Tag Archives: God

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Religious Horseless Carriage

In order to attempt to justify their beliefs and faith, many Christian debaters make pre-suppositional claims that are the complete opposite of logic and observed reality.

With respect, his entire point on meaning is that Atheists cannot ground *their* sense of meaning in anything and therefore any sense of meaning is illusory. His argument is entirely that meaning must be grounded in something ultimate and, unless it is, it is ultimately meaningless. That strikes me as self-evidentially true and the Atheist must show how whatever subjective meaning they insist to be meaningful is, in fact, ultimately meaningful. There may be answers to that, but it is for Atheists to offer them. One cannot simply sneer one’s way out of answering.

“Meaning” doesn’t prove God. It would take the confirmed existence of a God, to prove meaning. My sense of meaning is grounded in what I think and feel. I can prove that I exist, and have opinions – which is more than the greatest winner of Hide and Seek can do. 

Nobody was arguing that the ability to provide subjective meaning proves God exists though the argument being made was that subjective meaning is not ultimately grounded and so it is ultimately meaningless. It requires something ultimate to ground ultimate meaning otherwise it isn’t ultimate. Everybody recognizes your subjective sense of meaning is grounded in what you think and feel.

This author has no evidence for his claims, and simply insists that meaning in one’s life has to be “objective” to be worth anything.  He has put the cart firmly before the horse, but sadly, I can still see the horse’s ass.  If God cannot be shown to exist then, no matter how much he wants and needs an ‘ultimate’ ground for (his) morality, my/our ‘subjective’ one is the best there is.

Businessman/philosopher Charlie Kirk went to college and university campuses to debate with students.  When he was discussing politics, education, or finance, his thoughts were clear and hard.  When a subject like abortion or transgender led him into his Christian beliefs, an eighth-grade student could embarrass him.

Archeology has never proved the Bible wrong.
In 1000 pages, the Bible says a thousand different things – some good, some bad, many irrelevant.  With the same degree of accuracy and truth, it could be said that Archeology has never proved Harry Potter wrong.  We found this magical castle/campus, but it’s not Hogwarts.  A negative cannot be proven.

I was in a bad place, but I gave myself to Jesus, and I turned my life around, and became a successful businessman.
No He Didn’t!!  He gave himself to the belief in Jesus, and the placebo effect.  He was told that if he did X, Y would occur.  He did X, and Y occurred, but the two were not related.  He was told that he needed a crutch, but never noticed that he accomplished it with his own strength and resolve, and never actually needed the crutch.

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Consensual Comedy

A guy moves into a new apartment in New York and heads to the lobby to put his name on the mailbox.

As he’s doing so, a stunning young woman steps out of the apartment next to the mailboxes, wearing nothing but a robe.

She flashes him a warm smile and strikes up a conversation. As they chat, her robe slowly slips open, revealing that she’s wearing absolutely nothing underneath.

The poor guy starts sweating bullets, struggling to keep eye contact.

After a few minutes, she gently places a hand on his arm and whispers, “Let’s go inside—I hear someone coming…”

Without hesitation, he follows her into the apartment. She closes the door, leans against it, and with a sultry look, lets the robe fall completely open.

“Tell me,” she purrs, “what would you say is my best feature?”

The guy, now a nervous wreck, stammers, clears his throat, and finally blurts out, “Uh… your ears!”

She looks absolutely baffled. “My ears?! Look at these boobs—perky, natural, no sag! My butt? Firm, flawless, zero cellulite! My skin? Perfect, no blemishes! Out of everything, WHY would you say my ears?!”

Still flustered, he clears his throat again and mutters, “Because… when you said you heard someone coming… that was me.”

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A Scotsman and a Jew were brought before the Magistrate charged with drunkenness.

