Comments

  • Who do you still admire?
    I agree that this is a very troubling statement. Yet, those hell-preachers you admire inflict among the greatest suffering imaginable to people already in this life by telling then that they will suffer horribly forever. And they certainly dont even care; they believe that they do a good thing. — Beebert
    Why is that the greatest suffering imaginable?! You surely have to be kidding! How can that be the greatest suffering imaginable? The fact that you may suffer in the afterlife in hell pales in terms of the suffering it causes in this life to the suffering of being raped, beaten, etc.
  • Who do you still admire?
    And if you value christian ethics, then Nietzsche's last act before insanity should be approved as great by you. — Beebert
    It is, however - it does show that Nietzsche was a hypocrite who didn't really believe what he wrote. Either that, or that he rejected his writings.

    You must really dislike and have no respect for Scopenhauer then? — Beebert
    In certain regards, sure. However I have found his ideas to be significantly better than most other philosophers.
  • How will tensions between NK and US unfold?
  • Who do you still admire?
    Im sure Nietchze would have been impeccably righteous according to his own ethics. In fact i think it is can be said that Nietchze remained true to his ideas. — Gotterdammerung
    Right. By falling on his knees and protecting a horse who was getting beaten he was very true to THESE words of his:

    "What belongs to greatness. Who will attain anything great if he does not find in himself the strength and the will to inflict great suffering? Being able to suffer is the least thing; weak women and even slaves often achieve virtuosity in that. But not to perish of internal distress and uncertainty when one inflicts great suffering and hears the cry of the suffering -- that is great, that belongs to greatness"

    :-} One of the biggest hypocrites.
  • How will tensions between NK and US unfold?
  • Who do you still admire?
    The imperfection of Aquinas, Kierkegaard and Socrates in their kind. — Noble Dust
    Yes, imperfection isn't a problem, but there's a difference between imperfection and dishonest thinking or otherwise just being a bad person. I'm not saying Aquinas, Kierkegaard and Socrates were perfect for that matter, I'm just saying that they were righteous and good people. I can't say the same about Bertrand Russell or Nietzsche for that matter.
  • Who do you still admire?
    ↪Noble Dust
    Even Berdyaev, for that matter, was like that from what I know. Loyal to his thoughts.
  • Who do you still admire?
    The reality is that the thinker never lives up to their ideas. — Noble Dust
    Sometimes the thinker does, and those ultimately end up being the thinkers I'm most interested in. Think for example about Thomas Aquinas, or Kierkegaard (even Socrates from what we're told).

    It's helpful to accept that. — Noble Dust
    Typically, when most people/situations aren't the way they should be, the world tells you "oh well, it's helpful to just accept that" - well, I don't want to, nor have I ever accepted that a wrong thing is a right thing.
  • Who do you still admire?
    but what do we really know about the ancient Greek thinkers you mentioned earlier? — Noble Dust
    We do have biographical material about some of them though. Not as extensive as we do about more recent figures, but we still do.

    The point is that, when it comes to thinkers, the answer is NO: their personal behavior is not more important than their policies. They are THINKERS. — Noble Dust
    Can a thinker's behaviour be divorced from his thought? Then he's a dishonest thinker in my eyes.
  • Who do you still admire?
    Few have the courage to go to jail, be beaten into unconsciousness, or undergo torrents of public hatred and ridicule for their beliefs. I am very thankful for those that have had the courage to do that for causes that I see as important, regardless of whether they also personally helped old people cross the road. — andrewk
    I can agree with this, although now it's not only what they wrote (and advocated), but again, how they behaved that matters.
  • Who do you still admire?
    Yes, could you love Ghandi, Nietzsche, Russell, et al? (Oh wait, of course the answer is yes...you're the underdog and all that...?) — Noble Dust
    They are not closeby :P
  • Who do you still admire?
    It is important to do both, since both have a measurable effect, but the latter has a much stronger effect. — absoluteaspiration
    Okay, but I'm not a utilitarian. I don't care about the effect. I am a virtue ethicist, I care about their characters. What your policies say tells me less about your character than your personal behaviour. Therefore your personal behaviour matters more.
  • Who do you still admire?
    May I ask you, who do you consider to be the greatest sinner in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina? — Beebert
    I've never read it.
  • Who do you still admire?
    So you reject Luther's interpretation of the "command to marry". — absoluteaspiration
    Sure.

