I do not agree with your definition of weak because I have my own defined terms — TranscendedRealms

I don't really care, I smell weakness.

As long as he has the inner light, then he is filled with powerful good life force and he is like a being of light. — TranscendedRealms

Bunch of nonsense.

Lastly, I have struggled 10 whole years with misery. — TranscendedRealms

I am well aware you think that you are special; however, I don't share that view.


The rest is just babble.

When I am in my most miserable and hopeless state due to an emotional trauma, then my whole entire reality is the most horrible hell. But when I reach a state of full recovery, I am able to see harmony, peace, joy, beauty, and goodness. This is a perception that I never had during that miserable moment. This is a perception that goes beyond a value judgment. In other words, it goes beyond a mere thought and it is like a blind person recovering his sight. — TranscendedRealms

Yes. When we are walking through our personal valleys of death, the horror of it is pretty much 100%. But then, with any luck, we come out of that dark place, into bright sunshine, lush green fields, peace, and serenity.

Based on this, I conclude that we might have a sense like sight that allows us to see our entire world as good and beautiful. I would personally call it the "Divine Sense." It is a new sense that has yet to be discovered by science. When we are in a positive mood or emotional state, then that is this sense allowing us to perceive stable qualities of good value as well as enhanced and more profound qualities of good value and beauty in our lives. Likewise, negative emotions such as misery and hopelessness are this sense allowing us to truly see things as horrible, bad, disgusting, etc. That is why I say that positive emotions are an objective good while negative emotions are an objective bad. So, this objective good and bad would be an intrinsic quality (our positive and negative emotions). — TranscendedRealms

Maybe we have a "Divine Sense" but it is not "new" as much as you have recently discovered it. One might identify this sense as an inner light; one might also identify it as the loving presence of Jesus or the Holy Spirit, or an inner illumination. Various terms in various traditions.

"Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!

John Henry Newman, hymn, Lead Kindly light — Cardinal Newman

Even from a rather dry materialist point of view, we have the capacity to experience what other people would call transcendent peace, happiness, love, beauty, and so on. Whether one calls it Grace or a flood of oxytocin and serotonin, it feels much the same. And so does the opposite -- one's nightmarish experiences.

So, when a person is completely miserable and hopeless and a person comes along, giving the suggestion to just work at developing a new mindset, then that is only focusing away from one's own inner light which is the very vital and precious thing that allows us to see the goodness in our lives in the first place. — TranscendedRealms

Right. "Just snap out of it" is extremely unhelpful advice. If one could just snap out of it, or just upload a new mindset, obviously one would.

I am fed up with people in my life dismissing my inner light as nonexistence and all in my head. They think it is just my value judgment. — TranscendedRealms

Just tell them to fuck off, and stop casting your pearls before swine.

Look, I don't know exactly what you are experiencing. I know next to nothing about you. I have no idea what you will be thinking a year from now or in the next 15 minutes. But good heavens, you are hardly alone in thinking there is a divine light which you can follow. Millions of people have expressed this idea in various ways.

We live in a time when bold materialists thinkers are going to dump on any sort of spiritualism. They hear "Inner light" and alarm bells ring. They think the vote is in and materialism has won the election by a massive landslide. It seems that way to them because they talk to each other, and they keep hearing the same thing. Actually, most of the people in the world believe in some kind of religion, and accept the idea of God, transcendent realms, divine light, and so on.

Actually, most of the people in the world believe in some kind of religion, and accept the idea of God, transcendent realms, divine light, and so on. — Bitter Crank

Most the people in the world are stupid.

Even if I was a weak person, how could you blame me though? I am convinced that no character strength or anything else can replace my inner light. Personally, I think that the inner light is everything to allowing us to truly perceive the good value and beauty of things in this life. Also, I never thought I was special. I was just pointing out to you my struggle which was very important to point out in order to make the argument I was wanting to make.

Mixed Emotions: Now, if you were in a situation where you had mixed emotions, then you would be perceiving both good and bad value at the same time. It would be something like 20% good and 80% bad in regards to certain things and situations. It all depends on the degree of positive and negative emotions that are there. So, the fact that these miserable genius artists still saw their lives and art as beautiful means they would have to have had some degree of positive emotion mixed in. Otherwise, they would just be deluding themselves.

Lastly, as for life experience and getting out, I do this all the time. I go out in nature and out in the community. So, there is no problem here. — TranscendedRealms

The reason why everything got underlined here is that you are missing a "[/u]" at the end of what you wanted underlined. Every "u, i, and/or b" in brackets [ ] has to be followed by a "/u, /i, and/or /b" in brackets [ ].

how could you blame me though? — TranscendedRealms

First, I don't care about your "inner light" you can preach that nonsense all day long and I'll just keep dismissing it. Second, you are the only person with any true control of your life and who you are, if you are weak then it by your own faults.

Then what we have here is an agree to disagree scenario. Personally, I think that living a life of character strength alone can only be a life where you live out the motions. It is a life of nothing but doing things, carrying on in life, making the best of things, and is a life of nothing but words (value judgments). Especially since it was like that for me during my whole 10 year struggle. Not a single moment did I perceive any real good value or beauty in my life. I think that my values are the higher and transcended values while the values of the rest of humanity such as people like you are empty and nothing more than that of a mere machine. You nor anyone else can comprehend nor understand my higher values.

Then what we have here is an agree to disagree scenario — TranscendedRealms

The great cop out. Ya I don't agree to disagree, you are withdrawing and I still think your "worldview" is a waste of words.

