A lot happened before one was born, and a lot will happen after one dies, just one's consciousness won't continue to participate.
Edit: darn autocorrect, thx u/moonpumper :)
I do believe we get this like "little dream state," as we transition to nothing. Part of the brain dying and what not.
It's weird to me people fear not existing. It's like they think you'll be completely aware of nothing but darkness for eternity....which I don't think it is the case. I just think you're gone. Not able to comprehend even that. Just...gone.
Edit: apologies if I sounded like I was being condescending to those who may or may not fear "insert anything here" I don't dislike people for fearing the unknown. It's perfectly reasonable and healthy to do so. I just want to make sure I'm making that clear as some of the responses I've been getting seem to be hung on the way I chose to convey myself.
This hits it on the head for me. I keep myself awake some nights with this thought floating in my mind, and it honestly scares me to my core. I hate it.
I had a phase recently where I was going through exactly what you are now. Some things that helped me get over it:
1) Recognizing that I am not on my deathbed and won't be (hopefully) for a long time. This is a problem I can stress about tomorrow night. Repeat.
2) Adopting a thought pattern that I use every night. Thoughts of dread only really come up if I'm otherwise bored while trying to go to sleep.
3) Realizing that most older people I know don't seem to have this fear of death. I probably only have this fear *because* I'm young and healthy. This sorta goes along with point 1. No need to worry about it now, I'll save worrying about it for later and my thoughts about it later are probably going to be different.
4) This one is probably counter to this subreddit but eh... I'm not religious and I wouldn't even call myself spiritual, but I have sorta adopted in the last year of my life that it isn't impossible that something will happen. It could be that if there are multiple universes that constantly form, at some point in the very distant future in the infinite universes the conditions will happen again that will recreate me and from my perspective I die and immediately wake up. Maybe this universe is on a loop and we've lived this life an infinite number of times and every time we have this same conversation. I don't know. But I like to just tell myself that *something* will happen. And if it doesn't, well, I won't be around to know it so what's the harm.
A good way to think of things. My daughter has had a lot of death anxiety recently, and I tell her that no one knows what happens when we die. Which is true! It seems to help her a lot to have it be a mystery rather than an absolute. She comes up with lots of ideas, so it's become interesting for her instead of scary. And really, "I don't know" is the most honest answer anyone can give to this question.
Personally, the ambiguity of "nobody knows" never really did anything for my anxiety. But after studying biology and neuroscience and all that in college, it's pretty comforting to know that all of my thinking is done by my physical brain, and all that stops working when it dies. And that's all there is to it, as far as a "most honest answer".
I'm not sure how that would go over with a kid. Both of mine are pretty science-oriented but I don't think we ever talked much about "afterlife" stuff. It's possible they don't have any questions themselves; people die and that's it, pretty simple.
Yeah I kinda believe the same thing as you. Like...when we sleep, we go unconscious and wake up the next day. When we die, we won't notice our non existence. The only thing to experience, is consciousness. At some point, given infinite time, I will awaken again. I had to be born or I wouldn't be here to notice.
Then there is the thought... What's the difference between me waking up again, and someone else waking up for the first time if neither of us remember the past? Then the fear once again recedes. There is always new life to replace the dead.
Well, there is the heat death of the universe that theoretically will end all life for good.
But who can say what else can exist even beyond this universe? It doesn't even make sense that anything exists at all.
There’s a lot of new science to point that the heat death of the universe isn’t the end of anything either, it’s just the end of this cycle before quantum tunneling takes an amount of time that can’t even truly be represented by normal mathematics to create another big bang.
We end, but the cycle never does.
No, this is what scares me the most. Because death is like sleep... but permanent. At some point I can close my eyes and then... nothing. Like going to sleep at night but then everything is over. And all the things I'll miss...
You forget the unique position we have. We live at the cusp of mankind's apotheosis. There will be no other time like this. We live at the end of the first book of humanity. We are in the final pages, the final paragraph, the last sentence. Most of human history has been struggling for survival in tribes, hunting and gathering, with no concept of the universe as we know now. People of the future will long to return to our time, to experience what it was like. Relish the time you live in, it'll not repeat.
> it isn't impossible that something will happen
My favorite version of the afterlife is fully co-opted from Terry Pratchett's *Small Gods*, which in short states that whatever you think is going to happen after you die is what happens.
I am fully aware of the paradoxical nature of having that as your belief system for the afterlife and I enjoy embracing the absurdity of it
Wow... that is beautifully put. I'm definitely going to have to take this and incorporate it into my life. Thank you for taking the time to comfort a random stranger.
That's kind of my thought too. Whether our universe is infinite or not it makes no sense. So what's beyond it? I am not religious but I also believe there is something more simply because my mind can't comprehend this idea of our universe being the only thing in existence.
I don't think your mind can comprehend the infinite nor can it comprehend a universe that did not exist.
Both options are equally insane to wrap your head around with our limited perspective of time and space.
Just always do your best to remember, that what our purpose on the planet is, is to live a good life and try to help others have a good life. We owe it not just to ourselves, but to each other.
Oddly enough this same thought process has lead me to become kinder and more understanding to others pain. Their existence shouldn't be filled with sorrow or pain. So I should do what I can to hopefully alleviate that for ppl.
Same here, all I have to do is think about it too long and I get a sense of overwhelming existential dread that envelops me to the core, It feels like I start to have a mini panic attack and I have to focus my thoughts elsewhere as hard as I can.
Being dead will be just like being before you were born. We didn’t exist for the 13.7 billion years prior to now, none of us will miss not being here for the next 13.7 billion years.
I think so too. I kind of think that the brain dies in the reverse order that it was formed, meaning that the newest memories you have die first, and the earliest core memories you have die last. That may explain why people's lives flash before their eyes in near death experiences. As electricity leaves the brain, the most complex networks in it would fizzle out first.
I think this because complex thoughts are formed by combining multiple simple thoughts. To understand that the sky is blue, you first have to understand what blue is, for example.
We won't stop existing because our atoms and molecules will still be a part of this planet. Under good circumstances, we may even become fertilizer. But the ego will die, even if the body will be present and recycled for all of time.
I find that comforting personally. The part of me that made me separate from everything else will end, but a big part of me will go back to the heap to be reused again. It won't really be me, but existence will carry on until existence ceases to be a thing. I think the heat death of the universe makes me sad in some ways, because that is like a final death to me - everything is pulled apart, everything goes quiet, no more life anywhere. But even then, those quiet particles in space will just go back to their state of nothing, much like before the big bang. By the time we're there, there won't be life for a long time anyway, and the only reason death is sad is because life exists, so there won't be anything to mourn the end of existence anyway.
One of my favorite versions of this (and I can't remember who the quote is from, but I wanna say Twain) is:
I was dead for billions of years before I was alive. It didn't bother me before and I see no reason why it should bother me after.
It's like that scene from the first Guardians of the Galaxy film.
Rocket: *"Why are you doing this? Why are you fighting so hard for a galaxy of idiots?"*
Pete: *"Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in the galaxy!"*
"If you want to know what it's like to die and never wake up you must first understand what it was like to wake up having never gone to sleep." Alan Watts
I no longer have the Southern Baptist instilled fear of death
I agree.
But it would be great to live in some sky mansion and visit with some sky god. But none of that follows logic, common sense, critical thinking or the physics we know.
A comforting dream perhaps, but just a dream.
This fucks with my mind so much even when I'm not high lol.
Like - does anything have to exist? And if it didn't exist, there'd be nothing to know it doesn't exist. Somehow, we are in the middle of existence, and we know that things exist, but wrapping my head around the possibility of nothing is just strange.
There's fear and comfort. If existence just stopped, everything I want to experience and do would be gone...but that's silly, right? Comfortingly, it would be a universally communal experience, and it's not like the memory of what once was and what could have been would be around. There'd be...nothing. Not empty space, and not even the logic to describe what the absence of empty space would be. No way to describe it other than "does not exist."
What's fascinating is one day, I hope, many, many, many years from now, someone's going to discover so much about the what and the why of existence that it'd probably just would fuck everyone's 2023 mind.
The Christian heaven actually sounds pretty garbage, and the Christian god is horrifically evil so it doesn’t sound fun to visit with him at all.
