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rude 'n' ridiculous rants + polite but painfully-slow prattle with passers-by

Started by rick957, June 23, 2012, 08:50:16 PM

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rick957

Hello, wandering reader, you seem to have stumbled across my blog.  Here you will find me ranting and raving and soliloquizing about any subject that comes to my mind.  I put all my blog entries into this one thread, so the most recent one is at the very end.

This blog has existed for a little while now, and the two topics that seem to predominate are religion (or philosophy, and Christianity in particular) and self-exposure of details of my personal life.  I'm not sure why anyone would be interested in anything I have to say about either of those subjects, but I've discovered that I like to write about both, so that's a lot of what you'll find here.

You'll also find observations and opinions about pop music (my favorite artform; pop as in popular, including everything from jazz to metal to whatever), politics, society, human nature, Elliquiy, RPing, and sometimes other things.

Be warned that I love to use expletives freely and sometimes say things that may seem in poor taste.  If you read very much, try to be as thick-skinned as possible and try not to take offense, because I have some offensive opinions and ways of expressing myself.

Finally, my hope for this blog is to elicit comments from readers and even discussions with them.  This hope usually goes unrealized, since there seem to be very few readers, and fewer still who care to comment, and that's fine, except that I may or may not give up on blogging eventually, because I can't tell if anyone reads the posts except me, so I can't tell if it's worthwhile to write publicly in this way, rather than keeping these things private.  So, uh -- please feel free to comment on anything, by posting right here into the blog itself, if you have any urge whatsoever to do so. 

I happily welcome criticism and disagreement also, as long as you try to be polite and respectful about it, as I will try to be if I respond to what you've said, and I probably will.  :)

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you find something worth reading here.  -- Rick

[this post rewritten last on Oct. 21, 2012]

rick957

#1
Blog the second.  The first one is lower down.  Don't ask why, I'm a dumbass sometimes, that's all.  ;)

Having just finished writing my first blog, I now feel the need to preface it with a few things.  The blog below is about religion; I am a Christian.  Believe it or not, I almost never talk to anyone about religion, even though it is by far the most important thing in my life.  Some people at Elliquiy almost certainly think that I'm some kind of Bible-thumping hick who wants to stuff Jesus down everyone's throats, and all I do with my time is make other people feel uncomfortable by talking about religion.  I'm not that dude in real life; in fact, I'm so uncomfortable talking about religion that I've made it a goal to start trying to talk about it a little, at least with my closest friends, none of whom have heard me say anything about religion in about 15 years or so.  No wait, they've all heard me talk all kinds of shit about Christians, so they may think I hate Christianity, even though I actually consider myself to be a devout Christian.  See, I don't tell them about that; I tell them about all my super-nasty impulses towards religious people, because those things are usually funny (humorous) and not very personal at all.

Lately, at Elliquiy, in the P & R section, I made a bunch of detailed posts about Christianity.  The blog below is more of the same.  I'm starting out by doing all this writing at Elliquiy because I hope that it will be the first step towards opening up to my closest loved ones about my religious beliefs, not because I want to make any of them agree with me -- most of them don't, because I avoid the company of Christians -- but because I want to be able to share the things that matter to me with those closest to me, and my religious beliefs are at the top of that list.

If I continue to post to this blog, I really really hope that I spend much more time talking about subjects that have nothing to do with religion, because my interests are far-ranging, and I know that many people around here don't like to hear me talk about religion, so I don't want to make it look like I'm stuck on it or something.  I intend to get unstuck real fucking soon.  But the first blog is full of religious shit, so there ya go.  End preface

rick957

#2
Blog the first, in which I say some crazy-sounding religious mathematic shit that I really do think

Hi, welcome to my first blog.  There may or may not be more, we'll see.  I've been hemming and hawing about doing this blog for many months now, but as you can see, today I got around to doing it.  Thanks to the wonderful Elliquiy mods for making it possible.  It goes without saying, but let me say it anyway:  my views are not at all representative of anyone else's views at Elliquiy; in fact my views are likely to be highly unrepresentative of other people's views at Elliquiy, but that's okay I suppose.  (I won't say anything too nasty, I hope!)

What would you say if I told you that in a matter of half an hour or so, you could get everything you ever wanted or could want?  Sounds silly and crazy, right?  I think it's 100%, no-foolin' true.  Any thinking adult can become a Christian in half an hour or less.  Becoming a Christian is the exact same thing as getting everything you ever wanted or could want.

Sounds like the old "Pie in the Sky" bullshit, I know.  It may still sound that way to you after you finish reading the rest of this blog entry ... but maybe it won't.

Before I talk more about Christianity, let me tell you that you are completely free to reject Christianity, or reject anything and everything I have to say about anything.  You are even free to get mad at me and hate my guts, if you want to, and there are very good reasons to hate the guts of many other Christians, perhaps even me.  I hope you won't, of course.

Wait, let me add another caveat.  You are completely free to not read this fucking blog!  You know that, right?  Okay, just checking.  I've noticed that some people get so mad when people talk about Christianity that they act as if anyone who talks about Christianity is forcing them to listen.  I ain't forcin' you to do a goddamn thing.  (And yes, I like to cuss sometimes; don't take it personally, it's just for fun.)

Okay, here's what I wanted to tell you about Christianity.  It takes about half an hour of face-to-face conversation, or maybe a little less, for one person to explain all the important parts of Christianity to another person.  I'm not going to do that here.  If you live in the civilized West, it's almost certain that you've heard someone explain Christianity before, more than once.  It's also almost certain that you've heard a lot of misinformation about it, because there is so much out there that it's fucking ridiculous.  If anyone wants me to explain Christianity to them, I would be delighted to do so.  Doing it in writing (instead of in person) takes me longer than 30 minutes, but I consider that time well spent, so I'm happy to do it, even if you don't believe any of it, before or after.  Reading it would probably take you just a few minutes, 10 or 15 max, maybe as little as a couple minutes if you're a quick study.

Unlike many well-intentioned others, I am completely convinced that becoming a Christian is not a matter of doing much of anything except making a simple choice to believe certain things.

So, if you want me to explain Christianity to you, or explain some of the most common pieces of horrible misinformation that people associate with Christianity, please PM me.  I don't really expect anyone to do that, because I've made the offer elsewhere at Elliquiy in the past and never had anyone take me up on it.  But the offer's there.

Now, if I'm not going to explain Christianity here, what the hell am I going to say about it?  I'm going to try to tell you why becoming a Christian is the exact same thing as getting everything you ever wanted or could want.  Here we go, bear with me.

