The church has never been able to explain the existence of evil. I think Epicurus nailed it:
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
― Epicurus
Check out Stephen Fry on what he would say to god. (2.06 minutes)
Miracles can’t exist wirho[quote=“boomer47, post:21, topic:399”]
Check out Stephen Fry on what he would say to god. (2.06 minutes)
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That is one of my favourite videos, Stephen Fry is an absolute legend of a man, he should be knighted.
Not to mention all the amazing laughs he’s given us in all his roles throughout his acting career, he is a national treasure.
So many theists call him evil, slander him with homophobic remarks ect… Its a crying shame, because I truly believe, he is one of the nicest, most just people alive today.
Would be amazing to converse with him on a regular basis, a fountain of knowledge 
I would love to believe that, truly. The man has a wonderful public persona. I’ve never met him, so my impressions of him are only via media, especially TV. “QI” was pretty much my favourite TV show for years.
Stephen also has Bipolar disorder,and has spoken of his struggles often. I’ve been around a few bipolar people. One is my godson. I’m afraid of him. (he’s 6 feet five,and solid) His brother was basketball umpire and upset him; decked his brother and was banned for life… His doctor also upset him,so he put his fist though the wall.
It’s nice to think celebrities are as they appear publicly—and then I think of Ellen Degeneres
You most definitely shouldn’t judge all people with Bi polar disorder, by the actions of your God son. *
My house mate has Bi polar, he’s also my best friend, he has occasion where he can fly off the handle, but this doesn’t bother me, I’ve been incapable of being intimidated my entire life. (this has got me into some serious grief many times, I have no idea what the cause for this is, It just doesn’t happen for me.)
No one should be judged for mental health issues alone. Their character most certainly shouldn’t be held accountable for it.
Always judge a person by their actions, my house mate has never been violent towards anyone, only inanimate objects.
When it comes to Stephen, I’ve not heard of any instance where his disorder caused him social angst, of course behind closed doors, anyone could turn into another person. But I’d say having Bi polar doesn’t make that person more or less likely to be this way.
I judge Stephen Fry by the content of the words and deeds he’s portrayed in public. He is a good man in my eyes.
Innocent until proven guilty.
*wait what? You have one of those?
I’m not,I was simply passing on an experience.
That was my point. I think it’s naive to assess a celebrity by his/her public persona. You may well be right about Stephen Fry, I hope so. I reserve judgement until I’ve met the man
Yes I have godson (one word) What do you think that might be?
I’ll explain how it goes here: It is an honour to be asked to be a baby’s godfather or god mother. The role tends to be purely ceremonial , with no clearly defined duties or obligations. There is one exception; should the parents die while the child is a minor, in accepting the role,you promise to ensure they are brought up in the church.
My godson is my cousin’s second son. He asked me to be godfather.It would have been a grave insult to refuse.
Fair enough, I’m guessing I’ve got Godparents somewhere, I don’t ever remember hearing about them, it’s a question I’d have to ask my Mum, but I’m avoiding her at the moment. 
Are you referring to the being in star trek?
Wasn’t he a creature from a advanced type 3 or type 4 civilisation?
The technologies from such a civilisation would most definitely appear magical and miraculous.
They’d also not even bother paying attention to us, we are as insignificant as ants to such a race.
Definitely one of the most interesting characters of any science fiction works.
Yeah, Q is a most interesting character. Made even better by John De Lancie, with just the right amount of wit and camp archness.
I doubt the Q would be interested in a species as primitive as ours. We’re not even warp capable! I think we’re also safe from the Borg for the same reason.
Have you seen “Picard”? I watched the first few episodes then lost interest.
Yeah, I’d recommend finishing Picard, it’s actually bloody good.
I wouldn’t consider myself that much of a trekky, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I agree with Stephen’s thoughts on religion, as for the most part they mirror my own, but I’m always weary of setting up celebrities on a pedestal. They’re human like the rest of us, and it’s easy to get carried away with the persona they show the world.
We are all just one species of evolved ape, capable of error at the very least, and in the 21st century individuals can be scrutinised and vilified as never before, social media is definitely a double edged sword.
Far better IMHO to judge actions and opinions on their own merit, and try and forget who is behind them. Judging people can only ever end in disappointment.
That said my ex wife is a selfish ungrateful disloyal b****…nggaaah…that felt better…
[quote=“Sheldon, post:30, topic:399”]
but I’m always weary of setting up celebrities on a pedestal. They’re human like the rest of us, ----[/quote]
Snap
My ex never said that of me. I said it of her. She just went around telling everyone about her crazy ex husband.
I’m having a similar experience, after she started divorcing me behind my back, lied again and again about me, and to me, lived off me for twenty years, and is doing her level best to play the victim, while trying her best to clean me out financially. I’ve now found out there was someone else all along…
I’m terribly sorry to learn that.
My wife was not physically unfaithful as far as I know.However, she was emotionally unfaithful, if there is such a thing.
She was not able to clean me out because the house and car were in joint names. She earned slightly more than I,so she was unable to make a claim on my superannuation.
IN Australia,we have no fault divorce. One partner may unilaterally divorce the other.However, they must first have lived apart for year. There were no legal arguments, so from the filing of the papers to the decree absolute, it was 6 months.
She divorced me. I didn’t even bother hiring a lawyer. I had a free session with a lawyer at the Family court, to make sure I was aware of my rights. The divorce cost me nothing.
I was very lucky to have the guidance of my sister in law,who had been through a divorce. So,I made no phone calls, sent no letters.My wife became dead to me.
