Ginny said:
I've wondered this quite often, and this is an honest question:
Why do people that are not Christians come here (though allowed and invited) once reading the forum name and title? I guess I just know that I would not have the desire to go post in an atheist forum...though the concept behind the "all are welcome" is understood.
Well, I originally came here in pursuit of another poster. I knew him when I was younger (we went to school together), and fell in love with him around the time I was 16 or so. Lost touch when my parents moved to another country on a diplomatic assignment, but I knew from when we stayed in contact that he posted here (he was raised Christian and originally came for advice on how to tell his family he'd deconverted; he stayed for the science discussion). I thought I'd look him up and see how he was doing. And lo, there he was.
However, it turned out that he was attached to someone else at the time, another poster on this board. Now this woman was a student of evolutionary biology and could debate creationists with the best of them. My partner-to-be had always been attracted to intelligent women, so I thought that might have been a good bit of the appeal. Not willing to concede to this other woman without putting up a fight, I instantly resolved to learn all I could in her chosen subject and show my man I could smack down the creationists, too.
Problem with this plan was that I had never been to college, and in fact had dropped out of high school at 16. What's more, with my parents wandering around the world for the government, my education had been rather piecemeal, and not really suited to the task of challenging this woman on her playing field. So I had to find a cheap, effective way to master evolutionary biology, and had about six months to do it - for soon after I signed up, they announced their engagement and plans for a quick marriage.
I immediately threw myself on the mercy of the most disgustingly romantic pro-evolution poster I could find here. He agreed to teach me the subject and help me with posts in the meantime, so I could work up to the grand showdown I had planned. This worked well enough for about three months, and I had gained a thorough grounding in biology, but then disaster struck! The wedding was moved up to accomodate my love's fiancee's mother's cousin who was just able to make it to Britain before travelling to India for a dangerous surgery. It wasn't certain that this first cousin once removed would survive to the original wedding date - so I found myself with only a week left to act.
Well, clearly the original plan wasn't going to work. I had run out of time and really only had one option left. So I immediately ran to my loyal bodyguard and asked him what it would take to sabotage the wedding, make off with the bride, etc. He thought this a bit inadvisable, both for practical and legal reasons, but he had his associates do some digging into the past of my rival. And there we struck gold. Turns out that not only was this woman already married to two other men around the world, but she was actually a he, and a former rentboy to boot! We arranged it that one of her former spurned lovers who had been looking for her would show up and reveal all.
The new plan went off without a hitch. Next thing I knew, the wedding had been called off, and my love was once again on the market. I took a convenient little trip to his area, ran into him accidentally, and consoled him over his broken relationship. He and I hooked up soon after, and the rest is history! And after all that, with CF at the center of a pivotal time in my life, I could hardly leave here, could I?
Actually no; in case you couldn't tell, I made that all up. But it's a fair bit more interesting than the usual reasons given in the multitude of threads on this topic, don't you think?
