I'm not trying to be buzzkill but only articulate the complexity of not-stasis as I see it. I guess I find an ecstasy in this complexity -- at the cost of having anything like a solution for existence. — jellyfish

I agree: I'm not seeking an easy resting place for my mind or my beliefs. Sometimes I think things would be a lot easier if I just knew that I was saved by Jesus, but then other times I think that everyone who has gotten "the good news" really knows, deep down inside, that it's bollocks. The restlessness of the negative dialectic keeps calling me...

I'll hazard to speak for more of us than just my lonesome, uncanni, when I say "Oink oink — 180 Proof

We are all pigs in the same pen, then; I certainly don't consider myself grown up yet. Maybe the 70s will usher in more maturity...

As we discussed before, I think the only way to avoid becoming a dominating evangelist is to prioritize an ideal, symmetric relationship. — jellyfish

Which is what Bakhtin's notion of dialogism does. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of monologists lurking about.

This is extremely helpful! I need to do more research on trolls, my fiancé is the troll slayer in our family hahaha — Mark Dennis

I was just going to leave this forum, but decided to stay. I'm glad I did: there are some really smart, articulate people I love to read.

We all have to find the right way to deal with trolls. Just remember not to follow them down the rabbit hole of a completely irrational and digressive discussion.

But I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t feel good sometimes to feel like you are dominating and I think this is the core conflict in most people. — Mark Dennis

It does feel good to "dominate" the discussion (although I prefer for a term like convince or enlighten to dominate) if you are able to persuade your interlocutors that your argument is correct and superior. The problem is when people start throwing all kinds of irrational and irrelevant distractions into the discussion; then it's been sabotaged. And then there's no chance of having a reasonable, enlightening discussion.

Do you ever feel like they just keep needling at you too? Like you spend awhile trying to get through to them reasonably and then end up feeling bad when you lose your temper. — Mark Dennis

This is exactly what trolls do. I did quite a bit of reading on trolls over the summer, and you have characterized the game they play to a t. Here's part of what I wrote up:

These are the characteristics which trolls display:
• They have "a desire to cause damage to the community" (Buckels). They can't deal with others' happiness, so they spread gossip and negativity;
• They are "intentionally malicious" (Hardaker): they "operate as agents of chaos on the Internet.... If an unfortunate person falls into their trap, trolling intensifies for further, merciless amusement" (Buckels);
• Online anonymity makes it easier for them to reveal their shadow, or the shady, unacceptable parts of ourselves--greed, sadism, selfishness, hatred, etc.--that we disown or deny: "When acting out hostile feelings, the [troll] doesn't have to take responsibility for those actions. In fact, people might even convince themselves that those behaviors 'aren't me at all'" (Suler). In fact, it's amazingly easy for people to justify their cruelty towards others, but it lacks honesty.
• They display anti-social personality characteristics: narcissism , sadism , Machiavellianism (especially, the need to deceive, manipulate and exercise power over others), and a complete lack of concern for others' feelings. "Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others. Sadists just want to have fun . . . and the Internet is their playground!" (Buckels).
• They like to polarize discussions, pitting one group against another with differing views (Anderson), thereby transforming a rational exchange of ideas into emotional mudslinging;
• They sabotage topics and veer discussions off course; they enjoy "luring others into useless, circular discussion" (emph. added) (Hardaker);
• They like to have followers who worship them;
• They hate to see the rational, democratic, and tolerant exchange of ideas online. This kind of exchange puts all participants on a horizontal plane of equality and maintains politeness and respect for difference; people agree to disagree and feel free to express their own take on an issue without fear of criticism.

This is the state of the world that we are living in. But I believe that we can exchange ideas in a genuinely dialogic manner, which means that I welcome your ideas as a means of mobilizing my own thinking--as opposed to a monologic approach, which seeks to establish sole authority on what the truth is, to diminish and belittle others' ideas, and to silence opposition.

As to where Good and Evil stem from, in my view they have existed for aeons — leo

I can't think of two more anthropomorphic words than Good and Evil: these concepts apply to human behavior; I see no evidence of Good or Evil up to anything anywhere else in the cosmos.

I guess I just don’t understand what fascinates nuerotypicals about pointless competition and one upmanship. I’ve literally seen two people arguing for the same thing before but because they were trying to one up each other they genuinely believed they were arguing from different points. Its embarrassing to watch really.
Why can’t people just be happy that they are learning and growing together? — Mark Dennis

Excellent question. Why do some people endlessly seek negative excitement and domination rather than collaboration?

I see it fundamentally as a repetition compulsion, a compulsive acting out of some ancient trauma in hopes of creating the fairy tale solution to the events that occurred and which can never be changed. But the trauma gets acted out over and over again, in a desperate attempt to make it right.

