libbonobo

Happy Birthday, John! Have a great year and many more!!!

In all cases -- your friends making out, Chaz bringing friends, Selene asking to be picked up -- nobody did anything wrong. Your unhappiness is entirely self-generated, from setting up artificial expectations and then not letting go of them. To paraphrase one of the 4 noble truths: suffering arises from attachment to expectations. And then you take out your own self-generated unhappiness on Chaz and Selene!!

It's obvious you both love each other so much. Pffffft to the bratty little gnat trying to buzz in on the action. I agree about knowing when to say when. You stay in control and avoid situations you might regret later (not to mention spewing and other unpleasantries!)

My condolences for the loss of your friend. Unfortunately, she's made her choices. You could try to dissuade her from them, but if her beliefs about relations between sexes are really so unreasonable, reason is unlikely to succeed. Anyway, friendship is not something that can be forced. Just mourn the loss and move on.

An anti-inflammatory steroid (one of the most powerful ones), as opposed to one of the anabolic sex steroids. Dom, hope you feel better soon. When I had the cough that just wouldn't go away, and my ribs were hurting because of the repeated coughing, taking a lot of Robitussin with dextromethorphan (an opioid cough suppressant) did help. Oh, and just throw the spell-checker out. It seems to have recurrent issues with your "tittles". :ranger:

fayt: Here's a nice Harry/Cedric slash: http://www.geocities.com/hp_rareslash/aspen_bittersweet.htm SB: clearly, you do not watch enough television. It's stargate sg-1, not star trek!

Wow!!!!! Very very cool.

We don't develop the necessary antennae until 5000 of your earth years. As you'll notice from my unadorned cranium and wonderful hip flexibility, I'm younger than that.

LOL. Talk about the superannuated trying to relive their youth vicariously! SB: Not being a telepath, I won't hazard even a guess about what hot academic-league-pant-size-guessing junior guy is thinking, but I will agree with this much: if you want something, have some boldness.

But you must have adapted quickly. Very similar to Frito pie, a traditional Texan staple: Fried starch (pommes frites instead of Fritos) + melty dairy product (curds instead of cheese) + gloppy brown flavoring goop (gravy instead of chili) Has all the same essential features -- i.e., high in saturated fat/carbohydrate/sodium, waist-bulging, artery-clogging....LOL

Good for you for breaking up with the girl. I was not so wise as you, and through college & medical school, while I was in the closet, led a girl on for many years. Something I really regret. As someone who bowed to parental pressure and went to medical school instead of doing what I really wanted -- which was to become a mathematician -- all I can say is: try your best to do what YOU want to do. Physics, music, writing, whatever. I can't promise that it will all work out though. In my case, my parents threatened ejection from the house and withdrawal of financial support if I didn't major in biology, so had I insisted on my way, I might have become homeless and destitute, dropped out, and gone nowhere at all. I was a wimp and not willing to take the gamble, and thus here I am. At least I enjoy what I'm doing (though not as much as I like math!). On the other hand, if you hate medicine, you have to convince your parents that you hate it. In both cases (being gay and choosing your career), the key issue is being true to yourself vs. giving in to social pressure and doing what is "easy" in the short run. Do your best to be true to yourself. You're getting started on the right path early.

Welcome to the board, AFF! It's so nice to have a basically cheerful person around. This is actually a pretty rare personality type, at least among the people I hang out with. Treasure and nurture it!

A Happy 36th Birthday to you, and a healthy, happy year to follow!

Hehehe. http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/quotable/quote50.htm Belated good luck with your cards! And a suggestion: write bigger, or use a larger font.

Justice is served! to the nun joke. Oh, and "Forever" was almost too good to be true....it wouldn't have been modeled on another almost too good to be true romance now, would it?

