Christians think they have all the answers.

Well, real Christians think that. Some of us go shopping for other gods, which is nothing new. As kids at Boy Scout camp, we used to sing this song, ‘If I Weren’t A Boy Scout…’ It’s all about these other jobs in the world. So the second half of the line would be something like ‘a trucker I would be.’ And it would go on from there. We never sang it at church camp. I wonder what it would be like if we did sing, ‘If I Weren’t a Christian…?’

As a lifelong Christian, I’ve sometimes wondered what it’s like to be a part of another faith group.

I’ve often wished I had a second life, an alternate lifetime that I could waste, a life where I could squander the most precious moments by saying something hilariously inappropriate while taking my ‘real’ life seriously. This is one of those instances where a second life would be ideal. I’m not really in the market for a new God, because I picked right the first time, of course.

But if I did have an alternate life, I can tell you, there would be plenty of religions I’d briefly dabble in and eagerly try to recruit my friends to, before realizing that they did not meet my immediate needs and made me no happier or wealthier after 2 weeks.

If I Weren’t a Christian…

An Atheist I Would Be!
Atheists like to paint Christians with a broad brush as being a bunch of gullible mush heads who can’t deal with reality. They need a teddy-bear God to cuddle them because they can’t deal with the often high levels of suckitude in life. Religion is the opiate of the masses, to quote some guy.

But I think atheism is the ultimate comfy armchair religion. Just sit back, take everything at face value, and be accountable to no one! An atheist gets to be his own boss…well, at least in his mind, which is everyone’s dream. Plus you get to criticize and persecute everyone else’s religion, while vehemently insisting that you are one of those ‘friendly’ atheists. You don’t get that being an agnostic. You already know I am quite talented at being cynical and critical while seeming as friendly as a lost puppy. Seems like a natural fit.

A Muslim I Would Be!
Some people need rules, structure and discipline. That’s why boot camp and juvenile hall exists. Islam also offers a true life of discipline, while Christians throw around this stuff about, ‘It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship.’ Christians are skipping down the yellow brick road, holding hands with Jesus while Islam offers a manly, self-reliant religion. You want to get saved, you gotta do it yourself with your own bare hands, like a real man, like MacGyver. The women know their place too, and they never forget it either…mostly because the ones who did forget aren’t around anymore…

An American I Would Be!
I love Americanism. It’s kind of like Christianity, but there’s no church attendance required, no money being ‘embezzled’ from the members, and really, no rules at all! Just a lot of, “God bless America!” Watching your choice of televangelist twice a year is encouraged to help keep the appearance of peity while speaking with church-going friends, but is not required. And it comes with the same assurance that those radical Baptists have that “Jesus” will solve all your petty, insignificant problems. Plus, you get a boat when you become a member, I think.

A Scientologist I Would Be!
I just think that would get a laugh at a party. “Hey you know what would be hilarious? If we became Scientologists.” It would be like that time I told everyone I had joined a bowling league.

A Cultist I Would Be!
Cults are a great way to make history. We live in an increasing anonymous, homogenized world, and dang it, I want my 15 minutes. If you want to join me, bring your blue windbreaker, a whistle, your copy of Super Mario Bros. 3, some snacks and orange pop and meet me in my parents’ basement.

A Unitarian I Would Be!
Seems like being a Unitarian would be a good way to network, which is paramount to doing business. In my alternate life, I’d be running a Bed and Breakfast / dojo with my wife. She’d be running the B&B, of course.

A Mormon I Would Be!
Momons seem like a cheerful bunch, but I think I’d last about 30 seconds as a Mormon. I’d show up to the first meeting and I’d be trying to be really really nice. It would go something like this:

Me: (really toothy smile): “Brother Tobias, it’s so good to meet a new brother in our Mormon Lord and Savior.”

Tobias: (even toothier smile): “Well Brother Matt, I’m so glad that…”

Me: “I’m sorry, I can’t do this…I can’t go the rest of my life without being critical of something. I think you should call security to escort me off the premesis.”

I think Mormonism rests on one’s ability to never criticize anything. If my aptitude for niceness didn’t crack, they’d find me out anyway.