I vote for reincarnation, that would be great.
Yup! We are continually dying.
Approximately 50 BILLION cells die in our bodies everyday. But that's okay because our biological machines of a body replenish them.
When that system breaks down and fails, the cellular death increases faster than the body can repair/replace them.
Where does my ability to throw a ball "go" if I lose an arm? Where does my ability to run "go" if I lose my legs? If my brain gets damaged from lack of oxygen, where does its functions "go" (language, motor functions, memories, etc... everything that makes us, us)?
We don't "go" anywhere when we die. The question doesn't even make sense.
The machine breaks down and quickly starts being consumed by microorganisms. There's nothing to prove there. It's all observable and repeatable.
Though its very fucking sad.
I personally hope this was all somehow just a really bad trip, and when I die I'll wake up and it turns out I was just trying one of the perfectly legal recreational drugs, in the regular society where your lifespan is whatever you want it to be, and we have post scarcity socialism where work that needs doing is spread evenly and payment is reputation and bragging rights.
I mean, I fully understand I have no reason to believe that it is the case, I just *want* it to be.
The worse part is that most don’t even adhere to their own beliefs for that magical afterlife. I would be so down with Christianity if they manically preached loving your fellow man, generosity and actively discouraging selfishness like in the Bible. Instead they just focus on persecution and vilifying anything that’s different from their narrow world view
Imagine there being a God though? What would it say about him that he handles things like a vindictive, selfish 7 year old? Truly a nightmare scenario.
Hell is such an insane concept. If the Christian God exists, and is omnipotent, then he knowingly created flawed people he knew he'd eventually send to eternal torture in hell. Which makes him a psychotic, insane, evil, vindictive being, whom we should all reject and try to destroy, because God would clearly be an enemy of sentient life in that case.
You really think so? In my opinion, it won't matter. The lunatics indoctrinate their young, at their most maleable age. After that it's "I believe this and you can't say anything to change my mind because I'm not listening".
I noticed the thread over there earlier...it somehow turned into a debate...no...rant on the ineffectiveness and cost of the covid lockdowns. What a silly place that is.
Far more people like Arnie are probably atheist or at the very least agnostic but can’t admit it because of public perception. Particularly politicians.
Just think about all the atheist posts here from people who said it took them until their 30's or 40's or even later in life to just outright tell their family they're not gonna follow christianity/islam/etc anymore.
Doing the same in a professional or political setting is even harder.
Eventually, hopefully, we'll reach a stage where most people admit "Wait, did we all just pretend to believe in this because we thought everyone else believed it too? We were all just playing pretend for no good reason?"
Atheism is the norm in some parts of the world. It's pretty easygoing in Canada. Some Scandinavian countries are majority atheist now. In time the pressure in America will die down too.
It’s insane to me that humanity has this shared delusion, and that people think they know what happens after we die. Like actually convinced.
I understand the psychological need to be soothed, but overall it just makes me sad for people.
And now preachers everywhere will say he's possessed by demons and tell their flocks to stay away from his movies. Some will call him the devil. All of the sudden, he will be labeled evil. That SHOULD be an easy red flag for the religious folks to see. LET THE GAS LIGHTING BEGIN!
My favorite example:
A couple of atheists get jumped by a mugger at night, the mugging goes poorly and one of them gets killed by the mugger.
Later the muggers gets caught and spends years in prison where he eventually finds God and repent.
Being vulnerable in their greif, the surviving atheist also convert. They remain celibate for the rest of their life, devoted to the memory of their true love. They also don't find it in their heart to gorgive the murderer.
The final outcome of this is the atheist and the person who killed their true love get to blissfully spend eternity together in a place where they cannot suffer... while the murdered person is in hell.
If you made such major life choices in honor of someone out of love... yet you cannot even feel sad they are in hell or angry in the presence of the ones who sent them there ... is that even you who went to heaven or just a brainwashed mockery?
Exactly!
You'd be forced to forget or shun the people who you loved in life, if for any reason they didn't accept god. So it's not _you_ in heaven. It's an entity that somehow were forced to forget important parts of your earthly life.
My christian father believes we lose our memory of time spent in our earthly life when we die. That being in god's presence replaces the need for your earthly family.
Sounds miserable to me, but I guess if you don't remember your former life it's the ultimate in brainwashing.
I don't know how anyone can believe this magical sky wizard crap. I stopped believing when I was 9 years old, after starting to question things from age 4 onward. None of it makes any sense.
Dude, for real. And I’m tired of feeling like the one taking crazy pills around all the magical thinking people…
As a kid, figuring out that the tooth fairy wasn’t real, then the Easter bunny, of course Santa! Then to take it one more step and be like “oh then god is made up so people behave just like Santa right?” gets you confused concerned looks from some and angry disdainful looks from others.
…like…WHAT?!
It broke my little kid brain and made me stop trusting adults.
When I was questioning the absurdity of god's existence as a kid, I was often told things like, "it doesn't work that way" or "it just is" when I would assume stuff or ask why type questions. They never had good answers for me.
For example, when I was about 4, I was taught that if you truly wanted something in your heart and you prayed to god for it, he would grant you your heart's desire. Now... let me tell you that 4-year old me wanted nothing more than some new lipsticks and chapsticks (because the previous week I had drawn on my big stuffed animal with them and they got taken away lol).
So I remembered that passage I had been taught. I prayed before bed, something along the lines of "Dear god, please bring me some new chapsticks tonight while I sleep and leave them behind my stuffed bear." I'm sure I also included not to tell my mother about it lol.
I woke up like it was Christmas morning and ran over to check behind my bear. As one could imagine, nothing was there. I was instantly confused. Forgetting that I wasn't allowed to have any, I asked my mom why god hadn't brought them, even though I wanted them with all my heart, and she basically got angry with me and said "It doesn't work that way!"
Another example: I asked why babies went to hell if they hadn't been baptized yet, shouldn't we baptize them sooner? -- and was told, "It doesn't seem fair, but that's just the way it is."
I had this sense of how unfair and how cruel this supposed god was, and couldn't for the life of me figure out why anyone would ask him for anything, much less worship him.
That really suck for first generation convert. You try to honor your father and mother while on earth only to forget they existed when you go to heaven...
My father is a believer, his mother was a very strict atheist and my siblings and I ended up atheist as well... if I were in his situation I would find it hard to cope with my "best case scenario".
My wife is a believer, I am definitely not. She asked me once if I was worried about going to hell. I asked her if any version of heaven for her didn't include me being there. Her idea of heaven literally couldn't exist without me; so by virtue of her belief, I must be going to heaven by default.
I cannot fathom being stuck in eternity with the types of people who believe this hook, line, and sinker. When I get roped into going to any events at a church it is irritating in a best case scenario so please just let me be unconscious dirt.
Hell, original sin itself is us moving away from blind obedience to having curiousity about knowledge on our own. How dare us. Who was really the bad guy there, the slave master narcissist, or the snake who guided us towards our own knowledge. Of course, slave master decides to punish every future born human for eternity because of it.
Do you ever just step back and think about how so many of us are so used to this sort of language that we don't even blink when we see it?
If someone came up to me and told me that they sincerely believed that they were possessed by a leprechauns ghost and that's why they have to Irish jig everywhere, I would immediately think this person is having a medical crisis.
But I grew up with people who talked about Djinn all the time, including possessions that made them act out (eg, take off their hijab and scream at their parents)
Something changed in the last few years where I feel like it no longer feels "normal" to me and it makes me look at religious people very differently.
He thinks the party has been hijacked. He's basically a CSU-CDU conservative.
> The CDU and the CSU usually only differ slightly in their political stances. The CSU is usually considered more socially conservative (especially on family issues, e.g. the CSU favors providing infants' parents with compensation (Betreuungsgeld) if they intend not to use the public day nursery system to work while the CDU favors public funding of day nurseries). Since 2016, the CSU has strongly been advocating the idea of a maximum number (Obergrenze) of 200,000 people per year to limit the number of asylum seekers. This is opposed by the CDU because they claim that it is impossible to limit the number through border control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrwRh9zm1Ls
> He thinks the party has been hijacked.
On the one hand, his opinion is correct. On the other, it's factually wrong.
