The "whatever's on your mind" thread

[Alcoremortis]

Originally Posted by dustpuffs

When I was a kid, they told us in church that the devil could take any form he wanted. I had nightmares for weeks that he was masquerading as one or the other of my parents. Religion scared the hell out of me.

I dunno why, but I was never really scared of the devil, even when I was a kid. I was far more terrified of the coat-people in my closet and the fact that the bedposts on my bed looked like human heads. Also vampires. I still feel uneasy going to bed without something wrapped around my neck, but now it's less because I think I'll wake up dead and more because it gets chilly.

But the devil always seemed to be a tempter from my catechism. Like, he would try to lure you into doing bad things by making you think they were good things, not take over your body and shit like in the Exorcist. One of my teachers always said that the super good people got tempted more and if they succumbed, their fall was even greater than the regular just kinda okay people. So I decided as a kid that I'd rather just be kinda okay and just slip under the radar.

Analyzing my actions to things when I was a kid never ceases to amuse me. I also thought that souls were like batteries that needed to be recharged every once and awhile. Like, as in they looked like batteries and everything and a confession just hooked you up to a heavenly battery recharger with the electrical current being carried by however many Hail Maries you were supposed to say.

Yeah, I'm weird.

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by Alcoremortis

One of my teachers always said that the super good people got tempted more and if they succumbed, their fall was even greater than the regular just kinda okay people.

This sounds like a simpler version of an idea C.S. Lewis wrote about in Mere Christianity, which concerns itself mostly with the mentally ill and the underprivileged.

Originally Posted by C.S. Lewis

The bad psychological material is not a sin but a disease. It does not need to be repented of, but to be cured. And by the way, that is very important. Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices. When a neurotic who has a pathological horror of cats forces himself to pick up a cat for some good reason, it is quite possible that in God's eyes he has shown more courage than a healthy man may have shown in winning the V.C. When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps, risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God's eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.

It is as well to put this the other way round. Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends. Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with the bad upbringing, and then with the power, say, of Himmler? That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man's choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it. Most of the man's psychological makeup is probably due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central man, the thing that chose, that made the best or worst out of this material, will stand naked. All sorts of nice things which we thought our own, but which were really due to a good digestion, will fall off some of us: all sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off others. We shall then, for the first time, see every one as he really was. There will be surprises.

[Noname215]

Originally Posted by Alcoremortis

Technically, Holy Ghost is a Catholic thing. A lot of other Christian churches got rid of it along with the saints because it smacks of polytheism.

Personally, I always thought that the Holy Ghost was a bedsheet with lots of holes when I was a kid.

I say Holy Ghost because Holy Spirit can mean anything.

As for the other part, when I was a little kid, I used to think of the Holy Ghost as something like that, too.

And also, another amazing theologian was J.R.R. Tolkien. The whole Lord of the Rings thing was meant to represent Christianity. The ring = Temptation. Sauron = The Devil.

[Secret Fawful]

Dashing jump at people with ridiculous assumptions? What a surprise. Tell me, does Chyron have a martyr complex too, Dashing?

Want me to stop that? I'll stop when you stop.

I'll go on record and say that I believe in God, and I think Jesus was a real person (because many don't think he even existed), but I don't know in what form this God takes or even if he's knowable. I guess I'm borderline agnostic, but I'm so far out of field on religion I don't even have a classification. I just don't know what I believe. I will say if God exists I'm terrified of him. I'm afraid of coming face to face with an omnipotent being. I'm terrified of the unknown. I'm terrified of not knowing what the experience would be like. I'm terrified of an afterlife with angels and spirits and whatever. I'm terrified of the whole concept. I'm terrified of no afterlife too. I'm scared no matter what may come, and that's a big part of why I consider existence horrifying. I have no escape.

I was raised Christian and my parents are very fundamentalist. They aren't extremists but they're borderline. They forced a childhood on me with no holidays, no friends, and no pop culture. As I grew up they knew they had to change some of their tactics or I would have completely become unmanageable. In return I got to live all over the country, I got to appreciate what I had and time outside in the sun, and I understood commercialism early and learned that following right behind everyone else just because society says so isn't always the best option. But I've never been close to God. God has never blessed me the way Christians seem to think He would. If God exists, He doesn't like me. And don't come in here telling me bullshit about how much God loves me. Because I've always felt nothing if an incalculable sense of being completely and utterly ALONE. Inside and out. Christians have only ever judged me and treated me like an outcast and a moron while throwing their doctrines back and forth around me and parading how smart they think they are. Many of them turned out to be fakes anyway, like my abusive ex-uncle who beat the shit out of my aunt and then turned around and preached God every chance he got. My parents tried to keep me around Christian children, but I have never known a Christian my age who wasn't in some way judgmental and who I had to watch myself around ALL THE TIME in order to not end up on their radar of people to judge. In the end, I ended up with all of them abandoning me. I can only assume it's because God wanted them to. They always had everything. All the friends, all the talents, all the respect, and all the blessings. Maybe God hates me because I have envy. I don't know. It's easy to pick out something like that to blame for my shitty life, though.

