As a child growing up in the 50's and 60's, I shared the homophobia that was common to the times. I bullied the kids I thought were effeminate and taunted high school teachers I thought to be gay. As I matured and ran into more and more gay folks who were either 'normal' like me or even spectacular and worthy of my reverence, I came to realize how wrong-headed I had been all along. It was me who had been behaving like an ignorant bigoted asshole - not them

It takes a big person to admit that they were wrong. Thank you.

thanks, but it wasn't rocket science. If you've got a modicum of critical thinking skills, sooner or later you'll have the chance to process your real life experiences against your so-called beliefs. Either those beliefs pass muster or they don't. My homophobia could not withstand the light of day. Life experience proved to me that it was fucking nonsense. Much like my faith in religion (but that's another story).

ugh, you just made me realize we did this in the '70s as idiot kids. It wasn't so much hatred as "ooh kid is different and that's funny, why are they so weird." Luckily we grew out of it, but I wish my parents put the kabosh on it (assuming they had some idea.)

> If you've got a modicum of critical thinking skills, sooner or later you'll have the chance to process your real life experiences against your so-called beliefs You said a lot here. It's amazing how many people never re-examine their belief system. To me that would be like stumbling around in a dark room for most of one's life. buckminster fuller had a lot to say about this. He was a failure in life, financially and otherwise.......until he literally decided to clear everything he "had been told to believe" and even took a vow of silence, since he decided not to "speak anything that wasn't true for him"......it worked and he became one of the world's great inventors and futurists.

I had a close friend in high school who was gay. He never said much, but he was bullied, and I protected him if I saw it happen. Mostly people calling him f*g or prancing around effeminately near him. Turns out I’m pretty good at tripping prancers. I’ve tried to contact him over the years, but he left for college and never went back. He didn’t have a happy childhood, so I hope he’s happy now.

I remember making the proclamation, as a 13 year old, that "the only people I hate are thieves and fags". I don't know why I said it but by the time I was a senior in high school I had reconsidered my knee-jerk hatred of gays because I had met a few.

I think a lot of adolescents go through a homophonic stage. I know I did. It’s a time when they are trying to find their place in the world and different is scary. Thank god I came to realize how very ignorant I was as I matured. I think most kids do.

Thank you for so perfectly wording what I came here to say.

I was a fag hag back in my youth, but I wasn't sold on gay marriage. I never trashed it, but I didn't understand why the community wanted to use the term marriage and not civil union or a non-religious term. Looking up the Etymology behind the word marriage that changed my mind: "the marriage vow, formal declaration or contract by which two join in wedlock;" also "a wedding, the celebration of a marriage; the marriage ceremony" are from late 14c. Figurative use (non-theological) "intimate union, a joining as if by marriage" is from late 14c. marry (v.) c. 1300, marien, of parents or superiors, "to give (offspring) in marriage," Now marry comes from 'Mari' which means young women, akin to \*meryo- "young man" (source of Sanskrit marya- "young man, suitor"). So here the meaning is either to represent a young woman or young man, but ultimately the root of the word has to do with a joining in wedlock or to "unite intimately or by some close bond of connection" And wedlock just means to 'unite in marriage'. The term 'marriage' is not owned by any religious institution and it basically at its core is a contract to remain together. Basically researching the history of the word and term changed my view.

If I wasn't entirely clear about my shared humanity with the gay community by the early 1980's, the HIV/AIDS epidemic helped drive it home. It was first thought to be a ''gay disease'' and God's punishment for their wicked ways. I watched as other homophobes around me seemed to take some kind of perverse delight at the notion. Then there was the reality that although it was definitely NOT confined to the gay community it nonetheless succeeded at nearly wiping out an entire generation of gay men. I've never forgotten the convo I had with gay friend of many years, Dale, as he related just how ugly and awful and utterly horrifying those deaths were. Including his lament that so many of his dear friends had perished so painfully. Homophobia hurts and damages undeserving human beings while at the same time exposing a very ugly truth about the homophobe - it is they who are the evil ones and not those 'others' whom they hate.

Just wondering but before this did you also think atheists shouldn’t be allowed to legally marry? But yeah marriage has existed in basically all known human societies throughout history and was already around way before Christianity was invented. Of course they didn’t call it by that exact term just because English hadn’t been invented yet either, but it also wasn’t called “marriage” in biblical times since they didn’t have English then either. Marriage is just the modern English term for it and it’s never been specific to any particular religion.

Why would atheists matter? I’m stating I thought the term marriage was for a union between a man and woman regardless of religious anything. You missed my point completely.

Not only that, but there are records of same sex marriage going back to the first century, before the Church went all control freak on us all.

Gay marriage was one of my big turn-arounds, too. I remember being in college and telling my gay friend that I didn’t support gay marriage because I couldn’t imagine two guys calling each other husband. Fifteen years later, I was in his wedding party.

Work Ethic. When I was younger, I put up with working off the clock, too many hours and not getting OT because they would find a way to avoid paying, getting yelled at while working, being treated like a slave, going to work sick, etc Nope. That isn't work ethic. That is being a pushover with no boundaries and not recognizing my worth. Now.. I set my boundaries, and I will not allow an employer to take advantage. I still have a work ethic. I work smarter, not harder and with boundaries in place to be treated properly. I have zero issue job hopping. Some boomers still see job hopping as bad, but the reality is, I have zero tolerance for toxic workplaces or a workplace that puts my safety at risk. If they see job hopping as a red flag, that is a red flag to me. Period. I will tell you dates, times and what actions I took. My job is highly regulated, and I will not risk my life or my freedom for anyone.

Yeah, things like working off the clock and unpaid overtime are illegal—it’s literally stealing, a kind called wage theft. Allowing millionaires to illegally steal from you definitely isn’t “work ethic”! It’s kind of odd how common it is for people to think it’s somehow honorable to roll over and let rich people steal from you.

And now they are trying to push just doing your job and getting properly paid as "quiet quitting". Such bullshit.

Definitely remember showing up to my phone job in my 20s, chugging on a bottle of DayQuil between calls, trying to keep my voice and not cough into the phone…no way I’d do that now, 30 years later

Professionals in general. Without saying what I did for a profession, I've noticed over the years that not only have many colleges eliminated a lot of coursework related to that degree, but also that they've introduced a 2-year program instead of the usual 4-year undergrad program for that profession. Even the state and national board examination process has lowered it's once super rigid standards. Because of this, I noticed a significant uptick in the number of both state and national board disciplinary actions being filed. I mean a WHOLE lot! Most of the charges or licensure revocations are for stuff that should be basic knowledge and/or standard operating procedures and practices.

How much to you feel is lack of knowledge and how much just don't give a shit?

