SusanDoris the millstone

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  • RooK wrote: »
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    I have of course read your post several times and apologise for writing just an ordinary sort of answer
    Amusingly, your post was ordinary only for you - in that it was an extraordinary avoidance of the substance of my post. You plucked out the one painfully obvious part of my post and argued that you grasped it, despite the incandescent irony of how doing so demonstrates your continued obliviousness.
    I would not try to compete with your creative posting!

  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    SusanDoris, this is not about competing for creativity or wit. It's about people trying to communicate with you, in a variety of ways, and you not showing any sign of having grasped the point they were making. It's true RooK does have a very distinctive style of posting in Hell, but he uses it to make serious points, not simply to be creative.
  • fineline wrote: »
    I was relating my post to the point I thought RooK was making. Not suggesting God’s existence shouldn’t be debated on the Ship. But talking more generally about SD’s tendency to question individuals she doesn’t know about their personal faith journey, without displaying any interest or empathy in hearing their personal details and feelings, but just suggesting they need to consider they might be wrong. I was picking up what I understood (perhaps wrongly) RooK to be saying when he said she was asking people she did not understand.
    OK. I re-read that last part of Rook's post and have mixed feelings about it and your post. One, I don't feel right about telling a person to drop their faith. However, SD does it in Purg. The masthead in Purg specifically warns about debate and hosts have often warned the more delicate that they might wish to venture into Heaven or All Saints. It is at least as incumbent on the shaky swimmer to stay out of the deep end as it is for the swimmers therein not to splash to fiercely. Especially if there is a warning posted, as there is in Purg.
    And, really, is SD a challenge to faith? Of atheists here, I would think that atheists like Crœsos are more of a challenge. And, for myself, people like Mudfrog, Raptor Eye and MPaul would be more likely to cause me to run from Christianity than what amounts to an annoying sidebar ad blinking the words "God Doesn't Exist".
  • Probably.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    I think part of the issue is that SD makes it personal. I'm not sure this aspect has been fully looked at here yet, as everyone is looking at the fact she repeats the same question, which is of course also annoying, but SD is also not simply discussing things in a general, objective way. She is asking individuals about the details of their personal faith - whether they personally have had doubts and considered that they might be wrong. Which of course many have, and sometimes people share a little with her. Now, bearing in mind a person's faith journey can be a very personal thing, SD simply replies to any personal sharing with 'Have you ever considered you might be wrong?' Which is kind of ... I guess, socially gauche, as these are people she doesn't know, and these are very personal questions.

    I see it as a lack of social understanding and subtlety on SD's part, just as I do with my uncle in the example I gave, but equally it could potentially be quite destructive. And I get the feeling from comments SD makes that she isn't so discriminating in terms of context - that she might equally ask such questions in a 'real life' conversation if the opportunity arose. I was saying what I did in the hopes that it might show her a perspective that she hadn't considered and maybe make her be a little more discerning in how/when/to whom/how often she asks people, in general. It was more than simply a comment on debating faith in Purgatory.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    I don't feel right about telling a person to drop their faith. However, SD does it in Purg. The masthead in Purg specifically warns about debate
    BuddhaBro, I am 100% aligned with you in philosophy regarding challenging people's arguments, beliefs, and assumptions - especially in Purgatory. But I assert that this is not even remotely what @SusanDoris is actually doing, any more than poking somebody with a chopstick is helping them pluck out splinters. Her only real function is to annoy the everliving fuck out of people and smile blandly, even dismissively, at what they're actually trying to engage with.

    Hence this bottomless Hell thread. SD's annoyance is the grease fire on top of the sea of doubt that most people should be feeling, regardless of their overt denial. Her efforts only cloud our minuscule ability to perceive the depths.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    I guess, to clarify further, I am addressing an entire attitude which SD seems to be expressing in this thread - this idea that belief in God needs to be challenged, always, for the good of mankind. Going beyond the question of whether it's okay to question God's existence in Purg (I don't think that ever has been in question, actually - I think everyone agrees that is okay, and part of what the Ship is for) and looking at how and where and why the questions are asked.
  • @fineline
    Interesting point about the face to face behaviour. Whilst what I believe and the points I discuss are the same, the medium I use affects my presentation. Context does as well. I think it works this way for most people, at least to a point. Also, if you are correct in your evaluation of SD, subtle isn't going to work, especially when direct doesn't always seem to...
  • fineline wrote: »
    I think part of the issue is that SD makes it personal.

