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His autobiography is one of the reasons I became a Christian...that and Kevin Smith's Dogma.
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# ? Mar 11, 2020 18:37 |
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# ? Jun 4, 2024 22:56 |
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You became a Christian because of Dogma? I thought most people went the other way around.
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# ? Mar 11, 2020 18:46 |
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Pershing posted:His autobiography is one of the reasons I became a Christian...that and Kevin Smith's Dogma. I like Johnny Cash a lot. Before we got married in 2001, my first wife-to-be (now ex-wife) and I took a long-rear end road trip all over the west coast and up to Canada trying to find a decent city that was affordable. We only had two 90-minute cassettes in the car for the whole trip: 1) the first two Black Sabbath albums; 2) Johnny Cash - Murder (from the "Love, God, Murder" box set)/ Johnny Cash - 16 Greatest Hits. That was all we needed. Both of his autobiographies are great, so I'm looking forward to reading the Spire book.
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# ? Mar 11, 2020 19:25 |
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Heath posted:You became a Christian because of Dogma? I thought most people went the other way around. It was a small part...more about getting exposed to Catholicism in a light hearted way. Johnny Cash OTOH was a big deal... reading how a guy with his mindset could come to Christ really changed my thinking. Pershing fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Mar 12, 2020 |
# ? Mar 12, 2020 01:31 |
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Pershing posted:His autobiography is one of the reasons I became a Christian...that and Kevin Smith's Dogma. What were you before you became Christian? Like, did you go from not believing in God to being convinced that he's real? If so, how? Genuine question. I'm not sure how to phrase this so it doesn't come across as disingenuous but I'm actually interested.
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# ? Mar 12, 2020 06:16 |
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Tiggum posted:What were you before you became Christian? Like, did you go from not believing in God to being convinced that he's real? If so, how? Genuine question. I'm not sure how to phrase this so it doesn't come across as disingenuous but I'm actually interested. I second this. I know I've shared many anti-religious views in this and other threads, but I have my own conversion story from half a lifetime ago and am always fascinated by other people's semi-similar experiences.
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# ? Mar 12, 2020 14:18 |
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Tiggum posted:What were you before you became Christian? Like, did you go from not believing in God to being convinced that he's real? If so, how? Genuine question. I'm not sure how to phrase this so it doesn't come across as disingenuous but I'm actually interested. I'll try to throw some books in this post so that I stay remotely on topic. I had had some incidental exposure to Christianity growing up thru my grandparents who were members of the Church of Christ denomination. My mom had rebelled after eloping with my dad and left my grandparents' church all together for a variety of reasons. My dad's side of the family had a vague, non-practicing Christian background. I was not given any kind of Christian upbringing other than rare Sunday School trips while visiting my grandparents. It wasn't so much that I 'didn't believe in God' but more that I didn't think that the Christian churches around me were not my type of people? Like, the impression that I got of the Christians in my area (we're talking southern Protestant Christianity) was that they were very judgmental, very much working from an 'us against them' mindset...and they all looked the same, dressed the same, acted the same...I didn't feel I could fit in with them even if I tried. There was a standard in that Christianity that I was never going to meet. In my early adulthood I had some trying times and some losses...I had the first experience of people close to me dying. I had this feeling that I needed more from my life to deal with all this so I tried to look around for some sort of spiritual framework. I played around for a while with the Tibetan Book Of Living And Dying, it was somewhat helpful but didn't really touch me. After that it was a lot of freethought kind of stuff, like Carl Sagan books and Michael Shermer and reading Skeptical Inquirer magazine. That last bit got shot to pieces one night when I was reading Christopher Hitchens' Letters To A Young Contrarion. He's got this part in there about being an atheist and dealing with existential crises...I'm probably butchering this now but it boiled down to "well, you'll have some nights where it's like you in a ship alone on the ocean...that'll suck but hey you'll get thru it". That was the exact opposite of what I needed so I put him down, first time I ever threw a book in the trash. Later that same month I was at my sister in law's wedding Mass. Halfway thru the service I had this...~feeling~ inside myself and I went, "yeah...I could be Catholic!". That pretty quickly turned into terror all like "Oh my God, Catholicism?!?". I was sick to my stomach for the rest of the day from worry about what could come next...I left the wedding early and blamed it on feeling sick from the heat. After that, I wrote the priest who had been presiding and he mailed me a copy of Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness. The book helped a little but what really helped was learning more about Dorothy Day...her life really spoke to me the more I learned about her. Which to bring it back to the books from the beginning, that's what 'tilled the ground' for me when it came to getting baptized and entering the Church. Johnny Cash, Dogma, Dorothy Day...it was a revelation for me to see a Christianity that was full of life and love and humor and desperately flawed and suffering and working all these things out at the same time.
