Look man,

You're very young. In just another thread you were inquiring what you should study at university. You're barely finishing high school. It's normal to feel like this. Why? Because when we're young we're nobodies. Nobody gives a shit about us, we have no power, and nothing we do matters. You have no income, if you wanna go to Hawaii tomorrow, you can't. If you want people around you to respect you, you can't. If you wanna have a child you can't. If you wanna earn some money, you can't. If you wanna start a revolution you can't. If you wanna give some value to someone you can't. Pretty much anything you could think about you can't do - either you don't have the money for it, or you don't have the guts, or you don't have the people, connections or resources you need. And we look at the complexity of the world, and it feels like we don't have a chance - we understand that the way things are going, even in 50 years we won't be able to do anything on the meagre income we earn + the time allocated to earn it. I was once exactly like you. And there's nothing you can do except prepare to be great. Trust me - it really does work. If you believe in yourself, have faith, disregard what everyone else is doing around you, and just focus on developing your aptitudes, you can be free. Because the truth is most people will remain exactly like you are right now. They will not grow - they will take a few drugs, go to university, get a meagre job, be a little clog in the system from there on, and so forth. And they will be tricked by all sorts of propaganda such as "you need experience", etc. Yes of course you need experience, only that the experience you get in a job isn't the experience you need in order to be free - if they actually gave you that experience in a job, nobody would be working anymore would they?

In fact, if you look at anyone - literarily anyone - the CEO! - in a large company, they're doing nothing. They literarily are doing nothing. They're going to work, where more than half their time is spent in useless chatter and fucking around. At that work, they're not growing. Because they don't really take decisions. When you're the big boss, and you have 10 people coming up with plans, it's easy to take decisions. They present them to you, you listen, you calculate, and you pick one. It doesn't take a lot of brain. How do you get there? For most who are already there, by luck. They will be able to do nothing of real value without a gigantic support network around them - a network they are not responsible for making. And that's a failure - they'll always be someone else's slave - even if they are CEOs. And you don't have to be anyone's slave. I'm working on my own right now after having quit my job a few months ago, and it's going great. I've never been happier in fact. I have a lot of free time - my problem is what to do with it. I'm not making a ton of money yet, but that doesn't bother me, because I spend very little time making the money I need to live decently on. So the rest of my time is free to do anything else. And I'm free to pick now that money isn't a consideration anymore! I can make soap balloons in the bath tub one day if I want to - nothing is lost.

But see, I recognise now that my time spent working was pretty much useless. Very little help. I worked as an engineer. Do I know how to do accounting because of it? No. Do you I know business law because of it? No. Do I know how to hire people, how to write a contract, etc? No. I literarily don't know anything except a tiny part of something huge because of my job. (now I've been learning these things on the side, but certainly not as a result of my job) And the truth is, you will never know all the things you need in order to be free and financially independent. You'll have cursory knowledge of it - but the challenge is always growing your own support network. You need a contract - ok, you need a lawyer, and you need him cheap. Otherwise you need to draft one yourself which is good enough for whatever you need - it doesn't have to be perfect. And you do actually have the brain to do it - that lawyer who drafts it for you has the same brain you have, only that he has the confidence to trust his brain, and you don't. If you want freedom it's all about building an intelligent mechanism through which you can earn money quickly - with little time investment.

I have a family friend who is a big businessman. He's very rich now. And he told me along those lines - "you know, I don't give a fuck nowadays - I literarily don't do anything. I say I wanna build a mall, and I have 4-5 architects coming with plans, elevations sketches, etc. for free to persuade me to build their scheme. When I see them coming by themselves, I think I'm the shit and they're the flies! It's so easy - and then I just show my revenue, and all banks wanna loan me money. All lawyers want to work with me. All options are presented to me. I literarily do something that a child could do. All that the child needs is to be the owner of an entity with high revenue". The only reason he even needs to be at his office is for show - just so that people see him. Otherwise he signs papers given to him by his accountants and lawyers, goes to a few meetings, etc. And funny thing is that he started on the road to reach financial freedom a nobody illegally selling flowers on the street.

And once you reach financial freedom, then you're free to do whatever you really want to - regardless of what it is. You can read philosophy all day if that's what pleases you. You can write a book no one will read if that's what pleases you - and so forth.

I might as well add:

Max Picard - modern mystic author of the Flight from God - a significant philosophical and Platonic diagnosis of modernity
Michael Polanyi - scientist and philosopher, author of Personal Knowledge, description and tackling of the manner in which knowledge becomes objective - building on post-Kantian philosophy

Yes there is a secret, it is this one :D

@John My previous post was updated since you last read it.

Oh yeah, very many experts and public figures express support for "The Secret" too - does it mean that "The Secret" isn't pseudo-philosophy? I doubt many of the global leaders - like Mr. Pichai (or Eric Schmitt - whoever you referred to as CEO of Google) have any idea about the rigors of philosophy. They all swim in an environment where the concentration of pseudo-philosophy is very high - not to mention that corporate leaders need BS to feed the masses of people who work as slaves under them. They need to tell them about freedom, have workshops, get them to engage in some propagandistic poetry reading, and so forth. That's the only way to get them to accept their chains. They are probably so good at it that they have even deceived themselves!

As far as it appears, your foundational assumptions are self-contradictory. Namely "everything is context dependent" is self-contradictory. To wit:

Is there a context in which "everything is context dependent" is false?
If the answer is yes, then we have reached a contradiction - namely not everything is context dependent. If the answer is "no", then we're back in the real game of deciding and debating what is really true, and what isn't context dependent. And in this real game, your assertion will be just one of many - one which will be impossible to grant without contradiction.

>:O

I appreciate your honesty ;)

Yeah you can take it as whatever you want. The fact of the matter is that you haven't addressed my points.

