Hobbes
Member
- Jun 12, 2019
- 34
I've been trying to explain this hell and I think it would be better to post in its unfinished state. It's been banging around in my head for weeks and driving me absolutely mad and I need to move on. Please do not contribute unless you have read the entire post and have specific points to elaborate on - that's kind of the whole point of it all.
I've used 'moral framework' as a stand-in for 'religion.' A lot of these points are specific to Christianity, and even more specific to the Catholic sect I was brought up under, but it was necessary to separate these viewpoints from Catholicism as explained below. You may subscribe to a religion to which a great deal of this does not apply because of its lack of violent history, and that's a very good thing. Some of these points will be relevant and some will be irrelevant.
Adopting a moral framework in 2019:
I do not believe or disbelieve in a god. I do not believe or disbelieve in the afterlife. This is from personal disinterest - I have long decided that I have no horse in the race. Such an entity is entirely impossible to prove for the necessary burden of proof just by its very nature of being an omnipotent force. Additionally, my very low intelligence is incapable of holding any extended discussions of philosophy on higher than a base level or even thinking about anything that doesn't grab my infantile attention for longer than five seconds. All the squabbling around such a topic seems fruitless and pointless and it distracts and even contradicts from the point of religion - to provide spiritual respite and mental comfort in the face of adversity.
While my lack of faith may immediately disqualify me as a Christian, it's the moral framework, rich visual history and sense of community that lure me towards it.
If you are treating doctrines as personal interpretation rather than set rules, why bother with Catholicism?
I was raised Catholic and have not had much or any exposure to other religions, despite spending my entire life on the internet - a vast database of knowledge on any topic you could imagine. I work at Best Buy and I'm completely aware of my position in life - I'm not some aloof soccer mom ascribing small coincidences to miracles of God. I sell overpriced electronic waste and eat at McDonald's for lunch. I am fully aware of my position in a soulless, capitalist society and I need some form of beauty to get me through it. Believing in the nobility of the human spirit and the intristic 'goodness' of other people keeps me from hanging myself when somebody screams at me because I can't return a piece of plastic that they broke.
If you do not believe in a god, why bother with religion? You can just be a good person by yourself. You don't need a god to tell you not to kill people.
Yes, absolutely.
///
It's much easier to be disparging to others from a place of privilege. This happens when a person adopts a moral framework that places themselves above others. For example, from what I understand about some interpretations of Calvinism is that a god will decide who will be saved and everybody else is out of luck. It's very easy to take a moral high ground when you believe that you will be saved and everybody else won't be. This also happens with a lack of belief - bull-headed logicists will pompously announce how stupid everybody is for believing in an imaginary monster (wake up, sheeple) and condemn others for needing a sense of community and a moral framework to get them through this hell of a life. They project the same mental instability and weakness on those that choose a faith that others project onto suicidal people.
Of course, it's very difficult to stop these people from chiming in with their own baseline arguments about how stupid religious people are, because of the points at the very start:
they have every right to speak their mind and their input is just as valuable as any other person.
but you have to see that it brings all deeper discussion to a halt. it becomes impossible to discuss these matters with militant atheists because they circle around to discussions about god being real, rather than how to solve the fucking problem using a moral framework
and then the moral framework comes in and it's like "nah you going to hell because of these passages" which ignores the idea that religion is supposed to help people feel better about living here, not make them scared and condemn others
Transcript of video for those who do not wish to watch it: father calls in to ask a question about if people who commit suicide go to hell, host bends the doctrine and source material to interpret it as NO, they have not committed a mortal sin and are still fully able to ascend to heaven, father reveals that his son committed suicide and that the father's pastor told the father that the son will be going to hell, some comments on the video get upset about this bending of doctrine and source material and give their own interpretation and bend the doctrine and source material to say that YES, they go to hell, tough nuggets sorry about your son God makes the rules.
This sort of dynamic plays out constantly in e-theism because it brings together people from different sects and churches and understandings of the source material and they all come to debate how they're right and everybody else is wrong. Being so disgusting as to tell a father that his son is going to burn in hell for committing suicide is the type of depravity I never want to associate with the supposed benevolence of spirituality.
Using your source material to pass your own judgements based on your own interpretation and ruin somebody's entire life because you come from a place of privilege that gives you a moral high ground to condemn others is pretty messed up. It's the same type of aloofness that I display when somebody's phone is a week out of warranty and I have to tell them that we can't replace it due to our store's policies, and I never want to see anybody pass the same level of judgement on a human being as you do on a broken phone. Even if you have a pessimistic view of humanity and believe that we're all just bags of meat that have ascribed spiritual significance to nothing and nothing matters, you still participate in a society that elevates human spirit and dignity while simultaneously crushing and discarding it.
I feel as though my limbs are being torn from every direction, that I'm under a constant barrage of conflicting opinions about other people who believe they have the right to tell others who they are, what they should do with their lives. I've spent my entire life on the internet, consuming lines of text, and it's finally bringing me down. I don't feel enriched by all these opposing view points. I feel like I'm always doing everything wrong, and everything can be par-
too much, im so tired, i cant explain it all, i want out, i want out
ad majorem dei gloriam
I've used 'moral framework' as a stand-in for 'religion.' A lot of these points are specific to Christianity, and even more specific to the Catholic sect I was brought up under, but it was necessary to separate these viewpoints from Catholicism as explained below. You may subscribe to a religion to which a great deal of this does not apply because of its lack of violent history, and that's a very good thing. Some of these points will be relevant and some will be irrelevant.
