HereAndGone
4hr ago
I like symbolism, but when I see the likes of this I groan "oh God, not this crap again". Yeah, give us mystic Christianity divorced from any roots in a living faith tradition, where we can pull it around like Sam Harris Buddhism (get the benefits, dump the woo, be compatible with our true god Science!) to fit what we want without making demands.
If you want Christ the Cosmic Mystic Gnosis Theosis jack-in-the-box, you can go for Theosophy or any range of Western Esoteric traditions that will fit you right up but make no demands of you along the lines of But you, who do you say I am?.
If you want mysticism rooted in tradition, explore the Orthodox and Catholic traditions, but be aware that this is work, not just 'sit there and contemplate my own inner awesomeness'.
HereAndGone
4hr ago
I don't know what their views are (I don't track closely "aha, X said Y so that must mean Z" on here). Whether they're Red, Blue, Green or Orange, professing to have insight into the mind of the shooter because the magic crystal ball is showing the shape of a black dog is proposing an explanation too soon.
HereAndGone
4hr ago
What I wanted to point out was that the immediate and reflexive jump to "he must be one a' them bigot pro-lifer zealot Christian MAGAs!" has not been borne out so far by what we know, and that guy appears to be a Democrat or at least involved with the Democratic party on some level.
So there are no immediate convenient just-so stories as to "who did this why" in the aftermath of any event like this, and 'least said soonest mended' is the best advice.
HereAndGone
4hr ago
The ratfic then answer the question "what would happen if an actually smart character got dropped into this setting"?
The answer to that, if I'm being snarky, is that they are not in fact the "actually smart character" they think they are and there are reasons why 'this obvious way to take over the world' doesn't work out.
Then again, I am not a fan of the type of fiction where it's "just let me get my stats in a row and manipulate this convenient loophole et voila, deus ex machina!" because that's sports betting, not an organic magic system. Magic should be a little bit fuzzy and imprecise and "no it has to be the exact phase of the moon, no I don't know why, and oh yeah if it rains all bets are off" because that's how things work in reality once you leave behind in vitro or in silico experiments.
HereAndGone
4hr ago
This is what happens with serialised novels, though; before the web, there were newspaper and magazine serials. Writers getting paid by the word so they spun it out as long as they could and padded like they were quiltmakers. Or a popular serial was what made people purchase your paper or magazine, so you pressured the author not to end it too soon.
HereAndGone
4hr ago
It's as if a Western fantasy book had its main magic system be referred to as "Satanism" by everyone in-universe.
That's what the One Ring is (and to a lesser extent the other rings are) in "The Lord of the Rings". It's not the One Weird Trick you think will bring you power and victory, it will hollow you out because in the end it only has one true master. This guy is trying to be Sauron, and even if he gets what he wants, it may not be how he thinks it will be - the greatest deception is self-deception, 'I got everything I wanted without having to pay the price' (ignore the mountain of skulls, ignore that I have lost my fair form and can never go back). Ring-making is a dangerous art and will exact the highest price.
HereAndGone
4hr ago
By the sound of your review, what happened was perfectly in line with the world of the story. You get this close to achieving your ends, but too bad, sucker! Here's that kick in the teeth for you!
Fang Yuan ran into the final Calamity that shuts down everyone hoping to become Immortal. That is the perfect ending.
I disagree with your view about what would happen if he did achieve his goal. So now you're Immortal, what next? I don't think he'd take up other pleasures (what, come this far just to be a fat, drunken lecher like the rest of the fools?) because he's pared away, dug out, exploded, burned off, everything apart from relentless will to power. He can't chillax and make friends and find love, he's trained himself to think of all that as stupid crap for the losers and as only methods of exploiting others. After ten minutes of peace and stability he'd be bored stiff.