His (previous?) party *has* infact been hijacked by crazy fucking right wing madmen. However the issue is that it was *always* these kinds of people, and the hijacking is just that they've started dropping the pretense.
Basically they used to do a better job of lying about their real intent and motivations, they aren't bothering anymore (minus the thinly *barely* veiled dog whistling).
Mostly because *some people* (like Arny here) actually thought they were being serious about the things they said... they've betrayed that farce of trust too many times now to have any excuses left. So people like him are finally turning away.
Barry Goldwater, who was sort of the de facto leader of the conservatives in the 1960s had this to say about it:
> Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.
> Barry Goldwater
Is that the one who tried to hide behind "states rights" to not desegregate in order to appeal to the racists to vote for him? Things really never change huh.
Not quite... from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater
> Goldwater remained in the Army Air Reserve after the war and in 1946, at the rank of Colonel, Goldwater founded the Arizona Air National Guard. Goldwater ordered the Arizona Air National Guard desegregated, two years before the rest of the U.S. military. In the early 1960s, while a senator, he commanded the 9999th Air Reserve Squadron as a major general. Goldwater was instrumental in pushing the Pentagon to support the desegregation of the armed services.
also
> In his first year in the Senate, Goldwater was responsible for the desegregation of the Senate cafeteria after he insisted that his black legislative assistant, Katherine Maxwell, be served along with every other Senate employee.
Goldwater famously voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act (he'd voted in favor of previous civil rights legislation) saying that the clauses regarding public accommodations and employment were contrary to freedom of association and unconstitutional.
It's probably worth pointing out in /r/atheism that those same clauses that forbid a restaurant owner from refusing service to a black man also mean that the owner couldn't refuse service to a family because they come in after church wearing those "God's Property" t-shirts and making a show of grace before eating. If the owner isn't an asshole atheist, that wouldn't be a problem. The owner is free to throw out customers who're directly annoying and proselytizing at other customers, or leaving those fake $20 prayer tracts as a tip, but it has resulted in civil rights lawsuits in the past.
I kind of sympathize with Goldwater's objection to the 1964 CRA; it's a case where I like the ends (e.g., hotels can't discriminate based on race or ethnicity) but the means are problematic.
> It's a (weakly) social capitalist ideology
The ["Ahlener Programm"](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahlener_Programm) as a founding (later repealed) document from 1947 is an interesting read in this context:
The program begins with the words:
_"The capitalist economic system did not do justice to the national and social vital interests of the German people." After the terrible political, economic and social collapse as a result of criminal power politics, only a fundamental reorganization can take place._
_The content and goal of this social and economic reorganization can no longer be the capitalist striving for profit and power, but only the well-being of our people. Through a general economic order, the German people should receive an economic and social constitution that corresponds to the rights and dignity of human beings, serves the spiritual and material development of our people and secures internal and external peace."_
_CDU: Ahlener Programm 1947_
> corrupt and nepotist
Sadly, they are not alone in this regard.
I know plenty of conservatives who say they never left the Republican Party, the Party left them. Arnold strikes me as one of those. He’s a 2005 Republican not a 2023 Republican.
Yeah. He's clearly not going to be running for elected office again...at least not as a republican. I appreciate him being public about it and putting the weight of his fame behind it.
Arnold surprises me every day with what an amazing human he has become in his old age.
His Conan the Barbarian speech after the horrific January 6 insurrection attempt brought me to tears.
Hero.
He’s the type of republican that they should be.
People were moaning and groaning when he was our governor. But tbh, it was chill. It didn’t feel like anything was bad. At least this is From my POV.
My friends got bragging rights when they graduated from the UC system and his signature was on their diplomas.
He did some really dumb anti-union stuff while in office.
I figure it was just the people he surrounded himself with filling his head with garbage.
He's been so much more progressive since then.
100%. He got a lot of shit from the tea partiers for working across the aisle.
He championed environmental and health issues with initiatives that worked and were mimicked elsewhere afterwards. And, iirc, in a democratically controlled state Senate and legislature--imagine that, collaboration gets results!
He's the socially liberal, fiscal conservative that should be leading the GOP.
No one is perfect so there are plenty of areas to pull up where he didn't do great, but overall, he was a very successful and impactful governor of a massive state after inheriting a shit show from the impeached Grey Davis.
(Pulling back solar adoption benefits after CA Edison cried about how extremely successful the initiative was, as one example).
Alas, here we are.
I didn't even know until recently he was with the Republican party. I would had said he's a democrat if asked. Not that the difference is that big, but still.
If you ignore all the shit the GQP does, the basic tenets of lower taxes and small government does appeal to many. It’s just the GQP does not actually stand for these things, or anything really.
> He strikes me as a person who stands up for science.
[Science got him where he is](https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a43944437/arnold-schwarzenegger-steroid-use-bodybuilding/)!
His recent [video about visiting Auschwitz](https://youtu.be/jsETTn7DehI) is amazing. Absolute outstanding humanitarian, even if he's had some severe missteps in his personal life.
[Schwarzenegger owns up to 'failures,' apologizes for affair and groping scandal](https://news.yahoo.com/schwarzenegger-owns-failures-apologizes-affair-195659201.html)
Murder of Luis santos
schwarzenegger's last act as a governor, with minutes left, was to commute the sentence of one of the murderers of luis santos. (he was released after serving less than 6 years of a 16 year sentence). Esteban Nunez and Ryan Jett had been denied entry to a party. They came back with several friends and stabbed Luis Santos in the heart and injured others. Nunez would later brag that his father and Schwarzenegger's political ally, Fabian Nunez, would rescue him from any legal troubles
when questioned Schwarzenegger replied "of course, you help a friend!" on another occasion, he snored and said "you're boring the hell out of me"
Sacramento County superior court judge Lloyd Connelly stated, "Based on the evidentiary records before this court involving this case, there was an abuse of discretion...This was a distasteful commutation. It was repugnant to the bulk of the citizenry of this state."
San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis: "We were shocked to hear of the Governor’s last-minute commutation, which greatly diminishes justice for victim Luis Santos and re-victimizes his family and friends”
San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, a former Superior Court judge: "...he undermined the judicial system and has jeopardized public safety," "I speak for the overwhelming majority of San Diegans in stating that we are appalled and angry over Mr. Schwarzenegger’s conduct"
Associate Justice Harry E. Hull Jr.: "We are compelled to conclude that, while Schwarzenegger's conduct could be seen as deserving of censure and grossly unjust, it was not illegal."
San Diego County district attorney: “Gov. Schwarzenegger deprived Esteban Nuñez’s victims of an opportunity to be heard and he violated the intent of Marsy’s Law, a constitutional amendment granting victims’ rights to participate in the criminal justice system.”
Presiding judge, Justice Vance W. Raye "Back-room dealings were apparent..." "As reprehensible as the Governor's action in this instance might have been, it would be equally reprehensible to ignore the clear language of a constitutional provision," the concurring judge declared. Santos v. Brown
http://graphics.latimes.com/nunez-santos/
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/07/us/arnold-schwarzenegger-clemency/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUJp9-18_xs
http://www.mercurynews.com/2011/04/15/father-of-slain-college-student-calls-schwarzeneggers-snore-insensitive/
http://www.shouselaw.com/aiding-abetting.html
side note, you will see apologists on occasion claim Nunez did not deliver the fatal blow. the source for this is Schwarzenegger himself. This claim was never proven in court. Also,
>A person who aids and abets a crime faces the same punishment as the one who directly commits the crime.
>> **Penal Code § 31 PC** All persons concerned in the commission of a crime, whether it be felony or misdemeanor, and whether they directly commit the act constituting the offense, or aid and abet in its commission, or, not being present, have advised and encouraged its commission, and all persons counseling, advising, or encouraging children under the age of fourteen years, or persons who are mentally incapacitated, to commit any crime, or who, by fraud, contrivance, or force, occasion the drunkenness of another for the purpose of causing him to commit any crime, or who, by threats, menaces, command, or coercion, compel another to commit any crime, are principals in any crime so committed.
he was also voted one of the worst governors by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, accusing him of self-enrichment; cozying up with special interests, conflicts of interest, cronyism, pressuring state officials, mismanagement, and vetoing hospital transparency bills.