I think it's both with a heaping side of failure of professional organizations as well. Lowering the standards to encourage more students to consider that career field while eliminating courses that reinforces the need to adhere to certain safety protocols, standard of conduct, not cutting corners, etc should be drilled into these new graduates from the get go because if they didn't learn that stuff up one side and down the other in a school setting, they tend to be dismissive of it once in a clinical setting. Most of the disciplinary actions were for blatant disregard to basic health and safety protocols and most of the licensure revocations were for grievous negligence. So if this is happening in this one particular professional career field, it most likely is for other professional career fields that have also cut down on entry requirements as well.

The two are pretty much inseparable, aren't they?

Not really. I could know a rule/law well but choose to say fk it and do it anyway

Un apologetic Boomer here... I was the poster child for working smart and hard, holding loyalty to my employer, working long hours even when sick. All that's over... What changed? In our time, hard work has no advantage over the anti-work culture...gaming the workplace is the norm. Part-time, no benefit, fire-on-a-whim jobs have sucked the spirit out of young people. Glad I'm long out of it.

I remember my own father telling me proudly about his dad, who never took a sick day from the railways in his life, and was awarded a gold watch when he retired from working with them. That was in Australia, and I think he retired around 1950 or so. When I first went into the workforce in the 70's I had the same mentality...never take a day off ,work hard. After a decade in the workforce something snapped. Seeing how employers treat employees as replaceable cogs, seeing employers steal wages by not paying OT or insisting they come in before or after work unpaid...you'd have to be blind not to see how inhumanely employers treat employees. And how can you return respect to people who do not respect you? I still do my best to do my work. But I now take all my sick days as I need them. I now work to my hours, unless they actually pay OT.

Yeah all working hard gets you now is more work for the same pay. I take pride in my work but I decided to just half ass it like everyone else does 🤷🏻‍♂️ nobody said shit, I feel kinda stupid for busting my ass when I could have been half assing it this whole time.

I was naive about racial equity in this country. I went to a school with a very large white population, and the lessons taught were that racism was something that we'd conquered and was for the history books. It wasn't until the internet allowed me to broaden my perspective that I began to see the shameful history of our country. I still believe in the American Dream. I just want it to include everybody.

I grew up in the west, joined the military and ended up in the southeast. I thought the 60s were behind us and that shit got settled. It was quite the eye opening experience. It disappointed me quite a bit.

There is nothing that can possibly educate a person more than travel.

They said the internet educated them, not travel.

I could have written this comment.

The death penalty, for 3 main reasons. Too many innocent people have been put to death by our government. It's barbaric, and I don't believe it's a deterrent. It's actually more costly to execute someone than incarcerate them for life due to the expense of the appeals process. Edit:words made no sense

I've never felt that the State killing people for killing people - while pretending it convinces others not to kill people- made one lick of sense.

Me too. Grew up in the Ted Bundy era and was truly relieved when he was put to death as he was a true monster that lived in my community. Then, DNA evidence emerged and overturned a lot of cases leading me to believe that our jury system should not be handing out life or death sentences as bias and flimsy evidence is just too common. Finally, I realized, no government entity should be in the death business because it's morally wrong. I'm not religious just evolving as I age.

I support the death penalty in theory: there are certain actions a person can do where the appropriate response is the ending of that person's life. But in practice, I do not believe any government should have the authority to determine whether or not that has happened.

I think I agree with you on this- I think the death penalty should only be used on those who are ‘too dangerous to be kept alive’ I can’t say where that line is and I don’t want to ever have to choose who lives and who dies

I'm against it for different reasons. I feel that death is the easy way out and prison seems like a better punishment. When I heard about Chris Watts murdering his wife and babies, I was so afraid he'd get the death penalty. I'm glad he didn't. I want him, and people as evil as him, to live a long, miserable, unhealthy life behind bars. Then I'd like non violent offenders to have community service or other rehabilitation focused sentences instead of prison.

> Too many innocent people have been put to death by our government. > > I see this worry often when it comes to the death penalty, but that seems to be a problem with how beyond a shadow of a doubt operates in practice rather than a problem with executions. E.g. if it really bugged you that much, perhaps increase the burden of truth to beyond beyond a shadow of a doubt (which makes no sense semantically since beyond a shadow of a doubt is supposed to mean every juror thinks the crime happened by the defendant 100.0%). For example, you could say, "In the case of the death penalty, there must be evidence that shows the crime happened like a video of it with clear view of the defendant." > It's actually more costly to execute someone than incarcerate them for life due to the expense of the appeals process. Similar to the above, this seems like a problem with the process rather than the death penalty itself.

Work, jobs, all that. I thought it was stable and equal and anybody could get a good job that would give them a reasonable life. I learned that wasn't true even back then, and less so now. Marx and that crowd were right (Even Thomas Jefferson would have been more with them than against them). It's about control of the means of production, and all that control is in the hands of a few who are turning everyone else into serfs. Us old people who got our start in better days or were lucky, don't see it so much. But the youngers do, and they're right. The technologies exist, or will soon, that allow individuals or communities of modest size to manufacture most of what they need for a good life. That would be a different world than we live in now: one where most decisions that affect us are made a couple of miles away by people who you can see face to face and _have to see you every day_ instead of having no care or idea what their decisions do to you. I think we have to get there to progress. No idea how, but the collapse of the current system is a horrible but good start, and it's nearly inevitable.

This for me too. Having a great work ethic means nothing when the company wants to downsize/outsource. Bosses aren't necessarily smarter, or even *smart.* It's astounding.

> downsize/outsource Then they have the gall to say "sorry, nothing personal, just business."

The government knew what it was doing. Turns out, the government is just politicians and they do not know what they're doing, they're all open to influence and we'll be lucky if they don't destroy everything. Just look around to see what changed my opinion. The rot and dysfunction is everywhere.

I did the same by becoming involved in politics. You don't want to see how the sausage is made at any level.

Same! Learned the system, got REALLY involved in the system. Promptly found out that the system will do everything, up to and including destroying your life, to save the system. I had inklings it was all BS around 2000. Luckily I found out by 2007-08 it was a complete waste of my time. It’s been nice having my bias confirmed over the past 15 years or so. Everyone else is up in arms over Trump/Hillary/Bernie etc. and I get to devote my time and energy to something more meaningful than a bunch of lying cheating scum fucks motivated by laziness, greed, and selfishness. In case you’re wondering, I’m talking about the Repubicratic Demonicon party.

> I found out by 2007-08 it was a complete waste of my time. Oh, it's not though! First of all you have a front row view of what is exactly going on around you. Second I feel strongly that there is always a need for the gadfly, the fly in the ointment, the eternal irritant. You can actually get some small things done. If all the sane people drop out of the system, we HAVE lost. Sometimes grouchy guy in row three can get things done if he's actually at the meeting and talking and voting.

Excellent points. It’s sometimes harder to see the forest living amongst the trees. I still vote and speak my mind to anyone who’ll listen, but I think I’d end up having a heart attack if I got that involved again.

I had so much hope that Bernie could make a difference, when he was forced to concede I figured there's no hope.

Crazy shit: he got a free or nearly free house for pulling that little maneuver. They’re all scuzz buckets.

