Yet again, Kage brings you another thought provoking piece, that challenges people to think. We’re talking about Jesus resurrection.
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdaleneand the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4 The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
5 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”
8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Matthew 28 1-10
So, this is the story of the resurrection. Very uneventful, minus the whole angel thing. The crucifix story is better detailed than the story of his return from the “dead”.
So what of his death? Well, Jesus in his time frame was a pretty healthy, early 30 year old man. This dude walked from Jerusalem to galiee in brutal heat. No small feat.
As a capital punishment, very little but adectoal evidence exists for such, but many have recreated it and most, baring a few exceptions, survive.
So what can one say about a form of torture that is hyper survivable? Odds are, Jesus really did live. Does that make him the son of God? No, not necessarily. Sure, by biblical times, survival of such was impressive, but than again, so was living pass birth. Shit, getting into your 30s was more impressive than surviving the easily survivable. Even more impressive, how Jesus didn’t get tetanus and die of lock jaw.
If we look at the two accounts, one has the skeptic Peter having touched Jesus’ hand, feeling an abrasive scar. Last I knew, the dead don’t heal. You have to remember though, nearly everything killed you back then. Lack of diligence on corpses was a major problem up to the 1800s. The term “saved by the bell” came about in that time frame, because science sucked so bad, living people were occasionally buried alive.
If you take all of this into account, what you have is a mostly true story, minus an angel, that doesn’t even have a description in the Bible, barring revelations, as to what that even is. So it could have been a non hostile person that came to see Jesus.
Did they quake in front of the angel? Sure, but so don’t criminals in front of the police, so maybe we shouldn’t put too much stock into human emotions that can be caused in so many ways, to see a humanoid being as a mythical creature.
So let’s recap, so everyone in the back can understand why arguing the resurrection is a dumb idea for refuting the bible.
Easily survived capital punishment? Check!
Healthy and young, mildly athletic man? Check!
Ineptitude on ancient cultures to understand death? Check!
Healing factor being fine? Check!
All the ingredients to make the story plausible. by today’s standards, one would have to survive leathal injection to be that impressive.but that could never… oh wait,
And this dude wasn’t Jesus, so all I’m saying is that when it comes down to the religious debate, it might be time to start looking at other ways to refute the story of Jesus.
Coming on the heels of my last essay on Atheism and intelligence not being corroborated, I have a new underlying thought, which is that those who prefer action movies are more intelligent than those who do not.
If you know anything about intelligence, it is thought that those that have it, tend to handle complexity better. A complex thing is defined as 1. More than one part. 2. Something more difficult to comprehend. We’re going to use both to make my point.
Anyone that knows even a small bit about directing knows that a scene is comprised of multiple shots. Usually a master shot, on tv this is the hard camera and then multiple shots around that, which on tv is floor men walking around that you cut back and forth between.
Most movies would therefore have a small amount of complexity and consistently keep a similar pacing. An action sequence can contain up to a thousand micro shots all compiled to make up a few short minutes of film. Therefore we can conclude that if only intelligence people can handle complexity, action movies would be preferred by more intelligent individuals.
Furthermore, less intelligent individuals often have people bents. So something that is more character driven, would be preferred by less intelligent people. These movies often feature more exposition, also known as “talking”. Essentially, the movie with excess speaking is doing your thinking for you. There are exceptions to this rule, though. World building comes to mind so that we understand a world rules, so we believe it better.
To follow up with the above, if a movie features more exposition, it’s no longer a visual movie and movies are a visual medium. A part of full literacy is understanding context, especially visual context, also known as emotional intelligence. If lower literacy rates equate to lower intelligence, then that, too, would suggest that people who prefer action movies are more intelligent.
So the next time you feel guilty about putting in that Micheal Bay 4k transfer, remember that it just might make you more intelligent.
So one of the arguments in favor of Atheism is that Atheism is the default of the mind. If atheists are the default, then that means atheism is primitive. Religion and those that gravitate towards it would indeed be smarter because it is evolutionary novel, not evolutionary normal.
Given books and literary rates would not have been very high in its time frame, those that were able to read religious scrolls would have been of a higher intelligence. Granted, by today’s standards, the Bible is written at a 7th grade level, so it’s not a high of a standard to set for more intelligent people, but given that the average US adult is barely at a great literacy level, just being at to read the bible is still too high of a burden for most. Source
If we also factor in that most arguments against the Bible are based on informal hearsay, not actual biblical text, the literacy rate of the average atheist is just as bad as a person of low literacy rates in a religious context.
