Ancient Roman religion and crazy people - Helen's kind of pit thread

[Khampelf]

Originally Posted by MarissaW

Okay, that's not objectively recognizing your gods aren't real.

Well, I guess I didn't add parenthetically add 'Every act of pleasure is a paean to the goddess (who doesn't necessarily exist, and is just my mental manifestation of that which is nurturing or beneficial to my own good will)

Originally Posted by MarissaW

That's a rather smug statement that even if we don't believe, your god is there getting off with us. That's as creepy as saying there's a god in my head judging all my thoughts.

Or just a mental mechanism to negate the guilt other system have created to discourage masturbation. It's not a perversion, it's a sacrament. That's how I choose to think about it, YMMV. (Your Masturbation May Vary)

Do I really have to say "These things are true to me, in my head, and not necessarily true for anyone else at all, ever." For every thing I might type in this thread? Eris give me strength! (Eris being an imaginary construct who, as a representative of discord, allows me to examine disharmony in a new, and hopefully positive light, not an actual physical being with any reality whatsoever, to me or anyone else.)

Originally Posted by MarissaW

See? This is what happens when we let our kids build their lives on song lyrics, as if they have some deep wise life statement.

I chose the lyric because it reflects my belief, I didn't form the belief around the lyric.


"The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls,
and tenement halls."
--Simon and Garfunkle, The Sounds of Silence.

I have found that meaning is where you find it.

[ulfhjorr]

Originally Posted by Khampelf

Do I really have to say "These things are true to me, in my head, and not necessarily true for anyone else at all, ever." For every thing I might type in this thread?

Well no, you don't. A far easier course of action would be to just drop the whole retarded charade that is religion, of whatever stripe you may prefer.

[Khampelf]

Originally Posted by ulfhjorr

Well no, you don't. A far easier course of action would be to just drop the whole retarded charade that is religion, of whatever stripe you may prefer.

I'm happier as an agnostic pagan than I was as an angry atheist.

I just got sorry for the lions, and threw myself to them in this thread.

See, collunsbury is chomping away happily on meta(physical)tarsus.


Is it still religion if you're only pretending to believe? Is it still religion if you're the only one who holds certain views? Historically, organized religion has been mostly a social control mechanism, and I have no truck with it.

[Veb]

I feel filthy.

I rather agree with collounsbury though for somewhat different reasons, and only as far as the original example, i.e. Johanna. Leaving out all the sidetracks about ancient Roman methods and bases for punishment, I think Johanna has supplied more than ample 'proof' of wingnuttery even by loose message board standards.

It has nothing to do with her gender identification (or whatever the proper term is) relative state--physical or mental--of transgenderism or even her distinctly eccentric choice of beliefs, i.e. the cult of Cybele and ecstatic drumming. Though I can't even read 'ecstatic drumming' without cracking up laughing. Go all Keith Moon, wilde womyn.

My problems with her are just ones of degree. I don't care if people fervently believe in Cybele, Astarte, Allah, Jesus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster or their own left toes. I also don't care if they like to fuck men, women, both, none, all, inflatable goods or at separate tables. I believe, quite firmly, that it's none of my business. There's nothing I could, should or would do about it, 'it' being religious beliefs or sexual practices. Long, impassioned screeds about same fall squarely into extreme over-sharing territory.

If somebody wants to cherry pick ancient religions, get married in Star Trek costumes with fake Vulcan ears, believe they're really a 'tyger' or cartoon lion accidentally born in human shape or their erogenous zones are in non-standard locations, that's swell. Long may they...whatever. Same goes with more mainstream religions AFAIC.

What people don't have to do, and I'm under no obligation to appreciate, is grandstanding. I don't mind that Johanna might be a little--okay, very--giddy with her new-found freedom to be her inner self or whatever. I don't mind that Lib determines, by increasingly tortured 'reasoning', that Jesus and God or whatever his kick du jour are real because he believes so. I DO mind their relentless narcissism. I do mind that they don't have the common sense, much basic perspective, to shut the hell up about their fascinating selves once in a while.

I rate compassion and the willingness to live and let live highly. But when people don eye-popping guises, climb into little clown cars to roar down the street, blare the horn and yell, "Look at me! I'm a parade!!" then yeah, I'm going to roll my eyes.

[Footsore Rambler]

Originally Posted by TVeblen

What people don't have to do, and I'm under no obligation to appreciate, is grandstanding. I don't mind that Johanna might be a little--okay, very--giddy with her new-found freedom to be her inner self or whatever. I don't mind that Lib determines, by increasingly tortured 'reasoning', that Jesus and God or whatever his kick du jour are real because he believes so. I DO mind their relentless narcissism. I do mind that they don't have the common sense, much basic perspective, to shut the hell up about their fascinating selves once in a while.

I rate compassion and the willingness to live and let live highly. But when people don eye-popping guises, climb into little clown cars to roar down the street, blare the horn and yell, "Look at me! I'm a parade!!" then yeah, I'm going to roll my eyes.

That's what I was thinking too. Let's leave the particulars, be they transgenderism or religion or anything else, out for a sec, and just call it a Special Burden. When someone feels that it's necessary to go ON and ON about their Special Burden, how it causes them to be reviled by society, but also is the main source of joy and self-worth in their life -- then I have to wonder a bit whether the Special Burden is entirely geniune and spontaneous in all its parts. Even if it is, it's sort of not so Special anymore if you make the rest of us share it, you know?