Ellen - before she was a talk-show host, Ellen DeGeneres played the main character in an Emmy award-winning sitcom. The show had LGBT characters, with Ellen herself (both the character and actress) coming out later in the show’s run.

I’m surprised I’ve not seen Will & Grace mentioned (I’m sure it must be here, but I didn’t notice it). That show famously featured many LGBT characters, including a lesbian couple who were Will and Grace’s main rivals.

Less specifically for lesbian characters, but featuring a gay couple as main characters, you’ve also got The New Normal, a fantastic show about a gay couple that was cancelled after one season, and, of course Modern Family.

I wouldn’t say that this programme was good, but Brookside famously featured the first pre-watershed lesbian kiss on British TV (the watershed is the point, 9pm, where it’s assumed that children will no longer be watching TV). This was in 1994, when we still had backwards Conservative Party laws about it being illegal to “promote public discussion” of homosexuality. For context, it’s worth noting that even two years later, when Carol and Susan got married in Friends they didn’t kiss.

I’m sorry it came to this, but this is clearly the behaviour of a deviant. Expect a visit from officers who will escort you to an undisclosed location for reprogramming.

What’s your opinion on lengthening the word “no”?

I’m against it in all circumstances. Nothing ruins a dramatic moment in a comic than a character shouting “nooo!” - in my head it always rhymes with “moo”.

Thanks for replying to this. This is everything I would have said, except in a far less exasperated way than I would have said it!

I’m going to draw a line under it now though. I honestly don’t have energy to explain why a street-preacher who was active for a only a few years does not have the same quality of historical evidence as Cleopatra.

They’re either stupid or a troll. A quick look through their profile shows a lot of posts in Danish, so I don’t think they’re stupid. Scandinavia, however, is famously home to trolls of all shapes and sizes.

Well, I’m certainly glad that I wrote out all that, for you just to reply to the first paragraph!

Anyway, you’re wrong. Literally minimum effort required to dig these out, but I’ll do it for you anyway.

Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus

Annals by Tacitus

Antiquities has two mentions, along with a rather grim description of what Nero was doing to Christians. Annals has one mention.

And I think you’re fundamentaly mistaken about what the Bible is. It’s just a collection of works. The Old Testament is pretty much the same stuff as the Jewish Tanakh, and predates Jesus fairly significantly. The New Testament is composed of works created after Jesus’s death. This includes several letters by a guy named Paul.

“OK, and…”, I hear you say.

He was absolutely a contemporary of the historical Jesus, carried out missionary work after his conversion.

I’ll grant that there are no first-hand accounts - even Paul’s accounts were second-hand from people who actually knew Jesus. But it doesn’t mean anything - there are few first-hand accounts of anybody from before the early middle ages, let alone a commoner born 2000 years ago.

Sorry - you’re wrong in this.

There are non-Biblical contemporary accounts of a historical Jesus of Nazareth, the travelling preacher who was crucified under Pontius Pilate. It’s generally accepted that he was a real person.

As for the magical side things attributed to him - the immaculate conception, the miracles etc - well, that is a matter of faith.

To use another historical figure, look at William Wallace. There is contemporary evidence that he was a real person, but we don’t have much at all. Most of what we have is works created long after he died - legends and stories that have fashioned him into the person we think of. He was a real person, but Braveheart isn’t a true story.

If you want another example of how distorted things can get over time - just look at the current “American” version of Jesus.

The Biblical Jesus was a Jew who said people should look after the poor, love our neighbours, respect cultural differences, and that nothing God has made is unclean. He said pursuit of money is the root of all evil and, angered by the commercialisation of the temple, flipped over the tables of the money-changers.

The American Jesus is a white Christian who hates foreigners and their ways, hates gay people and hates atheists. Conversely, he loves billionaires, mega-churches and capitalism.

Historical Jesus is probably real, but that doesn’t mean the Bible is an accurate account.

Is that Lindisfarne?!

I used to read this when it just started, back on AOL dial-up. Wow - I’m both super happy that it’s still going, and a little sad that it hasn’t become bigger. It was a really nicely fleshed-out world.

Appreciate the info! Thank you.

I don’t want to put you out, but if you’ve got actual links to him saying dodgy stuff, then please could you show me?

I’m about ten minutes into reading through his Reddit comments and he’s not even said anything political. One of the most recent comments was him replying to an accusation of creating the federated wiki alternative for right-wing purposes, which is confusing me even more.

He’s specifically telling people which instances they can join that block lemmygrad.

He doesn’t seem that extreme. If you can provide something, it’d really be appreciated, because from looking at his posts so far, he seems a nice enough guy.

Edit - never mind, I think I’ve found what you’re referring to. I’ll look through them properly in a little bit.

Is possible, just maybe, that you’ve been talking to trolls posing as communists, rather than actual communists? Because that’s what it sounds like.

I’m getting lots of downvotes. The Principal Skinner meme comes to mind.

