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Hang With Friends

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Location: Earth
Members: 884
Latest Activity: 13 hours ago

Come on in, pull up a chair!

Picture yourself spending some time with congenial friends, sharing your lives and pictures from your cell phones." They're curious about that cool game, song, movie, camping trip, art show, or other event that fascinated you. You talk about all kinds of stuff, poetry, styles, personal achievements, relationships, and bad days. You can share your inner child, and laugh together. They sympathetically listen to your feelings about serious topics like politics or climate change, even when they don't agree.

Personal validation comes from paying attention to one another, giving more than you get. Everyone respects you and themselves, despite our amazing range of personal tastes and interests. They'll tell you they don't agree with an idea or behavior without implying you're a bad person or somehow deficient. It's an "I'm OK, You're OK" kind of fellowship, where nobody tries to make himself look better by picking on somebody else.

Nobody here is into mind games. A discussion started with a loaded guilt-throwing question will be deleted.

This group is not intended to compete with other groups on topics they cover but to "fill in the cracks." Whenever a discussion dwells at length on a topic for which there's an existing group, we urge you to provide members a link to that group to continue along their tangent.

A comment is a shout-out, which will get lost in a few days, because the comment wall is just a random stack.

Please start a discussion to share stories, photos, and videos. Replies will pop up in your "latest activity" and a conversation can develop from the feelings and thoughts you contributed. Groups are built on discussions.

Discussion Forum

11 "unanswerable" questions for atheists - answered (Aron Ra)

Started by Loren Miller. Last reply by Tom Sarbeck Jun 6. 1 Reply 3 Likes

If you spend any time around YouTube and have any history of looking at atheist material (or even theist material!), you will inevitably run into: "XX Questions Atheists Can't Answer." These are occasionally followed by: "XX Questions Atheists…Continue

Tags: apologist, answer, questions, unanswerable, Aron Ra

worshipping narcissists (qualiasoup & theramintrees)

Started by Loren Miller. Last reply by Idaho Spud Jun 3. 1 Reply 4 Likes

They're all around us: people who perceive the world as revolving around them and will go to considerable lengths to make it so: narcissists. Such beings have been with humanity, I suspect, since humanity emerged from the gene pool. Even worse,…Continue

Tags: narcissist, QualiaSoup, TheraminTrees

Secular and Reclaimed Winter Holiday Songs

Started by Grinning Cat. Last reply by Grinning Cat May 2. 42 Replies 3 Likes

This is an appropriate day of the year for this subject...What are some of your favorite winter holiday songs?It would be especially good to share powerful new secular lyrics to tunes that have become associated with Christmas.…Continue

Tags: singing, lyrics, reclaimed, reclaiming, HumanLight

appropriating morality (TheraminTrees)

Started by Loren Miller. Last reply by Joan Denoo May 1. 7 Replies 3 Likes

We've all heard the claim: "Human morality comes from god." And we've all seen for ourselves what Yahweh's "morality" looks like, from condemnations of homosexuality and the treatment of women as chattel to inexplicable sanctions against the eating…Continue

Tags: morality, appropriating, TheraminTrees

Bible Belt Atheist (New York Times)

Started by Loren Miller Apr 19. 0 Replies 2 Likes

The following showed up in my YouTube feed this morning, and I decided to have a look. Turns out, the New York Times has given us a reasonably even-handed look at a good friend of ours, being one Jerry DeWitt, former bible-thumper and now a pretty…Continue

Tags: Bible Belt, atheist, Jerry DeWitt

How would you respond?

Started by Christina Scribner. Last reply by Christina Scribner Apr 10. 5 Replies 3 Likes

So, this morning, I was at my local coffee shop as I am most weekdays between bus runs. I do the editing on my husband's books so I had my laptop with me. My wallpaper is a picture I found online sometime back of a double helix with the word atheist…Continue

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Comment by Joan Denoo on January 24, 2014 at 11:15am: Spud, I know what you mean when you wrote, "her thoughts are too Buddhist for my taste." They get on my nerves sometimes as well. I love the feedback. You are a true friend, honest, to the point, and clear. I have to say this site encourages such attributes.

Comment by Plinius on January 24, 2014 at 9:57am: How I wish I could drop in for tea and a potato, Spud!

Comment by Idaho Spud on January 24, 2014 at 9:38am: Mindy, I can understand how you are stressed. I would be much worse if I had children to worry about.

Comment by Idaho Spud on January 24, 2014 at 9:35am: Mindy, I'm a worrier too. I don't handle stress well.

My depression and stress have decreased dramatically since leaving mormonism behind, but I still have them more than I want.

I think this site helps a lot. Joan is always giving good thoughts to calm us down, and I know she helps me, even though some of her thoughts are too Buddhist for my taste.

Others here help me also, mostly by just being someone to talk to, limited as it might be on the internet.

Being alone, with no one to talk to is the greatest factor in my depression and stress.

Comment by Joan Denoo on January 23, 2014 at 11:22pm: Hey, What a son! Just a few rapids in the river of life. The good news is you and he have the courage, and wisdom, and intelligence to take them on, one at a time, and move past them.

As you know, I am not a great fan of Buddhism, but I do the smorgasbord thing with their teachings. I found simple phrases help my move past a worry, i.e.

"What is, is" (Daniel likes this one, too). or

"The cause of all suffering is desire; end desire; end pain." or

"If a problem is fixable, fix it. If it is not fixable, then there is no help in worrying."

"Change takes place through action, not prayer or meditations, but action."

I would change this one to:

"Change takes place through thought and action, not prayer or meditation, but through thought and action."

There is an old Liberation theology belief that Paulo Freire taught, that thought without action is of no value; action without thought is chaos.

"Choose thought + action = Praexis."

You know how those silent things we tell ourselves that keep us from solving a problem or conflict? Well, they are the negative self-talk that can spell the difference between success and failure. I can't cite the study that was done, but I remember the finding. Mountain climbers who say to themselves, "I can't do it" have less success at mountain climbing than the climbers who say to themselves, "I can do this!"

Good thinking and doing!

Comment by Idaho Spud on January 23, 2014 at 5:53pm: Good news about your son's raise Mindy. Hope his knee is no problem.

What is your heart monitor for?

Comment by Joan Denoo on January 23, 2014 at 2:32pm: Mindy, Sorry about your son's knee problems. I am surely glad you have good health insurance! I am about to total up my medical costs and insurance covered expenses; it just makes me sick to even think about it.

Great news about your son's new position offer and raise. So nice to read some happy news of individuals.

Comment by Joan Denoo on January 23, 2014 at 12:14am: P.S. Mindy. Am interested in what your heart monitor reveals. Please keep us updated.

P.S. Ruth, I like your candles and cake! very festive!

Comment by Joan Denoo on January 23, 2014 at 12:11am: Ruth, I thank you so much for your outstanding articles on such a wide range of topics, and your honesty in responding to each one of us. I hope you are feeling well.

I have concern that your snow levels may be overwhelming.

Comment by Joan Denoo on January 23, 2014 at 12:09am: Mindy, thank you for your greeting. It is always a joy to read your comments so I expect the coming year to be full of your funny, clear, and insightful contributions.