Would like to believe but just cannot

[disillusioned]

I'm boring. If you gave me a million dollars I'd pay my mortgage,  renovate my house,  and invest the rest.

[TABA]

1 hour ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

Pay off my mortage

Buy a jet ski and new vehicle

Gift some to friends and family

Invest the rest.

 

 

Reminds me of one of my favorite memes:

”They say money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a jet ski - and have you ever seen a sad person on a jet ski?”

[Jane]

It sounds like most of the money would get put in some sort of bank or investment, so YOU don't really need it either...hmmmm...money is overrated in some ways

I have a 12 year old SUV, it runs fine, don't need a new one. Husband has a 15 year old truck, runs fine, don't need one.  No mortgage , no debt, so we are good here.  We have traveled all over the planet before we bought this farm, so that's out too.  Our house is a piece of crap with ridiculous utilities, but I honestly don't care ( we heat our water with a wood stove lol and only have electric in the kitchen).   I guess I probably sound like I have a few screws loose but I don't get much enjoyment out of "stuff" . I have functioning internet and a 10 year old laptop, good enough.  My father just called me and asked if I needed money. I told him no.  He just sold a house and doesn't need the money. We are way way below the poverty line as far as the feds are concerned, but I don't care. We grow our food mostly, have very little bills ( car insurance is the biggest one), and don't need much.

 

Oh and I truly hate jet skies!!!  Those stupid noisy things annoyed the hell out of me when we lived in Florida and they would disturb the peace on the beach ( same with motorcycles, I hate them also, wished we could all go back to horse and buggies like the Amish sometimes) 

 

 

 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

5 hours ago, TABA said:

 

Reminds me of one of my favorite memes:

”They say money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a jet ski - and have you ever seen a sad person on a jet ski?”

 

True brother true

[Wertbag]

1 hour ago, Jane said:

We have traveled all over the planet before we bought this farm, so that's out too.

I don't see why travelling in the past would stop you from travelling in the future?  The world is a massive place with so many things to see and do.  Definitely would be high on my million dollar list.  I would love to go snorkelling with tropical fishes, river cruise down the Rhine, attend a live UFC event or prove the flat earthers wrong by visiting Antarctica.

With a million dollars, half would be eaten by my mortgage, a chunk would go on new furniture, car and a refresh of my wardrobe.  I would buy a PlayStation VR set, a digital camera with ultra zoom and pay for a cleaning company to handle the household chores to free up my time for the kids and other more fun activities.

Being debt free would mean my wife could stop working and focus on the kids.  With more free time I could do more fitness, study and start a YouTube channel.

[LogicalFallacy]

17 minutes ago, Wertbag said:

half would be eaten by my mortgage,

 

Dude that's cause you live in Auckland!  It costs about a million dollars to buy a toilet there  

[Jane]

Travelling: I have been to every place I care to go to.  I don't enjoy travelling anymore because of the hassle at the airports, the traffic on the roads, I hate sitting in a bus, and you can't get to another country by train. Don't like cruises all that much either, mostly you sit and eat, and watch stupid shows, and then you have a few hours in some tourist overrun place selling souvenirs. No thanks.  We have been ( drove, camped mostly) to every U.S. State except Alaska and Hawaii, and I don't want to go to Hawaii because it is a long flight, overprized, been to enough beaches in my life and too old to hike up a 13000 ft volcano .  So why bother?  

Btw. My favorite trip outside the US was to India.  There is a reason I am considering becoming a Hindu. I loved their temples, their culture, their food and their movies lol ( just not the weather, way too hot) .  My favorite States we have visited on trips ( NOT to live in) :  Wyoming , New Mexico, Washington State, Maine but we have been there several times

I guess I am cheap. I buy clothes at the Goodwill or thrift store mostly and am ok with it.  Fun activities: I consider working on our farm a fun activity.   To be honest I hate leaving here. When I am not injured I usually feel happy here, even when I am cleaning goat poop out of the barn or digging weeds up.  