The Magistrate looked at them intently for a time, and then asked, “Where is the other man?“

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So God is chilling up in heaven…..
And he wants to go down to Earth and see how things are going. But he can’t just go down to Earth, that would cause the rapture.
So he calls up St. Peter and asks him to go do some recon on his behalf. St. Peter does as he’s told, takes off, and comes back 2 weeks later.
“God… I don’t know how to say this but it’s terrible down there. Absolutely terrible.”
“Really?” God responds.
“Well for starters 90% of the people down there don’t know how to park a car correctly” St. Peter says.
“Stop right there.” God proclaims. “We need to fix THAT issue right now.”
So they brainstorm for a bit and God goes “I got it! We will make a plaque, and we will give it to the 10% of people who know how to park”

And do you know what that plaque said??????

Oh, you didn’t get one?

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A mother vampire was explaining to her child how to feed.  “You find a suitable human and enthrall them, poke a couple of holes in them, and extract only 200 ml of blood.”
“But Momma, what if I’m still hungry?”
“Then find another human, and enthrall them, and extract only about 200 ml of blood.”
“But Momma, what if I’m still hungry?  Can’t I just take as much as I want?”
She replied, “Honey, we’re vampires, not lawyers.”

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Why Is Atheism Rising?

It’s not that people woke up one day, and decided that they didn’t need gods; it’s that the reasons for needing them are quietly vanishing.  The stories that once made sense of the world are no longer enough.  And when something stops making sense, people stop holding on to it, no matter how sacred it once was.

The shift is quiet, but steady.  It doesn’t show up in protests, or revolutions, it shows up in the absence of prayer, and fewer people attending religious services, in younger people checking a different box on the census.  It shows up in a growing number of people saying they just don’t believe anymore, and don’t really miss it.

There’s a simple reason that Atheism is rising.  It’s not that people are getting angrier, it’s because they’re getting more curious.  Questions that were once dangerous, are now just normal, and questions that once silenced rooms, now don’t feel complete.  In the past, the structure of religions wasn’t just spiritual, it was practical.  It shaped laws, families, schools, and even the idea of morality itself.  But that structure only works when it remains unchallenged.

The moment something is questioned, it becomes something else entirely.  The Internet did something that religion never could.  It connected people, not through a shared belief, but through a shared doubt.  For the first time, someone sitting alone in a room in a deeply religious town could read the thoughts of someone who had walked away from it all, and hadn’t collapsed into chaos.

That exposure broke the illusion that belief was the only option.  Religions tend to thrive in isolation.  When a group is all you’ve ever known, its truths seem absolute.  But when you start seeing how many groups exist, and how each one believes something different, something starts to crack.  If they can’t all be correct, then perhaps they are all wrong.

Globalization didn’t just move products.  It moved ideas.  It exposed contradictions, and it made it harder to keep belief systems contained.  A young person raised is a strict religious home can now access scientific explanations, secular philosophy, and opposing viewpoints with a few taps on a screen.  That kind of exposure changes the mind’s chemistry.

There’s also the fact that religious institutions have not done a good job of protecting their own image.   Scandals, abuse, cover-ups, political involvement – these things don’t just shake individual faith.  They erode trust in the entire idea of religious belief.  When the people preaching morality are caught in deeply immoral ways, it doesn’t just damage reputations, it makes people rethink everything.

But the rise of Atheism isn’t just about disappointment, it’s about development.  There’s a direct correlation between education levels and religious belief.  Studies have shown that the more years of schooling people have, the less likely they are to believe in supernatural claims.

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Religious Thoughts From Atheists

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

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When people share their beliefs, they also share their insecurities about their beliefs, and sharing is a way to harvest validation.

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“Faith allows an evasion of those difficulties which the atheist confronts honestly. And to crown all, the believer derives a sense of great superiority from this very cowardice itself.” Simone de Beauvoir

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For those who claim that the Bible is inerrant – Jeremiah 8:8 – “How can we say that we are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us?”  But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.  This is the Bible itself, saying that the Bible is intentionally dishonest.

