What are your plans for ringing in the New Year?

DharmaBum50 comments on Jan 1, 2018:

Between the cops out everywhere and the atmosphere of forced gaiety at the turn of a calendar page, New Year's Eve is the one night out of the year I'm happy to be home. I got the woodstove going, opened a 15-pack of Founders IPA, and started in on cooking my traditional southern New Year's Day fare of hoppin' John and greens.

happy new year and may 2018 be memorable in a good way for you!

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 31, 2017:

Back atcha!

Would you marry for money or more freedom?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 31, 2017:

Marrying for "more freedom" seems contradictory to me. Whatever, I was happily married for 21 years, but she died, and that ain't gonna happen again. Been on my own too long.

What, not who, makes life worth living?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 31, 2017:

Traveling and seeing as much of nature and the planet as possible. As far as I can determine, that's the only reason it's there.

Are there any classical music buffs out there?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 30, 2017:

I am mostly into super-hard rock these days, but I do like classical occasionally. I find that my tastes have changed over the years, however. I've tired of the old warhorses for the same reason I've tired of classic rock--overplaying--and moved on to composers such as Penderecki and Gorecki.

The unconscionable lack of integrity in media

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 29, 2017:

Just one more reason why I lead a tee-vee-free lifestyle.

Sometimes it's the simple things we tend to overlook everyday that are the most "spiritual".

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 28, 2017:

I agree! I have a screened-in back porch that faces northeast, and sometimes when I'm out there sipping a beer and watching nice sunset afterglows or lightning bugs out back on summer nights, I figure this is as close to spirituality as I get. BTW, lovely picture, Duke!

What is your plan "B"?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 28, 2017:

South America.

Is dating, long-terming, or marrying out of the question for you with a religious person or persons?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 27, 2017:

Depending on the relationship and the people involved, the difference could even be fairly interesting. However, I found all that dynamic discussion changed when it came to end-of-life issues. When my wife, for example, was dying of cancer and expecting me to say that I'd see her again in her fairy-tale heaven, and I couldn't honestly tell her that, it became painful beyond belief--and that's not something I ever want to repeat.

Why did you choose your username/avatar?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 27, 2017:

Biker Dude is my nickname among some local friends, but I don't actually have a bike. I just look like I do. LOL

Anyone else not celebrating xmas?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 24, 2017:

I'll be driving 900 miles from Florida to Kentucky, death metal spurring me on, and to me, that's a fine way to spend the holiday.

Some have alluded to it, but let me be the first to say humbug

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 11, 2017:

I'll second that. I've been saying it since before Halloween.

What is on my mind?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 10, 2017:

Ah, T. S. Eliot, "Four Quartets!" Love it! Welcome from a denizen of the Kentucky boonies and Bible Belt wasteland.

What's your preference for a burial option?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 10, 2017:

Cremation, ashes of my dog and my wife mixed with mine and scattered along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.

For Those Who Went To Church In The Past, What Do You Do Now On Sunday Instead?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 10, 2017:

I haven't gone to church since I went to college. Bloody Marys is the Sunday morning routine now.

Isn’t it funny when the religious say they will be praying for you?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 9, 2017:

Living in the Bible Belt, I figure it's just a believer's knee-jerk, pro forma reaction to all sorts of situations. I heard it a lot both before and after my wife died. As you see, the prayers before her death didn't do much good, but in the end, I honestly don't think these people actually do pray for you--it's just a little white lie that fills a conversational gap.

If you could were offered free lessons in a subject of your choice, what would you want to learn?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 8, 2017:

I used to be pretty good as a painter. Oils, expressionistic-type stuff. But I succumbed to years of depression, and now want to get back into it.

Celibacy: How is it working for you?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 8, 2017:

Eight years or so. It is what it is. I haven't killed anyone yet, so I guess it's going well.

