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[venetianblossom]

Why I, a believer in God, am quite happy marrying an atheist

     Inquiring minds seem to want to know how I’m quite happy and satisfied marrying an atheist even though I, myself, believe in God and would venture to call myself a Christian.   I’m sure to most people, this probably doesn’t register on their radar of important things because indeed, it really isn’t that big of a deal or that important. But since I’ve gotten asked by a few friends and peers about whether my fiance is a believer, I just thought I’d go ahead and elaborate on my thoughts and why, without prescribing my choices to anyone else, I’m quite happy in this relationship.  Maybe some people might want to know if they can make their own relationship work with someone who has different theological views. Maybe this can provide a wee bit of insight. Just remember every relationship is different.       The short and simple answer to this is: he’s not a dick to me about believing there’s a God and when he’s willing to play along with the assumption, tends to rather agree with me about the metaphysics of a creator God; in turn I’m not a dick to him about not having adequate evidence in his mind to believe in one because I understand what it took for me to search and find things that were good enough for me to hedge my bet on God existing.  It kind of is that simple. Now I’ve had relationships with atheists in the past that weren’t so smooth, partly because I was much more attached to my theology as my central sense of self and so any criticisms of my theology cut a lot deeper. I felt like I needed my partner to have faith in order for me to feel like my faith was valid. I’ve since grown out of that. I’ve developed my own faith alone and single and can hold onto it by myself (not that there’s anything wrong with it if others prefer to share their faith with their partner more closely).  Secondly, the criticisms were a lot harsher, because those atheists were kind of dicks about it or they seemed rather angry about the idea of God and that anger just so happened to bleed onto me. By contrast, my partner never tells me not to believe and has gone so far to say he admires my faith, which gives me more than enough support.         Now, for the longer and more complex answer, I just don’t tend to share all or most of my values with most of the Christian men I had happened to come across.  I’m not trying to bash anyone. Even if I met such Christian men who held certain views that I felt were dead wrong or harmful, I could still see that they had an overall good character and meant well and did their own darndest to be like Christ in a dark world.  What more can any of us do, right? I was still happy to call some of these men my friends. But still, that doesn’t make them compatible partners for life. What I’m going to say next, please don’t assume I’m talking about all Christian men, just the majority of ones I’ve met in my limited geography, that I had any potential physical attraction to.  Quite bluntly, I accept evolution and in general, most science that flies in the face of scripture because I trust the scientific method (if it was actually used properly and repeat studies have been done). I adapt my faith around my scientific understanding of the world. I don’t view the bible as inerrant. Holy, but in my mind, not inerrant. And I think the only way to grow is to change my views in light of new information.  As I’ve shared with a friend of mine studying marine biology who apparently feels the same, the more science I study the more spiritual I feel at times. The natural world is awe-inspiring and it speaks to my spirit in a language I can understand and know well: artistry. Science makes me appreciate God’s artistry.        I am pro-choice.  I do not celebrate abortion.  I have an ongoing health obstacle that would make pregnancy potentially dangerous to me; not just the labor but the pregnancy itself.  I take very careful measures to keep pregnancy from occurring but if it ever did before I am ready physically, I would not wait until that potential life formed into anything more complex.  I don’t know if humanity can ever agree on a cut-off line when a growing life is too human-like but I know I could sleep at night if I lost a blastocyst or 2 week pregnancy as compared to a 1.5  month or 2 month pregnancy. And I needed a partner that was going to understand this, not call me a baby-murderer, and care about my health and safety.        I do not regret losing my virginity before I was married.  I never have been able to bring myself to regret something that, for all intents and purposes, was done with love.  Sure, that one didn’t work out but that doesn’t make me scarred or damaged or laden with baggage. I’ve long moved on from that relationship and though it was rocky I was better off for it.  I can’t have a partner that expects me to be sorry for this or expects me to be his before he’s ever even met me. Now, not everyone that has romantic ideas of being their wife’s first is abusive.  Not at all. But something about the notion of a person acting entitled to my body and sexuality and love before ever meeting me, sets off huge alarm bells in my head that remind me of my ex abuser and his interrogations.  I don’t know if I’d ever be able to feel any other way about that kind of behavior. It just freaks me out and plain feels too entitled. I was not upset about my partner’s past sex life, nor was he upset about mine. And just like that, it’s not a problem for us to worry about.  It’s also important for me to establish that I do have sexual chemistry with a person before marrying them. I don’t sleep with anyone on first dates or even second dates; and I’ve had boyfriends that I actually never slept with. But if everything is good on paper, I need to make sure everything is good physically because yes, I have had that be a deal breaker problem before.  There are other compatibility obstacles but I’d say these are the main sticking points.        With these sticking points, as you can imagine, your average “save yourself for marriage, pro-life, evolution-denying” Christian male is probably not thinking I seem like a great partner either.  And that is perfectly reasonable. We all need partners that we can share our lives with, without these things turning into a minefield of constant stress. So, alas, my choices were probably going to be to marry a more liberal/progressive Christian, another agnostic theist like myself, or a supportive agnostic atheist.  I landed on the third one. He has told me on more than one occasion that I shouldn’t stop calling myself a Christian because of others. He asked me what I thought the core tenets and message of Christianity was. I told him. He asked if I believed them. I said yes. And he said, “well then sweetheart, you’re a Christian”.  And he’s never made me feel bad for this. And of course, there’s so much more to our relationship and who my partner is as a person, than just his thoughts on the universe or a creator. Ah, it also helps that I don’t believe in a deity that punishes people in an eternal conscious torment pit for lacking adequate evidence to satisfy their thirst for knowledge of such a deity.  So, for anyone who really wanted to know, this is why I’m happy with my atheist. If any of my sticking points offended you, please know, if you’re a friend who stands in opposition to some of those things, that’s okay. I probably already know that about you, and still love you for the friend you are. These are just my explanations for my partner selection, which is much more stringent when it comes to worldview, necessarily-so, than my friend-selection.  I INTENTIONALLY have friends who think differently than I do and happily walk on whatever common ground I can with them.              

[venetianblossom]

Abortion --No one seems to Have It Quite Right

I thought for sure the birth control method I’d used reliably for years wouldn’t fail me now, 7 years after I lost my virginity.  But there it was, a “Yes” on a stupid little pee stick staring at me a week before I was about to go back to college after finally recovering from the more severe part of my chronic illness. My boyfriend and I cried. We knew, and know, that we are the love of each other’s lives.  We want marriage, family, the whole shebang.  But we didn’t anticipate this so early. 

Even if we had the money for a child we wanted together, when it came down to it.....it’s still too risky for me health wise because I’m still on heart medication. Explaining the complications is...well complicated. Suffice it to say, I could end up disabled again by the pregnancy if not dead. The infant could come out unhealthy and suffer. I wasn’t going to let either happen as that seemed wholly irresponsible.  Isn’t the premarital sex irresponsible you might ask? Well, quitting sex seemed an untenable solution too because even had my boyfriend and I got married the next day, I still was not in a position to carry out my plan of weaning off my heart med (again) so that I could be healthy enough to carry a child. And it could be years before I could do that. I wasn’t about to consider a sexless marriage because of this. So, I called Planned Parenthood. 

Sparing the dramatic details...I had a miscarriage instead. Now sitting here having another pregnancy scare and my boyfriend agreeing to vasectomy if I ever do need an abortion...I’m thinking about this horrifying situation again.  It’s...depressing, for one.  I’d love to be a mother. I’d love it if pregnancy wasn’t a huge health risk for me. It’s supposed to be beautiful and exciting.  This is why I know I could never vote for it to be illegal. Even if situations like mine make up less than 1% of the reasons women seek abortion...I’m still not the only one and can’t imagine subjecting anyone to a situation where they could risk death and severe illness, because their government wouldn’t let them do something safer.  Not to mention, illegalizing it isn’t going to reduce abortions. That’s a fact. (since this is a casual blog though I don’t often hyperlink to sources. you’ll have to look into it yourself).  Buuuuuut, that said, when I did peruse pro-life websites to hear out their arguments a few things did stand out to me.  There was the fact that raped women and ill women were not the majority of women seeking abortion. A good bulk included financial reasons. Maybe there are a few like my friend who were abused and just know they should never have children.  But I couldn’t help wonder...how much of this really is due to selfishness, or carnal excesses of the “sexual liberation”? How much of these are from people hooking up with people at bars that they hardly know? How much of these are from people who actually AREN’ T trying to be responsible? 

So, I’d find myself a bit torn. The abortion numbers are, in my opinion, too high. But I think it a symptom of a culture that is sick. Our society is ill.  Here’s what I think would actually reduce abortion numbers by a lot but the ideas are a bit utopian..  Fix health. my generation has way more chronic illness problems than generations before it. Sometimes I buy into conspiracy theories that this is planned, however. This is one great way to tear a society apart...spreading illness among its youth. I could write a whole blog about what I think is causing that. 

Encourage marriage and NOT “liberation” and hookups.  Part of the reason I suggest this is because we know that less marriage is partly responsible for the income inequality we’re seeing in this country.  A lot of people in poverty are unmarried and aren’t making stable pair bonds where they can help each other financially. The upper end of the middle class (though the middle class has largely eroded) are usually educated married couples. 

We need to fix the relations between the sexes...which is going downhill fast. And this directly affects our economy.  And the more poor people, the more there is incentive for abortion. 

Expanding access to birth control is good but, as stats point out, more than half of women that get abortions were using contraceptives. and though my method is slightly less reliable (according to the numbers) than a hormonal IUD, it also has seemed to fail me.  still yet...access to birth control and comprehensive sex education seems to reduce abortions a lot for teens. 

Fix our financial crises (yeah. utopian).  We keep getting our maturity pushed back later and later. people marry later, have kids later, finish college later, start their career later. We need to make high schools more like trade schools so people can get to work and start a family right out of high school if they want to. I’m highly convinced this would also decrease abortion rates. 

Fix our mental health.  I’ve met a lot of crazy men.  I’ve met a lot of crazy women.  Crazy isn’t going to make for smart reproductive choices. simple.  This is why I don’t care for all the rhetoric of either side. Pro life seems to ignore facts to push its agenda and it also doesn’t seem to care about nuanced situations like mine.  Even if a pregnancy is literally threatening my life, some would call me a murderer all the same.  Pro choice however doesn’t seem concerned with how sexual liberation has eroded marriage and they don’t seem concerned with how high abortion levels are and what could be done to reduce them.  I care about life.  I think I have a right to self defense as well.  It’s really not a contradictory way to look at things. 

[venetianblossom]

The Church I Wish I Could Go To

This post deserves a disclaimer. I know church isn’t supposed to be a consumeristic good that only caters to your individual needs. And I’m not saying that if I found such a church, I would only stay at that church and never step outside that comfort zone. I’m just tired of not having a church I feel I can call home. When I say what it is I long for I think you’ll understand why. 

It’s kind of simple. I want a church where I’m not asked to believe in “historical facts” as though they are “facts” I can believe without sufficient evidence. I want a church where I’m not asked to believe in virgin births and a bottleneck origin of the human race or that the written accounts of ancient people regarding their encounters with the almighty are to be taken as 100% truth. Someone might wonder then, where is the room for faith? Oh I have faith, or at least, I believe I do. To me faith is knowing that I cannot know for certain, but I try to take just one step further to transcend that knowledge, and behave as though there is a creator...and my heart’s desire is to revere that creator, pray, and grow within my one life that I am given.  I want a church where salvation isn’t taught as something you receive....once you believe all the aforementioned as though it was verifiable fact...when it’s not.  And if you can’t believe these things, somehow you deserve some eternal conscious torment as punishment. I want a church where I’m not asked to disavow major scientific theories, since I am going into science myself.  Church will keep losing people to science if it doesn’t find a way to marry the two ways of looking at the world. The forefathers of science had faith.  I have faith. Why can’t modern Christians do more of this? 