Most the people in the world are stupid. — Jeremiah

Hmmmm, yes, I've read that too. Everybody is stupid except me and thee, of course, but even thee is as blunt as an ox at times.

When there is an argument/debate between two people with two entirely different worldviews where one throws out accusations and name calling and the other does the same, then such arguments can get absolutely nowhere. So, each person is left to his/her own personal values. I think that is just what it all comes down to and there is nothing that can be done about it. It's just the way it is. I do not agree with your value system, I detest it since it dismisses my inner light that I think truly exists, and, therefore, I am not going to waste my time with your suggestions since I am firmly convinced by my own personal experience and struggles.

I think you are assuming too much there of what I said. Most the world is stupid, I never said anything about separating myself out from that assessment. I just realize that humans have such a poor grasp of reality and they like to make up stupid crap to deal with that lack of understanding.

Ya, I don't care. People always make the mistake of assuming that I should be inclined to be reasonable, but I am not. I think your "world view" is just another grossly oversimplified take of something you are too limited to grasp.

However, if I did find myself in a state of complete anhedonia or misery and it lasted most of my life, then if someone very compassionate came into my life and tried to help me, then I would be willing to take their advice. But I cannot guarantee this advice would work out for me because, like I said, I am not sure anything can replace my inner light that I believe in. But if some jerk came into my life and gave me advice, then I would give up on such a person and not even waste my time with him or her.

I think we already established that you are too weak to stand on your own two feet.

I don't care how weak I am. It is nothing important to me. From my perspective, character strength simply has no place in this world. It is only my positive emotions that truly matter in my life.

That is until you crash and burn. Your "negative" emotions are part of who you are, that is not something you can hide from or escape. I already know that I am troll and an ass, but in this, I am right and in time you will agree with me.

I just realize that humans have such a poor grasp of reality and they like to make up stupid crap to deal with that lack of understanding. — Jeremiah

In what way are you exempt from your own judgement?

Look, the point is that telling someone that their ideas are stupid and a waste of time doesn't advance a discussion. We are all prone to the practice of believing our own bullshit, me and thee included. But someone telling us we are full of shit sheds very little light on our sad state.

I prefer materialist explanations of mental events; but if someone frames their experience in spiritual terms, then we are just not going to agree on what is going on. That fact of our differing frame of reference doesn't mean that the spiritual framework is just BS.

Been there and done that. I have already been crashed down by the worst misery and hopelessness of my life for a whole 10 year struggle. Nothing has changed during that entire time. So, what makes you think you are right?

I think you two have passed the point of diminished returns for this topic.

Look, the point is that telling someone that their ideas are stupid and a waste of time doesn't advance a discussion — Bitter Crank

I disagree with that assessment.

Oh, yes, I am sure you have experienced the worst life has to offer. . . . :-}

I can assure you I have experienced emotional traumatic events. These emotional traumas have put me in states of complete misery. I have, in fact, had the attitude of facing and standing up to these miserable states (what is called character strength), but that did nothing to bring my life a whole new sense of good value and worth. So, what makes you think that it can ever work out for me?

Not interested in your "traumatic events", everyone thinks their life is the worst, get over yourself.

I never said that my life was the worst. All I said was that I have had emotional trauma and nothing worked for me to give my life good value and worth during that entire struggle. The only thing that worked was fully recovering from it and having my positive emotions back to me again.

Obviously. But in discussion, calling someone's ideas stupid and a waste of time is a "terminating response". Calling out "stupid" and "waste of time" ends useful talk.

If you want to convince someone that there is a better way of thinking about things than the one which they are displaying, you have to be polite, and specific. Sure, I think a lot of people are full of shit. If I want to just dismiss them then telling them they are full of shit is an effective, if crude, way of doing it.

TranscendentRealms' OP was not defective. He related his experience (which we do not know the details of, so can't really dismiss as stupid) and then he related a positive upside of his very negative experiences.

Above you say "everyone thinks their life is the worst, get over yourself" but you know nothing of what he experienced. Most people don't, but some people actually have world class bad experiences, and they aren't exaggerating. You don't know (I don't either) but philosophical discussions are supposed to tease apart problems with a fine surgical knife and not a chain saw, which is kind of the way you're going about it.

You can do better.

In addition to my previous reply I recently made to you, I would like to say one last thing here which is an interesting analogy/story. If there were a group of beautiful flowers that have taken on human form and these flower beings grow and thrive differently than how we as human beings grow and thrive, then do we have every reason to look down upon them and call them weak, inferior, etc.?

Just because they grow and thrive in a life of happiness and sunshine and wither in a life of misery and darkness does not mean we should look down upon them. They simply grow and thrive differently than us as human beings. I am like one of these flower beings since the only way my conscious being can grow and thrive is through my inner light. These flower beings would, therefore, have a different value system than us as human beings just as how I have a different value system than other human beings.

Guess my ego is not as large as yours. I am not interested in convincing people of my point of view, I rather people think for themselves.

Maybe we have a "Divine Sense" but it is not "new" as much as you have recently discovered it. One might identify this sense as an inner light; one might also identify it as the loving presence of Jesus or the Holy Spirit, or an inner illumination. Various terms in various traditions. — Bitter Crank

It's very likely that "divine senses" are radically different objectively, and probably subjectively. I say that it is the role of ethics to judge them all. Almost all will be found wanting.

Almost all will be found wanting — Jake Tarragon

They may be wanting, but why do you think they will be found deficient?

:) because maybe there is just one ethical standpoint that IS "best" . (and maybe TR's is in the right direction but trying to be too "pure".....)