Yeah, there’s a bunch of religions I wouldn’t try. They’re fine, they just wouldn’t be for a me. What about you? What religion might be fun if you weren’t so concerned with truth and salvation and free donuts and all that stuff? Was anyone out there a part of a different faith before becoming a Christian? What was that like?

Have a great weekend being Christians, everyone!

Welcome back everyone!

I say that because it’s been a bit lonely the last few days, and I’m narcisisstic enough to assume today is your grand return. Sunday was slim, as I’m sure it was in many of your churches. The last few days have been lonely in blog-town too. You were all probably spending your weekends at The Lake. I know this, because the only people who have made their presence known to me the last few days were not at The Lake, they were taking breaks from their honey-do lists! I never knew what it was like to skip church to go to ‘The Lake’ because I’m a preacher’s kid, and we of the P.K. club know nothing of Lakes or season tickets or other such means of ‘alternative venues of worship.’

Well I don’t know who gave you permission to go to The Lake and miss out on all the award winning* blogs that were written over the weekend, but you’ve got some make-up reading, my friend. So get comfortable, make sure it looks like you’re working, and do something important: read some blogs.

On Sunday, I preached about Jesus healing a man with a shriveled hand, or some such thing. Snore. God only knows what kind of drivel I said, because no one was really listening, because no one was really there. Well I really blew it. I missed a golden opportunity. If I had known (which I should have) that I’d be talking to myself in church, that message would have looked a whole lot different. A whole lot different…

Sermons I Should Have Preached

Deuteronomy 23:1: He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.

Look, churches are suffering because they have such low requirements for membership. You’ve got to draw the line somewhere. If the line isn’t here, then who else will you let into church? Hippies? Democrats? Guys who wear sandals in winter? We have to stand up and say ‘this is the line,’ you have to meet these requirements to be in fellowship with us. For some churches, you have to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. For us, the line is if you’ve been kicked in the crotch more than five times, or comically fallen onto an outdoor stair railing more than three times, we’re just not sure you’re our kind of guy. But there’s a Unitarian church down the street that will probably take you.

Genesis 38:8-10: Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform your duty as a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife, he wasted his seed on the ground in order not to give offspring to his brother. But what he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD; so He took his life also.

We were told in our public school sex ed that this wasn’t a viable means of birth control. You’re also at risk for numerous venerial diseases, plus there’s the risk of getting smitten by God. Abstinence is the only way, kids, the only way to prevent being smitten. God can see what you’re doing in that car. If we don’t warn our kids, who will?

Judges 3:21-22: And Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly. And the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not pull the sword out of his belly; and the dung came out.

The Bible is certainly an earthy book. So many rich textures. If you are a king, and you are entertaining a foreign dignitary, it is so important to get a good night’s sleep, eat a healthy breakfast, and put on clean underwear, just like Mom always told you to. You just don’t know how your day is going to go.

2 Kings 2:23-24: From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. “Go on up, you baldhead!” they said. “Go on up, you baldhead!” He turned around, and looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

Those were the days. You ‘eff with God, you get mauled. Short and sweet. That used to be all there was to preach about! If I were Elisha, I’d have sent two ninjas to maul the youths. Elisha just stays all quiet and whispers a curse under his breath and leaves. But then the music changes, and these two ninjas jump out of the bushes and flip out on everyone! These days, God has so many people He needs to sick bears on, and the bear habitats are so threatened, you sometimes have to wait months after the fact for your mauling.

Next Memorial Day weekend, just wait. The three of you who show up to church are going to get a sermon to remember.

Have you ever heard sermons on these verses? What would you name the sermon for one of these verses? What’s the most obscure Bible passage you’ve ever heard a sermon on?

Happy Memorial Day!

Our national day of remembrance for our fallen soldiers and their families begins the summer season of civic holidays and three day weekends. There are lots of ways of celebrating our long lazy days off work, and it can be difficult to squeeze everything in unless you know what you’re doing. Here’s a few places, events and ways to celebrate you need to get ready for this summer:

honey-do: noun: A menial task asked of a husband by his wife, which initially seems small, inconsequential, and well within in his skill level, but invariably turns into a massively frustrating project entirely outside his skill level, leaving the entire three-day weekend obliterated. “Honey, would you do one small thing for me…”

garage sale: noun: The activity of placing one’s garbage in neat organized piles in front of the house, sans garbage bags, creating a cardboard sign to alert others to the presence of one’s garbage, and then charging neighbors money to haul garbage away. Garage sale season officially begins on Memorial Day. “Thank you for cleaning out the basement, honey. Wow! Looks like it’s time for a garage sale!”

church: noun: Repository of garbage that failed to sell in local garage sales. “No one wanted to pay a quarter for a box of old exercise videos.” “Just take it to the church. They can use it for youth group or crafts or something.”

rummage sale: noun: an event that happens when a church accumulates enough unsold garage sale donations. “Let’s go to the rummage sale. We’ve got room for a few things in the house since we donated that old sofa to the church.”

drinking: verb: An activity involving cheap beer deemed appropriate for enhancing any number of indistinguishable civil holidays including but not limited to: Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, New Year’s Day, Columbus Day, Boxing Day, Chinese New Year, etc. “Hey dude, sorry I wasn’t at church, we were up drinking all Fourth of July.”

Flag Day: noun: A holiday with no discernable purpose, except to fill the painful month long dry spell between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July with an apparently much needed excuse to drink cheap beer. “Are you stocking up on Bud Light or something? Fourth of July isn’t for two weeks.” “Dude! It’s Flag Day! Are you some kind of communist?”

cookout: noun: a pastime which is endowed with a particularly high level of masculinity, but whose masculinity drops with every vegetable or non-beef item involved. “Sweetie, I know the doctor told you to watch your cholesterol, so I made you a salad.” “Oh, thanks, but I just remembered we haven’t had a cookout all week! How about a steak?”

“The Lake:” noun: Any generic, crowded and littered body of water where suburban families go to spend an entire three day weekend having ‘family fun.’ “Sorry we missed the church rummage sale, Reverend. We were at The Lake.”

Vacation Bible School: noun: Any weeklong church sponsored activity put on by church members who are bafflingly unaware of the presence of “The Lake” or other suitable means to avoid volunteering, and who work under the delusion that attending children will somehow convince their parents to start coming to church at the close of the week. “This year’s Vacation Bible School theme is Boomerang Express! Won’t that be fun?”

amusement park: noun: A destination for parents who, blinded by their desire to give their kids “everything they didn’t have,” temporarily forget that their children are 5 years old, and will somehow not enjoy waiting 45 minutes at a time for rides in the hot sun while eating greasy funnel cake. “Hey kids, do you want to meet Mickey? Let’s go to the amusement park!”

patriotism: noun: The sixty seconds before a baseball game when everyone pauses, places their hands over their hearts and reflects regretfully on the five dollars they just spent on a sno cone. “Son, stand up and show some patriotism. You’re lucky we live in a country where I have the freedom to make foolish impulse purchases like this.”

educational: adjective: Any parental-mandated civil holiday activity intended to leave kids with a deeper appreciation for their country and freedoms, but usually results in deeper resentment for their country and parents. “Hey, you coming to the lake with my family?” “No, my idiot mom is making us go to a stupid museum about some dead soldiers. She says it will be ‘educational.’ If we didn’t have so many freedoms, I’d have more free time, because I wouldn’t be spending it learning about all my freedoms!”

Personally, I’m spending Memorial Day on number one, but we’re squeezing in just two cookouts today too! What about you?

Today is the last day of school.

Maybe not for you. I know there’s a couple of you who homeschool, so you probably checked out weeks ago. Not that it matters, since you managed to complete two whole grade levels in every subject last month alone. I digress…

The last day of school is a bittersweet time, and a time that as a ‘professional student’ even in my adult life, I have never let go of. There have always been lots of things I have anticipated or dreaded about summer vacation, and some of them have changed over the years.

Summer Vacation Means to Me…

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory…Again
Everyone knows that the last day of school is a government required waste of time and taxpayer money…which strangely makes sense, now that I write that out. There is no time for any learning, so the teachers usually play movies. When I was in school, the go to movie was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Oh, how my loathing grew lo those many years for Willy Wonka and his garish purple coat and that insufferable Veruca Salt. See what you homeschool kids are missing out on? While we’re jumping through government hoops, preparing for standing in line at the DMV as adults, you’re still learning!

Yearbook Signings
Ah, the yearbook, the awkward final handshake between two people who don’t have anything in common, will not keep in touch, and will repeat the whole process again at the end of the next school year…this is the true life lesson taught in school. Have you ever pretended to record someone’s number in your phone as they recite it to you, with no intention of ‘keeping in touch?’

Looking through my yearbooks, most kids summed up their thoughts about me with some variation of ‘Have a great summer,’ or ‘Stay smart!’ (Thanks for the tip.) A trend at that time was to write “H.A.K.A.S.” which meant, ‘Have A Kick Ace Summer.” I guess it felt cool to write a letter that stood for an PG13 word…kind of like drinking an O’Doul’s non-alcoholic beer…living dangerously.

However I could count on my best friend at the time to leave a memorable quote to remember him by. Like two brothers exchanging endless punches to the arm, our friendship as 13-year-old boys was largely based on toughening one another up through the age old ritual of constant harassment and making fun of each other. Playing off the tired ‘H.A.K.A.S.,’ his yearbook entry read thus:

Have a great summer, you pathetic loser. Not really, I hope your summer is boring and rancid. Mine will obviously be much better, except that it will end and I will go back to school and see you. Just kidding! Have a great summer, and keep in touch. (But for God’s sake, take a shower.)

You can see the seeds of who I am today were sown many years ago…

Sleeping in that first, sweet, lazy Monday
Just as the first rays of sun are peeking over the horizon on that first glorious Monday morning, some neighbor sees an errant blade of grass and just has to rev up his lawnmower at some ungodly hour. Doesn’t he know people are trying to sleep?

Well, that’s what I looked forward to as a kid. Now I get excited about…

Yard Work
I never imagined as a kid, forced to push a mower around my parents’ yard, that one day, I would grow up, get a college degree, get married, have friends, be able to legally drink an O’Doul’s, be a responsible citizen, and actually start caring about the grass growing in my yard. I mean, I knew adult life would be awesome, but I never thought it would be this awesome! And everyone knows, the wee hours of the morning are the best time to cut my precious, delicate grass.

Camp
I think camp is an important experience in a child’s life. As kids, we’d run around the house packing our things, bragging to our parents about how great it was going to be sleeping in the woods, getting covered in bugs, playing in the dirt, eating camp food, and we won’t be back for 10 whole days! Mom and Dad were always like, ‘And we can’t go with you? Darn it!’

Of course, as an adult, the joke is clear and I look forward to nothing more than having kids, raising them, and sending them out of my house and into the wild for two precious weeks each year.

The rest of summer is full of car trips, with Mom doing that thing with her hand in front of the air conditioning vent, asking, ‘Are you getting any air back there?’ There’s also backyard grilling, blockbuster movies, bad summer television, sun tea, and the saddest man in the world – the ice cream man. How could he be so sad, you ask, when he gets to listen to the ‘Monopoly’ song all day!

Finally, summer ends, and the last annual ritual takes place…

Drawing a blank on the the first back-to-school assignment, the ‘What I did on my Summer Vacation’ essay.
Summer was always a bit more dreary in the knowledge that whatever you did, it better be awesome enough to write down in a teacher mandated essay.

What are you most looking forward to this summer? What was your favorite thing about summer as a child?

I performed my first wedding last weekend.

All in all, I have to say it went pretty well. If nothing else, they’re legally married, so whatever else happened didn’t really matter. My wife was the Maid of Honor too, so that was pretty cool.

It got me thinking about our wedding a few years ago and all the traditions we wanted to have in our wedding; and traditions we absolutely wanted no part of. Thankfully, nothing happened at this wedding that left anyone uncomfortable, embarrassed, or soaking wet for any reason.

I was really pumped by your enthusiasm two days ago about Christian arguments that need to stop, for the love of all that is holy. So in the same spirit, I give you:

Four Wedding Traditions That Need to Stop

Postponing the Toasts
I’ve been to plenty of weddings by now, thank you very much to my wife’s Catholic family. Many of the weddings had an open bar, which made the prospect of a road trip and a full day down the drain a little more bearable. But for crying out loud, if you are going to have an open bar, then open the bar with the toasts to the couple!