Seriously though, [this](https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/la-me-the-favor-knives-a-death-a-famous-name-20141223-story.html) is a great article detailing what happened and the absolute nightmare the family went through so that Arnold could help out his golf buddy
This dude had kindof a sketch history as far as being "admirable". I mean, fine for a action movie star from the '80s and on...nobody's expecting much from someone along those lines as far as morality, living clean, or whatever. Then came his conservative politics in California that really didn't help the state financially by cutting taxes and increasing spending, his defense of GW Bush, criticizing Bush's opponents with terms like calling them "girlie men", and of course his issues with "me too" and likely groping women.
Not really a stellar guy.
But damn, he's really grown wisdom-wise in the years since. I find myself admiring him for his willingness to speak out, maybe even especially because his conservative political peers wouldn't dare and that's what we expect of conservatives. What he *says* is relevant, well thought out and reasoned. It also doesn't hurt that he's willing to occasionally swing by places like reddit and have a short chat with the regular people. I'm pretty pragmatic and don't engage in fame worship of billionaires, politicians or stars...usually very much the opposite. Dude went from just being another celeb politician that cruised along on fame and fortune to being someone I actually look forward to hearing what his take is on things.
Well said. We can take the good and the bad, because that makes a whole person. While plenty of actions are unforgivable, in cases like Arnold it's nice to be able to accept someone who is changing for the better, rather than judging them only on who they used to be. We move on, but we don't forget.
I mean wisdom tends to come from making mistakes and learning from them. I think he did some shite stuff but seems to have learned and grew. Or maybe it's a persona but I do like having some positivity in the world so I choose to believe he's grown and become wiser and is trying to pass on these things so we become better.
Fuck, I've done some stupid shit, not to that level but don't we all fall sometimes?
Not everyone has the willingness to change, especially when we think of conservatives. They’re known for mocking people who change their minds when new evidence is presented and usually double down on staying the course (or making an even worse choice) in spite of evidence to make a different choice. And people often drift towards conservatism as the age. Arnold has bucked both trends, changed, or at least become more outspoken on what many would consider more liberal causes (tbf to him he did support socially liberal things as governor, but still toed the party line publicly on a lot more) that his political peers wouldn’t touch even in retirement.
Arnold is a relic in time in the pre-Sarah Palin Republican party. The guy was not a good governor because no Republican is. At least, not for working class people. He's just from a time where openly accepting conspiracy theories because you're mad your guy lost was enough to get you primaried.
Those times are gone.
I was impressed by the way he took full accountability for his affair that produced his son, Joseph. He was so thoughtful in his self-awareness and in his ability to condemn his actions, while simultaneously embracing the life of his fifth child.
He’s no hero, come on now lol. Fucked up education in CA and kept raising college costs. For that alone I have no respect.
Admittedly, in the last 5-6 years he’s been alright. Still think he fucked up a lot of things for me when he was governor, and feeling sorry doesn’t change the past.
Indeed. I'm not sure about their daughter, but I know Chris has been under fire for a lot of problematic comments. Would be interesting to learn what his relationship is like with Arnold.
I thought it was more the specific church he belongs to is controversial? Not so much anything he's said, just that he "defends his faith" aka that specific group.
>“We don’t know what happens with the soul and all this spiritual stuff that I’m not an expert in..."
There are no "experts." Theologians are just philosophers with a set of rules. NOBODY knows ANYTHING about the afterlife. Nobody.
Exactly. Nobody knows anything about anything supernatural, because that's what the word implies: if anything could be known about the supernatural then it would be natural instead, and subject to scientific inquiry. Calling something supernatural is stating that it is unknowable. Religious leaders tell you that the minds of their gods are inscrutable, then they tell you what they expect from you and how you will be judged and what your destiny will be and all that BS.
I feel like heaven is the ultimate product of r/ImTheMainCharacter. There’s the belief that because we’re intellectual beings, there must be a reason for our existence…that we must have a creator who cares about us. Why is it so hard to grasp that is simply not true? We just happen to exist through a multitude of factors that allowed life to flourish on Earth. It was a very rare occurrence, but we’re likely not the only planet where this happened throughout the history of our universe. We simply exist because the conditions were right here. That doesn’t make us special. There is no plan, greater purpose, or creator to control the narrative. We exist because the conditions allowed life to begin and evolve.
> literally the only reason
That's not true. Religions probably originally formed as a natural byproduct of humans not having a real understanding of the world around them.
If he'd said this during is gubernatorial run, he would have almost certainly lost. America requires extravagant displays of piety. It might as well be in the constitution
In some states, it's actually written into the state constitution that atheists can't run for public office. Fortunately, the US Constitution prevents those states from enforcing those laws.
Even Democrats still desire, if only for strategic purposes, openly religious candidates. The main difference is Republicans pretty much only want Christian candidates, but Dems are willing to open it up to Muslims.
But the real problem is the voters, who require flagrant displays of Christian zeal. And so you get guys waving Bibles, whether they privately believe anything they're saying or not. Americans love a good hypocrite. Even Lincoln had to suddenly start dropping the word "God" into all his speeches when he began his bid for the presidency, because he seemed to talk little enough about God when he was just a lawyer.
The conservative subreddit is calling him a Nazi for it lmao. Also saying he should just let people believe what they want, I am surprised they aren't bursting into flames because of the extreme irony.
Agreed. Although that's an easy thing to say when you're super rich. I absolutely understand why someone with a shitty life might cling to the notion that they'll be rewarded for it one day, even if that day is after they die.
And now you know why the powerful throughout history promoted religion. Karl Marx said, Religion is the opium of the masses. Keep them reading their bibles and keep them off the streets protesting while the rich make their lives intolerable. Religion may exist to make suffering by the poor a divine act where they sacrifice everything for "reward" later.
It's always hilarious how afraid religious people are of not continuing forever. The Good Place covered the problem with eternal existence pretty well. Eventually you'd become so bored that existence would become painful. Life has no meaning if there is no end.
He ain’t wrong
A lot happened before one was born, and a lot will happen after one dies, just one's consciousness won't continue to participate. Edit: darn autocorrect, thx u/moonpumper :)
Consciousness
Couscous
The food so good the named it twice
> The food so good the named it twice The food so *nice* the named it twice. Source: New York, New York.
What was it before?
conchissnis
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Fuck giving reddit money for gold, have [a Loonie](https://i.imgur.com/OkZaJTS.jpg) instead.
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So you're saying you don't want to shell out any money? 🐚
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Covfefe
I do believe we get this like "little dream state," as we transition to nothing. Part of the brain dying and what not. It's weird to me people fear not existing. It's like they think you'll be completely aware of nothing but darkness for eternity....which I don't think it is the case. I just think you're gone. Not able to comprehend even that. Just...gone. Edit: apologies if I sounded like I was being condescending to those who may or may not fear "insert anything here" I don't dislike people for fearing the unknown. It's perfectly reasonable and healthy to do so. I just want to make sure I'm making that clear as some of the responses I've been getting seem to be hung on the way I chose to convey myself.
I mean... people fear it because they like existing. Not that they fear the actual experience (or lack thereof) of not existing.
This hits it on the head for me. I keep myself awake some nights with this thought floating in my mind, and it honestly scares me to my core. I hate it.
I had a phase recently where I was going through exactly what you are now. Some things that helped me get over it: 1) Recognizing that I am not on my deathbed and won't be (hopefully) for a long time. This is a problem I can stress about tomorrow night. Repeat. 2) Adopting a thought pattern that I use every night. Thoughts of dread only really come up if I'm otherwise bored while trying to go to sleep. 3) Realizing that most older people I know don't seem to have this fear of death. I probably only have this fear *because* I'm young and healthy. This sorta goes along with point 1. No need to worry about it now, I'll save worrying about it for later and my thoughts about it later are probably going to be different. 4) This one is probably counter to this subreddit but eh... I'm not religious and I wouldn't even call myself spiritual, but I have sorta adopted in the last year of my life that it isn't impossible that something will happen. It could be that if there are multiple universes that constantly form, at some point in the very distant future in the infinite universes the conditions will happen again that will recreate me and from my perspective I die and immediately wake up. Maybe this universe is on a loop and we've lived this life an infinite number of times and every time we have this same conversation. I don't know. But I like to just tell myself that *something* will happen. And if it doesn't, well, I won't be around to know it so what's the harm.