    I think part of the problem, fineline, is that a lot of people including yourself, make it personal, otherwise there would not be a 20 page Hell thread.

    As for the way SD posts, RooK has nailed it above
  • I have a sister who hates herself if she cannot have the last word in any discussion. The rest of our family have learned to drop out once we've said what we have to say because we know if we continue it will be heads against a brick wall.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    @fineline
    Interesting point about the face to face behaviour. Whilst what I believe and the points I discuss are the same, the medium I use affects my presentation. Context does as well. I think it works this way for most people, at least to a point. Also, if you are correct in your evaluation of SD, subtle isn't going to work, especially when direct doesn't always seem to...

    I didn't think I was being subtle! Long-winded, maybe, and giving concrete examples, as SD seems to work with concrete.

  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    balaam wrote: »
    fineline wrote: »
    I think part of the issue is that SD makes it personal.

    I think part of the problem, fineline, is that a lot of people including yourself, make it personal, otherwise there would not be a 20 page Hell thread.

    Making something personal can mean many different things, so I'm not really sure what point you're making. I was referring specifically to the fact that SD wants to know people's personal faith journeys and the questions they ask themselves, and their doubts - which could actually be a really interesting discussion, if the responses she gave to people's self-revelations were more open and interested than 'But have you ever considered you might be wrong?' That kind of closes discussion a bit (as I've said earlier).

    I think the reason the thread is so long is that SD is genuinely interested in asking the questions, and (some) people are genuinely interested in unpicking how to do this so it's not just the same question being repeated in various threads, and also a lot of repetition is happening along the way, due to SD not always seeming to get the points being made. Maybe my interpretation is overly optimistic though!

  • Close members of my family are all non-believers. Some of them enjoy taking people to visit the Cathedral because it is a place of great beauty and of enormous historical interest. They do not feel the presence of any God or any need to pray.

    I wonder what you - i.e. the believers - think are atheists' reasons for their now or always lack of belief That is, if any choose to respond.

    If you think this question is not relevant, or should not be here, etc then please ignore it.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    Close members of my family are uneducated shitheads. Some of them enjoy expounding about things that not only do they know virtually nothing about, but also to specifically argue with others who are indeed experts.

    I wonder what you - the blitheringly idiotic - think are their reasons for lack of understanding and subsequent blundering offensiveness.

    If you think this question is not relevant, then you are not paying attention.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited September 2018
    fineline wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    I do not compare science with religion, I contrast it....
    But you contrast it from the point of view of science. Not from a neutral point of view. You demand that religion dance on science's string. Which is to pre-decide the outcome of any such contrast.

    This. SD, you are coming from the assumption that everything real must be able to be evidenced through science. This is an assumption.

    Everything evidenced through science is real. What's real that isn't?
  • edited September 2018
    <nuked>
  • *brick wall*
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Everything evidenced through science is real. What's real that isn't?
    Stop fetishizing science as an arbiter of reality. It is a tool for the systematic improvement of knowledge, that is all. The entire field of quantum physics is one conclusively negative experiment away from discarding decades of theorizing down theoretical extrapolations. It's about making better guesses that are decreasing in likelihood of being wrong, not some absolute certification of truth.

    Not that I suggest for anyone to believe the twaddle of some long-dead arm-waving anti-Roman hippies who were later ret-conned as conveniently dogmatic reinforcement of hierarchical patriarchy. Or any of the reactionary off-shoots thereof (splitters!).
  • fineline wrote: »
    if the responses she gave to people's self-revelations were more open and interested than 'But have you ever considered you might be wrong?' That kind of closes discussion a bit (as I've said earlier).
    But that is no different to the evanjerkal¹ types who repeat "it's in the bible! Godhatesfagsallinfidelsaregoingtohelletc". Granted, most of those that we have here manage to vary their squawk with a little more than SD, but is there message any less harmful? I'd argue it is worse, because they are attacking people from within their target's belief systems.²
    Anyway, I whilst I agree that SD MO is not always sensitive to people's state of mind, I don't think her behaviour is that egregious.
    ²Yeah, I know, this Hell call ain't about them, but...


