Yes I am drunk.
Yes I love all of you.
You are my friends. You need to know this.
Yes this is sparked by pat's dad's funeral.
'
I am a religious man, and I have explained this before.
Johnny is dead. His sons believe he is with Jesus (and by the way the priest can go straight to hell. Can you believe the fucker said we don't know if Johnny went straight to heaven or purgatory... It's a fucking funeral. I myself will punch you in the face. Fuck you. Seriously, I will now pray for that priest to suffer in purgatory. Johnny was that good.
I had an extremely uncomfortable conversation with Pat's wife today.
She asked me about the afterlife. And I flat out asked her if she is asking me as a temporary Catholic or as me.
She asked as me. I told her what I think. We talked more. Out of character of courses.
She said something that I understand completely. She said I don't want eternal blackness.
A Catholic was looking to me as a Pagan priest for answers.
The best I could say was, "Yeah, I'm terrified too. I don't know. but the way I see it, temporary religion aside, is that Johnny is now seated at the table with his ancestors, and because time runs differently there, we are seated with him."
What can I say?
What can I say when my best answer is, "Right now, believe it or not, you're dead and you're eating really boss bacon with him right now."
What do I say when I don't even know?
I think a lot of us here are on largely uncharted spiritual ground in the sense that we are developing our own answers, without being ready for others to want to listen to us.
Funerals are always rough.
Tell them what they want to hear.
Funerals are not a place to profess oblivion to people who want to hear about unicorns or and honest to fuck "I don't know" to people who want reassurance their loved one is still alive somewhere.
I think funerals and cancer wards may be the only places I will not be a complete dick by default
Rough times Twid. I have only an honest "I don't, and can't, know about death. Life is the important thing. Your loved one would want you to live it." for most people. My father expects a hug from Jesus/God and a "Well done, My good and faithful servant."
If I were to judge I'd say he's earned it overall. When he passes I will tell people of what he believed he was going to, to honor him. This belief has been a true bedrock for him and through him my family.
I have seen such strength in the human spirit. I see it at work in the hospital on many of the patients and the people I work with. It is not there in everyone, but faith, the belief in that which has not been seen, is a way to cultivate it. It is for this reason that I cannot throw out the child faith just to have the empty and clean bathtub of reason.
Oh and
QuoteJohnny is dead. His sons believe he is with Jesus (and by the way the priest can go straight to hell. Can you believe the fucker said we don't know if Johnny went straight to heaven or purgatory... It's a fucking funeral. I myself will punch you in the face. Fuck you. Seriously, I will now pray for that priest to suffer in purgatory. Johnny was that good.
THIS
There is nothing worse than an insensitive, fool ass, priest at a funeral. Fuck him. He'll find out all about it soon enough.
First Law of Thermodynamics always springs to mind for me. (I may be thinking of the wrong one.. yanno, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only change)
I used it once in terms of ecosystems and chemical energy.... the heat of the person may be gone, but they are still intrinsically part of the world. This is why I wants one of them biodegradable woodland burials, with as little chemical treatment as I can get away with. I WANT to be worm and bug and plant foods, and in a sciencey way be actually part of the ecosystem and the earth and surroundings, I don't need any.of the where does the the conciousness part (for me, anyways) go type questions, anymore. We can only be sure that memories and the actual physical matter and energy live on.
It's probably a pretty poor comfort for some people, and once upon a time it was very poor comfort for me... hence my pagan phase, which was a coping mechanism.
Quote from: Pixie on September 18, 2012, 03:56:50 PM
It's probably a pretty poor comfort for some people, and once upon a time it was very poor comfort for me... hence my pagan phase, which was a coping mechanism.
Yeah. At some point you either grow out of the childish bullshit or you're riding unicorns and jesus all the way to retard central :lulz:
I struggle sometimes with the whole "when you're dead you're dead" thing, but I'm slowly becoming okay with it. I was still fairly young when I decided that the traditional "go live in Heaven with the people you love" thing was nonsense. I mean, Heaven is beyond time and space, but somehow your experience of being there is analogous to a really well-kept suburban subdivision with fancy gold streets? How do you walk down a street or have a conversation or hug someone when there is no time? Also, if there is no time, how is it that people arrive there before you do and then "wait" for you to get there? Bullshit. Christians apparently do not actually stop to think about the meaning and implications of the word "eternal."
