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

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Honestly, it's because I got so upset at azahar, and out came all my hurt feelings and my sense of betrayal... and all my defensiveness.

I honestly do feel hurt by her, because I once trusted her.. I thought we (she and I) had a lot in common, in terms of interests (both ESOL teachers for instance.)

Once she did use my actual real name here, and I think other people either didn't know, or have forgotten. I'd never use her real name (aside from anything else, I know she hates it, which IMO I think everyone does, I certainly *hate* my real name! My theory is it's got to do with hearing one's name shouted by angry parents in public..)

I had been leaving this thread until I had time to think seriously and respond. It wasn't that I don't want to participate here!

Another thing - silly, but interesting ... I am sorry I got the idea you're of Amazonian proportions... but you *did* say big fists...

You said you're 5' 3" and the thing is, I am 5' 1"! I have to climb on a stool to reach my top kitchen cupboards...

Hey Vicky I really don't know where you got this big fist thing from. They are perfectly ordinary in size but should I need to use them as 'weapons' I know exactly what to do with them, being a very co-ordinated person. I quite like the idea of being Amazonian in a rain forest sense though; I've spent time there.

Anyway Vicky its pretty late here and I'm about to try to go to bed. Rest assured I'll be back to you tomorrow to chat more.

And BTW I don't want you to feel you always have to post something all serious and special all the time. Just be yourself.

I am quite fond of you Vicky; but you are the limit sometimes..

And you should always feel safe to post here in this context okay? Any old twaddle will be fine.

I'll get back to you tomorrow.

It was in the context of "fist-clucking" and I feel I may have been guilty of being too literal. (A thing running in the family, is Aspergers, and being too literal is part of it.)

You've been to the Amazon rain forest? Wow! Envy! The calendar on my office wall is all about frogs, and the February page is about two gorgeous green tree frogs, they have those there, don't they?

Vicky

I'm not sure we should be venturing into 'fist clucking' territory on a thread abut faith feelings.

I hope you feeling spiritually good today.

Yes, you have a good point there!

I am feeling great, thanks, and I hope you are too...

Good news!
Vicky

Yes Vicky I'm glad you've accepted straight away my desire to terminate the other thread. Such stuff is quite fascinating and interesting to discuss but I'm aware that it might not be appropriate for general public consumption.

I might speak about it more to you later at some point in context.

I suddenly panicked about it. I'm often like that with my moods too, as you know by now.



Which version of the bible do you generally read? I can only bear the authorized version because I so love the poetry of the language. My favourite bit in the NT is sermon on the mount. I love Genesis in OT.

But if I was reading it coming from a christian perspective I suppose I might raed the godawful modern version.

I'm a bit drunk and half asleep now. Crikey that blackbird is singing again.

Goodnight!

A blackbird at night? No, I've just worked it out, it was early morning...

Blackbirds are okay I suppose, but we have *seagulls*, shitehawks, as they are known in the Navy... and they are *loud*!

I usually read the TEV (Today's English version) because it's admirably clear - so many words have changed their meaning since 1611, and that can cause misunderstandings.

The KJV though, is poetic and like Shakespeare it's easy to learn chunks of it, because of the rhyme and rythm... My father had learned Chapter 13 of Corinthians by heart, from his long ago childhood. (It was while before I learned that "charity" as the KJV renders it, actually means love... I knew my father loathed the concept of charity (probably because his family had been very poor when he was a child, teetering on the brink of disaster all the time, although his father and much older brothers were all employed. Knowing how he felt about charity, it amazed me, when he would recite "the greatest of these is charity".. in an apparently approving tone.

I think he was getting nostalgic when he did that, and what my mother used to call "maudlin drunk", which was okay by me... I hate angry drunk, like my ex-husband, but maudlin drunk is harmless - well, "mostly harmless"
Vicky

>Blackbirds are okay I suppose<



Blackbirds are a damned sight more than okay! I'm presuming you are saying that, having never heard one sing....



Your mother no doubt would have plenty to dis me on. I think I prefer the sound of your father.

We have things generally called blackbirds here, but whether they're the same thing as your proper blackbirds I don't know... (I am a complete bird-phobe, pathetic hey?) Kea would probably know, she's good at things like that... (her nickname is that of a native bird...)

My mother was a bit of a criticiser... I think you'd have liked my father - he had a broad sense of humour, and was fearsomely intelligent though almost totally uneducated, which he hated...

I am reading Robert Fisk's book 'Great War for Civilisation' - it's weird that our fathers are so alike, although his father was 20 years older than mine.

Vicky

>I think he was getting nostalgic when he did that, and what my mother used to call "maudlin drunk", <

When I first read that Vicky I didn't respond directly because I felt to irritated. For someone to be able to recite that passage from Corinthians which is particularly moving, to be described as 'maudlin drunk' strikes me as basically despicable. Are you saying he only ever said it when drunk? Or are you saying she equated nostalgia with being drunk? Now I know I said I'm not here to trip you up in argument, and I'm not, I'm trying to clarify what you meant because I found it quite upsetting.