He would either need the challenge, like the classic Western gunslingers, of "so you're the number one, now every wannabe is coming gunning to take your place", in order to keep the purpose of life going or he'd have to create his own rivals (manipulate behind the scenes to get a bunch of near-Immortals chasing after him) in order to defeat them because otherwise, what was it all for? He's beaten the game, reached the highest possible level - now what? Replay it on a different mode?
HereAndGone
1d ago
Yeah, shooting politicians probably is politically motivated. But he could have been shooting politicians because he thinks they're lizard people controlling us all with mind rays from their lunar base. We don't know precisely what or why the guy was trying to achieve as yet, so saying nothing except some anodyne platitudes until we find the hell out what was going on is the best way to go.
HereAndGone
1d ago
I don't want to fight over this. But if someone can come along and presume that the shooting happened because of some Christian extremist, I'm going to answer that in the same spirit as it was posted. "Gosh, he must have been a radical anti-abortionist, he had a list and everything!"
Says who? When we get proper information, go right ahead. Right now we have bits and scraps and no clear pictures, and what little information we do have points towards the guy being a Democrat, but already some comments here are trying to spin it that "yeah well it was really all the fault of the Republicans".
HereAndGone
1d ago
There were pro-life Democrats in the party, until they got deliberately frozen out. There's still a sub-group of them inside the party, but they weren't the ones being invited to, for instance, Hotties for Harris bashes.
Right now, they can't make enough of Governor Walz being pro-reproductive rights and so forth.
HereAndGone
1d ago
Okay, maybe the T.S. Eliot parody was over the line.
But show me where I'm wrong that it is more likely than not that Democratic politicians are pro-choice. The bodies are barely cold by this stage so I don't want to go digging out "what did Representative A and Senator B get as scores from Planned Parenthood?" but assuming that "oh this guy must be pro-lifer because he had a list of pro-choice politicians" doesn't track when it comes to Democrats. If he had a list of Democrats, he had a list of pro-choicers, more likely than not. Correlation is not causation, isn't that the saying?
HereAndGone
1d ago
I think it's the default left-wing half of Catholicism in America, consistently votes democrat, and is pretty solidly blue tribe, just not woke.
In the days when the Democrats really were the party of the working man, you could vote Democrat and be red-coded. That faded away as they chased after the college-educated vote, pivoted to "what do college kids like? oh yeah sex'n'drugs'n'rock&roll", went increasingly all-in on progressivism, or at least allowed the progressive wing to push the social liberalisation programme, and dumped the rare part of "safe, legal, and rare" in the dumpster.
So now you're either mostly a cultural Catholic who votes blue no matter who because that's how you were raised, you are more serious about your faith but think the Democrats are better on other issues, or this is the deal-breaker issue for you and you have to hold your nose and vote for the Republicans.
But I think FCfromSSC doesn't mean Catholics when they talk about Christians there, they mean Protestants and most especially the Evangelicals.
HereAndGone
1d ago
I've seen reports that he had a target list of pro-choice politicians and abortion providers
If the politicians were all Democrats, then yeah they'll all be pro-choice. As your comment indicates, Christians and pro-life not wanted in the Democratic Party.
Depravity, depravity, the Democrats like depravity,
For they are fiends in human shape, monsters of depravity.
You may meet them in a by-street, you may see them in the square —
But when a crime’s discovered, then a Democrat's not there!
(Because it was really a pro-life, homophobe, transphobe, racist, conservative theocrat, bigot, Republican in disguise only pretending to be a Democrat)
HereAndGone
1d ago
He has ties to Tim Walz and the greater Democratic Party. Still no released motive.
Which makes me think that politicians should say as little as possible in the immediate aftermath of an event like this or any other tragedy or natural disaster, because it only leads to egg on face (as well as shooting off your mouth based on inadequate information).
Walz was quick off the mark with "this is a politically motivated assassination", presumably on the basis that if Democrat politicians were attacked, it must be those dastardly Republicans to blame. Well, turns out that (it's looking like) the guy is one of your own, Tim. So now what is the political motivation, and how is your party to be held accountable?
