@Anonymous No that didn't happen. I say some of it because, honestly, I'm not sure. I started the catechism stuff when I was seven, just like every Catholic. Then my family stopped doing church for a while and got back into it when I was about 10. I wanted to take the Eucharist, but I needed to do a number of things. One was confession. The other, I had to give satisfactory answers to some basic questions. I don't remember what they were, but they were along the line of "Is Jesus God?"

@fredsbend The satisfactory answer to that question would probably be, from a Catholic perspective, "Yes, Jesus is God and the son of God, second person of the Trinity."

@fredsbend Did they expect you to know the answer, or did they expect you to believe the doctrines are true?

@Anonymous Both. Some of them were phrased like "do you believe that ..."

It was so long ago that I don't remember much.

@fredsbend So, did you pass?

@Anonymous Yeah. Took the Eucharist the following Sunday Mass.

@fredsbend Did your family have the give-the-present-to-the-newly-confirmed tradition?

no.

It seemed, that even at 10, I was the most serious about religion in my family.

@Anonymous again, I said openly.

@Anonymous I've had a few, and some quite involved, but nothing to the extent I had with this particular group

@fredsbend Why was religion appealing to you at a young age?

@waxeagle What did you discuss? How in-depth was it? Did the conversation get heated? Were you and that group both Presbyterian?

@Anonymous we had a rather extended discussion RE infant vs adult believer's baptism that went on for probably something like a year and probably had several 10s of thousands of words written back and forth about it

they were also very interested in reformed theology so I did my best to learn and explain about it

@fredsbend the average age of a Shiner is 75 or something. Which is odd when we had 20 people just join who were younger than me (38)

I meant to post this here, not the other chatroom

cbsnews.com/news/inside-the-secret-world-of-the-freemasons

@waxeagle This discussion is in writing? What medium did you use to write?

@waxeagle Was the discussion assigned by a teacher, or was it self-assigned? How did it get started?

@waxeagle What theological backgrounds did those women or girls come from? How old were they? Teen girls or adult women?

@waxeagle As a Presbyterian, did you argue in favor of infant baptism even though you did not baptize your sons during infancy?

@fredsbend The benefit of joining Freemasonry or Shriners? Nothing at all. Unless of course you enjoy hanging out with a bunch of other guys being geeky and eating well. Unlike a church small group, we don't wear our "church faces". Imagine a pastor going to the store. When a church member sees him, they'll freely stop him and ask him to pray for their sick cat or something. When he's at lodge, he's just another guy like everyone else. So for him, it's a chance to be "normal"

@Anonymous I don't know. It just was.

Only got worse too.

@DanAndrews Oh. So it is just a Fraternity. What are the benefits of picking one 'rite' over another if someone joins?

Different question: If they aren't weird occult something once you get higher up, why are there so many rumors? Where and when did they start?

Maybe that would be a good question on the main site. But according to your video, they are not a religious group, which makes them off-topic for the site. Maybe that is a meta question.

Just asked it. It will show up here soon.

@Anonymous email

@Anonymous pure recreation, we were going to internet school together

@Anonymous baptist IIRC

and we were all seniors in HS

@Anonymous yes

@waxeagle But e-mail is designed for one-on-one correspondence. Did you hit the "Reply All" button to send the message to the group?

@waxeagle You went to an Internet school. Cool. How did it work? How did you submit assignments? Did your parents enroll you in or pay for tuition? Did you attend public school at all, or did you lack the ability to attend public school because you were a missionary kid and your parents travelled from place to place?

@waxeagle What type of Baptist? What type of theology did they subscribe themselves to?

@waxeagle Since it's an Internet high school, does that mean there is no prom?

@Anonymous traded individual emails with one of the girls, and then the 3 of us did trade reply all type corrrespondence after a while

@waxeagle Did the discussion get heated since you were a Presbyterian and believed in infant baptism, and those girls were Baptist and believed in believer's baptism?

How did the correspondence end? Did it end well?

Do you still keep in touch with those girls?

@Anonymous nope

@Anonymous it mostly just tapered off, we got busy with work and college and stuff.

@Anonymous yeah, through facebook now. actually had a very interesting discussion with one of them yesterday about universalism

@waxeagle That's true. The last two years of high school is always very stressful for many high school students. College admission letters. Recommendation letters. College trips. SATs. ACTs.