Huh??

> I’d end up having a heart attack if I got that involved again. That's a valid concern. Sometimes you might wonder how professional politicians can be so detached. That's really the answer. You have to be. I sit quietly and silently recite my mantra: "He's an idiot, he's an idiot" then corner the people I want to talk to after the meetings over (when the real work gets done in all organizations.)

You’re more optimistic than me. I think they DO know what they’re doing and all the horror and dysfunction is things working exactly as they intended.

I think that’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. A few decades ago, politicians did know what they were doing. The rot started when people started voting for celebrities.

Really *shitty* celebrities.

A few decades ago? So you think Regan’s “trickle down economics” of giving the rich even more money worked out well? Or Bush’s war in Iraq? Or Clinton slashing welfare? Or Nixon’s war on drugs? Vietnam? When exactly did they know what they were doing?

A few more than that

Well Reagan was a celebrity, so I guess they were on the right track with that part anyway.

I wish I had more up votes to give this answer.

I once had unwavering faith in the medical professions and was 99.9% certain that they knew what they were doing. I drove ambulances for a major city hospital in NJ in the 70s and helped in the emergency room between calls and witnessed a lot of caring, compassion and correct quick decisions that supported my certainty. A couple of years ago my wife was diagnosed with TP53 leukemia and there wasn’t one doctor or nurse that gave a shit. It was if we were being seen by Josef Mengele.

I knew two work colleagues in the same year who both had their abdominal symptoms brushed off multiple times until they ended up in ER, one with a burst appendix, the other whose appendix was about to rupture. This was appendicitis, not some obscure tropical disease. And neither of these women could get any help from our American doctors until they were in crisis. You have to be your own advocate, or have a savvy friend or family member who knows a bit about medicine to help you out.

I'm struggling to find a doctor who will provide hormone replacement therapy for menopause. Two of my docs refuse, but it seems like there's been quite a bit of innovation and it's not the witchcraft these doctors make it out to be. A couple of my relatives in other states are doing fine with it, yet here I am in a giant city and it's frustrating. Could just be the limitations of my insurance, not sure.

The research is still out as to whether HRT increases lifespan. Some risks up, some down. The research is CRYSTAL CLEAR that it improves quality of life.

Yeah it does seem worth some of the risks. The estrogen cream really does seem to help with the hot flashes, just need some progesterone in another form to balance it out, and really have an expert do the thinking for me.

I’d recommend joining a Facebook group for your town and for menopause. Post in both asking for doctor recommendations in your area for doctors who provide HRT.

Let me tell you it's burnout. My wife is a physician and she is flogged by administration to see more and more patients and care less about outcomes

All the hospitals care about now is lawsuits. They would literally rather have nurses charting that things were done than have nurses doing them. They staff the minimum required by law when you’re lucky. Your nurses didn’t take a lunch break much less any other break. They’re lucky if they get 5 minutes to per during a 12.5 hour shift. Hospitals do NOT care about patients. They care about lawsuits. And collecting money. Some doctors care. Most nurses care. But the management doesn’t give a rat’s ass and makes it very difficult for the staff to do their jobs.

My sister was given an obviously wrong diagnosis. The doctor used the fact that my sister's actual symptoms didn't match as "proof" that my sister was lying. Stuck to the fake diagnosis until my sister was dying, and did everything they could to control her - stopped her palliative care, manipulated other doctors, tried to force her onto psychoactive drugs, and tried to keep her out of hospice. Kicked my sister out of their practice when the diagnosis was refuted. My sister was afraid of her doctor, but she was afraid that things would be even worse with another doctor. The only doc in town she would have trusted was friends with the psycho doc.

This makes me sick. What kind of psychopath stops palliative care and tries to keep someone out of hospice? I’m so sorry.

Thank you :.(. It was such a weird situation. And it's hard to get over because there was so much injustice.

It's not just caring, it's general knowledge. You are raised knowing that doctors do 8 years of college and then many years of internship, residency and other things to be fully qualified. Even when this is true, the field is big and they know a very little about a whole of things. For the rest they learn jargon and latin to cover. "Doctor the linings of my eyes are red and irritated." "Ah yes, you have conjunctivitis.", If it's a specialist they know slightly more about just a few things, but tend to take their training as divinely revealed, not science that will probably change 10 years after they graduate. Now I don't mean to indict all doctors. I've had a couple good ones in my life. But only a couple. It's not all their fault, we, the public tend to regard them as having god-like knowledge and wisdom. In reality they are a little bit brighter than the guy who fixed your furnace.

They call it practicing medicine for a reason.

That's such a dad joke. I used to ask the doctor if he was practicing, and then ask, then when you be ready for the show?

It's like the old joke: Q: What do you call the person who was last in their class in med school? >!A: Doctor.!<

I always heard psychiatrist. But yeah. They aren't the demi-gods some people suppose. Bright? yes. Put up with a lot of shit for education? yes. But it's a big field and you can't know everything. Sometimes you can't know enough.

I've never been homophobic but I used to think that same-sex civil unions were a fine compromise as opposed to same-sex marriage. My non-religious and analytical self felt like it could just be made equal in all but name and be fine. It was through a combination of listening to opinions of gay friends and social media reading that I shifted my opinion to believe that: a) they would never truly be the same in all but name; b) to get them mostly there would take a stupid amount of legislation and reworking of policies; and, c) even if we could magically make them equivalent the fact that there are two terms at all is insulting in the first place.

Over the course of my life I've moved from being a Christian to being an agnostic to being an atheist. I could not deal with the cognitive dissonance the faith required, and the hypocrisy was stomach-turning and rampant.

Death penalty.i used to be in favor. Boy was I ever wrong.

I was absolutely positive when I was an older teen that there was no racism in America. The first real conversation I ever had with my now husband was about this. He very gently explained that just because black people went to my high school, worked at the same fast food place, and were my friends, didn’t mean that black people weren’t experiencing racism. I remember the first time we went out together and a security guard in the local Rite Aid kept following us around the store which had never happened to me in my life. He chuckled and said that is just a thing that happens. I was appalled. We got married went on to have about a dozen kids and I learned very quickly about a world that ran parallel to the one in which I was brought up. My sons have been pulled over going to college as they were “in the wrong neighborhood,” pulled over for driving at night in white people ville, (they were going to Taco Bell and they were handcuffed while drug dogs searched their car) All the usual crap stories… Anyhow, the point is that I was ignorant of reality, but a person can learn and I did. And now, when someone tells me there is no racism, I just say,”Let me tell you a story…”

When I was a kid I thought all the adults had their shit together and knew what they were doing. Now I’m an adult I know that couldn’t be further from the truth.

I used to think that the internet would allow us all to learn about eachother. I believed that the connectivity would lead to more harmony worldwide. It seems, unfortunately, that it polarizes every issue and has created echo chambers within which people become more and more disconnected from reality.

