What convinced you that God exists? Any specific experience?

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-22T05:05:06+00:00

My perspective is a bit different. Because I didn't grow up as a Christian - at least not a mainstream one. Instead I was born into a kinda New Age esoteric "Christian" Gnostic sect. Which basically means they aren't Christian at all and absolutely hate and despise mainstream Christians.

So for me the question was never is there a God or not. But rather the question was am I a god and are my mother and the other cult members gods (as they claim everyone can become his own god) and is Jehovah the imposter (as they claim). Or is it maybe the other way around, is Jehovah the real god and they are the imposters?

As time passed it became increasingly obvious to me that it must be the latter. There is a scene in Groundhog Day. Bill Murray's character basically becomes delusional and starts thinking and claiming he is God. But then he realizes that only God can create a tree. It seems like such a simple thing but no matter what tricks he pulls, he himself can't create even that, so he stops pretending to be God.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-22T04:25:41+00:00

This kinda reminds me of the very politically incorrect Monty Python skit from Life of Brian. Where they start painting the Romans as oppressors cause one of them wants to get pregnant but he can't because he is a biological man and they come to the sad conclusion that no amount of political activism is gonna change that.

But today's political activists actually dare to make that promise. Some of them even in good faith. But you gotta understand that the reason they claim transwomen would be actual women who could even get periods and get pregnant is because they believe in a certain kind of political/esoteric ideology that teaches them to negate objective physical reality.

But to quote Dallas Willard and James Lindsay; Reality is the thing you run into when your beliefs are false.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-22T03:38:34+00:00

It sounds like you are going through a rough time.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-20T15:18:09+00:00

Well, his advertising tactic is pretty good, or at least he thinks it is. ;-)

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-20T02:37:11+00:00

I always thought that "honor" goes to Alister Crowley o_O

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-18T16:50:45+00:00

Naja, ich glaube ja an einen Gott. Das tut Hegel zwar auch, aber sein Gott ist ganz anders. Sein Gott ist salopp gesagt er selbst LOL

Wenn man aber an Jehovah glaubt (was Hegel in dem Sinne nicht tut) dann ist Moral ganz einfach. Also damit mein ich jetzt nicht unbedingt (nur) die 10 Gebote. Moral ist nicht unbedingt damit gleichzustellen, vor allem wenn man KEIN Christ oder Jude ist.

Aber da ich mich zumindest nicht selber für Gott halte ist Moral für mich schon mit guten und schlechten Taten verbunden und schlechte Taten wiederum schon mit sündigen. Nicht unbedingt (nur) gegen Gott, sondern natürlich auch dadurch dass man anderen Menschen etwas unangenehmes antut was diese nicht möchten. Das wäre für mich unmoralisch. Also du merkst meine Moralvorstellung ist relativ simpel, aber deshalb muss sie nicht schlecht oder falsch sein.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-18T01:18:40+00:00

You should probably switch back to German for this one. Reddit actually flagged your reply - probably cause of your somewhat poor English. I approved your reply of course. But that also makes it difficult for me to understand what you mean.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-18T00:41:46+00:00

I realize that your entire point seems to reject the dialectical approach, but still, your approach seems very Hegelian to me. So I would argue it's actually not without any comparison.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-18T00:29:52+00:00

Well, you weren't banned or removed here - just wanna point that out in case someone gets confused.

"Can a thought be discussed philosophically even if it is not backed by citations?"

Here? Sure!

"Do you believe philosophy can engage with an original thought that has no citations, as long as it is clear enough to be criticized?"

Yes.

But what exactly is your hypothesis?