Of course, it can never be made right; it's the past. But cruel and callous people believe they have an upper hand, and I think they think it's cool to be mean, kinda like those kids in junior high school. So it's regressive, too: adolescent and infantile, emotionally immature.

Some folks' deep need to be nasty on this forum still makes my jaw drop from time to time.

In converse, feelings of existential dread or horror, ontophobia, not only make us feel awful about things that we would otherwise be able to accept and live with or move past, but also floods our minds with clouds of stress and drowns us in despair, so we are functionally less able to think clearly and act decisively. — Pfhorrest

It's true, but sometimes it's there and we can't pretend it's not. And at least for me, it takes time to snap out of.

And what else can you tell a person wrestling with a spiritual crisis but some version of 'get over it.' — jellyfish

I don't think that "get over it" is the right thing to say. I mean, that's pretty callous. Of course, you don't really want to talk about it with many people, do you? They won't understand.

You don't just get over an existential or spiritual crisis; you have to get through it. There is no way over, under or around it. We arrive at points in our lives when the truth, as we are understanding and perceiving it, is so raw, so devastating that... fill in the blank: life becomes meaningles; man's inhumanity to man creats a continual holocaust; the brainwashing, utter stupidity and lack of authenticity make it impossible to relate to relate to people, etc., etc.

Pearls before swine. — 180 Proof

Are you saying that I'm casting pearls before swine?

Despair. Their rugrats are effigies of hope. — 180 Proof

Now THAT is a very good oxymoron.

I have found my ecstasy in this crisis. I live largely for this crisis. I suppose I chose those words to emphasize that it's the way of death and despair, too. — jellyfish

There's no way around crisis, death or despair for humans. The way I see it, we had best find the "healthiest" ways we can manage for dealing with them. I think a lot of people give up before they finish growing up, and I believe it takes a lifetime for humans to grow up. If we stop working on it, we're screwed; we've settled into mind-numbing stasis. Stasis and ecstasy derive from the same Greek word stasis--standing or stoppage. We will find the bits of ecstasy in moving forward.

If illegal drugs were legalized, numerous problems would disappear, not the least of which would be the drug cartels.
If free needles are made available, the problems of diseases transmitted through shared needles is eliminated.
Both high-functioning and low-functioning drug addicts would benefit from having easy access.
All the poison that makes its way onto the streets would be eliminated.

What would we do in a world without a war on drugs? The possibilities are limitless.

especially if everyone is assumed to understand the irrelevance already — unenlightened

Nobody assumed the irrelevance but you.

The climate is relatively unaffected by what people think about it. ... It is what folks do that matters. — unenlightened

I assumed that everyone participating in the discussion understood this, but you chose to chastise the discussion as if it should not have taken place. That seems inappropriate to me.

Climate is a matter of faith and ideology.
Sarcasm alert. — unenlightened

Sarcasm or irony? Are you being sarcastic or ironic about the entire discussion?

The statement, "Climate is a matter of faith and ideology," is vague. What is climate change a matter of???

A hand full of ultra-rich and power people in the world are both guilty and responsible for the critical problems we face. — Bitter Crank

I agree: this is the realistic view of what's happening. So I'm quite pessimistic unless power can be confiscated from those people. I can't imagine how that would happen.

I just want to ask why is it so difficult or impossible for people to realize and see clearly just how psychopathic all the elites are who mindlessly continue to destroy the planet and environment.

I think this realization can be painful. It's the death of the usual spiritual comforts. One has to set sail on a dark ocean of personality and even embrace a permanent identity crisis. One becomes everyone and no one. For me the journey has been strange. It's lonely and yet the opposite of lonely, humble but proud. — jellyfish

It's painful and liberating, as you suggest. I am quite isolated where I live--there are absolutely no old leftie hippie intellectuals around these parts; I'm surrounded by devout, hypocritical christians. So I have indeed found in this forum a respite, a breather.

I really like your phrase, "permanent identity crisis": but this doesn't have to be a painful or uncomfortable constant: it can be seen simply as the evolution of oneself, one's philosophy.

I think we are (all too often) bound ourselves by our desire to bind others. — jellyfish

Now that is a profound statement, with multiple resonances or over-determinations:
* to force others into some kind of rigid structure;
* to reduce all meaning to a supreme Monologic meaning (one correct interpretation);
* sadism

It's when we realize that the dialogue is open and infinite--that that is the nature of the philosophical dialogue--that we can settle in and let our ideas develop and our understanding deepen. In striving to have a rational understanding of our interlocutor, I think that we deepen our experience with the world at large. Even us cyber-dialogists.