1. Almost all religions have required monks to be celibate - do you deny this? Of course you don't, because we both know what the truth is. Otherwise let's do it like in court. "Monks in almost all religions have been required to be celibate" - is that a true statement, or a false statement?
2. Thinking monks should be celibate does not entail priests should be celibate.
3. I never claimed the only reason to be celibate is spiritual enlightenment, nor that only monks should be interested in celibacy. I live a celibate lifestyle for the moment, and I'm not a monk, nor do I plan to ever be one. Nor am I interested in achieving spiritual enlightenment in this life for that matter.
4. Circular argument - what argument? There was no argument. Merely pointing to a fact that almost all monks have been required to be celibate. Then I proceeded to say that if someone thinks this is wrong, they implicitly think that almost all monks have been mistaken - thus that they were idiots. There's nothing absurd or circular about this. Contrary to your silly caricature, I haven't turned this into a sufficient reason to suggest that John and people like him are necessarily wrong. It's suggestive of the fact that they are wrong - that much is certain - but it's not establishing this with 100% certainty, the way a true syllogism would.
5. You never bother to give sources for your counterfactual claims. My sources are very clear - just look at the teachings of literarily all religions of the past. Very simple.

But of course, your prefer to continue in your shamelessness in order to push your agenda. And yes - ad hominem so soon, because that is the only possible answer to someone who doesn't address the points, and yet insists that they are right.

Firstly, historically inaccurate. — Barry Etheridge

Any reference for this please?

Secondly, circular argument. — Barry Etheridge

It's not meant to be an argument. I'm not mounting an argument there - merely making a point. You should know better than just to cite a few fallacies. In the wrong context citing a fallacy is proof only of your lack of ability in distinguishing a fact from an argument.

If your hidden definition of monk is celibate individual then it proves absolutely nothing that monks are celibate. — Barry Etheridge

It is a fact that monks have been required to be celibate in almost all religions - including Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Christianity, etc. . You should read about the requirements for monks perhaps in different religions before talking such nonsense. Really don't shame yourself like this.

Third, false attribution of motivation. Religious celibacy is not reserved to Gnostic religions nor for the purpose of enlightenment. — Barry Etheridge

I never stated this was the only motivation.

Fourth, false authority. It is, of course, entirely possible that monks have indeed been idiots in this regard. There are certainly many in the Catholic Church who believe that celibate priests is and always was a truly stupid idea. — Barry Etheridge

Right monks are idiots to be celibate because it is stupid for priests to be celibate - that makes great sense >:O

Monks aren't priests. The two of them have entirely different functions. Read up on it before coming here with such arrogance. In fact, I agree that priests (or at least most of them) shouldn't be celibate. In fact they probably should marry.

I read his major works extensively about twelve years ago. He maintains that it is impossible to become enlightened, or even to make real 'cultivation' progress without preserving the jing; that is without abstaining from ejaculation. This is a daoist idea based on extremely questionable assumptions I think. — John

Yes, when we read a conservative point of view, it is certainly based on extremely questionable assumptions! Monks have been celibate in almost all religions for thousands of years, but they must have just been idiots...

What progressives don't understand is that sex always has a spiritual side to it - there never is purely physical sex. Therefore you cannot pursue enlightenment and be engaged in sexual activities. Those who pursue enlightenment, or direct communion with God, give up their sexual pleasures. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.

The fact that abstaining from sex gives strength (and not only spiritual - but mental strength as well) is a fact, that anyone willing to be celibate can experience for themselves. Furthermore those who have been involved in too many sexual practices probably cannot ever attain enlightenment in this life regardless of what they do. That as far as I am concerned is no big loss though - us humans were never meant to attain enlightenment during our life. But those who are so short they cannot reach up to the grapes always tell everyone else that the grapes are sour.

That’s doesn’t resolve anything. Turning John into the police and getting your money back doesn’t take away his betrayal or your inability to control his action, so that the world turns out the way you consider yourself entitled to. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But it's not his betrayal that upsets me - it's that an injustice has been done. The injustice demands justice - punishment. I'm not upset that I can't control his actions - I don't even want to do that. I just want justice to be done when he acts in manners which cause harm to those around.

What could be better than killing an adulterous wife? — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yeah sure, what could be better than having to suffer the guilt and pangs of conscience of taking another's life, not to mention the pains and humiliation of dropping the soap in the bathroom, just because the person in question did something to spite you, right? I mean yeah certainly you lost your relationship you know, so why not take revenge on the world and pour poison down your soul, maybe that will bring your relationship back... *facepalm* - such thinking is utter nonsense

Or locking up that thieving John and throwing away the key? — TheWillowOfDarkness

Why do you want to lock him for eternity now? Punishments have to be fair you know. You don't put a child in life-time jail because he stole a candy from a supermarket. Neither do you kill people because they have betrayed you.

The world will make sense again once “payment” is made. Death and Hell: the twin illusion of sin resolved. — TheWillowOfDarkness

The sin is never resolved, but it needs to be paid for.

No matter how much Death and Hell are brought to bear, it doesn’t bring back the world which is lost. — TheWillowOfDarkness

It doesn't have to, that's not its purpose.

Not justified anger, concerned with identifying immorality and punishing it, but a desperation to remove the sin because you cannot stand a world which is less than perfect. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Not at all Willow - the world is less than perfect even if John is punished or he isn't punished. I freely agree to that. But one is a more just world, while the other is an unjust world. I want to live in a just world, where people who significantly harm others (adultery, theft, murder - such actions) are punished for it - a world where even I would be punished if I committed adultery for example. In fact, if that was the case, I would wish the punishment on myself, because I would deserve it. I don't claim to want to live in a world in which people simply don't harm each other - because I know well enough that such a world would be impossible here on Earth. Not gonna happen. I simply want to live in a just world.

In jealousy our motivation and expectation is askew. We mistakenly believe it’s about justice when it’s really the fantasy of a world where we didn’t lose. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Not at all - again I am not concerned to live in a world where loss is impossible. I am simply concerned to live in a world where justice exists - where if something is taken unlawfully from you, then there is punishment for those who have taken it.