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# ? Mar 12, 2020 19:29 |
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Pershing posted:I had had some incidental exposure to Christianity growing up thru my grandparents who were members of the Church of Christ denomination. My mom had rebelled after eloping with my dad and left my grandparents' church all together for a variety of reasons. My dad's side of the family had a vague, non-practicing Christian background. I was not given any kind of Christian upbringing other than rare Sunday School trips while visiting my grandparents.
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# ? Mar 12, 2020 19:44 |
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Tiggum posted:Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I'm getting from this is that you always believed in the Christian god, you just didn't identify with any particular denomination? Or at least believed in a single creator deity, even if it wasn't specifically Jesus. No, I didn't have a belief. It was present in the culture I was operating in, so it soaked in to some of the day to day surroundings of my life (Christmas gifts, that kind of stuff). But I didn't really have a belief in God as such. I knew of those beliefs, however.
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# ? Mar 12, 2020 20:05 |
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Pershing posted:No, I didn't have a belief. It was present in the culture I was operating in, so it soaked in to some of the day to day surroundings of my life (Christmas gifts, that kind of stuff). But I didn't really have a belief in God as such. I knew of those beliefs, however. When you say you "knew of those beliefs" was that in the same way that you knew that the ancient Greeks believe in Zeus and Athena and so on? Because if it was, that's what I'm interested in. What makes you go from "all this stuff is mythology" to "this specific mythology... is actually real?" Why did you pick Christianity over any of the other options available? What convinced you that this specific type of magic is the real one and the others are, as you always believed, merely superstition? And again, I want to clarify that I'm not being disingenuous and I know it's very hard to read this as anything other than "smug atheist thinks he's smarter than you" but I actually don't think that and I do believe that my atheism is almost entirely the result of my upbringing and not the result of some innate superiority or anything like that. It's just, that stuff where you talk about reading stuff and throwing it out seems like it has to be because it conflicts with your preconceptions? Which suggests that your existing beliefs were more in line with the Christian position than anything else. But if they weren't, what changed your mind? What's that game-changing argument that convinces you?
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# ? Mar 12, 2020 20:28 |
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Pershing posted:I'll try to throw some books in this post so that I stay remotely on topic. Pershing, I really appreciate this, and want to respond when I have some time and am on a keyboard instead of a phone.
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# ? Mar 14, 2020 15:58 |
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Gutter Phoenix posted:I love this thread (and the magazine thread) because I learn about so many new and interesting things that I should already know about, but somehow don't. I love that this thread is a permanent fixture. Fantastic content.
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# ? Mar 15, 2020 23:20 |
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Pershing posted:I'll try to throw some books in this post so that I stay remotely on topic. I've been wanting to respond to this for days, but haven't had a decent opportunity. I may have to do this in a few separate pieces. I too will try to tie it all to books, which in this case, will not be difficult. First off, let me say that I appreciate you telling your story, and I can relate to many parts in various ways. I grew up Catholic, and can appreciate the sense of serenity that Catholic churches have inside, with the peace, quiet, smell of incense and whatnot. I would currently describe myself as agnostic, but I still get that sense of peace and calm in those places. That being said, I have a lot of issues with the Catholic church, Christianity, and religion in general. I had my own religious conversion when I was 19 and it dramatically changed my life. I later had a rapid loss of faith, and that also dramatically changed my life. This is a story I hold very close to my chest and rarely even tell my closest friends/ family. I'm still not sure how much I'll tell here. Shoot, I thought I'd have more time this morning. I'll have to come back to this.
