Close friendship

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
First sir, please evidence that 'out-pinnacle' is a viable word.

Indeed, I should have written it thusly: Out-Pinnacle™

Originally posted by @fmf
I am noticing that you've still offered no thoughts on the topic of this thread and yet seem to want to be seen to be posting on it and registering some sort of chagrin you feel. 😉

Sounds like you might have noticed what you're suppose to notice.

Your sentiments towards other posters' questions are had by other posters towards yours.
"What goes around, comes around ? "

Originally posted by @fmf
I saw this in the paper today:

"As Aristotle noted, close, deep friendship is one of the pinnacles of human experience."

Is it true?

What other experiences out-pinnacle it?

In helping myself and my family in the matter of friendships, it has been a helpful to once hear that friendships are about something.

My best friendships have probably been about mutual interests.

Originally posted by @sonship
In helping myself and my family in the matter of friendships, it has been a helpful to once hear that friendships are about something.

My best friendships have probably been about mutual interests.

As a matter of interest, since your 'return' to faith after the atheist period that you described yourself going through, have you had close, deep and enduring friendships with any non-Christians or atheists?

Originally posted by @sonship
Your sentiments towards other posters' questions are had by other posters towards yours. "What goes around, comes around ? "

For the most part, the people I bend out of shape here, sonship, are headless chickens, dimwits, boggle eyed right wingers, hypocrites, jerks or trolls, like jospehw, whodey, Eladar, robbie carrobie, Suzianne and in the last year or so Fetchmyjunk.

I don't think you are any of those things; I think you get bent out of shape because I push back against your somewhat anti-social and narcissistic tendency - all too often - to use this forum as a personal Christian preaching blog rather than for debate and discussion.

Some years ago, you commended me for asking 'hard questions'. And yet I haven't changed, meanwhile, you have sunk deeper into your prickly nose-out-of-joint blogger mode as your vanity and self-regard has suffocated your ability to process dissent and enter into discussions with people with different beliefs.

Originally posted by @fmf
As a matter of interest, since your 'return' to faith after the atheist period that you described yourself going through, have you had close, deep and enduring friendships with any non-Christians or atheists?

Hold on. I don't think that I said that I was an atheist.
I have thought long and hard about Atheism and asked myself - "Now was I ever an atheist ?"

As I think back, I remembering being very, very far from knowing God. I used the word amnesia. I may have said that "I blacked out". For this was what it was like. I just could not remember that God was a Person, a Person, a Person.

I could not remember that experience.
But I did believe that there must be SOMETHING . Maybe it was ME. Maybe it was a great giant question mark in the center of the universe. I'm serious. I recall these kinds of thoughts.

For awhile I ranted that "I'm God. I'm God".
Something is out there or Me or something.
I don't think I was an atheist as I typically see some atheists speak.
But i could be wrong.

One day I might find two or three people that I talked to and ASK them what kind of things I said back then. They could tell me. They could help me remember what my attitude was at that time.

But even at the darkest time I knew that there must be SOMETHING as a place where the cosmic buck has to STOP. When I came back to Jesus, it was a homecoming.

Or let me put it this way - I realized that the God that I knew personally before was Jesus.

NOW I remember. God is a Person. God is a SOMEONE... A SOMEONE Who I can talk with and take my troubles to. .

By His mercy I remembered that it was a RELATIONSHIP. I consider this as a miracle that happened to me.

friendships with any non-Christians or atheists?

Yes, in a word. Of course.

Originally posted by @sonship
Hold on. I don't think that I said that I was an atheist.

I am pretty sure you did at some point in the last however many years we have been having conversations. I am not talking about your recent description of having a 'black out', I am talking about you claiming to have been an atheist. I'm 95% sure but I'm obviously not going to try to find it because it's buried somewhere 3, 4 or 5 years ago. Put it aside anyway, if you now say you were never an atheist, that's good enough for me. What about my question?

Originally posted by @sonship
" friendships with any non-Christians or atheists?"

Yes, in a word. Of course.

I drifted apart from a few of my Christian friends during the period I was losing my faith but they hadn't been what might be described as close, deep friendships anyway.

Originally posted by @fmf
I am pretty sure you did at some point in the last however many years we have been having conversations. I am not talking about your recent description of having a 'black out', I am talking about you claiming to have been an atheist. I'm 95% sure but I'm obviously not going to try to find it because it's buried somewhere 3, 4 or 5 years ago. Put it aside anyway, if you now say you were never an atheist, that's good enough for me. What about my question?

I am pretty sure you did at some point in the last however many years we have been having conversations.

I am careful about what I write.
But if you find a quote then that would be proof that I said "I was an atheist".
And I will retract.

But I think I am careful to be realistic about my past.
Now the definition of "God" may have really been crazy.
But I always thought some kind of final reality must exist.

It was far from the Bible's revelation of God. But it was some kind of thing for which a greater thing cannot be.

If you find an unambiguous remark that I was an Atheist, then I would have to apologize.
But it doesn't sound like me.

I am not talking about your recent description of having a 'black out', I am talking about you claiming to have been an atheist. I'm 95% sure but I'm obviously not going to try to find it because it's buried somewhere 3, 4 or 5 years ago.

But I am usually careful what I say to accurately review my personal experience.

It does me no profit whatsoever to pretend that I was an Atheist when I never was.
However, the DEFINITION of "G-o-d" then may have been completely whacky.

Put it aside anyway, if you now say you were never an atheist, that's good enough for me. What about my question?

Have have all kinds of friends.
Some I don't know what their beliefs are on a low level.

These are outside of the brotherhood of the faith, i am speaking mostly of.
Something we have in common, we are friendly around.

Originally posted by @sonship
I am careful about what I write.
But if you find a quote then that would be proof that I said "I was an atheist".
And I will retract.

Why would I want you to retract? Didn't you read my short post all the way to the end?

Originally posted by @sonship
Have have all kinds of friends.
Some I don't know what their beliefs are on a low level.

The thread is about close, deep friendships, not just "all kinds of friends" in the wider meaning of the word. People have 2,000+ "friends" on Facebook! The thread is not intended to be about that kind of thing, or about acquaintances, or compatible colleagues, or friendly neighbours.

Do you think you can have a close, deep friendship with someone and yet not know what their beliefs are? Or to put it another way, do you think someone could be your close, deep friend without knowing about how important your faith in Christ is to you?

Originally posted by @sonship
It does me no profit whatsoever to pretend that I was an Atheist when I never was.

Maybe this is something people here who have dubbed me a liar about my Christian past should bear in mind.

I'll say it again: put it aside, if you now say you were never an atheist, that's good enough for me. I will assume I got you mixed up with another poster.

lemon lime comes to mind ~ I remember sensing that he thought he might profit in a conversation by pretending that he was an atheist when he probably never was. His subsequent attempts to root some self-serving clunky stereotypes in his own supposed experience was pretty ridiculous.

If I have mixed you up with the sneering lightweight Rupert Pupkin-esque lemon lime, then I certainly apologize!