Posts by Benjamin Taylor6

Mark Torres14 said:Poverty isn't even a real thing.😉
It’s just a poverty of desire.

What does it even mean to say poverty is a "state of mind"? Go ask the kids in Somalia about having a "poverty of spirit." You don't even have to go that far—just look around you at your local welfare office. Explain yourself.

Forget about Somalia.
Look around you and tell me: do I know a single person on this planet who’s actually starving to death right now?
Do you know him?

😂
I haven't touched a TV in years. Maybe I should just pull the plug on the internet too? But then how am I supposed to stay informed? Does anyone even need information in this day and age? What, am I supposed to go live in a cave somewhere?

I can only laugh at this. Honestly. Heh, heh, heh...😍
TV as an info source? Please. It’s basically just entertainment masquerading as news. Most people just turn it on for background noise, not because they actually trust what's being said. Real information comes from digging deeper than whatever flashy graphics a network throws at you.🙏
What’s the point of all this info anyway? How much of the crap you watch on TV every single day actually has anything to do with you?
Open your mind. Whether you’re sitting in a cave or somewhere else doesn't even matter. It's irrelevant.

Whose fault is it anyway? Theirs or yours?

Mine, hands down.
Look, at the end of the day, it's all just out of love for the kids.
Right now, I’m grinding just to make sure my grandkids are set for life. Why should they have to work if I can do it for them? That's the dream. Raising kids who never have to clock in again. Basically, turning them into the next Paris, Texas.

If we’re actually going to talk about this, we need to define our terms first. What does "equality" even mean? Obviously, we aren't all equal when it comes to physical ability or mental capacity, but we have to be equal under the law. Period. Equal rights for everyone. Period.Look, whatever those rights actually are, it doesn't matter. Obviously, rights have to be limited by some kind of social contract, but they need to apply to everyone. Everyone should be equal when it comes to rights. Why on earth wouldn't they be?

Give me one single example where people actually have equal rights. Seriously. Just one.
Take any right. Like freedom of the press.
Should someone be allowed to snap a photo of you walking down the street with your kid and blast it on some, heh heh heh, "news outlet" TV station?
This is how we just push our own imaginary opinions that don't even have to align with reality.

So, you're stuck deciding if life is predestined or just a standalone value that ends when you die? I still don't get it. Even if you believe in fate, you still have a life as a "standalone" value. What's the dilemma?

I don't have a dilemma.😕 Why did you take it that way?
Why should I stress about the end of life if the end is something I can't actually experience? From where I'm standing, death only exists for other people.

Whether life is predetermined or totally random, it ends in death anyway, and then nothing—just like how there was nothing before you were born...

👍

Fear it or not, you're going to die, so there's no point being afraid of the inevitable. Besides, you were dead for billions of years before you were born. Easier said than done, though. I'm still working on it...😁

👍
I'm working on it too, but man, it's tough.☕

Look, I don't really buy into all that talk about "souls" (not that you have much choice when concepts like "souls" are part of the game). I'm more into the idea that everything is actually One, playing out through the many. I don't truly exist; I'm just a play within the One...

Nice. Very Zen school of thought.
If I'm feeling up to it, maybe we can discuss Zeno's "Stadium" paradox.🙂

I personally know people living like absolute bums despite having decent $1000 Social Security checks. That's just how they choose to live.

A poverty of desire :

Or maybe something more like this:

Michael Anderson2 said:I need enough just to cover the basics—rent, utilities, groceries, water, maybe some decent clothes. That’s the bottom line. Once you start looking at those numbers, all that high-minded philosophy just goes right out the window. I’m not exactly living in poverty, but I’m certainly not pulling in tycoon money either. At the end of the day, you have to put in the work; if you don't, the competition will absolutely crush you.

It’s just the two of us, and as they get older, the expenses keep climbing—it feels like a runaway train. What am I supposed to do at this point? Am I really expected to sit them down and tell them to drop out of school or something?

It’s better for everyone to have rights than for absolutely no one to have them, don't you think?