But what good is living forever? I understand my fear of death to be a combination of things. Fear of the unknown, anger at being removed from everything (or everything being removed from me), jealousy of people I will leave behind, sorrow for people who will be sad to see me go, and the threat of not being there to provide for people who depend on me. There's also a feeling that it is somehow "unfair" to be denied the right to watch events unfold forever. I am intensely interested in history and that I will die relatively soon is like being plucked out of a theater before you get to see the end of an awesome movie.
Indulging in a belief system that allows you to pretend none of this applies to you is a tragedy, because it gives you an excuse not to make every effort to improve your life now, and it gives you "all the time in the universe" to learn, so you have no motivation to learn now. It disgusts me to think about all the good that could exist here, now, but doesn't, because so many people are waiting for it to happen after they die.
My approach was to accept that something would happen after I die. Either oblivion and no more me or something something unicorns something jesus. The hard part (the being a grown up part) was accepting that, until I'm dead, the whole question is as irrelevant as it is unanswerable.
Once you've accepted this you get the added bonus of viewing most of humanity (faithfools and atheists alike) as being naive and childish in this respect.
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 18, 2012, 05:09:30 PM
My approach was to accept that something would happen after I die. Either oblivion and no more me or something something unicorns something jesus. The hard part (the being a grown up part) was accepting that, until I'm dead, the whole question is as irrelevant as it is unanswerable.
Once you've accepted this you get the added bonus of viewing most of humanity (faithfools and atheists alike) as being naive and childish in this respect.
I've never been a big fan of referring to people as "faithfools" unless they insist on trying to drag me off to crazytown with them.
Notable exceptions: Libertarians, Homeopathy freaks, Fred Phelps.
Personally, I'm not an atheist. I just don't feel the need to grab you guys by the arm and bellow my personal beliefs in your face.
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 18, 2012, 05:09:30 PM
My approach was to accept that something would happen after I die. Either oblivion and no more me or something something unicorns something jesus. The hard part (the being a grown up part) was accepting that, until I'm dead, the whole question is as irrelevant as it is unanswerable.
Once you've accepted this you get the added bonus of viewing most of humanity (faithfools and atheists alike) as being naive and childish in this respect.
Once upon a time I didn't believe the question was unanswerable, it was just really hard to get enough LSD. Part of me still believes this, but the part of me that knows psychedelic experiences depend on having a brain laughs it off.
Yes my head hurts like a motherfucker.
Yes I need to take a shit and chug 2 pints of water.
No I don't feel like moving.
Is this not the human condition right here?
Oh and yes, I kinda remember posting the OP
And yes, I still agree wit fuck that priest guy.
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 05:13:52 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 18, 2012, 05:09:30 PM
My approach was to accept that something would happen after I die. Either oblivion and no more me or something something unicorns something jesus. The hard part (the being a grown up part) was accepting that, until I'm dead, the whole question is as irrelevant as it is unanswerable.
Once you've accepted this you get the added bonus of viewing most of humanity (faithfools and atheists alike) as being naive and childish in this respect.
I've never been a big fan of referring to people as "faithfools" unless they insist on trying to drag me off to crazytown with them.
Notable exceptions: Libertarians, Homeopathy freaks, Fred Phelps.
Personally, I'm not an atheist. I just don't feel the need to grab you guys by the arm and bellow my personal beliefs in your face.
Yeah, this. Though I can find a lot of common ground with atheists. Because whatever IT is, it seems weirder and bigger that I can get my mind around, and nothing like what anybody tells you "God" is. For the record, I have no fucking idea what happens when we die. Nobody does, and anybody who says they do needs to stop lying and go ponder the "don't treat people like crap" aspect of whatever their religion is.
Quote from: TEXAS FAIRIES FOR ALL YOU SPAGS on September 18, 2012, 05:30:22 PM
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 05:13:52 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 18, 2012, 05:09:30 PM
My approach was to accept that something would happen after I die. Either oblivion and no more me or something something unicorns something jesus. The hard part (the being a grown up part) was accepting that, until I'm dead, the whole question is as irrelevant as it is unanswerable.
Once you've accepted this you get the added bonus of viewing most of humanity (faithfools and atheists alike) as being naive and childish in this respect.
