Storm

[Humphrey]

I'm not sure if you intended to say that I am a gullible idiot, but that's how it reads to me. Just so you know.

 
Do you believe the world is flat because you haven't walked around it and one person on the internet told you it is? Cause then you are. Otherwise no, that's not what I'm saying.

[Aranel]

Nope.

The person who is in love with Harrison Ford and believes he loves them back is either lying or mentally ill.

Do you honestly disagree?

 

I love my dogs. I believe they love me back. I had no evidence that they love me back. I can interpret things that they do as love but I have zero proof that they love me.
Am I a liar or mentally ill for loving my dogs then?

Actually, yes I am mentally ill. Have been for years. Have been suicidal many times. The one constant thing that has kept me alive is the fact I love my dogs.
So don't you dare fucking tell me that "love without evidence" means I'm either a liar or mentally ill. My mental illnesses are not caused by my dogs, in fact, without loving my dogs (which you are telling me means I've got yet another mental illness like 3 already isn't enough) I wouldn't be alive to write this post to you.
So yeah.

*goes cuddles dogs to cheer herself up*

[Aranel]

I love my dogs. I believe they love me back. I had no evidence that they love me back. I can interpret things that they do as love but I have zero proof that they love me.
Am I a liar or mentally ill for loving my dogs then?

Actually, yes I am mentally ill. Have been for years. Have been suicidal many times. The one constant thing that has kept me alive is the fact I love my dogs.
So don't you dare fucking tell me that "love without evidence" means I'm either a liar or mentally ill. My mental illnesses are not caused by my dogs, in fact, without loving my dogs (which you are telling me means I've got yet another mental illness like 3 already isn't enough) I wouldn't be alive to write this post to you.
So yeah.

*goes cuddles dogs to cheer herself up*

Want to add some more to this.

I find it a lot easier to believe that my dogs love me than to believe that humans love me. By love, I'm talking about the huge array of different forms of love but at the end of the day, it's still the same thing in a person's brain. You either love somebody or you don't. You might love them in different ways, but it's still love.

By this I mean, apart from 1 friend, I don't truly believe my friends like me. That's nothing to do with their actions because their actions speak of friendship, but those lovely mental illnesses that I have mean I don't believe that they do. My brain tells me they're doing those things to look good to other people (as in "look at me being nice to the fat, ugly girl! Aren't I a wonderful person?" ) or that it's some part of a massive game for them and they're finding it amusing to make me believe that they like them.

I'm not saying my friends are like that, but that is what my brain believes. I have similar sorts of beliefs within romantic relationships and with family members (in family case, my brain tells me that they're just putting up with me because society tells them that they have to. Not because they actually care about it. )

My friends and family are not like that. I know that they do love me but I cannot accept it because of how my mental illnesses, those chemical imbalances in my brain, make me think.

Also, before you start throwing things around painting people as being mentally ill when you don't fucking know them or what is going on in their brain, how about you actually come talk to those of us who suffer from mental illnesses? Because it's this sort of tarring a huge group of people (in this case, religious people) as having a mental illness which makes it socially acceptable for people to mock mental illnesses and it makes life a hell of a lot fucking hard to get treatment, to get people to believe us and for people to be accepting of it.

My faith in my gods is not a mental illness. My actual mental illnesses, you know, those chemical imbalances in my brain, are mental illnesses. My gods are not.

[mandrina]

deleting this cause it's already been dealt with.  Sorry, nothing to see here.

[Darkhawk]

Stalking is an example of love without evidence.

 
No, it is an example of creepy and often illegal behaviour.

People may attempt to justify it as "love without evidence", but there is no rational, sensible, logical, or meaningful way in which they are the same thing.  (Much like, oh, lust is not rape.)

[Valentine]

"Love without evidence is stalking."

A person who is in a committed relationship has evidence that the love they feel is given them by their partner is real.

A person who believes Miley loves them with no evidence of this being true is a stalker or otherwise insane.

 
Okay, actually, I'd like to take a different and possibly more entertaining tack:
Please prove to me that Miley Cyrus exists.

[Aranel]

Okay, actually, I'd like to take a different and possibly more entertaining tack:
Please prove to me that Miley Cyrus exists.

 
She exists here! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/29/carl-mccoid-miley-cyrus-f_n_1638357.html

And here's a crazy thing. He loves her, he's obsessed with her but he's not a stalker! *world implodes*

[Humphrey]

I love my dogs. I believe they love me back. I had no evidence that they love me back. I can interpret things that they do as love but I have zero proof that they love me.
Am I a liar or mentally ill for loving my dogs then?

