Rage-Inducing Moments of Ignorance and Stupidity

[Lunar Shadow]

"The theory of evolution is totally wrong, we came from God, we didn't descend from monkeys!"

"So noone likes Obama, can we impeach him?"

"Abortion is killing babies!"

"Obama is not a capitalist"

*Me mentioning some guy who carried a gun to an Obama rally, who showed in support of him* *Some dumb whore:"That's a total waste of bringing a gun!"*

"I'd totally vote for Palin"

(EDIT:The discussion later in this thread reminded me that some idiot once said "Hitler was a communist".)


I live in Alabama, so these moments happen often, and it has become less rage inducing over time. It probably helps that I'm forced to go to a crazy fundamentalist Baptist church too. Most of the idiocy comes from the far right religious fundamentalists and other far right nuts. There's a couple of vegan hipsters that annoy the piss out of me but they're not half as quote-worthy.

I will vouch for this as a fellow Alabamian (Currently in Auburn so I am not as much in the stupid as I was) this happens far mote often then I care to admit.

 

[Treblaine]

This one girl in my class today asked if Argentina was located in Texas. When we told her it was in South America, she was surprised and said "I didn;t know it was a country!". She's not known for being smart at my school, lol.

Wouldn't it have been funnier if she said:

"But.. Texas is in the south of America... so is it in Texas or not?"

The smart response would have been:

"oh of course ARGENTINA. Sorry, slip of the tongue, I meant Argenia or Arlen-tina... a name that sounds like Argentina but in Texas, I'm not all that familiar with it."

 

[Olrod]

This other time I asked my friend what kind of trees spaghetti grows on...
There's an explanation:
I was young.
The other day I had seen that Jimmy Neutron episode where the two friends fight over this and it must have confused me because I knew pasta didn't grow and I remembered this before my friend realized what it was I had asked.

It's a famous April Fool's prank from long ago...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_tree_hoax

 

[Treblaine]

My Grandmother one flatly said to me as a child (when I had a great interest in dinosaurs) that "don't be ridiculous, dinosaurs never existed, such fantastical creatures could not possibly have ever existed"

 

[MattZero]

I had a religious friend who was an absolute gold mine of brazen stupidity.

Two things I had to argue about until I wanted to kill him.

He got into the Young Earth movement in high school. [snip]

That's a shame. There are a number of better ways to argue for creationism that have originated over the years.

In general, it's too bad that a lot of Christian laymen feel the need to seize on what they deem sensational scientific proof instead of sticking to their faith and a few general observations.

I make him sound overly stupid in this post which isn't really my intention because over the course of knowing me he did eventually drop these sorts of arguments in favor of logic based ones that's just not what the thread was about.

 

[Agayek]

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. IS THAT HITLER ON THE FAR RIGHT? I can understand confusing communism and socialism, since they're on the same side of the spectrum but HITLER IS ON THE FAR RIGHT, A FASCIST, ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM. HE HATED SOCIALISTS.
/rage

Not to mention the two on the left and center were communists, not socialists.

The Nazis were originally the National Socialist Party.


Also, one shouldn't really bring left/right up with this. There's about 30 billion different definitions (with the most common form of the political spectrum existing in 2 dimensions). The left/right spectrum most people use in the US is completely retarded, because they're just replacements for "Democraft"/"Republican", who are extremely similar in the vast majority of political viewpoints.


Also also, Communism is a form of socialism. Anyone that claims otherwise is a moron.

Also also also, it's up for debate, but there are some decent arguments that WWII German policies were more in line with an extremely distorted form of socialism than fascism.

 

[The Youth Counselor]

I was a teacher's aide and counselor in an elementary school (Hence my handle).

While on a field trip, we somehow started discussing pomegranate juice with the parent chaperones. I started to share a story I've been told myself. While in high school, one of my own counselors informed me that was all he drank while doing his tour of duty in Iraq as infantry in the Army. Since pomegranates are native to the Middle East, he could buy large jugs priced at five cents a gallon. That's one of the things he misses after returning home, because POM is five dollars for a small bottle.

Then the mother one of my most troubled student asks, "Where's Iraq? Is that in California?"

Keep in mind. This was two years ago. We are Americans. We also live in San Francisco where war demonstrations happen monthly.

 

[Treblaine]

Internet forum sophmorism.

1. You write something.

2. Some kid who thinks forums are for arguing skims your message and misinterprets what you wrote in such a way that they can find something to argue with.

3. You explain to them that there's nothing to argue, they just misunderstood what you wrote.

4. Because they only skim your messages, they misinterpret your clarification as a reply to the argument they are attempting to pick, and test their creativity in finding somethings wrong with it so that they can "win."