I also don't know why you are speaking about 'blackbirds' in a biolgical classification way. That is not what I'm speaking about in this context, but the magical, numinous experience of hearing such a beautiful birdsong at dawn. Remember I said I hoped we could discuss feelings more on this thread.

Which experiences have that quality of magicalness for you? I think I've got the message by now it's 'not' birdsong for you, or the language of Corinthians.

The reason I'm pushing this point is that I can't conceive of believing in God, and not feeling sometimes consumed with joy and pleasure at certain things in this oh so rich life and world.

As you know I'm bipolar. Moodswings are a fact of life for us. In their more positive way, it allows me to sometimes *feel* things very intensly. Eg a *feeling* of connectedness with nature. If I was of a different opinion about God's existance, I'd probably take that as a spiritual sign of his existance.

So what things do have that quality for *you*? And could you describe how they make you feel?

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Pretty much - at that part of my life, they weren't really friends any more! I do remember that when I was younger, they got on marvellously, it wasn't always a disaster, but as I got older, she became less tolerant generally..
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It's simply that I hear birds, and I wonder what exactly their species is. It's amazing that there is a tree simply full of birds outside our kitchen window, I know they're there, and I can't *see* any of them! I can hear them, I can see the branches move as the birds hop from branch to branch... It really doesn't matter if I know what a particular bird is, but some of them are as you say, magical and awesome. I even can find seagulls magical and numinous, because they remind me of being at the beach with my oarents and looking out to sea for miles, and seeing just sky (we were away from cities and so there were no ships.) The sand dunes behind me, the horizon in front - I'd pretend my family weren't there (especially my bickering sisters) and just enjoy a kind of awesome loneliness..

<< I think I've got the message by now it's 'not' birdsong for you, or the language of Corinthians.>>

oh no, I do get the language of Corinthians... But it's mainly music... some songs are just so wonderful, that I don't want to hear them too often, because the magic gets diluted. Do you know the Jeff Wayne musical of War of the Worlds? We have three CDs of it, one abridged and two full two-disc versions. Some of those songs just send shivers up and down my spine!
A song by Ruby Murray, 'The Gypsy Rover'... you'd be too young to remember it. (I would be too, but my father taped it in North Africa in WW2) The tapes been lost since he died, and so I haven't heard it since he died, but I remember it, and I know if I heard it, I'd be transported! (My mother told me after he died, how he and a fellow soldier taped it, taking weeks to get the song on shortwave, taping it on a reel-to-reel machine and editing to get the definitive version. )

<.

Yes, the smell of the sea, sand dunes, seagulls and even chip butties (my Mum would make them when we went to the beach. But it had to be a very uncrowded, almost deserted beach).

<< Moodswings are a fact of life for us.>>
I've known a few bi-polar people - I don't know if I could handle the intensity... but I understand that for you it can sometimes be positive..


<.

Music, memories, sounds - clashing motors, and the smell of petrol (my father was a mechanic and took us to work with him soemtimes...)

A particular rare shade of the colour green, a light, almost chartreuse-y shade (I have no clue why!)

A Riley Elf, lovingly restored and kept since 1966, which sometimes, is parked out the front. It's *the* shade of green, with deep red upholstery and the old Post Office crest on the door. The magic would be gone if I ever learned who it belongs to...

>A Riley Elf<


I had to look that up online. A type of mini. Yes I like cars too and also motorbikes. I used to ride an old Italian Moto Guzzi red V50 twin, 500cc, the best looking bike in the world as far as I'm concerned. I now drive a red VW Golf, with furry dice hanging from the rear view mirror, and zebra cushions in the back. In terms of vehicle colourt it has to be red or black for me.



>I've known a few bi-polar people - I don't know if I could handle the intensity<

Yep you've got it. I doubt very much if you could cope with me if we were real life friends. A lot of people find me just too full on. But that's one good thing about the internet. It's much safer.

I'm pleased we've got back on track on talking about feelings and stuff and personal stuff. I think you and I are pretty clear now where we're coming from rationally/intellectually. And there's threads and posts aplenty for all that stuff.

I'd really like to keep this thread away from that stuff. I'm getting pretty fed up with much of it. I'm skimming more and more.



My parents, who are still alive, have always apparently got on. But I too have had massive problems in my family. My mother, like yours was/is hyper critical and undermining. My father, hyper positive and always praising me. I'm the eldest. I have one brother 3 years younger, and have never got on with him. I've always called him 'Mr Sensible' My world fell apart when he was born.

Families are very difficult. Things are a bit better for me now. But still hugely difficult.





Those numinous feelings I spoke about, which you have now mentioned, do they feed into your faith feelings? I still can't understand how you 'feel' God. I think I understand a bit more your *thinking* about it/him.

But I want to continue with the emotional side of it. Like you've now told me you 'get the language of Corinthians'. But do you get 'transported' by it. I do, with music and language.

In some ways it seems a bit ironic that I'm very much the 'atheist' and yet prone to all this spiritual intensity as experience. But you as a theist, clearly not so much so, and saying you 'couldn't handle the intensity.'