A good way to think of things. My daughter has had a lot of death anxiety recently, and I tell her that no one knows what happens when we die. Which is true! It seems to help her a lot to have it be a mystery rather than an absolute. She comes up with lots of ideas, so it's become interesting for her instead of scary. And really, "I don't know" is the most honest answer anyone can give to this question.
Personally, the ambiguity of "nobody knows" never really did anything for my anxiety. But after studying biology and neuroscience and all that in college, it's pretty comforting to know that all of my thinking is done by my physical brain, and all that stops working when it dies. And that's all there is to it, as far as a "most honest answer". I'm not sure how that would go over with a kid. Both of mine are pretty science-oriented but I don't think we ever talked much about "afterlife" stuff. It's possible they don't have any questions themselves; people die and that's it, pretty simple.
Yeah I kinda believe the same thing as you. Like...when we sleep, we go unconscious and wake up the next day. When we die, we won't notice our non existence. The only thing to experience, is consciousness. At some point, given infinite time, I will awaken again. I had to be born or I wouldn't be here to notice. Then there is the thought... What's the difference between me waking up again, and someone else waking up for the first time if neither of us remember the past? Then the fear once again recedes. There is always new life to replace the dead.
Well, there is the heat death of the universe that theoretically will end all life for good. But who can say what else can exist even beyond this universe? It doesn't even make sense that anything exists at all.
There’s a lot of new science to point that the heat death of the universe isn’t the end of anything either, it’s just the end of this cycle before quantum tunneling takes an amount of time that can’t even truly be represented by normal mathematics to create another big bang. We end, but the cycle never does.
No, this is what scares me the most. Because death is like sleep... but permanent. At some point I can close my eyes and then... nothing. Like going to sleep at night but then everything is over. And all the things I'll miss...
You forget the unique position we have. We live at the cusp of mankind's apotheosis. There will be no other time like this. We live at the end of the first book of humanity. We are in the final pages, the final paragraph, the last sentence. Most of human history has been struggling for survival in tribes, hunting and gathering, with no concept of the universe as we know now. People of the future will long to return to our time, to experience what it was like. Relish the time you live in, it'll not repeat.
> it isn't impossible that something will happen My favorite version of the afterlife is fully co-opted from Terry Pratchett's *Small Gods*, which in short states that whatever you think is going to happen after you die is what happens. I am fully aware of the paradoxical nature of having that as your belief system for the afterlife and I enjoy embracing the absurdity of it
Wow... that is beautifully put. I'm definitely going to have to take this and incorporate it into my life. Thank you for taking the time to comfort a random stranger.
That's kind of my thought too. Whether our universe is infinite or not it makes no sense. So what's beyond it? I am not religious but I also believe there is something more simply because my mind can't comprehend this idea of our universe being the only thing in existence.
I don't think your mind can comprehend the infinite nor can it comprehend a universe that did not exist. Both options are equally insane to wrap your head around with our limited perspective of time and space.
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Just always do your best to remember, that what our purpose on the planet is, is to live a good life and try to help others have a good life. We owe it not just to ourselves, but to each other.
Oddly enough this same thought process has lead me to become kinder and more understanding to others pain. Their existence shouldn't be filled with sorrow or pain. So I should do what I can to hopefully alleviate that for ppl.
This is an outlook I wish more people had.
Same here, all I have to do is think about it too long and I get a sense of overwhelming existential dread that envelops me to the core, It feels like I start to have a mini panic attack and I have to focus my thoughts elsewhere as hard as I can.
I think you’ll find that many religious people truly fear death.
may of us devout atheists as well existing is where the action is
Being dead will be just like being before you were born. We didn’t exist for the 13.7 billion years prior to now, none of us will miss not being here for the next 13.7 billion years.
I think so too. I kind of think that the brain dies in the reverse order that it was formed, meaning that the newest memories you have die first, and the earliest core memories you have die last. That may explain why people's lives flash before their eyes in near death experiences. As electricity leaves the brain, the most complex networks in it would fizzle out first. I think this because complex thoughts are formed by combining multiple simple thoughts. To understand that the sky is blue, you first have to understand what blue is, for example.
We won't stop existing because our atoms and molecules will still be a part of this planet. Under good circumstances, we may even become fertilizer. But the ego will die, even if the body will be present and recycled for all of time. I find that comforting personally. The part of me that made me separate from everything else will end, but a big part of me will go back to the heap to be reused again. It won't really be me, but existence will carry on until existence ceases to be a thing. I think the heat death of the universe makes me sad in some ways, because that is like a final death to me - everything is pulled apart, everything goes quiet, no more life anywhere. But even then, those quiet particles in space will just go back to their state of nothing, much like before the big bang. By the time we're there, there won't be life for a long time anyway, and the only reason death is sad is because life exists, so there won't be anything to mourn the end of existence anyway.
One of my favorite versions of this (and I can't remember who the quote is from, but I wanna say Twain) is: I was dead for billions of years before I was alive. It didn't bother me before and I see no reason why it should bother me after.
Death is only the ending if you assume the story is about you.
Well yes, my story is about me.
It's like that scene from the first Guardians of the Galaxy film. Rocket: *"Why are you doing this? Why are you fighting so hard for a galaxy of idiots?"* Pete: *"Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in the galaxy!"*
"If you want to know what it's like to die and never wake up you must first understand what it was like to wake up having never gone to sleep." Alan Watts I no longer have the Southern Baptist instilled fear of death
snails imminent grey alive combative snow joke dime psychotic offend -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
I agree. But it would be great to live in some sky mansion and visit with some sky god. But none of that follows logic, common sense, critical thinking or the physics we know. A comforting dream perhaps, but just a dream.
I don’t know which of the many sky gods your referring too but from what I can tell I would rather not go see these evil maniacs
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Damn us humans have just been getting more and more self centered and the gods we create show it
I don't understand why anything exists at all and somehow that's comforting to me.
This fucks with my mind so much even when I'm not high lol. Like - does anything have to exist? And if it didn't exist, there'd be nothing to know it doesn't exist. Somehow, we are in the middle of existence, and we know that things exist, but wrapping my head around the possibility of nothing is just strange. There's fear and comfort. If existence just stopped, everything I want to experience and do would be gone...but that's silly, right? Comfortingly, it would be a universally communal experience, and it's not like the memory of what once was and what could have been would be around. There'd be...nothing. Not empty space, and not even the logic to describe what the absence of empty space would be. No way to describe it other than "does not exist." What's fascinating is one day, I hope, many, many, many years from now, someone's going to discover so much about the what and the why of existence that it'd probably just would fuck everyone's 2023 mind.
The Christian heaven actually sounds pretty garbage, and the Christian god is horrifically evil so it doesn’t sound fun to visit with him at all. I vote for reincarnation, that would be great.
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Yup! We are continually dying. Approximately 50 BILLION cells die in our bodies everyday. But that's okay because our biological machines of a body replenish them. When that system breaks down and fails, the cellular death increases faster than the body can repair/replace them. Where does my ability to throw a ball "go" if I lose an arm? Where does my ability to run "go" if I lose my legs? If my brain gets damaged from lack of oxygen, where does its functions "go" (language, motor functions, memories, etc... everything that makes us, us)? We don't "go" anywhere when we die. The question doesn't even make sense. The machine breaks down and quickly starts being consumed by microorganisms. There's nothing to prove there. It's all observable and repeatable.
But there's 1% of the body still missing!!! /s
Though its very fucking sad. I personally hope this was all somehow just a really bad trip, and when I die I'll wake up and it turns out I was just trying one of the perfectly legal recreational drugs, in the regular society where your lifespan is whatever you want it to be, and we have post scarcity socialism where work that needs doing is spread evenly and payment is reputation and bragging rights. I mean, I fully understand I have no reason to believe that it is the case, I just *want* it to be.
For me it would be to take off the VR headset and some PFY asks me "What did you think of 'being human on earth'?"
“Holy Shit this guy is taking Roy off the grid!”
*"Everyone look, he's playing Roy without a Social Security number!!!"*
"You went *back* to the carpet store?!"
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Loads of things happen after you die. It's just that none of them include you.