5. Step 3-4 will repeat itself endlessly until:

6. Raging, yet worn down by the sheer wall of ignorance and stupidity, you break down and tell them that you already clarified several times and, if they can't get it, they're obviously just too immature to understand you, and should stop pestering you for clarification.

7. Other party gets offended at your refusal to pay attention to them anymore and tries desperately to bring things back to stage #4.

8. Next thing you know, you're slapped with a probation by a forum mod who does not understand the personal hell you've been through.

True story. Granted, #8 usually doesn't happen, but I've found myself in 1-7 repeatedly over the past few months.

Oh someone screen cap this post for posterity.

(note the probation tag on the bottom)

 

[Treblaine]

Then the mother of my most troubled student asks, "Where's Iraq? Is that in California?"

Teh Terrorists have already won!

 

[WhoaItsBrett]

In a history class of mine a while back we were talking about Current events and what not.
Someone brought up the Swine flu vaccine, which then led someone to ask "How do you get swine flu?" I was about to answer his question but before I could, someone chimed in with a "you get it from eating a type of pig, A Swine Pig."

 

[DanDeFool]

This one's kind of fuzzy; it happened a long time ago when I was in bible study, but I think the gist of it was like this.

Bible Study Teacher: And the lord created the heavens and the Earth.

Me: But what about evolution?

Teacher: Well, sometimes the devil tells us things...

Me: So the theory of evolution is the product of the devil?

I don't remember getting a straight response to that last question.

 

[Riven Armor]

Tis.
Welcome to the Escapist

Thanks.

I make him sound overly stupid in this post which isn't really my intention because over the course of knowing me he did eventually drop these sorts of arguments in favor of logic based ones that's just not what the thread was about.

Ah, good for him. Some people just like to double down if they get burned.

 

[The Youth Counselor]

This one's kind of fuzzy; it happened a long time ago when I was in bible study, but I think the gist of it was like this.

Bible Study Teacher: And the lord created the heavens and the Earth.

Me: But what about evolution?

Teacher: Well, sometimes the devil tells us things...

Me: So the theory of evolution is the product of the devil?

I don't remember getting a straight response to that last question.

I only went to Sunday school while I was eight years old. But we would get the wrath of God for asking questions like that.

 

[chstens]

Most comments on youtube make me cringe.

you're going to fit in well here. Welcome to the Escapist.

OT:

Anytime somebody posts this picture:

Spoiler: Large image, ignorance might melt your brain

As a socialist, knowing that socialism is an ideal based in pure democracy, this makes me cringe. Sometimes, seeing somebody use it to represent the socialist ideology will make me feel legitimate feelings of depression for around an hour.

Stalin and Mao were communists, and Hitler was, well... I guess he kinda started out with socialist ideas, but it became something COMPLETELY unrelated, but I don't think I really have to tell you this.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

One time in my high school government class we watched a movie called 1776. It's all about the founding fathers of America doing what they did, blah blah you know how it goes. Catch is, it's a musical. During one song, a student suddenly asks "I don't get it, did they actually sing?" The entire class was speechless.

Oh, and this kid had also been to juvy, and went to juvy again for selling drugs. I'm really hoping he was on something when he asked that question.

 

[Scrythe]

I've had a teacher (a Catholic) tell the class that "The Da Vinci Code is nothing but an attack on the [Catholic faith]!". So I asked him, "Have you even read the book?". He shut up real quick.

Recently, I was in an indoor paintball arena and some random guy came up to us and conversed for a while. After feeding us all kinds of bullshit chestpumping stories of him in the military, he starts to berate one of my friends for having his safety off. Problem was, it wasn't. After arguing about if back and forth for a few minutes, the guy grabs the gun from him and flips the switch. "There, NOW it's on safety". So my friend takes the gun back, and without breaking eye contact, shoots several times into the ground.

 

[Exocet]

I keep telling off my friend because he thinks its ok for him to drive drunk,and he brags about it sometimes.
I once even had to make him into giving his car keys by force and beat him up for them because he didn't see the logic of NOT driving drunk on New Years eve when every cop in town is out to rake in DUIs and lots of people in the streets.

But the thing that pissed me off the most was when he said one of his friends drove drunk and crashed on a roundabout because he didn't have time/forgot/was too drunk to turn and went straight on it.
"But it's not the booze that made him do that" he said,"he was also using his phone,that's what made him crash,not the alcohol".
He was sober when he said this ridiculous bullshit.
Needless to say,I refuse to go in his car when we go out.

 

[mr-fix_it]

this is not from my class but a girl in a friend of mine's school suggested
"that they should draw the sun in its real size on the soccer-field."

 

[evilartist]

Two words: Fred Phelps