Thought for the day

Jessica - the people that I love keep me here more than anything else, even when I was severely ill and in situations were I lost someone I loved I guess I have to say that I stayed for the hope that I would have another one of those rare moments where I woke up and the sun was shinning and the smell of jasmine was drifting in the window and a warm, purring cat was laying on my stomach.

Lots of people have dark times, at 50 years old, I've had my share where I have wondered why I bothered going on and then I'll hear a bird sing or a child laugh or my dog will jump in my lap and lick my face and I'll realize that there is only so much that can be taken away from a person. You can lose your job, your home, the people that you love and even your health but no one can take away the memories of the good things that happened to you in your life or the hope that there will be more.

There was a dark time in my life (in my 30's) where I came way too close to making a conscious choice to leave life. The only thing that stopped me was not knowing what would happen to my dogs if I did.

Twenty years later, all I can say is that I'm so glad that I didn't. One can build a lot of cherished memories in twenty years and I have. As I get closer to retirement and closer to an age where death is natural course of having lived I truly cherish each and every moment.

Fear of hell never even occurred to me but love of life did, even if it wasn't love of my own.

I dunno, maybe they actually like living?

Well I don't believe in hell, and i think the earth is a dandy place to hang out. One thing you can do here that's pretty neat is drink whiskey. Porn's fun, as is talking to Lo. I think overall it's pretty sweet.

Jessica, I'm so very sorry that you feel that way! It's a delicate subject and I'm not sure quite how to respond, but I'll answer your question form my perspective as a non-believer. I'm endlessly curious about everything. The world and the universe that contains it are magnificent, awe inspiring, and beautiful, and provide enough interesting questions that they couldn't all be answered in a thousand lifetimes. That's incredibly compelling to me because I'm so fascinated by everything and I love learning about something new each and every day. Beyond that, there's so many things that I enjoy doing... amazing books to get lost in, art to create and see, people to meet and talk to, places to visit, daydreams to ponder. When I am down I am never without hope that things can get better, because they can. It doesn't require magic. There's more kinds of faith than just religious faith. I have faith that even when I can't see it, the possibility always exists that tomorrow will be a better day than today, and that there WILL be things in the future... esperiences, relationships, answered questions, fun, love... that I wouldn't want to miss. The possibility of that is enough all by itself, even when I feel impatient for something like that to arrive and it seems like it's taking forever. We only get one shot at this life and that makes every day precious, even the awful ones.

As Paolo said, if you truly feel that way, please seek help and counseling. That's no way to go through life. Help is out there. And the reasons to live ALWAYS outnumber any reasons not to, by a factor of a million to one. If you can't see that, and you can't find hope for better days, don't deprive yourself of the help you need.

well that's what I just said, Chip!

How could I have forgotten about whiskey and porn?! That's plenty of reason right there

The topic of suicide raises so many other existential and philosophical questions that it would be very difficult to sum it up here in succinct terms. The way I see it, there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. However, I am no theological expert, and I wouldn't presume to know the deeper spiritual implications of suicide.

Let's not forget pie. One cannot life on porn alone.

Chocolate has gotten me through more than one tight scrape!

I guess we live in different worlds.

I don't think I need counseling. What can they tell me? That I 'don't think correctly'? That the problem is with the way that I think, not the world that I live in? That I should take enough medication so that the concerns I have about myself and the world around me just don't matter anymore? My family would not understand. This is really the reason I was hesitant to post my question in the first place, and in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have.

Rose - I missed your posted reply to Jessica, earlier. Just wanted to say how much I appreciated your sharing your personal story. You are a rare gem.

Jessica,

Thank you for your openess and honesty here. It's hard, even behind a fake name, to open yourself up like that.

Next time you are on SL, look me up in IM, and I'd be happy to talk with you. I'll be on and off all day, as I'm home with an injury.

Love and blessings

"Dirk"

Oh, I *so* agree! I think it is the greatest hypocricy in the Christian religion to cast judgement on people...and that's just what lecturing does.

Riffing on that thought...I'm reminded of my mother bringing me a book when I was young called 'TA for Kids'. It was a young person's guide to Transactional Analysis. While I won't speak as any expert on the subject, I do remember some of the basics. TA posits that we have three states of being. The Parent is our nurturing and teaching self. The Adult is our rational and reasoning self. The Child is our playful and emotional self. In a 'transaction', where one person interacts with another, and the other responds, you show which of the giver's selves (P, A, or C) is communicating with the receiver's selves.

