Official Off-Topic Thread

[Helm]

I didn't want to block any one's opinion, or thoughts; just felt someone was going to end up in trouble, as religious subjects tend to end up making things worse, especially by conflicting minds.

Trouble is a good thing to get in once in a while. A strike on an internet forum... it's not much if it sets someone to thinking more critically about some things. Staying out of trouble and not discussing a serious issue once in a while is more contributive to the withering of a community for me. I don't like these "NO POLITICAL OR RELIGIOUS DISCUSSIONS ALLOWED" places. Sure tempers flare up and that can be controlled with moderation. But in the bysides people express themselves and engage in lucid conversation. It's not so bad.

[JJ Naas]

Trouble is a good thing to get in once in a while.

Haha, reminds me of something one other "Greek" said:

"Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble."

Anthony Quinn as Zorba at the end of the movie Zorba the Greek.

[Froli]

I want to rant.

My country is religious. My family is too religious to the point of stupidity. Too religious, too superstitious, lacking common sense and logic is a recipe to a disaster.

I learned some years ago a "Spiritual healer" gave my sister, her husband and my mom some liquid mercury to be mixed in water and drink it time to time to have a long life. And I believe my family now is suffering it's side effects. Who knows if they put it on my drinks without my consent. And thinking about this makes me so angry 

At a young age, my mom tries to brain wash me that I will go to hell if I don't go to church every Sunday. I often skip it, but when I get home,  she asks me on what was the sermon. My punishment of course, getting my allowance cut in half.

I remember when I was young that some of my basic needs are not provided and it continued to my teenage years.  As I got older, I learned my parents was giving a huge amount of money to the church. I guess they want their names to be mentioned on every meetings to get their ego caressed. My mom is now a changed person  <noticed this around year 2000> but that doesn't change the fact that my 3 sisters and older brother is F***** up because of the way we are raised.

[.TakaM]

being forced to attend church is so.. odd.
when I was too old for Sunday school and started attending the real church, I couldn't stand it, but I still continued to go for about a year out of guilt.
Around the point my family accepted I wouldn't go to church anymore, I started going to catholic high school

I still find the idea of god comforting, so I can easily understand why so many people are religious.
I don't really know any very religious, but most people seem to turn instantly into zealots as soon as I bring up atheism.



other:
Out of curiosity, how many people here are familiar with Raymond Briggs's "The Snowman"
I must've seen it at least a hundred times throughout my childhood, and it's probably the thing that can take me back in time the fastest

[JJ Naas]

I still find the idea of god comforting, so I can easily understand why so many people are religious.
I don't really know any very religious, but most people seem to turn instantly into zealots as soon as I bring up atheism.

I agree that belief brings comfort and the communal aspect of it can be very important for many people as well, the need to belong to a group. However, my interest in this whole debate isn't really the moral or philosophical aspects, although they are important as well, but what matters to me most is the question what is true. Just because something brings comfort doesn't mean it's true. I'd rather give up happiness for truth, if that really were the choice, but I don't think I'm any less awed by many things I see in the nature just because I don't believe in a certain deity. Carl Sagan said: "We're the way of the universe to be aware of itself", so I suppose that's where my spirituality lies, in a Spinozan definition of God, if you like. I'm agnostic, but being agnostic doesn't mean I'd give a fifty-fifty chance for the existence of God, it's more like.. a very low chance in favour of anything supernatural in my case, but I'm willing to be proven wrong. So I consider the Christian God as unlikely as any other deity human kind has ever believed in.

[Helm]

However a positivist search for 'truth' in things over happiness leads to a lot of neuroses as well. Absolute truths are pesky things, as they don't really go well with subjective reality (which is all we have) and lead to fabricated external worlds that we can only feel comfortable with when people around us accept. I think a healthy disassociation with any sort of 'high meaning' is best in order to be healthy after a lot of searching. Self-awareness is inherently pathologic so the rainbow at the end of the existential journey more me is a reaffirmed belief in nothing in particular, and a stoic comfort in that.

[JJ Naas]

Yes, well, I hope we don't end up talking about the nature of truth (or consciousness for that matter), but anyway, for me searching for truth (or facts, more like) is more enjoyable than settling down for certain truths for good. I take pleasure from the journey, it's fascinating and has kept me busy for all my life. If I couldn't pursue that personal quest for learning and understanding (while feeling at the same time that the more I know the less I know), and communicating with other people about all of that, I'd go mad.

So yes, it's a bit pointless in terms of getting any results, but what the hell. It's fun.

[Helm]

Yes, it's fun as long as the results never bind your (sub)consciousness into paths that are alien to it. To that I concur said the kitten trapped outside the window to the suave middle-aged and slightly balding man while he sipped on his wine.

[JJ Naas]

Heh. Turn that scene into a short animated film and you can win the first price of any artsy film festival with the bafflingly pretentious and high-brow symbolism of it. Or whatever. And stuff.

[Helm]

Talking of artsy and pretentious, I have a blog up! Johnnyspade (used to be Skurwy) is helping be translate my comics into english and slowly upload them all. Might be worth to read, perhaps to RSS!

Asides-Bsides

Come over, comment! I will be updating regularily.