@waxeagle So, what about it? Did you mention that your grandfather and grandmother were Unitarian Universalists?

@Anonymous this was senior year, so we were all in the thick of that during this correspondence :)

@Anonymous that wasn't really relevant. It was more tied to how we view God based on how we interpret what he's going to do with his creation

@waxeagle Being Presbyterian, you probably said something along the lines of "God was going to save the elect", did you?

@waxeagle How strongly do you adhere to TULIP?

@Anonymous TULIP is a useful descriptor, but it doesn't really tell you very much about what reformed people believe

I believe the principles of TULIP to be logically consistent and true to the teachings of scripture.

@waxeagle How frequently do you use Facebook and Twitter?

However, if you want to discuss universalism the proper place in TULIP to make the argument is the L not the U

@Anonymous pretty regularly, I use FB to keep track of friends and family, and twitter to keep track of the RPG/tech/SE scene

@waxeagle RPG? Role-playing game? What role-playing game?

I recently had a Facebook conversation with someone who had the same name that I did. The pronunciation was identical; the written name was different from mine.

@Anonymous I play D&D, but I use twitter to follow the more general publishing/advice scene

I follow a number of independent designers and their friends

@waxeagle How do you play Dungeons and Dragons? Do you play the game with your wife and children?

Do you have to buy a 20-sided die?

How do you set it up?

How do you create a role-playing character?

Can two characters team up against an evil villain?

Can you win or lose in the game?

Can one character kill yours?

How many characters can you control?

@Anonymous The simplest way to explain it is that you decide what you want to do, the DM tells you how you have to go about doing it and if there is a possibility of failure you roll a d20, add any relevant modifiers and determine if you succeed or fail. Something happens either way.

and yes, my wife plays in our weekly group

@Anonymous usually you buy a set of 7 polyhedral dice, a d20, d12, d%, d10, d8, d6, d4

@waxeagle How did you find the weekly group? Where is it located? I thought you live in a rural country with a next-door neighbor who is a cattle rancher.

@Anonymous depends on the system, it can be a simple as writing a name on a piece of paper, and as complicated as digging through a pile of books to find just the right feature

@Anonymous generally it's collaborative, so all of the players are on one team (with one player, the game/dungeon master controlling the monsters and playing the role of lead story teller)

@Anonymous sort of? failure is usually a pathway to a different story

@waxeagle Where do you buy the die? Do you have to order it online, or are they available in certain stores?

@Anonymous yes, but that's rare, usually if a PC dies its at the hands of a monster (or other in game challenge)

@Anonymous usually just one

@Anonymous I play with people I went to college with who stayed in the area, we meet at our house, but they all have to drive to get here

but other people find their group through a local game store

@Anonymous local gaming store, or an online retailer, I usually buy my dice from amazon

(it should be noted that different games use a wide variety of dice, for instance the recently very populare Fate uses specially printed d6s with 2 blank sides, two sides with - and two side with +)

@waxeagle How long does it take you to enter the nearest city or town?

@Anonymous 20 minutes or so? Most of my group lives up here on the mountain, only our GM has to come up the hill

@waxeagle How high is the mountain above sea level?

@Anonymous couple thousand feet

@waxeagle Do you have to take into account of cooking temperature and time?

@waxeagle Do you use a pressure-cooker?

@waxeagle Since you live in a rural district, it must be more economical and convenient to prepare home-made foods, isn't it? Do you own a garden?

@waxeagle Do you also own livestock (pigs, chickens, and cows)?

@Anonymous nope

@Anonymous I didn't do one this year (and am thankful I didn't the weather would have been maddening)

@Anonymous no, though I'm entertaining the idea of getting goats at some point in the future

@waxeagle God must have thought, "Well, waxeagle is not gardening this year, so I might as well just make the weather harsher."

@waxeagle Do you believe that God controls the weather?

@waxeagle Great! It may be more profitable to have female goats and male goats. They may mate and bring forth offspring, and then you have goat's milk! Yea!

I am not sure if female goats can lactate without offspring.

@Anonymous yes

@Anonymous If I was to buy a milk goat I'd try to get one that's already lactating

pretty sure I know someone who knows someone who can hook me up :)

@waxeagle I have a d20 with sides 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7a, 9, 10, ....