Actually, yes I am mentally ill. Have been for years. Have been suicidal many times. The one constant thing that has kept me alive is the fact I love my dogs.
So don't you dare fucking tell me that "love without evidence" means I'm either a liar or mentally ill. My mental illnesses are not caused by my dogs, in fact, without loving my dogs (which you are telling me means I've got yet another mental illness like 3 already isn't enough) I wouldn't be alive to write this post to you.
So yeah.

*goes cuddles dogs to cheer herself up*

I do not believe all emotions, beliefs and faiths are above judgement, mockery, or being challenged. In fact, I believe all emotions, beliefs and faiths should certainly be able to stand up against critical thinking, and I think judgement, mockery and challenges encourages that critical thinking to occur. (For example, watch 'Life of Brian 'and then watch what John Cleese has to say about it in the infamous 'Life of Brian' debate.) I don't agree with blind faith and I don't agree with blind love.

If you're going to take the Harrison Ford example as me telling you that your dogs don't really love you, then that's your issue.

[Jack]

No. I'm telling you that belief in love doesn't mean you should also believe in religion. It's simply a bad comparison that is over-used. I'm using broad strokes? How broad are the strokes of the person who says "OH YOU BELIEVE IN LOVE THEREFORE MY FAITH IS 100% VALID AND YOU MUST ACCEPT IT LOL I WIN"?

"Storm" is a strawman. Strawwoman. Whatever. I'm willing to believe that he did meet this enormous flake at a party, and they were dicks to each other all evening and left their hosts wondering why all their friends are terrible people.

However, if you're actually using this essentially fictional character as an example of what you're arguing against, and equating her with All Pagans, you're going to run into trouble. Not everyone here - in fact, I would say most TC members - believe the sorts of things she espouses in the story.

Also, while I'm arguing Tim Minchin's point, I don't personally agree with him when he dismisses all faith. You haven't explained much to me about your path, but what you have explained is enough for me to have nothing but respect for you and what you have to say.

 
I like playing devil's advocate as much as the next fallen angel, but if you don't actually agree with him and you want at least some of the people in this thread to think you respect them and what they have to say, you may want to stop defending Minchin's quote and arguing against what they say. Because if you keep defending it and trying to explain it, it's going to sound like you agree with him.

[Jack]

Yes, right, exactly. When someone claims to have love, but all you can see is them being crazy, you're going to go ahead and question the validity of the emotions they claim to have, along with their mental health. Well done. You've just made Tim Minchin's point.

 
What qualifies an emotion as "valid" or "invalid"? Is an invalid emotion one I don't like in myself? One I don't like in other people? One that's not justified by meeting society's standards in some way?

[Humphrey]

"Storm" is a strawman. Strawwoman. Whatever. I'm willing to believe that he did meet this enormous flake at a party, and they were dicks to each other all evening and left their hosts wondering why all their friends are terrible people.

You've never met a person like Storm? You've never, say, picked up a Fiona Horne book?

Regardless, not the point.

However, if you're actually using this essentially fictional character as an example of what you're arguing against, and equating her with All Pagans, you're going to run into trouble. Not everyone here - in fact, I would say most TC members - believe the sorts of things she espouses in the story.

Oh, am I doing that? News to me. Storm was an example of a poem that brought up issues I found challenging and part of the reason I have doubts and questions. This is a forum If I'm not going to be allowed to ask my questions without being accused of attacking all Pagans, then I leave, my questions unanswered, and a little bit more certain that almost all faith requires blindness and leaving your brain at the door.

I like playing devil's advocate as much as the next fallen angel, but if you don't actually agree with him and you want at least some of the people in this thread to think you respect them and what they have to say, you may want to stop defending Minchin's quote and arguing against what they say. Because if you keep defending it and trying to explain it, it's going to sound like you agree with him.

Oweh nowes, will it? I agree with Tim Minchin's broader point: That comparing love to faith is a bad comparison. I understand Tim Minchin's soundbite in context and am trying very hard to explain it to people who clearly don't get it. This does not mean I agree with Tim Minchin's views on faith. If someone can't grasp the fact that a person can agree with part of what another person says without agreeing with the whole, then that's their problem.

[Humphrey]

What qualifies an emotion as "valid" or "invalid"? Is an invalid emotion one I don't like in myself? One I don't like in other people? One that's not justified by meeting society's standards in some way?

