Atheism

[Gary Childress]

BTW: What exactly do you wish to "empower" me to do? Is there anything in particular you are requesting of me individually or do you simply want us all walking around beating our chests or something?

It is best if you increase the ways that you can sink down into your pit. I have no *help* to offer you. Jerk it more and with greater fury. Find a butt-pal. (The vagina is really too high maintenance anyway and women's sexual cycles a burden).

The general question is What is empowerment? What does empowerment mean or what should it mean?

Yes. I'm aware no parent wants me polluting their beautiful daughter's future. However, I have found a woman who is 46 years old, divorced, mentally ill and has a daughter. I've given her almost everything I had financially to help her out of a pit she was in when she found herself flat-broke and without employment. I gave her money she needed for surgery when she developed a physical health problem.

She is now gainfully employed. But I'm still a mental mess and taking a break from my own work to sort my brain out more as I consider whether I'm able to return to my line of work, so I realize I'm not right to be around her and her daughter while her daughter is struggling with bullying while trying to graduate High School. It hurts me beyond anything I've ever felt before to feel unneeded and even to be a burden to the woman I am at present in love with. You're an amateur by comparison as far as giving me something I need to be able to "handle".

To be honest, AJ, I'm sure you could handle mental illness, you'd have to get over your hubris and arrogance and take a back seat in life, but it's not the end of the world. You'd still have life, though you'd spend most of it dealing with people who want to "empower" you by telling you what a useless "unmanly whimp" you are. Maybe they'd even show videos of a grown man in diapers, mocking the idea of a "disempowered" male which they will liken to your status.

But I'll give you credit where it is due. Not everyone, probably very few, ought to embrace loss of face or loss of "manhood" and a desire to resign from life as their operative mode of being at the age of 55. I realize too well that my relative "retirement" from more productive years is a burden for society. I was on disability for a while after jumping from job to job trying to find one that would tolerate my tendency to run late coming into work and overall lack of motivation and energy (I have sleep apnea as well). But, yes. I did work low end jobs for about 30 years of my 55 years of life, including a 2 year stint flipping burgers at McDonalds in the later part of my High School years.

See I'm bleeding AJ, I'm bleeding my life story all over the place. Not only am I a "wanker" but I'm also a "loser" who could do little more than skip from job to job for employment. But I worked for 30 years going from job to job. My parents greatly supported me, offering me a place to live that was more tolerable than a mental institution. I'm fortunate to have such great parents.

Keep firing, AJ. If you think you can handle me telling my biography and compare it with yours (which I have yet to read) then feel free to fire. I don't have too much more to hide. There are a few things in my closet I haven't told anyone here about, but you're welcome to keep firing until I reveal them. Then after I reveal them, you can make the choice whether you felt justified in chastising an individual whom you deem pathetic or whatever. But you'll have to be sure that your own biography is intact. If you have a conscience you'll have to either deal with shredding my reputation in private or else, you'll have to share your own biography to show that you're the better human being.

My hunch is that you're not. But I could be wrong too. I'll leave it to you to either continue with your task of "improving" me or else figure out your own dignified way of stepping down and disengaging.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Harbal]

It's ages since I was quoted, and I'm feeling very neglected.

[Harbal]

It's ages since I was quoted, and I'm feeling very neglected.

Shut up, and behave like a man!

[Harbal]

It's ages since I was quoted, and I'm feeling very neglected.

Shut up, and behave like a man!

Okay. Sorry.

[Gary Childress]

How on earth can you justify even the possibility of God= what do you even mean by god?

What we mean by God, is an infinitely superior being to whom we can attach whatever ability or quality we like, as the need arrises, in order to justify whatever claim it occurs to us to make about him.

In the end, in my estimation, God perhaps boils down to a linguistic placeholder for at least two important things:

1. What happens to those who seem to either escape justice or else get screwed over while alive?
2. How hopeful or confident can we be that seemingly enormous and unstoppable forces of the universe won't snuff us out tomorrow in a freak accident or something?

Other than that, I don't see too much else of great importance we need to worry about regarding God. Maybe I'm wrong?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Harbal]

In the end, in my estimation, God perhaps boils down to a linguistic placeholder for at least two important things:

1. What happens to those who seem to either escape justice or else get screwed over while alive?
2. How hopeful or confident can we be that seemingly enormous and unstoppable forces of the universe won't snuff us out tomorrow in a freak accident

Justice is a purely human concept, which is why we developed legal systems, and the police to enforce them. If we get away with breaking the law, or commit an injustice that is not illegal, we might sometimes punish ourselves, by way of guilt, but nature doesn't care one way or the other. And, yes, Alexis Jacobi will probably go unpunished, and there is nothing we can do about it.

[Gary Childress]

In the end, in my estimation, God perhaps boils down to a linguistic placeholder for at least two important things:

1. What happens to those who seem to either escape justice or else get screwed over while alive?
2. How hopeful or confident can we be that seemingly enormous and unstoppable forces of the universe won't snuff us out tomorrow in a freak accident

Justice is a purely human concept, which is why we developed legal systems, and the police to enforce them. If we get away with breaking the law, or commit an injustice that is not illegal, we might sometimes punish ourselves, by way of guilt, but nature doesn't care one way or the other. And, yes, Alexis Jacobi will probably go unpunished, and there is nothing we can do about it.

