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Are Agnostics Welcome Here?

dafydd said:
I wouldn't attach much credence to the dumbfounded and speechless bit. They were shocked and relieved that he was ok but it wouldn't make them theists on the spot.
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If they were my friends, my cynical side might be wondering if they were frustrated at missing. (Just kidding. They wouldn't miss.)
 
I once fell off my bicycle in a busy street and was almost run over by a car. Passers-by gathered round in concern and were relieved when they saw that I was ok. Not one of them said ' I'm an atheist and I'm almost struck dumb by that.' Is punshhh saying that there is a mystical lesson to be learned from this commonplace occurrence? And what does it have to do with agnostics being welcome here?
 
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punshhh said:
Well an event happened yesterday.

I was driving along in my van and noticed on the pavement, on the other side of the road, a woman walking in the same direction I was facing. She was wearing a style of clothing which denoted she was from a social grouping which I have an affinity with. This made me take a second glance.

At the same moment she turned her head and looked straight at me( she was still about 40 yards ahead of me and had to turn her head right around to see me). There was an instantaneous recognition and a smile exchanged between us in which I had a deep understanding of "where she's at" and from the manner of her smile it was clear that she had a similar understanding about me.

This entire event took less than a second, the meeting of eyes and mutual understanding less perhaps a quarter of a second.
As I drove up the street I looked in the rear view mirror and could see a spring in her step from the experience, which I also felt although I was sitting down.

Anyone care to give a materialist explanation of why she turned her head and on doing so looked straight at me rather than just looking in my general direction and then homing in on my face?
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Coincidence. The "understanding" part you just made up, so it doesn't need explaining.
 
Leumas said:
I don't FREQUENT them..... I have not been in one since the last time I was in one.... :D


Seriously.... I have not been in one since I grew up and realized that Strip joints are actually MALE ABUSE.....yes I said "male" abuse.


But....the kind of hanging around we did with other guys when I was a young man was to go to discotheques or to strip joints or hunting or camping or fishing or hiking or playing football or watching it.

NOT SHOPPING..... when we wanted to buy something we did not HANG AROUND let alone with a group.....we just went to the shop and bought it and then went back to doing more important things....like ogling women.







Well....you asked for a "materialist explanation" ....so I gave you a few….and I am sure there are many more.

The fact that you were asking for the ”materialist explanation” is an indication that you are unable to come up with one and therefore more inclined to favor the woo one….no? Otherwise why ask for the ”materialist explanation” when you have already thought of one…no? Why even mention the whole thing if you are not trying to attribute to it some sort of woo….no?








Why.... I think the backdrop you used for your story is just not believable enough and consequently undermines the other stuff that is of mundane believability. What kind of guys would hang around in a group SHOPPING?

....in case you did not get it....this is a JOKE...that is why I put the :D at the end....kind of a textual laugh track to prompt you to know it is a joke and it is time to laugh...like they do in the sitcoms on TV.


But addressing the antenna stuff…… I can believe it very easily….it is totally insignificantly mundane and common place. Millions of people an hour experience such things. None of them are woo…. They all have a very mundane “materialist explanation”.





See….here is an example of faulty reasoning….but with a glimmer of hope still.

You examined the aerial and found that it was rusted…..so it goes to logic that it would EVENTUALLY break and fall.

When will this happen???? Can you REASON the answer???? Yes….you got it right…..WHEN IT HAPPENED…..see there is nothing “weird” so as to “wonder” about why things that rust will eventually break and fall when they do break and fall.

Also given the place it was in according to your story…it is very likely to have fallen when there were people around to either get hit by it or be just missed. Had it fallen when there was nobody around we would not be talking about it. Also given that young men are now more inclined to go SHOPPING in groups and hang around under rusting shopping center aerials then someone is bound to be hit or missed……so you are just lucky to have been missed instead of in the hospital or dead. That will teach you not to hang around SHOPPING.

But the whole incidence is nothing ”weird” to ”wonder” about…. The same kind of thing happens to millions of people daily.

The question that you should be asking….if you are saved by some providence…..is why you, a SHOPPING ABLE guy should be so special as to be saved by this providence while a LITTLE BOY is not saved from the lascivious clutches and abuses of a heinous monster or from dying from having a distended belly due to malnutrition and eventually dying from HUNGER and disease while never having gone SHOPPING ever in his life?

Don’t you think that this providence at the very least should save little children being violated just like he saved you from the falling antenna…..or even worse….. contrive to make the antenna just miss you so as to cause you and other credulous people to “wonder”…… it would be a lot more WONDERFUL if all starving children all of a sudden had enough food and all children who have autism or down syndrome became cured so that they can hang around SHOPPING.

