The worst argument you've ever heard

[Redingold]

Prepare yourselves, this has video.

...Yep.

So he completely ignores the concept that, according to the Theory of Evolution, we evolved from monkeys which by stereotype eat bananas like mad, and thus would've evolved to hold them better?

I'd daresay that the banana's themselves would have evolved to be more easily accessable by monkeys.
The following is just speculation on my part, but it is probably backed up by evidence somewhere.

Being that monkeys would love to eat fruit as it is high in all the good stuff, they would eat whichever fruit is the easiest, and most packed full of nutrients. Bananas would fit this category. Why is it advantageous for the banana to evolve to be easily eaten?
It's possible the seeds survive in the digestive tract of the monkey, so when the thing defacates, the banana seed has a very viable growth medium, and is also likely far away from the original banana tree from which it grew.
So any banana that could not be held as easily or opened as easily, likely fell short from the tree and did not have as much survivability as a banana which possibly traveled miles and is given a growth medium.

All this being said, I don't know if banana seeds survive the digestive tract, nor whether or not that is their main method of allowing their offspring to survive. Merely an interesting hypothesis.

Bananas don't contain seeds.

The real reason that bananas appear to be designed to be eaten by humans is that they were.

They were designed by artificial selection over a period of hundreds of years that turned the natural banana, which looks like this [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Inside_a_wild-type_banana.jpg], into the one we see today, with its ergonomic shape that so baffles Ray Comfort, and containing no seeds.

 

[Arakasi]

Prepare yourselves, this has video.

...Yep.

So he completely ignores the concept that, according to the Theory of Evolution, we evolved from monkeys which by stereotype eat bananas like mad, and thus would've evolved to hold them better?

I'd daresay that the banana's themselves would have evolved to be more easily accessable by monkeys.
The following is just speculation on my part, but it is probably backed up by evidence somewhere.

Being that monkeys would love to eat fruit as it is high in all the good stuff, they would eat whichever fruit is the easiest, and most packed full of nutrients. Bananas would fit this category. Why is it advantageous for the banana to evolve to be easily eaten?
It's possible the seeds survive in the digestive tract of the monkey, so when the thing defacates, the banana seed has a very viable growth medium, and is also likely far away from the original banana tree from which it grew.
So any banana that could not be held as easily or opened as easily, likely fell short from the tree and did not have as much survivability as a banana which possibly traveled miles and is given a growth medium.

All this being said, I don't know if banana seeds survive the digestive tract, nor whether or not that is their main method of allowing their offspring to survive. Merely an interesting hypothesis.

Bananas don't contain seeds.

The real reason that bananas appear to be designed to be eaten by humans is that they were.

They were designed by artificial selection over a period of hundreds of years that turned the natural banana, which looks like this [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Inside_a_wild-type_banana.jpg], into the one we see today, with its ergonomic shape that so baffles Ray Comfort, and containing no seeds.

Facinating. Thanks for the information.
Though yellow bananas do contain seeds, just non-functioning ones. Apparently.

 

[Emperor Nat]

Most religious arguments are stupid. Largely, I think, because the people who are arguing don't fully understand their own religion.

This. I'm a Christian, and unashamedly so, but a lot of theology is far more nuanced than the layman often presents it to be. Things like "God wrote the Bible" are the obvious ones - it's vast oversimplification of the doctrine of divine inspiration. The problem is people don't understand divine inspiration and think that God literally sat down and wrote the thing on paper and handed it to someone.

OT: Along the same lines, any argument based on someone misunderstanding someone else's religion.

More specific than that...?

Well, I was once in my A-Level Classics class taking part in a class-wide debate about whether Tiberius was a good Emperor or not. My point was that although he executed people to get hold of their money, the crushing financial problems in Rome sort've justified it. (This isn't necessarily accurate, but I'd been assigned the 'pro-Tiberius' by the teacher.)

His response was

"But you're a Christian, you shouldn't defend killing people."


...


Well, his point is valid on a day-to-day basis but it doesn't in any way impact the validity of my arguments in this academic/discussion environment. Also, ad hominem means you lose the argument. :/

I can't really pin anything else down.

 

[timethyfx]

"Oh, but [homosexuality] is unnatural and unnatural things are bad! You tweet from your micro-computer that you carry around in your clothes while sailing at 30,000 feet traveling at 500 miles an hour in an aeroplane. Homosexuality is found in over 1,500 different species on this planet. Homophobia, now that's unnatural."

-NerdCubed

I don't think that any argument against homosexuality has ever made me think, "Hmm, yes, that is very logical and I think I will reconsider my views on that topic.".