For instance, the exchange
"Hi, how are you?...Fine, thanks."
would be the Adult self talking to the Adult self. This is a parallel exchange, and is relatively stress-free:

P...P
A===A
C...C

Other ways of transacting exist. For instance,
"Can I have dessert?....Yes, but only after you finish your dinner"
The Child self talks to the Parent self, and the Parent self responds in kind. Again, a pretty appropriate one:

P..//P
A.//.A
C//..C

Now, consider the following exchange:
"What do you think of homosexuality?...Homosexuality is an abomination of the Lord, and a mortal sin."
The Adult self talks to the other's Adult self, but the response is the Parent self talking to the Child Self:

P../P
A-*-A
C/..C

This is a cross transaction. When someone wants to communicate reasonably, and the other person talks down to the person in response...friction is bound to result.

Okay, long post to agree with what someone said succintly. But it was a childhood memory that had to be expressed.

Cool post, Liona! I remember TA from a high school Psych class. I think it's a helpful tool for analyzing human interaction. If memory serves, it is also the basis for the "I'm OK You're OK" movement of the 70's and 80's., which vaguely parallels the three "selves" of TA:

I'm OK / You're Not OK (i.e., Parent > Child)
I'm OK / You're OK (i.e., Adult > Adult )
I'm not OK / You're OK (i.e., Child > Parent)

As an interesting aside, Jesus is rarely portrayed in the transactional role of Parent. His scolding of temple authorities for abuse and/or hypocrisy aside, Jesus very much exemplified the Adult > Adult transactional model. Kinda makes ya wonder why so many of his followers have such a hard time emulating it?

Oh, you *don't* want me answering that question, Paolo. That whole topic just makes me angry. You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry....

I remember the I'm OK/You're OK, too...my mother loved to use it as a teaching tool. I remember that I really started having a problem with it, cause I thought it sounded so self-important. Like you could use the "I'm OK" to selfishly justify anything...course, I was confused kid dealing with a divorce and suddenly moving from a liberal culture in Augusta to a much more conservative culture in northwest Iowa. It took me years to realize that you can have self-esteem *and* humility.

When they invent porn pie my life will be complete

They already have.

Unfortunately, it wasn't good.

Liona discussing preachy people:

Fair enough, it would have been more polite and probably constructive to use a PM. For the imprudence, Dirk, I apologize.

Generally speaking, if one's goal is to convince others to a follow a philosophy, isn't internal consistency important? Or is there a free pass (in the case of Christianity, grace)? Suppose I were a Christian (one of my struggles would probably be legalism, as you observed) -- would grace allow me to say to potential converts, "well, you may note that I'm legalistic, but don't worry about it -- I've got grace."?

I am a rather rational-minded person in many cases, and maybe that's a not so useful. Perhaps it will cause me never to understand grace -- God knows I've tried.

Here is an illustration...

I have played basketball with Christian friends and acquaintances. One breaks a rule -- note, it's possible to be conscious of it, or unaware. Regardless of which case, the rule is broken, and there's a suitable consequence that has been (usually implicitly) agreed upon before the game. When I call a broken rule on someone, they will often say "it's not a big deal" and shrug it off. If I believe they were unaware of breaking the rule, I will relent, giving them the benefit of the doubt. But as the desire to win increases, sometimes people will break a rule intentionally.

If you pay careful attention to body language (especially facial expressions), you can often tell when someone is conscious of their questionable actions. If I accuse someone of cheating, the natural response is defensiveness, even if there are witnesses to corroborate the claim. However, here's the part I don't get: when the accused finally sees there's no way to talk his way out of it, he will turn around and say "fine, if it'll make you happy" (or something similar), as if my accusation is onerous.

Now, the same person (speaking from experience, not conjecture) will later call me on some broken rule (accident or not), and I will generally not argue the (reasonable) claim, because my reasoning is "sane people generally don't bitch unless provoked; why would someone make up a claim like that? therefore, it's probably legit." (and, obviously, if the temptation to cheat got the best of me, I can't deny it to myself). Experience tells me that I should just say "don't make a big deal of it" (like the others do), and yet, if we've agreed to follow the rules before the start of the game, why be inconsistent in following them? What is the benefit? It can't be to make sure that weaker players are given some balance, or we'd only allow selective rule following (AKA handicapping or whatever) for them (which in my experience, isn't done).

So, theologically, it boils down to "if we aren't really going to follow the 'special rules', why do we need the 'special rules'? and if we don't need the 'special rules', why do we need the one who made them up?" Why must human goodness necessarily be based on a particular religion?

(Please pardon the lengthiness... )

Fire insurance!! w00t! That was totally my motivation as a kid raised by authoritarian Christian parents (but hey, they were doing their best, and I love them for it).

