Another thought experiment I need your imput on

[Moonbeam]

Oh that's nice, putting down those with different view from you with name calling eh? Why, afraid that you cannot win a civil debate if you were on an even playground?

I won't stoop to your level and instead I will give you some factual number. In the US, 3 per 100 children born were adopted, I would venture to guess those adopted by gay couple is much less than that figure. And I don't care how you criticize the traditional marriage, I would bet that more than 90% of people posting on this board was born from a traditional marriage. So before you attack traditional marriage to justify your view, think about where you would have been if traditional marraige didn't exist.

I am more than willing to accept your view if you can give me factual figures on how gay marriage contribute to society the same way traditional marriages do. Let's say show me equal or higher percent of gay couples adopt children compare to traditional couples given birth. Show me equal or higher percent gay couples stay together for the long haul compare to traditional traditional couples do and I will agree they deserve the same privilage society gives to traditional couples for taking the responsibility to care for the next generation and the spouse.

My dear Sir, I can show you nothing. You are a bigot. You have been shown over and over but you can't see it. That's what bigots do, what defines them.

In this case you are stuck with the bigoted notion that marriage has to serve a purpose in order to derive benefit. You hold that as a core belief. It is absurd but you can't be made to see why. Rights are rights but that the meaning and implications of that can't penetrate your head. You are guarded from the facts by bigotry. You will see a religious bigot for what he is because you are not a religious bigot. You have a different kind. The arguments you make, while cogent to you are completely out to lunch.

 

[Moonbeam]

Wow! I honestly don't know how to respond to such lunacy.

Probably you have had little occasion to think very deeply. Your response is the usual from somebody who has waded out over his head.

 

[rchiu]

My dear Sir, I can show you nothing. You are a bigot. You have been shown over and over but you can't see it. That's what bigots do, what defines them.

In this case you are stuck with the bigoted notion that marriage has to serve a purpose in order to derive benefit. You hold that as a core belief. It is absurd but you can't be made to see why. Rights are rights but that the meaning and implications of that can't penetrate your head. You are guarded from the facts by bigotry. You will see a religious bigot for what he is because you are not a religious bigot. You have a different kind. The arguments you make, while cogent to you are completely out to lunch.

Well thank you for proving my point that other than name calling, you got nothing, no facts and no logic on the table to backup your arguement.

It's you who cannot see the fact that "some" of the privilages to marriage is financial benefits and incentives designed with one reason and one reason only, to encourage marriage and bring stability and continued growth to the society. Something that gay marriage has not proven it can provide (another act for you)

You bundle everything marriage under rights and neglected the facts that the 1138 statutory provisions in which marital status is a factor in determining, are benefits, rights and privileges. Many of which comes with responsibility that only opposite-sex marriage can perform.

Bottom line, other than your name calling, you got nothing to support your simplistic view of the issue. Not one fact, not simple logic.

 

[Zorkorist]

Hell, I hate to go over what I have said so many times before especially given my suspicion as to why you ask. And I will be as honest as I can because it was honesty that got me into the pickle I spoke of.

When I was young I looked at the crushing misery in the world and felt profound remorse, but I was raised, passingly as a Christian. I never had good teachers or got that involved, but I came to believe in God and Jesus. In that faith I could handle the fact that the world is so evil and there is such misery, because, in the long run all the good folk will go to heaven.

But so many folk are evil because they don't believe in the good, so I set out to prove that God exists and life is good. I set out to show that God is love and all who are good will be saved. I was young, you understand, and had no theological training and only some vague notions from the Bible to go on.

So I started to read the philosophy of the world and all the proofs for the good, and because of this horrible need to be honest, could not believe a single thing.

I saw a fallacy in everything. I saw that everybody just happened to believe in whatever teaching they grew up in, at least in the vast preponderance of cases.

In short I realized that God was just a figment of people's imaginations, a convenient thing to believe in in the hope of immortal life. Faith is fear turned on its ear.

I finally realized there is no truth, no meaning, no immortality, no sop for all the children who are murdered. There is only crushing meaningless and infinite misery. My life went black. I knew that I would never ever again be happy, that the black night of the soul would be my lifelong fate.

But I found a Zen text and tried reading it. Here I found outrageous assholes who said what I already know, that there is no meaning, no truth, no way, nothing above or below, but unlike me they were happy. They knew a way that isn't a way.

One Koan in particular, I think saved my life, the story of a man chased off a cliff by a tiger. He hangs over the edge holding on to a root and looking down sees another tiger. That was me, the man at the end of his rope and weakening.

And he saw a Strawberry growing on the cliff and it tasted so good.

My Dear shira, What fucking strawberry was that. WHAT FUCKING STRAWBERRY

Tell me dear shira, WHAT FUCKING STRAWBERRY WAS THAT GROWING THERE?

That was you. Your life, in the face of your imaginary death.

There is only one strawberry, and it is you.

-John

 

[Zorkorist]

It is goofy, of course, because it isn't real. Every bigot and small minded person feels that if somebody else gets something, especially somebody they don't like, it means they are somehow diminished. That is because a bigot is a bigot for the special privilege of being better than somebody else. It is why worthless self haters look for folk to put down. They self actualize their worthlessness because they feel it and the hate they feel for themselves is turned on others. Such people stick their eye in other people's fingers whenever these others attempt to exercise their rights.

It is the same delusional phenomena as uppity blacks, those nasty black people who insist on being equal. The bigot feels weak and lives in constant resentment of anybody who wishes to be strong.

