There is no god and adults are assholes.
Actually as a kid I realized that what I was taught in the bible and church were metaphors and not things to be taken literally. I mean, a lot of it went against what we learned in school, and school actually made sense.
Only much later in my teens did I realize that many Christians do take the Bible literally. It was then that I decided to completely abandon my religion.
Friends can matter to you more than family, and that’s ok, but family does a lot more for you than you realize.
I didn’t have a great family, but it was only when I was upset about a birthday party when I was like 12 where my mom made all the cards and buttons and stuff and I was so mad that it wasn’t the cool cards and prizes that you buy that I kind of realized it.
It dawned on me like two weeks later that my parents couldn’t afford any of that, but they took time out of their day, for like two weeks, even though they both worked too much, to hand-make approximations as best they could. Without me knowing, so I would be surprised.
Ever work a double shift and then spend the few minutes you have not working, sleeping, or cooking to hand-make party favors? Yeah, me either.
It still makes me cry thinking about how ungrateful I was and the look of sadness and yearning on my mom’s face when I got mad at her for not buying the “good” stuff.
When I was 20, I sat her down and told her about it and how bad I felt, and how I never knew how to apologize for it. We had a good cry, and she thanked me for seeing it eventually, and how happy it retroactively made her knowing I realized it so soon after.
As a kid I got a lot of “Do as I say not as I do.”
The lesson I learned is that a lot of grown ups are hypocrites. I saw this so much it made me decide I would always be honest with myself and others about why I was doing the things I was doing. It is not always easy, especially now that I have kids of my own, but it is much healthier in the long run. I teach my kids by example rather than preaching fake piety.
That nobody is a “grown up” and that everyone is faking it.
We’re all just kids having kids.
Yes, and now, anytime I’m trying to get to know someone better, I’m strategizing as to what childish/dirty joke or well placed cuss word will break through the “fake wall” and allow me to really know this person.
Don’t apologize unless you actually mean it. Saying sorry when you didn’t really mean it, or you did the same thing again only devalues any future apology until it means nothing to the people you care about.
When I was about 10 I realized that people of other religions probably felt just as strongly that their religion is “true” as I felt about mine and that I had no grounds to look down on them.
Fast forward 10 years and I became an atheist.
Say what you mean; mean what you say.
No idea where I heard or read it, but preteen me internalized it and it’s become part of my creed to this day
I was about 11 or so and acting out, my teacher said my name. I just froze for a moment and it dawned on me that was the first time he had said my name all day. Completely invisible unless I was doing something wrong. Just a square shape in a square hole unless I choose otherwise and if I do it by making my life worse.
I guess it doesn’t sound profound. Every guy knows this on some level but it really knocked the wind out of me at the time.
After my nerve damage: there are some mistakes you can only make once.
Similar experience. Got in a bad accident when I was 15, entirely my own doing. That’s when I learned that some mistakes and their injuries are permanent.
No one is gonna stick up for you and what’s right, you gotta do that yourself
…and if someone does, it’s because there’s something in it for them. They don’t do it for you.
There’s a book series called The Hammer and the Cross about an English bastard child of a noblewoman that resulted from her being taken by a Viking raid and later escaping back to her home. Then the Vikings invade to avenge the death of Ragnar (his 4 sons are each powerful Viking Jarls).
The way it handled the two religions clashing, where each was powerful based on how many followers they had, along with it being the first time I’d seen where Christianity isn’t presented as the Underlying Truth but was just another thing. I realized that it was a metaphor for how religion actually worked. If enough people believe in something, it gains power. Christianity won through politics and warfare, not through truth. There wasn’t anything special separating Christianity from other former religions we largely now refer to as myth other than the one Empire that united most of Europe declared it to be the truth and people were slaughtered until they went along with it.
That’s when I stopped being a Catholic that just hated going to church and was an atheist at first, then later settled into agnosticism since who knows what’s going on beyond what we can directly detect with our senses and tools.
If enough people believe in something, it gains power. Christianity won through politics and warfare, not through truth.
These two sentences conflict with one another.
To make them match you’d either have to change the first sentence to:
If a thing gains enough power, people believe in it.
Or you’d have to change the second sentence to:
Christianity won politics and warfare, through being believable.
I can learn everything I need to know about how to be a decent person from cartoons.
Cartoons have always shown me that being a friendly person, who is honest, do right by their friends and tries to do the right thing will guide me well through life. I needed to weed through the friends a little bit but that has held true thus far
I grew up watching Looney toons, and they taught me to be an asshole.
I used to spend a lot of energy being concerned what other people thought of me. How I dressed, how I acted, what I owned, etc. One day I realized 2 things:
-
Most people are too busy thinking about themselves to spare any meaningful thoughts for me.
-
I’m never going to see most of these people ever again so it doesn’t matter what they think.
After that I started directing that energy into making sure that I approved of my choices rather than hoping strangers would.
It has a name its called spotlight effect
-
