Life

[Griddlelol]

Met some really interesting people through flat/house shares, and even experienced some rather emotional moments with people I barely knew.

One girl's mother passed away within a few days of me moving in and I was the only one around to comfort her. Was very saddening but I'm glad I made a difference to her just as someone to talk to and cry on.

In an all male house after a few months we all got a long gushing text from one of the sharers about how he was sorry for lying to us about his sexuality and came out as gay. He was incredibly happy when each one of us got home from work and basically said "that really doesn't matter" after he had a pretty bad experience a few years before with coming out to his parents.

House sharing is pretty cool (but I have to admit I've been lucky and only ever shared with one asshole).

Why do I always get new pages?!

[eot]

I actually drove in snow for the first time this past week during my trip to Sweden. Scary stuff, I was in the middle of a snowstorm so there wasn't a ton of snow on the ground but there was plenty in my windshield. Had studded tires but that didn't help me from skidding just a little bit now and then.

 

My experience was limited there, but driving in a serious Florida thunderstorm has scared me much more. Hydroplaning is awful, I've done it a handful of times with no serious consequences but it's put a pit in my stomach every time. Only thing to do in that situation is to pump the brakes and hope you catch a little traction instead of panicking and slamming the brakes to engage ABS.

 

I also lost a car to flooding in a way, drove on a road during a long storm here and the car stalled. After letting it dry out for a few hours it was driveable, but enough of the components were shot that it had things failing left and right so I traded it in before it went kaput.

Where'd you visit? Just curious (as a Swede )

[JonCole]

Where'd you visit? Just curious (as a Swede )

 

We were staying in Partille, visited Gothenburg and walked about the city a bit. Visited Liseberg where we won 2kg of Schweizer not and 3kg of Aladdin/Paradis and saw some reindeer, which was fun. Went to the Natural History Museum and Aeroseum, as far as other attractions go. We also shot up to Norway to see Fredriksten fortress.

[Apelsin]

Right around where I grew up then

Hope you liked it!

[Badfinger]

Met some really interesting people through flat/house shares, and even experienced some rather emotional moments with people I barely knew.

One girl's mother passed away within a few days of me moving in and I was the only one around to comfort her. Was very saddening but I'm glad I made a difference to her just as someone to talk to and cry on.

In an all male house after a few months we all got a long gushing text from one of the sharers about how he was sorry for lying to us about his sexuality and came out as gay. He was incredibly happy when each one of us got home from work and basically said "that really doesn't matter" after he had a pretty bad experience a few years before with coming out to his parents.

House sharing is pretty cool (but I have to admit I've been lucky and only ever shared with one asshole).

Why do I always get new pages?!

 

I had a roommate in college who was gay. Everyone knew he was gay, he was spending all his time with another guy who was openly gay (obviously his boyfriend, but not directly reference) who confided to a mutual friend of ours that the roommate not coming out was a source of tension in their relationship. Even so, every once in a while he would make these really stilted comments about how hot some girl or other was, or they did a sexy thing. It would have been relieving to laugh about it with him. He never came out to us, and we never had that moment with him. It was four of us in two room, and I shared my room with him. I wish I had been closer with him. I probably was not a very good roommate, which is partially because I'm probably not a very good roommate, and partially because I was going through family things that of course I didn't share with anyone. Yeah, I wish we'd had the chance to talk.

 

 

Grayson it might even be worth checking out Craigslist as well. Just be thorough in checking stuff out whatever you do and you'll probably find something and be fine.

[bakelite]

We were staying in Partille, visited Gothenburg and walked about the city a bit. Visited Liseberg where we won 2kg of Schweizer not and 3kg of Aladdin/Paradis and saw some reindeer, which was fun. Went to the Natural History Museum and Aeroseum, as far as other attractions go. We also shot up to Norway to see Fredriksten fortress.

 

I've lived here for 29 years and I had no idea that the Aeroseum is a thing. And I love the Natural History Museum, it's a time capsule from the early 20th century. The only significant change they've made since I was a kid was the removal of a jar of conjoined twins from the cabinet of curiosities a few years ago. Same old musty whale and dusty elephant.

[JonCole]

I've lived here for 29 years and I had no idea that the Aeroseum is a thing. And I love the Natural History Museum, it's a time capsule from the early 20th century. The only significant change they've made since I was a kid was the removal of a jar of conjoined twins from the cabinet of curiosities a few years ago. Same old musty whale and dusty elephant.

