Bangaluru Bangers Superthread

[The Sad Punk]

Do U2 tribute bands do drugs?

 

[major_panic]

The Aussie U2 Show is playing on the 17th, which is a Monday ... we decided it probably wouldn't be the best gig to attend. I think we're looking ahead to seeing them in May, and just doing our own quieter Saint Paddy's Day meet-up sometime over the weekend of the 15th/16th.

May... awesome. Nice and far ahead!

St Patrick's Day, eh? Interesting, I must plan ahead on this one. Let's sit around rocking out to U2...

 

[Axver]

At least it will be warm.

Unlike this February.



Welcome to March, by the way!

Thank fuck it's March. February can go burn in some godforsaken non-existent hell.

I did love its weather though. Nice and cool for the most part. That's why I left Queensland and came here. I often wonder if hell is just a fictionalised account of life in Queensland.

 

[major_panic]

Do U2 tribute bands do drugs?

Their bass players do, then kick the habit and dye their hair silver...

 

[Axver]

Do U2 tribute bands do drugs?

Fuck, Saddo. That was great.

 

[major_panic]

Thank fuck it's March. February can go burn in some godforsaken non-existent hell.

I did love its weather though. Nice and cool for the most part. That's why I left Queensland and came here. I often wonder if hell is just a fictionalised account of life in Queensland.

You've not been to Asia recently, have you?

Although, it is dry here, whereas it's humid in Asia.

 

[Axver]

I had wondered where all the Aussies had disappeared too...

I'm a believer in Jesus by the way, but agnosticism FTW if it's what works for you!

I suspect you and I could have some good theological discussions. Ever read Søren Kierkegaard or Paul Tillich by any chance? The uni library has some of both. I read Tillich's Dynamics Of Faith last year and his take on things is very interesting. It's a kind of theism I quite respect.

Yeah, some of the people out there need to get a tablespoon of common sense into their religion cake... or muffins, which are more appropriate to this thread

Good one.

 

[Axver]

You've not been to Asia recently, have you?

Although, it is dry here, whereas it's humid in Asia.

I've not been to Asia ever.

I would especially love to visit the former Soviet republics in Central Asia. They sound absolutely fascinating. Though some of the living standards and politics sound fairly hellish.

 

[major_panic]

I suspect you and I could have some good theological discussions. Ever read Søren Kierkegaard or Paul Tillich by any chance? The uni library has some of both. I read Tillich's Dynamics Of Faith last year and his take on things is very interesting. It's a kind of theism I quite respect.

Gotta look them up and add them to my reading pile. You already know I'm doing theology at the College of Divinity, but I don't proselytise actively because it's just annoying to everyone else. You have the right to make up your own mind, and if Christianity isn't for you, then all power to you with finding something that works.

Yeah I'm a bad Christian when compared to a lot of evangelicals - I actually think ethics, morals and rights are more important than religious beliefs.

 

[The Sad Punk]

I would especially love to visit the former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

Hell yes. Kazakhstan is one of my must-go-to places.

I have recently been fascinated with spending some time in Turkey, too. Pre-Petra mountain carved buildings? Underground ancient Christian cities? Pide? It's all good there!

 

[major_panic]

Hell yes. Kazakhstan is one of my must-go-to places.

I have recently been fascinated with spending some time in Turkey, too. Pre-Petra mountain carved buildings? Underground ancient Christian cities? Pide? It's all good there!

Pide

I'd love to go to Constantinople, I mean, Istanbul

 

[The Sad Punk]

You mean Byzantium.

 

[major_panic]

You mean Byzantium.

Also, China'd be good to go to this year. See the Wall, the Shaolin Temple, the Forbidden Palace... eat real Chinese food and get food poisoning...

Somehow being Chinese just isn't enough, you've gotta be there and experience it just once.

 

[Axver]

Gotta look them up and add them to my reading pile. You already know I'm doing theology at the College of Divinity, but I don't proselytise actively because it's just annoying to everyone else. You have the right to make up your own mind, and if Christianity isn't for you, then all power to you with finding something that works.

Yeah I'm a bad Christian when compared to a lot of evangelicals - I actually think ethics, morals and rights are more important than religious beliefs.

I would dearly love to do some theology myself. I'm particularly interested in its socio-political role, and some of my historical research has been conducted into the role of the Reformation in the creation of the present day international political order. I've also done a bit of more purely historical work on Calvin's Geneva.

I never liked proselytisation either, when I was religious. It's a deeply personal thing, I think, and I always kept my religion to myself. If people wanted to know about it, they could ask me. I run a similar policy with my agnosticism. And I've always made jokes about religion that would get me kicked out of most churches.

And evangelicals ... well, they aren't my favourite people, let's just put it that way. I have an almost morbid fascination with extreme fundamentalism, though. It's like a car crash in theological form - hard to look away.

