Nope. As this is Hell, I'm going to disagree with you all. I find engaging with SusanDoris exciting and interesting and I look forward to her contributions on the threads I follow.
Something I do think about as I read SusanDoris’s posts is the method by which she reads the posts here, which she herself has described. I know for myself, I rely a lot on visually reading a post several times, and if I am replying to someone’s post, I have to go back and reread to see if there are points I missed, as I focus on one point at a time, and people often make several points and subpoints. Also, with my own posts, I find I have to read them several times before sending them.
When we read visually, the post is there, static, all at once, for us to look at as long as we need to. But if you are listening to something, you hear the words and then they are gone - it is a passing moment in time. Even if you listen again - it is always in motion, a fleeting moment.
I don’t know how SusanDoris finds this, as everyone is different, and some people have no problem with this, but I personally would find this very difficult. I think I would find it hard to follow several strands of thought at once, and I can imagine I might be wanting to ask people to adapt how they write their posts when they address me, if there was a way that would make it easier. But SusanDoris doesn’t - she just gets on with it, and with good humour. I did see her ask someone to repeat a point they said she hadn’t addressed, as she would have had to go back and listen to line after line, not necessarily knowing when she’d found it. They refused, and she didn’t make a fuss. I think it must be a certain tenaciousness and enthusiasm that keeps her posting, and I like that about her.
Also I can imagine that if you can’t just pop in and glance at posts and write a quick reply, but need to go through the process of having the whole thread read to you, you might be more inclined to limit the threads/boards you go on, and discuss things you think are important, rather than the more casual small-talk type stuff in Heaven.
Nope. As this is Hell, I'm going to disagree with you all. I find engaging with SusanDoris exciting and interesting and I look forward to her contributions on the threads I follow.
I agree. I do find her post frustrating sometimes, and I see why others get frustrated, but I also find her interesting and enjoyable to read and engage with, and I’m glad she is part of the Ship. I liked the questions she was raising in the discussion about images, and I liked that she clarified in a friendly way when I asked if she meant photographs by images. I think she has quite a concrete way of thinking, and so do I in some ways, so her thought process often makes sense to me.
I’m going to write a series of posts and I’ll try to make them in as much order as I can. My thanks for the necessity for the task!
I’ve been out for a short walk round the block (just under a mile I think. At one point in the main street, I got into a slight difficulty with a hazard, unnoticed in a patch of dark shade. Fortunately, a young woman passing by immediately saw what was happening and came to my aid, making sure that I did not fall or step into the road by mistake.
Not two miles away from my front door is the New Forest with its rides, country pubs, marked walks, birdsong, quietness, etc. so why am I here instead of there? Because I think I am so lucky to have found message boards on the internet.
One final point - it may be useful, may be water off a duck's back. In Purgatory, each thread is supposed to be a single discussion with multiple participants, not a whole series of two-way conversations. Your determination to turn threads into the latter, which is perfectly reasonable (sometimes) in Heaven and All Saints, is utterly maddening in Purgatory.
disingenuousness ] Before I posted in the Churches thread, I googled definition of ‘disingenuous’ to check its meaning. The definition reads:
‘‘Thesaurus.com. adjective. lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically ingenuous; insincere:
I shall be interested to know which words and phrases you can cite where you think I have been hypocritical, whether falsely or not!, or lacking in frankness – whatever that means in the circumstances, and insincere.
You say:
those experiences that uphold your faith are figments of your imagination;
No, what I have said is that interpretation of those, undoubtedly real, experiences is from the mind and its stored and constantly re—arranged etc thoughts and images. Tell me why that is untrue.
belief in God is clearly nonsense
No, not nonsense, but totally understandable and is unlikely ever to cease. I do believe it will lessen, but that’s way into the future, and probably will not affect any of us.
I get the feeling that SusanDoris - like a few other atheists I know - has experienced frustration from a very rigid church experience and not having her own questions and views considered.
Yes, many years ago, there was a certain amount of frustration, I suppose, but then I was busy with a career and sons to bring up and an increasing aging mother to consider, so didn't have time to waste on frustration!
And maybe she likes the Ship because people here discuss more openly rather than just tell her she’s wrong.
Quite right!