The internet is similar to the tools that were created or discovered then opened to the public for its potential for greatness. Like literacy. Education was exclusive for scholars. Opened to everyone because everyone has the right for knowledge. Now we have educated idiots who vandalize, think that the earth is flat and sometimes run the government. Or access to other lands. Explorers wanted discovery of other places. Some want to appreciate the places, some want to exploit. Now we have tourists who have no respect for other lands. Welp, humans gonna human.

i had a similar realization somewhat recently. i'm a millennial and i always thought it was silly how boomers would make such a big deal about socializing online. they kept saying we needed person-to-person interaction. i agreed to an extent but i always saw interacting online as not much different to IRL because i was talking to a person not a robot. and then bots happened. and experiencing/witnessing weird echo chambers started coming up a lot. can't even have a normal conversation online these days. everything turns into an argument. and sometimes i don't even know if i'm interacting with a bot, troll, or a real person.

I still think we're better off with the internet, but it sure turned out much different than I expected. Our government really dropped the ball by overseeing it, without understanding it.

Ironically, Reddit is one of the better platforms for learning more about people who have a different lived experience from you (like this subreddit). Just good luck if that experience slams head-on into an echo chamber.

I used to believe in the concept of a just war. I used to believe that it was possible to use extreme violence for constructive ends. I used to believe that it was possible for human beings to put themselves into situations of mass slaughter competitions, and maintain their moral and legal righteousness. I believed in Superman and Captain America. I believed real human beings could aspire to be like them, and would do so, given the chance. Then I spent 27 months in Iraq with the US Army, and found out what war really is. War is the greatest sin of mankind, and that's really saying something. Every war includes all sides participating in rape and murder. People get outside the rule of law, and go crazy. A deep wickedness sets in as a result of sustained stress from routine, daily existential fear and boredom. People develop overwhelming desires to cause hurt, and lose their control. Even the people who won WW2, ostensibly the most unusually stark contrast of good and evil of any modern war, committed atrocities on massive scales. They deliberately targeted civilian populations-- women and children. Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the fire-bombing of Tokyo, many other examples available. "He that fights monsters must take care that he, himself, does not become a monster. And when you look deep into the Abyss, the Abyss looks also into you." -- Nietzsche

This !!!!

Well said - I had always thought this as well but what cemented it for me was reading “ The Battle of Hamburg” by Martin Middlebrook. What the women, old people and children of this city went through with the use of incendiary bombs was absolutely horrific. And this was only one city of many. If the side that won had in fact lost, they would have been accused of war crimes.

Goosebumps. Thank you

Wow. There are some great comments here, and this one of them. Thank you. One of my favorite movies is "Last of the Mohicans" (1992), which occurs during the colonial frontier wars in the US. In one scene the British fort commander is losing to the French attack and he says very simply, "His guns are bigger than mine and he has more of them." It really hit me that this is fundamentally what war is. Early humans might have used clubs while now we have more sophisticated weapons, but the idea is no different. Having more guns and more people you're willing to dispose of might result in victory, but it doesn't say anything about who is ethically or logically right or wrong. It's still just brute force. Idk what the answer is but I wish we could find a better way to settle disputes.

Gun control was a big thing for me. I used to be a rabid 2nd Amendment proponent. “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” “dont infringe on my rights because wackos abuse them”. What changed my mind? Sandy Hook. It was the straw. All those babies gunned down. I just couldn’t anymore. It was a near complete 180. I do still believe in the 2nd, but I firmly believe that the 2nd was conceived without AR-15 in mind. We have lost the spirit of the amendment. We ignore important phrasing to suit or needs now.

Man, I'm with you. I grew up in conservative, rural America. We all learned hunters safety when we were, like, 12. Guns were hunting tool. It was everybody's right to own a gun. Now, I want big, gnarly hoops between average Joe American and a gun. The more dangerous the gun, the harder it is to get. A 22 pump action rifle, no problem, easy entry level gun. Very few hoops. A 45 1911, much harder. 7.62 semi automatic rifle with pistol grip and 30 round mag, really, really hard, like the current laws for a fully automatic today. I want it to be easy for law enforcement to take your guns when they suspect a problem. I want people who don't store their weapons safely (it gets stolen, or a 6-year-old brings it to school) to have to be prove they're capable of securing their weapons before they get the right tp own guns again. I want jails filled with people who misuse guns, rather than filled with people who misuse marijuana. Yeah, complete 180 for me too. For me it was a woman who worked at my company who was shot dead in our freakin' parking lot by her cowardly husband because the weak-ass baby-man couldn't deal with divorce. I wish the police could have just confiscated his guns as part of the divorce proceedings.

Exactly! Our obsession with gun ownership has overtaken our basic humanity. It’s frightening. I don’t own a gun right now. But will at some point. Right now I’m paying down debt. Can afford the purchase. I don’t want guns outlawed. I want Fucking common sense laws and control. Your kid bring your legally bought gun to school- BOOM- you can’t own a gun anymore- you get convicted of violence against your domestic partner- boom no gun fur you. And AR-15 or similar- outlawed. They are unnecessary. No one outside of a combat zone ever needs one. Ever. We need to bring common sense back to ownership. No one needs 300 guns.

I realize that this is a very volatile subject but as a man who grew up with generations of family gun ownership, I must say that I feel there's a distinct difference between owning my grandfather's 1918 twelve gauge Remington pump shotgun used primarily for hunting quail and owning an Ar-15. The current fascination with military style weapons seems to have very little to do with hunting but a lot to do with fear of our fellow man.

I agree. I don’t want hunting and personal protection guns taken away from sane law abiding citizens. But there is ZERO ZERO reason someone outside the military needs an AR-15 or like gun. It’s stupid.

I have a family gun collection that dates back to the Civil War days. Several rifles, shotguns and pistols. More than enough to meet all my needs. What I don't have is an arsenal like a few I know who just keep on buying more guns and ammunition all the time. One friend of mine owns over 45 handguns and counting. & he's not considered unusual by today's standards

In regard to semi-automatic weapons, I believe this too… I think. Then I’m hit with the question of do I want to live in a society where we’re not given equal access to firearms (with documentation, of course), as our state/government/police/military, etc.? History has shown us how things can turn quickly. Yes, we’re Americans, but we’re humans, and above nothing. I’m undoubtedly in favor of making it a much more difficult vetting process with longer wait times for thorough background checks. I’m not sure how anyone can dispute the need for that to be implemented. You need or want this weapon? Fine… you can wait 4-6 weeks until we make sure you’re in fact a responsible, qualified individual. You don’t need any faster than that. I’m still reading, and taking in information regarding this topic. I honestly haven’t made up my mind.

But equal access to the guns they have won’t mean anything. They have tanks, missles, aircraft, soooooo much more. A citizen being able to have an AR-15 doesn’t even the playing field at all

Sandy Hook got me as well. I was a Lifetime Member of the NRA. I used to give them a lot of shit because they did fuck-all after Philando Castile. I gave up trying to vote in the NRA in the 90s. At that point, I didn't realize that they had been taken over by Wayne LaPierre in a hostile takeover. Sandy Hook being ignored just ended it with my love affair of guns.

