Jiminy Vishnu

Here's a look at a former pastor who as an experiment decided to "live like an athiest", and then became one after the year. Nice to hear, but this sent my red flag up. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/04/ryan-bell-atheist_n_6397336.html Q: Your significant other is a Christian. How are you navigating that? A: It’s challenging sometimes, but she is an open-minded, thoughtful person. I’d call her a Christian Humanist, or a Humanist in the way of Jesus, if that makes any sense. I still share a love for the stories of the radical Jesus preferring the poor and downtrodden, so we’re not as different as it may seem on the surface. Besides, our relationship is about more than debates about God’s existence. What I appreciate about FDR is the it doesn't shy away from what others are willing to brush off as people being free to believe what they want. I'm curious if the ex pastors wife would have married him if he were an athiest and she a believer from the beginning of their relationship. Do any of you out there have any stories of belivers (male or female) marrying an athiest or vice versa as the ex reverand puts it, ".. our relationship is about more than debates about God’s existence.? Do any of you have a partner who is a believer and has children who hear your loving and spirited debate? If so I'd love to know how well or not that goes. Finally, and naturally, I'd love to hear Stef interview this couple together to get at a fuller story of this kind of coupling. New Years Best,

Hey dude. Welocme to the best place boards on the webs!

Many Celebrities have "come to Jesus" moments after public controversy. Michael Vick "found" Jesus after his dog-fighting passion became public. Paris Hilton "found God" after a stint in jail for a driving offense. Lindsey Lohan became "a very spiritual person" reading the Bible in rehab. Tiger Woods, when caught in his marital infidelity pledged to rededicate himself to Buddhism. Mike Tyson embraced Islam in prison. Tom Cruise probably had an audit or two when he "acted out" on Oprah. And the latest name added to this curious list is the Belieber himself. Justin Bielber, after months of bad press, arrests, drug confiscation, recently got baptized in a bath tub in NYC . Carl Lentz the“celebrity pastor” of the Hillsong New York City evangelical church, has helped the boy wonder see the light and come back to the Lord after his public image took a dive.I could easily just focus on the snark and PR coup his agents and handlers are no doubt arranging as they try to salvage this kid for the money maker he has been, and needs to be for years to come. But I'm sad for the fella. He comes from a broken home, He doesn't appear to have any positive adult or peer role models and real friends. The last thing in the world this kid needs is religion. Its a band-aid on a compound fracture. Does anybody remember Mark Sanford, former governor of South Carolina, who was caught using taxpayer money to support his affair with an Argentinian mistress? In his stump speech during his run for congress in 2013, and in his victory speech included the line, “I just want to acknowledge a God not just of second chances, but of third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth chances.”How insulting is this to the real people in these celebrities lives? Let alone their fans.And what exactly is the underline message of "Only God can judge me?" It seems to nullify any inquiry or attempt for the individual to recieve feedback. As memory serves I cannot think of a single celebrity who's used athiesm as a salve for the public's scrutiny of their personal behavior.

New Years mix for the fine and possibly feathered folks out there in FDR land . Drop Box Link provided below. First Cut is The Deepest - I Roy Better Change Your Mind - William Onyeabor La-La Means I Love You - The Delfonics I Like The Things About Me- Mavis Staples Basta Del Oscuro- Adanowsky My Home -Nneka Into a Dream- Shannon and the Clams Forget The Song - Beachwood Sparks Ways of this World- Kelly Hogan I'm Through Trying to Prove My Love to You - Bobby Womack Wisdom of the Ages - Elvis Presley VIsitors Of A.D. 2022- The Science Fiction Corporation Wild Eyes - Mariee Sioux All I Want For Christmas Is New Years Day - Hurts https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4kvx3yur4fhm31k/-eKltQW4gm

Wow. First off, I admire your real life courage for meeting your father and talking to him. And I'm sorry that you were raised by a man who feels beating you would have done the job a chair didn't. Appalling. "Why don't you try it you fucking coward?!"...Isn't it amazing to experience unfiltered emotion in a dream like that? I felt your dragon fire there Jeremie. Thanks for sharing.

GoF, I empathize with your situation. I once had a girlfriend who after almost 3 years of dating, became something of a nag in wondering when we were going to get engaged. To make a long story short, we broke up and it would have been a HUGE mistake to marry her and even worse if children were brought into the world just to be the product of a broken family early on. Lord knows today's women, no matter how young (22 is young), they want to know where a relationship is going, is..breakup or marry. My question to your GF is, what's the rush? If she loves you and wants to be together forever, what's the difference between forever "now" and forever 2 years from now? Especially if you want to do it right..how to communicate with integrity, how to build a household and family with the strongest and best of foundations, why the pressure? Is it that her friends are giving her pressure? Does she have the "I don't want to be an old mother" fear? I'm obviously just hypothesizing. I would also add that your girlfriend has essentially asked YOU to marry her by bringing it up first. Think about that. That goes against 99% of how engagements usually work. So your doing something right in driving this girls interest level through the roof. If only more men could get this to happen. Instead of saying "I'll ask when I feel the time is right", you could have answered.."you just keep doing what your doing and it will happen." If you love her and do want to get married, why not go look at rings? You don't need to buy one yet. But if your talking kids and not willing to talk wedding or engagement then what is it that you really want?