Though she can be a bit frustrating to talk to (which I have said to her in one thread) as she seems to want all of us to consider the possibility that we may be wrong, but is not equally willing to consider the possibility that she herself may be wrong.
I think I have said many times that one fact would change my mind, but then it would change all minds, would it not? The atheists would accept it as knowledge, the believers would too.
Though I do find that when people rebel against a rigid religious upbringing, they often apply the same rigidity to their atheism.
The rigidity was solely on the existence of God; the rest was not. Since the best definition of atheism is a lack of belief in God, its a bit difficult to be rigid.
I like that we have atheists on the Ship though - it’s good to have a mix of views, even though some express their views more rigidly and simplistically than others.
One final point - it may be useful, may be water off a duck's back. In Purgatory, each thread is supposed to be a single discussion with multiple participants, not a whole series of two-way conversations. Your determination to turn threads into the latter, which is perfectly reasonable (sometimes) in Heaven and All Saints, is utterly maddening in Purgatory.
I've never realized that. Is this a formal requirement, or custom and practice? It seems very rigid to me.
The OP shapes the following discussion. It's up to each individual participant to choose which points they want to engage with, and which posters to engage with. If everyone wants to talk to just one person, then so be it. There's no rule (over and above the usual Purg ones) to say otherwise.
No one's holding a gun to anyone's head to respond to any particular poster. I've a mental list of those I scroll past, not caring whether they've raised a salient point because I've learnt through bitter experience that it's not worth getting into the same mental swamp as them.
M
Unhellishly, I have a lot of time for Shipmates who hold to minority views, be they atheists, conservative evangelicals or Swedenborgians, Mennonites or representatives of other groups who are not well represented on these boards.
SusanDoris does only seem to be able to strike one note though, but I don't think they on some kind of quest to get us all to agree with her. I think she genuinely enjoys the interaction and the cut and thrust.
Yes, it is always interesting to read here.
Trouble is, she is using a gong and not a rapier.
However, I think fencing lessons would be a bit tricky!
Hmmm - the tags don't sound quite right at the start...
It has since occurred that this might qualify as junior hosting, but that's always struck me as the way Purg works, and is certainly the source of some of my intense frustration. I certainly don't see how a discussion that is conducted as a series of individual conversations is supposed to function as a discussion.
For some perhaps, the Ship is the one place in the world where it's allowed to speak up about what truly grinds your hips. SD can be annoying, so what. If she's not being harmful beyond that, then meh. Though the one thing I'd say to her if she's reading, is that she's loved enough that people are willing to discuss her in hell.
Personally, I often find it easier to address one person at a time in Purgatory threads, as everyone is making different points. I don’t think that stops it being an overall discussion about a particular topic - more that different people have different approaches and understandings of the topic, and many points are interesting and I like to explore them further. I prefer this approach to addressing everyone as a whole, as if they are all saying the same thing.
@Boogie on this occasion, it's purely because you weren't doing it on that particular thread. You are quite right, and my finger has hovered over the "new discussion in hell" many times over your vacuity. Your time may come.
Boogie can be a bit Pollyana and it can be a distraction when it doesn't further the discussion. However, she is often quite cogent and a positive contributor. So this is beginning to say a bit more about you. And here I thought I was a prickly bitch.
It has since occurred that this might qualify as junior hosting, but that's always struck me as the way Purg works, and is certainly the source of some of my intense frustration. I certainly don't see how a discussion that is conducted as a series of individual conversations is supposed to function as a discussion.
I can't conceive of not having individual conversations, I suppose I can address the world at large, but to what end?
One final point - it may be useful, may be water off a duck's back. In Purgatory, each thread is supposed to be a single discussion with multiple participants, not a whole series of two-way conversations. Your determination to turn threads into the latter, which is perfectly reasonable (sometimes) in Heaven and All Saints, is utterly maddening in Purgatory.
I've never realized that. Is this a formal requirement, or custom and practice? It seems very rigid to me.
In the vast majority of cases, a thread in Purgatory (and, most other places on the Ship or anywhere really) consists of several different strands that twist and turn around a central strand (and, as the thread develops that central strand may change from the original OP). Some of these strands may be short lived, others persist for the life of the thread, some may remain slightly removed from the central subject, others will eventually merge back into the main subject. All still identifiable as part of that thread, but scope for different parts of that to be explored by those interested - which may well be a series of conversations between only 2 or 3 people. A thread in which there is just one single strand of conversation will almost always be one with only a small number of people participating. By the time a thread has more than somewhere around 5-6 people involved then the splitting off into two or more strands is almost inevitable.
