Add Homonym Attacks! #43
Ad Hominem: Appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason.
Ad Hominem Attack: An argument that focuses on a personal attack as opposed to the subject in question.
Add Homonym Attacks!: The process by which one inserts a homophone and it bites you.
(It also serves as the title to Inside Pulse Beyond the Threshold’s representative column in the world of Critical Thinking, Science and Skepticism.)
Intro
After a week delay, we finally provide answers to our BIBLE Trivia.
In case you forgot:
Five Multiple Choice Questions about your Holy Bible
1) Finish the quote: “Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her” …
A) “beg forgiveness.”
B) “pray.”
C) “be burnt.”
D) “drink from thy cup.”2) The Bible does not contain:
A) Giants
B) Unicorns
C) Punishments for pedophiles
D) Satyrs3) Finish the quote: “He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off”…
A) “shall be afforded the rights of a female.”
B) “shall feel no shame in the countenance of the LORD.”
C) “shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.”
D) “verily, is like a bull without horns.”4) Which of the following is not from the bible?
A) “And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.”
B) “And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them.”
C) “And Enoch also beheld the residue of the people which were the sons of Adam; and they were a mixture of all the seed of Adam save it was the seed of Cain, for the seed of Cain were black, and had not place among them.”
D) “And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters.”5) The Biblical diet: Which of the following is not from the bible?
A) “The other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.”
B) “For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.”
C) “Whatsoever hath fins and scales ye may eat.”
D) “And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man.”
Answer Key
The answer to all thee questions is C.
For 1, burning women was more popular back in old tymey times.
For 2, the bible doesn’t mention pedophilia. It does mention unicorns, satyrs and giants, depending on your translation. Bible translation being what it is, unicorns sometimes turn into oxen.
For 3, well, your junk is very important to the Lord.
For 4, all the weird cannibal stuff comes from the bible. The arguably racist/ evil black people passage comes from the Book of Mormon.
And for 5, Yes, it is true: God hates figs. And shrimp.
Premonitions in the Bizarro World
Everything is a little backwards in the area surrounding an airport. We learned this thing last week.
The wife and I were going to a trip to Atlanta. She had a business conference, and I tagged along to visit some friends. We were taking separate flights out, with hers departing Sunday morning and mine departing Monday evening.
Problems arose when Delta cancelled my wife’s flight and rescheduled her for a Monday afternoon departure. This thing would cause her to miss nearly half of her conference. We decided to rent a car, drive to Atlanta, drop it off there and fly back. She and I would drive together, and this way she wouldn’t have to miss any of the Monday sessions.
It sounds reasonable doesn’t it?
Apparently not. I called up Delta to cancel the first leg of my round-trip ticket. Delta told me that this would cost me 200 dollars.
I said to Delta, “Wait . . . it costs me 200 dollars to fly round-trip, but 400 dollars to fly one way?”
The Delta representative thought that this situation made perfect sense.
“What if I said the Invisible Man or a cardboard cut-out in my stead?”
No dice. I tried fresh tactics.
“What if I were to say to you, ‘forget this conversation happened’ and I just didn’t show up for that first flight?”
“Well,” she said, “Then we would cancel your return ticket.”
Shit the bed. Both my wife and I tried to negotiate with these people, saying that they lose no money by having me skip the first flight. Hell, they can sell my seat, and make some cabbage on the deal. It’s not like I was asking for a discount from the round-trip fare.
We were stuck.
So, I called about returning the rental car. Were we to return it a few hours after rental, we would’ve been charged full price. To keep it until the next morning was half that cost.
Long story short, my wife had a slightly expensive ride to the airport.
At any rate, through fluke of CTA, I arrived at Midway several hours before departure. Then, the woman at the Delta counter had notes on me, which is never a good sign. As far as I know, the notes only said that I had tried to change my flight, but I was still tempted to yell, “Death to America! Ollalalal!”
The plane was late to arrive to the gate, and thus the flight was late to depart. As soon as I took my seat, the pilot made an odd speech. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re sorry about the delay. I’m not sure what caused it; I just got this plane. I think everything is okay though.”
The passengers started squirming. Babies were screaming. It was all sorts of no good.
A minute later, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m not sure if you know how an airplane works,” the pilot started. This is never the way you want a pilot to start an announcement. “But we use pneumatics to lift off, and we seem to be low on that power. We’re going to need a bit of a boost to get down the runway. I’m only telling you all this because the plane will be hotter and noisier than usual.”
At this point, many passengers thought of the show “Lost” and soccer teams in the Andes. Or perhaps it was Final Destination. A woman with a screaming child went up to one of the flight attendants. “Should we just leave? It seems like we shouldn’t be going on this trip.” She was saying what most were thinking. Half of the cabin’s population saw a bunch of bad omens, harbingers portending doom, and all sorts of wacky magumbo and hoodoo.
Certainly, this plane was going to go down.
The flight attendant assured the frazzled woman, and all within earshot, that everything was fine and normal and safe.
Of course the flight was fine and normal and safe. We didn’t even hit any turbulence. Certainly, this would make for bad literature. I pondered these things staring out of my little airplane window. City lights and baseball fields created an electric Rorschach out of Georgia below.
