If Your Church Burns Down

Author: Salixes

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Salixes
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I saw a fire breakout at my local church yesterday so I reported it to the emergency services.

Hopefully, they got my message and did something to help otherwise it will have been a waste of a postage stamp.


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ok it's fucking willows, isn't it



Discipulus_Didicit
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Most of your jokes range from "I almost didn't even realize this was a joke because it was so unfunny" to "I see this was a joke and it was almost funny". Occasionally you drop one that elicits a chuckle for a few seconds and that's it, but even those are short-lived successes when one is forced to notice all the unfunny jokes you have made (and we are forced to notice because you continue to spam the "new threads" section with them rather than waiting for a good moment to present itself).

Now it is clear from the theme of your recent threads that you are either trying to be funny or you are trying to be a dick. Due to your ineptitude however it is not clear which of these is the actual case. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are trying to be funny and offer you some advice (note, this advice will be useless to you if your goal is just to be a dick):

1) Make less jokes.

Spamming up the forum with OPs is counter-productive (unless your goal is to be a dick) so stop doing it. Eventually even the click-bait effect (which is already what your threads are strongly reliant upon) will wear off due to people associating your name with a simplistic poor sense of humor.

2) Timing

Randomly posting any joke that pops into your brain is something that one can only pull off well if they are very adept at the art of humor. You are clearly not at that level yet. For now you should focus less on creating funny situations and more on adapting your humor to a situation. With enough practice this will become second nature and you will find yourself in situations where people are laughing at your jokes before you even realizing you are trying to be funny (kind of what you have going on here except the exact opposite).

3) Make better jokes

It's all about quality vs quantity. Like I said before less quantity is good, but more quality is even better. Take the joke in this OP for instance. This is one of those cases where you almost made something. On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being "was that even a joke?", 10 being John Cleese, and 5 being "heh, I get it") this one was about a 4.5, but it easily could have been a 5.5 or so at least if you had changed just one or two minor details. Consider the following possibilities:

Hopefully they got my message in time or it will have been a waste of a postage stamp.

The same message but with less words. With "joke" style humor the point is to be as to-the-point as you can without sacrificing the setup. Long-windedness can be a useful tool in other styles of humor but when telling jokes it is almost always detrimental.

Another possibility:

Hopefully, they got my message and did something to help otherwise it will have been a waste of a prayer.

This changes the message entirely of course, but definitely for the better.

The message in the original is "Churches are not really all that useful so I don't really care if one burns down" whereas the message in my version is a parody of the silly idea that prayer is remotely useful. Both can be funny but the first just kinda makes you sound like a dick while the second is pointing out that some other people are dumb (pointing out the obvious flaws in others is always funnier than just being a dick, all else being equal).
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Now it is clear from the theme of your recent threads that you are either trying to be funny or you are trying to be a dick.
I've known him for more than 6 years. He doesn't learn, and he doesn't grow. He's posted this exact "joke" several times in the last 6 years. 

He sees himself as a knight on a white steed tilting at the windmill of Christianity.

Though he thinks he funny, he isn't really trying to be funny, he's going for hurtful.

When Dart first started, I told him to control his compulsion to post silliness. He didn't listen, and got banned after one bender of 26 threads in one day! He's been banned from most moderated sites.

After staying away for a year, swearing he'd never come back and fuming that the mods here are Nazis who want to tell him what to post, he's back.

But he is the same obsessed, compulsive, bitter little man he has always been. In a way, I'm sorry about his future because he really can't control his compulsion. But what can the mods do?

He has to post more and more to get the attention he craves, and he has to be more and more caustic to over come reader fatigue with his mono-topic silly posts.

It's like watching a crash where the car has already broken through the guide rails and is sailing over the ravine. The end is predictable.

And everyone watching is wondering, "what is the driver thinking right now?"

In Salixes case, he's thinking, "That'll teach those traffic cops!!"
Discipulus_Didicit
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@ethang5
He sees himself as a knight on a white steed tilting at the windmill of Christianity.

Oh, so an athiest version of Mopac then? I don't really see the point. BrotherDThomas is much better at filling that niche in a way that is actually entertaining all by himself.

