Worst argument ever, ghost at work, plus some recognition from the skeptical giants.

Greetings skeptics and any idiot true believers the may have stumbled onto this site. Today we have some infuriating tales, as well as some fun news for our writers here at TAS. Now I lead a farely sheltered existance, I work, I sleep, I eat, and ocasionally I hang out with friends and even more rarely I make films, so the following will be more personal anecdotes than anything else, and as insane as any of this may seem I assure you dear readers it is all true.

First things first. I work in a very technologically driven industry, and because of this, I can only assume, it's rare that I come across any true believers as most techies are farely logical thinkers, at least that's what I told myself. I thought I lived in a very enlightened country (Canada) with very few magical thinkers, so when I hear news regarding a bunch of nonsense going on in the US of A I'd be all "Idiots I'm glad I don't live there." Well I was recently given a harsh reality check in the form of nonsense at my own work place. It started with Evolution.

My fellow co worker and I were talking about the hypocrasy of religion, a very taboo subject to be handeling at work I know but I assumed I was in good company, and for the most part I was, but there was a believer in the midst and he made himself known with a question in the form of "Do you believe in god?" I paused, afraid that I'd started something I couldn't finish/win. A friend of mine sent me a comic that sums up that fear perfectly.

I contemplated the outcome and basically decided that if a man can openly say he is religious then I can openly say I'm an athiest. His reaction was "Really!?" Really? He was surprised...my coworker also stated he was an athiest only to be greeted with yet another "Really!!??!" I couldn't help it, all of a sudden like a reflex I blurted out "What are your thoughts on evolution?" He didn't say no, at least not outright. What he said next was the worst argument I've ever heard against evolution, and here it is...

"I have a hard time believing that a Tyrannosaurus Rex turned into a bluejay"

I think at that point I voided my bowels. I've heard some shit before against evolution and all of it was stupid but atleast it was predictable. This was ignorance at its peak. It was like I blacked out then and when I awoke I had already unloaded on him. At first it was basic stuff that the T-Rex died out in the major extinction (via asteroid) and that the smaller animals evolved, then I went off on a tangent of defending evolution, I brought up tiktaalik and those crikets in Hawii that evolved right before our eyes, and he just stood there, not because he was afraid or because he was waiting to retort but because he'd never ever heard any of it before. I hope I've planted a seed of doubt in this person because he needed it. To be so unaware of the universe around him must be hard on him.

Second event was also at work, different day similar nonsense. My fellow coworkers seem to think we have a ghost in our shipping department. That sounds stupid already but I assure you people around here are taking it seriously. The guy who heard the spectre in question said it was banging on the wall. Well the previous day I was talking with my night manager and he was saying that the night shift operator was messing with the guy in shipping by banging on the walls with a hammer. You see the shipping department has geographically moved and there construction going on in that area, so he just grabbed on of the hammers and bang bang bang, scared this dude shitless. So what does he do, he takes a picture. I'm trying to picture this guy randomly taking pictures of nothing around shipping, I haven't seen it yet but I'd be willing to bet it's a fake. When I get it I'll post it here.

Needless to say I was beginning to loose all hope in humanity after these incidents when a fellow skeptic of at the infinitely more popular Memoirs of a Skepchick blog was good enough to mention us in a post of hers. I pointed out to her a funny gag some dude pulled on the Coast to Coast AM asshole, where he called in and pretended to be the fictional character Gordon Freeman from the kick ass vid game series Half-Life. It trully is hilarious to listen to this guy blatently lie to this idiot believer and he buys it all hook line and sinker. Listen to it for a good laugh. "Wow portal technology" r-tard. Anyways if you head down to the bottom of the skepchick post you'll see my name (Michael=Beaker) and a personal thanks to TAS. Thanks for the nod Rebecca!

-Beaker