Let me just take one thing back: We never settle in: I believe above all that "Learning not increased, is learning decreased."---Hillel

why are we attached to detachment? In what are we invested that urges us not to be fools? I agree that expecting others to believe on authority is bad. Bad how? I think free minds want a symmetric relationship with other free minds. They want to see their own freedom/infinity reflected and recognized. — jellyfish

Lovely. The quintessence of Bakhtin's dialogism: interlocutors understand their own ideas from different perspectives by listening to how the other uses their own words/concepts. This should lead to expansion, clarification and deeper understanding of said ideas. Free minds never try to repress or distort an other's ideas.

This reminds me of the very beginning of the Cuban revolution. There was a burst of cultural creativity and expression that was quite avant garde and included homosexual art. This was very quickly shut down by the Soviet Union's pressure on Castro, who then came up with the very Orwellian phrase, "Within the revolution: everything; outside of the revolution: nothing." And complete censorship clamped down on any but the most socialist realist artistic expression. Ultra-orthodox.

The way that mysticism and reason are engaged with each other as countervailing forces requires a lot of assumptions before the scrum can commence.
It is difficult to approach the matter from that direction.
....I will assert that the intersection of the cultural and personal frames of experience, the distance between past expressions and the needs of the present moment,involve a desire to embrace a disproportion between explanation and action. The flickering messages of what must be done and the call to make your own way are not the consequences of this or that set of beliefs but reflects the problem of our existence. — Valentinus

What I understood you to be saying is that there's always a "countervailing," a "disproportion" between issues of faith or mysticism and those of reason. What I meant to convey in my response to what you wrote is that institutionalized religion, in my sweepingly generalized view, does everything in its power to make people not question their existence. This is the boulder of ideology that oppresses so many minds so easily. This kind of ideology relieves the individual of any requirement to think and question; the goal is obedience.

To confront the impasse, as I meant it, is to acknowledge the aporia: the problem of existence does not have an answer = the disproportion between explanation and action.

highlights a problem of evil for human procreators that is, in some ways anyway, more acute than the problem of evil for God. — Bartricks

I've often felt this, just not on a philosophical level. Observing people all over the place who don't love or take proper care of their children, are neglectful and abusive, thus bringing up another generation of abusive and neglectful parents. It's the greatest tragedy in the world.

Then i agree that zero humans would definitely be a fast way to fix a lot of problems.

...and what will become of me when I no longer have it in me to pretend that I do not genuinely despise people. I don't know if I care anymore. — CornwallCletus

There's something mighty liberating to admit that our family acted despicably, and that the people all around us act despicably. I think that a survival mechanism is to find 2 or 3 kindred souls you can count on, who see the world in all its phoniness, deception, hypocrisy, amorality and psychopathy. I think our species is becoming more and more psychopathic.

I have 2 friends who recognize the same things; it seems to be enough. Thankfully, I am free of family. I'm close to retirement. So many fewer games I have to pretend to play on a daily basis.

Why? Because an earthquake isn't bad until it starts maiming and killing people, yes? An eruption isn't bad until the larva starts burning people alive, yes? Viruses aren't bad until they make people ill. Innocent, sentient life. — Bartricks

IT seems the problem of evil to which you refer is a human-made problem, primarily--not so much about volcanos and earthquakes. Humans inflict infinitely more suffering upon other sentient beings and seem to enjoy it for the most part. It does, in my estimation, render the "good diety" issue a moot point: No good diety would create such a potentially psychopathic species that tortures its own kind as well as other species. So perhaps we should consider whether if there were a diety, that it is characterized by insecurity, jealousy, ambition. greed, and all the other vices. And created humans in its own image.

You seem to be charging yourself with projecting humanity onto things not human. I wonder why? — creativesoul

Thank you for your thoughtful response to my sweeping generalization. I try to avoid anthropomorphizing the cosmos; I'm even trying to stop thinking of Mother Nature as "feminine." I'm in the process of paring down my atheism to bare bones (forgive the anthropomorphism)--stripped of any kind of language that would make it more warm and fuzzy, so to speak. So a term like intelligent design rubs me the wrong way these days. I perceive the known universe as operating according to a series of predictable (up or down to a point, with some exceptions, like the mechanics of liquids) "laws" we call physics; and I conclude that if we ever achieve the ability to know what is now unknown and it did not follow the "laws" of physics, that we'd find another discourse with which to explain it to ourselves.

There are many arguments that defend the objects of faith (I'm thinking particularly of the christian faith). The people doing so are called "apologetics", and they are still kicking to this day. — Samuel Lacrampe

And they can kick it all day every day. To defend objects of faith is a perfectly respectable occupation. I repeat: Probability and reason can't prove the contents of faith.

I think I got two different topics confused. Sorry for the confusion.

The other topic mentioned intelligent design, which is an irritating term for me. Or perhaps it was someone referring to the "order" of the universe that got me thinking of how humans project their own types of perceptions (order vs chaos) onto the universe..

That's awesome. Really and truly.

