My retarded neighbors

Well, Dayton has been mocked for years.

This.

I'd be really interested in an example of a religion that wasn't influenced by other religions.

Wait for it...

I'd argue that all expressions of religion see people copying from other expressions of religion. Paul frequently addressed the church not separating itself from the world enough - adopting not only pagan tradition, but continuing certain Jewish traditions. The issue is thus one that the church has dealt with through the entirety of its existence.

I'm pretty sure she's not as stupid as you.

Don't fuck with crazy people. She may shoot the guy in the crotch and later at night to find him in her room at her throat with a knife.

Or since leftists aren't actually interested in mental health solutions this nut will no doubt not be in any database to prevent him from buying a gun and he will gun her and her family down.

Here let me say it again in case you missed it:

DON'T FUCK WITH CRAZY PEOPLE. ESPECIALLY BY SHOOTING THEM IN THE CROTCH WITH A PAINTBALL GUN. IF YOU'RE GOING TO SHOOT THEM USE A REAL GUN AND MAKE SURE THEY DON'T GET UP. *


*in addition to being justified in shooting in the first place

When your mom was born

That's silly. Her birthday was nowhere near Christmas.

Given that you're still walking around loose, there may be some anecdotal evidence for that.

Yes, we have entire subdivisions full of it here in Georgia. Maintenance free (pressure washing every couple of years depending on how the sun hits it) and cheap.

And this evening he spent 2 hours trying to drive his late father-in-law's car (which still has Florida plates) up his slippery snow-covered driveway.
I mean, come ON - everybody knows cars from Florida don't work in the snow!

Weak.

Ben's neighbors probably talk about their mentally ill book burning neighbor with the gay looking shoes.

Yea, this was the point, and reflective of the abode.

I wish people would put signs in their windows to celebrate my birtdry.

The day you registered.

Ah, I see now. When you first sailed in here from TK or wherever, something I'd posted to someone else led you to believe I was mocking you, and that's why you've been in attack mode ever since.

Fact is, you weren't even on my event horizon until suddenly there you were, pitching a hissy about who knows what, and I'm thinking Do I know this guy?

Frankly, I thought you were That Guy. You know That Guy. He's sweaty and overweight and has one eyebrow and a great deal of urgency, and he hangs around the writers at cons making the same speech over and over again.

"So, like, I've got this idea for a Star Trek novel. And I figured I'd give you my idea, and you could write it, and we could both put our names on it and we could split the money."

He'll talk to every one of the writers before the weekend's over, and we'll all tell him the same thing: That's not how it works. Go home, write something in your own universe, find an agent, and have them try to sell it. Then you might – might – get a shot at being read at Pocket.

We make the speech, but we know he's not listening. He's already targeting the next writer and the next and the next, and he'll be back next year with the same pitch. He used to carry a 700-page manuscript with him in his backpack. Nowadays he's got it on a thumb drive. But the pitch never changes and, with a Daytonesque doggedness, he never learns.

See, I thought you were That Guy, and you felt I'd dismissed your very sincere offer at a con, and that's why you came in here gunning for me. When it became clear you weren't That Guy, I thought Okay, another garden-variety TKer trying to impress his buds. He'll burn out just like all the others.

Because they do burn out.

But you're not even that, are you? You're some guy who thinks – probably for good reason – that everyone's making fun of him, when in fact we're not even aware of your existence.

So whatever you perceived as my mocking you on the day I registered, I was probably busy fielding one of Jeriko's "fuck you, liberal!" campaigns (and, with homage to François Villon, where are the Jerikos of yesteryear?) and didn't even notice you.

So let's be clear: It wasn't about you. It's never been about you, and it never will be about you.

Now be a good little droog and say my name.

Garamet must have an ear ache too.

two different eras and locations.
Rome fed Christians, along with about a hundred other types of non citizens, to the lions.
several centuries later is when missionary warlords (such as st patrick) got into the grafting of Christianity onto local traditions when they weren't busy burning the local shaman.

So you're saying Christianity didn't start adopting pagan symbology and myth until they started opressing other faiths?

essentially.
conquer the land, then conquer the culture.

So it had nothing to do with, for example, Constantine I convening the first council of Nicea?

I've read this rambling diatribe three times and I still can't figure out what the hell you're talking about. Sweaty guys trying to sell you manuscripts at Trek conventions? Maybe that's your setup for a letter to Playgirl: Geriatric Edition.

Ahem.....for the record, I've been to one Trek convention in my life and found it to be a lame experience. And to be frank, if I was going to seek advice or partnership on a fiction manuscript, it wouldn't be with a woman who fucked up a major assignment like writing the novelization for Trek IV, then got kicked out of the trek franchise for several years and in the meantime publicly slandered her bosses. You know, I always have wondered if Rock Star ever sued you. Care to share?

Both of you, stand up straight and listen.

Now: Flashlight said that mocking the mentally ill became fashionable when garamet joined, implying that garamet is herself one such mentally ill person who might be mocked. garamet understood this to mean that she said something on the day she joined that seemed to mock Flashlight as if he was mentally insane. garamet then explained why she was harsh to Flashlight at their first online encounter.

I'm just saying this because watching you spam each other without understanding your own conversation gives me a headache worse even to the one produced by the general flaming that happens with full understanding.

Now, having understood what you're flaming each other for, you are in a position to continue coherently. Please note, however, that just as always, you are also both in a position to STOP!

Oh, I understood him. His reply to my post was about as "relevant" as Ben Maxwell's. I just used it as a springboard for setting him straight about a few things. Not surprisingly, it evoked another bout of flailing on the part of yet another Internet anonym desperate to gain some sort of legitimacy (from whom?) by ranting at someone who has no material impact on his life.

And he's about as "gifted" with tags as Dayton.

You poor delusional old bat, you didn't "set me straight" on anything. What you did do was one again showcase your inflated sense of self-importance (cultivated I'm sure by all those monobrowed convention fans sucking up to you in hopes of getting published). And even that much was accomplished in spite of your incoherent & disjointed rambling. Jeez, is all this acrimony on your part just bitterness that I'm not one of your sycophantic convention parasites kissing your ass because I hope you'll help me get published? Newsflash honey, I couldn't care less about your books and on the list of pathetic autograph peddlers at an avarage con, you'd rank somewhere between Forehead alien #3 from season 5 Voyager and Marina Sirtis' used tampon from Encounter at Farpoint.
As for the messed up tags, I'm posting from my cell and it's screwing things up.

The historic value of threads like these is that they showcase the intellectual bankruptcy of a certain segment of the population and serve as a cautionary tale to future generations.

“See, Johnny, you don’t want to end up like Ben Maxwell or Flashy, do you?” is a good benchmark against thuggishness and stupidity in their purest form.

Nice to have two prime examples volunteering in the same thread. Now all we need is Tasvir and we’ll have a trifecta.

Yeah, the cautionary tale bit doesn't work. Witness how desperate Federal Farmer is to pick up the John Castle Jr. Position, despite the many warnings that to be Castle is to be irrelevant.

And @The Flashlight: what kind of crappy phone do you have? I have no problem with quote tags on mine.