RicOlie_2

moviefreakedmind said:

RicOlie_2 said:

Because eternal salvation is a lot more important than 80-or-so years on earth. And now that we’ve minimized the spread of so many diseases, the risk of spreading disease is a lot less than it once was.

I see no reason to respond to the first nasty, rotten, disgusting sentence of your nasty, rotten, disgusting post

Clearly you did, because you did. 😛

because I think it’s obvious bullshit to any rational person

That eternal life is of greater importance than our finite lives on earth? I’m not sure I follow…

and I think that everyone, including the Christians on this site would say that it’s disgusting to disregard the lives of these people just so that you can potentially spread your ideology to them.

Ah, here is where we diverge in our opinion. I, and any missionary, see the Christian faith as joyful good news that we badly want everyone to know about. The modern conception of Christianity, having come out of a Christian society that was filled with less than exemplary behaviour, has been perverted so that most people in our society don’t really know what Christianity is all about, or why we Christians believe what we do.

It isn’t a matter of wanting people to accept our “ideology” in the way we might want people to share our political views. Not at all. We want people to know and love a person whom we know and love, and whom we believe loves everyone. And this happens to be the person we believe we will spend eternity with, whether it causes torment because you hate that person and God and close yourself off from him, or eternal happiness, because you love him.

As for your second nasty, rotten, disgusting sentence, these people don’t have immunity to the diseases that we all have immunity to. A simple case of the flu could potentially kill every man, woman, and child on that island. Of course, as you said, who gives a shit about that though when we’re dealing with eternal salvation?! Fuck your eternal salvation. Cool people rot in hell.

By the way, I’m not necessarily condoning that individual man’s actions. I’m simply explaining the principle. I have mixed feelings about what he did, and I think it’s seriously wrong to take another life. If you know that what you are doing could cause innocent people to die, it had better be pretty serious. The ends don’t justify the means.

DuracellEnergizer said:

RicOlie_2 said:

Because eternal salvation is a lot more important than 80-or-so years on earth.

This mindset is why traditional Christianity is distasteful to me. It places evangelism over compassion for your fellow man, and it paints God as an asshole; the former is dehumanizing, the latter frankly blasphemous.

I understand where you’re coming from, but why is life more important than knowing truth? Not that all possible precautions shouldn’t be taken to prevent the loss of life before spreading the truth. Christianity rejects the modern premise that truth is either unknowable or unimportant, and because Christians believe truth to be inextricably tied to eternal life, knowing and living (or dying) according to the truth is the greatest good. And consequently, a short life with knowledge of the truth is better than a long life in ignorance of it.

It is quite possible, however, that because these people have never known about God, they could never reject him, and wouldn’t condemn themselves to hell because of it, but that’s a risk that many Christians wouldn’t want to take. Not to mention that one’s capacity for happiness in heaven is dependent on the way one increases that capacity by growing in one’s relationship with God on earth.

But I certainly understand the dilemma, and haven’t entirely resolved it in my mind either.

Because eternal salvation is a lot more important than 80-or-so years on earth. And now that we’ve minimized the spread of so many diseases, the risk of spreading disease is a lot less than it once was.

That’s sad to hear.

moviefreakedmind said:

What is SSA? And fuck any attempt to compare or link LGBT orientations to pedophilia. I have no tolerance for that.

Why? He’s not linking them on a moral level, he’s linking them on a psychological level. Clearly, there’s a difference. Both are attractions that are not evolutionary beneficial (neither can lead to procreation if pursued). Are we basing whether or not something is a disorder on whether or not it is “moral” in and of itself? That’s seems awfully arbitrary to me.

Yeah, that’s pretty neat.

Jay said:

DominicCobb said:

Jay said:

DominicCobb said:

Jay said:

DominicCobb said:

dahmage said:

Jay said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

This past year has seen this forum turn to ass.

Off Topic has been ass for years.

The rest of the forum is fine.

Different strokes and all.

so then maybe leave off topic alone… just saying.

Hard to argue things weren’t more enjoyable here when off topic was unmoderated and we were allowed to have silly fun threads without fear of an admin locking them for seemingly no reason other than he can’t handle some joking criticism.

Unmoderated Off Topic was a caustic shithole that turned new members away.

You guys lived and breathed it for so long that you didn’t see it.

