No silver lining here

[Mister Silver]

Another day has passed with me being as lazy as I can; procrastination is my forte.

My mind is sharp, I am still young despite the locks of natural silver that flow past my shoulders, yet I continue to find myself discouraged by society enough to ignore it.

 

[Deidre]

What discourages you about society?

Hope you had a good day, just the same.

 

[Mister Silver]

I am going to mention unconditional love tonight.

There is an author I respect and love. Her mention of unconditional love brought to my attention the reality that most people are unaware of precisely what it means.

If one places conditions on someone else, that is not unconditional love. Unconditional love is love without condition.

A father saying, "I'll always love you, son, so long as you never turn out to be gay" is not unconditional love. The condition of the son not being gay makes the love conditional.

A deity stating, "I'll always love you so long as you don't eat shellfish" is not unconditional love. That is conditional.

One's selfish needs on another makes love conditional.

Unconditional is acceptance.

 

[Socratic Berean]

A deity stating, "I'll always love you so long as you don't eat shellfish"...

What scripture are you referring to? I have seen cogent explanations for the design, purpose, and even fulfillment (end, from a Christian perspective) of Levitical dietary particulars as they relate to the Jews in their capacity as God's oracle, but I've never seen an argument trying to make a link between God's love and the adherence to these specifically crafted, narrowly-purposed laws.

 

[Mister Silver]

This morning's topic will be in relation to critical thinking in relation to personal belief.

At a certain point in debating some people it becomes apparent that they do not critically think. At a certain point it becomes all too obvious that some people prefer cognitive dissonance when confronted with logic. After all, there is only so much to be done in a debate where one side consistently refuses to appreciate the effort that is required in attempting to keep a debate grounded in reason, and is it reasonable to throw in the towel when that debate continues to be shifted away from logic in order to appease the realm of fantastical belief? It does become rather clear after a while that some people cannot be reached through reason, perhaps because they are entirely too lost to the dark side of ill supernatural logic. At a certain point ignorance of logic in relation to unwavering personal belief becomes willful, and at that point would it be perfectly understandable to end the debate by simply walking away from it and not responding to that individual any more? Would it not be reasonable to depart from a debate that has turned into a circus of mental gymnastics performed by the one who ignores logic at the expense of ignoring critical thinking and adhering to cognitive dissonance?

After all, I did not deconvert through debate. It was many many years ago, but I vaguely recall being a part of an online community that had a section for religious debate. I had a one track mind, no matter what anyone else said. I thought of nothing else except remaining steadfast to my belief despite what anyone else said. It worked, because it allowed me to ignore what they said so that I could perform amazing mental gymnastics in order to continue to keep my mind protected from what I had been taught was nothing more than tactics of evil to throw me off the path of righteousness.

I became an atheist on my own when I discovered a man named Robert Green Ingersoll. I read his works, and he alone opened my mind to reason in a way that no one on an internet forum had been capable of doing. The doubts I had in regard to my personal belief began to crumble through undeniable logic. I could no longer continue to keep my mind trapped in the confining chains of religious belief. Breaking those chains freed me from being a slave to ill logic. I began to look at religion in a new light, finally comprehending through the analysis of critical thinking that my personal beliefs had merely kept me in a dark place of false comfort.

 

[Mister Silver]

My life is droll and boring, which is why keeping a journal is difficult. Posting daily is futile, since I doubt anyone wants to read daily installations of "I woke up, I worked, I went to sleep".

I digress, however.

Tonight's installation deals with the word "Mister" which I have before my username on this forum.

A long long long time ago when I was a young lad, I was part of a forum that had a secret society. Only near the end of the forum's life was I recruited into that secret society. It was a Mister Society. One was chosen if one had particularly stood out as being of a certain nature. In order to be a part of the secret society, one had to create a new username starting with the prefix Mr. or Mister.

The main point of Mister was to debate as a proper gentleman. No cursing, no name calling, no putting others down in a seemingly innocent yet off putting way, etc.

I chose my username for RF because that is who I want to be here. I want to be the gentleman debater.

 

[Mister Silver]

Regarding Heather Heyer.

Everyone has the right to free speech, but those who speak must also face the consequences of what they speak.

I am quite the tolerant individual, but there is no way I can tolerate hate speech. There was no way that Heather could tolerate it either.

The fact that she was hit by a vehicle speaks volumes regarding the lengths to which one will go to ensure violence continues to reign. This new rash of violence via vehicle is becoming the new method of murder, and it is sickening.

The person to blame for her death is the one who plowed into her with that vehicle, and that person was fueled by the hate ignited by those who think hate speech is merely them expressing their opinions.

 

[Mister Silver]

All during the night of Hurricane Irma, we had power. Then the next day, when the storm had passed, the power company randomly turned our power off for no reason. We were a day and a half without power, and our internet/cable only just returned this morning. A whole week without internet had me going bonkers, but at least I got some writing done; I am working on a new novel with seventy-six pages written of it so far.

 

[Mister Silver]

Even though I logged out, I kept tabs on this place.

I kept checking the "new threads" bar over on the side. I wanted to respond to so many of them, but I allowed my willpower its due.

Then, of course, on the front page of the site I kept seeing the annoying "Your voice is missing!" that eventually became too persuasive for me to not log back onto the forum.

Therefore, I am back. You heard it here first.

 

[Mister Silver]

Someone, I cannot recall who, informed me during a thread discussion that I should have myself checked out for Aspergers.

I still plan on doing that, but first I thought I would check out an online test.

