I think enough time and energy has been wasted on Joe_Angry and his wife. It seems clear that most folks on this board (and probably in real life) have a very good idea of what kind of pathetic person Joe is.
Unfortunately, some people will never learn. Sad, yes; but that’s life.
Fortunately, more people are now aware of Joe’s vitriolic agenda and character, and will take that into account when they hear his hateful nonsense.
Hold your own beliefs, and stay out of mine. Who exactly are you, that you’re entitled to judge how real God is supposed to be to anybody else? How exactly do you come by that qualification?
And re: empathy, same question as I asked gobear and Polycarp: Do you cry when you watch the news or read an obituary? No? So where’s your empathy? Yet you judge me because I didn’t cry over the suicide of some kid I never met and have zero connection with, beyond similar interests in math and science? I come to this board to discuss things, not to cry over them.
I have never said anything remotely resembling this.
And I’m a sociopath because I don’t concern myself with whether a bunch of strangers like me? You have issues, dude.
While I recognize that this is more of a world view than a proposition for public debate, I confess, this makes me curious. If you don’t mind answering, of course.
Why do you believe this? What kinds of experiences have you had that lead you to believe that individuals in our society are so ill-equipped for modern life that they cannot overcome adversity without entitlement and must rely on a therapist to “cure” us of desire? This is a pretty resounding condemnation and has to come from somewhere.
If it’s too personal, please feel free to take a pass.
AHahahahaha Leander, there’s that really clever joke on my user name again! How do you do it? Would it be just as funny if I started calling you leasshole? Didn’t think so. Can’t you find a better way to refute what I say than to call me names?
PT Smegma - Why do you ask for my response, then ignore the vast majority of it? Just looking for ammunition? Eh, I guess I should expected as much. :rolleyes:
Dear Joe_Cool,
Please could you take the time to tell me if the situation I wrote about in my post from 02/27/2003 05:55. Would you consider feelings of and attempted or succesfull suicide in such situations to be a selfish act?
I can see ways in which suicide is selfish. I kill myself to bring pain to those that should love me.
But there are ways when I believe it is not. I kill myself so that I am no longer causing hurt to those I love.
Do you see a distinction in the two. Or is for you all suicide selfish?
Cheers, Bippy
It’s not too personal, it’s more like it’s too big a topic. It’s a general pervading impression that has built up over the years, and to be honest, I can’t point to enough specifics to make a convincing case at this point. The biggest things that jump out at me are [list=1][]the demand for government handouts and welfare (I know people who exist on welfare, and have no desire and make no effort to work, because they know they government will take care of them, and even feel they are OWED their welfare check. Yet from time to tim I hear talk of extending benefits.[]The desire to have the government take care of us, etc. Everything has to be a law. Competition is a bad thing - companies would rather lobby the government for a law protecting their way of doing business than make a better product (see DMCA, etc). We’re all willing to pay more and more taxes to get more and more services from the government. etc.The desire to be protected. It’s our own responsibility to provide for our own safety, whether by securing our homes with locks and an alarm, or taking better precautions, or by owning the means, and being willing, to defend ourselves. But a growing number of people, particularly in populous areas like the one we just left, want more and more power given to law enforcement agencies (note the term. they are not protection agencies.) (see PATRIOT and PATRIOT II, any number of bills expanding Wiretap powers such as CALEA, DCS1000 nee Carnivore, as well as Dept. of Homeland Security - which is a flawed concept in the first place) to protect us, when the supreme court has said protecting individuals is not their job and not their responsibility. Yet we’re all willing to line up to give up our rights to privacy (if I have nothing to hide, I have nothing to worry about. Sure, come in and search my house, officer!) and self-defense, and we put up with higher and higher levels of surveillance and information gathering, permits, etc all in the name of safety, which it is not their job to provide.[/list=1]Sorry, I warned you that I’m not prepared to make a strong case. This is just top-of-my-head stuff. Maybe it should be a new thread?