    ¹Apologies if that is offensive. Mentalfundalists? Better?
    More apologies to the My God is Real, your belief is Fake arseholes, I've not come up with a neologism for your ridiculousness.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    I haven’t come across any fundamentalists here asking people how, say, they personally lost their faith and what their thought pattern was, and then following their personal revelations with the squawk that the Bible says they’re going to hell. But there are plenty of threads I haven’t seen, so maybe this has happened. And I would see it as equally inappropriate.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    Lilbuddha, I should add I’m probably not the best target for your ‘But Christians do this too and no one complains’ line, because fundamentalist Christians trying to change everything into a conversation about God and to get people to consider converting tend to annoy me far, far more than atheists doing this, and I do challenge them a lot, but just haven’t come across it a great deal on the Ship.

    When it happens here in a conversation I’m part of, I say something, but I don’t do a Hell call, just as I haven’t called SD to Hell. If the person were called to Hell for this behaviour and I had seen it, I would testify to it. I might not post as much as here, because I post more if the person seems genuinely oblivious, and not an arsehole. If they are an arsehole in my estimation, I don’t waste my time.
  • fineline wrote: »
    Lilbuddha, I should add I’m probably not the best target for your ‘But Christians do this too and no one complains’ line,
    I was not targeting you with that. apologies for not being more clear. I do think there is a bias here and it is perfectly natural that there is. It is human nature.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    I think I meant audience more than target. I know you are saying it as a general thing, and you are saying it many times to many people. You were at that point saying it to me, and so I was pointing out it wasn’t necessary, as any bias on my part is the opposite one, probably closer to your own natural bias.
  • fineline wrote: »
    I think I meant audience more than target. I know you are saying it as a general thing, and you are saying it many times to many people. You were at that point saying it to me, and so I was pointing out it wasn’t necessary, as any bias on my part is the opposite one, probably closer to your own natural bias.
    Sometimes a quote is used as a stepping off point, rather than addressing the person who said it. I should have been more clear. Yes, I've made similar statements many times on this thread. Probably for naught.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    But that is no different to the evanjerkal¹ types who repeat "it's in the bible! Godhatesfagsallinfidelsaregoingtohelletc".

    You know, full well, that no one gets a pass on that in Purgatory. My kids (some time back when they were 4) used to try and pull this shit on me "He did X!" "I told him off for X, and now I'm telling you off for Y."

    And I'm kind of assuming you're not 4. At least physically.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    ¹Apologies if that is offensive. Mentalfundalists? Better?
    More apologies to the My God is Real, your belief is Fake arseholes, I've not come up with a neologism for your ridiculousness.

    They have no backbone. Call them Evanjellyfish.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    I find evanjellyfish is a term evangelicals themselves use, to describe those among them who are too polite to tell people they are going to hell. Those who have no such scruples are the ones who use the term.
  • RooK wrote: »
    Close members of my family are uneducated shitheads. Some of them enjoy expounding about things that not only do they know virtually nothing about, but also to specifically argue with others who are indeed experts.

    I wonder what you - the blitheringly idiotic - think are their reasons for lack of understanding and subsequent blundering offensiveness.

    If you think this question is not relevant, then you are not paying attention.

    You have explained this to her clearly enough, but you have obviously not comprehended it for her. You are not alone.
  • SusanDoris wrote: »
    Close members of my family are all non-believers. Some of them enjoy taking people to visit the Cathedral because it is a place of great beauty and of enormous historical interest. They do not feel the presence of any God or any need to pray.

    I wonder what you - i.e. the believers - think are atheists' reasons for their now or always lack of belief That is, if any choose to respond.

    If you think this question is not relevant, or should not be here, etc then please ignore it.

    Rook answered this far better than I ever could.

    However, FWIW (very little) here is an attempt to answer it from my own perspective.

    'Close members of my family are all non-believers.' That's not unusual. So are most of mine and I suspect many other people here. What's your point?

