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1. You're happy to be "bionic" (lasered eyes, contraceptive injections that mean you have no periods). Explain this to someone who is a Church of Christ Scientist (ie believed is not blood transfusions even if dying).
I believe that my body and my "self" are separated. Things which I do to alter my body do not fundamentally change my "self", they just make life easier and more pleasant to me. I put food in to stop my body from degenerating or giving me discomfort. In the same way, I avoid the discomfort of periods by suppressing them with another collection of chemicals. As far as I'm concerned, it's analogous. Lasering the eyes is in some ways even less of a problem because it's a one shot fix, just reshaping your cornea. It's almost analogous to setting a broken bone - perhaps breaking and resetting one which has healed crooked. I doubt that that would convince someone who was a CoCS as the fundamental disagreement presumably stems from the first couple of sentences, but that's how I'd explain my willingness to proceed with such things.
2. Do you ever feel resentful of/repressed by/nagged by any of us CAPTION old guard? How does our presence affect the way you guys run CAPTION?
I certainly don't feel resentful of/repressed by you guys. I occasionally feel slightly guilty that we rope you in to do so much stuff, especially Jeremy. I have occasionally worried that we're not really as good at it as you lot were because we don't have so many contacts and so on, but now we've got a couple under our belt I don't worry about it so much. I certainly can't imagine running Caption without you around. I'm not really sure how it affects our running of Caption except in the us bullying you into stuff aspects. I doubt very much we'd have done anything like it if it hadn't been already going so strongly and you weren't around to back us up.
3. I understand you're a Christian and relatively active (don't you go to a church group?) or at least faithful/believing. Yet it doesn't come up in conversation particularly. If you think you have found a/the truth, would you not feel it important to tell others about it?
I am a Christian, although I'm a lot less active than I was. I'm suspicious of churches - I value group worship, but I find that they are often not very flexible if your beliefs differ slightly from the rest of the congregation and there's also often quite a sense of rivalry between churches which I'm not really comfortable. I used to go to St Aldates reasonably often as they had an excellent preacher who's sermons I really enjoyed but he's left and the new guy is much less interesting so there isn't really anywhere I go regularly. This isn't particularly a problem for me as I believe in the Quaker ideal of each person as their own priest. The best way to contact God is by prayer and consulting your conscience - the Holy Spirit within you, if you will.
Anyway, that's slightly off track of the main question. I'm not convinced of the value of aggressive evangelism. If the person is not genuinely open to the idea of God then I don't really think that anything I say will help. If they are interested, then I assume that they will ask, or initiate in some way. I try to live my life in a good manner, helping people where I can and showing tolerance for the views of others. Although I'm willing to talk about my beliefs I'm cautious about doing so as there are some very aggressive atheists in our peer group and I don't think getting into an argument with someone who's not really interested in respecting my beliefs is very helpful to anyone plus it make me and, I assume, onlookers uncomfortable. So I tend not to bring it up unless asked directly and tend to ignore the occasional intolerant comment passed, assuming the speaker has forgotten my beliefs.
4. When you go to work, what are you thinking about? And when you come back from work?
On my way, I'm generally not thinking much except "puff, puff, need tea" as my brain doesn't really start going until 10am. Very occasionally I'll be thinking about what I'm going to be working on that day, sometimes I'll wonder if X has posted to LJ or replied to my email. On the way home I'll quite often be thinking about what I'm going to do for dinner. If I'm going out I'll be making a little timetable in my head to make sure I'm not late - I hate being late. If Alex is coming over, I'll be thinking about hugs :)
5. If you had to use three words to encapsulate your main qualities (desired or real), what would they be?
Ooh, I hate these ones - I find it really hard to choose just 3. I suppose if you were going for desired then perhaps thoughtful, intelligent, reliable. I have a feeling that if you asked other people, the words tiny and tactile/huggy would definitely come up :) Mum suggests trustworthy, fun, loyalty. And practical. Perhaps enthusiastic, methodical, intelligent. Ah, I don't know.
