I really like fanfiction. Reading and writing it. Nobody in my life knows and I plan on keeping it that way.
Pretty much everything from AI to Atheism to Lemmy to whatever interesting things I’m mulling over because I’m stuck disabled, living with crazy religious nutters family that have no fundamental logic skills.
Holy shit bro, hang in there - any chance of dating (maybe other disabled?) people and getting the hell out of there, or something like that? There are flats disabled people share, where they help each other, too, right?
Fundamental logic skills also imply that atheism is a belief “God doesn’t exist!”
As an upgrade, try agnosticism: “Do we have good evidence that God exists?” So far, the only argument in favor of atheism I know of is the Occam’s Razor (those manifestations of God could also be explained in other, possibly simpler ways).
“Atheism is a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby”
Evidence based existence is what I believe in personally. Speculation and fantasy can be useful in some parts of life, but for me, imaginary friends are a mental health disorder in anyone claiming they are real.
Imaginary friends are quite common among children, and there are processes in some mental wellness practices that invoke imaginary friends.
One of them is the wise mind in Dialectic Behavior Therapy, in which one taps into their adulting conscience (related to the adult in transactional analysis).
If a patient struggles directly invoking the wise mind, they can invoke a fiction, similar to the Christian tradition of WWJD A patient struggling with a home management problem might imagine asking Albert Einstein for advice, and then imagine how Einstein might respond. (Substitute anyone, including darker archetypes: Satan, Darth Vader, Joan Collins, Barbara Bush…)
Given some people who do believe in spiritual or supernatural elements might get the same effect from talking to God, or channeling spirits, they can get the same benefit even if their beliefs can be inconsistent either with modern science, or with their own ministries (who want their parishioners to go to them for direction).
So, no, regardless of whether or not delusions, misinformation or self-deceptions are involved, imaginary friends are not intrinsically dysfunctional or a sign of mental illness.
I’m totally with you and I get it, and the previous commenter could have written in a kinder tone, but
imaginary friends are a mental health disorder in anyone claiming they are real.
I don’t think therapists usually encourage their patients to claim they actually got the advice from Einstein or Darth Vader or whomever. And I can give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they meant “adults” rather than “humans” when they said people.
Firstly, mental disorders aren’t determined by cognitive positions or even behavior. I get that culture in the 2020s still likes to regard mental illness as something worthy of derision or contempt, but it’s kinda like shitting on someone for being blind or deaf, and in the meantime, mental illness has real definitions beyond beliefs you don’t like.
In the psychiatric sector, mental illness is defined when a given compulsion causes a living dysfunction. If I secretly believed the moon was made of green cheese, while that might be regarded as a provably counterfactual belief, I could hold it my entire life without it once impeding my life. So as much as you can disagree with religious beliefs, or disparage religious identity, equating it with clinical madness not only is inaccurate and ableist, but conflating religious hate movements with people who suffer from mental illness is also an insult to people suffer from mental illness. By far, those of us with diagnoses are actually trying to manage our madness, and be functional, moral people.
That said, having counterfactual beliefs is super common (let alone an internal model of nature that has few embarrassments – you’d be hard pressed to find someone with a near-perfect internal model). When we talk about mental illness, the psych sector considers what is typical, and counterfactual beliefs are extremely typical, hence the reason newspapers and news sites still have horoscopes.
In fact, human beings contend with a wide range of cognitive and sensory biases that inform how they perceive the world in ways that do not reflect reality. I am confident even you, personally, struggle to grasp the actual breadth or age of the universe, and our place in it. We all do.
And that said, my own path to naturalism involved some not small existential crises and confrontation with not only my mortality but the infinitesimal breadth of my significance. We are tiny and brief, and I will forgive anyone who is not ready to confront how small and alone we are. (Or for that matter, how deterministic the path we carve through time.)
So, you know, you are free to do what you want, but I’m going to think it’s a dick move to shit on people for their illusions, especially in a world like ours in which nature and society both teem with life suffering under parasitism.
When it comes to the fellow whose post you’re attempting to reframe, I’m done with him. He’ll figure things out in his own time – or not, but I assume he will gain no useful ground through me. And I do understand that religious ministries – speaking of parasitism – manipulate people by the tens of millions to their detriment, causing a lot of preventable suffering. But that’s something we have to change at the sociological level, not at the psychological. It’s about humans having exploitable biases, not about a given person having a character failing by which they discard rationality.