Picked it up at a Discworld Convention.

@TRiG lol, that's great

(I don't get the reference, but Pratchett's and his fans' sensibilities agree with me)

I'm guessing it's of use in the discworld RPG

@waxeagle Of course you do. I just realized I made a foolish question.

@Anonymous that said, I'm pretty sure that it's rare that he sends specific weather events to specific people

@waxeagle While the goat is lactating, you may want to collect milk on a daily basis or regularly. Ceasing the collection of milk may remove the offspring-rearing stimulus that lactation is responding to. So, when that stops, you may have to buy a male goat. :)

@Anonymous yes, IIRC cows need to be milked 2x per day, I'd guess goats aren't that different. Definitely going to have someone take me to school on all this before I even start building pens

@waxeagle They are both ruminants. They are both mammals. Besides, on Noah's ark, Noah was told to bring a male and a female along with him.

@waxeagle Then, you may kill the offspring for meat.

@waxeagle Eight is a dangerous number on the Disc.

@TRiG o right, I did know that

@waxeagle The last International Con was the eighnnnnnnnth.

lol

the last one I was aware of in the US was near where I grew up, I had a passing thought of going, but lack of time and money prevented it

@Anonymous yeah...I'm only sort of interested in that (and probably not interested in doing the slaughter/butchering myself which significantly changes the economics of it)

@waxeagle The Discworld Cons have their own subculture and many many in-jokes. The maskerade and the auction are presided over by Pat Harkin (quack). On the other hand, newbies are welcomed, and in-jokes are explained in a friendly fashion. Then the newbies join in. And new in-jokes arise. And soon they find they're not newbies any more.

@TRiG excellent. :) I catch on quick too :)

I've read the first 3-4 books in order and several of the Night Watch series

@waxeagle On the other hand, keeping the little goats, especially if they are female, may mean more milk. Maybe you may induce some inbreeding in the goat population by allowing the first filial generation to mate with each other.

However, that may result in the awful side effects of inbreeding, so you may also want to buy new mates for your goats and allow your new goat population to increase.

@Anonymous this is where it pays to know another goat farmer or two :)

You may also want to name your goats so that you can carry a pedigree for them.

That way, you can control their breeding.

@waxeagle I think a geneticist would be ok.

There may be a problem with having too many male goats.

@Anonymous The weather? God programmed it and it will continue to do it's chores unless God turned it off.

@waxeagle You may find this article on goat patriarchy enlightening. everyman.ca/patriarchy

I can't say much about accuracy.

It looks like a blog.

It looks like a conservative blog, because the writer seems to support the idea of patriarchy.

turned off by the title alone and closed the window :)

(the blog title itself)

The part of the world that would not apply in his case is the western hemisphere. Goats, cows, horses, and camels are all part of the "Old World", not the "New World".

Note: I can't assume the gender of the author. I use "he" anyway, because that is my bias when it comes to unknown gender.

@waxeagle However, you may want to study goat herd behavior. The idea that males attacking each other and competing for mates can be frightening to the immature goat farmer.

no doubt

Yeah, maybe select the optimal size of males and females.

@fredsbend Every Christian Freemason should join the York Rite over the Scottish Rite as the upper levels of the York Rite REQUIRE you to be Christian and make a very Christian promise to defend the Christian faith (think Knights Templar). The Scottish Rite (more popular) uses the old testament and new testament, many Jewish and a few Muslim Freemasons go this route because there are not specific Christian references which would conflict with their faith.

It's not that Jesus isn't mentioned, it's just that the allegories used do not conflict with their beliefs.

Reno erat Rudolphus. "Responsory for the first Nocturn at Matins on Christmas Eve, found in a manuscript from the Abbaye de Fleury, dated c. 1170." This is how all Christmas songs should be.

However, many people just join the first three degrees and stop there or go to the Shriners to be in parades, drive those funny cars, and help support the hospitals" which are in trouble due to ObamaCare.

Goat farming isn't interesting. If I have to do farming, I'll go for flower farming. I want to be surrounded by all kinds of flowers. It would be a paradise on earth.

@El'endiaStarman

> Who's an adowable widdle miwacle of science?

> SOK!