NationStates Jolt Archive

Keep it up and you end in severe danger of becoming flufflable in MY sight!

Heh. ;)

Keep it up and you end in severe danger of becoming flufflable in MY sight!



*fluffles.... Mssie!* ( who has gone too quiet)

n u went quiet first so ner

oh i'm so mature today

If you choose to associate with women of this sort, I'm very sorry for you. If you are silly enough to sleep with them or date them, then I'm afraid I've gotta laugh at that...you poor, poor sucker.

The vast, overwhelming majority of women are nothing like this at all. If you let some girl convince you that all girls are like this (as if that's some kind of excuse) then let me be the one to clue you in: you are getting chumped.


Woooaahh there fella, now correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't this an example of one of your ex's that we are talking about:D

Meself, shit every woman I know wants to change you, wether that be your hair, or your clothes, or the job you do or how many kids you have or what time, when and with who you shall go drinking, or whatever heheheh and in some cases all of the above.

I repeat all wimmin are like this without exception, if you think that your woman is not, then she hides it well, but ask your self what is differant about you now that wasn't before you had her in your life?

Ohhh be aware that I don't blame wimmin for this behaviour it is not that much differant than the male dislike of wearing anything else but denim(again if you are a man and you deny this you're just lyin so stop it, stop it now!) we don't know why, it is just that way.

Heh.

I find it really cute when Christians feel compelled to specify that they won't try to convert anybody, as though that's some kind of generous act on their part. Where I come from, refraining from shoving your personal superstitions on others is refered to as "polite." You don't get a cookie for polite.

"Not their love of men but the impotence of their love of men keeps the Christians of today from --- burning us." -- Friedrich Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil"

;) ... myself, I don't believe he exists, but if he did exist and is the Christian God, I wouldn't love or worship him... his behavior is abhorrent, and a New Testament change of heart won't erase the horrible deeds he commanded in the Old Testament, nor fix the 'fact' that he sends everyone that doesn't believe in or love him into a big lake of burning lava.

Heh.

I find it really cute when Christians feel compelled to specify that they won't try to convert anybody, as though that's some kind of generous act on their part. Where I come from, refraining from shoving your personal superstitions on others is refered to as "polite." You don't get a cookie for polite.

:eek: I don't get a cookie?! :(

I don't think of not trying to convert anyone as generous. I do find it polite, since it is kind of idiotic to force your beliefs down someone's throat if they don't believe it. I'm one of the "liberal" Christians, so to speak, and I'm a bit agnostic too. I could be wrong, so why doom everyone else by teaching them the worng thing? I could be right, but who knows until we die, really? I do believe in some type of God, and I do believe that Jesus was Her Son (because who said God was a he?) But... meh. Everyone believes a certain thing.

I don't, but I don't attack or mock it either. Let people believe what they want and leave them be.
as long as theyu leave me be

Meself, shit every woman I know wants to change you, wether that be your hair, or your clothes, or the job you do or how many kids you have or what time, when and with who you shall go drinking, or whatever heheheh and in some cases all of the above.

I repeat all wimmin are like this without exception, if you think that your woman is not, then she hides it well, but ask your self what is differant about you now that wasn't before you had her in your life?


I was engaged to a woman for seven months. Yes, she insisted I try to observe certain norms and conventions...(I had never met someone who had forbidden topics of small talk for example) but she insisted on "standards" in the behaviour of _everyone_ she was in contact with. She had no friend she was 100% comfortable with as a result.

But she had spent the last 8 years having her desires trampled by an uncaring common law partner...because she let him...and thus she was overdoing an awkward and unprecedented move in the assertiveness direction. So she came to this pass from an honest mistake, immo.

The point is on fundamental things I believed or valued, she had no designs at all despite her standards. None of her demands had touched on who I was or what defined me as a person. Because she was smart and understood these things weren't going to change on her say so.

