h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Seriously it seems a bit ridiculous. We are clearly not friends. There's lots of other people you have a problem with like Dar or blicky, ed, 3dots for example. They are not on your list. Why am I?

Are you? What an oversight! (It must be a hangover from some time ago..) Rest assured, I am correcting that oversight as quickly as I can! After reading your little whines to azahar on various threads, in which she and you compete over who has the most horror stories about bad evil me, I am under no illusions about being your friend! (Although I once, probably at Christmas, hoped and thought it might actually be possible. My bad...

Yes its true things were suddenly okay at christmas. It was just because it was a christian thing. Once the new year came you reverted to type. You probably want to view things totally differently, I know you now.

No it's not possible for us to ever ever be friends.

Thats 100% the case.

I absolutely hate you Vicky!

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That's absolutely bizarre! I don't care whether you believe me or not, but I don't hate you... so I am rather taken aback by that declaration! At least, it's better I suppose than the hypocrisy of a certain other woman...

Yeah that's so typical of you..."'but I don't hate you'". Cos when you can't hate you can't love.

Vicky you are so sad.

bye

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Hey, you promise you really mean it? Hey, please????

Vicky I know it's a bit ironic posting here after the reason this thread started, but I quite like the irony..

I wonder if you would talk to me more about the personal and emotional side of your faith? I think it's probably best to do it away from the main threads. I'm very interested to learn more about the reasons people have faith aside from any logical reasoning about it.

And it's fine if you don't want to.

I thought we could talk about stuff that is nothing to do with rationalising and intellectualising faith, but the emotional side of it. Ed touched on that a bit today on TGD thread.

I'll talk to you about my side of things from that perspective as well if you want.

So hopefully we won't get mired in any stuff about justifying faith or not. It'll be principally about feelings.

Like I say though, if you don't want to or feel comfortable, that's fine; just tell me.

Actually, yes, I'd like that, and agree with you about doing it here, away from the main threads!

Vicky

Good one Vicky.

Now I have to think how to get the ball rolling. Or maybe you can? Either way - I'll get back to you later.

Okay I'm back already, and you're probably still not up yet...


F19585?thread=4005961&skip=7875&show=20

In post 7877 on TGD thread I spoke about something I called 'a good hearted feeling'. I asked you how it might differ from what you might call a 'christian feeling'. You spoke about it being qualitative rather than quantitative. From my POV I still don't understand what you mean. Could you try to speak more about how that qualitative thing was different for *you* when you became a christian?



Once again I want to remind you, I'm not here to try to trip you up in argument about definitions and descriptions of things. Please feel free to just tell me in your own words what this is. I'm well aware also that such things can be quite complex and very difficult to put into words. So it would be very silly of me to try to pull apart anything you might attempt to tell me about 'feelings'.

But I think this chat between us could be really interesting and good fun.

No pressure though. We'll see how it goes.

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Goodness, you're right, it is hard to put into words! I suppose the best thing is to say that the 'feeling' of benevolence was somehow permanent, and that I had more trust in other peoples' essential goodness. Deep down there's a feeling of security I never had before, and that's made me able to cope with things I never thought I'd be able to in a million years! (I remember saying to my Mum when she spoke about her parents' deaths, that I could never handle it if she died or my dad. She simply snapped back that I would because I had to.) Well, when it happened, 6 years apart from each other, I coped better than I ever could have expected because I knew they were safe from all the misery and pain they'd experienced, and I was and am, much more certain of seeing them again. My brother's death was a whole order of magnitude worse because of how it happened, and the horrible day his girlfriend and I spent trying to find him, only to discover that the police had known for 12 hours and had been trying to find *us*!

Yet she and I coped, and the support from her father (also a Christian) was invaluable.

You can object that these are just feelings, and to a large extent that's true. But there's also a will to trust and to love, that was never there before.

I know I haven't expressed this very well, but it's all I can say about it for now. Maybe you'll help me to clarify my thoughts?
Vicky

Hey Vicky, you've expressed it brilliantly.

I shall give your post some proper thought and be back to you later.

Thankyou

Okay!

Vicky

Yes it makes a lovely change to talk like this. I think I know what you mean about the feeling of benevolence being more permanent somehow when you have a faith. And as you say a deep down security. I certainly don't have that and fully expect never to have it. And I'm not saying anything about people with Faith taking an easier route. It's just a *different* route. In the past I have been a bit disparaging about faith being an easy way. I certainly don't want to give you that impression here. I want us to be able to discuss these things as *equals*, but from a different faith or not basis.

