Threadjacking!

[Funt Solo]

Pascal's wager seems to be a threat. Believe or suffer! So very, very hateful. I can't abide it.

[Dandontdare]

I'm assuming that everyone knows that the largest religious group in the world is 'lapsed catholic'?

Is this true? I would have thought Muslim countries with large populations where your neighbours may kill you for perceived blasphemy would swing the demographics

NB: as a member of that group and having read the bible cover to cover, there is no biblical basis to purgatory.  The old testament (Jews) did not believe in an afterlife, or at least there is no real reference to it.  Limited reference to be sure e.g. Sheol.

It is only in the New Testament that it starts to come up and even then only in a handful of places.

NBB: the Catholic Bible is not the same as the King James / Non-conformist Bible.  There are several books in both the Old and New Testament that do not appear in other Bibles.

Mind you, this is from someone who still holds to the Pascal gambit so who am I to speak?

I went to a catholic primary school where my impressionable mind accepted so much bullshit* and then a protestant secondary school where people had never heard of purgatory, guardian angels, intercessions by saints etc. I investigated the source material, as I was being taught to do, and realised that none of this was in the actual bible, and the socio/political reasons why the church had made all this shit up over the centuries.

I'm now off to google the Pascal gambit.

*We had this massive painting in the year 4 classroom of a child getting close to the edge of a cliff and a HUGE guardian angel shielding him with his wing. We were told that we all had an individual GA who was watching us 24/7. They told us of a child who'd been granted a vision of his GA and saw it as a presence filling his entire bedroom, and another who talked to his GA using CB slang (it was big at the time, but wait what? We're supposed to talk to them?). I think this was supposed to be comforting, but it scared the shit out of me. We were told that EVERY catholic altar contained a sliver of the True Cross and that not going to mass on Sunday was a mortal sin that would condemn you to hell. I once got the cane (lead-filled bamboo) for "disrespecting" a set of cheap plastic rosary beads. Not surprising that I joined that big demographic.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

I'm assuming that everyone knows that the largest religious group in the world is 'lapsed catholic'?

I prefer the term "recovering cath-aholic".

[Dandontdare]

 

[The Legendary Shark]

I was up a ladder the other day, cutting the top branches off a willow tree before the wind brought the lot down. Willows, you see, are vastly optimistic beasts because they never know when they're dead. This one is a huge old thing, with a dying trunk - a dying trunk so big that I couldn't get my arms all the way around it if there were two of me - and about three years ago we got a professional in to cut two thirds of it down. Since then, new growth has spurted from the top and started to catch the wind like a sail, causing the dying trunk to creak and sway alarmingly and threaten to pull the whole thing over, possibly onto a nearby static caravan. The professional tree-feller fellow wasn't available, so guess who got the job? Muggins here, that's who.
So there I am, thirty feet up a ladder in the wind, clinging on for dear life, chunnering and mumbling to myself, cutting down branches with a rapidly enblunting bow saw as the Universe decided that the wind really needed to be applying as much rain as possible to my bum and neck, when Gigi* walked past below.
Now, Gigi is very lovely. Very petite, very gorgeous, very married. <sighs wistfully> I've just sawed through a thirty foot long branch as thick as my arm and am trying to lower it to the ground without overbalancing or braining anyone, when she looks up at me and smiles. A smile from Gigi always gives me the gooeys, even in such precarious moments when I'm wrestling with the wind for control of a heavy, awkward branch.
"Ooh," she says - and it's the 'ooh' that makes her next words so memorable - "ooh, that's a nice length of wood."
I'm only human. What am I supposed to do with a comment like that? I laughed so hard that I nearly fell out of the tree, bringing ladder, saw, and branches down on top of me. I almost died that day, killed by innuendo with the sound of Sid James chuckling in my mind. Wouldn't have been a bad way to go, though...

*Not her real name.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I think I've just fallen for Gigi too.

[Proudhuff]

If it turns out tangible planes of reality only exist because of Grant Morrison's imagination, I would be OK with that, but it's also the most Grant Morrisony bullshit ever.

Dreams of the Red King... nobody waken Grant.

[Barrington Boots]

I almost died that day, killed by innuendo with the sound of Sid James chuckling in my mind. Wouldn't have been a bad way to go, though...

Stiffed?

[The Legendary Shark]

:-D

[NapalmKev]

/edit - I'm testing how to post pictures with new IPod. It doesn't seem to be working!

[NapalmKev]

/edit - I'm testing how to post pictures with new IPod. It doesn't seem to be working!

No more. I tried;I failed (again)

Fruitless endeavours be Damned!

Cheers

[paddykafka]

If it helps at all, NK, below are links to some words of Wisdom that might offer you guidance. 

https://booksonthewall.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Samuel-Beckett-quote-Fail-better.png

https://cdn.quotesgram.com/img/47/39/781331501-homer_simpson_quotes.jpeg

[Proudhuff]

Is it just me or is the board, really really quiet just now?

[Colin YNWA]

Is it just me or is the board, really really quiet just now?

Its been quiet for the last couple of days but overall this year hasn't been off to a bad start I'd say.

It'll pick up, it normally does....

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

I read a story that a lot of the Russian troll farms have turned all their attention to anti-Ukraine propaganda now, but I'm sure that has nothing to do with it, comrade.