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My retirement plan is my grandfather's M1911. All I've got to do is pull the trigger and the nightmare stops. Knowing I can opt out at any time helps me get thr

My retirement plan is my grandfather's M1911. All I've got to do is pull the trigger and the nightmare stops. Knowing I can opt out at any time helps me get through a lot of bad shit.

uticus 4y ago
As a software programmer who focuses way too much on logic - and who furthermore can't tell the difference between sarcasm, good humor, or direct honesty - it really sticks out to me that your comment may well be based on wrong assumptions about the afterlife. As a Christian, I prefer relying on the good old ways of God's revealed Word in Scripture.
- TheMoonToMyLeft 4y ago
  > it really sticks out to me that your comment may well be based on wrong assumptions about the afterlife My assumption, if you can call it that, is that the only afterlife for which we have any empirical evidence is fame. If there's life after death, it's in the memories of those we left behind. I'm not too worried about that. People will either remember me or they won't; that's beyond my control and thus not my problem. > As a Christian, I prefer relying on the good old ways of God's revealed Word in Scripture. Is this really the place to proselytize? Hasn't it occurred to you that I most likely grew up culturally Christian at the bare minimum, and if I don't exhibit Christian beliefs there might be a reason for that? I grew up Catholic. I'm not any sort of Christian today and haven't been since I was 18. I've never believed in any god, whether it's Crom or Yahweh -- but when you're an unbelieving child in a family of believers it's safer to fly false colors until you've gotten your own ship and sailed into open waters before you hoist the Jolly Roger. Since I don't believe in the Christian God, the Bible is not the revealed Word of God to me but merely the words of men, translated by men. Since the Bible is only literature to me, I have no more reason to believe that it is a true account of historical events than I do to believe that the events of the Iliad actually happened. In fact, because archaeologists have found a site that may well have been Troy, it's a little more plausible to believe that a bunch of Achaean kings besieged a city because one of them got cuckolded than it is to believe that a Jewish carpenter turned rabbi was somehow both God and the son of God and rose from death three days after he died screaming on a Roman cross -- though I suspect both tales grew in the telling before they were finally written down. I'm not going to tell you that your beliefs are wrong. But they are precisely that: your beliefs. I don't share them. I have no objection to them as long as you are content to live by them without shoving them down my throat. Nevertheless, they do not give you standing to say that my assumptions about what comes after death are wrong. We could both be wrong; for all either of us know, the only afterlife that awaits any of us is an eternity serving as sentient chew toys for Yog-Sothoth.
  - uticus 4y ago
    > Is this really the place to proselytize? You offered suicide as a solution. I appeal for an equal chance to offer solace in anything up to and including that level of finality. > But they are precisely that: your beliefs...I don't share them...they do not give you standing to say that my assumptions about what comes after death are wrong. Actually my beliefs do exactly give me standing to say something about this. Unlike a belief in... well, a belief that nobody knows. Lastly let me lovingly point out it is strange to find comfort in a pistol if you truly believe nobody knows... seems to me like you would do like any other gambler and hedge your bets, instead of leaning hard in one direction. But hey, I've acted irrationally before too. I get it.

My retirement plan is my grandfather's M1911. All I've got to do is pull the trigger and the nightmare stops. Knowing I can opt out at any time helps me get through a lot of bad shit.

uticus 4y ago

As a software programmer who focuses way too much on logic - and who furthermore can't tell the difference between sarcasm, good humor, or direct honesty - it really sticks out to me that your comment may well be based on wrong assumptions about the afterlife. As a Christian, I prefer relying on the good old ways of God's revealed Word in Scripture.

TheMoonToMyLeft 4y ago
> it really sticks out to me that your comment may well be based on wrong assumptions about the afterlife My assumption, if you can call it that, is that the only afterlife for which we have any empirical evidence is fame. If there's life after death, it's in the memories of those we left behind. I'm not too worried about that. People will either remember me or they won't; that's beyond my control and thus not my problem. > As a Christian, I prefer relying on the good old ways of God's revealed Word in Scripture. Is this really the place to proselytize? Hasn't it occurred to you that I most likely grew up culturally Christian at the bare minimum, and if I don't exhibit Christian beliefs there might be a reason for that? I grew up Catholic. I'm not any sort of Christian today and haven't been since I was 18. I've never believed in any god, whether it's Crom or Yahweh -- but when you're an unbelieving child in a family of believers it's safer to fly false colors until you've gotten your own ship and sailed into open waters before you hoist the Jolly Roger. Since I don't believe in the Christian God, the Bible is not the revealed Word of God to me but merely the words of men, translated by men. Since the Bible is only literature to me, I have no more reason to believe that it is a true account of historical events than I do to believe that the events of the Iliad actually happened. In fact, because archaeologists have found a site that may well have been Troy, it's a little more plausible to believe that a bunch of Achaean kings besieged a city because one of them got cuckolded than it is to believe that a Jewish carpenter turned rabbi was somehow both God and the son of God and rose from death three days after he died screaming on a Roman cross -- though I suspect both tales grew in the telling before they were finally written down. I'm not going to tell you that your beliefs are wrong. But they are precisely that: your beliefs. I don't share them. I have no objection to them as long as you are content to live by them without shoving them down my throat. Nevertheless, they do not give you standing to say that my assumptions about what comes after death are wrong. We could both be wrong; for all either of us know, the only afterlife that awaits any of us is an eternity serving as sentient chew toys for Yog-Sothoth.
- uticus 4y ago
  > Is this really the place to proselytize? You offered suicide as a solution. I appeal for an equal chance to offer solace in anything up to and including that level of finality. > But they are precisely that: your beliefs...I don't share them...they do not give you standing to say that my assumptions about what comes after death are wrong. Actually my beliefs do exactly give me standing to say something about this. Unlike a belief in... well, a belief that nobody knows. Lastly let me lovingly point out it is strange to find comfort in a pistol if you truly believe nobody knows... seems to me like you would do like any other gambler and hedge your bets, instead of leaning hard in one direction. But hey, I've acted irrationally before too. I get it.