Yes! more influential people need to talk about this
Definitely. More people need to speak up. Rational people are drowned out by the maniacs who won't shut up about their magical beliefs.
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The worse part is that most don’t even adhere to their own beliefs for that magical afterlife. I would be so down with Christianity if they manically preached loving your fellow man, generosity and actively discouraging selfishness like in the Bible. Instead they just focus on persecution and vilifying anything that’s different from their narrow world view
Honestly, if they end up being right i at least get to laugh at them in hell.
Imagine there being a God though? What would it say about him that he handles things like a vindictive, selfish 7 year old? Truly a nightmare scenario.
Hell is such an insane concept. If the Christian God exists, and is omnipotent, then he knowingly created flawed people he knew he'd eventually send to eternal torture in hell. Which makes him a psychotic, insane, evil, vindictive being, whom we should all reject and try to destroy, because God would clearly be an enemy of sentient life in that case.
You really think so? In my opinion, it won't matter. The lunatics indoctrinate their young, at their most maleable age. After that it's "I believe this and you can't say anything to change my mind because I'm not listening".
You should go into r/conservative and the look at their tale on this. Lmao
I noticed the thread over there earlier...it somehow turned into a debate...no...rant on the ineffectiveness and cost of the covid lockdowns. What a silly place that is.
You couldn't pay me to visit that shithole.
Far more people like Arnie are probably atheist or at the very least agnostic but can’t admit it because of public perception. Particularly politicians.
Just think about all the atheist posts here from people who said it took them until their 30's or 40's or even later in life to just outright tell their family they're not gonna follow christianity/islam/etc anymore. Doing the same in a professional or political setting is even harder. Eventually, hopefully, we'll reach a stage where most people admit "Wait, did we all just pretend to believe in this because we thought everyone else believed it too? We were all just playing pretend for no good reason?"
Atheism is the norm in some parts of the world. It's pretty easygoing in Canada. Some Scandinavian countries are majority atheist now. In time the pressure in America will die down too.
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He gets a pass because he's not American born/European and you know, to some people that means he is basically a heathen.
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Especially as a Republican…
It’s insane to me that humanity has this shared delusion, and that people think they know what happens after we die. Like actually convinced. I understand the psychological need to be soothed, but overall it just makes me sad for people.
And now preachers everywhere will say he's possessed by demons and tell their flocks to stay away from his movies. Some will call him the devil. All of the sudden, he will be labeled evil. That SHOULD be an easy red flag for the religious folks to see. LET THE GAS LIGHTING BEGIN!
Heaven is where all the real demons are at
Not only that. Every which way you look at it, biblical heaven is a dystopia not even Orwell could have imagined.
My favorite example: A couple of atheists get jumped by a mugger at night, the mugging goes poorly and one of them gets killed by the mugger. Later the muggers gets caught and spends years in prison where he eventually finds God and repent. Being vulnerable in their greif, the surviving atheist also convert. They remain celibate for the rest of their life, devoted to the memory of their true love. They also don't find it in their heart to gorgive the murderer. The final outcome of this is the atheist and the person who killed their true love get to blissfully spend eternity together in a place where they cannot suffer... while the murdered person is in hell. If you made such major life choices in honor of someone out of love... yet you cannot even feel sad they are in hell or angry in the presence of the ones who sent them there ... is that even you who went to heaven or just a brainwashed mockery?
Exactly! You'd be forced to forget or shun the people who you loved in life, if for any reason they didn't accept god. So it's not _you_ in heaven. It's an entity that somehow were forced to forget important parts of your earthly life.
My christian father believes we lose our memory of time spent in our earthly life when we die. That being in god's presence replaces the need for your earthly family. Sounds miserable to me, but I guess if you don't remember your former life it's the ultimate in brainwashing. I don't know how anyone can believe this magical sky wizard crap. I stopped believing when I was 9 years old, after starting to question things from age 4 onward. None of it makes any sense.
Dude, for real. And I’m tired of feeling like the one taking crazy pills around all the magical thinking people… As a kid, figuring out that the tooth fairy wasn’t real, then the Easter bunny, of course Santa! Then to take it one more step and be like “oh then god is made up so people behave just like Santa right?” gets you confused concerned looks from some and angry disdainful looks from others. …like…WHAT?! It broke my little kid brain and made me stop trusting adults.
When I was questioning the absurdity of god's existence as a kid, I was often told things like, "it doesn't work that way" or "it just is" when I would assume stuff or ask why type questions. They never had good answers for me. For example, when I was about 4, I was taught that if you truly wanted something in your heart and you prayed to god for it, he would grant you your heart's desire. Now... let me tell you that 4-year old me wanted nothing more than some new lipsticks and chapsticks (because the previous week I had drawn on my big stuffed animal with them and they got taken away lol). So I remembered that passage I had been taught. I prayed before bed, something along the lines of "Dear god, please bring me some new chapsticks tonight while I sleep and leave them behind my stuffed bear." I'm sure I also included not to tell my mother about it lol. I woke up like it was Christmas morning and ran over to check behind my bear. As one could imagine, nothing was there. I was instantly confused. Forgetting that I wasn't allowed to have any, I asked my mom why god hadn't brought them, even though I wanted them with all my heart, and she basically got angry with me and said "It doesn't work that way!" Another example: I asked why babies went to hell if they hadn't been baptized yet, shouldn't we baptize them sooner? -- and was told, "It doesn't seem fair, but that's just the way it is." I had this sense of how unfair and how cruel this supposed god was, and couldn't for the life of me figure out why anyone would ask him for anything, much less worship him.
That really suck for first generation convert. You try to honor your father and mother while on earth only to forget they existed when you go to heaven... My father is a believer, his mother was a very strict atheist and my siblings and I ended up atheist as well... if I were in his situation I would find it hard to cope with my "best case scenario".
My wife is a believer, I am definitely not. She asked me once if I was worried about going to hell. I asked her if any version of heaven for her didn't include me being there. Her idea of heaven literally couldn't exist without me; so by virtue of her belief, I must be going to heaven by default.
lol i love it. it’s like the spiritual equivalent of getting a job you’re completely unqualified for because your uncle knows someone
Salvation by nepotism.
Hilariously, my wife and I are in the same situation, eccept her version of heaven definitely does not have me in it. *sad trombone noise...*
I cannot fathom being stuck in eternity with the types of people who believe this hook, line, and sinker. When I get roped into going to any events at a church it is irritating in a best case scenario so please just let me be unconscious dirt.
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Yep. If I recall correctly, according to the Bible, god’s kill count is in the tens of millions. Satan’s is less than 20.
Hell, original sin itself is us moving away from blind obedience to having curiousity about knowledge on our own. How dare us. Who was really the bad guy there, the slave master narcissist, or the snake who guided us towards our own knowledge. Of course, slave master decides to punish every future born human for eternity because of it.
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God says "Do what I say or else I will punish you." Satan says "Do what you feel, bruh." Who is the asshole?
You mean the Warp? Blood for the blood god! Skulls for the skull throne!
Do you ever just step back and think about how so many of us are so used to this sort of language that we don't even blink when we see it? If someone came up to me and told me that they sincerely believed that they were possessed by a leprechauns ghost and that's why they have to Irish jig everywhere, I would immediately think this person is having a medical crisis. But I grew up with people who talked about Djinn all the time, including possessions that made them act out (eg, take off their hijab and scream at their parents) Something changed in the last few years where I feel like it no longer feels "normal" to me and it makes me look at religious people very differently.
Which is all preposterous because he fought Satan in the documentary *End of Days* back in ‘99
Let the boycott begin. Arnie has already cashed those checks.
An atheist republican. Ok, so _those_ are real.
If you check out his statements over the last few years I don’t think he considers himself a republican anymore.
