I've been banned from many forums, usually because I tell the truth as I see it and many forums don't tolerate that.

I was banned from a political forum on the night Obama was elected because I would not stop bashing Obama. They kept shutting down my anti-Obama threads and I kept startiing new ones and then they banned me.

I was banned from a Muslim after ONE POST because I dared to talk about terrorism.

I have found a good political forum now and I've been there for many years without being banned because you can say pretty much what you want and they won't ban you.

So we will see what kind of forum this is.

Am I allowed to speak my mind?

Or will the moderators censor me at every turn, give me repeated warnings, and then ban me simply for expressing my point of view?

We shall see.

And the reason I lead with this is that I am a Catholic and I'm here to talk to atheists and see what's going on with them.

And I was inspired to join this forum because I saw this video with some young lady complaining about the "Atheism +" movement and realized that atheists have conflicts amongst themselves and I want to watch and observe and maybe put in my two cents.

And I think, well, everyone knows that Christians have all these fights amongst themselves, but who knew that atheists can't get along with each other either?

Well, thinking back, I should have realized it, but the atheists on my religion forum are pretty good at keeping a united front in front of us Christians, Jews and Muslims.

Anyway, Atheism + intrigues me. It seems to me an effort to graft atheism onto the standard left-wing causes and therefore imply that if you are an atheist you must believe in these left-wing causes or you are a bad person.

And I can see why that might piss some atheists off.

I have simiar feelings about liberal Catholics who try to graft left-wing causes to Catholicism, i.e. "social justice" (voting for Democrats and supporting government food stamps and welfare programs) and "seamless garment" pro-life (opposition to the death penalty and war).

Anyway, hello and I hope you will welcome me to your forum.

And I'm not going to try to save your soul. I'm not even sure I can save my own soul.

I don't go to Church very often and the Church says its a mortal sin to miss Mass even one time so by now I've piled up enough mortal sins to send me to hell 1,000 times over.

And masturbation is a mortal sin, and well, even though I'm happily married I occasionally do that too.

I am very disenchanted with the Catholic Church right now and part of it is because God has not seen fit to answer my prayers and the other part is that so many priests and bishops were involved with the sex scandal.

But I am still a believer. I don't think I'll ever stop believing any more than I'll ever stop breathing or eating, until I die. Catholicism is part of who I am and I can't imagine being without it. It would be like cutting off my right arm to say I'm not a Catholic.

Anyway, here I am. Have your fun mocking me or whatever you want to do. Thanks.

The fact that you have no problem spilling seed is encouraging; although, you should increase the frequency based on your reported conditions.

I get the 'tradition' part of your belief having been a Catholic, albeit at a tender age. I'm ok with this to an extent; however, the moment you try to convince me of transubstantiation is the moment I start mocking.

Love you long time,
Cato

p.s. Oh yeah, welcome!

So how do you feel about the pope covering up for pedophile priests?

Is he infallible then?

(September 21, 2012 at 1:06 am)Minimalist Wrote: So how do you feel about the pope covering up for pedophile priests?

Is he infallible then?

Well, I'm not here to defend the Pope and I'm not here to defend the doctrine of infallibility, or any Catholic doctrine.

I was hoping people would realize that by my original post.

I can't explain any of it really.

The problem is, that pedophiles are very common and they deliberately go into professions where they will have access to young people.

So you have pedophile priests, pedophile youth pastors, pedophile Boy Scout masters, pedophile teachers, pedophile coaches, pedophile step-fathers, etc.

But the Catholic Church is unique among churches in that it has almost unlimited assets to pay a lawsuit.

So the personal injury lawyers targeted the Catholic Church and made what is a widespread societal problem seem like a uniquely Catholic problem.

And the media, which is stridently anti-Catholic, played it all up and made things seem even worse.

The fact is, everyone, everywhere, in churches, schools, youth groups, and sports teams, were not adequately dealing with the pedophile problem. The typical response was to keep it all a secret and transfer the accused man somewhere else.

And I had a client, a national sports organization, that did the exact same thing. There was an environment where it was well known that some coaches were engaging in inappropriate relationships with minors and this was tolerated. But they only have $10 million in assets so how far can this lawsuit go?

But all these explanations don't help me at all.

My Catholic faith was based on the notion that the Church was God's instrument in this world. I held the Church to higher standards than the rest of the world. To learn that so much sin and corruption within the ranks of the priesthood was tolerated has really blown me away.

So anyway, if you respond to me with mockery, you will renew my opinion that atheists are nothing but simple-minded morons who can't really debate their way out of a brown paper bag.

Anyway, that's what I've observed from atheists at the political forum I usually spend time at.

I am hoping for something better from you guys. If I don't get it here, I'll go elsewhere.

I grew up in the Catholic church. They really did attempt to indoctrinate me, but alas, they failed.

I Obama! I don't think people should be banned for speaking their minds about him, even if it is a bunch of bullshit. I'm a liberal, therefore, I believe in freedom of speech. I think you have a right to say stupid shit.

You should just read the rules. As long as you follow them, you won't be banned. We have some people here that say some pretty dumb shit, and have been every day for years. That's why we have a hall of shame. Follow the rules, and no banning, but we can't promise you won't end up in that thread.

Welcome to the forums.

(September 21, 2012 at 1:31 am)aleialoura Wrote: I grew up in the Catholic church. They really did attempt to indoctrinate me, but alas, they failed.

I Obama! I don't think people should be banned for speaking their minds about him, even if it is a bunch of bullshit. I'm a liberal, therefore, I believe in freedom of speech. I think you have a right to say stupid shit.

You should just read the rules. As long as you follow them, you won't be banned. We have some people here that say some pretty dumb shit, and have been every day for years. That's why we have a hall of shame. Follow the rules, and no banning, but we can't promise you won't end up in that thread.

Welcome to the forums.

I was on one forum where they had a rule against insulting "groups" and there was no way I could comply because how do you have a political discussion without insulting some group?

There was one guy who was trying to shut down discussion on the fact that Chicago politics is corrupt (a fact known to everyone) on the basis that it was insulting to people from Chicago.

You can always put question marks and then show evidence.

"Do you think that politics in Chicago is corrupt?"

Then show evidence...and say, what do you think, is this true? Or is there more to it? Or am I missing something? etc...

I was doing well on a Muslim forum, till I stated something without doing that, then boom I got banned.

Lesson learned, you can always post your thoughts but in non-offensive manner and not hammering way.

Quote:My Catholic faith was based on the notion that the Church was God's instrument in this world.

Well, there's your mistake.

The church is an instrument of power. Nothing more.

A long introduction, friend. Yes, I'm sure you'll find tolerance of your opinions here, but I hope you will rather be more respectful in how you actually present them. If you opened a thread like "Obama is a tumbling dickweed" you'll probably be ignored.
I'm not certain if such unproductive hostility was the reason of your bans so far, but I know that most bans either result from either being too rude, too troll-ish, too being out of place, or something of the mix of these three. Only time will tell what made the admins lose their temper and hit the "ban" button.

(September 21, 2012 at 1:31 am)aleialoura Wrote: You should just read the rules. As long as you follow them, you won't be banned.

^This. And the forum rules can be found here.