OphidiaPhile
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- Sep 26, 2008
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If only she would put on about 15 kilos.I sooo want a date with Keira Knightly.
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If only she would put on about 15 kilos.I sooo want a date with Keira Knightly.
Somehow I don't think that was the point of his OP.You're not going to win anyone to your cause with this method of argument. Just a thought.
Ok. Mardi Gras is a Christian celebration and it corresponds with the Christian feast of Shrove Tuesday. The first Mardi Gras mass was held at Point Du Mardi Gras in 1699. We actually don't know where that point was though New Orleans people say it was in New Orleans and Mississippi people say it was somewhere near Gulfport. Biloxi was the only French settlement at the time so even if it was in Louisiana state territory the claim would go to Biloxi by virtue of Fort Mareapas being the only fort in operation at the time
The first Mardi Gras celebration in terms of an outright festival was held at Fort St. Louis de la Mobile which later evolved into the city of Mobile. When New Orleans was founded in 1718, the French continued Fat Tuesday celebrations there as well. New Orleans had the first Mardi Gras flag. Mobile had the first parading organization and exported that tradition to New Orleans in the 1850s. It has been recognized as a state holiday in both cities since the 1870's.
Having grown up in one of these cities I can assure you that Mardi Gras is about many things. A celebration of homosexuality is not one of them. We do have gay and lesbian societies such as the Order of Osiris. That Osiris exists does not make the holiday a gay one. Mardi Gras is a Christian liturgical holiday and it is the last fun that you get to have before the sacrifices of Lent. That is why it is the day before Ash Wednesday. The public schools let the children out so that they can attend church, though that is a holdover from the time when Catholics used the public schools which with the exception of a few specific schools they no longer do. In the Catholic schools, you do have to attend on Ash Wednesday and you attend at the Ash Wednesday mass.
Mardi Gras is about balls, throws, family and community. It is obvious from your comment that you have never been to Mardi Gras and know nothing of what it is about. To judge it by what tourists in the tourist section of New Orleans do is completely ignorant. As part of the friendly rivalry I don't want to defend New Orleans during Mardi Gras season but I will. Most New Orleans people don't actually hang around the tourists during Mardi Gras and most of the New Orleans people are not in areas where people flash for beads. If you do that in one of the family sections along the N.O. parade route they will haul you off to jail. If you do that in Mobile at all you will be hauled off today. Mardi Gras is a celebration of the community and in Mobile, New Orleans and in most of southern Louisiana it is the most important celebration that the community holds.
The following cities hold Mardi Gras celebrations: New Orleans and suburbs, Mobile and suburbs, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Pensacola, Beaumont, Galveston, Panama City, Destin, Biloxi, Gulfport, Pascagoula, Metairie, Panama City and probably other cities I have forgotten.
Now, how many of those cities do you associate with "strong gay culture?"
Before you go insulting a holiday please learn what the holiday you are insulting is actually about
I know enough that I recognize that it (Mardi Gras) presently has very little to do with any biblical celebration. I certainly do not feel it is a holiday any Christian should be proud of. Actually, Christians are not supposed to be proud. Pride comes before a fall. I've never celebrated it and I'm no less a Christian in spite of that fact. But if homosexuals wish to claim this holiday for their own, they are welcome to it and the city of New Orleans, too.
If only she would put on about 15 kilos.
I know enough that I recognize that it (Mardi Gras) presently has very little to do with any biblical celebration. I certainly do not feel it is a holiday any Christian should be proud of. Actually, Christians are not supposed to be proud. Pride comes before a fall. I've never celebrated it and I'm no less a Christian in spite of that fact. But if homosexuals wish to claim this holiday for their own, they are welcome to it and the city of New Orleans, too.
Finally, I feel I should tell you this. Most atheists don't become atheists out of their strong beliefs. They become atheist because an overbearing Christian, usually a fundamentalist, upsets them and drives them to it. You really should consider the image you project when you hold yourself out as a member of the body of Christ.
"We the Fabulous?"
Thanks for the stereotype. Most atheists I know were not "driven" to atheism by stupid Christians.
Same here. Been an atheist all my life. Declared myself as one actively since I was a little kid.
Very cute thread. One thing it ignores though is that we believe that the acting on it part is the choice - (not the having an attraction to the same sex part)
We certainly choose whether or not to have sex and with who - but why would anyone deliberately choose to have sex with someone just because its a holiday?