Growing up, I was always taught that a question mark at the end of a sentence actually meant you were asking a question...☕

I remember a cafe owner I used to know back in the day—her business was struggling, as you can imagine—who once told me, "Thank God I have three kids, but thank God they aren't *too* brilliant." She actually said she wished they’d just scrape by with mediocre grades in middle and high school.
If she’d been blessed with children who were absolute geniuses graduating at the top of their class every single time, she would have been absolutely overwhelmed. I mean, who could actually afford to fund three separate rounds of five years of higher education? 😍

That’s actually where this old saying comes from in our local social circles: May the curse of Mrs. Anaka strike you.
Basically, it’s a way of saying, "I hope you're blessed with incredibly smart children," because if you are, you'll be working until the day you retire just to keep up with their tuition.
(We live in a small town, so when the kids want to go to college, they end up heading off to Washington, D.C., and let me tell you—that is not cheap)

Someone mentioned working while studying earlier. Sure, it’s possible, but it really depends on what they decide to major in. If they sign up for medical school, forget about it. They might find a little time to grab a quick bite at the campus dining hall, but they certainly won't have time to hold down a job.

Jerry King11 said:And look how they've overcomplicated things here! 😁 😍

French philosophers Vladimir Jankélévitch and Jacques Derrida argue that the human condition is fundamentally fractured. They suggest that our dignity isn't preserved by the possibility of forgiveness, but rather by its impossibility. According to Jankélévitch (Pardonner?), true forgiveness requires the offender to feel genuine remorse first. But when it comes to those horrific, monstrous crimes that transcend even the concept of radical evil—think of the atrocities seen in places like Memphis—forgiveness simply cannot happen. In those cases, you can't forgive, not just for your own sake, but out of respect for the victims. To forgive would be to offer a cheap reconciliation and to wipe away what was done. Therefore, forgiveness must remain impossible: “We did not intend to reconcile the irrationality of evil with the omnipotence of love. Forgiveness is as powerful as evil, but evil is as powerful as forgiveness... Forgiveness is stronger than evil, yet evil is stronger than forgiveness. I cannot escape this.” Derrida (Pardonner: l'impardonnable et l'imprescriptible), in his reflections on the matter, initially critiques Jankélévitch’s view that remorse must precede forgiveness. He felt that such a requirement turns forgiveness into a kind of market transaction, where the one forgiving acts as a master or ruler over the one seeking it. On the other hand, Derrida also agrees with Jankélévitch that forgiveness must remain an impossibility. However, unlike Jankélévitch, Derrida doesn't think this means forgiveness doesn't exist; he believes it exists specifically *as* an impossibility. The truth and essence of forgiveness lies in this very impossibility: we must constantly forgive and constantly seek forgiveness because it persists as an unattainable ideal. It remains impossible because humans are inherently broken beings who are perpetually in debt to one another, whether through forgiving or seeking pardon: “I must seek forgiveness in order to be just... But I must also seek forgiveness because I am just, because of the fact that I am just; for in wanting to become just, I am unjust and I betray... Because it is unjust to be just. I am always betraying someone to become just; I am always sacrificing one thing for another, just as I breathe.” Thus, the impossibility of forgiveness triggers a continuous, unstoppable process of forgiving (Derrida also viewed writing as a constant way of seeking forgiveness). It is only through this impossibility of forgiveness, which dethrones the egoism of "possibility," that a person can remain true to forgiveness itself, to the other person, and to themselves.

All this to explain Christian forgiveness.

Søren Kierkegaard concludes: “Love hides a multitude of sins, because love does not allow sin to take root; it destroys it at birth.” In this sense, forgiveness—being an act of love—doesn't give sin a chance; instead, it opens the door to a new beginning. We see a similar sentiment in the work of Simone Weil (La pesanteur et la grâce), who puts it succinctly: “I, too, am different from the person you imagine me to be. To know that is forgiveness.” Forgiveness, then, allows us to think differently about ourselves. We could expand on Weil’s thought: thinking differently about ourselves and others within God. God constantly allows a person to be different, to not get stuck in hatred or vengeance, and to not dwell in the despair of a sin that clouds one's view of the horizons of Divine hope.

They also touched on the struggle of seeking forgiveness for the wrongs we have committed ourselves.