Prepare to be amazed with a logical argument against gay marriage, not so much homosexuality itself, but close...

http://qntm.org/gay

The gist of it is, some poor soul has to rewrite the entire back end system for how the 'marriage database' would work. - Depending how it was initially setup of course.

It would require some basic knowledge of how SQL works to 'get' it and it is more about explaining SQL concepts using marriage as the example database then an actual 'argument'. It also goes way beyond gay marriage, but is the best I know of.

Now my post count is rising far too rapidly... back to lurking before it his double digits.

 

[Strazdas]

"... but the book was way better." It drives me crazy. Movies are their own thing. Books are their own thing. If a movie sucks, the book can't make it better and vice versa.

yes, they are seperate, this does not mean one cannot be better than the other. if the guy enjoyed the book more, let him.

The problem is, most of the people I know that say it aren't even into all that religious/spiritual stuff so what higher power are they basing this insane notion on?

laws of physics. everything does happen for a reason, its just often the reason is very simply explained without any deity. we dont actually have free will. our combination of electrons defines our personality. and if you think you can "change it" your wrong, your combination accounts for your ability to think that, it already decided.
and this changes nothing. the world doesnt collapse. we still remain who we were a minute ago. its just that claiming about free will is ludicrous when you examine it. and yes we can still prevent bad people form doing bad and all that, but that is all caused by many many things, its not some chaotic random occurrence. its just that the cause determinants are there in the millions and therefore effectively processing it all is pretty much impossible for our intelligence.

and im sure someone is going to quote me as the worst argument, thank you.

 

[Lucky Godzilla]

People who argue for prayer in schools in the U.S.

These are usually very right wing, very christian, very fundamentalist sorts. They don't think it through though.

Trouble is, these same people would probably also be the *most* disturbed by finding out that islamic and hindu and all sorts of other prayers would then also be allowed in their schools. What would they think of their kid coming home and telling them about how they want to pray to mecca like their cool new friends in school do. hehe. Or they want to be a witch like the cool girl sarah and prance around naked in the forest. They somehow seem to think that the right, if they won their argument, would only apply to their religion. The way it is now probably helps them more than anything in regards to their kids, it keeps them isolated from competing religions that use all the same tricks to recruit people that their religion does.

I'm an atheist and it almost makes me want to support prayer in schools, just to see the fun ensue. I wonder what scientologists do? The only disturbing thing to me would be the time it takes away from education. But we already have a lot of that w/sports obsessions and straight up busy work.

So anyways, to bring it around to the main point, is that the very people arguing for prayer in schools would probably be the most offended by it were it actually implemented.

Same goes for me. What I especially hate about this argument is it goes right in the face of separation of Church and State. The Church (or religious advocates in general) should have absolutely no say in what gets taught in a STATE funded school!

 

[Joby Baumann]

Worst argument ever heard? Anything on the escapist.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Someone made a post on facebook about how children die every day in other countries but nobody cares unless it is in 'Merica. I said something about how children in Africa die every day from various causes, and some guy replied "were those children in Africa in a school?". He got me there.

 

[Andre Rapp]

Wow, I actually have a video game related one. I have heard many bad arguments, but nothing ever compares to what comes out of the Bioware community, but the one that stands out the most is where someone on the forums claimed that being spawn camped by Sith players made the game "more immersive". That one had me laughing all week.

 

[krellagh]

Mitt Romney "I will create 3 million jobs by being tough on China" This was during one of his adverts, I still really would like to know how this was going to work.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

"________is subjective so you can't say that its qualities are bad."

This is a straw man point I hear a lot in the defense of video games and music. There are objective traits to everything and using the subjective opinion defense is a lazy way of saying, "but I liked it so there."

 

[TheBlueShotgun0]

So according to this guy, if you are indiffirent towards something or like it, and then find out something really bad about it, or something bad that can come from it, you should still be indiffirent/like it.

So you only just found out that guns can kill people? I'm sorry, but if we're talking about bad arguments, that ranks pretty high.

OP: My friends are pretty rational when engaged in a serious argument, so I don't have many bad ones. The worst in resent memory was when BlOPS the first was coming out and a friend argued that the zombie mode was pointless because World at War already had it. Never mind the new maps and guns.

 

[Savo]

This isn't probably the worst argument that I've heard in my life, but it's the one that's sticking out to me in recent memory: Ask atheists/non-believers/agnostics/other similiar groups where the universe came from. Not trying to start something, I'm not even religious, but that one has led to some jawdropping levels of bullshit in my experience. And before anyone says it, I am aware that religious responses to this question often lead to bullshit as well.