OK, maybe this is where I have to admit that part of this frustration is missing academic discussion. I rather thought that Purg here would be the closest available thing outside the institution (or indeed within many of them, but that's a slightly different matter). It still seems to defeat the purpose if the threads within the overall discussion don't ever interact. hat seems to be seems to me to be essential.
Just wanted to say that SusanDoris conveys more goodwill in her posts than I've ever seen from Thunderbunk; I know who I'd rather meet offline.
But I can understand CK's irritation.
Reading SusanDoris, I get the sense of messages coming through from a long way off; somehow the process that she has to go through to translate between text and spoken word adds a distance, loses some of the immediacy, the stream-of-consciousness -ness that one gets from Shipmates sitting at the keyboard.
@Boogie on this occasion, it's purely because you weren't doing it on that particular thread. You are quite right, and my finger has hovered over the "new discussion in hell" many times over your vacuity. Your time may come.
Boogie can be a bit Pollyana and it can be a distraction when it doesn't further the discussion. However, she is often quite cogent and a positive contributor. So this is beginning to say a bit more about you. And here I thought I was a prickly bitch.
To be fair it was me who called myself out and @ThunderBunk agreed with me.
(Ooops there I go again, maybe change of name to Pollyanna? )
disingenuousness ] Before I posted in the Churches thread, I googled definition of ‘disingenuous’ to check its meaning. The definition reads:
‘‘Thesaurus.com. adjective. lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically ingenuous; insincere:
I shall be interested to know which words and phrases you can cite where you think I have been hypocritical, whether falsely or not!, or lacking in frankness – whatever that means in the circumstances, and insincere.
I have said that you come across as trying to convert others to atheism in your posts, although you say that this is not your intention. As your words do not match the message conveyed by your actions I was using disingenuous in the sense that you are being insincere and/or falsely arguing. This may be unintentional, but it is certainly how your posting comes across.
You say:
those experiences that uphold your faith are figments of your imagination;
No, what I have said is that interpretation of those, undoubtedly real, experiences is from the mind and its stored and constantly re—arranged etc thoughts and images. Tell me why that is untrue.
What I was doing was paraphrasing these two posts from the Images thread, first post:
Eventually, my life’s experiences, the people I met, the reading, listening and TV documentary watching I had done left no room for the minute God belief left in my brain and it just evaporated.
This has never lessened my interest in learning how, why and what other people believe.
I am not sure we are both talking about the same thing when it comes to a deep conviction. You seem to be talking about something you were taught and never thought to question. I know that feeling (though I feel like I’ve questioned absolutely everything I was taught by now! ) but that is not what I mean by a deep conviction. It’s a different sort of awareness/knowledge - in my case going against much of what I was taught as a child. An awareness that can happen out of the blue, or when I’m praying, and can be quite surprising.
I wonder, do you reject completely that such a conviction is produced entirely by your brain as a result of all input since your life began?
The last part of my original post you have queried is this bit:
belief in God is clearly nonsense
No, not nonsense, but totally understandable and is unlikely ever to cease. I do believe it will lessen, but that’s way into the future, and probably will not affect any of us.
One objective fact at this point to show that all gods are not from imagination would change things!
and on the Let old churches die and start some new ones thread, when talking about dramatisation of Bible stories, your response was:
I hope s/he [the atheist present] was able to mention the phrase 'entirely anecdotal' here and there, however well presented the dramatized stories were.
which is effectively saying that there is no proof of God, this is something that should not go unchallenged [subtext: because this is unreal/nonsense].
Now this is when I like SD, as she sails along imperturbably, like a galleon in full sail, ignoring all who cross her prow, well, not quite all.
Well, once upon a time I used to be 5'7.1/2" and could do that more easily, but now I am the same person but contained in a somewhat shrunk in height and size! I wrote a poem about this once which was published in the local Residents' Association journal!
No, I don't think we should cut someone some slack if they are coming on to the Ship to debate, that's patronising and dismissive. If we have a problem with someone we should give them the honesty of debating why we find their posts an issue and allow them to explain in return what we are missing. Particularly if we are debating in Purgatory or one of the areas where the Ship hosts serious debates.
