r/thinkatives

I could easily be projecting, but I feel that everybody is going a bit mad right now. I wanted to ask here because I read a lot of Jung and wanted your opinions. Is this a grand self-actualization process, in my head, or what?

People are either distracting themselves, or compartmentalizing it, but I almost feel like humanity is mad right now. There isn’t control and people know this deeply, and the foundation has cracked. Again, I admit that this could easily be me, probably is ;) but I sense it’s happening universally. I’m good at handling this, think of the dark night the soul. I have faith that this is serving me, despite feeling intensely chaotic and meaningless, yet profound in someway at the same time. Any thoughts or input?

In my case, despite trying my very best, and truly taking care of myself, however, I can, there is this grand meaninglessness. I almost feel myself descending into a sort of madness. Luckily, I have a stable mind (well, as stable as can be in this state, perhaps a stabler mind wouldn’t feel this to begin with) and know how to handle this.

I have been thinking about this for a long time, and recently things have clicked into place in my head in a way that feels a bit heavy, but at the same time liberating. I thought I would open up about this here in case anyone else has had similar issues.

I know, and many of us know, that the current medical system and pharmaceutical industry are in many ways corrupt and bureaucratic machines. The COVID era in particular created a deep distrust of institutions in me. It felt like patients and citizens were constantly talked down to from above, and treatments or guidelines were pushed through via fearmongering, painting extreme, over-the-top worst-case scenarios because the system felt it knew better than us and didn't trust people's ability to make their own decisions. This never sits well with a critically thinking mind, because you tend to see through manipulative tactics.

So because of this patronizing fearmongering, I lost trust and felt quite alone after that. “Who can I trust then?” So, I started looking for answers and quickly found myself on the side of alternative information and medicine out of fear of being left alone. I thought, if these guys are just trying to manipulate us, these guys must be right, right? I looked for a place where truth and individual freedom were the focus. I thought I found it.

However, I realized this wasn't the case when I watched a video from the alternative side, and a really distressing déjà vu hit me out of the blue. It was the same exact manipulation just packaged differently.

I realized I get the exact same vibe from these "exposure" or "whistleblower" videos as I do from those conventional doctors who try to scare a lazy or reluctant patient into taking their pills or vaccines. On this side, too, they throw around completely pulled-out-of-thin-air percentages and made-up horror scenarios, like "this destroys 75% of your immune system," as if it were tested and proven fact.

It just suddenly hit me. Where do they pull these claims from? These oddly specific percentages, but no references as to where these numbers originate. In reality, they often can't actually prove their claims. They just have a "gut feeling" that something bad is happening. And because they are playing it safe, "just in case it turns out to be true," they feel justified in dramatizing and manipulating people so that they will wake up to see "the truth" just as the doctor with the pill or vaccine he wants you to take. It might be done from a supposedly good place in their own minds, but the end result is the exact same: manipulation through fearmongering.

I felt like a bloody fool. Blindly trusting someone simply because they claim to be exposing the people who are lying to you is just as foolish as blindly trusting the people they are supposedly exposing. I felt like a tool, a pawn. If someone wants me to believe something, I don't want them to scare me into believing it. I want them to show me why it is true. Fear, outrage, and certainty are not evidence.

If you truly know something better than I do, what's the point in scaring me into believing you? Either you don't actually know better than I do and simply feel like you do; you do know better but are being intellectually lazy; or you don't respect me enough as a human being to show me your reasons. If you genuinely respect someone's ability to reason, you give them the evidence and let them reach the conclusion themselves, rather than trying to manipulate them.

You just end up seeing two sides, both pushing their own agenda and presenting their own version of reality with suspicious amount of certainty. You see an endless war with no winners.

I have come to realize now that the truth is probably the most boring option that falls somewhere between these two hysterical extremes.

