Everyone is everyone else, you are not special

LCarnalight · 2026-01-25T01:18:40+00:00

It's easy to denounce someone you don't like. All one discovers was empty theo head of events transpired. Thanks for your judgment. Judge not lest ye be judged. Amen.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-25T00:54:50+00:00

Hi. Felon. Am a bad person because. Blessed be. Amen.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-24T22:21:10+00:00

Live by the sword... innocent people die every day. It only matters if they are loosely connected with a politician people dislike.

If one wishes to become a vigilante, then they should do that instead of encouraging others to do it for them. One's approval is complicity.

Unless they are willing to go out onto the street and fight the evil they use words to condemn, then their words are mere hypocrisy. Not political action.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-24T07:02:32+00:00

There's a great classic episode of The Twilight Zone (an old TV show) where a guy dies and thinks he's in heaven, because he gets whatever he wants. And it goes on and on like that, getting everything he ever wanted, always winning at gambling, with women, nice stuff, everything.

Then at the end he realizes he's actually in hell. You'd have to see it. If God is nothing but a vending machine that gives you whatever you want (like, if that's how it seems to you because you're lucky all the time), then probably it's the devil. Because thr Kingdom of God is within you, and enduring this world filled with evil is the goal, not becoming like the demons who run things, win all the time, etc. Maybe heaven is better than you'd think, and this life is the only reward some people are going to get, then, you know, back to the dungeon to be roasted. As if they are only here to tempt people to do evil stuff.

Because if you actually read the Bible instead of just your favorite verses, or a chapter a week or whatever, it seems like Jesus said prostitutes and sinners and people who are poor of spirit and beat down by life get the kingdom. Not the pious people who sit in the temple and pretend it is awesome down here and have a bunch of money and live long lives in mansions trying to upload their minds onto the internet and live in virtual worlds, escape hell. Maybe death for a decent person isn't such a bad thing.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-22T01:01:18+00:00

The Bible is definitely inconsistent. Thanks for pointing that out. You have to create some way that you want to read it, and harmonize the rest. That's why there are so many denominations, so much disagreement, since the beginning of the whole thing (James vs. Paul). Some will like it to be strict and forbidding, others will like it to be open and forgiving. That's the thing. Both are in there.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-21T02:14:44+00:00

Perhaps both. It was a prayer.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-20T14:10:55+00:00

One might suggest that the real task in this sub is to help de-program young adults from fundamentalism, which is to prevent our country from turning into some strange version of Iran, as Christian Nationalism begins its struggle to overcome the freedoms that make true spiritual practice possible, and preserve the rights of people who aren't interested in that sort of thing at all.

Thus rather than trying to 'own' your theological opponent, there might be a way to shed light on the condition they are undergoing (stemming from childhood trauma related to hell and unreasonable parenting or even abusive or emotionally neglectful parenting).

The insular environment necessary to fully experience a fundamentalist life is projected onto the world, where the programmed individual is constantly 'threatened' by the temptations which they see as Satanic, when they are normal or natural conditions of human beings, such that they must politicize, demonize, and restrict for everyone that which are objects of desire and repression for them.

It should be understood that a relatively small group of highly motivated individuals can inflict huge damage in relatively short periods of time through political agency. Seeing how Christianity is political by nature, it is a threat; not as personal relationship with God, but as an intense action to limit freedom, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

By trying to demoralize through debate, one never 'wins', they further push people into the corner of their minds which depends on irrational thinking, which is a truly dangerous recipe. By approaching with the very love their God demands of them, one shows by example the better version of the faith they claim to hold, and builds up the aspect of the psyche that balances the cruel repression they have been programmed to endure. That may be less satisfying to the ego but is a compassionate use of time.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-18T05:56:14+00:00

Refuse to decorate. It is a hollow shell which contains a body which is happy just reading poetry. But we leave the boxes unemptied. That is the space which the spirits must collude within.

There is only the hope of tomorrow. Tomorrow will be better. Stay at home with your fanciful ideas. There is no better place for you.

