Idle Thoughts, you brought me up and so I would like to say a few things.
The mods at the time made it pretty clear that QSS was a serial sock and probably one of the regulars at the snarkpit. I won’t go digging and maybe I got this via Email and not posts, I don’t recall anymore.
So you are correct, it was not a coincidence, it was a deliberate attempt to get **PRR **banned for life or to make it look like **Liberal **was trying to do so. (Yes, that was also discussed at the time.) The mods determined that neither was true.
As to Liberal, I would like to say that I think we have our peace and that is probably more so due to **Liberal **being very forgiving and the fact I rarely hold grudges or hold onto anger. I have also noticed that **Liberal **appears to be a much more pleasant poster for a quite a while now. I don’t know if he cares, but have been enjoying reading his posts these days.
As to **PRR **and Xmas, I don’t see why it is so hard to understand. I have seen him raise the same complaint about “God Bless America” at ball games. Obviously he is far more sensitive to God Talk than most people but as most of understand, we don’t like having shit we can’t stand effectively forced on us no matter how minor it seems to others. It is easy to say suck it up, but what if it was your pet peeve? Would you still feel the same. I would absolutely go nuts and be a general ass if I was expected to go to a party for lets say listening and singing along with Barry Manilow tunes for a few hours.
Finally and for completeness, I don’t see why you thought this pit thread was needed pseudotriton ruber ruber. Her posted was misplaced and silly but was it really deserving a pitting and did you really think said pitting would go well?
When I’m dead, maybe. It makes me sad that these poor people believe in this pap, and feel to need to keep these traditions alive, and to indoctrinate their kids, who will in turn have stupid ceremonies that they will feel free to impose on my kids…is there no end?
That’s how I start off, and pretty soon I’m thinking all sorts of bummed out thoughts. This is a university, for Christ’s sake. We’re supposed to think, and over-think, and over-over-think. Maybe next year, I’ll schedule that hour to work in a soup kitchen or something, so I can avoid hanging out with these Christians.
Wow, prr, did you piss in even sven’s wheaties or something?! :eek:
even sven, you must not have seen this thread. I’m offended by the Christmas offended because you really could have gone to town in that one. Telemark was upset that other people were wishing him Merry Christmas. I can understand being bewildered at that.
But in this case, prr was just noting that he didn’t like to participate in these activities. But he didn’t seem to be blaming anyone or holding anyone responsible for his feelings about it.
Wrong again! It was actually Stills alone. CSNY covered it on a LIVE album, but the one most played is the Stills solo release.
I don’t believe that Apollo or Zeus ever existed. I still capitalize them, because-GASP-they’re “proper nouns”. It has nothing to do with beliefs-it has to do with proper writing form. :rolleyes: Yeesh.
Capitalizing Christian, or Buddhist or whatever is really no different than capitalizing say, Democrat, or Republican, or Progressive, President, Prime Minister, etc. It’s a title. Think of it THAT way.
As for the OP-dude, calm down. Tell your coworkers to back off, and if they don’t, well, duck out. If it’s not really manditory, why stick around? Jesus.
If this OP were any milder, I didn’t think I would have been allowed to put it in the Pit. As I noted, I’ve enjoyed her posts for years, thought she was a fine poster, and only the coincidence of people noting how markedly she’s improved recently on the day that she called me a jerk in MPSIMS (which, she acknowledged, was excessive, as I feel many of these subsequent posts have been) prompted this mild Pitting.
It’s rarely a good idea for me post my views about religious obnoxiousness anywhere, but sometimes I feel the need to vent. I think it’s fascinating how it never gets old for some posters to rehash Liberal’s offer to pay me to leave, especially since that wasn’t his smoothest move ever, and since he and I (and he and you) are getting along fine, with newfound respect for each other. (Mostly what I respect about his religious perspective is his utter disinterest in imposing it on others, or justifying it. He feels how he feels, and he couldn’t care less if anyone believes differently.) And it never seems to get old for people to repeat discredited nonsense, like the QSS stuff, either, like this was still 2007. (I do notice a drop off in the old “fake professor” meme, though–to Malacandra’s credit, he’s now conceding that maybe that really is my job, though he notes how sad it is that an idiot like me can hold an academic job. Note to Malacandra–there are some bigger idiots employed in academe, trust me. It’s wall-to-wall idiots some days.) What I find endlessly fascinating, however, is how intolerant people are of my internal thinking process. It’s not as if I spend my life denouncing religion, and I don’t lack for platforms to speak out in public, either–I merely think that much religious belief is imposed on others publicly, yet that thought seems to cause great offense around here. My unhappiness at the tone of an office party the other day has resulted in numerous imperatives for me to “lighten up” and “celebrate” and “sing a Christmas carol or two.” Why these people feel free to order me to behave–no, to THINK–differently than I do is a mystery. Why do you care what I think? I certainly don’t care what anyone else thinks, though I do care a good deal about what they say or do in a public setting that I am involuntarily supporting.
Ah, yet more imperatives. As I said, my office is right across the hall from the party, and this is more about how I feel about attending than any actual result of my attending. But I’m starting to think of alternatives to showing up at the office during party-time–I think it’s getting glurgier every year. If it’s tedious to argue this point with Dopers, just imagine how awful having this conversation IRL would be.
Thinking about this, I’d suggest that perhaps Dawkins has not only had a more secular upbringing than prr, but that religion has been far less present in his life, making it possible for him to enjoy Christmas without feeling the religious weight of it.
I’m an atheist and personally quite bored with Christmas, but that has nothing to do with any religious aspects (hell, we say “God Jul” - Good Yule) and everything to do with forced cheerfulness and a rush to buy, buy, buy. There is no connection between Christmas and Christianity in my world; the family gets together, eats, watches From All of Us to All of You (Swedish TV tradition, last year almost 40% of the population watched it), eats and drinks, gives gifts, drinks and plays games. As a possible consequence of this, I have no problems enjoying an hour or two in a church listening to carols, nor singing some myself. I consider it quite possible that, had I grown up in a religious home/society and since become atheist, I’d not be so inclined.
Sorry for rambling.
That, and there’s a slight difference between listening to a professional choir at King’s College and being asked to sing at an office party.
I attended an office Christmas party last Friday, at which a sexy young thing less than half my age repeatedly hugged me, and at one point said that I was a great looking 35 year old (I am about to turn 48).
So despite my being an atheist, and my generally being anti-religious, I had a delightful time, and look forward to the festive season.
Were I to be king, there would be more nubiles at more Christmas parties.
Are you joking? Assuming that you mean the USA, you honestly think that Christians might not be in a majority here? You need a date with reality.
And yeah, you need to lighten up or just resign yourself to being miserable. You aren’t going to change the way we celebrate Christmas, so concentrate on the things you can change. As for even sven, I often disagree with her, but I always thought she brought a valuable perspective to this MB. And since she has been traveling the world, it seem that her posts reflect a considerable maturing process. Which is much more than I can say about you.
Or surreptitiously sing bawdy Royal Navy songs from the back row during carols:
Jingle bells, jingle bells,
(Singing Roll Tiddly Oh,)
Jingle all the way,
(Shit or bust,)
Oh what fun it is to ride,
(Never let your bolocks,)
In a one horse open sleigh.
(Dangle in the dust).
I see an odd parallel between that creep thread and the issue prr is going on about. He can’t seem to wrap his mind around why it’s obnoxious to have a guy persistently ask a woman for a date. He doesn’t “get” why this would make a woman angry and thinks that it’s unreasonable for women to expect men to immediately go along with their “game plan” when they decline a date offer. Women who go on and on about how they are being harrassed by creeps are really just heartless braggarts, he has suggested.
But he expects us all to empathize with his rage at being asked to attend a Christmas party.
Has prr considered that maybe his boss thinks he’s just playing hard to get? Maybe he thinks prr secretly wants to go to party. Maybe he thinks prr half-assed rebuffs are actually coded signals that he actually wants to attend the party and sing Christmas songs. His boss is just expressing interest in prr’s presence by repeatedly inviting him to come on over. Why be mad over that? He should be flattered.
I bet if prr’s boss was a hot woman, he wouldn’t be complaining about this damn Christmas party.
