Yes, within the context of any system, it is up to the individual to save themselves, but if you were designing a system, — synthesis

But you're not designing a system. You don't get to. Nor do you want to.

you want to avoid giving power to groups because that means individuals are going to be screwed...BIG time.

So? They should just work diligently, duh.

Although the older atheists I have known got there despite being disowned and shunned by their working class communities and families. — Tom Storm

These are the people I'm interested in. How did they make it in life?
If they were the proverbial trees with weak roots when they had to face the storm, how did the weather it?

Err... what order? I was simply saying that Logotherapy was developed with this in mind. I was not trying to classify it in any context other than the obvious. — Tom Storm

Sure. My point is, it's backwards, which makes it useless. It can be useful only if one learns it before one falls on hard times.

But I think it would be safe to bet that of the many millions of atheists who have lived, millions of them have done just this. — Tom Storm

And I'm pretty sure that most of them were not thrown in at the deep end, but instead didn't have many hardships when growing up, or their parents taught them resilience, or both.

A truly inspiring individual would be somenone who didn't have those perks, but who still made it in life.

I want to understand the origins of this group-think, deconstruct it, show it bare for what it is, and expose the harmful political assumptions of perpetuating this package. — schopenhauer1

And then what? You think the world will change?

Have you seen The Truman Show?

Millions of people have done this with no problems. — Tom Storm

Really? And you have empirical data to back this up?

Therapist Dr Victor Frankl devised Logotherapy as a consequence of his time in a concentration camp (he wanted to understand why some people survived and others did not) and his ideas are far more relevant that what we can offer. — Tom Storm

No, that's not the right chronological order.

Logotherapy is based on an existential analysis[6] focusing on Kierkegaard's will to meaning as opposed to Alfred Adler's Nietzschean doctrine of will to power or Freud's will to pleasure. Rather than power or pleasure, logotherapy is founded upon the belief that striving to find meaning in life is the primary, most powerful motivating and driving force in humans.[2] A short introduction to this system is given in Frankl's most famous book, Man's Search for Meaning, in which he outlines how his theories helped him to survive his Holocaust experience and how that experience further developed and reinforced his theories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logotherapy

It's fair to say that Frankl was "prepared" for the concentration camps. He already studied existential problems prior to being incarcerated. He wasn't "thrown in at the deep end", he already knew how to swim.

Which is why his theory is of little use to someone who has fallen on hard times before they were even able to develop some kind of resilient theory of life.

What would be relevant is the outlook developed by someone who was thrown in at the proverbial deep end and who didn't yet know how to swim, but who learnd to swim anyway. On their own.
I'm still looking for such a person.

Like the saying goes -- A tree with strong roots can hope to withstand a harsh storm, but it can scarcely hope to grow them once the storm is already on the horizon.

What is casting pearls before swine but being suspiciously thirsty? — norm

"Casting pearls before swine" -- that's a way to keep up the appearance of one's worthiness and the worthiness of one's ideas. Because if (some) other people are demoted to swine, then one's ideas, however lowly they might be, instantly look more elevated, pearly ...

That's the problem. It's only the elite in corporations and government saving themselves. How about everybody else? — synthesis

Why should that be a problem?? To you?? You advocate that everyone should save themselves, and if they can't, that's their fucking problem. There you go! The big fish eat the little fish, that's how the big fish survive.
Obviously, the solution is to become a big fish. And if someone doesn't become a big fish, that's just their fucking problem!

In life, you do the best you can, help others where you can, and then you die. It's just the way it is. — synthesis

You're not saying anything. Other than perhaps airing your own despondency and justifying/rationalizing the status quo.

What are you proposing? You say you don't want to control people, yet there are specific things, such as minimizing government and corporations that you do want. IOW, you do want to control people.

People need to save themselves? Yes, what else?

You're not saying anything. The current situation with BIG government and corporations is precisely and simply what some people saving themselves looks like.

