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On February 01 2008 15:51 nA.Inky wrote:
1) When life is hard or painful, embrace discipline (exercise, learning, structure)
2) Struggle and pain make us stronger
3) Life gives us what we need - sometimes we need pain.
Why do you need discipline, or any other thing that is not pleasure to you? Only becouse world/your brain chemistry (or whatever that makes you feel like doing nothing/something that is not good for you in long run) is not perfect.
Being fat can make you go on diet and exercise but as well world could work in a way that you would be in psychical good shape whithout it.
Life not alweys give what you need to survive, some people get depressed/kill themselves, that is not perfect mechanism of emotional manipulation of your behaviour by your genes. Not only it was never perfect but also it was develop for diferent environment then we have today. Also our genes "want" to survive that does not alweys means that they want to makes us happy.
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As for God I can't imagine how anybody can think that it is logic/moral to be punished for sins of your ancestor, yet alone why would God punish anybody or do anything, perfect God got bored one day?
As for free will how that is worth non perfect life? Nobody can even explain how could it work, or what benefit it gives.
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On February 01 2008 23:18 Polis wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2008 15:51 nA.Inky wrote:
1) When life is hard or painful, embrace discipline (exercise, learning, structure)
2) Struggle and pain make us stronger
3) Life gives us what we need - sometimes we need pain. Why do you need discipline, or any other thing that is not pleasure to you? Only becouse world/your brain chemistry (or whatever that makes you feel like doing nothing/something that is not good for you in long run) is not perfect. Being fat can make you go on diet and exercise but as well world could work in a way that you would be in psychical good shape whithout it. Life not alweys give what you need to survive, some people get depressed/kill themselves, that is not perfect mechanism of emotional manipulation of your behaviour by your genes. Not only it was never perfect but also it was develop for diferent environment then we have today. Also our genes "want" to survive that does not alweys means that they want to makes us happy.
Discipline is kind of important if you wanna do anything constructive in life?
And who told you that you can be in good physical shape without dieting or exercise rofl... if you do neither, you're going to be an out of shape slob.
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On February 01 2008 23:34 Hawk wrote:
Discipline is kind of important if you wanna do anything constructive in life?
I'll try and answer for Polis.
The definition of 'constructive' in the sense that an activity is constructive or not depends on the perspective of the individual. To Polis there may be no constructive task that exists because essentially nothing matters since human life is fairly insignificant and there is nothing beyond death. Thus, all achievements become irrelevent to the person once they die, hence it is best to live life in a manner that gives you as much happiness as possible.
This does not necessarily mean not working and slumming around all day but this can be the case. Maximizing expected happiness could be working 10 hours a day so you end up earning so much money that you can afford things that you otherwise wouldn't have been able to and the happiness these things bring you far outweighs the long hours.
Also, when Polis says:
Life not alweys give what you need to survive, some people get depressed/kill themselves, that is not perfect mechanism of emotional manipulation of your behaviour by your genes. Not only it was never perfect but also it was develop for diferent environment then we have today. Also our genes "want" to survive that does not alweys means that they want to makes us happy.
I pretty much agree with this. Evolution has led to the overwhelming majority of people possessing a strong desire to live since those without such a basic characteristic are eradicated from the gene pool, probably without having passed their genes on. To me, this is the reason why people choose to live despite the hardships we all encounter; as for a meaning to life: I don't think there is anything special - it's merely whatever a particular individual wants to use to make living bearable.
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OverTheUnder says: I understand where you are coming from.......but you know it's complete bs;( As you said, all of those beliefs are completely unfounded. Just like any religion or the belief in a supernatural God. Instead of saying I don't know to all of those questions, you are jumping to several answers that seem appealing to you....
why do we HAVE to have faith? I'm sure many people do but that isn't the point.. It is all very simple, if we don't know either way, then it is foolish to adapt some arbitrary moral law on how you think the universe works. You also happen to pick one that not only has no basis but makes no sense unless you believe in some sort of divine justice.
