What is this all about? The pursuit of Happiness. What makes you happy? Learning, for a while I went around with full force trying to discover the simple pleasures in life -- the simplest ones you can think of. Then you try your best to live doing those things. Problems come up that try to make you trade your apples for better or rotten apples. You don't really know which one is better till you bite. And, you can't throw away your whole sack if one turns out to be rotten or you'll starve. Sometimes a drastic apple-tossing is necessary but soon after you must fill it with new apples or you'll have nothing to chew on. And when the sky showers lemons instead of apples well, we take lemons too. It's what you got, can't be picky. Now go! You are ready to explore and to try different settings to see if you get more apples or lemons and whether they be rotten, juicy, or very sour lemons.

I'm right there with you. Quit a nice desk job that my entire family was jealous of cuz, ya know, I hate lemons. In a society that values you by how many lemons you catch rather than the quality of the apples you hold, it's difficult. But, one keeps going for the ubermensch or whatever great sacrificial greater-than-yourself work you want to work for. One can do that last step begrudgingly or willingly, cuz once you recognize 'it', most likely, you wont be able to find your old apples even if you tried.

Curiosity and hope know no bounds. — Posty McPostface

Men are even lazier than they are timid, and fear most of all the inconveniences with which unconditional honesty and nakedness would burden them. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Before technology, I think it's fair to say it was a lot harder; forcing people into a choice between strive or die (I'm no biology major, but I think evolution works this way. Problem?-->Breakthru. No Problem?... [No problem for the Coelacanths]). So, the question is do we have a problem to solve? Is there a space race between nations? Is there a certain nation that we designate as the enemy to keep us on our toes so that we may destroy our enemy? Who's the enemy in a world led by...?
Will a westerner who has been given most of everything they've needed in life ever grasp for the concepts that are yet out of their reach? The rest of the world only knows how to continue grasping. As if in comparison we lay limp with our jaws open and a loose sphincter.

I'm cuban and every single cuban professor or teacher I've known doesn't, of their own choice, teach in the states.

A) Bored with their own lives or want to escape from their mundane lives — Posty McPostface

I do think the reasons change but this must, for me at least, be the main reason. It is absolutely a matter of instant gratitude. But, there's sugar, and caffeine, and alcohol, and plenty of other legal drugs that have 'bad' side-effects just like the illegal ones. Our own sense of morality and what is acceptable comes from the society we get raised in and well, when you get raised up in a society that promotes consumerism and dependence on certain products (still drugs), it's easy to see how righteous people are in their choice to take a drug that by far compared to most others is harmless.

I think if you define drug as a "mind-altering substance", many things are mind-altering substances. Chocolate, a lover, a book. All these things have positive and negative effects on your psyche. We all choose to partake in things that will both give us a 'good' and a 'bad'. Everyone places different values towards certain faculties. Some might say memory is so important. Some might say your breathing. Some might say your ability to use your liver. Point is, it's a matter of perspective. I, smoking weed and the occasional psychedelic, bash on alcohol all day. There certainly is good effects to alcohol as well as the bad. But really, for the better of future teens, yeah alcohol is bad.

It's about doing the right thing, even if it costs us our happiness. — Sam26

Just as easily as the 'right thing' could require us sacrifice, so too could it bring many more gifts. I agree with you and try to hint at it near the end of that response. Because raising kids is hell but now you have a mini-U and that has provided a lot of meaning for the world, thus fulfilling a really convincing purpose. Conversely, one could be under the impression the 'good' would be not to have children but does so anyways specifically because they want the happiness associated with that experience. I think for those of us who aren't simulations or mutants it's just a matter of selfishness as is the custom of single-bodied humans. Something you can't escape that want's to do good by you even if it does bad to it's environment (cause that's what it's always done, eat food). Sometimes we're the hand that aids our evils and the purveyor that feeds us our pleasures, or all the time, or you just try your best to do good in spite of what you cannot control. Moment by moment, a debate clashes in oneself whether to choose a long-standing achievement that provides fulfillment with a lot of work or to cash in the relatively low cost pleasure pump. One could make it one's long standing achievement to have as much pleasure as possible and ahhh hedonism; and when morality doesn't matter because it's a construct of the bourgeois above me and woe there is no God we come to nihilistic hedonism. Which is I'd go on to wager the ideology many successful (and perhaps meaningful) people today hold.

