Who do you still admire?
I've spent some time looking into various people who have been influential, or who I have just become interested in...
But, eventually, I find out something about them that makes me lose interest...
w/ Ghandi and Tolstoy, it was their views towards sex. And the way that Tolstoy treated his wife.
If I find out the person was married and unfaithful, that changes things for me as well.
Anyway, I've started making a list of people who I still admire, because I didn't find anything that gave me pause.
So far, the people who make that list are:
Gabriel Marcel
C.S. Lewis
(edited to add) G.K. Chesterton
What about you? If you like a writer/philosopher/historical figure, are there things about their personal life that would turn you off?
But, eventually, I find out something about them that makes me lose interest...
w/ Ghandi and Tolstoy, it was their views towards sex. And the way that Tolstoy treated his wife.
If I find out the person was married and unfaithful, that changes things for me as well.
Anyway, I've started making a list of people who I still admire, because I didn't find anything that gave me pause.
So far, the people who make that list are:
Gabriel Marcel
C.S. Lewis
(edited to add) G.K. Chesterton
What about you? If you like a writer/philosopher/historical figure, are there things about their personal life that would turn you off?
Comments (246)
>: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?
Quoting 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.
Quoting anonymous66
If it wouldn't be too much to ask, could you PM me that list, I'd also be interested! :P
Quoting anonymous66
What about people like:
Quoting anonymous66
Absolutely! Any kind of significant immorality (killing innocent people, cruelty, vindictiveness, adultery and fornication, etc.) would turn me off.
Does a wise idea lose it's credibility if the speaker can't uphold the idea? Think of Solomon.
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?
So you're saying you don't expect to succeed if you try to practice honesty?
Oh yeah, and he cheated on his wives too!
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).
What were those specific tools then?
Practicing choiceless awareness, trying to rely solely on oneself and not on traditions, etc.
I nixed Russell after I read about how he coldly dumped his first wife.
Interesting. I get the idea of not following a specific idea because the tools aren't useful for arriving there. But in a general sense, I'm wary of the idea that a thinker isn't worth investigating because they had a specific moral flaw. It sounds like a very legalistic way to go about investigating ideas in general. Getting into the specifics of when someone messed up in relation to specific ideas just sounds pedantic and gossipy. Ideas should stand on their own merit, and whether they're applicable to life should avail itself of your own experience of testing them, not to mention your own wisdom.
Fair enough, but you did say in the OP that you've "lost interest" in some of them, presumably because of their failings.
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.
Well, if someone lived long ago, I wonder if the stories about them aren't idealized. I do like the stories. And I like the way that Epictetus is portrayed (although he may have done some Epicurean bashing). It's hard to find fault w/ Socrates. Epicurus looks pretty good.
Kierkegaard? He lived an odd life, stressful life, and probably died young because of the stress he caused himself. He was very confrontational and a little rude, IMHO.
I know you didn't ask me this, but no.
I'll have to look into that.
I'm not even sure that I would even label the behavior... It's more like that I'm looking for someone whose life I wouldn't mind modeling my life after... and when I find out certain things about certain possible role models, I think, "I couldn't do that."
(edited to add) And I do keep reading... and thinking about the ideas they promoted, no matter what I think about their personal lives.
Is there enough time though to test all ideas? There should be a screening method you know :P
What did you find problematic with their views towards sex? (I'm just asking cause I never looked into their views on sex before)
You'll have to check it out.
Tolstoy was convinced sex was bad (and associated w/ sin). but, he kept having kids, and blamed his wife for seducing him. (I can't find the specifics right now. I've read a couple of biographies).
Ghandi would sleep (but not engage in sex) 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
(edited to add) Ghandi also preached celibacy within marriage.
I like some Stoic ideas about changing what you can and accepting the rest, but their theories of what it is possible to change were seriously flawed and turned them into obsequious supporters of traditional power.
I don't like Pascal's unabashed support for inauthentic ways of life. "Do it and you'll come to believe it" is not even good Christian doctrine and can be used to support any number of criminal enterprises.
Kierkegaard... Look, I have nothing against bachelorhood, but having a lady love, believing in marriage and never proposing to her? I want to believe there was something more to his choice than cowardice, but I have not yet been able to figure it out to my satisfaction.
I love Kant. If I force myself to come up with a criticism, I can't deny the dude lived his life like a wind up toy. His withdrawal from the specifics of everyday life allowed him to discover an abstraction whose beauty and wonder hasn't aged to this day. Kant is my favorite reasonable ascetic.
A lot of you guys seem to like Christian thinkers. One name I haven't seen mentioned so far is Rudolf Eucken. He wasn't perfect, but I like him. His philosophy was called "activism", so you can already imagine what his life was like.
Okay, I see. Thanks for sharing that link!
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.
Quoting absoluteaspiration
>:O So what? There's not much to get out of life anyway.
Quoting absoluteaspiration
I'm not a Catholic ;)
I never suggested that.