Aspergers Adult AQ Test Quiz Online: Autism Spectrum Quotient

I scored in the highest percentile for Aspergers. Therefore, it is something I am going to attempt to get checked out, and I figure why I was not diagnosed when I was younger is due to the fact that my family simply thought I was shy and it was something I would eventually outgrow.

 

[Deidre]

This is interesting, Mister Silver, keep us posted as to what you find out.

 

[Mister Silver]

I want to thank everyone around the world who wished me a happy birthday through one online medium or another.

Real life socialization is extremely difficult for me, which is why I am thankful for online socialization. It allows me to be social without actually having to be physically in the same room with someone.

I am thirty-eight years old, which is still considered young during a time when we are living longer and longer. Do I feel a mid-life crisis creeping up on me? No, and I doubt I would even know what to do if it did.

My gray hair at my age? Yes, it's natural. No, it's not from stress. I noticed my first gray hair when I was sixteen. Dye it? No, I'm proud to be a silver mister.

 

[Mister Silver]

I keep finding myself irrationally drawn back to pagan ideals, as though they actually mean anything.

It is not uncommon for atheists to fight against what they previously believed or previously held more sacred than reality. In fact, I have known people leaving the realm of faith who suffered with the idea of hell because of what they had been erroneously taught through religion. It's not a pretty ordeal.

Religion does actual harm. I can't say it enough.

However, I always fight through the veil of irrationality to find myself right where I belong.

 

[Mister Silver]

I have gotten back into the online MMORPG game called Forsaken World, which is why I have been posting less on the forum. Years ago, I started on the Storm server and at level eighty I left that character and that server for the Lionheart server where I was active for years. I met another character and had an in-game relationship with him, but when he left the game I quit as well. It was no fun playing without him there. Over the past year I logged into the game to see if maybe that guy had returned, but upon seeing that I had not received any in-game messages I quickly logged out again.

Over the past couple of days I have been playing the game again, however.

It is easy to juggle characters on two separate servers, considering that on the Storm server the overall community activity is practically nonexistent. I see other characters as I go about my daily quests on Storm, but the world chat is basically always dead. It is extremely difficult for new characters to advance properly, because no one is hosting any parties and announcing them in the world chat. My now level eighty-nine character is so far behind everyone else who is at level one-hundred and much better equipped with gear that will take me forever to earn on such a dead server. I figure I will just do a few simple daily quests and spend most of my time over on the Lionheart server.

On the Lionheart server, my main character is level one-hundred and properly geared. Plus, I have an alt character at level one-hundred, as well as another alt at level ninety-eight. The Lionheart server is very active. The world chat is hardly ever absent of activity, and parties to instances is a breeze for any level character to join.

 

[Mister Silver]

I am gleaning over a glossary of religious terminology to choose what I specifically want to elaborate on in reference to how I personally perceive it.

Bible: A primitive work of fiction created by multiple fallible, human authors who were not divinely inspired in any way.

Christian: A believer of a fictional character; a believer who usually behaves nothing like the biblical character.

Church: An outdated institution where gatherings of like-minded individuals assemble to escape the harshness of reality.

Deity: A fictional divine being conceptualized by primitive man's overactive imagination.

Devil: A religious person's imaginatively conceptualized scapegoat for the inability to accept responsibility of personal wrongdoing.

Faith: A religious belief that is accepted without hard evidence or proof.

God: A fictional divine being conceptualized by primitive man's overactive imagination because he looked at the world around him, wondered where everything came from, and decided by way of clear lack of knowledge that "god did it".

Heaven: A fictional place conceptualized by primitive man's imagination because he could not deal with not knowing what happened to one's consciousness after the individual died.

Hell: A fictional place conceptualized by primitive man's imagination because he thought there needed to be a place for bad people to go after they died.

Jesus: A fictional character who was not even unique in what he thought or who he was.

Miracle: A person's misconception of that which can be explained naturally.

Myth: Something that is not literally true and does not represent reality.

Prayer: A useless communication with a divine being that does not exist and thus cannot reciprocate in any way.

Religion: A fancy, tactful way of referring to a cult.

Sin: Invented nonsense because primitive man disliked what other people were doing.

Soul: A primitive, nonsensical term for what is known as one's conscience.

Theist: One who prefers the comfortable lie of religious belief over the harsh truth of reality.

Worship: Undue reverence to a deity or god.

 

[Mister Silver]

I was watching the latest episode of Criminal Minds, and as usual a quote is provided at the beginning of the episode and another one at the end. I rather liked the following quote:

“People like to say that the conflict is between good and evil. The real conflict is between truth and lies.”
— Miguel Ruiz

 

[DavidFirth]

Another day has passed with me being as lazy as I can; procrastination is my forte.

My mind is sharp, I am still young despite the locks of natural silver that flow past my shoulders, yet I continue to find myself discouraged by society enough to ignore it.

That's perfectly normal. I don't see a problem.

 

[Enoch07]

Someone, I cannot recall who, informed me during a thread discussion that I should have myself checked out for Aspergers.

I still plan on doing that, but first I thought I would check out an online test.

Aspergers Adult AQ Test Quiz Online: Autism Spectrum Quotient

I scored in the highest percentile for Aspergers. Therefore, it is something I am going to attempt to get checked out, and I figure why I was not diagnosed when I was younger is due to the fact that my family simply thought I was shy and it was something I would eventually outgrow.

I scored a 31 on the test which is borderline as 32+ indicates aspergers or autism. Not surprising but I found myself asking "depends on the situation" for most of the questions and I did get a repeat (they repeated "I do enjoy social chitchat" question).

Haven't seen you around much lately, I hope you are well Mister Silver.