FML general thread [7]

[Compiling_Autumn]

It's also worth mentioning that there are probably a great number of communities on the internet who could probably give you more help with your problem (uncertainty regarding religion/Catholicism) than a fansite for Neon Genesis Evangelion.

[Lavinius]

...Honestly I can't think of any. A Catholic will look at it and go "of course!" and most atheists will basically dismiss it off-hand. I follow some clever atheists on tumblr but I don't know them and I doubt they'd give some random person's whining about something outside their expertise very kindly.

An occultist might be able to help though. But every time I see an occultist it seems that they don't actually believe in any actual magic which performs literal, physical acts, but rather treat it as some sort of esoteric allegory for self-realization or some nonsense like that. Possibly the best they might be able to do is point at more similiarly persuasive oddities. But that would require that they have a belief in literal magic &c., which they don't seem to have.

Is it very ridiculous to suppose that in all the world that makes sense there would be one thing that doesn't add up, one instance of a rather difficult-to-swallow conspiracy, rather than subscribe to a bizarre and paranoid belief system which has been on the defensive from being repeatedly disproven since it started and has a very clear (perceived) psychological/historical motivation and derivation?

I mean, put that way it's obvious. But that's not the only way to put it. I still need a place for Louise Lateau.

I thought just about swearing that if become a Catholic I'll abstain from all anime forever. And then I realized that made no sense whatsoever. What would I be doing there? Make a miserable turn even more miserable? Give myself an additional emotional incentive to reject it? Bribe God?

[Baz]

I definitely have to say that the particulars of your crisis of faith are different from most. Serious research into miracles is usually only done by people who are already in the seminary (though I often wonder how many "miracles" they study on average before they finally find one that they can swallow).

When I was in high school, I entered my crisis from a different direction because I had been raised Catholic. The problems that I had were the typical ones, e.g. worrying about the origin of evil and the like. One good thing about Catholicism is that it tends to embrace such paradoxes rather than distract the flock from them with fire-and-brimstone sermons. So when I was your age, after some reading (never research into miracles, though) I decided to confess all my wrongdoings to a very patient monsignor. Then I did my best to live as a good Catholic, while still trying to tease more meaning out of the paradoxes. It lasted a few years, I'm an atheist now.

If Louise Lateau is a sticking point for you, then probably the best kind of person to talk to is a skeptical clergyman, i.e. someone with a more intellectual bent than your typical Catholic. I never met one when I was in high school (small town, so the priests weren't particularly academic), but I met a few in university. So maybe you should put this particular problem on the back burner until then.

[Chuckman]

An occultist might be able to help though. But every time I see an occultist it seems that they don't actually believe in any actual magic which performs literal, physical acts,

If you mean physical acts like cast fireball or raise the dead or levitate, of course not. Otherwise you're not looking very deeply. Or talked to the wrong occultists.

Also, chill out. You're 17. You're overthinking. Go outside and look at a tree.

[pwhodges]

Or think about dogs: they're fuzzy.

[Squigsquasher]

In trying to uninstall Dawn of War for a fresh reinstall I ended up somehow deleting the data without the game actually knowing it's uninstalled- putting the disc in the computer presents no "uninstall" option, but the game can't be played and there is no game data on my system at all. I tried using Regedit to solve this but to no avail. So basically I now can't play the game and I can't reinstall it (or uninstall it to reinstall it either). Now what?

[Lavinius]

I definitely have to say that the particulars of your crisis of faith are different from most. Serious research into miracles is usually only done by people who are already in the seminary (though I often wonder how many "miracles" they study on average before they finally find one that they can swallow).

Firstly, I would like to say that I thank you most strongly for your thoughtful response.

Anyway, ja. As an atheist, I had always dismissed every miracle claim, on the grounds that... I suppose I didn't really think on it. Perhaps I imagined that everyone religion has similar levels of similarly convincing claims (I haven't found many non-Catholic or non-Orthodox miracle claims, and few of even those worth any consideration whatsoever, though this may of course be due to cultural tendencies and my obvious English-source bias). In any case, spurred on by claims that the Resurrection and the other original miracles were "historically proven" (I found that this was most unconvincing), I skimmed through a few other miracles for completeness. I'll admit that I didn't consider healings very well, but in the general the idea that... I forget the statistical term, but that a few remissions are expected among millions has seemed convincing. Has there ever been a study if, say, Italy has higher rates of spontaneous remission than, say, Norway? The Blood of Januarius (why do we not call him January?), the first miracle I looked into upon some poorly-written article recommending it, is almost certainly false.

But, to the point, only stigmata seemed questionable, and of these, practically only Miss Lateau's seemed such that I could not easily perceive a manner of their feigning. (To wit, they developed from blisters appearing each week, bled through Friday, and healed; and her associated, necessarily-conscious-if-not-genuine ecstasies were maintained even when she was stabbed to draw blood.) On the other hand, an associated claim of abstinence from food is doubtful, though because one can do something it does not of course follow that they do do it.