I want a church where following Jesus is more about putting his teachings into action in the immediate community. To be fair, I do know some churches that do a superb job at serving, they just come with all the aforementioned stuff. But imagine if churches were so effective at serving the homeless, the sick, the single mothers, the poor, and the mourning in their immediate communities that you almost didn’t need social programs through government. (I’M NOT SAYING GET RID OF THOSE).  But what if the church actually did a better job at caring for and healing people than our government.  If Jesus is really as powerful and divine as we say he is...shouldn’t this be the case? 

I want a church that convicts me of sin and pushes me to be better, to repent, but that has a mind for nuance. I want a church that understands how complex situations can be...and that they don’t always have black and white answers.  I want a church that pushes its congregation to do as little harm to others and themselves as possible, since we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. I kind of want a pastor like Father Lantom in Daredevil.  But that’s a side...nerd tangent. I want a church that teaches application and wisdom from the bible, while understanding that it was written in a different culture and time and that this actually matters.  I want a church that doesn’t treat the bible like a science textbook, or universal handbook.

I want a church that knows how to lean on God without shirking our own human powers and therefore, responsibilities.  God gave us mobility and minds that can plan.  I don’t think this was so we could sit and ask God to do everything for us. Sometimes we must ask for guidance in what we do, so that we do the right thing in the end. But the key is that we don’t sit around and wait for a miracle to fall in our lap when we have the ability to be the miracle. 

I want a church like this to call home. Is it a utopia? Maybe. But I don’t think it’s far fetched.  I would still attend other churches of all flavors, since that’s what I’ve continually been doing. But I would like one where I could finally actually rest my weary head, from all its spiritual travel. 

[venetianblossom]

My Thoughts When People Detest God Because of His/Her Allowance of Death

"honestly maybe god doesn’t cause death but he allows it which is just as bad. "

This is only compelling if you only see death as an absolute negative.  Death is necessary for nature to produce a lot of its beauty. its the flipside of the same coin that brings us evolution and diversity of species.  Death has to occur for new creation to come forth so that ecosystems don't become overpopulated with certain species and there can be harmony and balance.  Death is necessary for life itself!  at least as we know it. Do you think the world would function if everything were immortal in that there are no age related diseases or degenerative diseases? ironically, it would fall apart. or okay, lets come up with a weird scenario where nothing needs to reproduce so everything else can just live forever.  we just have the original things that we always had that have always been here. sounds nice, for a second.

Hitler would not die.  Mao Ze Dong would not die. Perhaps Dinosaurs would still be alive and able to crush us. Or if you think in this scenario Hitler wouldn't exist...okay, what, we start out with cave people and somehow magically we develop technology and grow and evolve intelligence, even without the mechanism of reproduction and sexual selection to combine optimal genes that allow for some of this growth? How's that work? Or we start out immediately as evolved species with all our technology? But is that best for the environment? or is it better that we have a cycle of things where human intelligence drops off and we stop using too many resources for a while?

or do you want to say, "why not a world without evil people"? Well ok, now we have a world without free will which sounds more like a hell to me than a world with people who can make choices to be evil, but also to love.

Or you might say, "okay how about a world without pain receptors so there isn't physical suffering?"

well how's that going to work? and people who actually have reduced pain receptors sometimes get infections without even knowing it before its too late, because their body didn't let them know.  pain is useful.

so after that you say, "how about a world without bacteria and viruses so infections don't happen?" Well, actually, we have more good bacteria and good viruses, believe it or not, than otherwise.  There are actually a ton of viruses in the sea and scientists think, since most of them are not detrimental, that they are used to transfer information, perhaps genetic information.

So then you might ask, how about we have bodies that don't have vulnerable organs?

If you get down to it what you're really asking is, "why not heaven, right here right now?" Well, to that I ask, would it be heaven if we had never any concept of evil? never a concept of pain or suffering? never a concept of imperfection? how can we just be perfect without even understanding imperfection? how could we appreciate it?  Heaven sounds more effective if we are allowed to experience the downside, before residing permanently in the upside.

This is why I find it silly when people detest a God because it allows death.  Have you actually really thought about it? or did you just allow your primal instinct of disgust toward death to do all the thinking and stop there?

[venetianblossom]

For What Cause Does One Need Jesus?

Someone asked me this question verbatim online and I wanted to save or hold onto my response, for future reference most likely for myself but also for others:  Thanks for asking my opinion ^_^ what you're really talking about however is atonement and this can be a new topic for anyone that doesn’t analyze and instead just accepts modern Christian tenets. It is to ask...what Jesus dying on a cross ACTUALLY did for us humans. Hope you don't mind a long response. I'm going to quote CS Lewis on the topic and then offer a bit more further perspective.  "The one most people have heard is the one I mentioned before-- the one about our being let off because Christ is volunteered to bear a punishment instead of us.  Now on the face of it that is a very silly theory.  If God was prepared to let us off, why on earth did He not do so?  And what possible point could there be in punishing an innocent person instead?  None at all that I can see, if you are thinking of punishment in the police-court sense.  On the other hand, if you think of a debt, there is plenty of point in a person who has some assets paying it on behalf of someone who has not.  Or if you take 'paying the penalty', not in the sense of being punished, but in the more general sense of 'standing the racket' or 'footing the bill', then, of course, it is a matter of experience that, when one person has got himself into a hole, the trouble of getting him out usually falls on a kind friend. Now what sort of hole man had got himself into? He had tried to set up on his own, to behave as if he belonged to himself.  In other words, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms.  Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor-that is the only way out of our hole.  This process of surrender--this movement full speed astern--is what Christians call repentance.  Now repentance is no fun at all.  It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie.  It means unlearning the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years.  It means killing a part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death.  In fact, it needs a good man to repent.  And here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly.  The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it.  The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person--and he would not need it. Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which could let you off if He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like......Can we do it if God helps us?  Yes, but what do we mean when we talk of God helping us?  We mean God putting into us a bit of Himself, so to speak.  He lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another."  That's I think the best picture of atonement I've heard in a while though some nuances could be debated or they don’t FULLY sit well with me.  There's also a difference between penal substitution theory and christus victor theory. Penal substitution is what you often hear evangelical street preachers espousing.  That you were born sick and here we are to sell you the cure.  Understandably, this doesn't sit well with me.... I don't think I should be punished for a condition that I was born with (sin), much less eternally.  So how could I need justification when it was never my fault that I'm like this to begin with? christus victor is a bit more like...we are in a sinning conundrum and we need help to transcend it and Jesus gives us that transcendence that we could not accomplish all our own.  And he had to live an embodied life to show us. to teach us to walk.    If you want something a little more sophisticated and a little more secular, i don’t know if you've heard of Jordan Peterson, but he has a very philosophical take on Jesus as the "divine individual"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdsVC_qR4t0&t=57s  This perspective might sit well with someone that is skeptical of overt metaphysical claims.  Anyway, my opinion is somewhat of an amalgam between Lewis' and Peterson's. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.  People often use that claim to branch off into all sorts of doctrines about heaven and hell but the way I see it is a bit more of where “the rubber meets the road”.  He shows us how wrong we’ve been living and how to live right.  And brings us life abundantly.  Sometimes that abundant life will involve taking up a cross and heroically bearing the suffering and tragedy that existence can entail.  But what better way is there to do that than to turn tragedy on its face?  And sometimes that abundant life will show you how to love more fully than you ever might have on your own merit.  That to me is a salvation in and of itself.  And I do believe in the afterlife but I believe that faith will inspire you to work out your salvation...get started, here. now.     

[venetianblossom]