You're merely defending the status quo.

A person comfortable in their spirituality (as opposed to their religion) does not need to proselytize or harangue others to prove the strength of their faith. — Tom Storm

People don't necessarily proselytize to "prove the strength of their faith".
Some do it "to share the joy with others".
Some others do it out of a sense of entitlement to do so.
Some do it out of a sense of superiority over others.

In fact, it's what religion/spirituality is all about: a sense of superiority over others, a sense of entitlement over others.
All of one's religious/spiritual knowledge is in vain if one doesn't think it somehow makes him better than other people.

I think the hallmark fo a secure faith is the lack of proselytizing. — Tom Storm

Why??

this forum is an approximation to a Salon — Banno

More like a saloon, at least at times. :p

In any case, I don't think you're entirely correct about these being somehow more elitist traditions. The Cathars were beggars and rejected material wealth. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Elitism doesn't necessarily have to do with wealth and worldly power.

For example, in traditionally Buddhists countries, monks are considered the elite, even though they lead materially very simple lives (or at least, they should, on principle).

One year into the pandemic, it's safe to say that science & technology have saved us. — TaySan

Eh? What on earth makes you think this pandemic and its reverberations are over??

Because — khaled

And why can't a solipsist be a realist? after all, the thought that the external world has independent existence is just a thought, and solipsists accept the existence of thoughts.
— sime

I just don't know what to say... — Banno

I think of some concepts parallel to solipsism: epistemic egoism, epistemic narcissism, epistemic authoritarianism.
Narcissists, egoists, and authoritarians can be realists, they can believe that there is a world apart from their person, they just don't care about it, or they see themselves as categorically superior to it. So, for practical intents and purposes, they might as well be solipsists.

Your plan for the betterment of the world isn't based on compassion for people, nor on compassion for planet Earth.

It's looks more like an attempt to find a justification for plain old Social Darwinism, but with an exception clause for you in particular:
"Other people are free to fight and die like the vermin they are, as long as I'm not one of them."

But you're forgetting it's not up to you to decide whether you're one of them or not.

I can't (nor do I desire to) control anybody else. — synthesis

But you clearly do have that desire, when you talk about minimizing the government and the corporations.

I'm pointing out where the minimizing of government leads to. Which you clearly don't care about.

The only solution I have is for my own life. I can't (nor do I desire to) control anybody else. — synthesis

Oh, you put it like this, making it about (not) controling others.
You have a solution for your own life, and the others can just go to hell, those rats and vermin, right?


And I don't live in Canada. When I talk about the freedom to be oppressed by a rich and powerful neighbor, I mean this literally, my current neighbors, just a few meters away from me.

Just more reasons to learn to cook. Without a timer. :p

Well, as far as I know, what is said must stand on its own, who said it is irrelevant. — TheMadFool

It is relevant who said what and being able to source it properly, already so that we can avoid fighting strawmen and people's drunk musings.

Perhaps one of these days, though, everybody will work for themselves. — synthesis

When people "work for themselves" and when there is minimum government, when people are left to themselves, they are also vulnerable to those more powerful than themselves.

So what is your solution to the problem of power differentials between people (and everything they entail, from hostile takeovers of business to abuse of power)?

I know of no country in the world which is moving towards more freedom. Freedom is apparently too oppressive for some these days. — synthesis

Esp. the freedom to be oppressed by a rich and powerful neighbor!

I'm trying to reconstruct the Buddha's logic. Sorry, nothing explicit to go on except his conspicuous coyness on the matter of God and other metaphysical issues. — TheMadFool

*hrmph*

https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN49.html is not coy. I can think of several others that are not coy.

To call the Buddha flamboyant in these matters is not an understatement.

What I'm slowly getting at is that the narrative of the struggle between good and evil might not be universal, might not be a given, and that it might be possible to conceive of life and morality in very different terms than in the terms of said narrative.