No, I don't think we should cut someone some slack if they are coming on to the Ship to debate, that's patronising and dismissive. If we have a problem with someone we should give them the honesty of debating why we find their posts an issue and allow them to explain in return what we are missing. Particularly if we are debating in Purgatory or one of the areas where the Ship hosts serious debates.
I agree, and was thinking this also, but hadn’t found the words yet to express it. If the Ship is still around when I’m in my 80s, if I live that long, and am still enjoying posting, and if I am blind by then (as I may be, as my grandmother was blind for the last decade of her life) I would not want people saying ‘Aw bless - she’s 80 and blind, cut her some slack.’ I’d be wanting the same respect everyone else gets, and to be sent to hell if people think me hellworthy. And I’m sure my grandmother would have felt the same, had she had access to internet and discovered online forums - she was full of opinions (from long before when she was blind and in her 80s) and enjoyed expressing them!
disingenuousness ] Before I posted in the Churches thread, I googled definition of ‘disingenuous’ to check its meaning. The definition reads:
‘‘Thesaurus.com. adjective. lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically ingenuous; insincere:
I shall be interested to know which words and phrases you can cite where you think I have been hypocritical, whether falsely or not!, or lacking in frankness – whatever that means in the circumstances, and insincere.
I have said that you come across as trying to convert others to atheism in your posts, although you say that this is not your intention. As your words do not match the message conveyed by your actions I was using disingenuous in the sense that you are being insincere and/or falsely arguing. This may be unintentional, but it is certainly how your posting comes across.
Thank you for your response. I do not delude myself into thinking that my words on an internet message board somewhere on the internet are going to change anything much; that would be totally unrealistic. However, I will be watching out for an argument or a convincing piece of factual evidence until I am no longer able to do so, even though I do not think it will happen. Being in communication with those who agree or disagree is far and away more interesting than passively listening, to audio books for instance, unless they are particularly interesting.
You say:
those experiences that uphold your faith are figments of your imagination;
No, what I have said is that interpretation of those, undoubtedly real, experiences is from the mind and its stored and constantly re—arranged etc thoughts and images. Tell me why that is untrue.
What I was doing was paraphrasing these two posts from the Images thread, first post:
Eventually, my life’s experiences, the people I met, the reading, listening and TV documentary watching I had done left no room for the minute God belief left in my brain and it just evaporated.
This has never lessened my interest in learning how, why and what other people believe.
I am not sure we are both talking about the same thing when it comes to a deep conviction. You seem to be talking about something you were taught and never thought to question. I know that feeling (though I feel like I’ve questioned absolutely everything I was taught by now! ) but that is not what I mean by a deep conviction. It’s a different sort of awareness/knowledge - in my case going against much of what I was taught as a child. An awareness that can happen out of the blue, or when I’m praying, and can be quite surprising.
I wonder, do you reject completely that such a conviction is produced entirely by your brain as a result of all input since your life began?
The last part of my original post you have queried is this bit:
belief in God is clearly nonsense
No, not nonsense, but totally understandable and is unlikely ever to cease. I do believe it will lessen, but that’s way into the future, and probably will not affect any of us.
One objective fact at this point to show that all gods are not from imagination would change things!
and on the Let old churches die and start some new ones thread, when talking about dramatisation of Bible stories, your response was:
I hope s/he [the atheist present] was able to mention the phrase 'entirely anecdotal' here and there, however well presented the dramatized stories were.
which is effectively saying that there is no proof of God, this is something that should not go unchallenged [subtext: because this is unreal/nonsense].[/quote]
Thank you for taking the trouble to give these details. I suppose I can see why you are seeing a subtext and will do my best to say if there is one. It will be rare - I try to be clear.
Now this is when I like SD, as she sails along imperturbably, like a galleon in full sail, ignoring all who cross her prow, well, not quite all.
Well, once upon a time I used to be 5'7.1/2" and could do that more easily, but now I am the same person but contained in a somewhat shrunk in height and size! I wrote a poem about this once which was published in the local Residents' Association journal!
Oh dear - apologies for (a) messing up the tags and (b) leaving an extra bit at the end of the post. Synthetic dave was having a problem echoing characters and reading. However, I hope it is not too confusing.