This is what I mean about blaming her. So caught-up on the lost functionality of the past (past relationships), you insist it means new functionality (present relationship) is also lost. You are literally saying that because you don’t have a past relationship that you want (lost function), you cannot function in the present relationship. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Ummm no, I actually am not saying that. The lost functionality isn't a relationship. It's a capacity for intimacy. Maybe you have forgotten, but I have said that the sexual act itself always has a spiritual component. Due to the nature of intimacy, the sexual act with different partners reduces your capacity for intimacy. Now that is what I've said. This has nothing to do with desiring past relationships - I actually don't desire that.

Rather than concentrating on the function you do have (the new relationship) and it’s intimacy, your desire is still for the person of a past relationship. You really want your old function (past partner) because the new function (present partner) simply isn’t up to scratch. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Nope - see what I have stated above. It's not about past partner, or current partner. It's about the nature of intimacy.

This relationship is a two-way street. What you say about it's value reflects on her. She's not an island cut off from you have how significant you are to the relationship. What you think about the relationship, how much you value it and her, matters. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yes of course. I agree with you. But it's value doesn't only have to do with my capacity for intimacy or hers for that matter. Those are only some of the many factors that come at play.

When it actually gets down to it, you cannot be content with loss. You constantly put out fantasies which are supposed to resolve it-- God, afterlives, jealousy driven acts of power, etc.,etc. In the face of a loss function (past relationship), you continue to hold a torch for it, unable to accept it and fully move on to a new function (a new relationship). At every turn you are trying to reject inferiority. — TheWillowOfDarkness

No - not at all. I am totally content with the loss of past relationships if that's what you're referring to. If I could live again, I would probably wait for the woman I was certain to marry, and wouldn't be involved in other relationships. People make mistakes - I too made mistakes. I should never have been involved in those relationships to begin with. It would have been better if I saved my capacity for intimacy for my wife. That's all.

It's funny how much you like to flatter yourself, in fact I didn't feel touchy at all — John

To be quite honest I'm really not interested in this any of kind of shit, Agustino — John

Are you the guy who generally shouts and yells "I'm not angry at all!!!"? :-*

To be quite honest I'm really not interested in this any of kind of shit, Agustino. If it was really fun, well then yeah, but I'm not interested in your pathetic attempts at humour, if that is indeed all that is going on with you; which I doubt extremely — John

Good, then I'm waiting for your better attempts, so that I can laugh properly too - it's not good when you always laugh at your own jokes, you know. Definitely not a good sign :P

. Really, I just come here to discuss philosophy; and it seems obvious to me that you are not the least interested in that. :-d — John

Oh but I was certainly in the business of discussing philosophy. For example, you said conservatism wants things to be like the past - it wants to conserve, and thus avoids change. So I merely pointed out that the Founder of conservatism stated that change is a means of conservation. So maybe if you really wanted to discuss philosophy, and not strawmans, and personal prejudices, we could actually have a meaningful (and pleasant) conversation :)

When you think you're ready to practice some sustained analysis and critique; which might make for some actually interesting discussion, let me know, and I'll think about participating. — John

Well yes, but you see, I tried, but there's not much discussion that can be had regarding strawmans is there? Just saying you know.

Funny how some folk cut the branch on which they sit, and dig their own graves even deeper. In politics one learns quite fast that when someone mocks you, you should take it with a laugh - afterall, behind the scenes we all shake our hands and are friends no? :-O Or was I supposed not to openly quote from the Politician Code of Honour to the world? >:O

The real thing is John - that I am agreeing with a lot of what you're saying, but you can't see it because you frame everything in such a conflictual manner... If you were more open-minded you could see it I'm sure. To speak in Hegelian terms which you understand I'd venture to guess that the world initially was under a blind obedience to social morality. Then we've shifted into our current stage - of social disobedience - we break the morals, we commit adultery, we have sex with hundreds of partners, we want to dissolve marriage, etc. This stage is worse than the first, it is its antithesis, and it is the equivalent of man becoming lower, not higher. This too shall finish, and we will return once again to the initial state, only that we will return conscious of what we have lost - it will no longer be blind obedience, but rather self-aware obedience. So I am in full confidence that social conservatism will return.

Having tackled this, I should also add that spiritual freedom has nothing to do with social freedom (and by here I am referring just to social morality). You may not be socially free - and you're never going to be - this wouldn't even be good for human beings - but you will be spiritually free. It is only the mediocre which understand Steiner's third stage (beyond impulse and ethical morality) as license and possibility for sin. Much like Kierkegaard illustrated through the same scheme which Steiner later uses - that of an aesthetic stage, followed by an ethical stage, followed by a religious stage - it is a progression. The aesthetic stage, in its lower form, is the life of beasts. In its higher form, its the life of artists. The ethical stage in its lower form is the life of legalists. The ethical stage in its higher form is the life of men of principles.

The religious stage is not a negation of the higher ethical stage - it is the acceptance of the ethical as absolutely final and absolute for the social world - but it adds the dimension of the highest freedom - and that is spiritual freedom. This is not social freedom from the bonds of family, from your commitments to your wife and children, and so forth. Only the caricatures, the jokes as Osho said, the unenlightened see it that way. Rather this is a new realm of being, which has nothing to do with society. Sexual liberation and the like are irrelevant - they are in fact harmful to the social realm, and totally unhelpful in the spiritual. That's why all these modern movements have lost the grounding of man in the divine, as Voegelin put it. We are now grounding man in man. Man has lost the ordering of the higher. And Rudolf Steiner shared this same idea - unless you realise something higher than yourself you cannot develop into something higher. He didn't see Voegelin's point - that even more, unless you realise something higher, you WILL fall into something lower. What has happened with the modern Western world is precisely that we have fallen into something lower - hence why all the slavery to money, all the greed, all the sexual promiscuity, all the cold indifference to others, all the dissolution of family and social bonds, all the disrespect of morality, law and order.