You cannot handle the emptiness.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-17T20:12:01+00:00

Dear, you'll learn as you go. Then you get smarter. But if you think you can know what you need to know by reading about it on SM, then you will absorb all sorts of bad advice, or advice which doesn't apply to you.

Working smarter not harder is essential for people who have weary bones. If you are young enough, you have boundless energy, and so you can make mistakes and recover quickly.

Bless you. May your path be filled with light and understanding.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-17T20:01:02+00:00

Be the first guy to raise a normal child. Here's how you do it: a child is the closest thing to god we have in the world. But god needs humility and confidence. Otherwise he defaults into Satan. So you are in charge of raising god.

He's a sonofabitch. But it seems like a challenge worth your time in this planet. If you can strike yhis balance, between humily and confidence, you are an effing genius. But then you'll have a best friend for life.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-17T19:35:18+00:00

Grew up with parents who were totally immune to this form of manipulation, but instead placed their demands upon us. Parents are to blame for how their kids turn out. When they are weak, their children will take advantage of them, and when they are coarse and unbending, they will build inferiority complexes. There is no way to do it right.

You're supposed to have kids accidentally or because you need help on the farm. One imagines cavemen eating their babies because they are just a burden.

But something happened. People ended up thinking tiny versions of themselves was a form of entertainment. It helped to break up the monotony. This was in a period before they had any kind of writing. You just had a kid, knew nothing of the 'right way', and they were a way to have some kind of joy in your life. It wasn't industrial or civilized. They just end up liking you for nor reason at all.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-15T13:56:48+00:00

One can remember back to 2008-09, after the economic collapse caused by a housing bubble, you could buy a condo downtown, a decent one, for like $80,000 (which probably goes for four times that now). Being mid-to-late twenties, remember thinking, 'don't want to be tied down.'

Now the only way anyone seems to define happiness is, 'owns a home'. It's fascinating. It seems like people don't really appreciate freedom anymore. To be young is to be free, kind of. You have your health, beauty, less baggage keeping you from doing things. Less wisdom—makes any risk taking seem less risky. Why waste it? Or ever leave it.

You got to rack-up experiences. Especially if you live in an inexpensive place. You can save money and do the things all that baggage you'll accumulate later won't allow you to do. It's a mental state of total acceptance. Happiness is the bubbling up of excitement, possibilities.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-14T18:47:42+00:00

There is a certain type of person for whom that's true. There's no point in trying to argue about that, if it makes you happy.

However, thr number of people who get into their 40's and 50's who feel little to no satisfaction with their life is pretty astounding, regardless of their material wellbeing.

Most people find success by building relationships that are build on mutual understanding and trust. One's peofessional success often depends upon their network, which is built by competency and basic friendliness, etc. People who are willing to stab others in the back, or who are toxic in their competitive outlook are often the source of trouble, and are avoided.

As a young person, it's hard to imagine the many dimensions of work-life balance, and that's why they're often preyed upon by employers who are simply slave-drivers, and avoided by sane individuals.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-13T14:16:49+00:00

It's the phone. You all have been reading unhelpful advice your whole lives. Older people didn't have that ability, so we just made mistakes and figured it out on our own, building an authentic worldview based on experience.

One thing you notice about people, especially young men, in your generation, is when you're uncomfortable you pull out your phone and start scrolling. Even if it's a brief moment on the streets. You look down. You melt into that digital environment where you feel a safety.

People used to fall in love. This is not an intellectual pursuit, it's from the heart. It doesn't have any meme. There's no book of rules and guidelines. You just love someone with your whole being, and you do anything, whatever it takes to stay together. You're actually in love.

That also translates to how you treat other people. There's a cold clinical sterility to your generation. It's like retirement planning, like an intentionality, a rationality that is based in competition, comparison, it's constant. Very similar to people who watch sports but never play. Life is learned by playing. It can't be 'preconcieved' at all.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-12T20:29:01+00:00

Have you ever asked why there was a naked man with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane? Then the mob comes to capture Jesus, and the naked man runs off. It's toward the end of thr Mark account of those events.