Particularly if (let's do some wild speculating here) the guy was motivated by the David Hogg approach of "let's go after the moderate Democrats, after all they're to blame for co-operating with Republicans and enabling Trump to be elected"?
HereAndGone
1d ago
Investigating, or trying to change? One of the rules of this joint is "no building consensus" and I think that's fair enough. If A wants to know why B thinks/doesn't think X is right or wrong, fine. If A is trying to persuade B that of course X is right (or wrong) and that B should change their mind, now we're getting into a grey area.
Because I've seen my share recently of "well of course all right-thinking people believe X is normal, moral, and good" with no room for "some people think X is wrong in good faith and with solid reasons".
There are some things I am not going to change someone's mind on and they're not going to change mine. I've had those arguments and those rows, more or less civil depending on how heated both parties got. So when "just askin' why" query number 999 comes along, I'm not interested in fighting over that old fight again.
HereAndGone
2d ago
Nothing in her life will change until she comes around to "this is not working" and then "this is not working because it's wrong". If she just blames it on "this is not working because society is too prudish for my bold brave liberated open lifestyle", she will continue to get hurt and not understand why.
HereAndGone
2d ago
Yeah, because making ordinary porn illegal to make, distribute, or possess worked so well. And it's not like there are people taking the line that attempts to make ordinary porn hard to get is a threat to your liberty.
I hate to be that wet blanket, but if you make having AI generated child porn legal, then somebody has to make that AI porn. And it has to be distributed somehow. How will you square the circle of "it's illegal to make, distribute or possess this" with "we want paedophiles to have this to stop them consuming real child rape"? 'The government will do it' is not the answer, because the government is not providing legal heroin, for example (methadone maybe, but not the drugs the current crop of addicts want better than they want life).
HereAndGone
2d ago
On a discussion forum where the whole purpose is battling out ideas?
Where it's genuinely battling out ideas? That's fine. But too often it's "tell me your stupidly wrong notions so I can lead you by the hand to the Only True Correct Beliefs which I happen to hold" instead, so those kind of questions can go hang.
HereAndGone
2d ago
How do we get from "CP is decriminalised, but actual sexual acts with children are as illegal as they always were" to any greater prevalence of the latter?
Because in the lovely world we currently live in, bad things happen, and I'm fed-up of "this will never have bad consequences/how were we possibly to know this would happen?" two-step dance (currently happening with vaping, I am led to believe, for a very minor example of same).
HereAndGone
2d ago
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Indicators? Absolutely, because if you get into the habit of not turning them on, then you won't do it when other vehicles are around. I already see too many drivers not bothering to indicate when they're going to turn, and one day someone will smash into them because the other driver is not a mind reader and had no idea you were going to suddenly turn there.
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Stop signs and red lights? Probably, for the same reason - develop good habits. Also, there will come a time when you think 'nobody's around' and run a red light, and the guy coming from the other direction will think the same thing, and bang! smash!
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I'm pro-speed limit, because again I've seen too many examples of someone speeding along then suddenly having to slam on the brakes (there's a street just outside where my house is where this is a regular occurrence) and again, the guy behind you or the guy behind him won't be able to stop in time and again bang! smash!
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No opinion
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People should make room for others to cut in, the ten seconds you save by not doing this will not make a difference over your journey and you'll just end up stuck in a queue or a traffic jam further along. Small courtesies on the road when driving make it a smoother experience for everyone.
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Nobody, not even Max Verstappen, is that good a driver on ordinary roads to get away with "I can break the rules safely".
HereAndGone
3d ago
I think it would be harder for Aella, and for others who came out of abusive situations, since they can legitimately argue "I heard all about the love of God and Jesus from people rock-solid convinced they had the truth and believed it, and they were worse than any sinner I ever met afterwards, because who beats a child eleven times in a row for not being sufficiently obedient? This is how that love worked out in practice, catch me falling for the same trap twice".