A Big Long Debate About Objective Morality

Zachary Benson1 month ago The issue materializes when we start accepting a value system based on a book clearly written by people who knew significantly less about their world. With the knowledge we have now, we know that there are quite a few things in the Bible that were really unnecessary at the time, and are really unnecessary now. I can accept that those ideas were simply erroneous and that we should just drop the useless ones and sort of divine why the rest are useful and us them. Value systems can be fairly easy to articulate, which is why we can test them, so to speak. My theory about the Christian value system is that it's really an attempt to dedicate ones purpose to pleasing an object that is the representation of the perfect being. Naturally, that leads to at least a few good things in other value systems. The main objective value systems appear to be pleasure, harm, and some sort of fairness or equality. Fairness doesn't care so much about what happens to people, so long as it happens to all people so let's ignore it for now. Optimizing for overall pleasure gives us quite a few rules. Killing is bad, but altruism might be good. Possessions don't really matter in any of these, unless we make the case that possessions cause humans to have improved mental states in a way that they are less likely to harm others. For harm, which is what Sam Harris argues for, we have clear rules against killing as well, along with most of the biblical laws we feel like following in secular society. I do find possessions a problem to solve, but it seems that it'd be easier to solve them if we had some combination of equality and harm. My real point here is that moral theory doesn't require religion; it requires thinking about how humans beings affect other human beings. The rest should be improvement of technology until we find some more powerful meaning to addressShow lessReply 13  Hide replies   Scott Vance1 month agomoral theory is religion. Its based on something.Reply 3   Zachary Benson1 month ago Scott Vance We can have a theory of what we should do as people in the world based on ideas that don't require a god... Pointing out that we begin within a system that may have originated with false assumptions doesn't force us to bow to some ideal version of that system. We can improve upon and eventually abandon the original system. The origin matters to the product in terms of what course the product should take about as much as the origin of rock music matters to rock's current course. As in, it doesn't really.Show lessReply 1   Ladle Yakington1 month ago Zachary Benson I've always found Peterson's moral theory lacking, in some part for reasons you've elaborated on. His moral system does not stem from a god (and therefore isn't perfect as it is) but he is also unwilling to let it go and does not have a method of determining what should stay in the first place. He's caught in between the two arguments and I'd say he takes the worst of both, even if it seems more reasonable at first.Read moreReply 1   vanessa benoit1 month ago then again....why care about the well being of other humans?....that's a question that's difficult to answer without an objective morality or authority. you could argue that their well being effects your own well being so you need them to be well enough to scratch your back but then this reduces all humans to tools to be utilized. it essentially very easily becomes the view of the sociopath. and its pretty rational. all you can utter to contest it is that you have an evolved mechanism of empathy... but why listen to your empathy if it's just a meaningless adaptation that bubbled out of the ether? Though I certainly ruffle the feathers of fundamentalists I encounter, I have to admit this is where I find C.S. Lewis' thoughts on morality in "mere christianity" to be pretty useful and trueShow lessReply 5   ninisgreekronaldo3 weeks ago You say that it's easy, but is it? In the 20th century people truly dispensed with religion and followed their ideas on how to shape the perfect societies. Millions died in the aftermath. Moral philosophy (what you seem to be arguing for) stands on even weaker ground than religion. Religion has historical value and seems to be derived from collective human (phenomenological) experiences over long periods of time. Reading moral philosophy can become a confusing exercise if you do so in order to find a bedrock of values from a blank slate, for most of what it is is post-hoc justifications for principles mostly already internalized. Beyond that they are not compelling arguments, for they do not mirror life. Meanwhile religions tell stories, which in the subjective dimension impact humans more than philosophical musings (generally speaking). The reason why we read stories with morals to children instead of making philosophical accounts for the morals of the story is because they are already wired to understand the stories, they aren't wired for philosophy, and most people aren't. The Christian "value system" is many things, not just one thing. Is it perhaps what you suggest? Could be. But it seems quite obvious that it is a phenomenological account of human life. Take that to be a relevant aspect and your simple dismissal is rather hard to argue for. To truly understand how deep the argument goes you need to follow it down to its roots. That means reading in particular the existentialists (Kirkegaard and Nietzsche above all) and the phenomenologists. I've been studying philosophy for a while now, and your suggestion on how to do things is rather naive. What is pleasure? If somebody derives pleasure from killing, then how do we balance that out? Isn't immediate pleasure more certain and therefore preferable? Why should we sacrifice things in the presence for future gain? I could go on with the Socratic method but your argument is rather very weak to say the least. Why pleasure? Why not equality? Why not happiness? Why not utility? Is utility different from pleasure? How do we measure pleasure? Is harm always bad? Can we inflict harm in the short run with somebody's long term benefit in mind? I'm not even sure which philosophical idea to recommend first... I guess a good start would be moral psychology with Jon Haidt's "The Righteous Mind". I think a look at Camus' concept of "the absurd" also is quite worthwhile to understand the central problem of human consciousness (at least in my estimation). If you mean possession is a problem to solve in the sense that a method of dispensing with private possessions is required, then I'd just suggest that you look into things more, for that conclusion has been shown to be rather destructive whenever it has been implemented, and it is fairly well understood that these ideas are not compatible with humans.Read moreReply   Pau Naic2 weeks ago"Why care about the well being of other humans?" Biology and brain chemistry. Most "morality" is based on survival tactics and instinct even if we don't constantly think about it. Why should I not kill someone I don't like? = That being is my kind, and I would be destroying part of my kind, not to mention I could be killed by others in revenge. Why should I care about that kid about to be hit by a car? = He's my kind, he's vulnerable and necessary in the long run. My mirror neurons are also tingling so I gotta help. That's why when criminals appear, they usually are either mentally ill, narcissists, they were told/convinced to do it, or they did what they did to have for granted their survival.Show lessReply   vanessa benoit2 weeks ago Pau Naic why listen to your biology and brain chemistry? why not forsake it if you can manipulate others to your longterm benefit? seriously. why not? why do you care about that person being your kind? why does that even matter in a nihilistic world? Why give a shit about your mirror neurons? you can desensitize them through practice you know. why shouldn't you be narcissistic to get what you want? why do you give your mirror neurons and biology authority? after all...it's just matter that assimilated to form you in a human body in a vast universe right?  (if you rely strictly on a materialistic worldview)Show lessReply 1    vanessa benoit2 weeks ago also if the only reason you shouldnt murder a person is because they are your "kind"...where do you draw a distinction? because they're your same species? so by that logic...should you be fine murdering someone's dog for no apparent reason? should you care about a cat about to get hit by a car? Also, what if you can have a worldview where other people aren't really your "kind". people dehumanize other people all the dang time.  If someone is less than human to you....can you kill them then? it just all sounds like a worldview that is under-girded by absolutely nothing. honestly.Show lessReply 2   vanessa benoit2 weeks ago It's a tough pill to swallow since i have a good dose of agnosticism in my veins. but so far the only other option i see is to see value in humans because they are divine sparks (along with other creatures---except mosquitoes).  It is to draw a sense of awe at the synchronicity and symbiosis of ecosystems, the way everything plays a role to the sustaining of life.  It is to view God's creation with a sense of awe and therefore extend that respect to the life of human beings and other creatures; seeing life as a crafted work of art-----and i just don't see those conclusions drawn from a nihilistic or reductionist strictly atheist/materialist worldview.  Because there's no higher order to pay any respect or admiration to. I suppose you could say that it took millions of years for matter to be cooked up in stars, scattered onto a planet, and then for it to assemble into you.....which is rather poetic in its own sense and i think its important to be able to derive meaning from life even without God (the agnosticism in me). But it would still be easy to argue morally..... that you still don't owe the universe anything for that....for making you...and there's no reason you have to care about others and not just do whatever makes you feel great in your short life while you have it...... why strive to transcend your base desires at all?  Why not take advantage of everything? this is not something that materialism can answer satisfactorily. to my knowledge.Show lessReply 2   Zachary Benson2 weeks ago I would agree that biology or evolutionary science are weak places to start your search for purpose. I don't think religion has done nothing for to that end, only that it's a foolish thing to forsake what you know about the world for what you believe should be done within it. For example, in Judaism we are taught to eat certain foods and give a certain amount to charity, along with plenty more prohibitions and (whatever the opposite of prohibition is). Some, if not many, of these have no basis in fact, and realistically have no place in an ideal moral framework. You have no reason to skip pork for beef; no reason to avoid cheeseburgers; no reason to give that specific multiple of 18 (insert currency here) to charity. These are superfluous and demonstrably so. If you want to form a useful moral theory, you have to set a goal, and you have to find the principles that help you attain that goal. I'd rather that goal not be to appease some non-existing entity, but to be something we can see the effects upon. So I reject religion in general. And you're right. There isn't a true purpose to your existence, you're completely free to choose what you want to do in the world. There isn't even really a reason why you should do anything. Often we choose a goal like well-being or pursuing knowledge or optimizing utils because they allow us a framework in which to do things, but they're not technically any better than the alternatives. At least, by pursuing knowledge, we can learn more about the nature of how to do things in this world we live in, and maybe, allow us to solve some more problems in an ever-growing number of frameworks. I think it's interesting to argue from sort of an artificial intelligence perspective, because when you optimize for any particular task, increasing your processing speed is always somewhere positive on the fitness graph because it almost always makes you better at the task you're trying to perform. So while we don't have a reason to do anything, unless we count feelings and instincts, we do have the capability to solve problems that we find under frameworks. I choose to value equality and well-being for very little reason, but under that framework I can decide to become a Mathematics professor, which is pretty much all that matters to me. Direct response to you: Really don't see how you can come to any divine conclusion from the data we have about the world. Nothing wrong with admiring how systems form and function, but you can't pretend that they need a designer to run properly. You can see the world as a work of art, just not a crafted one from a nihilistic POV. It's literally a fact that it took billions of years for our matter to be spread through space and congealed into our own little solar system which eventually gave rise to our species. You don't owe anything anything, things are things, people are people. You shouldn't really owe your parents anything, in my opinion, since didn't make any sort of contract with you about what your relationship entails; it's sorta like they've chosen to give you things for free because they like you or something. Most of the time we do take advantage of everything withing a framework we choose. We only fail to do so when we are blocked or unable to come to the proper conclusion for our course of action. There is no convincing argument for religion that does not require some reference to another moral system. All these moral systems wrap up into a sort of human-created mush that is what we think we value. These come from intellectuals, from evolutionary biology, and from crazy people. There is no reason to accept any of them.Show lessReply   vanessa benoit2 weeks ago I'm sorry but I find that all too cold and sociopathic to be honest. No reason to do anything. and you admit you dont make choices for much reason. lol. doesn't that sound like the pinnacle of absurdity? i can only agree that yes, many prohibitions or archaic rules in holy books do not serve any practical purpose in today's world. I'm not saying replace real-life observations and science and facts for a holy book. honestly. FUCK no to that. I just think it all has to be undergirded by something substantial. Else you end up with the sort of depressing conclusions Tolstoy began to come to.  i also disagree about pork ....we could point to several facts about pork that make it a less healthy option for consumption than other meats. just sayin. but thats inconsequential to the overall point. I see plenty of reasons to come to a divine conclusion. But of course, because i am an agnostic theist, I am intellectually honest enough to say that the data and evidence is inconclusive but it's a funny thing. I've very much come to the conclusion that a deity is completely not falsifiable....whether it exists or not. It is impossible to experiment on or to make controls for. for fucks sakes if there are several layers of dimensions like physicists propose....then the creator of it all would probably be an 11 dimensional being. how in the crap would a 3 dimensional being run controlled experiments on an 11 dimensional being. I mean, it's absolutely proposterous. and i think i'll only know for sure about it all after I die. but i'm fine with that. And i'm rather optimistic about all the possible options. but anyway. thats just my opinion on belief in God in general. it's kind of besides the point because what we're talking about is morality.  And what it is to be based on if we don't presuppose a God.  like Jordan said once when asked if he "believes" in God he says he behaves as though there is one. and i can see why. the alternative is aimless moral relativity.  and I reject relativism simply because it is self-refuting. As pointed out by plato long ago.Show lessReply 2   vanessa benoit2 weeks ago (edited) also you basically, in a longer sense, said that it's perfectly fine if i want to go murder or torture a dog. run over a cat. or kill a person i see as less than human. because i dont owe anyone anything and theres no reason to do anything or not do anything and nothing is better than the other. I mean, come on mate. I always defend atheists when christians say that they can't be good moral people. but you have to admit, you're kinda playing into their stereotypes here arent you? Lastly, just a personal distinction I'd like to make. you said, " I'd rather that goal not be to appease some non-existing entity" Well me neither...not exactly. I don't do things just to appease some "sky daddy" as atheists like to call it like i'm some sort of earth child. It's really more nuanced than that. I see myself as part of a creation with a purpose...even if it is albeit small in the vastness of space...i like to think it still matters enough to the original mind, and i think the original mind in many ways is "love".   And i think my consciousness is here in part to explore what that means, in a weird playful sort of cosmic dance between the created and the timeless.  I can find "purpose" even without presupposing God (but i'd say purpose and morality aren't always necessarily the exact same thing). But when I do consider my faith...its more like i just described. it's not a simple matter of appeasement.  It's a dance of joy and gratitude.Show lessReply 1   Terrance Van Liew2 weeks ago Zachary Benson The bible wasn't written. It evolved.Reply   Zachary Benson2 weeks ago vanessa benoit How can you be agnostic while positing these claims about things you can't possibly know. It's nice that you have imagination enough to write a good two paragraphs of fiction about what you want to believe, but you haven't convinced anyone that it's the truth. That was part of Jordan's lecture; it's futile to attempt to describe how the world literally is through religious means because not only does it fail at that, it actually reduces your capability to think scientifically.Show lessReply   Zachary Benson2 weeks ago vanessa benoit And pointing out that something is sociopathic doesn't make it untrue.Reply   Zachary Benson2 weeks ago Terrance Van Liew Fair point.Reply   Zachary Benson2 weeks ago vanessa benoit Inconclusive data doesn't give you any reason to accept the possible result. Why not choose to believe in the lack of a god or the eye of cthulu or the Greek Gods? They're all equally falsifiable; we'd be sitting here for an infinite period of time worshipping every possible deity until we realize that it's just more efficient to Occam's razor out all of them until one of them shows themself conclusively to us. Or doesn't, in which case we can continue on our merry way finding ways to keep humans alive and advancing technologically. Maybe these questions could be why we haven't found other civilizations yet, although that seems at least minimally presumptive of their reasoning. They might be better at thinking logically while being woefully incapable of searching for purpose.Show lessReply   vanessa benoit2 weeks ago Zachary Benson because there are agnostic atheists and agnostic theists? it's called faith for a reason. i'm just not like a good majority of believers who are certain there's a God. that's why i think its important to mention the agnosticism. I spend time around a lot of people that are super duper dead certain about it.  I see probability. thats all. and I choose to live my life as though there is a God as Jordan says. but an agnostic atheist doesnt KNOW there's no God....yet they live as though there isn't one. its really exactly the same thing just the other side of the coin. but anyway the idea that it reduces one's ability to think scientifically is a myth. we all know many of the founding fathers of science were in fact christian thinkers. but I actually intend to go into a scientific field. it's not cosmology though so it really won't interact with theology in any sense. but even if i were studying cosmology...i would NEVER propose God as a scientific theory. because I'm aware that that's not what I'm there to do. I'm not there to make God of the gaps arguments.  I'm there to describe how things work, not their core origin.....which might be impossible for us to ever get. We can't see past the big bang after all. Cant imagine we ever would. so thats for philosophy, not cosmology. i'm capable of compartmentalizing depending on what task I'm doing. and in fact, most humans do this when they go to work. they turn off aspects of themselves to do the task at hand. sooooooo. idk. you sound like an atheist stereotype in a nutshell. I just would encourage you to stop saying the trope-like things that people know aren't true. The only dogma that will prevent a person from thinking scientifically is if they view the bible as a science textbook (and i dont)...or if they believe the earth was created 6000 years ago (and i dont)...or if adam and eve were the literal bottleneck origin of the human species (and i dont)Show lessReply 2   vanessa benoit2 weeks ago (edited) Zachary Benson "And pointing out that something is sociopathic doesn't make it untrue." No, it doesn't. but it suggests that the alternative to christian morals is to have sociopathic morals. And as someone who gets mad when Christians say atheists can't be good "moral" people, i can see you're playing right into their hand and making them out to be correct. so that frustrates me a bit. because i technically always take your side. also if something is sociopathic it's worth arguing that it's not a good SYSTEM to base your morality on.  like i said, sociopathy is perfectly rational.  But is it "good"?   Cthulu and greek gods are not analogous with the definition of a creator before the big bang...or...perhaps a first mover as the philosophers call it. cthulu has properties we can debunk, based on its location/habitat/tendencies/reports---we can falsify and debunk all that. Similar for greek Gods...that supposedly live in the clouds. I feel like i'm talking to a five year old here but we've flown airplanes all around the world....no greek gods or goddesses. Not to mention the way that Greek Gods interacted with mortals in the flesh supposedly. another falsifiable account. A potentially 11 dimensional being outside the laws of matter, time, and physics (since it would exist before the big bang when all these laws sprung into being)...a first mover that is self-existent....this is impossible to debunk. someone might come to the necessity of such a being through thought experiments but this being is IMPOSSIBLE to falsify. And i hope you do understand that falsify means its impossible to neither prove or disprove. It will never show itself conclusively... even if it wrote "I am God" across the sky people would come up with conspiracy theories about how someone else did that. maybe an 11 dimensional being can't entirely reduce itself to the 3rd dimension without fucking up our entire physical order.  (which is why i dont really buy into the idea that Jesus was exactly God--one in the same--to me "divinity" is not the exact same thing as BEING the creator) Also one time an atheist said they'd believe in God if it created something very unusual....like a round square. to which i thought...no you fucking wouldn't. You'd probably use such an absurdity as an example as why a God can't exist----because retarded thing x exists and no intelligent creator would do such a thing. Even if it showed up and spoke to masses of people like in supposed biblical accounts..... people today would slap "mass hysteria" or "mass delusion" on it and be done with it most likely.  And it would be hard to prove or disprove after the fact since you wouldn't be able to do a controlled experiment about what was going on in people's brains while such an event occurred...because you'd have to know the future to set up such an experiment.... i've never heard anyone propose any decent idea of how God could prove itself that I knew they would actually really follow through on with belief if it happened. That or their idea usually reeks of all kinds of biases and assumptions. BECAUSE i recognize that conclusive evidence on the level that people are demanding of such a being is LITERALLY impossible...i'm not gonna sit around my whole life waiting for said conclusive evidence before i decide to have any sort of faith because that just seems like a doofus thing to do.  I'm sorry. it's like sitting and waiting for a black hole to open up right where your'e sitting. and i'm not going to tell you not to be atheist? I mean i have no reason to. I've dated and loved an atheist and was fine with his atheism. I dont feel a real need to convert anyone. but you could be a bit more open-minded perhaps. I only bring all this up because you asked why i dont believe in cthulu. and thats just such a half baked idea.Show lessReply 1   Zachary Benson2 weeks ago vanessa benoit I'm not arguing that you personally are incapable of thinking properly; I only wish to point out that there is little value in perpetuating ancient systems that have little basis in how the world really works. I don't know, maybe it's some lack of hubris, but I think it's easier for us to look for an objective system of values that facilitates learning and freedom over a system that facilitates a lot of time wasted convincing people of it's "truth" or worshipping the man in the sky. I can see the value in emulating an ideal person, especially if it's the person you have come to your own conclusion of their perfection. I only draw the line when it's forced upon others or even if people who have their belief attempt to convince me that they have a value greater than my system that lacks that god figure.Show lessReply   Zachary Benson2 weeks ago vanessa benoit Sorry, I think I may have offended you by comparing your god to other Gods? It seems like you're trying to ignore alternatives by purposefully avoiding ascribing attributes to your god. I find that both intellectually dishonest and still morally reprehensible for similar reasons. How would anything an omnipotent being be unrecognizable as at least hyper-powerful. If you've read anything like Contact or imagined alien messages, there are clearly ways that beings can clearly and irrefutably reveal themselves in a way that can even convince us to do what they say.Show lessReply   vanessa benoit2 weeks ago im not offended it just felt like an insult to intellect when people make false analogies...and you appear now to be saying aliens can be analogous to God? I don't understand why you're making these analogies. but maybe where communication gets fuzzy is that "God" has to be defined in a sense when people are to talk about God in the abstract. different people can mean a million different things. some believe in one that acts very much like the pagan Gods of old...some simply believe there was a "first mover" nothing more nothing less... I mean.... I'm only pointing out that when you make these analogies they do NOT apply to every conceptualization of a God. and you seem to just be used to arguing with Christian fundies. because a lot of their conceptualizations can be a lot easier to debunk. its low hanging fruit. anyway. this is now getting unproductive. think i'm done.Show lessReply 1   vanessa benoit2 weeks ago lastly, my parting words.... i'm not an evangelist. like i said. but you said you draw the line when people try to convince you they have a greater value system... but well, maybe that wouldn't be an issue if your system weren't sociopathic and self-refuting relativism.  I suggest coming up with something better. And i actually think you might be able to do better as an atheist. it's just more difficult but i do think its possible. good day.Show lessReply   prodigal2 days ago vanessa benoit I was also going to reference mere Christianity. Such a solid foundation.Reply 1   prodigal2 days ago Zachary Benson it seems like you like to talk in circles. Vanessa made a lot of good points about your relativistic base for morality, but you didn't really refute any of them. Instead you continued to attack her stance, which I would say is pretty laid out and straight forward. I seriously would suggest reading mere Christianity. I think you would at least appreciate CS Lewis' stance on the reasons for the possibility of a God existing.Show lessReply   vanessa benoit2 days ago prodigal-- thanks dude. ALso, lol i apologize for my cussing. just noticed looking back i did it quite a lot more than necessary :P lol