🙂

The whole point of forgiveness is that you extend it to people who actually realize they messed up—people who truly repent for it. If there’s no repentance, then honestly, you’re just being a fool if you go around forgiving them.

darkjackal7 said:Does forgiveness actually require forgetting? It sounds poetic, but let’s be real: it’s impossible in practice, unless we’re talking about trivial nonsense. There is a massive difference between forgiving someone because they failed to pay you back twenty bucks—which, let’s face it, is a stretch anyway since you’ll definitely remember it the next time they ask for a loan $33—and something far more grave. Forgiving someone like Ratko Mercer while simultaneously "forgetting" his atrocities is a different beast entirely. To forgive and forget implies acting as if the offense never even occurred. Our entire legal system is built on the exact opposite principle. If we operated under that logic, no one would ever face justice for any crime, let alone a massacre. We would simply shrug, forgive, and move on. And we all know that's a lie; true forgetting is an impossibility.

I had a run-in with this exact thing once. I lent $17 a guy from my office enough cash for some cigarettes. Well, the guy quit the very next day and I never saw his face again. He basically vanished into thin air. I forgave him, $17 I guess. But it would have been a much bigger headache if I’d lent him $167. Forgiveness is one thing, but how and when and to whom do you actually apply it?
In the Bible, in the story of the adulteress, it says that Christ said: "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone," and ended with: "Go, and your sins are forgiven."
But imagine if someone brought a murderer to Christ—someone who had just killed and robbed an elderly couple that very evening. I highly doubt he would have just said, "Go, murderer, and promise not to kill or rob anyone else anymore." 😲😍😁

Here’s a story about how a friend of mine "forgave" a thug after getting a beating:

hiddentrucker16 said:Well, that is exactly what I asked in the meditation thread, and nobody bothered to answer me.🙄

And this is precisely the sort of response I was hoping for.👋👋👋

It seems human willpower alone isn't enough to become a saint, or even just a good, wise person—you could pray and meditate every single day and still fall short. You need God's Grace and a gift from Heaven; essentially, you need God's plan. Period. And frankly, Heaven is just naturally out of reach for some people—yikes.🙂🙂

And of course, there's the whole "bonus physical satisfaction brings peace to the home" thing—ha, ha, ha.😂😂

It's highly unlikely that you haven't read up on other types of awakening. We're talking about awakening through the TM-siddhi program (which is essentially the highest tier of Transcendental Meditation TM):

Then you have the folks who meditate and end their sessions by literally jumping around: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHwhGUo90jw

Thomas Davis6 said:Hey there...

Hmm... first off, you might want to clarify what you actually mean by a "sick soul." I'm guessing you aren't talking about clinical mental health issues that a psychiatrist would deal with, right?

When it comes to measuring what makes a soul "healthy" versus "sick" from a spiritual standpoint, I guess it all boils down to personal perception. It feels pretty subjective to me. I don't really see it as some objective standard that every single person following a specific faith or spiritual practice has to hit. It’s more of an individual thing, I suppose.

When are people finally gonna realize that there’s no such thing as one universal truth or a single way to see things?

The soul exists, I guess, just as it is. But if you’re actually looking to undergo some kind of transformation there, you first have to dive into those dark depths. You have to accept whatever is lurking down there as your own, without any fear or trying to push it away.
We’re just one big messy whole—light and dark, good and evil, all of it. We are exactly who we are, I guess.
When we try to strip away our darker side, I guess we’re basically just sterilizing ourselves. That part of us we're so desperate to peel away from our souls? It's actually there for a reason. Maybe it's meant to help us figure out who we really are and actually grow.

By denying that, he’s basically turning us into this sterile, empty vessel. It feels like he's stripping away the very duality that holds the whole world together—so why wouldn't that apply to our souls too? I guess.
I guess if you try to ignore the darker parts of your soul, you're just setting yourself up for an illusion. You end up lying to yourself. That’s why I don't really buy into the whole idea of having a "sick" or "healthy" soul. It just doesn't work like that.
Everyone chooses their own path, I guess. It's all about listening to your gut, but maybe our modern way of life just makes it harder to hear anything at all.
Religious leaders are always hanging around, trying to lecture everyone on how to reach "enlightenment." You’ve got guys like Benedict or that guy Homeini, just peddling the same old nonsense. Honestly, I guess all they really achieve is spreading stupidity and selling people a bunch of illusions. It's basically just selling smoke.
Waking up really just means finally seeing things for what they are and choosing your own path. I guess.