Becoming a Christian is the exact same thing as knowing God.  Yes, I said it, because it's true, and I believe it to be 100% true.  No one anywhere needs to agree with me!  Don't forget that.  You are free to think whatever you think.

Knowing God is the only thing one needs to do in order to go to heaven some day in the future.  Sounds crazy, yeah I know, but it's true, I 100% believe it to be true.

Now we're going to talk a little about the concept of Time.  I've already said that any person can become a Christian and therefore know God in a very short period of time, and knowing God means going to heaven someday.  If a person eventually goes to heaven, you could say that the person is already in heaven, in a sense.  What do I mean by that?  Heaven is the best thing ever, basically; it's better than getting everything you could ever want.  If you eventually get to have the best thing ever, then who gives a shit if you have to wait a few days or months or years or a whole lifetime?  Once you have the best thing ever, that's all that fucking matters, right?  Wouldn't it be?  Otherwise it wouldn't be the best thing ever.  You wouldn't care how long you waited to get it, once you have it.  So, in that specific sense, you could sort of subtract Time from the entire equation.  Actually that's a good way to proceed; let's talk math.

As we said already:

becoming a Christian equals knowing God

and

knowing God equals being in heaven eventually

Next: 

being in heaven eventually equals being in heaven now

Because no matter how long, the time delay between now and then becomes completely trivial as soon as you get to heaven.  It's trivial; it doesn't matter; you could simply pretend that it's not even there.  Time is an illusion, basically; an unimportant detail.  So unimportant that we could drop it out of the picture altogether, and the picture wouldn't change much at all.  So let's do that.

Next:

being in heaven equals getting everything you ever wanted or could want

Here's what I mean by that.  Being in heaven is being in a state that is better than anything you or I or anyone else alive can imagine.  Now, I can imagine getting everything I ever wanted or could want.  In fact, I do that sometimes; I think about how nice it would be, because I believe it's going to happen soon anyway.  Being in heaven is better than anything I can imagine, which means it's better than getting everything I ever wanted or could want.  If something is greater than something else (math, remember?), it is at least equal to it.  (It is not equal to it, but it is at least equal to it.  You may need to think about that a little.)  If you have three cups, you have one cup plus two cups, so you do have two cups.

Finally, do you remember what "transitivity" means, from math?  To review, in short, if one thing equals a second thing, and that second thing equals a third thing, then the first thing also equals the third thing.  And you can make the chain as long as you like; if four things are equal to each other, then the first thing is equal to the fourth thing.  That's called transitivity by math people.

To review, here's our four things (yay, we're done!):

becoming a Christian equals knowing God
knowing God equals being in heaven eventually
being in heaven eventually equals being in heaven now
being in heaven now equals getting everything you ever wanted or could want

Drop out the middle steps, and you get

becoming a Christian equals getting everything you ever wanted or could want

Which is what I was trying to say in the first place!  Now, do you fucking believe any of that?  Probably not.  But I do, I believe all of it, because I made a simple choice to believe it, to believe Christianity.  And that choice can be made by you, too.  (Nobody's going to force you though!)  In a matter of half an hour or so, you could get everything you ever wanted or could want.  Does it still sound just as silly and crazy as it did before I rolled out all that explanation?  It probably does, and that's fine; you are free to think whatever you think, as am I.

Last thing:  if you have any sense, as I'm sure you do, then you must realize that I have deliberately oversimplified a whole shitload of complicated things in the above presentation.  I deliberately oversimplified all the complex details not because they aren't there, but because they don't really matter to me; the complicated details don't make any part of what I said above any less true.  Let's be straight about this, though:  any motherfucker who tells you that becoming a Christian means feeling good all the time, or even most of the time, is full of shit.  Similarly, becoming a Christian will not put a Bentley in your driveway or clear up your spotty complexion; you're still stuck with the pimples, and the only way you get the Bentley is to get a job and earn the money for it.  All the complicated details about what it means to live life as a Christian include lots of extremely difficult and unpleasant things, along with lots of wonderful things.  Don't imagine otherwise, because that would be bullshit.

Thanks for reading.  :)  Please feel free to reply with any polite points you want to make, because I enjoy discussing things and would love to hear from you, even if you completely reject everything I just said, as you probably do.  I'm interested in hearing what you think and why you think it; extremely interested, in fact.  However, I also know that at least one or two people out there read all the fucking way down this far, even though they got hugely pissed off as soon as I said the word "Christian," and those people kept reading for some strange reason, and they just got more pissed off from there.  If you are one of those people, actually, I want to hear from you too, but I do not want to hear from you until you're calm and coolheaded again, because otherwise you'll just rip me a new one, and that's no fun for me and not helpful for anyone else either.  Sure, you might enjoy ripping me a new one, but I ain't yer whipping boy, okay?  Please vent your rage elsewhere, then come back and talk politely to me.  Bye now.

No wait one more thing, and this is important.  Every sentence above is there for a reason, so if you skipped any of them, please go back and read them carefully before replying about anything.  There are many obvious responses which you could make to the things I said above, and I've already attempted to address the most common responses; if you read closely enough, you saw those parts.  (Did you notice that I said being a Christian still fucking sucks a lot of the time?  You did?  Good.)  Nobody reads these things closely, I know, and that's fine, but please do before you post here.  Thanks!

rick957

#3
Blog the third.  Silliness.

Just wanna give a shout-out to all the searchbots in the house ...

What up Google?  Lookin' good! ...

Yeah, I see you out there, Bing baby ...

Ooo Yahoo!  Work that thing!  That's right ...

Be sure to read every word, now.  Maybe you can e-mail me afterwards.  Are you in tight with any spambots? ...

Peace out ya'll ...








... Ahh, I kill me.  :)  20 views equals 20 searchbots, I figure. hehehe  I love my blog already.

rick957

#4
Blog four.  (These will slow down soon, of course.)  A "deep" thought.  Or, more likely, pseudo-deep.

(Oh no, I can tell that I might end up blogging frequently while I'm drinking.  That may result in strange or bizarre posts.  Whatever, nobody's reading them anyway, I assume.)

On to the thought:

No matter how wracked with self-doubt or plagued with uncertainty, a person who is alone and crying is almost certainly being honest with himself or herself ... in that moment, at least.

rick957

#5
Blog cinco.  Nobody knows shit.  A list.