[venetianblossom]

God’s Attributes and Philosophical Dilemmas and My Brain Arguing with Itself

A Mind Talking to Itself 

So.  My brain likes to have debates with itself for its own amusement and entertainment.  They happen all the time sometimes running in the back like white noise while I’m eating, painting, or walking about.  Half the time these debates are of a theological nature.  I was having so many thoughts lately about the attributes ascribed to God, and my philosophical struggles with some of them, that I decided to write down some of my conclusions.

God’s Goodness and The Euthyphro Dilemma This one is a bit of a headache.  I remember first coming upon the Euthyphro Dilemma and finding it fascinating.  I had vaguely asked myself a watered down version of the question once when someone somewhere at some church gathering suggested that things are good because God wills them.  That stirred an unsettling flurry of puzzlement for me.  I knew deep down there was something not quite right about such a statement.  I thought, “well holy hell Batman, what if God declared that raping golden retrievers was a ‘good’ thing?”  For those who aren’t familiar, here is the dilemma laid out in the simplest of terms (the following words here are not my own):

“Divine command theory is widely held to be refuted by an argument known as “the Euthyphro dilemma”. This argument is named after Plato’s Euthyphro dialogue, which contains the inspiration for the argument, though not, as is sometimes thought, the argument itself.

The Euthyphro dilemma rests on a modernised version of the question asked by Socrates in the Euthyphro: “Are morally good acts willed by God because they are morally good, or are they morally good because they are willed by God?”

Each of these two possibilities, the argument runs, leads to consequences that the divine command theorist cannot accept. Whichever way the divine command theorist answers this question, then, it seems that his theory will be refuted. This argument might be formalised as follows:

The Euthyphro Dilemma

(1) If divine command theory is true then either (i) morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good, or (ii) morally good acts are morally good because they are willed by God.

(2) If (i) morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good, then they are morally good independent of God’s will.

(3) It is not the case that morally good acts are morally good independent of God’s will.

Therefore:

(4) It is not the case that (i) morally good acts are willed by God because they are morally good.

(5) If (ii) morally good acts are morally good because they are willed by God, then there is no reason either to care about God’s moral goodness or to worship him.

(6) There are reasons both to care about God’s moral goodness and to worship him.

Therefore:

(7) It is not the case that (ii) morally good acts are morally good because they are willed by God.

Therefore:

(8) Divine command theory is false.

“

So after reading this you come to find that divine command theory is false but you still might find yourself puzzled.  Where does goodness actually come from then, if divine command theory is false?  See I weaseled myself out of the dilemma by coming to the conclusion that it is actually kind of asking the wrong question.  “Good” can be such a superfluous-seeming idea or construct.  What does it really mean?  If God doesn’t answer to some “good” authority outside of itself in order to will “good” things, then it almost seems to suggest that God is assigning things as good completely arbitrarily (divine command theory).  Which inevitably leads one to asking, “well why didn’t God make rapes and assassination the common good?” or the more insidious, “what if we’re doing it all wrong in fact?!”  #showerthoughts.  The other alternative might be to just conclude that indeed God is not worth caring about or worshipping.  I’ve yet another answer that satisfied me, maybe it’ll satisfy others.   What can you say about the creator of the universe with absolute certainty because it is self evident?  There’s really a lot that is pretty much impossible to prove empirically.  But it is pretty clear that a creator, is by nature and by definition, creative.  For better or worse, if there is a creator, it is clear that it preferred life and creation and flourishing and vast complexity, over nothing at all.  This fact of definitions ties in perfectly with “harm principle” ethics, which we see echoed across many human civilizations and also throughout the bible.  I’m going to reduce harm principle quite a bit but the basic aim is to not cause unnecessary harm and that you are free as long as you do no harm to others.  “The wages of sin is death”.  You will also find that several of the sins echoed throughout Christian ethics include things that lead to unnecessary harm or destruction.  Gluttony, envy, and wrath, for example, are all destructive and are all paths to destruction.  “Hell” is described as the wide path to destruction.  “Satan” is constantly perceived as a deceiver and a “destroyer”.  Even when we are destructive in self defense, there is a bit of sadness in having to enact any destruction at all in the first place--- a sentiment that is seen in some Eastern philosophies and particularly in some martial arts practices.  Some martial arts in fact are entirely consisted of defense moves to disarm the opponent, and not to initiate harm or destruction.  Some of the core virtues we can see echoed throughout Christian ethics as well as other cultures, happen to be ones that contribute to life, creation, and flourishing.  Love, courage, compassion, honesty, and production (as opposed to hate, fear, selfishness, deceit, and sloth).  The Jews of Jesus’ time expected Jesus to rise up with them and fight back against the Romans but Jesus did an unexpected thing.  We could argue about the things he did but one of the things seemed almost as if to say it is better to be martyred as a pacifist than it is to enact harm, tribalism, and war.  This is how I solve the dilemma regarding the attribute of God’s goodness (and this is not covering “the problem of evil”--that's a whole other thing).  It’s quite simple that God is just creative, and many* (not all) of the things that feel beautiful and good to us (with the exception of sociopaths), empower us to be creative beings and contribute to creativity (this is how I interpret the verse that we are made “in God’s image”).  “Goodness” and “loving creativity” are pretty much one in the same, under this model.  And you don’t have to answer to the dilemma with this model.        