I wrote about spiritual or soulful ailments previously over on the other spirituality board. I won't repeat myself since the core idea is the same:

Well, damn. You really have to watch your language when discussing ideological opponents. You wouldn't want someone accidentally blowing you up because of what you said.
Watch your words, just like my late father used to do:

unknown Asks:
Before I passed away, I wrote something inspired by the thoughts of an unknown individual: "There is no saving a tiger that has already decided to die." It’s a hard truth, but it's true—you simply cannot help someone who has no desire to be helped. It’s a two-way street, you see? Anything else—forcing your assistance on someone who hasn't asked for it—is nothing more than a form of violence. It's reckless, frankly, and quite indifferent to the person's own will.

😲
What even is that? God, waking up is just... it’s a struggle. Every single morning, it feels like a personal battle against my own existence. You lie there, staring at the ceiling, wondering why we even bother getting out of bed in the first place—it’s exhausting before the day has even truly begun. If a man spends his entire life immersed in Zen Buddhism—devoting every waking hour to meditation and deep contemplation—and yet, in the end, he’s powerless to stop his own son from taking his own life... well, that's a heavy thing to sit with. It makes you wonder about the limits of all that spiritual practice, doesn't it?
Honestly, if he could just find his son a decent partner—someone who actually keeps things interesting—maybe the kid would be too busy focusing on life instead of obsessing over death. It’s all about redirection, really. Focus on the physical, focus on living... it beats wallowing in that dark headspace.
Am I exaggerating? Not even a little bit. My friend is living proof of that—just look at his situation: I was reading through some old discussions recently—you know how I get, once I start digging into these philosophical rabbit holes, it’s hard to stop—and I kept coming back to this idea of spiritual progress versus the sheer, noisy chaos of modern life. It’s funny, isn't it? We spend our whole lives trying to find some semblance of peace, yet we build these massive, loud systems that practically scream at us to stay distracted. There’s this specific thread where Benjamin Taylor6 was making points about the necessity of deep focus, and honestly, I think he hit a nerve there. He was talking about how most people just skim the surface of existence—they touch the water and then run away because they’re afraid of getting wet. But if you want actual growth, you have to dive in. You can't just dabble in Zen Buddhism or try a bit of Transcendental Meditation TM on a Sunday morning and expect to become a saint by Monday. It requires a level of discipline that most Americans, frankly, seem to have lost somewhere between the invention of the smartphone and the endless stream of junk food. I remember sitting in a coffee shop in Chicago a few years back—just one of those rainy Tuesday afternoons where everything feels a bit heavy—and watching people pass by. Everyone was glued to their screens, eyes darting, hearts racing, totally disconnected from the person sitting right next to them. It felt like we were all living in this frantic, shallow bubble. It reminded me of what Thomas Davis6 was saying about the superficiality of modern "enlightenment" seekers. People want the results without the work. They want the feeling of being connected to God without actually having to sit in silence and face their own messy, complicated selves. It’s easy to talk about grace, but acting with grace when someone cuts you off in traffic on the I-95? That’s the real test. That’s where the rubber meets the road. We preach these high-minded ideals, but the moment things get inconvenient, we revert to our primal, agitated states. We need more than just slogans. We need a fundamental shift in how we approach our inner lives. If we don't learn to quiet the noise, we're just going to keep spinning our wheels, chasing shadows while the real substance of life passes us by. It’s frustrating, really—watching everyone rush toward nothingness with such incredible speed.
Look, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again—everyone wants to credit their spiritual awakening to some lofty, sanctified practice like prayer, deep meditation, or endless contemplation... but honestly? For me, it wasn't some quiet moment of Zen Buddhism or sitting cross-legged in a temple. It was far more primal than that. In my case, the whole thing was triggered by the vagina. There—I said it. While everyone else is out there chasing enlightenment through rituals or staring at the ceiling waiting for a sign from God, I found my truth through something much more visceral and grounded in the body. It sounds scandalous to the pearl-clutchers, I know, but let them keep their incense and their chanting; I'll stick to the reality of how it actually happened. 😍

silverfalcon952 said:Where the hell did my thread go?

