The Democrats are presently pushing for an investigation in search of a scandal. Just weeks ago, many of them hated Comey or wanted him fired, but now they've donned their tin foil hats again and think his firing has something to do with Russia.

Aye, Russian Government and the Republicans are all a bunch of cunts aren't they. — JJJJS

Crude, sweeping generalizations like this certainly won't endear anything you say to me and likely others on the forum.

Why don't you visit a monastery? They often have a visitation program where you can get a sample of what monastic life is like? — Bitter Crank

I have visited monasteries, ironically not in the US, however. I haven't done any sampling. This summer I might, though, who knows.

most employers (99.9%) are going to feel your studies are more of an impediment in their organization than a contribution--an imposition upon them. — Bitter Crank

Precisely, even though they're empirically in the wrong. If you mix that with an introverted personality type, I'm really at a loss as to how I will be hired anywhere. I actually applied for a job at Subway two years, before I decided to get the MA. I was interviewed but never heard back from the manager. Why? Did she really determine that I couldn't make sandwiches? Was it the aura I exude? I don't know, but I do know that I would be a good employee, as opposed to the flaky people that often work in those jobs. That's why I have the certificate jobs on my list, because truck drivers and English language teachers are in high demand and if you have the certificate, you're basically guaranteed a job.

but taught like in the 60s, before the post-modernism fungus rotted its way through academia. — Bitter Crank

Very much agreed!

Plan on being an old man who has been reading all his life, not one of those professionals who boasts — Bitter Crank

Yes, I don't plan on ceasing to read and write if and when I'm not in school. If I were independently wealthy, like Schopenhauer was lucky enough to be, I would go build a log cabin, finish my book collection, and commence doing virtually nothing but reading and writing.

Unfortunately, the ridiculous world exists within cloistered walls. — Bitter Crank

Oh sure, but I think I would be able to handle it better than outside of them.

Maybe you could join the Catholic Workers? They are in the world and resist the world. Kind of lefty, so maybe not a good fit for you. — Bitter Crank

Lol.

There are millions of possibilities. — Wayfarer

That's actually part of the problem. Yes, I can read, think, and write. Obviously these are highly valuable attributes to possess, but not in the short term. I also know all about the statistics that show that people with an educational background in the humanities who do not pursue teaching go on to be successful and make more money throughout their lifetimes than other people. But this doesn't help me now, and I exist only in the present, not the future. I would actually like it if someone would simply sit me down and say, "do this."

Infinite freedom of choice is not genuine freedom, as it leaves one bewildered and rooted to the spot. Paradoxically, one is freest when one is operating within a defined structure.

It's a shame that having pursued an MA in which humanities field? that truck driving has to be a live option. — Bitter Crank

I'd prefer not to say. It doesn't really matter, though, as all humanities degrees are of a piece: practically useless.

Monastery that would work with your student loans? Seriously? What kind of monastery are you thinking of -- Benedictine - college combo like St. John's Abbey and College? — Bitter Crank

I meant that somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Whenever I get especially irritated about what the hell I should do, I often half-seriously entertain notions of simply becoming a monk and retiring from this ridiculous world that seems to have no interest in or need of my abilities.

An MA in one of the humanities. I couldn't get into a PhD program this cycle, so I have to now get a job, especially since the six month window to start paying back my student loans and get health insurance expires in the fall.

I've narrowed it down to: get a CDL license and drive a truck, get a TEFL certificate and teach English abroad, find a salaried college adjunct/instructor position (as there's no way I'm doing that part-time or per credit hour), teach the humanities at a private secondary school (because I don't have any coursework or certification to be a public school teacher and am not about to enter that nightmare), join the National Guard or some government branch that provides remission for student loans, find some local job, such as in manufacturing (I refuse to work in retail), or join a monastery that can work with my student loans.

I just got a graduate degree and am looking for work now. I have absolutely no idea what I will or should do. At least you've had genuine employment and seem to understand the process. I've yet to have a job that pays more than about $7,000 a year, at which I work full time.

the more it sucks, the more you need Lord Buddha to help you with detachment and indifference. Hopefully he will deliver. — Bitter Crank

>:O

but I think a case can be made that he didn't require good people to be ascetics — Bitter Crank

You've subtly shifted your claim here. You originally said that Jesus didn't preach asceticism. Now you're saying that he didn't require people to be ascetics. I think the first claim is still false. He did preach asceticism, and he even practiced asceticism. Did he require his followers to do so? His answer seems to be, yes, but only if one is able (Matthew 19:12).

Jesus didn't preach asceticism — Bitter Crank

This could not be more false. Any passing glance at his sayings in the NT or the consensus of scholars who associate him with Jewish ascetic movements is enough to rubbish such a suggestion.

Where did this information come from and how was it obtained? — Bitter Crank

He admitted he was asserting correlation, not causation. If you're correct that the rates have actually increased for some of the things he mentioned, then his point is not only irrelevant but false.

So, you become aware that there something that reduces rape and other sex crimes, divorce, std's, teen sex, and that increasea prosocial behavior... and you want to prevent that thing? — anonymous66

1) Porn does not "reduce" said things, it is correlated with their reduction, and 2) I never said I wanted to prevent porn. I'm actually on the fence about it. Sometimes I think it would be good to ban it, other times I think not.

What about them? My same point still stands.

But the evidence clearly shows that from a social welfare perspective

From that perspective, sure, I suppose one can agree with the apparent correlation (causation would be another story). But surely a lack of syphilis and gonorrhea is not the only thing that makes for a good, healthy society.

the need to hurt someone else in retaliation, then it is not necessary. — anonymous66

If it's a need, then it is by definition "necessary." If it's a general desire, then it wouldn't be.

On the one hand, there is credible evidence that pornography is not harmful to individuals or to society. — anonymous66

I've never heard of it, but I have seen evidence that says the opposite. Porn causes and/or exacerbates addiction to it, general Internet addiction, erectile dysfunction, the break up of relationships and marriages, and the exploitation of vulnerable men, women, and children.

But the question is whether we have a duty to bring about goodness in the first place, not maintain what we have — schopenhauer1

What does "bringing about goodness" even mean?

Is a world without people to experience goods of life a tragedy, if so why? — schopenhauer1

A world without people is not a tragedy, at least from our perspective.

But, again, does goodness, in whatever form you take that to be, have to be perpetuated? — schopenhauer1

Something about the wording of this question doesn't sit well with me. I don't think goodness has a definite supply that is available on tap. In other words, there isn't some "thing" called goodness existing out there, waiting to be harvested and preserved, and our choice is merely to continue farming it or let the field of goodness become fallow. In my view at present, I think goodness is negative, in that it is just the absence of suffering. At the same time, I think there is something like a highest good, analogous to the aforementioned goodness, whose attainment seems to involve voluntary forms of suffering (asceticism) and silent awareness (mysticism), but having children has nothing to do with attaining or preserving that kind of goodness and indeed would seem to hinder its attainment if anything.

In other words, is it a tragedy of no new people are born to experience the goods of life? — schopenhauer1

I've already answered this question. It may be a tragedy for the people who would have been better off if they had children, but this has nothing to do with the non-voluntary states of non-suffering ("goodness") the children may or may not experience.

Do you think that there is some duty, to bring new experiencers of good in the world? — schopenhauer1

No, but people are going to be born into the world whether we like it or not, and so we do have a duty to maintain civilization for them. Society is a contract between those who are dead, those who are now living, and those who will be born, as Burke says.

Let us say that you assumed the child was going to have over 50% good experiences. Let us assume that you also somehow knew the likelihood of this percentage was very high. — schopenhauer1

Well, in order to have good experiences, and indeed to know what the good is, I think some degree of trial and error, and therefore suffering, is necessary, so I don't see how this scenario is even thinkable. It seems as though you're talking about someone who will live a more or less pleasant life, but a pleasant life is not necessarily a good life. And what of those individuals who voluntarily undergo suffering? Once again, I would not equate suffering with evil or the bad. In and of itself it might be these things, but it can also be the fleetest animal that bears one to perfection, as Meister Eckhart says.

