Is it really worth the trouble?

[Ray]

I was raised catholic so Im down with my wifes beliefs. As far as the kids I figure I didnt turn out so bad and never felt indoctrinated or forced. When they reach an age to make their own decisions Im open minded enough to let them do what they want. Until then they will accompany my wife and I to Church on sunday.

By God

Im thinking twice on Sunday. All that chaste innocence and mecrciful forgiveness gets me horny

What an Angel

LOL!

flop,

I was also raised as a Catholic and I never felt “indoctrinated” or “forced” to do anything either.

I was educated in a belief system and it was always voluntary to follow those beliefs or not. The Catholic Church doesn’t force anyone to belong.

Ray

[Woody]

I was educated in a belief system and it was always voluntary to follow those beliefs or not. The Catholic Church doesn’t force anyone to belong.

I wouldn't say that the Catholic church is that EASY to escape, but it comes pretty damn close. Hell, when I was 16 and announced to the world that I thought the bible was a grossly exaggerated selective history and Christianity was a sham, most people just said they would pray for me. There was no real attempt to convince me otherwise. For the next two years I tried to debate the religion with people a lot, I was convinced that any religious beliefs were a sham and atheism was the answer. Then I grew up. After joining the Army, I stopped seeking out religious debates. I realized something: I was becoming a hypocrite. The thing I hated most was people who tried to "reach out" to and "save me." I had become what I hated, so I stopped. I used to go as far as remaining silent during "under God" during the Pledge of Allegiance in high school. Now? I say it. I don't say it because I believe, I say it because it is tradition. This nation has a history we can be proud of, and God is woven into that history. I can still honor the nation that I defend every day and, at the same time, not believe in a higher being.

Today, I would classify myself as agnostic. I don't really have anything going in the for or against column when it comes to proof/dis-proving Judeo-Christianity. I just don't make it part of my life.

Now look at me, most of the women I date are Roman Catholic and likely the woman I marry will be Roman Catholic(Latina). Amazing how things come full circle. As a result, my children will likely be raised as Roman Catholics, I will even assist if she wants and read them bed-time biblical parables just like my father did for me. I think some of them contain important life lessons. On the other hand, I hope that they will use their reasoning skills like I did and find their own path in life. That is all I can hope for. I can provide them with a solid emotional, educational, and moral foundation, the rest is up to them. For some people, their faith in a higher power is what sustains them through the troubled times. For me, it is not required, but it can be the saving grace for so many people.

I'm sure many people from both sides of the religious aisles will have something to say to me. Those are the way I see things and that is how I have formed my personal beliefs over the past ten years through careful thought and rationalization.






As for stateside places to live, I'm a big fan of Colorado. Every season is great except for winter, but even that is relatively mild and you can Ski/Snowboard (Next weekend, baby!).

If you want a miserable place to live weather wise, try Manhattan, Kansas. Spring is weeks upon weeks of rain, Summer is 95 degrees and 70% humidity, Fall is nice(All one month of it), Winter is mostly below freezing with snow blowing across the plains(10 degrees with a 30MPH wind is horrible!).

[Dave H]

My wife is a Filipina Catholic. I myself only go to church for weddings and baptisms, which is not a problem. Not all Filipinas attend mass on a regular basis. I generally don't go to funerals...but I have been known to sometimes speak ill of the dead. 

Dave

[Jeff S]

If it's the "believe what we believe or go to hell" part check out Judism. There is no hell in Judism, except maybe when some insane, evil dictator thinks the world's problems are all because of you.

[robert angel]

Going to church no more makes you a christian than does going to a garage make you an automobile...

[Henry]

FlyingMoose, do you plan to learn any Chinese before you go there? Anyone know what aspect of Chinese is difficult?

[Capstone]

Anyone know what aspect of Chinese is difficult?

Yep - it is the 4 tones of Mandarin which makes it a very difficult language to learn for most western language speakers.  Mandarin uses 4 tones to clarify the meanings of words. Many Chinese characters have the same sound and so the 4 tones are used to differentiate words from each other. So basically a word or character can have 4 different meanings depending on which tone is used in its pronunciation and speaking the 4 separate tones correctly is very hard to master - it has been very very hard for me picking up on the different tones.

[Jeff S]

Yes, Mandarin is really tough for me, also - and I find Japanese fairly easy, because it is spoken without accents, very monotone.

http://mandarin.about.com/od/pronunciation/a/tones.htm

[jm21-2]

Agree with Jeff. It's a lot easier to know enough Japanese to get by. Plus, most Japanese know a few words of English. My mandarin is basically non-existant.

[Henry]

Agree with Jeff. It's a lot easier to know enough Japanese to get by. Plus, most Japanese know a few words of English. My mandarin is basically non-existant.

How did you manage to get around in China?

