Friday, December 16, 2011

In The Trenches

A battle is being fought, of almost cosmically non-spiritual import:
Just a couple of weeks ago -- the weekend before Thanksgiving, in fact -- the annual Skepticon conference was held ... one of the largest gatherings of atheists and skeptics in the country ... owner of the ice cream shop Gelato Mio ... took offense ... And he put a sign on the door to his shop, reading, quote, "Skepticon is NOT Welcomed To My Christian Business." ...
Dear God!
So what happened?

Atheists brought the nuclear smackdown.
Someone took a photo of the sign, and within minutes it was Facebooked, Tweeted, G-plussed, texted, blogged, emailed, and probably sent by smoke signals and carrier pigeon. It raced through the atheosphere like a wildfire on meth. Gelato Mio was inundated with angry calls and emails; their ratings on Yelp and UrbanSpoon sank to the basement; on UrbanSpoon, their "most popular menu item" was quickly voted as "Bigotry."

...

And Drennan apologized.
Gelato for all atheists is secured!
Atheists will not be fucked with.


I dunno, maybe I should be more sympathetic to my godless brethren, but, uh, okay, this is the title of the article:
2 Shocking Attacks on Atheism -- And How Atheists Fought Back
No, not really seeing the "not to be fucked with" cred there. Or the shock or the attack for that matter...

UPDATE!

My error. Turns out the guy who ran the gelato place was ADOLF HITLER and he was working on a Pan-Skeptic Gelato Removal Ray*. Seems the ray itself was three seconds from bathing the continent in unearthly treat-denying radiation from its orbital platform when Glasses O'Fingerpoint somehow tweeted the shutdown code through an avalanche of licorice and caramel corn, thus saving the atheist community from potential having-to-think-of-a-different-snack. Also I think the second shocking attack I didn't mention was about a lampshade factory and missing atheists, so my apologies to the families and their little dogs too.

*ACME™ brand parts, may not work on road-runners

18 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Oh yeah? Well Chris Hitchens is still dead.
~

Substance McGravitas said...

Tragic!

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Oh yeah? Well Chris Hitchens is still dead.

And he's insufferably smug about it too.

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

Someone wrote a hyperbolically-titled blurb about a small victory for atheists! KAPOW!-- Substance put the smackdown on her!

I know it's a small victory, but it's a nifty victory IMO. I have no idea where that title came from. You'd think we'd just appointed an atheist to the Supreme Court or something.

Substance McGravitas said...

I know it's a small victory, but it's a nifty victory IMO.

It's not wrong for the guy to be forced into an apology. It's awfully low on the justice register when people are having their houses stolen. It's not like anyone hosed an atheist in the eye with jalapeño gelato, and it's not like the atheists couldn't have gone into the gelato store and gotten gelato in any case.

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

Well, yeah, but it think you can say that about almost anything. It's the old "Don't worry about this--worry about THIS " trick.

I think this story basically had the ending it should and I don't blame some people for celebrating. But I don't think it's some momentous, game-changer either.

Substance McGravitas said...

That's all I meant. If you read the post it's all hyperbole and I demand MEDIOCRIBOLE.

Rachel said...

Here's a hyperbolic Jesus freak, did wonders for the ratings of "Trading Spouses"...

http://youtu.be/Qjl54v1irbs

Substance McGravitas said...

Ooo, I actually saw that one! It was awesome.

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...


http://youtu.be/Qjl54v1irbs


My life is better for having seen that. Holy fucking shit.

She should open up a yogurt shop.

Malacylpse said...

I always thought Jean Teasdale was fictional, until now.

Rachel said...

Jean, how should we take your article entitled: "Hershey Highway Sounds Good To Me!" ?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hershey%20highway&defid=7741

Substance McGravitas said...

While it is tempting to believe Jean is real, alas she is not.

wiley said...

Oooh. Oooh. Can I maybe get some takers on an agnostic billboard? I'd like to start with

I don't know about this Yahweh guy. He seems kinda harsh and like maybe he has too many anger issues to be the divine being and creator of the universe.

Just sayin'.

s

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Here's a hyperbolic Jesus freak, did wonders for the ratings of "Trading Spouses"...

Shooting out the walls of heartache, indeed!

I always thought Jean Teasdale was fictional, until now.

Some knucklehead named John Byrne:

The Onion lost all credibility for me a while back when they did a “story” on the Hudson River cleanup GE was forced to do. As some of you may recall, one of my neighbors is a GE veep, and he was directly in charge of this, so from him I found out all kinds of details the press did not bother to pass along to the public. Since The Onion apparently gets its info from other papers, the story was full of inaccuracies.

What are they, Michael Moore?

Anyway, I stopped reading The Onion from then on.

Anonymous said...

Oooh. Oooh. Can I maybe get some takers on an agnostic billboard?

I don't know.

Dillon said...

Some knucklehead named John Byrne:

Weird. You'd think the former host of Bizarre would be able to recognize satire.

Smut Clyde said...

Gulliver's Travels? Upon my conscience I do not believe one word of it.