Is it your right to be happy? - Walk Away from Fundamentalism

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Title: Is it your right to be happy?

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The Cuteness	\| Move to Bottom Author
Rank:none Status: Score: 0 Posts: 309 From: Registered: 08/04/2006 Time spent: 0 hours	(Date Posted:11/08/2007 12:14:00) Is happiness a right? Do you have a right to be happy? Said the same thing twice - oh well. What if you are unhappy about something? Disappointed? Disillusioned? How do you react? How much do you expect and how much do you count as a bonus? -------------------------------------------------------------- Marquis de Sade (Quills): Are your convictions so fragile they cannot stand in opposition to mine? Is your god so flimsy, so weak? For shame.

Chirpy	\| Move to Top \| Move to Bottom 1#
Status: From: Registered: 03/07/2003 Time spent: 0 hours	(Date Posted:11/08/2007 17:54:48) Yes, I think you have a right to be happy at least some of the time. I used to comfort eat until very recently but had to give that up for pressing health reasons. I realised that I used to do that because I was afraid of new situations and also as a way of keeping up my energy when out and about and in order to face unpleasant social and other situations in public. I don't need to buy a bag of popcorn or an icecream in the cinema before seeing a film if I've eaten beforehand. I don't need the incentive of a free buffet lunch to attend meetings. I ask myself if there were no free refreshments would I still be attending and if the answer is 'no', I don't go. I don't look for ecstatic happiness but I do expect to feel a degree of emotional comfort and interest in what's going on. If I'm thoroughly bored for one reason or another or I don't feel comfortable with the people I'm around I remove myself from the situation. Over the years since leaving fundyism and a job in a call centre and starting working for a national mental health charity (after two years of doing nothing) I've become more more self aware and self pleasing partly with help from this forum and partly from one to one counselling and complementary therapies though I still worry what other people think. This is something I have to check in myself often and it is one of the greatest barrier to happiness. Fundies are good at pretending to be happy yet they aren't at all happy. They have simply become accustomed to their misery so when a fundy tells you that they used to be depressed when they started going to the church they go to and then became happier it really means that the church has become their comfort zone and that they've been depressed for so long they don't notice it all. It's only when you leave fundyism and discover that there are pleasures out there that you needn't feel guilty about you realise how depressed you once were. When I was deeply entrenched in fundyism I couldn't think of solutions to problems which are now blinding obvious to me know. This is because I was self censoring my thoughts too much because I'm no longer in fundyism and also because I attend creative writing classes. You have to stop self censoring thoughts in order to be creative and think of solutions to problems. I think that we're here and away from fundyism because we were able to see this and because we felt uncomfortable pretending to be happy when we weren't.

Guest	\| Move to Top \| Move to Bottom 2#
	RE:Is it your right to be happy? (Date Posted:08/01/2008 07:51:43) Christianity is about growing into happiness. The central focus is on a person's happiness, but then that is down to the individual to receive. Surely it's possible to be a Christian yet not be any more happy than the next person.

Drummond	\| Move to Top \| Move to Bottom 3#
Rank:none Status: Score:0 Posts:1566 From: Registered: 03/03/2002 Time spent: 0 hours	RE:Is it your right to be happy? (Date Posted:08/02/2008 23:00:35) Not just your right, but your responsibility. If you're not happy, you should be punished. -------------------------------------------------------------- From American Splendor Student to Harvey Pekar: "It"s hard enough trying to convince people that socialism is a good thing without basing your argument on some abstract theory of human nature. Plato tried and failed. Fourier tried and failed. Marx tried and failed. Sartre tried and failed." Harvey Pekar: "Well maybe I c"n learn from their mistakes."

Guest	\| Move to Top \| Move to Bottom 4#
	RE:Is it your right to be happy? (Date Posted:08/04/2008 07:45:06) "Not just your right, but your responsibility. If you're not happy, you should be punished." You're obviously a masochist then Drummond?

snakechic	\| Move to Top \| Move to Bottom 5#
Rank:none Status: Score:0 Posts:3507 From: Registered: 11/02/2004 Time spent: 6158 hours	Reply To Guest (Date Posted:08/04/2008 09:14:13) Reply to is_aimoo_guest (08/04/2008 05:45:06) "Not just your right, but your responsibility. If you're not happy, you should be punished." You're obviously a masochist then Drummond? No.... you don't get the obvious wit. -------------------------------------------------------------- In exchange for obedience, Christianity promises salvation in an afterlife; but in order to elicit obedience through this promise, Christianity must convince people that they need salvation, that there is something to be saved from. Christianity has nothing to offer a happy person living in a natural, intelligible universe. If Christianity is to gain a motivational foothold, it must declare war on earthly pleasure and happiness, and this, historically, has been its precise course of action. In the eyes of Christianity, woman(man) is sinful and helpless in the face of God, and is potential fuel for the flames of hell. Just as Christianity must destroy reason before it can introduce faith, so it must destroy happiness before it can introduce salvation. -- George H Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God

Guest	\| Move to Top \| Move to Bottom 6#
	RE:Is it your right to be happy? (Date Posted:08/04/2008 18:43:06) I got the wit

snakechic	\| Move to Top \| Move to Bottom 7#
Rank:none Status: Score:0 Posts:3507 From: Registered: 11/02/2004 Time spent: 6158 hours	RE:Is it your right to be happy? (Date Posted:08/07/2008 20:05:24) and did you laugh? -------------------------------------------------------------- In exchange for obedience, Christianity promises salvation in an afterlife; but in order to elicit obedience through this promise, Christianity must convince people that they need salvation, that there is something to be saved from. Christianity has nothing to offer a happy person living in a natural, intelligible universe. If Christianity is to gain a motivational foothold, it must declare war on earthly pleasure and happiness, and this, historically, has been its precise course of action. In the eyes of Christianity, woman(man) is sinful and helpless in the face of God, and is potential fuel for the flames of hell. Just as Christianity must destroy reason before it can introduce faith, so it must destroy happiness before it can introduce salvation. -- George H Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God

Guest	\| Move to Top 8#
	RE:Is it your right to be happy? (Date Posted:08/08/2008 05:04:52) Yes, and I replied with a joke. tumbleweed moment ;)
	Welcome to The Collection of Flashlights!Wolf-eyes ,your eyes break the darkness!

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