Look, regarding what was written up there—honestly!

boldsailor32 said:He also had a very powerful Father whose plan he followed, fulfilling the mission assigned to him... 😉

If it weren't for some earthly soul providing for him—someone who probably spent his days sawing lumber and building beds, wardrobes, tables, and chairs—that Father would have seen his son die of starvation.
Jesus could have lived off sunlight alone, but people would have just branded him a Satanist. 😍

Tyler Baker6 said:😁
A massive shift is right around the corner. And I'm not just talking about the planet, the government, or even time itself,
but the entire economy too. You've been summoned. It's time to wake up!🙂

Well, I’m certainly "waking up" right now—sipping on a hot double espresso, no sugar. Once I'm done, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to say a few prayers, much like my late grandmother used to do. She was an early riser, up at 5:00 AM sharp, which gave her plenty of time before 8:00. My situation is a bit different; I actually have to go to work, and I am definitely not a 5:00 AM person. This whole idea of "awakening the authorities" isn't all it's cracked up to be. There are protests happening outside my window as we speak, but honestly, I don't see them changing much. Maybe if we all headed over to the Shepherd's? All in all, I'm not seeing much movement on this "great awakening" everyone keeps talking about.

lonegardener said:Wait, is that your blog? 😲

You really articulated all of that beautifully... 👍

The only point where I (still 😬) disagree with the doctor is regarding the idea of "rushing" the inevitable. Then again, who knows? Maybe I'll change my mind once I hit 55. 😍

Yeah, you caught me. These are basically my literal mental masturbations. 😍
There's also this other conversation I had. With a priest. Since a potential suicide wants to understand our purpose from the perspective of organized religion.
Sadly, people like that exist. They're the ones who make that choice because they feel pushed toward the "disappear" button. I highly doubt any of them are actually pondering whether their "Self" will persist in some other (better) realm. Most of them just want one thing: to CEASE EXISTING entirely!

Dennis Moore4 said:It isn’t just Dawkins claiming everything emerged from nothing; even the account in the Bible suggests a different starting point.
Before anything else, there was Tahu and Bah.
To be more precise, according to the Bible, everything actually rose out of the water and the darkness of chaos.
That is where they slightly diverge on this particular point.

Spot on. That’s actually one of the latest hypotheses popping up in modern cosmology. Though, I recall Stephen Hawking arguing that "nothingness" was essentially some kind of quantum fluctuation. But even he isn't being particularly clear about it—I mean, if we're talking about absolute nothingness at the start, how can "nothing" fluctuate? It's a bit of a logical loop. Unless, of course, Nihilism was feeling a bit chilly that day. If there was no space, no time, no matter, and no energy in any conceivable form, then what exactly was doing the "fluctuating" to spark something out of nothing? There was no chaos, no water, not even darkness. See, darkness only makes sense if you have space to put it in. If there isn't even a vacuum or a void to hold it, where are you supposed to stash the darkness? 😍

You can find the discussion recorded here:

Michael Anderson2 said:I haven't stumbled upon this specific line of thought before, but I have to say, it’s brilliant. Kudos to Mainländer—I think I'll dive a bit deeper into his work. thanks...👍

