Koyaanisqatsi

nevermind

[ June 26, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

HelenM

Originally posted by Gurdur:

HelenSL: The power lies within you to adjust your expectations to the reality of what I am going to say and not say, here. To accept me the way I am.

Gurdur: Eh, why should I ?

You don't really think I should answer that rather than you, do you? It's your life, your attitude...you decide...

Helen: I thought that's what atheists believe in - as it were.

Gurdur: You're talking to the wrong atheist, since I do not and never have either believed in or practiced unconditional acceptance.

Fair enough...now I know more about you than I did before...

Gurdur: Moreover, atheists have no one single moral stance on anything.

Fair enough.

Hey, you can accept me as I am or not. I'm none too worried about it.

I knew I could - or not. I knew it was up to me.

Generally I do try to accept people as they are - I mean, I'm not sure what other option there is that will do anything but frustrate me...

love
Helen

Sephiroth

ishalon

Congrats!! You have made, quite possibly, the lowest blow in the book. Give yourself a nice glass of stupid.

windsofchange

Thanks, Ish, for respecting my right to make my own decisions about my religious beliefs, and not stooping to negative, anti-woman stereotypes.

As for my children, I couldn't care less, since I don't have any and don't intend to. (I don't think my cats care what I believe, as long as they get fed. )

Love,
TG

HelenM

Hi, TG

I don't know that people are taking offense, exactly...any who do would be taking your reconversion strangely personally, imo.

However, you're receiving about as many 'congratulations' as I'd expect on your re-conversion, from posters on the Secular Web. But of course, you know what to expect here...

What do you think you'd have posted to someone who converted (or reconverted) to Catholicism and was discussing it, here, back when you were an atheist? Do you have any idea?

love
Helen

Veil of Fire

I can field that for myself.. not for anyone else, tho.

I'm a pagan.

I can generally tolerate, in a seething sort of way, Christianity in general. Most of them don't go out of their way to 'get' me, and while I detest the way they're running things, and I'm scared witless of the calls for a 'Christian Nation', all I really do is grind my teeth because while they'd be dangerous if they could ever actually agree on anything, right now they're just a few dozen closely-related religions scattered across the country.

Catholicism, however, is a different story. Catholics are organized, powerful, rich, and just as intent on gaining converts, at gunpoint if necessary, as any protestant sect. Christians in general might all be misogynistic, power-hungry, sex-obsessed control freaks on some level or another, but the Catholic church is a group of ORGANZED misogynistic, power-hungery, sex-obsessed control-freaks. They fit any technical definition of 'cult' I've ever seen, except they have so many members. The Pope(s) make(s) crap up, for crying out loud, when the Bible doesn't support his policies! Just try to make a Jesuit point to a scriptural backing for any given point in the catchecism and you'll see what I mean.

At any rate, while Protestants and I snipe at each other, the Catholics would have no problem burning my grove straight to the ground if they ever found it. I know, personally (sadly), several Catholics who profess that the church was perfectly JUSTIFIED during the Inquisition and the Witch Hunts.

So I take such a 'reconversion' personally because it means the entity that directly seeks my destruction (as in the destruction of those like me, I'm not really egotistical enough to think they JUST want ME) gets another soldier. And that it's a woman... is almost an equal betrayal, considering the Pope has historically taken it upon himself to twist the Bible beyond recognition in order to justify extreme misogyny. Why a woman would submit herself to that kind of punishment (when there's not someone else holding a flogger and wearing leather involved) is completely beyond me, and it frightens me because it MUST mean their guilt-inducing mechanations are still working pretty efficiently.

That's why it irks ME. I'm pretty sure its different for everyone else, tho.

Ensign Morituri

And you call yourself a Catholic...

"To thine own self be true," right? Congratulations on figuring out what is best for you.

Sincerely,

Paul

windsofchange

Great question, Helen!

Actually, I remember having some fairly decent, insightful discussions with Catholics (& other theists) while I was here & at other Atheist/Agnostic boards. It was (and still is!) the "fundies" I had the problems with.

But to be scrupulously fair (ain't I always? ) I might very well have been rude and sarcastic -- depending on what stage of (non)belief I was in at the time. One thing I think you'll agree with me about is that the more secure a person is in their beliefs, the more tolerant they are of those who differ.

Thanks for your support, Helen (and Paul, and all the other nice secure folks around here!)!

Love,
TG

[ June 26, 2002: Message edited by: A Theist Gal ]

[ June 26, 2002: Message edited by: A Theist Gal ]</p>

ishalon

sorry, i actually came back to delete it but too late


[Edit:then again... delete this too]

[ June 26, 2002: Message edited by: ishalon ]</p>

Typhon

This is a somewhat interesting thread.

However, after carefully reading over both what A Theist Gal has said in her own words on this forum as well as a selection from her site, I have to say that I find it neither unexpected or all that impressive, that A Theist Gal returned to her former religion after a brief stint as an "atheist."

Her "atheism" appears to me to be little other than a brief departure of her supporting faith, not a real or fundamental philosophical change in the way she approached the world. This proverbial "midnight of the soul" is a very common occurrence among the faithful of most religions. Doubts cause an outward departure from the parent religion, depression, anger, rebellion, etc.. Often though, the subject quickly returns to the fold, once a traumatic or highly charged emotional issue requires that they fall back upon the previous beliefs and support system that they had abandoned.

Many fail to fully exercise the demons of magical and superstitious thinking, and make their abandonment of faith out of reasons that are not strictly due to a logical and fundamental shift in their world view. Our subject at hand may have decided to express this by declaring herself an atheist. That said, she did not perhaps, truly discard at all, as far as I can tell from what she has said here, the underlying belief structure that once, buoyed by her personal, emotional faith, constituted her belief in god. It seems painfully obvious to me that even while an atheist, she remained strongly drawn to the old familiar comforts of her former "theism" and at least a part of her remained committed to these fictional beliefs.

When relieved of some of the factors that had encouraged her "non-belief," such as her non-theist boyfriend, and in the face of mass emotional appeal to faith, religion, and god which surged like an ugly, monstrous wave in the aftermath of the regrettable (and preventable) events of 9/11, she discarded this, and retreated back into her comfort zone and former belief system.

Shrug.

I don't see why this is anything but expected and just evidence of how A Theist Gal never truly removed the hooks left by her faith, or replaced the type of faulty thinking that underlies belief in the supernatural.

But then I have never been overly swayed by emotion when it comes to making decisions about what constitutes factual reality, and of course, I don't love dead firemen, or not half as much as I apparently ought to.

.T.

"Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense."

- Voltaire (Philosophical Dictionary, 1764)

[ June 26, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>