    'Some of them enjoy taking people to visit the Cathedral because it is a place of great beauty and of enormous historical interest.' So do plenty of other people. Cathedrals are big tourist attractions these days. I enjoy visiting cathedrals for those reasons too. What's your point?

    'They do not feel the presence of any God or any need to pray.' Again, they are not alone in that. I would imagine plenty of people who visit cathedrals feel the same. Others don't. Nobody is making them pray. If they want to visit a cathedral and admire the architecture, fine. If they want to pray there then that's fine too. Again, what's your point?

    Then your question: 'I wonder what you - i.e. the believers - think are atheists' reasons for their now or always lack of belief.'

    My answer:

    I would imagine there are as many different reasons as there are atheists. There'll be all sorts of reasons. They may have been put off organised religion (or even unorganised religion) by something they've seen or heard. They may want some kind of proof in a 'seeing is believing' sense. They may have concluded that the whole thing is irrational and not worth bothering with. All sorts of reasons.

    Why do you ask?

    I'm not sure of the point you're trying to make here.

    I'm sure if we asked all the atheists aboard Ship their reasons for being atheists, they'd all give us a number of reasons. Some would overlap, some would be quite different.

    Some people may feel a sense of the numinous and a need to pray in a cathedral or other religious building - of whatever faith - and I'm sure if you asked them why that was you'd get an equally diverse range of reasons.

    Same if you asked those who didn't feel the need to pray.

    I really don't see the point of your question. Am I missing something?

  • fineline wrote: »
    I find evanjellyfish is a term evangelicals themselves use, to describe those among them who are too polite to tell people they are going to hell. Those who have no such scruples are the ones who use the term.
    I am surprised that, in this day and age, anyone would use such an expression anyway. What do they think it means? Do they (whoever they are) think there is a Hell to go to? Do they provide any clues as to how anyone is supposed to get there ... wherever they imagine it to be? I do not know, and have not known, anyone who says such things. The whole thing is off the wall daft.

  • How is anyone supposed to get there? Well, they click on the button on the discussion boards page and they end up down here ...
  • SusanDoris wrote: »
    fineline wrote: »
    I find evanjellyfish is a term evangelicals themselves use, to describe those among them who are too polite to tell people they are going to hell. Those who have no such scruples are the ones who use the term.
    I am surprised that, in this day and age, anyone would use such an expression anyway. What do they think it means? Do they (whoever they are) think there is a Hell to go to? Do they provide any clues as to how anyone is supposed to get there ... wherever they imagine it to be? I do not know, and have not known, anyone who says such things. The whole thing is off the wall daft.

    You are literally tone deaf. This thread will run and run and run while you continue to post like this.
  • SusanDoris wrote: »
    fineline wrote: »
    I find evanjellyfish is a term evangelicals themselves use, to describe those among them who are too polite to tell people they are going to hell. Those who have no such scruples are the ones who use the term.
    I am surprised that, in this day and age, anyone would use such an expression anyway. What do they think it means? Do they (whoever they are) think there is a Hell to go to? Do they provide any clues as to how anyone is supposed to get there ... wherever they imagine it to be? I do not know, and have not known, anyone who says such things. The whole thing is off the wall daft.

    Who can read this thread and doubt that there is a Hell and that man has made it on Earth?
  • Whoever made the point about 'concrete thinking' was on the money.

    Concrete? It's not like there's some kind of Artificial Intelligence 'bot posting here, more like a traffic bollard.
  • My references to an AI were, I would like to point out, giving SD the benefit of the doubt.
    :weary:

    BTW, SusanDoris, it's not only evangelicals who feel confident in knowing who will go to Hell. Our late Father Fuckwit (he, who when told by the Pope to jump, asked 'How high, O most Holiest of Fathers?) was convinced that Hell was populated largely by Gayz and Wimmin.

    Which sounds fine to me (just as well, perhaps).

    IJ
  • Gayz and Wimmin or Gay Wimmin?

    I'm not sure the current Pontiff would agree with your late, unlamented incumbent on that particular point ...