The common folk have taken the ideas of spiritual freedom espoused by thinkers like Steiner and Voegelin and made a mockery in their name, with their brutish understanding. They have used them as justification for the highest atrocities - having hundreds of sexual partners, being lost in drugs, ignoring the pain and suffering of others, engaging in debauchery, and so forth. Atrocities that are both cruel and humorous in their stupidity. This is not much different than the mockery of God that the Church engaged in with the Inquisition. The sexual revolution is in fact, in structure, the same as the Inquisition. Except that now people are no longer estranged for not believing in Church dogma, they are estranged for not being promiscuous, for upholding moral and social values, etc. It's the same thing - the very same oppression, under a new form.

But in development, stages cannot be skipped. The world has never reached the higher ethical stage. At its best, the world reached legalism. Very few were the thinkers who peered long into the future to see anything different. Plato was one of them - but the spiritual truths that he has seen are something that the mass of mankind will in all probability never know - that's how far it is. So certainly if you want to speak for the masses of men, and not for an exceedingly small elite (an elite much smaller than those who show interest in the spiritual, since most of those themselves misunderstand it), then the most one can hope for is the ethical stage. That's why I never discuss, nor am concerned with the spiritual - nobody will understand. I can give inklings of it - as I have by saying that no sexual act is without a spiritual component - but these inklings as proved by this thread are largely ignored, passed over, misunderstood, or found to be laughable. You tell the construction worker next door that he has a spiritual relationship with his wife - he'll spit in your face. You tell the modern liberal-progressive philosopher that having sex has a profound impact on one's soul - it ties them spiritually with someone else - a connection that isn't broken without spiritual damage - they'll shrug their shoulders, and move on - they won't even know what to say.

And these my friend are the truths of the world. The world isn't ready - and it is foolish to construct that which it's not ready for. Much better to help construct what it is ready for - the ethical - sufficient to stop at Aristotle - as Plato is too much.

Hamann is the theist's David Hume, although unlike Mr. Hume, religion and morality were quite significant to him - he was no moral relativist, and unlike Mr. Hume he had a sense of humor. The notion of prosopopoeia was used by Hamann to dismantle the "Critique of Pure Reason" of Kant - to dismantle the whole edifice, by showing that in philosophy the same mistake is committed as in mystery plays - we break up experience into pieces, and call this piece "the faculty of the imagination", and that piece "the faculty of judgement", that "reason", and the other "emotion", and so forth. But in reality - there is no east, and no west - those are our fictive distinctions, which distort reality, and we end up taking them to be actual reality. Hamann says it like Buddha - no East, no West, just the sky. There is no "reason" devoid of "emotion", and no "faculty of judgement", devoid of sensibility... We take our multi-faceted and varied experience, and break it up - we personify it - now this part of it is all "reason", and the other is all "emotion". Hamann is one of the greatest philosophers who have ever lived - perhaps even the greatest - easily. He's there before Ludwig - and goes deeper than him. If you go to my profile, you will see this quote:

Not only the entire ability to think rests on language... but language is also the crux of the misunderstanding of reason with itself — Johann Georg Hamann

I wonder how much of that underlies 'identity politics'? — Wayfarer

Far from being an endorsement of identity politics, this is its humiliation. Hamann mocks - he doesn't argue.

Yes indeed, I actually quite thought that it is my fault, and just as usual I would be the only one to blame. But then I saw that the same thing happened in the interaction between John and Barry Etheridge in the other thread I linked to in my previous post... Now I'm not quite so sure anymore...

@Terrapin Station bruv, I think @John, just like @Sapientia, may be an Aspie. Who would have thought we have two of them! Seeing that you so expertly diagnosed Sapientia, I will request your help to confirm John's diagnostic - his present symptoms are that he doesn't seem to understand my jokes and metaphors, nor the intended meaning of my words! And plus he displays the same symptoms with others - like here - . I surely hope it's something that passes!

How touchy you are John... :P I was only joking. Indeed, I can clearly see that you are not a politician ;) - but I certainly thought you had picked up some humor from Osho ;) what was he saying - the laughing Buddha! Don't be a light unto yourself! Be a joke unto yourself! There was a progressive I could actually respect! Behold, let's actually listen to him and remind ourselves again - I found the video of it:

How do you presume to know that I watch porn? — John

It's a metaphor, I didn't think you'd take it so literarily (not to mention so seriously!), otherwise I would quite possibly not have used it. When you compare yourself to another at least you acknowledge the other. When you commit adultery, you also at least acknowledge another. But when you compare yourself to yourself, you're only acknowledging yourself - just like when you watch porn.

Ah, right, so according to the half-baked sage and biblical scholar Ecclesiastes contains no wisdom? — John

Oh but why - Ecclesiastes is a wonderful book - in actual fact one of my favorites.

It's not about "comparing yourself with yourself", but comparing your past with your present performance, and seeing where you might have improved and where you might have slipped back. — John

And surely comparing your current self with your past self isn't comparing yourself with yourself, right? :P

t's interesting to note that conservatives want to tell us how the world should be — John

And some progressives, as evidenced by this thread, want to tell us that marriage should be banned - but of course, that's not a statement about how the world should be. Others want to tell us that people should have as much sex as possible until marriage - but that too isn't a statement about how the world should be. I understand.

it should be just as it was in the past; the past should not merely be assimilated and benefited form; it should be conserved — John

Well do you think what was good in the past should be thrown away then? Should we just take it and put it in the bin?

it should be just as it was in the past — John

A state without the means of some change, is without the means of its own conservation. — The Conservative Founder: Edmund Burke in Reflections on the Revolution in France

Need I say more? :D

Those who favour change do so on account of the fact that they recognize that change is desirable even necessary, and in any case, inevitable. It is always uncertain as to whether the change will be for the better or for the worse in the 'long run'; but there will be change; thus there is always risk, risk of failure, and conservatives just can't handle that. — John