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Religion poisons everything.
Christopher Hitchens

We are all Atheists about most of the gods that mankind has invented.  Some of us just go one god further.
Richard Dawkins

God is dead.  God remains dead.  And we have killed him.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for Atheism ever conceived.
Isaac Asimov

I would rather live my life as if there were no God, and find out there was, than live my life as if there were a God, and find out there wasn’t.
Albert Camus

All thinking men are Atheists.
Ernest Hemingway

Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world.  It is simply a refusal to deny the obvious.
Sam Harris

You are—your life, and Nothing Else.
Jean-Paul Sartre

Beliefs don’t change facts.  Facts, if you are rational, should change your Beliefs.
Rickey Gervais

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Carl Sagan

An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built, instead of a church.
An Atheist believes that a deed should be done, rather than a prayer said.
Madeline Murray O’Hair

Religion is just mind control.
George Carlin

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.
Voltaire

If you’re an Atheist, you don’t have to explain why bad things happen to good people.
Salman Rushdie

One can’t prove that God does not exist, but science makes God unnecessary.
Stephen Hawking

For an Atheist, all religions are the same.  He is against the very institution of religion.
Javed Ahktar

Religions are like fireflies.  They require darkness to shine.
Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.
Mark Twain

I think all the great religions of the world are both untrue, and harmful.
Bertrand Russell

 

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Does Religion Make You Arrogant?

Why do humans think that they are the center of the universe?  Why do so many of them insist that they’re part of a grand design, a cosmic plan specifically tailored for them?  The truth is, religion – despite its claims of humility – is often rooted in something deeply ironic, arrogance.

To think that, in a universe so vast, where Earth is but a speck of dust orbiting an ordinary star, in one of billions of galaxies, everything revolves around us.  Yet, religion tells us that we’re not only important, but essential to the entire operation.  That the same Being that crafted black holes, supernovae, and the laws of physics, is deeply concerned about what we eat, who we love,  or our private thoughts in our moments of desperation.

Consider the claim of creation, that mankind was made in the image of a perfect, omniscient being.  The implications of this belief are staggering.  Not only does it place us at the pinnacle of existence, but it also suggests that the Universe exists for us.  Does that hold up under scrutiny??

Let’s think about the Universe itself.  Over 99.9% of it is completely inhospitable to life.  Earth’s surface is mostly water, much of it too salty to drink.  Natural disasters – earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions – have wiped out billions of lives, human and non-human.  If we were the purpose of creation, wouldn’t the world be more accommodating??  Why design a planet that – by all accounts –seems indifferent to our existence?

This arrogance extends beyond the physical.  Religion often claims exclusive access to truth and morality.  It is no coincidence that many religious traditions assert that those outside the faith are lost, damned, or in need of saving.  This worldview doesn’t just separate people, it elevates the believer.  They think that they know the truth, and others don’t.  It is a subtle, but potent, form of superiority.

Reflect on history, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the colonization of entire continents.  These events are often justified by religious conviction.  The conquerors believed that they were spreading divine truth, bringing light to “the ignorant.”  But how much of that was ‘divine will,’ and how much of it was human, our way is not just better – it’s the only way!

Ii is not just history.  It persists!  When religious leaders insist that natural disasters are punishments for societal sins, or that their prayers can alter the course of a hurricane, what is that, if not extraordinary arrogance?  It assumes a direct line to the divine, a belief that they can influence the cosmos because of their special status.

Consider the statistics.  In surveys, a significant percentage of people in highly religious countries, believe their prayers can affect outcome, whether curing illness, or ensuring success, yet controlled studies show no measurable effect of prayer on external events.  The cognitive dissonance isn’t evidence of humility, it’s a stubborn insistence that belief trumps evidence.

Some might argue that religion teaches humility by emphasizing our flaws, but think about that message.  “You’re flawed – but also chosen. You’re nothing – but God loves you specifically.”  It’s an odd duality, one that oscillates between degradation, and exaltation.  This teaching doesn’t encourage genuine humility: it fosters a kind of spiritual narcissism.  It says, “I’m broken, but that makes me special.”

