I am losing my faith in humanity.

For starters the internet is making me lose my faith in humanity. At first I tough it would be great to know a diversity if opinions and comunicate.

But the amount of idiocy I have found is making me really sad. Just looking at comments on You Tube (and many other sites )being attacked for having beliefs and opinions) .

I have been insulted bullied or just plain treated rudely. Even here ( not saying names). Just looking at all the people that make GIFT true make me sad.So Many hate, trolling, racism and intolerance, is just plain depressing.

For example just looking at all the hate brines got for liking my little pony.

Then Real Life is not any better, I am a Christian but without place to doubt I can say that most christians I know are lies.

I was social bullied my entire life by "Christians" I literally couldn't make friends or even speak to people because of that hell. Non Christians actually showed my that U was actually a person of worth and I was worth the friendship of someone. In fact Christians are the people I can't count the least. They treat me with hypocrisy because my dad has an important place there.

Then the cynicism , poverty,the injustice and darkness my country facesas a while makes matters worse. I was once in Germany and everything was much better in comparison.

I wish I could hold on The Power of Friendship but the truth Is that it's depressing to know that I could count with one hand the people I really count with. Everyone just looks for themselves.

The only little hope I have is my believe on love(God).The reason I keep believing on hope, justice and friendship. I am beginning feel that the battle for those ideals is hopeless in a world like this. In fact I have started to lose my strength on it

Sorry for the rant but I am feeling a bit depressed right now and I wanted to take it out

edited 13th Jun '11 4:32:13 PM by FallenLegend

A lot of people feel that way, at least sometimes. But there's always, at least, a few good people around. Even if you can only count them on one hand, at least there's one person in your life.

You can't be the only person around who is upset, or that wishes for justice and peace and friendship. It's just that the bad people stand out so much worse because they cause visible damage to the world. The news doesn't pay attention to the car that isn't on fire, nobody remembers the wars that didn't happen. It seems like the good people aren't out there, but they're just not paid attention to.

They're too busy making the world work.

I mean, yes, there is poverty and injustice in Mexico, and it is a shitty situation in places, especially the North right now. But you said you saw a better world in Germany - but it's Germany went through a cynical, unjust time in it's recent history, far darker than what Mexico is going through. And now Germany's a prosperous democratic state. There's always hope. Things do get better, sometimes.

Get a puppy. Have faith in puppies. Or kittens. It'll be easier than your fellow humans.

Heh, me too. Today I had to lead a seminar in my Language Arts class about illegal immigration. And you know what everyone said? It could basically be summed up as, "Illegal immigrants don't deserve rights, healthcare, or education, they deserve to be kicked out because they got in here against the law and are unAmerican. Also, dey tuk mah jawb"

About half the class is made up of Asian-Americans, and yet they were the ones who were pulling out the typical anti-immigration canards. Like, the exact same ones that would be levelled AT THEM had they been immigrants and not fortunate enough to be born into the fucking seat of privilege. "Immigrants aren't patriotic/take our jobs/steal healthcare/commit crimes/etc."

One girl was so ignorant that she even asked, "Why do immigrants want to come here? What's so bad about Mexico?" (FACEPALM)

My partner after the seminar said, "I'm a Christian and I see many of these classmates in church, so I'm quite shocked that they don't recognize the Christian ideal and duty of, oh, HELPING PEOPLE, regardless of their proper nationality!"

edited 13th Jun '11 4:39:05 PM by LilPaladinSuzy

Well, um, a positive spin on that is...um...Well, Asian-Americans are becoming mainstreamed rather than excluded as Heathen Chinee? It's a sign of progress when a once despised minority can turn against a new one, right?

Shit.

We need aliens to invade. Then humanity as a whole can unite as one and hate the green bastards rather than each other.

I've always hated humanity. There's just some shred of perversely misplaced idealism that means I just can't go fully through with my hate and be properly evil about it.

So mostly I bitch and rant a lot instead.

You and a billion other people on the internet.

If nothing else, your sample sizes don't represent a sizable enough portion of mankind to be statistically relevant.

That's me in the corner
That's me in the spot-light
Losin' my religion~

Sorry, this sort of thread makes me think of that song.

Seriously? Faith is an abhorrent concept. Leave it and do what you want because you want to.

That's not the kind of faith he was talking about.

Oh, I know I was being pithy with the song.

Faith in humanity for it's own sake is useless and ultimately harmful. Have faith in yourself and do 'good' instead.

There's so many people saying this I'd get cirrhosis if I had a drinking game on this.

Seriously, don't expect so much.

If more people stopped expecting the world to be full of sunshine and rainbows, there would be no loss of faith.

The meme that people are inherently good is a dangerous one; "goodness" is something that must be gained, it is not a gift.

The problem with the internet is instead of giving an avenue for sharing ideas, it usually just ends with people finding likeminded people, carving out their own spot on the web and becoming giant echochambers.

Exactly. I go by the assumption that Humans Are Flawed; if we were paragons history would be boring.

Hence why preaching to the choir isn't something I like.

What Kinkajou just said. If you needed the Internet to disabuse you of your faith in humanity, you haven't read enough history.

Case in point: Moonbattery. Oh god Moonbattery. About every other quote on FSTDT is from there, or some place with a similar gist like Free Republic.

edited 13th Jun '11 5:54:29 PM by LilPaladinSuzy

^^ Hey, viruses can be pretty neat. :P

edited 13th Jun '11 5:54:28 PM by Zersk

Eh... it's possible to read history and just think "Boy, weren't things awful back then, and weren't people foolish?" while retaining a faith in modern Western values and the virtue of humanity in this enlightened age.

I can see how it might take the Internet to disabuse one of that notion.

Bobby, times have changed but human nature doesn't.

Each age thinks of itself as better than its forebears.

But then again, you're on a magic series of tubes that can play videos and music and let's you read just about anything you've ever wanted to, and that tangle of awesome was built by humans too.

Kinka, you know that. And I know that. Now.

But it's a very easy assumption to make. Especially if you've grown up in relative comfort. You look around and think, hey, we have TV and hot running water, and beating your wife is illegal and being gay won't get you arrested! We're better than they were!

And you look at science, and technology, and even history, and if you don't examine it too closely, it's easy to see it as a linear narrative where humanity gets progressively better.

@Bobby G Yes, but why is it hard to recognize that things are great while accepting that everything has drawbacks?

To be perfectly honest, it's quite easy to be cynical. To think that humanity is going down the drains.

And then you visit a poor town where people work hard everyday and place more value in each other than themselves. It's quite enlightening to be honest, to live knowing that you're part of a community as well as being an individual. And then, to be quite honest, I figured that people just need a bit of nudging to realize that everyone works to help everyone else and that it's not only more productive to work with each other, it's more gratifying. Granted, it won't solve all of our problems, but then you hang around the village for a little while longer realize that it'd solve lots of problems, a slight cultural change from shifting the importance of the self to the importance of helping others.

No one's perfect but that village taught me that you don't have to be, you just have to be willing to help and that's all it takes. To smile when someone's frowning at you. Heck, that village practically defined me as a person today and I didn't even stay there a week.

I reject the values of humanity and substitute them with my own.

We're getting better within the context of what we know, at least.

edited 13th Jun '11 6:09:18 PM by Ekuran