No one postpones opening the bar until the toasts are ready to happen. People just start drinking. But that’s what a toast is for: to start drinking, in celebration of the bride and groom. So you’re going to tell the groom’s frat buddies, ‘Open bar! Oh, but not yet! Don’t drink too much until we officially start drinking, because it’s your job to make a toast so we can start drinking. Then it’s open bar.’

I haven’t seen more than a couple of best men who started the race before the gun went off, so to speak, but it was well worth it in memories.

The Garter Belt
My then-fiance and I both had a queasy feeling when we thought of me reaching up her dress in front of my grandmother, pulling off a piece of her underwear, waving it over my head like a rodeo clown, and tossing it into a crowd of people. I don’t know, something about that seemed a little weird.

So I did some research. Maybe there was a perfectly reasonable and dignified rationale for this age-old tradition that might give us pause before throwing out a meaningful part of the wedding.

Turns out that, no, there is not. Not in any way. However you try to justify it, you are pulling of your lady’s underwear in front of your grandmother, and waving it over your head like a rodeo clown. Unless you either want to make me queasy, or you plan on grinding on the dance floor to Sir-Mix-A-Lot immediately afterward, in which case I’ll take 2 Pabst Blue Ribbons, please let this tradition die.

Endless Engagements
I know you want the day to be perfect, but really. How long does a party take to plan? A party which, inevitably, will be enjoyed by everyone less than you. Six months is ideal. Nine is okay. A year is pushing it. If it’s been over a year, you are only giving him more time to have second thoughts. I can’t imagine a Christian couple wanting to postpone their wedding for month after month…unless…well, you know…they’re…

fornicating.

Get engaged, plan the party, grab your gifts, get it done!

Speaking of trying to have the perfect day…

Flipping Out like the girl in ‘The Exorcist’
I get it. You’ve been dreaming about your wedding day since you were five. You are a fairy princess and Prince Charming McCharmington will sweep you away on a white horse to your pink sparkly castle.

Guess what. You will never have the perfect day. You are not marrying the perfect man. Nothing about this day can ever live up to the warped imagination of a five-year-old girl. So quit flipping out about it like a five-year-old girl. A tear or two is okay once in a while. But there is nothing sexy about a bride screeching at everyone in her wedding dress. There is nothing entertaining about watching it on TV! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that precious few of those idiot grooms don’t have the stones to leave her at the altar! They were the ones stupid enough to propose to them and awaken their primal lust for tulle and sequence and butter creme. They probably think if they can get through this day without pissing off ‘the volcano’ too much, it will all be over. We’ll see…

The problem is that out-of-control brides don’t realize that NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR PROBLEMS. The most ‘important’ day of you life is merely a blip on everyone else’s radar. They are probably only showing up for the open bar, knowing how you treat others.

I told my fiance if she pulled a ‘Bridezilla,’ the wedding would be off. She agreed, and I agreed to the same on my end and be helpful. There was nothing in our wedding planning that was worth it. Ladies, please keep it under control. If you can’t handle the freedom of planning your own wedding, we may just have to go back to the old days when we married to forge international treaties. Love sounds better, doesn’t it?

I could go on, I suppose about traditions with buying the couple a showing gift and a wedding gift, or buying engraved wedding cake knives, but then I’d sound cheap. What wedding traditions do you shun? Which is your favorite? Did you do any of the above traditions and were they amazing?

I like to argue.

Maybe you’ve gathered that. I was on the debate team. I really am a nice guy, though. I hear that everyone in France just sits at little outdoor restaurants all day (at least on the four days a week they aren’t working) just arguing really passionately about nothing of consequence. Sounds like a nice place.

I don’t think I’m alone. Being a Christian and arguing seem to go hand in hand. However there are a few arguments that are just so silly, they ought to be retired.

I warn you. I may be about to step on your pet argument, your hill to die on. Well tough, I didn’t know it was your hill. Keep on fighting the good fight, though. Onward Christian soldiers!