In Salixes case, he's thinking, "That'll teach those traffic cops!!"

Now that's a punchline.
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Oh no....I am so offended.... These religious jokes are so very infuriating.....(massive eye roll)
ethang5
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Lol.

I'm not making this stuff up. He has told me himself.

He thinks Christianity is evil, feeding off the clueless masses. And he is the one who fights back and "exposes" that evil.

That is how he justifies his compulsion to himself. A guy who, say, washes his hand 30 times a day, has to rationalize that behavior to himself.

So Sal has built this elaborate world where there is this sinister shadow govt. of Christian evil agents. Like hydra. Anyone opposing him only gets relocated to this evil hoard.

Here is the thing to consider. Do you think the compulsive hand washer is trying to clean his hands? No. He is trying to soothe an emotional urge. It torments him till he washes his hands. He knows the urge is mental illness, so he rationalizes by talk about germs and calling his behavior sanitation.

Somewhere along the way, the thing got away from Sal. It became an uncontrollable compulsion. As you can probably tell, I am fascinated by the mentally unwell.

Its like watching a person who trapped inside themselves.
Discipulus_Didicit
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@ethang5
Do you think the compulsive hand washer is trying to clean his hands?

Yes.

He knows the urge is mental illness, so he rationalizes by talk about germs and calling his behavior sanitation.

Nah, it's possible for people to be wrong. Happens all the time.
ethang5
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Lol. It's been happening for six years.
Salixes
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@OntologicalSpider
Oh no....I am so offended.... These religious jokes are so very infuriating.....(massive eye roll)
And so you should feel offended.
After all Christians have offended the senses and intelligence of normal, decent, civilised people for centuries.

Don't you think they deserve at least a bit of retribution?


ethang5
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@Discipulus_Didicit
...they deserve at least a bit of retribution..
There ya go DD.

The genius thinks Christians deserve "retribution" and views his compulsive threads as "retribution".

So he isn't making 25 threads a day because he's a compulsive bitter geek, no, he's a savior to all those poor slobs who, unlike him, could not escape being hoodwinked.

He has said he believes the mods here to be Christians trying to shut him down because he's so dangerous to Christianity!
Discipulus_Didicit
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@ethang5
So he isn't making 25 threads a day because he's a compulsive bitter geek, no, he's a savior to all those poor slobs who, unlike him, could not escape being hoodwinked.
<br>

I mean, that's closer to what I said isn't it?

I said he was simply mistaken, you compared him to a compulsive germaphobe that knows what he is doing is silly.

So basically atheist Mopac.
Salixes
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@Discipulus_Didicit
So basically atheist Mopac.
You can try to label me what you want but comparing me to such a morally corrupt, hateful and bigoted cretin is getting a bit rich.

I mean, I could by the same token bring into question the credibility of someone who say, claims to be an atheist yet compulsively models his judgemental faculties around an ancient airy-fairy quasi-superstitious philosopher like er, oooh, let's take, for example, Plato.
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@Salixes
I mean, I could by the same token bring into question the credibility of someone who say, claims to be an atheist yet compulsively models his judgemental faculties around an ancient airy-fairy quasi-superstitious philosopher like er, oooh, let's take, for example, Plato.

You could certainly try, but the phrase "atheist mopac" is much more catchy and marketable than incoherent blocks of text lacking proper punctuation. I think it could catch on pretty quick if people were actually paying attention to your threads and reading this. Sadly I doubt many are.
ethang5
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@Discipulus_Didicit
So basically atheist Mopac.
Mopac doesn't go around insulting people. Mopac doesn't spam the board with caustic nonsense. Mopac has not been booted off every moderated site he's been on.

So no. Mopac is not a bitter, compulsive stalking a board of people he claims to hate.

You are now "someone who say, claims to be an atheist..."

You credentials are now in question. And the only way you could be against him is if you are a closet theist, or controlled by theists. He is not just mistaken, the lad is deluded.
Discipulus_Didicit
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@ethang5
Mopac doesn't go around insulting people. 