I've never been a big fan of referring to people as "faithfools" unless they insist on trying to drag me off to crazytown with them.
Notable exceptions: Libertarians, Homeopathy freaks, Fred Phelps.
Personally, I'm not an atheist. I just don't feel the need to grab you guys by the arm and bellow my personal beliefs in your face.
Yeah, this. Though I can find a lot of common ground with atheists. Because whatever IT is, it seems weirder and bigger that I can get my mind around, and nothing like what anybody tells you "God" is. For the record, I have no fucking idea what happens when we die. Nobody does, and anybody who says they do needs to stop lying and go ponder the "don't treat people like crap" aspect of whatever their religion is.
It pretty easy to agree with an atheist. Mostly because a lot of religious people are fucking stupid.
Quote from: TEXAS FAIRIES FOR ALL YOU SPAGS on September 18, 2012, 05:30:22 PM
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 05:13:52 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 18, 2012, 05:09:30 PM
My approach was to accept that something would happen after I die. Either oblivion and no more me or something something unicorns something jesus. The hard part (the being a grown up part) was accepting that, until I'm dead, the whole question is as irrelevant as it is unanswerable.
Once you've accepted this you get the added bonus of viewing most of humanity (faithfools and atheists alike) as being naive and childish in this respect.
I've never been a big fan of referring to people as "faithfools" unless they insist on trying to drag me off to crazytown with them.
Notable exceptions: Libertarians, Homeopathy freaks, Fred Phelps.
Personally, I'm not an atheist. I just don't feel the need to grab you guys by the arm and bellow my personal beliefs in your face.
Yeah, this. Though I can find a lot of common ground with atheists. Because whatever IT is, it seems weirder and bigger that I can get my mind around, and nothing like what anybody tells you "God" is. For the record, I have no fucking idea what happens when we die. Nobody does, and anybody who says they do needs to stop lying and go ponder the "don't treat people like crap" aspect of whatever their religion is.
Ding.
Also, I'm reasonably sure that if I was God, I wouldn't want a bunch of ass-kissers showing up on my doorstep, bragging about what they did to the homosexuals/women/Those People/That Religion.
I mean, think about it...It would be like having the population of Seguin coming by and wanting to sit on your couch and brag about what they did to that guy with the Obama 2012 sticker on his bumper.
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on September 18, 2012, 05:32:38 PM
It pretty easy to agree with an atheist.
Not really, for two reasons: A) They assume that absence of evidence = evidence of absence, which is a fallacy, and B) A lot of them won't shut up about it, and insist on fucking with people who disagree with them. That sort of atheist is no different than the most annoying Calvinist.
Quote
Mostly because a lot of religious people are fucking stupid.
Edited to remove incorrect qualifier.
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 05:35:45 PM
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on September 18, 2012, 05:32:38 PM
It pretty easy to agree with an atheist.
Not really, for two reasons: A) They assume that absence of evidence = evidence of absence, which is a fallacy, and B) A lot of them won't shut up about it, and insist on fucking with people who disagree with them. That sort of atheist is no different than the most annoying Calvinist.
Quote
Mostly because a lot of religious people are fucking stupid.
Edited to remove incorrect qualifier.
Part two explains part one. That's why I like to describe a lot of atheists are religious fundamentalists.
They found their ism, and now they have to evangelize.
Also I took that shit. It was a glorious, but predictably messy shit.
Already starting to feel better but I'm annoyed my colon made me get up.
I don't know if there is a god, and I can't say with absolute certainty if there's an afterlife, but I can say with all the confidence I can muster, when dad died it was turning off a light switch. He didn't "go" anywhere, he just... stopped.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on September 18, 2012, 06:13:12 PM
I don't know if there is a god, and I can't say with absolute certainty if there's an afterlife, but I can say with all the confidence I can muster, when dad died it was turning off a light switch. He didn't "go" anywhere, he just... stopped.
This is unacceptable to me. If religion didn't exist, I would have to invent it. That is too terrifying a prospect to me.
Johnny wasn't ready to die apparently, regardless of knowing that it was coming.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on September 18, 2012, 06:13:12 PM
I don't know if there is a god, and I can't say with absolute certainty if there's an afterlife, but I can say with all the confidence I can muster, when dad died it was turning off a light switch. He didn't "go" anywhere, he just... stopped.