The things that are really important in life are much higher on the scale of values than happiness. — Sam26

Imo Virtue or doing good or purpose or whatnot is higher on the scale than happiness too. But it's your job to make your ideals reality which is the hard part.

We wouldn't have reached our conclusion if the questions we were asking weren't interesting or important to us. So whatever conclusion you reach will be meaningful to you because you thought that question deserved answering. And, you were the one who created the scenario you were in, constructed the experience you held, all so that you could obtain the insight you reached. It was something you wanted all along. A nagging question that bothers you for days on end, you can't pin it, or describe it in words successfully, but that suddenly gets alleviated.
To explain how and why these experiences are universal to humans, Science will eventually explain. The videos on this thread were great and am working through the paper you posted, which seems great so far.

Of course having insight is different than following it and being virtous. The divine light shines on all of us, but we still need to turn towards it to appreciate its warmth. But there’s nothing we can do to stop it’s shining. — MysticMonist

These experiences are meaningful insofar as they provide light for the path before us. If we actually use the insight we came to.

This one time in the woods. I went off trail, am lost, am jogging bc of knee-high grass, slowly it dawns on me I've been here for 6 hours now and my water and food is running out. Over yonder a clearing appears. The stone trail unfolds before me. I slow down as with each step i realize I am yet again safe, I again have control. Touch my head to the floor like a muslim (totally not a muslim). Take in the beautiful expanse before me. Walk towards this tree. Get closer. Look at the center of tree; and in the tree I see all at once my face, my dads face, my grandpas face, and eventually into a melting face that I can only assume is the face I think my ancestors look like. Begin crying as the unity of it all hits me in waves. This tree - the largest easily within the entire view. A lush variety of flora and fauna surround me. The realization occurs to me that this tree has probably been here the longest, if not close to, out of everything around it. And everything around it lived in part thanks to this tree that stood here for what feels like to us an eternity. And that my ancestors lived, took from the environment, gave back, and so on and so forth through so many iterations till it reached my turn (much larger eternity).

I don't think tripping connects you to something divine. Nor do I think it impairs you; and through a restricted access to your brain's resources something magical or spiritual appears (Science says it might increase, not decrease, one's mental resources). I think that the person has conjured that experience for himself and is individual to him because of past events in his life. And that if your experience matches up with my experience in any way, it's simply that we both came to the same conclusion because our environments weren't so different. I cant imagine your world is much different than mine.

I am under the impression that LSD makes you more observant, selfless, wise, holy; and under that impression It's ever more apparent that we are all just observing our environment and connecting dots about the world. If you think God is metaphorically handing you the knowledge, rather than you drawing the lines yourself; I think your brain conjured that just as it conjured the spiritual experience you initially had. If transcendent reality is a recurring theme, maybe we all just want to escape 'this' reality and go to the nice, idealistic world we just created in our minds. I think It's more about psychology than the divine.

Yeah, and what if it's the other way around? Isn't that a good scenario? That's why you have to use your judgement. — Agustino

In the case of a bank robbery you get inside and immediately with your super-human level of perception and objectivity you suspect this man is about to rob the bank. IRL, yes there is a difference between sitting on my chair telling you a story than being IRL stopping a bank robbery. For here with the anonymity of the internet there are no repercussions for undue actions of harassment. IRL you would not have pointed out that wolf in sheep's clothing for fear of being wrong; the gravity of that situation IRL would have directly caused your actions to be quite different from how they were here on this forum.

So you fail to see how we could accept them, but you do agree with both of them? :s — Agustino

I agree with both of them to certain extents as is with many things. I was pointing out the impossibility of having these two things be perfectly in conjunction with each other at their extremes. For how can we recognize it is futile to desire and to also desire a most rare gift as another person.

Well God gives me meaning, and other than that my family and my work. But I don't think there's anything you need to do to live a meaningful life. You could live a meaningful life never leaving your room, or sitting in a cave in meditation & prayer your whole life. That too is possible. — Agustino

You seem to derive meaning from many things outside of yourself; yet you preach a meaningful life even through inactivity. Could you explain how someone could do that?

