(May 9, 2017 at 9:45 pm)Shai Hulud Wrote: I'm a Catholic who probably should hang out more on Catholic forums, but another atheist board is my primary escape from it due to politics and...excessive piety? Is that the polite way to call people "holier than thou, more Catholic than the Pope, jerks"? I tend to enjoy a few different podcasts like God Awful Movies (I too, suffer an addiction to bad Evangelical cinema), Scathing Atheist, and The Thinking Atheist; some of the older episodes of the latter, with topics like the Satanic Panic and Harry Potter fears remind me a great deal of growing up as a Baptist, prior to leaving that faith. I'd love to say I had some grand reason for leaving it behind, but it was a series of smaller things that just snowballed; there's a long story there. Suffice to say on the short version: Assistant Pastor did a Night of the Long Knives to get himself promoted on the membership rolls, purged things like the volunteer librarian and church library (verbatim quote, "Nobody reads any more"), and skipped the wedding rehearsal of my cousin to officiate a high school football game...and that was just part of his stuff. There were contemporary vs. traditional worship wars, a woman wanting to, quite literally, burn books at a rummage sale, and being told by the worship band that prayer wasn't as important as setting up finger foods.
My username is based off of the Dune books by Frank Herbert; it always tickled my interest that the Bene Gesserit were so adept at spreading their own religious superstitions across pretty much everywhere, even into the tribes of the Fremen of Arrakis, who held on to legends despite their reverence for the sandworms. Partially also using this name, instead of another, so that folks over on a Catholic board I used to moderate, don't start messaging with certain questions.
I definitely look forward to some great discussions, some silly ones, and not having people justify everything with God. Even over on Facebook, with Lists, it's hard at times to discuss certain more secular topics without people chiming in and waging a Crusade; looking at you cousin's Baptist minister husband who is patently unable to discuss Christianity prior to the Great Awakening in America and got upset when I posted that Intelligent Design isn't science, and got upset when I posted a link you saw that had come from Friendly Atheist, and gets upset I post things you disagree with because your kids see them and I need to censor everything because you let them use your account to play games. Can anyone tell that we don't see eye to eye?
Anyhow, sorry for the long post compared to other Intros I glanced through.
Nothing to apologize for. I was enjoying it so much I cried when it was over. Looking forward to the second installment.