And do the other species project their beliefs and thoughts onto the universe? Do we have a way to know that?

so as to be able to know which aspects of human thought and belief are unique to humans and which are not. Being anthropomorphic is not equivalent to being human. It's what's going on when we mistakenly attribute characteristics unique to humans to things other than humans. — creativesoul

I'd have to say that all aspects of human thought and belief are unique to humans: what are you suggesting???

Giving the universe anthropomorphic characteristics is what I was referring to.

It's been very useful to me all my life, and it finally helped me to come out of the atheist closet. My nebulous conception of whatever Oneness or Wholeness was worthy of being nicknamed God has dried up and blown away. I realized participating in this forum that I can appreciate the known universe as what we humans call physics and leave it at that. Because it is quite beautiful (anthropomorphic expression), but what words can we use to describe anything without being completely anthropomorphic?

I understand the fact that billions of people live with what I perceive as an Illusion or fairy tale. I can understand how the naked, stark, no-God version is just too harsh for so many. If it requires some specific kind of emotional maturity to assert one's atheism, like a putting away of childish things, I don't count it for a whole lot on the maturity scale-- I count patience and kindness with others extremely high on the emotional scale.

Atheism doesn't diminish the pleasure I experience reading and studying the Torah etc. I'd say my bottom line is to read philosophy psychoanalytically and through Marx's definition of ideology. I always like to try to understand the material base of one's professed beliefs, for therein I find the truth. Expose the ideology. Deconstruct.

One example: My decades of studying and teaching about Spanish American history, culture and literature (using a Marxist-psychoanalytic perspective) revealed the entire dirty underbelly of the conquest of the New World--which may come as no surprise to anyone on this forum, but when I taught a course on Colonial prose texts including chronicles, letters, diaries, royal proclamations, papal dispositions, indigenous versions of the conquest, laws regarding treatment of indigenous and African slaves, etc. The deals the Pope was making with Portugal and Spain, dividing up the new continent--and all of this so the Catholic church could save souls and convert savages. It was pure greed and imperialistic fanaticism that whipped Ferdinand and Isabel into a frenzy, and if you've ever read Cristóbal Colón's diary, his sociopathic view of the indigenous people (how easily they can be subjugated and expolited by the king) is chilling.

And to read about what Pizarro's men did a few decades later in the region that became Perú: reminiscent of the war atrocities we see sprinkeled throughout history. So the indigenous people wouold tell them where the gold was. Greed, blood-lust and drive for power are always woven throughout the dominant group's economic base. Imperialism: what a pretty word for genocide/enslavement/occupation.

So in conclusion, one can easily see that the notion of a loving God and saving souls had nothing to do with the genuine enterprise. Anyone who believes that ideology is a a dangerous fool.

the intersection of the cultural and personal frames of experience, the distance between past expressions and the needs of the present moment, involve a desire to embrace a disproportion between explanation and action. — Valentinus

Do you mean, a non-fit, an impasse? If it is a non-fit, then explanation creates a story which claims to represent the action as true. If it is an impasse, then one knows that there is no explanation other than physics.

A non-fit is the creation of religion as ideology to control masses of people. An impasse is addressed by those who reject religion: action signifies, not metaphysics: what's your next action? (Although that never stopped philosophers from writing tome upon tome...)

What are your thoughts about pride? — Wallows

Jane Austen said all there is to say about it.

So in claiming to be blind to those differences, the ascendency denies what makes those individuals who they are, and reasserts its dominance. — Banno

I agree; the old ideological sleight of hand, wizardry. I want to add that the elites are essentially sociopathic--little to no conscience or empathy, primarily driven by greed and desire for power--which has always made it easy for them to utterly disregard those below them in power and wealth. Any sociopath can pretend to be blind to differences.

Nations are founded on racism (read ethnic genocide and slavery in the case of the usa).

The Reproduction of Evil. A Clinical & Cultural Perspetive, Sue Grand
The New Dictionary of Kleinian Thought, Bott Spillius et al., eds.

God is the percocet of the people...

What's uncontroversial is that innocent sentient life does not deserve to suffer. — Bartricks

I agree with this statement, and its truth distresses me every day, but when I ask myself if I would give up all of the extraordinary pleasures of being alive to be free from all the agony and pain life brings...

I would have to say, I'm not sorry I was born. Life is frequently a struggle, sometimes quite painful. But the exquisite joys of: a praying mantis on my pitcher plant, love, music, the joys of being in the body, achievement, learning, helping others, and vaping Cannabis--all of it makes the suffering of being human worthwhile. I choose to live.

The best reason I can think of for not having children right now is global warming.

They hate me and I welcome their hatred, Putin-loving Mein Kampf reading fascists that they are. — Noah Te Stroete

Welcoming hatred: that's a rough one. No good. Gotta stay away from those Mein Kampf reading fascists; they will kick you to death.