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01/21/2010 04:07:02 PM · #4151 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Sorry, but I'm still not convinced. I'll even state my position again. People suffer because of what they are and how they, the planet, and by extension the universe work, not for any supernatural reasons. Also because of what we are, suffering is bad. Because of what we are, suffering pains us physically and emotionally, and there are obvious evolutionary reasons for this. In terms of our relation to one another, immorality can be seen to arise out of either inflicting suffering in others or willfully failing to ameliorate it.
So your quarrel is with that lovely Zen-like quote, and you've used its introduction as a way to discredit what I'm saying. If suffering is to be expected, you say, and there is "just the right amount", I should be happy with that and not talk of morality and helping others overcome things. I should be neutral when others suffer if I am to be consistent.
But that's to misunderstand what I believe to be the quote's intent. It's a metaphor; it's not a literal rule for interacting with others, or a guide to moral behaviour. It's the same as saying, "There is just as much matter in the universe as there ought to be." You are ascribing meaning to it where there is none. Consider that it sounds very Zen-like, very Buddhist, but the raison d'être of Buddhism is to abolish suffering. Put simply, you're ascribing intent where there is none. I also submit that you would have a much more difficult time discrediting what I've said had the quote not been offered, or if you understood it in context. |
No, I understand the quote just fine. What I don't understand is your castigation of Johnny's view as depressing and morose when your own is just as depressing! At least Johnny clings to the hope that there is more than the sufferings of this life. You? That's all we have. Life is suffering. Full stop. Except to declare it bad. So our mental processes are conscious of suffering and that it is bad but are forever trapped in a process which operates on suffering as a means to weed out the weakest in a universe which cares nothing for our well-being. Talk about a bummer. All we can hope for is death to relieve us from our Sisyphean toil.
My point, Louis, is to show that you are using a double-standard when you judge Johnny. Obviously you don't agree with his views, but you declare it disturbing and depressing (I don't know the exact words you used). Isn't that a bit like the kettle calling the pot black?
Message edited by author 2010-01-21 16:20:46. |
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01/21/2010 04:20:28 PM · #4152 |
side note, Google.com will be slower for the next several minutes as we all google the word "Sisyphean"
As you were. |
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01/21/2010 04:21:32 PM · #4153 |
Originally posted by scarbrd:
side note, Google.com will be slower for the next several minutes as we all google the word "Sisyphean"
As you were. |
I hope I spelled it right. I usually double check those things. |
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01/21/2010 04:24:24 PM · #4154 |
| I'm offended that people of Jason's ilk use the word Sisyphean. Hmph. |
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01/21/2010 04:24:57 PM · #4155 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
I'm offended that people of Jason's ilk use the word Sisyphean. Hmph. |
LOL. That was pretty funny. |
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01/21/2010 04:32:29 PM · #4156 |
| Now we need K10 to point out the irony of using the word "sisyphean" in the context of this thread... |
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01/21/2010 04:37:57 PM · #4157 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Now we need K10 to point out the irony of using the word "sisyphean" in the context of this thread... |
I'm aware of the plight of Sisyphus, but not sure how it's ironic, really. Maybe there's some backstory I'm missing out on from my greek mythology readings.
ETA: Ahh, never mind. I was trying to tie it into homosexuality somehow, but I'm thinking you mean the general nature of the thread itself. Which is entirely ironic, yes.
Message edited by author 2010-01-21 16:40:37. |
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01/21/2010 04:42:15 PM · #4158 |
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
I'm aware of the plight of Sisyphus, but not sure how it's ironic, really. |
He's suggesting that this thread is a pointless exercise, full of effort but ultimately going nowhere. I don't think we're at the same spot on the hill, though, he just keeps piling more dirt on top. ;-P |
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01/21/2010 04:46:04 PM · #4159 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
I'm aware of the plight of Sisyphus, but not sure how it's ironic, really. |
He's suggesting that this thread is a pointless exercise, full of effort but ultimately going nowhere. I don't think we're at the same spot on the hill, though, he just keeps piling more dirt on top. ;-P |
Yes, I amended my post. I was thinking too hard, initially. heh. |
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01/21/2010 04:47:02 PM · #4160 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
What I don't understand is your castigation of Johnny's view as depressing and morose when your own is just as depressing! At least Johnny clings to the hope that there is more than the sufferings of this life. You? That's all we have. Life is suffering. Full stop. |
Pardon me, but I never said that. I said people suffer for obvious reasons having nothing to do with the supernatural. I said suffering is bad and should be cured. You really must pay careful attention to the words and thoughts you wish to attribute to others.
Please show me where it says that life is nothing but suffering, full stop, that we are "trapped", and so on. Personally, I love life. Life is beautiful, the universe is gorgeous, I'm crazy about my spouse of sixteen years, I could barely be happier. And people suffer, including me.
