Stuff I Learned From Using Conservative Internet Forums

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Well you can't infer it from the statement alone. Any thinking person, believer or not, can see the truth in it and more importantly, immediately understand why it's true. I understood it and said it while I was still an atheist, to much consternation. These days though I am a recovering atheist, leaning towards the doubt-laden Anglican compromise. Alas the Anglican church is no more, it's a left wing circus, an empty shell, so I'm stuck with a sometimes unsatisfying "non-denominational Christian".

I think this provides a reasonable breakdown of how the "no-go" myth got started.

Outside of the big cities, we don't really have Chinatowns or Muslim districts or anything like that. We do have areas where the housing is cheap and dilapidated, usually areas that used to serve factories, and those tend to be where first and second generation immigrants live.

I have friends whose parents do not speak fluent English. I can understand what they are saying, they've done well enough to get citizenship, but they aren't fluent. But this goes across communities and applies to Indians (Hindu/Sikh) and Africans (Christian) as well as Pakistanis. It doesn't, at least in my experience, apply at all to Caribbean immigrants, it certainly doesn't apply to all immigrants from any one background (I don't know enough to say anything beyond that), and I've never met a young person or second generation immigrant who wasn't fluent.

I would say there are two immigrant groups in this country that struggle to integrate:

1) Gurkhas - we gave thousands of Gurkhas and their families the right to reside in this country because they fought for our military. However, they're usually quite old and generally don't speak English very well. I have never seen a young Gurkha (under 60). They essentially live on the fringes of society, passing their time by walking around aimlessly. I do wonder how happy they can be. I suspect many of them found that living here wasn't as good as they hoped. But then, they are retired, so just pottering about it pretty standard for English people their age. Still, from the outside it looks like little has been done to help them get the best of Britain.
2) Chinese students - a very large percentage of the Chinese population of Britain are basically just here for three years to get their degree. Like the Gurkhas, they don't cause any trouble, but they clearly exist somewhat apart from society. Some stick around after graduation, and tend to integrate like any other group; others have a passion for the country and just integrate from the off. (There's also a minor problem convincing ethnically Chinese residents to vote, particularly if they came from China and have no background in democracy)

There are also the various travelling groups, and well, the difficulties that various societies have had in achieving amicable co-existence with such a different way of life are well-documented. This is probably the form of ethnic tension that is least likely to cause a scene at a dinner party - for most people, hating the Roma or Irish travellers doesn't qualify as prejudice. That's a lack of integration, but it is a two-way street. I don't include them above because I don't know how many of them are actually immigrants or whether these are just two communities existing in parallel.

Pakistanis? Nah. Nowhere near the safe thing. Pakistanis, and other Muslim groups, are well-integrated into British society. We talk about cricket and football together, we go to school together, we work together, we complain about politicians together, we eat in the same places, we listen to the same music, we watch the same TV shows, and we broadly have the same values. It's true that my values are pretty different to the average Muslim in Bradford, but they're also pretty different to the average cultural Christian in Bradford, and they're quite similar to the average Muslim in Reading. We're divided more by geography and class than by religion and immigration status.

Not to say that racism/xenophobia/Islamophobia don't exist, because they do - I've seen people shout Islamophobic abuse at Indian friends of mine, I have Pakistani friends who don't want to go to America in case Trump bans them, and the law-abiding majority of Muslims who are essentially indistinguishable from everyone else are treated like a fifth column - but ultimately religion and immigration status don't tell you anything meaningful about a person.

And yet I did, seemingly successfully...
I must be an infernal inferring genius or sumfin...

N.B....
I didn't jump to conclusions, did I?
I left open the idea that it may simply be an objective mindset which was involved...

Speculation is never a bad thing...
It is a tool to gain greater proximity to the truth...
And after all, I am The Oracle of Truth...
It's my job to find it...

My condolences that you have wavered aware from the true path of atheistic enlightenment...
We will greet you back into the fold of true non/dis-believers whenever you have resolved the demonic possession you are currently experiencing...

"Live long and prosper..."
Tuvok out...

Hehe no doubt. Until then we'll meet on the field of battle when the next inevitable atheism-rulez thread appears.

I completely disagree about Muslims being integrated, I don't think they ever will. As for sharing values I doubt you are homophobic or misogynistic and I cannot imagine you could possibly think a man who raped a little girl and owned slaves was morally perfect.

Ooh yeah I forgot about the gurkhas. I work in Farnborough and occasionally go to Aldershot, there are loads of them, just sitting around in the shopping centres, and their English is very poor. But they cause no harm at all as far as I know.

Has anybody seen "My Beautiful Laundrette? It's partially about assimilated Pakistanis in the UK.

As an atheist, yes, I'm focused on improving society. I'm also focused on curing cancer. The fact that we may never get there doesn't deter me from trying.

I don't see how throwing our hands in the air and deciding that, since there's a magical land we go to after death, so we shouldn't bother trying to find solutions, is any more "mature" than trying to improve our current physical reality.

It's just a case of more people defining "truth" as which that they decide is the most comfortable, and which aligns most closely to their biases.

You are a better man...errr...person than I...
I am very considerably older than you, and a male the last time I checked... so no surprises my perspective is different from yours...
I have come to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that idealism, whilst socially beneficial and usually a positive quality in most situations, is essentially null and void by the truth of our existence...


Personally, I don't see any point in trying to change the world, period, since: there isn't a big enough soiled nappy bin...
The world is full of it, and some of us are simply exhausted by what we see...<shrug>

I saw that movie in the 80s while I was in the army, and I thought it was racy.

It's not so much "idealism" as much as it is boredom, and a sense of, "Well, what the heck else are we going to do with our time here?"

If early humans just didn't bother trying to improve their situation, we'd still be living in caves and eating bugs.

Would it be correct to say you are a pragmatist?
Regardless, you never cease to surprise...in a good way...

There's a big difference between trying to improve the world and the lives of your neighbours, which Christians and many other religious people have an explicit moral duty to attempt and indulging in Socialist utopianism or other dangerous equalitarian fantasies. There is an organic connection between atheism and these ideas and it should be obvious why. It is the sigh of the oppressed atheist, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions...

The dedicated atheist does carry the burden of unvarnished truth and the profound ugliness unveiled as a result of the associated commitment, but that is the price one pays when one wishes to transcend the philosophies, if one wishes to use that term, of lesser beings...
Truely, one must consider the words of Puck: "...what fools these mortals be!"

But then to embrace a menial roll of someone else's making?
To meekly forfeit the hard-fought gains of a profound and torturous battle against ignorance and petty servitude of man-made directives which are base and unworthy of our true potential?

Begone, thou harlot of deception and mischief...
Thy black heartedness is in evidence and thou wouldst have us forsake the glory of enlightenment and emancipation...

<with quivering cold rage>
Were I to meet thee on the field of battle I would smite thee with glee and self-righteousness...
Begone, thy stench offends my senses...

<the atheistic knight of truth and justice strides resolutely away from the villainous presence>
<the soft sound of "the impossible dream" can be heard accompanying him as he exits stage right>

What knowest thou, that we know not? What understandest thou, which is not in us?

Actually I don't think I ever have unless it was linked from another forum and then I only read the linked article. I also don't listen to conservative talk shows. There are also no political stickers on the back of any vehicle I've ever owned.
Why not? Because I don't need to have my beliefs bolstered by anyone else.

Now, If you'd like me to +r0ll you with off-the-wall anti-liberal posts I can do that without breaking a sweat.