Let’s look at one argument that permeates the atheist preview and that is how incest-y the Bible is. If one had bothered to actually read the text, they would have noted two things. 1. Incest is considered sexual immorality. 2. Two of the parables, which are noted in the Bible as parables, deals with the negative consequences of what would happen if one engaged with such negligence. A lot of atheists depend on informality to make such erroneous, non sensical claims, so the swamy narrative of the atheist movement is an insidious tactic, use to undermine peaceful people. That’s borderline narcissistic personality disorder as well, but so digress.
While not 100% true of all atheist, enough of them are leftists. If we look at the fact that using your government to take from others to give to others, that is one more tick on the evolutionary normal scale. Hard work would be evolutionary novel. Theft is primitive and less intelligent people engage in such.
Already we have two major factors that would see atheist as less intelligent than religious people. They’re two of the biggest elements, though. Are there less intelligent religious people? Of course, everything has its blind spots, but much like actual blindness, that too, comes in different levels. When a majority of people do even know Jerusalem is technically Africa, and all that separates it from that is an arbitrary line, can you really see Atheists are smarter than their religious counterparts?
Not knowing where Jerusalem is, borderlines anti-semitism.
As far as I am concerned, not knowing where Jerusalem is, borderlines antisemitism. Antisemitism is often associated with less intelligent beings.
When one looks at the facts, and I’ve barely even scratched the surface of primitive trains of thought that atheism delves into, I think one can conclude for themselves that Atheism is filled with less intelligent people.
So we have all seen the videos for the most part, someone, normally a man, has his camera running and records a celebrity signing an autograph or multiple of. Maybe he has a kid nearby and ask little Jimmy to help secure the autograph. No harm, no foul, they knew what they were asking for the second they signed the dotted line. Except for one little problem, everything leading up to the signature is a criminal act on the part of the fan.
So let me break this down as to what we just witnessed happening before us. First we have causing an individual distress. You’re a stranger, stopping a fellow stranger to ask for a signature. I’ll give you this, the distress part is part of all of our daily lives. You never know who is who, which is why I conceal or open carry my gun.
That said, though, how about false pretenses? Asking for an autograph with intent to sell is a false pretense. If I went up to a random stranger and said I was homeless and needed money, this is a crime unless it was true, because I got the money under false pretenses.
How about we up the ante. Extortion by cellphone. You think it’s crazy, but how about going viral for being human and not having time for autographs. Next up on TMZ, celebrity refuses poor kids request for an autograph. This is no different from robbing a bank with a gun in today’s day and age.
Speaking of children, besides false pretenses again, you’re violating child labor laws. You’re making them wait in line or dealing with someone they don’t know, causing the child distress. If it is your own child, you’re still an asshole.
So already we have three potential crimes happening at once and with anyone else, like your or me, these are indeed crimes and prosecutions could be possible. Yet, if you’re famous, it’s another day at the office. No one says that about police work, if they take care of a criminal off duty or an emt saves a life at the bar.
Why do we make this distinction between the famous and non famous alike? I think we as a society would be far better off if we all took a step back and saw the autograph as a criminal act and an impediment to someone’s day.
I’m not saying that none of these people could be genuine in getting the autograph, but the lack of respect for a fellow human being, by making them sign a dozen things at an airport, is making me think otherwise.
I’m not saying autographs should be banned entirely, just that it should be illegal to ask for one outside of a signing event. If you go to wizard world conventions and get one, good on you. If you got VIP tickets and it comes with those, cool. But on the street corner, at airports, restaurants, hotels or otherwise, I think you’re over stepping your bounds and it should be considered a crime.
INTRODUCTION: So I have zero recollection of this movie coming out in 2008. It seems like a cheesy b movie flick, that ripped off the SAW.
PLOT: Dude gets sent to prison, gets out and hunts down the jury that placed him in jail.
ACTING: Very good, but still not at the A liist potential. You’ll remember most the faces from various other movies and tv shows, but not a single actor is a major notable.
WRITING: Not bad. Not a single bit of cringe.
FX: Nothing new under the sun
STYLE: Works for the film but looks dated
TENSION: enough to work for the movie and keep you intrigued, but the payoffs aren’t there.
