Paris

I guess what I really want to know, is if an atheist decided to join your church not because she wants to become religious, but because the music and fellowship appealed to her, would you be offended? I promise to pretend to believe and will pray and go through the motions necessary to maintain the social order.

So long as I stay in the closet, is that cool with the members of the church? What if my lack of belief was discovered, would I be kicked out?

I think the next big fight in Washington is going to be over a new stimulus bill. This one is going to be brought on by the republicans and will be at the behest of Wall Street. Did you see how bad it was out there in the market today? The rich people are finally waking up that a bad economy for middle class folks eventually means a bad economy for them too.

I don't mean like the political groups or the pseudo-church like groups that exist. I'm thinking more like a gay-bar style social club where atheists can hang out and relax without having to hide their atheism. I envision something like a little coffee shop/ bookstore where atheists can hang out, maybe have something to eat, listen to music and socialize with one another in a non-judgmental atmosphere.

It would also make a good atmosphere for meeting new friends, supporting each other when grieving (I hate it when someone says "He's with god now." Grrrr! They aren't helping!) or even to meet members of the opposite sex.

Does something like this exist in the United States? Maybe in the North East?

If there ever was a god (and I'm not saying there was), is it possible that he got bored and forgot about us? He was very active in ancient human history, but he has been out of communication for thousands of years. Perhaps he planned on coming back, but found a more interesting universe to control and has left us behind. One must admit, we are kind of annoying. We never seem to learn. We are still making the same mistakes today that we did in the old testament.

Perhaps he grew weary of having to repeat himself day in and day out and humans continued to ignore his instructions. Floods didn't work. Plagues didn't work. Commandments didn't work. Finally he had to pull this planet over and come down here and give us a good talking to. Yeah, that didn't work either.

Maybe he finally gave up and said, "Fine, have it your way then!" and moved on to other projects that were more successful.

I've been looking at craigslist for the area I'm moving to, but there are so many scams on there it seems unreliable. The local news paper doesn't have online listings for rentals and I don't have access to the hard copy in a timely fashion (usually takes 3-4 days for shipping to my current location). Are there other resources where landlords advertize their rentals online?

I'm will to pay a small membership fee for a website or house hunter, not more than $100 total, though.

I was just wondering if anyone here or that you know who was an atheist has ever become religious? You hear about people leaving their religion all the time, but I've never heard of a healthy adult (mental illness, drug addiction etc doesn't really count) suddenly finding god.

Of course there is the possibility of a child that was raised in an atheist home that becomes religious when he/she moves out, but that isn't the kind of person I'm talking about. I'm talking about a healthy adult over 27 years of age suddenly finding God. If so, how exactly did it happen and could it happen to other atheists too?

I was just thinking that maybe there should be a law against lying in political ads. There are already laws in place to prevent companies for lying in regular advertisements, but the political ads are still protected as "Free Speech" and therefore aren't covered by the same laws. Heck, the people who are negatively effected by the lies, whether they be the politicians themselves or groups that are being targeted by the ads, can't even sue for defamation as the ads are protected speech as of today.

I was just wondering how others feel about lies in political ads? Do you like the drama or would you prefer some kind of law to keep elections more honest?

I have been baking bread at home for a couple of weeks now, and I've been using left over whey from yogurt making instead of water to homemade bread. Today, when I heated the whey, milk and olive oil for baking bread, my milk curdled. I used it anyway and the bread tastes fine. I'm just not sure what I did differently.

My whey has been in the fridge for several days, but the milk was purchased fresh yesterday. I didn't really pay attention to how quickly I heated the liquid, but removed it from the stove when the thermometer read 120ish. It began curdling at about 90-100 degrees.

Just curious why this happened. Any ideas?

I was just curious as to how well it worked and/or how it failed and why. Thanks!