 
I'm getting a little fucking tired of going around in circles. If you don't get what I'm saying by now, chances are you never will. Maybe write me off as a dog hating trouble causer or something.

[Jack]

You've never met a person like Storm? You've never, say, picked up a Fiona Horne book?

I actually have not ever picked up a Fiona Horne book.

What I mean when I say that Storm is a strawman is that you/Tim are holding her (marginal) beliefs up as an example of what religious belief looks like, and in refuting that, seem to feel as if all religious belief is refuted.

This is a forum If I'm not going to be allowed to ask my questions without being accused of attacking all Pagans, then I leave, my questions unanswered, and a little bit more certain that almost all faith requires blindness and leaving your brain at the door.

I would say that's your own personal struggle to engage in. None of us can give you faith. Hell, the gods haven't given me faith, and I talk to them. I don't think most of us are here to prove things to others, but rather to work things out for ourselves with feedback and camaraderie.

Oweh nowes, will it?

That's not a dialect of LOLCAT with which I am familiar.

I agree with Tim Minchin's broader point: That comparing love to faith is a bad comparison. I understand Tim Minchin's soundbite in context and am trying very hard to explain it to people who clearly don't get it. This does not mean I agree with Tim Minchin's views on faith. If someone can't grasp the fact that a person can agree with part of what another person says without agreeing with the whole, then that's their problem.

 
You're welcome to believe that Minchin makes his point scathingly, but it would seem to me that the evidence is to the contrary in this thread. I just don't have faith in Minchin, I suppose.

[Jack]

I'm getting a little fucking tired of going around in circles. If you don't get what I'm saying by now, chances are you never will. Maybe write me off as a dog hating trouble causer or something.

 
These were actually my first two comments in the thread, so I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from in describing something as a valid or invalid emotion. If that was addressed further back in the thread, I apologize, I didn't mean to repeat someone else. I didn't see it.

Would you prefer I wrote you off?

[Humphrey]

I actually have not ever picked up a Fiona Horne book.

What I mean when I say that Storm is a strawman is that you/Tim are holding her (marginal) beliefs up as an example of what religious belief looks like, and in refuting that, seem to feel as if all religious belief is refuted.

Ironically, this is a straw man argument. You've built a straw man by saying this is what Tim and I are doing, and then you knocked it down beautifully.
 
Storm is indeed a caricature of what would commonly be referred to as a "fluffy bunny": A person whose faith is not open to any critical thinking at all. You may deny the existence of this type of character if you like, (I can only assume you've never met a 14 year old with a Silver Ravenwolf book,) but Storm certainly presents some of the most common arguments any skeptic or atheist will encounter every day from people of all religions. At no point does Tim or I claim Storm is what all religious belief looks like. In fact, I posted this video because, having looked around the forum, I was convinced that it was not populated by people like Storm, and I wanted to hear their points of view with regards to some of these arguments. It is unfortunate that the focus has been on whether-or-not-a-metaphor-not-even-used-in-this-video-is-a-good-one, but there's not much I can do about that.

I would say that's your own personal struggle to engage in. None of us can give you faith. Hell, the gods haven't given me faith, and I talk to them. I don't think most of us are here to prove things to others, but rather to work things out for ourselves with feedback and camaraderie.

I find my way through my own thoughts and feelings by bouncing them off others in debate. If you don't want to be a part of that, well then I won't particularly miss your input.

You're welcome to believe that Minchin makes his point scathingly, but it would seem to me that the evidence is to the contrary in this thread.

Yes, because one forum populated by Pagans really runs no risk of biased and defensive responses to Tim Minchin at all. The fact that thousands of people, like me, get what Tim Minchin is saying, doesn't come into question because THIS thread is enough evidence to prove that the opinion that's voiced most in this one tiny thread is the right one. LOGIC. I can see why doubt doesn't get in the way of your faith.
 

I just don't have faith in Minchin, I suppose.

Ohhh my god. Look at how clever you think you are right now. Because getting the point Tim Minchin is making is exactly like having blind faith! Geddit? Geddit? I also worship in the Church of Science. You and Storm would get on swimmingly. *patronizing wink*

***

I think the valuable input happened pages ago. All that's going on now is we're going around in circles. Thank you to everyone, especially Sage and Rainbo, who gave me some truly challenging things to think about. The one thing I can see is that I'm not articulating my point of view well enough for it to not be open to wild misinterpretation, so that's something I need to work on. For now, I'm exiting this conversation, though I encourage the discussion to continue.