Hugely important stuff that none of the supposed fucking experts saw coming or could even explain afterwards, in no particular order:

1. 9/11
2. Arab spring
3. A black U.S. president in 2008 -- a mere 40 years after MLK's assassination
4. the AIDS epidemic
4 and 1/2. the end of the AIDS epidemic in the West (pharmaceutical breakthroughs that mean getting HIV is no longer a death sentence)
(heh, screwed up my numbering, sorry)
5. the Cold War ending with a fizzle instead of a giant bang
6. C-H-I-N-A
7. coming soon to a theater near you:  the end of U.S. global hegemony
8. all the economic recessions throughout history
9. all the economic booms throughout history
10. Saddam Hussein having no WMD
11. American popular music industry slits its own throat and never recovers (yet)
12. Harry Potter phenomenon
13. Oprah Winfrey phenomenon
14. Apple beats Microsoft
15. Microsoft becomes irrelevant
16. AT&T becomes irrelevant
17. television becomes irrelevant
18. media democratization and diversification contributes to a huge decline in the quality and quantity of widely-distributed content
19. the next 9/11
20. the inexplicably long and hopefully never-ending delay between the first and next 9/11
21. cultural conservatives take over the Republican Party and then set their sights on the rest of America
22. way more people get college degrees, yet the overall society keeps getting stupider
23. not sure about this one, needs checking:  more people lifted from poverty in recent times than in all the rest of human history combined.  See #6.
24. goodbye tobacco industry, don't let the door hit you on the way out assholes  ;)
25. three consecutive U.S. Presidents freely admit to using illegal recreational drugs, yet U.S. drug policy barely budges an inch
26. again not sure:  mysterious continual drop in average age of menarche
27. everyone stops buying CDs
28. everyone stops buying DVDs
29. everyone keeps buying TVs and stereos
30. MP3s become the most popular music format
31. Holocaust after Holocaust after Holocaust while the West sits on its hands, averts its eyes, and frets over its goddamn pocketbook
32. superheroes take over movie industry while miniscule comic book industry keeps getting even smaller and sucking even harder
33. however small and shitty, comic book industry keeps going and going and going
34.

Eh, that's way more than enough!  Stuff kept occurring to me.  Obviously those things are not all equally important, but each was hugely important in its narrow context.  Obviously many of those things are debatable, even hotly so.  Notice some of those were huge positives, some huge negatives, and some not really much of either, they just happened.









An aside:  By the way, if you stop by and read any part of this blog, and you feel like commenting on any part of it, please do.  I would love to engage you in a dialog about anything written here.  Just mention what you're responding to.  You can post right here, in between my other stuff.  Strongly critical comments are extremely welcome, don't pull any punches, but keep it civil; if you don't know how to do the one without doing the other, then don't post.  Thanks!









Oh, if you can add to the list above, from your personal perspective, please do!  Obviously I eat this kind of shit up, it's my bailiwick, you might say, or at least a personal preoccupation.


rick957

#7
Yes, I would say so.  I could talk about what I meant by that, if you like, but I'm not going to bother if you don't want to leave a longer comment first, elaborating on why you brought it up.  Thanks for the comment regardless though!

rick957

#8
Blog VI.  Think about this for a sec.

People tune out the overwhelming majority of information they receive from their senses.  Almost everyone does, I think, except very young children, and perhaps people who are physically incapable of tuning out sensory information, as I've heard is the case with certain autistic people, for example.

Here's all that I mean.  Right now, as I type this, here are just a few of the pieces of sensory information that I'm not paying any special attention to:
1) the softness of the chair I'm sitting on, which is tactile information;
2) more tactile info:  the wetness of the small amount of mucus inside my nose right now, and the wetness of the saliva in my mouth.  if my nose or mouth became extremely dry, due to an illness for example, suddenly I would notice the absence of those wetnesses; but unless they're suddenly taken away like that, I pay no active attention to them whatsoever, except if I do it on purpose, like I am now.
3) still more tactile info:  if I try, I can feel the pressure of the toes of my left foot underneath my right foot, because my left foot happens to be underneath the right at the moment, for no particular reason.  Similarly, I can feel the weight of my body resting against the chair I'm sitting on; come to think of it, I can identify exactly which parts of my body are against the chair, and exactly which parts aren't resting against the chair.  I'll bet that you could do the same if you focused on it for a second, but you wouldn't have thought about it at all unless someone had asked you to.  It's the kind of sensory data everyone normally tunes out.
4) I can't smell the smell of my own breath -- as far as I know, most people can't do that, and that's probably a very good thing, because human breath often smells bad or at least unpleasant whenever you pay close attention to its smell; most people only do that with other people's breath, of course, because it's difficult or impossible to actually smell one's own breath, even when it's become especially bad -- when you've had a dry mouth for a long time, for example.  However, if I try, I can sense that there's a tiny bit of moisture or wetness in the air that is currently being exhaled from my nose.  Can you sense that same wetness right now, in your nose?  It's nearly imperceptible, of course, but exhaled air contains a significant amount of moisture.
5) my laptop is resting on a little plastic stand that elevates it slightly, and that stand makes a variety of very soft but easily noticeable noises:  it gives off little tiny squeaks and pops, as the laptop shifts weight underneath my hands while I'm typing.  Again, this sound is so slight that I almost never pay any attention whatsoever to it, but if I try, I can hear it easily.
6) more auditory information:  the keys on my laptop make noises as they are pressed and released underneath my typing fingers.  Tiny noises, easy to ignore, but also easy to pay attention to, if I try hard at all.
7) at this moment, in my field of vision are various objects of the following colors:  brown, red, navy blue, baby blue, light grey, darker grey, purple, off-white, pink, khaki, gold, black, green, very light green, very dark green.  I could go on for a very long time if I wanted to keep trying.  Here are a few of the things I was thinking of, as examples:  the colors in a painting that is hanging on the wall; the colors of paint on a rowing machine sitting on the other side of the room; the colors of fabric in the chair I'm sitting on; the colors of the body and screen on my laptop; the colors of the open windows in my word processing program, and behind that window, in an open browser window ... and above both of those, there's a menu bar that contains bits of at least five six colors (red, yellow, dark grey, light grey, black, white).

Do you see what I'm getting at yet?  :)  All that sensory information is coming at me right this very second, but I'm ignoring almost all of it, because my attention is on the words on the screen as I type them.  However, if I try, I can instantly identify all those bits of sensory info, and dozens, perhaps hundreds of other distinct pieces of info.  You could too, if you were asked to do so, but you may find it hard to do so without being asked, because you tune out so much information all the time that it's actually difficult for you to pay attention to much of it at once. 