But, to what end? 🤷

I had a similar experience myself—it actually brings to mind that one time I went in for a checkup with my primary care physician. Just as I was getting settled, I found out the guy had passed away the day before. It really puts things into perspective, doesn't it? 😲 Existence isn't some grand, preordained script written by a cosmic playwright—it’s much more chaotic than that. I was reading this piece recently about how we tend to hunt for meaning in all the wrong places, almost like we’re desperate to find a pattern in the static of a radio frequency. It’s a bit like my old neighbor back in Chicago—he spent twenty years convinced he could predict the stock market based on the migration patterns of starlings. He wasn't wrong about the birds, mind you, but he was dead wrong about the money. We do the same thing with life. We look at the vastness of the universe and feel this crushing need for an "answer." But if you ask someone like Dawkins, they’ll tell you there is no inherent purpose baked into the atoms themselves. There’s no divine blueprint waiting to be decoded. We are essentially biological accidents navigating a vacuum, trying to make sense of a void that doesn't care whether we exist or not. It sounds bleak, I know—I can already hear the skeptics rolling their eyes—but there is a certain freedom in that emptiness. If there is no assigned meaning, then the burden of creating it falls entirely on us. It reminds me of a conversation I had once with a colleague—let's call him Benjamin Taylor6—about the sheer absurdity of our search for significance. He argued that we are just sophisticated primates with too much free time on our hands, projecting our fears onto the stars. And while he’s got a point, I think it goes deeper than just boredom. It’s a fundamental part of the human condition to want to believe that our struggles matter. The problem arises when we try to force a narrative onto reality. We want everything to be a neat little package, a cause and effect, a justice system that actually works. But the universe doesn't operate on a courtroom logic. It just *is*. We spend our lives building these elaborate mental structures to protect ourselves from the realization that we are drifting through an indifferent expanse. It's exhausting, really—this constant effort to justify our presence here. Maybe the trick isn't finding the meaning, but learning to live comfortably without it.
Benjamin Taylor6:

But really—to what end? 🤷

Honestly, you remind me so much of this late neighbor of mine back home. She was such a character—always had something to say about everything. Every single time her son would mention he wanted to start some kind of business venture, she’d shut him down immediately. Her philosophy? The absolute best "business" you can run is from the comfort of your own couch. She used to tell him, "Why bother? Just lie there, watch TV all day, and call it a career." In her mind, it was foolproof—you spend a little bit on the electric bill, you don't have to worry about buying fancy meals, and that's it. No hassle, right? To her, actual entrepreneurship was nothing but pure misery—all that endless grinding, the constant headaches, and those soul-crushing taxes and social security contributions. Plus, the sheer amount of time it takes... she just couldn't wrap her head around why anyone would choose that struggle over a quiet afternoon in front of the screen.
It’s entirely possible to just lounge around on the sofa all day—provided someone actually gives you at least a little bit of something to work with. $333 To the moon. If that doesn't happen, then we might as well just start planting olive groves or spending our days scrubbing stairwells. Or—and this is a real thought—you could just play dumb and live off government assistance. 😂 I know plenty of people like that—here’s a few of them:
I honestly find myself circling back to this point quite often—it’s one of those things that seems obvious once you say it out loud, yet people just keep missing it. It’s like watching someone try to drive through a red light in downtown Chicago and being genuinely shocked when they get pulled over by the police. There’s a logic to how the world works, a set of rules we all implicitly agree to follow, and when someone decides they're above them, the whole thing starts to feel incredibly fragile. Benjamin Taylor6 mentioned something earlier about how we should just accept these social structures as inevitable, and frankly, I couldn't disagree more. That kind of fatalism is exactly why we end up stuck in these repetitive cycles of dysfunction. We pretend that because "that's how it's always been," it's somehow inherently correct. It isn't. It's just habit. And bad habits, whether they're personal or societal, are incredibly hard to break. I remember sitting in a coffee shop in Seattle a few years ago—just minding my own business, trying to read some non-fiction—and listening to two guys at the next table argue about whether individual responsibility actually exists in a modern economy. One of them was convinced that everything is just systemic, while the other thought everyone is just lazy. Neither had a leg to stand on, really. They were both looking at the same mountain from two different, equally flawed angles. The reality is usually somewhere in the messy middle. You can't blame the entire system for every single failure, but you also can't act like the system doesn't exert an enormous amount of pressure on the individual. It's a constant tug-of-war. When we ignore that tension, we stop having meaningful conversations and start just shouting slogans at each other. It's exhausting, and quite frankly, it's beneath us if we want to actually solve anything.
I honestly can't believe we're still circling this drain—it’s like watching a slow-motion car crash where everyone keeps arguing about the color of the upholstery instead of noticing the engine is on fire. You see what Benjamin Taylor6 is doing here? It's that classic move—shifting the goalposts just when you think you've finally cornered them with actual logic. It’s exhausting. I was sitting in a coffee shop in Chicago the other day—just minding my own business, trying to enjoy a decent latte—and I overheard two guys having this exact same circular argument about local zoning laws. One guy kept insisting his "intuition" outweighed the actual municipal code, and it hit me: this thread is exactly that. We are debating based on feelings while the actual facts are sitting right there on the table, ignored by anyone who finds them inconvenient. The problem isn't even the disagreement itself—disagreement is healthy, it's how we grow—it's the sheer, stubborn refusal to acknowledge reality. It’s a lack of intellectual rigor. People want the comfort of being right more than they want the truth, and frankly, that’s a recipe for stagnation. If we can't agree on the basic premises of an argument, we aren't having a discussion; we're just making noise. And at this point, it's mostly just noise.