SusanDoris, am I correct in understanding from your last post that you come to discuss here because you are waiting for someone to give you some tangible, physical, scientific proof of God’s existence? I may be wrong, but I don’t think anyone here is claiming that God can be ‘proved’ in that way, so no one here is likely to be doing that. There may be other, more conservative groups, who make such claims - I’m not sure. Not that I want you to leave us, but I just think you are barking up the wrong tree if that is really your purpose of being here.
Also, SusanDoris, have you read C.S. Lewis? Apologies if this is a conversation you’ve already had, but if you haven’t read him you might enjoy his books, such as Mere Christianity, and Surprised by Joy. Because, if I recall correctly, he did come to Christianity from atheism from logical reasoning. I don’t agree with all his reasoning, but he is very rigorous and logical in his thought process, and very readable - I’m sure his books must be available as audiobooks. I was just thinking he was someone who was presenting a kind of ‘proof’ (not technically proof, but apologetics) for Christianity, if that is the sort of thing you are looking for.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying SusanDoris shouldn't be challenged. I've done that from time to time including a parody of liturgy in SusanDoris style.
FWIW I don't believe SD is being disingenuous. I don't think she knows any other way to post and to engage with these issues. Concrete thinking is the right term.
Literally.
I take the point about motorway usage and not going 'Aw bless ...' to little old ladies with white sticks who think a poem published Inna Residents' Association newsletter represents some kind of major achievement ...
But if I can do as well as SD does when I'm 80 - tap dancing classes and so on - then I'd be pretty chuffed. I couldn't tap dance now to save my life.
But what are we saying here?
That if we were hurtling down the motorway and saw a little old lady with a white stick tottering across the carriageway from the hard-shoulder we'd say, 'Well, she ought to abide by the rules of the road ...' and keep on driving?
No, surely not.
That said, SD is smart enough to know, surely that to challenge each and every theistic claim by asking, 'You do know that's in your brain don't you?' as if such a thing had never occurred to us, isn't going to get very far.
But I don’t get called to Hell. So I assume it’s Susan Doris’ atheism that folk really have a problem with, not her posting style.
But you don't claim to be all about reason and logic and science, and then when someone tries to reason logically with you, fall flat on your face, and make excuses for why you don't come back in the manner you have stated is all-important. But go ahead and believe it's her atheism if that's what makes you feel good.
Even allowing for the 'schtick' - if deliberate - I kind of like SusanDoris on aggregate. I don't often like what she posts, to be honest. And I think she misses the point of a lot of the discussion at times. Not necessarily to do with atheism or otherwise. Just the debating style? But sometimes she highlights something worth taking on board or which makes me think a little harder about my own assumptions. Taken as a whole, I sort of appreciate what she adds to my overall experience of the Ship.
(And I sort of feel the same way about Mudfrog.)
Proviso: this will not stop me from going for the jugular, however, if required! Metaphorical consigning to the infernal regions does go on from time to time when reading these people's posts!
I think I have said many times that one fact would change my mind, but then it would change all minds, would it not?
I just wanted to pick up on this because fact is, in fact(!), a very slippery term. It might be a fact that I proposed to my other half from the highest point we could get to on the Eiffel Tower. If it was, how would I prove it? Unless you chose to accept her and my testimony that was the case, or the testimony of other witnesses, if we could find any two and a half decades after the event. You might choose to say it is merely my belief that I did that. We might struggle to adjudicate the truth of my belief. The fact, if it is one, would not be less factual for my inability to prove it to your satisfaction. It remains a fact whether you believe it or not. If I lose my memory of it through, say, dementia, it doesn’t cease to be a fact because I no longer remember it.
Even that mundane and recent fact might be very hard to prove.
It might be a fact that Jesus was raised from the dead nearly two thousand years ago. What evidence could we realistically expect to find of that fact now? If it is a fact, its reality is not lessened because we can’t prove it, or can’t prove it to a standard not normally applied to ancient history.
That understanding of the nature of historical ‘facts’ seems basic to me, and I believe the resurrection to have been a historical fact. In the light of that understanding, your call for ‘one fact’ seems to me to be either almost incredibly naive, or alternatively disingenuous.
