was it the part where i said dingle mccringleberry

You don't need inflection. All you need is context and a little bit of intelligence

The only way religion is going to help you fix your life is if you do all of the fixing on your own and naively attribute it to the work of any one of dozens of fictional literary characters.

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Life.

Prayer as it is practiced by modern/evangelical christians descends directly from ancient Hebrew pagan theurgy. Both practices were singled out as harmful in the Gospel.

No, they did not "get it right".

Objectivism is wholly incompatible with Christianity, which is why Paul Ryan was (correctly) identified with atheism during the last US federal election. Ayn Rand's writings and beliefs did not only extend to economic concerns. Evangelism is more correctly described as Malthusian rather than Randian.

You're thinking of atheists.

right because Antony didn't grow up in Coalville Ohio and I didn't grow up in Oiltown Alberta and nobody else here has lived in a ****ty small regressive conservative town ever.

Strictly speaking, I am an atheist, and I don't go for Christian mythology, or Christians in general.

Despite that, I am very fascinated with the cognitive force of religion. Committing to a belief that is structured around your psychological needs and not empirical reality can have an immensely positive effect on your life. It only works, though, if you take up your philosophy with seriousness. This is becoming hard for Christians to do, since science is crowding it out in this space.

Religion is an extremely effective tool for becoming at peace with oneself and the world, if taken seriously. I would consider myself to be a "spiritual" person, despite being completely devoid of superstition or mysticism.

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Dude I don't even remember you saying anything about my relationship. My relationship is fine. I know it's fine. Your thoughts on the subject, whatever they are, are entirely irrelevant to me.

I'm treating you the way I am because you spent several pages of this thread spewing a bunch of bull**** about how you have to manipulate women if you want to have any luck with them. I'm treating you the way I am because you're a self-hating douchebag who puts up a facade to hide the scared little boy who is still afraid of his own shadow. You are completely mentally unprepared for anything remotely resembling an actual adult relationship, and now you want sympathy from me.

You can attempt to rationalize your behavior however you want, but at the end of the day you're still a terrible human being, and I don't feel bad for you because you only do the terrible things because other people did terrible things to you.

I had an abusive childhood and bla bla bla. I've spent a life being dicked over, mentally abused, cheated on, lied to, swindled out of money, and taken advantage of by more people than I could care to count. Do I use that as a justification for having no moral compass? No. You can either use these experiences to justify awful behavior, or you can actually be a mentally strong human being and do the right thing by other people regardless of what they do to you.

Sell your sob story somewhere else, I've got more of them than I know what to do with, and nobody cares about mine either.

Probably the weakest link of Western religion is its fear of death. It has poisoned Christianity with silly non-sense. One must overcome the selfish impulse to live forever if s/he is to be at peace with the world.

true, that.

how the hell is your characterization of him here (vulnerable) consistent with your choice to verbally abuse him?

I mean, maybe it will be 'good' for him, in your eyes, but who knows? I think he's already admitted that he has some problems to work out.

well most of us are going to have to work to 140 in order to retire, so like, I don't think the fear of death has as much to do with Christianity as it does a fear of never having a life that is worth living.

Lol, re: evangalism. If I had to think of a religion as far removed as possible from the actual teachings of Jesus the human being, it wouldn't be a bad start.

Okay, maybe I take back my defense of Reid, since this right here is pretty inflammatory.

In fact, your supposed self-loathing is reaching the status of trolling.

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It's because his behavior is completely counter productive to any kind of progress as a person. He admits he has rejected religion, and refuses to seek therapy. Instead he goes on a message board and lies about being a terrible human being?

Here several months ago I was in a deep period of self loathing that was directly related to the troubles I had as a child, and even an adult, in regard to my father. I was (to put it lightly) not taking any sort of constructive action to even attempt to resolve the issues, and engaging in some really terrible behavior. A member of this forum (who I will not name) had a very candid conversation with me in #massassi about my behavior, and it made a huge difference in my life.

Here's the thing, and this goes back to one of my original posts in this thread. A lot of things happen in life for very complex reasons, and it is incredibly counter-productive to spend your time trying to assign blame for why your life is this way, or how something happened, and so on and so forth. Sure, you can learn a lot about yourself by dissecting all of your decisions under a microscope, but a very important step in moving past the type of issues that can haunt you for a very long time is conceding a degree of blame, and using that as a platform for future self-growth.

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Also, keep in mind that when I talk about conceding a degree of blame, I'm not saying that bad things happen because we put ourselves in the position to have bad things happen. That's the same kind of logic as saying a woman got raped because of the way she was dressed. I'm saying that often times in life we rationalize our terrible behavior because others have treated us badly. You have to admit to yourself that you are the one who is to blame for your bad behavior, not someone else. You have to take responsibility for your actions and make a conscious choice to improve yourself.

I'm really not suggesting that you "man up" or any dumb **** like that. I'm suggesting that you use your negative experiences as a platform for self improvement. It's not ignoring the problems. It's about accepting that they're real problems, but you aren't powerless against them.

Unless you are willing to seek professional help, this is the best advice anyone can give you.

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Well **** got real and now I'm now scared to post anything further in this thread. I'll just do the massassi vibes thing. Be strong OP and others.