But I do severely disagree with the road he (and Western culture) recommends to take in order to achieve that. I think quite the contrary, the road Western culture recommends will leave you in the ditch. — Agustino

In the real world we see tons of people follow the western culture path and, on the surface at least, they're happy. We read a few dozen philosophers follow personal heroism and, on the surface at least, they too profess happiness. I guess I experience a strong disconnect between those two apparent truths. Usually, the philosophers would never admit they're wrong so I guess I found it refreshing to find a philosopher in some respects that actually promoted the cultural heroism vibe (not that I even agree with western culture).

There are some obvious advantages to picking this over that. Even if no one picks this over that; it'd be smart to know the differences. And vice versa no matter what side your on. Feeling offended that others might be getting swayed by a wolf in sheep's clothing doesn't give you the right to scapegoat the sheep you thought was evil. Turned out the sheep was sheep, and you were the wolf. This scenario would suck. So it'd be wise to at least consider the scenario in which the sheep is no wolf, and to simply watch carefully. No dead sheep and you still resolve the situation.

(and by the way, romantic experiences are most likely neither as amazing as you think they are, nor as bad as some people say they are - in other words, I don't actually think you'd feel a lot better now if you were married and with kids. Sure, it's a way to deceive yourself, that's how desire, psychoanalytically, functions. What you lack, that's what it wants most. But that doesn't mean it would make you fulfilled. Becoming a grown up means, to one extent or another, realising the vanity of desire. — Agustino

Yes, it could, but you'll never find out until you try it. Having tried and failed is better than not even trying. — Agustino

I fail to see how we could accept the vanity of desire yet at the same time actually try to court a partner which would be to desire quite a lot. But I do get what your saying in both cases and agree with both. I agree in a very big way that meaning comes from within, I am still on this side of the scale rather than that side. But, the killer in this argument is that if a tree falls and no one is around to hear it did a tree fall? So, we must have some sort of impact on our environment and thus derive meaning from our outside actions not just from what we do with ourselves. Could I pick your brain a little as to the specific actions or experiences or deeds or emotions within or outside of yourself that give your life meaning?

One would think those on a Philosophy forum wouldn't be so attacking. He gave you his opinion. Without any resentment or anger towards you or anybody. And here you are spitting your ideas unto him as if he has done you wrong; as if it would be right to spit at him and to WANT to cause suffering and distress within a person for any reason. It's like, even on a philosophy forum, people care about what others think. Oh noe. It's like your proving Oysteroid right? Oh woe.

I hope I don't come across as trying to make you feel bad about your life or put you on trial in some way, as if you have to defend your life and choices. That isn't my intention. — oysteroid

But in my opinion, through honest self-examination and whatnot, I tend to think that I have just managed to become extra conscious of and honest with myself about what is the case for most everyone in this respect, even those who insist otherwise. It is always possible that I am wrong and that there are many people out there who are truly unaffected by what anyone else thinks of them, who don't desire affection, admiration, approval, the warmth of social connection, validation, the warmth of physical contact, the feeling of being valued, or any of it, people who also can't be wounded aside from physical attack. I'd be very surprised if such people exist. If they do, I'd bet they are mutants of some kind, like people who totally lack empathy or can't feel pain. — oysteroid

Looks like we found a mutant. Spoiler alert: They're everywhere.

You will never be happy to the point of contentment with something. You will always want or imagine something else. — Reece

Good. If you could not imagine a greater 'you' why keep living at all? To become worse over time? The key here is defining what makes you happy. Once you recognize what makes you happy, it's just a matter of doing it. So if being around others and building your community makes you happy, you do it. If refining your ideas into a book, maybe no one will read, makes you happy, then you do it. If I could not imagine a greater happiness than what I've already experienced; why keep living at all? I'd say the only reason we keep living is specifically because we still feel we might end up with a greater sense of purpose, happiness, whatnot than we have so far felt.

If one were to participate in some evil-doing I hope they would at least like to understand why they feel that way and maybe even make it okay for themselves sometimes. Otherwise, Idk man are people merely perfect simulations that only do just actions and only I perceive them as unjust? Or wait, much worse, some people are merely ignorant and not very thoughtful of their actions or even the motivations behind them.

Speaking from personal experience, this is not true for many people, including myself. It can also be self-defeating if controlling yourself means being more alienated that you were before. Learning not to control my feelings is an important part of the path I have found for myself. Different people have different paths. — T Clark

That argument would be just one of the many ways one could resolve a traumatizing event in one's ego, I agree with you. But, even if people don't realize it, I think people choose the emotions they experience. If you could consciously overwrite an experience (with enough practice), you would do it, no one would willingly suffer injustice when one could simply banish the suffering from one's mind. And, I think in daily conversation it happens like this too. Someone might say something uncomfortable and someone else might immediately ostracize the topic because its touchy. If we run a selective process for most of what we do(down to where I eat, poop, and sleep) then I'd say its fair to assume we can choose our emotions too.

I'd also like to say I did make it a point it's not a one-step solution. I can't stop these emotions initially just as much as anybody else. But if 10 years from now your whining about the same thing that happened...

Depression, rage, loneliness and fear — Cynical Eye

Have you ever thought of what is within our control and what is outside of our control? All the events that happen to you in life that initially cause these emotions cannot be controlled. Fortune will have its way with you however it wants, us too, Ik it sucks. But anything within yourself, specifically the emotions, you can control. So, I can't stop from getting jumped and robbed by men twice my size. Nor can I successfully stop the rage the first time it comes around, or even the depression afterwards; what did I do to deserve this? Or the loneliness when you realize there's no one close enough who would've dove into combat with you. Or the fear when you realize everyone else is like those men. Maybe not the first time these things come around. But over time, and through repeated attempts at rationalizing my goodness and compassion in the face of hate and spite. If we give up the debate inside ourselves to continue being kind and compassionate, what are we then?

I need a friend too, still haven't gotten one, I can only depend on arguments like ^ for my sanity.
Check out Stoicism if you don't know whats up.

Thanks for sharing, I think lots of younguns such as myself can take away a lot from your experience.

Anyway, glad things are working out for you in the best. I've given up on college. I want to see how low I can go before life forces something on me to do or maybe fall in love, haha. Now, I just sound pathetic. A philosopher's life I guess? — Posty McPostface

That feeling. I think I get that feeling because I'm jealous. I rationalize my bad behavior (to refuse someone a good behavior you know you could provide) by looking at how little other people work but still somehow obtain that warmth of the herd. With that in mind, I grow resentful at the ease with which they do something that I try so hard for. I'd say that many philosophers agree that true friendship, a union of the minds, is the rarest and most beautiful virtue to hold. Even if we would never find that friend in real life we do have people across the internet and across time in books with whom we might share some solace. And, I tell myself I'll find someone one day. Fortune does have a big stake here and that also justifies some of why I'm so patient for it, or is it complacency.

The point is I shouldn't need an income to survive. I shouldn't be forced to live by the common agenda. — Reece

The casino usually wins. — n0 0ne

You've(humanity[and even animals]) been forced to play forever. It's not just society. It is arguable to say that society has made it worse, sure; but it's also probably true that were you born in the 'wild' your chances of living and experiencing anything at all would be dismal. Nor, as what many people are saying in this thread, would you have the language to understand or ever come across the problem of "who, how, and why put us here"

I agree that society sucks but at least question the idea to its completion, and agree that the world sucks. This doesn't have to be a restrictive truth. Its totally possible to recognize the world sucks and to still live a very free life. Of the reading I've done, I'd say the advice I read most is to question and to perfect yourself. It's possible to hate the world, but don't hate yourself too.

Are we called by God or by reason to be of greater virtue? — MysticMonist

What put me on the path to become greater must have been reason. Reason put me here, and reason also tries to convince me daily to leave. Sadly I think it is through selfish desires that we eventually come to even try at what much greater men tried their entire lives. But, if we stay I can only think that it is through selflessness that we stay.

They often don’t reflect very deeply and cultural norms provide inconsistent and conflicting messages. — MysticMonist

I think that's the key difference between those who seek virtue and those who are fine with doing what they normally do. People might even be aware that what they do is wrong or not very nice; but if you don't think about it much, there's no room to feel bad about it.

So I have here:
Feel bad about what you did?
Maybe seek virtue?
Y: Mang, this is hard. Stay cause I like others and I will keep feeling bad if i go back?
N: Mang, this is ez. hard on conscience, but Donald Trump doesn't look like he feels bad soooooo...

The OP and your recent post show very different tones as if one was a devil.

The only true dilemma is why shouldn't I act only in accordance with my whims? If truth and morality are man made, and not objective, but merely someone else's arbitrary impositions on me, for ultimately selfish, deceitful, and or antiquated values. If it's all motivated, power struggles, identity politics, and tribalistic allegiances, then why shouldn't I behave only in accordance with my own preferences and benefits? The only real objection to that could be that it wouldn't work, that no one is skilled enough in manipulation or deception to get away with it, but that can be reduced to the lack of certainty, and fear of
failure involved in any undertaking. It isn't obviously impossible. What could be holding them back other than fear, slavery, and attachment?

Why shouldn't I just take everything I want from everyone in every moment? — Wosret

The point is that too much happiness is a bad thing. — Wosret

but I don't consider that a very significant good. — Wosret

So happiness from a bad location doesn't amount to a lot of good. In OP there was no uncertainty, now we have a little added bonus. That actions in accordance with my preferences and benefits are only truly good with the right ruling principle behind it. The only thing your doing now is deciding which value is more important to you, this 'good', or happiness.

If there is such a thing as too much happiness, is there such a thing as too much 'good'. This magical property only achieved when helping people, or furthering good (this is a slippery slope). But the good feeling like warmth in your chest doesn't ever come from actions with no 'good' involved. So you like, I hope, much of everyone else here think 'something' is greater than happiness.

That distance allows us to stand back and see and understand what is happening. — T Clark

I don't think you could have compassion without first having some understanding of the harm or situation that the person is in. By having a clear understanding of peoples situations you might view them as small or manageable, because to you they are, but solely this, isn't compassion. The key is the emotion behind the sympathy or the drive behind why we should feel compassionate towards someone or something. And, I think that drive comes about also through an objective understanding that compassion is the best action to take even if it isn't the easiest.

However, I don't think he really means that in compassion we actually feel another's suffering inside another persons body. Seems there is some grammatical confusion or something? I think he is also referencing Plato's notion of participation here...participation in a transcendent source. — jancanc

I concede that we cant feel pain in their body. I'm a science man myself. But, if you think of ideals and call suffering one. When you encounter another's suffering, you would recognize the ideal, then the subtle ways this suffering is specific to this person, and feel that suffering of that specific kind, surely your body creates the sensation, but you didn't create that initial one of a kind formula of suffering.

“in his person, — jancanc

We could not feel the pain without first becoming him, one could say.

Seems like everyone's equating compassion with suspending their better instruments of reason automatically.

Buddhism provides a step by step deconstruction of reality using logic and rationality, gives you the plan of action, and then you go do it.
The plan of action, at least what the Dalai Lama famously says, is compassion. Historically, I'd say anatman or non-self.

So we have here the best of both worlds, compassion and reason.

Where does the fault lie? — TheMadFool

With people, as they are fallible.

Theism-Atheism are just thoughts that we throw around to see which one is more truthful to our own opinions. Only one, or perhaps neither is the objective reality. But the objective reality certainly isn't both and thus not a contradiction.

Is all experience subjective, can we never find truth, oh noe, te spiraling.

Or we can take a poll, and say that if most people on earth are christian (which is true) then that must be the objective reality, we might have some apples to organize in our heads (or at least i do).

Just from my first few pop-ins with this forum, this conflict definitely crossed my mind.

It's not the worlds fault, nor is it logics.
Most of us, when philosophers ask questions (were reading a book), an answer is raised, and we assume that said answer was suitable for the person who spoke it, for ourselves (if we agree), and we conclude was suitable for anybody else that was asked that question; because logic is supposed to be infallible, or universally communicable. We see that isn't the case.

I wanna say something here like even our logic has initial assumptions that differ from others, probably associated with how much one has used the skill, and this connotes a right and a wrong logic, and that's fine -- people are fallible.

But, I think more importantly

So, is life a contradiction? If all I've said is correct, the conclusion ''life is a contradiction'' is inevitable. — TheMadFool

No. I have suffering and happiness, and that's not a contradiction :') :') from The value of truth.
So, similarly, the world can have people who believe in right and wrong logic, and not be a contradiction.

Have I failed to see the light of philosophy or is it that philosophers fail to see the darkness? — TheMadFool

maybe some philosophers fail in some respects and truly do see the light in others. Maybe an amalgam.

If you think of mental and physical as belonging to the same ontological category, then there is nothing strange about the idea of the relationship of emergence holding between them. If you frame these two concepts as belonging to radically different categories, then of course the idea of emergence will be incoherent. — SophistiCat

You in starting this discussion have already agreed to framing "these two concepts as belonging to radically different categories" Just like I have with framing them similarly.