 

[Axver]

Hell yes. Kazakhstan is one of my must-go-to places.

I have recently been fascinated with spending some time in Turkey, too. Pre-Petra mountain carved buildings? Underground ancient Christian cities? Pide? It's all good there!

I want to go to Kyrgyzstan just for its incredible name. I have also been fascinated with Azerbaijan for years and years, though that's in the Caucasus rather than Central Asia. The entire Caucasus area just sounds fantastic. I read Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero Of Our Time solely on the basis that I heard it had amazing descriptions of scenery in the Caucasus.

Turkey for the win too.

 

[Axver]

Also, China'd be good to go to this year. See the Wall, the Shaolin Temple, the Forbidden Palace... eat real Chinese food and get food poisoning...

Somehow being Chinese just isn't enough, you've gotta be there and experience it just once.

I've got to admit that China has never held a significant amount of appeal for me, or at least not what you usually see of it in the West. I would be far more interested in going to the farflung western parts of China than, say, Beijing, which frankly sounds terrifying. All that traffic! The crowds! The pollution! No thanks.

Also, you need to introduce me to good Chinese food. With my allergies and my family not being into it, I've never really had the stuff but I'd like to try it.

 

[The Sad Punk]

I was accepted into a theology course last year, but declined. It's something I'd like to do when I'm a little older, though. I feel like I learn enough just by having AOG friends and hearing the stuff that goes on at some of the churches in SA. Burning Qur'ans and other non-Christian imagery and icons being one thing...

 

[Axver]

You mean Byzantium.

Constantinople and Istanbul are just fake names.

:shunsthem:

 

[major_panic]

I would dearly love to do some theology myself. I'm particularly interested in its socio-political role, and some of my historical research has been conducted into the role of the Reformation in the creation of the present day international political order. I've also done a bit of more purely historical work on Calvin's Geneva.

Interesting, I've always wondered about the role of religion in society and politics (post-Reformation England is a fascinating example) and Calvin's just... well, Calvin. Zwingli interests me a bit more though.

I never liked proselytisation either, when I was religious. It's a deeply personal thing, I think, and I always kept my religion to myself. If people wanted to know about it, they could ask me. I run a similar policy with my agnosticism. And I've always made jokes about religion that would get me kicked out of most churches.

I despise being told to go out and proselytise. I think people should be told about Christianity just once or twice, then be allowed to make up their own minds rather than be pressured into it.

Religious jokes FTW - even if I don't find them particularly funny, I can see the humour in some of them.

And evangelicals ... well, they aren't my favourite people, let's just put it that way. I have an almost morbid fascination with extreme fundamentalism, though. It's like a car crash in theological form - hard to look away.

I've got this love-hate thing happening with American fundamentalists. Love their passion and faith, hate their beliefs and stupidity. And, of course, their rigidity and unwillingness to accept what's in front of them.

I find that Christianity makes a lot of sense for me personally, it's just that people tend to take things waaay out of context.

 

[The Sad Punk]

To be fair, Byzantium is too - I think it used to be just 'Byz' when inhabited by the Thracians. Then it became Latinized and such.

 

[Axver]

I was accepted into a theology course last year, but declined. It's something I'd like to do when I'm a little older, though. I feel like I learn enough just by having AOG friends and hearing the stuff that goes on at some of the churches in SA. Burning Qur'ans and other non-Christian imagery and icons being one thing...

Oh fuck, and you're in Adelaide, so that's the crowd that gave the political scene Fundies First, isn't it?

I imagine that once I have my PhD in History, I'll go back and do some theology. It's fairly tied in to the women's suffrage movement in New Zealand anyway, which is one of my primary fields of interest. The Women's Christian Temperance Union was the most prominent organisation in the world thing.

 

[major_panic]

I was accepted into a theology course last year, but declined. It's something I'd like to do when I'm a little older, though. I feel like I learn enough just by having AOG friends and hearing the stuff that goes on at some of the churches in SA. Burning Qur'ans and other non-Christian imagery and icons being one thing...

Ahh of course, you're in SA... Some interesting and well-known churches there. Haven't heard about burning stuff though... I want in!

 

[major_panic]

Oh fuck, and you're in Adelaide, so that's the crowd that gave the political scene Fundies First, isn't it?

Of course, that's what SA birthed. Completely forgot. Actually, the senator for FF goes to my church. I always wanted to go up to him and ask him if he'd like to pay my student union fees...

Although, I am friends with his daughter, so I've always managed to stop myself.

 

[The Sad Punk]

The church in question where the burning took place was in a beachtown on Yorke Peninsula, some while south from where I grew up. A bunch of AOGers burned Qur'ans, dreamcatchers, whatever they could get their hands on that was religious, but not Christian. Whether this act was encouraged there or not, I'm not sure. I know all too much about how they all 'pity' the Muslims and Jews, particularly the younger fundies-in-the-making are potentially developing a degree of racism and intolerance.