As for miracles, I cannot imagine one seeking a religion any other way. Were it not for miracles, then every religion would be equally absurd and unevidenced, and I would have no more reason to believe in Catholicism than Divine Yuiism

When I was in high school, I entered my crisis from a different direction because I had been raised Catholic. The problems that I had were the typical ones, e.g. worrying about the origin of evil and the like. One good thing about Catholicism is that it tends to embrace such paradoxes rather than distract the flock from them with fire-and-brimstone sermons. So when I was your age, after some reading (never research into miracles, though) I decided to confess all my wrongdoings to a very patient monsignor. Then I did my best to live as a good Catholic, while still trying to tease more meaning out of the paradoxes. It lasted a few years, I'm an atheist now.

Well, a major problem with accepting it is both my preëxisting and rather contradictory conception of God &c., which resembles Spinoza's Deus far more than the Catholic (though I could not get beyond Proposition 9), and the difficulty of believing in the existence of any Divine-view evil; and my similar incomprehension of the Scholastic philosophical system (and indeed, my suspicion that it is rather incompatible with Atomism). While I am not sufficiently familiar, Kant seems far more likely to realize the truth than Thomas, Aristotle, or Plato.

On the other hand I will not deny that it does not have its charms for me; atheism is quite unsatisfying, moral nihilism is uncomfortable and disgusting, and I wish to devote myself to something greater and more æternal than mere immediate pleasure seeking. As Mishima Yukio said, "man cannot die for himself alone"... but I cannot find myself much more of alternative- certainly not his! Nationalism is both even more impracticable both in location and in action, spiritually lacking, and historically is hardly faultless. Monarch-service is a better, but requires, you know, a monarch, and a worthy one, and is still lacking, being essentially a temporal, æsthetic choice and nothing transcending death. Hardly better than immediate pleasure-seeking.

I just do wish I had something higher to live for than at worst jerking off and at best metaphorically jerking off to Æschylus or Utena.

At least this means that I can regard Catholicism with more balanced emotional biases than if I merely hated it.

If Louise Lateau is a sticking point for you, then probably the best kind of person to talk to is a skeptical clergyman, i.e. someone with a more intellectual bent than your typical Catholic. I never met one when I was in high school (small town, so the priests weren't particularly academic), but I met a few in university. So maybe you should put this particular problem on the back burner until then.

Well an objection is that one never knows when one will die. But that's something that is lived with in anything, and... yea it's kind

For the now, not without regret, I must say that I cannot see it being true, nor can I believe in it. In doing so I must suppose that Miss Lateau was a fake, since I suppose it is possible, though not exceedingly plausible; but she cannot be believed in independently of the Church.

If you mean physical acts like cast fireball or raise the dead or levitate, of course not. Otherwise you're not looking very deeply. Or talked to the wrong occultists.

Amazing.

Go outside and look at a tree.

...or [metaphorically jerking off] to a tree.

[Baz]

Perhaps I imagined that everyone religion has similar levels of similarly convincing claims (I haven't found many non-Catholic or non-Orthodox miracle claims, and few of even those worth any consideration whatsoever, though this may of course be due to cultural tendencies and my obvious English-source bias).

Protestant doctrine is faith-centric, meaning that you're Christian if you believe. But to be Catholic means participating in the sacrements, and piety in the face of doubt is valued. And vice-versa, even a person who has faith can be in a state of mortal sin due to his/her actions. Catholic faith is not meant to be blind faith, hence miracles are part of religious study.

But, to the point, only stigmata seemed questionable, and of these, practically only Miss Lateau's seemed such that I could not easily perceive a manner of their feigning. (To wit, they developed from blisters appearing each week, bled through Friday, and healed; and her associated, necessarily-conscious-if-not-genuine ecstasies were maintained even when she was stabbed to draw blood.) On the other hand, an associated claim of abstinence from food is doubtful, though because one can do something it does not of course follow that they do do it.

Well, how trustworthy is the testimony? If it was validated by scientists, they should have kept notebooks during their observations, and those notebooks should still be on a shelf somewhere if anyone thought the first-hand observations were of real value. Lacking reliable evidence, I'd have to guess that at least some of the claims were fabricated to make a good story.

If you need to connect to something larger than yourself, then you need to focus on getting through your depression because one of the things that depression does is dull your empathy. As for the tree thing, many people actually feel a strong connection to the world around them when in the presence of a sturdy tree. You won't get anywhere if you focus on these "personal failings" that you perceive in yourself. If you want to be a part of something larger than yourself, then there's no need to judge yourself -- the "larger thing" will cast any judgements that need to be cast. You should instead learn to defend yourself against such judgements, or if the judgements make sense, to accept them.

[Lavinius]

Protestant doctrine is faith-centric, meaning that you're Christian if you believe. But to be Catholic means participating in the sacrements, and piety in the face of doubt is valued. And vice-versa, even a person who has faith can be in a state of mortal sin due to his/her actions. Catholic faith is not meant to be blind faith, hence miracles are part of religious study.

Ja, I'm pretty clear on the major differences between Protestant and Catholic doctrines.

