WELL THE MONTHS GO BY AND NO ONE POSTS đanyđPROOF FOR EVOLUTIONâźď¸âźď¸âźď¸
Posted : 4 Feb, 2024 04:22 PM
That was a disgusting thing to say, Handyman. You sound like youâre glad Austin is gone.
LittleDavid. You arenât worth the effort. You arenât worth anyoneâs time. Your and Handymanâs indifference to a man who may very likely have committed suicide tells me everything I ever needed to know about both of you, and that is why this is the last time you will ever see me on this website again.
My sole message was that we should have care how we speak, because HOW we say things is at least as important as WHAT we say. I never cared whether anyone believes what I believe, but I had hoped that they might be able to take a step back, not be so emotionally invested into their beliefs and, God willing, stop FIGHTING so much!
Every time I tried to gently give that cautionary message to people like you, Prophetic7744, and GodIsMyFather, I have been attacked, bullied, and mocked. Donât worry, LittleDavid, you havenât understood anything Iâve said on these forums yet. I donât expect you to suddenly clean off your glasses and see things clearly now. What I find sadly ironic is that you probably read the Bible with the same clouded vision.
Fortunately, CDFF is small and looks like it is getting smaller. There are too few active members anymore for it to be all that effective as a dating site, and there are even fewer in the forums, so I do not feel there is as much danger of someone who is on the edge of faith coming here and being driven away from God anymore. As CDFF becomes less Christian because of your bullying and mockery on the forums and as the âfreeâ part of CDFF becomes less free, I expect that it will shut down in the not-too-distant future, or fall into such irrelevancy as to be worthless for anyone to bother joining.
Enjoy your echo chamber, David, at least until you say something cruel enough to get yourself banned like the others before you. May you always be surrounded ONLY by the people you can tolerate, and considering how few people seem to want to talk to you on the forums here, it looks like youâre pretty much there.
For whatever itâs worth, I agree with you that young people are leaving the Church, but I donât believe itâs because of evolution. Most students donât know much about the theory and donât care enough about it to take a geology class in school to get âbrainwashed.â Furthermore, Jesus didnât preach about the creation process. He preached about the relationship between God and his people, and the relationship of people with each other. Young people are leaving the church because itâs too busy chasing distractions like evolution theory to effectively address the struggles and concerns that have immediate impact on their lives and their futures, like wars, pandemics, poverty, purpose and meaning in life. They want to know where to find answers to their fears and uncertainties, not whether humans walked with dinosaurs. They want fulfillment. They want to feel the weight of life lifted from their shoulders, to find joy of life again. Arguing about how old the earth is isnât going to do anything to help that. I pray your discussions finally find relevance to the real concerns of those who read your posts.
One of you two yelled at him to âMAN UP.â Then you both used the rest of the thread to bash women and promote Red Pill content in the midst of what reads very much like a suicide note.
Why are you arguing about how long it took to make the world when itâs falling apart into decadence and despair?
WELL THE MONTHS GO BY AND NO ONE POSTS đanyđPROOF FOR EVOLUTIONâźď¸âźď¸âźď¸
Posted : 31 Jan, 2024 09:07 PM
There could always be other reasons why people donât respond here. Maybe most of the people here already agree with you. You may not get much conversation shouting Republican talking points in the RNC, even if theyâre fairly fringe. If you take that soapbox to the DNC, though, you could start a riot (and vice versa, of course). Maybe those who would disagree with you on here simply have other things to do with their time. Debates are time consuming, especially when youâre being careful with your words.
Most of us write how we speak, and most readers associate the combination of all caps and lots of exclamation points with someone who is shouting. If itâs important to you how your target audience views your post, then how you perceive your posts is irrelevant. Whatâs important is how your target audience sees them. After reading many posts from you and seeing how you handle debates, I get the sense that you donât think much about how your messages are received, or about how you might be able to word things to promote listening, learning, and growth instead of antagonism and hate.
Personally, I think emojis shouldnât be used if the intent is to have an honest, sincere conversation about a serious topic. Emojis themselves are rather whimsical at their core and I try to avoid them unless Iâm actually joking around and being whimsical myself. For serious conversations like this, I prefer to painstakingly make sure my words express exactly what I intend.