Well, first of all, congratulations on your sobriety. I'm not going to say I understand your bigotry, because bigotry in general is making sweeping generalizations and that is irresponsible. Hopefully you'll be able to understand that and move past it.

As far as my hometown goes... Yeah, my hometown blows, but that's just kind of a fact of life. You can let it ruin you with regret and hate directed at your past, or you can just say to hell with it. Hell, I still live in my hometown, and most of these people are infuriating.

Additionally, you are inevitably going to face issues that you cannot resolve. At the moment I'm dealing with the fact that I would love to be able to move into an apartment with my girlfriend, but neither of us can manage that financially at the moment, and it's hard to tell when we'll be able to. But that doesn't mean I'm just giving up on that notion. There is a certain degree of validity to the notion of "if you follow your dreams they can come true", it's just on a much smaller scale than what is generally implied. I mean, at this point in my life it's really highly unlikely that I'll be the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns and lead them to the Super Bowl, but it's pretty likely that I'll eventually get to move in with my girlfriend. So yeah, as long as your goal is realistic, you can probably accomplish it.

Well, then again... Brad Pitt was still wearing a chicken suit out in front of an El Pollo Loco in LA up until being cast in Thelma and Louise, so yeah, maybe people can make utterly ridiculous **** happen regardless of their situation in life.

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Oh, I just saw your last post. In regard to being a compulsive liar, that can be a very difficult thing to circumvent. It is generally linked to mental illness of one sort or another, and stems from self dissatisfaction. You are pretty much one of two ways: You either lie to make yourself seem better in the eyes of others, or you have a distorted degree of self value, and exaggerate your claims heavily to feed it. I would strongly recommend seeing a student counselor, as it almost invariably will do you some good, even if it just means being able to externalize the things you are having trouble with.

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For the time being, it can be helpful to appreciate the little things in life. Really, that's where most of life's happiness comes from anyway.

And to be honest with you, this is true to a very large degree:

Sorry, don't know how to play this video :(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAVoQfoU0dQ

My, that's very christian of you.

and by christian i DON'T mean the religion.


Also Reid, a good school will likely have very inexpensive if not free access to counseling. It looks like you made the decision to try and seek that out, that's a big step. Good on you man!

But, in short, not remotely.

Beyond that, given that my parternship is stable, open, atheistic, asexual, and with a gal, I can't really offer much of value to the discussion of breakups, monogamy/infidelity, Christianity, sex, or what women look for in men.

I don't entirely understand the idea of cheating within a relationship, at least on a more than "I screwed up once without warning" sort of thing. If you or your partner are the sort of person who aren't getting everything you expect/want out of a relationship, discuss it. And if one of you feels compelled to go outside of the discussed parameters, either come to a compromise or go be with someone who can accept that. That may be an unrealistically adult concept though.

That's all I've got.

I'm sorry for doing this to your thread Dash

Last time I got dumped from a serious relationship I threw up after she left, so. I feel ya.

Reid, I think what you have to understand above all is that you're doing what Kantian ethics would describe as "treating people as a means to an end." You're treating people that way really, really hard. And regardless of what you think of Kantian ethics (which I also don't especially care for, trending a little more JS Mill, although I think they're a good start), or ethics in general, that's a really, really ****ty thing to do. People are not means. They are not just things that do whatever they're supposed to do so you can get what you want from them (which, sex, right?). People are people, and it's way more satisfying to have sex with a person that likes sex or likes you or both than to have sex with an object that has done what you think you've hacked it to do.

Oh, and I probably have to answer this as one of the last openly Christian Massassi posters.



Absolutely not. I've seen the sort of behavior Emon is describing too often to pretend I'm in the majority. I think the sooner Christians jettison this sort of decision-making the better off they'll be, but there's no question that it is, in the meantime, a basic feature of Western I-can't-not-use-scare-quotes-here "Christianity."

Christians are awful. I believe what I believe, and I'm trying to be better.

In my case, that means forgetting to ask her for her phone number, apparently.



Jesus, man. You sound like you need help.



Also, I agree. Reid's probably not a psychopath. He sounds more confused than psycho.

"I sucked a cock when I was 19" is a weak excuse for justifying your inability to relate to fellow humans, man.



The Reid: Redemption.

The narcissistic thing would probably pass as soon as you'll start appreciating the fact that other people are no less important than you.

Here's another one.

The hunter, soaking in the rain
Saw light shine from afar; it shone so bright,
It was a tavern! A solace for his pain,
A pause in his fight.

He parked his horse
He walked inside,
His throat felt coarse,
A girl came to his side.

"I've never met a man like you,"
The girl whispered in his ear.
They both knew that to be true,
The hunter ordered beer.

The night run wild
Ran wild the days,
The hunter smiled,
He almost changed his ways.

Until one day, he saw her cry
"Sorry baby, time to go,"
"I'll change my ways, I'll try!"
"Sorry baby, no."

The rain had turned to snow
He untied his horse,
He would have her know,
He's following his course.

Trying to rhyme "horse" with "course" is a damn stretch, though. Oh well. Anyway, this thread DELIVERS.

Horse actually does rhyme with course, requiring no elasticity.

Also, *****es ain't ****.

the coarse horse is hoarse of course

for a writer, you don't seem to know a thing about words.

My only contribution to this thread: