ergo, I AGREE
Read who he agreed with. Was there any doubt? 
On the athiest threads: I posted to one. Yes, they were very misinformed about atheists. Hell, one of them quoted from a religious text that said how to convert them! I hope I fought some ignorance, but I won’t know until somebody besides papatrouth responds to me.
On the board itself: It’s a bit too liberal, touchy-feely for me. I kind of view it as an extended MPSIMS and IMHO. I hope to fight ignorance there, mainly. I may keep going there, I may not. Haven’t decided yet. But the SDMB will always be better in pure debate. Heck, we discuss the nature of life for fun around these here parts!
You know, it does take a lot of balls to sit around jacking off all day.
Well, shoot, I durn sure feel welcome now!
Y’know…maybe Anai isn’t Esstriol’s sock puppet. Rather, Anai is Esstriol’s sworn enemy. It would make sense. Anai alienates as many people as possible while advocating for Esstriol. After all, who’d be interested in being a part of a group that had Anai as a member?
Cagey, very cagey.
Esstriol
Administrator
These are two posts, the first by Esstriol, the second by Anai Bendai, copied from their site (I hope I’m not doing anything illegal here).
From the timing of Esstriol’s first post here, and the timing of the ASAP request there, I think that Esstriol did not follow up on his/her original post at SDMBs, and Anai Bendai followed it more closely and maybe wanted to reach Essy about the reaction (possibly unexpected) to their new website, here at the SDMB.
And the style of language from Esstriol’s first post is the way most of them write there, all the time. I think they take themselves pretty seriously and were possible shocked to see the reaction here. Possible Esstriol did not answer Anai Bendai (away from his/her desk; out to lunch; something) so Anai tried to repair things here on his/her own.
All just conjecture, and probably useless, except to point out the possibility that maybe no one was meaning to be arrogant or cocky originally, just wanted to introduce themselves.
I’ve seen the light!!!
Wow, it’s bright!!!
Where is that light switch!
Seriously, this kind of thing just proves to me that religion does nothing but antagonize. I have studied a lot of religions during my “agnostic” days. One thing I learnt is the intolerance prevalent in all. (With the possible exception of Buddhism). What is it that when you believe in one thing you must put yourself above others? That superiority just pisses me off. Why should I even consider your religion when you are basically giving me the following choices?
- Believe in “The Gathering”
- You are an asshole if you don’t.
By the way this is not exclusive to your religion.
During my “agnostic” period I was close to being a Buddhist. One of the reasons was the complete lack of missionaries. The Buddhists have the only religion I know of where people find them, not the other way around.
In the end I realized that religion is purely for the people who can not cope with death. Isn’t it ironic that it causes so much death and suffering? If mankind had not been mired by religion, we would probably have reached the industrial age 500 years earlier.
The Net, where you are promoting your religion, would not exist if it were up to various religious zealots.
Niceguyjack said:
Probably because we never hear about the other religions that are waiting to be found. . .
NiceGuyJack says
I agree. (to quote a famous Libertarian)
The death and suffering was often actually caused by those who had their own agenda, and manipulated religious followers to their own ends, The Crusades being one example that comes to mind.
From my quick perusal of the Deshain site, I don’t think that they are pushing any one type of religiousity, although the Anai person is religious her/himself. My impression was that they wanted to promote discussion. I’m going to keep watching and see what comes of it.
Nonsense! God is the God of the living, not the dead! Coping with death is to be left for those who die.
They won’t have to cope with death because they’ll be . . . well. . . dead. 
Threats of hell fire?
The pure go to heaven?
Need I say more?
If anyone still cares, the Anai Bendai and Esstriol who posted here are the same as the Anai Bedai and Esstriol on the board hyped in the OP. They’re defending their actions in a thread I started asking them why they acted so immature here. If you want to read it, it’s in the Off Topic board in a thread called hi started by a good-looking chap named Derleth who happens to be the same person as me. You’ll have to register with ezboards to post there, however. BTW, there are also some other debates going on, mostly in The Gathering forum, all of which I’m in. Fun, debating, but there are so few people it almost isn’t worth it.
Yeah. Prove it.
I sidled on over to the Deshain board, and tried to register, and found out my SDMB name is already in use there, which makes me nervous, because it is such a new board. Anyway, so then I added a number to my name and still couldn’t get in, maybe something about cookies, and I still was unable to post.
I did read the thread you posted too, and I agree that they seem sincere. If I can figure out my cookies, I’ll probably post there also.
For now I think I’ll just hang from my web and sulk. 
I had to receive their e-mail first, silly me. Just pretend you didn’t see these two posts. Thanks.
I did about a 5 minute search around the site. I am still not sure who they really are or what really they are saying/selling. I do notice the inflammatory article titles on the left. I went to one, and there was almost nothing more in the story than what was announced in the title.
This requires further study.
BTW, I tried the game Majic about three years ago a few times. It is a challenging game that can be finished in less than an hour (try that with Monopoly or Risk). The killer is the investment in good cards and customizing your decks. I do remember these guys at work having their banned cards pinned up by their desks (the ones that were too damned powerful).
The next cult I join I will make demands. I keep my money. You leave me alone. I get dibs on sex with the cute parishners.