Hello everyone On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Louise Pryor <[email protected]> wrote: > The only person I can change is myself... BUT, *I* cannot change me all by > myself. > > The only way I can change, grow, become better, is by listening to the input > of others, people I like and respect, sure, but also those I don't care for > might also have something useful to add. I can hear it all, and hold on to > that which is good, useful, profitable, and discard that which is not.
Dan: The thing about becoming better is there is no way to do it other than doing it. I don't need to hear anything from anyone. I just know. And so do you whether you care to admit it or not. >Lu: > It seems that on a metaphysical discussion group, you would find the > majority with this view - openness to discourse. It is threatening to most > folks out in the world, to have their ideology and worldview challenged. > Here, though, it should be a safe place to bring it ALL up. A LOT of people > believe in a god of some sort. To just chuck out any conversation including > allusions to deity or theism is to exclude a lot of interesting discussion. Dan: What a load of crap. A lot of people watch television too. What does that tell you about a lot of people? And I'm supposed to listen to them? Why? And I'm sorry to say it but I find most people dull and decidedly uninteresting, that's one reason I hang out here. >Lu: > Just the words "god, deity, theism" seems to cause instant panicked > reactions, a whole lifetime of prejudice is married to those words. But I > assure you that the attachments I have to them differs from yours as much as > I differ from you, but what I also know, that most "atheists" or > "anti-theists" don't seem to (or it isn't apparent from what I have observed > here, anyway), is that if we actually took the time and effort to ask the > pertinent questions, and to really listen to each other, we would find > ourselves closer than we might think, and we would all go away from the > conversation richer. Dan: My oldest daughter got married about four years ago. Her and her new husband lived in Utah at the time. They invited me to the wedding. I dislike flying so I drove for two days to get there. Now... imagine if you will being told you can't attend your daughter's wedding because you're not a Mormon. Non-believers are not allowed inside their temple. So. Lucky me got to attend the civil ceremony the next day at the local community center. And my in-laws treated me like I was some kind of low-life. They kept calling each other "brother" and "sister" while all the time ignoring me. Christ. They wouldn't even look me in the eye. I did a prayer for all of them in that afternoon's meditation. Theism leaves a bad taste in my mouth. People start believing they know best and whoever disagrees, they first try to convert them. That failing, they shun the non-believers. Name me one theistic religion that doesn't, please. They're all the same in that regard. Atheists are nearly as bad. Don't even get me started with that. > > Lu - the wife of a discouraged man. *sigh* Dan: Well, from the look of things your man has gotten over his discouragement, what with dmb playing nice and all. I'm glad. And don't worry. I won't be able to post here again any time soon. Priorities, don't you know. Be Good, Dan Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
