My Idiot Friend- An Update (Plus Tarot Card Nonsense!)

Carol - remind me not to piss you off, you just might send me a box of Michaels --

I had something similar happen to me. The best thing to do is realize your friend has succumbed to fear and is a victim. He has cut himself off from reasoning things out and has reverted to ultimate selfishness, which in this case, is dumping a good friend in the name of gord because your evil non-believer cooties might rub off on him.

I know it sounds contradictory that someone can be a victim and selfish at the same time but all things are possible with gord.

I know how tempting it is to want to hate him for what he did, believe me, I know.

Dear Carol:

Sounds like my life in 'hell' also. I learned all this great stuff in school, logic, mathematics, statistics, etc, but found that most people would rather count tea leaves. I find it amazing how even reasonably educated people are discounted.

I wrote a paper concerning the statistical evaluation of the Iching and determined that the three coin toss distribution would always give you supportive fortunes. The 'honesty factor' had been made subordinate to self esteame. LOL 

I really would like to have some nice, safe, supportive, ideology to curl up with at night, but my wife and puppies, and good sense, seem to be all I have.

That's more than some of us get - my ex-wife took off with my dog. I miss that dog --

This sort of thing sorts out who your friends really are - she wasn't a truly good friend.

@ James - you have more than most, a wife and totally devoted puppies, well, they will be - just try and be who the puppies think you are :D

thoughts and actions mirror both

Heh... I'm with you sister. My best friend just turned her back on me for no reason at all after 10 years as well.

I occasionally do mind reading tricks in classrooms and for friends at parties.  In the classrooms, there are always students who are convinced that I MUST be reading their minds.  But when I do the tricks in classrooms, I ALWAYS conclude by guiding students into critically and logically examining what I have done, until some of them eventually figure it out.  

I've never encountered a class where there wasn’t SOME kid who was able to figure out my tricks once given the tools of rational thought.  But here’s the kicker:  I've NEVER had a teacher figure them out; in fact, I’ve never had ANY adult figure them out.  Why? I would only be speculating; but clearly, it has something to do with the way the mind becomes calcified upon reaching adulthood.  It also makes me suspect that children, being more open-minded than adults, would be more amenable to the (rational) atheist perspective than adults.  Now if they would only let me do my magic in Sunday School.

On one of the episodes of “The Big Bang Theory,” Howard does a card trick for Sheldon, wherein he guesses which card has been selected.  Sheldon, with his genius IQ, struggles mightily to figure out how the trick is done, but fails.  At the end of the show, we (not Sheldon) find out how it was done.  Essentially, it’s the same trick I did in the classroom.  It’s an unbelievably simple trick - one that most magicians use in one form or another, because, just as do ministers, priests, etc., they can depend upon adults to stay “inside the box,” in their thinking.

Penn Jillette says that the secret to successful magic is the ability to LIE convincingly.  The same could be said, I suspect, about religion.          

Dear Folks:

The puppies seem to be mostly devoted to my wife, but I am a very close second.

Perhaps it is for the best. I live in a very religious town and I was once a rising member in the church. All of my friends were christians and I even discipled some of them. When I became atheist, the hardest thing was hanging out with them. Most of our discussions were geared toward religious thought and afterward our discussions quickly became unwanted debates. 

I had many friends completely shut off our friendship often saying rude things about how they cannot be friends with someone who bashes their God. Bear in mind I never tried to bash their God, but when they asked what I thought, I would tell them in as polite of manner that I could. I now have a new group of friends with the exception of a few that "converted" to atheism shortly after I did. 

It is a painful thing to go through, but It is for the best. It gives you the opportunity to find others to fill their void that are more like minded. I like to think that religion didnt push me away and make me atheist and that I chose to be this way on my own. And that is true. However, once I became an atheist, many people who are christians made me feel much more confident in my decision by the way they treated me. Now, anytime that thought that was engrained in my since birth creeps up, "what if I am wrong and I am going to hell?" Another voice quickly reminds me what "Gods" people are like and I think that if I am wrong, I wouldn't want to spend eternity with those dicks anyway. 

I know what you mean. Sometimes, I just wanna unfriend almost every Facebook friend because they're so ignorant, telling me everything we know about the Universe and my sexuality are wrong.
I'm sorry for what happened with your friend.  

Similar view to Adrienne; some people will be desperate to believe in something even if all the evidence says otherwise, and you couldn't provide any stronger evidence that you telling her it's not true.

I am a bit older and I have found that friendships come and go.  It is just the way of the world.  It can be unpleasant, especially if you try to continue a friendship past its time, but it is actually in your best interests to just let friendships go when the time comes.  As you change with age, it is better to try to find friends who have changed in the same way. 

Though, I should add a word of caution:  The nature and depth of your friendships will change as well because you have changed and the new people you meet will have gone through a lot more as well.  Thus you and your new friends will be more complicated, which makes the friendships a bit more complicated and makes it more difficult to reach the same deep level of friendship one experienced when young.

I would murder anyone who sent me a box of spiders.  They'd be dead within the week after I planned a meticulous and cunning escape from the law.  

<----- Also severely afraid of spiders lol

Oh anyway.  I had a wonderful friend in College.  We did a lot of things together.  I cared for her, she meant a lot to me even though we never became more than cuddle / make out buddies - She defriended me on FB not too long ago - no explanation or anything but I think it was directly after I posted a FB comment about the Catholic Church and their alleged baby / child stealing by showing women dead babies and saying their child died after it was born while secretly giving the baby to someone else.  

She wasn't even that Catholic but her family was.  So I guess that set her off - She was probably my closest friend I've ever had.  I was heartbroken.  So I know how you feel.