 

[Jane]

I see some of you are from New Zealand, cool!  A place I have not been too . It's just too far to fly , I don't want to be in a plane that long. My goats are mostly New Zealand goats ( Kikos) , would love to visit some farms there.  We have a neighbor down the road that did just that.  He worked there for a year on a farm. 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

@Jane Have you been to New Zealand? Most places south of Auckland are very small and unpopulated by world standards. Depends on what you look for when travelling.

 

Haha I see you posted moments before I did. Answers my question before I asked it  

 

Yes NZ is far from everywhere. Great in some aspects - but makes cost of living high, and cost of travelling diabolical.

[Wertbag]

2 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

Dude that's cause you live in Auckland!  It costs about a million dollars to buy a toilet there  

That's why we bought a house out in Swanson, about an hour by train to reach the city.  Only place we could find a decent size home at a reasonable price with a decent school.

4 bedroom, 2 bathroom for $775K.

 

From NZ the quick 'n easy holidays are Australia or the Pacific islands.  I've been to Rarotonga twice, love underwater photography and seeing the fish, but I've always been told the French Pacific islands have the more impressively colourful wildlife.  Once the kids are a bit older a trip to Tahiti will be on the list.

[Jane]

holy crap, $775 000 for a single HOUSE?   Is that less than U.S. $ ?   We paid $155000 for our entire farm, with 4 bedroom house ( 2500 sqft), guest house, 2 large barns and 34 acres fenced land plus a work shop ( the Amish love building stuff) 

 

I wouldn't mind hiking in the mountains in New Zealand , and visiting some farms, I am not much of a city person ( well, unless it's something unique like cities in India) but  wouldn't fly that far.   If I did go on another trip, it would either be back to India, or some other country in Asia like China or Japan. 

 

Right now I am making a list of things to change in my life along with my religion 

 

try to be more patient and not so hectic ( this is 90% of what caused my accident)

lose some weight ( not a ton but some) , will be easier on my injury and health overall 

be more organized 

do more yoga ( used to all the time, but now we are so busy I don't make enough time for it)

 

Oh yeah, I have had a few Christians over the years tell me yoga is from the devil hahahaha , how stupid is that?!  I  just told them it is just exercise.   They insisted, that since it is part of Hinduism ( it is) which is pagan, it comes from the devil and Christians should not do it. 

 

 

 

[Astreja]

8 hours ago, Jane said:

It sounds like most of the money would get put in some sort of bank or investment, so YOU don't really need it either...

 

The money is there for future  needs -- salary replacement.  Counting the money I've already saved, I'd still have $1M after spending $100K on stuff.  At a withdrawal rate of 4% per year, which in an average stock market would keep most or all of the principal intact (because an increase in stock prices plus dividend payouts would put money back into the account), that would give me a $40,000 annual income for the rest of my life.

[LogicalFallacy]

20 minutes ago, Astreja said:

 

The money is there for future  needs -- salary replacement.  Counting the money I've already saved, I'd still have $1M after spending $100K on stuff.  At a withdrawal rate of 4% per year, which in an average stock market would keep most or all of the principal intact (because an increase in stock prices plus dividend payouts would put money back into the account), that would give me a $40,000 annual income for the rest of my life.

 

And $40,000 isn't a lot to live on in NZ so I'd still need to keep working. A million isn't that much really.

[Astreja]

1 hour ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

And $40,000 isn't a lot to live on in NZ so I'd still need to keep working. A million isn't that much really.

 

For me it would actually be a boost in disposable income, especially after I get to age 65 and get a whole bunch of additional tax deductions.

 

 I'm currently putting about $600/month into regular and retirement savings accounts, after taxes and pension deductions.  That leaves me about $1600 from my take-home, which pays for gas, car insurance, house taxes, utilities and food with some left over.  (House and car are both paid off.)

 

Between my work pension and  Canada Pension Plan benefits I've already got over half of that $1600 covered, so essentially I have to come up with $800 per month to maintain the status quo after I retire.  (Maybe less than $800 -- I won't have to buy transit passes to get to the office anymore.)  If I get my savings and investments up into the $250K range, that'll do it.