For all you know, he's standing in a classroom somewhere, lecturing his ass off and having the time of his (after)life.
Think of it that way. Either he's gone, in which case at least he's not dealing with fucking cancer anymore, or he's enjoying the hell out of himself.
I don't have any room in my cosmology for any other options.
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 05:13:52 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 18, 2012, 05:09:30 PM
My approach was to accept that something would happen after I die. Either oblivion and no more me or something something unicorns something jesus. The hard part (the being a grown up part) was accepting that, until I'm dead, the whole question is as irrelevant as it is unanswerable.
Once you've accepted this you get the added bonus of viewing most of humanity (faithfools and atheists alike) as being naive and childish in this respect.
I've never been a big fan of referring to people as "faithfools" unless they insist on trying to drag me off to crazytown with them.
Notable exceptions: Libertarians, Homeopathy freaks, Fred Phelps.
Personally, I'm not an atheist. I just don't feel the need to grab you guys by the arm and bellow my personal beliefs in your face.
I'm more than comfortable calling them faithfools, given that the whole concept of "faith" is one of the most strategically retarded positions possible. It's essentially saying "I'm confident everything will be okay because I hope it will"
I class athiests slightly differently - they are essentially faithfools after a different fashion - "I'm confident fuck all will be okay because I hope it won't" but they don't have the intellectual honesty to admit it.
The bottom line is - any beliefs are dumb. If you have one, it's pretty much a given that smart people will exploit you. Smart people have models and the difference between beliefs and models is that models will change, given the arrival of new information. Beliefs will simply become even more retarded.
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 18, 2012, 06:48:23 PM
The bottom line is - any beliefs are dumb.
I'm comfortable with that.
I've been a dumbfuck all my life. :lulz:
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 06:49:48 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 18, 2012, 06:48:23 PM
The bottom line is - any beliefs are dumb.
I'm comfortable with that.
I've been a dumbfuck all my life. :lulz:
I believe you :evil:
Also, I'd like that add that unlike Libertarianism, homeopathy, and Fred Phelps, my beliefs are harmless to others. Hell, I've mentioned them a grand total of 3 times in 10 years, and I've never even bothered to explain them.
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 18, 2012, 06:51:36 PM
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 06:49:48 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 18, 2012, 06:48:23 PM
The bottom line is - any beliefs are dumb.
I'm comfortable with that.
I've been a dumbfuck all my life. :lulz:
I believe you :evil:
That's a bit of a line with me. One day, I said something pig-ignorant in front of Mrs Castro, if you can believe it, and she eyeballed me and said "You're lucky that I like 'em big and dumb.", and I replied, "That's awesome, honey, because I've been a dumbass all my life."
And then she accidentally.
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 06:54:28 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 18, 2012, 06:51:36 PM
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 06:49:48 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 18, 2012, 06:48:23 PM
The bottom line is - any beliefs are dumb.
I'm comfortable with that.
I've been a dumbfuck all my life. :lulz:
I believe you :evil:
That's a bit of a line with me. One day, I said something pig-ignorant in front of Mrs Castro, if you can believe it, and she eyeballed me and said "You're lucky that I like 'em big and dumb.", and I replied, "That's awesome, honey, because I've been a dumbass all my life."
And then she accidentally.
:lulz:
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 18, 2012, 06:48:23 PM
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 05:13:52 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on September 18, 2012, 05:09:30 PM
My approach was to accept that something would happen after I die. Either oblivion and no more me or something something unicorns something jesus. The hard part (the being a grown up part) was accepting that, until I'm dead, the whole question is as irrelevant as it is unanswerable.
Once you've accepted this you get the added bonus of viewing most of humanity (faithfools and atheists alike) as being naive and childish in this respect.
I've never been a big fan of referring to people as "faithfools" unless they insist on trying to drag me off to crazytown with them.
Notable exceptions: Libertarians, Homeopathy freaks, Fred Phelps.
Personally, I'm not an atheist. I just don't feel the need to grab you guys by the arm and bellow my personal beliefs in your face.