Freud: What do you get when you combine fear of death with wishful thinking? You get religion. Johnny's hope for something "better" than this life is a fantasy. At worst, it's a lie. What makes it ugly is that it is easily contorted into a resentment for this life, into a wish to usher in the next phase, a desire to ignore the problems of the present for the fantasy of tomorrow. Anyway, I was specifically insulted by his insistence that humanity is nothing but an "abomination" (however he may wish to twist his own words). If his sense of morality gets demolished in the process of tearing down that world view, it's he who has to deal with it. |
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01/21/2010 04:48:26 PM · #4161 |
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Now we need K10 to point out the irony of using the word "sisyphean" in the context of this thread... |
I'm aware of the plight of Sisyphus, but not sure how it's ironic, really. Maybe there's some backstory I'm missing out on from my greek mythology readings.
ETA: Ahh, never mind. I was trying to tie it into homosexuality somehow, but I'm thinking you mean the general nature of the thread itself. Which is entirely ironic, yes. |
Well, if you say Sisyphus out loud it kinda sounds . . . I mean, in a stereotypical way, kinda . . . oh nevermind. ;-) |
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01/21/2010 04:59:12 PM · #4162 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
What I don't understand is your castigation of Johnny's view as depressing and morose when your own is just as depressing! At least Johnny clings to the hope that there is more than the sufferings of this life. You? That's all we have. Life is suffering. Full stop. |
Pardon me, but I never said that. I said people suffer for obvious reasons having nothing to do with the supernatural. I said suffering is bad and should be cured. You really must pay careful attention to the words and thoughts you wish to attribute to others.
Please show me where it says that life is nothing but suffering, full stop, that we are "trapped", and so on. Personally, I love life. Life is beautiful, the universe is gorgeous, I'm crazy about my spouse of sixteen years, I could barely be happier. And people suffer, including me.
Freud: What do you get when you combine fear of death with wishful thinking? You get religion. Johnny's hope for something "better" than this life is a fantasy. At worst, it's a lie. What makes it ugly is that it is easily contorted into a resentment for this life, into a wish to usher in the next phase, a desire to ignore the problems of the present for the fantasy of tomorrow. Anyway, I was specifically insulted by his insistence that humanity is nothing but an "abomination" (however he may wish to twist his own words). If his sense of morality gets demolished in the process of tearing down that world view, it's he who has to deal with it. |
And you don't afford Johnny the similar ability to both observe the suffering in the world but to be awed with the beauty of life and how gorgeous the universe is? Which is it? If you are pointing out that his view is depressing and he has no ability to find goodness in the universe, then I am pointing out the same in you. Where in evolutionary struggle do we find such concepts as "beauty" and "gorgeous"? If you are allowing your own view to be "overruled" by the rays of beauty that occasionally shine through, then Johnny should be given the same opportunity (regardless of the hugeness of the word "abomination").
Your own sense of morality (actions which lead to the avoidance of suffering are good) is completely countered by your view on life. If someone had no preconceived notions and was suddenly educated on the physical characteristics of the universe and the way evolution operates, do you think your moral viewpoint would be a self-evident truth? I doubt it. If anything he may arrive at the opposite that suffering is good because it is the engine by which evolution operates.
Freud? That's so last century. Even he was quick to admit that sometimes a cigar was only a cigar.
Message edited by author 2010-01-21 16:59:57. |
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01/21/2010 05:12:37 PM · #4163 |
Along the lines of sisyphean toil and the rightness of suffering as our mortal fate, just for the hell of it I'll throw up a poem I penned maybe 10-12 years ago:
***********
Anything less than the truth becomes too much
in the inverted fiction of the heart:
what's logic but deceit, when joy breeds pain?
Living brings us to death.
There is no other road.
When poets walk city streets at night green-shod,
secret meadows defy the sidewalk world —
yet steel and stone endure where green songs fade.
Beauty will come to dust.
There is no other law.
A budgetary skunk pollutes our days.
Light's shadow-dog reeks. Fiduciary fate
lurks in love's meal disguised as hate's foul turd.
Zero is all. All's void.
There is no other sum.
The wise man studies what he must forget.
The happy man remembers not to learn.
The way of each is water over stones:
We travel in pain. We die.
There is no other road.
***********
As you were, people, as you were :-)
R.
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01/21/2010 05:15:10 PM · #4164 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
And you don't afford Johnny the similar ability to both observe the suffering in the world but to be awed with the beauty of life and how gorgeous the universe is? |
I never said that. I would really encourage you to stop formulating your opinion about my posts before you read or understand them. You are inventing the conclusions I should make to out of whole cloth.
I'm also not concerned that you are befuddled by one who accepts evolution as well as suffering. What is self-evident is that suffering happens, that human beings have evolved, and that human beings wish to avoid suffering. What you seem to be so vexed by is the notion that someone who grasps these things should not be a sterile automaton who doesn't understand what beauty is.
