sick society

[mellowtigger]

A Christian pastor says on a radio interview that gay people should be killed (because the Bible tells him so) and other things.  He's a professional pain in the ass, though, as he also spends his time giving grief to border patrol.  I want to try to understand the point that these scary people are making, but I try to listen and end up just confused instead.  I'm really not feeling very reassured about living in this country "of the free".  :(  I always thought that Europeans had it horribly wrong by making Holocaust denial a crime.  Now.... I'm just confused about what I believe on the issue of thought crime.

Several people (gay, straight, or whatever) on my reading list have posted in recent weeks about dealing with the depression in their lives.  I've nearly reached the point where I'm willing to delve into the unpleasantness of my own past to explain my own crisis.  I dislike that so many people are turning to chemicals to keep their lives whole.

I think that chemicals can be a good short-term solution.  There was a time when I should have been using them myself.  I'd be happy to hand someone a prescription bottle for whatever it is that will help them get by a little longer with their ailment, but only if I can simultaneously ask them, "If you could redesign yourself or society to make this chemical unnecessary for yourself, what would you change?"

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
- Jiddu Krishnamurti

I still have stressors to deal with in my own life.  I shouldn't be allowing curiosity to take me into additional, unnecessary stress.  Me being incurious, though... wouldn't that be an awful state of living.  Ick.

Maybe I should swear off LiveJournal and Facebook and news sites until I make a constructive post about my own past, my own crisis and Remaking.  Remembering is unpleasant business.  It appears, though, that maybe the tipping point has arrived, where the potential benefit finally outweighs the cost.

Comments

[grimmbear.livejournal.com]

As one of those people who is dealing with depression and has turned to medicine to help alleviate the problem I have to say that what would make me not need them is to live in a place that treats me as a valued member of society and not a second class citizen.
I agree with you 100%. I am sick of America as it is but it's better to keep your enemies close and have SOME say in how this country is run than leave and have no choice in what is done by the government. If we all leave for greener pastures we leave the country in the hands of the lunatic Right and they would only use it to further their own agendas, forcing their sickness on the rest of the planet and then where do we go?

For whatever reason I am going through revisiting my past by being reintroduced to people in my past and it's helping me with my feelings to find out I'm no where near the looser I have been thinking I was/am. Maybe a fresh perspective on your past is what you need?

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

I dunno, Terry; I'm coming out of a period when I swore off outside news influences and finding that it only made things worse once I get back. It's like being hit in the face with a ton of bricks to have to face the world again after the period of not having had contact with the news "reality".

I'm not sure how to reformat the world, but perhaps we should start trying to see if we can figure out the kind of world -as you suggest- we want to live in and see if that could make the base "blueprint", and go from there.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

I dunno how it works for anyone else, but when I'm depressed (I mean really deeply) I'm not thinking clearly enough to come up with ways to save the world, or even myself.

[pink-halen.livejournal.com]

I took antidepressants for a while. I didn't like they way they made me feel. They supressed my little friend. While I was nominally happy I wasn't haven't sex. I finally decided that I was better off without chemicals.

I've been working with a group called "The Mankind Project" that has allowed me to work on some of the depression and to view the world differently. I have yet to solve my problems but I understand them better now. I know I must stop making judgements about other and stop critizing myself but it is a very difficult task.

I am told that people like the preacher upset us because the represent a disowned part of ourselves that we don't like to look at. Our disgust is a projection on them. I still have a hard time believing that and working on that part of me that is in shadow.

Our society is "crazy making" but I don't think it will change soon nor do I think I can do much to change it. It will take something monumental like the great depression to break people of their belief in entitlements.

Hugs

[mellowtigger]

Town hall meetings, congressional address by the president, and.... Wal-Mart.

"I hate queers"
http://peopleofwalmart.com/?p=3346

swastika
http://peopleofwalmart.com/?p=931

[otterlover01.livejournal.com]

That christian pastor fell short. Check this websitë: http://www.evilbible.com/Murder.htm

Big, antidepressant hugs to you Terry! Luis.

[dodecadragon.livejournal.com]

I watched the broadcast as well, and was just as confused by the idiot's logic as you. On one hand he was practically inciting people to kill anyone who breaks the laws of his god, which are apparently written in his bible, by saying he wouldn't label what the killers were doing as "murder", but he would still consider their (the killer's) actions as criminal as they shouldn't be taking the law into their own hands. Apparently the death penalty is the only punishment for breaking any of his god's laws, but he thinks the courts should be the only one's allowed to prescribe it. But he then back peddles to say he doesn't know about the law, he only knows the bible. In other words, he thinks the Courts should be enforcing the laws of his god, over constitutional or statutory laws.

As far as depression goes, I do think getting depressed by the course society seems to be on is an appropriate response because we virtually don't have any power over this path (this is what I think Jiddu Krishnamurti was speaking to in that quote). To me the rational response to this feeling of depression is to stop focusing on how powerless we are at changing the course of this flood of humanity and to instead focusing on navigating the currents safely and perhaps assisting a few close friends along the way.