I'm more than comfortable calling them faithfools, given that the whole concept of "faith" is one of the most strategically retarded positions possible. It's essentially saying "I'm confident everything will be okay because I hope it will"
I class athiests slightly differently - they are essentially faithfools after a different fashion - "I'm confident fuck all will be okay because I hope it won't" but they don't have the intellectual honesty to admit it.
The bottom line is - any beliefs are dumb. If you have one, it's pretty much a given that smart people will exploit you. Smart people have models and the difference between beliefs and models is that models will change, given the arrival of new information. Beliefs will simply become even more retarded.
Meh, my "belief system" is comprised of "I don't know. Neither do you. In the meantime, leave me the fuck alone about it." I.E., I don't know that something IS going to happen. I don't know that something ISN'T going to happen. I'd like to believe something
might happen, and I keep an open mind, but I don't particularly like anyone telling me what is or isn't going to happen. Yes, dying forever is scary, though I guess that won't matter too much when I'm dead, will it? :lulz:
But yes, wanting to believe SOMETHING certainly can lead to vunerability and being taken advantage of. I certainly don't fault people for having some kind of faith.It's when they're blinded by it that it becomes a problem.
As for death, I'm not sure how I feel about it, uncomfortable I suppose. I haven't had anyone close to me die since I was young (my last grandparent died when I was in 6th grade). People I've known, but weren't close too and/or people that people I care about have known have died in more recent years. "I'm sorry" and "I'm here for you" are usually the best I can offer. I tend to shy away from "he/she's in a better place now" or most other "words of comfort" since regardless of one's afterlife belief, it seems to be cold comfort to utter some cliche - better to lend an ear, or a shoulder to cry on, etc. There is nothing I can say that will really make it better, so I would rather not pretend to try. My boyfriend understood when a close friend died and I was still there for him as much as I could. I just hope it doesn't seem to cold to others, because that's not it at all. I would certainly be broken up if/when someone close to me dies - it will still mean more to have people there for me, rather than people talking at me, if that makes any sense.
Quote from: trippinprincezz13 on September 18, 2012, 07:07:23 PMYes, dying forever is scary, though I guess that won't matter too much when I'm dead, will it? :lulz:
This is pretty much my entire philosophy in a nutshell. You let the fear of death or the having to devote your entire life to misery and servitude thing take over then you're pissing away the only part of eternity that can be verified, ie the 70 years or so that you get to be alive.
There is also the part that's been touched on already ITT. The kind of god that wants to surround himself with sycophantic miserable cunts like christfags is an asshole who I want nothing to do with. even if that means trading eternity for 70 years or so of partying like I mean it.
one thing that assuages me is considering that i don't really feel too terrible about the time before i was alive, so i really shouldn't feel too terrible about the time after i'm alive.
furthermore, we are limited in space, just as well as time. should we be upset about the fact that we are missing the experience of life on that planet 4000 lightyears away where they finally rid themselves of stupid, and the worst thing in life is the dull ache in your cheeks from grinning too much? nobody ever gnashes their teeth about that one...
it doesn't dismiss the notion that we should strive to live longer, experience more, seek unicorns, etc. but it seems to focus the notion that anguishing over temporal limitation sours the infinitesimal grain of perception we do have at our disposal.
Quote from: Elder Iptuous on September 18, 2012, 07:44:15 PM
one thing that assuages me is considering that i don't really feel too terrible about the time before i was alive, so i really shouldn't feel too terrible about the time after i'm alive.
furthermore, we are limited in space, just as well as time. should we be upset about the fact that we are missing the experience of life on that planet 4000 lightyears away where they finally rid themselves of stupid, and the worst thing in life is the dull ache in your cheeks from grinning too much? nobody ever gnashes their teeth about that one...
it doesn't dismiss the notion that we should strive to live longer, experience more, seek unicorns, etc. but it seems to focus the notion that anguishing over temporal limitation sours the infinitesimal grain of perception we do have at our disposal.
Well, that's exactly it. IF we were put here by some agency, it was obviously for us to
live our lives. IF we got here by natural means, but have been "adopted" by some agency, then we still have to
live our lives. And IF it's a cold, empty void, then we'd DAMN WELL BETTER
live our lives, because that's all we've got.
The problem is, most people walk around assuming that God (or whatever) is just as petty and narcissitic as they are. "GROVEL LEST I THROW YOU INTO THE DARKNESS." Sounds like the admins at Mysticwicks, more than a deity of any kind. And if the deity IS like that, then I'll take the darkness, if it's all the same to him/her/it.