Am I not 'people' then or do you and I have different ideas of what constitutes an insult?
Discipulus_Didicit
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@ethang5
You are now "someone who say, claims to be an atheist..."

He was referencing Plato (see the last few words of his post). He read my profile bio I guess lol.
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@ethang5
Actually he might have been referencing me (I admit I only read the first bit and last bits of his post closely at first, my eyes glazed over in the middle).

Whether Plato was in fact an atheist or not can be legitimately debated so I assumed that was what he was talking about.
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@Salixes
Yo atheist mopac, clear something up for us please. Were you insinuating earlier that I believe in some god or other because I read Plato or were you making an obscure reference to the historical debate on whether or not Plato believed in gods?
Discipulus_Didicit
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I can't believe my "credentials" might (or might not) be in question.

I don't even know what that goddamn means.

I'm a random dude on the internet, not a lawyer or a doctor. What fucking "credentials" could I possibly have to question?

This is just absurd.
ethang5
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Once he shoehorns you into that closet theist position, it's over for you.

This is just absurd.
Take it easy. You don't know the guy yet. He's going to make this you call absurd look like a thesis by Einstein in comparison.
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@ethang5
Take it easy.

Omg I can't take it easy I am TOTALLY FREAKING OUT right now and there you are telling me to take it easy? I can't believe this is happening I just cant I just can't. How could this be happening to me I can't believe it I am so stressed out right now this doesn't make any sense oh my god oh my god oh my god this isn't real this can't be real this can't really be happening oh my god. I thought my credentials were perfectly valid but now they are being questioned and I don't know what to do this is just too much I can't take it what am I supposed to do? Oh god what is even happening what is even going on oh no oh no oh no oh no oh...
Salixes
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Yo atheist mopac, clear something up for us please. Were you insinuating earlier that I believe in some god or other because I read Plato or were you making an obscure reference to the historical debate on whether or not Plato believed in gods?
You can leave the Moped crap out for a start.

I'm not one to knock philosophy BUT I was alluding more to the quasi off the planet, "three men"  concept Plato came up with after scoffing a few mugs of hemlock one day. After drinking that stuff, (providing you don't cark it) you would be standing out from yourself looking at the world from the point of view of three different people. It's getting pretty close to the "imaginary friend"  affliction suffered by deluded God followers.

Correct me if I'm barking up the wrong olive tree, and you would probably know better but didn't Plato come up with some such sort of concept?
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@Dr.Franklin
You do know salix is literally the scientific name for the willow tree
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@WaterPhoenix
ok 
Discipulus_Didicit
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@Salixes
After drinking that stuff, (providing you don't cark it) you would be standing out from yourself looking at the world from the point of view of three different people.

I have never heard anything like this but if true it sounds like an interesting read. Citation?
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@ethang5
Yeah so he was talking about Plato like I said but not in the way I thought he was. I thought he was making a reference to The Apology (a written work by Plato purporting to describe the trial of Socrates) where Socrates is accused and convicted of being an atheist as well as other crimes all of which he denied.
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@WaterPhoenix
For years he was the poster known as Willows infecting the religion board on DDO. He is still there ready to jump out from under his bridge and assault anyone posting as a theist regardless of their post.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Omg I can't take it easy I am TOTALLY FREAKING OUT right now...
You freak out very well. Too bad this performance was too late for this years Oscars. Lol.

But your credentials are being questioned by association. You mentioned Plato, and Plato may have been a theist, ( he was a druggie anyway) and viola! Sal has found the reason you contradict him. You are faking being an atheist, like Plato!

Lol! Sorry, but its funny.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Yeah so he was talking about Plato like I said but not in the way I thought he was. 
Sal is not as educated or as intelligent as you are assuming him to be.

Since his delusion makes him believe he is %100 right, he doesn't need logic. Freed from the bounds of having to be logical, ol' Sal can say pretty much any idiotic thing.

And afterwards he answers no questions about his idiotic comments, so, win!

My guess is that this is his loony preemptive strike on Plato because he saw me write that there is less evidence for the existence of Plato than for Jesus.