Fair enough.
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 united in holy matrimony, right?
But I have never been a Christian, so any of that is liable to be a misunderstanding.
Quoting Agustino
On the contrary, this life is all there is to get anything out of at all. There is nothing else.
Quoting Agustino
Sorry, please excuse my brain's automatic pattern matching.
Depends on one's calling. Life long celibacy is as acceptable as marriage in Christianity - in fact it is even encouraged more than marriage.
Quoting absoluteaspiration
Even if that is so, there's nothing much to get out of this only life.
So you reject Luther's interpretation of the "command to marry". I'm not saying he required everyone to marry, but Protestants usually consider marriage to be a component of a perfect Christian life. 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. Assuming you're in Western Christianity at all, you must be a Nondenominationalist or in a denomination that is relaxed about personal interpretations.
Quoting Agustino
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.
Like with Nietzsche and Dostoevsky right?
That you can not see that your judgements are cruel beyond Words is fascinating.
"Any kind of significant immorality (killing innocent people, cruelty, vindictiveness, adultery and fornication, etc.) "
What about the worst of all immorality? That of being a self-righteous and moral monster? "Killing innocent people"... Do they exist in your universe? "Cruelty and vindictiveness"... Please, please! I believe you should follow Buddha's advice and research your own cruelty and vindictiveness
"Oh yeah, and he cheated on his wives too!"
Oh so you finally realized/discovered that did you?
Correction:
K. knew that if he had married he would have to abandon his devotion to philosophy
Aha! I Think I am staritng to understand the underlying impulses that causes you to be a moral freak...Anyway, to your defence, not many "christians" would disagree. But if you feel this way about this life; dont expect joy in your heaven! Really, if you havent acquired the ability to see that this life actually does have something worthy, those you send to hell Will probably find more joy there than you ever will in heaven. They probably at least have imagination.
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. Or that is still dishonest. Rather, the truth seems to be that your life can not be endured if its foundation lacks a moral purpose in a metaphysical sense! Therefore there must be a God who punishes the immoral, right? There MUST be vengeance! Otherwise, life failed! The truth is that you who are accustomed to the moral ideas you hold so dearly do not desire a life without them, because as you say, this life gives you not much! Perhaps slicing the head of burglars is the greatest joy it can offer? Though the question here is: Would you slice the head of your wife if she attacked another man, unprovocked and greedy because she wants his money? That your metaphysical morality is necessary to you and for your preservation I can understand, I dont know what you have been through... But why become a tyrant because of it? Why strive to kill your passions and sins so much that you become the greatest hater against sin, passions and sinners possible? Dont you fear that you then are still controlled by passions etc? What happened to the love preached by Buddha or your savior?
I don't agree with much else in Buddhism. I particularly dislike his parable of the arrow. When you are shot by a poisoned arrow, you should do that which you truly desire. If that desire is to understand the characteristics of the arrow more than saving your own life, then that is exactly what you ought to do. How else did the Buddha reach awakening? Not by loving his own little life, that's for sure.
Of course, in the Buddhist context, "life" is to be understood as freedom from suffering, abandoning desire is the cure, and so on, but I think those are all the wrong generalizations from how the Buddha actually found freedom from suffering in his own life: By giving in to the desire to understand more than holding on to little scruples like prolonging his life.
I have come to a sort of partial resolution by accepting that, just as (IMHO) there are no Bad people, only Bad (or, more accurately, Harmful) acts, so there are no Good people, only Good (or, more accurately, Helpful*) acts.
So I can admire Russell's courageous stance against the Great War, while regretting the way he conducted some of his sexual relationships. Ditto for Martin Luther King. I can even admire Margaret Thatcher's toughness and courage, despite abhorring most of her policies.
This approach is much less vulnerable to disappointment, as it starts by recognising that we are all fallible, and even those whose acts we live in awe of (eg Wilberforce's campaign against the slave trade) will almost certainly have done some things in their life that were mean (Wilberforce was also a punitive, prudish 'morals' campaigner).
Or look at it like this: in a life of seventy years a person will perform hundreds of thousands of acts that involve other people. Imagine we could put a 'kindness' score on every one of those acts. Then those scores will form a distribution. It may look like a bell curve, or it may have a positive or negative skew, or even be more unusual (eg multi-modal). But there will be a Worst act one has ever done - the one at the extreme far left of the distribution.
What are the chances that that worst act will be no worse than neutral? I'd say virtually nil.
We can apply that the other way around too and ask what would be the kindest thing that Stalin, Hitler or Pol Pot ever did. I'd expect the chances that it would be no better than neutral are again virtually nil.
In short: for me the answer is to seek to emulate not people, but their admirable acts.
The second thing I wanted to mention is that there is a distinction between the policies one promotes and one's private behaviour. The objections to Gandhi, King and Russell are about their private behaviour, while the policies they promoted are widely admired. Other good examples of the policy-good, personally-bad phenomenon are Charles Dickens and Henry Lawson. Maybe JFK too, depending on one's perspective.