Unless she had a genuine conversion experience in a different context, and that has to be left up to the will of God.
HereAndGone
3d ago
There's a difference between "very religious, sticks to his values despite being at odds with the society around him" and "beat me until I bled all in the name of 'our loving God demands this'".
Anyway, Calvinism of any stripe, more especially hyper-Calvinism, is going to be gloomy and depressing enough to turn anyone off the faith. "You are going to Hell even if it's not your fault because at the creation of the Universe God decided He would withhold saving faith from you, so there's nothing you can do even if you think you really believe"?
(More complicated than "He decided" since it's "God foresaw you would be damned, and since He is omniscient, what He knows must come true else He would not be omniscient, so that is incompatible with free will and hence you are damned").
HereAndGone
3d ago
If it's legal, it will become normalised. If it's legal to have AI-generated porn, and it's legal to make, distribute, and consume AI generated child porn, then by what rules or laws do you tell AI Pornhub "sure, fake me up some incest porn with barely-legal sixteen year old hot blonde twins but never oh never six year olds"?
Gay marriage is the ur-example here: we went pretty damn quick from "gay marriage will not affect you in the slightest, if you don't like gay marriage then don't get gay married" to "well now everyone surely agrees that gay marriage is moral and normal and only horrible monster bigots could ever have objected to it".
Porn is about selling what society considers taboo/shameful to those willing to pay for it. Blue clubs and stag movies were early versions, as were the jokes about barbers and "something for the weekend" as they would sell condoms on the side. Oral sex is shocking and depraved? Even prostitutes won't do it (as in the case of the Marquis de Sade where an early trial had a prostitute testify that he wanted her to perform certain unnatural acts)? Well we'll show it in porn because it's the shocking spicy act people want to see and then over time that leaks into the mainstream so that now blowjobs are now just another normal act people do.
AI kiddie porn is the most taboo? Even the AI-generated stuff? You don't want to go to the government centre to access it? Never fear, for the right money we'll sell it to you so you can consume it at home. And then it goes onto the mainstream porn sites. Because after all, it's legal and even the government is providing it for the MAPs at their centres!
Oh, not just Arianism, it's a nice mish-mash of the Greatest Hits of Christological heresies plus the late 19th/early 20th century craze for spiritualism and mysticism investigating magical, occult and Eastern traditions, topped off with the liberal Christianity of the post-Biblical Criticism era (well of course we can't believe in literal miracles anymore, now we have science and Darwin and all that!)
I think my favourite anecdote of the liberal Christian "explain it away" is the "Jesus was ice skating not walking on the water", followed by the "so the Virgin Birth wasn't but here's why those silly billies thought she was a virgin" attempt.
I honestly love the ice skating one. A very convenient, very temporary, very localised mini-ice floe on the Lake of Galilee so Jesus could appear to be walking on the water, but when Peter jumped overboard poof! gone! melted! which is why he sank in the water, plus the fishermen with him in the boat - who had all been fishing this lake their whole career - had no idea about the very convenient weather conditions to bring about mini-ice floes that (must have) regularly happened so Jesus knew there would be one so He could fake 'walking on the water'.
Dude, an actual miracle is easier to believe than this pile of wishful thinking.
Explaining away the virgin birth is fun, too. See, obviously we are all modern adults who know how sex works, so we know virgins can't get pregnant (unless they've had sex and are now ex-virgins). So why did people talk about the Virgin Mary? Well clearly she was pregnant by rape. And to avoid the stigma of her being pregnant outside marriage (because that's the one bit of the Scriptural story we can take on trust as correct), people in her village would refer to her as "Mary, the virgin who was raped". And over time, that became shortened to "Mary the virgin" and hence - ta-da! - the Virgin Mary.
Yeah, sure. Totally believable, if you turn off your brain to everything but the current Zeitgeist.
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