Thank you for your response. I do not delude myself into thinking that my words on an internet message board somewhere on the internet are going to change anything much; that would be totally unrealistic. However, I will be watching out for an argument or a convincing piece of factual evidence until I am no longer able to do so, even though I do not think it will happen. Being in communication with those who agree or disagree is far and away more interesting than passively listening, to audio books for instance, unless they are particularly interesting.
which is the bit that @fineline picked up on with her responses.
And secondly:
Thank you for taking the trouble to give these details. I suppose I can see why you are seeing a subtext and will do my best to say if there is one. It will be rare - I try to be clear.
It is quite difficult to avoid a subtext, and it's what is often picked up on by other posters when challenging Shipmates.
And going back to the conversation about giving someone a pass, I meant to say that being prepared to challenge someone choosing to be part of a discussion board is respecting them and their views, whereas allowing someone to post rubbish and allow it to pass is with the comment that they are elderly and need to be supported, given an easy ride, is demeaning and patronising. But ... because I realise that @SusanDoris has different barriers to overcome posting on the boards, I make allowances for coding difficulties.
I take the point about motorway usage and not going 'Aw bless ...' to little old ladies with white sticks who think a poem published Inna Residents' Association newsletter represents some kind of major achievement ...
But if I can do as well as SD does when I'm 80 - tap dancing classes and so on - then I'd be pretty chuffed. I couldn't tap dance now to save my life.
But what are we saying here?
That if we were hurtling down the motorway and saw a little old lady with a white stick tottering across the carriageway from the hard-shoulder we'd say, 'Well, she ought to abide by the rules of the road ...' and keep on driving?
I am not sure where you are going with your analogy, Gamma. For one thing, SusanDoris’s expression of her views in Purgatory is not putting herself or anyone in danger. And, even if it was, if someone young and male and sighted was also walking dangerously along the carriageway, would you simply kill them because they are not a little old lady with a stick?
But let’s go with your analogy. If someone was walking dangerously on the road, you might want to talk to them about it. And what is haopening here is that people are talking to SusanDoris about her way of posting, which some people have issue with. Same as with anyone on the Ship. Or are you suggesting people should be banned from posting in Purgatory once they reach a certain age, rather than get a hell call?
That said, SD is smart enough to know, surely that to challenge each and every theistic claim by asking, 'You do know that's in your brain don't you?' as if such a thing had never occurred to us, isn't going to get very far.
But go ahead and believe it's her atheism if that's what makes you feel good.
No one is saying that is the only reason. But it is one reason and it stands to reason that it should be.
We, normal humans,* cut slack to those we like and to those who agree with us.
*For convenience, if not reality, I am including myself
I am very much aware of the warning attached to posting in Hell and will keep my eyes open for any bulls-eyes I may be painting onto myself...but this time I really want to say a couple of things.
Firstly, I am not comfortable with talking about people which I know is part of the fun here but I prefer talking to people so I am glad SusanDoris has responded to this hell call.
SusanDoris this is what I would like to say to you.
It feels like often when you post on threads that you are not engaging with what is being said. I once had a pupil in my one of my classes who was responding to another who had said something about God. The young man vehemently denied God's existence- all of which was fine. He then moved on to state emphatically that Jesus Christ had never existed and no amount of persuasion by others in the class to explore what they had to say about historical sources would get him to engage in an actual discussion about what they thought. He continued to reiterate what he believed in general rather than engaging with the specifics.
When I read some of your posts on some threads it feels similar and I can understand other people's frustration.
I understand the technical challenges you face in contributing to these boards but I don't think they explain why you seem to not actually engage with what people have written but reiterate your general position.
I'd be really interested in reading any response and more in depth engagement you might have with BroJames's post a little bit up thread.
Comments
I find SusanDoris' atheism sad, but understandable, given the monumental train-wreck that 'religion' (of all sorts) sometimes appears to be.
She's one of the Shipmates whose posts I don't scroll past.
Well, mostly. Sometimes it's a case of tl/dr....
IJ
When we read visually, the post is there, static, all at once, for us to look at as long as we need to. But if you are listening to something, you hear the words and then they are gone - it is a passing moment in time. Even if you listen again - it is always in motion, a fleeting moment.