    I'm not saying he required everyone to marry, but Protestants usually consider marriage to be a component of a perfect Christian life. — absoluteaspiration
    Yes, but only provided you find the right person. For example, I would like to get married, but I haven't so far found the right person. Most of the women I've met, I would never marry.

    Considering Kierkegaard was lucky enough to actually find love and have it reciprocated, the idea that Protestants wouldn't be more in favor of marriage than not confuses me. — absoluteaspiration
    Devotion to God is a higher calling than marriage though. Scriptures repeatedly emphasise this point. So K. sacrificed marriage in order to devote himself more fully to God, all the while expecting - per impossible - that he would marry Regine. Much like Abraham was willing to sacrifice his own son Isaac - the person he treasured most - for the sake of God.

    Assuming you're in Western Christianity at all, you must be a Nondenominationalist or in a denomination that is relaxed about personal interpretations. — absoluteaspiration
    I'm not in Western Christianity.

    But this statement is empirically false. This life does in fact offer many opportunities that people do in fact desire if their own words are to be believed. — absoluteaspiration
    Yes, people do desire many of these opportunities, but these opportunities are ultimately empty - they don't offer any lasting satisfaction. From the outside - when you don't have them - you're always "oh how good it would be to have X Y Z". So you're lusting after them and unsatisfied with what you have. But then when you finally do have "X Y Z" sometimes you wish you didn't have it anymore.

    So people who so claim are deceived by their own desires. They think they will find lasting satisfaction in X Y Z, but they don't. As soon as they have X Y Z they need to be looking after something else, otherwise they will immediately discover how unsatisfied they actually are with what they have. Many people are in fact living today the life of their dreams of yesterday, but are equally unsatisfied.

    Like with Nietzsche and Dostoevsky right? — Beebert
    No, I've actually read both quite extensively. I've read Nietzsche quite early in my life before I was a Christian.

    That you can not see that your judgements are cruel beyond Words is fascinating. — Beebert
    It's funny how ironical this statement is.

    Correction:

    K. knew that if he had married he would have to abandon his devotion to philosophy     — Beebert
    No that's absolutely wrong. K. would have any day abandoned philosophy for God. What you have just said there is antithetical to everything K. stood for.

    But if you feel this way about this life; dont expect joy in your heaven! — Beebert
    Jesus Christ has always spoken of heaven as a place of bliss - in fact heaven just is the absence of suffering.

    Really, if you havent acquired the ability to see that this life actually does have something worthy — Beebert
    I don't think it does have something worthy. When you don't have, you're frustrated, when you have, you're bored.

    It seems like if you were honest with yourself, what makes you the way you are is that you think life is unendurable if there is no God — Beebert
    That's just false. Life doesn't have to be "worth it" to be endurable if there is no God. Life is just the default state. One can't be bothered to change it.

    Rather, the truth seems to be that your life can not be endured if its foundation lacks a moral purpose in a metaphysical sense! — Beebert
    I don't think that's true either.

    Therefore there must be a God who punishes the immoral, right? — Beebert
    Not that there must be, but I would want that immorality be punished and justice be done.

    Would you slice the head of your wife if she attacked another man, unprovocked and greedy because she wants his money? — Beebert
    No, because I am commanded to care for my wife more than I care for other people if I have to choose between the two. Although I would seek to stop her and refrain her from doing that.

    That your metaphysical morality is necessary to you and for your preservation I can understand — Beebert
    I think that's false. Rather I find a desire for justice, which has no consideration for whether justice actually exists or not in a metaphysical sense.

    Why strive to kill your passions and sins so much that you become the greatest hater against sin, passions and sinners possible? — Beebert
    Because sin makes life bad. If there was no sin, life would be good.

    What happened to the love preached by Buddha or your savior? — Beebert
    Oh it is there. Quite peculiar, that it is you, who just like Ivan Karamazov, promotes an all expanding benevolence towards all of mankind, but just like him, you can't even love your own father (and that's a figure of speech - you can't even love any of the actual, real people close to you, but you feel a love for all mankind - absurd).
  • Who do you still admire?
    ↪Noble Dust

    The objections to Gandhi, King and Russell are about their private behaviour, while the policies they promoted are widely admired. — andrewk
    Yes, but personal behaviour is a lot more important than the policies they advocate. It's easy to advocate the good from a distance. It's easy to "love mankind" from far away. Anyone can do that. But when it comes to loving real men and women who are closeby, not many are able to.

    Both CS Lewis and GK Chesterton promoted policies that I consider extremely harmful, preaching belief in eternal Hell for one thing, and that failure to conform to sexual norms was deserving of Hell. — andrewk
    Well, I know you'll disagree, but to me, preaching belief in eternal Hell and condemning sexual immorality count as good things, not bad. People generally tend to take sexual immorality too lightly, so such preaching is more than welcome.

    Someone cheating on their spouse is probably not going to sway my opinion too much. — Brian
    Well granted that marriage is a very significant part of someone's life (some would argue one of the most important parts), and cheating can ruin a marriage, I think your position is without much support. It's licensing a very perverse evil (ruining a very important part of someone's life) as insignificant - much like saying "oh well, if he owns slaves, it's not such a big deal, it won't sway my opinion of him too much!".
  • Who do you still admire?
    Isn't Kierkegaard's behavior especially strange from a Protestant perspective? Marriage is supposed to be an expression of one's devotion to God. The love between God and His church is the love between husband and wife in holy matrimony, right? — absoluteaspiration
    Depends on one's calling. Life long celibacy is as acceptable as marriage in Christianity - in fact it is even encouraged more than marriage.

    The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband — 1 Corinthians 7:32-34

    On the contrary, this life is all there is to get anything out of at all. There is nothing else. — absoluteaspiration
    Even if that is so, there's nothing much to get out of this only life.
  • Who do you still admire?
    Look, I have nothing against bachelorhood, but having a lady love, believing in marriage and never proposing to her? — absoluteaspiration
    Not all people are meant to marry. K. knew that if he had married he would have to abandon his devotion to God and to philosophy.

    If I force myself to come up with a criticism, I can't deny the dude lived his life like a wind up toy. — absoluteaspiration
    >:O So what? There's not much to get out of life anyway.

    Isn't he on the Catholic banned books list? — absoluteaspiration
    I'm not a Catholic ;)
  • Who do you still admire?
    You've got to look into it.
    Tolstoy was convinced sex was bad... but, he kept having kids. And blamed his wife for seducing him.

    Ghandi would sleep w/ young naked women just to prove he wouldn't be tempted.
    http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/thrill-of-the-chaste-the-truth-about-gandhis-sex-life-1937411.html     — anonymous66
    Okay, I see. Thanks for sharing that link!
  • Who do you still admire?
    w/ Ghandi and Tolstoy, it was their views towards sex — anonymous66
    What did you find problematic with their views towards sex? (I'm just asking cause I never looked into their views on sex before)
  • Who do you still admire?
    whether they're applicable to life should avail itself of your own experience of testing them, not to mention your own wisdom. — Noble Dust
    Is there enough time though to test all ideas? There should be a screening method you know :P
  • Who do you still admire?
    Does Chesterton's support of WWI not move you the tiniest bit? — absoluteaspiration
    I know you didn't ask me this, but no.
  • Who do you still admire?
    But even if I were against it in all situations, I would still say that level of commitment in opposition to unjust war is on a different scale of moral courage than minor sexual infractions. Do those even count when compared side by side? — absoluteaspiration
    I think they do. Supporting a war in theory - or in writing - directly harms nobody. Adultery and fornication directly harm several people, and you are the proximal, efficient cause of that harm. Not to mention that it shows quite badly on you - you can't even control your lusts. So I think it's quite serious.
  • Who do you still admire?
    What were those specific tools then? — Noble Dust
    Practicing choiceless awareness, trying to rely solely on oneself and not on traditions, etc.
  • Who do you still admire?
    So you're saying you don't expect to succeed if you try to practice honesty? — Noble Dust
    No, I'm saying I don't expect to succeed if I try to practice honesty using the tools K. advocated. In other words, he cannot help me become a better moral person (more honest).
  • Who do you still admire?
    Bertrand Russell founded analytic philosophy and sat in jail for his opposition to WWI — absoluteaspiration
    Oh yeah, and he cheated on his wives too!
  • Who do you still admire?
    Does a wise idea lose it's credibility if the speaker can't uphold the idea? Think of Solomon. — Noble Dust
    It depends on a few circumstances. For example, if he came up with the idea after he had committed whatever sin is in question, and after he repented of it, then it probably wouldn't. This isn't the case with the example of Krishnamurti that I gave - he kept it hidden his entire life, all the while preaching honesty. That's a problem. It tells me that he used those tools of thinking that he was advocating, and he himself couldn't be honest by using them. Why should I expect myself to succeed with what he had to offer?
  • Who do you still admire?
    But, eventually, I find out something about them that makes me lose interest...
    w/ Ghandi and Tolstoy, it was their views towards sex.     — anonymous66
    >:O I'm exactly the same as you. If I find out something like that about a thinker, I'm much less tempted to investigate deeper what s/he said. If it couldn't help him live a good, moral life, why should I expect it to help me?