I've been to foreign countries in the non-tourist areas. I needed an intermediate knowledge of their languages to get around.

[jm21-2]

How did you manage to get around in China?

I've been to foreign countries in the non-tourist areas. I needed an intermediate knowledge of their languages to get around.

Bring a book with basic tourist phrases. Almost everyone in China is willing to help out because they think it's cool for a foreigner to try to learn their language.

I want to meet girls who can speak giid English, so for the vast majority of the time I'd depend on the girl I'm meeting to translate.

Certainly, the experience is not as ruch, and it can be a bit scary to have to depend on someone that much, but it worked out for the most part. I suppose if you don't have a sense of adventure it could be intimidating to touch down in a foreign country, not even really sure how to get a taxi, and just set off. The main thing I didn't like was that I couldn't communicate with her family worth a damn, and when she would go help her sister or mom there was not a whole lot for me to do.

EDIT:
Also keep in mind that there are several hundred dialects in China. There are a lot of situations where your knowledge of mandarin won't be as useful.

[FlyingMoose]

I was thinking about learning Chinese.  Courses like Pimsler and Rosetta aren't as useful because they assume you can pick it up by listening, which is true of most other languages.  I think they really dropped the ball on their Mandarin courses by not starting with a fairly comprehensive lesson on the tones.  On the plus side, the grammar is supposed to be very simple and there is none of the complexity introduced by verb conjugation and such.

[Jeff S]

Grammatically, the Asian languages are almost ridiculously simple as compared to the Germanic languages (like English) or the romance languages (like Spanish) There are no pronouns, genders, minimal tenses, everything is regular, and there are less than 1/20 the words of English (an unabridged Japanese or Chinese dictionary is about 1/2" thick.) The richness in Asian languages comes from idioms not lots of words. Reading them is the hard part - and it's hard to learn a language if you can't read it. At least in Japanese you can learn two of the alphabets fairly easily - the rest is Kanji, like Chinese and that takes quite an effort to learn more than the basics.

I'd try the rosetta stone - mimicking the sounds will give you the basics of the pronunciation.

I've never had a problem getting around anywhere, even when I didn't know the language. Everywhere I've ever been people seem eager to help if you are polite. You have to have or develop a feel for the lay of the land though, wherever you go.

[Capstone]

Also keep in mind that there are several hundred dialects in China. There are a lot of situations where your knowledge of mandarin won't be as useful.

This is true in that even if you did speak Mandarin you may hear someone speaking a dialect that you do not understand but you will still be able to communicate in Mandarin to them. Mandarin is the the official language in China and is what is taught/spoken in all schools, so everyone except maybe some really old people will be able to communicate in Mandarin with you.

The local dialects are something which I find phenomenal in that most Chinese people speak several of them. In addition to Mandarin, my wife speaks the local Fujian dialect as well as an even more distinct local dialect of Xiamen (the city in which she is from), and also the Taiwanese dialect. She also speaks English and German - so I don't have any idea how she keeps things straight when she switches back and forth between all of them which was a pretty common occurrence while she was in China.

[jm21-2]

From talking with various Chinese girls, it seemed like many communicated with their families in dialect. That's what I was thinking of. The biggest part of learning her language for me would be able to tell what's going on in family conversations and be able to be a part of that. If they're constantly speaking in dialect out of habit  then Mandarin doesn't seem very useful. Or if her parents speak very poor mandarin.

[Bob_S]

From talking with various Chinese girls, it seemed like many communicated with their families in dialect. That's what I was thinking of. The biggest part of learning her language for me would be able to tell what's going on in family conversations and be able to be a part of that. If they're constantly speaking in dialect out of habit  then Mandarin doesn't seem very useful. Or if her parents speak very poor mandarin.

I hear what you're saying.  My wife was a city gov't employee, and as such had to learn proper official "Tokyo" Japanese.  And my J-skills are pretty weak.  As Jeff mentioned, there aren't that many actual words in the language compared to English, so I can generally catch about 5% of what is said, and from the context, I can maybe on a good day follow about 20% of the conversations around me.  But when my missus gets together with her small town family and friends, she switches to their "howdy, y'all" local dialect, and my comprehension gets cut in half.

[jm21-2]

I am so burnt out on learning things right now, after so much higher ed and the steep learning curve starting out, that I don't even want to think about becoming fluent in a foreign language right now. Maybe later. Right now it just seems like a PITA without a ton of benefits. One of the secretaries here passed me a flyer she saw for some Chinese language lessons once a week or so that I might go to to elarn some really basic stuff. Definitely not learning the Chinese alphabet though!

[crashfirepm53]

If you want a miserable place to live weather wise, try Manhattan, Kansas. Spring is weeks upon weeks of rain, Summer is 95 degrees and 70% humidity, Fall is nice(All one month of it), Winter is mostly below freezing with snow blowing across the plains(10 degrees with a 30MPH wind is horrible!).