Quote from: Elder Iptuous on September 18, 2012, 07:44:15 PM
one thing that assuages me is considering that i don't really feel too terrible about the time before i was alive, so i really shouldn't feel too terrible about the time after i'm alive.
furthermore, we are limited in space, just as well as time. should we be upset about the fact that we are missing the experience of life on that planet 4000 lightyears away where they finally rid themselves of stupid, and the worst thing in life is the dull ache in your cheeks from grinning too much? nobody ever gnashes their teeth about that one...
it doesn't dismiss the notion that we should strive to live longer, experience more, seek unicorns, etc. but it seems to focus the notion that anguishing over temporal limitation sours the infinitesimal grain of perception we do have at our disposal.
Yup! I strongly suspect that if more people got this, the world would be a lot less retarded and possibly nowhere near as much fun :lulz:
Quote from: Pixie on September 18, 2012, 03:56:50 PM
First Law of Thermodynamics always springs to mind for me. (I may be thinking of the wrong one.. yanno, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only change)
I used it once in terms of ecosystems and chemical energy.... the heat of the person may be gone, but they are still intrinsically part of the world. This is why I wants one of them biodegradable woodland burials, with as little chemical treatment as I can get away with. I WANT to be worm and bug and plant foods, and in a sciencey way be actually part of the ecosystem and the earth and surroundings, I don't need any.of the where does the the conciousness part (for me, anyways) go type questions, anymore. We can only be sure that memories and the actual physical matter and energy live on.
Exactly this.
Quote from: v3x on September 18, 2012, 04:56:10 PM
But what good is living forever? I understand my fear of death to be a combination of things. Fear of the unknown, anger at being removed from everything (or everything being removed from me), jealousy of people I will leave behind, sorrow for people who will be sad to see me go, and the threat of not being there to provide for people who depend on me. There's also a feeling that it is somehow "unfair" to be denied the right to watch events unfold forever. I am intensely interested in history and that I will die relatively soon is like being plucked out of a theater before you get to see the end of an awesome movie.
Also exactly this.
About the whole god and atheism thing... It's funny. When I bumped into Discordianism on Wikipedia, I was about 15 or 16, and in the bouts of militant atheism. I would spend a lot of time on theism arguments online, and couldn't identify with religious or theistic thinking at all. But when I read about Discordian metaphysics, you know, the PURE CHAOS + grids stuff, it was like "hey, I thought that was my own idea", and I also pretty quickly recognized that Eris is a useful metaphor. It took years for that metaphor to grow on me, and that was part of a process of understanding why people are religious in an empathetic, non-judgmental way. "Eris" is to me a bridge between rational atheism and theism. I'm still basically an atheist, I've just stopped caring about it so much, and can playfully and/or seriously entertain notions that don't fit in with strong atheism. And this is possible because I can connect with the proposition that chaos controls the universe and is beyond my understanding. I still can't connect with religious ritual or "faith", but I can have conversations with human beings who see the world differently, and I can even go along with a lot of their thoughts, so long as they're harmless. (Not long ago I had a really nice conversation with a woman who is making a career change from Animal Communicator to Angel-Assisted Healer, kept a straight face as she briefly described these two vocations, and still don't think of her as a total idiot. I shit you not.)
And this stuff mostly happened just from reading the Wikipedia article about Discordianism, and maybe the Principia – all well before I discovered PDCOM and started getting my brain kicked around in unexpected directions.
Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:47:12 PM
Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!
Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?
Quote from: VERBL on September 18, 2012, 09:48:14 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:47:12 PM
Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!
Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?
It's hippy for "neat".
Quote from: VERBL on September 18, 2012, 09:48:14 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:47:12 PM
Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!
Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?
Sorry. The consequence of the more or less random exposure to the Discordia mythos and philosophy sounds like it has considerably altered your perceptions over time. Not trying to de-rail and confuse.
Personally If there is an omni-being that could be called God I think the whole Sacred Chao descriptor well describes it's "paintbrush", if you will. We are inherently limited in our ability to use it, but just knowledge of the "chaos" that transcends order and disorder can lend perspective and allow for more info and tolerance in one's life. Personal opinion only of course.
