A friend asked why am I here on MDB

[_huckelberry]

Jersey Girl, your previous post seemed a bit tangled till I figured out which parts were you speaking. I thought it was good and want to say thanks.

Hope you do not mind if I second your thought with a short note of what it reminded me of.

I hear Jesus say that we should think for our selves and take responsibility for ourselves others and the world we live in. Christianity teaches that we are valuable and can be strong. It teaches that we all , strong or struggling with defeat or rejection can say" i am somebody ", Christians can take hope in the words, respect yourself.

There are people usually for personal gain who try to cover this message over with rules and authority assertions.they may make people feel weak and afraid. They make people feel unworthy. They take money and control. I feel strongly such people should not be trusted. Some of them may do it believing they are protecting people. Others are conscious predators.

[_DonBradley]

Awww, agape to you as well, "MsNobody," my friend.

I don't frequent the board so much these days, so I'm lucky I caught your thread! I guess ironically I owe it to the fact that people have extended the thread so longI taking you to task for it that I got to see it!

Thank you so much for your concern for others that brought you to these message boards starting, what, like 17 years ago when we first met , so that we could become friends.

By the way, I admire your ability to let your peace return to you, so to speak, in difficult conversations. I certainly want to be more like that!

Don

[_Jersey Girl]

huck I added a few bells and whistles to make that more readable.

[_DonBradley]

As will hopefully be obvious now, I am LLHWEAPS/MsNobody's unnamed friend.

We are old friends. We've known each other since ZLMB, along with other old timers like Shades, Jersey Girl, and others. We talked there on the board, and also on the chat room, and also via email and phone. We've been friends for at least 17 years.

When we first encountered each other ZLMB, I was a religious nonbeliever, having lost my faith in Mormonism. Weaps/MsNobody was always tremendously kind, and has been a good friend at all points during my subsequent spiritual journey.

During many of our early interactions, I was an agnostic and then an atheist. Weaps's efforts to extend faith in Christ to me were not something that, at that time, I resonated to. But I did recognize that having someone try to share faith with you isn't some sort of slight or insult. It's a compliment, a kindness--someone cares about you and wants you to be eternally happy.

If you have any doubt that you are being extended a kindness in this case, watch how gently Weaps responds to any provocations here.I think we all know how easy it is to take offense at what people say on the Internet. The fact that even when people are accusing her of lying, repeatedly taking her to task for her post, her faith, and her efforts to share that faith with others, she remains patient and kind in her responses shows the sincerity of her concern for others. This isn't someone here to win a fight, feed her ego by showing she's better than others, or any of that garbage. As she explained in her OP, she began participating on these boards because she cares about people.

I'd think that's a sort of kindness that may merit kindness in return, wouldn't you?

Don

[_Jersey Girl]

I love you, Don Bradley. She would have never named you. And, who could make up the journey of Don Bradley?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

“Who was your friend?”

“Don Bradley.”

“Oh, cool. He used to post here quite a bit. He’s a good guy.”

Instead we got this oddity: “Not gonna talk about it. Just kidding, I’ll talk about vaguely. Also, I love you.”

And finally the big reveal: “It was me!”

Whatever the case may be, I’ll address Jersey Girl’s comments tomorrow.

- Doc

[_Jersey Girl]

“Who was your friend?”

“Don Bradley.”

“Oh, cool. He used to post here quite a bit. He’s a good guy.”

Instead we got this oddity: “Not gonna talk about it. Just kidding, I’ll talk about vaguely. Also, I love you.”

And finally the big reveal: “It was me!”

Whatever the case may be, I’ll address Jersey Girl’s comments tomorrow.

- Doc

A bunch of us knew each other from other boards and in this case from Z. I haven't seen anyone on this thread who knows her say a word against her and there's at least 5 of us on this thread. Why does it look like you want her to prove herself to you? Did anyone expect that of you when you got here? crap, if that's the case then you failed a ton of times and just as many times as you failed, you succeeded.

In my eyes at least. We're all human.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

“Why does it look like you want her to prove herself to you?”

That’s your perception issue, not mine.