Let’s not forget the scientific discoveries that have challenged religious narratives, from Darwin’s theory of evolution, to the Big Bang, science has consistently shown that our origin is vastly more complex – and less personal – than ancient texts suggest.  Yet many religious communities reject these findings, not because of evidence, but because they threaten the idea of human centrality.  It’s uncomfortable to admit that we’re not the product of a divine plan, but rather, a series of natural processes, over billions of years.

Real humility comes, not from claiming divine favor, but from acknowledging our place in the Universe.  Carl Sagan once referred to Earth as “a pale blue dot, a tiny world in an unimaginably vast cosmos.”  That perspective doesn’t diminish us.  It liberates us.  It allow us to see ourselves as part of something much larger, something awe-inspiring, not because it revolves around us, but because it doesn’t need to.

And yet, religion often rejects this kind of humility.  It insists on specialness, on chosenness, on being watched and judged by an omnipotent being who somehow prioritizes our species above all others.  Isn’t that the epitome of arrogance?  There’s another way to live, a way that doesn’t require us to be the center of the story, a way that finds meaning, not in divine approval, but in human connection, in the pursuit of knowledge, and the beauty of existence itself.

This perspective doesn’t offer all the answers; it acknowledges that we don’t have them, but in that uncertainty lies true humility.  So the next time someone claims that religion is about modesty, ask yourself, “Is it modest to believe that the Universe was designed for us?  Or is it more humble to simply marvel at the Cosmos, without needing it to revolve around our existence?”

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Wanna see religious arrogance?  Click here!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP2jn3_WrqM&pp=ygUFR0JUSFY%3D

 

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In The Beginning

And God said, “Let there be a Big Bang,” and there was a big bang; and from the Big Bang emerged matter and radiation.

And God saw the Big Bang, that it was a great explosion; and the evening and the morning were the first billion years, 14 billion years ago.

And God said, Let there be hydrogen and helium and let them swirl randomly; and let some of the gas swirl into regions of higher density; and let those regions of greater density contract themselves into proto-galaxies; and let the proto-galaxies contract themselves further into galaxies.

And when they had done so, God said, Let there be stars.

And the first stars began to form within the galaxies; and when the gases whereof they were made had sufficiently compressed, there began thermonuclear burning and lo, there was starlight.  And the evening and the morning were the third billion years, 11 billion years ago.

And to assure that man would not quickly understand His great works, God gave unto the speed of light, a finite limit of 300,000 kilometers a second, and to the atmosphere of the Earth, when He got around to creating it, five billion years ago, He gave turbulence and distortion, and opacity to many kinds of radiation; and further to confound Man’s understanding, He placed throughout the universe, quasars, neutron stars, black holes and other strange peculiarities.

And God looked upon the work of His singularity approvingly and said, Lo, it is a puzzlement.  And it was a puzzlement.

Could we ever expect a universe with anything as strange as Man in it, to be simple?  God the mathematician, God the astrophysicist, moves in mysterious ways.  Simple theories set forth by simple men with very limited knowledge mean that the creation story of the Bible is likely to be wrong, and the likelihood of the Bible being wrong on any given subject increases as Mankind’s knowledge and understanding increases.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?  Then he is not omnipotent.  Is he able, but not willing?  Then he is malevolent.  Is he both able and willing?  Then whence cometh evil?  Is he neither able nor willing?  Then why call him God?

Epicurus: circa 300 BCE

 

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Real Fake Fibbing Friday

Last week Pensitivity101 gave us some real words, but these are my definitions!

1. Bafflegab

    That would be anything that falls out of Elon Musk’s mouth.  I used to think that Donald Trump was the champion of Talk Much – Say Little, but Elon, his left-hand man, amazes and awes me.  He may be a genius who will get us to a colony on Mars, but no-one will understand why.

    2. Batrachomyomachy

    This is a word which means possessing an excess of Woke.  When God made Man, he was explaining to some angels.  “He might not look like much, but He will be strong, brave, tenacious, and clever.  He will fight off huge wild animals.  He will survive fires, floods, earthquakes, volcano eruptions….  Eventually, He will become afraid of words.”
    3.  Boondoggle

    This is my online friend who rescues and finds homes for unwanted and abandoned canines.

