Good day, good sirs and madams.

El-ahrairah
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Good day, good sirs and madams.

Hello, I'm El-ahrairah, and I'm an atheist.

...Yeah.

Oh, you want to know more? Okay, then let's start with my user name. My user name comes from a character in a novel called Watership Down. It's a book about rabbits, and...no, wait! Come back! Okay, it's a book about rabbits, and the character of El-ahrairah is, according to their mythology, the first rabbit and the Prince of all rabbits. His name, in their language, means "Prince with a Thousand Enemies," and I think it's quite appropriate to use it as a user name for this website, considering that atheism is kind of a minority position, and many people are vehemently opposed to it. So, there you go.

I'm not a rabbit, if that's what your thinking. I'm actually a 17 year-old senior in high school in Buffalo, New York. I grew up as a Catholic, but never really developed an interest in my faith until freshman year of high school. I came across some C.S. Lewis books, read his arguments, and decided to explore and develop my faith further (it also led me to consider different political views, but that's another story). I became involved in some youth groups, went to some Catholic youth conferences, and generally had a good time. I'm still friends with many of these people. However, during my time at these groups and conferences, I started to see some unusual stuff, such as Adoration (which is basically the closest that Catholicism gets to Pentecostalism, complete with fainting, speaking in tongues, etc.), and I started to actually read the Bible. These doubts that sprung up in my brain caused a knee-jerk reaction in my head to find arguments to defend my views (I try not to have those knee-jerk reactions anymore; I'm much less close-minded nowadays, I promise), and so I started reading apologetics. Still, no matter how I could rationalize my faith, and coupled with the gradual maturity of my critical thinking skills as I got older (I'm always been intellectually curious), I still couldn't shake off these doubts. Between my sophomore and junior year, I decided to explore these doubts rather than reject them entirely. Over the course of a few months, I rejected religion, rejected the supernatural, became a deist for a while, and I finally gave in to the inevitable. I became an atheist, and I have been for about a year now. All that's left now is to start telling people and become more open about it.

Besides all of that background, I'm a libertarian (I told you that was another story), I love listening to music (as of this writing, I've got over 7500 songs), I love reading books (I'm cracking into Ulysses right now, no joke), I have a passion for learning more about philosophy, economics, and other weird things; I like a good movie (or a B-movie) every now and then; and I drink coffee a lot.

Wow. After reading all of this over, I didn't know how uninteresting I really am. O_o Well, then, never mind about me.

"The Aim of an Argument...should not be victory, but progress."
-Joseph Joubert (1754-1824)

"All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed."
-Richard Adams, Watership Down, 1972


mellestad
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Welcome, and post often! 

Welcome, and post often!

 

Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.


edactor
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welcome

I look forward to hearing more from you and about you as time marches on. My son is 15 and an atheist with no prompting  from me just open discussion. his mom is semi religious and he went to church often with that side of family. I also am an avid reader but must admit i could not get far with the greek classics yet did ok with Dumas etc.

 

Ed


rebecca.williamson
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Hi and welcome

Hi and welcomeSmiling


mellestad
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rebecca.williamson wrote:Hi

rebecca.williamson wrote:
Hi and welcomeSmiling

Every time I see you post with the new avatar it makes me want to go to www.suicidegirls.com

Geeze.

 

Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.


cj
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Welcome

Which Ulysses?   Homer?  James Joyce?  I'm impressed if it is James Joyce, I've never even tried to wade through his works.  Tennyson, on the other hand is one of my faves. 

 

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/tennyson/ulyssestext.html wrote:

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle —
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me —
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 

My grandson is 15.  I feel so old.

 

-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.

"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken

"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.


Jeffrick
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Hi.

                    Welcome to the site I am from down the QEW from you in Mississauga. Post often.

 

"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."

VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"

If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?


Beyond Saving
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 Welcome to the forums,

 Welcome to the forums, pull up a chair and drink tons of coffee. 


El-ahrairah
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cj wrote:Which Ulysses?  

cj wrote:

Which Ulysses?   Homer?  James Joyce?  I'm impressed if it is James Joyce, I've never even tried to wade through his works. 

James Joyce. It's a doozie, but hopefully it'll pay off in the end. After I finish that, I'm going to try Gravity's Rainbow! You've got to balance the modern and post-modern!

Beyond Saving wrote:

Welcome to the forums, pull up a chair and drink tons of coffee.

Thanks, I'm drinking some decaf right now.

"The Aim of an Argument...should not be victory, but progress."
-Joseph Joubert (1754-1824)

"All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed."
-Richard Adams, Watership Down, 1972


Atheistextremist
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Welcome, Rabbit Prince.

 

You won't find many enemies here though you may have an opportunity to tell Fonzie to silflay hraka.

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


El-ahrairah
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Atheistextremist wrote: You

Atheistextremist wrote:

 You won't find many enemies here though you may have an opportunity to tell Fonzie to silflay hraka.

Not only that, but "silflay hraka a zyhl" as well, I suppose?

Rabbits actually do eat their own droppings. >.<

"The Aim of an Argument...should not be victory, but progress."
-Joseph Joubert (1754-1824)

"All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed."
-Richard Adams, Watership Down, 1972


cj
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El-ahrairah

El-ahrairah wrote:

Atheistextremist wrote:

 You won't find many enemies here though you may have an opportunity to tell Fonzie to silflay hraka.

Not only that, but "silflay hraka a zyhl" as well, I suppose?

Rabbits actually do eat their own droppings. >.<

 

Well sort of.  <technical poopiness coming up>

Rabbits have two kinds of feces.  Because they only have one stomach.  To get calories only from veggies takes some evolutionary fiddling. In a rabbit or hare or pika intestine, the soft kind is shunted to a structure called a caecum full of helpful bacteria and so on.  This soft feces is re-ingested and processed for additional minerals and vitamins.  Then it becomes hard and is excreted as pellets.

My grandma raised rabbits in her back yard.  So I got fascinated with them as a girl.  I know, I know, TMI.

-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.

"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken

"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.


El-ahrairah
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Technical poopiness.

Heh. Technical poopiness. Nice pun.


Answers in Gene...
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edactor wrote:I look forward

edactor wrote:

I look forward to hearing more from you and about you as time marches on. My son is 15 and an atheist with no prompting  from me just open discussion. his mom is semi religious and he went to church often with that side of family. I also am an avid reader but must admit i could not get far with the greek classics yet did ok with Dumas etc.

 

Ed

 

Umm, Ed.  He is reading an Irish novel.  A pretty blasted tough one to get through at that.

 

Here is a link to the free ebook that he is talking about:

 

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4300

NoMoreCrazyPeople wrote:
Never ever did I say enything about free, I said "free."

=