I think you donât experience difficulties getting responders on other sites because youâre basically trolling them. Youâre going to a more secular forum saying provocative things in a way that sends clear signals that youâre yelling and trying to provoke those you disagree with and it works. Thatâs not a surprise. In a place where maybe most people would agree with you or are averse to conflict, all it creates is an echo chamber. You also donât seem to miss a chance to insert a barb (e.g., using demeaning adjectives whenever you speak of a theory you disagree with, putting Christians that might disagree with you in âquotes,â insinuating that they arenât Christian, donât love God, or are not serious about their faith). When someone says something you disagree with, they didnât just miss the mark. They didnât miss an important detail, and theyâre not just mistaken. What I usually see is that those who disagree with you have nefarious motives attributed to them, are told theyâre putting out ânonsenseâ, are twisting the truth, or are âguzzling Kool-Aid.â With all these things, I canât help but think that youâre not interested in having a good-faith discussion about a topic like this with anyone who disagrees with you. Disagreements will always just be an insult-fest in this atmosphere, where no hearts are changed, no eyes are opened, and the atheists and Lucifer just get a big laugh at our expense.
As for my beliefs: I believe you need to provide definitive proof that you can speak on a topic like this with a civil tongue and treat those who disagree with you on points with respect and dignity.
WELL THE MONTHS GO BY AND NO ONE POSTS đanyđPROOF FOR EVOLUTIONâźď¸âźď¸âźď¸
Posted : 30 Jan, 2024 06:25 PM
Maybe itâs all the âall capsâ posts and red exclamation marks, David. It makes the forum an extremely hazardous place in which to try to have any sort of productive dialogue. Plus itâs pretty widely known that itâs very hard for someone to listen when theyâre constantly shouting.
Am just wondering what do people do with these numbers?
My answer: I would call that a monstrous red flag that you're dealing with a scammer. I see no reason why communication on a dating website (especially one that's supposedly free) should require you to divulge personally identifying information of any kind until youâve well established each otherâs legitimacy. Iâve been deeply concerned about how easily scammers can obtain and do harm with personal information, so this post definitely strikes a nerve with me. Iâve heard that some pretty bad things can be done with just your phone number. Iâm not sure how many of the possibilities Iâve heard about are real. They did, after all, come from the internet (and everything on the internet is true, right?). Nevertheless, it seems to be a problem that is getting worse, not better, and youâre absolutely NOT a bad person for trying to protect yourself against it.
And two, should i get insulted if i share a contact that i can be accessed even if it is not my private number?
My answer: Absolutely not! In general, I would recommend for everyone reading this to set up a throw-away skype or facebook account that uses none of your actual personal information if youâre planning to communicate off the dating site for video or live chats at some point. I donât understand why legitimate users of a dating site would ghost or insult another user for wanting to keep their conversation on the site or meet in person before giving out any personal contact information. If youâre able to communicate for free on the site, I donât understand why the dating site is such a terrible inconvenience. Not only that, but being protective of your own data in this way ultimately protects both people in the conversation.
"How does this make me a bad person with bad intentions if am just protecting myself?"
My answer: It doesn't, not by a country mile. If theyâre saying that you're a bad person for giving contact info that doesn't actually divulge any of your private info, thatâs just them trying to guilt you into giving more information. Donât fall for it. Their tantrum/insults/ghosting is nothing more than the sound of you dodging a bullet.
Stay safe, and God bless! The internet was and remains the "wild west." You're doing the right things by protecting yourself out here!
Okay, so the first thing Iâd like to know as a follow-up is, why are you comparing yourself to your mother? That seems like an apples to oranges comparison to me.
My other thought is this: Since you are the eldest sibling, you don't have another older sibling to compare your experiences to. Itâs normal for parents to put less effort into their kidsâ birthdays after they reach certain age milestones. You probably have to wait a little longer to see if the same thing happens to the older of your two brothers. Was this something that you noticed all of a sudden?
A couple other questions to consider:
1: Has this happened for Christmas as well?
2: Were there other things happening that made the time around your birthday more hectic for your family than when others' birthdays came around? The most obvious example of this that comes to mind for me is the December birthdays where you not only get the dreaded "this is for birthday AND Christmas" line, but everyone's genuinely so busy that even if they don't give you that line, it can seem like your special day gets lost in the chaos.
My point in this line of questioning is that there may be underlying circumstances that have contributed to this situation that you haven't considered or don't know about. Unfortunately, since I'm just a stranger on the internet who doesn't know any more about the situation than what you tell us, I'm also just kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall here to see what sticks.
I hope that something of what I've mentioned might help you find some answers. I can't remember if you said you did this or not, but the best thing to do might be to go to your family and ask them about it: to calmly tell them how it appeared to you and how it makes you feel and ask them what was happening that created the situation.
Uh, hold the phone a second. Before we jump to conclusions like âentitlementâ and so forth, I think I would like to understand the situation here a little better.
Hazel*, can you give a little more detail about your family dynamics? Did your family seem to forget your birthday when you were younger too? I just want to make sure I understand whatâs going on.