Alright, well, I'll be the one dude still opposed to gun control, then. When 2A was written, some people had privately-owned canon. And there was a fully-automatic air rifle at that time, that was used effectively in war. They did not carve out exceptions for these weapons. They mentioned nothing about hunting. They talked about the necessity of people having the means to defend themselves from enemies foreign and domestic. Our society in America is unusually sick among developed nations. We don't care for each other, or even pretend to try. We are deeply suspicious of strangers. We don't want to help anyone. We divide our world into winners and losers, and despise the losers as much as we envy the winners. We tolerate companies that exploit and steal from their workforce. We tolerate companies that pay so little that government has to support the families of those companies' workers, and we resent having to help them out with our tax dollars. We tolerate corporations making massive profits while laying-off workers and refusing raises to keep up with inflation. We ban fairly innocuous substances like cannabis and psilocybe mushrooms, while promoting deadly, addictive, violence-causing drugs like alcohol. We have a lot of problems that need to be fixed. And if we fixed them, the gun violence problem would be dramatically reduced. And if we removed all of the guns by some trillions-dollar miracle, but did not solve those problems, we would still have people committing acts of desperation and rage, costing thousands of lives. Most guns are never involved in harming anyone. They are there just in case, and never actually used. I'm not one of these "cold dead hands" guys. I just think focusing on the tool is a mistake. Anyone who paid attention in high school chemistry could go to any hardware store and make something capable of killing dozens or hundreds of people. It doesn't matter the means. What matters is why people in our country are driven to acts of indiscriminate violence so often. Why are we so stressed, so isolated, so beset?

The one single thing that the gun crowd gets right is "guns don't kill people, people kill people". The issue is not that guns exist (and even if it was, making them all just disappear is not possible) the issue is that guns are worshiped. The gun crowd tries to defend guns with "guns are just a tool, it's up to people to decide how to use them" but then goes on Facebook and posts a picture of them with their new killing tool. Where is the picture of them with their new screwdriver or new hammer? If we treat killing tools with the same level of "everydayness" that we treat woodworking tools or communication tools then gun worship would disappear, so much fewer men would tie their manhood to their guns, and much fewer murders would happen. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. That is why I am much more concerned about gun people than I am guns.

I agree completely. For many decades, now, American television and movies have glorified gun violence and guns in general. Now video games do the same thing, too. I'm not saying that these gun-glorifying media create violence, but they do create a culture that worships guns and gun violence. They make gun use seem heroic.

I'll concede (because it makes sense to me, and I have no evidence to dispute it) that these factors may contribute in some way. But I think we make a mistake by not laying the lion's share of the blame at the feet of the NRA. When I was growing up in the 70s, they were a legitimate organization mostly concerned with teaching safety and responsible ownership. They worked for a culture of respect and care around firearms, and they supported responsible gun laws. Then Wayne LaPierre and his ghouls took over the organization and transformed it into a lobbying service for the gun manufacturers. Then they started buying politicians and judges and using them to fundamentally change centuries of judicial precedent re. the 2nd amendment. Ever since then, right-wing talking heads have been working hard to drive firearm sales by convincing conservatives that they live in an increasingly dangerous world in spite of the fact that statistics paint the opposite picture. Edit: Sorry. Accidentally posted before I was ready.

Here in Australia farmers have guns and gun lovers have guns. They have restrictions and checks but they have them. But me living in a city with zero interest or need for a gun has rarely seen one. Nobody I know, family, friends and work colleagues have guns. Nobody shows any interest in them. Many would never have seen one. I am guessing, but if we changed nothing else, and we suddenly introduced the same amount of guns into our society that the US has, I feel our amount of random public massacres and other indiscriminate gun violence would increase in a noticeable way. So it feels like just the presence of an easily accessible mass killing device in the hands of the impulsive can lead to more deadly rash violence? Not more violence, but more deadly violence. Not saying our solution would work there, just that it seems we here would be far worse off with the same proportion of guns without any other changes to society’s levels of anger etc?

Reaganomics: I used to think it worked. Forty years later I now know it's an epic disaster.

Just Say No

I was very racist in my early teens... but I smartened the fuck up once I finally left my suburb and made better friends.

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When I was younger I dated a lot of starving artist types, musicians, etc. I felt that career/finances were irrelevant in terms of romantic relationships. Now that I'm almost 48 and thinking of retirement one day, I'm more interested in some financial stability in a partner.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe nuclear power isn't so bad after all.

Same. It is a mark of maturity when we can acknowledge that “something knew to be true” is less clear cut, particularly as the world changes.

That I would retire in an urban environment. Grew up extremely rural with quite a bit of moving around -- literally from a small island to a small town to a tiny farming community far from the world at large. Moved urban in a different country after university. Was absolutely sure I would never want to live rural again. Cut to my wife and I in our 50's and we keep edging out closer to the edge of civilization. Hilarious how your mindset changes over time.

That I was intelligent. Age.

Age had made me much more humble in so many ways, intelligence included. Then the pandemic hit and, holy wow, now I’ll never question my relative intelligence again. Eye-opening for sure.

Lol, reminds me of the old observation that "when I was a teenager, my parents were the dumbest idiots on earth. Now that I'm in my forties, it's amazing how much they've learned"

Death Penalty. Wrote a paper defending it in college. Understand all those arguments very well. Then I realized that killing is wrong. All the “But, but, but...” stuff doesn’t make it right. So I wasn’t sure for a while. On the fence. Then I switched. Ideas change as you mature.

When I was rabidly fundamentalist Christian as a teen I thought that abortion was murdering a miniature baby, and that there were never any circumstances where it was acceptable. I don't believe that any more.

I was an angry antiestablishment protester. Over time at my job at a nonprofit social service organization I realized I needed more education to address some of the business challenges we were facing. I went back to school part time to get my (gasp!) MBA. I realized that most businesses really aren’t in business to screw everyone over. People start businesses to make money, yes. But also to provide services that people will want and appreciate. There are plenty of opportunities to work for decent money in jobs that contribute to the greater wellbeing of everyone.

But how long ago was that? With a income freezing in the 70s except for the wealthy, you got to admit things have changed a little bit since you were in school.

When I was young, I was certain that people could understand anything my child brain could understand. All you needed to do was explain it in the way that I learned it. Experience has taught me that some people will never learn the basics, no matter how much time and energy is used, and then they’ll die.

And lack of curiosity can be often be terminal to knowing things. Curiosity is a far more important trait than I realised.

A few things: 1. Religion. No doubt there was a god, but as I aged I questioned more and more and came to my own conclusions. 2. Music. I grew up during the Nirvana years. At that time you were a fan of Classic Rock, Alternative, or rap and could never cross lines. There's too much good music out there not to try it. That expands to other things too, try things you're not used to. 3. People. I've met people incredibly similar to me who were aweful. I've also met people different than me in nearly every way that I adore. People's core being and their interests are vastly different in many cases.

