Bush Turns Atheist, Withdraws Troops From Iraq!

It was an early Christmas gift from Semanti-Claus.

If you think being a forum drama queen equates to masturbation then you aren't doing it right.

All I want for xmas is a cute little dogma. I will love him, and hold him, and squeeze him...

I'm jewish and geeky for gadgets. I celebrate "Hammacher".

Which one, the drama or the masturbation?

My dogma has a flat nose from chasing too many parked karmas.

Hey, Suez, that looks to me like a second bite at the same cherry (see post 3). I thought that was disallowed. Took you a while, too. Deduct 5 points and try to find a snake.

The reason that "proselytize" looks wrong in a sort of instinctive way is because it is wrong. The penultimate "z" was dreamed out of thin air by two guys in a back room. It's an etymological abortion. Specifically invented to bug the hell out of the English. A fine success. My dad was welsh. If that helps.

proselytise

There - doesn't that look nicer ?

Errrrm.... *has sudden doubts*

Cross-cultural confusion setting in

Nope. Doubts vanish. Does look much nicer

Isn't "nice" a nice word, doncha think ? Probably the nicest there is....

The "z" is correct according to m-w.com, which does not offer the "s" as an alternate spelling.

The "s" version does look better, I agree.

It's not just the "z", though. When I look at "proselytize" it makes me stop and wonder "y?".

The atheist proselytizer I referred to was not me, and I am not much of an atheist proselytizer. I stopped being an evangelical atheist decades ago; one gets tired of having the same arguments over and over to no effect other than upset stomaches.

I think the hateful, demeaning, mean-spirited, arrogant attitude displayed by some of the atheist proselytizers in these forums are more likely to turn people away from atheism and toward belief in God than the other way around. I can only assume that people who display these attitudes don't really care about converting people to atheism, but just enjoy making people sad and angry and puffing up their own sense of self worth, or else that they are so lacking in empathy they are pretty much worthless so far as convincing anyone to share their beliefs.

The trial period for my evaluation copy of the As-U-Type spell checking program has expired, and the darned thing costs fifty bucks, which is kinda steep for a utility program even if they are perfect in operation, but this one has some flaws, so it would be really hard to decide to pay fiftty bucks for it when it does some funky things at times. I can't find any better spellchecker so I might still buy this one, it works at a pretty low level in Windows XP, low enough to work in the Second Life chat entry fields, and once you get used to using an instant spell checker while posting to the forums, doing without one would be pretty aggravating. Also the eyes are getting worse and worse, so I can't always see what I typed clearly, keep the reading glasses on and my eyes the right distance from two screens is kind of a pain.

So with the eyes going bad and the spellchecker trial coming to an end, mean-spirited, hateful, hard-to-spell-and-don't-look-right-when-you-do words like proselytize will be even more of a pain.

Hearing folks quote dictionaries in a forum never gets old.

~Ulrika~

It's better than quoting wikipedia articiles on grammar, or citing the contained therein.

Much, much better.

That's not saying much its favor.

The masturbation of course, silly egg.

Lolzies

What you've just described, intentionally or not, is the reaction any sane person has to the "My Big Imaginary Friend" proselytizers, and they're much more numerous. Ah, well. Too many Christians, not enough lions.

Book recommendations in lieu of rant:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393315703

I was an atheist 40 years ago and I am still one today, One day I looked at the illustrated Bible story bookets while in Sunday school and I said to myself, hmm, those are just like my comic books, only not as well drawn or interesting and in black and white. I don't really feel the need to be convinced any more than I am. I don't think it is possible to more of an atheist than I am. So I am not sure why I would need to read the books.

I have enjoyed most everything I have read by Carl Sagan. I am sure getting people to read such books would bea much more effective conversion technique than telling them they are stupid and trying to make fools of them in public That, however, would not help one win the forums.

Here's a link to one of the books I read long ago on atheism: Atheism: The Case Against God

God wears pretty clothes, and He is quite vain about them, so be careful not to type that sort of thing when He is in visual range.... which is always. Sometimes you can slip something by him when he is busy tracking dead bird trajectories.

Think about being the people who work for God, his gardeners and accountants and such. Man, talk about walking on eggshells when the boss is around.

Hey Sue, I know you would like those other books mentioned above, you should see if they have them at your library if you can still check books out after you daughter lost seven books on her card. They may still cut your priveleges even though she is over 18. Also you should see if they have audio versions.

At any rate, another thing to do to with religious people when you in the mood is to get them to read a a science book.

I just spotted an online Physics Textbook at www.kineticbooks.com that has a free trial offer that lasts till August 2006 - I haven't had time to look at it but it looks like it might be good.