Four Arguments Christians Should Stop Having

Didn’t God Create the Earth in Six Literal Days?
I ask: does it really matter if a highly poetic and simplistic passage of the Bible turns out to not be literally true in that one sense? I submit: it does not. Do we argue about what the water was that God was hovering over? Do we argue about how He created light before the sun? No. We argue about how long it took Him to do it.

Sometimes, when Christians feel they’re losing the argument for creationism, against evolutionism, they start talking about how the earth is only 6,000 years old. Or how God filled the earth with fake dinosaur bones to fool scientists. Please.

If you want to believe in a six day creation, fine. It could’ve happened, might not have. He could’ve created the universe by causing a Big Bang, for all I care. But please don’t tie yourself to theories that directly fly in the face of physical evidence. Dinosaurs existed. The earth is really really old. There is no scientifc observation of evolution in process, so you don’t need a ‘young earth.’

You just got Pwned.

Didn’t Jesus Turn Water into Grape Juice, Not Wine?
Coming from a Baptist seminary, I heard this one a lot. A few profs found it essential to waste a class period to give us ‘The Talk’ about alcohol, complete with proof that the word wine is actually Greek for Welch’s 100% Grape Juice (not from concentrate).

Doesn’t the Bible forbid wine?
No. Sorry. Every book of the Bible, save for Jonah mentions wine or winemaking in some way. It was a part of the culture Jesus lived in. Hundreds of winepresses have been found in Israel.

But what if everyone just drank juice?
How would they have kept the juice from fermenting? You’re in a hot climate with dust blowing everywhere and no refrigeration, it’s impossible to not make wine! My pasteurized OJ ferments if it sits in my fridge too long!

But I heard drinking was bad!
Well you actually heard getting drunk was bad, and that’s true. The Israelites watered down their wine, both to keep from getting drunk, and to purify the water, which would otherwise make them sick.

So yeah, Jesus turned water into wine, a normal part of his culture. And the parable isn’t even meant to emphasize the wine anyway, so quit missing the point. Look, have a glass of wine or don’t. It’s between you and God.

Now it’s on like Donkey Kong.

Aren’t We Saved By Grace Alone, Not Good Works?
Yes, even real arguments over theology can have their limits. People who like to argue about this one, many times also enjoy:

Don’t We Have Free Will, So How Could We Be ‘Elect?’
Or this…
Aren’t We Once Saved, Always Saved?

Guess what? I’m going to end these arguments right now. One: You’re saved by grace, so get off your bum and do some good deeds, and do it without expecting God to give you a cookie for every good deed you do. Two: Maybe we’re ‘elect,’ but that doesn’t give you an excuse to make God do all the work. Three: Wouldn’t it be easier to just not ‘fall away’ in the first place rather than wonder if we can fall away and still be saved?

Summing up the habits of the infinite God in the name of a 16th century Frenchman is absurd.

You just got served.

Shouldn’t Christians Just Stop Arguing and Get Along?
Okay, I’ll end this argument right now.

No, you’re wrong.

Christians steward something that is worth keeping pure, even by disagreeing with people who are wrong. People are always going to have stupid ideas about Jesus, and they’ll need a Christian nearby to give them a judo chop of truth to the neck to keep them in line.

Besides, are most Christian arguments really that bad? I mean, look at the Muslims. We got our Inquisition out of the way hundreds of years ago, and they’re still firebombing each other! Why? I don’t think they even know.

The next time some fancy-pants atheist calls Christians ‘brainwashed’ or ‘kool-aid drinkers’ or ‘sheep’ and calls himself a ‘free thinker’ to make himself look enlightened, just point out the rich heritage of arguments Christians have. Sheep don’t argue, tool.

The only ‘Christians’ who don’t argue at all are Mormons, and that’s why they aren’t Christians. At my Baptist college, there was a kind of pervasive scent wafting in the air that told everyone to agree at all costs. Someone didn’t give these kids the memo that they were Baptists. Trust me, you don’t want that non-argumentative Christianity. It was weird.

In your face, sucka!

But, pick your battles. Some of them aren’t worth it. And yes, I am aware of the irony that will almost certainly ensue as I spark more arguments over the above points by saying that the arguments are dead.

What’s your pet argument? What argument needs to be retired?