And because it is always uncertain, we should just take a gamble on it, instead of calculate right? Just buy Apple stock, no need to worry about it, just take a gamble, change is inevitable anyway. Why bother making any rational decision based on calculations and past experience? No need! You just have to have faith! Hope and acceptance! They will do you good when you lose all your dough.

looking to foster ever-new possibility, or looking to preserve fixed actuality — John

Why would I foster new possibility if I don't have any reason to believe it will be good?

the difference between conservative and progressive is a difference in emphasis, and degree of emphasis. — John

Yes exactly, you are correct! :D

It seems to me when I look at conservatives and progressives and their different political aims and strategies, that it is predominately fear and insecurity that motivates the conservative soul; where it is predominately hope and acceptance of what will be that motivates the progressive soul. — John

When I look at them, I see one which is young and full of energy, but foolish - and another which is old, slower, but wise. I see one which understands the fragility of life, society and happiness - and I see another which is looking to gamble with life, thinking it is going to be safe - put it all on the line for peanuts. Hope and acceptance - the virtues of the foolish, who squander away their fortunes, and must somehow justify their loss as necessary for it to be bearable, no? For how else can loss be bearable, except if it was made in order to learn from it right? For loss to be without reason - how outrageous!

Such a road is not what we oft travel by, as Robert Frost might suggest. — Heister Eggcart

Are you sure? Do not many criminals murder in order to gain the money they need to feed their child? Is this not a crime motivated by love, and thus having a good intention at its foundation? Would you say such is moral, and they should be forgiven by the victim and their family?

Yet, here we are in a world which realizes that's a load of baloney. — Heister Eggcart

I don't :-O Is this bad? I mean I have to ask, because there have been some unenlightened folk in this thread who have told me that my desire to get married is a selfish patriarchal desire to ensure that the children of my wife are my own, and that my wealth gets passed on to them - and I thought I just wanted to give all of my love to one woman - who could have thought that my introspective effort was so far off from the truth? :D

No, I'm not sapeking about superioirty in realtion to others, but about being the best you can be, and of not being satisfied with less. — John

That's still a somewhat quaint desire for superiority isn't it? Only that now you're doing it in comparison to yourself. You haven't stopped comparing, you've upgraded. Now you don't commit adultery - you watch porn :P Is this Rudolf Steiner's "ethical individualism" - comparing yourself with... yourself? :-O

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. Ecclesiastes 9:10 — John

For a moment I thought you had quoted the little known but extremely precious book of Ecclesiasticus - which only appears in a few versions of the Bible, but describes virtue quite well, much like the better known Proverbs. I was about to congratulate you for having stumbled on it - today, however, it seems I haven't been granted that honour :P

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.
Collossians 3:23 — John

Sure I agree - put your whole heart into it - but don't compare yourself with yourself >:O

Now I have you, right where I want you! Meet me in the desert, would you? >:) — Heister Eggcart

Good - let's see what you can do ;)

As I said before, many a time this anxiety comes and goes whether you like it or not. And how isn't it useful? If one is aware that they are anxious much of the time, and work hard against being so, how isn't that helpful? — Heister Eggcart

Well being an anxious and paranoid bastard can certainly be helpful - certainly it has helped me in work related matters. But it needs to be controlled. Out of control anxiety - remaining stuck in anxiety - that is bad.

I also suppose that we'd need to define anxiety more thoroughly. I'm not necessarily using anxiety solely in the medical sense (which wouldn't apply to the story I made up, for example) but an anxiety more akin to general angst. It's that pervasive feeling of uncertainty and worry that comes with some who have lived the worst sides of life. I also think that such an attitude, whether chosen or not, can be healthy if you use it to your advantage. — Heister Eggcart

Well, this is anxiety in a medical sense. PTSD manifests through anxiety for example as one of the symptoms. This is very similar to the general angst you cite.

You can believe that it does, but you don't really know, 'tis why you must have faith! — Heister Eggcart

I know by faith - it's still knowledge, which does imply a degree of certainty. As St. Thomas Aquinas, or even closer to us - Pope John Paul II - have explained, faith and reason are both sources of knowledge.

The important foundation here should be intent to do good. If one intends to be compassionate, and is able to be loving as a result, then great. But as respectable is the person who still intends to be compassionate but falls short. You can't always do the right thing, especially when the right thing isn't always as black and white clear, like your avatar is. — Heister Eggcart

Ever heard that the road to hell is paved with good intentions? ;)

You can't always do the right thing, especially when the right thing isn't always as black and white clear, like your avatar is. — Heister Eggcart

See - I picked the right avatar, it conveys the correct message. Why don't you listen to it? :P

Love is the gift to the world, not life itself. Without love in life, I'd rather go back to being dead. — Heister Eggcart

Well certainly there is no love if there is no life, so the two of them are mutually necessary.

Does a man like you need to ego-boost of "superiority"? ;)

G.K. Chesterton - his writtings are philosophical but very practical. He knows and understands the value of humor - which is rare for anyone dabbling in philosophy.
Johann Georg Hamann - again, someone who loves humor and rhetoric - arguably known as the most intelligent man of his time by figures such as the great Kant.
Eric Voegelin - political philosopher largely forgotten today, even though judging purely by his work he should probably be one of the greatest philosophers of last century.
Ivan Ilyin - Right Hegelian Russian philosopher, very influential for my understanding and interpretation of Hegel
Nicholas Berdyaev - Russian Christian existentialist philosopher.
Rene Girard - among the best philosophy of cultural anthropology and religion
Mircea Eliade - same as above.

Yes I know - I agree

Sure, I never disputed that.

It's not a vague endeavor to produce a self-organizing systems logic that can reconcile quantum mechanics and Relativity — wuliheron

Mathematics, not logic, is needed to reconcile QM and Relativity. Actually not even that, but rather a new, more general theory, expressed in mathematical form, out of which results, in specific cases, either QM or Relativity.