Seriously, though, what keeps me here is a combination of:
(a) I'm too much of a chicken-shit to try to take my life.
(b) There's a good possibility that if God is real, and really wants me to "connect" with Him, I will "get it" eventually.

Consider, please, Romans 1:19-20

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Some of the things that amaze me are transcendental numbers, like PI, and how they show up even in completely different fields of mathematics. It's almost like a Creator saying "heh, isn't that hilarious? come on, you gotta know that's not just random." And yet, I'm not yet convinced we aren't seeing stuff like this as a result of the Strong Anthropic Principle, for instance.

People who are unswayable Christians tell me that they are convinced of God's reality because they have a relationship with Him. But they can't describe the nature of the relationship (in terms of communication) in a tangible (measurable) way. Early reports of a "God module" in the brain, although they are not yet all that credible, could suggest that my lack of belief has at least something to do with physiology.

And some logical problems with God as traditionally described are:
- Suppose God is perfect; a perfect being can have no needs or wants; God created us; therefore He wanted/needed humans to exist ; therefore He is not perfect
- Good is only meaningful with respect to evil; if a Christian's goal is to go to Heaven where everything is "good", how will that Christian recognize without anything against which to compare it? If Heaven is so undefined, why do I want to go there?
- If God really wants humans to make a choice to be with Him, why does He need to use coercion (threat of hell or whatever)? I win friends by being honest, straightforward, helpful, and whatever -- so far, it's working out pretty well, but do I have the wrong idea?

So, in the end, I'm mostly inclined to believe we are likely to have been created by some kind of higher power, but I'm not so sure it's the God described in the Christian Bible (especially considering his sudden radical changeover from "kill 'em, let me sort em out; when you die, you're dead -- that's it" (OT) to "hey man, I love you no matter what you do, and I want you to love me, but just in case you don't, LOOK OUT FOR HELL, BEEYOTCH!" (NT).

And maybe, it's just that I'm mad at God for putting me here, starting me out with a doormat personality, and expecting me to grow. Who knows?

Well then of course there is that question "Can God microwave a burrito so hot even he can't eat it?"

Last night, God told me in a dream that He is allergic to burritos (or one of their key ingredients -- say corn or something). However, He did say that He could eat the microwave whole, which in itself, is rather impressive. (He determined that during a rare call for 'dare' while playing Truth or Dare with Satan -- who always chooses 'dare', obviously).

I always choose dare as well, myself. It's just more fun than truth. Truth is boring, after all.

George Orwell wrote an excellent essay along this same train of thought...

Chip - You may recall my post (I believe in the"War and Christianity" thread) where I posited a theory about the ontological nature of humanity berfore and after the "fall." In essence, my hypothesis states that what took place in the Garden of Eden (literal or otherwise) was a loss of blissful ignorance. When Adam and Eve partook of the Tree of Knowledge, it was at that point that they were able to "see" a distinction between that which is "good" and that which is "evil." Prior to that, everything they experienced just "was."

It's almost impossible for me to imagine a world where contrast does not define the very core of reality. Even the physical universe is replete with juxtapositions, such as the postive and negative electrical/magnetic poles or night and day. I guess that for my hypothesis to work, it would also be necessary to presume that many of our present laws of physics (such as the law of entropy) are by-products of the fall, and did not exist prior.

Object-oriented programming is one analogy that begins to bridge that gap in imagination for me. A virtual object has a "form," a "purpose" and one or "methods (e.g., actions)," and its attributes and elements just "are." In and of themselves, they are neither good nor evil. In that scenario, the programmer is the arbiter of what the object shall and shall not be and do. So, imagine if you will, that each of us is an "object" and God is the divine "programmer" (very Matrix-esque lol). The fall, within this analogy, represents the objects' attempt to presume the role of programmer.

To relate this back to your post, Orwell's musings about heaven and hell are right on the money. I think evangelists of every age have used such manipulative imagery to cajole the masses into behaving certain ways. What if heaven actually represents a state of being that is not tainted by the "knowledge of good and evil?" Hardly a compelling ad campaign, I know, but when you begin to imagine the ramifications, it's pretty mind boggling. If all "objects" are harmoniously co-existing and operating within their prescribed boundaries, all strife and conflict is thusly eliminated.

I guess one other point I would make with regard to heaven is that for me, heaven has a relational context vs. a physical context. It is not a place of vast riches that I aspire to; it is a place of deepest interpersonal intimacy where beings can share of themselves fully without fear of reprisal.