I second this. On the one hand, nothing pisses me off quicker than smug fundies, but on the other, the beauty of nature just blows me away sometimes, and I’d like to think there’s something out there bigger than ourselves. That, plus I hate to think the me that makes up me just goes “poof” once my body dies.
I’m an atheist, but I still have mental conversations with some nebulous powerful entity. I got so used to praying when I was religious that I can’t break the habit. I only wish it were as comforting today as it once was.
Similarly, I’d like to believe in meant-to-be, but intellectually — nope.
Certain extreme sexual fetishes. My brain says “sure, whatever consenting adult(s) wanna get up to that doesn’t hurt anyone else is fine with me”, while my guts are going “eww, what kind of sicko could get off on that?” Probably pretty common, since one man’s fetish might be another man’s sushi dinner.
What would this be…communinism, I suppose?
My gut tells me that when a person who spends thousands of dollars on a pocketbook when there are three-year-olds living in the same town who have a hard time sleeping through their hunger pangs, then society as a whole would be better off if that person were to become fertilizer to help grow vegetables for that child.
My head, however, knows that it’s their money and they can do whatever the hell they want with it.
I’ll still mentally spit on them, though.
Abortion. I know it should be (and thankfully is both where I live and where I am from) safe, easy to obtain, and legal for pretty much anyone who wants one. I also know that my rights as a male pretty much end at conception - if I want a say in the matter, it has to be before that (i.e. contraception).
But I can’t imagine if it was my kid; I would be horrified and sad and use every argument I possessed to prevent it. I’d rather suffer all kinds of crap and poverty and lack of a life and loss of a career and everything rather than my partner have an abortion. I would be fully willing to adopt the child myself, I’d shovel shit every day for life to have that little snot-nose grow up.
“Where *don’t * they” probably has a shorter answer. The id and the ego (or do I mean superego?) are usually in conflict with me.
Me too.
OK, if it’s not about food, I’d say it would have to be people who abduct, deliberately neglect, or torture children. My head realises that horrible revenge would turn me into a monster, and that some of these things happen because the perpetrator is incapable of normal reason. My gut wants them to be buried alive.
Right now my gut is telling me that my 30-year-old uncle’s death could have been prevented if we had just spent a little less time being angry at him and a little more time trying to understand him. My brain knows this isn’t true, but my body disagrees. Thank god I’ve already learned to trust my brain more than my gut.