    4.   Borborygmus

    You’ve heard that “You can lead a horse to water’??!  This is the guy who can’t.  He vainly attempts to organize and run the team Zoom meetings, with all the style and panache of low-fat yogurt.  People follow him only out of morbid curiosity.

    5.   Bowyang

    It’s the vee-shaped wave, pushed ahead of the front of Viking Cruise river boats on the Danube.  Not amusing, or even very interesting – just something that we cannot afford to do – but I definitely dislocated my fibula, typing it out.

    6.   Blitzkrieg

    Blitzkrieg is a candy bar manufactured in The Netherlands, similar to a Mounds bar.  It contains dark chocolate and nuts, and is heavily infused with THC oil.  You will get as fat as a little pot-bellied pig, eating these things…. but you don’t care, man.

    7.   Brimborion

    This word describes the food provided at many hospitals.  It is contracted out, produced in bulk, shipped to the hospitals, warmed back up, and served to unsuspecting patients, with Hobson’s choice.  Maximum profit is obtained through minimum variation.  It contains no salt, because of heart patients.  It contains no sugar because of diabetics.  It is warm, filling, nutritious – and about as palatable as mucilage.  I lost 20 pounds in 10 days.  A previous cardiac patient was the Food Manager for all of Ontario’s penitentiaries.  He said that he could/would not serve this pap to his prisoners.

    8.  Boffola

    This is the ‘Dirty Talk’ portion of foreplay (If there is any) for #9

    9.   Boff

    Boff is the verb to describe aggressive, positive sex – usually with the male as initiator and controller.  The “Boff” quotient of American presidents has declined significantly over the years.  John F. Kennedy used to boff all kinds of movie stars and socialites.
    Monica Lewinski became Bill Clinton’s whistle-blower, when she took it into her head to become famous.
    Eeny, Meany, Miney, Moe
    Trump grabs them by the camel-toe
    He has oral sex when he tells them how much they want and enjoy his ‘HUGE’ hands.
    10. Buzzwig

    Renaissance hair-pieces were not white because they were heavily dusted with talcum powder.  It was arsenic, to kill all-too-common fleas.

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    Symmetry/Asymmetry

    In an argument or discussion, most people expect the other guy to think and act the same way they do.

    Those who raise questions about the God hypothesis and the soul hypothesis are by no means all atheists.  An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God.  I know of no such compelling evidence.  Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do to be sure that no such God exists.  To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.
        —    Carl Sagan

    I am disappointed that normally clear-thinking Carl Sagan once said this, but I am not surprised that he did, or that I recently found it offered as some sort of rebuttal/argument, on some Christian Apologist’s blog-site.

    (Almost) no Atheist claims to know for certain, that God does not exist.  Rather, they claim to know that the very concept of a God is not coherent, and every definition and description that they have been presented with, lacks sufficient convincing evidence to be believable.

    The problem is not with the Theist’s God, or its existence.  It is with the Theist’s arguments and presentation.  Faith is not a virtue.  It is the excuse that people give when they don’t have a good reason to support their Theistic beliefs.  If they had a good reason, they would present that.

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    Definition Of Proof

    You Atheists say that you don’t believe in God because there’s no good evidence.  What would you consider to be a good reason to believe?

    The correct answer is, God knows, in both senses!

    I don’t believe in ‘God’, because I don’t understand what God is, or what it means to even say that a God exists.  So, what I’m looking for is not only good reasons to believe that a god exists, but, first and foremost, a definition of a god, and an explanation of what it means to say that one exists, that I can recognize as coherent.

    The more smart-ass Christian Apologists like to add the gotcha phrase – in the possibility of the existence of God.  To an honest interlocutor, I will admit that there is no way to prove 100% positively, that “God” does not exist, but these desperate Liars For Christ will seize upon that tiny, slim chance, and shout, “There, you see?  You really DO believe in God – at least a little bit!” when I really don’t.  If I get angry or frustrated with their silly claims and say “My God,” or “God damn,” they jump right back with, “See, you said My God, so that proves that you really do believe in Him.” completely missing the point that, even if I believed in A god – MY god – I still wouldn’t believe in their God.  If you don’t believe in God, who do you give thanks to on Thanksgiving?  “Thank” is an intransitive verb.  It does not require an object, certainly not “God.’