Everybody deserves the same right to proclaim their love for each other before God as anybody else. But assholes will take it as a poke in the eye, a poke delivered by nothing but their own bigotry.

TGays have the right to fight for equality, but they don't have the right to equality just immediately transfred on to them.

I like frogs, and fuck frogs daily. I'ma Marry a frog.

"Frog Marriage is now legal."

See how that doesn't ring true?

 

[shira]

Hell, I hate to go over what I have said so many times before especially given my suspicion as to why you ask. And I will be as honest as I can because it was honesty that got me into the pickle I spoke of.

When I was young I looked at the crushing misery in the world and felt profound remorse, but I was raised, passingly as a Christian. I never had good teachers or got that involved, but I came to believe in God and Jesus. In that faith I could handle the fact that the world is so evil and there is such misery, because, in the long run all the good folk will go to heaven.

But so many folk are evil because they don't believe in the good, so I set out to prove that God exists and life is good. I set out to show that God is love and all who are good will be saved. I was young, you understand, and had no theological training and only some vague notions from the Bible to go on.

So I started to read the philosophy of the world and all the proofs for the good, and because of this horrible need to be honest, could not believe a single thing.

I saw a fallacy in everything. I saw that everybody just happened to believe in whatever teaching they grew up in, at least in the vast preponderance of cases.

In short I realized that God was just a figment of people's imaginations, a convenient thing to believe in in the hope of immortal life. Faith is fear turned on its ear.

I finally realized there is no truth, no meaning, no immortality, no sop for all the children who are murdered. There is only crushing meaningless and infinite misery. My life went black. I knew that I would never ever again be happy, that the black night of the soul would be my lifelong fate.

But I found a Zen text and tried reading it. Here I found outrageous assholes who said what I already know, that there is no meaning, no truth, no way, nothing above or below, but unlike me they were happy. They knew a way that isn't a way.

One Koan in particular, I think saved my life, the story of a man chased off a cliff by a tiger. He hangs over the edge holding on to a root and looking down sees another tiger. That was me, the man at the end of his rope and weakening.

And he saw a Strawberry growing on the cliff and it tasted so good.

My Dear shira, What fucking strawberry was that. WHAT FUCKING STRAWBERRY

Tell me dear shira, WHAT FUCKING STRAWBERRY WAS THAT GROWING THERE?

It might not surprise you to know that I also came to the same conclusion as you did, though not apparently with as much pain.

As you no doubt realize, there are a TON of strawberries in this giant patch. And because the tigers are the void that was there forever before you were born, and the void that will be there forever after you're gone, and all of the horrible consequences of the human condition that torment you in between, it's especially important to appreciate the strawberries.

I've given up, too.

 

[Moonbeam]

It might not surprise you to know that I also came to the same conclusion as you did, though not apparently with as much pain.

As you no doubt realize, there are a TON of strawberries in this giant patch. And because the tigers are the void that was there forever before you were born, and the void that will be there forever after you're gone, and all of the horrible consequences of the human condition that torment you in between, it's especially important to appreciate the strawberries.

I've given up, too.

For me the strawberry was a riddle that drove me to rage. There was no exit I could find from endless despair. How could these fools without God or meaning also be free and light as air? How could they claim transcendent understanding?

What they gave me was the first intimation that something might be wrong with my thinking but I could not imagine what it could be. While pondering this late one night, I tried to list all the things that could be the source of my pain and dismissed them one by one. I went deep within and with total concentration. Then something strange happened. A heavy gust of wind rattled the house and my mind stopped dead. All there was was me in the present mind totally silent, totally awake, at once the house and the wind, aware.

One second before I was deep in grief and the next minute I was the wind, awake in that moment. In one split second I knew and went peacefully to sleep.

Everything is meaningless and especially the need for meaning. There is no prison because there are no bars. When you lose everything you have and finally surrender what you have that can't be taken is your real self. All the love I had wanted God to give me, all the love that should fill the universe, all that love I projected out there has and had always been hidden right there inside of me. In a split second I turned inside out.

 

[nobodyknows]

Tell me dear shira, WHAT FUCKING STRAWBERRY WAS THAT GROWING THERE?

Cool story. The strawberry, IMHO, would be thepresent, the now. It's all we really have for sure.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

For me the strawberry was a riddle that drove me to rage. There was no exit I could find from endless despair. How could these fools without God or meaning also be free and light as air? How could they claim transcendent understanding?

What they gave me was the first intimation that something might be wrong with my thinking but I could not imagine what it could be. While pondering this late one night, I tried to list all the things that could be the source of my pain and dismissed them one by one. I went deep within and with total concentration. Then something strange happened. A heavy gust of wind rattled the house and my mind stopped dead. All there was was me in the present mind totally silent, totally awake, at once the house and the wind, aware.

One second before I was deep in grief and the next minute I was the wind, awake in that moment. In one split second I knew and went peacefully to sleep.

Everything is meaningless and especially the need for meaning. There is no prison because there are no bars. When you lose everything you have and finally surrender what you have that can't be taken is your real self. All the love I had wanted God to give me, all the love that should fill the universe, all that love I projected out there has and had always been hidden right there inside of me. In a split second I turned inside out.

I am going to say that i know what you mean, but my experience is different.

After a world of pain i randomly had the choice to live or die, so random that it just had to happen, i chose to live. After that point, everything but that choice comes second, i know that i live because i choose to live.

Life doesn't need a meaning for what it is but living does give meaning to life, i don't know if you have children but they do give meaning to life.