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 09:50:06 PM
Quote from: VERBL on September 18, 2012, 09:48:14 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:47:12 PM
Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!
Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?
It's hippy for "neat".
You would not believe how many hippies reside in the LaX area. I think I've caught something.
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:56:43 PM
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 09:50:06 PM
Quote from: VERBL on September 18, 2012, 09:48:14 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:47:12 PM
Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!
Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?
It's hippy for "neat".
You would not believe how many hippies reside in the LaX area. I think I've caught something.
That's no excuse. I'm up to my ASS in last year's hipsters (it's a Tucson thing), and you don't see ME wearing a stupid Brad Pitt hat.
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 09:58:40 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:56:43 PM
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 09:50:06 PM
Quote from: VERBL on September 18, 2012, 09:48:14 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:47:12 PM
Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!
Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?
It's hippy for "neat".
You would not believe how many hippies reside in the LaX area. I think I've caught something.
That's no excuse. I'm up to my ASS in last year's hipsters (it's a Tucson thing), and you don't see ME wearing a stupid Brad Pitt hat.
I don't see you wearing anything.. this is an internet forum. :)
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 10:00:36 PM
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 09:58:40 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:56:43 PM
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 09:50:06 PM
Quote from: VERBL on September 18, 2012, 09:48:14 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:47:12 PM
Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!
Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?
It's hippy for "neat".
You would not believe how many hippies reside in the LaX area. I think I've caught something.
That's no excuse. I'm up to my ASS in last year's hipsters (it's a Tucson thing), and you don't see ME wearing a stupid Brad Pitt hat.
I don't see you wearing anything.. this is an internet forum. :)
Oh, you'd know it.
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:55:26 PM
Quote from: VERBL on September 18, 2012, 09:48:14 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:47:12 PM
Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!
Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?
Sorry. The consequence of the more or less random exposure to the Discordia mythos and philosophy sounds like it has considerably altered your perceptions over time. Not trying to de-rail and confuse.
Personally If there is an omni-being that could be called God I think the whole Sacred Chao descriptor well describes it's "paintbrush", if you will. We are inherently limited in our ability to use it, but just knowledge of the "chaos" that transcends order and disorder can lend perspective and allow for more info and tolerance in one's life. Personal opinion only of course.
Yeah, that's part of the story, but putting it in that kind of cause-and-effect way is a bit of Lo5, or maybe just too little information on my part. I was a teenager, going through a lot of changes, and exposure to Discordia was one small part of it. It only became a big deal and had a central effect after I moved to Germany, when I started spending a lot of time on PDCOM – and that was BIP Discordia, not PD Discordia. When I was a teenager I was mostly learning to calm down, be social, and open up to people; part of that was ceasing to be a dick about religion, which PD Discordia helped with.
Anyway, we're derailing here... This is not the VERBL's History of Personal Development Thread.
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 10:01:57 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 10:00:36 PM
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 09:58:40 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:56:43 PM
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 09:50:06 PM
Quote from: VERBL on September 18, 2012, 09:48:14 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:47:12 PM
Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!
Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?
It's hippy for "neat".
You would not believe how many hippies reside in the LaX area. I think I've caught something.
That's no excuse. I'm up to my ASS in last year's hipsters (it's a Tucson thing), and you don't see ME wearing a stupid Brad Pitt hat.
I don't see you wearing anything.. this is an internet forum. :)
Oh, you'd know it.
You know I think there's some stuff about that in the back end of the Bible. Hmmm..Oceans of blood, sun darkens, sky rolls back like a scroll... AH! here it is! Yep, that sounds like you in a stupid Brad Pitt hat alright. Please don't sir. The rest of the shit afterward sounds pretty bad.
Quote from: VERBL on September 18, 2012, 10:07:20 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:55:26 PM
Quote from: VERBL on September 18, 2012, 09:48:14 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on September 18, 2012, 09:47:12 PM
Awesome description of the Butterfly effect ITT!
Did I miss something, or is the butterfly effect something very different from what I thought it is?
Sorry. The consequence of the more or less random exposure to the Discordia mythos and philosophy sounds like it has considerably altered your perceptions over time. Not trying to de-rail and confuse.