God’s Omniscience and Omnipotence (all-knowing and all-powerful)  It used to drive me absolutely bonkers trying to figure out how free will functions if God is all knowing and is the first-mover.  If you invent an algorithm and know exactly how things are going to play out ad infinitum, and you flick the first domino, then how could any of those domino's even think that they have any free will whatsoever?  You find yourself either thinking free will is a complete farce, or God isn’t actually omniscient.  For a while I found “free will” to be a condition more readily proven to me so I went with that instead.  But this isn’t entirely satisfactory.  It’s reasonable that God is far above us in intellect and knowledge.  So again, I weaseled myself out of the dilemma. I realized these things are only problems if you think of them in very absolute terms.  When people say “free will” they get caught up on the word “free” without considering that it is not entirely unbounded.  You might choose someone to marry, what to eat for lunch, and not to punch a coworker in the face.  But no matter how hard you will it, you will not wake up as a penguin tomorrow.  No matter how hard you will it, you will not reproduce asexually.  So, we have a premise here.  “Free will” does in fact have limitations and boundaries/parameters.  And if that’s the case, to answer to God’s higher level of “knowing”, I find it more satisfactory to say that “relative to us”, God is pretty omniscient.  But we also ought not to think of “omniscience” in absolute terms like we typically do.  Can God truly be surprised by anything?  Probably not surprised by his ape-like human creation’s tendencies.  But maybe God rolled the dice while creating some parallel universe and was actually surprised at what it turned out.  We don’t know if God experiments.  Or if parallel universes exist.  I mean, we don’t know.  But the point is, omniscience is too absolute.  It is far better to say that God is all-knowing relative to us; and our free will, while it is active since we are active components of consciousness in the universe--able to move things and alter things even chemically-- has its bounds and is not completely free into infinity.

God’s omnipotence is solved in a similar manner.  I can’t remember the philosopher but one philosopher somewhere once asked the very crafty question, “Can God create a boulder that God cannot move?”  There is great problem for the believer in this question.  If you answer yes, then God is not all-powerful.  If you answer no, God is still not all-powerful.  But this is an issue with taking “omnipotence” too absolutely, into its outer extreme.  I personally think there must be some sort of limit.  For example, can God annihilate itself?  Maybe but I’m leaning towards no.  Can God create a round square?  Again, I lead towards no.  Christians have also often said, “God can’t contradict His own nature.”  This gives us the idea that there are still some bounds on God.  Which, I’m rather fine with and I find it perfectly satisfactory to say, relative to us little humans, “God is all-powerful”.  I mean, of course, any being that is of a higher dimension than beings below it is pretty much practically omnipotent.  Just not in the way people think when they think of such a descriptor.    Hope You Enjoyed My Trip Down the Rabbit Hole

I feel better now that these thoughts exist outside of me and not just bubbled up in me.  Thanks for reading.  Hope it entertained.     

[venetianblossom]

Thoughts On Being Moderate in a Polarized World

I’m starting to think my problem is that I humanize people too much whereas several people are busy dehumanizing other people, usually utterly blind to it in the process.  I remember when I sat down with a pastor to discuss my wavering faith and current persistent agnosticism.  I expected a lecture about back-sliding.  I expected to be told I was now hell-bound even though I was already in hell and that was a large part (maybe about 50%) of the reason for my agnosticism in the first place.  But what I got instead was a very thoughtful exchange.  I opened up about suffering.  There were moments where we disagreed but in a friendly manner.  I think it was my first face-to-face disagreement and it also fared incredibly well.  Dissension was expressed with the utmost respect and kindness.  Up until then, I didn’t know that could happen.  We also had things that we really bonded over and agreed upon.  This interaction would be the true starting point in my journey to hear people out before I paint my own pictures about them.  I wanted to transcend the polarization I always saw around me.  I had a deep desire to hear both sides of every story.  I’ve been attempting to talk to others in this framework ever since, not just in spiritual life but in regards to politics.  I’d always been a moderate really, in my head, in my private life.  But now I felt like I could engage others with it.  I’m friends with a few people who voted for Trump.  Hell, my own mother voted for Trump.  I couldn’t get behind the guy myself but if I listened to the very reactionary ends of the left, I would’ve had to conclude that my dear friends and my mother were racist bigots.  And I obviously had plenty of life experience that told me that that just isn’t so.  To me, experience always beats dogma.  There was also a time that I thought of conservative Christians as my obvious enemies.  I’d encountered one too many idiots who held the label, and I also felt such a fiery frustration at their lack of understanding towards homosexuality.  I’d seen the prohibition against gay marriage debunked, disassembled, and destroyed a million different ways not just with emotional appeals but with good argumentation and even biblical linguistics/history.  I had to conclude that the only people who would continue to hold such a view must be willfully ignorant, homophobic, or completely callous to the suffering of others.  Though I do still feel strongly about marriage equality, I’ve come to humanize my enemies, once again.  I’ve learned things, in fact, through conservative Christians that I never would have if I hadn’t humanized them.  Just as liberals taught me things before.  Just as atheists taught me things when I was willing to humanize them.  Most importantly?  Most everyone wants to do right by their fellow man and wants to do what’s best for their communities.  Many people want to be kind to you and offer their generosity when it comes to real-life interpersonal interactions. I read recently that being a moderate isn’t just about holding both liberal and conservative views.  Or, as one friend perceives me, I have several “smart conservative beliefs” but really aim for liberal “ideals”.  But I read that being moderate has a lot more to do with how you problem-solve.  Moderates like to find compromise when it’s evident that both sides are insisting on their way or the highway.  Moderates have the keen ability to be a peace keeper and build bridges between two sides of divides, if people weren’t so busy being confused by them.  I once showed sympathy in an online forum toward both transgender children and boy-scout troops that don’t want to change their “boys only” policy.  Because I offered a solution that would’ve been a compromise to both parties, people scratched their head in confusion.  Some called me a liberal snowflake, even though I was not taking a typical “liberal” stance at all.  Others thought I was being a conservative bigot.  And when I’m in the middle of this kind of polarization, which is often, at least online, I can’t help feeling like I’m the only sane person present.            Navigating the world as a moderate is difficult.  On one hand, you probably have at least one thing to bond over, with a very wide variety of people.  You will truly learn a lot and from several walks of life.  On the other hand, it’s a bit unnerving and unsettling to know that you also hold beliefs that could probably anger every single person you know.  You are a person without a tribe.  Sometimes this is lonely.  Sometimes it makes me want to be a hermit and live in a hobbit home and just watch the feud from the comfort of a laptop; watching a polarized world tearing itself apart because they refuse to learn how to listen and compromise.   Just consider the term “agnostic theist”.  Atheists might think you weak minded for believing in God.  More religious folk can’t figure out if you’re “saved” or not because you’re not believing all the “right” “doctrines”.  I try to be someone who adapts their views to new information.  This approach has already caused me to let go of some liberal beliefs I had, as well as conservative beliefs I had in my childhood.  I stopped believing that sex before marriage was a “scarring” thing to do as some would have me believe.  I started to see decent criticisms for capitalism.  Meanwhile I’ve stopped believing in things like “white privilege” and enjoy documentaries like “the Red Pill”, a movie that many feminists attempted to ban.  I used to think conservatives were heartless for being weary about the refugee crisis, but now that Sweden has become one of the “rape capitols of the world”, I see that their concerns were well-founded.  I’ll continue to evolve and change my mind too!  But imagine trying to navigate the dating world like this.  I sometimes really do think that this is why I’m single a lot of the time.  I don’t want to walk on eggshells with whoever I end up with.  I want to be able to be honest and authentic but yet, as I said, I hold beliefs that might easily piss someone off if they’re not also a moderate like I am.  And either we are a dying breed, or we don’t speak up very much.  It’s possible that moderates are a reserved personality type so I just don’t see them in any obvious way very often.   One thing is certain, the art of compromise is being lost in my country, and this does grieve me.  I see straw-man arguments nearly on a daily basis.  People attack their assumptions about other people in the most fantastically unproductive display of hubris and fanaticism I’ve ever seen.  And I wish I could say it’s going to get better, but I really don’t believe it is.  I think that people are going to continue to become ever more reactionary.  I went to a Trevor Noah show recently.  I love Trevor.  He’s witty and funny and I definitely enjoy his presence on the Daily Show.  But one of his opening comics talked about the election season.  He was obviously anti-Trump, which is fine to express.  But he talked about how “several of us lost many Facebook friends in the war”.  The crowd cheered.  I found this incredibly unsettling.  We shouldn’t be cheering about how we’re too messed up and stupid to converse with those who are different than us.  We shouldn’t cheer that we don’t have the patience to at least try.  I will concede, some people are nigh impossible to reason with.  But nevertheless, I do not think that division is something to laugh about or cheer for.  We shouldn’t fill with glee about our obvious devolving as a species.  I see several sides that are too busy attacking the other, to notice their own hypocrisy or flaming piles of crap.  I wish I could say I’m optimistic, but I’m not.  Maybe someone else will have to help me see the light.         

[venetianblossom]