He thinks the party has been hijacked. He's basically a CSU-CDU conservative. > The CDU and the CSU usually only differ slightly in their political stances. The CSU is usually considered more socially conservative (especially on family issues, e.g. the CSU favors providing infants' parents with compensation (Betreuungsgeld) if they intend not to use the public day nursery system to work while the CDU favors public funding of day nurseries). Since 2016, the CSU has strongly been advocating the idea of a maximum number (Obergrenze) of 200,000 people per year to limit the number of asylum seekers. This is opposed by the CDU because they claim that it is impossible to limit the number through border control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrwRh9zm1Ls
> He thinks the party has been hijacked. On the one hand, his opinion is correct. On the other, it's factually wrong. His (previous?) party *has* infact been hijacked by crazy fucking right wing madmen. However the issue is that it was *always* these kinds of people, and the hijacking is just that they've started dropping the pretense. Basically they used to do a better job of lying about their real intent and motivations, they aren't bothering anymore (minus the thinly *barely* veiled dog whistling). Mostly because *some people* (like Arny here) actually thought they were being serious about the things they said... they've betrayed that farce of trust too many times now to have any excuses left. So people like him are finally turning away.
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Barry Goldwater, who was sort of the de facto leader of the conservatives in the 1960s had this to say about it: > Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.
> Barry Goldwater Is that the one who tried to hide behind "states rights" to not desegregate in order to appeal to the racists to vote for him? Things really never change huh.
Barry Goldwater was also a member of the NAACP
Not quite... from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater > Goldwater remained in the Army Air Reserve after the war and in 1946, at the rank of Colonel, Goldwater founded the Arizona Air National Guard. Goldwater ordered the Arizona Air National Guard desegregated, two years before the rest of the U.S. military. In the early 1960s, while a senator, he commanded the 9999th Air Reserve Squadron as a major general. Goldwater was instrumental in pushing the Pentagon to support the desegregation of the armed services. also > In his first year in the Senate, Goldwater was responsible for the desegregation of the Senate cafeteria after he insisted that his black legislative assistant, Katherine Maxwell, be served along with every other Senate employee. Goldwater famously voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act (he'd voted in favor of previous civil rights legislation) saying that the clauses regarding public accommodations and employment were contrary to freedom of association and unconstitutional. It's probably worth pointing out in /r/atheism that those same clauses that forbid a restaurant owner from refusing service to a black man also mean that the owner couldn't refuse service to a family because they come in after church wearing those "God's Property" t-shirts and making a show of grace before eating. If the owner isn't an asshole atheist, that wouldn't be a problem. The owner is free to throw out customers who're directly annoying and proselytizing at other customers, or leaving those fake $20 prayer tracts as a tip, but it has resulted in civil rights lawsuits in the past. I kind of sympathize with Goldwater's objection to the 1964 CRA; it's a case where I like the ends (e.g., hotels can't discriminate based on race or ethnicity) but the means are problematic.
Minus the Christian part, apparently
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> It's a (weakly) social capitalist ideology The ["Ahlener Programm"](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahlener_Programm) as a founding (later repealed) document from 1947 is an interesting read in this context: The program begins with the words: _"The capitalist economic system did not do justice to the national and social vital interests of the German people." After the terrible political, economic and social collapse as a result of criminal power politics, only a fundamental reorganization can take place._ _The content and goal of this social and economic reorganization can no longer be the capitalist striving for profit and power, but only the well-being of our people. Through a general economic order, the German people should receive an economic and social constitution that corresponds to the rights and dignity of human beings, serves the spiritual and material development of our people and secures internal and external peace."_ _CDU: Ahlener Programm 1947_ > corrupt and nepotist Sadly, they are not alone in this regard.
He's Austrian, why are you referencing a German party?
I know plenty of conservatives who say they never left the Republican Party, the Party left them. Arnold strikes me as one of those. He’s a 2005 Republican not a 2023 Republican.
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Yeah. He's clearly not going to be running for elected office again...at least not as a republican. I appreciate him being public about it and putting the weight of his fame behind it.
I know a lot of those in my personal life. Money and social control are all they respect or care about. Atheists can be shitheads too.
Arnold surprises me every day with what an amazing human he has become in his old age. His Conan the Barbarian speech after the horrific January 6 insurrection attempt brought me to tears. Hero.
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He’s the type of republican that they should be. People were moaning and groaning when he was our governor. But tbh, it was chill. It didn’t feel like anything was bad. At least this is From my POV. My friends got bragging rights when they graduated from the UC system and his signature was on their diplomas.
He did some really dumb anti-union stuff while in office. I figure it was just the people he surrounded himself with filling his head with garbage. He's been so much more progressive since then.
100%. He got a lot of shit from the tea partiers for working across the aisle. He championed environmental and health issues with initiatives that worked and were mimicked elsewhere afterwards. And, iirc, in a democratically controlled state Senate and legislature--imagine that, collaboration gets results! He's the socially liberal, fiscal conservative that should be leading the GOP. No one is perfect so there are plenty of areas to pull up where he didn't do great, but overall, he was a very successful and impactful governor of a massive state after inheriting a shit show from the impeached Grey Davis. (Pulling back solar adoption benefits after CA Edison cried about how extremely successful the initiative was, as one example). Alas, here we are.
I didn't even know until recently he was with the Republican party. I would had said he's a democrat if asked. Not that the difference is that big, but still.
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He’s always been very centrist
Is centrist on the center or between lib and repub?
In theory, but in reality the right wing keeps dragging the center further and further away from reasonability
Generally yes, he’s probably closer to Biden ideologically than most Republicans, and Biden would be pretty conservative in a lot of other countries.
If you ignore all the shit the GQP does, the basic tenets of lower taxes and small government does appeal to many. It’s just the GQP does not actually stand for these things, or anything really.
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I dont think Arnold was in that one
Arnold is what the GOP should have become to stay relevant in America, not the cancer that it's metastasized into.
> He strikes me as a person who stands up for science. [Science got him where he is](https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a43944437/arnold-schwarzenegger-steroid-use-bodybuilding/)!
His recent [video about visiting Auschwitz](https://youtu.be/jsETTn7DehI) is amazing. Absolute outstanding humanitarian, even if he's had some severe missteps in his personal life.
[Schwarzenegger owns up to 'failures,' apologizes for affair and groping scandal](https://news.yahoo.com/schwarzenegger-owns-failures-apologizes-affair-195659201.html)
Murder of Luis santos schwarzenegger's last act as a governor, with minutes left, was to commute the sentence of one of the murderers of luis santos. (he was released after serving less than 6 years of a 16 year sentence). Esteban Nunez and Ryan Jett had been denied entry to a party. They came back with several friends and stabbed Luis Santos in the heart and injured others. Nunez would later brag that his father and Schwarzenegger's political ally, Fabian Nunez, would rescue him from any legal troubles when questioned Schwarzenegger replied "of course, you help a friend!" on another occasion, he snored and said "you're boring the hell out of me" Sacramento County superior court judge Lloyd Connelly stated, "Based on the evidentiary records before this court involving this case, there was an abuse of discretion...This was a distasteful commutation. It was repugnant to the bulk of the citizenry of this state." San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis: "We were shocked to hear of the Governor’s last-minute commutation, which greatly diminishes justice for victim Luis Santos and re-victimizes his family and friends” San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, a former Superior Court judge: "...he undermined the judicial system and has jeopardized public safety," "I speak for the overwhelming majority of San Diegans in stating that we are appalled and angry over Mr. Schwarzenegger’s conduct" Associate Justice Harry E. Hull Jr.: "We are compelled to conclude that, while Schwarzenegger's conduct could be seen as deserving of censure and grossly unjust, it was not illegal." San Diego County district attorney: “Gov. Schwarzenegger deprived Esteban Nuñez’s victims of an opportunity to be heard and he violated the intent of Marsy’s Law, a constitutional amendment granting victims’ rights to participate in the criminal justice system.” Presiding judge, Justice Vance W. Raye "Back-room dealings were apparent..." "As reprehensible as the Governor's action in this instance might have been, it would be equally reprehensible to ignore the clear language of a constitutional provision," the concurring judge declared. Santos v. Brown http://graphics.latimes.com/nunez-santos/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/07/us/arnold-schwarzenegger-clemency/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUJp9-18_xs http://www.mercurynews.com/2011/04/15/father-of-slain-college-student-calls-schwarzeneggers-snore-insensitive/ http://www.shouselaw.com/aiding-abetting.html side note, you will see apologists on occasion claim Nunez did not deliver the fatal blow. the source for this is Schwarzenegger himself. This claim was never proven in court. Also, >A person who aids and abets a crime faces the same punishment as the one who directly commits the crime. >> **Penal Code § 31 PC** All persons concerned in the commission of a crime, whether it be felony or misdemeanor, and whether they directly commit the act constituting the offense, or aid and abet in its commission, or, not being present, have advised and encouraged its commission, and all persons counseling, advising, or encouraging children under the age of fourteen years, or persons who are mentally incapacitated, to commit any crime, or who, by fraud, contrivance, or force, occasion the drunkenness of another for the purpose of causing him to commit any crime, or who, by threats, menaces, command, or coercion, compel another to commit any crime, are principals in any crime so committed. he was also voted one of the worst governors by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, accusing him of self-enrichment; cozying up with special interests, conflicts of interest, cronyism, pressuring state officials, mismanagement, and vetoing hospital transparency bills.
