Nope, DJ. The universe heard "work now" from you.

I try so hard to be tolerant, but then other people are intolerant, and then I am intolerant of them.

I think this depends on what kinds of tolerance and intolerance. There's a small minority of Christian fundamentalists who think I should be deprived of my civil rights for being an atheist. I don't think I should be so intolerant as to advocate the same thing for them, but I do think I should be intolerant to the point of trying to prevent them from actually imposing their beliefs on the rest of us (through legislation or whatever).

Well, just to show the universe, I'm not gonna do any!

Hey, it works! I just thought to myself, "I wonder if the laundry's done?" and it suddenly stopped! It's the gravy train for me from here on out!

But that's action and not belief, Tommyrot. I am all for not tolerating bad actions, no matter what belirf they spring from.

The universe being a cranky angry toddler explains so much.

Nilly once said to me that "no one knows god's scorecard."

Nilly is one of the few people who make me think there could be a beneficent god. I don't believe in god, but if more people actually acted on their beliefs the way Liese and Nilly do, the world would be a better place.

It's hokey, but my Mom used to read me Abou Ben Adhem.

My problem with the Secret and a number of religious people I know is that implication that if I was more positive or prayed more or led a better life, I could have avoided the ills in my life.

I still can't get an answer when I ask my neighbors to define "the universe" that makes any sort of sense at all.

I'm the jerk who says, "so, when the sun goes all red giant and scorches every shred of evidence that humans ever existed, is that all part of god's plan? And what happens to all those ghosts? Won't they get bored haunting a big smoking rock with no one to scare?"

I'm a JERK. But if they're going to keep insisting on telling me stupid shit about astral projection, I'm going to reserve my rights to jerkhood.

The thing for me is (and I know I'm not a conventional believer) that the belief I hold is ridic. There's just no way around it. It's not a reasonable thing to believe. I choose to believe despite its ridiculousness.

Liese, I adore you. Just so you know.

I've read some of Madeleine L'Engle's non-fiction stuff that says much the same thing. There's nothing rational about believing that God chose to limit his/her/its incomprehensibly infinite power by becoming human, and THEN decided to die for humanity despite the fact that humans do incomprehensibly deplorable shit every minute of every day, and THEN rose from the dead to prove that yeah, no fooling, you can have this eternal life, too.

It's completely bugfuck crazy if you look too closely at just the surface facts.

The way one of my agnostic friends phrased it is that if Christians really believed what we claim to believe; if we actually believed in damnation, then we would be desperate, panicky, to make sure our friends and family didn't suffer. But we're not, so (from his perspective) either it's not true or we don't care.

I'll say this about my ex-Freak Ass church -- they really really REALLY believed in the damnation of non-believers, and they were, in fact, panicky to make sure that family and friends didn't suffer. Very sincerely. People would be upset to the point of tears to think that their mom/uncle/best friend/whoever would spend eternity in a bad, flamey state of being.

That level of concern is, at least, consistent with their beliefs; they just did culty stuff because of it.

t edit I wish Cindy were here for this conversation.

I guess that's the problem with "tolerance" becoming such a catchword. What does tolerant mean? Does it mean, just living alongside? Or actively thinking, "that's okay" about whatever?

But if they're going to keep insisting on telling me stupid shit about astral projection

Tom Cruise is your neighbor?