There is nothing that happens without a reason. Your thoughts?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 8, 2017:

Again, that depends on your definition of "reason." When a program came on in which a clip of Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign speech was played, for example, in which he asked me if I was doing better than I was four years previously, I was spinning my wheels in Louisville KY, working a dead-end grunt job with one useless masters degree under my belt and almost done with another. I had been applying for teaching jobs in the US to no avail and at the moment I heard Reagan ask me that, I was drunk and his question pissed me off. I threw a chair at the TV and broke it (last one I ever owned). When I sobered up, I decided to expand my job search overseas and vowed to take the first job I was offered. As it turned out, that job was in South Korea. It could just as well have been in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Colombia, or any number of other places I sent applications to. But that job turned my life around. It began a rewarding teaching career, and I ended up meeting the woman who would become my wife. We married and became a "teaching couple" and saw most of Asia and the Middle East during our careers. Did it happen for a reason? Yes, in the respect that I happened to be watching a TV program that pissed me off enough that it goaded me into action. No, in the respect that I took the first job I was offered--that it happened to be in Korea was just random chaos. Further random chaos was that ten years after our stint in Asia, my died of cancer, with no history of cancer in her family (other than Uncle Bob, who smoked himself to death).

How many men in politics are sweating bullets now ???? :)

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 8, 2017:

Not enough.

Do you put lime in your coconut...lol

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 7, 2017:

I guess my favorite mixed drink is a well-made Bloody Mary. In addition to the usual ingredients, I put BBQ sauce and chipotle peppers in my own. I've also been trying out new concoctions lately, like something I ran across called One Night in Phuket. It's kind of like an alcoholic Thai green curry, with chile-infused vodka, lime juice, coconut cream, and cilantro. (So yes, I put lime in my coconut...LOL)

If they made a movie of your life, who would you want to portray you?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 6, 2017:

We'd have to dig him up for the role, but Dennis Hopper would have been a good match. But this very same question was posed during a drinking session among old friends a ways back, and it was unanimous that Jack Nicholson would get the part.

Do you believe in love.

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 5, 2017:

It happened once, so I know it exists. But she died, and now I'm an emotional shell.

For those who cook even a little what is your favorite thing to cook.

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 5, 2017:

After having lived overseas for fifteen years, I came back to this country with a lot of international recipes--Korean, Japanese, Middle Eastern, Thai, Indian, etc.. But I guess the one thing I keep going back to--and went to great efforts to put together when I was overseas--is something popular in my home state of North Carolina: Brunswick stew. It originally had squirrel in it, but it's usually made with chicken and/or pork these days, and includes all sorts of veggies, but the must-haves are corn and limas or butter beans. I measure the cooking time in numbers of beers drunk. It's served with cornbread or hush puppies and cole slaw on the side, at the very least.

Anybody here like to take pictures?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 5, 2017:

Photography is one of my hobbies. My wife was a writer, and my photographs often appeared in her travel articles sometimes ending up in some pretty major publications. I guess that makes me semi-professional, though since her death, I am back to amateur status, I guess.

Old question. What's your favorite classic song?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 5, 2017:

There are so many! I guess the following would be considered "classic": Stones--"Brown Sugar" and "Gimme Shelter" The Who--"Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Behind Blue Eyes" Led Zeppelin--"Misty Mountain Hop" Jefferson Airplane--"White Rabbit" The Doors--"The End" And even back then, I was looking around for harder and darker stuff, so though these probably aren't considered "classics" (i.e., played to death on "classics" stations), they're from the same time period, and they were faves of mine: Iggy and the Stooges--"Search and Destroy" and "No Fun" Velvet Underground--"Sweet Jane," "Pale Blue Eyes," and "There She Goes Again"

Does prayer work?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 5, 2017:

My wife had bile duct cancer, and during the course of her treatment, she had Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims around the world praying for her. (Or at least that's what they said they were doing...) That included an entire small order of nuns in Milwaukee and a group of Catholic pilgrims traveling to Rome to appeal for the canonization of a Father Joseph Kentenich. She had the local neohippies "sending good vibes" her way. She died anyway. So my opinion of the "power of prayer" is summed up in that Facebook meme that has a picture of two cats, and it says, "I named my cats 'Thoughts' and 'Prayers' because they're both useless."