Is the Democratic Party at fault?

No, the millions of people who didn’t want to vote for the Democratic Party are to blame.

Ah, ok. Thanks for that.

I’ve got even more questions now, but I won’t press on!

I’m also getting the impression that I accidentally caused you to dredge up unpleasant stuff from your past - I promise it wasn’t my intention. Sorry if I did.

Hope I’ve at least shown a side to the thing that isn’t the insane/angry side that you know.

Or, and please hear me out, because you’re not going to like it.

The Republican party are directly responsible for putting Trump as the nominee.

The people who voted Republican are directly responsible.

The Democrat party are indirectly responsible by presenting such a poor-looking alternative. “We’re not Trump” is not enough.

The people who chose not to vote are the least responsible of all.

You’re directing your anger in the wrong direction. It’s the corruption within the system you need to be tearing down, not some poor sod on the internet.

What’s the plan - to scare them into voting the way you want in the next election? To argue with and win over the millions of extra voters the Democrats needed?

The problem isn’t with the people who saw that both sides were bad options - it’s with the Democrat party for being a bad option.

Absolutely.

For the avoidance of doubt, atheism is not a religion.

The whole issue is about definitions.

But, before we finish up, I do have a question for you, if it’s ok?

You probably noticed that several people have jumped on the same thing. Where do you guys get these identical discussion points? In particular the whole “atheism is so different from any religious belief, world view, or philosophical position that I’ll have online arguments insisting on specific word usage”. Is it just from other online commentators?

It just seems strange - even when there’s no ambiguity, any topic that mentions atheism will have someone pop up arguing that you can’t use certain common words because atheism is different. You need to use special words like “deprogramming” instead.

I mean, this behaviour has to come from somewhere. I’m just genuinely curious from where.

No, it’s fine.

I’ve grabbed your Collins as an example - I promise it’s not been cherry-picked, it was the first I clicked on!

“If someone converts you, they persuade you to change your religious or political beliefs. You can also say that someone converts to a different religion.”

Would it qualify as changing my religious beliefs? I think so. It’s you that’s inferring that it needs to be to another religion.

Ok, second part.

“I get that a large part of Abrahamic religions in particular is to obey and not question, as well as theism being necessary to be adopted into the religion”

No you don’t, because you’re wrong. I don’t mean that in a harsh way - it’s easy to look at listen to all of the hard-line religious folk and think that’s the norm. The truth is that they’re weirdos.

A big part of most Abrahamic religions is questioning the dogma, theology, even the scripture. It’s been this way forever too.

And yes historically, bad people have used religions (and still do) as a pretext for horrific atrocities, but unfortunately that’s a problem with any organisation that places too much power on an unhinged leader.

Look, an example might help. A little while back, the Church of England put out a statement about how they didn’t intend to change their stance on not allowing gay marriage in churches. It was, to my eyes, an utterly unnecessary statement to make, and moreover, completely at odds with the “unconditional love” message.

I asked my vicar if we could talk about it and explained that I don’t feel comfortable being associated with a religion that publicly makes statements like that.

I found out that she herself has performed several same-sex marriages, just not in a church. As have many of the other vicars around here. Some haven’t. Her mentor in the church is transexual, not secret - she’s written a book about it.

The truth is that the upper ranks of the Anglican church are trying to prevent a schism with the more hard-line Anglican churches in Africa. The statement was just one of many that have been put out, it’s just that this one got attention from the press.

The rank-and-file vicars don’t even share exactly the same theology as each other. Like I said, many officiate same-sex marriages, some will not. Some believe that when people die, their souls go straight to heaven or watch over us, some do not (why wouldn’t they? Well, it isn’t actually in the Bible).

There’s a wide, wide range of interpretations and you are encouraged to keep asking questions.

Like I said, it’s easy to look at the loud people and think they’re the norm - but it’s not the case. They’re the very, very vocal minority.

Yikes I’ve written way more than intended. I hope that helps!

I’m going to congratulate you. It’s taken me several replies before realising that you’re a troll - you have gotten further than most.

Kudos.

You kinda did.

“Is that a crazy way to phrase…”

And now I’ve answered it twice, from two different angles. You’re going to have to rephrase your question if you’re not satisfied at this point, because I don’t know what you want from me.

You asked what I meant by my sentence and I clarified it.

For example, I personally find the idea of transubstantiation weird. To my mind, that does not provide evidence that all religion is wrong, just that maybe strict Catholicism maybe isn’t for me.

Ah, but they can get you because a bunch of zeros isn’t “a number”.

You could cross out the first 1000000… leaving just the last zero, though.

Not really. It’s an observation that most religions have some dogmatic and scriptural aspects that can be seen as either absurd or abhorrent.

Most large religions have been co-opted at some point in history by powerful people to do some terrible things.

If you were anti-religion, there’s a lot of things to take shots at.