[Wertbag]

6 hours ago, Jane said:

crap, $775 000 for a single HOUSE?   Is that less than U.S. $ ?   We paid $155000 for our entire farm,

The US has prices just as high, have a browse around any big city and $1m+ US is quite common. The more rural you get the cheaper the prices. A workmate brought a brand new house in Huntly (township couple hours South of Auckland, population a couple thousand), much bigger than mine and cost $265k.

 

Time also changes a lot. When you say you spent $150k how long ago was that? My parents house bought in the early 80s for $60k is now worth ~$1.5m (harbour views just triple the land value). 

[Jane]

I looked it up , NZ $ are only .65 of US $, so that's some of the price difference.  Maybe some very expensive large cities like NYC but not most places. We lived in Orlando ( large city) before moving here and sold our 4 bdr. nice house with yard downtown for $270000, it was in a nice neighborhood.  Average house in the U.S. is more like $200000

But prices go up and down

we bought this farm 3 years ago, it was cheap because you would not have been able to get a mortgage for it ( not up to any sort of code, no proper utilities) and we payed cash after selling the Orlando house

 

It sounds like NZ is an expensive place to live , unless your incomes are up there also.  Just out of curiosity in case you know, what does the average engineer make over there per year? 

[Jane]

9 hours ago, Astreja said:

 

The money is there for future  needs -- salary replacement.  Counting the money I've already saved, I'd still have $1M after spending $100K on stuff.  At a withdrawal rate of 4% per year, which in an average stock market would keep most or all of the principal intact (because an increase in stock prices plus dividend payouts would put money back into the account), that would give me a $40,000 annual income for the rest of my life.

 

Hmmm, I don't know what I do wrong but sometimes the quote works, sometimes not, maybe our crappy internet

 

How do you know you have a future? You could be dead long before you hit retirement age. And don't they have some sort of social security for old people in Canada?  

I don't worry about getting really old and running out of money. Life will suck really bad when really old anyway, they can just push me out to the curb. I don't care.

 

 

[Astreja]

35 minutes ago, Jane said:

How do you know you have a future? You could be dead long before you hit retirement age. And don't they have some sort of social security for old people in Canada?

 

I'm going on the optimistic track -- my paternal grandmother lived to 102.

 

I'm slated to retire in three years (just turned 62).  Yes, we do have social security, but it won't finance everything  I want.  I take music lessons, pay membership fees for two concert bands and an astronomical association, and like to go to the symphony and the ballet.

[mwc]

1 hour ago, Jane said:

 

I don't worry about getting really old and running out of money. Life will suck really bad when really old anyway, they can just push me out to the curb. I don't care.

     You're not the first person I've heard say that.  They always change their tune when it comes time to push them to the curb.

 

     A little money can give you independence instead of becoming a burden to someone else or even having someone else take charge of your life when you get older.

 

          mwc

 

[DanForsman]

"Life will suck really bad when really old anyway, they can just push me out to the curb. I don't care."

It's very easy to give something away that you don't actually have Jane. There is no way to know how you or anyone else will actually feel until the time comes so this particular idea doesn't provide support for your argument.

 

[Jane]

No I am sure. I don't ever want to end up like my grandmother and mother , confined to bed, pretty much a vegetable, for years until they finally died.  Hell no.  I don't think life is all that grand, that I have to cling to it and live that long.   And you all on here have no reason to fear death, right?  If there is no hell, there is nothing to worry about now, is there?  

I am one of those people that would have chose non existence , if I had been asked before I was born, so leaving this life is not a big deal to me now that my kids are adults and able to take care of themselves.  I am not suicidal, but at the same time I don't want to live if I am physically not able to do anything anymore.  This accident I had once again made this very clear.  If I ended up like this and it was permanent I would not wish to continue living for example.  The only way I want to get to old age is with a physical body that is able to do stuff. Once that ends , it's time to go.  Therefore I am totally not worried about money when I am old (  I think probably 75 is the cut off age, I know very few people that are older than that and healthy) 

 

 

[Jane]

I have a religion question that has been bugging me. Can I ask it here or does it need to go somewhere else?