Don’t you think that it might be a tad self-absorbed and self-righteous and arrogant to think that a providence has nothing better to do than to give you VAGUE indications of its existence while you are SHOPPING and in the meantime millions of people were suffering heinous injustices? I hope you are capable of not being so vain as to not see the fault in your illogic.
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Well apart from your lack of a plausible explanation for why she turned round at that moment. This post says a lot about you.
 
TheGoldcountry said:
I'm still wondering why he ascribes so much significance to his companions being dumbfounded and speechless. Does he think that atheists should be indifferent to someone almost being impaled by a falling object?
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They were dumbfounded by the remarkable chance or coincidence involved. I am not attaching significance, they did.
 
punshhh said:
Woops it must have been a Freudian slip.
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Twice? You didn't know how to spell it. A woman looked at you? Are you claiming that something mystical was involved in this mundane occurrence? Or don't women look at you that often?
 
punshhh said:
They were dumbfounded by the remarkable chance or coincidence involved. I am not attaching significance, they did.
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Why did you tell us about it then? Things fall off roofs every day and sometimes strike people. I doubt they attached much significance to it.
 
punshhh said:
Well apart from your lack of a plausible explanation for why she turned round at that moment. This post says a lot about you.
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It does, but it isn't saying what you think you're hearing.



Why did the woman turn around?
Because she heard your vehicle.
If it were me walking, I would also turn and look when I heard your vehicle.

Why did she smile? There is no way to know, short of asking her.
I have done this, thinking I recognized the vehicle, and then realizing it wasn't my friend.
I have also done it to let the stranger following me know that I have seen him, I can now recognize and describe him, and I am not afraid of him.

Women are often taught such disarming devices, to use while walking alone.

You took an ordinary and totally explicable "event" and you alone made something momentous from it. I feel embarrassed for you.
 
punshhh said:
They were dumbfounded by the remarkable chance or coincidence involved. I am not attaching significance, they did.
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I am saying that if it was me, I would simply be dumbfounded because I nearly saw an acquaintance get seriously injured. You seem to be assuming that their reactions implied a significance beyond simple fear or shock. Did they SAY anything along those lines, or is this your own projection, like with the smiling woman?
 
slingblade said:
It does, but it isn't saying what you think you're hearing.



Why did the woman turn around?
Because she heard your vehicle.
If it were me walking, I would also turn and look when I heard your vehicle.

Why did she smile? There is no way to know, short of asking her.
I have done this, thinking I recognized the vehicle, and then realizing it wasn't my friend.
I have also done it to let the stranger following me know that I have seen him, I can now recognize and describe him, and I am not afraid of him.

Women are often taught such disarming devices, to use while walking alone.

You took an ordinary and totally explicable "event" and you alone made something momentous from it. I feel embarrassed for you.
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He hasn't said what the momentous thing supposed to be. I still don't know why he posted such an everyday story. In the supermarket queue today a woman turned around and looked at me but I would never have mentioned it except to show punshhh how mundane such things are. No spookiness.
 
TheGoldcountry said:
I am saying that if it was me, I would simply be dumbfounded because I nearly saw an acquaintance get seriously injured. You seem to be assuming that their reactions implied a significance beyond simple fear or shock. Did they SAY anything along those lines, or is this your own projection, like with the smiling woman?
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Did they say ' Lawks-a-mercy a force from behind the event horizon of the formless must have mystically protected him! That's it, I am an atheist no more..'? I bet they just said it was a close shave. The rest is in punshhh's imagination.
 
punshhh, is this a common practice for you? Do you go through every day attaching special significance to everything?
 
dafydd said:
He hasn't said what the momentous thing supposed to be. I still don't know why he posted such an everyday story. In the supermarket queue today a woman turned around and looked at me but I would never have mentioned it except to show punshhh how mundane such things are. No spookiness.
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Right here:

punshhh said:
There was an instantaneous recognition and a smile exchanged between us in which I had a deep understanding of "where she's at" and from the manner of her smile it was clear that she had a similar understanding about me.
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TheGoldcountry said:
punshhh, is this a common practice for you? Do you go through every day attaching special significance to everything?
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He once told us that a woman looked at him through a window. Now what are the odds against that? And he never tells us about all the women who pass him by and don't look at him. A date might do him the world of good.
 
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There was an instantaneous recognition and a smile exchanged between us in which I had a deep understanding of "where she's at" and from the manner of her smile it was clear that she had a similar understanding about me.
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Or she was thinking 'Who's that geek?' I don't know what she was thinking and neither do you. You really must stop confusing fantasy with reality.
 
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