So how is this relating to the problem of emergence of mental events? — schopenhauer1

The analogy simply expresses that big things may come from smaller things. If you don't see even the possibility of a larger event such as a thought coming from smaller events, It's fair to assume you don't believe in atoms, or evolution, or stars.

I read a book once by a really mathy person. Its called a Strange Loop.
He uses the analogy of a pool table. He posits very small particles that bounce indefinitely around the pool table. Some of these thousands of particles over time eventually clump together resulting in slightly larger particles that bounce indefinetely. By zooming out enough the static made by the thousands of particles become unrecognizable by how small they are; and we get to see the billiard-sized balls bouncing around the table. Now no longer do we have the microscopic view of thousands of particles lets call this reality A. Now we have the over the top view of a normal number of balls bouncing, and you do NOT see the static of particles, lets call this reality B.
Our whole lives we walk around in reality B. It's the level that we see it, the level that our brains can reliably create experience out from.
Is it wrong to say that reality A isn't real? Yes. Even though the human without a microscope had NO CHOICE but to say that reality A isn't real.
To equate the analogy to our discussion:
We see a table irl. The idea of a table pops into our heads. This is reality B. All we have ever known.
Isn't it then a fairly small jump to consider that a larger phenomena (matter, thoughts, planets) is simply comprised of smaller physical events that we cannot measure YET?

Hmm, I'm not sure why God has to be in the picture here. Are you equating mental events with God? How about rephrase it "Everything is 'experience' and our reality is simply experience."? — schopenhauer1

"our reality is simply experience"
Ah, but now Whose experience is it? For there to have been an experience we understood someone or something experience it. So you have to define a base level of 'experience' and I used God, only because I was referencing Leibniz.

I personally do believe it be materialism. We didn't know quarks were a thing a few years ago. And a few years from now we might discover more about the reasoning behind mental events such as they are actually constituted in reality through physical events. The way we know have quarks that explain certain nuclear forces. Forces that a few years ago were seen as the end, that's it, no deeper we go. Just like how we still think the mind's experience is undefinable.

Materialism requires that we jump across an epistemic chasm, unwarranted. — darthbarracuda

Indeed, but it only asks you to do so temporarily until science has caught up to how to explain it.

how experience can emerge de novo from non-experience. — schopenhauer1

Your experience is simply equivalent to God's experience. The table is there for you because it is there too for God. This relies upon a world entirely made of spirits and that nothing is material.
I believe I'm borrowing from Leibniz here.

In my head your question only goes two ways.
Either all experience is physical
or
Everything is 'experience' and our reality is simply God's experience.

I had an example of heat transfer but really all it says is that mental events are just a series of physical events inside you. Your attributing a disconnect there that really isn't. Or you made A=B when its still A under all the assumptions.

Violence belongs to man, not to God. So the one who slashed the tires is man. — Agustino

So eating the fruit of knowledge is equivalent to man doing violence? Disobedience perhaps, but violence I think not.

Nope. — Agustino

Yes, what's the problem with that? All the works of evil are man's (and Satan's) not God's. That's what the Bible shows. — Agustino

I don't see how all of man's works may be evil but he himself is not.

because God doesn't make us feel better about our actions or what is done to us, but quite the opposite - God puts all the blame on us - it is revealed that we are behind the evil that is around us. — Agustino

I don't see this.
Analogy is best.
If you walked into your family house as a child.
There was a hot piece of s*** in the middle of the room.
There's no one in the house, and so sadly it is your job to clean the poop.
Later, your father comes home and tells you yes I left that poop for you to clean.
You ask him why and he says because you grew up and now you know.
Now, who is at fault?
The child who had no decision behind his action, certainly there was action for him, tho involuntarily (knowledge).
or
The father who certainly decided 1. To have the arbitrary rule for the the ascertainment of knowledge and 2. To give you punishment for betraying rule 1.
I can make another analogy about my friend having a curfew and who really is to blame when the friend is punished.

Perfect.
The "Know thyself" team
Xenophone's Socrates 'on making friends'

S: Are you a good person yet?

R: Most likely, not fully.

S: Then how would you expect a good person to be friends with you?

