You're talking to Serenity. And, Early... Serenity is very unhappy.

River ,'Objects In Space'


Spike's Bitches 31: We're Motivated Go-getters.  

[NAFDA] Spike-centric discussion. Lusty, lewd (only occasionally crude), risque (and frisque), bawdy (Oh, lawdy!), flirty ('cuz we're purty), raunchy talk inside. Caveat lector.


Topic!Cindy - Aug 03, 2006 12:46:10 pm PDT #6744 of 10001
What is even happening?

Oh, absolutely. Disdain, vocal disdain, for religion as well as an intent to disassemble other people's faith--does that count?
Oh, well, I've certainly run into that. I think I was interpreting it more along the lines of what brenda mentions, with that magazine, though.

I mean, can you believe in God and be absolutely sure other portions of the supernatural don't exist?

I suppose you can, but that seems illogical to me, somehow. I wonder if there is any religion with a deity, that otherwise rules out the supernatural.

Ehhhhhh. You can believe that ghosts are the residual energy left behind by someone without believing in a soul. Or at least I can.

At what point are you just choosing not to call it a soul?


JZ - Aug 03, 2006 12:47:10 pm PDT #6745 of 10001
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.

Do people really run into proselytizing atheists?

Yup. There are some scampering around DailyKos and the LTE columns of Salon.com. They're the most perfect parallel imaginable to those evangelizers who occasionally pester you while you were minding your own business on the bus or at the ATM or whatnot; they'll bust into any conversation, any thread on almost any topic with a rant about how anyone who believes in any kind of mythic sky daddy is deluded and dangerous and probably clinically insane, and the US will never become a truly progressive nation until we are all militant atheists.

Blessedly, even most of the other atheists @@ at them when they go on like this, but they do exist.


§ ita § - Aug 03, 2006 12:50:00 pm PDT #6746 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

I suppose you can, but that seems illogical to me, somehow

I don't see why the existence of God should imply, say, that the river over there has a soul, or that fairies exist, or that I can cast spells, or any of a number of other supernatural concepts. Accepting God doesn't, to me, even have to open the door to things like that.

At what point are you just choosing not to call it a soul?

How do you define a soul? That's a good place to start.

I think I was interpreting it more along the lines of what brenda mentions, with that magazine, though.

A proselytising Christian is one that tries to convert me to their faith. I flip that to define a proselytising atheist as someone who tries to convert a religious person to atheism.


erikaj - Aug 03, 2006 12:52:55 pm PDT #6747 of 10001
Always Anti-fascist!

Yeah, well, JZ, cut me a break. I was eighteen. ;) Ah, to know so much about so little with such certainty. I also didn't write it down.


Polter-Cow - Aug 03, 2006 12:53:17 pm PDT #6748 of 10001
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

How do you define a soul? That's a good place to start.

Well, let's take Whedon's definition of a soul and go from there.

I'M JUST KIDDING.


JZ - Aug 03, 2006 1:01:27 pm PDT #6749 of 10001
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.

Well, let's take Whedon's definition of a soul and go from there.

::laughs hysterically forever::


Topic!Cindy - Aug 03, 2006 1:06:23 pm PDT #6750 of 10001
What is even happening?

I don't see why the existence of God should imply, say, that the river over there has a soul, or that fairies exist, or that I can cast spells, or any of a number of other supernatural concepts. Accepting God doesn't, to me, even have to open the door to things like that.

Was your original question meant regarding particular supernatural things, or any supernatural thing? Accepting that a deity exists, means accepting that which is beyond the material world, which I think makes it illogical to rule out everything except that one deity of your choice. It doesn't have to follow that you'd care about the other supernatural entities, worship them, or even know about them, or believe in every single supernatural entity that has occured to humanity at one time or another, but I don't see how you'd rule out the existence of all other supernatural things except for your deity.

At what point are you just choosing not to call it a soul?
How do you define a soul? That's a good place to start.
That's what I was asking--how a soul differs from the energy?

Well, let's take Whedon's definition of a soul and go from there.

Odd days of the week, or even?


JZ - Aug 03, 2006 1:06:57 pm PDT #6751 of 10001
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.

Also, erika, youth always gets a pass. The ones who get up my nose are the people who are purportedly seriously, deeply grown-up and still go on like that. Dudes, when the people who agree with you are telling you to STFU, it's time to carefully ponder how you're saying what you're saying.


Polter-Cow - Aug 03, 2006 1:13:22 pm PDT #6752 of 10001
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

Odd days of the week, or even?

The days when Logan is being a jackass.


§ ita § - Aug 03, 2006 1:14:11 pm PDT #6753 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

Accepting that a deity exists, means accepting that which is beyond the material world

How material are gamma waves? Dark matter? Black holes? Complex numbers? I think everyone believes in things they will never be able to validate their own selves, but takes the word of someone else on. The frameworks differ.

As for the supernatural...what is it? I've seen people (including here) deny the existence of the supernatural, positing that it's all natural. What's supernatural today may be science tomorrow, should someone quantify and reproducibly prove it.

Just like a soul, it's very easy for me to say my belief system allows this and obviously disallows that, and we're doing nothing but having a semantic dance.

Look at the Wikipedia entry for soul. Which one do you mean? Maybe juliana meant spirit.