Does anyone here hate noise pollution?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 5, 2017:

Absolutely. I live in a small town in Kentucky, and I have a great back porch that gives the visual illusion that I'm living far out in the countryside. But that's the end of the illusion--noise-wise, I sometimes feel like I'm living in "the Hood," what with the traffic noise that comes up from down the hill and the non-ending sirens. In the fall, there's the constant WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE of the leaf-blowers that has me thinking about becoming the same kind of anti-noise vigilante Tim Robbins is in the 2007 movie "Noise."

Anyone here live an agrarian existence?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 4, 2017:

Ideally, my front and back yards would be gardens--but I'd have to be around for the bulk of the year to take care of them, and that's where my Ramblin' Man aspect wins out. So no gardens.

Share a photo of you in a special place. :)

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 4, 2017:

Monhegan Island, off the Maine coast.

Does anyone else here sing Karaoke?? If so what songs or type of music?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 4, 2017:

I don't do karaoke these days, and people should be most grateful for that. But when I was teaching in Japan and out carousing with students, "no" wasn't an option, so I worked up a few songs, my best one being the Stones's "Brown Sugar."

My Agnostic.

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 3, 2017:

I had the same thought when I reached 666 points.

Who's child free and over 35?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 3, 2017:

Me! I'm 67, and my late wife didn't want them, either. If there's one thing in my life I have no regrets about, it's my choice to be child-free.

A Little About Me I know I write a lot of silly, fun stuff.

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 2, 2017:

You seem cool. I await your tale.

What are some of your favourite movie lines?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 2, 2017:

Major Strasser: What is your nationality? Rick: I'm a drunkard. Captain Renault: That makes Rick a citizen of the world. -- Casablanca

What are some of your favourite movie lines?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 2, 2017:

Danny Torrance: Don't worry, Mom. I know all about cannibalism. I saw it on TV. Jack Torrance: Seeee, it's OK. He saw it on the television. -- from The Shining

Bucket list place/s to visit? And...... Go! :)

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 1, 2017:

Alaska, Macchu Pichu, Galapagos, cruise up the Norway coast, Faroe Islands, Patagonia.

I am Married to a vegetarian but I am not one ,Any one in this situation .

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 1, 2017:

It was one thing my wife and I compromised on. She was a vegetarian in the respect that when she cooked, she cooked nothing but vegetarian. But if she was out and about, and meat was what was for dinner, she would eat it. When I cooked, I accommodated her preferences quite a lot of the time by cooking vegetarian Indian, which is about the only cuisine in which I don't feel like I'm missing something if meat is absent. Occasionally, I would cook meat (chicken mostly), and not to rock the boat, she would eat it.

For those that qualify.... What's your favourite thing about being single?

DharmaBum50 comments on Dec 1, 2017:

I do miss my late wife horribly sometimes, but since I now find myself single again, I like to get my Kerouac on: wake up, throw a bag in the car, and head west with no particular destination in mind. If I like a place along the "way," I stay for a while and get to know it a bit. If I don't, I keep moving. My wife's traveling style was completely different--everything, every minute of every day on a trip, had to be planned and mapped out. Mind you, her idiosyncracies notwithstanding, I'd kill to have her back, but since that's just a pointless "what if" rumination, I will continue to enjoy total freedom during my travels. Gets a tad lonely sometimes, but that's the price to be paid.

Any atheists out there who have to live with religious people?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 29, 2017:

When I was dating the woman who would become my wife, we were both English teachers in South Korea and taking the opportunity while there to study Buddhism. She was a lapsed Catholic, and I was an agnostic/atheist. Our wedding was at a Buddhist temple in Seoul, and for many years thereafter, we were both Buddhists to one extent or another, she more than I, since I continued to identify as an agnostic/atheist (Buddhism being a nontheistic religion in the sense that there is no creator god in its essence). However, about a year before Kristin died of cancer, she returned to the Catholic church. She just told me one day as she was walking out the door that she was going to church. I was somewhat startled, since I'd heard her criticism of Catholicism, but I just said, "Fine, I understand. Just don't expect me to go with you." Most of the time, it proceeded like this, but it was tough when we were talking about her death and what would happen afterwards. She got upset when she asked me if we would ever see each other again, and I replied that I thought this earthly life is all there is, but what was I to do, lie? Those discussions of an afterlife were the most painful talks I've ever had, and it didn't end there. Following her death, maybe a couple years afterwards, a friend of hers told me she was disappointed I "wasn't there for her spiritually" at the end. I damn near took her head off, and we no longer speak. I mean, WTF was I supposed to have done to "be there for her spiritually" and still remain honest??