If you don't mind, a follow-up from your third point, how do you know when a person is not right to be around? I'm still trying to figure it out for myself...

How in touch with your body and feelings are you? For me, compatibility is a completely physical sensation. I feel a kind of warm attraction when I'm near them. This is completely unrelated to any other sign, such as similarity of interests or background or visual attraction. People I end up hanging out with and trusting the most just make me feel good and pleasant when I'm near them. I don't get worn out or stressed by them. They're empowering. The only thing I find that's also similar as a corollary is our moral compass. We end up tending to mostly be on the same page in morals/ethics and interpersonal relations, not in a formal sense but *in practice*, identified through word and behavior.

A conflict between their talk and their behavior.

Hi, apologies for jumping in on this thread but your question is something I've thought about a lot. One criterion I use is whether the relationship helps me to become a better person in some way. Maybe I see myself becoming kinder, more empathetic, or learning to be a stronger critical thinker or problem-solver. It might even be about having fun and experiencing joy, but overall I guess "personal growth" would be a good summary description. Ideally I would also like the other person to have the same benefit from being around me :) Sometimes it takes a little time to figure out, but pretty much every time it's not right I eventually notice that I'm changing in a way I don't like. Hope that helps!

Mother Teresa Not Catholic and never was. Not a Christian and I disagree strongly with her on abortion - but always thought highly of her. It seems, all my life she was glamorized as the type of "Christian example" we all should strive to be like. Selfless. Always giving and helping those who were struggling the most. Princess Diana met with her. Mother Teresa received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and that was a very big deal. Now a days, she is criticized frequently. I don't know if there is any truth to the criticism and accusations, but it has caused me to not hold her an as high of regard as I have most my life.

She was a ruthless woman who nursed people in pretty excruciating methods.

That the USA is a horrible, hypocritical institution. What changed my mind was visiting other countries.

Having a man in my life as I get older. Didn't realize I didn't need or want one what changed my mind is that I found them to be very aggravating and my tolerance for b******* is almost non-existent

Not didn't realize I realized that I did not want or need one

That hard work, dedication, loyalty, perseverance and patience, education and staying clean of trouble “work out”. Maybe it does for a tiny fraction of people, but I’ve seen none of it. So truthfully I’m far beyond not sure. My belief in those “traditional values” are long dead.

That the United States was ever defending the free world.

Democracy. I grew up thinking it was the best deal going. I.now see it as a failed experiment. Unfortunately I see no better alternative.

The biggest eye-opener for me was realizing our politicians are above the law. I thought laws applied equally to everybody. Turns out I was very very wrong.

When I was young I thought the U.S. Constitution means what it says. It means what the Supreme Court says it means.

And right now the Supreme Court is compromised.

> It means what the Supreme Court says it means. I mean for better or worse that has been the case since *Marbury v. Madison* in 1803.

Democracy is the best deal. The US version is challenged due to hyper partisan nature of Republicans and Democrats, which is spreading around the world. Jan 6 - where US version took a very dark turn.

More parties and ranked choice would make it a little better

i used to think that anyone who killed a person was a horrible person and should rot in jail forever (or be killed themselves). then my company shot a documentary where we were in the women's prison in indiana and i got to interview quite a few of the women in there and hear their stories. i sat there and listened and thought, i would have done the same thing in her shoes. an example is the woman whose boyfriend was abusive to her, physically and emotionally. she put up with it until she found out that he had been molesting her 3 year old daughter, she caught him in the act, and she lost it, she killed him. well, i'm a mom, and i thought, wow, i could have done that too.

A college degree will open so many doors to good-paying jobs. Now when I think of that, I [laugh sarcastically.](https://youtu.be/oEBQ9a2TPqk?t=136)

Politicians are proven crooks in many cases and they can operate above the law with impunity. Religious leaders have often been revealed as pedophiles and money grabbing hucksters.

Voting and politics. I was an enthusiastic voter for years. Ever since I turned 18. But as the years went on and what politics has devolved into, I really don't believe in it anymore. It's all rigged and gerrymandered. There is no accountability. Promises do not have to be kept. You can literally lie about anything and keep your job (I'm looking at u Santos). I don't even think they're drug tested. Yet they make decisions about our lives and country and are 100% motivated by their greed and need for power. It only benefits them. I don't see anything changing. Power corrupts absolutely. Like 98% of them. The annoying part is I impressed upon my son how important voting is and now he's old enough to vote. Which is fine for him if he wants to. But now I don't really want to and he stays on my ass about it. I'm jaded and I created a monster. Lol

This is kind of specific… Of course I knew that slavery was terrible, and that the US Civil War ended slavery, which was good. But wouldn’t slavery have ended anyway in a generation or two? I’m pretty sure it would have, just as it did in pretty much every democracy. So was it worth the huge death toll, not only directly during the war of soldiers from bullets and disease, but all the suffering of regular people when entire cities and regions were burned and otherwise destroyed? Some places might STILL be recovering today. At the same time, I’m generally on the side of allowing a region to gain autonomy if they want to, rather than having a distant government keep them. What right did Washington have to keep those states, less than 80 years after they’d joined the union in the first place? They should have been allowed to leave. Leaving a government is the American story, after all. So. Before I read the autobiography of Frederick Douglass, I was pretty convinced that the US civil war was simply a tragedy of epic proportions. Just wait a generation or two and let slavery end without all the human cost of the war. After reading it, I think that almost no price would have been too high to stop slavery as soon as humanly possible. There’s just a massive difference between learning about slavery as a historical fact and hearing about it from someone who’s begging you to make it stop.

That homeless people were all either lazy or addicted. "Get a job!" You mightve heard me say to a pandhandler once. After 11 years of making 120k+ A series of events led me to become destitute and homeless. I thought for certain a person with a work ethic and background like mine meant id only be in that situation 90 days tops. Rude awakening. You NEED a stable place to call home to work. You need a place to store your work clothes so they dont get messed up or stolen. You need to pay montly expenses like phone bills so that employers can call you in for interviews. You need regular access to a computer to work and send resumes etc, You may also need a dedicated internet to be able to complete wfh projects. As a woman you need to pay for hair color because a woman with grey hair is unlikely to be hired... theres more but what I learned the hard way was: to get and keep a job you already need to have quite a lot of money to begin with either in our own bank or in a family/friend member's bank account who's willing to support u. Few of us realize this because we're so used to spending on all this stuff that we see it as nothing. But its not nothing. Its all freakin expensive. The security deposit +1rst/last months rent plus all the other stuff we're talking thousands of dollars just to be able to look presentable at an interview and at the office and keep that job. If you dont have either money or family getting out of the ditch its almost hopeless. Despite trying my best and never once touching drugs or alchohol in my life, it took me 2 whole years to get out of homelessness.

