Hello from the UK :)

[SteelCurtain]

emjay, I think you are seeing the result of many interactions with some of our theist members in our most heated debates. The reason we get so "vocal" with some of these people is because they do the same thing over and over again. They are dishonest and hypocritical at every turn. We normally don't treat a newcomer with that sort of vitriol until they show us their colors repeatedly. (His Majesty comes to mind---some stars go supernova.)

The best part about this place is that we truly are a community. Check out the Accent Tags thread, the AF vlog thread, or the Q&A Tag thread.

We can certainly be dismissive of ridiculous claims, and most of us have lost our reverence for the "important" things religious people hold dear, if we ever had it. But we are really a chummy lot, once you get to know us.

[robvalue]

Welcome back! Glad to hear you changed your mind Of course no hard feelings.

My advice is to use the ignore feature. If anyone in particular, theist or atheist, is regularly saying things you don't want to see or being too angry and over the top, then just pop them on ignore. It works wonders for me. You can still peek at what they are saying when you feel like it (when using the full version anyway) or unignore them later. I think it's better to do that than let them ruin the whole experience for you. You're not obliged to read what everyone has to say.

If you think everyone here is too angry then that's not going to work of course! Personally I'm not angry at all, all my posts are intended to be read in a very calm voice.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Hi emjay,

Sorry you're leaving and this isn't for you. However, to save you some time, you can't close your account.

Good luck in your internets travels.

Hi Pandamonium,

Thanks for that and if that's the case I feel a bit silly for having burned my bridges so to speak by leaving a farewell message. Can I take that back ?


You'll have to forgive me, I just got freaked out by the site going down the other day and thought it might've been an attempted hack by religious nuts angry at something someone had said (which wouldn't have surprised me based on how 'vocal' the discussions are here ) - and therefore wanted to distance myself from it.

I still don't feel comfortable with how vocal the discussions are here but please don't take that to mean I am an apologist for religion. I am not. Religion has caused me nothing but grief in my life. I'm gay you see and that was what made me question my religion in the first place and what ultimately continues to drive a pointless wedge between me and my family that no matter what I do, no matter what rational arguments I put forward, I can't dislodge. So believe me I am angry with religion and immensely frustrated but I just don't know how to combat something which has as its first instinct the desire to shut out anything which threatens it.

So since I can't close my account I may well just throw caution to the wind and say exactly how I feel which is what I've just done ) Am I still welcome? 

Of course you're still welcome.

The site went down because we've been in the process of moving servers and updating the forum software. No need to fear about hacking attemps ^_^

Conversations can certainly get heated here, but overall we're a good bunch of people, theist and atheist alike. Just develop a thicker skin and remember not to take anything personally, it's only the internets after all

[robvalue]

The way I deal with angry people is to CUT THEM TO PIECES MAN

[LastPoet]

Oh ffs how long are we playing this game? You are welcome to this forum, if you want to leave, go for it, if you want to stay, requiem. The exit payment is the same of entry fees. Zero. Sorry if I sound an asshole to point that out.

[emjay]

Oh ffs how long are we playing this game? You are welcome to this forum, if you want to leave, go for it, if you want to stay, requiem. The exit payment is the same of entry fees. Zero. Sorry if I sound an asshole to point that out.

I haven't been able to reply to anyone yet because I work Saturdays and have been at work all day. I've just got back.

---

Welcome back! Glad to hear you changed your mind Of course no hard feelings.

My advice is to use the ignore feature. If anyone in particular, theist or atheist, is regularly saying things you don't want to see or being too angry and over the top, then just pop them on ignore. It works wonders for me. You can still peek at what they are saying when you feel like it (when using the full version anyway) or unignore them later. I think it's better to do that than let them ruin the whole experience for you. You're not obliged to read what everyone has to say.

If you think everyone here is too angry then that's not going to work of course! Personally I'm not angry at all, all my posts are intended to be read in a very calm voice.