Personally If there is an omni-being that could be called God I think the whole Sacred Chao descriptor well describes it's "paintbrush", if you will. We are inherently limited in our ability to use it, but just knowledge of the "chaos" that transcends order and disorder can lend perspective and allow for more info and tolerance in one's life. Personal opinion only of course.
Yeah, that's part of the story, but putting it in that kind of cause-and-effect way is a bit of Lo5, or maybe just too little information on my part. I was a teenager, going through a lot of changes, and exposure to Discordia was one small part of it. It only became a big deal and had a central effect after I moved to Germany, when I started spending a lot of time on PDCOM – and that was BIP Discordia, not PD Discordia. When I was a teenager I was mostly learning to calm down, be social, and open up to people; part of that was ceasing to be a dick about religion, which PD Discordia helped with.
Anyway, we're derailing here... This is not the VERBL's History of Personal Development Thread.
gotcha.
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 18, 2012, 07:48:13 PM
Quote from: Elder Iptuous on September 18, 2012, 07:44:15 PM
one thing that assuages me is considering that i don't really feel too terrible about the time before i was alive, so i really shouldn't feel too terrible about the time after i'm alive.
furthermore, we are limited in space, just as well as time. should we be upset about the fact that we are missing the experience of life on that planet 4000 lightyears away where they finally rid themselves of stupid, and the worst thing in life is the dull ache in your cheeks from grinning too much? nobody ever gnashes their teeth about that one...
it doesn't dismiss the notion that we should strive to live longer, experience more, seek unicorns, etc. but it seems to focus the notion that anguishing over temporal limitation sours the infinitesimal grain of perception we do have at our disposal.
Well, that's exactly it. IF we were put here by some agency, it was obviously for us to live our lives. IF we got here by natural means, but have been "adopted" by some agency, then we still have to live our lives. And IF it's a cold, empty void, then we'd DAMN WELL BETTER live our lives, because that's all we've got.
The problem is, most people walk around assuming that God (or whatever) is just as petty and narcissitic as they are. "GROVEL LEST I THROW YOU INTO THE DARKNESS." Sounds like the admins at Mysticwicks, more than a deity of any kind. And if the deity IS like that, then I'll take the darkness, if it's all the same to him/her/it.
I agree so heartily with the above two posts.
Once I was having a conversation with some Buddhists, and they were talking about levels of reincarnation (as in, do you become an animal spirit or hell spirit or human or deity or whatnot when reincarnated), and I just said, none of that matters. We're here, now, with no guarantees of anything else other than this, and if anything might come after, we've got absolutely no control over it other than to /enjoy our lives/. I don't think there's anything after that would have a 'me' in it, but that's equally irrelevant to what's going on right now.
Quote from: VERBL on September 18, 2012, 09:39:55 PM
About the whole god and atheism thing... It's funny. When I bumped into Discordianism on Wikipedia, I was about 15 or 16, and in the bouts of militant atheism. I would spend a lot of time on theism arguments online, and couldn't identify with religious or theistic thinking at all. But when I read about Discordian metaphysics, you know, the PURE CHAOS + grids stuff, it was like "hey, I thought that was my own idea", and I also pretty quickly recognized that Eris is a useful metaphor. It took years for that metaphor to grow on me, and that was part of a process of understanding why people are religious in an empathetic, non-judgmental way. "Eris" is to me a bridge between rational atheism and theism. I'm still basically an atheist, I've just stopped caring about it so much, and can playfully and/or seriously entertain notions that don't fit in with strong atheism. And this is possible because I can connect with the proposition that chaos controls the universe and is beyond my understanding. I still can't connect with religious ritual or "faith", but I can have conversations with human beings who see the world differently, and I can even go along with a lot of their thoughts, so long as they're harmless. (Not long ago I had a really nice conversation with a woman who is making a career change from Animal Communicator to Angel-Assisted Healer, kept a straight face as she briefly described these two vocations, and still don't think of her as a total idiot. I shit you not.)
And this stuff mostly happened just from reading the Wikipedia article about Discordianism, and maybe the Principia – all well before I discovered PDCOM and started getting my brain kicked around in unexpected directions.
Essentially this. My I'm fine, you're fine mentality has basically expanded while at the same time my ability to recognize, poke fun at and otherwise deal with the uniforms people put on and/or cling to has developed as well.
If that makes any sense