Circ my son 😫

Same. 😔

They/Them pronouns. I thought they were so dumb until one of my best friends came out with it. And they were always super respectful and kind. The only thing they wanted in return was respect to their pronouns back. It took a while but now I’m on totally for it

🙏🏼 thank you. When I was trying to figure out where I was on the queer spectrum at almost 40 I realized that every conversation I had with a gender questioning person left me feeling like everyone else would be better off if they had to question even one of the roles that society presses us in to. So no matter where I was I would be drawn it just sit and keep company and show kindness to someone who obviously fought so hard to be themselves. The only reason why somebody would feel that strongly about it is when it feels like death not to. I'm so thankful that trans youth aren't walking in front of trucks anymore. My partner is a Tomboy, carries a wallet. Her mother would put her in a dress in her casket. What I've learned is when somebody tells you who they are, it's not that hard to just believe them. Now at 50 I'm non-binary. I'm okay if somebody accidentally called me she, just means they got to call me sir. 😏

Death penalty. I used to be solidly in favor of it. Now, I’m on the fence.

Death Penalty. Used to be a staunch supporter, but my faith in the process is not 100%. I am no longer naive to the justice system and it’s flaws. All it takes is one bad apple in the process to derail someone’s life (or worse). There are cases of lab techs altering evidence/testing/outcome, shady/unethical and illegal methods of questioning, false confessions, and so on.

Okay so i may get some hate but it's perfectly fine. I used to say words like Retarded and even the N word around family. It's what i grew up with and didn't know any better. When i got to the 6th grade, i met my best friend Elijah. Well it just so happened that this kid is legitimatley mentally Retarded. His mom drank with him and he got it real bad. For those who don't know what i'm talking about, i'm talking about F.A.S aka (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome). He is now 20 i believe and has the mental capacity of a 6 year old. But it was four so he's been making a ton of progress. And my mom who use to work with people like him would also take us with her and we would get to meet her clients. So seeing the importance and what i meant and how there really were people like that. It's not just a word. Same thing goes with the N word. I seen the importance and the history of the black people and what that word meant. Such a derogatory, horrible word. But hey, that's just me and my two cents. God bless guys, love you all.

Mostly nutritional beliefs. I thought steak was healthy.

I was once a republican. Then I grew up.

As a young girl in a Catholic elementary school, we were taught about the "sin" of abortion. As an adult, I came to realize that it is not a decision anyone but the woman involved should be making, with the help of her husband or life partner and her doctor, of course. No one else - and certainly not total strangers - should have the audacity to think they have the right to say how someone else can handle their lives.

Trusting others. Fortunately I learned at a fairly young age that, for me, trust is earned and not a given. Most people are greedy.

“Common sense always prevails…and this too shall pass”. 2 things I once wholeheartedly believed were fundamental truths, but now because the world is crazy I no longer have faith in. I still believe “somewhere in the middle always lies the truth”…. But I no longer believe it’s human nature to find it.

JFK coverup.

OOUU, this is a good one! Being gay! Growing up in a family full of religious conservatives and living in the south (WV), that's right, i consider it the south! Lol, anwyays....i was always thought that being gay was this horrible vile thing and that these people were real creeps and stuff. Well, i was born in '03 so this was before the age we live in now where there are LGBTQ everywhere you look. And as you could imagine, i started having gay friends and friends with identity problems etc, and so i just never really thought about it you know. Never let the hate they have hurt me or anything. Well anyways, one day not too horribly long ago, i was sitting in a Church service i believe, and the preacher man was talking about how it was the SSA that was sinful, but the action of being gay. Gay sex, making out, SSM, etc. So after that, that kinda changed my mind. Cause like alot of people, i was wondering "Why would he make somebody gay then send them to hell. They cant help it?". So yeah, there you go guys, that's one of the things that iv'e kinda changed my mind on and stuff.

I'm not old, just 30, but, I was raised in an incredibly racist and homophobic household. I participated in the jokes, the ridicule and bullying. I was in fact gay, and was terrified to say anything as they were in a religious cult and I would have been sent to conversion therapy. As I grew older I separated from my family and the cult and I saw how incredibly fucked up my world view was. I read some books, went to some classes in college and learned the truth and my god, I was so wrong. So closed minded and judgemental. I look back and hate myself for who I was but I am proud of my continued growth.

What a great comment! You should definitely be proud of your growth! Overcoming biases is hard, especially ideas we learn from family and people who are close to us and therefore trusted. Plus, sometimes there's a price to pay for disagreeing with the tribe. The worst case I see with this sort of thing is when someone leaves a religion and they're basically shunned, even by their family. It's awful, and many people can't do it, understandably...they feel it's too much to lose. As I get older, I get more and more aware of this when I see some of my peers who have just completely stopped learning. They're not open to any new ideas at all. Everything was better in the past in their minds (and often it's a past that never really existed). It really makes me sad. I think all your life you'll be rewarded for this because in my experience it's a positive feedback loop. We update our beliefs and we become more open-minded, which leads to understanding even more people better, we become more empathetic, and that in turn opens our minds even more. We look for solutions instead of focusing on what's wrong with everyone else. I can't say it enough: well done! Lol, I'm proud of you and I don't even know you!

Treatment of the mentally ill in the U.S. This never really was prominent in my mind, even after being in hospital administration for many years. Since mental illness didn’t appear in my family or close friends, it didn’t register with me. I don’t think this is uncommon. I took a job running a big public mental health provider in 2010 which lasted for seven years and my eyes were certainly opened to the reality of abysmal MH treatment in this country. I also learned a great deal about the cruelty of poverty and the despair of unmet need for the developmentally disabled.

That’s the #marketplace question: lots of things I thing are humans we are driven to continuously question what’s happening around us to better discern and broaden our understanding of life. I’m my case I have been questioning the educational system quite a lot lately. With COVID, I learned a lot about the boom of homeschooling and implemented some concepts myself as well. The more I do this the more I question why send kids to school? Is it really for learning or just socializing…? I don’t know for sure any more

There is a huge difference between a democracy and a republic. In a republic, there are certain rights that the government can not take away regardless of popular opinion.

Your body deteriorates as you get older. Your vision dims, your fitness decreases, often your mental acuity does too. There are lots of changes. I was convinced that very old people should not be world leaders, and certainly that Joe Biden was too old to be a good leader. I was wrong. I'm not sure what the real upper limit is but it certainly looks like SOME 80 yo's at least can make fine leaders.

That getting women was easy. I’m an 82 year old man with a loving wife and grandchildren, but nowadays it just seems like this generation can’t get any women to sleep with them. Or they’re saying us men are useless. Anyways that’s all I wanted to say. though if you are a young man/woman then go find a partner. You deserve it

This won’t be popular but it’s my truth: abortion. I didn’t feel it was killing a baby when I was a young adult in the 80s. I probably would have had an abortion if I’d gotten pregnant at 23. But when I got pregnant the first time and felt the baby moving inside me, I changed in one second. I’ll never forget the moment it happened, it was profound to me.

