Chat about anything thread. (believe, difference, baby)

[L8Gr8Apost8]

Originally Posted by badlander

In the late 70s my late mil would send us both Awake and Watchtower, but cannot remember which was worse. I stopped reading them when an article stated that dogs do not have a soul and because they die it proves that God and Heaven are real. My dogs have made up better stories in an attempt to get treats and they could not speak. 😀

The Awake was considered the milk and the Watchtower is the spiritual meat. You know, really drill down the the deep waters of understanding with that Watchtower, provided of course, you were spiritually mature.

[L8Gr8Apost8]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Has anyone else ever noticed that the black, female singer, Sarah Vaughan, and the white male singer, Wayne Newton, sound exactly alike?

Yeah, and it seems like you never see them together.

[Northsouth]

Originally Posted by L8Gr8Apost8

Yeah, and it seems like you never see them together.

Haha that's funny I'm going to switch gears for a minute - long story short as one of my friends says ad nausea I became friends with a cool atheist like me online and it went very well at first and then out of nowhere he attacked me with his leftist bs and attacked Presidents that I have known and loved in my lifetime - I'm obviously a right conservative but once we had the "political talk" it was over - BIG TIME. Should something like that get in the way of an otherwise cool long distance relationship?

[L8Gr8Apost8]

Originally Posted by Northsouth

Haha that's funny I'm going to switch gears for a minute - long story short as one of my friends says ad nausea I became friends with a cool atheist like me online and it went very well at first and then out of nowhere he attacked me with his leftist bs and attacked Presidents that I have known and loved in my lifetime - I'm obviously a right conservative but once we had the "political talk" it was over - BIG TIME. Should something like that get in the way of an otherwise cool long distance relationship?

what did he say? I'd say no politics should not get in the way. I'm finding out things I didn't know about some of my friends over this. They're still my friends even though certain things we'll argue on but we've always found stuff to argue about before anyway.

[mordant]

Originally Posted by Northsouth

Haha that's funny I'm going to switch gears for a minute - long story short as one of my friends says ad nausea I became friends with a cool atheist like me online and it went very well at first and then out of nowhere he attacked me with his leftist bs and attacked Presidents that I have known and loved in my lifetime - I'm obviously a right conservative but once we had the "political talk" it was over - BIG TIME. Should something like that get in the way of an otherwise cool long distance relationship?

Only if you let it.

I was married previously to a woman who was a believer at a time when I was exiting the faith, and it was in no way an impediment to our relationship. Not that it couldn't potentially have been ... but, it wasn't, as she chose not to be threatened or upset by it. Probably because our relationship was based on mutual respect rather than ideology.

Now of course if he truly attacked you then he's letting it get in the way. Just be sure it was attack and not disagreement.

I have often reflected that what would have been problematic in my prior marriage wouldn't have been so much that my wife believed things I didn't, as if she used the difference in belief between us to be a jerk or as a cudgel to try to change me. That's the real problem. So in a way, differing religious or political beliefs are a good thing in that they can surface character flaws that wouldn't otherwise be obvious.

[jacqueg]

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

I'd assume Issue five for the year. It reminds me of the glossy Mag issued by the old BCM Ambassador radio fundamentalists after their end of World Predictions failed to materialize. The "Plain truth" (which as you might expect was full of lies) infested the News -stands for several years and vanished in 80's I suppose they have morphed into some Creation ministry or other.

Oh boy does that bring up memories - driving across endless Kansas at night and hearing "The WOOOOOORLD tomorrow - what it WIIIIIIIIILL be like!"

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by Northsouth

I became friends with a cool atheist like me online and it went very well at first and then out of nowhere he attacked me with his leftist bs and attacked Presidents that I have known and loved in my lifetime - I'm obviously a right conservative but once we had the "political talk" it was over - BIG TIME. Should something like that get in the way of an otherwise cool long distance relationship?

Shouldn't this have begun...."Dear Abby,"?

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Shouldn't this have begun...."Dear Abby,"?

LOL

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by jacqueg

Oh boy does that bring up memories - driving across endless Kansas at night and hearing "The WOOOOOORLD tomorrow - what it WIIIIIIIIILL be like!"

Great days I'll say it worked in that I sent for their stuff. (Still got it somewhere) and I thought it irrational and improbable. Two apologetics at the time that I recall was -If you believe the universe happened by chance (or something like) "I do not respect your intelligence". I thought that if it came about by a big invisible humans with no origins waving a magic wand, I didn't respect his, And Tyre "Let them" (scoffers and atheists) prove me wrong - let them go to Tyre and rebuild it! God says they can't". Well at the time I thought 'He knows we're not going to do that, so he won by making something very unlikely to ever happen the proof atheists need to provide'.