 

Aeroseum is very much worth checking out! You can climb inside the cockpit of a jet, inside the exhaust of a jet, and can be hoisted up a lift that is used for coast guard rescues. My brother-in-law says that he only learned about it recently himself, as it's a relatively inconspicuous landmark being an underground bunker and all.

 

I was sad (?) to miss the conjoined twins, I didn't know it had been removed until we walked up to the case. I can see why it'd be removed, but I was already expecting to see it so my hopes (?) were up.

[Apelsin]

Yeah, Aeroseum is pretty damn cool if you like planes. Especially old Swedish military ones

It definitely made me realize I probably could never have been a Airforce Pilot, too many damn buttons in those cockpits to keep track off!

[Griddlelol]

I watched religulous - the bill maher documentary. Seriously? Fear mongering about religion? Creative (and blatant) editing to make people look as stupid as he possibly could. Outright insulting people and interrupting during his "interviews" showed a complete lack of respect for those he was talking too.

I don't know why I watched it, Bill Maher is an ass, it just seems like he's a complete hypocrite. He talks about science, and how evidence is important, that if you're not basing you're views on evidence you're a crazy person. Then he goes and says Germ Theory is wrong, and is against vaccination.

Twat.

[tegan]

My year's been off to a rough start already. Last night I barely slept between having panic attacks and nightmares and today I've just been feeling down about a lot of things.

[GraysonEvans]

My year's been off to a rough start already. Last night I barely slept between having panic attacks and nightmares and today I've just been feeling down about a lot of things.

 

Same here, if you ever need someone to talk to feel free to message me <3

[Bjorn]

I watched religulous - the bill maher documentary. Seriously? Fear mongering about religion? Creative (and blatant) editing to make people look as stupid as he possibly could. Outright insulting people and interrupting during his "interviews" showed a complete lack of respect for those he was talking too.

I don't know why I watched it, Bill Maher is an ass, it just seems like he's a complete hypocrite. He talks about science, and how evidence is important, that if you're not basing you're views on evidence you're a crazy person. Then he goes and says Germ Theory is wrong, and is against vaccination.

Twat.

 

All the really influential atheists from my formative years seem to have gradually disclosed just how kind of terrible they are.  Maher was a breath of fresh air to a dumb teenager 20 years ago, but I haven't really been able to stand him for awhile now. 

[Nachimir]

Tegs, Grayson, sorry to hear that. I hope things pick up for both of you real quick. Christmas and New Year are fucking tough for people in situations like yours, and I don't feel I can help much, but I'm glad you both post here.

 

 

All the really influential atheists from my formative years seem to have gradually disclosed just how kind of terrible they are.  Maher was a breath of fresh air to a dumb teenager 20 years ago, but I haven't really been able to stand him for awhile now. 

 

I was really excited when Dawkin's series on religion was announced. Then I watched and realised he's a smug ass who can't keep his cool or make coherent arguments when put in the same room as someone religious, but somehow sees his own performance as triumphant. I hate campaigning atheists now, they're as dogmatic as any asshole I ever debated scripture with.

 

I went to a local sceptics meetup once too, and it was just a bunch of self-contratulatory sniping at people who believe in mysticism/spirituality/religion/etc. I'm an atheist but man, fuck people who draw large parts of their identity and purpose from it. I'm pretty sure a lot of them are reproducing all the worst parts of the things they claim to oppose while actively corroding their own capacities for empathy and compassion.

[Griddlelol]

All the really influential atheists from my formative years seem to have gradually disclosed just how kind of terrible they are.  Maher was a breath of fresh air to a dumb teenager 20 years ago, but I haven't really been able to stand him for awhile now. 

I can relate to that a lot despite being XX years younger. Christopher Hitchins and Richard Dawkins both were great for me when I was becoming a sceptic but as I grew older they have too many weird views on social issues that I just didn't agree with and they appear to be complete dicks who I wouldn't want to associate with.

I've never met anyone who is a "militant" atheist, but I feel like I'd probably find them more abrasive than most hyper religious people I've met. Then again, I live I'm the UK and there aren't exactly many hyper religious people here, so I've not come into contact with the kind of person who will tell me I'm going to hell. Fortunately the anti-vaccination crowd is negligible, but there is still a lot of misinformation that people seem to just take as gospel - I recently explained that meat doesn't "rot" in your intestine to someone which is a concept that sounds so incredibly weird to me that I thought they were joking when they said it.