Right, moderated off topic is now incredibly inviting to new members.

The only “new member” who’s had difficulty recently is Collipso, and it should be obvious why.

You can point the finger at me all you want; it doesn’t erase the fact that for years you guys ran Off Topic like it was your private club and membership was based on your approval. That ended a while back and some of you have been salty ever since.

I actually wasn’t much of a frequent poster in off topic until around the time it became moderated, but when I was new here I always appreciated the goofiness that populated the section. So you lumping me in with this nefarious “you guys” generalization is not just condescending, but inaccurate. Not to mention most of the “hazing” you’re talking about was limited to the myspleen thread, which you locked anyway. But you’re free to make up whatever you like to justify your reasoning, it’s your site of course.

I’m not making things up. The overall behavior in Off Topic when it was unmoderated was poor. Your characterization of that behavior being limited to a few threads is inaccurate.

If you didn’t actively participate in that behavior, you have my apologies. I don’t have a running catalog in my brain of every post by every member.

In fairness to what they’re saying, the lack of moderation and amount of ridiculousness in Off Topic was the main reason I stuck around. I get where you’re coming from, though, since that’s not what you intended this site to be. I think it got ugly when the new movies came out and the established community didn’t do a good job adapting to the reality of newcomers who had different expectations for the site (and the Frink-Fo Wars and Darth IDiocy were pretty frustrating as well).

Jay’s posts there seem perfectly reasonable to me, albeit somewhat harsh at the end.

I didn’t have a chance to read the relevant political discussions, but in the past, Jay has seemed much more level-headed and pleasant to debate than Frink, Possessed, etc., so I’m not sure what to make of all this. It’s a shame the funnest contributors all got banned, but at the same time, people certainly do seem to be acting “like babies.”

Hopefully we’ll see a return to normalcy though. I’d be quite sad if the people I’ve gotten to know over the last few years end up permabanned because of all this ridiculousness.

I’m glad to hear it, Warb. I hope you stay.

To everyone else:

I think a number of us can work on making it easier for Warb by simply responding with “I’m sorry you took it that way, that’s not what I meant” when he takes offense at someone’s comment. Ganging up on him or criticizing him is not going to help him overcome something that isn’t entirely his fault. It will only create more conflict and misery for everyone involved if our response to him retaliating against a perceived attack is to do the same in turn, creating a real conflict out of an imagined one.

What do you do? Besides buying it… 😛

flametitan said:

RicOlie_2 said:

Interesting. I’d need more examples to really be able to put myself in your shoes though.

What makes you think it’s not a psychological disorder? Or do you think that even if it is, the appropriate treatment is to undergo gender reassignment surgery or HRT, or alternatively, that it’s harmless enough that it’s pointless to label it as such?

OK, so, to the best of my knowledge, those who work in Psychology and Psychiatry believe that being trans in and of itself is not a disorder, but the distress that derives from it can be treated as if it were one. Indeed, the DSM-5 stresses that Gender Dysphoria is about the distress, not the fact that they identify as another gender identity. The International Classifications of Disease 11th edition, (the draft of which was released in June) will shift what it calls gender incongruence out of the mental health section, and into the section on Sexual health matters.

Thanks for the reply. It seems to me to be pretty arbitrary sometimes what is classified as a disorder and what isn’t–I recall the National Geographic article on transgenderism saying that an unusual amount of estrogen in a guy or testosterone in a woman was one cause of gender dysphoria, and other comparable biological phenomena could play a role as well. I googled the definition of “psychological disorder”, and it’s officially:

“A syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.”

My understanding was slightly different, but the definition still seems to apply to gender dysphoria. Clearly, the level of “disturbance” is much lower, but based on your anecdote about your friend having “vivid dreams of being a mother and [waking] up crying because that can’t happen” sounds like a disturbance in behaviour. The suicide rates of transgender people (regardless of whether they’ve transitioned) is abnormally high, which is strange if it isn’t in fact a disorder, unless the suicides are due to social rejection.

What think you?

Handman said:

I tested out of a class I really didn’t want to take, and passed!

Nice, that’s always a relief!

flametitan said:

why are you growing facial hair?

Interesting. I’d need more examples to really be able to put myself in your shoes though.