I don’t know how SusanDoris finds this, as everyone is different, and some people have no problem with this, but I personally would find this very difficult. I think I would find it hard to follow several strands of thought at once, and I can imagine I might be wanting to ask people to adapt how they write their posts when they address me, if there was a way that would make it easier. But SusanDoris doesn’t - she just gets on with it, and with good humour. I did see her ask someone to repeat a point they said she hadn’t addressed, as she would have had to go back and listen to line after line, not necessarily knowing when she’d found it. They refused, and she didn’t make a fuss. I think it must be a certain tenaciousness and enthusiasm that keeps her posting, and I like that about her.
Also I can imagine that if you can’t just pop in and glance at posts and write a quick reply, but need to go through the process of having the whole thread read to you, you might be more inclined to limit the threads/boards you go on, and discuss things you think are important, rather than the more casual small-talk type stuff in Heaven.
I agree. I do find her post frustrating sometimes, and I see why others get frustrated, but I also find her interesting and enjoyable to read and engage with, and I’m glad she is part of the Ship. I liked the questions she was raising in the discussion about images, and I liked that she clarified in a friendly way when I asked if she meant photographs by images. I think she has quite a concrete way of thinking, and so do I in some ways, so her thought process often makes sense to me.
Just so.
I did say 'mostly', and 'sometimes'!
IJ
I’ve been out for a short walk round the block (just under a mile I think. At one point in the main street, I got into a slight difficulty with a hazard, unnoticed in a patch of dark shade. Fortunately, a young woman passing by immediately saw what was happening and came to my aid, making sure that I did not fall or step into the road by mistake.
Not two miles away from my front door is the New Forest with its rides, country pubs, marked walks, birdsong, quietness, etc. so why am I here instead of there? Because I think I am so lucky to have found message boards on the internet.
I'm not interested in your explanation. I just want you to STFU.
I shall be interested to know which words and phrases you can cite where you think I have been hypocritical, whether falsely or not!, or lacking in frankness – whatever that means in the circumstances, and insincere.
You say: No, what I have said is that interpretation of those, undoubtedly real, experiences is from the mind and its stored and constantly re—arranged etc thoughts and images. Tell me why that is untrue. No, not nonsense, but totally understandable and is unlikely ever to cease. I do believe it will lessen, but that’s way into the future, and probably will not affect any of us.
I've never realized that. Is this a formal requirement, or custom and practice? It seems very rigid to me.
No one's holding a gun to anyone's head to respond to any particular poster. I've a mental list of those I scroll past, not caring whether they've raised a salient point because I've learnt through bitter experience that it's not worth getting into the same mental swamp as them.
Hmmm - the tags don't sound quite right at the start...
Yes. My forehead has the grooves in it to prove this participation, and much of my furniture has been kicked, his head not being available.
Steve's standard is not one to which I would aspire, so if it is possible to disuade another person from posting in his style, I'll take the chance.
I can't conceive of not having individual conversations, I suppose I can address the world at large, but to what end?
thank you - for posts at top of this page.!
To be fair it was me who called myself out and @ThunderBunk agreed with me.
(Ooops there I go again, maybe change of name to Pollyanna?
<retires muttering, to find a porcupine>
I have said that you come across as trying to convert others to atheism in your posts, although you say that this is not your intention. As your words do not match the message conveyed by your actions I was using disingenuous in the sense that you are being insincere and/or falsely arguing. This may be unintentional, but it is certainly how your posting comes across.
What I was doing was paraphrasing these two posts from the Images thread, first post: Second post
The last part of my original post you have queried is this bit: And again on the Images thread, you said: and on the Let old churches die and start some new ones thread, when talking about dramatisation of Bible stories, your response was: which is effectively saying that there is no proof of God, this is something that should not go unchallenged [subtext: because this is unreal/nonsense].
agree
It is a pleasure to read your thoughtful and interesting posts.
I agree, and was thinking this also, but hadn’t found the words yet to express it. If the Ship is still around when I’m in my 80s, if I live that long, and am still enjoying posting, and if I am blind by then (as I may be, as my grandmother was blind for the last decade of her life) I would not want people saying ‘Aw bless - she’s 80 and blind, cut her some slack.’ I’d be wanting the same respect everyone else gets, and to be sent to hell if people think me hellworthy. And I’m sure my grandmother would have felt the same, had she had access to internet and discovered online forums - she was full of opinions (from long before when she was blind and in her 80s) and enjoyed expressing them!