You might not be trying to say anything so extreme, but your choice of words bothers meT_T Reading your post gave me the same feeling I get when I hear people (religious or not) talk about how religion is for answering the questions that science can't like the why's. In the end all you are doing is giving up thinking and instead of admitting you don't know, you choose to think there is some objective "fairness" in the universe?
What? Hopefully I'm misunderstanding you but that last paragraph really seems like meaningless jargon.
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Part of what I am getting at is a shift in paradigm - a different way of thinking about things. I acknowledge that my point of view is not rational, and for many people here on TL.net who very openly and fiercely embrace rationality, this is an admission of being wrong, and, as you put it, embracing a system of thinking because it makes me feel good. The thing is, not everyone believes rational/logical thought universally arrives at truth. Some people believe, with all their being, that there are many ways of finding truth, and many ways of knowing, and many of those ways are beyond science and logic. Some of us also believe that the universe itself will always confound any attempt to obtain absolute knowledge - there will always be limits to what we can know.
Anyway, what I am saying is that I am essentially a post-Enlightenment thinker. I don't assume that reason always leads to truth, I don't assume that there is one absolute truth for any given situation, and I don't assume that reason is the only way to find truth or know the world.
So no, I'm not admitting that my beliefs are unfounded, I am just acknowledging that my ideas have no foundation in the way you and other strictly rational thinkers try to know and understand the world.
Yes, there are religious undertones to what I say, and I realize that offends a lot of people on TL.net. Still, I never said we "have" to have faith. I do believe faith is important, and you can choose to have faith or not. I also do not believe in any sort of spiritual heirarchy - ie 1) God, 2) humans, 3) animals, 4) plants, etc. So I'm not suggesting anyone worship anything. My "faith in life" is the result of recognizing my limitations and essentially worshipping what I perceive to be the endless beauty and mystery of reality.
Much of what I am getting at about "knowing" can be summed up very well in Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Ever read it?
Anyway, I am not out to convert anyone - that is not important to me in the slightest. Consider this post a form of sociological or psychological insight into someone who thinks differently than yourself.
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On February 02 2008 00:39 Milton Friedman wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2008 23:34 Hawk wrote:
Discipline is kind of important if you wanna do anything constructive in life?
I'll try and answer for Polis. The definition of 'constructive' in the sense that an activity is constructive or not depends on the perspective of the individual. To Polis there may be no constructive task that exists because essentially nothing matters since human life is fairly insignificant and there is nothing beyond death. Thus, all achievements become irrelevent to the person once they die, hence it is best to live life in a manner that gives you as much happiness as possible. This does not necessarily mean not working and slumming around all day but this can be the case. Maximizing expected happiness could be working 10 hours a day so you end up earning so much money that you can afford things that you otherwise wouldn't have been able to and the happiness these things bring you far outweighs the long hours. Also, when Polis says: Show nested quote +Life not alweys give what you need to survive, some people get depressed/kill themselves, that is not perfect mechanism of emotional manipulation of your behaviour by your genes. Not only it was never perfect but also it was develop for diferent environment then we have today. Also our genes "want" to survive that does not alweys means that they want to makes us happy. I pretty much agree with this. Evolution has led to the overwhelming majority of people possessing a strong desire to live since those without such a basic characteristic are eradicated from the gene pool, probably without having passed their genes on. To me, this is the reason why people choose to live despite the hardships we all encounter; as for a meaning to life: I don't think there is anything special - it's merely whatever a particular individual wants to use to make living bearable.
Yeah, I understand what you and him are saying about maximizing happiness. But what I'm saying is, no matter what you do, you still need to eat. And once you become an adult and have no parents to shelter you, you need to find means of money so that you can get stuff to eat. Therefore, you're going to need to practice some form of discipline to get a job or do anything as means to put food on the table to live your life as you see fit.
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Polis says: Why do you need discipline, or any other thing that is not pleasure to you? Only becouse world/your brain chemistry (or whatever that makes you feel like doing nothing/something that is not good for you in long run) is not perfect.