CONCLUSION: This movie has and interesting premise and when it works, it works. Sadly, it relies too much on being a cliche horror movie that wasted it potential to be a really great movie. The ending is especially anti-climactic.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here my mine and mine alone. I’m just opening up about how I did at gambling. I don’t recommend following me or anyone else’s advice, because there is no substitute for your own thinking and there is no such thing as an expert in this ”field”.
INTRO:
If you’re reading this, good on you. You’re already a gambler! I don’t like to gamble much, it’s never overly been my thing, but every once in a while, there was nothing like a fun bet, such as wearing a tshirt that says loser or some other lite bet that made the fuss around sports a little more interesting. Well, DraftKings is now THAT fun little bet you and your friends made, but more often. Since DraftKings has been allowed back in Maine, I decided to give it a go. I’m pretty good at picking winners in sports when I have no investment, just a random tweet, but will that translate onto DraftKings for fiscal gain?
INTRODUCTION TO GAMBLING
The first time I ever played the lottery, other than my mom allowing me to occasionally scratch her tickets for her, was when I was 18. We went back over to New Hampshire and I picked up the power ball for $1.00. I played 4 12 7 8 6 or something similar to that since it was a combination of mine and my ex girlfriend, from when I was about 11-12 ish, birthdays. Spoiler alert, I lost, hence the website and being a writer still at nearly 40. The relevance of this story is that sports gambling and lottery are very similar and a lot more than you think. If you understand the lottery, even poorly, you’ll understand this.
The basic bets you’re going to place are money line bets. This gives you odds for two teams and a number that will be negative or positive.
A negative number is an odds on favorite to win. The lower the number the more likely.
A positive number means that the team is less likely to win.
I know this is confusing, so let’s go back to pre algebra in middle school. If you recall, your teacher most likely gave you a worksheet that had a number line on it. 0 was a neutral number. Much like money, if you add +2 to +5 you get +7. Conversely if you add -2 to -5 you get-7. If you add -2 to +7 you get +5
Sports betting uses this simple principle to let you pick a team. The more you place on the long shot, the more you win. Why? Cause the house always wins.
Palays are like pick three that allow you a round robin option, but cost you more since you’re placing more bets. A parlay can be two outcomes or more, but both have to come up in your favor to win. I’m not a big fan of these, especially because my first time on the app, I accidentally made a parlay bet, thinking I was saving my receipt of my bet. Lost out on $30 dollars.
One of my favorite teams when I was younger, The Carolina Panthers, lost. They ruined my accidental parlay.
This is all we’re going to focus on. Since a lot of the other stuff is mostly bs in my mind. Like bidding on who gets the first touchdown? That’s like asking who made rain. You’ll drive yourself mad at the philosophy surrounding it.
The other reason to ignore it is that, even though being Pete Rose is frowned upon, players still probably play attention to the odds against them. All of them? No, but I’m sure more than enough. You also have to remember that these people get paid to play, not make us gambling folk rich. Tom Brady doesn’t care if he tossed to Gronk or someone else, so long as it gets in the end zone. If someone was to have told him he often tossed to Gronk more often than not, this could provocate Tom to reverse his strategy and put someone else in the end zone. Not because he doesn’t want you to double your money, but because he wants to double his own. Betting on these bets is like asking a random chick on the street to flash you. The majority of us are getting shut down.
So since we got those two things out of the way, let’s look at my record. I’m evenly matched at about 18 loses to 20 wins. It’s almost a 1:1 ratio. Given this is sports betting, I probably should not be this neck and neck. We’re going to go over what constitutes a win vs a lose and how to treat sports betting as a decent way to make money.
Winning means, traditionally that everything went in your favor. That said, in sports betting a win can be a short term gain, even if the team doesn’t pull out. DraftKings gives you the option to cash out before the outcome of the game. One such time I should have did this was with the Vikings. last minute and the other team wins by one point. Seriously? I cashed out too early on another game and left a small amount of money on the table, but still more than I like. Unlike your typical minimum wage job, unless you’re fired or die, you’re not going to miss out on an hours worth of work due to a dickhead misshap like that.
So, my personal thoughts on cash out is two fold. First, don’t treat it like stocks and cash out cause your team isn’t winning. It’s difficult, given it’s your money that you’re losing.
Second is to wait until it’s worth pulling out.
These seem to conflict, so I’ll elucidate on it.
The SA Spurs play well, but they have a record of choking at the end. This habit has cost them and me too much. Since DraftKings let’s you cash out, keeping this in mind would be a good Idea not to get greedy and wait til the end. If you doubled your bet, you’re winning.