The reason Iâm confused is because Iâm as close to my family as any 30-something could ever hope to be but I havenât really gotten any more for my birthdays than what youâve described since entering adulthood. When youâre young, sure, thereâs cake and gifts, a party, maybe a theme, relatives, and so-on. Itâs a lot easier to buy gifts for a 10-year-old than it is a 30-year old. By our age most of âhub-bubâ over birthdays is over. The attention usually shifts to the next generation of kids. Are you sure itâs not something like this that youâre experiencing?
I definitely understand your position, CDFF and agree with you on much of it. It's a tragic irony to me that on one side, there are even some church-going Christians that, like their secular counterparts, act like losing one's virginity before getting married is as inevitable as the sun coming up tomorrow, and on the other side we have so many churches that don't seem to even know what to do with single people. It's too bad, too. There's a real gap that I think the church could fill to give singles a safe venue in which to meet in person, date, and form relationships.
NarnianGirl: Thank you for letting me know about it. I'll keep an eye out for it. You're welcome to message me directly about it too if you wish. I look through the science/philosophy forum from time to time, but I usually don't post anything there. For a field that is supposed to be impartial, science manages to stir up a lot of strong feelings that I don't always want to get in the middle of.
I see it among a lot of men who are influencers try to make the case that a lot of people who are celibate are that way because they donât have the options. While there may be a kernel of truth in that, I find that to be a load of garbage. I find it more likely that people with that many more options are simply confronted with the temptation more often, and, as Christians, we already know human willpower is not ironclad.
I donât have anyone beating down my door either, but I have had to tell a few women of my choice to wait until marriage. Since Iâm already pretty selective about who I spend time talking to, I have not had much push-back when I establish that boundary, though I did have one that seemed to have a mixture of pity for me (like I was missing out on great opportunities) and surprise that I could resist the temptation. Needless to say, my conversation with that one didnât last very long after that.
That experience led me to an interesting (though largely rhetorical) question: Why is giving in to (and possibly becoming a slave to) your base instincts and passions regarded as âstrengthâ and âempowerment and resisting those temptations shamed as undesirability?â To me, and Iâm guessing to most of the responders here, giving in to those temptations is an act of weakness. It takes a lot of willpower to turn down what our instincts want so badly.
The strongest rationale Iâve heard for not remaining celibate until marriage is that âyou have to know how âphysicallyâ compatible you are with someone.â I have heard this used both as an excuse for oneâs own promiscuity and as ârelationship adviceâ given to others. I donât think we [the church] will have much luck turning this around until we get some really good answers for this besides ââŚbut the Bible says we shouldnât do that.â While that may be true and correct, people in Western society have become experts at ignoring passages that are inconvenient. Therefore, we need to do a better job outlining why the Bible tells us these things. I think the church needs to improve how it approaches single people as a whole, but thatâs another matter for another forum topic. To me (and someone else can jump in and maybe provide some good scriptures to back up some of what Iâm saying here), compatibility with someone and loving them for a lifetime cannot be based on how good the bedroom activities are. That is only one minuscule part of your lives together and the flesh is deceitful and over-inflates itâs own importance. Compatibility of spirit, values, parenting style, future life goals, and how you handle adversity and pain are things that will impact how you will relate to each other every day and will determine whether your relationship has staying power when tragedy becomes your house guest.
Well, that was an answer that was kind of all over the place, but hopefully Iâve been able to make some points that will be helpful to answering the postâs questions.
Yeah, I guess we didnât quite hit your questions did we? Sorry about that. I guess we were too busy getting into his head to figure out what he was doing. So straight to your questions:
1: Am I just imagining things or is he ignoring me?
Possibly? Iâm afraid the only way to know is to talk to him about it directly, but you don't know how he'll respond to that. You may find that he doesnât even know what youâre talking about. On the flip-side, you may find that he thinks youâre ignoring him. If that is the case, I would wonder who ignored or failed to notice the other first? I don't say that to be critical. You may have simply gotten off on the wrong foot somehow and accidentally sent the wrong initial signals to each other. Itâs easy to read more into someoneâs behavior than what is there, especially if you donât know them that well, and that can lead to some awkward first impressions.
2: And should I just continue to ignore him?
I totally understand what FDCWillard is saying here, but I believe the correct answer is still no. Being friendly toward someone with a strong unspoken attraction can be a tease, yes; especially if they misinterpret your friendliness as an invitation to approach you. However, being ignored can also be cruel. One-sided attraction (if it's happening here) is always a recipe for pain. There's just no getting around that.
That being said, I think the answer would be to continue being friendly. When I turn to scripture on this question, I am drawn to this passage: âHearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: âteacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?â Jesus replied: âLove the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.â All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.â (Matthew 22, v. 34-40). I suspect that Jesus would say that this man is your neighbor too. I think in the workplace that means we're called to be friendly, helpful, and to generally try to be the kind of coworker/employee that we would want to work with ourselves. I don't think any awkward one-sided attraction nullifies that calling.