Or, that someone with such an insulting and dire opinion of humanity should not be given a free pass to relegate human beings to the proverbial gutter in favour of a supernatural being nobody would ever know about if it weren't for the holy books. |
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01/21/2010 05:24:51 PM · #4165 |
Originally posted by Louis:
I'm also not concerned that you are befuddled by one who accepts evolution as well as suffering. What is self-evident is that suffering happens, that human beings have evolved, and that human beings wish to avoid suffering. |
If human beings evolve through suffering (that is, suffering leads to the survival of the fittest), why would we evolve the wish to avoid it? Wouldn't those who most avoided suffering be the least subject to the principle of survival of the fittest? Wouldn't that be a self-defeating method for the propagation of the species? The weak genes found among those who avoid suffering are less apt to be weeded out? |
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01/21/2010 05:26:32 PM · #4166 |
Let's hear it for Bear! He's available for parties and bar mitzvahs! I think I'm going to call someone a "budgetary skunk" today... :)
Actually I liked it Bear. Bleak, but dead on. At least until we consider that death leads to life. |
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01/21/2010 05:33:20 PM · #4167 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by Louis:
I'm also not concerned that you are befuddled by one who accepts evolution as well as suffering. What is self-evident is that suffering happens, that human beings have evolved, and that human beings wish to avoid suffering. |
If human beings evolve through suffering (that is, suffering leads to the survival of the fittest), why would we evolve the wish to avoid it? Wouldn't those who most avoided suffering be the least subject to the principle of survival of the fittest? Wouldn't that be a self-defeating method for the propagation of the species? The weak genes found among those who avoid suffering are less apt to be weeded out? |
I seriously think your ability to read is currently impaired. |
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01/21/2010 05:36:28 PM · #4168 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by Louis:
I'm also not concerned that you are befuddled by one who accepts evolution as well as suffering. What is self-evident is that suffering happens, that human beings have evolved, and that human beings wish to avoid suffering. |
If human beings evolve through suffering (that is, suffering leads to the survival of the fittest), why would we evolve the wish to avoid it? Wouldn't those who most avoided suffering be the least subject to the principle of survival of the fittest? Wouldn't that be a self-defeating method for the propagation of the species? The weak genes found among those who avoid suffering are less apt to be weeded out? |
I seriously think your ability to read is currently impaired. |
Well, then explain it to me. Don't just stand there with your bare face hanging out....
What am I misunderstanding about your statement?
1) Suffering happens
2) Humans evolve
2a) (from another post) evolution is suffering
3) Humans wish to avoid suffering
Therefore...humans wish to avoid evolution.
But that makes no sense evolutionarily. |
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01/21/2010 05:59:12 PM · #4169 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
If human beings evolve through suffering (that is, suffering leads to the survival of the fittest), why would we evolve the wish to avoid it? |
Because the ones who avoid suffering tend to be the ones who survive. |
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01/21/2010 06:13:32 PM · #4170 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
If human beings evolve through suffering (that is, suffering leads to the survival of the fittest), why would we evolve the wish to avoid it? |
Because the ones who avoid suffering tend to be the ones who survive. |
Only in a direct stimuli like burning a finger. What about all the "feats of strength" we see in nature? Do you think it isn't suffering for an arctic tern to migrate 44,000 miles? It isn't suffering for big horn sheep to bang heads repeatedly? When male animals compete to the death for a female? For an emperor penguin to survive the antarctic winter? This suffering weeds out the weak and if the species evolves to avoid it the weeding process is interrupted and the species suffers as a whole. |
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01/21/2010 06:17:06 PM · #4171 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Freud: What do you get when you combine fear of death with wishful thinking? You get religion. What makes it ugly is that it is easily contorted into a resentment for this life, into a wish to usher in the next phase, a desire to ignore the problems of the present for the fantasy of tomorrow. |
Yay! My turn to call BS! Either you just contradicted yourself, or you contradicted Freud, in which case I'm not sure why you quoted him. Either way. How can I be afraid of death, but resent life at the same time?
Originally posted by Louis:
Johnny's hope for something "better" than this life is a fantasy. At worst, it's a lie. |
If life is full of suffering (which we both agree on), but yet we are still able to find beauty in it (which we also agree on), doesn't that mean there is something to hope in to get us through the day? My hope is God, which we have established. What is your hope Louis? I hope in God because I know that tomorrow he will be there, and when I die he will be there. If you hope in something material (like your wife), or in something abstract or subjective (like beauty and love), can you prove that those exist, or that they will exist tomorrow? You criticize me for putting hope in something that I can't prove. Well, I bet that you can't prove to me that your wife is going to love you tomorrow, or that the earth will be beautiful tomorrow, can you? I would argue that your hope for something "better" is a fantasy as well. Or, perhaps you've accepted that life is already as good as it gets, but then what hope do you have?