How Harm Principle and Divine Command Theory Influences the Homosexual Debate

I’ve written about my thoughts on homosexuality before.  It was more of an empathetic, emotional weigh-in that explained how I arrived at being pro-gay marriage even in a christian environment with actually zero gay friends.  But today I want to talk about presuppositions.  A presupposition is something we ground subsequent truth claims on.  When we talk about attributes of God, we presuppose the existence of God.  When we talk about morality, we have all sorts of presuppositions.  We might have the presupposition that morality is invented by human society and that it contains no real objectivity (whether or not it being invented by humans makes it subjective or not is a whole debate within itself!).  Or we might presuppose that 100% moral relativity is a paradox.  And then if we reject this paradox, we presuppose that there is good reason to on the basis that it is a paradox (even though some true paradoxes exist and remain true-but they are rare).  Anyway I don’t want to get into too much mumbo-jumbo philosophy ramble.  But I am going to talk about two presuppositions that I notice can sway a person’s opinions on whether or not homosexuality is bad or a sin.  I’ve come to notice these things when talking to people who disagree with me.  And believe me, I know a lot of people personally who disagree with me.  Anyway, let’s start with what is known as the “harm principle”.  I will offer up a quote of what that means as follows “The Harm Principle (also known as the Liberty Principle) protects what Berlin would call negative liberty: Mill is concerned to define a sphere of freedom from interference, rather than to advocate any particular standard of conduct. Actions that concern only the individual should not be subject to compulsion or control by the state ‘in the form of legal penalties’, or by ‘the moral coercion of public opinion’. The Harm Principle is intended to place limits not only on the authority of government, but also on the actions of the collective public.An individual is therefore free up to the point that they cause ‘harm to others’.” -- http://www.sevenoaksphilosophy.org/on-liberty/harm-principle.html Now, I offer up a thought train.  If God’s morality is objective and if he gives a mandate that is meant to be universal, well we should expect to see objective empirical evidence of harm resulting from a particular human action should we not?  Maybe people might delineate between different types of harm.  Some might say that something doesn’t harm the body but harms the spirit but I personally don’t see as much of a distinction, in most scenarios.  Our emotions and physical bodies are incredibly linked.  You feel depressed and it has a real physical component.  You feel bad physically and it might effect your emotions.  And sure you might get temporary pleasure within your body from say, binge drinking, but you will pay a physical cost, and perhaps emotional cost, and thus perhaps a spiritual cost. The scripture says “the wage of sin is death”--which always rather gave me the impression that bad actions have real, practical destructive consequences.  It is also said that the fruit of the spirit are things like “joy, peace, contentment.”  These are all states of mind and as you can see, are the opposite of harm. And when deciding whether an action is bad or not we might say that it is so because the harm is very much unnecessary.  For example, when you work out, you do a little bit of harm to the body in order for it to build itself up again stronger.  Overall the well-being cancels out the minor, necessary harm.  And I personally will count something as bad in action if it leads to absolutely destructive harm with no real necessity.  With this said, we would expect to see some real harm coming DIRECTLY from homosexual behavior itself if it were meant as a universal mandate to be a “no no”.  But if you’d like to see arguments about the “harm” it does, dismantled, I can refer to an excellent lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iXA_0MED98 Now that we’ve got that out of the way, some people might wager “Well that’s not why God tells us not to do things.  It’s not always because the thing is actually bad.  It’s because God decided it is bad and does not like it”.  This actually is a very interesting presupposition.  It is basically known as “divine command theory”.   To quote another philosophical source, “ The Euthyphro Argument comes from Plato’s dialogue in which Sokrates asks: Is something is right because God commands it, or does God command it because it is right? The ethical implications of this argument suggest that the relationship between morality and religion might not be as clear-cut as previously thought. What makes this question so effective is that if the interlocutor accepts either part of it he is often logically forced into conclusions that may conflict with other beliefs he has, therefore creating a logical dilemma for him. “ This is something I think believers should really ask themselves and wrestle with.  Personally, I came to the conclusion that there is ONE thing we can say with absolutely certainty about a creator and that’s this: It’s creative!  It wants to create rather than there be nothing and it wants things to unfold in marvelous creative ways.  Even natural biological death isn’t destructive as all energy can neither be created nor destroyed.  Death and birth are two sides of the same coin.  From this grounding, I postulate that the creator gives mandates that do not lead to utter destruction and chaos that undo the creative marvel.  Isn’t it interesting that one of the byproducts of love is more life?  Love and life is creative in and of itself.  Love is good for many reasons but partially for this reason.  So I think, if you reject divine command theory, you don’t think that God just assigns things as arbitrarily good or bad.  And things are good or bad because of the latent harm or non-harm held within them.  This could really be a long thought train but I think I’ll leave it there and say that divine command theory is not tenable, since it leads to circular reasoning.  And I’ll reiterate that morality is based around what does and doesn’t bring harm to others and ourselves.  Now, imagine how this influences the homosexuality debate between Christians.  If you think for some reason that homosexuality is objectively bad, either through some sort of perception or because of divine command theory, you would logically be correct if your premises (divine command theory or observed harm) are correct.  Think about parents that throw out their gay teenagers on the street.  People will argue, “that’s not what Christ would do.”  But then yet again people might rationalize that it’s okay to throw out a kid who was caught stealing and doing drugs (actions that violate the harm principle and also are a free choice).  We could get into a whole other presupposition here about whether sin can be a sin if it isn’t chosen but I’ll just leave that food for thought unaddressed.  See it becomes a grave misdeed when the child is being thrown out for something that doesn’t harm himself or others and also is not chosen.  Personally, I think far more objective harm is caused by the rejection and oppression of homosexuals than could ever be argued to be caused by homosexuality itself.  Just look at the suicide rates.  And no, you don’t choose to feel suicidal.  I’ve been there, it’s something that slowly creeps into your life over a long elapse of time when your exterior situation outweighs your coping mechanisms as a human being.  Or look at the rates of teenagers that are homeless due to societal rejection of homosexuality.     “ In America, it is estimated that 1.6. million youth are homeless each year and that up to 40% of them identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender “ Or just listen to these stories of people who tried to go through conversion therapy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-Nph8R4Q_4 If that’s not enough, it should be a red flag that the biggest ex-gay ministry in the world closed down and issued a public apology for doing what it did, admitting that orientation was largely fixed and highly resistant to change.  There are also scripture experts that bring into question the actual context and translation involved with the verses that prohibit homosexuality.  I won’t go into that and I’ll leave that instead to better qualified people who know more about the bible, below: https://www.gaychristian.net/justins_view.php https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqYvkVqVLFo In any event, I want to mostly point out how a person’s positions on divine command theory, and harm principle, will likely widely sway where they wind up in their beliefs about homosexuality and homosexual people.  And I hope I did that effectively.  I’m making a case and a stance too but my driving thesis is about these presuppositions that can shift a person’s opinions one way or the other.   And for me personally, I do not find it correct to tell someone they are in the wrong if I cannot find evidence that what they are doing is causing harm.  It is doubly wrong if I give them advice to repress themselves in a way that often leads to despair to the point of suicide (actual harm).  And it is triple wrong if the holy texts that back up these beliefs, are even questionable in and of themselves, among scholars.  So this is why, I personally cannot and will not ever tell someone they should pray the gay away.  What they decide to do is their decision but I will love them and encourage them in whatever brings them peace, joy, love, and contentment, without violating the harm principle.  Thank you :)    

[venetianblossom]

So I randomly Stumbled Across the Meaning of Life

When I tried to tell a friend about this, he aptly said, “I think it is one of those things that is such a hard query, that no matter how eloquently you state your discovery, it is still something one needs to experience to understand. It is still something one finds for themselves.”  I agree. But, to fly in the face of all that, there’s a really neat simple joy when you feel a shift in your world view and suddenly things fall into place. Your life might still be a mess. Or maybe it’s fine. But to have everything come together to make greater sense, it offers such great mental peace.  Because of that I feel compelled to write this down. I am a very forgetful creature. It is partly my nature but it is also a bad attribute I have acquired because of some of the illnesses and traumas I’ve gone through. You get a forgetful brain. It is a blessing sometimes.  Anyway, nevertheless, I will start out by saying...I am not a very faithful person. I used to be. Perhaps it depends on who you ask. Some might posit that the fact that I clung to any faith at all even beyond hardship, means I have a lot. But in practice, I always try to have views and philosophies that extend BEYOND theological beliefs. I know I can’t guarantee there is a cosmic parent, a God, even if i feel confident on betting there is one. Given that it is not a guarantee, I do not want to place the entirety of my views and comfort on the idea.  This is why I claim that I don’t, in practice, think or act like a very faithful person. I act more like a skeptic.  So then, with that said, its easy to get depressed...imagining...”what if there is no God...what meaning is there then to life? if it is all so fleeting and ends in inevitable death?” I personally still think there is more beyond death.  BUT. This is not about that. This is about not needing to cling desperately to that being true. This is about finding meaning even beyond all of that.  Some atheists perhaps might say, “well I create meaning,” or, “I get meaning from my friends and family and those i love.”  These all sound dandy until you realize, “but wait, everyone will perish eventually. This entire planet will eventually be absorbed by the sun. What then is there to be said of any lasting impact?” I started having a crisis similar to what Tolstoy describes in “a Confession”. No I didn’t read the book. I read some excerpts, enough to think, “man this shit is depressing and I hope it’s not the truth”.  To get to the point, I assembled some things I know to be true...that I found joy in, once assembled.  First, I should say, the struggle with finding meaning in life and any disparity that ensues with this pursuit can sometimes be the result of pure vanity.  I remember I first connected with the biblical story of Job after a trip to Hana.  Hana is a big tropical rain-forest.  And a trip back in 2012-ish made my at-the-time-devastating-breakup-with-someone seem so incredibly insignificant.  It dwarfs you.  That is the comfort in looking at the stars or the galaxy.  It is knowing that we are sort of insignificant and thus our problems are too.  Relatively speaking, of course.  We still have to do life and deal with the problems but it can help to see the big picture and see what a small portion they take up. But wait, this too can get depressing, if you stop here; if you stop at the idea of being insignificant. But, a few cosmological facts...comfort me. Life is like a vote in a democracy. One vote might not seem like much.  And yet paradoxically it is incredibly important (in an actual non-corrupt democracy that is).  One drop in the ocean is but a drop but it is still essential to the ocean.  And the ocean altogether is this grande, powerful, enigmatic force.  Similarly, humanity is a part of a big, giant, beautiful creation and cosmic story. Considering that elements were once cooked up in stars, dispersed throughout the earth, and then there’s the fact that we were comprised of such elements and later developed consciousness.  This makes it an actual fact that we are the universe observing and experiencing itself.  It sounds new agey spiritual but I don’t think it really is.  I think it’s a really cool and beautiful fact that lends credence to what we really are.  To give another example, one atom is so microscopic and seemingly insignificant in the vast sea of atoms that compose matter, and yet, it is still a part of all that is matter.  And we also know that you only need to split one to yield catastrophic events.  We too can have great impact, positive or negative, even though we control so little.  We can impact reality just by observing and just by existing.  So what meaning is there to life? The meaning is to take part in it! To be lucky enough to be part of this giant evolving sea of life itself.  Every struggle and every laugh.  Be present.  Add joy to the tapestry when possible.   “But life is not fair,” you might think. No, it’s not, but neither are your blessings if you think about it.  I used to sit around thinking about how unfair some of my tragedies were.  But I then wondered if it was right, to call my blessings fair.  After all, I have a home. I’m grateful for that.  But if I really wanted “fairness”, well then what about the child in the world that has no home?  Is it fair I have some things that are unearned when they don’t?  I had to let go of this idea of things being fair.  For the most part.  Equality in society is still worth fighting for but I started to see with more clarity what is worth fighting for...not these illusory ideas of fairness I’d invented.  Of course, we can also find purpose in stewardship, loving others, and ensuring the well being of our planet so that life can continue to flourish.  And theologically, most decisions we make I think come down to whether we want to allow for God’s continued creativity and contribute to it. Or we want to destroy and give way to destruction. I think, perhaps i’m oversimplifying but perhaps I’m not; that’s all morality really is.  Creation, or destruction.   So live life for simple joys and accept it as a gift that you are wired to enjoy such things. When you help yourself, you help others. And when you help others, you help yourself. Partake in the growing collective consciousness and be in awe.  Best part is, to me, this offers peace in any circumstance. You don’t need tons of money or fame or acquired things to come to this. You don’t need those things to partake. You don’t need to be in an advanced career or any of that. All these things, while still worthwhile, should never be your ultimate. Because then you are chasing the wind. You will still cry in life perhaps. You will still have grief.  I am not saying happiness need be permanent. But I think the peace I’ve gained here will help see me through. And I’ll probably need to come back to it later. And to end this abruptly and awkwardly, as I like to do, that is all I’ve got. <3   

[venetianblossom]

Why I Don’t Really Go to Sermons Anymore

  I hope simply to illustrate a potential problem I see in church culture today, since I still am loosely part of it, and I hope to inspire thought so that there can be positive alterations.  Nothing more. Nothing less. And okay I confess, the other motivating factor about me writing this is just me wanting to put to bed anyone’s wondering about why I just really don’t go to sunday church or nightly church anymore (since a long time ago).  In case people were actually wondering.  It’s more likely nobody cares that much.   