Sorry I haven't replied sooner. As I said I've been at work all day. By aggressive and angry I didn't mean against me, though of course that's not nice either, but just in general. In the sense that I have never been on a forum that even allows swearing let alone is full of it, so it just came as a bit of a shock to the system. And the thing is swearing always comes across angry and aggressive, so that's all it was really. Combine that with 'irreverent' swearing and it's just not something I'm used to. But that's what freedom of speech is all about so I just have to get used to it.

[Kitty Galore]

Hope you stick around, at least in the off topic threads, and the ones mentioned above. We are community. 'Ignore' is a great feature and it isn't forever. I personally don't have anyone on ignore, but that may change someday.

[emjay]

Hope you stick around, at least in the off topic threads, and the ones mentioned above. We are community. 'Ignore' is a great feature and it isn't forever. I personally don't have anyone on ignore, but that may change someday.

Hi there Yeah I am staying. Evidently I've pissed someone off for not saying that sooner but I didn't have the chance. So there it is said and there is also my initiation into swearing in a forum, another thing I have to get used to. Anyway, nice to meet you and l look forward to seeing you in the other forums

[Rhondazvous]

Greetings

I'm new here too and thought I'd read what you guys were saying before jumping in.

That's an interesting story. I know what you mean about those conversations that invariably end in tears. Once I actually got into it with my mom on Mother's Da,y of all days. Though for me, it usually ends in cognitive dissonance. I have to check myself and remember that I waws one a Christian and know how the Church programs our mind to think a certain way and guard against real thought.

What about C.S. Lewis did you find most compelling?

Hello everyone,

I've been an a fervent Atheist since I was 18 (I'm now in my thirties) and before that I was a strong Christian who always defended it at school much to the annoyance of my predominantly Atheist friends. If I met them at a reunion now I'd really like to say "you were right about everything". I even remember the classroom at college I was in and where I was sitting when it finally clicked that there (probably) was no god.

Nowadays I'm having a lot of health problems and so am thinking more and more about my own mortality and everything that entails. Living in Britain there has never been - from my own experience at least - any intolerance of Atheism whatsoever; if anything I'd say it seems most people are Atheists here, or at least most people of my generation. So I've never felt any need to join a specifically Atheist site like this or even known of their existence. But a chance mention in a book I was reading about Atheism led me to seek one out because it would be nice be able to talk freely about Atheist ideas without fear of offending religious friends as would be the case on, say, Facebook.

I live with my parents who are still very strong, immovable Christians and for the most part we don't talk about it as both our views are so entrenched and in the end it always ends in tears. That said me and my dad are discussing Christianity at the moment, a rare event, after by chance I started reading a Christian book which looked interesting - C. S. Lewis' The Problem Of Pain - and actually found it quite a good argument for Christianity... just an aesthetically pleasing way of looking at it that lacks all of the usual arbitrariness of most of the stuff in the Bible. But in the end just because something looks good, doesn't make it any easier to believe and I am way too cynical and skeptical now to become a Christian again even if I wanted to (and a very small part of me does). Basically as soon as I pick up the Bible and see contradictions on every page, any fledgling interest in Christianity evaporates because it is just not believable. My dad gave me another book to read which he considers proof of Jesus' resurrection: "Who Moved The Stone?". I thought it was a good book but clearly heavily biased towards Christianity and therefore not entirely reliable. So I went looking for another one, written by an Atheist, just to be sure I was seeing all the arguments. I found one and it was a perfectly convincing, to me, non-supernatural explanation of events: "an old man's musings on Christianity" (or something like that) by an anonymous author (on Kindle). Since that nipped my fledgling interest in Christianity in the bud, my dad is now grudgingly reading it at my behest trying to counter its arguments, point by point. I'm sure he will counter all of them as that, unfortunately, is the way this game is played, but still I am glad he's reading it. It was a trade - I'm reading one of his.

So that's me really. I am an Atheist but I have a lot of Christian 'baggage' that I can't shake. My Atheist beliefs are the result of years of interest in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy and they are a unique and hard-earned part of me that I don't want to lose, and that is part of the reason I'll always be biased against returning to Christianity. I hope on this site I'll be able to discuss some of my theories on the nature or consciousness etc and maybe find some kindred spirits and deep insights

Thanks for listening

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Welcome to the forum Rhondazvous.