I'm getting more and more irritated at the "us & them" mentality of believers who hold themselves in...

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 28, 2017:

Funny, I find myself succumbing to the same "Us vs. Them" mentality, except that I pity them for their blind faith and insane delusions and fantasies and "pray" (hope) that they will see the Light of Reason. It takes a great deal of effort to transcend that feeling of superiority, and I'm not sure I'm always successful. But at least I try.

Any Long Distance Relationship Stories?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 28, 2017:

When my late wife and I were married, we were teachers in South Korea. She taught at a university in Seoul, and I was in charge of a language program run by a steel company in Pohang, a city on the east coast. I was single during the week and married on the weekends, as we took turns making the five-hour train trip. When she was down my way, we would hike on Nam-san (South Mountain) in Kyongju, site of the ancient Buddhist Shila Dynasty. In Seoul, we would party around. I was quite happy with this arrangement, but we eventually moved on to another country, another teaching environment--and the realities of marriage.

Do you feel as I do that Americans (primarily men ) place way to much importance on spectator sports...

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 27, 2017:

Absolutely. I think back to an economics professor I had who said that spectator sports is a perfect example of false solidarity. I totally agree.

My messaging stopped working this pm.

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 27, 2017:

I don't know what you're using for browsing, but Internet Explorer has been getting increasingly dysfunctional for me these days, especially with Facebook. I use Mozilla/Firefox with Facebook now, and it works much better. Just a thought. Worth a try.

Something that living in a different culture taught me years ago; When two or more of us start a ...

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 27, 2017:

During one graduate course I took in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), we had some sort of cultural simulation game called Bafa Bafa (I think that's what it was called). That is precisely what that simulation was all about, and I thought of it often later on during my life as an expat in Japan, South Korea, and the UAE. Come to think of it, I suppose it would come in handy right now in dealing with religious sorts.

Is it possible to be an atheist and not even try to be?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 27, 2017:

It is not only *possible* to be an atheist without trying to be, it's the *default* position, as somebody below said. We're all atheists at birth, and it is merely societal influences that intrude upon it thereafter. Your family member is a good example of that. You should not feel guilty for not believing her religious crap--the burden of proof is upon her and the prehistoric text she is trying to cram down your throat.

Does anyone else know they don't want to be buried in their family plot?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 27, 2017:

I didn't have a bad relationship with my parents--no worse than most people's, I guess--but I don't wish to be buried near them, nor buried at all, in fact. I will be cremated, and then if the wishes expressed in my will are followed, my ashes will be mixed with some of my wife's that I saved and my dog's, and then scattered at one of my favorite overlook spots along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. But then if folks don't see fit to follow those wishes, I don't guess it will matter because I'll be dead.

The silliness of the “War on Christmas.

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 25, 2017:

Yeah, when I'm hearing Christmas music in stores way before Halloween, on days when it's so hot the heat waves are coming up off the parking lot, I feel so sorry for the poor persecuted Christians whose holiday is under such massive assault.

So I was woken up today to someone pounding on the front door and the dogs barking.

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 24, 2017:

Kudos! Best time I ever had with these people was right after the Jim Jones mass suicide by KoolAid back in the 70s (I know--I'm old). I'd just gotten off from my nighttime taxi driving shift, and had poured a healthy quantity of bourbon into a coffee cup because all the glasses were dirty. I was sitting on the front porch, and these two guys came up and started in on the same JW spiel as you got. I'd already drunk half my cup of bourbon and was starting to get a buzz. They couldn't see what was in the cup, so I said, "I'm sorry, I already have a church I go to. I belong to the People's Temple." Lifting my cup, I continued, "Y'all want to come in and have some KoolAid?" Those guys boogied off my porch, and I finished my drink and went to bed.