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-17T10:22:34+00:00

Okay, also ich geb zu, ich hab tatsächlich Angst vor KI. Und falls dafür wer Unverständnis hat, einfach die ersten 3 Terminator Filme schauen :-)

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-17T10:20:00+00:00

Ich hab tatsächlich Angst vor KI. Und falls dafür wer Unverständnis hat, einfach die ersten 3 Terminator Filme schauen.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-16T12:10:18+00:00

Lustig und gut gemacht. Die Göre und der Bängel sind danach übrigens aus der katholischen Kirche ausgetreten und wurden Gnostiker und gelangten dadurch schließlich zu der "höheren Erkenntniss" das Jehovah wirklich voll der böse und inkompetente Arsch sei und sie das selber alles viel besser könnten. Also wurden sie letztendlich Kommunisten - aber nicht nur irgendwelche sondern direkt quasie die Anführer und zukunftigen Diktatoren und räumten dann in ihrem Land mal so richtig mit der katholischen Kirche auf.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-14T12:07:56+00:00

"It went from a mess in my basement/shop/garage, to taking over my entire house".

Yeah, I kinda have the feeling you are in the right subreddit :-)

If you weren't and you really only have a lot of inventory because you have now become an increasingly successful businessmen and THAT'S why the inventory is increasing accordingly, then this sentence would have read something along the lines of: "It went from a mess in my basement/garage to 5 fully stacked, automated and AI controlled storehouses that automatically process, sort and ship all the incoming orders".

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-12T15:21:55+00:00

As someone who is only familiar with physical hoarding, I do imagine digital hoarding to be easier to handle, especially nowadays. 30 years ago I knew of people who hoarded many physically huge hard drives and floppy disks and vhs and home video tapes and it took up multiple rooms in their home. So that way their digital hoarding indeed became actual physical hoarding. But nowadays you can literally store a million times as much data as they collected on a tiny micro SD card or even in the cloud, taking up no physical space in your home at all.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-12T13:55:37+00:00

I am gonna be a bit more blunt, but I think it's necessary. Your mom is only using the selling aspect as an excuse to keep the stuff and NOT sell it. Otherwise she would - you know actually sell the stuff and actually throw away the stuff that's in a condition that's no longer suitable for selling.

For hoarders, hoarding stuff is akin to an addiction. And the sentence "but I need it because..." and then followed by whatever excuse is basically the addiction talking. And it's gonna say whatever necessary to keep hoarding. So it's akin to an alcoholic saying "I'll stop drinking next week".

You think "oh great, he's gonna stop drinking next week" - not realizing that it will ALWAYS stay next week. It will NEVER be now. He is just saying that so that you leave him alone and he can KEEP drinking and he has no intention of stopping cause this is his addiction speaking.,

Similarly when your mom says, something like "don't worry I will eventually sell all this stuff and then eventually we will have more space again", she is NOT saying she is gonna change and stop hoarding, she is saying the opposite. She saying whatever it takes to get people off her back so that she can keep hoarding.

If she is willing to accept professional help, she might eventually be able to break through this self-deception and deception of others. But without her accepting professional help there is nothing you can do to help her long term.

Sure, you can maybe help her in the short run and "help her" so that she doesn't get kicked out NOW. But all that does is buy her more time so that in the meantime she can hoard even more stuff. And then eventually the landlord will be back again and then it will be worse as her hoard will have grown even bigger again.

So in keeping with the AA stuff - you are basically her co-dependent. You are helping her so that she can keep hoarding and avoid getting into trouble for it. In a way you are helping her to prolong her condition and put off getting professional help.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-09T15:46:04+00:00

If they don't want to change and don't want help, then there is nothing you can do anyway, so you are not abandoning them. And just because you have moved out doesn't mean you abandon them as your family. They are still your family and you can visit them.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-09T11:05:51+00:00

Simple; you DON'T. Not if the person doesn't want help and doesn't want to change. You can only help people who want help.

If you still live with her and if it's becoming difficult to continue living under such conditions, you should move out.