Medicines are not flawless wonder products, and yes, medical decisions and public-health policies can be badly handled, but that also doesn't mean they are population-destroying bio-weapons. Regular doctors aren't pure evil, either; they are often just overworked employees with good intentions, stuck in a rigid system and operating within an industry with strong financial incentives, trying to get an average Joe, who is typically a very reluctant patient, to take "the damn pill" that might "save their life," and let them go see their next patient who is already waiting. And on the other side of the argument, yes, some conspiracies turn out to be true, but that still does not mean every conspiracy theory turns out to be true if you "just give it enough time." Most conspiracies remain as theories.

And honestly, I think I'm finally okay with the truth being boring. And something I can never fully know, what is "the truth." I couldn't care less anymore.

I don't need to decide that one side is completely right and the other completely wrong. I can question the medical system without believing every alternative claim. I can question alternative medicine without automatically assuming the conventional system has all the answers.

I can simply ask: Where did this claim come from? What is the evidence? How certain are we? And I still will not do anything if I am fearmongered to do it.

Maybe that's a much healthier place to be than constantly trying to figure out which side is lying less.

The Paradox of Worshiping Jesus

Christianity is a religion that believes in and worships Jesus as God. The reason Christianity regards Jesus as God is not simply that “Jesus explicitly declared himself to be God,” but rather that the early Christians attributed to Jesus various authorities, glory, names, and worship that were believed to belong to God alone.

The most prominent example is the forgiveness of sins. In Mark 2, when Jesus says to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven,” the scribes respond, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” The Gospel of John also presents a high Christology that speaks very strongly about the relationship between Jesus and God. Statements such as “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), as well as the statement in John 1:1 that “the Word was God,” have traditionally been used as representative passages supporting the divinity of Jesus.

However, there is considerable tension within Scripture that makes it difficult to conclude from these passages alone that Jesus and God are ontologically identical. This is because Scripture also contains many expressions that distinguish Jesus from God. Jesus prays to God and says, “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). Even after his resurrection, he tells his disciples, “My Father and your Father, my God and your God” (John 20:17). Thus, the New Testament contains both language that closely identifies Jesus with God and language that distinguishes Jesus as the one sent by God.

How, then, can we understand this tension?

We must first consider what it means to be “the one who is sent.” Suppose, for example, that a king sends his envoy to a vassal state. The envoy exercises the king’s authority and conveys the king’s will. To receive the envoy is to receive the king, and to insult the envoy is to insult the king. This is because the envoy acts as the representative of the king’s authority. In this sense, one could say that the envoy is “one” with the king. But the word “one” here does not mean that the king and the envoy are identical beings. Rather, it means that the envoy belongs to the king and faithfully carries out the authority entrusted to him by the king.

In this sense, to honor Jesus, the one who was sent, is to honor God the Father, the one who sent him. The problem arises when this unity is understood ontologically. If we think that because the envoy exercises the king’s authority, he therefore possesses the king’s authority essentially, the fact that the envoy’s authority was given to him by the king disappears. Once the one who represents the king’s authority is regarded as identical with the king himself, the relationship of representation and delegation disappears, and the source of authority is inverted. Likewise, if statements that Jesus is one with the Father and that Jesus is God are interpreted to mean that Jesus is identical in essence or identical in being with God, this can lead to idolatry. To believe that the envoy possesses the king’s authority “essentially” is, in a sense, an act of rebellion.

This problem becomes even clearer when we examine the difference between worshiping Jesus and following Jesus. Jesus said to his disciples, “Follow me.” He also said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 1:17; 8:34). Likewise, in the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do” (John 14:12).

What is important here is the presupposition that following is possible. The follower participates in the path walked by the one he follows. When Jesus tells his disciples to follow his way, this at least presupposes that they are capable of participating in that way. The life of Jesus is not a divine realm closed off to human beings; it is presented as a way of life in which human beings are invited to participate.