One more example:  start counting the number of objects in your field of vision, right now.  How many different letters can you instantly recognize and identify separately on the screen in front of you?  I'll bet that all 26 of the letters in the alphabet are on your screen at this very second, and if you tried, you could find all of them.  Okay, let's see, I'm going to try that now; it's 9:56 A.M. as I start my attempt.  A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q (that took a while to find), R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.  It's now 10:00 A.M., so it took about four minutes for me to pay attention to all that sensory data.  I'll bet I could have saved a minute if I hadn't been stubborn about refusing to scroll in the windows on my screen in order to find certain letters (I wanted to see if I could do it without scrolling at all, and I could, but it probably went a little slower that way).

I'll bet some people could identify those same letters in under a minute, while other people would need five or six minutes, because different people are able to focus on bits of data at different rates of speed ... Some people can read much more quickly than others, for example.

From where I sit, I can hear the refrigerator humming, from where it sits, in the kitchen next to this room.  I have a very mild case of tinitis from seeing far too many live concerts without wearing earplugs, so any time I want to, I can hear a shrill whistle in my ears; I have to focus on it, though, because I normally tune it right out.  :)

I doubt anyone read all of that, but perhaps if you did, you found it just as astonishing as I did, how many separate bits of sensory data I was able to identify and describe simply because I was trying to do just that.  I'll bet that if you or I tried hard enough, we could each identify hundreds more things in our immediate surroundings right this very second.

Imagine what you could do if you managed to pay attention to just slightly more things at once ...

Imagine what you might be able to do if you could pay attention to slightly fewer things at once!  If each of us lives in an environment that contains thousands of instantly-identifiable features, would it help us to accomplish certain tasks if we arbitrarily reduced that number?  Well, that probably depends.  We all know that receiving too much loud auditory information makes it difficult to focus on certain things, for example, if I were in a crowded room, I wouldn't be able to write this blog entry anywhere near as quickly, because I would have to tune out dozens of human voices constantly in order to focus on what I was writing.

The moral of the story is, perhaps:  you know things that you don't realize you know, because you're putting effort into ignoring so many things at once.  Mebbe.

Food for thought.  :)

Oniya

(See!  Someone reads!  :-) )

I think the reason that we 'ignore' so many things is because of the very first sentence in your first paragraph:  it's an overwhelming amount of information.  We notice new things, different things, sudden things, because those are things that indicate something out of the ordinary that could be helpful, or a 'threat'.  If you're looking for ripe fruit, you look for the different color.  Hunting fresh meat, and it's the subtle movement.  The purr of a motor means your car is running.  That funny knocking sound means you need to have someone look at it.  Two examples: 

(This one is from my mother's college biology book, so some of the language is a little dated.)  In a town, there are two glue factories.  House A is east of them, House B is between them, and House C is west of them.  Let's say that the wind blows from east to west during the day, and from west to east at night, without a break.  Mrs. A, Mrs. B, and Mrs. C are housewives.  Which of them never complains about the smell?
Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide
The book's answer was Mrs. B, as she is the only one that gets the glue smell all day and all night.

Another example, from nature:  The common housefly is unable to react to two simultaneous threats, has crappy distance vision, and doesn't even register things below a certain speed as threats.  If you approach a housefly slowly, ideally from both the right and the left, at equal speeds, you can get amazingly close before you clap those two things together and get rid of the little pest.  (Aim just behind it, too - they jump up and back to take off.) 
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

rick957

#10
(Oniya -- thanks so much for stopping by!  Always good to see you.  I hope you won't mind if I give your post a delayed reply, so that I can get this other thing out of the way first.)




Blog 7.  Oh god please no more religious shit anything but that.

If you've read anything else that I've said about religion before, you might be relieved to know that this blog post will look absolutely nothing like any of those statements.  It might be just as fucking weird as other things I've said, but it won't cover any of the same topics.  Also, I'm not sure how this post could offend any non-religious people, unlike many of my other posts, so that's good too.

Blogs are about exposing oneself to others, right?  Sharing my thoughts and interests?  Okay, let me tell you some of my thoughts and interests.

As I've said before, my religion is by far the most important thing in my life, and I'm a Christian, but I'm not very much like any Christian I've ever met, which means I'm probably not very much like any Christian you've ever met either.  Let me give you some examples.  We'll start with the juicy ones, why not?  hehehe

I'm a Christian who almost certainly hates Christians more than you do.  Let me tell you why I fucking hate Christians' guts.  If you're a Christian, before you get mad, please read the whole post carefully; then you can get mad, if you still want to, and maybe you should, I dunno.

Christians are the biggest fucking assholes on the planet.  No I'm not kidding or being facetious, I really think that, and I'm a Christian.  I honestly don't know if I'm one of the biggest fucking assholes on the planet, but I might be, and I'm not kidding about that either.

Why are Christians such assholes?  Here's why, in my opinion.  Christians have been given the greatest gift anyone can ever get, and they were not given that gift because they did one fucking thing to deserve it, or because they were smarter or better or handsomer or anything else.  Seriously, I'm not kidding when I tell you that I honestly believe that on average, Christians are much worse people than non-Christians, on average.  Here's how far I would go with that:  if you want to find people who live their lives according to Christ's teachings, you will find more of them among non-Christians than among Christians.  I believe that, and I think I know why that is, and I even think that you can find ample support for that viewpoint in the Bible itself, the central text of Christianity.

For some reason, in my opinion, God has decided to give the truth about life to certain people and not to others.  What does that mean?  I do not believe that the truth about life is made available to only certain people, but just the contrary, I believe that that truth about life is readily available to anyone and everyone; the only exceptions are children, who are too young to grasp the truth about life, and many people with severe neurological deficiencies -- mental illnesses, developmental disorders, and other health problems that heavily impair their basic ability to grasp information.  However, although the truth can be grasped by everyone else, only a minority of the public has grasped it so far, and only a minority of the public will ever grasp it, and that right there is the saddest and most fucking horrific and offensive claim in all of Christianity.  Can you tell that it bothers me?  It really bothers me.

Are you a Christian who isn't bothered by the claim contained within Christianity that says that only a minority of human beings will ever become Christians?  If you are, please get in touch with me privately, because I'm not kidding at all, I want your help -- I need your help -- understanding why that claim doesn't leave you shitting your pants and crying in a fucking closet 24 hours a day, slitting your wrists and everything else. 

Hmm.  That's rather strongly-put, isn't it?  :)  LOL.

I'm about to do something very strange.  The things I've said so far in this blog entry are highly provocative and potentially offensive, probably not to many non-Christians, but certainly to other Christians.  They may seem slightly less offensive once I finish talking about what I want to talk about, but I can't finish up right now, because I'm busy with other stuff.  On the other hand, if I don't post what I've written so far, I'm certain that I will chicken out and delete it instead of ever posting it, so I'm going to go ahead and post it.

