green

Bravo for pippinje! :whoo:

Chris, atheists are not necessarily anti-religion though it is true that we are often suspicious of religious extremists. We are fussy about separation of church and state; and of course we are very fed up with the suicide bomber gang. An atheist is, pure and simple, an individual someone who does not believe that God (or gods) exist. Generally speaking, until the internet came into existence, atheists were not organised in the way that believers have always been. Because we don't believe in anything we don't have temples or churches of non-belief. Many of us used to spend our days of unworship sitting around in our pajamas nursing hangovers instead. :heh: Now, I admit that I am awful curious: how were you harrassed by atheists?

I am an atheist and my attitudes are the same as those posted by Robgoblin. I believe that this life is it and that it is over when you die. I also believe that there is a logical/scientific explanation for everything and that those answers are to be located on this, the only plane of existence. With respect to the fear which many believers hold, the one that a trend to atheism will inevitably loosen the ties to kindness, generosity, ethical behaviour, well, that is a foolish fear. Humans are hardwired to behave well, to co-operate, for this ensures the survival of the individual and of the species. Immorality and crime rates are not higher in the Scandinavian countries, countries which report a high percentage of atheists in their populations. People do not have to be threatened by eternal damnation in order to behave in an ethical and civilized fashion.

Marjon, Canada is culturally quite different from the United States. We are much more secular in spirit than you are. We do not have religious figures who act as unelected policy advisors to our elected officials in the way that you have your Billy Grahams, etc. Such folk would not be accepted by the Canadian people. Indeed, just as those individuals running for president must show their religious street cred in order to be considered as acceptable candidates our leaders must avoid all public mention of their spiritual beliefs, if any. No mention of religious affiliation is ever provided as part of a campaign and the media generally speaking do not discuss this aspect of the candidates. It is considered irrelevant, inappropriate and a potential liability.

Yah, I love rocks. I adore geodes and I bring home a stone from every place I go. Most of my stones are pretty boring but I have some wonderful sand roses from the Sahara.

Our recent uproars have all hinged on Christmas trees, lights, and the red and green stuff, certainly nothing so Christ-specific as creches. A judge demanded that a decorated tree in the lobby of a Toronto courthouse be removed; the tree was removed and many letters of complaint were sent in to the local and national newspapers concerning her behaviour. There was also the instance of a Jewish man, noting the Christmas decorations in the Vancouver airport (again, no creches, just the green and red stuff), mentioned that it would be nice to see Channukah decorations, too. He was, it seems, mortified when his suggestion resulted in the Christmas decorations being removed. As to being sensitive to the rights of minorities, the rights of minorities are officially ensured by the Canadian Charter of Rights. (In fact it was thanks to the Charter of Rights that homosexuals, a minority, now have the right to marry.) Almost 20% of our population is foreign born and the top five non-official languages (i.e. neither French nor English) in Canada are Chinese dialects, Punjabi, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic. Urban Canadians are accustomed to living in ethnically diverse environments; for us it is the norm. Public school teachers here never talk about religion outside of the framework of that which is also cultural such as Ramadan, Eid, Diwalli, etc. These events are also covered by our local media. The idea is that we all belong here and that we all are likely to find what our neighbours are doing of interest.

This sounds utterly reasonable to me. I know that it would creep me out if there were prayers in our public school system or in any state environment. Prayers have a place and this would be in one's home and in one's church. Evicting Christmas, on the other hand, an event which is as much, if not more, a part of our culture is quite different. This is what is happening up here in Ontario, Canada. School teachers are required to replace mention of Christmas with talk about the (neutralized phrase) "winter holidays!"

Give them geodes.

It would be interesting to understand why some believe and others do not. I don't. I cannot. I was once befriended by a man whose belief in God was very passionate. He wrote me the most extraordinary letters about the nature of Christian belief, hand-written, some running as long as 50 pages. They were so beautiful that I wanted to believe but I could not. He finally became fed up with me and my persistant lack of belief and dropped me. I did save his letters. No one in my family believes. Perhaps we all lack imagination....?