Being fat can make you go on diet and exercise but as well world could work in a way that you would be in psychical good shape whithout it.
Life not alweys give what you need to survive, some people get depressed/kill themselves, that is not perfect mechanism of emotional manipulation of your behaviour by your genes. Not only it was never perfect but also it was develop for diferent environment then we have today. Also our genes "want" to survive that does not alweys means that they want to makes us happy.
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First of all, when I wrote my 6 points here, you have to realize they are from a piece of paper that I put up on my wall to remind myself of what I feel is important. I absolutely never intended for them to be "commandments" that others must take seriously and live by - that is strictly your choice. Perhaps these points will help you, and perhaps not.
In other words, you don't have to embrace discipline at all if you do not prefer to. That is purely your choice. I spoke of discipline because I know that when my life feels out of control and painful, discipline gives me some foundation to hold on to to keep my life together. (Ironically, I just wrote a blog the other day on the importance of relaxing and taking it easy.)
Essentially, think of the steps I wrote above partially as coping mechanisms for dealing with pain. That is why I wrote of them here - they are a method of coping with pain and unfairness and so on.
The higher steps I wrote down (5 and 6, certainly) reflect my spiritual/philosophical outlook on life. I worship the universe and what I perceive to be its infinite wisdom and beauty. It does indeed take effort to appreciate these qualities of the universe from our ever so small and seemingly helpless position as humans. Things like suicide and depression and genocide are all very real, and on one level I certainly would like to do all I can to prevent these things and help others who are in pain, but on another level, I try to acknowledge the beauty of these things as well.
Think of it like this: death is inherent in reality. Things die all the time. From the perspective of the thing that must ultimately die, and perhaps live in pain and die in pain, this can be pure horror and tragedy. But consider how death so often nurtures other life. The death of stars eventually led to the birth of new stars, the birth of planets, and the birth of humans! The death of plants and animals allows us to eat. Organisms die and nurture the soil. Even our own death and our own pain can serve a higher purpose - one that maybe we cannot even begin to see or comprehend.
What looks so horrible and tragic on one level may be beautiful, even orgasmic, on another level. Still, in my human form, I do what I can to ease suffering and to be good to others. I also try to avoid pain.
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Much of my thinking is highly based in Zen, or at least my highly amateur interpretations of it. So, to better illustrate where my faith comes from, consider this Zen story:
The Farmer’s Luck
There was once an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years.
One day, his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit.
“Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.
“Maybe,” the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it two other wild horses.
“Such good luck!” the neighbors exclaimed.
“Maybe,” replied the farmer.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown off, and broke his leg.
Again, the neighbors came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.
“Such bad luck,” they said.
“Maybe,” answered the farmer.
The day after that, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army to fight in a war. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by.
“Such good luck!” cried the ‘ neighbors.
“Maybe,” said the farmer.
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United States22883 Posts
I see it as the farmer's luck doesn't exist. Every action has both positive and negative consequences, which of course is relative to whoever it affects. Some people acknowledge more of the positive and others more of the negative, I believe a balance is best.
I don't think there is an inherent purpose to life. Some might be discomforted by that and assume there is no purpose, but that's not the case. We can create our own man-made purpose and through that find inspiration in our lives.
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Right Jibba, to put it another way, the idea is that there is a sort of higher order (not to imply a conscious order necessarily) to things than what we immediately perceive. The story hints at thinking BEYOND luck/bad luck, and beyond good and evil. This "beyond" is the ultimate goodness of the universe, that I spoke of in my earlier posts. It is what I have faith in.
Jibba, I also agree that there is no inherent purpose to life in the sense that humans tend to concern themselves with. I do have faith that there is purpose and abundant meaning, although I am not sure what that is. That is what I was getting at in my earlier post about "a hand is a hand, an eye is an eye, a hand should not concern itself with being an eye, and an eye should not concern itself with being a hand." In other words, the perfect order and wisdom of the universe is beyond our understanding. That order and wisdom arises by every little part of the larger whole doing what it does - living its nature.
