Just a little "hi there" from Paxmax

Paxmax
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Just a little "hi there" from Paxmax

Yeah, my first post here, might as well do an introduction. Come to think of it, I've never done that before while entering a new forum.
Somehow, this section hit me when I entered the forum.. thought, what the heck might give it a go.

What can I say about me?... I like pancakes, but that's neither fun nor intresting. I wonder what train of thought led me to type that? Hmmm....
Ok, I found it. I glanced upon an american "Rachel Something" show...  it featured Michael J Fox and his problematic condition with Parkinson. Someone thought "Hey! I gotta help 'em raise money for research" and made/sold pancakes and donated all earnings to Mr. Foxs foundation.

Ok, now that we have with some certainty established that I am a nutcase let's move on. As far as I can remember I have always been a atheist. Mom is a bible reader, she finds/sources strenght from it somehow. I have never figured out how however.

I'm not sure about dad though, I never asked, he never told... -judging from his language and lifestyle I'd say he doesn't seem too deep in any kind of supernatural belief.

I have never attended to church going on a regular basis, except for a few times as a boy when a local church was offering "suitable entertainment" to me.
They offered activities such as building plastic scale models, mixed up with their own agenda. "Good for me" my mom thought I guess. Well... somehow I thought already(at age 10-11) that the church people was pretty odd, and the songtexts and psalms didn't mean much to me, kind of boring I guess. Buildning models however was a blast, so I ended up dodging the "other activites" as best as I could.

 I've been very fortunate. I have grown up in Sweden. Roughly 80+% of the swedish population don't belive in god or similar.
Swedish curiculum teaches evolution in biology classes and we have "religion" as an (important) part of social studies. As far as I can remember there is more hours spent on learing about christian belifs than on Islam for instance. That might seem somewhat biased, right? possibly, maybe they reasoned that knowledge about christianity is more useful on everyday basis than buddhism or Islam. Nowdays I do think that Islam has gotten a more attention.

So, given a free upbringing, a non-religious-imposing school and a free choice this is what you get I guess. Might be a bit oversimplified I guess, debateable.

Sweden isn't shenanigan free however. Plenty of ppl here somehow don't belive in god, but still belive in mysticism like spiritual communicators.

I'm not terribly active in converting friends and family into atheism though. Got a few friends who belive in god. Used to play volleyball every sunday with belivers and clergymen! Great fun, but no debates there, just plain friendly volleyball.

I do however protect myself from being bothered by religious people whenever I don't feel like debating. In particular Jehovas witness. I don't know they operate, but where I live, man, they are bothersome.

They go, knocking on every door, one by one. Trying to sell their magazine and belives.
So, on my old apartment I had a nice selfdesigned sign: a crucifix inside a typical "forbidden sign". Just to clarify and overstate I also added "Don't touch my Paganism!" (norse paganism). Not that I actively do support norse paganism, but I guess it would offend them a bit more.

Nowdays I just set our german sheperd on the pestering Jehovas, 'n' I'll tell you, they are quick to learn! One time was sufficient and nowdays they don't park their cars close to our home but we do see them scurrying past our street.

My pal was kind of hung over one morning and the Jehovs rang on his doorbell.
He opened up and looked at them (standing in undies and a t-shirt) wondering what the f... is goin' on at these early hours.

-"We are the Jehovas! Do you want to buy our insightful magazine so you'll be up to date on whats REALLY happening in our society today?" and they held up their magazine infront of his drowsey eyes.

My pal took the magazine, flipped a few pages... started to lok a bit more awakened and mumbling -"ah...umm...  aha! hmmm.. ooh! You are all statans worshippers aren't you?"

The two (yes, they seem to always come in pairs) Jehovas dropped their jaws... silence hovered a few precious seconds (one of the funniest seconds of my pals life).

Then she spoke -"N..n..NO NOO! we are not satans worshippers! nothing of that kind at all !!!"

My pal handed the magazine back -"Well, then you are of no use to me" and slammed the door shut. Needless to say they didn't ring his doorbell ever again... and the tennants that moved in after him hasn't heard from them either... rather effective I'd say.

Anyway, I like free thinking and pancakes, I try to encourage intelligence, logic and science generally to people around me and thought I'd give your forum a go.
I may need a bit of polishing on my manners, sense of tact and finesse. Oh, and knowledge, we all need more knowledge.

AM I correct that RRS is US based and deals mostly with US people? or attracts mostly US visitors? Anyway, doesn't matter much to me but maybe US needs more help since US curiculums seems a bit handicapped from a independent view.

I wonder how many "closet atheists" there is in the states... and do they like pancakes too?

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -Bertrand Russel
The downside of knowledge is as you learn more you will soon realize how little you actually know.


Nero
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Welcome to the forum. 

Welcome to the forum.  Murat argued that we are all closet atheists to some extent.


Milkshake89
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Hi,

Hi, PaxMax

Well, I'm canadian. But I don't think religion is much of a problem here in Québec anymore, since we got it out of schools and stuff. Montréal is filled with immigrants, though, including jews who demand sport gym windows to be blinded, and muslims fighting for their kids' right to have some sort of SHARP KNIFE at school.

Nah, I guess we're not done with religion after all. 


Waiting for Oblivion
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Hi there and welcome, by the

Hi there and welcome, by the way, what is a pancake?


Nero
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Waiting for Oblivion

Waiting for Oblivion wrote:
Hi there and welcome, by the way, what is a pancake?

It is a breakfast food.  It is basically cake batter, which is dropped onto a skillet.  Then, it is flipped.  Once you've got two or three of them, you put lots of butter on them and dump on the maple syrup.

"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer


Waiting for Oblivion
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I googled it and it seems

I googled it and it seems that I have eaten pancakes, but we call them different here.


Nero
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Waiting for Oblivion

Waiting for Oblivion wrote:
I googled it and it seems that I have eaten pancakes, but we call them different here.

"Different" seems an odd choice as a word for pancake, but to each his own!

"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer


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Waiting for Oblivion

Waiting for Oblivion wrote:
Hi there and welcome, by the way, what is a pancake?

Flapjacks?


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Tiganita, comes from the

Tiganita, comes from the greek word tiganito which means fried.


Milkshake89
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"You know what the funniest

"You know what the funniest thingabout Europe is? It's the little differences."  Vincent Vega

 (not assuming that you are from Europe, but simply quoting Pulp Fiction because I watched it this morning) 


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Paxmax wrote: Sweden isn't

Paxmax wrote:

Sweden isn't shenanigan free however. Plenty of ppl here somehow don't belive in god, but still belive in mysticism like spiritual communicators.

Reason #2 why Norway is better than Sweden.

Velkommen iallfall, Paxmax! Jeg er en nordmann som bor i USA.

Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.

Why Believe?