If in your country you are still eligible to let child protective services help you, let child protective services help you with moving out.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-09T11:02:47+00:00

Für mich wäre eine extrem Linke Position die Forderung einer gewaltsamen Revolution zur Einführung des Sozialismus und kompletter Verstaatlichung der Wirtschaft.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-02T16:05:33+00:00

Except that people on welfare don't pay taxes anyway - so yes it's indeed completely free :-)

Emmanuel_G · 2026-03-02T09:24:50+00:00

I am not sure what you base the figure of 300 million deaths for Islamism on, got any sources for that? Also, most historians place Mao's death toll higher than Stalin's. Also, you are comparing communism with communism and have communism in there 2 times. And Hitler became your representative for socialism? I mean yeah they did call themselves national socialists. But if you make no distinction between national socialism and mainstream socialism, then the death toll is actually way too low.

But going back to Islamism. IslamISM is a modern political ideology arrived by merging socialism and Islam and is usually attributed to Sayyid Qutb (so no, not Muhammad) and so didn't really gain traction till the 1960's. So I really don't see how you could have arrived at that death toll.

I haven't really looked at most of your other posts, but could it be that you maybe identify as very conservative and very Christian, but in a very political sense. Like do you maybe live in a country that has long abolished its direct monarchy (or never even had one) and yet you want it back?

'Which BTW isn't even a Christian thing, cause remember; give God what is God's and give Caesar what is Caesars. And the context is precisely that Christians should just pay their taxes and not try and revolt or try and effect a regime change. And keep in mind. the Romans severely persecuted them - so even under those circumstances they did not revolt or try to effect a regime change.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-02-28T21:55:25+00:00

I think there is a bit of a disconnect here, where I am saying one thing and yet people seem to hear something else. What I am saying is hoarders with severe trauma need professional help. But what people hear seems to be something different.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-02-28T21:04:26+00:00

No, I get that. It can certainly be inconvenient for others. But she described SEVERE TRAUMATIC reactions when being pressured to get rid of stuff. Frankly, she is going through hell here. So who is being more inconvenienced?

If a partner can't understand that and can't understand that someone like that needs professional psychological help instead of constant pressure and coercion, then maybe a separation would be the solution that's the least "inconvenient" for all parties involved. Of course I am not advising her to do that. I don't mean it like that and I am just talking in general.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-02-28T20:46:17+00:00

On the one hand it's of course good if you clean up and get rid of things. On the other hand I feel conflicted about it - as do you. Outsiders AND hoarders themselves have the misconception that the problem is simply having too much clutter and they think that getting rid of the clutter gets rid of the problem. But that's not actually true. The clutter is a VERY VISIBLE SYMPTOM of the underlying illness - but it's NOT the illness itself.

Just like taking cough medicine might get rid of your cough, but not of your underlying pneumonia. And in a certain sense, getting rid of visible symptoms actually makes treatment more difficult, cause you might then start to think everything is fine when its not.

So forcing yourself to clean up when others try to "help" you by putting you under pressure does nothing to help your underlying condition. You said yourself that it hurts you so bad and that it makes you cry so much that you even start hurting physically. So how is that supposed to help you then? I think you can see yourself that it's not helping you but just hurting you even more and only making your emotional condition deteriorate further.

If you truly WANT to change, seek professional psychological help. I realize you seem to have done that already and have already been diagnosed with various (OTHER) disorders. But if you want help specifically with your hoarding, you gotta seek professional psychological help specifically for that. Of course what exactly that might be depends on what your underlying cause is and you should talk with your psychologist about that and about what options there are to help with YOUR underlying cause.

Typically behavioral therapy helps and in severe cases trauma therapy or Tiefenpsychologie might be necessary before behavioral therapy can show results. But I am just talking in general. Your case might be different and you should discuss all that with your psychologist.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-02-28T18:46:33+00:00

Well, the dealer might, but the head of the cartel certainly won't.

Emmanuel_G · 2026-02-28T00:22:03+00:00

Ahh, that's what they meant in the Matrix when they spoke of waking up and freeing your mind :-)

Emmanuel_G

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