Tragedies befall the living. If someone who doesn't have a child suffers as a result (and there is evidence to support that having children can make people more psychologically stable), then that might be a tragedy. Of course, it's also tragic that humans are born into a world of suffering. Nature holds us in a vice grip.

Before we began regulating bad behavior the robber barons made killing off immoral behavior, so the market definitely does not naturally expunge such forces. — Sivad

It's interesting that you fail to quote the clause "it doesn't do so perfectly" I made....

Mixed economies do a much better job of that, in fact unregulated markets tend to produce extreme inequalities and severe negative externalities. — Sivad

Most people who are generally in favor of free markets are not opposed to some degree of planning and regulations.

Some human (economic) desires are immoral — ZzzoneiroCosm

The free market usually expunges such forces, because, as might be expected, immoral behavior is bad for business. It doesn't do so perfectly, but it's the best method of raising billions out of poverty yet devised, such that one can safely ignore the empty sloganeering about "harmful inequalities" and the like.

then how does it follow that the Word be-came flesh? — Heister Eggcart

It "took on flesh" is another way of putting it.

God cannot create, somehow, more of himself, right? — Heister Eggcart

Yes, this is why the Council of Chalcedon declared that Christ had two natures, one human and one divine. Moreover, he was both fully human and fully divine, not partially one and partially the other. So God does not create more of his own nature, he takes on a human nature in the man Jesus. The Word is a reference to Christ's divine nature; to God in other words.

I'm being a bit coy. When I said that about the Fall, what I mean was that people have amply demonstrated their capacity to be terrible. We are terrible, and we didn't get that capacity from God, or not from God. We are just that way. The best role I can give to God in all this is that of appalled by-stander. Man didn't come from God; it's the other way around. In God we have projected our most superlative selves, something that we have not been, are not now, and likely never will be. — Bitter Crank

Alright, well carry on, then, Feuerbach.

Surely Christ in the flesh was a unique emanation, and wasn't always there, right? What did Mary birth then if that's not the case? — Heister Eggcart

The Word became flesh at a certain point in time, yes, but the Word itself didn't come into being.

Wouldn't it be possible to create nothing? — Heister Eggcart

An ambiguous question. In some sense, the world is nothing, in comparison to God, just as God is nothing in comparison to the world. St. John of the Cross says this somewhere. But this is to use the word "nothing" in a relative, not in an absolute, sense. In another sense, the answer is no, as God couldn't not create something other than himself. Or better: he could not have not intended to create something other than himself.

Does this mean that God was wicked before he sent himself in Christ to redeem the world? — Heister Eggcart

No, because there never was such a time. "In the beginning was the Word..."

If it is in God's very nature to create, then he cannot thus abort the world once it falls to sin, as such would be against his nature. — Heister Eggcart

Correct.

Although, wouldn't "aborting" the world actually be an act of God's will to create, that in destroying the world he thus creates nothing in its place? Perhaps in this way, creation ends up just being a not-so-merry-go-round. — Heister Eggcart

I'm not following this.

I think it's fair to blame the volcano for the lava it makes which then destroys a town, just as one might blame God for having made fallible creatures that then destroy the world. — Heister Eggcart

Well, to play the devil's advocate once again (an ironic phrase in this instance), the Christian might respond to this as follows. God is indeed ultimately responsible for everything, including the fall, but this is precisely why he sent his son, Jesus, to redeem his creation. If he did not do this, then we would, as you imply, be obliged to think of him as wicked. All the same, in a proximate sense, humans are still responsible for the fall.

However, it remains true that because there is none greater than God, everything he creates is by definition imperfect and fallible in some way. The question then becomes: why did God choose to create anything at all, given that he would presumably know that what he created would be deficient in certain respects? One answer would be that we don't know and can't know. Much also depends on what is meant by "freedom." To say that God is free to act must in one sense mean that he was not compelled to act by anything outside of himself. If there were some external factor that caused him to create, then he did not create freely. Thus, God can only act according to his nature. If his nature is love, then God created out of love. In a sense, he was "compelled" by his own nature to create. In other words, a being whose nature is love couldn't not create, but not because he was forced to, just as a functioning human being cannot not create, say, red blood cells, even though no one is forcing him to create them.

