As of right now, I do not feel like anything matter, nor any life. If my life matters, all other lives matter. If my life does not matter, neither does anyone else's. This is potentially the school of thought that causes school shootings, not that I am considering that. But the reason I come to the page in the first place is to seek whether or not life has meaning or not. I can not find it. Be it finite or not, life doesn't matter. Either way, I will still always be able to ask; why? I don't find meaning in anything, how can we say that having relationships has any value if it is finite, and if it is infinite, the question still stands. I am not feeling like there is any point to life, even though I grew up christian and should be all "oh yeah, there's plenty of purpose in life!" but I am not. TLDR

As a native of Pittsburgh I grew up of Fred Rogers.. A great man and a great show.

Public television can be just as great under private hands. does not need tax dollars for support. A proper board of directors can steer its direction on its same path.

You're right but at the same time I have quite enjoyed television movies and low budget films with that special someone in the cast. For example, I thought the Amityville Horror with Patty Duke (the 4th movie, I believe) was pretty interesting, and not even despite its low budget, because of it.

Besides you're not 100% correct about how the single star drains the pool of resources. Oftentimes these stars act as investment magnets, so people are more willing to help produce the film if it has a star such as Shirley MacClaine. Look at Reservoir Dogs -- did Harvey Keitel detract or attract from the success of the film, and the long term successes of Quentin Tarrantino, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth and Chris Penn? Like international acclaim -- for a low budget flick from a nobody.

I'm always very curious about these types of films. It requires, for me, an almost scientific, socioeconomic evaluation of the film making process to fully appreciate, or just a curiosity of film and social interactions portrayed in film and around film sets and the bureaucracy of generating the funds and jerryrigging devices to fulfill smaller budget scenarios which drive such a project as this to fruition.

I'm very interested in seeing this movie because it looks like it could actually be good and not just a thing to pan because of the limitations.

I had a film professor who wrote a couple Jean Claude Van Damme direct to DVD movies and his view of film projects was that they are nearly impossible to complete objectives that require self sacrifice and a warrior spirit to fully realize.

Films remind me of how different societies growths are based upon resource allocation, so some societies become empires and some remain scattered tribes and disparate families. Same as in film; this is like a missing link. Strange and curious to behold but human.

Besides, you don't give a fuck about mermaid movies. This is being made for kids that like mermaids lol -- I grew up watching Disney's Little Mermaid, had every word of the film memorized, but I'm certain it didn't matter that it had a better staff and bigger budget because I also had a made for tv dinosaur movie's rap song memorized and written down in phonetic child sound language.

-..."they" in that sentence is the Catholics and Protestants.....it's your topic. In a general sense, it applies to most religions as individual groups, and the more dogmatic the followers are, the less tolerant of any dissent they become.

I can read. It's in the bible, and never contradicted or eradicated from the religious 'law'...so it's not what I define their beliefs to be, it's what the bible defines their beliefs to be, and if they don't follow it, what in the hell are they 'believing'?

I think you won't provide evidence because you can't. Someone's misinterpretation of the clear instructions, that let you off the hook for following them, means nothing when you have the clear text to read.

Only one hefty book matters in this instance, and it's undeniably clear. If you don't murder infidels, you don't follow the bible's teachings and so must deny it's God's law....making it nothing but a terrible book of fairy tales.

Edit: I think there's a disconnect about disrespect here. Atheists may not respect your beliefs with lip service and placations, but most religions require the complete eradication of differing beliefs. Atheists absolutely respect your right to believe any nonsense you want to, even if we may try to convince you why you're wrong. Religions invariably do not exhibit that base level of respect, how can you possibly claim they are more respectful?
Could it be that atheists are more respectful, enough to engage the 'other', so SEEM more disrespectful because they're up front and honest about their disrespect for beliefs, while religious people might smile but rarely actually engage in discussion/debate for fear of actually having to defend their indefensible beliefs, so just consider them a subhuman demon to be avoided as much as possible and backstabbed at every opportunity because they, let's say, think Saturday is the Sabbath?
I grew up in Texas, I have plenty of experience with 'Christian respect' for the beliefs of others (or lack thereof)....and it's nearly non existent there. I was told more than once that if I don't believe in God or Jesus my opinion didn't matter, and I wasn't welcome there, and deserved death. A few of those respectful Christians tried to beat some Jesus into me....but never one on one, and never successfully.

Don't most of you know, especially those who grew up in Christian homes, that Christians are commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ to proselytize?

Mark 16:15

And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation

Christians who don't proselytize are actually in disobedience to the Lord.