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# ? Mar 16, 2020 15:41 |
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Tiggum posted:Here's the thing though: I grew up with no religious beliefs. My parents were Christian as children but atheists by the time I was born. As far as I'm aware, both of my grandmothers (my grandfathers being dead before I ever got a chance to know them) were also atheists (or at least never indicated any particular religious beliefs to me). So I got that broad cultural stuff like giving presents for Christmas but absolutely none of the religious context. And I literally cannot imagine a single thing that could ever convince me that Christianity is true. Or Hinduism or Islam or Buddhism or any other religion. They're all on the exact same level to me. Were they to you? I'm trying to answer these questions succinctly. As to 'preconceptions', other than what I've mentioned I didn't really have a lot of those. As to 'levels' and what I knew about other faiths, yes I was roughly aware of a variety of world religions past and present. I think a lot of your following questions assume that I was working primarily from rational thought and argument..that I was comparing various doctrines and weighing their arguments. There was not 'game changing argument' for faith. I read these various things and some of them left me feeling cold and others hurt a great deal (the Hitchens book especially). I didn't come to faith from philosophy/argument, I came to it from being in pain and realizing I had found something that felt right. All the other dogma/belief/etc. came from a place where I realized that I was in a place that soothed me. Gutter Phoenix posted:I've been wanting to respond to this for days, but haven't had a decent opportunity. I may have to do this in a few separate pieces. I too will try to tie it all to books, which in this case, will not be difficult. Sure, I'll respond as little or as much as I can. I work a job where I can't be online all day, hence the delays.
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# ? Mar 17, 2020 15:42 |
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Gutter Phoenix posted:I've been wanting to respond to this for days, but haven't had a decent opportunity. I may have to do this in a few separate pieces. I too will try to tie it all to books, which in this case, will not be difficult. On second thought, I don't really have the time or desire to write up my story right now. Perhaps some day, but not today. Nonetheless, I did appreciate hearing other people's stories. I have some new books, but didn't bring them to work with me. I'll try to remember to take pictures when I get home.
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# ? Mar 18, 2020 16:17 |
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# ? Mar 20, 2020 15:53 |
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# ? Mar 25, 2020 18:55 |
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I feel like The Gospel Blimp has come up before, but I read the back cover blurb before noticing that it was published by Zondervan and so is likely not the scathing satire of evangelicals one hoped it might have been.
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# ? Mar 26, 2020 12:24 |
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Pastry of the Year posted:I feel like The Gospel Blimp has come up before, but I read the back cover blurb before noticing that it was published by Zondervan and so is likely not the scathing satire of evangelicals one hoped it might have been. Jerry Cotton mentioned it last page, and I thought he was talking about the comic, but then discovered the book. And the movie! I assumed it was serious, or as serious as the comic is anyway. I will read it and report back, although things are crazy right now, so I don't know when I'll read it.
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# ? Mar 26, 2020 15:35 |
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I think readers of this thread would like the Awfully Weird Tales Anthology Magazine thread. It stinks!
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# ? Mar 27, 2020 18:04 |
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# ? Apr 8, 2020 19:50 |
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It took me a long time to find a copy of this:
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# ? Apr 15, 2020 02:08 |
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Another fine book from Holloway House:
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# ? Apr 15, 2020 02:09 |
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Gutter Phoenix posted:It took me a long time to find a copy of this: Is this the one where the man fucks the tree
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# ? Apr 15, 2020 02:11 |
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Heath posted:Is this the one where the man fucks the tree That's what I was led to believe. I am trying to finish reading, like, 8 books simultaneously, but hope to start this one soon. I'll report back on any tree loving that occurs.
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# ? Apr 15, 2020 02:20 |
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quote:And the result is one, big bang! This book kills editors.
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# ? Apr 15, 2020 02:22 |
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This is me ing that I will post at least three books to this thread by May 1st...gimme a one week probe if I don't. I keep wanting to contribute and it looks like I need a gun to my head to make it happen.
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# ? Apr 15, 2020 17:53 |
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Pershing posted:This is me ing that I will post at least three books to this thread by May 1st...gimme a one week probe if I don't. I swear, it's getting harder and harder for me to finish books these days. Technological advances are neat and all, but so drat distracting! I'm pretty sure everyone who spends most of their day working on a computer has Attention Deficit Disorder by now. I was briefly allowed to work from home due to the coronavirus, and was all excited to finish a whole slew of books I've started, but got sidetracked and never finished. However, my dumb workaholic boss has been having a hissy fit about me not being in the office every day, and is insisting on me getting back to the grind. Blah. The good news is that I'll be able to scan more stuff to post here and in the magazine thread. The bad news is that I may become a vector for a disease that could potentially kill me and the people I love. Good times!!
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# ? Apr 15, 2020 22:29 |
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Shamelessly acquired from my Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/AITA_reddit/status/1250551231254274048?s=20 creepy-rear end dolls posted:Tis but a coincidence I served all those meat pies in the cafeteria the day after that Boy Scout troop went missing.