Michael Anderson2 said:Honestly, some people might—just out of the sheer, unbearable boredom of existing.

Yeah, those people definitely exist. The ones who are practically dying of pure boredom. Honestly? They should just go plant some pine trees. Or maybe an orchard out in the Midwest. Anything to stay busy.

Every single time I drift off, I feel like I’m slipping into absolute nothingness. My entire sense of "self" just... evaporates. Then, when the dreaming starts, this weird, surreal world begins to take shape. It makes me wonder—when would someone actually *want* to cease to exist? It wouldn't be out of boredom, obviously. No one hits that metaphorical reset button just because they're restless. But if you were sitting under the interrogation lights at a black site, or facing some unimaginable physical or mental agony? That’s different. That’s what drives people to the edge—the idea that it's better for the "I" to simply vanish than to endure a lifetime of hellish pain.
Existence, on its own, isn't really enough. It's what we *do* while we exist that matters. Think about this hypothetical scenario: imagine that right before you die, scientists extract your brain and plug it into some high-tech cyborg—a state-of-the-art android or something. You’re still "you," and you can technically do everything you used to do, just through a mechanical interface. Now, picture an earthquake hitting, burying you deep underground. They never find you. Your brain is still alive and functioning inside that machine, but you're trapped. You can't move, you can't feel anything from the outside world. There’s no pain, but there’s also no input. You’re just a consciousness trapped in a loop, thinking about nothing but itself. In that situation, would you hit the switch to end it all? Or would you choose to keep existing for the next two thousand years, as long as the tiny nuclear reactor powering your robotic shell keeps your brain ticking?

urbanwalker6 said:It looks like cults have finally started moving their operations online, hunting for fresh victims they
can basically brainwash...

God, give me strength. 🙂

I HAD NO IDEA THAT A BIOENERGY ASSOCIATION WAS CONSIDERED A CULT😍

So, if I lay my hands on a sick person and say, "leave this body," suddenly I'm part of some cult.
If I say, "leave this sickness in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," then everything is perfectly fine and definitely not a cult.
But if I just tell the illness to go to hell—or use a much more colorful version of that phrase—then apparently I've descended into pure SATANISM.😂

Olivia Smith9 said:Exactly... so now there's plenty of "unhealthy" potatoes being eaten in massive quantities... the real question is whether his son will be able to tell his own kids about how things used to be before they started planting this stuff... and to wrap up the whole sentiment, I'd add this:
"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
Albert Einstein

They need to go on a hunger strike. Or just set themselves on fire, like Jan Palach did. 😲 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Palach
Or maybe just rig some dynamite under their eggs, if you ask one of my old buddies. 😂

Olivia Smith9 said:She should have picked up way more from that lady in the video... and honestly, who says you can't make progress while still living in harmony with nature? But then again, like everything else in life, it’s all about balance. As humans, we just overdo it because of pure greed... we take way more than we actually need. In the end... yeah... she's right. We need to remember who we really are. If it weren't for human greed and constant brainwashing, we wouldn't even need the technology we rely on today. There are plenty of other technologies out there that aren't harmful like the ones we know, but nobody talks about them. People lose their minds over them because there's too much capital at stake... the wealth of a tiny handful of people would vanish if those alternatives were revealed. So, it's easier to stay ignorant... to just follow the ignorance we've been fed since birth and, of course, "not live in harmony with nature." Because if we did, we'd just be sheep, and nobody wants that, right? Better to just be part of the flock!!