Systems logic like the one I am developing can have everything including their own logic go down the nearest convenient rabbit hole or toilet of your personal preference. For over half the planet beauty and humor, logic and bullshit, are indivisible "complimentary-opposites" and, for example, some of the poems I write are famous for being both normally quite beautiful and funny as hell when read in specific contexts. — wuliheron

Well if it's just about giving people what they like (not necessarily what is true) - a business - then sure - there's a wide market for it.

Exactly, there is a context in which it is complete and utter B.S. just as knowing things like quantum mechanics will not help me teach a child how to tie their shoes. — wuliheron

So there is a context in which it is FALSE (not BS, but false - take note of this)? Can you specify the context please?

everything is apparently context dependent. — wuliheron

So is this context dependant too? >:O Good - because then there is a context in which it is not true.

I had planned to stay away from this thread, but last night I received a phone call that changed everything. I was at the bathroom when I suddenly heard the phone ring, and I rushed to pick it up. When I reached the phone I saw it was a blocked caller id and when I finally answered a voice on the other side said "Good evening, it's the 1990s here!" - and I thought it must be some wierd scam but before I managed to terminate the call, the voice said "We want our Rush Limbaugh back!"



Wow - imagine now these kids want their contraception paid by the state. As if they had a right - that had to be guaranteed by the state - to have sex >:O

I agree with Barry - for the following reason. You don't only want to write a book about meaning, or about value. You want to write one that reconciles classical physics, with modern physics, and with logic - you want a Theory of Everything. That's precisely why it is a somewhat vague endeavour. I suggest that you focus your efforts on a more specific topic.

As for there being no intrinsic meaning - well that statement too has no intrinsic meaning ;)

If you're so altruistic that you give all your food, and starve yourself to death in order to feed people who are poor, then your genes will not survive. Altruism taken to the extreme is a vice. "Love your neighbour as yourself" - not more.

It seems that you're under the illusion that one can always choose whether or not to be anxious or depressed. — Heister Eggcart

I am not, I myself have had anxiety and depression in the past - although it might look that way - it's the necessary discourse I have to adopt in a liberal-progressive environment, because the liberal-progressive attitudes are so permissive to sin that my harshness is merely a remedy and counterbalance to that. If I was talking to Christian folk I probably wouldn't be having such a discourse. But in this environment - where, let me remind you, we have people who suggest that adultery and/or pornography aren't even sins, where we have folk who suggest that marriage should be banned - in this environment, the moral harshness is, I think, a good antidote. If you don't know, then I think it's important to note that us two are very probably the only two Christians here. So it's good to finally have another brother around ;)

To be anecdotal for a moment, say that my best friend and I were abducted, and I had to watch on, powerless as she was tortured and raped. Would I be unvirtuous were I to feel the least bit frustrated, hateful, or anxious? — Heister Eggcart

You need to make the required distinctions. For example, in that case above you wouldn't feel anxious - you'd feel afraid - and there's a big difference between the two. You would indeed feel frustrated and powerless, and you will feel hatred. Those are perfectly justified (and indeed, you are right, it would be a vice if you didn't feel them) - anxiety is not. Anxiety is used precisely to denote that kind of fear which is simply paralyzing - totally not useful. For you, in that scenario, it would be very useful to be afraid. That's the natural reaction of the human body, and it would make you do whatever you can do in order to escape and protect your loved one.

But anxiety is different. Anxiety is when you sit in your room doing nothing, just being afraid that you may be fired from your job for having misspoken to your boss. In the meantime a family member is having difficulties, but you're not there for them. Why? Because you're so self absorbed into your anxious thoughts. Anxiety is also when you are so concerned that you will lose your business that you neglect your wife and children. And this anxiety is a sin.

And notice that the fact that I think there are negative emotions which are rightful and even obligations is evident from my writing a few pages ago. I argued that jealousy can be a justified feeling, and that sometimes if one doesn't feel jealous then they are lacking in virtue. So it is clear that negative emotions can be a sign of virtue as well.

As much as I try, and as much as I do at times cultivate positive results from my work, depression and anxiety is something I'm always going to live with. I can't rewrite my life so I didn't have to experience what I have. — Heister Eggcart

Yes so will I probably - but this doesn't say much. It's not about not having anxious thoughts - it's about the reaction we have when we do. I will always have anxious thoughts for example - it's the way I've always been. But I learned to control them - having the thoughts is invisible from the outside for me - because I just have no reaction to having them. I ignore them. So yes, I probably always had anxious thoughts - but I most certainly didn't always have anxiety. And this distinction is very important. So I applaud your efforts, it sounds to me that you are taking exactly the right path, nothing wrong with that. So good job! :)

Does Paul, as you say, command us to not be anxious? Absolutely. But he doesn't condemn the heart that fights their sin. Paul implores us to be aware of our shortcomings and not to dwell in apathy. — Heister Eggcart

Absolutely, and neither do I condemn effort in the scope of moral improvement.

Frankly, rereading what I first quoted from you above makes me think of you as distinctly unchristian. — Heister Eggcart

We are not saved by works - that is true. We are saved by faith. Buuuuuuuut - and this is the point that is often missed - this faith does necessarily result in works.