As before, if anyone wants questions or has questions for me, ask in the comments. I am going to write about the weekend soon. And answer![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
angelsks questions. But not yet.
I believe that my body and my "self" are separated. Things which I do to alter my body do not fundamentally change my "self", they just make life easier and more pleasant to me. I put food in to stop my body from degenerating or giving me discomfort. In the same way, I avoid the discomfort of periods by suppressing them with another collection of chemicals. As far as I'm concerned, it's analogous. Lasering the eyes is in some ways even less of a problem because it's a one shot fix, just reshaping your cornea. It's almost analogous to setting a broken bone - perhaps breaking and resetting one which has healed crooked. I doubt that that would convince someone who was a CoCS as the fundamental disagreement presumably stems from the first couple of sentences, but that's how I'd explain my willingness to proceed with such things.
2. Do you ever feel resentful of/repressed by/nagged by any of us CAPTION old guard? How does our presence affect the way you guys run CAPTION?
I certainly don't feel resentful of/repressed by you guys. I occasionally feel slightly guilty that we rope you in to do so much stuff, especially Jeremy. I have occasionally worried that we're not really as good at it as you lot were because we don't have so many contacts and so on, but now we've got a couple under our belt I don't worry about it so much. I certainly can't imagine running Caption without you around. I'm not really sure how it affects our running of Caption except in the us bullying you into stuff aspects. I doubt very much we'd have done anything like it if it hadn't been already going so strongly and you weren't around to back us up.
3. I understand you're a Christian and relatively active (don't you go to a church group?) or at least faithful/believing. Yet it doesn't come up in conversation particularly. If you think you have found a/the truth, would you not feel it important to tell others about it?
I am a Christian, although I'm a lot less active than I was. I'm suspicious of churches - I value group worship, but I find that they are often not very flexible if your beliefs differ slightly from the rest of the congregation and there's also often quite a sense of rivalry between churches which I'm not really comfortable. I used to go to St Aldates reasonably often as they had an excellent preacher who's sermons I really enjoyed but he's left and the new guy is much less interesting so there isn't really anywhere I go regularly. This isn't particularly a problem for me as I believe in the Quaker ideal of each person as their own priest. The best way to contact God is by prayer and consulting your conscience - the Holy Spirit within you, if you will.
Anyway, that's slightly off track of the main question. I'm not convinced of the value of aggressive evangelism. If the person is not genuinely open to the idea of God then I don't really think that anything I say will help. If they are interested, then I assume that they will ask, or initiate in some way. I try to live my life in a good manner, helping people where I can and showing tolerance for the views of others. Although I'm willing to talk about my beliefs I'm cautious about doing so as there are some very aggressive atheists in our peer group and I don't think getting into an argument with someone who's not really interested in respecting my beliefs is very helpful to anyone plus it make me and, I assume, onlookers uncomfortable. So I tend not to bring it up unless asked directly and tend to ignore the occasional intolerant comment passed, assuming the speaker has forgotten my beliefs.
4. When you go to work, what are you thinking about? And when you come back from work?
On my way, I'm generally not thinking much except "puff, puff, need tea" as my brain doesn't really start going until 10am. Very occasionally I'll be thinking about what I'm going to be working on that day, sometimes I'll wonder if X has posted to LJ or replied to my email. On the way home I'll quite often be thinking about what I'm going to do for dinner. If I'm going out I'll be making a little timetable in my head to make sure I'm not late - I hate being late. If Alex is coming over, I'll be thinking about hugs :)
5. If you had to use three words to encapsulate your main qualities (desired or real), what would they be?
Ooh, I hate these ones - I find it really hard to choose just 3. I suppose if you were going for desired then perhaps thoughtful, intelligent, reliable. I have a feeling that if you asked other people, the words tiny and tactile/huggy would definitely come up :) Mum suggests trustworthy, fun, loyalty. And practical. Perhaps enthusiastic, methodical, intelligent. Ah, I don't know.
As before, if anyone wants questions or has questions for me, ask in the comments. I am going to write about the weekend soon. And answer
angelsks questions. But not yet.