I'll tell you why I'm posting it:  because it's honest.  I value honesty and candor and truthfulness over pretty much anything and everything else.  Actually, that's exactly fucking right, come to think of it:  I value the truth much more highly than anything else, and even though I am scared shitless to offend people -- scared shitless, yes -- I'm still going to post this.  Fuck it!  Here's my truth, you Christian motherfuckers out there, and if it bugs you, okay, please get in touch and we'll talk about it.  Or don't, I don't like talking to Christians much anyway, so you'll be saving me some trouble.  Before you get in touch, please look closely at John 14:6.

Wow.  Look, here's the thing:  I honestly think this stuff, and I can't think of a good reason not to tell people that I think this stuff.  I can think of lots of bad reasons, but no good reasons.  Worrying about getting banned from Elliquiy?  Oh yeah, I worry about that, but it's not a good enough reason to censor this post, in my opinion.  Worrying about hurting someone's feelings?  That's got to be by far my biggest worry, not even that people will think I'm a fucking psycho nutjob, but that someone will get their feelings hurt.  I worry.  But that's not a good enough reason to censor this post either.  If your feelings get hurt by my honest presentation of my perspective, maybe they ought to be hurt; maybe that's a good thing.  If your feelings get hurt because you're too lazy to read everything I have to say before you make up your mind, well I'm sorry about that too, but I'm assuming you're a mature adult, like I am, and you should know better than to judge anything before you have ALL the relevant information.  What I've written so far is the tip of a small iceberg, and if you don't have the patience to wade through all of it carefully, I don't blame you at all -- it might be too boring or annoying, or maybe you're too busy -- but if you get offended by reading only parts of this, then that's really your problem for not bothering to get all the relevant info.  All the rest will be in one or more posts soon.

I suppose if I were a mod reading any of this, I might be taken aback for various reasons.  If you're a mod, please understand the following:  after, and only after, I've finished making the points that I want to make, the material above should seem slightly less incendiary and slightly less offensive than it may seem right now.  Anyone who reads the stuff above and doesn't bother to keep going or doesn't bother to read everything closely may very well get offended, even heavily so, and if that happens, I'm more than happy to talk to them about it, but of course I don't want to cause any trouble for any mods or anyone else at Elliquiy.  I guess I'm going to assume that there must be so few devout Christians at Elliquiy anyway that almost none of them are likely to read this blog, and the ones who do will be nice enough and mature enough to contact me (as I've requested) before blowing their top to kingdom come.  :)  Right, ya'll?  Thank you.

On the other hand, look, I have some opinions that are flat-out fucking offensive and nasty, and even after I've finished explaining myself, some people will probably think I'm an asshole or a lunatic or both.  That's okay with me, I guess.  I would rather those people see what I'm really like and then condemn me rather than hide my real opinions from them.  I'm not afraid of being condemned or hated by whoever, although I prefer that they understand my real perspective before they decide to condemn or hate me.

Okay, there you go, raw as fuck.  I'll be back before long to continue my explanation.  Thanks for reading!  Bye now.

JackWhite

Quote from: rick957 on June 25, 2012, 07:50:20 AM
Yes, I would say so.  I could talk about what I meant by that, if you like, but I'm not going to bother if you don't want to leave a longer comment first, elaborating on why you brought it up.  Thanks for the comment regardless though!

I meant that Microsoft still has some very powerful influences since most of the computers nowadays still run on Windows 7 and even Apple users search ways to get the Office set on their MacBook.

Oniya

However, with Linux and OpenOffice, it's no longer quite the monopoly it used to be.  The only reason I have a copy of Office (and an out-dated one at that) is because the disk was passed on by a deceased friend.  Both the Mr. and the mini have OpenOffice on their machines.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

JackWhite

I like Microsoft Office better than the OpenOffice that exists at this moment.

rick957

#14
Yay for hilariously awkward transitions!  :)  No really it's so wonderfully nice to have anyone stop in and comment about anything. 

Without really planning it out in advance, it appears that I'll be using this blog to exorcise some very personal demons -- work through some weighty personal subjects, I mean -- but I also hope to use it to talk about everything else under the sun, including things much less personal and much less tortured-sounding.  Hence the awkward transitions yay!

JackWhite, I forgot to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being the first person to post to this thread with a comment.  The first person is always the hardest to find, or it seems that way at least.

So now I know at least two human beings have read something I've written here, and that's two more than I was counting on, so I'm happy.  :)  Truthfully I would feel very very bad for anyone who tried to read everything above.  I mean, I wouldn't do it if you asked me to!  Heh.

Funny thing about this blogging bizness:  it doesn't make sense to do it unless you assume that at least one human being besides yourself will read your posts; but on the other hand, there's something extremely liberating about knowing how inactive and often-overlooked the Elliquiy blogs are, because it feels like I can get away with a ridiculous level of personal candor, knowing that there's a good chance no one else reads it, or reads all of it, at least.

So anyway, let's see where I'm at here ... 117 views!  Ten of those are me, plus two each for Oniya and JackWhite, leaving me with a mere 103 searchbots.  Awesome!  Hehehe

QuoteI think the reason that we 'ignore' so many things is because of the very first sentence in your first paragraph:  it's an overwhelming amount of information.  We notice new things, different things, sudden things, because those are things that indicate something out of the ordinary that could be helpful, or a 'threat'.  If you're looking for ripe fruit, you look for the different color.  Hunting fresh meat, and it's the subtle movement.  The purr of a motor means your car is running.  That funny knocking sound means you need to have someone look at it.  Two examples: 

The examples were great; I'm terrible at those kinds of logic riddles like in the first example, so I got it wrong.  I think you're right in that people tune out info in order to focus on the new, different, threatening, or otherwise-more important stuff.  The part of that phenomenon that intrigues me the most, however, and the part my post above attempted to underscore, was the way in which people tune out so much sensory data that some of it is bound to be potentially useful in some circumstance or another.  I imagine that human creativity may depend upon tuning back in certain sensory data that most people have assumed was useless and therefore learned to tune out ... Taking control of one's attention and turning it to things that one doesn't normally attend to, perhaps?  It's just idle speculation, but maybe the beginnings of a personal theory.