Further points that bother me would be **the “sue 'em” attitude that is everywhere (especially in NY/NJ), **the victim/therapy movement that has popped up in the last 20 years or so, and **gradual changes in public education that focus more on empowerment and “validation of self” rather than skills and knowledge.
Dear Joe_Cool,
Please could you take the time to tell me if the situation I wrote about in my post from 02/27/2003 05:55. Would you consider feelings of and attempted or successful suicide in such situations to be a selfish act?
I can see ways in which suicide is selfish. I kill myself to bring pain to those that should love me.
But there are ways when I believe it is not. I kill myself so that I am no longer causing hurt to those I love.
Do you see a distinction in the two. Or is for you all suicide selfish?
Cheers, Bippy
Those are interesting answers, Joe, and definitely worth discussing elsewhere. Last question, though, and this one will be briefer. I promise. 
Do you think this is part of a natural cycle that has afflicted other societies or is this unique to ours?
I don’t usually post in the Pit because, well, why bother. And someone else (in this case, Zoe) ends up saying it better than I could.
I guess I’d like to reiterate Zoe’s question: why should victims of one set of diseases (like cancer or Parkinson’s disease) be pitied, while victims of another set of diseases (like mania or depression) be labeled as selfish?
Or are you restricting yourself to the subset of “people who have normal brain chemistry who want to kill themselves.” In other words, “people who are sane but honestly sucidial.” You said that you believed that most people who commit suicide are sane (i.e. not influenced by depression or other mental diseases). Do you have cites that back this belief up? Why do you believe this? I for one can’t imagine a sane person wanting to kill himself - it doesn’t make sense and is contrary to self-preservation.
Joe, for crying out loud, there is a HUGE difference between not throwing someone a coming out party, and outright disowning them! Perhaps he thought his parents would react as Jersey said she would?
You are an asshole, Joe. An unfeeling, UnChristian asshole.
You forgot “unloving,” Guin.
Esprix
I don’t really know enough about other societies to answer, but I suspect the answer is yes, it probably is part of a cycle. I see it as a symptom of a sick society, ripe for a major upheaval. Especially with the constant raising and lowering of the “terrorist threat” to keep everybody scared and on edge, and then this… I just don’t know.
The only distinction I see between the two is the ability to perceive reality. Like I said before, even if the motive isn’t selfish, the end result always is. It brings nothing but harm to everybody around you, regardless of what you may think about it at the moment.
I just think it’s shameful to kill yourself over something like your parents not accepting your gayness when there are people who don’t know when they’ll eat next, and who sleep on the freaking sidewalk. To cry about how hard your life is because nobody understands you and your homosexuality is a slap in the face for people who have real problems, such as survival.
This shows how little you understand about the nature of depression. A burden that to you might seem trivial can be crushing to someone else. You cannot know another person’s inner torment. Moreover, your calculus of pain is immoral–who the FUCK are you to prescribe how people are to feel or to declare which problems are trivial? Should the person on the sidewalk be told to stop his bitching because, hey, at least he doesn’t have cancer?
You are a callous, cold person, Joe.
There we have it, I believe you are misusing the word selfish
\Self"ish, a.Caring supremely or unduly for one’s self; regarding one’s own comfort, advantage, etc., in disregard, or at the expense, of those of others.
How could someone then be said to be selfish if they kill themselves for others?
Selfishness can only exist within the motive not within the result.
e.g.
Does this make sence now.
