Strega

Ha Unseen!  What is the minimum number of cats I must have to make my above post grammatically and logically correct?

I’m favoring “Don’t worry, be happy” now, even if it’s necessary to get a bit bigger a pebble.

Murder carries by definition a wrongness. You cannot use the word without its embedded negative judgement.  It would be like having a commandment that said “Do no wrong”.  Those Christians who think the correct interpretation should be ‘murder’ rather than ‘kill’ completely miss that point.

Just think of all the time and resources that could h…[Read more]

Half my cats are at war with each other.  A good thought experiment enabled me to work out where to put the cranky ones so they never meet yet still have access to all the house.  I worked out how to inspire each of them to go into the room designated when the time came to revolve their presence without them encountering each other, and without h…[Read more]

Hey Dang, that sounds horrific – both deaths you experienced.  I’m not sure I’d have responded as delicately as you did to the nurse, mind you.

i always found it bizarre that there needed to be a commandment not to kill.  It’s as if the Jews wandered about happily stabbing anyone that irritated them – until this majestic revelation occurred to stop them.

Wow Robert that was a brilliant description of how it feels to be in a hurricane!  I almost feel I can cross it off my bucket list now!

Seriously mate, that sounds horrendous. I hope you and your family can get repaired and up and running as quickly as possible.  And yeah, this is where god comes in – it’s the fear factor that amplifies the b…[Read more]

Harris uses the tumor as an extreme example because he has less argument for fates inevitability – some of us here do subscribe to the position that everything that happens, happens inevitably due to previous events, and that humans may have no true say in how they behave.  The position that Harris is trying to start from is the same – a person…[Read more]

The person committing the crime is not responsible because fate made him do it?  Maybe.

It doesn’t matter, because in the vilification of the criminal behaviour, the collective of people benefits in reinforcing the sense of what is and is not acceptable behaviour in the group.

Punishing the hapless criminal is a useful tool for moral cognizance.

I’m not an ex Christian- I never had to escape.  However, I spent my life in London when I wasn’t globetrotting.  If someone in London told me they’d pray for me, I’d hear it as if they’d said they’d say a little magic spell for me.  Most Londoners would. A bit weird, but whatever floats your boat.   You just smile a little and move hastily pas…[Read more]

You cannot keep babies out of ovens.  You have to start with that precept.  After that, I would consider that the perpetrator would probably put the baby in the oven under a different perceived reason if they had no religion.  When you scratch under the surface, most religious atrocities are actually atrocities using the cover of religion.  W…[Read more]

Enough off topic now to call it so.  Can we please get back to Unseen’s starving rhino?

The last time I checked, having a delusion does not put one on the list of persons with mental disorders.  It puts one on the list of persons who have a delusion.

So many of our members reached atheism via ‘fire and brimstone’ – their stories always touch my heart.  I don’t know whether it might have been different for you if you’d been with gentle Christians- and as long as you have found a worldview that suits you, I’m happy for you.

The major thing I like about the atheist communities, is they don’t go…[Read more]

Guilt-driven death cult.  I like it.

Dang, what an upbringing!  I can’t imagine what itt must have been like to plunge into 20th century America’s schooling system without knowing about their religion.  Up until then, how did your parents handle Christmas and Easter?

Physter I don’t think I can imagine what it was like to come from a fundamentalist background and arrive at atheism.  Did things just drift away from reality for you, or was there a radical awakening?

I had categorized God and Santa together, and angels were grown up fairies when I was a child.  When I stopped believing, I stopped believing in a…[Read more]

@bellerose Atheists just want to look like they have elite knowledge?  Wow that’s a weird position to take!  Is that really how you view all atheists?  That’s a bit tragic really.  When you thought you were an atheist, did that make you feel you had elite superiority?

Personally, I think all the god stuff is just bum fluff – I don’t think of it…[Read more]

Oddly, I think fear has a lot to do with the levels of religiosity any community might display.  If you are in America, your first fear is that your health will not be protected.  Many Americans live one accident/illness away from bankruptcy- an insidious fear that permeates everything and having a pal in authority, or praying to a god if you p…[Read more]