. I’m an atheist and I think this person is a dick for doing these foolish pranks.
You need to lighten up.
live a little. let the kids play on your lawn without threatening them with a shotgun, granny.
At least im not entirely alone.
I’m 20, so I don’t need to ‘let the grandkids out’. Nor do I need to lighten up. This reflects badly on atheists and makes us look like fucking frat boys.
Yeah, because all atheists are the same…right? Right??
Really though, if people are THAT stupid, they deserve every bit of this.
By that rationale, if someone hits you with their car while speeding, and you were not watching, its your fault and you deserve it.
You sound like them.
They deserve it? They are indoctrinated peoples. Religion has brainwashed a lot of people to do a lot of things, but it seems like you might do similar things because of some repressed hatred.
You didn’t even remotely give enough details about the car situation. I won’t even respond to such a poor example. You’re just giddy about flaunting your stupidity here, aren’t you?
Yes, they deserve it. They deserve it just as much as the kids in school who believed in santa clause.
If you want to be a ‘protect the weak-minded fools’ crusader, go for it. The rest of us will have a good laugh, and move on.
@nzo this is a wate of time.
I dont want to protect weak minded fools. As I said, im new here, and I had hoped that we might present a better face than this foolishness. What I have seen is that many christians think we are evil and immoral. I had thought that we were trying to show that we are normal people with good morals and ethics, without the need of a divine rod to force us to be so.
Your a bully, as much as they are. That, sadly, makes their assumptions about many of us right. Thats really sad. Too bad.
Red, I have an idea. Skip this post, like I suggested to you many emails ago. Ignore it. Move on.
You don’t have to agree with everything here, and you don’t have to try and make everyone agree with you and feel bad for laughing at something they found funny.
We’re humans. We laugh at inappropriate things. Now give it a rest and move on to another post, or, as you’ve threatened, another site.
Perhaps you’ll get lucky and find perfection — that is, clones of yourself — elsewhere.
No, Daniel, he can’t merely skip this post, because Someone Is Wrong on the Internet! Wrongness on the Internet must be corrected!
http://xkcd.com/386/
A link to xkcd?? It has to be a god’s signal :p
Why is that we all have so symilar references?
Maybe Frankie Boyle or Jerry Sadowitz would be more to your ‘refined’ tastes of humour.
I think you have this wrong. If someone repeatedly insisted that the black helicopter people were getting set to round us all up and incarcerate us in the special camps in Arizona, would you feel bound to humour him?
If said person announced publicly that he believed such foolishness, would you be in the crowd telling them not to laugh?
If someone in that crowd walked up to said idiot and said “You’re right. They stole my birdbath this morning using a genetically engineered black, armoured, badger!” would you castigate that person for being cruel?
Or would you too put on a tinfoil helmet to humour the belief that “they’re reading your thoughtwaves”?
This is the scope of ridiculousness we’re talking here. And while it’s a little sad that the person on the receiving end is so incredibly gullible, let’s remember that he lives in that state of foolishness voluntarily.
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Christians,
A magnetic field is just crazy talk. We know what’s true and what’s not. And here is something I know to be true because it happened to me:
Every Sunday during church services, Jesus has been telling me how to invest. Early in October He commanded me to short the money-lenders (and all mortgage-backed securities). Thanks to tips from Our Savior, I bought big into the Google IPO (“Do No Evil” he whispered). Every day he gives me great advice (he is 87% accurate!). I have made zillions. I have so much money now that I want to share His juicy revelations with my beloved neighbors, since the economy has been so punishing. Email me for an enrollment form in Prophet With Jesus, LLC.
Faithfully yours,
David
Hah, ah some of these responses have really given me a good laugh. Check the comments in the blog post itself, especially this one: http://footbullet.net/2009/04/13/the-magnetic-fields/#comment-95
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Discernment ought be a the sign of a mature believer. Any Christian biting this type of prank is worthy of getting the “hardy-har-har” treatment. These are the same people who man the phones, taking on major life drama, and yet don’t have the brains to differentiate between a silly joke and a true life scenario. Can’t say if that is more funny than scary or what…
LMAO that was funneh morning reading. See, morning, cause I’m in South Africa and we’re from ‘the future’.
For the argument on whether this was mean or not, let me just say one thing. I am a christian, and I find this article absolutely hilarious. I mean anybody, even christians, who believe that the world is a time machine or that there is a huge magnetic field to debunk the coming of Christ, well there idiots. First of all, isn’t Jesus omnipotent, I can see it now, Jesus coming down on the his white horse and all of a sudden this magnetic power that he didn’t see coming forces him to go to heaven and regroup to take out the unknown existence of the magnetic field. I laughed for hours over this. LOL!!! And just for the record Red, I don’t want anyone to burn in hell. There is nothing wrong with humor!!
Very amusing tales, but you offer no proof that they actually took place. The only ones being punked here are the those foolish enough to take you at your word. Talk about your lemmings.