R: Oh...

humans have rejected God's love and are thus left with Satan's violence. — Agustino

God is like an angry ex-gf that slashes your tires after you told her you were gonna go hang with that other smexy bihh?

So all people who believe in Christianity readily admit we are all evil, will continue to be evil since we have fallen, but will be forgiven, its all ok, keep doing evil?

All mythology being Satan's work, does this mean Satan works through us to produce evil work? Could you elaborate on that a little?

it is projected unto the gods. — Agustino

This is telling, does this mean God is just an idea to make us feel better about our actions and actions done to us?

But limiting the damage is very worthwhile. — Bitter Crank

And I agree.
Thank you for your insights.
I could drag the question further with a thought on all desire is suffering, but I might make a seperate thread with more clarification on that. That's more like "Is giving gifts to others wrong?"

1. There are more ways of being evil than good. The surest proof of the above statement, in agreement to your theory that something can be both good and bad, is the old adage ''you can't make everyone happy''.

2. Current moral theory is imperfect. God-based morality, Consequentialism, Deontic theory, are all flawed.

Given 1 and 2 are true, it is necessary that suffering will multiply and happiness will diminish. It's like a ship, with food in short supply and only a broken compass to aid you in the voyage. The ship and the people on it are doomed. — TheMadFool

If we change the moral theory, the virtuous man can do good?
or
If the current moral theory remains and like before the virtuous man continues down his path, does he actually do any good? Are we still ultimately guided by a broken compass?

every action we take in our lives is an inherently evil enterprise — Frank Barroso

A virtuous man, to me, should hold morality as the highest goal. So, predictably, such a man will continue along the path of goodness, however ill defined it may be, to the end. — TheMadFool

Even with more ways of being evil than good, you believe he can do good?

We can see that in our willingness to believe falsehoods if they make us happy. Truth is lower in priority than happiness. — TheMadFool

If you believed Truth would lead to a greater form of happiness than the happiness derived from falsehoods; You would be seeking Truth out for your betterment.
If one is equating Truth with pain and suffering then yes one's survival instinct would probably lead one elsewhere. But, even if there was pain and suffering with Truth, one need not necessarily associate pain and suffering with the loss of Happiness and thus the loss of Truth. We just put it all together. Its the human experience?

To explain the base instinct as to why the average Joe would pick a Truth rather than a falsehood is simple; and basically is the survival instinct, for why would Ignorance be greater than the Truth in any scenario, for with the truth one may understand the scenario and choose to take action or even inaction for his betterment.

Maybe, yes with the pursuit of Truth comes pain and suffering. Even still, this means that 'one's betterment' be it musical prowess or hunting skillz is more important than one's happiness.

Maybe context of the scenario is the medium for the Truth to travel through, said like that Truth is in a lot of things, in everything if run through every scenario 'with Truth' or virtuously.

1. Is truth only as valuable to the extent it helps us achieve happiness?

2. If yes, why do we search so hard for the truth, given that some truths are painful?

3. If no, what is this other value of truth? — TheMadFool

1. No

3. One's betterment

Afterthoughts:
If one were to automatically equate Truth with the loss of happiness, which is not easily done, one then would pursue a life of ignorance thinking that the less they know the happier they are and whose to say they aren't? Paradox of choice? It may not be readily apparent to all people that Truth would lead to one's betterment and that would be better than Happiness, or that Truth leads to more Happiness. People can disagree on the rankings of Happiness and Truth, or lack foresight. Something like that.

If you were to go back in time, and stop the Holocaust from happening, when you came back what would you expect? If you wanted a separate reality with unseen circumstances, maybe everyone involved wouldn't be long gone, and your memory is now of a possibility and now no longer relevant in this new separate reality where everyone died is still alive and things are vastly different; if you accept a multiverse your memory, or rather the set of circumstances that lead to those events, such as we know them as our reality, was/is one such possible iteration of who knows how many, and thus your memories are still very real but not for others around you, you have perhaps created (or was already there?) the world that you now live in as this 'separate reality'.
Or, you could come back and nothing happened proving we couldn't change the present with the past and now your memory is very much still real and to those around you.
One could posit a multiverse machine or a quantum dimension jumper where one could simply jump to a world where the Holocaust doesn't happen. In this scenario too your memories would be real but not to those around you as for them in that world the Holocaust never happened.
And lastly, I think the past is very real to us. And the pasts of the other Me's in a multiverse perspective would think it was real for them too. Even, of the Me who ends up in the 'separate reality' the Holocaust would even be real to him, but not to the world he would then live in.
Idk if thats intelligible.