Second, what kind of people would Christians be if they didn't proselytize? Knowing that people all around them are headed towards eternal death, and keeping the only way to escape it to themselves? Penn Jillette understands this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6md638smQd8

I understand why people are uncomfortable being proselytized to, especially when people yell at them or try to make them feel bad. That isn't the way you're supposed to do it. The bible says to speak the truth in *love*. If you don't fundamentally care about the person you are talking to and have a genuine concern for their soul, it isn't going to be fruitful.

I grew up in a Christian home (Methodist) but never really bought in and considered myself an atheist from about ~12 years old or so.

@poolcleaner said that atheists might be the worst at "respect(ing) my beliefs and recogniz(ing) that I am not recruiting them and they are not recruiting me".

There's two parts of that. Respecting other beliefs, and not proselytizing.

Just speaking for myself, I would say that I am an atheist specifically because I don't respect the Christian beliefs that I grew up with, and feel much the same way about the dogmatic elements of any religion. Most religions share the basic tenet of the "Golden Rule" (or claim that they do), and as far as I am concerned that is the only thing of value to be found in any religion -- although it can exist perfectly fine outside of any religious context.

That's where proselytizing comes in though. For a while when I was younger, I wanted to "spread the good news" of atheism -- to show others what was so obvious and important to me, that idea that the Golden Rule works just as well outside of any religious context. I was "indignant" (as poolcleaner put it) and quick to tell people that I am atheist and to sort of "pick a fight" about it. I wanted to show people just how stupid and wrong they were.

I think LOTS of atheists are like that, especially early on after they part ways with religion. To be fair, a lot of that is defensiveness since atheists tend to get proselytized to a LOT by Christians that learn/discover that they are an atheist -- especially in the US.

Now I'm 20 years older and I live in a country that is 95% Buddhist, 4% Islamic, and 1% Christian/Other. Thailand isn't even really close to the most diverse Asian country in religious terms (Singapore has 5 religions with 10%+ of the population, with Buddhist being the most at 34%) but there is an air of practiced religious acceptance / tolerance here that is WAY different from back home in the US.

I'd wager that amongst the major religions, Christianity might contain the highest percentage of the "proselytizing type" -- those that really strongly believe in the message enough to want to spread it to those who don't, or those that have never really questioned their beliefs but who nonetheless buy in enough to think that it is important to get it out there. On the other hand, there are many more Christians who may be very strong believers but who are comfortable keeping that all internal and not proselytizing.

With atheists, I'd say that there is a high correlation between being very "out" / open about their atheism and being the "proselytizing type" of atheist. So, if you know that someone is an atheist, it is fairly likely that they will be a bit "indignant" about it. If someone is an atheist but doesn't feel the need to inform others about it, most people would never know/assume they were an atheist. I'm not talking about "closeted" atheists; just the difference between those who are going to tell you within 10 minutes of meeting you that they are an atheist without the subject ever coming up, and those that will only mention it if you directly ask them about it.

Keeping that it mind, I can actually believe that from an outside perspective, known atheists might be more aggressive than known Christians just due to that sort of selection bias. Maybe.

Look
If you had
One shot
Or one opportunity
To release all the energy you ever wanted
In one moment
Would you abuse it
Or use it for good?

They've armed the weapon
Countdown clock is set and
J. Robert Oppenheimer is sweatin'
Eyes are red and he's nervous
Cause on the surface this is armageddon
The shock bomb, but we're set upon and threatened
And with no sound the whole Alamogordo ground
Is glowing and cowed under one smouldering cloud
He's choked and wowed, everybody's open-mouthed
And over the ground the shock front blows, kapow!
Snap back to the alchemy
Hope before tragedy
Showed with bold math that we broke the whole atom
We choked; controlled action with poles of cold cadmium coat
To go capture neutrons and slow fracture
We broke, postponed that and we chose to go fashion
A most radioactive plutonium gadget then
Fat Man and Boy and Enola goes laughin'
As Nagasaki is blown and Hiroshima's blasted

You gotta choose, yourself how to use it
The knowledge you hold and
Don't ever let a letter go
You only get one shot to stop
And one chance to know
Responsibility comes once you're a science guy, yo!