Adopting a moral framework in 2019:
- Acknowledgement that your moral framework has been used as an excuse to murder, rape, torture, marginalize, assimilate, intimidate and condemn other cultures, people, and the moral frameworks they support.
- Acknowledgement that a great deal of people in a forum such as this have predominantly negative experiences with other people who have used your moral framework to commit any of the above acts against them, including devaluing their experiences and condemning them as a person for their views towards suicide.
- Acknowledgement that subscribing to any moral framework does not automatically make you a 'good person.'
- Acknowledgement that other people subscribing to any set moral framework, their own personal moral framework or no moral framework at all does not automatically make them a 'bad person.'
- Acknowledgement that subscribing to any moral framework does not give you the right to condemn or discredit others or give you any sort of platform to make a judgement on another person under the pretense of false authority of your God.
- Acknowledgement that you will receive extremely warranted backlash for adopting that moral framework despite knowledge of the clauses above.
I do not believe or disbelieve in a god. I do not believe or disbelieve in the afterlife. This is from personal disinterest - I have long decided that I have no horse in the race. Such an entity is entirely impossible to prove for the necessary burden of proof just by its very nature of being an omnipotent force. Additionally, my very low intelligence is incapable of holding any extended discussions of philosophy on higher than a base level or even thinking about anything that doesn't grab my infantile attention for longer than five seconds. All the squabbling around such a topic seems fruitless and pointless and it distracts and even contradicts from the point of religion - to provide spiritual respite and mental comfort in the face of adversity.
While my lack of faith may immediately disqualify me as a Christian, it's the moral framework, rich visual history and sense of community that lure me towards it.
If you are treating doctrines as personal interpretation rather than set rules, why bother with Catholicism?
I was raised Catholic and have not had much or any exposure to other religions, despite spending my entire life on the internet - a vast database of knowledge on any topic you could imagine. I work at Best Buy and I'm completely aware of my position in life - I'm not some aloof soccer mom ascribing small coincidences to miracles of God. I sell overpriced electronic waste and eat at McDonald's for lunch. I am fully aware of my position in a soulless, capitalist society and I need some form of beauty to get me through it. Believing in the nobility of the human spirit and the intristic 'goodness' of other people keeps me from hanging myself when somebody screams at me because I can't return a piece of plastic that they broke.
If you do not believe in a god, why bother with religion? You can just be a good person by yourself. You don't need a god to tell you not to kill people.
Yes, absolutely.
///
It's much easier to be disparging to others from a place of privilege. This happens when a person adopts a moral framework that places themselves above others. For example, from what I understand about some interpretations of Calvinism is that a god will decide who will be saved and everybody else is out of luck. It's very easy to take a moral high ground when you believe that you will be saved and everybody else won't be. This also happens with a lack of belief - bull-headed logicists will pompously announce how stupid everybody is for believing in an imaginary monster (wake up, sheeple) and condemn others for needing a sense of community and a moral framework to get them through this hell of a life. They project the same mental instability and weakness on those that choose a faith that others project onto suicidal people.
Of course, it's very difficult to stop these people from chiming in with their own baseline arguments about how stupid religious people are, because of the points at the very start:
they have every right to speak their mind and their input is just as valuable as any other person.
but you have to see that it brings all deeper discussion to a halt. it becomes impossible to discuss these matters with militant atheists because they circle around to discussions about god being real, rather than how to solve the fucking problem using a moral framework
and then the moral framework comes in and it's like "nah you going to hell because of these passages" which ignores the idea that religion is supposed to help people feel better about living here, not make them scared and condemn others
Transcript of video for those who do not wish to watch it: father calls in to ask a question about if people who commit suicide go to hell, host bends the doctrine and source material to interpret it as NO, they have not committed a mortal sin and are still fully able to ascend to heaven, father reveals that his son committed suicide and that the father's pastor told the father that the son will be going to hell, some comments on the video get upset about this bending of doctrine and source material and give their own interpretation and bend the doctrine and source material to say that YES, they go to hell, tough nuggets sorry about your son God makes the rules.
This sort of dynamic plays out constantly in e-theism because it brings together people from different sects and churches and understandings of the source material and they all come to debate how they're right and everybody else is wrong. Being so disgusting as to tell a father that his son is going to burn in hell for committing suicide is the type of depravity I never want to associate with the supposed benevolence of spirituality.
Using your source material to pass your own judgements based on your own interpretation and ruin somebody's entire life because you come from a place of privilege that gives you a moral high ground to condemn others is pretty messed up. It's the same type of aloofness that I display when somebody's phone is a week out of warranty and I have to tell them that we can't replace it due to our store's policies, and I never want to see anybody pass the same level of judgement on a human being as you do on a broken phone. Even if you have a pessimistic view of humanity and believe that we're all just bags of meat that have ascribed spiritual significance to nothing and nothing matters, you still participate in a society that elevates human spirit and dignity while simultaneously crushing and discarding it.
I feel as though my limbs are being torn from every direction, that I'm under a constant barrage of conflicting opinions about other people who believe they have the right to tell others who they are, what they should do with their lives. I've spent my entire life on the internet, consuming lines of text, and it's finally bringing me down. I don't feel enriched by all these opposing view points. I feel like I'm always doing everything wrong, and everything can be par-
too much, im so tired, i cant explain it all, i want out, i want out
ad majorem dei gloriam