I.e. focus on what you can do, not on what you can't. Positive action seems to me to be the only "cure" for depression.

Self-correcting religion?

[dodecadragon.livejournal.com]

Ooo...I like this one:

"Kill Fortunetellers
A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their death. (Leviticus 20:27 NAB)"

Therefore anyone who claims to know the will of God is being a medium of God, and therefore should be put to death by stoning. "they have no one but themselves to blame for their death."

Re: Self-correcting religion?

[mellowtigger]

Interesting. Another way of stating, "If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha."

Re: Self-correcting religion?

[dodecadragon.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I've ever heard that one before, although it does sound vaguely familiar. Where does it come from?

[dangerdhotrod.livejournal.com]

That radio conversation was so difficult to listen to, it was really irritating! It is insane really, there's nothing to understand is there? If you say on one hand that it's this horrible thing to abort babies because life is so sacred and then a minute later say that all gay people should be executed...where do you begin to even try to make sense of that? Or you can go with "everything in the bible should be followed exactly" - is abortion even mentioned in the bible? Ya, it's super confusing.

"If you could redesign yourself or society to make this chemical unnecessary for yourself, what would you change?"

I think this is a good question, and I believe that you would find lots of people who are drug addicts happily giving up drugs if you could find the right thing to trigger their interest

i would make society a lot like the star trek next gen universe. Everyone there has a clear role, and is necessary and respected for that role. I know it's fantasy, but there's a lot of cool things about it. People are pretty idealistic, and seem to be generally occupied with lofty endeavors. People are encouraged to continuously make things better and to think about improving life, with rewards being more than just money.

I also have thought it would be cool if you could go around working different jobs all the time, like you signed up for jobs you would like to do and you'd get to do that job for awhile. Variety is the spice of life kind of thing.

More time off would be nice too, like in other countries where people get like a month off and that's just standard. We need more leisure and freedom. This is all of course assuming economics aren't a big issue, we'd have a omniscient supercomputer figuring out all the details.

The main thing though I think would be to feel useful.

Re: Self-correcting religion?

[mellowtigger]

I've heard it attributed to one of the buddhas before, meant as a way to discourage the fame associated with any personage. Buddhism requires that people find their own truth, not a truth handed to them as glorified lore from some patriarch.

If a teaching has no applicability to your own life, then abandon that lesson. If someone claims to be a "special person with insider knowledge" (a buddha), then you know automatically that they are no such thing. No one who's achieved buddhahood would have to tell you their status, as you should be able to decipher it yourself by watching their example.

It's metaphorical killing, of course, not literal.
http://www.dailybuddhism.com/archives/670

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

I know it's not fashionable to invoke Marx (doubt it ever was) but it's classic alienation.

If people could do stuff they think is genuinely useful, rather than button pressing and box pushing, I think a lot of ills would be solved. Drug use, depression, some mental issues, all around alienation through capitalism - I mean how many suicides and murders are around money? Especially recently...

+1 on the ST:NG ideal, or at least a paradise where everyone could do what they really want, within reason

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

And I think through depression, but then I get mostly event-based or slight chemical depression rather than the full-on chemical deficiency stuff.

Sometimes my most creative periods are around then - partly the depression is caused by creative or intellectual blockages - or people being arseholes. Not much I can do for the latter; but the former I can sort out.

And you don't want my world, cos it would involve thinking everyone away to a far distant continent and living on a paradise Scottish island with fair weather and unlimited food, with maybe the odd trips or visits by friends.

Loner? Yup.

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

No repressed 'disowned' part of me; I'm just severely learned-misanthropic it seems...been trying to get on with most of humanity for 36 of my years, they mostly with a few exceptions don't get me, so I now feel likewise.

I like human contact don't get me wrong, I like talking to people...just 99.99999% of people don't observe the most simplest of civility or politeness and thus I cannot be bothered. For those who take the time, I always have time. I've gone from eager-likeme! likeme! rather deperate dogness to just growling at people in the last 10 years cos I can't see the point, and people just took advantage. :-(

So living as a hermit on an island it is.

[pink-halen.livejournal.com]

Growling at people has it's consequences as well. It causes them to growl back. I don't think the "eager-likeme" part of you has departed. Somewhere in there is a happy medium. A balance. People are your mirror. Use them to examine yourself.

I'm sure you are a worthy person. From your profile here I can see that you are an interesting person. If it weren't that you were over 5000 miles away I would enjoy an afternoon of conversation. But I warn you. If you growl, I"ll growl back.

Sadly the world is growing more uncivil and less polite. But there are fewer and fewer mountain tops and desert islands to move to.

Warm hugs from Denver

Re: Self-correcting religion?

[dodecadragon.livejournal.com]

Of all the religions that I know of, Buddhism seems to be the only one I have any respect for.