    (Still, trying to work out why that sounds fine to you ...)
  • Probably the same way as which, after a particularly rigidly hellfire sermon, the incumbent and I reckoned we'd far rather go to hell, please. We thought the company looked better among the miserable sinners than with those who were righteously certain they were going to heaven.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    fineline wrote: »
    I find evanjellyfish is a term evangelicals themselves use, to describe those among them who are too polite to tell people they are going to hell. Those who have no such scruples are the ones who use the term.
    I am surprised that, in this day and age, anyone would use such an expression anyway. What do they think it means? Do they (whoever they are) think there is a Hell to go to? Do they provide any clues as to how anyone is supposed to get there ... wherever they imagine it to be? I do not know, and have not known, anyone who says such things. The whole thing is off the wall daft.

    You are literally tone deaf. This thread will run and run and run while you continue to post like this.
    Well, I'm giving you all the chance to think up more and more creative ways of saying the same thing!!!

  • That's very close to admission of trolling.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    That's very close to admission of trolling.


    Oh really? please explain why.
    You - i.e. other posters - are doing most of the posting I think. Am I supposed not to respond?
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    edited September 2018
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    Well, I'm giving you all the chance to think up more and more creative ways of saying the same thing!!!
    This is an implication that you are trolling people - deliberately pretending to be uncomprehending and tone deaf purely for the purpose of enjoying other's misery.

    While such a conclusion might make it easier to ignore you, I'm afraid that you are probably too stupid to to actually accomplish such a feat, and that this implication was merely more of your usual tone-deaf stupidity. The sad truth is that you probably just lack the cognitive power to curb your threadshitting.
    Am I supposed not to respond?
    Your responses are the intellectual equivalent of a whoopee cushion - a single, annoying note. It actually would be better if you didn't respond, considering that you appear to be incapable of engaging with what people say.
  • Curiosity killedCuriosity killed Shipmate
    edited September 2018
    Urban dictionary definition:
    Trolling – (verb), as it relates to internet, is the deliberate act, (by a Troll – noun or adjective), of making random unsolicited and/or controversial comments on various internet forums with the intent to provoke an emotional knee jerk reaction from unsuspecting readers to engage in a fight or argument

    @SusanDoris - your comment below:
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    Well, I'm giving you all the chance to think up more and more creative ways of saying the same thing!!!
    sounds as if you are deliberately making "random unsolicited and/or controversial comments" "with the intent to provoke an emotional knee jerk reaction from unsuspecting readers".

    eta - cross post with @RooK
  • It's all unrequited love people... Richard Dawkins gets a boner-
    Ezekiel 23:20 (NIV) reads: There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.
  • How about we all resolve to not respond to Susan.
  • To clarify - not respond to the ridiculous and repeated questions.

    I don't mean to freeze her out if she ever showed any sign of saying something interesting, but responding only adds oxygen to her agenda.
  • mr cheesy wrote: »
    To clarify - not respond to the ridiculous and repeated questions.

    I don't mean to freeze her out if she ever showed any sign of saying something interesting, but responding only adds oxygen to her agenda.
    that sounds like an excellent idea!
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    sionisais wrote: »
    Who can read this thread and doubt that there is a Hell and that man has made it on Earth?

    :notworthy:


  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited September 2018
    Gayz and Wimmin or Gay Wimmin?

    I'm not sure the current Pontiff would agree with your late, unlamented incumbent on that particular point ...

    (Still, trying to work out why that sounds fine to you ...)

    Gayz (whether male or female) and Wimmin. He once told me he was fine with Wimmin, as long as they kept their aprons on, and stayed in the kitchen. He loved Gayz, too, but hated their Sin.

    He was, by the way, not actually a Roman Catholic - Anglican (officially) but yearning to cross the Tiber. Alas, he had Married A Lovely Wife (who stayed in the kitchen).

    (I meant that if Hell contains mostly Gayz and Wimmin, it should be more fun than the other place, full of self-righteous, treacly-mouthed nincompoops in suits.)

    IJ

  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    ...(I meant that if Hell contains mostly Gayz and Wimmin, it should be more fun than the other place, full of self-righteous, treacly-mouthed nincompoops in suits.)

    It would almost certainly sport better decor.

  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited September 2018
    Along with tastier cuisine, cleaner loos, better healthcare...

    IJ
This discussion has been closed.