This comes down to faith and works.  Oh joy, yes, that thing that caused divisions through church throughout the ages.  I’m not going to discuss what REALLY leads to salvation, though I certainly have my own opinion, shocker.  More-so, I’m beginning to feel like churches simply aren’t acting enough. Sometimes, I am unsure if this is because such an emphasis is placed on faith over works in some areas? I’m sure everyone is well aware of the much quoted passage in James that faith without works is dead. Cognitively, Christians know that passage. But here’s what I’d love to see churches doing more of (disclaimer, i do know some that are doing a good job and really put out an effort to do great kindnesses in the lives of others, near and far--good job--I’m not talking about you). I’d love it if when I went to a church and got a pamphlet, I didn’t just see a list of their statement of faith and times when people are getting together for bible studies, so that you can get together with other like minded people if you enjoyed the sermon.  I’d like it if I ALSO saw a huge bulletin of what that church is specifically doing for the community.  Is there a get-together once a month where they visit the sick in hospitals and try to do nice things to help the sickly? Is there a scheduled time when they do beach clean ups or other practices of good stewardship to help the environment and be a positive example?  Is there a monthly potluck perhaps to feed the homeless community, which is without a doubt growing?  Is there a ministry to visit those in prison?  Is there a group of people that want to get out there and just ask strangers if they would like or need prayer (without turning it into a situation where you’re trying to bait people into conversion)?  How about regular fundraisers to raise money for those in need?  Where is all this stuff?  I want to DO all this stuff.  Missions trips are one thing.  And they are good, and I’m glad they exist.  But we forget our own communities are broken and need missions as well.  I know there are some programs out there.  Feed My Sheep is one, and they’re wonderful.  But with the number of churches I see in my community, I don’t see quite as much community impact as I think there could be.  And to be honest, I’m pretty sure non-Christians notice this too.  

And I know it’s easier said than done.  I know the economy is dwindling for many, the middle class is becoming nonexistent, the American future looks bleak, and many people are probably just trying to survive themselves.  It’s a lot to juggle!  Oh, I’m well aware.  But all the more reason, we should remember and dwell on the things Jesus said to DO, not just the things to think.  There is far more need these days than I think I’ve ever seen in my short life.   Why don’t I really go to sermons anymore? A few reasons, not all of them selfless.  But for one, I think we’re really wasting our time.  I’m not trying to put the whole profession down and say it shouldn’t be done at all.  But I find it troubling that the church format is often to go and sing songs, listen to someone give their interpretation of scripture (because let’s face it, 38,000 denominations and growing? Your pastor's words aren’t infallible), and then talk to our friends and go home and hopefully try to be more loving toward people during the week.  All that is great and dandy, sure.  I’ve heard sermons that have changed my entire outlook and really moved me, once in awhile.  Keyword: once in a while...not every week.  And it’s good to contemplate.  But I think the ratio is out of balance between service and, essentially, sitting around and contemplating doctrines.  Hasn’t this religion been doing a lot of sitting and contemplating doctrines for a couple thousand years?   Einstein was quoted as having said,  “If one purges the Judaism of the Prophets and Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching which is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity.”  Whether or not he did indeed say that, I give an amen. 

Maybe this is somewhat me projecting my experience of how fleeting time feels for me.  As someone who has had a lot of setbacks to their goals, I always feel like I’m running out of time.  But also, I don’t know about anyone else, when I read the gospel I feel so INSPIRED.  I feel so moved to get out there and serve!  But does it have to involve me saving up thousands to fly to another country and culture and build homes?  I totally would if I were able, but I’m not, and I think I could still help locally.  And not just me, a lot of us could.  I just want Christianity to be a light in the dark again, since Jesus inspires me so much.  And now, by the looks of it, the “outer world” as some Christians like to call it, looks like it's doing a better humanitarian job than the church.  I find that utterly depressing and uplifting at the same time.  It’s uplifting to see people coming together in love, it’s depressing that more churches aren’t spending enough of their time on it.  The other reason is albeit a little selfish.  If it wasn’t obvious, I’m a more liberal Christian than a conservative one and I’m swimming in a sea of conservative Christianity.  Sermons are a practice in me flexing my tolerance muscle.  Great now and again; not something I want to do all of the time.  Either way, I want to act as hands and feet for a church that makes a direct impact in the lives that surround us.  That seems more worthwhile than potentially arguing about atonement theories.    Even though, not to go against everything I just said, I DO love discussing these heady theological things and thinking about it....I just want to see more Jesus in action. 

That about sums it up though.  I hope I live to see a time where all churches truly become a beacon of rest for the communities surrounding them. “28Come to Me, all you who are weary andburdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.…”  Matthew 11:28           PS if anyone i know reads this and knows of some service projects going on nearby, do correct me and let me know! :) 

[venetianblossom]

Let’s Talk About Invisible Illness

Where do I start with broaching this heavy subject?  I want to open up about what it’s really like to live with an invisible illness.  For those that might not know, “invisible illness” is any condition that a person might struggle with daily or weekly, that doesn’t make itself incredibly evident on the exterior.  If you’re wheel-chair bound, your illness is quite visible.  But if your condition manifests itself in episodes, the reason most people around you won’t witness it is because you will probably lock yourself up in your room during episodes.  Probably only your family and close, close friends have ever actually seen its ravaging hold over you.  And honestly, I don’t know about anybody else, but it’s not exactly something I want people to see.  It’s not easy to be that weak in front of others.   Ever since going through what I’ve gone through, I’ve always sat with this knowledge that I would have to contribute to the many voices speaking on this subject.  I knew I’d have to share pieces of my story, in a more elaborate, honest way than I’d ever done.  I think its important so that we, as a human species, can have more compassion and empathy for situations we don’t understand or might not even be aware of.  So let me walk you through being in the shoes of having an invisible illness, including the nitty gritty.   ---Invisible illness is the feeling that you often have to compensate.  It’s hard enough living up to societal standards when you’re fully able-bodied.  It’s harder when you feel like you have to not only prove yourself to others, but also yourself.  It’s wrestling with yourself about your worth as a human being.  You might get caught up in overt displays of vanity, because you want to know that you’re still okay; that your personality is still good, or you’re still pretty, or you have good character, or good talents, to make up for whatever limit or wall you continually press up against with your condition.  ---As a result of the above, you probably have tons of pictures of you on your good days.  (Because what person takes pics on the bad days).  On social media people may even be surprised to find you’re not fully well; that your life is a juggling act of still trying to pursue dreams and meanwhile grilling doctors as if you are Mr. Holmes deducing the root of all the madness.  Your career dreams might hang by a thread of “maybe”, while you pursue doctors who can help.  But you keep pursuing both because honestly, what else are you going to do? Give up? Maybe some come to accept the limits placed in front of them.  But I think I decided to rattle the cage until my dying breath, hopefully a death from old age.    --- Invisible illness is missed opportunities.  It involves some serious “FOMO” come true.  And anyone ill, often has issues with travel.  Invisible illness is having to brush off people asking you if you’ve ever traveled with “oh, I’ve just never had the money” and then quickly telling them that “but you’d love to see places x,y, and z.” to keep things positive.  You’d rather not explain that travel might be complicated.  You want a person with you at all times that understands your condition and what to do in case of emergency (even if those emergencies are quite rare).  And you find yourself thinking “but anyone can have a medical emergency when traveling anyway right?”  And then you get to wondering if you’re paranoid.  And sometimes you might then go ahead and try to do something, thinking you can handle it, only to have your condition bite you in the ass.  -- Invisible illness, if it involves a good deal of chronic pain, is the reality of sometimes waking up and wishing with every bone in your body that you no longer existed.  I’m not going to lie about this.  If you know someone dealing with chronic pain it’s very possible they’ve just wished for the end to come, and to come quickly.  It’s the reality of googling the most painless suicide methods...even if you’re not at a stage where you wish to attempt, you just want to know you have some sort of “out” if you can’t take it anymore.  Disclaimer:  I am not suicidal right now.  But I did spend a good approximate year of my life in this state.  --Invisible illness, if it disables you, comes with the awkwardness of having to explain your limits to people.  Or it might be the awkwardness of a new person asking you where you work.  This is especially awkward if you’re young, and still standing on both legs.  This is when invisible illness can be, especially* invisible.  ---the one potential perk of invisible illness...if disabled...is that you have a lot of time.  You have time to research and learn all sorts of things.  You have time to read, to game, to create.  You might be in pain but you have time to do a lot that you otherwise might not.  --Invisible illness is the weirdness of trying to date and keep things lighthearted enough on a first date, knowing that telling them about what you go through might be like dropping a bomb on them later.  But yet you feel they have a right to know what they’re signing up for.  And you can’t tell when or how you should tell them.   --Invisible illness is sometimes even forgetting yourself that you have an anomaly (most often due to medications that restore function to your life).  And you might begin to feel normal again, until you’re reminded that you do indeed have that condition. 

--Invisible illness changes you, without a doubt.  I am a much bigger empath, and keen about the suffering of others, more than I ever thought possible for someone like me. It’s not like I was a grotesque person, but I think many of us are naturally selfish.  And I was too transactional about life, only looking out for my gains.  And I cared about others sure, but in retrospect, I was stubborn and stupid and selfish when I was younger and not afflicted. I’ve also learned to embrace the darkness and embrace chaos.  Now, that might sound troublesome, but I don’t mean to say that I embrace injustice, immoral behavior, or destruction.  What I mean to say is that I am less afraid of the little frights of this world.  I’ve learned to laugh at morbid things.  I’m fascinated by vigilante characters.  I enjoy some aggressive video games.  And I like to think I try not to sweat the small stuff anymore.  This was a big milestone considering I used to be unable to watch any movies or stories where anyone died, because I used to have panic attacks and was quite fearful.  I began to embrace those things, sort of as a continual challenge for myself to not be afraid.  And if I seem so happy sometimes, it’s because I know what a whole day of pain feels like, and I’m probably just happy that that’s not the day I’m having.  Illness teaches you gratitude in a way that few other things can.    --Invisible illness also taught me that it’s not all about me; that I sometimes could still help others even in the middle of my own pains. And is this a silver lining to what I’ve been through? I don’t know, perhaps.  I want to say there won’t always be silver linings that you can see in your life.  But I live with a hope and a faith that when I get to the end, it will be made clear. And I just wanted to add my voice, a drop in the ocean of stories about enduring pain.  And please, if you’re in pain, reach out to someone.  You’ll need one or two people to hold on to.          P.S: if you read all this and thought, “wait. wait. but what has your condition actually been *like?” I think this part I can keep relatively brief.  I have medications that enable me to be able to fall asleep by 3 or 5 am at the latest.  And it’s not like this every night.  Sometimes I fall asleep within 10 minutes.  Sometimes it’s popping a pill ever hour until I finally crash (chronic intermittent insomnia). but as you can imagine, this means i don’t do well with morning plans or schedules. I can’t work any morning shifts anywhere that’s for sure.  But at least I can often function and still do the work that I do.  Before medication, I was regularly awake for 38 hours with chills, nausea, tremors, neuropathy (i think thats the fancy word for nerve pain)...and just generally feeling like an effing zombie to be pretty frank.  But the worst part was the nausea and nerve pain.  I lost a lot of weight.  I was down to 107 pounds and I’m a 5′7″ woman.  Sometimes these episodes would happen 3x a week.  Sometimes they were twice a month.  But they were unpredictable and totally debilitating when they happened. So there.  I don’t live in constant pain anymore.  But I’m still limited. And I’m also still fighting for answers and fighting for my dreams in life. 