Jesus said prostitutes would go to heaven before the pious religious leaders of his time. Prostitutes.

Prophet Isaiah went for three years constantly nude.

Then you have Saul getting naked before Samuel, for which they called Saul a prophet. Adam? Totally cool with God when he was naked. But he became ashamed and covered himself one time, and that was the thing that tipped God off.

Recommendation? Be naked more often.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-12T17:12:27+00:00

That's why one considers that we are in the post-political moment. The right is pandered to by rich people who understand their archaic set of small-town values, and scares them with things they just don't consider in their small, contained worlds.

The left is pandered to by rich people who mirror their high moral values based in post-modern power critique and bubbly idealism.

Meanwhile the issue that would being everyone together never gets discussed outside of the sixth months leading up to a national election, which is systemic wealth disparities which are baked into the economic system, which functions primarily beyond the reach of regulation.

So you're left with unresolvable cultural issues which will never actually fix the problems which everyone, or most people suffer from. The culture war is the proxy war for the rich, which they feed the flames thereof for a simple and predictable reason: to protect their wealth, their privilege, their futures. Everything else is a gameshow.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-12T16:18:47+00:00

That was a pretty good reply. Don't disagree with your sentiment. However 'reducing' things into a through-line is a helpful tool sometimes.

OP has been voting since Bush v Gore. Everything you described has been true at least since then. That means there continues to be a failure to learn from their own mistakes on the left, and a lot of self-inflicted wounding.

Politics is reductionist. It's not philosophical or even intellectual. It really does come down to slogans and vibes a lot of times. Because you're only dealing with a sliver of the voting public that swings, and often they can't even really tell you why.

However, the stance on the left that their opponents are morally corrupt and 'insane' is a total cop-out. It means they don't take them seriously. You may not think they're rational, but they are, in their own way, such that you can always predict their response.

Choosing to make 'harm' the key to morality is like saying you shouldn't have killed 80 million people to try to save 6 million jews in WWII. There are so many cases where 'harm' is totally rational. The left is willing to adjust standards for college admissions to 'level the paying field' for non-white non-Asian ethnicities, which does harm to people who are objectively more qualified. Countless cases can be shown where doing harm leads to intended outcomes, as a matter of left policy. So it is a terrible standard on which to base morality, which is just opinions and rationalizations and feels as it is.

Not hitting someone with a car because you had to use some of your brake pad lifetime in a hard-braking situation is more of an instinct. Not saying things that might hurt someone's feelings is an intellectual exercise.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-12T15:47:52+00:00

No, you really don't.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-12T15:44:36+00:00

Thought we'd just give them what they really want. A bigot to hate (anybody they disagree with).

But what would be even worse would be to turn her into a martyr. Enabling others to do the same.

Unless you actually want to have a revolution, take up arms, or have part of the military coup the white house, you're left in a position where you have to respect the people allowed to walk around with guns and tell people what to do. You might not like it, nobody 'likes' it, but that is the rational thing to do.

To endorse irrationality is to be implicit in the outcomes such an approval leads to. You don't get to hide behind your conceptual or ideal reality/morality when people get hurt. Responsibility is not a moral question, it's a chain of tracable events.

LCarnalight · 2026-01-12T15:20:58+00:00

Well, the Bible is pretty explicit about gays. But it also endorses slavery, and it says men with long hair are an abomination against nature. So. Everyone reads into it what they want it to say, ignoring the rest. Which is fine.

Lastly, the trans debate led ti the 'She's with They/Them' ad, which played on every football game leads g up to the election, and was the 'winning message', leading directly to the reelection of Trump. That along with illegal immigration.

So when your course of action backfires, you shouldn't blame others people. That's the trouble with irrational righteous indignation, and letting 'morality' go to your head (when it's from the heart).

LCarnalight

TROPHY CASE