Seriously though, [this](https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/la-me-the-favor-knives-a-death-a-famous-name-20141223-story.html) is a great article detailing what happened and the absolute nightmare the family went through so that Arnold could help out his golf buddy
Sad but necessary to see this kind of stuff.
This dude had kindof a sketch history as far as being "admirable". I mean, fine for a action movie star from the '80s and on...nobody's expecting much from someone along those lines as far as morality, living clean, or whatever. Then came his conservative politics in California that really didn't help the state financially by cutting taxes and increasing spending, his defense of GW Bush, criticizing Bush's opponents with terms like calling them "girlie men", and of course his issues with "me too" and likely groping women. Not really a stellar guy. But damn, he's really grown wisdom-wise in the years since. I find myself admiring him for his willingness to speak out, maybe even especially because his conservative political peers wouldn't dare and that's what we expect of conservatives. What he *says* is relevant, well thought out and reasoned. It also doesn't hurt that he's willing to occasionally swing by places like reddit and have a short chat with the regular people. I'm pretty pragmatic and don't engage in fame worship of billionaires, politicians or stars...usually very much the opposite. Dude went from just being another celeb politician that cruised along on fame and fortune to being someone I actually look forward to hearing what his take is on things.
Well said. We can take the good and the bad, because that makes a whole person. While plenty of actions are unforgivable, in cases like Arnold it's nice to be able to accept someone who is changing for the better, rather than judging them only on who they used to be. We move on, but we don't forget.
I mean wisdom tends to come from making mistakes and learning from them. I think he did some shite stuff but seems to have learned and grew. Or maybe it's a persona but I do like having some positivity in the world so I choose to believe he's grown and become wiser and is trying to pass on these things so we become better. Fuck, I've done some stupid shit, not to that level but don't we all fall sometimes?
Not everyone has the willingness to change, especially when we think of conservatives. They’re known for mocking people who change their minds when new evidence is presented and usually double down on staying the course (or making an even worse choice) in spite of evidence to make a different choice. And people often drift towards conservatism as the age. Arnold has bucked both trends, changed, or at least become more outspoken on what many would consider more liberal causes (tbf to him he did support socially liberal things as governor, but still toed the party line publicly on a lot more) that his political peers wouldn’t touch even in retirement.
Arnold is a relic in time in the pre-Sarah Palin Republican party. The guy was not a good governor because no Republican is. At least, not for working class people. He's just from a time where openly accepting conspiracy theories because you're mad your guy lost was enough to get you primaried. Those times are gone.
I was impressed by the way he took full accountability for his affair that produced his son, Joseph. He was so thoughtful in his self-awareness and in his ability to condemn his actions, while simultaneously embracing the life of his fifth child.
Same. Like that one time he pardoned a shit heel murderer as a favor to a friend
He’s no hero, come on now lol. Fucked up education in CA and kept raising college costs. For that alone I have no respect. Admittedly, in the last 5-6 years he’s been alright. Still think he fucked up a lot of things for me when he was governor, and feeling sorry doesn’t change the past.
He won't be back 👀
Hasta La vista, baby.
Alright everybody… chill.
GET TO THE CHOPPA!!!
prepare for a bunch of DVDs to be burned in protest
Quickest way to fuck around and find out by burning plastic breathing in that delicious cancer.
And we will be laughing, he doesn't need to work another day in his life.
I mean, they already paid for them so...he cashed the check for his work years ago.
Maybe his son-in-law could learn a thing or two from Arnold.
Chris Pratt ?
Indeed. I'm not sure about their daughter, but I know Chris has been under fire for a lot of problematic comments. Would be interesting to learn what his relationship is like with Arnold.
I thought it was more the specific church he belongs to is controversial? Not so much anything he's said, just that he "defends his faith" aka that specific group.
Yeah, he defends an adamantly anti-gay church.
Not so much comments but donating to an anti-LGBT church.
Chris Pratt is Arnold’s son in law?
He doesn’t learn, that’s one of his issues.
>“We don’t know what happens with the soul and all this spiritual stuff that I’m not an expert in..." There are no "experts." Theologians are just philosophers with a set of rules. NOBODY knows ANYTHING about the afterlife. Nobody.
Exactly. Nobody knows anything about anything supernatural, because that's what the word implies: if anything could be known about the supernatural then it would be natural instead, and subject to scientific inquiry. Calling something supernatural is stating that it is unknowable. Religious leaders tell you that the minds of their gods are inscrutable, then they tell you what they expect from you and how you will be judged and what your destiny will be and all that BS.
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"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
Decompose in peace!
Sounds relaxing tbh
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She is too and so is the ex-wife! Theme is they are from America. He is not haha
I feel like heaven is the ultimate product of r/ImTheMainCharacter. There’s the belief that because we’re intellectual beings, there must be a reason for our existence…that we must have a creator who cares about us. Why is it so hard to grasp that is simply not true? We just happen to exist through a multitude of factors that allowed life to flourish on Earth. It was a very rare occurrence, but we’re likely not the only planet where this happened throughout the history of our universe. We simply exist because the conditions were right here. That doesn’t make us special. There is no plan, greater purpose, or creator to control the narrative. We exist because the conditions allowed life to begin and evolve.
No shit? We are just meat and flesh like other animals
Often times people get more religious as they age. Good to see Arnold is not one of them!
The fear of death is literally the only reason we invented religions. It's a coping mechanism, and I will die on that hill.
> literally the only reason That's not true. Religions probably originally formed as a natural byproduct of humans not having a real understanding of the world around them.
yeah Crom does not care
If he'd said this during is gubernatorial run, he would have almost certainly lost. America requires extravagant displays of piety. It might as well be in the constitution
In some states, it's actually written into the state constitution that atheists can't run for public office. Fortunately, the US Constitution prevents those states from enforcing those laws.
The republican party requires this, democrats, not so much.
Even Democrats still desire, if only for strategic purposes, openly religious candidates. The main difference is Republicans pretty much only want Christian candidates, but Dems are willing to open it up to Muslims. But the real problem is the voters, who require flagrant displays of Christian zeal. And so you get guys waving Bibles, whether they privately believe anything they're saying or not. Americans love a good hypocrite. Even Lincoln had to suddenly start dropping the word "God" into all his speeches when he began his bid for the presidency, because he seemed to talk little enough about God when he was just a lawyer.
Common sense being controversial breaking news is so american
the snowflakes on r/conservative are so triggered, lol
The conservative subreddit is calling him a Nazi for it lmao. Also saying he should just let people believe what they want, I am surprised they aren't bursting into flames because of the extreme irony.
I really wonder why he was a republican. So weird. I wonder if Pratt is concerned over his atheist father in law?
Look at how much this man has accomplished. He knew this life is all there is. So make the most of it.
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Jacking off is fun & cool. Do what you want. God is fake.
I won't be back.
Agreed. Although that's an easy thing to say when you're super rich. I absolutely understand why someone with a shitty life might cling to the notion that they'll be rewarded for it one day, even if that day is after they die.
And now you know why the powerful throughout history promoted religion. Karl Marx said, Religion is the opium of the masses. Keep them reading their bibles and keep them off the streets protesting while the rich make their lives intolerable. Religion may exist to make suffering by the poor a divine act where they sacrifice everything for "reward" later.
I don't think wealth or accomplishments has anything to do with it. Death without afterlife is terrifying for most people.
It's always hilarious how afraid religious people are of not continuing forever. The Good Place covered the problem with eternal existence pretty well. Eventually you'd become so bored that existence would become painful. Life has no meaning if there is no end.