Has your life changed since losing religion?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 23, 2017:

I never had religion in the first place. I was force-fed Protestant Christianity from the earliest age, but never bought any of it. I grew up during the space race, and I remember speculating out loud to my parents about the possibility of life on other planets. "Don't be ridiculous!" was the reply. Yet, I thought to myself, I'm supposed to believe in arks and people who get swallowed by whales and survive and immaculate conceptions. I never once thought religion was anything but complete BS, and church and Sunday School were merely boring times to be suffered through.

Does anyone else have mixed feelings this Thanksgiving what we celebrate with our friends and ...

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 23, 2017:

I'm with you. For me, the holiday is entirely personal and has nothing to do with the mythology that has been constructed around the Pilgrims. It's a time to celebrate and be grateful for the wonderful friends I have. And as somebody who isn't too bad as a cook, it's also a time to rustle up some good food and drink and share it plus enjoy other people's efforts.

I was just on my Facebook responding to a post on Roy Moore of Alabama-how he molested a 14 year ...

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 22, 2017:

I don't "friend" people on Facebook whom I don't know personally. Needless to say, I don't know that many rightwingers or religious types, so I don't get this kind of thing. Especially since I either unfriended or unfollowed the few I had on November 9 of last year. But I'm sorry you're having this experience.

What brings you peace?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 22, 2017:

Nature, travel, and Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale.

Why atheists feel sadness in religious surroundings?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 21, 2017:

Depending on the situation, I have felt many emotions in religious surroundings, but sadness was never one of them.

What do fellow members do for a living?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 21, 2017:

I used to teach English language and literature overseas, in the Middle East and Asia. After fifteen years of that, I'm back in the States as a freelance indexer. I compile those things in the back of the book where you find stuff.

If You Could Learn Any Language...

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 21, 2017:

Good question! I have several I'd like to learn or improve my abilities in. 1) German--I have a master's degree in it, but if you don't use it, you lose it--so maybe a few weeks at the Goethe Institute in Munich? 2) Spanish--when the Trumpets start putting on uniforms, it's time to go, and I'm thinking Ecuador or Uruguay or Chile. 3) Korean, which I already have a basic knowledge of from the time I lived there, but would like to improve for my occasional visits.

Those of you in the US that celebrate Thanksgiving with religious family, do you all have to do the ...

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 20, 2017:

I really haven't ever found a better Thanksgiving prayer than the one I learned in the Zen tradition. It is a wonderful nontheistic expression of gratitude, and if I am put in the position of having to give the "grace," this is what it is: First, let us reflect on our own work and the effort of those who brought us this food. Second, let us be aware of the quality of our deeds as we receive this meal. Third, what is most essential is the practice of mindfulness, which helps us to transcend greed, anger and delusion. Fourth, we appreciate this food which sustains the good health of our body and mind. Fifth, in order to continue our practice for all beings we accept this offering.

America's Most "Bible-Minded" Cities

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 20, 2017:

Damn, I'm just south of #10, Lexington, KY. Hallelujah!

Don't you hate it when people say things happen for a reason?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 20, 2017:

That's just one of the religious platitudes I heard when my wife died in 2010 at the age of 52. Seven years later, I'm still waiting to hear the reason--other than the obvious one that she had frikkin cancer.

E.T. Aliens: As real as the boy next door Have you had your own personal sightings?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 19, 2017:

I've never had my own personal sightings, but if you head to Benson's Hideaway Bar at the north end of Long Lake in Wisconsin ("UFO Headquarters"), you'll find a guy who claims to have had all sorts of them. If you give him half a chance, he'll whip out his photo album that has lots of pictures that "prove" his point (though you could be excused for thinking they just look like pictures of lights in the darkness). He also has what he claims is an actual Roswell alien in an old pickled egg jar. It looks authentic enough, with slime hanging off it, but then I suppose anything left in a pickled egg jar for twenty years would have slime hanging off it. When you're done with his displays, beer shorties are still less than a dollar (as of last time I was there a couple years ago), and the food is pretty good.

What was the first and last concert you attended?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 19, 2017:

I attended symphony concerts fairly early on, but my first rock concert was Jefferson Airplane in the early 70s, and the last was the Black Angels earlier this year.