A fascinating and disturbing look at the psychopathology of one of the video gaming worlds most recognizable and successful brands. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WMSQNVhMqA Why Mario is Mental Pt.1

Hey all, I was recently told about this article and found it really fascinating and in my case, devastatingly true. Hope some folks out there in FDR land find it useful as you heal and become the kind of person you were meant to become. At the end of an essay on the American painter David Salle in Janet Malcolm’s new collection, Forty-one False Starts, Salle asks the author, “Have you ever thought that your real life hasn’t begun yet?” It’s a sentiment many of us share. Increasing numbers of my psychotherapy clients complain of a life in which they play a bit part. They are fearful of really being themselves, and they don’t know who they are or what they really want and lose sight of their dreams. They skillfully and seamlessly discern and adapt to what other people desire. As a result, they long for lives in which what they value will be taken more seriously. In Toward an Emancipatory Psychoanalysis, the late American psychoanalyst Bernard Brandchaft called this “pathological accommodation.” Most of the time accommodators passively go along with what they believe other people want from them. They periodically get frustrated and rebel against what they imagine is expected in an attempt to carve out a modicum of freedom. Occasionally they punish the people they think are neglecting them. They are alienated from what they really yearn for. I’ve known pathological accommodators who worked at jobs they hated and married partners they didn’t love. The results? Depression, despair, and even manic attempts to break out of the stranglehold of self-neglect. - See more at: http://www.rewireme.com/explorations/training-your-weakness-in-relationships/#sthash.beyjJmgU.W5UynNcl.dpuf

Patrick McGoohan's "The Prisoner" is a bona fide classic of the literary/tv genre. I would love to hear the insights of the good folks who frequent around the FDR board who would like to talk specific details of episodes and wax about over arching themes. And, Alan Chapman, I could't agree with you more about the 2009 series. My biggest complaint about the reboot is that at no point does Jim Caviezel's #6 outwit and especially outsmart Ian Mckellen's #2's in any heroic way Deflating the the fallacious propaganda of the Village and Number 2 is what makes 6 such a great character. Like Spock's logic under pressure or Han Solo's sarcasm this character essence was missing from the new portrayal and suffered because of it. Unmutual!

Your welcome Yeravos, and I'm sorry to hear you feel like shit. I have a friend who asked me recently about a guy she uses to pay her rent and buy her dinner, and what I thought about the situation, and when i said " Well I don't date women who are willing to be my stooge", she really got uncomfortable and wondered if she was really a "bad" person (her words). It's not easy facing the mirror of truth or being a mirror for another.

Yeravos If the critique was unsolicited, then I could see how this friend might be turned off. However, If they asked for any insight or feedback and can't handle what you had to share, then maybe you never really had a relationship of any depth and this incident is exposing that in the form of the feeings you are having. Please don't make yourself sick over someone else's lack of consistency in living a life of principal.

Thank you all for the feedback and suggestions. I really do appreciate it. Bradford26, I agree that expressing feeling ignored and disrespected is a better way to go then conclusive statements ...." if you communicate expectations before they understand your feelings, then they may interpret them as demands". Thank you for the reminder. Think Free , .."what you've negotiated is all you really have the right to expect from them." ugh, that's a truth brick on the nuts, innit? Carl Bartelt thank you for the specific podcast #'s ,Zava your point about "certainty/uncertainty" is taken. I am certain and that was just more service to filling out more words in a sentence then actual feeling. The feeling is certain. Finally, I have not sent the above version of the letter. What I did do was tell my father I do have things going on "under the surface" and would be happy to tell him about it at Thanksgiving in person. He wrote back that he and my mother are going away to my sisters but "very concerned" and that I should just "come out to the house" some other time. This is going to be really uncomfortable but something I've waited 37 years to address. JV Undelution1982, "adult relationship" is general and misleading. What I meant to say was "loving, respectful, non manipulative and fallacy free relationship between me and my folks."

So last night I got this short email from my father.."We haven't heard from you in weeks, nor have we've seen you since July4th. What's going on with you? Are you avoiding us for some reason"? Here is my first crack at a response I'm satisfied with. Feedback and suggestions welcome and appreciated. Dad, I don't visit and come out because there's no interest or curiosity and respect between anyone. There hasn't been for decades, if ever. Family is not earned simply because you are born into a tribe of people who share the same biology. Its about knowing the details of peoples lives better then they themselves and loving them for it. Its about listening to others and asking follow up questions to hear the sometimes hidden meaning in what people say. The fact is our immediate family has never valued or practised in any substantial way to one another the kind of open minded and open hearted engagement that makes family's actually strong. You can't possibly not know this. That being said, having an adult relationship with you and Mom would be fantastic,but it is only going to come from both of you showing me your interested in and doing the hard personal work that takes ; that step might be going to therapy to work on your own accountability and integrity and healing, which I'm doing currently as difficult and rewarding as it has been these 8 months now. It might also come from both of you respectfully giving me the room I need to sort out my head and heart and life, without expecting me to play nice or be diplomatic about any of these feelings or to show up to holiday's I don't believe in or care about.

I knew I was going to have a problem with this movie (mainstream sci-fi fatigue) and had planned on staying away, but a chum really wanted to go and what the heck it was fun to see him. But oh boy was this hard to stomach. Traumatized, Pro-war propagandized children who control a drone army, led by a boy given all the guns to kill all the bugs. Set in the backdrop of a world without more then a few adults, reason or compassion I felt anxious watching two hours of violent and varied propaganda. Having not read the book I have many questions that may go answered there, but the most pressing is how can you have a story with a boy named Ender and not have a single fanny joke! Not even from his abusive brother or other laser tag bully's or his sorta girlfriend?