The fly example reminded me of a beloved grade-school teacher of mine who had the ability to snatch flies out of the air and trap them inside her hand instantly, any time they got near her.  It's a neat little trick that depends on anticipating the way that flies turn in right angles as they move through the air, or something like that.  Interesting tidbit:  by the end of that year of grade-school, every student in the class had picked up the fly-catching trick simply by observing her doing it; and not long into the following year, most or all of us lost the ability, simply from disuse, I suppose.  The adaptability of children, and of adults I guess, is a wonder to behold.

As to Microsoft becoming irrelevant, I would simply argue that they attained an astonishing sort of monopoly over the public for a couple decades, thanks to the ubiquity of Windows-running PCs, but then the shift into mobile devices and tablets and the rejuvenation of Apple finally and unexpectedly broke their stranglehold.  If you saw that shift coming, you should have a fortune in Apple stock by now, so buy something nice for me please.  :)  I wouldn't argue that they're powerless, but their reign of terror seems to have hit a major speedbump, at least, and there's no indication yet that they'll ever regain their previous dominance.

Oniya

Actually, there's probably a view of mine for each post.  Between the 'don't read it' and my own contrary nature...  Yeah.  I just don't always respond if I don't have something constructive to say. 
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

rick957

#16
Quote from: Oniya on June 25, 2012, 06:37:02 PM
Between the 'don't read it' and my own contrary nature...  Yeah.

hehehe  Reverse psychology, gets 'em every time!  ;D

EDIT  Oh no, Oniya!  Does that mean you actually read everything I wrote so far?  Oh my god I can't believe you put yourself through all that, if you did, although it's incredibly generous of you, as well.  You now know more about me than my mother does, I think.  heh.

rick957

#17
Blog 8.  Thirty minutes of fucked-up religious thinking (starting with, why do I feel compelled to use expletives whenever I say anything about religion?)

I've been sitting around trying to come up with some impressive shit to say about Christianity, assuming that if anyone is reading this blog, whether they're Christians or not, they probably don't share my views on Christianity.  Here is what my Christianity looks like, tonight at least.

When I am sitting in front of my laptop feeling like a giant jackass for making any attempt whatsoever to say even a single word in public about something so important as Christianity, here's what my Christianity tells me:  "You are a dumb motherfucker.  If -- HUGE if -- if you are ever able to say anything true about Christianity, it's only because the right words were transmitted through you."  Now, any Christian saying something like that to anyone else will be accused of being the biggest fucking egotist who ever lived.  The notion that God would transmit information through one person to another person sounds utterly preposterous, pretentious, and unimaginable.

Here's why it isn't.  Every time that any person anywhere says anything that's true, that is what is happening:  that truth is being transmitted through that person.  The source of every true thing and every good thing is always God and only God.  It happens to non-Christians as often if not more often than to Christians.  Every act of kindness performed by any person is transmitted through them; every work of art that has anything good about it is nothing but a transmission.  Marilyn Manson's best music came through him, not from him; Slayer's best album was a gift directly from God to all the people who got to hear it.  Every beautiful face is a gift transmitted from God, even if the face belongs to the most die-hard anti-Christian person alive.

Everything is upside down and backwards, and everything we see is a lie; everything you know is wrong, as someone else once said.  Vekseid asked me not long ago if the life of a billionaire is as fair as the life of a child suffering from a horrible disease.  Obviously it was a question that begged its own answer; who would dare say yes to such a question?  Well, although I didn't tell Vekseid this (because the conversation was brief and went badly in general, probably my fault), I believe that the answer is this:  not only is the child's life fair, but the child is almost certainly better off than the billionaire!  How fucked up and backwards is that?  If any person dared to say such a thing to me, the first thing I would do is get pissed off like hell, and if the person was in front of me, I might take a swing at his jaw.

When I think about children suffering from diseases, all I want to do is cry.  But this is what I believe, and this is the fucking truth:  that billionaire and that child are both in God's hands, not mine or yours or even theirs, in a sense.  Children are innocents, incapable of grasping the truth of Christianity, so every second of that child's life is watched over by God himself, and every fucking hair on that child's head is counted by the same fucking God that created the whole fucking universe.  As to the billionaire, Jesus basically said that it's almost impossible for any rich person to know God, at all, ever.  In fact, frankly, I consider myself rich, and I worry that because of that, I might not know God after all, for all the high-falutin' religious crap I've been spewing lately.  That statement from Jesus scares the shit out of me, and frankly, I think it ought to scare the shit out of pretty much any American, because our standard of living means that compared to most of the people who ever lived anywhere ever, we're ALL fucking rich people.  How many Americans do you think will get to heaven?  I really don't know.

I do know that any adult who isn't mentally out-of-sorts can choose to become a Christian, and that's what I've done.  Whether that choice outweighs the material wealth that I live with is for God and God alone to decide someday, and I believe I'll be alright with God, but I'm wary enough of my own limitations to keep some fear in the back of my mind.  I've never come anywhere near being a saint, that's for damn sure.

Hoo boy.  The more and more candid these posts get, the crazier and scarier it gets for me.  I think that's a good thing or else I wouldn't be posting this stuff.

Alright, raw as fuck is the way it goes, so here she goes ....

Oniya

Regarding the whole camel thing - you might be interested in this bit, which I found on a Jewish Studies site:

http://www.biblicalhebrew.com/nt/camelneedle.htm

QuoteBut beyond impossibility is possibility with God for, elsewhere, a Jewish midrash records:

    "The Holy One said, open for me a door as big as a needle's eye and I will open for you a door through which may enter tents and [camels?]"

In other words God only needs the sinner to open up just a crack for him and God will come pouring in and set up room for an oasis. God only needs a 'foot in the door', so to speak.

Although, I personally like the fact (up that page a bit) that the Aramaic words for 'camel' and 'rope' are the same, but that's the linguist in me.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

JackWhite

Quote from: rick957 on June 25, 2012, 05:16:50 PM
As to Microsoft becoming irrelevant, I would simply argue that they attained an astonishing sort of monopoly over the public for a couple decades, thanks to the ubiquity of Windows-running PCs, but then the shift into mobile devices and tablets and the rejuvenation of Apple finally and unexpectedly broke their stranglehold.  If you saw that shift coming, you should have a fortune in Apple stock by now, so buy something nice for me please.  :)  I wouldn't argue that they're powerless, but their reign of terror seems to have hit a major speedbump, at least, and there's no indication yet that they'll ever regain their previous dominance.

That's true but I'd like think that there are quite some levels between being one of the mightiest corporations in the world and being irrelevant.

rick957

#20
Blog 9.  Something massively important to me personally, but totally unimportant to every person in the world except me, perhaps one of my best RL friends, and maybe just maybe one other person who reads this.  If you aren't that theoretical person, sorry to have wasted your time!