In general, I support your stance. The devil is in the details, though, so to speak. You can only get so much evidece first-hand, and need to believe others about the rest. How do you distinguish fraudsters from honest bet mistaken people from people knowing the truth?
Logic and reasoning preferably with scientific evidence.
How about you define your own belief system and let others choose their own words?
Here’s another way to look at it, then. By popular definition, an agnostic person believes that there is no ontological proof for the existence or non-existence of God, or the divine. The agnostic person is thereby operating within the conceptual framework of religion. (A lot of agnostics in the Western world are agnostic specifically about the existence of the particular God of Abrahamic religions.)
On the other hand, atheists are simply not concerned with or do not recognize divinity, as a concept. In a way, it’s like how nobody holds an affirmative belief that Spiderman does not exist as a real human, because superheroes are categorically fictional, and it’s not even ontologically possible.
No they don’t and agnosticism isn’t an upgrade, it’s just sitting on the fence.
Most athiests are agnostic to some degree and vice versa.
The burden of proof lies with the person making the extraordinary claim.
I disagree with the person you are replying to using the word “upgrade”, but also with your characterization of agnosticism as “just sitting on the fence”. It’s a coherent belief in its own right, not simply a refusal to choose between other options.
Now you mention it, I’m not so sure it is a coherent belief in its own right to be honest…
Shall we try it with unicorns? Unicorn believer says they saw a unicorn.
Athiest viewpoint is ok, but to convince me they exist I’d need to see one in the flesh or at the very least a full anatomical breakdown of how their magical properties work with corroboration from other unicorn enthusiasts.
Agnostics say what exactly?
As someone who leans agnostic, I would say this is a strawman argument. Unicorns and religions/gods are not related.
How does one “lean” agnostic?
“I’m marginally convinced there might be a god.”
I would say “there’s no point in arguing about it if neither of you can prove your position. If it is unprovable then I don’t care if unicorns exist or not. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. It doesn’t affect me. I won’t waste mental bandwidth thinking about it or discussing it further.”
Mind if I take some of your income to fund my unicorn sanctuary instead of improving tangible public services?
Agnostic atheist: Doesn’t believe in any gods, claims the existence or nonexistence of gods is fundamentally unknowable
Gnostic atheist: Doesn’t believe in any gods, claims to know no gods exist
Agnostic theist: Believes in god(s), claims the existence or nonexistence of gods is fundamentally unknowable
Gnostic theist: Believes in god(s), claims to know that those god(s) exist
I think all four types of people exist in decent numbers, but personally I, as an agnostic atheist, think either version of agnosticism is the only logically sound position. Gnosticism just feels disingenuous to me. Unfortunately I get the feeling that Christianity in the US is slipping further and further towards gnostic theism, and with that comes very dogmatic and oppressive rhetoric and actions.
As an atheist who would fully accept the existence of a deity if any form or rigorous proof was provided, these boxes are dumb.
Not really dumb and not really so different from how you describe yourself.
I identify as an agnostic atheist. I don’t think it is possible to prove a deity exists, but I’m fully open to the prospect of being wrong and as with anything else in science, should new evidence/data somehow come along and prove that there is some kind of deity/creator/what have you, I would look at it and potentially change my mind.
I don’t think it is possible to prove a deity exists, but I’m fully open to the prospect of being wrong.
Sounds like straight up atheism to me…
It’s agnostic atheism. I don’t believe one exists, but I also admit I don’t know for sure.
No one IRL knows I help run a Lemmy instance and I plan on keeping it that way for now as it’s going to take too much explaining.
I’ve tried explaining Lemmy to people and they do not understand. They are like “just use reddit bro”
I stopped using Reddit when the API protests happened and haven’t gone back. I honestly think Lemmy is far superior. I love seeing and interacting with the same people in varying threads. Feels like an actual community.
“Reddit but run by non profits” is the simplest I find, even though that’s not completely accurate
Removed by mod
“Like reddit but not owned by a single company” is how I’ve put it.
Now Reddit had straight up opened their doors for AI training, which ofc they get money for. Off the Reddit users content. Fuck you Spez.
Sadly, that’s the reaction I’ve gotten as well. Most people I know in real life just don’t care enough to even look into it, and the fediverse in general is an incomprehensible subject to them.