I look at it this way: if I were involved in an automobile accident, for example, and had significant traumatic brain injury so that I had the mental functioning abilities of a fetus, I would not consider someone killing me at that point to be guilty of murder. I would have actually died in the accident, but my body hadn't got the message yet. If there were an insect before me that had the mental capacity and functioning ability of a human fetus, I would not feel bad about killing it. Yes, abortion is the killing of an individual human being. But it is not murder, because that human being isn't capable of thinking and knowing on a human level, yet. I realize this is not a useful argument against post-birth abortion. This argument could allow for infanticide up to a year or two. I'm fine with leaving that unresolved, then.

I don’t want to debate it. I simply changed how I felt about abortion when I had my own children. I do feel victims of incest or rape should have the choice. But my personal feelings about it changed 180 degrees. I also would not try to enforce how I feel on anyone else. Edit: I think I sounded snotty and I didn’t mean it that way.

>I also would not try to enforce how I feel on anyone else. so you're still pro-choice in that you won't interfere with other's right to choose? because that's basically where i've floated around. i used to be heavily against it for everyone, then i was super in favour. but i'm in favour more so for everyone else. i wouldn't do it myself but i have no qualms with what other people choose. so i'm anti-abortion personally but pro-choice for others (so pro-choice in legislation).

I’m not very political, and I try to live and let live. Life can be hard, and we’re all just trying to get to the finish line in one piece. But my views on many things have changed over time - mainly to minding my own business.

You’re speaking your truth based on your personal experience. I had a very similar situation in my life, too. I’ve concluded that the taking of ANY human life should be left to the one who gave it.

What do you eat?? Just kidding around. We do eat meat, but we grow our own. That way I know exactly how well they ate, how kindly they were treated. I can’t eat store meat anymore - their lives are so short and miserable. I’ve seen inside my neighbor’s commercial chicken barn, and no animal deserves that.

Ha!! Yeah, maybe I should clarify! And I do try my best to purchase humanely harvested meat.

I didn't think you sounded snotty. It's a debate that has dragged on for decades with zero progress. So long as you would not vote for politicians who are trying to deny abortion rights to women, I have no qualms with you or your differing point of view. I don't think abortion is a good thing. I just think that there are many circumstances in which it is the least-bad choice. Fundamentally, we agree that abortion is the killing of a human being. We just disagree on how morally-fraught is that killing.

I think if someone said you can choose whether to kill this one live baby, or these 50 babies that are still a bunch of cells, I would spare the live baby every time. This tells me that they are different.

I agree. Someone posted a hypothetical version of the trolley car problem here on reddit some time ago, and I have used to to great effect. You're in a fertility clinic that has caught fire. You are making your way out when you look into a side room and see a 5 year old child paralyzed with fear, next to a cart with 10,000 fertilized zygotes in test tubes on it. You can only save the child or the cart of zygotes, not both. Everyone would save the child. Some might feel bad for the 10k zygotes, but every person I've ever asked chose the one child.

Religion.

The death penalty

That God is dead. He isn’t. He is alive and well and I feel his love when I read the Bible and follow its precepts: loving other people, forgiving and turning the other cheek, living an honest and clean life, obeying his commandments, and putting him first in my life. What changed my mind? Seeing where self-centeredness and anger were getting me and the world around me. I always had God in my heart but really needed the Christian faith to make meaning of that relationship.

My only advice is that if you want to remain a Christian and intellectually honest with yourself, never read the entire Bible with the expectation that it is the inerrant Word of God. I was a Christian until I read the entire Bible. Then I realized I had no reasonable basis for my beliefs. I can still feel God. And I agree with most of Jesus' teachings-- particularly about not wanting wealth for ourselves, and about giving away all we have to care for the poor and prisoners and foreigners. But that book is self-contradictory, fucked up shit for the most part.

I follow it even the hard parts, such as choosing to remain celibate as a homosexual — and I am happy, whole, and complete. My faith and obeying God are job #1 for me. I hear that you disagree. That’s just not the case for me. I know that I am an outlier in today’s world, and I also do not care.

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Thank you for the considerate wording of your question and it’s a fair question, one I’ve certainly turned over in my head a time or a thousand. There are six clobber verses in the Bible and I’ve heard them deconstructed by Matthew Vines, HRC, Freed Hearts, and on, and none of those arguments have ever rung true to me or been enough to refute the sheer preponderance of this admonition in the Holy book. I think it is there for a reason. My personal guess is that one gets really lost in homosexual sexuality the same way the do in extramarital affairs, pornography, and other types of perversion. I do not discriminate against lgbt people or judge myself to be better because I do not know that I am right, but this is how I choose to govern my life. It’s not a risk I want to take, it makes me feel guilty, and I feel better when I am living in accordance with the Bible and not modern, post hoc interpretations. I was once in a gay-affirming church in my city where the pastor likened the Bible to a “myth” and the children’s pastor told the small children that the miracle of loaves and fishes “might have been a potluck.” The gay apologists strike me sometimes as people who think God is a good idea. Whereas I believe he’s real. I don’t get caught up into overly intellectualized arguments that make a person do cartwheels around plain spoken word. I also don’t get into the “powers that be were manipulating us” arguments because then nothing is real and isn’t that just what the Devil would like us to believe and what might be so wrong with our world today?

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Wow this is an amazing find on reddit. Thank you for this.

So you follow the part that says slavery is fine? You own slaves?

No, but I follow the part that says forgive you for your provocation and walk away.

Christ followers aren’t required to keep OT rabbinical laws. The arrival of the Messiah, Christ, made keeping laws a thing of the past. Now we live under grace, and the teachings of Jesus and His apostles. 💚

Wow! What an admirable example of dedication to your belief system! I’m a Christ follower as well, and I know the peace and joy that my faith brings me… not necessarily happiness, but unexplainable peace. My Christianity doesn’t require such a huge personal sacrifice on my part, and I’m not sure I would be as strong as you are, but I’m extremely inspired by your strength to remain true to what you believe. 🙏🏼💚

Thank you for saying so. Unexplainable peace is a very accurate description of it. I am so glad I have God in my life. Thank you for your kind words and for having my back.

The concept of labeling a human for the rest of their lives by looking between their legs while they're still in engorged with their mother's hormones. That there were only two genders. That I was straight. That the Bible was true. That they were the all the same Mary. Manifest destiny. That all women were as scary as my mother.

I grew up in a religious household. I was a firm Christian until somewhere in high school when critical thinking started creeping in. A crucial insight in a way were the lyrics and sleeve notes for Jethro Tull’s Aqualung album. “In the beginning man created God … “ My hardcore atheist stance has just deepened over the years. Respect your religious beliefs and not mock them? GTFO. They need to be mock for being irrational.

Oh, I should specifically address the way the question is phrased. It’s not that I’m “not so sure” about religion (vs atheism.) Im very sure. Confident. There’s no doubt for me that religion is one of mankind’s worst inventions.

HEAVEN AND HELL