A more likely scenario is that many (say 60%) of your good acts end up accomplishing nothing -- nothing good, nothing bad. Is it worth continuing to do good. Yes. — Bitter Crank

I'll agree to this.
If you were a carpenter and 60% of your work was being thrown away, you still get paid; Is your answer still yes? And if so, where does purpose come into the formula for the happiness of the human. And if most of our work is for naught, then is our purpose naught too?

Has something like any of the scenarios you describe above ever happened to you? Do 50% of the things you do lead disaster? How about 5%? 1%? — T Clark

Indeed, more than 5% But really 50% isn't too far off. Look at the number of relationships you've been in. Can anyone really say that 50% of their relationships have been for the better of everyone invloved? You weren't there to cause harm to others, you weren't there to yell, or belittle someone, even with good intentions, but it happened, and indeed we bear the consequences.
And this is a site for critical thinking, if you haven't thought of the efficiency of the fruits of your labor, then you might not be too great of a farmer.

What then is God, if not the thing that produced us, the cause to our own effect. Humans inherently seek to understand this, none more greatly wanted to appropriate the relationship of cause and effect than Hume.

For B to have occurred you needed an A.
And our whole lives we associate things like this, food-mom and so on.
I could go a little further here on Hume to illustrate that we have an already understood notion that humans create cities. They do. It's not too far a creative leap then to suppose that a human-like something created the world, and wow you have God in the biblical fashion.
'Causes' act with reason (obviously not always the case, or even unintended reason is possible) so when we ponder a cause, so too do we think of the reason for why it did so.
Spending our whole lives causing things, we eventually wonder what caused us.
And this is the the way in which God is

traditionally and normatively understood — Thorongil

Tell me how the hill was not the cause for the ball's effect
Or like I said, how the random set of natural phenomena that Caused us isn't God.
Please. And chill man, we all want more knowledge

I don't think you know what you're talking about. — Thorongil

this isn't necessary. Lots of people don't know what they talk about. That's why they keep talking. Or is Socratic dialogue too simple of an idea for you to have fully digested it.

If u had soccer balls on a hill, you'd find the soccer balls would clump together at the bottom of the hill.
Imagine being the soccer ball.
That hill was God.
So,
Can we call the infinitely many small random occurrences of the laws of nature that produced us, God?
Or rather should we? Or even, perceive it as an old man?

And all of mythology is the work of Satan - a lie that covers the founding mechanism as necessary for order. The sacrifice is seen as necessary for peace, and hence the victim is seen as guilty and responsible for the chaos of the community. — Agustino

Could you explain that, all mythology is the work of satan?

Humans see it is necessary for a scapegoat. Historically, true.

Under the assumption "God doesn't want us to sacrifice scapegoats"
Why then does the human, the perfect creation of God, sacrifice the scapegoat?

It is the moral theory that can't put its thumb on innate, human ethics. — szemi

It seems fairly straightforward to me that humans take whatever action they deem to produce a greater good for themselves and the people of importance to them, even if it is an evil action (idk if that counts as a moral theory).

No longer do we live in small villages, where it is part of the culture to inherently fear the end of the whole rather than the individual. Morality might have changed a little since the evolutionary times, so it might be a little easier to do harm unto others. We see in animals its beneficial as a species to have cooperative traits but perhaps the cultural effect on our egos and then our egos effect on itself, might have more responsibility than an evolutionary standpoint.

1. There are more ways of being evil than good. The surest proof of the above statement, in agreement to your theory that something can be both good and bad, is the old adage ''you can't make everyone happy''. — TheMadFool

Agreed; (might be irrelevant) following this assumption, we then must be confronted by the fact that every action we take in our lives is an inherently evil enterprise. What then, is the moral, virtuous young man to do? Do the world and the people around him Good by ending his butterfly effect. Or live under a moral bending of one's ethics simply doing the least harm as is available, due to what? Cowardice? And, if not cowardice, I'd love to hear what.

2. Current moral theory is imperfect. God-based morality, Consequentialism, Deontic theory, are all flawed. — TheMadFool

I think its incorrect to assume there is a unanimous "current moral theory". Or idk, what is it?