I don't think you know what Liberals are. You are a Buddhist, you support pro-choice and gay rights...Over here that would make you a lefty.

Sounds like somebody has been watching Snowpiercer lately.

True. In DC cannon, only a handful of others are better fighters (Bronze Tiger, Lady Shiva, Richard Dragon, and a few enhanced fighters like Deathstroke).

That said, Superman has mastered a Kryptonian fighting style and has been trained by Batman himself, so he's not a poor fighter.

Iron Man has had some training from Captain America and Hawkeye, but is still primarily reliant on his armor.

See? Arguing to argue. Namecalling to make yourself feel better. Twice my age but half my maturity level. Do you even remember our initial point of contention here? You calling me out for not voting while at the same time calling voting useless? I don't claim to have an especial amount of wisdom. I simply claim to make more sense than you do. And where have I sided with what is popular. I'm an atheist in America. An American who doesn't believe in democracy. I'm rarely on the popular side of any standpoint. Try again you witless nit.

I never had any credibility with you because I never say what you want to hear.

No, its because you caught yourself in a linguistic trap and are too much the fool to realize it. I'm not even sure what your point is anymore, and I doubt you are either. Just arguing to argue at this point. And failing even at that low goal.

Imagine Jabba the Hutt's toilet. Or maybe there is just a giant hole cut out on his throne that leads down to the Rancor pit...

Go anywhere and everywhere until you find something you like. The more you practice, the easier it will be. I've been writing electronic music for years now, and most of my work is still rooted in a succession of happy accidents.

That would be a pretty shitty thing to do, man.

Not so shabby for just messing around. Sound quality needs serious cleaning up, but that little snippet made me curious where the song was gonna go.

Surely even you realize you just set yourself up to lose. If you vote, your being a hypocrite, if you don't, you are the same "whiney bitch" I am. You just killed any credibility in this argument. Not that you ever had any with me to begin with.

Also, you made a sexist statement along the way. Quite the winner we have here.

As usual, your statements are hyper-simplified and exaggerated. But as it turns out, no, I don't vote.

If a request is made of me, I expect good reasons for it.

If God makes a request, I'm sure he would have outstanding reasons, but I'd need to see them first.

Not to mention the whole "hey, could you prove to me you are God?" thing followed by the "if you are God, what the heck are you doing choosing a nobody like me" thing.

Thing is, I can always enjoy the moment, as is, without attempting to enjoy an unknown future whose final calculations are as yet impossible to determine. Besides, I'll gladly sacrifice a smidgeon of illusory enjoyment to avoid very real pain down the road if things go against expectations.

And if down the road proves to be enjoyable, I'll enjoy it when I get there.

Or at least that's the theory. As I said at the beginning, I'm not always successful at the "hold no expectations" rule.

I'm only human after all.

But I'm a human who prefers his joy to be concrete rather than fabricated out of thin air. There's more to life than being happy.

I should clarify that my prior response was a) highly generalized, b) mildly exagarated and c) written while in a bad mood.

I DO accept that different people will have wildly different experiences. Also, from the beginning I said abrogation of fear was a main reason for religion, but it is FAR from the only one.

Great enjoyment is to be had in the expectation of something good happening.

Unless and until it doesn't. In the mean time, if you aren't expecting something good to happen, and it does, you get enjoyment that is IMMEDIATELY validated. That, to me, is true joy.

In cutting yourself off from the pain, you also miss the pleasure.

Only the pleasure that is built on nothing substantial. It is still quite possible to feel pleasure, believe you me.

Example: You are single and you meet someone who catches your fancy. You get her number. During whatever passage of time occurs between then and making your move you could have all these great expectations of things working out. Maybe, just maybe, she could even be the one. But at that point you have no idea how things are really going to go, or even who she really is. Statistically speaking, she probably isn't really the one, and who really knows if ANYTHING is going to happen. By holding out expectations that something will, you could be setting yourself up for a fall in any number of resolutions to that scenario.

Plus, there's ANOTHER problem: you could set these high expectations, but they only get partially met. I.E. you do hook up with her and its kind of nice but you soon realize she's not any where near the goddess you made her out to be. NOW you might be appreciating her less than you normally would because you prematurely held her to expectations she can't meet. Now you've gotten the basic scenario you wanted, but ended up limiting your own enjoyment of it.

Or you can get her number, make the call, go on the date and just let everything happen as it happens. If its a total disaster, you can just chalk that up to something that happens sometimes and move on knowing that not all your dates can be disasters (and if they are, it probably has something to do with yourself, so self-examination is in order).

But there will probably be a little something to be enjoyed from this date and whatever the relationship turns into. And your enjoyment of it will not be lessened just because you weren't expecting it to turn out this way. If its a wonderful thing its a wonderful thing independent of your prior, and limited, assessment of it.

When you get addicted to hope, its lack causes fear. Or experiencing the desperation you mentioned.

Hope doesn't feed the hungry or end wars, and it certainly doesn't change the reality that there will always be hungry people and wars. Hope is nothing but false promises that may never come to fruition. Not heartless, just realistic.

And what would happen if one had no hope? Generally fear. The draw is the fear of feeling hopeless. Which is dumb, since God and other supernatural occurrences can't be demonstrated to be a genuine reason to HAVE hope. I'd rather place my hopes in demonstrable phenomena, should I feel the need for hope to begin with.

Decades of casual religious studies and speaking with the religious has convinced me that for most of them, they choose relegion because it makes them more comfortable. It allows them to believe they are special, that a being of good is in charge of their destiny, that death is not the end. And more than all that, many of them are naturally fearful people (not just the religious though, we all are, which is part of the widespread popularity of religion.) They often feel out of control, so when chaos hits, they want desperately to believe that SOMETHING is in control, and will not let them come to harm. And that when they face their inevitable demise, they will be eternally comfortable.

This isn't bias, this is observation of human nature. Religious people are terrified of a godless world. And to their credit, it CAN be scary.

Fear of mortality or lack of control. That's one of the primary purposes of most religions: to abrogate fear.

I try not to have expectations at all. I'm not saying I succeed all the time, but I sure do try. Expectations lead to heartache and disappointment at the world just doing what it does, and that's not an emotionally healthy way to be.

Yes indeedy. As far as Asshole Face, Mine comes pretty close, and my tattooist is always getting hell for scowling when he is, in fact, just not smiling. I have much sympathy for those who suffer from hardcore BRF/ARF Syndrome!

believing in something is what gives meaning to life.

But is it healthy, either personally or for society, to believe in unproven concepts just for the sake of believing. There are plenty of demonstrable phenomena in the world to hinge one's values and understandings on. And since these are things we can actually work with and manipulate, wouldn't they make more sense.

I'm sure someone could put together a listing based on religious inclination PRIOR to going to jail. THAT would really settle this.

But I'm uninterested in doing the research.

Well, I mean...Isolated weather incidents and climate are a bit "apples and oranges" ye know.

Plus there were all the predictions that rapid warming trends would cause all kinds of wild weather and some of that does indeed involve unexpected coldsnaps.

So yeah...of course its not proof, but nor is it damning.