Good Comebacks

Boogie got me thinking about this, heard a good one this week-end as well.

A friend of mine was patiently listening to a fundie telling him about the morning’s church service - the conversation as follows:

Fundie: And you know what! Today we even cured a Homosexual!!!
Friend: Really? what was wrong with him?
Fundie: ??? He was a homosexual…
Friend: So? what was wrong with him?
Fundie: slinks off to find other more likeminded company…

that was pretty quick thinking. i only seem to come up with sharp comments on rare occasions ???

LOL, I pulled one off myself this w/e (polishes nails on shirt) with a woowoo chick…

We’d just finished watching “Paranormal Activity” and I was by far the calmest person now left in the room, the rest of the guests were a bit, freaked out, by that movie to say the least. I was trying to console the people around me with reason:

BM: “Look guys, this is all lies, there are no demons or spirits and while you’re sleeping nothing is creeping around your house, just calm down, this stuff just, doesn’t, happen, okay?”
WW: “You don’t believe in spirits at all?”
BM: “No”
WW: “Okay but you believe in god right?”
BM: “Nope” (this was very snappily delivered, almost as she finished the sentence, she looked taken aback by the response coming so fast and definite)
WW: “But you must believe that there’s some sort of ‘energy’ in the universe that gives us life?”
BM: “Yeah, carbo-hydrates.”
WW: “… uhhh…”

;D

brilliance >:D

After a moment or so she did come back with “how boring”, I retorted, but we both let it slide at that point due to our hostess becoming uncomfortable with the developing situation. I don’t want to be “that guy” you’d rather not have around. That and WW’s S/O was starting to look a bit angry in a silent way… I’m sure I’ve just become his least favourite person. As good as it feels, it has social implications.

LOL I’m loving this. More! I want more!

Nice one Boogie! ;D

It’s not a skeptical one, but the best comeback I know of is due to Churchill…

Some woman: If I was your wife Sir, I’d poison you!
Churchill: Madam, if you were my wife, I’d let you!

;D Brilliant! You just made my day! It seeeriously pisses me off when people use the word ‘energy’ as if it has some deep mystical meaning, and when pushed can never explain what they mean by it. I don’t think there is any form of woo that irritates me more. So I plan on shamelessly stealing this line and using it whenever possible. Thanks Boogie!

It’s even more annoying when they go on about “chi” - grrrr!

Elizabethan England, the un-paved roads are a muddy mess, but there is a pathway across the road for the upper-class to cross without stepping into the mud. Unfortunately only wide enough for one at time. Two naval officers going in opposite directions met in the middle one day, requiring one of them to step aside into the mud:
First officer, grasping his sword, “I never step aside for fools!”
Second officer, stepping into the mud, “I always do, Sir.”

Well thanks for the support guys. But on a serious note, this has bothered me all week. It keeps running around in my mind…

HOW is it possible to look at the body of science we have, and I mean EVERYTHING from battery tech to electronics to wireless communications to medical advances to archeology to theoretical physics playing with cosmology, and say that the real world is “BORING”?! Damn people, there’s all this out there and I’m keeping myself busy 24/7 just doing my petty little hobbies, being with my closest, etc. The sheer ignorance of that statement is positively mind-blowing.

I know I know, Carl Sagan and Dawkins say it often enough BUT, these guys tend to go on about how magnificent our universe is in size and scope, etc. And I don’t think the everyman “gets” it because cosmology or taxonomy doesn’t really affect their everyday life. But SO MUCH of science is either immediate in our lives:

Cellphones that are more powerful than PC’s from just a few years back
Neural grafting making the blind see
Making the deaf hear
Stem-cell therapies for untold amounts of ailments coming to the fore

Or are highly imminent:
DNA-based computer circuits that build themselves out of vats of ingredients.
Nanotechnology is going to change the world, period.
The first commercial spaceflight tickets are going to be sold very soon. (not counting the billionaire playboys rocketing off with the Russians, I mean fully COMMERCIAL)
Invisibility cloaks

There’s just so much stuff happening out there that boggles the mind, that I do not have enough hours in the day to simply read up on a fraction of it. WHY do people not see the incredible moment in history they’re experiencing?

the geek in me shivers at the an-ti-ci-PATION

Aye. “Familiarity,” as the saying goes, “breeds contempt” – except that “familiarity” gives entirely the wrong impression because it’s a thoroughly false familiarity. The aphorism would be agonisingly less pithy but far more accurate if it read, “I’ve seen and heard and read this stuff for as long as I can remember, I haven’t a clue how it works and frankly I just don’t care as long as it keeps on working.” Sadly, wilful ignorance is contempt and contemptible. You can’t force people to be interested. It’s not much of a consolation but it’s their loss, really.

'Luthon64