Adrian Peterson

This is just a giant Charley Foxtrot. Not to mention he won't be eligible to be to do anything till 1 month after free agency when most of the market is dried up if they wanted to try to trade him. Isn't the guaranteed money also kicked in by that point. So unless the Vikes want to keep him for next year they will pretty much have to cut him. As I promise no sane team will trade for him and that monster contract.

ESPN - NFL: Arbitrator rules NFL can keep Adrian Peterson on exempt list while he appeals suspension - Reports

Of course, these arbitrators know where their bread is buttered.  They do the same thing for banks and other major corporations.

Goodell gets to choose the arbitrator for the appeal too. 

I really don't feel that great about it either, but we do have to play the Bears in Week 17. 

But I agree. Time to accept it as is and move on. 

I hate Goodell and his NFL. What a joke.

OFF TOPIC: The following commentary has nothing to do with Adrian Peterson and is entirely about my reasons for being a non believer in response to King James recent comment about non believers. I personally have nothing against King James, I wasn't offended, this isn't an attack, and it's not a rant. He's in fact one of my favorite personalities on the board, and I enjoy reading his posts xD. I just felt the need to explain a few things that he brought up about being a non believer, from my own POV. We can even move this to the Off Topic section if anyone thinks it's out of bounds. But we're all adults, and I think it's fairly tame xD. Enjoy!

As a non believer, I'll try to field this one in a way that hopefully doesn't offend, and maybe helps a believer understand this particular non believers point of view better. Again, not meant to offend or get into a religious debate, I just want to partly explain what has led me down the path of non belief without going into all the little details. And keep in mind I grew up Catholic, in a go to church every Sunday type family, so I've been exposed to enough religion throughout my life. But even as a kid religion never made a whole lot of sense to me. Naturally skeptical I guess xD.

You say it's not to late for me to give my life over to god, but which god should I give my life over to? Yours? You say it as though you're 100% certain your god is the 1 true god. What makes you so certain you've got it right? What about the billions of people who are 100% convinced Allah is the 1 true god? Why should I take your word over theirs?

By some estimates there are over 10k religions in the world, all with their own belief system, holy books, rules, and teachings. Heck there are some 3k flavors of christianity alone. Despite believing in the same god they can't all agree on what he desires. Which one is correct? How do you know it's correct? How do we know any of them are correct? As flawed as humans are, maybe everyone got all the clues wrong and there's a very pissed off frustrated god out there with no followers? Maybe if he/she weren't so shy and lousy at leaving clues, maybe most of us wouldn't be doomed to begin with am-I-right? And yes, no matter which god turns out to be true (if any) most of the world already believes in the wrong one. Religious or not, chances are you're an atheist to the one god that might matter.

I often ask myself, why does this god command so much of our attention anyway? Why is an all powerful being so needy? You mean to tell me he zapped a bunch of insignificant beings into existence just so he had something to shower him with attention and tell him how great he is? Sounds kind of narcissistic to me. That's certainly doesn't seem like something worthy of worship. And despite wanting all the attention, he spends his entire existence hiding from us? What sense does that make? Seems kind of childish.

But maybe Zeus is the real god? How do you know? How does a believer believe in one particular god and religion while dismissing all others? What's the standard? How are they eliminated? What's the piece of evidence that makes you say, yep those are all BS, but this one's totally legit? Because that's the one you were born into? Because that's the one that was beat into your head since before you could think for yourself? Catholicism was beat into my head before I could think for myself. Which religion you believe in seems to depend greatly on which part of the world you were born. And it seems to depend greatly on which one your parents grew up with. Why don't parents expose their children to a variety of different religions and let them decide for themselves which one they might think is more believable? And hoow come Jesus never reveals himself to Muslims, or how come Allah never reveals himself to Christians? Again, just more things I wonder about. I would expect to see more of one or the other if one of them were the true god. But you just don't see a whole heck of a lot of followers suddenly switching teams on either side. That's more indicative that neither are true.