"________is subjective so you can't say that its qualities are bad."

This is a straw man point I hear a lot in the defense of video games and music. There are objective traits to everything and using the subjective opinion defense is a lazy way of saying, "but I liked it so there."

That one is pretty interesting to me because I've been thinking about it some lately. I fall on the side of "it's subjective" in most cases. There are objective qualities, such as the skill required to play complex instrumentation in music, or bugs in video-games, but when it comes to most everything else it comes down to what individuals like. I have heard people try to logically prove one story is objectively better than another and it's kinda ridiculous.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Pretty much anytime I hear people play specifics I really get irritated.
You know, when people say stuff like:
"Technically, I didn't say THAT."
Shut up.
We both know what you meant, and now you're trying to backpedal.

And while I'm still on the subject on stupid arguments, we've all seen stupid youtube (show comment) arguments but this one just boggles my mind with how long it is.
I actually clicked all of the "show comments" to see how long it was.
it started a month ago
and the latest reply was made 13 hours ago at the time of my posting.
Maybe some of you have seen worse but I have NEVER see a youtube argument go for this long.

Here's a link to the video if you want to see it for yourself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U09JW5r3F10

 

[Ezekiel T Bluff]

anything someone ever said against transgender

I'm sorry, but I simply can't watch anything without smellovision. It just feels awkward...

EDIT: Sorry I just realised i used the wrong qouote. Ah well.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

You understand that the second amendment is there so the people can protect themselves against their own government if it becomes a tyranny right? That's the entire point of it. How is that at all antiquated or pointless?

Because I am willing to bet a reasonable sum of money that less than 5% of people buying guns are buying them so they can protect themselves in case those exact circumstance arise and yet will often quote the 2nd ammendment as the reason they should be entitled to one. It's not that the point of the ammendment is off (even if I'm preeeeeetty sure there was something about how they needed to be updated periodically which hasn't happened in centuries) it's that people aren't using it to support that argument.
They also generally aren't in a militia.

And? The second amendment is still there for the reasons I said, and it's damn important reason. There's no need to update it. If a government turns into an oppressive regime the people have a means to fight back. Simple as that. All these arguments about hunting, practice shooting, collecting guns or 'just because I can' or whatever other stuff doesn't matter. If they want to do that, go for it, but none of that is what the amendment is about in the end, and you'll notice how very few in the media ever talk about what it's really about.

OK, so, just so I'm clear the right to have guns (which once again, is when you are a part of a militia, which is a pretty important part of the f*cking ammendment) supercedes the obvious legal issues of providing someone with a gun? It is an entitlement that cannot be changed in case of the hypothetical scenario where the U.S government becomes a tyranny? Is this the position you are advocating here, that it's too important to consider tweaking? Ignoring the fact that the constitution is meant to change every few years and this very addition about guns was added in the third re-write?

 

[Tyler Trahan]

"I would prefer to hit a person with my car than an animal. At least the human knows better than to run in front of a moving car!"

I literally went lightheaded and thought I might pass out for a second. I was...so..so angry when I heard that

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

This isn't probably the worst argument that I've heard in my life, but it's the one that's sticking out to me in recent memory: Ask atheists/non-believers/agnostics/other similiar groups where the universe came from. Not trying to start something, I'm not even religious, but that one has led to some jawdropping levels of bullshit in my experience. And before anyone says it, I am aware that religious responses to this question often lead to bullshit as well.

"________is subjective so you can't say that its qualities are bad."

This is a straw man point I hear a lot in the defense of video games and music. There are objective traits to everything and using the subjective opinion defense is a lazy way of saying, "but I liked it so there."

That one is pretty interesting to me because I've been thinking about it some lately. I fall on the side of "it's subjective" in most cases. There are objective qualities, such as the skill required to play complex instrumentation in music, or bugs in video-games, but when it comes to most everything else it comes down to what individuals like. I have heard people try to logically prove one story is objectively better than another and it's kinda ridiculous.

The only way a story could be objectively better would be if one of the compared stories lacked character development or time consistency.

I take more ire at the fact that a lot of people will pull the subjectivity card when defending something video game related that is objectively mediocre due to stuff like poor controls or bugs that crash the game. That drives me up the wall because they act as if saying a view on a game is completely subjective when it is quite obviously not.

 

[legend of duty]

Knives cannot kill

 

[Beautiful Tragedy]

deleted text

wow where am i today? I read that as HAD not heard sorry