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# ? Apr 16, 2020 04:08 |
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Gutter Phoenix posted:I swear, it's getting harder and harder for me to finish books these days. Technological advances are neat and all, but so drat distracting! I'm pretty sure everyone who spends most of their day working on a computer has Attention Deficit Disorder by now. COVIDs been great for my reading, tho nothing odd. I'm finally getting around to Don Quixote and loving it. Never expected it to be so funny.
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# ? Apr 16, 2020 10:13 |
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Megabound posted:COVIDs been great for my reading, tho nothing odd. I'm finally getting around to Don Quixote and loving it. Never expected it to be so funny. Yeah, I never read that until I was almost 30, and never expected to like it as much as I did. There is a reason it is the best selling fiction work of all time.
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# ? Apr 16, 2020 14:24 |
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Gutter Phoenix posted:Yeah, I never read that until I was almost 30, and never expected to like it as much as I did. There is a reason it is the best selling fiction work of all time. And even had a character on Mr. Rogers named after it.
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# ? Apr 17, 2020 10:05 |
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From the depths of C-SPAM I bring news of a book I did not know existed and cannot wait to read.Notahippie posted:Read "A Drink with Shane MacGowan," which is his autobiography. There's a story in there where h'e's off his head on pills and alcohol while on tour and decides that there's been a nuclear war and his destiny is to bring music back to post-apocalyptic America so he smashes any record he can find that he thinks doesn't deserve to survive. loving hell, Shane!
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 20:10 |
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A Pack of Kobolds posted:From the depths of C-SPAM I bring news of a book I did not know existed and cannot wait to read. Rad! Let us know how it is, and feel free to post any particularly great stories here, especially if they involve his teeth.
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 21:04 |
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Gutter Phoenix posted:Rad! Here he is talking about staying at Bono's house: "Shane MacGowan" posted:Bono was kind enough to lend us his Martello Tower in Bray for a while, and it turned out to be overlooking a house that was owned by Mary Coughlan... when you get up to the top there's the master bedroom with a huge bed and there's just glass walls so all the neighbors can see you getting in and out of bed and see you dangling your wares. I would say good morning to Mary Coughlan by waving my donger at her. I was spotted by somebody passing by the train flashing at her and it was in the papers the next day, but the temptation to do it was unbearable. We found one of the great man's condoms in the great man's bed, too. It was very comfortable sleeping in Bono's bed, it was a very comfortable bed.
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 22:48 |
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A Pack of Kobolds posted:loving hell, Shane! I misremembered it - here's the story in your man's own words: Shane MacGowan posted:
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 23:07 |
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I cannot express how happy I am that Tone Loc was involved in this amazing tale.
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# ? Apr 28, 2020 00:40 |
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Finally got around to going thru my bookcases. Let me know if I need to resize the pics. This is the reading stand I mentioned in a previous post...the one that I put my art books on and look at in the morning. It's flanked by me and Mrs. Pershings 'to read' stacks. Here's the big bookcase in all its glory. I got these when a local used bookshop went out of business. They're big, sturdy and are all modular. I can take shelves in and out, disassemble the whole thing to move it...a good find. I got this way back when I was working at Borders Books. Letter U and The Numeral 2...I guess you'd call it an art book? An art/music collaboration or cross-project? The core of it is about U2's then-label Island Records suing Negativland and their then-label SST Records over supposed copyright infringement. For those who don't know Negativland suing them over a copyright claim is like kicking a nest of very angry hornets. Page after page of letters, weird graphics in the Church of The Subgenius/50's advertising vein, copies of the lawsuit and counter claims. There's also a CD of related music...it's not with the book right now but I've got it somewhere. Inside front cover: Opening page with foreword: Random interiors: for Michael Jackson with tits in panties https://i.imgur.com/4py4VQI.jpg?1 I've got more stuff to share in a followup post.
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# ? Apr 29, 2020 19:05 |
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Rad! I encourage more people to post pictures of their shelves. That Negativland book is an interesting foray into copyright laws. Negativland is good. Gutter Phoenix posted:I was in San Francisco earlier today and spent some time browsing Green Apple Books. I'm still unemployed and so I had to restrain myself, but I picked up a few new things.
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# ? Apr 29, 2020 19:28 |
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# ? Jun 4, 2024 22:56 |
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I remember that my ex-wife had a copy of that "Death Scenes" book that she got while working at Tower Records. I didn't realize that it was edited by Sean Tejaratchi, although I know he did a bunch of work for Feral House.
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# ? Apr 29, 2020 19:41 |