[venetianblossom]

Spiritual Ponderings

This is going to be a bit less of an angry rant.  More of a story.  Some birthdays or Christmases ago, a dear friend of mine named Erin asked me what my favorite scripture was.  I had to think about it.  I told her.  She then ingeniously managed to print it up on tiny tiny little paper in tiny tiny font, and then put it in a tiny glass bottle that I could wear around my neck as a necklace.  Honestly a very thoughtful gift.  Erin was always a sweetheart.  Anyway, the scripture I chose was this “ 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters,[a] what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? “ This version in particular is taken from the gospel of Matthew.  I thought it was strangely something that always convicted me as well as inspired me.  Perhaps I looked at it and thought, “man, if we all did that....maybe heaven could be real on Earth”  Or maybe it chose me.  I have this hypothesis, sometimes what we are drawn to becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, and even a legacy.  Because I find it funny that I selected that scripture and it’s as if God said “oh you like that one do you?....I see I see.  Well then I’ve got some things for you my dear”.  In hindsight, life has been very effective and throwing situation after situation at me where I am challenged to live up to this scripture.  I have felt a lot of betrayal.  I have tasted abandonment.  I am also a passionate being.  Being passionate and very stubborn about my convictions makes for the kind of person that writhes in their skin a little when someone says something they passionately disagree with.  But for the sake of wishing to be loving, I try to practice knowing when to hold my tongue and focus on the aspects of people that I do love and the things that I find worthwhile.  But yes, I’ve also been challenged with forgiving just some straight up terrible people.  So, It’s funny.  If it was God’s doing, I can appreciate the sense of humor, and I humorously want to say ...”challenge accepted God”.  But I guess I’d say....be careful which favorite scripture you pick ;) It just might challenge you. 

[venetianblossom]

Seriously, why DO I bother? 

[venetianblossom]

An Open Letter about Church Loving Gays

           There are few things that when expressed in church, via a peer or pastor or sermon, will make me want to stand right up and walk out.  I’d like to add a disclaimer that none of these few things really have anything to do with Jesus or following his gospel at all.  But anyway, I’m going to focus on one controversial, integral issue that weighs heavy on my heart.  And apparently it’s not just heavy on mine but it is an issue that is splitting and diving churches across the country.  The H-word.  Homosexuality.                              I’ll give you a small background on what I used to be like, and what happened.  I didn’t have a whole lot of gay friends or even acquaintances.  I say this to point out that i had very little influence from the gay community in my life.  This quiet cold civil war on human rights had never had much reason to be at the forefront of my life, or of my thoughts.  Whenever it was mentioned at church it always seemed glossed over in a “homosexuality is bad mmkay” sort of way, before the speaker moved on to the main topic of discussion.  Talk on homosexuality was usually just some small random appetizer and not the main course.  I did feel that something was amiss however.  I found it odd for people to be up in arms about a sin when you don’t see people protesting their rights to be a liar, a murderer, recklessly promiscuous, or a harmful drunkard.  Most people recognize the consequences of those things as involving the hurt of oneself or others.  But anyhow, I was still on the fence.  I thought i’d just avoid the issue and the controversy.  But I couldn’t just have nothing better than an ignorant shrug as a response, if the topic came up. I needed to formulate some sort of compassionate or loving response that was somehow practical.   I needed to have something I could say.  I reasoned that, when we ask God to change us of some bad habit or sin, God is all too delighted to help us.  Why wouldn’t He be?  We’re taught He gladly wants to guide us and help us aim for righteousness.  So i thought I’d withhold judgment of this group of people and leave it between them and God.  If they really want to change and try to, I imagine God would help them.  And if they “pray the gay away”, why wouldn’t God deliver clear results?  After all there is plenty of testimony of God changing people’s lives around from whatever “bad ways” they were in before right?  People speak of dying to their old desires to where they don’t even want those things anymore.  God doesn’t give us things we literally can’t repent from.  And I’m not sure I could believe in one that did.  It would be an odd illogical God that tells us not to want or do something but makes it impossible for us not to want it.

                             So then something happened.  Well a few documentaries happened, but more importantly, Exodus ministries shutting down was something big that had closed the book on my earlier theory.  My loving response was no longer something I could provide as advice and still call myself an honest person.  Conversion therapy was proven not to work.  And Exodus was not a small operation.  It started out with modest roots but expanded to a conglomerate size with aims at ministering to people worldwide.  It was the biggest ex gay ministry in the world.  But the “CEO” if you will, the head of the organization, along with other constituents, issued public apologies for promising change that they could not deliver.  And they reported that 99% of their clients or patients that they met with had orientations that were fixed and completely resistant to change.  These are the basic facts from which i think one should handle a homosexual person, and the idea of orientation being a choice will soon be archaic.  And on a side note let’s face it; if it were a choice we’d be dealing with a group of the most masochistic people in the history of ever.          But i realized something, and it broke my heart.  The very religion i associated with was taking a large part in making these people outcasts and oppressing them.   Because what advice is left to tell a person who has an innate condition that cannot be prayed away?  Do I tell them to be celibate?  Maybe some wouldn’t mind celibacy.  But forced celibacy is a horrific idea.  The apostle Paul also mentioned the blessing of celibacy but did not make it a mandate for good reason.  He stressed that it was better to marry than to burn and yearn with passion.  So to deny a homosexual marriage would be robbing them of ever experiencing a deeper intimate love or creating a family, something that often mirrors in many ways the love God has for us.  It would be telling them that every time they develop romantic feelings for someone, they must flee.  Every time they look at someone as a beautiful soul that they want to care for in a deeply intimate way, they must kill their feelings and convince themselves that such feelings are hideous and that God Himself hates them.  Therapists would be up in arms about how psychologically damaging this is.  It’s one thing that the lgbt community is already subject to torment from bigots who have blind hatred for them.  It’s enough that they have to worry about real death threats or being disowned from their parents as teens.  The extra salt in the wound is when people with good intentions tell them that they accept them and God loves them, while saying that the way they innately feel love is “wrong”.   That’s a pseudo-acceptance and that’s not loving the gay person at all.  It is not loving them, “your neighbor”, as yourself.  I would not want to be treated that way.  It is not a message of hope.  It is a message of despair and self loathing to the point of deeper depression, which is quite the opposite of what the gospel is supposed to do.  As Matthew Vines aptly said, “it is a tree producing bad fruit”, and we all know what kind of tree produces bad fruit don’t we?  It’s not good news it’s bad news.   How can you tell someone they’re basically screwed because you have no solution for them, and that you love them in the same breath?

          Throw in “For the Bible Tells me So” (documentary of well-adjusted christian parents ending up with gay children, dispelling the notion that homosexuality is only born out of abusive environments) and some Matthew Vines sermons (a young bible scholar that addresses the scriptural references to homosexuality) and i became completely convinced that I could no longer stand for this.  I couldn’t turn a blind eye.   It wasn’t because I had decided to ignore scripture but it was because of many things i’d been taught through scripture that i came to know this can’t be right.  It wasn’t me trying to be liberal or fit in with peers.  What peers?  I reached such conclusions during a time that most of my friends happen to be conservative christians.  Scripture includes the notion that God hates oppression, and so I should too, if not for the reason of basic human decency.

           Thing is, i wish i had the guts to say things like this when i really could.  But often this pseudo-acceptance is coming from peers and friends that i actually respect and love and value, so it makes speaking up harder.  When I go to fellowship, i’m there to bond and grow with my brothers and sisters in christ.  So making a scene about homosexuality often seems very out of place.  And the few times it’s mentioned I usually can’t help myself to do much else than stare at the floor and clench my teeth.  If you happen to be one of those peers reading, know that I don’t intend to treat you any differently and i still value you, even if you read this and still disagree.   But I’ll be honest, I am hoping that this might cause some people to think.  Or perhaps cause them to look up the aforementioned documentary and bible scholar if they want more convincing.

            I hope that maybe someday rather than keeping my mouth shut in person and ranting online, I’ll find an LGBT affirming church.  And then perhaps I can get to know and actually minister to such people and be a part of the growing community.  I want love and harmony to win in the end.  And I don’t want anyone to be left out.  And in the end I probably won’t want to be in a church that leaves anyone out either.  Maybe it’s just going to take time.  What good is a faith, if it hampers your ability to serve and love others?   "13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecyand can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing." -- Corinthians 13

[venetianblossom]

Secret Pleasures We (Usually) Don't tell Anyone about

I thought, just for funsies (i like that word too much), that I would interview the people I know about what their guilty pleasures are.  In other words, what they do behind closed doors, with themselves, or embarrassing things they take joy in.  Some of these are more like confessions.  I'm a little more afraid of some of you now. No Judgment! So I've compiled the anonymous list for readers to giggle at.

Peeing in the shower

  "Everytime I meet someone new I size them up and imagine the best, most efficient, way of killing them and disposing the body. A result of watching too many horror movies, to be sure,"

  I'm a proud owner of brony pajamas

running around the house singing, in boxers, when my roommates are out, Specifically, I was singing "we are never getting back together" into a spatula

 Kesha

Cleaning house in the nude. its so freeing. its like cleaning the soul...

I'm a trucker, and I sing songs like Selena Gomez's "love you like a love song" at the top of my lungs in the car

waking and baking. i gotta stop doing that..

I can make myself cry when listening to Imagine Dragons

Shoujo manga (which apparently translates to girl manga). This came from a guy

playing neopets

watching the notebook for the umpteenth time and still crying..

animal sex youtube videos...just because i'm curious sometimes.

blood showers.  You know when its the time of the month and you're in the shower and some clots of blood are on your shower floor; i like to pretend it's blood from some huge combat i was in and I just won. 

"when I'm bored, I like to sign onto Skype and reread the convos I've had with guys that I liked in the past"

lesbian porn

[venetianblossom]

The Pros and Cons of Being a Female Gamer

      As of late, I’ve discovered the rampaging joys of online gaming.  You gain a whole new social network in fictional worlds where you can enjoy a common activity, sometimes in the comfort of your own pajamas.  It’s great to let off steam, or if you just enjoy some occasional escapism.  Being female though, I have noticed this new world comes with some interesting perks as well as some slight disadvantages.  These are my observations.     It’s interesting to note that our gender-specific societal norms seem to carry over into gameplay as well, even though we’re all incognito as our characters.  What I mean is, in life, male-to-male interaction is often more competitive and isn’t as likely to involve any favors whereas men enjoy giving to women and providing for women; and it still holds true today even though women have become more financially independent (at least in the U.S.).   So, in gaming, if you reveal that you do indeed have estrogen and lady lumps, you might see situations like this http://31.media.tumblr.com/b276a3cfad27772bb6b8a30d2c908d82/tumblr_mrjmdtgpiv1qdlh1io1_400.gif It’s a perk and I’m not complaining.  A male player even went so far as to buy me a game on my steam account.  That could just be old-fashioned generosity, or the mystical allure of my female voice might have something to do with it.         Another perk is that some men in your life might treat you a bit like a unicorn: rare and valuable.  Even though the female demographic of gamers is on the rise and it is becoming less true that videogames are foreign objects to women, there remains the notion that a gaming girl is a hot commodity to be snagged.  It also gives you a wealth of conversation if you’re not sure what to talk about with a guy you’re possibly interested in.  Not every guy games but, odds are, you might strike some conversational gold somewhere in there.  Just try cracking a few jokes about “thinking with portals”.  He might just propose.           One of the downsides also happens to be the male attention.  Sometimes you may be flirted with by a strange person you don’t know; all you know about them is that they are wielding an assault rifle and that they have a penchant for alerting zombie hordes.  Just as in everyday life for a woman, we don’t always want to feel like a sexual target.  Then we also have male gamers that, for whatever reason legitimately hate women.  They give the female player a harder time and might even shoot her character down, even though she’s a teammate.

      Lastly, the other downside is this unspoken pressure to prove yourself.  There’s the stereotype that the female gamers just aren’t as good, for whatever reason.  It probably comes from the same idea of women not being as handy in combat, and most of the popular online games are indeed combat games or first-person-shooters.  So, in the midst of these games, if your character gets shot down or needs to be revived one too many times, you can also sense this nagging feeling that you’re feeding the stereotype and you need to bring justice to the female image.

     All in all, it’s an interesting world where you can potentially meet new people.  Games are becoming more artistic, more interconnected, and are including more creative story-lines and character development.  And of all the different roles and things I am in life, “gamer” is certainly on the list.