To be honest the evidence I have suggests she may not have slept with this guy, but she has posted on a social media site (she thinks I can’t see) that they had planned to move into a house he owns, roughly the same time at the start of the year when her solicitor sent me a letter demanding £170k, which would have seen me living in a cardboard box. The guy is also married with two children, and according to her has been chasing her for several years, so long before she left. One assumes his wife is unaware, and I have moral dichotomy as to whether to try and tell her, so she can avoid some of what I have been through. My family are very much in favour of that.
Some people sadly have no shame. [quote=“boomer47, post:33, topic:399”]
IN Australia,we have no fault divorce.
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Not yet available in UK, but she rushed to divorce me, and blamed me entirely, most of it outright lies, and but all of it disingenuous in order to paint me in the worst possible light. Given she knew at that time she had met someone else that says a great deal.
My legal costs as of today are around £4k, just paid £1’6+K today. My ex’s solicitor initially demanded I pay the £1k for the divorce and all her legal costs as well as my own. That ship has sailed now I know she never intended to seek a fair settlement but wants as much as she can get, despite the fact she had intended to a house owned by this new guy. Words fail me. In twenty years she never paid a penny in rent, towards a mortgage, or a single household bill, only contributing a small share of a grocery bill for two people. I even paid for her holidays or if we went out, while she worked part time, and spent time with her family friends and teh grandchildren. This despite me losing my job, and my life savings the year we met, and having to work away for almost 6 years. The last 12 years I have been a permanent job close to home and I was 2 years away from being able to retire, mostly through ill health, but I had saved enough. In order to keep my house she will tale every penny I have saved and a chunk of the money I’d invested as my only pension provision.
It’s been a tough year, and then Covid came and virtually destroyed the aviation industry I work in. It never rains etc…
My wife became dead to me.
I am caught in a kind of limbo where the loss of the relationship is causing me pain at one extreme, and where I detest who she is now. I can only put one foot in front of the other and try and ignore what I cannot control.
One thing’s for sure, they should teach you all about divorce law, and hammer home you should never marry without a prenup when you are young, fuck calculus and English literature and fucking geography, that’s what they should have taught me in my late teens. The minute you’re old enough to grasp it, and there should definitely be a disclaimer in the marriage vows.
Oof. The nature of this woman comes out.
I was witness to a very nasty divorce of someone close to me, (so I knew a lot of the details on both sides,) The couple was married for ~15 years, one of them lived very frugally, a career in non profit, helping broken homes, talked a lot about not having a lot of stuff, etc etc. A lot of people admired this person as a “good person” that we should all emulate.
Then during the divorce, bam, true colors came out, and went for every possible cent the person could. Got as nasty as they could. The further into the divorce proceedings the worse the person got. Going from a celebrated non profit worker that talked about the evils of money, to someone that did everything they could to be nasty, if anything to just hurt the person they were divorcing.
Then a few months after the divorce, went and married someone half their age. Pretty much doing everything the person said for 15+ years I knew the person, said that they despised in other people.
Point is; sometimes wow, people get nasty in a divorce, especially once they realize it is truly happening. In my life, I have seen several examples of generally nice/good people that I knew for a substantial amount of time, be vicious and cruel as the can be towards the person that would dare “actually” divorce them. Their true colors come out when things are not going their way.
I imagine you already knew this, but incase you do not, it may be a tiny bit helpful to know, statistically, a couple that that started off both cheating on their spouses, like what your ex is doing, have VERY low rates of long happy marriages/relationship. And very high rates of terrible relationships/marriages that are short lived once the euphoria/excitement inevitably wanes.
And that only makes lots of sense, how can you ever trust the partner that cheated in their last relationship and jumped ship soon as they saw the opportunity? How can you ever trust your partner that cleaned out the last person of money and did not respect the promise of marriage/dedicated relationship? Their word means nothing.
The new relationship is most likely doomed before it even started. Your ex is most likely only headed for more pain and hardship, never finding that true trusting satisfying partner in life that they know they can trust with everything.
Unless your ex is a total narcissist or something similar, she has to live with herself, going to bed at night, and trying to fall asleep to the idea that they deeply hurt the person that provided everything for them and loved them for 20 years.
People are great at trying to rationalize away these things, but the core of what they did will get increasingly difficult to rationalize away, and may be forced to question to themselves at one point “am I a good person?” And the answer comes back as no. And when they realize they cannot even trust themselves to be a good person to those that provide the most for them. Ouch, I do not know of a more lonely lot in life when you can not be even be comfortable with yourself based on your past actions.
Logic … a thousand 
Pretty sure such agreements are not legally binding in Australia. In any case the family court often ignores them. The needs of children are always put before the needs of either parent. Child support payments*** are often enforced by a wage garnishee.
I have sneaking suspicion prenuptial that here agreements might fall under the category of an unconscionable contract, but I’m not sure.
Mate, I’m truly sorry to learn of your ordeal. I wish you well.
***the rule of thumb is 40% of the wages of the non custodial parent for one child. Obviously less proportionally if there are several children. I’ve known several men over the years who were very bitter about child support payments. Because they were not allowed to see their children. Here those are two different issues.
Here in Canada -pretty much the same. Two separate issues.
3 boys … he pays 27% to me the custodial parent. Uh… hahahaha- this last year all together I’ve maybe received 3 out of the 8 payments. However, access is never denied and this issue is between him an MEPS (our enforcement agency). Mind you he’s “cancelled” his scheduled visitation weekends 3 times in a row - the last two times because him and his fiancé have been going to Jasper.
Oh well 
. It’s his relationship with his sons. Not mine.
Thanks, I’m just trying to keep some perspective, plenty worse off than me etc…
We had no children together, another sacrifice I made, to help her heal the rift with her children from first marriage, and pay off her debts she had when we met.
Well you live and learn.
Or perhaps you just make mistakes then die.
Omfg there’s fucking two of them!