[Bjorn]

I thought of myself as a militant atheist for quite awhile, and do still have a bit of a combative streak in me. But I think that was somewhat natural given that I "outed" myself as an atheist in high school in a small town, where pretty much 99.99 percent of the population either is, or pretends to be, Christian. Looking back on it, I can really laugh at how some people reacted. I got called "evil" by a few folks. I had two friends stop hanging out with me, which in hindsight was great, I ended up with a much more awesome group of friends. I don't want to oversell it, I wasn't like traumatized or anything. It just made me prickly and combative when talking about religion.

The only time I get militant anymore is when dealing with religious folk who want to take rights or freedoms away from other people, which is sadly just a bit too common in this country.

[elmuerte]

Are you people atheist, or actually non-religious? Atheism is just non-belief in a gods, but things like karma still exists within the context of atheism.

[Mawd]

Are you people atheist, or actually non-religious? Atheism is just non-belief in a gods, but things like karma still exists within the context of atheism.

In that case is there a commonly found word for both a non belief in gods and spirituality?

'Rationalist' feels just a bit too snobby for me to use consistently. I mean it feels rational to not believe in either of those things but I'm hardly a consistently rational person.

Edit: oh are you calling non-religious the alternative word? I don't exactly know the entemology there but to me 'non-religious' leaves the door open to spirituality. I guess I'll have to look into it.

[Bjorn]

I've experienced "spiritual" moments, which I find pleasant and/or interesting, but I entirely attribute them to the weird biology of our brain, and nothing more.

Edited to add: As an example, sitting in front of the ocean and feeling the energy of the waves washing over me is probably the closest I come to understanding spirituality.

[Roderick]

Spirituality is a very loosely defined thing. I think it relates to any sort of transcendent of revelatory emotion or feeling you get in life for whatever reason. Since this is by definition entirely subjective and personal, why bother trying to fix it into a greater scheme? Any person may experience it for a variety of reasons. It's not tied to religion or even anything metaphysical. It's a feeling of profundity, of yuugen, awe at the unknowable, horror at the impenetrable, melancholy at the temporary. You are allowed to imagine any sort of thing with that: energy coming from waves, the feeling of love out of an imagined father figure, transcending into a higher state of being, enlightenment. It means exactly nothing, except to yourself.

[Apelsin]

I'm not entirely sure what category I would fit into. 

I guess the closest one would be Agnostic as I am not entirely convinced either way if there is such a thing as a god or not, although I tend toward acting mostly Atheist in everyday life. I've also never really encountered any problems because of this as religion has always been pretty much a non-existing topic in my social circles. Growing up I don't think I knew anyone in my school who identified as a Christian or as a member of any other religious community.

 

One thing I have noticed from late high school and onward though, has been that several of my fellow Swedes identify with the sort of "non-specific" spirituality you talk about Roderick, with them describing they believe in "Something" rather than any specific deity.

[Nachimir]

I'm the same as Bjorn in terms of what kind of athiest I am, and lump things like belief in karma with faith in gods.

 

As a concept I think spirituality is irrevocably tied to religious ideas, at least for our generations. The closest I get to spiritual experience (and was as close as I got while I was religious, nothing has changed in this respect) is something I'd describe as profound aesthetic experience that can be brought on by (for instance) music, dancing, snowboarding, and staring at a Rothko painting.

[Twig]

I call myself an atheist but I actually really just don't give a shit. It's a complete non-issue to me until the person I'm talking to starts preaching.

 

Anytime I see "God Is Number One!" on a social network or dating profile or whatever, though, I'm out. Ain't got time for crazy people.

[miffy495]

I'm on that list with Bjorn and Nach as well. I like the idea of karma and all that, but can't believe in it. That said, people like to challenge me on the basis that I do meditate. The relaxation and tranquility is rewarding in and of itself and I don't associate anything spiritual with it though.

[Blambo]

I feel like a lot of people I know who identify as atheist fit more into the "strong agnostic" thing. I do too, but it leads me to live a life essentially indistinguishable from an atheist's. Also I think the psychological aspects of "religiosity" are widely accepted and practiced, even if it's not attached to a concrete religion. Something about recognizing your own subjectivity and respecting the presence of greater truths is kind of religious.

[chummer]

Wouldn't "skeptic" be the most fitting word we're looking for here? I feel comfortable with that as I don't necessarily exclude the idea that gods or supernatural forces exist, I've just never seen compelling evidence for any of it.