Originally posted by Louis:
Anyway, I was specifically insulted by his insistence that humanity is nothing but an "abomination" (however he may wish to twist his own words). If his sense of morality gets demolished in the process of tearing down that world view, it's he who has to deal with it. |
Humanity is not an abomination, for the seventh time now... Human actions can be abominations depending on the motive behind the action. |
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01/21/2010 06:18:53 PM · #4172 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
If human beings evolve through suffering (that is, suffering leads to the survival of the fittest), why would we evolve the wish to avoid it? |
Because the ones who avoid suffering tend to be the ones who survive. |
Only in a direct stimuli like burning a finger. What about all the "feats of strength" we see in nature? Do you think it isn't suffering for an arctic tern to migrate 44,000 miles? It isn't suffering for big horn sheep to bang heads repeatedly? When male animals compete to the death for a female? For an emperor penguin to survive the antarctic winter? This suffering weeds out the weak and if the species evolves to avoid it the weeding process is interrupted and the species suffers as a whole. |
You're still trying to apply a sense of 'religious morality' to nature. You aren't seeing the "It is what it is" in the sense that say, Louis, or anyone else that has completely distanced themselves from needing a god figure to explain life and the universe, sees it. Perhaps you are completely incapable of seeing it, much like I, for instance, am completely incapable of seeing a need for a god figure.
Much as has been stated innumerable times, there's a chasm here which is immense. We both look at the same terms and phrases, but we both see completely separate or different meanings. |
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01/21/2010 06:26:14 PM · #4173 |
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
If human beings evolve through suffering (that is, suffering leads to the survival of the fittest), why would we evolve the wish to avoid it? |
Because the ones who avoid suffering tend to be the ones who survive. |
Only in a direct stimuli like burning a finger. What about all the "feats of strength" we see in nature? Do you think it isn't suffering for an arctic tern to migrate 44,000 miles? It isn't suffering for big horn sheep to bang heads repeatedly? When male animals compete to the death for a female? For an emperor penguin to survive the antarctic winter? This suffering weeds out the weak and if the species evolves to avoid it the weeding process is interrupted and the species suffers as a whole. |
You're still trying to apply a sense of 'religious morality' to nature. You aren't seeing the "It is what it is" in the sense that say, Louis, or anyone else that has completely distanced themselves from needing a god figure to explain life and the universe, sees it. Perhaps you are completely incapable of seeing it, much like I, for instance, am completely incapable of seeing a need for a god figure.
Much as has been stated innumerable times, there's a chasm here which is immense. We both look at the same terms and phrases, but we both see completely separate or different meanings. |
Whoa. Hold on. I'm only speaking in Louis' context. He was the one that said both "suffering is abhorrent" and "suffering happens", that suffering is "immoral" (or at least actions which cause suffering are immoral) and that evolution works though a process which is suffering. I'm not putting any God talk into this discussion at the moment.
Message edited by author 2010-01-21 18:27:23. |
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01/21/2010 06:36:20 PM · #4174 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
If human beings evolve through suffering (that is, suffering leads to the survival of the fittest), why would we evolve the wish to avoid it? |
Because the ones who avoid suffering tend to be the ones who survive. |
Only in a direct stimuli like burning a finger. What about all the "feats of strength" we see in nature? Do you think it isn't suffering for an arctic tern to migrate 44,000 miles? It isn't suffering for big horn sheep to bang heads repeatedly? When male animals compete to the death for a female? For an emperor penguin to survive the antarctic winter? This suffering weeds out the weak and if the species evolves to avoid it the weeding process is interrupted and the species suffers as a whole. |
You're still trying to apply a sense of 'religious morality' to nature. You aren't seeing the "It is what it is" in the sense that say, Louis, or anyone else that has completely distanced themselves from needing a god figure to explain life and the universe, sees it. Perhaps you are completely incapable of seeing it, much like I, for instance, am completely incapable of seeing a need for a god figure.
Much as has been stated innumerable times, there's a chasm here which is immense. We both look at the same terms and phrases, but we both see completely separate or different meanings. |
Whoa. Hold on. I'm only speaking in Louis' context. He was the one that said both "suffering is abhorrent" and "suffering happens", that suffering is "immoral" (or at least actions which cause suffering are immoral) and that evolution works though a process which is suffering. I'm not putting any God talk into this discussion at the moment. |
But you are, without apparently even realizing it, because you're ascribing YOUR inherent belief of what 'morality' is to what Louis is saying, automatically, and thence the confusion. You haven't been able to truly understand Louis, because your definitions of 'immoral' are so fabulously far apart. |
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01/21/2010 06:38:47 PM · #4175 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
... and that evolution works though a process which is suffering. |
I never said that. |
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