“Did anyone expect that of you when you got here?”

If I showed up, mentioned that a friend posted here and asked me why I, of all people, wanted to post here, I would think it’s natural that at least some might be curious as to who the friend was. I find it bizarre that I got a sort of cagey non-answer, and then a sort of ‘vaguebooking’ answer.

“Hello everyone, I was talking to a friend about this place, and they inspired me to post here.”

“Neato. Who was your friend?”

“Oh, I would never divulge that to you guys.”

“Wtf?”

“Ok, I’ll divulge a bit. And I love you.”

“What’s going on here?”

“Hey, guys I’m the friend!”

“Oh, yeah. I know that guy. Cool.”

“Why were you such an asshole to our amazing friend and super sweet spirit, Vaguebook?”

“I’m sorry? I guess?”

- Doc

[Guest]

“Out of the mouth comes what is in the heart.”

That’s some really deep Christian theology, man. Here’s another:

“Into thine tummy what passeth, through thine teeth and through thine gums, watcheth outeth for here it cometh.”

- Doc

[Guest]

Alright. Let’s take a look at what you got.

“Surely a smart man like you can understand the spirit of the passage... It's all the same. It's all empathy based love and compassion for others.”

I believe you believe that. I don’t particularly think anyone is risking anything evangelizing to people on the Internet. Like, if you’re earning some gold coins with Jesus, I could see Jesus maybe tossing one your way for vaguebooking on MDB, but I’m sure Paul got a nice satchel full for his blue collar work ethic. Big difference, and an even bigger difference of respect is afforded between the two.

“It's no different than any other human's desire to help lift up another human being.”

It’s fundamentally different. Weird that you can’t see that.

”tl;dr - Jersey Girl doesn’t hate herself”

Could you get into Heaven without a belief and faith in Jesus Christ?

“I can tell you without question that Weaps isn't condescending to anyone here. She believes she has a gift to share with others. Like the alcohol in the pandemic.“

Yeah. One thing is just larping, and the other thing actually exists. One thing is easy to share, and the other thing requires an actual sacrifice in that you presumably earned that alcohol and now you’re giving it away for free. One earns you good will with sexy Jesus in heaven, and the other earns you good will with a real, tangible human being.

“And what is that to you?”

Well, it’s nothing to me until someone starts a dialogue and then acts cagey, and then acts vague, and then acts like a passive-aggressive victim because I don’t care for what they’re peddling where I don’t think what they’re doing makes any sense outside of larping for Jesus. Remember. She came to a discussion board that has lax moderation, so we’re both free to treat the topic how we see fit. Quite frankly, had she just been open and honest and talked a bit about her friend I would’ve been, “Oh. Cool.”

”You ask a good question here. Why doesn't a Christian take ownership of their own brain? What makes you think that we don't?”

Uh. Because Christians generally believe they’re being forgiven by an external force. How is this a mystery to you?

”If those ideas come from basic psychology, sociology, or philosophy (religious or otherwise) what possible difference does it make so long as we develop pro-social behaviors to the betterment of ourselves, others, our families, our local and extended community?”

You just demonstrated the irrelevance of religion. Why do you need a mythological father figure to make you feel good about who you are, and then inspire you to project that outward? In the same vein, why is it so often that we see the same deity render virtually no change in the believer where they’re still an asshole and levy suffering on the world, despite their belief? I’m sure it occurred to you that it’s the person, and not the faith nor the deity that makes for a decent human being.

”Here, she has been met with (on the part of some) a kind of overblown toxic contempt.”

Easy with the victim routine. We get it. Christians love to take one for the team. She is not a victim. She chose to come to Shady Acres and witness. She’s stronk and powerful.

Just a reminder, that while y’all wringing your hands over her terrible treatment *rolling eyes* Christians had a long and bloody history of spreading their religion at the point of a sword (look up the judgement of Verdun* for one of thousands upon thousands of examples of their vicious barbarism). I’ll not apologize for side eyeing y’all when you’re clutching your pearls over the oppression you seem to receive here from the free folk.

- Doc

* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Verden