As another said, not everyone would agree on that. For that matter, I would care why? American law does not say gays must for any reason be celibate, or that there is anything wrong with non celibate homosexuality. The Bible never specifies this for gays, and the Bible does not dictate American law.Very cute thread. One thing it ignores though is that we believe that the acting on it part is the choice - (not the having an attraction to the same sex part)
Satire is lost on some people. That a good enough reason for you? But to be more serious. It has to do with what, again, soul said. Christians and others say it's a choice in dishonesty. Because they know they couldn't be that way on a complete level. Physically, emotionally, the whole ball of wax. Yet the lie is perpetuated that to be so is.We certainly choose whether or not to have sex and with who - but why would anyone deliberately choose to have sex with someone just because its a holiday?
Thanks for the stereotype. Most atheists I know were not "driven" to atheism by stupid Christians.
Why would someone want to date a entire gender that they are not remotely attracted to nor have any desire to be intimate with?Very cute thread. One thing it ignores though is that we believe that the acting on it part is the choice - (not the having an attraction to the same sex part)
We certainly choose whether or not to have sex and with who - but why would anyone deliberately choose to have sex with someone just because its a holiday?
Certainly, the problem is that it is a highly simplistic answer. Often used for the purpose of slurring an atheist.To be fair I think there is some truth in the statement the wording isn't all there though.
Allot are driven away by the firebrand Christians, not neccisarily to Atheism though, just a large mix of non Christian or no religious opinion at all.
This drum beat has been beaten. There is more to life.... in mental substance and in the natural reality's. If there was a cartoon showing of a beating of a dead horse; it would be appropriate.Certainly, the problem is that it is a highly simplistic answer. Often used for the purpose of slurring an atheist.
A popular method of doing so goes generally like this. If the atheist is young, the atheism is attributed to immaturity and a sense of youthful rebellion. The position is portrayed as juvenile, a phase as it were.
If the atheist is old, the atheism is attribute to bitterness. To unfortunate events within the course of one's life making the person angry at their God of choice.
Both often add that the atheist in question isn't really an atheist, simply a denying believer who hates their God.
The effect of, particularly if the offender is a close family relative, can certainly play into the decision, but rarely is it accurate to say it was the ONLY and the most pertinent and strongest reason for either the change. Or if the person is simply declaring it. Many atheists I've known were for a long time, but coming from stringently religious families, up to extended family. There was quite a bit of social pressure to hide the fact.
For myself, my mother was raised Irish Catholic in the 1950's. I never got details but she has said the experience sowered her to it and the Catholic Church. Though she herself is a theist. She's more a deist or at best a very liberal Christian that does not believe in the majority of the supernatural claims of the bible. She however, save in one decision, did not effect my being an atheist. Nor for that matter my experiences with Southern Baptists and others while I lived in the South.
In this case, she decided, instead of indoctrination into any religion. She would let me choose. I read at an early age. By 2nd grade I was on a college reading level. I read lots of myths and religion, read the bible and many other things. History,etc. I especially enjoyed Greek and Egyptian religion/myth and general mythology. Vampires(myth kind, not the movie kind), and all the other superstitions of the world. It had immediately occured to me that little to nothing seperated dead myth from living religion. My first act of public atheism in a way happened when I was around ten. I used to go to this Saturday night sleepovers at this local Catholic church. Tons of kids would come over, play, watch stuff like animated bible tales, and I remember the animated version of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Then in the morning parents would pick em up early. Take them home, and they'd come back for services.
Well, I never went, but under curiousity, though I did not consider myself remotely Christian, to attend while my mother was out and about. I had read the Bible before already. I was in a sort of bible study thing and the teacher was talking to the kids about the Noah story. I remember it distinctly hit me just how disgustingly immoral the story was. Here was this spirit just murdering people. Oh I'm sure he drowned a bad lot. But I was thinking of the toddlers, the infants, the innocent people,etc.
It was not the first thing or primary thing that struck upon me the immense immorality of Christianity, but it was definitely my earliest and most distinct memory. So...I stood up, set the bible I was given under the chair, and walked out the class. The teacher was rather mad and kept yapping at me as I walked down the hall. I stopped at a public phone and dialed my mother and left. Never came back. The second was when asked in third grade to draw pictures of animals, I included a picture of a human. The teacher didn't appreciate that.
Atheism came to me naturaly. I've always been fond of saying, all newborn babies are atheists.
But this is all off topic. I'd prefer poking fun at the holes in anti homosexual ideology