    If I find out the person was married and unfaithful, that changes things for me as well. — anonymous66
    Yeah, I'm like that too. My interest in, for example, Krishnamurti significantly decreased after I found out he had sex with his friend's wife (Rosalind), and secretly made her have an abortion.

    Anyway, I've started making a list of people who I still admire, because I didn't find anything that gave me pause. — anonymous66
    If it wouldn't be too much to ask, could you PM me that list, I'd also be interested! :P

    So far, the people who make that list are:
    Gabriel Marcel
    C.S. Lewis     — anonymous66
    What about people like:

    • Epictetus
    • Marcus Aurelius
    • Socrates
    • Musonius Rufus
    • Epicurus (I know he was supposedly a hedonist but he lived an exemplary life by most accounts)
    • Aquinas
    • G.K. Chesterton
    • Blaise Pascal
    • Sören Kierkegaard
    • Immanuel Kant


    If you like a writer/philosopher/historical figure, are there things about their personal life that would turn you off? — anonymous66
    Absolutely! Any kind of significant immorality (killing innocent people, cruelty, vindictiveness, adultery and fornication, etc.) would turn me off.
  • On Nietzsche...
    It's absolutely the failure of unbelievers, but that's the problem. — TheWillowOfDarkness
    With respect to the question you asked in your other thread, a successful solution to human weakness would remove the failure of the unbeliever. — TheWillowOfDarkness
    If you have a pill that treats a certain disease, but some people who have the disease refuse to take the pill, then it is not the pill's failure to treat the illness.

    You are pretending you don't reveal in the screams of the burglar. — TheWillowOfDarkness
    No, I don't revel in it, I would just do it because it has to be done. Not because of sadism - as Nietzsche implies in his quote - but rather out of love for my wife.

    You will not admit the quoted passage to which you objected to so strongly describes you inflicting suffering and death on the burglar. — TheWillowOfDarkness
    No it doesn't, that passage describes a sadist, because what makes him great is his lack of regard for the suffering he causes. In my case, what makes my action great is my love for my wife and my desire to protect her, whatever it takes.
  • On Nietzsche...
    I took that to mean, in reference to the second sentence: 'even if God did predetermine what a man does" — Janus
    I did actually intend to say this, because there is a sense in which God does predetermine what a man does. By, say, determining the total number of choices I can take into A B C, the choices of D E F G H etc. are excluded because they are not available to me because of my situation, faculties, etc. So in that case, God does predetermine me to do either A or B or C. I didn't mean to say that God would make me do A out of those three, for in that case, I agree with you, that I would have no free will.