Well, those are assumptions on your part, Harbal. I mean, you may very well be right (aka your premises have the value "true"), however, like it or not, those can be two very important considerations to existence. They're very disconcerting and hard to reconcile on their own for many people. Of course, that alone doesn't mean they aren't the case, but a lot of people currently rely on those notions to keep their sanity or perhaps even keep their "lowers" down. And if we find ourselves on the "higher" end then we have certain choices available to us. We can either share and spread fortunes relatively evenly or else more closely to what different individuals deserve by merit or we can hope angry mobs don't come and burn our mansions down. OR we can pray that the angry mob will be merciful and just be happy to see us no longer pissing on them. That probably depends upon how angry we make them or whatnot.

There's a lot riding on the uncertain margins of life, the margins that are normally "handled" by the divine. And it's scary. There's more at stake for some of us than simply getting rid of an old "social construct" or something.

I'm agnostic. I've seen things happen that I consider "poetic justice" that seems to imply some sort of Karma or something at the very least. Does that mean there is a God who actively keeps track of every little time we said "fuck" or every time we missed going to church? Otherwise, how do I explain the existence of "poetic justice" if there is no "poet" somewhere running things? Maybe it's our own consciences at work, regulating our own behavior and experience? It can be kind of weird for me sometimes. But, yes. The Biblical God (the one who flooded the world when he got angry, etc.) is a real turnoff for me.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Harbal]

I'm agnostic. I've seen things happen that I consider "poetic justice" that seems to imply some sort of Karma or something at the very least. Does that mean there is a God who actively keeps track of every little time we said "fuck" or every time we missed going to church? Otherwise, how do I explain the existence of "poetic justice" if there is no "poet" somewhere running things? Maybe it's our own consciences at work, regulating our own behavior and experience? It can be kind of weird for me sometimes. But, yes. The Biblical God (the one who flooded the world when he got angry, etc.) is a real turnoff for me.

Even if you could be certain that what appears to be poetic justice isn't just coincidence, how could you be sure that God was behind it? If we are going to resort to supernatural explanations for things we don't understand, to restrict ourselves to God seems to suggest a lack of imagination on our part. Let's be more creative, and come up with an explanation that doesn't ask to be worshipped.

[Sculptor]

How on earth can you justify even the possibility of God= what do you even mean by god?

What we mean by God, is an infinitely superior being to whom we can attach whatever ability or quality we like, as the need arrises, in order to justify whatever claim it occurs to us to make about him.

And he's agnostic about that existing??

[Gary Childress]

How on earth can you justify even the possibility of God= what do you even mean by god?

What we mean by God, is an infinitely superior being to whom we can attach whatever ability or quality we like, as the need arrises, in order to justify whatever claim it occurs to us to make about him.

And he's agnostic about that existing??

I'm just a lunatic, I guess.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Dubious]

If there were a god there would be no theists.

Conclusion: since theists exist, it follows there can be no god.

[Harbal]

I'm just a lunatic, I guess.

I don't know what's going on with this preoccupation you have with God, but generally speaking, you are far too rational to be a lunatic. Perhaps that's your problem; you are a sane man forced to live in a world of lunatics. I often feel the same myself when I visit this forum.

[Alexis Jacobi]

My hunch is that you're not. But I could be wrong too. I'll leave it to you to either continue with your task of "improving" me or else figure out your own dignified way of stepping down and disengaging.

You are very right. I am an emissary from god, life and the Universe. Your pathetic laments will now be crushed under the cruel wheels of the heartless world. Whimpering and other rehearsals will not be tolerated!

I am become wickedness …..

[Dubious]

My hunch is that you're not. But I could be wrong too. I'll leave it to you to either continue with your task of "improving" me or else figure out your own dignified way of stepping down and disengaging.

You are very right. I am an emissary from god, life and the Universe. Your pathetic laments will now be crushed under the cruel wheels of the heartless world. Whimpering and other rehearsals will not be tolerated!

I am become wickedness …..

Oh my! Woe is US! Is there no cosmic empathy left anywhere to wrap our foibles in?

Man cannot live without a foible wrapper!

[Gary Childress]

My hunch is that you're not. But I could be wrong too. I'll leave it to you to either continue with your task of "improving" me or else figure out your own dignified way of stepping down and disengaging.

You are very right. I am an emissary from god, life and the Universe. Your pathetic laments will now be crushed under the cruel wheels of the heartless world. Whimpering and other rehearsals will not be tolerated!

I am become wickedness …..

I think Oppenheimer might have already beaten you to something along the lines of that finish. Can you think of something more original? How about kicking back and relaxing in retirement like me? Let the less battered and bruised have whatever fun until their turn comes or they run out of energy and need to start taking better care of themselves. Look on the bright side, very great minds in the past have come to the same conclusion that their life's work was little more than fodder--possibly for the next generation to feed off of. Not too much wrong with that, I suppose.

"The end of my labors has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me." -- Thomas Aquinas

I'm sure you're not evil (or "wicked" or whatever). You're probably just human like the rest of us. I used to give some a hard time when I was younger also. I wasn't always very nice to everyone either. When I came to realize fully what I was doing, I more or less quit doing that. I still have to catch myself when I'm going too far with something. There, that's the last blood from my biography I'll shed for now. I'm probably no better than you are. Time to watch our kids play and make sure they don't do too much harm in the process.

Peace?