Most of my kitchen gadgets are self timing. When I say no sense of time, its pretty close to that. — frank

:( The perils of technology.

Therefore I really don't know why atheists are so often criticized and thought to have a baseless set of beliefs — BBQueue

How about asking those critics why they criticize atheists?

I have next to no sense of time. I was blown away when I found out that other people do. — frank

Do you cook? I discovered that cooking turned out to be a very good practice for gauging time.
Although mostly in a practical sense, not in terms of testing myself with a timer.

For example, when I make pancakes or crepes, it's not necessary to stand by the stove all the time, so I often do small chores, such as fold laundry. I developed a sense of whether I have enough time to fold another shirt or other item before needing to flip the pancake or crepe.
And then, of course, cooking a multicourse meal and serving it at the exact time. This is primarily about good organization, even more so when cooking dishes that must be served within some 10 minutes or less after being cooked.

I think it must be really hard to teach oneself to gauge time just sitting there and trying to gauge how much time has passed.

When I started trying to teach myself to guage time, like just starting with 10 minutes, I felt an overwhelming aversion to doing it.

I can link that up with other aspects of my personality where I cant handle being pigeon holed or caged in any way. I wonder if personality can influence the skills you have access to.

A love of learning is something to be learned. :)

How about getting rid of corporations and 90% of the government. That might be a good start! — synthesis

I live in a country where there is less government than there was up to some 20 years ago.
Take, for example, the laws and regulations concerning the building of family houses. They are looser now than they were back then, and people are much more left to themselves. Which is good if one is rich, and very bad if one isn't.

I'm second-guessing the Buddha's rationale behind his "no comment" attitude towards God — TheMadFool

A Buddhist canonical reference for this, please.

Free from suffering.

Meh, when people post about their existential problems online, often, someone will chime in with a reference to Camus, which can then come across as, "See, Camus figured it out! So why are you still going on and on about this, when the problem's already solved!"

I know only one guy who thinks Camus solved the problem of nihilism, but this guy also happens to be miserable as hell. So I'm discinclined to believe he actually believes Camus solved any problem, other than perhaps the one with taxes (by dying early enough).

Beyond that, I haven't seen anyone actually claim that Camus solved the problem of nihilism. I do think that Camus' work can be useful for reflection on existential issues.

What solutions to this problem do you think would be the most effective, even if they might not be morally ‘good’? — Schrödinger's cat

Popularize Buddhism, so that more and more people ordain, living simple and celibate lives.
And become enlightened, at that!

And now for a lyrical intermezzo:

Well, I don't think fear alone, as you seem to be suggesting, — TheMadFool

I said:

Inertia, fear of conflict, minding one's own business, physical exhaustion due to overwork and stress. — baker

However, there are two sides to this coin. As I mentioned earlier, the opportunities to engage in criminal activity and then being able to, in your words, "...get away with it..." are aplenty given the citizen to police ratio is huge in most places around the world and yet peace and calm are more the norm than the exception.

I said:

The prospective conflict isn't just with the police, but primarily with owners who are willing to protect their property and their lives. — baker

"Getting away with it" does not refer only to not being prosecuted for one's crime by the official legal system. More than that: it refers also to the people one has harmed not taking any action of vigilante justice against one on their own.

I concede that fear does play a role, probably a huge one, in morality but I don't agree that it's the only reason that we're, society is, good.

In my original list, fear of conflict was just one of the items listed.

We are all ONE, always changing form. That's about the extent of it. — synthesis

Really? You are, for example, Blondie Orange?

It seems to me you look for something, perhaps a kind of solidity that you would like morality to have, that it doesn't - and most people know it doesn't. But you then deny the possibility of a different kind of solidity which it does have. Let's call it here the imperative of the well-grounded ought. — tim wood

No, that's one and the same solidity.

You don't care about animals and plants??

Some people's existential problems really are ... such that a touch of room fragrance can put their noisy mind to ease:


It must be great to be like that.