Cheers, Bippy
Speaking of survival, what about
Matthew Shepard
Scott Amedure
Gwen Araujo
Robert Assaly
Adam Bishop
Brian Booth
Jaap Bornkamp
Kenneth Brewer
Paul Broussard
David Bueller
Billy Carmichael
Robert Carpenter
Bill Clayton
Pierre-Yvon Croft
Edson Neris da Silva
Sergio de Castro
Stuart Denton
Rev. Warren Eling
AFC Charles F. Eskew Jr
Gaetan Ethier
Billy Jack Gaither
Richard Gallant
Normand Gareau
Edgar Garzon
Alexander Gray
Ali bin Hatan bin Saad
Michael Hatch
Ray Heidebrecht
Michael Hogue
Alister David Holmes
Tyra Hunter
Jason Johnson
Muhammad bin Khalil bin Abdullah
Robbie Kirkland
Daniel Lacombe
Yves Lalonde
Robert Earl LeClair
Vanesa Lorena Ledesma
Stuart Matis
Gary Matson
Gary McMurtry
Marius Meyer
Amanda Milan
Harvey Milk
Dr. Alfred C. Moon
Winfield Scott Mowder
Henry Edward Northington
Randy Oliphant
Danny Lee Overstreet
Aubrey Eric Otgaar
Jeffery Owens
Fr. David Paget
Robert Panchaud
David Perea Jr.
Genell Johnson Plude
Eric Franklin Plunkett
Mandy Power
Harish Purohit
Christopher Rainsford
Travis Reade
Daryl Richmond
Joe Rose
Candido Sanabria
Allen Schindler
John Scott
Greg Scrivener
Jill Seidel
Muhammad bin Sulieman bin Muhammad
Terrianne Summers
Brandon Teena
Dami Taylor
Alan Turing
Jeff Wahlen
Garfield Walker
James Benjamin Ward
Arthur Warren, Jr.
Marcus Wayman
Aaron Webster
Guy Thomas Whitney
Brandon Merideth Williams
Julianne Williams
Christopher Wilson
Laura “Lollie” Winans
PFC Barry Winchell
Lawrence Wong
Innua Yakubu
Dr. Edward Yong Sua Mok
Pablo Zuniga
(list taken from Matt_Mcl’s website)
and in the same post
Hey, Joe. P.T. Smegma isn’t presuming anything. You said yourself that you never have suffered from clinical depression.
Or have you? Please clarify: do you know the pain of suffering through a depression, or not? Your lying somewhere here - just let us know where.
:wally
Homebrew-that took a few “Page Downs” to scroll through. That alone makes me very sad.
Joe_Cool, I tried things your way for about a decade. I did not believe in whining or psychiatry, and I tackled my problems on my own. Then I wound up flat on my back in a mental hospital close to catatonia from clinical depression. I didn’t attempt suicide that time, but my mind basically broke under too much pressure. As it happened, a miracle, a personal experience of the divine Presence of God ended that catatonia.
One of the things that I has been making me wonder if I deserve to live is the fact that I am dependent on government benefits right now in the form of an unemployment check. Seven months ago, I was a programmer; now, by all accounts there are hundreds of applicants for every programming job. I’ve adjusted my expectations down a notch to administrative assistant work, and at least those jobs are there, but I still feared not being able to support myself.
I understand and respect your attitude. To some extent I used to hold it. Then it nearly killed me.
A couple of friends of mine have diabetes. They keep track of their blood sugar levels, take insulin when needed, and, in general, keep their diseases in check, and no one considers them weak for that. I, too, have a disease. In my case, it’s not severe enough to require medication, and I’m starting to think I might be cured of it permanently, but nevertheless, it is a disease. It’s a fact of my life, just as diabetes is a fact of my friends’ lives. By seeking treatment, I see myself as being responsible. By discovering and dealing with the underlying causes, I see myself as taking responsible for my future health in much the same way someone who has heart disease might take responsibility for his health by eating more healthy food or lowering his cholesterol, to switch metaphors.
While I do not condone suicide, I do understand all too well what goes through at least one person’s mind when she’s at that point, and what can lead a person to that point. That’s why I work to try to keep people from getting to that point. I have to accept the fact that I cannot prevent someone from committing suicide, much as that grates on me, but I can at least try to help them. As the oath I swore to God at my confirmation and at the rededication I underwent a year after going into the hospital goes, “I will, with God’s help.” (It was sworn on my behalf when I was baptized as an infant.)
Respectfully,
CJ