So you could say superficially this proves your point, but I'd say it doesn't. Because there is a big difference between doing something that you have no opinion about in order to please someone (like watching small talk subjects)....and doing something you will be forced to rearrange your identity to comply with (which she did not demand of me) to try and buy yourself peace and harmony.

In the latter case, there has to be a meeting of minds...it might end in the "agreement to disagree"....but the refusal to try and come to such meeting is a profound lack of respect and consideration.

We did end up breaking up because I had serious psychological problems. She didn't believe such problems were valid (on a theoretical level) and was unwilling to go live with the realities of a sick spouse (on a practical level). But she never demanded "just be normal". She observed, she recognized what was, and decided her second impression of me was not of someone she could marry.


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Everyone, male or female, makes some requests of their other. Women may make more but they do not make the only entreaties. There is a HUGE gap between what a person does and who they are. There is likewise a big difference between saying:

"Do something because it would make me happy" or "Do something because it is a good idea" ...with the understanding that your reaction is valid and worthy of being engaged by right of being their parnter....

and

"Do something because I think you should...I don't want to hear about how it makes you feel or what you need".




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Bottle is talking about the sort of person who makes demands without caring how they affect who you are, from blindness to this distinction. The type of person who sees nothing unequal in making unconditional demands and accepting none in return.

The shallow sort as Bottle describes is a person obsessed the vision of how you should be... For instance, it's one thing to say "honey, you don't dress formally enough for work and are losing employment opportunities through your lack of investment in attire and deportment." it's another thing to say "oh, how can you dress like that ? You just haven't got any fashion sense! here, I know better, do what I say!"

In one case, the person is offering a competency to help you achieve a goal. If you say "money doesn't matter to me"...then that (for example) ends the discussion (unless they can convince you to change your value, but this is rare and refusal must be respected even if you do not endorse the judgement thus made.) If you _do_ agree with this goal, but this touches on your fundamental needs or nature in a bad way (Perhaps "I refuse to let anyone dictate trivial details to me"), then they should try to negotiate to reach a compromise to get some measure of success in meeting your goal (say, how to at least dress within your chosen style with as much poise and effectiveness as you can).

In the other case, the person is _indifferent_ to you and your goals. They are presenting an ultimatum. They expect compliance. What they want is a two legged barbie doll.

Earlier, I had been engaged to a _man_ who was not unmasculine and he had _the exact same tendency_. He had this picture in his mind of why his life worked, and he expected that solution to work for everyone else, including me. When I told him why his model didn't apply to me (and explained why!), he just shook his head and said I didn't know what I was talking about.

I didn't accept this and I told him to move out once i realized he was 100% serious about his sentiments. (that there was "one size fits all" and that "If you have a problem with my plan, it means you're a bad person, not that the plan has shortcomings or a the very least bears some modifications at times").



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The women I have as friends do not show the same behaviour. They are not typical, perhaps, but it is obvious that the behaviour you talk about is not inborn. Far more likely, the type you complain of play with human dollies because it gives them a sense of power and security which they do not feel they can negotiate or vie for explicitly. If you deny half the human race a fair shake at power, they learn tremendous skills at intrigue, how absolutely _shocking_.

Certainly, if you are willing to do the work to _find_ people with good social habits, you _can_. If the results matter enough to you. For most people, they don't and they just muddle along in disasters and make the best of it because a bad relationship seems more secure than an abysmal one.

And any _learned_ behaviour can be unlearned. The feelings...may be more intractable....but behaviour is the one thing we ultimately control (though sometimes within very narrow limits).

(I don't mention myself because I'm betting you'd just say "you're weird or in denial of your real nature" and that would be such a futile direction of discussion...because how could you say that _EVERYONE_ is a certain way ? NOTHING is sociologically ubiquitous among humans. Nothing. Your lack of attention to detail bodes ill for any subsequent discussion along those lines)

And the relevance to this thread is clear: a religion is supposed to be _about making humans behave better_. Yet to just say "regardless of who you are and how you feel, our ideology _has_ to make you better ...is exactly the same kind of feeling as the drive to keep two legged dolls.