The only difference between a non believer and a believer is a non believer just believes in 1 fewer god. That's it. I reject all gods, and you reject all gods but 1. Why does your scrutiny stop at the 1? All religions sound completely ridiculous and made up to me. All but 1 sounds completely ridiculous and made up to you. I've yet to hear 1 that even seems plausible. Scientology, Mormonism, Christianity, Islam. All equally ridiculous to me. And to each one of them, all the others are ridiculous. None of them match the reality of the world I see. None of them sound like they were truly inspired by an all knowing all loving infallible being. No, they all sound like they were invented and written by flawed greedy patriarchal beings called man. That's the conclusion I come to. I see no reason to believe any of them, and I see no reason to take Pascal up on his wager. I'll continue my non belief until some religion or god comes forward with more compelling evidence. If I'm honest with myself, non belief is the only logical position I can take after sifting through all the available evidence.

The only thing I'll mention about the bible is it coincidentally only has as much information in it as what was known by 1st century Middle Eastern man. Most things in the bible have been proven wrong by modern science. It's nearly wrong on just about everything it mentions. The bible has a flat earth in a geocentric universe. How does a being with a birds eye view of the whole thing get that wrong? It's exactly the kind of mistake you would expect if it were written by people who knew very little about the world around them at the time, but tried to make sense of it anyway. It makes perfect sense to me in that context, and only in that context. When nearly everything in a book has been proven wrong, I see no logical reason for anyone to accept any of it, much less base their entire life around it. If anything else in your life were as consistently wrong as the bible, you would flat out reject it without a 2nd thought. Oh except Fox News, lots of people still watch that for some reason xD. Sorry I couldn't resist 1 Fox News shot haha. That Bill O'Reilly, what a loon.

But when you think of an infallible all knowing all loving being do you think of a petty, vain, jealous, vindictive, deceitful, vengeful, homicidal, egotistical, sexist, incestious, homophobic, genocidal being who's obsessed with our genitals, sex, and what people do in the privacy of their bedroom, and gets off on infanticide, blood, and the scent of burning animal carcasses, like the one in the bible? Or does that sound more like the very flawed traits that primitive man would project onto a god?

And the bible contains nothing useful for modern human beings and way too much stuff that pertains to the way man lived in 1st century Middle East. I can only conclude the bible was written by man with 1st century prejudice, not a timeless all knowing all loving infallible being concerned with future generations or other cultures.

The evidence tells me all gods were made by man, not the other way around. God(s) were made in our image. What sense does it make for an immortal god, outside of time and space to have any of the organs we humans possess? Every organ and system we have serves a function that aids us in survival, reproduction, and propagation. None of which a god needs to concern himself with. Why does a god need lungs? Does he need to breath? Just name an organ and wonder why a god would need it. Why does a god need reproductive organs? We either look nothing like god, or god is a terribly flawed being with all kinds of unnecessary bloatware. Think about it, long before he decided to create us for his amusement, he was out there floating around with a digestive system he didn't need. I'm a non believer because I have too many questions that no religion has been able to satisfy.

However, I am willing to change my mind if the proper evidence were to reveal itself. Sadly I don't think that evidence exists because if it did, we would have seen it by now, and there would only be 1 religion in the world today. 10k different religions tells me nobody has a damn clue what's true and it's all been made up as they went along. When they had a disagreement, you ended up with a new branch of religion. 10k disagreements later, you have 10k different religions. That's where the evidence takes me. That's what makes sense. And if there is a real god out there, he doesn't seemed to be all that concerned about setting the record straight while all of his children sit down here killing each other over what they perceive his "truth" to be. Human beings should be in galactic child protective services with such a neglectful father.

But hopefully I didn't offend anyone. My intent was not to seem judgmental, just to offer my perspective as a non believer, or explain how I arrived at the position of non belief. Sometimes I think non believers or atheists are unfairly misrepresented or characterized. We simply don't believe in a higher power and somehow that makes us broken or untrustworthy lol. I don't get it xD. Believers tend to think we just hate god or worship satan, or that we just want to spend our lives sinning. For me it just boils down to lack of evidence. I reject all religions based on the lack evidence they've presented thus far, but I'm always open to the possibility I could be wrong. I'm just waiting for the proper evidence.

The only time I have a problem with believers is when they get elected to congress and try to pass laws intended to affect my life based on their beliefs. Yeah I have a big problem with that lol. Believe what you want to believe, but don't try to force it upon me too.