Midnight Oil is now my favorite band, so I wanted to tell you that.  :)  Here is why:  listen to the first 13.2 seconds of "What Goes On" at the loudest volume that you can tolerate.  Then listen to the last 13.2 seconds at the same volume.  That's why!  hehehe

rick957

#21
Blog X.  More proof of insanity.

I've said previously in this blog that I consider myself to be a devout Christian ... you could say "fanatical" if you prefer, although I wouldn't personally.  I've also said that I haven't met any Christians that are too much like me, not yet at least, and that's not for lack of looking either.  Here are some more related points, to allow you to know more about me.

I am a devout Christian who gets high sometimes, gets drunk sometimes, and doesn't feel the need to apologize for either, I'm afraid.

I am a devout Christian who masturbates regularly and enjoys the hell out of it.  TMI!  TMI!  :)

I am a devout Christian who has had suicidal thoughts, shitloads of them, but not in many years, so don't sweat it or anything.

I am a devout Christian who will admit the things above to anyone, Christian or non-, even if they think less of me afterwards.  Wait, that's a lie; I'm not that brave.  I will admit those things to more people than you might expect, at least; certainly to anyone at Elliquiy.  My parents don't know the things above about me, not all of them at least, but that's not so much because I'm ashamed as because I don't honestly think my mother has any interest whatsoever in my masturbatory habits, nor do I have any interest in talking to her about them.  hehehe  (Sorry incest-lovers, I ain't hatin' on ya.)

I am a devout Christian who has seen Nine Inch Nails more times than I can recall.  The number is between 8 and 14 times, I think.  Favorite NIN album:  Downward Spiral, although Pretty Hate Machine and Broken aren't far behind.  Have you seen the short, unreleased BDSM video clips that were made for Broken?  I have.  Hehehe

I am a devout Christian who would like to wipe the abomination known as "Contemporary Christian Music" off the face of the earth forever.  Sorry, CCM lovers.  I am also a huge fan of certain musicians who were once active in that scene.  Also, although these would seem to be highly contradictory impulses, I'm fine with them, thanks.

I am a devout Christian who adores the work of Robert Crumb.  I know some other people who like him a little, but not a lot.  Also who adores the work of Henry Rollins, both music and writing and standup.  Saw him in DC; laughed till my cheeks hurt.

I am a devout Christian who went about 15 or 20 years without talking about religion with anyone.  I'm trying to change that soon, though, as you can probably tell.

I am a devout Christian who does not currently attend a church, although changing that is a very high priority of mine, and I've attended gazillions of churches in the past.

I am a devout Christian who loathes the company of most other Christians and prefers the company of non-Christians, and I'm neither proud nor pleased about that fact, but I yam what I yam.

I am a devout Christian with a blog at Elliquiy.  Maybe there are more of those, though, I dunno.  Bye now!  Thanks for reading.

rick957

#22
Blog eleven, holy shit, how did I do eleven already?  Huh.  Well, some were shortish.

I've had a couple people tell me now that they've read this blog, or parts of it, at least, and that's something I really appreciate.  I'm doing this blog more for myself than for any theoretical readers.  Even the religious stuff, which I would have guessed would have driven away any potential readers by now.  The religious stuff appears to be addressed to non-Christians, for the most part, but it's really more about me trying to work this shit out for myself, wrestling with these issues, because I don't see myself as being any different from a non-Christian, not in any meaningful way.

I see a fundamental contradiction at the very heart of Christianity that I cannot find a way to resolve.  It's basically the same issue as free will vs. determinism, for anyone out there who knows about that stuff, and by the way, I realize that many people know way the hell more than I do about Christianity -- it's a little embarrassing sometimes talking about Christianity and then being reminded that many people who don't even believe it know more about it than I do.

Anyway, here's the biggest problem, as I see it; it's also the best reason I can find for people to reject Christianity, so if it's your personal reason, I'm right there with you.  The problem is that Christianity says every person is equal -- nobody's any damn better than anybody else -- and yet, only some people get to be Christians and know God and go to heaven and all of that good stuff.  The Bible says that's our free will, each individual's choice for his or her self, and no one gets a say for anyone else, ever.  The majority of people reject Christianity, and yes, I believe in the existence of hell, although to me the only important part is not anything about pitchforks and flames, but the fact that some people don't get to be with God, which is where he wants them and where they were always intended to be, where they were made to be.

Alright, now let me hit you with something else.  The objection being raised in the previous paragraph comes down to a question of fairness; a question of right and wrong.  What I'm saying is, it isn't fucking fair that some people get one outcome while other people get a worse outcome, especially if you believe that everyone is basically equal.  The people who get the better outcome don't do a fucking thing to deserve it, so it seems unfair, and I think it seems unfair to any sensible person who thinks about it for a few seconds.  The only people I know who would dare suggest that such a thing was fair are Christians, and usually they're asshole Christians, which might be exactly what a lot of people think that I am, heh.

Again and again, especially all around Elliquiy, I hear people explain why they don't believe Christianity, and they always seem to talk about how something else seems right to them, something else seems more fair, even much more fair.  Of course they have to choose what seems more right and fair; that's what we're built to do.

Think about this:  why does Christianity seem unfair to almost everybody?  Why shouldn't it seem fair?  We are born with a sense of fairness, a sense of right and wrong, and most of us use that sense of fairness to conclude that Christianity is unfair.  But that's exactly what the Bible says we are born to do.  The Bible says that when humanity became tainted and cut off from God, it happened because people got their own sense of fairness:  they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, remember?  If you went to enough Sunday schools.

The human sense of fairness is at odds with God's sense of fairness.  We think it's not fair for different people to get different outcomes; but God says it's fair; and guess who wins, whose opinion ultimately matters?  It ain't yours and mine, I'm afraid.

Job sat there in his misery and basically said to God, look, this isn't fair; and God says in reply, look, I'm GOD, you're NOT.  I say what's fair.  Look at how much more powerful I am than you; look at what I've made, it's all around you.  You think you can decide anything?  You think you're anything more than a speck next to me?

We are built to revolt against God's plans, to find them offensive and intolerable, and we certainly do.  I do.  But it isn't all bad news for us.  What's the good news?  The good news is that God is actually good, loving.  He is supposedly far more good and loving than any of us could ever be, so when we look at his plan and call it unfair, we are looking at a plan that is far better and more fair than anything we can even conceive.  We're not supposed to agree with it or like it; every cell in our fucking body hates it, and those of us who claim otherwise are just mistaken.  I think.