Yes! At last. Thank you. Exactly as you say, you can say that "the pain John was in has ended"; you might even be able to say that "the total pain in the world has decreased" (as long as John's death did not create more total pain in those still existing than he had before he died). The trouble is, also exactly as you say, that we cannot say that John has benefited or that his state has improved (and he certainly cannot say that). Most people who commit suicide do not do so to benefit the total world pain, or even to benefit their own pain, but to benefit themselves -- which is the one thing that cannot be said. (I say most in acknowledgement of those who do believe that their sacrifice somehow redeems or otherwise improves the state of the world. But these individuals generally either have some fervent (or rabid) religious belief excluding them from the atheist category, or are suffering delusions from a mood or thought disorder.) It occurs to me from sumbloke's mention of bodies that there is one way for an atheist to believe in afterexistence without afterlife: by identifying "you" with your body. In that case, "John is no longer suffering" is no longer vacuous -- there is a really existent "John" which is really no longer suffering. Is that what you meant, sumbloke? If so, I apologize for misunderstanding, but I have a much more brain-centric view of the world, and identify "you" with your brain activity, not your body. No brain activity, no "you", even if the body is still alive; and certainly if the body is dead, then "you" do not exist.

Well, whatever your belief system, atheist, theist, or otherwise, logic and rationality are absolute guiding principles. They may not embody *all* truth, but no truth can contradict logic and rationality. The point is that if one is an atheist, the assumption of nonexistence after death makes suicide illogical/irrational. No no no. Something is not getting translated. This is the OPPOSITE of what I am saying. The point is that for the atheist, there *ISN'T* any subject at all, whether unified or divorced from object, embodied or disembodied. Therefore, for an atheist to say of a decedent formerly named John that "John is not suffering", what they are really saying is that "nonexistent fairy-tale John is not suffering." If your objection about disembodied subjects is against the nonexistent fairy-tale John, then THAT is completely appropriate. The logical atheist with the courage of his convictions will reject all fairy-tale statements. Let's backup a step. A statement is vacuous or empty when it makes assertions about things or situations that don't exist. That is, vacuous statements are statements making assertions about members of the empty set. Vacuous statements are held to be true (vacuously true) because the empty set is a subset of every set. You can assert any property P that you wish for nonexistent objects, because members of the empty set are also members of {x : x has property P}, no matter what property P is. To review: a statement "x has property P" is vacuous and vacuously true if x does not exist. For it to be true in other than a vacuous way, x really has to exist and really has to have property P. But if we are agreeing that x does not exist, then the statement CAN'T be true in any other way than vacuously. So to claim any more than vacuous truth for a statement that something which doesn't exist isn't suffering is simply wrong. However counterintuitive it may seem, you can validly assert ANYTHING AT ALL about nonexistent objects. There is *NO* logical basis at all for preferring any of these vacuous fairy-tale statements over any other, and they all have exactly the same moral import, as they all have to do with the relative degree of suffering before and after death, which is the moral basis for suicide: (a) "Nonexistent fairy-tale John is not suffering." ( "Nonexistent fairy-tale John is suffering horribly." © "Nonexistent fairy-tale John is suffering less than really existent John was suffering before death." (d) "Nonexistent fairy-tale John is suffering a million times more than really existent John was suffering before death." If you ascribe importance to (a), logic compels you to ascribe the same importance to (,©, and (d). But again, the logical atheist with the courage of his convictions will reject all such fairy-tale statements. He will not be influenced by statements such as "He's in a better place now", which are commonly uttered by people who *DO* believe that people continue on after death in really existent, non-fairy-tale fashion. To the atheist, those are all fairy-tales to be rejected. But it absolutely does. No one else's suffering is the relevant one besides the one committing suicide. John's committing suicide does not end my suffering or anyone else's suffering, and indeed might even add to it. The comparison of John's suffering before and after death is the only relevant comparison, and the atheist cannot make this comparison except in fairy-tale. For the one particular individual contemplating suicide, *his* context is exactly the relevant one. See above. This is so insidious! Again, "less bad" refers to a fairy-tale comparison. More good, less bad, doesn't matter. The comparison is still a fairy-tale one. "[my] coming to non-exist can plausibly end my suffering which is less bad for me" is yet another fairy-tale comparison.