I don't know why Christmas is under attack in the United States but up here in Canada it is the forces of the politically correkt, not the atheists per se, who have been attacking it. Their idiotic argument is that by celebrating Christmas we are disrespecting the beliefs of our Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and all other non-Christian fellow Canadians. A moronic argument for sure and spokespeople for these groups have often spoken up to say that they really are fine with the notion of Christmas. And in fact, except for those individuals who are devout in their Christian faith, Christmas has long ago become a secular, a cultural holiday, something in the way of a shop and food fest with paid time off work attached to it. Santa and his little elves have nothing at all to do with the birth of Christ and yet this fantasy forms an important part of Christmas. I personally don't like the season but this is because my own family always made a mess of Christmas; it conjours up bad memories for me. I also don't like the fact that up here the season seems to begin the morning after Hallowe'en and the mall music sucks. :tired However, Christmas is an important part of North American culture and must be allowed to live! :ranger:

I am 5'6" and I am now at goal. The last time I was weighed was at my doc's office (I don't own a scale) and I weighed 142 lbs. I still wear fairly big sizes compared to some who are my size, a loose fitting size 10 pant and an XL sweater. This is because I am thick in the waist and I have broad shoulders. All of my weight was carried on my torso when I was overweight. I have always had slim arms and legs and bony hands and feet. I gained weight like my mum did. We both got fat after we hit menopause and we gained it all on our trunks. My mum used to say that she looked like a pregnant spider! And so did I! Too much information, eh. :Banane20:

Thanks to laura's posts I think I am finally getting it (after 58 years)! We atheists often view religious belief as being merely another option in life's buffet of philosophical and theist options. We are logical folk and certainly there are no feelings of passion or emotion involved in our inability to believe in the existence of a deity or in our inability to value one specific set of religious beliefs over another. On the other hand, those folks who do believe are deeply emotionally committed to their own belief system and truly do believe that all individuals who do not adhere to the same belief system will inevitably suffer. This is why they are anxious to block exposure to all influences which they see as being destructive to that belief system. This is why what some of us may see as a good thing, that is to say exposure to new and different ideas, others may see as being damaging, possibly destructive, to those system of beliefs which are a source of aid, joy, and succor to the one who believes. I think that it is difficult for the atheist to understand the passion of the believer. To us this passion so often seems to manifest itself in irrational, silly, and at times sinister ways.

Yah, it seems that my dick is too small :eek: but that's okay cuz my husband has a large one. :heh: d'oh! :faint:

I know I am going to sound like an idiot but I find myself feeling kinda feel sorry for Tits. She has serious Anger Issues for sure and my hunch is that her brain chemistry is out of whack; she likely needs to be on antidepressants and mood stabilizers. Her displays of anger and bitterness indicate that she is in trouble and is suffering.

What are whoppers?

I used to wear the kind that had mirrors when they were in fashion. That was a long, long time ago. And, yah, watching people is lots of fun!

Well, I agree with the other women. Don't announce your intentions until after the new year; otherwise they will find some loophole by which they will be able to take that paid Xmas vacation time away from you. However, now that you know that you are leaving you can entertain yourself by making the bitch from hell's life a little less pleasant. Why don't you try undermining her by going to her boss and complaining about her behaviour towards you and towards others in the office? The buzz word to use is team player as in the following sentence: she is not a team player. Tell the boss that she spends her time harrassing her colleagues and lowering the morale of the team instead of concentrating on her own work! The chances are good that nobody likes her and if you start to gently stir things up you may be able to cause her some pain.

Tits-baby, ya got a totally cute name but I've got to say "why yer weirdo interests and why the fucken venom in yer posts, eh?" The real truth is that most of us are kind of paralysed with boredom whenever it comes to any issues which lie outside our own framework of interest.

Very big thanks to you, my friend Elena. I appreciate, and you probably have no sense of just how much, your generous remarks to me. I am currently sitting in that awful swamp of the North American pre-Christmas. Elena, I must tell you that you have no idea how deeply I am moved by your display of generosity towards me. Ain't internet a seriously bluddy wonderful thing???

Lick that cake! sez evil green. Lick it, grrl, lick it! And remember, it is very bad taste to croak on yer own birthday! :heh: Happy licking, eh.:eek:

Derick introduces a very good point. I am aware that I have previously offended good and sensitive men who are in favour of protecting a woman's right to choose when I stated that this issue is a woman's issue and that men should not have a voice in this debate. Of course what I meant is that it is women who carry the entire weight of pregnancy and childbirth; men, apart from the initial spasm of pleasure, have little to do with the biz. Their engagement, post-orgasmic spasm, is largely optional. It is always the woman who will be physically, psychologically, and economically sidelined by this relatively simple biz of sperm meeting egg. And it is the woman's life which will be altered forever, physically, psychologically, and financially. It is the female who will always carry the burden of reproduction, is it not? This is the reason why I am always edgy when men enter into this reproductive debate. There are many men who hold conservative, perhaps rigid, moral beliefs concerning this issue and often it is these same men who hold positions of power in their state legislatures and who thus can exert a considerable amount of control over women and their bodies. An easy decision for them. They are not going to lose 9 months out of their lives, and they are not going to have to live with the damage, much of which will only display itself after menopause, that pregnancy and childbirth can wreak upon a woman's body. The way Green sees the deal is this: for those women who have a powerful desire to have children the pain and the disruption is no big deal, it is only part of the (heavy?) price of admission. The pay-off is maternity, the pleasure in a new cat, and brute joy. This is a good thing, is it not? Derick makes the only good point that any man can make in my opinion: he points out that there ain't going to be any men who are suffering from unwanted pregnancies. Whenever a woman is happily connected to her desire to have her baby, the secondary issues, issues which are also important predicators as to how well this child will survive, become secondary in her eyes but they are still important indicators to the future well-being of this child. (And what are these secondary issues anyway? Well, that the child will have contact with both a mother and a father and will rest within a stable and loving extended family unit - this is of course only fancy speak for saying that the kid will have a loving and stable set of parents and on-going contact with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, blah, blah. It also seems important that the kid live in a stable household, one where education is prized and drug-dealing, early pregnancy, and mindless violence are viewed as being as being nothing more than interesting manifestations of social pathology. (I would inclined to urge that all problem children be forced to watch Weeds over and over again.)

Very nice to hear your voice on this thread, Hijabigirl.

<p>Yah! Happy Birthday to you, you gorgeous grrl, sez Green. The way I look at it, you got the world on a string. You sure are a cutie, you certainly are a sweetie, and your daughter is a honey! You can't do better than that! And it could be worse, eh. You could be Green's age. Haha. Enjoy your birthday!</p>

I confess that I do get what Robgobblin was on about when he was talking about this biz of bravery. The truth is that before abortion was legalised women were opting to abort even though they were knowingly running a risk of killing themselves by doing so. There were back street abortionists and there were certain docs who, perhaps for money or perhaps because they figured that one life saved was better than two lives lost, risked jail time in order to provide safe abortions. Women who don't want to continue on with their pregnancies will do anything including risk death in order to avoid this. It is better that the choice option remain available for those women. It is equally important that the state permit medical staff the freedom of choice, and permit folks like you the freedom to suggest alternatives to those women who are ambivalent.

Well, in my very long post I did comment that today in most of the Islamic countries "crazed fundamentalists rule." Much of my post had to do with the early history of Islam. Like yourself I do find the crazed, intolerant, and murderous behaviour of the Muslim mobs in the Islamic countries to be absolutely repellent. And I find this business of suicide bombing to be heinous and idiotic. And I find this business of issuing fatwahs over books which have never even been read moronic. I have never been a fan of mass hysteria, violence, and emotion replacing reason. Yes, you are right, modern Islam has acquired a very ugly face. And the voices of the moderates are unheard by us. However, I do believe that the reasons for this are complicated and go beyond the nature of the religion itself. You will note that few adherents of Islam are European and most live in poor, largely underdeveloped countries, countries which were former colonies of European nations. Although the fundamentalist style of Islamic belief, Wahhabism, was born in Saudi Arabia two or three centuries ago its religious leaders have now found fertile ground for making converts in those Islamic countries where the people are poor and feel a sense of grievance and envy towards the rich and white west. This kind of fundamentalist Islam is viewed as marking a total rejection of and, indeed, hatred for all things European/American. This is why, I believe, it is so attractive to so many Muslims at this time. You might be inclined to point out that many of its leaders come from wealthy families and are educated people; this is true but they are idealists. Many Communists and Socialists also come from the most privileged sectors of society. As for the little terrorists and suicide bombers which are hatched inside the Western world, from what I have read (you know Canada foiled our own little knot of juvie home grown terrorists a few years ago, eh) their parents are generally content to be new citizens and are not particularly devout. It is that certain children of immigrants may feel deracinated and in the case of Muslims, if they come in contact with fanatical groups, they will happily hop aboard the belief train. This gives them a sense of belonging and of being connected. It may also give them a sense of power and of joy in their ability to take revenge if they have seen their parents disrespected in their new home. As for your very good question - where are the voices of the moderate Muslims - I have two ideas on this. It may be that these people are afraid to speak up against the bullies what with the bluddy fatwahs and all. It may also be that these people are speaking up inside their own communities, places where neither you nor I can hear them. As for my street cred: I have been doing a bit of reading on Islam and I have travelled in a few Islamic countries. I also have a few good friends who are non-practising Muslims, one of which who is doing a doctorat on Islamic philosophy. I admit to having a difficult time dealing with Islam on an emotional level. I find much of their behaviour utterly gross. I guess the reason that I try to read up on issues and make these posts is because I have a horror of emotion overtaking reason. Long post, eh. :phanvan