Christianity says that we are only saved if we choose to believe that God's plan is fair and good, while everything within us tells us the exact opposite.  Most Christians talk about God's plan as if it's wonderful, and I understand why they do that, because it is wonderful, but the thing they do that pisses me off is they act as if that's okay with them.  Uh-uh.  It's not okay with me, it goes against everything inside me -- my heart, my mind, my feelings, my sense of fairness, my sense of logic, my knowledge of science, everything.  I choose to believe in spite of those things, against all those things.  Other Christians seem to behave as if everything in them is just hunky-fucking-dory in agreement with their faith.  This is why I have all this hatred towards Christians.

It's not okay for me to hate Christians.  I'm not proud of it and I want to change it.  I'm not any better than them, I'm not any better than anybody, and as I've said before, I think the nicest and kindest and best-behaved people are among the non-Christians, not the Christians.  Look at the fucking Christians and you find people just like me, damn half-insane inconsistent rude fucked-up losers, that's me all over man, my life ain't no rose garden, let me tell ya -- it's a fucking trainwreck.

You know, seriously:  do you have a good life?  Are you happy with it?  If you can answer those questions with an honest yes every morning when you look in the mirror, and if you're a non-Christian, let me tell you something:  stay exactly the way you are.  I'm not kidding.

I'm not one of those people; never have been, not a fucking day in my life, even the best ones, and there have been those.  Any time I thought otherwise, I was just wrong, I think; that's me I'm talking about, not you.  That's why I choose Christ; I need it; I need him, every minute, and more and more each day that I wake up.  You get your choice, and I get mine.

I hope I still have a reader or two left by the time I stop talking about this kind of thing.

Boy this is so badly written.  I'm posting it anyway.

Oniya

Quote from: rick957 on June 27, 2012, 03:20:33 AM
You get your choice, and I get mine.

I think you'll find that - when you strip away all the posturing and theological debate - this is what most people are really asking for.  :-)
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

rick957

#24
Thank you very much for the comment, Oniya, and for visiting whenever you do.  I don't believe the view count, I think you're the only one.  No, maybe there's one or two more.  :) 

The following comments will seem horribly repetitive to anyone who's read many of my previous posts, so please feel free to skim or skip the rest.

By "people," Oniya, did you mean the people who react negatively when I talk about my religious views?  If those are the people you mean, I don't think they're actually asking me for the right to choose their own views, because I don't have any power whatsoever to either grant or take away that right, and I think they realize that, at least intuitively.  I think they also know that Christianity is not at all compatible with their personal views, so anyone who chooses to be a Christian is choosing a view that directly conflicts with theirs and therefore poses a challenge or threat to them.  In other words, they see Christianity as a direct personal affront, because it -- not just I, but it -- says that their views are not valid (are not legitimate; are wrong, basically).

The way around that is for everyone to believe that each person's views are equally valid, except that's not what I believe, because Christianity directly refutes that.

I think people who get upset at me want me to tell them that I don't believe Christianity's claim to contain the absolute, exclusive, universal truth.  They want me to tell them that I believe their views might be perfectly legitimate or correct, at least for them, but that is exactly what Christianity says that I cannot believe or say.  Some Christians, when faced with a negative response to Christianity, will say whatever they have to say to appease people, because even Christians want to be liked and accepted and to get along with everyone.  I certainly do.  But the only way to appease some people is to deny that Christianity is really true, and I won't do that.

I bend over backwards and sideways to remind people over and over again that they are free to reject everything I say, because they are.  What I will not do is tell them that I think their views are correct ones, not even for them, unless their views are compatible with Christianity.  It's ironic that such people seem unaware of the contradiction in trying to push me to feel the same way about their views that they do; they are doing to me what they supposedly want me to stop doing to them.  ("Do not tell people what to do."  Not that I think I've been telling anyone what to do, but am I the only person who sees the contradiction in one person telling another person to do that?)  I don't try to force anyone to adopt my views, but I do openly express my views; we're all free to do that.  (Well, most of us anyway, in America at least; not all views are welcome to be expressed at Elliquiy, in my opinion, from what I've seen, but that's a side matter.)

Here's the most interesting thing about that whole phenomenon, to me.  The people who get upset at me are actually having a healthier response to me than the people who simply ignore me without a second thought.  Although they may not realize it, I think the ones who get mad are actually still open to the remote possibility that Christianity could be true and their own viewpoint could be false; they're getting upset because they actually feel personally threatened, they feel pushed to seriously consider Christianity's claims.  The ones who are completely beyond the reach of Christianity are the ones who feel no threat whatsoever when someone like me talks about Christianity (and its claim to contain the exclusive truth).  Those people are so certain in their own views that hearing a viewpoint that is incompatible with theirs doesn't even make them blink, they just reject it utterly, dismiss it and move right along with their day. 

There's much less hope that the ones who can coolly reject Christianity will ever become open to considering it.  In other words, the ones who react angrily are more in touch with the truth, they're much closer to getting hold of it, or perhaps more accurately, they're closer to letting it get ahold of them; the truth still gets under their skin, and that's a very good thing.  It suggests that there's still hope for them, that perhaps they might eventually let the truth in.

There are good reasons why Christ and Christians have gotten attacked and even driven away from places.  Christianity is an incendiary, offensive, challenging, confrontational viewpoint, IF you actually take it seriously, rather than viewing it as unthreatening.  It's a direct challenge to each and every individual who hears it and actually understands its import; it demands to be either accepted or rejected, and each of those options has important effects on the individual chooser, and there is no third option; ignoring it is a way of rejecting it. 

So far I haven't been driven away from Elliquiy, and I'm thankful for that, enormously so, but that's for my own sake, because I like it around here.  It would be better in many ways for the non-Christians here if they did feel compelled to kick me right out on my ass, to not tolerate my expressing such offensive, threatening viewpoints around here.  Maybe that would convince one or two people to consider Christianity more seriously.

... siiiiiiiiigh.  :)  Is there anyone left whom I haven't alienated?  Stick around, I'll find some way.  I say shit like this because I feel driven to do so, even if it gets me in trouble or has the unpleasant effect of making me hugely unliked.  I say shit like this because I need to say it for my own sake, for my own reasons, but that doesn't mean these statements shouldn't have an effect on anyone else.  Do you think that doing the right thing sometimes comes with personal risk?  Sometimes costs one the approval of others?  I guess I believe that.  It doesn't feel very good, though, to feel driven to test that theory.

Let me know if anyone read all of this tiresome drivel that I just wrote, and I'll send you a dollar or something.  ;)