*sigh
I am halfway through. I deleted my old account and tried to use Lemmy, but formula1 is dead here and only on Reddit I find my dose of
heroinnews
You stole my “joke” :P
I think it’s just a pretty common experience.
I am looking forward to casually dropping into the conversation that I run a social media network.
Nice try mom
Your mom’s on Lemmy? You should be proud.
D,E,&I. I work with and am generally surrounded by a bunch of conservative MAGA fucks.
Literally last week my team coach said to us that anyone who got the jab deserves to die. What a fucking idiot.
Are people still on about that? Haven’t those ones moved on to the next thing after we didn’t all die? Call them out, it’s 6G cell towers now and eh, another kabal. Revelations Any day soon! Promise!
Lol
Anyone who says others “deserve to die” needs to be removed from society. That kind of mindset is dangerous, bordering on threatening.
Average day in a red state
I would not be able to resist the urge to ask him directly if he thinks I deserve to die
What’s D,E&I?
- Fanfics, too. I love fanfics exploring what-ifs of a work, and myself wrote two or three of those, but assumers immediately associate them with the lemons.
- Isekai. Same deal as fanfics, except with escapism instead of porn. (I’m a sucker for fantasy dammit.)
- Machine text generation. Yeah, I don’t want to be confused with a functionally illiterate tech bro.
Fantasy is so good at helping forget irl issues. I love it.
I love fanfics exploring what-ifs of a work, and myself wrote two or three of those, but assumers immediately associate them with the lemons.
This is it for me, too. I’d wouldn’t mind talking about some of the fanfics I’ve read, but you can’t even mention fanfiction without people assuming you’re essentially reading porn.
Escapism…
Started with anime. Then manga/manwha. Now I’m reading novels…
ASMR
I could never get ASMR. Like I understand it but it never triggers. Whispers, plastic crimples, etc. It finally happened to me. Completely by accident.
Backyard metal melting in forges.
The flame of a forge got me the goosepimples good.15 min in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jgo4hH1WDyY
High quality fresh mozzarella sliced thinly into delicate slivers like sashimi, dipped in high quality traditional aged Japanese soy sauce. Eaten with chopsticks of course, similar to conventional sashimi.
I’ve done a fair share of fine dining and make some very intricate conventional dishes but this weird combo just kind of to gets me. I’ve never mentioned this to anybody as to not disqualify myself as the “chef guy” but I can’t help but like it.
Both my brother and my brother-in-law are professional chefs and they each eat the weirdest nonsense on their own. It’s like their palettes have to be so refined at work that they need to throw the wildest combos of flavors together at home to feel like they’re eating something different.
So if anything I think this qualifies you as the “chef guy.”
No lie, that actually sounds kinda good and I want to try it.
It’s gotta be THIN, around 5mm or less. Frankly the thinner the better, it gives it a sort of luxurious melt in your mouth consistency (room temp too). For soy sauce I use Tsuru Bishio 4 year aged soy sauce. It’s like 40$ a bottle but it’s so strong and rich that I tend to use very little at a time (one bottle lasts me like 6 months).
Sometimes I find myself mourning the person I used to be. I experienced something traumatic in 2018 that changed my entire personality and now suffer from Bipolar II.
I get that. I do the same often enough. I went from an outgoing fun person to an anxious shut in that is scared of people.
I hope you find that part of yourself that you lost.
I don’t think one ever goes back to that, but you can learn to be comfortable with who you are now, and that’s more than most people ever achieve.
Anime
I am incredibly picky with the anime I watch, so I don’t watch much of it. Thankfully I associate with people who also watch anime, so I don’t have to hide it lol
That I still play Roblox for the Napoleonic Wars community. I don’t want to be associated with the brain dead games that make up like 90%+ of Roblox
That community sounds dope AF tbh.
Basically anything that I don’t know enough about to explain well, which is basically anything as I am dumb.
Same with fanfiction except I write it more than I read it. I’ve been doing it for years now and have a little over 200 subscribers. My partner is the only one who knows I write it, but I’ve never let him read it, and never will (which he’s fine with). I feel like it’s such a ridiculous little thing to do, but I also like knowing there’s 200+ people out there who enjoy what I write.
Homestuck, Undertale, Hazbin Hotel, and all those popular pieces of media that get overshadowed by their shitty fandoms
Communism
The first thing that comes to mind is there are sites I might beat around the bush about being a member of.