Here is my question:   how do you explain St. Paul away and the places he went and spread Christianity, like to the Ephesians ( that place still exists, its' historical) ?   His letters supposedly still exist and are real , or at least some of them.  How do you explain that he believed in Christ, and risked his life, and did without , just to spread Christianity?  It must have happened , or it would not have spread to places like Ephesus ( Turkey now) , or Rome.  This was one of those things in the past that made me more sure that the Bible was true, but now I need to explain this away and I don't know how....

 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

59 minutes ago, Jane said:

I have a religion question that has been bugging me. Can I ask it here or does it need to go somewhere else?

Here is my question:   how do you explain St. Paul away and the places he went and spread Christianity, like to the Ephesians ( that place still exists, its' historical) ?   His letters supposedly still exist and are real , or at least some of them.  How do you explain that he believed in Christ, and risked his life, and did without , just to spread Christianity?  It must have happened , or it would not have spread to places like Ephesus ( Turkey now) , or Rome.  This was one of those things in the past that made me more sure that the Bible was true, but now I need to explain this away and I don't know how....

 

 

 

Ask similar questions of any religion and see if they make sense. How do you explain people believed Muhammad. Or a recent example the con artist Joseph Smith who founded Mormonism. Or the Branhamites? People believe stupid shit for bad reasons all the time. And they can be very fervent about it. Ever meet a flat earther or a Mormon? They believe that stuff. 

 

That's the reason and there's nothing that needs explaining away because it's rather simple.

[sdelsolray]

You exhibit strong confirmation and expectation biases, at least about this topic.

 

1 hour ago, Jane said:

...

[H]ow do you explain St. Paul away and the places he went and spread Christianity, like to the Ephesians ( that place still exists, its' historical) ?   His letters supposedly still exist and are real , or at least some of them. 

...

 

You presuppose the stories are true.  Why?  

Fictional writing often contains locations which actually exist.  This is not evidence of the accuracy of the story.

Copies of "letters" attributed to Paul exist.  Most Biblical scholars consider many of them forgeries.  Again, whether the content of the letters is non-fiction simply does not depend on whether they exist or not and simply does not depend on who wrote them.

 

1 hour ago, Jane said:

..

How do you explain that he believed in Christ, and risked his life, and did without , just to spread Christianity?  It must have happened , or it would not have spread to places like Ephesus ( Turkey now) , or Rome.  This was one of those things in the past that made me more sure that the Bible was true, but now I need to explain this away and I don't know how....

 

The stories say what they say.  You assume (without relevant evidence) that Christianity spread due to the truth of the content of the stories.  It may have spread, at least in part, due the writings attributable to Paul.  But once again, that does not demonstrate whether the stories contained in the writings are true.

[Jane]

58 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

Ask similar questions of any religion and see if they make sense. How do you explain people believed Muhammad. Or a recent example the con artist Joseph Smith who founded Mormonism. Or the Branhamites? People believe stupid shit for bad reasons all the time. And they can be very fervent about it. Ever meet a flat earther or a Mormon? They believe that stuff. 

 

That's the reason and there's nothing that needs explaining away because it's rather simple.

 

Yeah! The quotes are working...

 

Mohammed existed. He was a real person. He claimed to be a prophet and he benefited from his religion. He never claimed to be God.   The mormon guy wanted to have 4 wives. So he had an ulterior motive.  People believe what they wish to believe, and back then it was perfectly normal to believe in all sorts of "magic" .  That isn't really my question. My question is what REALLY happened?

Paul did not benefit from his religion at all. So why did he do it?  SOMEONE must have spread Christianity to the Ephesians and the Romans.  If Paul didn't exist, how did it spread?  I mean there was no internet back then. Traveling was hard and dangerous. Why do it?   I would like to know the truth:  Did Jesus exist?  Did he die?  How did he convince his 

followers to continue believing in their mission, if Jesus was dead and buried?   Was Paul real, did he go to the Ephesians? If not him who did?  It's such a huge lie if none of it happened.  

I guess what I am asking is an alternate history to the Christian one.  How did Christianity REALLY start?