The last part of my original post you have queried is this bit: And again on the Images thread, you said: and on the Let old churches die and start some new ones thread, when talking about dramatisation of Bible stories, your response was: which is effectively saying that there is no proof of God, this is something that should not go unchallenged [subtext: because this is unreal/nonsense].[/quote]
Thank you for taking the trouble to give these details. I suppose I can see why you are seeing a subtext and will do my best to say if there is one. It will be rare - I try to be clear.
FWIW I don't believe SD is being disingenuous. I don't think she knows any other way to post and to engage with these issues. Concrete thinking is the right term.
Literally.
I take the point about motorway usage and not going 'Aw bless ...' to little old ladies with white sticks who think a poem published Inna Residents' Association newsletter represents some kind of major achievement ...
But if I can do as well as SD does when I'm 80 - tap dancing classes and so on - then I'd be pretty chuffed. I couldn't tap dance now to save my life.
But what are we saying here?
That if we were hurtling down the motorway and saw a little old lady with a white stick tottering across the carriageway from the hard-shoulder we'd say, 'Well, she ought to abide by the rules of the road ...' and keep on driving?
No, surely not.
That said, SD is smart enough to know, surely that to challenge each and every theistic claim by asking, 'You do know that's in your brain don't you?' as if such a thing had never occurred to us, isn't going to get very far.
Enough already.
(And I sort of feel the same way about Mudfrog.)
Proviso: this will not stop me from going for the jugular, however, if required! Metaphorical consigning to the infernal regions does go on from time to time when reading these people's posts!
Even that mundane and recent fact might be very hard to prove.
It might be a fact that Jesus was raised from the dead nearly two thousand years ago. What evidence could we realistically expect to find of that fact now? If it is a fact, its reality is not lessened because we can’t prove it, or can’t prove it to a standard not normally applied to ancient history.
That understanding of the nature of historical ‘facts’ seems basic to me, and I believe the resurrection to have been a historical fact. In the light of that understanding, your call for ‘one fact’ seems to me to be either almost incredibly naive, or alternatively disingenuous.
which is the bit that @fineline picked up on with her responses.
And secondly: It is quite difficult to avoid a subtext, and it's what is often picked up on by other posters when challenging Shipmates.
And going back to the conversation about giving someone a pass, I meant to say that being prepared to challenge someone choosing to be part of a discussion board is respecting them and their views, whereas allowing someone to post rubbish and allow it to pass is with the comment that they are elderly and need to be supported, given an easy ride, is demeaning and patronising. But ... because I realise that @SusanDoris has different barriers to overcome posting on the boards, I make allowances for coding difficulties.
I am not sure where you are going with your analogy, Gamma. For one thing, SusanDoris’s expression of her views in Purgatory is not putting herself or anyone in danger. And, even if it was, if someone young and male and sighted was also walking dangerously along the carriageway, would you simply kill them because they are not a little old lady with a stick?
But let’s go with your analogy. If someone was walking dangerously on the road, you might want to talk to them about it. And what is haopening here is that people are talking to SusanDoris about her way of posting, which some people have issue with. Same as with anyone on the Ship. Or are you suggesting people should be banned from posting in Purgatory once they reach a certain age, rather than get a hell call?
We, normal humans,* cut slack to those we like and to those who agree with us.
*For convenience, if not reality, I am including myself
Firstly, I am not comfortable with talking about people which I know is part of the fun here but I prefer talking to people so I am glad SusanDoris has responded to this hell call.
SusanDoris this is what I would like to say to you.
It feels like often when you post on threads that you are not engaging with what is being said. I once had a pupil in my one of my classes who was responding to another who had said something about God. The young man vehemently denied God's existence- all of which was fine. He then moved on to state emphatically that Jesus Christ had never existed and no amount of persuasion by others in the class to explore what they had to say about historical sources would get him to engage in an actual discussion about what they thought. He continued to reiterate what he believed in general rather than engaging with the specifics.
When I read some of your posts on some threads it feels similar and I can understand other people's frustration.
I understand the technical challenges you face in contributing to these boards but I don't think they explain why you seem to not actually engage with what people have written but reiterate your general position.
I'd be really interested in reading any response and more in depth engagement you might have with BroJames's post a little bit up thread.