I can't tell if you're being coy with me or not. Heister clearly picked up on my meaning, as his criticism depends on understanding it.

do you want me to attribute to God all those horrible things? — Bitter Crank

You did this. My comment was meant to imply that the Christian would disagree with you: God did not design the things you listed; they are instead a result of the fall.

Right, so now go back and take a look at your attributing all those horrible things you mentioned to God.

Yeah, in part.

Don't forget the doctrine of the fall....

is anyone participating actually pro-life here? — Maw

I am.

why isn't childbirth by extension torture? Why would God make it painful? Why does stillbirth occur in 1 out of 160 pregnancies? — Maw

This is just one doorway into the larger problem of evil, which would take us far away from the thread topic and down a pretty deep rabbit hole. I'm not a Christian either (at the moment anyway).

And the alternative is coercion, not life. Ironically, "pro-life" is the more deliberately chosen position - it's just a choice of meddlers — Roke

Nice try. Ironically, your wording here is itself rather "sneaky." People who call themselves pro-life are not trying to meddle with a woman's body. They care about the human life in her womb. You don't get to kill it, just as you don't get to kill any other human being, simply because you feel like it.

Imagine — Andrew4Handel

that there is no suffering — Andrew4Handel

Nope, I'm afraid I can't. Not in this universe at any rate.

Nah, it ain't that cool.

I'd say what you describe is true of people everywhere.

I mostly agree, as the secularization thesis has now long been discredited. But I'm also not one to commit the tu quoque fallacy of calling secularism, atheism, etc "religions" as certain religious people are wont to do. If everything is a religion, then nothing is a religion.

All the same, irreligiosity has existed for not much more than a few generations in Europe, such that the dyed-in-the-wool non- or anti-religious atheist appears mostly as a creature born of post-Christian Western decadence and the rise of positivism (though I realize this does not make his or her position incorrect). At the moment, Europeans are not having enough children to maintain their expensive welfare programs and so have decided to accept massive numbers of immigrants, who are both religious and fertile. In East Asia, there are many atheists too, but unlike their European counterparts, they are still religious (usually following aspects of Buddhism, Taoism, and various indigenous religions). Hence, atheism need not be equated with irreligiosity.

How will terrorism bring down the west? How will radical Islam bring down the west? How will ISIS make landfall in the US? — VagabondSpectre

It won't, if we defeat it.

Andrew also said that it can undermine Western values, and I agree with him, though from a slightly different angle, I imagine.

what it implies about Muslims in general — andrewk

Any Muslim advocates for or performs terrorists attacks against Western societies until we ban pornography and gay marriage. — TheWillowOfDarkness

You guys are ridiculous. Read the sentence again. He asked you a simple question about Muslims who demand that the West ban pornography and gay marriage. There are Muslims who are in favor of such things. He's talking about them. In no way did he say or imply that he was talking about all Muslims.

Is your proposal then that, whenever the UN declares Genocide to have occurred in a region, you want the US government to do whatever is necessary to prevent that, including invading and attempting to install a new government if no other way appears likely to achieve that? — andrewk

Once again, as far as I can tell, the US is obligated to do this whether I want it to or not. But yes, I do want the US to do as you say. If we sign on to do something, but then don't do it, why sign on? A treaty, law, declaration, etc is utterly meaningless unless it's enforced.

I'd be an interested reader of, and probable participant in, such a thread. — andrewk

You're free to create it, though I can't promise I'll have the time to sustainably keep up with it. I'm not one to create threads, given the responsibility I feel in addressing everyone who responds to me. I'm very busy at the moment and so tend to post in short bursts, like this evening.

Rest assured you would have received a direct reply. — VagabondSpectre

Alright, good to know.

But now that we're here, what makes terrorism such a massively significant political issue? Is it the death and harm it causes or the widespread outrage that results? — VagabondSpectre

With all due respect, I think I've more than addressed this in my recent posts.