Of course, later I found out that Tyre had been rebuilt (1)and I used that when my visiting JW came round five years later, also showing the 'circle of the earth' was a flat circle and the Nebuchadnezzar statue didn't work. Anyway back to "The good News of the World tomorrow!!" which turned out to be bulldozers shoving thousands of corpses into open pits (What's the Bad news I wondered). Anyway, as I say, I made the prediction the make or break. It came and went and they vanished from the airwaves and morphed into "Plain Truth" Magazine disgorging into UK society trough the London newsstands, along with the other Truth publication full of lies - Pravda. And I, after a look into the occult decided that was all nonsense and fakers. One suck -in free astrology reading I sent for resulted in such a blatant and clumsy mix of cheap flattery, a flurry of vague guesses he hoped might hit lucky and an offer of a more detailed reading which of course would cost me, Nuff sed, that I saw it as a scam as blatant as any televangelists money -trawl.

All this time I had never believed - just been 'Searching'. And I attended various talks where I watched one lot of Theosophists sitting with fake smiles to show how wonderful it was and a muslim peddling the 'Peaceful conversion of Java' apologetic. And around this time I had an odd 'deconversion' experience, reading the Upanishads on a bus, and thinking "This makes as much sense as Christianity" and a mighty weight lifting. And in the end after looking at Sufi, but not really not caring for the Islamic trappings, I opted for Buddhism.

Well, this wasn't intended to be a potted precis of my autobiography and memoirs "The Wonderful story of my Fantastic life", but since I started, I'll finish...What with Buddhism, my discovery of symphonic music leading me to the social scene at the promenade concerts, London, and getting a flat there, plus my interest in archeology. got me interested in the East where the 'ancient civilizations' were still going on, it seemed. So I started travelling as a Buddhist which pleased them no end in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Burma, but not in Java.

Shortly before my Miracle of selling my Flat just before the housing Bubble burst and what I got for it bought me a house which I needed before Mrs Arq could get a residency permit, I had some Mormons doorstepping. So I read the book and got some some books out of the Library, which told me about the Mormon trail, the growth of the religion, the move to Utah, the armed defence of Utah and the dropping of Polygamy to get statehood. And explained next visit that there were some slips in the book that convinced me it was made up, and related some of the history that showed it was all a made up religion. The reaction was the same as JW's and all the rest - trying to argue and, when they couldn't, asking me to pray for god to convince me, and when I wouldn't be brainwashed, snatching the book back and snarling (just like in Kissing Hank's Ass (2) "If I'd have known, I wouldn't have wasted my time!" Which is why I say "Don't ever invite them in - they seem to take this as an unwritten agreement that you will convert in the end". Keep 'em on the doorstep.

It wasn't until the Internet (3) that I began to make contact with other unbelievers -I thought of my self as unreligious Agnostic - I bought into the idea that Atheism was total denial, but Agnostics were open to the possibility of a god - and signed on my first Forum - getting my hands slapped about misunderstanding atheism. Since then I have been atheist and rejected suggestions of another name. Harris and Tyson etc. are wrong. Changing the perception of atheism is the answer - not the name. The baggage that goes with it, including the bad rap - is what Believers dump on it. Their doing, not ours. We will lose far more than we gain by pretending we are not what we are.

I am an agnostic atheist - as distinct from agnostic theist. I am not a 'Bright' which is an elistist bit of propaganda, nor an "Agnostic" which really means non -religious Theist. Atheism is the best description of what I am and I like being it. Don't, fellow goddless bastards, Perdition - meriting pondslime and Hellbound satanspawn, fall for this "call ourselves something nicer- sounding" initiative. Sure - use agnostic. in dealing with believers - because they know that (or rather translate that) as a "God -believer...not really born again, but give it time". That isn't what it means at all but it takes the heat off. But we can't buy into it ourselves, or we'd just have to explain what, as 'Agnostics' that really means and we'd be right back at square 1 - having to adopt 'atheists' so as to avoid the 'Agnostic' confusion.

Don't let Harris and Tyson sell you this 'agnostic' stuff. They are thinking politically, not logically, and that's fatal to a bunch of rational skeptics.

(1) and not that long ago we learned one of the two 'Don't fall for that' lessons. "Let atheists rebuild Tyre", and 'Let them make life in a laboratory'. A couple of apologists learned that Tyre had been rebuilt (Paul went there) and the apologist here thought we Had made life in the laboratory. But of course they just refused to accept the proof the atheists needed. "That isn't Tyre rebuilt - it's a DIFFERENT TYRE!" and 'You may have made life in the Laboratory - but that doesn't prove that was how it happened back then.' These arguments are not serious debate - proposing evidence we need to provide; they are ways of pricing the proof atheists need out of the market. And if we stump up the price, they default on the sale. These people are made utterly dishonest by the polemic methods of their religion, so never take what they say at face value.

(2) and worth posting again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaFZQBb2srM

(3) I predict that -should the age of Global irreligious humanism happen, it will be the Internet that History says was the reason why,

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Has anyone else ever noticed that the black, female singer, Sarah Vaughan, and the white male singer, Wayne Newton, sound exactly alike?

There's a huge difference. Like me, Sarah Vaughan is a Jersey Girl. Wayne Newton is not.