They may _feel_ like they're connected to G*d (and can thus make such authoritative statements accurately) but the lack of physical evidence or indirect signs (like miracles, high success rates, etc) implies strongly that they are not. And thus they are down on the same level of "dress like I do because I know better and how you feel doesn't matter!"

And the relevance to this thread is clear: a religion is supposed to be _about making humans behave better_. Yet to just say "regardless of who you are and how you feel, our ideology _has_ to make you better ...is exactly the same kind of feeling as the drive to keep two legged dolls.

I don't think religion has ever been about actually making humans behave better. I think many people use religion as a way to kind of police themselves; a way to externalize their conscience, if you like. But I think religions primary function is, and always has been, to satisfy a need or needs that are not being fulfilled by anything else in the person's life.

The problem is that not everybody has the same needs. For instance, I've had TONS of religious people ask me, "If you don't believe in God, then what's to stop you from going out and robbing a liquor store? What's to stop you from committing murder?" These people clearly have a need for some kind of external policing, in order to keep their behavior in check. I, on the other hand, don't need anybody to tell me that hurting people is bad...I have empathy to tell me that.

Another example would be that many people fear their own death, and require religion to give them a sense of peace and security via a belief in an afterlife. Again, I do not require this, because the idea of my life ending does not frighten me (though the MEANS of ending my life can be pretty scary ;)). I've had believers try to convert me by bribing me with eternal afterlife, and this simply shows how little they bother to learn about me...even if I believed they could provide me with eternal life in Heaven, I wouldn't want it.


They may _feel_ like they're connected to G*d (and can thus make such authoritative statements accurately) but the lack of physical evidence or indirect signs (like miracles, high success rates, etc) implies strongly that they are not. And thus they are down on the same level of "dress like I do because I know better and how you feel doesn't matter!"
I'm simply insulted by their assumption that I will want exactly what they want. It's kind of like that annoying uncle who always presumes to order for everybody else when you go out to a restaurant...you say, "No, thanks, actually I really don't like cod." And he says, "Sure you do! Everybody likes cod! You'll love it. You're getting the cod."

I don't think religion has ever been about actually making humans behave better. I think many people use religion as a way to kind of police themselves; a way to externalize their conscience, if you like.

Would you agree that religion has always (also) been used to police the morality of its followers?



The problem is that not everybody has the same needs. For instance, I've had TONS of religious people ask me, "If you don't believe in God, then what's to stop you from going out and robbing a liquor store? What's to stop you from committing murder?" These people clearly have a need for some kind of external policing, in order to keep their behavior in check.

The same people also believe that without God, there is no morality.
Or that ONLY christianity can bestow a sense of simple right and wrong.

Would you agree that religion has always (also) been used to police the morality of its followers?

I don't know about always (seeing as how there are so many religions I know nothing about), but I would be willing to guess that the majority of religious groups use their shared spiritual beliefs as a means of policing morality.


The same people also believe that without God, there is no morality.
Or that ONLY christianity can bestow a sense of simple right and wrong.
Which, to me, sounds like saying that without strawberry ice cream, there is no such thing as sugar.

Sugar is an ingredient in strawberry ice cream, just as morality is an ingredient in Christianity. It's perfectly fine if you prefer the taste of strawberry ice cream, or if Christianity is the flavor you like for your religious morality, but don't go around making assinine statements in which carts are put before horses and whatnot. :P

Religion has always bothered me...at least to the extent that you're supposed to blindly subscribe to an enormous collection of beliefs.
Even past religion, the idea of a deity, the idea of god is somewhat absurd. SNIP

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=490703

And that settles the matter.

I don't know about always (seeing as how there are so many religions I know nothing about), but I would be willing to guess that the majority of religious groups use their shared spiritual beliefs as a means of policing morality.

Well, me not being any kind of authority on Mithracian religions, or Babylonian ones.....
Let me use a standard...

Christianity?