Neutrons escaping from a source radiating
Merge and start atoms shaking; they begin
To unglue toward a decreased order
Entropic force distorts em
And supercharged with loads of protons they can only go farther
Cold war grows hotter--exothermal--Colorado to Joe Stalin
Coast to coast holes; silos but there's no farmer
Toe-to-toe drama
NATO and Warszawa in co-assured trauma
The globe groans everyone knows there's no calming
So show your foes and implode your core column
Quid pro quo Castle Bravo for Tsar Bomba
And move on and leave atolls exposed to gross doses of old fallout;
Slow-to-go toxins in shoals and so though we explode them no longer
Still the proof lives on in the blue lagoon water, father

You gotta choose, yourself how to use it
The knowledge you hold and
Don't ever let a letter go
You only get one shot to stop
And one chance to know
Responsibility comes once you're a science guy, yo!

When war games hit the stage of a gluon's rage
There's a military boot on the new doc's page
We were playing in the beginning, but grew up strange
Making radar and missiles, and new bombs blazed
And we kept grinding the lensed sights for the next sniper
Best believe son it'll pay to design fighters
All the gains of science analyzed by the
Man provide plans for sarin and cyanide
And our hands are blighted by crying
Eyes when dying lands are slammed if our grants expand the fire brighter
And there's no jury there's no sublime righter
This is our fight
And these minds are all ours so protect your pia mater
Try to feed and water good, seed trust, flee dishonour
Gotta be clean being Apollo stead of Vietnam and
Lay the armour down and be the one to stand up
And lead us on the trail of Spock
We'll elevate these motley progeny
To a future in a safer spot, an irrigated plot
Homicide a way forgot
Success is a lack of military options
Failure's not
Become a lover of a great and cosmic goal
We cannot condone these terror plots
So here we go it's our shot
Feel frail or not
This is the only world and humanity that we got

You gotta choose, yourself how to use it
The knowledge you hold and
Don't ever let a letter go
You only get one shot to stop
And one chance to know
Responsibility comes once you're a science guy, yo!

You gotta make your own mind up, man.

So yeah, im a half in, half out of the closet trans person living a genderfluid reality. Complicated existence, and unlesz you're in the demographic or a serious ally, you just don't understand what it's like. This isn't a new revelation, I have known this about myself as long as i have had self awareness.

I grew up during the Reagan era, so no one gave a shit that I thought I was a girl.

Literally just shit on and reshaped and fear thunderstruck, raped, molested as a form of homosexual comversion -- you got this shit?

I just didn't understand what people meant when they were trying to explain the differencez between male and female because i was CERTAIN i was a girl when I was 3 years old. And yes i have those memories. In fact, the age of 4 through 7 are the most vivid and awful memories of my reality an you may stare theough me and rwfuse to understand if you want, but like the song says "We exist." (By Arcade Fire; Cool song even if the musician isnt trans.)

Anyway. We are just shit on. I'm used to it. A friend of mine used to call me a white nigger and honestly, as racial insensitive as that is (a black guy telling me this) that is the feeling. Police brutality and all. Whatever. You dont want to understand so just dont bother. I got sick to death of explaining this so long ago it doent matter to me. How fu king sad is that? How fu ling sad is my goddamn perspective? How can I even be happy in this world? Its shit.

Logic: If you are so afraid we are a bunch of rapists, what about gay people who aren't transgender -- where do they take a pee where people won't fear them molesting people of the same sex? I mean, is there going to be a "Gays Only" and "Transgender Only" bathroom?? It doesn't make sense even if you fear us.

And in my humble and humiliated existence, gay people have wanted nothing to do with me and have even tried to convert and change my opinions of myself. Even in the middle of FUCKING LA PRIDE. Assholez like that CUNT Milo. He can go DIE.

It doesn't make sense. Have you ever peed in a Men's Restroom with a dress on? Totally awkward.

I know I'm using colloquialisms and non-PC language, but I'm just really depressed about this -- as if I wasn't already depressed about everything all the time lol

Republicans. Fuck you. I have no other means of relating my disappointment in the entirity of all reality -- the very fabric of this universe is hate.

You are gonna hate me now, but I grew up reading Dean Koontz and Stephen King years before the librarian at my middle suggested Lovecraft, so 12? My first Stephen King was Night Shift, with the eye in the middle of a mummified hand; Jerusalem's Lot ruined my ability to sleep. For some strange reason Lovecraft comforted me but King disturbed me lol -- My first Lovecraft reading was The Festival.

Anyway, it's my mom's fault, i jus read whatever she had lying around the house, which also included Mary Higgins Clark, Robert Ludlum, Danielle Steel, Michael Crichton, and who even knows what else.

Totally agree in having absorbed the material rather than fully understood. I mean shit, how does a 4th grader even under The Rising Sun? It's just shocking and strange. Like d3coding a new language.