What about Thanksgiving?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 18, 2017:

I feel the same way you do. Some folks make it into a religious holiday; I don't. It's a time to celebrate friendships over some nice food and drink. I used to teach overseas, and I have fond memories of Thanksgiving in South Korea and the UAE. In Seoul, the school bought the faculty a wonderfully prepared turkey from a 5-star hotel downtown, and then we had nothing but chopsticks (and ultimately, our fingers) to eat it with. In Al Ain, UAE, faculty friends rotated Thanksgiving each year, and it was often held up on the rooftop of somebody's villa overlooking copper-colored sand dunes that stretched out into the Empty Quarter. Now, here in Kentucky, following the death of my wife in 2010, I have been "adopted" by my best friend's brother's family, and that's where I'm going on Thursday. They're a bunch of old stoners like me, so no religion will be involved.

Weapons

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 17, 2017:

As we say in these parts, an inkpen.

Favourite Relgion, Atheism Quotes ?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 16, 2017:

The only angels we need invoke are those of our better nature: reason, honesty, and love. The only demons we must fear are those that lurk inside every human mind: ignorance, hatred, greed, and faith, which is surely the devil's masterpiece.--Sam Harris, The End of Faith

Here they come .

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 15, 2017:

1) Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, a time when I've been able to celebrate friendships, whether it's been in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, or right here in the southern USA. 2) I'm already sick of Christmas, and it's not even Thanksgiving yet. Full-bore commercialism from Halloween on. In addition to being an atheist, I'm an anti-consumer-capitalist, so there's not much about this holiday that appeals. 3) New Year's is also a BS holiday, IMHO. As if the turn of a calendar page means anything. After all, Cinnamon Hitler will still be residing in the White House.

I call myself a catholic agnostic, what do you call yourself?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 14, 2017:

These days, I identify myself simply as an atheist just to be clear. I do have a background in Buddhism, though, and sometimes I refer to myself as The Whiskey Buddhist.

Should I attend a wedding at church as an atheist?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 14, 2017:

I visit churches for weddings, funerals, and as a tourist. And when you think about it, I'm kind of a tourist when I'm at the weddings and funerals as well, observing the customs of an alien culture from the viewpoint of my own much different one. I don't participate, I just observe. Well, I have to take that back--I did once participate in a Catholic funeral. It was my father-in-law's, and he had requested that everyone in the family be involved in it. I could have been dogmatic and refused (and thereby alienated all of my wife's family), but I realized that my father-in-law was a real iconoclast, and that was the reason he wanted me included. He knew better than to force anything on me. Appropriately enough, I was given the wine to take up for the communion. My brother-in-law had the wafers, and on our stroll up to the altar, he mumbled over at me, "Don't drink it all, Cuz." After the ceremony was over, the look on the priest's face when he learned I was an atheist was worth the whole experience. The important thing, though, is that I was able to honor my father-in-law and stay on good terms with my in-laws while they knew full well that it did not affect my status as a nonbeliever one iota.

New to agnostic.com

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 14, 2017:

I'm also from the Bible Belt (Kentucky) and also new at Agnostic.com. Alas, the town I live in has 60+ churches and zero pubs--though I shouldn't complain, I suppose, because it recently went "moist" (alcoholic beverages in restaurants). When the religious sanctimony gets to be too much, I head on down to my Beer Mecca (Asheville, NC) for a long weekend.

I'm currently 'unattached'.

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 13, 2017:

I'd say at this point in my life, it's very important. My wife died of cancer seven years ago, and during the last year of her life, she went back to the Catholic church. Previously, we had both been secular humanists and Buddhists to one degree or another. I do not wish to repeat the agonizing discussions of belief in an afterlife that we had during that time. It hurt her that I didn't believe we'd see each other again, but I wasn't going to lie, either. She was an intelligent woman, and she would have seen through it. I fear, however, that here in the mid-South, there aren't many women in my age bracket who have similar (non)beliefs as my own, so like you, I'm preparing to spend the rest of my life alone.

What is a common misconception people have that is completely untrue?

DharmaBum50 comments on Nov 8, 2017:

I'm not sure how common this misconception is, but I was recently accused of being a Satanist because I'm an atheist. It took some doing to explain that for the same reason I don't believe there's a god, I also don't believe there's a devil.