It is unfortunate that we view AoG members like this, because a lot of them are actually fine and hardly fundamentalist- if at all. But so many of them, mostly youths, just downright frighten me. They even managed to convert a friend of mine that I thought would be atheist her entire life.

 

[Axver]

Interesting, I've always wondered about the role of religion in society and politics (post-Reformation England is a fascinating example) and Calvin's just... well, Calvin. Zwingli interests me a bit more though.

What work I have done has been mainly into the role of the Reformation as the basis for the Thirty Years' War, which was settled by the Peace of Augsburg and laid the foundation the system of nation states as we know it. However, I would need much more time and resources than I have to pursue that further, and New Zealand is nowadays the focus of my energies.

I despise being told to go out and proselytise. I think people should be told about Christianity just once or twice, then be allowed to make up their own minds rather than be pressured into it.

And really, in this society, there's no way you can't not know about Christianity, so what's the point? If somebody wants to know more about the religion, they don't exactly have a shortage of means at their disposal to have their questions answered.

Religious jokes FTW - even if I don't find them particularly funny, I can see the humour in some of them.

I'm the kind of person who will joke about anything and everything. It's my coping mechanism with the world. I'll tone down some stuff around people I know who are religious though. Like I won't make a point of saying "Jeebus" or anything ... except with reference to fundies, who I don't think actually believe in anything vaguely resembling the guy in the Bible.

I've got this love-hate thing happening with American fundamentalists. Love their passion and faith, hate their beliefs and stupidity. And, of course, their rigidity and unwillingness to accept what's in front of them.

I find that Christianity makes a lot of sense for me personally, it's just that people tend to take things waaay out of context.

Yeah, I agree with this. I find having discussions with US fundies to be like talking to a brick wall. It's so impossible to get anything through. The amount of times I have been dismissed with vapid, brainless cliches mindboggling. Circular reasoning for the lose too.

 

[major_panic]

I've got to admit that China has never held a significant amount of appeal for me, or at least not what you usually see of it in the West. I would be far more interested in going to the farflung western parts of China than, say, Beijing, which frankly sounds terrifying. All that traffic! The crowds! The pollution! No thanks.

Also, you need to introduce me to good Chinese food. With my allergies and my family not being into it, I've never really had the stuff but I'd like to try it.

I've always just wanted to visit the mountains, do some martial arts training with the monks in misty valleys, sorta thing.

The problem with good Chinese food is that everyone classifies Chinese differently. There's Malaysian/Singaporean Chinese, there's Indonesian Chinese... then you get to provincial Chinese, and it gets trickier.

Box Hill or Glen Waverley are places to go for Chinese, although I'm sure there are some good ones in the city.

Box Hill :shudder: I usually mentally refer to it as "Vietnam".

 

[Axver]

Of course, that's what SA birthed. Completely forgot. Actually, the senator for FF goes to my church. I always wanted to go up to him and ask him if he'd like to pay my student union fees...

Although, I am friends with his daughter, so I've always managed to stop myself.

... you have no idea how tempted I am to come to your church just so I can give that guy a piece of my mind.

I'm the kind of guy who makes PolSci tutes interesting.

 

[Axver]

To be fair, Byzantium is too - I think it used to be just 'Byz' when inhabited by the Thracians. Then it became Latinized and such.

Ha, I was actually just going to ask, "hang on, isn't Byzantium not the original name either?" and then I noticed your post.

 

[major_panic]

The church in question where the burning took place was in a beachtown on Yorke Peninsula, some while south from where I grew up. A bunch of AOGers burned Qur'ans, dreamcatchers, whatever they could get their hands on that was religious, but not Christian. Whether this act was encouraged there or not, I'm not sure. I know all too much about how they all 'pity' the Muslims and Jews, particularly the younger fundies-in-the-making are potentially developing a degree of racism and intolerance.

It is unfortunate that we view AoG members like this, because a lot of them are actually fine and hardly fundamentalist- if at all. But so many of them, mostly youths, just downright frighten me. They even managed to convert a friend of mine that I thought would be atheist her entire life.

Mmmm, interesting. It's why I'm taking my theology course at a Baptist college - they're very neutral compared to most of the other options out there. Gotta love a balanced viewpoint on theology and a lack of blind fundamentalism or overemphasis on holiness.

AoG churches in Melbourne are mostly okay - it's the Planetshakers people you've gotta watch out for. They're seriously weird.

 

[major_panic]

Ha, I was actually just going to ask, "hang on, isn't Byzantium not the original name either?" and then I noticed your post.

To paraphrase Terry Pratchett, things were more simple back in the days when cities were called "Uh" and "Ugh" and "Ur".