I don't want to have children. People who have them seem to rethink things a lot once they're there. I've heard a lot of people say they feel like there's more than just bags of meat there before them, due to parental affection. But to me, all I can think is that I would be creating lives who might have to experience the horror of planet-wide annihilation in their lifetime. And then what have I done? I live in fear enough that I'll experience that. How can I do that to my future children?

I consider the world and life in general a joke. The world doesn't run how it should. It's just a faceless, uncaring, evil business. The world is a business. But humor is all I have to stay sane. Tonight I will go to bed and feel completely alone and empty inside, and tomorrow I will to.

[Noname215]

You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity.

[Secret Fawful]

Originally Posted by Noname215

You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity.

You sound like one of THEM. I'm just human, and I'm trying to cope with the human experience.

[Chyron8472]

Originally Posted by Alcoremortis

One of my teachers always said that the super good people got tempted more and if they succumbed, their fall was even greater than the regular just kinda okay people. So I decided as a kid that I'd rather just be kinda okay and just slip under the radar.

Actually, what the Bible says is that teachers are held to a higher standard because they have the power to lead people astray:

James 3:1-4
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check. 3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go.



Also, Jesus chastized the Pharasees a lot, not because they were "super good" and yet had fallen, but because their supposed spirituality was just a facade to make themselves look good, and he saw right through it.

In fact, the Bible says "for everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard" (Romans 3:23), and "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9).

So, there really is no "super good" by that measure.

[Gman5852]

In other news, new Youtube layout sucks, sky is blue, and gravity makes things fall.

[Chyron8472]

Originally Posted by Gman5852

In other news, new Youtube layout sucks

Just noticed this. Why do they gotta fix stuff that ain't broke?

[Noname215]

Originally Posted by Secret Fawful

You sound like one of THEM. I'm just human, and I'm trying to cope with the human experience.

I was just kidding. I understand how you feel.

[DAISHI]

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

Just noticed this. Why do they gotta fix stuff that ain't broke?

Facebook Syndrome.

[Remolay]

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

@Noname: If it really is a ghost, and you pray to God for protection from it, you will be protected. No joke. Totally serious.

Truth. Not saying I believe in supernatural. I've heard the term "Healthy skepticism" for what I have. But if you do believe in the supernatural, faith will have a lot of power.

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

Just noticed this. Why do they gotta break stuff further that was already broke?

fixed that for you.

[Gman5852]

This allows you to redirect links

Activate it and redirect "http://www.youtube.com/index" to "http://www.youtube.com/my_subscriptions?feature=mhee", then it's slightly more bearable than the new homepage.

[RetroVortex]

I'm a banana!
(Please don't eat me! :O)

[Secret Fawful]

Originally Posted by Noname215

I was just kidding. I understand how you feel.

You soon will. I'm a Thing.

Er...I mean....Chyron is a Thing. Don't read the black box or he'll get you.

Trust...in me.

[RetroVortex]

I'm definitely not a thing or anything.
Just a banana. (Please don't eat me. Pretty please! )

[Noname215]

Originally Posted by Secret Fawful

You soon will. I'm a Thing.

[Secret Fawful]

Originally Posted by Noname215

I've seen enough hentai to know where this is going.

[coolsome]

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

God I want an army of Ape Escape plush toys and to have the classic series Master beard style!

[Chyron8472]

Originally Posted by Secret Fawful

You soon will. I'm a Thing.

Er...I mean....Chyron is a Thing. Don't read the black box or he'll get you.

Trust...in me.

I'm sorry if I'm judgmental. I don't intend to be.

I do know that I'm fairly opinionated. I'll give you that. Although, I suspect that most people are. Not that it excuses me for being so, though.

...I don't know what else to say. I really am sorry for if/when I come off as a jerk. I don't want it to sound hollow or forced to say so either, as though I pity you in some way, because you don't want nor need that. No one needs that.


Regarding faith, I just know that God is real and he does have power; I have been a personal witness to him answering prayers--both mine and other people's. And, for what it's worth, you shouldn't have to be afraid. I wish I knew how to help in some way without your feeling as though I'm judging or preaching. Like, seriously help. As a friend. That's all I want.

It's not my purpose to judge or to preach, and I'm sorry if I come off like it is.