I'm not sure when or long you lived in Manhattan, Kansas, but you really have no clue what you are talking about. I've been here since the summer of 2008 and came from 37 years of Central Florida hot, muggy weather.
When I got here in late July it was damn near 100 and windy. Fall was really nice, very windy and from Sept. thru November was good weather. December got kinda cold but stayed lower the 30 with highs in the 50's.Even Feb.- March at the coldest never got below 20 and we had very little snow.
This year summer was very mild and short with Fall lasting 3 plus months. it got colder earlier, with snow just starting today. True in the 2007 winter they had a massive ice storm that froze everything and no power for 2 weeks but it hasn't been anywhere near below zero since i've been here.
Northwest Kansas is much colder and tons more snow coming from Canada and the Rockies but still little if any below zero weather. I did experience 12 degree/ 30 mph winds but it was in Nebraska.
If your a hunter, this is prime big buck country. 160 class bucks all day lond. A 8 pt. with 205 points was just takin last week. Plenty of 14 pt. bucks.
I actually completely love Kansas. Awesome weather, 2 local State Universities, cost of living is very low with tons of National brand stores in Manhattan and Topeka is 45 minutes away with EVERYTHING.

[Woody]

True in the 2007 winter they had a massive ice storm that froze everything and no power for 2 weeks but it hasn't been anywhere near below zero since i've been here.

I was there from April 2007 to April 2008, maybe I just saw a bad year, but god damn it sucked.

[sbcheflino]

I'm considering trying to marry an Asian woman at some point.  I'm planning to visit China this summer, not to meet anyone, but to take a vacation and see what I think of the country and the culture.  I chose China because I'm an atheist and I'd like to marry someone who's the same, and also because the country seems to be up-and-coming, and I think the women are cute.

I see all of the effort that goes into meeting the right woman, plus all the cultural and language differences.  My question is: if one were to put the same amount of effort into finding an American woman, wouldn't it be just as possible to find someone who's just as good?  Or is there no such thing?

From what I understand is that China is...SO big.....that there are cultures within the culture in the different regions..You could search on line as well and find out which region might be best for you...I certainly would not want to see you fall into a very religious region...I don't think that would suite your needs very well....Sounds like a trip that needs to be well planned in advance an well executed...Good Luck....

[Jeff S]

I've been to many places in Asia and the rest of the world, and my guess is that if you truly want someone athiest, one that denies any spirituality at all, you're in for a loooooonnnngggg search. While that might be 10% of America, I'm guessing more like 1/10 of 1% of Asia. I'm not sure why someone would even want a woman like that, and I'm not a follower of any Western religions myself, but hey, everyone has their own taste. Just don't expect to hop off the plane in China and find a bunch of true athiests. They may not be Christians, Moslems, or Jews, but they'll have their own brand of spiritual beliefs and practices - some you may find fine, but others stranger than western religious beliefs and practices.

[sbcheflino]

I agree..Asia is certainly not the place to look for a non-religious women.....Their roots even go back further than Christianity....if not mistaken...

Good Luck

[rhodeswrestling]

I'd like to know myself ... is it worth it?

[robert angel]

Yea, Austin--I'd say it's worth it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I am a cynical guy and while I make plans for the future, I tell myself that life holds no certainties. I was married to a Filipina before and things really unraveled in a bad way and there were two kids caught up in the wreckage. That about killed me. I went from 220 pounds to 155 pounds and I wasn't fat at 220.

Still, I sucked it up, licked my wounds and what do you know--married another Filipina!

Stupidity--errrr--I mean 'hope' springs eternal. Well--maybe both do!

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and again and expecting different results, so maybe I'm a crazy guy.

I was about thirty when I first married and was 14 years with the first wife, 4 years and still counting with the second. I usually had live in loves before that, including some real winners in my teens and twenties, but always managed to screw things up, intentionally or unintentionally.

I found that the amount of 'quality' women available in the USA once you get past age 30, seems to decline markedly--and I think if anything, it gets worse in the 40's and 50 year old ranges.

I just have found that overall, most Filipina's temperments---personalities work better with my temperment and personality.

You can find 'bad' women anywhere in the world and believe you and me, Filipinas are no expection. There are some Filipinas, who will screw around on you big time--real horny, high maintenance women who can fool you at first.

I just have had an easier time finding really beautiful, lovable 'keepers' from the land of over 7000 islands than I have had here in the states.

PS--Only look for women on the 800 or so islands there that are regularly inhabited..and you might want to start with Luzon, Cebu and last but not least, Mindanao...

[Researcher]

       Definitely worth it.But there is no law against looking here and in other countries so why limit yourself?




    Researcher