Indeed, it seems pretty obvious how Protestantism would loose much belief in rationally justified faith, since rejecting Catholic legitimacy necessitated rejecting the veracity of all the miracles the Catholics claimed, or at least attributing them instead to demons, despite that latter sort of Gnostic thinking being straightly against common sense and being put in a rather bad light in a synoptic story (had Jesus said "and how trust ye in Moses and the Prophets but by the miracles they worked, miracles ye agree to be by God and not Satan?" here, my conversion would be much hastened.)

It's possible that the tendency to reject miracle-claims as not even worth considering is derived from this attribute of Protestantism, from which the modern reigning culture predominantly derives. (But it's also possible it isn't, I'm not making any claims here.)

Well, how trustworthy is the testimony? If it was validated by scientists, they should have kept notebooks during their observations, and those notebooks should still be on a shelf somewhere if anyone thought the first-hand observations were of real value. Lacking reliable evidence, I'd have to guess that at least some of the claims were fabricated to make a good story.

Pretty well-documented, with numerous books supposed to be from eyewitness doctors, even some not believing in the miracle (but rather in some absurd disease); confer this post on the matter (the French source of the first cited work is here.

If you need to connect to something larger than yourself, then you need to focus on getting through your depression because one of the things that depression does is dull your empathy. As for the tree thing, many people actually feel a strong connection to the world around them when in the presence of a sturdy tree. You won't get anywhere if you focus on these "personal failings" that you perceive in yourself. If you want to be a part of something larger than yourself, then there's no need to judge yourself -- the "larger thing" will cast any judgements that need to be cast. You should instead learn to defend yourself against such judgements, or if the judgements make sense, to accept them.

Hm. I'm afraid I don't have much intelligent to comment on this with right now, sorry.

(Ad omnes: "metaphorically jerking off" is an irreverent reference to æsthetic appreciation, to being enraptured by beauty, which seems to be the best consolation to the atheist, considering himself bound to human nature and to the death of his soul. I am the atheist.)

[soul.assassin]

In trying to uninstall Dawn of War for a fresh reinstall I ended up somehow deleting the data without the game actually knowing it's uninstalled- putting the disc in the computer presents no "uninstall" option, but the game can't be played and there is no game data on my system at all. I tried using Regedit to solve this but to no avail. So basically I now can't play the game and I can't reinstall it (or uninstall it to reinstall it either). Now what?

Try using Revo Uninstaller, which might help.

[Trajan]

I think I might have a cavity in one of my rear molars. Hoping that's not the case but it'd serve me right for waiting over a year to get a dentist checkup.

[Reichu]

I need to see my shrink desperately, and was supposed to see him today... but I put the appointment time in my phone's planner one hour late, and missed it. Now I have to wait three weeks to see him. FUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Still feeling pretty damned anxious/paranoid/twitchy/whatever. The weird feeling in the pit of my stomach and vague sense of nausea (that doesn't really effect my eating) is still persistent. I feel so damned self-conscious it hurts. Tonight I'm weepy, too.

This may be a sleep-deprived night. I suppose I should go write about depressing things.

[ChaddyManPrime]

^
I thankfully see mine tomorrow, I've missed too many sessions.

I'm getting all weepy, paranoid, and angry, I want to start breaking shit, it feels like I'm suffocating.

[Reichu]

I'm getting all weepy, paranoid, and angry, I want to start breaking shit, it feels like I'm suffocating.

That sounds all too familiar.

I decided that I no longer want any part in the bullshit that happens behind the scenes on this forum, and I've completed my transition into a regular user. (Hypothetically... it doesn't seem to have actually happened yet.) My power and influence is now at zero. I used to be somebody here, and now I'm nobody. It doesn't feel especially good, but I'm sure quite a few people will be celebrating.

[Monk Ed]

I used to be somebody here, and now I'm nobody.

This is the world that you wished for.

[Reichu]

This is the world that you wished for.

That implies that everything leading to this point was something other than a long series of reactions to circumstances largely out of my control.

[Monk Ed]

That implies that everything leading to this point was something other than a long series of reactions to circumstances largely out of my control.

Then, what do you really want?

[Tankred]

That implies that everything leading to this point was something other than me reacting to circumstances largely out of my control.

I don't know how you feel, Reichu, but it was your choice to go on leave from the forum, with that your influence began to wane, old users going and new users coming. With the people who still frequent this forum, your reputation was damaged because of your own actions. Of course you can reverse your situation if you want to, normal users are only nobodies if they choose to be nobodies.

[Reichu]

Monk Ed: Freedom from crippling psychological problems would be nice.

it was your choice to go on leave from the forum, with that your influence began to wane

You talking about my departure early last year? I stopped being relevant long before that.

I'm not sure which reputation-damaging actions you're referring to. Those two temp-bans stick out, I suppose, but not a whole lot else. Practically half of what I say or do ends up pissing someone off, after all.

[pwhodges]

Sadly it can be harmful to care too much. Look after yourself as best you can Reichu, and rest assured that others will look after the forum.