Happy Birthday, Sharon! The secret formula is that old = age of current speaker + 10. Therefore, according to your profile, old = 47, and she is not old. But just in case, here're some nice vitamins

Right! You can't make any better or worse comparisons between existence and nonexistence. Better and worse comparisons can only be made on things that exist. That's all I was trying to say: the person who believes there is nothing after death has no basis to say that there is more good (or less bad) after death. It's only someone who believes that existence continues after death who could make such a comparison. This was in response to sumbloke's assertion that there is no moral objection to suicide except religious ones. In fact, it's the other way around, and it's the atheist who should be complaining that comparisons of whether things are better or worse after death are fairy-tale comparisons.

But that's exactly the problem, nonexistence is not comparable to existence. To say non-existence is better than existence is precisely what is the myth or fairy-tale.

Matthew: Your gay psychologist is completely whacked. Being gay does *NOT* necessarily entail multiple sexual partners, drugs, circuit parties, or anything like that. I'd venture to say that this is in fact the minority of what gay people are like. Gay people have completely normal jobs, completely normal pastimes, completely normal life goals, completely normal sizes and shapes, act completely normal, look completely normal,...gay people ARE completely normal. Your gay friends are right. It's only the homophobes that try to confine us to a box. It is sad that so many of us experience this from our own families. I wish I could reassure you that your family would actually love you even after you came out to them, but there are degenerates that would reject even their own flesh and blood. Still, if they do reject you, that says bad things only about them, not you. And truthfully, I think we often don't give our families enough credit. I didn't. I agree with Dom that it's more likely that your mom would prefer a gay son to a dead one. Even if you can't see it now, there is hope for the future. You *can* find your way and make a life for yourself. It's been done before, by gay people in all kinds of circumstances. You actually have a lot going for you -- you have smarts, you have friends, and you have enough of a desire to want to keep going to reach out, even if it's on an anonymous board. You may feel that your life is not going to get better, but if you truly feel that trapped by your family's prejudice, and can't get past the fear of coming out to them to find out, at least wait until you're financially independent before deciding anything. Once you're financially independent, they have fewer ways in which to hurt you. Please don't carry out your plan. I have no way to stop you, and, as a complete stranger on the internet, no connection by which to lend the appeal any emotional weight. But if you stop posting over the next 2 weeks, I will miss your presence & wonder. Well, even taking "one should avoid what is bad" as the axiom for moral behavior, it still remains invalid to compare quality of existence before and after death, if there is no existence after death to posit any quality for. That is, we can't say "they are suffering less than when they were alive" if there is no "they" about whom to posit degree of suffering. Or, to revisit the "vacuously true" bit in purely set theoretical terms, the empty set is a subset of ANY set. Thus, while {x : x does not exist} is a subset of {x : x is not suffering}, it is ALSO a subset of {x : x is suffering abominably}. So, for the person who believes there is no afterlife, it's not actually an argument *for* suicide to talk about avoidance of 'bad', because you cannot validly say that a nonexistent thing is avoiding 'bad'. (Or, if you say that it is vacuously true, then it is also vacuously true to say that the 'bad' is a million times worse.) It's only if existence continues after death that avoidance of 'bad' can be a possible argument for suicide.

All he said was that he's "gone through at least a dozen therapists who all tell me that I shouldn

Aawwwww, that's so sweet.... Congratulations on your soon to be commitment!

This is his official website: http://www.johnedward.net/ It should work. Of course, there is often a disparity between what should be and what is. This disparity is called EEEEVILLLL.

Just to feed the nightmare: aside from cuts and scrapes, another reason to wear shoes outside is to avoid getting infected by hookworms, such as Ancylostoma duodenale (pictured) or Necator americanus http://www.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~parasite...odenale_sem.gif These are parasites, that can burrow through the skin of bare feet, eventually ending up in the small intestine. They're actually tiny little blood suckers, and if there are enough of them they cause anemia. So wearing shoes is good!!!!