I really don't know how I'll cope emotionally when my parents die, so I can fully relate to what you say about that. I'm bloody scared half to death about it on a daily basis, and they are not even ill yet, although fairly old.

I think maybe my heart is as loving basically as most faith peoples, (despite all the angry nasty bits sometimes, which you know so well by now). You say you have a basic trust in the goodness of others, so do I. Maybe that's the closest to faith I get because there is plenty of evidence that not everyone is like that. But I work on the assumption that people are good even if that means I risk being badly hurt sometimes, and I have been.

I did a lot of psychotherapy a few years ago, well 5 years of it actually; I learnt a lot about myself and why I am the way I am. It was quite a journey. But I don't want to get into any discussion with you about the pros and cons of it. Just if you can accept it was a good thing for me like I'm trying to accept and understand a bit more about your faith in this discussion.

Vicky do you ever sometimes wonder how you'd be if you didn't have a faith? Because I sometimes wonder how I'd be if I did have one; just theoretically mind, because I won't ever have one like yours I'm pretty sure. A basic trust to love is an excellent thing; I'm fully with you there.

Anyway.. I'm starting to ramble a bit...

BTW Vicky I will still continue to tease you a bit, as is my way, on the main threads, but hopefully we can keep this discussion as something separate, from what happens anywhere else?

Is that okay by you?

Oh yes, very much so...

Vicky

<< I think I know what you mean about the feeling of benevolence being more permanent somehow when you have a faith. And as you say a deep down security.>>
I am really glad you understand me about that, I wasn't sure I'd expressed it right... I was thinking of the complete contrast to how I was before, I was always prey to nagging worry about something... When I was a child, I used to list them, and for some reason I had to have 13 of them, or something, I don't know what, would go wrong. Of course back then, they were things like the dentist (yup, still afraid of that, tho' that's in my control now), homework and our scary maths teacher, and a few serious ones, like my Mum's mysterious undiagnosed disease. (It turned out to be polymyositis - she eventually died of it. I have very little trust in doctors, because it took them 15 years to diagnose her. Coincidentally, the receptionist here has it. She's one of six people in NZ with it, it's invariably fatal, but in Adele's case - the receptionist, she's been lucky enough to get it and be diagnosed 15 years after my Mum... There are treatments now.)
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I understand why people say that...

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Yes, that's human nature. I have been hurt, and still am, by taking people as they appear to be. But being always suspicious, I just can't be that way...


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Yes, of course! My son the has a great deal of faith in psychotherapy, though not so much Freud... he did a placement at the Mason Clinic, the forensic mental health unit, and one of his girlfriends had that as her specialty. He's covered it all a great deal. The thing is, I accept that it was a valuable experience for you...
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Oh yes! I often think about how things would be if different decision points had gone differently... I think I'd be more unstable, blown about and unsure what I wanted to do... less accepting and less forgiving of myself and other people. But it's quite hard to say.

Til next time!

Vicky

>I think I'd be more unstable, blown about and unsure what I wanted to do.<

Vicky you have more or less described the way I am. So you're thoughts about how you might be without faith make real sense to me. So far I'm still alive so it's working thus far. But to be serious you have a good point because I'm often riven with conflict about being the way I am, and how else I might not be, and what I'd have to give up.

I'm not in any way criticising you for your choices. On the contrary I find it very interesting to find out why others go the way they do.

I hope you'll gradually feel a bit safer about chatting to me here about your choices. I hugely respect you being so honest. And this way of communicating is so much more fun for me with you, than all that other stuff.

It seems, like you and I are pretty similar in wanting to think the best of others, if possible, despite the risks.



BTW I'm still feeling quite cross that the lunar eclipse was not all it was cracked up to be; in London at least. But the blackbird singing its heart out in the darkness will certainly stay with me. See we atheists can be every bit as emotional and poetical and full of feeling about such stuff as faith people.

When I say >fun for me< in communicating with you, btw, I'm not meaning it in any sort of superficial shallow way. Very much the opposite. Just to be clear.

Vicky why are you getting yourself in the usual hot water tonight? Don't you want to chat to me here? I'm a bit fed up with your behaviour, what's new but you know where I am here. And this thread is completely outwith all the other stuff on other threads as far as I'm concerned. And I'd like it to *stay* that way.