I also read a lot of young adult thriller suspense books, notably Alfred Hitchcock's young readers books and short story collections. Ray Bradbury collections, random Asimov Foundation books, and old copies of Analog, that my dad would buy from local library sales. (Thas how poor people shop for books hahaha) He was the old school scifi guy, but not at all into horror.

I suppose I don't mind hacks. Reading the letters of Oscar Wilde changed my opinions on EVERYTHING. If Wilde belongs to the criminal class or what Danny Devito's character Frank terms the "Fringe" class, there must be some saving grace even in the intellectual crime of the hack writer.

@bcglorf

i don't think using @drradon 's example of anarchy a good use as a rebuttal.

now may be larken rose's vision is an extreme example,taken from the von mises institute,and where they dreamily offer a counter to police with a "non-aggression principle".while cute and adorable,humans tend to be far more vicious and violent in nature,especially when desperate.

but again,i think our respective approaches to authority will not find common ground here.

i do not seek a leader,but i am ok with a representative,though i do not seem to have any in my government at the moment.

i find it curious,amazing and not a little disturbing just how easily people will quietly,and tacitly accept a police that has become more and more draconian,violent and aggressive while SIMULTANEOUSLY decreasing the citizens rights to protect themselves,defend themselves and resist unlawful police practices.

because they simply change the law to make what WAS illegal...legal.with a stroke of a pen.

and i simply cannot respect when an american says,without any sense of justice or history,to just sit down,shut up and do what you are told.

while claiming they are a patriot,waving their american flag made in china.

the history of law enforcement in this country reveals that their main job,their main focus and duty is NOT to the poor,the dispossessed or the marginalized.

the police's job is to protect those who hold assets,who have money and wield political power.

and before you say anything,i am quite aware that there are some,and they are the majority,who do their job with honor and distinction.my argument is not about singular police officers but rather the systematic problems inherent in the system.

lets take my city for example.
i am blessed enough to live adjacent to a very wealthy and influential housing development.

average police response time?=7 minutes.

right down the street,not 10 miles down the road,is a depressed area of town.industry and manufacturing abandoned that area 20 years ago.it is stricken with prostitution,heroin addicts and abject poverty.

average police response time?=22 minutes

yet the main police station is in THAT area.

or should i bring up the history of american labor movement?
where the coal miners in west virginia decided to strike,and because the owners of the mines were politically connected.the governor sent in the state police to...and this should send chills down your spine...shoot any miners unwilling to go back to work.

and they did.
they murdered any coal miner still willing to stand up against the owners of the mine,and this included women and children.

now lets examine that for a minute.
workers for a coal mine decided to strike for better working conditions (which were horrible) and actually have a day off,besides sunday (because:god).

the owner of the mine,who was losing immense of amount of money due to zero production of coal,called the governor to have the state police,a civil institution,sent in to put those people down.to force them to either get back to work or face violence.

*now the owner brought in his own mercenary group to assist in the process of intimidation,strong arm tactics and violence.

i will add one more story that is personal,and comes from my own family,and may possibly explain my attitude towards police in general.

my father was born in 1930,in alton illinois.
now that small town had been hit particularly hard during the depression.my father spoke of not having indoor plumbing until he went into the navy,and how the floors in his childhood home were simple boards over dirt.

he grew up extremely poor,and my grandfather struggled to find steady work,and i gather from what my father told me.my grandpa made bootleg beer out of the bathtub.so he and his 6 brothers and 1 sister had to bathe in the mississippi river while grandpa tried to make money by selling illegal hooch.

my father also regaled me with stories of the chores he had as the youngest of 8 kids.it was his job every morning to head to the train tracks and pick the coal that dropped from the coal carts.(which he admitted to being lazy and stole directly from the very full coal cart itself while his brother kept an eye out for the station master).

my point is that my father grew up in desperate and poor times.

but one story always stood out,and i think it is because it has a wild west feel to it that always transfixed me,and i made him tell me the story over and over as a child.

when times are tough,people will do whatever they have to in order to survive,so my grandfather making illegal hooch was not the only illegalities being played out in that small town.neighbor upon neighbor did what they had to,and most were considered criminals in the eyes of the state.

so i guess one of my grandpa's friends was on the run from the law,and sought refuge at my grandpa's home.which he allowed,because neighbors take care of neighbors,at least they used to.

well,in a small town everybody knows everybody,and eventually three police officers showed up at my grandpa's house,and demanded that he turn over (i forgot the guys name).

and i remember the pride on my fathers face whenever he retold this story....