Which, to me, sounds like saying that without strawberry ice cream, there is no such thing as sugar.

I would have to agree....but you cant prove strawberry icecream doesnt exist!!!

Sorry..had to do it....

Well, me not being any kind of authority on Mithracian religions, or Babylonian ones.....
Let me use a standard...

Christianity?

Yah, I'm guessing Christianity has been employed to police morality since pretty much the get-go.



I would have to agree....but you cant prove strawberry icecream doesnt exist!!!

CURSES!!! FOILED AGAIN!

:)

Yah, I'm guessing Christianity has been employed to police morality since pretty much the get-go.



CURSES!!! FOILED AGAIN!

:)


See...I read a book about ice cream once...and IT WAS RIGHT THERE!

Books dont lie!

CURSES!!! FOILED AGAIN!

:)


And Jesus would have gotten away with it, if it werent for you meddling kids!

I have atheist friends who say that science explains things that religion can't. Personally, my faith explains things to me that science can't. And the treatment of science as something that is infallible and resolute has always amused me. If science is so...well, "scientific", why is medicine a "practice". Why doesn't the science of psychiatry work the same for all people. Same question could be applied to chemo therapy, aspirin, and chiropractics. Why do some smokers live to 94 (my grandfather) and some non-smokers die from cancer at 44 (my mother-in-law).

I have lived my life as a child in a fundamentalist Baptist church, and I was fucking miserable.

I have lived my life as a God hating atheist. (Though I suppose that's a contradiction in terms, since to hate Him, one must admit that He exists...) And, again, I was miserable.

But now, as an adult of 41, I attend a church of my own choosing (Lutheran) where the message seems to be that NOBODY is perfect, and that's why God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins. If getting into heaven were left up to us, nobody would make it. Think about the Ten Commandments...do you know ANYBODY who could follow them all, ALL THE TIME, both in their heart and in deed? Please. If we were as perfect as the fundamentalists would have us believe THEY are, we wouldn't need a Savior.
In my heart I've broken all ten, in deed, nine. (I have yet to murder anyone, LOL.)

I think the problem a lot of people have with faith in God is that so many people make it so damned unappealing. Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, etc. do more to push people away from God than they do to bring them closer. Believing in God shouldn't make you a humorless hate monger with a stick in your ass and no fucking sense of humor, it should make you joyful, forgiving, and happy to be alive.

It also helps to have realistic expectations of God. A lot of people pray as if God is their "bitch", and when they don't get the "answer" they want, their faith begins to falter. A passage from the book "When Bad Things Happen To Good People", by Harold Kushner, comes to mind.

"If we have grown up, as Job and his friends did, believing in an all-wise, all-powerful, all-knowing God, it will be hard for us, as it was hard for them, to change our way of thinking about Him (as it was hard for us, when we were children, to realize that our parents were not all-powerful, that a broken toy had to be thrown out because they could not fix it, not because they did not want to). But if we can bring ourselves to acknowledge that there are some things God does not control, many good things become possible.
We will be able to turn to God for things He can do to help us, instead of holding on to unrealistic expectations of Him which will never come about. The Bible, after all, repeatedly speaks of God as the special protector of the poor, the widow, and the orphan, without raising the question of how it happened that they became poor, widowed, or orphaned in the first place.
We can maintain our own self-respect and sense of goodness without having to feel that God has judged us and condemned us. We can be angry at what has happened to us, without feeling that we are angry at God. More than that, we can recognize our anger at life's unfairness, our instinctive compassion at seeing people suffer, as coming from God who teaches us to be angry at injustice and to feel compassion for the afflicted. Instead of feeling that we are opposed to God, we can feel that our indignation is God's anger at unfairness working through us, that when we cry out, we are still on God's side, and He is still on ours."

Anyway, that's why I believe in God. That, and a quote from (I think it was...) C.S. Lewis:

"I would rather live my life believing in God and die to find out I was wrong, than to live my life as if there wasn't a God, and die to find out I was wrong..."

God bless.....