In response, I have one example regarding agricultural technology:
There is a true story that perfectly illustrates how any kind of dietary extremism is nothing short of pure madness. A certain individual had a son studying agronomy at a university in Washington, D.C. For this student, his hero was an unknown man—a former boxer turned massive producer of organic health foods. One spring, the son was helping his father out with the farm work. They were planting potatoes. The father hauled out several bags of synthetic fertilizer. When the son saw this, he immediately started lecturing his old man: “How can you fertilize the soil with those chemicals? That stuff is straight-up poison.” To which the father replied: “My dear son, thirty years ago, I used to grow potatoes using nothing but manure. Those potatoes were incredibly healthy. But unfortunately, I was always hungry. Nowadays, I eat unhealthy potatoes, but I have enough of them that I am never hungry again”!

Olivia Smith9 said:Honestly, everyone needs to see this... I've been feeling everything this incredible woman said in her interview deep in my soul for a long time now. And if we just look—just a little bit—with our hearts instead of our minds, which are constantly flooded with more misinformation than actual facts, we can quickly realize that the truth already lives within us. It’s a truth currently locked away by all the social norms and biases they drill into us from the moment we're born... but it's the truth that holds the key to humanity's future!

Kamala Harris knows exactly what she's talking about. Honestly, let's just grab some tools, head out to the countryside, and get back to basics. Forget the high-tech manufacturing, the massive industrial furnaces, and those endless assembly lines. A simple life in nature—that's where the real comfort is, my 😍
It seems like our Vice President picked up a few ideas from the lady in this video.

wearyhawk83 said:You're basically just asking questions and answering them yourself. Maybe it's time you just move on already.

DOES ANYONE ACTUALLY DISAGREE WITH ME HERE?

But where is there even to go?

I just hope my answer isn't as blunt as something a janitor might tell a drunk, retired professor. I remember this one guy—completely wasted—standing out on the sidewalk in front of a dive bar late one evening, shouting at the sky about where he was headed, what his path was...
And the janitor just looks at him and goes: "You old fool, and you actually went to college. All roads lead to Arlington National Cemetery."😲😲😂

Look, I can decide right now to grab a Hershey bar from the aisle and inhale the whole thing in fifteen minutes while I finish my shopping. Or I can just toss my receipt behind some shelves. Am I going to face any kind of TRANSCENDENTAL consequences for that? That’s the kind of cosmic retribution that science doesn't even recognize—science just cares if a security guard catches me and hands me a fine. If nobody saw it, then nothing happened, right? But then you have the religious types claiming I'm going to be punished. What, is someone going to sneak into my backyard and steal a bushel of grapes from my garden just to balance the scales!? 😍
Maybe they'll swipe five pounds of fruit. Or maybe twenty. And honestly, maybe they wouldn't even bother stealing a single grape if I hadn't taken that chocolate in the first place.

Alex Ramos91 said:Forget original sin... He died for my personal sins...
He couldn't just use a decree because that’s simply not how He operates. Everything that seemed to happen in the OT (go read my last post if you need a refresher) was ultimately settled on the cross.

If it had been a mere decree, then Satan would actually have a leg to stand on. He’d be like, "Hold on a second... I get a little cocky and try to act like God, and then I look at these thieves and rebels out here doing whatever they want, and You just hand out forgiveness like candy?"

Besides, this whole divine path is exactly what makes any hopeless sinner stop and stare in awe. It’s why we praise and worship God—because when you realize the sheer scale of His love and forgiveness, you can't help it. 😍

Yeah, Satan could easily throw a tantrum and say to God: What's gotten into You? Since November 11, 2011, it's like everyone is born incapable of sinning. Everyone comes into this world pure, just like Mary or Your son, Jesus Christ. What am I supposed to do now when I can't corrupt anyone anymore? There are no more rebels, no more outlaws, no more sinners left to deal with. Everyone is born a saint or a righteous soul. It's a pretty boring world for someone like me, Satan, with nothing left to hunt.