    While such debaters think that they have posed a really smart question, it is in fact, quite silly and stupid.  If Atheists knew of a good reason to believe in God – THEY WOULD BELIEVE IN GOD.  The fact that they don’t, means that they have never been presented with a convincing reason.  It is not Atheists’ responsibility to do Apologists’ job, and it’s not our fault that Theists can’t.

    Many Apologists reject “Science” as if it were an entity in itself, or a conspiracy theory, because it posits information which contradicts what their religion claims.

    Science is certain of Nothing, and requires proof of everything!
    Religion is certain of Everything, and requires proof of nothing!

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    Unreal Fibbing Friday

    Last week, Pensitivity101 gave us real words but wanted to know what our definitions were.

    1. Hircine

    I’m not saying that my neighbours are semi-literate rednecks but….She talks about astrological symbols.  She says that hircine is Virgo.  It’s obviously a very old one.

    2. Roorback

    Bentley Roorback is the leader of the Thalian Party.  He thinks that MAGA is a valid word, and that Donald Trump was God’s second son.  I’ve heard that, during his interesting college days, he was caught having sex with a goat, and he now hands out Halloween candy to children, that is laced with LSD, and meth.

    3. Antithalian♪

    We should all be antithalian.  Those people are seriously worrisome.  Back before the advent of the internet, each village used to only have one idiot.  Now they congregate in electronic villages, to shore up each others’ views, and try to convince saner people that The Earth is flat, senior politicians are actually alien lizards in human disguise, and that Hillary Clinton was operating a child-sex ring from the basement of a run-down pizza shop.

    4. Novercal

    Novercal is the pharmaceutical street-cousin to Novocaine – all of the up, without any of the down.

    5. Accismus

    It is quite valid, but this is a term that should never be publicly used, in reference to the butt of any of the Kardashians.  (It’s okay to do it with Caitlyn Jenner – butt you’re a pervert!)  They have more money than most small countries, and a flock of free-range lawyers, just scratchin’ to make a name for themselves, and a fat contingency fee.

    6. Mundivagant

    Like those who sought the Scarlet Pimpernel, I sought the meaning of this word.  I sought it on Dictionary.com.  I sought it on Merriam-Webster.  Cannot locate mundivagant.  Did you mean mendicant?  I sought it here.  I sought it there.  I sought the blighter everywhere.  I sought it in the forests of Canada, the mountains of Peru, the swamps of Borneo.  I travelled the world, real and virtual – without leaving my computer chair.  😎

    7. Prefestinate

    Prefestinate is an adjective which describes the fuss, the planning, the hard work, leading up to a big celebration of some sort.  The weeks preceding Kitchener’s Oktoberfest are an orgy of prefestinate organized confusion.

    8. Apiculate

    Something kept goading me – poking me with a sharp stick- to come up with a smart- ass answer for this word.  But I decided to just leaf it alone.  😉

    9. Sloomy

    She was the downscale girlfriend in a 1965 song made famous by The McCoys – Hang on Sloomy.  She wasn’t gloomy – she was Sloomy, it’s just that her busy social life kept her constantly short of sleep.

    10 Ramulose

    Like silver hairs among the gold, here’s a bit of truth among the lies.  Once upon a time…. I had an uncle named Randolph.  He was known to all and sundry, family and friends, for 55 years, as RAM.  And he fit the name – short, muscular, he wouldn’t fit in an empty apple barrel, but with no fat.

    When he was widowed, my Mother and sister embarked on a campaign to marry him off to a long-absent widow who had moved back to town to care for her aged mother.

    When he died, and the two attended his funeral, I heard them complain, “I didn’t know who the preacher was talking about!  It was, ‘Randy this’ and ‘Randy that.”  I told them, ‘It was Ram-u-lose.’