What makes you think it’s not a psychological disorder? Or do you think that even if it is, the appropriate treatment is to undergo gender reassignment surgery or HRT, or alternatively, that it’s harmless enough that it’s pointless to label it as such?

And do you find it offensive when people label it as a disorder, and why?

Note that when I think of psychological disorders, I don’t think that it has any bearing on how valuable or fundamentally good a person is. Some people seem to get really wound up about the idea that gender dysphoria could be some kind of disorder, but have no problem calling depression a mental illness (and bear no ill-will towards depressed people).

What exactly does it mean to say that you are/were a woman in a man’s body? In other words, how did you know? How did you know you weren’t just a man with an above-average number of feminine characteristics? And if I’m using the wrong vocabulary in asking these questions, I apologize.

OK, thanks, I’ll check it out.

flametitan said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

CatBus said:

Trans Topics for Cis Dummies

This needs to be a thread. I’d like to learn more of the trans perspective.

I’ve been meaning to start one for a while, actually, but life has a way of keeping me from doing so.

I’ll get it done when I get back from my prescription pick up.

That would be great.

OK, thanks for the clarifications.

flametitan said:

RicOlie_2 said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Another example of Christian opposition to freedom:

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/09/anti-lgbtq-protesters-swarmed-library-protest-drag-queen-story-hour/

If you call the normalization of mental illnesses freedom, then sure. Gender dysphoria is contagious among certain segments of the population, so I have a hard time believing that it’s normal and healthy to believe you’re in the wrong body. What happened to telling people to be happy with their body and the way they are?

Oh, buddy… Are you sure you want to have this conversation with me? We’re going to have this conversation. ROGD is a sham based upon a faulty study that was quickly rescinded. In particular, it only ever surveyed the parents of the teens, who have met on a “support forum.” In this context, of course it seemed sudden; teens are notorious for hiding things from their parents, especially if they believe the parents would be unnaccepting of it.

If you asked the teens themselves, they’re going to give you a far different answer. Probably something along the lines of, “It felt like something was off about me for the longest time, but it wasn’t until I met other people like me that I began to piece it all together and accept it.” It’s not that these teens are “catching the Trans,” it’s that they’re starting to meet others and not feel so alone about it.

OK, interesting. There was something in the article I linked to about some of the girls who identified as guys reverting back to identifying as girls after a year or so. I didn’t see an explanation for that in the article you’re linking to (not saying there isn’t one, just that I’m still kind of curious about it).

JEDIT: Oh, and I missed that you typed that out in response to people protesting drag queens. Drag. Queens. Believe it or not, Drag performers are not trans people. Well, not inherently. There are definitely trans people who either enjoy drag, or use it to explore their own feelings of themselves. However, just as many, if not more drag performers are cisgender, and just use drag as a performative art.

Well duh, they’re not necessarily trans people. I may misunderstand their intention, however. I thought the purpose was generally to support people who identify as transgender.

moviefreakedmind said:

I want to bring something up from a long time ago, when Catbus (who I usually agree with) said that religion was ultimately a net positive. Well, I hope you can look at this discussion and realize that if you’re one of the people that the religion deems an abomination, then religion is far from a net positive. Unless you say religion is good in spite of its negative effect on them. This lie that LGBT people are mentally ill is just one of the many reasons why everybody should condemn this kind of religiosity.

Two things:

When did I ever say that anyone was an abomination? I’ve never believed that anyone was anything less than a person made in the image of God and deserving of love.

Also, I didn’t say “LGBT people are mentally ill.” I said that gender dysphoria is a mental illness. I said nothing about homosexuality or bisexuality.

moviefreakedmind said:

Another example of Christian opposition to freedom:

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/09/anti-lgbtq-protesters-swarmed-library-protest-drag-queen-story-hour/

If you call the normalization of mental illnesses freedom, then sure. Gender dysphoria is contagious among certain segments of the population, so I have a hard time believing that it’s normal and healthy to believe you’re in the wrong body. What happened to telling people to be happy with their body and the way they are?

screams in the void said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtPBNvhnim4

LOL, that reminds me, I need to get around to watching that movie sometime…

I agree that Warb takes it too seriously, but this place is also a lot less fun than it used to be. I can understand why he’s frustrated by the way things are now.

He said basically the same thing about homosexuality as his predecessors did…just in different, more ambiguous, words.