    But you are right perhaps I was a bit sloppy with language there. Should've explained better.
  • On Nietzsche...
    I'm not claiming anything about the Bible. I was just responding to your statement that appeared to be saying that people's actions could be predetermined by God and yet be freely-willed. If that is not what you were saying then there would be no disagreement. — Janus

    Nope, that's not what it says in those passages. You cannot cite even one single instance of a man doing what he does because God predetermines him to do so. And even if God predetermined them, He could still hold them responsible so long as they have free will. God predetermined them to have free will too. — Agustino
    In this passage, what I had in mind by God "predetermining" them to something is, if, say, they are born in a certain family, certain time period, etc. - this does give them a set of options that are pre-determined and wouldn't be available for them if they were born in a different place, to different parents, in different times, in different nations, etc. So because God determines the options they have available, in this sense they are predetermined to act in one of those ways.
  • On Nietzsche...
    So you once again havent understood the spirit behind the words about loving you enemies etc? Well... I say this for the last time: The discussion is over. — Beebert
    No, YOU haven't understood that correctly.

    Quite the opposite, there is something about loving my wife and having to protect her even if it means sacrificing myself to do so. — Agustino
  • On Nietzsche...
    Except that the idea of one's actions being predetermined contradicts the idea of having free will. The having (as opposed to the use) of faculties (such as free will) being predetermined is a different matter. — Janus
    So do you claim that the Bible teaches that God controls our actions?
  • On Nietzsche...
    Havent you read the Sermon on the Mount? Or even Paul when he tells Christians not to repay evil with evil and hate? The dishonest thing is that you pretend that you are a Christian and love Christ. Nothing else. — Beebert
    Yes, nowhere in what you cite is there something about "loving" the burglar who is trying to kill my wife. Quite the opposite, there is something about loving my wife and having to protect her even if it means sacrificing myself to do so.
  • On Nietzsche...
    Because you call yourself Christian and blame me because I oppose things in the bible. And you also debate for this methaphysical morality where God will punish evil But you are too blind to see that repaying evil with evil is according to your faith in itself evil. And not Only that : You want not Only to repay evil with evil; You also Hate the evildoer. I am really done now. I dont want to talk to someone with as unsophisticated views as yours. — Beebert
    I see nothing in here about dishonesty, sorry.
  • On Nietzsche...
    Because you call yourself Christian and blame me because I oppose things in the bible. And you also debate for this methaphysical morality where God will punish evil But you are too blind to see that repaying evil with evil is according to your faith in itself evil. And not Only that : You want not Only to repay evil with evil; You also Hate the evildoer. I am really done now. I dont want to talk to someone with as unsophisticated views as yours. — Beebert
    You provide the best answer for yourself:
    I choke! I choke! A ressentimental hater in the house! Please! Fresh air! Hypocrite... — Beebert
  • On Nietzsche...
    And to say Nietzsche was honest misses the entire point. If he was honest, then even worse! For I have the right to hate him because he's advocating immorality, not because he says some "ugly" truth about me and Christianity as you fallaciously suppose.
  • On Nietzsche...
    Regarding Nietzsche; at least he was honest, you seem to be the opposite of that — Beebert
    That's precisely the point, he wasn't. He was a coward himself.

    As for me, I was very honest that I'd cut the burglar's head off and save my wife, why are you saying that I'm not honest?
  • On Nietzsche...
    You are exactly what Nietzsche blamed Christians for being — Beebert
    Yeah, the Nietzsche who wrote:

    What belongs to greatness. Who will attain anything great if he does not find in himself the strength and the will to inflict great suffering? Being able to suffer is the least thing; weak women and even slaves often achieve virtuosity in that. But not to perish of internal distress and uncertainty when one inflicts great suffering and hears the cry of the suffering -- that is great, that belongs to greatness
  • On Nietzsche...
    You are not enlightened. You are not Christian. You dont love your enemies. You are exactly what Nietzsche blamed Christians for being and that is Why you dislike him. Discussion over. — Beebert
    If that's what being enlightened means, then I certainly don't want to be enlightened. Do you? I love my wife, so I hate the burglar. You can't have both.
  • On Nietzsche...
    What is it in that post where I Change my mind? — Beebert
    I didn't claim you changed your mind.

    That's not what you said the first time. So what happened, did you change your mind, or? — Agustino
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