But if Jesus is regarded as ontologically identical with God, he is defined as a being essentially different from human beings. At this point, Jesus moves from being “the one whom I am to follow” to becoming “the God whom I am to worship.” Here a tension arises between worship and following. The kind of worship being discussed here is worship that objectifies its object as something different from and transcendent of oneself.

As Christianity developed, following Jesus and worshiping Jesus gradually became intertwined, and ontological Christology—the attempt to explain the very being of Jesus—became increasingly important. Especially after the Council of Nicaea, Jesus was defined as God, possessing the same essence (homoousios) as the Father. This doctrine was intended to exalt Jesus and explain his divinity, but at the same time it created a strong ontological distinction between Jesus and humanity. Jesus was understood as sharing the same essence as God, while human beings were understood as creatures, and the divine nature of Jesus was understood as essentially distinct from human nature.

When this ontological Christology became intertwined with the Western doctrine of original sin, the distance between Jesus and humanity could become even greater. Particularly in the Augustinian tradition, human beings came to be understood as beings who inherited sin and a fallen nature from Adam. Jesus, by contrast, was understood as sinless and as having been born in a unique manner. As a result, Jesus came to be understood less as a model that human beings could follow and more as a being whom human beings could never essentially become like.

Ultimately, the issue comes down to how we understand the meaning of worship. If worshiping Jesus means worshiping him as an ontological object completely separated from humanity, then such worship stands in tension with the discipleship that Jesus demanded. But if worship means recognizing that God has been revealed through Jesus and participating in the love and life revealed by that God, then worship and following are not opposed to one another.

In this case, exalting Jesus does not mean turning him into a being whom human beings cannot follow. Rather, it means being called to walk together on the path that Jesus himself walked.

Therefore, the fundamental question is this:

Does confessing Jesus as God mean making Jesus into a being whom human beings can never attain, or does it mean that human beings are invited to participate in the life of God revealed in Jesus?

Okay, so I was a bit depressed for a while; until I randomly realised my value. And now quite the opposite. I'm more energetic in a way. I feel different.

I used to keep track of everyone who hurt me and I wouldn't give them my positive energy anymore. Maybe even trying to hurt them because I felt pain. But now... I simply don't care, in a way. Like. I lost my will for revenge. I think. And now I don't know what to do. I'm afraid I will lose the distance I created. I'm direct deep down, and dislike social circumventions. I might say things I shouldn't say. Sometimes you feel something and want to say it directly with emotion, even if it's a bit unfiltered.

I find it hard to explain this what I mean. It's like a switch triggered and I'm a bit uncomfortable with it. But I also can't just switch it off. This is me now, now I've found me.

Mockery is rarely about the subject being targeted; it is almost always a baseline defense mechanism for the speaker. When an individual encounters an idea, setup, or paradigm they cannot intellectually dissect or integrate, the human ego faces a choice: adapt through cognitive effort, or dismiss through ridicule.

​The underlying mechanics of online mockery break down into four distinct psychological layers:

​Cognitive Laziness: Engaging with analytical thought or structural logic requires effort. Writing a single reaction phrase requires zero intellectual energy. Mockery acts as a deliberate shortcut to mask a lack of comprehension.

​Status Signaling & The Bandwagon Effect: In digital spaces, derision is often performative. Once one user drops a dismissive comment, others blindly follow to signal group alignment. It is a herd behavior driven by the fear of being targeted rather than genuine critique.

​Defense Against the Unfamiliar: Novel concepts, bold framing, or structured analysis disrupt passive scrolling. Mockery serves as a cognitive shield to neutralize anything that demands serious attention.

​The Fuel for Focus: Ridicule is ultimately confirmation of impact. When an idea confuses the unprepared, it creates noise. A mature intellect converts that surface noise into focus—using the friction as motivation to refine, produce, and double down on execution.

​Superior intellect does not waste energy on passive-aggressive skepticism—it engages, deconstructs, or moves on. True authority is defined by substance, while surface-level noise relies entirely on cheap distraction.