G'Day,

"Going on 86", good on ya'  My mom back in Eden, NC was 89 in October and she is as sharp mentally as ever and she goes all the time, my first and foremost hero.  I'm drawing a bead on the reciprocal of that number, 69 on 2/23/12, and about as "rock-hard" an atheist as one may find; been that way for the past 20+ years after being a skeptic from earliest age and a hyper agnostic for the next 40 or so.  I came out as an atheist after the missus and family dragged me kicking and screaming to a "Christian Fellowship" associated with the Assemblies of doG, basically a Pentecost operation for a year.  That was the event that made me the atheist I have been ever since, while the missus is still having a "relationship" with an invisible friend.  "We will survive"!

Hi William, what's up man? Greetings from Hong Kong!

Hi William, that's good news..churches closing! In the NSS E bulletin from which I took the quotes, also states that people in Ireland are leaving the church in droves. Apparently the church in Ireland is bracing itself for another scandal involving 20 priests. I just returned from Liberia in West Africa and am appalled at the number of churches everywhere I go. I keep asking people, why are the poorest countries in the world with the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in thr world, the most religious?? It is an absolute mystery to me, that everything that happens is down to god or allah. When I ask why it is right for women to be dying in such numbers in Africa which is so religious, when they are not dying in the West, nobody can answer me. It makes me soooo angry!!

Thanks for the comment, William. I'm happy I finally found sites like this one where I can be among fellow minds. :)