The other is that in certain games, like the NFL, you’re not down until it’s 1:51 in the fourth quarter and the other team is at your 5 yard line. Then you’re probably going to want to cash out. Could your team turn it around? Sure, the 2004 Red Sox did, but you don’t know your team is the 04 Sox’s until you know it’s Tessie time.
TL;DR Basically don’t get greedy. It’s ok to just double your money after two quarters and pay the safe bet tax of leaving some money on the table instead of losing it all, just don’t do it out of fear.
A long shot bid that I’m glad I could not cash out of.A long shot bid I did cash out at the last min as a precaution, leaving about 0.30 cents on the table. Small price to pay to walk a winner.Other times you cash out because the refs were in the pocket of the other team and cheating by Michigan state should not have been tolerated.
PICKING TEAMS:
When it comes to picking teams, we all want to cheer our favorite, but our favorites aren’t always the best and don’t yield a result. Case in point, me bidding on the Orlando magic over the home region team with the best record.
When I was younger I didn’t like really watching sports. I didn’t like the home region teams either. My favorite part of sports was shooting hoops in my backyard or tossing a ball around with family. I also liked collecting sports cards to make money on.
DraftKings is like collecting sports cards for adults and much like in my youth I don’t want to just settle for the home region teams because they’re very good teams outside of your region.
Most my alternate teams were southern when I was a kid. Loved the panthers, loved Orlando. My taste changes with the NHL. Liked the Sharks and the mighty ducks based team. When it comes to the MBL I was pretty much a Red Sox only guy, but I did rock a Cleveland Indians jersey in my teens, but mostly as a Drew Carey Show reference.
As an adult, we can’t be petty localists. We have to accept that some teams are, actually better than our own. It’s more likely to rain diamonds before most sports fans will admit this fact, but those of us that want to get a consistent payback from sports betting can be better than that.
My teams in Football this season
Cleveland Browns
C. Bengals
These teams were always meat and potatoes in my youth. Nothing special, but they played well, just never likely to advanced to a major game. In the last couple of years, they have drastically pulled around and look great. Except for one weekend, Ohio has been very good to me when it comes to payoffs.
The Bears and Packers each gave me a win and much like Ohio, they are solid teams that win.
My NBA Teams
Orlando Magic has been my best team so far. I like the Cavilers, who would have won me a good amount had I bet on a few games that I could not, due to financial restrictions. I also like the Bulls, who are having a horrible season, but have historically been a very successful team, along with the lakers. Also, obligatory “Go Boston!”.
My NHL Teams
NJ Devils
B. Bruins
SJ Sharks
Ann. Ducks
While not playing the best this season, each team has always been solid.
MLB Teams
B. Red Sox
Yankees
Cle. Guardians
As three of the best teams to look at. Yankees suck over heah if you’re a New Englandah. They always play well though. Personally, I think Ohio gonna hit the 2024 series this year.
TL:DR when gambling look for teams that play well and have had an overall brand that has been well established for years.
WHAT TO GAMBLE ON:
Even though the devil’s won me 22 bucks, hockey has become terrible. When I was a kid, games were often like the NY Rangers. 7-12 games more or less always happen. Now it’s nothing happening until quarter three and someone gets lucky. Sports betting should not be like your high school sex life, when you get lucky that one time. I don’t like hockey betting. Would not recommend it.
NFL is good. Games are tough, but give yield to less random results, barring injury. It’s possible to build a strategy on gambling here.
NBA is great for quick games and making money early on, but so far, while I’ve done well enough to keep playing on DraftKings, my NFL bets have produced better money.
POINT SCORES:
I personally do not like point bets. Yes there is a pattern and I have made those bets, but let’s look at one of my best days for sports guesses.
Called 7 out of 13 that is about a 70% hit ratio
If we look at me trying that in basketball with scores, which are typically under 225 total points, well…
Worse than the Hindenburg disaster
I got absolutely zero right. Thankfully it was just a buck. I highly do not recommend that.
SPREAD
I’m not experimenting much with this, so I don’t really have an opinion on this.
CONCLUSION:
Gambling can be exciting and rewarding. With some luck, maybe you can turn it into a full time job. These are just my personal opinions on where I think I dropped the ball with my own and maybe someone out there can benefit by catching themselves before hand. Always play responsibly and remember that it is about fun at the end of the day and bagging on people on Twitter.
Best in Your Girl 