my grandfather stood tall on the top of his stairs facing his front door,holding his gun he was given during WW1 and told the police officers (which he knew.small town remember?),that if they took one step into his home..he would blow their heads off.

now this is a story retold from a childs perspective many years later.i am sure my fathers memory was a tad....biased..but i would bet the meaty parts were accurate.

now my question is this:
how would that exact same scenario play out in todays climate?

well,we would see on the 6 o'clock news how a family was tragically shot to death for harboring a criminal and that the police had done EVERYTHING in their power to avoid this kind of violence.

i know this is long,and i hope i didn't lose you along the way,but i think we should not dismiss the very real slow decent into a society that silently obeys,quietly accepts more and more authoritarian powers all in the name of "safety",and that any form of resistance is to be viewed as "criminal" and "troublesome".

so while i agree that "when should we shoot a cop" should be in the realm of:let us try to never do that.

i also cannot agree to placing cops on a hero platform as if their job is somehow sacrosanct and beyond reproach.they are human beings,of limited intellect,whose main job it is to protect those who own property,have wealth and wield political power.

and with the current disparity and blatant inequality their job has been more and more focused on keeping those 30% undesirables down.

the poor,the destitute,the marginalized,the addict and the junkie and the petty criminals.

those are a threat to the "better" citizens.they are a blight on a community that should be cleansed from the tender eyes of those who are deemed more "worthy".

rich folk may wring their hands,and lament the plight of the poor and wretched,but for GOD's sakes! they don't want to actually SEE them!

so a police officer can do all the mental gymnastics they want in order to justify their place in society,but at the end of the day,they serve the elites.

and they always have.

I grew up with 'sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me'. I wish my generation had taught that to their kids.

I grew up in Texas where gays were beaten on sight, civil rights workers would go missing and that fact publicly cheered (slightly before my time), and many women are still expected to be totally subservient. Maybe not exactly your examples, but close enough for me to make my point.

Okay, folks. History is converging here through six degrees of separation.

Long story. I think it is worth your time.

I grew up with a father who said terribly racist things, the n- word, disparaging remarks about all races. There was much screaming and bitter words from me for a lot of my childhood and well into my 20s.

After he died, I got into a short email exchange with someone I didn't know at all. A former co-worker of my father.

My dad's job, as I have said here before, was Range Safety Officer. His job was to blow up missiles that went off course. (No person has blown up more missiles, and no one will ever catch up to him, since they know how to do it now.)

In my email exchanges with "Teddy", I find out slowly that Teddy is a woman. The first woman in the Range Safety Flight arena. She tells me that she was treated horribly in those early days. Except for three of her co-workers, who mentored and helped her.

One of those men was my father.

Oh.

And then she reveals that she is Hispanic.

Dang.

So my dad talked nasty at home, and acted MORE THAN honorably at work. I wish I had known that when he was alive.

Then she tells me that her daughter became an engineer also, and is currently working in Range Safety.

Wow.

Fast forward to last week. I watch Hidden Figures, the movie about black women helping in the first manned space launches. They were in Langley VA, while my dad was stationed in Cape Canaveral, not NASA but the Air Force, working on unmanned missions. But still. It all came flooding back to me -- how my dad was one of the good guys. (It was also cool to see all the actual news footage of people on the beach and parades and what-all -- I was there with my family, doing those things.)

This reminded me of Teddy. I sent her an email, telling her that I was reminded of her story and how touched anew I was.

Then the Falcon 9 launch happened. This launch on this video.

The next day, I got a response from her. Here is her email to me, lightly edited:

Thank you so much for thinking of me. The 60's were a time quite different than today. This morning It came to me just how far we women have come since then.

I stood on the balcony of my house and watched the launch of a Falcon Rocket take off in all its glory from Vandenberg knowing my daughter was the Lead Flight Safety Analyst on that mission. For the last couple of months I have listened to her tell me about all the problems she has had to deal with in preparing all the destruct lines, impact limit lines and all the other things that go into getting the mission package ready for launch and knowing what she was talking about. Boy, was I jealous. I really miss being in the middle of all that. I was/am very PROUD of my little girl being part of the missions leaving out of Vandenberg and knowing I played a small part in making all that happen just like those ladies in Hidden Figures. I have not seen the movie yet but my friends and I are looking forward to it coming to Lompoc so I can see it

Your Dad would be surprised to learn that most of the new Flight Safety Analysts are now all women.

I grew up in a small cum and joke mine town out Californee way.

Updated graphics look great! I don't get the beef, but then again I grew up on Atari and Commodore 64 graphics. Graphics ain't really mah thing.