So too, faith by itself, if it is not complemented by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that God is one. Good for you! Even the demons believe that, and shudder! — James 2:18

There is no faith without deeds. The deeds don't produce faith - which is St. Paul's point - but the faith does produce the deeds and does bring us salvation. And if it doesn't, then it is a dead faith - a self-deception, whereby we deceive ourselves that we are saved, when in fact we are not. Works are the fruits that grow in the tree of faith. My point is that you cannot have, for example, a woman walking around calling herself a Christian who as soon as she's out the church door starts swearing like a sailor, who goes around cheating on her husband, etc. All she does that would identify her as a Christian is that she claims to be one, and she repeats the words "Jesus Christ is my Lord and Saviour" - and then she begs for forgiveness after every time she does something wrong - but she goes on doing the same wrong things year after year, and nothing is changing. Such a person is just deceiving themselves, as Kierkegaard was very quick to note. And self-deception - the deception that one is saved when one isn't - is worse than not being saved. That's why "blessed are the poor in spirit" - that's why the harlots and corrupt tax collectors shall enter the Kingdom before the Pharisees. Not because it is righteous what they're doing - not because being a prostitute is good and should be respected - but because they are not self-deceived. And self-deception most definitely prevents you from entering the kingdom, in a way that sin by itself doesn't.

Kierkegaard noted that we have the very important mission to smuggle Christianity back into Christendom - because many Christians live in apathy, not in real faith.

So cheating on your wife, day after day, but begging for forgiveness, and then doing it again - then crying that your sinful nature doesn't let you do any better, then repeating the whole cycle over again - that isn't faith. Faith isn't a license to sin. You don't claim "I believe in Jesus Christ" so then you can go ahead and go to the harlots. Faith needs to be seen outwardly - its radiance must be perceptible, and it is so through works.

As for the fact that joy is a duty - it is. Life is a gift from God. If you give me a gift, and I take it and simply put it away, because I'm worried and lost in anxious thoughts, how will you feel? And if you will feel bad, how much worse will God feel when people reject, through their self-imposed misery, the beautiful gift of life they have received? But how joyous will God be when his creatures rejoice in his creation!

So morality is important. Not failing - especially in important matters of morality - is important. And if we have faith, we will not fail.

Sure it does. — Bitter Crank

I was referring to that specific quote.

You are contradicting yourself. If people want to spend eternity in Paradise, and there are certain characteristics of those who are admitted to Paradise, then it would make sense to develop those characteristics. — Bitter Crank

Yes but poverty of spirit isn't a characteristic of those who are admitted into Paradise, but rather that these folk are more likely to develop the characteristics required. And the passages that follow make it clear that anxiety is to be avoided, thus clarifying this point.

See John, maybe your problem is that it takes a lot to satisfy you :P

That's an outright lie. The fact he took your money and has used it make a purchase, which he is now rubbing in your face, is exactly what matters. It is all about how he is in the situation. He wronged you and there is nothing you can do about it. In you mind, an outrageous loss which must be undone (despite that being impossible). — TheWillowOfDarkness

Well there is something I can do - turn him in to the police. But what would motivate me doing something about it? Jealousy. So clearly "not being able to control the situation" isn't a part of jealousy. It may very well be that the jealous person has ample ways to control the situation. But he would still feel jealous. In fact, even if I was a king or emperor, and John did that, I would still feel jealous. But I probably would be able to control the situation very well - send the police to get him, throw him in jail, and get back what was mine.

For contrast, you don't sit back and say: "Well, my money has been taken and I won't get it back. At least John is enjoying his new car." You covet a different John. John shouldn't just ought to have been different, he must be, else the world cannot make sense. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Maybe I would say that if I knew there was no chance to get it back. I would initially feel jealous in that case, but I would soon understand that there's nothing I can do about it, and the feeling would wane.

To say past sins don't spoil one's future is not to ignore them. It's to say mistakes of the past doesn't mean someone continues to lose. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Okay but I'm not debating that. I agree that past mistakes don't mean someone continues to lose. But they do mean that someone has lost, and that loss they carry with them - hence the sin is eternal. If I lost a leg, I carry that loss with me.

The loss of a past partner does not amount to loss with a future partner. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Here you are wrong. It's a loss in one's capacity for intimacy (not complete loss, I didn't say that) but rather a decrease in it. It's like losing some functionality in your leg. You've lost it. If now you want to use that specific functionality to the same degree, you can't.

In your guilt and jealousy, you confuse the loss of the past for the present. — TheWillowOfDarkness

The loss of the past is present - that's why it is eternal.

You are the one who failed in the past, not any future partner and your relationship with them — TheWillowOfDarkness

Sure I never claimed otherwise.

Instead of taking the eternal harm of sin seriously, that is, understanding it as your mistake which can't be redeemed, you take it out on others. Your loss becomes something you bludgeon others with--"our relationship isn't as good as it could be, etc., etc."-- as a means of quelling your distaste for your inferior self. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This is just false now.

That's precisely the distinction we cannot make. To do so is to keep on losing. It's to think we ought to have a different world than we do. The expression that, if we had the option, we would pick the world we are not in, a world without what we care for in the present. No doubt the present may be inferior in some way (missing legs, loss relationships), but it must be the world we ought to have. — TheWillowOfDarkness

No it's not to think we ought to have a different world. Not at all. In fact, if we were to think that, we could never be grateful. But we are grateful for the current goodness that is in our lives precisely because we realise we don't deserve any other world. This doesn't mean though that we don't recognise and differentiate what is good, what is better, and what is evil and worse.

We must be content in our present inferiority-- we must love, no less than we did before loss, those we share the world with. Otherwise, we love the image of a perfect self that never exists more than anything in the world. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Did I say not to be content with our present inferiority? That would be just arrogance towards God - a great sin.

I'm pointing that is what you are saying. This is what I mean about blaming the women. You take your eternal loss and say it means she has failed-- that she has a lesser connection merely because you were with other people in the past. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This is not true since it's never her fault. It's my fault - clearly - so how can she be blamed? Her capacity for intimacy, assuming she has not sinned is unaffected. Furthermore, in the spiritual connection between partners more than just the capacity plays a role. Analogically, some people may have a weak leg, but they train it so much to make up for that weakness. Likewise, openness to intimacy, and knowledge about how to relate are important factors (next to the capacity for intimacy) for both partners. And lastly - the connection can be perceived differently - even in quality - from one partner to the other. If one has sinned more, they (the one who has sinned, not the other one) will likely perceive it as lesser.