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United States22883 Posts
Right Jibba, to put it another way, the idea is that there is a sort of higher order (not to imply a conscious order necessarily) to things than what we immediately perceive. The story hints at thinking BEYOND luck/bad luck, and beyond good and evil. This "beyond" is the ultimate goodness of the universe, that I spoke of in my earlier posts. It is what I have faith in. See, but that's still ultimate goodness. I don't think things happen for a reason, they just happen.
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This is one of the contradictions that I spoke of much earlier... I am talking about a goodness that is beyond goodness. In other words, there is kind of a strange way of thinking I am hinting at.
I am not speaking of a heaven or a God or a happy-ever-after story... I am saying that the Universe as it is, in all it's meaningless glory, is ultimate goodness. It is kind of playing with the word "good," in a way. I'm not necessarily in disagreement with you, or rather, I probably am, but for the purposes of this exact moment of discussion, I'm not.
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Good and bad are meanings and interpretations. Going beyond that is going beyond interpretation, so in a sense, the goodness I am talking about is meaningless, or meaninglessness is goodness. (The language breaks down here, and that is what I am talking about.... "beyondness")
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United States22883 Posts
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Something like that, Jibba.
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What I meant by discipline is that God could create world where it is not needed, or where you don't have to exercise to feel good. I am not saying that exercising in our reality is bad idea. There is difference between saying what is good to do in our world, and claiming that our world is perfect. I don't want to judge what is good or bad arbitrary, some people may like to work allot and have big salary, some people care more about sex then others, some fall in love often to others it doesn't happen things that you want aren't your choice, at least not fully.
Discipline exist becouse we live in non perfect world, if you would be perfectly programmed for your life that you would just do what you like all the time, and that would be the action for you long term also.
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The way I understand it, much of Zen and Buddhism is not explainable in words. Stories such as these are not necessarily meant to convey messages as much as they are meant to stimulate thought and have people contemplate the story. I'm summarizing the words of a monk here, but I think the gist is correct.
Something like Zen appeals a lot more to me because no one's really telling you what to believe. They leave you to derive the meaning and come to your own conclusions. I feel that Zen Buddhism relies on the human's ability to think rationally, which is very uncommon for any belief system.
That being said, I am currently not a Buddhist. I find Dharma talks to be very interesting, and the philosophies as far as I understand are appealing. However, until I feel that I understand the true nature of Zen, I cannot say that I am Buddhist.
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On February 01 2008 13:16 ZaplinG wrote:
But why would God want to drop nukes on us in the first place? If he wanted us dead, he could have just not created us.
We are alive, but for what reason? To worship God? Wouldn't that make God selfish and a sinner himself?
Religion has always sounded too crazy to me.
Well, you see God is for justice/punishment of sins, but he also wanted to share his love with us.
So he has a fine balance in between justice and grace/love. And, God is God, he doesn't need our worship, he just wants it. If you were God you could be worshipped also, but you aren't.
God wants us to both fear, believe, love, and trust him. This basically starts when you feel called to do something by him such as at a church invitation to the alter. I challenge you to go to a Baptist church (They seem to have the Bible down, other denominations have many controverial beliefs, ussually by misinterpreting, adding, or taking away scripture from an already perfect Bible.), and maybe ask the pastor how you can know God, or you can trust in him now, if you want to. All you have to do is trust and believe that Jesus Christ is God, and that he died on the cross for your sins, you do have to be called by God to do this by God, so when you are convicted (Like a heavy feeling in your chest), then it is possible.
God doesn't want us dead. Adam and Eve messed up, and caused the worst disease that effects all of humanity; sin, and without trusting in Jesus, it turns into eternal damnation.
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Slithe, good post. "The Tao (true way) that can be spoken is not the Tao."
Zen koans and the like are meant to point to the way, but they aren't the way. It doesn't mean they can't be insightful or helpful though.
I feel essentially as you do, and agree with the things you said.
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EPT