*******But what is it about the intensity that would worry you personally? Wouldn't you want to experience something overwhelming, which it would be, as direct intercourse, (if I may use that term? ), with God?*********

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The best I ever managed bike wise was a Suzuki 250CC motorcycle back in the 80s... I called it Stella, because my brother said it had to have a name, and Stella was the best name because you could call it with feeling...


<< I have one brother 3 years younger, and have never got on with him. I've always called him 'Mr Sensible' My world fell apart when he was born.

Families are very difficult. Things are a bit better for me now. But still hugely difficult.>>

Families are difficult, yes! It seems your brother is very different from you... My younger sister could be called Ms Sensible, she always knows the right thing to do... and is never shy of telling us what it is...

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I don't quite know why intense feelings bother me, but they do... It could be a thing from my parents - they always had a thing about keeping oneself private... my father because he had a house full of family, my mother because it was her family culture.

Yes, yes, I would want to experience something overwhelming, an experience of God. Absolutely! It would be scary, and overwhleming, but utterly wonderful!

Obviously you know I'm atheist. I'm wondering what sort of relationships you've ever had with athesists in general before, and what happened.

Were any of them like me at all?

I really oughtn't be up so late, but hey who needs to waste time sleeping.

I just finished listening to my Mahler's symphony and just read some your posts on the latest God thread.

Please don't ever bring any of that 'style' here please. I'm only interested in us communicating with proper and interesting honesty, and not all that pointless going round in circles stuff.

I hope you agree with me.

I can be quite vulnerable sometimes so I couldn't cope with that stuff here. To be honest it makes me feel quite ill. I really ought to unsub from that thread.

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Mmmm, not not really.. My father was an atheist, but I can't really separate anything he said/did from the family relationship, so I'll leave him out.

My ex-husband, was an angry atheist, but there was so much else going on there as well.

Many people I know are agnostics, soft-atheists or apathetic really. I wouldn't count them as atheists and apathetics seems the best term for them.

A boyfriend I had was a fundamentalist atheist, in Edward the Bonobo's sense of the term, an activist, he edited the NZ magazine of the Rationalist & Humanist society.

He messed with my head, because it took me a while to adjust to how adamant he was. When our neighbours (fellow students) invited us to a party, he wanted to leave as soon as he saw the crucifix on their wall. I was really surprised, and yet he said if I'd been paying attention, that I would not have been, which was probably true. The hardest part was that he was, from my point of view, hyper-sensitive.

Once I said I didn't like the Beatles, because I'd had their music drummed into me as a child. He went apesh*t, because he *thought* I was making a dig at him with that explanation, and yet all I'd meant was I didn't like the Beatles music, because everyone at school was Beatles-obsessed.



So no, you're not.

It's true that I don't really see how I am coming across, because I don't understand what's upsetting about what I've said there?

IMO, it's not that different from this is it?

Vicky

>It's true that I don't really see how I am coming across, because I don't understand what's upsetting about what I've said there? <

Look Vicky I don't particularly want to get into some kind haranguing session of you here. You know my opinions fairly well from past run-ins; particularly in respect to you always knowing what God thinks or wants.. But one thing I really hate is when you get all judgmental of certain *types* of people. As you saw I lost my temper with you on the latest God thread, over that remark about some '(fictional) smelly old drunk'. I reckon in the last few posts of yours I've read 50% make mention of how much you dislike *drunks*. it's just your latest *category* to despise. I also hate the way you treat Gifford. IMO he's one of the nicest people on h2g2.



Maybe I'm expecting too much? Part of the reason I started this convo was because I got fed up and upset by all the flack you always cop. And so when I read you being so judgemental in the way you describe others, it just upsets me. I'm constantly shocked by the harshness of your judgementalness that suddenly appears, and then I realise again why people are so fed up with you..

I don't know Vicky - you really do pull me in all different directions..sorry...that's how it feels. At least all the time we manage to continue *this* conversation you can be sure I will always be ruthlessly straight as a die. You'll always know where you are with me. I won't ever bullshit you.

But you may well want to discontinue this thread, because for it to continue I'm going to have to be very honest with you when you say things that upset me *here*. I don't know if you'll be able to deal with that?



Okay lecture over. Seems like I did kind of get into haranguing you....

BTW my post 547 on that thread has been yikesed I notice on that thread when I lost my temper with you. And no I'm not accusing you. I have no idea who yikesed it, obviously. Unless a yikeser owns up to it, it's absolutely impossibe to guess. So *no* I'm not accusing you. I can well see how it could easily just be someone wanting to stir up trouble. That's probably more likely in fact.

But the reason I got so cross was because it was a reply to your post that I mentioned in the above post here.

And I'm suddenly thinking the only reason you are being friendly to me here is because of 'Mark 12:31'. Not because you as a person in your own heart want to be friendly and discuss things with me.

I'd like you to say whether or not you enjoy speaking to me here, because of myself, or because you have some intensely irritating christian compassion, for a poor bipolar, gay person.

*******Do you see how difficult it is trying to make a relationship with a Christian? You never know if they like you for yourself or because bloody Mark 12:31 tells them to.