The point was that Jesus' Sermon on The Mount had a different purpose - it wasn't advice on how to live a Christian life. It wasn't meant to say "you should be poor in spirit, you should mourn, you should be meek" - but rather that those categories of people were more likely to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Furthermore, it talks nothing - and I mean nothing - about anxiety. It doesn't say "blessed are the anxious" does it?

My quote on the other hand is aimed precisely at tackling anxiety though. Paul says it as a command - do not be anxious.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7)

A virtuous person might not be at all happy. He might be grieving, he might be very depressed, he might be very frustrated, all sorts of things. He might feel very guilty and inadequate, despite his virtue — Bitter Crank

That is impossible, because being depressed, being grieving, being frustrated - all these are lacking in virtue. It is a virtue to be joyous, happy and content. It's not like virtues are just being pious, courageous, loyal, etc. That's why in Christianity for example, being anxious is a sin. You have a duty to rejoice in creation.

Sure, it is bad enough; and it will be made worse for the addict by receiving condemnation and rejection — John

I wish when I was addicted to it I had received condemnation and rejection earlier :P

You can objectively measure heat, not the happiness, which is my point, making your analogy of happiness to heat disanalagous. — Hanover

Yes, happiness is more like hotness, not something "measured", thus making my analogy correct. You measure temperature, not "hotness". I don't need to tell you how to measure happiness in order to know I am better now than I was back then. Just like even if I don't know how to measure temperature, I can still say if the water is hot.

If your argument is that the abandonment of virtue (as you define it) leads to unhappiness, then my counterexample of someone who has abandoned that virtue yet is not unhappy the your argument has been disproven. — Hanover

I don't want to prove it to you. You have the wrong impression. I'm challenging you. Are you up to the challenge? It seems you only want me to prove it to you - while you don't do anything. I don't care if you believe me or not. But it's certainly in your interest to investigate and find out what true happiness and true love is. If you want to, then bite the bait, and play the game under equal rules. We're in the same boat - not one to prove and the other to examine. Do you really have no passion for it?

You've presented an argument as to what is required for happiness — Hanover

Yes I have presented an argument very well said. Where is yours? You keep your tail out of the game, and you point fingers at others, that's where it is ;)

Again, this is dogma. Obviously if you proclaim virtue the highest of all goods, then those who have the most of it will be the best. The rest of what you say is just mindless repetition of what you've already said: those who adhere to the virtues you find virtuous are the bestess. What constitutes virtue is largely defined by you (like don't watch pornography) and once it falls into that class, you've just got to do it. — Hanover

And how is what you say different? It's also dogma. Except that you provide no argument for it, and merely expect me to accept it. You strung a sentence together, without any appeal to experience or reason. That's nothing but dogma.

And so I know a person who did in fact visit prostitutes when he was young. He has been married for over 20 years and they have a very successful daughter. So what now? — Hanover

Good for you, I'm not disputing it.

I'm pretty sure we can measure the temperature of water. — Hanover

Yes, only that we don't need to measure it in order to know it's hot, which is my point.

By the way @John, congratulations! It looks like you will have the most viewed thread of the month. In just 6 days, and you're already in top 10 for the past 30 days >:O

I can't say that people never recover from it and from there live happily ever after — Hanover

True - just like some are born with no arms and legs and still manage to live a happy life (Nick Vujicic for example). Others lose a leg and still manage to live happy lives afterwards. I agree with all that. But that doesn't mean one should lose a leg - in fact one should do everything they can not to. It's a harm - regardless of whether it can be overcome - which definitely decreases from their potential in life. A decreased potential doesn't mean that they are cursed to an unfulfilling existence - it just means that their capacities will be lower. But they can still live fulfilled lives and maximise whatever capacities they still have left.

I also think there are plenty of folks who don't have any (and I mean any) ill effect from pornography or prostitution. — Hanover

I disagree with you, but of course you are entitled to believe otherwise.

They go from cradle to grave no more or less happy or fulfilled than the most vice-free person — Hanover

This I more than disagree with. Virtue is the key to happiness. No that's wrong. Virtue is happiness itself. "Happiness is not the reward of virtue - but virtue itself" - Benedict de Spinoza. Virtue is precisely that which fulfils the telos of the human being - which harmonises all his desires and ensures that no contradictory - or harmful pattern - exists. That everything is working towards the individual's well-being. But of course, you give no argument for your statement, so I will not rush to say more.

I would imagine many of your friends who visited prostitutes have married, had kids, remained faithful and every thing else. — Hanover

I only kept in touch with one, who was struggling with a drug addiction last time I spoke with him. He also had some child with a woman he wasn't married to, nor was he in an active relationship with, much less married. So no - I don't think so.

You can insist your resistance made you a better person, but you'd be at a loss to show how you measure that. — Hanover

I don't need to show how that is measured for it to be true that I am a better person than I was. Similarly I don't need to tell you how to go about measuring the temperature of the water to know that the water is hot.

If I were writing a book on how to be fulfilled and satisfied, I wouldn't suggest that lying, cheating, stealing, screwing around, or watching porno was the path to success, but I wouldn't necessarily include a chapter on avoiding sexual vice. The truth is that most who engage in sexual behavior that does not lead to happiness simply learn from their mistakes and stop. — Hanover

Again - the harm from such behaviour is irrecoverable. You cannot bring it back. That's like saying "I wouldn't necessarily include a chapter on being careful to preserve your bodily integrity. People who lose a leg learn from their mistakes and still manage to live good lives" - that's just stupid. You should give advice on how to live a good life - not on how to overcome obstacles once you get into them - that's stupid. You prevent first, and only secondly deal with curing if you really have to. Imagine I told you "yeah go naked outside, you'll get a cold, but you'll learn from it" - that's not advice, but the lack of it.

In other words, a lot of marriages fail because of incompetence. — Bitter Crank

Or vice. It's really the same thing.