I understand the extremes: a god is always this first to blame and praise for the events the occur in one's life. It 's really so much easier than finding a mirror and discovering the true source of one's circumstance. True there is a hand your dealt, but we can always try and pick another card. As for my beliefs, I find it hard to fathom that this one planet contained in a universe so large that we can't concieve or even see the ends of it, is the absolute center for some moral playground where we try to gain the grace of an entity which purportedly made us and already loves us, with a handy structured set of expected actions already printed out, that has I'm quite sure an authentic claim of authorship. If you do these things this way, say these things that way, then you've got it made, you're "saved"? And that's what I'm expected to believe, that there is no other purpose for my life and my choices. Is that what I'm being "saved" from, that all my questions are already answered? I guess it would be kind of a let down...and that's religion: something to keep you busy, give you something else to do so you don't have to worry about feeling bad about being let down. I won't believe that organized religion can solve my questions about life, I place much more faith in our continuing quest for knowledge.

opinion: vaginas are wonderful to play with.

What? You wanted an opinion on what you posted?

I'll have to take your word on the former

I posted this like 20 days ago and no one said anything, was it that bad?

No, its just that (a) the atheist section isn't very active (much to my disappointment) and (b) we often don't respond to things we basically agree with.

yeah, what he said

My condolences.

no, it was that good.

OK massage and archemedes...I guess I should have put something more scandalous on here.

I am sorry, I could not get through even the first two sentences. It's not that you were a bad writer or that your question were without merit. I don't know. All I know is that the visual of the one-paragraph deal in your original post hits me like a brick wall -- you know, it's like a wall, full of bricks, but their densely placed visual makes every brick disappear. Similarly, your text is full of ideas, full of similarly weighing thoughts, but they, all together like that, without giving your reader some help in catching his breath, so to speak, by paragraphing, makes it into a wall of ideas indistinguishable from each other. If one tries to make out the different things, then, like your eyes would water and go googley if you were to count the bricks in a real brick wall, one's mind waters and goes googley after the first two sentences.

Try to make your text more readable, more appetizing to the reader. There is laziness, true, on the part of the reader, but there is also the packaging that sells the story. My advice is to please brush up on your style, both visual and contextual, and more people will read you.

Another helpful hint in order is to make your sentences varied -- long ones, short ones, complex ones, simple ones, listing ones, adjectivised ones.

Buying "Elements of Style" by Funk and Wagnall (I am not sure of the spelling or even if the names are right) would be a good investment if you are planning to write a great deal more in the future.

I don't mean to put you down, and I hope I have not.

I don't mean to take the wind out of your sail.

I just mean to help you with telling how one can improve his chances of being read and his ideas responded to.

Yeah. Whatza matter wit you?

I'm guessing you find big books equally daunting, too.
"So many words, all in one place. Can't focus. Eyes going googley."

See... I understood your first paragraph perfectly!

The post was actually meant to be a response to another thread here, but I decided to start a thread.

I'm not up to date on the faux-pas of thread posting, so I consider it a lesson learned.

I lame like that sometimes...

That'll learn ya!

i often can't tell when people are joking - i don't think you committed a faux pas at all, and there was nothing 'wrong' with your first post above; i think wux was just giving his personal answer to your later question, and in doing so gave good advice for getting a better response from people in the future. posting an op like yours is just fine, but you will lose some people.

Thanks massage, but I did get exactly what I was asking for in the thread: his opinion! I do see his point, everything was jammed together...it made sense to me!!!

sometimes being lost is fun...

It really makes life worth living,doesn't it?

worked for Doctor Who for years...

who says that that is what you are expected to believe? and why do you care what anyone expects regarding your beliefs?