I expect there isn't a negative correlation between the kindness of one's policies and that of one's personal behaviour, but sometimes it seems as though there is.
The list of Goodies you came up with was an example of this apparent (and probably illusory) negative correlation. 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. But everything I've read suggests that they were both lovely, kind individuals on a personal level. The play Shadowlands paints a very moving picture of Lewis, and Chesterton managed to be great friends with his political foe George Bernard Shaw - despite Shaw being a notoriously prickly person.
* The Buddhist adjectives for these two H words are Skilful and Unskilful, which I find to be a valuable perspective.
Exactly what I was trying to get at.
As for Bertrand Russell, his philosophy has very little to do with personal morality, so charges of sexual misconduct are irrelevant when evaluating his ideas, but I really don't believe that adultery is always wrong. I'm not just saying that.
Philosophers, Presidents, and Priests are all prone to inconsistencies, like all other humans. We might be great for one thing (very beautiful theories, excellent treaties, and superb transubstantiations) but on the other hand maybe we like to screw around. We say one thing and do something else. Only Agustino, of all men on earth, is free of this contradiction -- and we can not be sure about him (there's no corroborating evidence).
No one is altogether admirable. Maybe the Son of God not only loved that one disciple a lot (John--much to the annoyance of the other disciples who were peevish and jealous), and would you be happier with Jesus depending on whether he was a top or a total bottom?). If he was or if he wasn't, it wouldn't invalidate anything he said, and it wouldn't invalidate his sacrifice.
Mature minds understand that their heroes will have feet of clay and will be disappointing (or downright repellent) in some way, sooner or later. So shall I, and so shall you.
"It is therefore just as little necessary for the saint to be a philosopher as for the philosopher to be a saint; just as it is not necessary for a perfectly beautiful person to be a great sculptor, or for a great sculptor to be himself a beautiful person. In general, it is a strange demand on a moralist that he should commend no other virtue than that which he himself possesses."
Tolstoy is perhaps one of my favourite authors, i find it a great shame that one should overlook his great wisom (In my opinion one of the wisest men in histoy) because he treated his wife poorly. We are all hypocrites in some way, i am, you are. no one is perfect, so we should not dismiss great ideas because of the mistakes people have made. If you are looking for someone who has allways maintain their morality the only person i can point you too is christ. That is if you believe the Christians when they say he never sinned (i dont).
In some cases. Heidegger is the philosopher I've studied most and I love his thought and writings. But he was a member of the Nazi party and expressed significant anti-semitic feelings. This bothers me tremendously, although it does not undermine my admiration for the philosopher, just the man behind it.
I guess the figure that comes closest for me, and I have no real idea what, if anything, I know about him is true, is Siddhartha Guatama, the Buddha. Even if all the supposed facts about him are false, though, the received story about him is pretty tremendous and he is the regulative ideal towards which i try to aspire in minor ways.
I am pretty liberal when it comes to sexual morality though. Someone cheating on their spouse is probably not going to sway my opinion too much. Being abusive towards your wife in a physical, emotional, or sexual way, however, would be a pretty huge sin for me.
Quoting 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.
Quoting 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.
Quoting 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!".
I don't agree with this at all. There are a lot of people who are nice to people they know, but don't advocate love for people they don't. It is important to do both, since both have a measurable effect, but the latter has a much stronger effect. In the past, I would have said that your immediate relations have a stronger effect on the world, but I have come to disagree with my past self. I don't agree that Bertrand Russell had a net negative effect on the welfare of mankind even if I thought he was particularly horrible to those around him, which I don't to begin with. There are people who pretend to be loving to those around them, but with their insincerity, destroy them emotionally. Bertrand Russell was not one of those people.
(And that last class of behaviors is made worse by those who preach selfless love. Honesty is better than going through the motions of selflessness. (Of course, some people might be such good actors that they fool everyone forever. That wouldn't be particularly harmful. Here I'm thinking of the studies which show that children of divorced parents do better than the children of parents who fight all the time, for example.) Those who can achieve true selflessness are of course saints, but I don't believe in the existence of training regimens that can turn ordinary people into saints.)
The enduring problem with your view here is the discrepancy between what is known about the personal lives of thinkers, and their beliefs. Sure, with modern thinkers it's easier to read literature about their lives and then scrutinize, but what do we really know about the ancient Greek thinkers you mentioned earlier?
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. Their contribution to society is their thought, not their actions; you're conflating thinkers with priests here because of your religiosity. A thinker, strictly, has taken no oath, no rite of religious passage; a thinker merely thinks. Often, good thinkers think of good ideas.
Quoting Agustino
Yes, could you love Ghandi, Nietzsche, Russell, et al? (Oh wait, of course the answer is yes...you're the underdog and all that...?)
Especislly if it turns out that there is no eternal hell right? Your problem is perhaps not that you lack fantasy, but that you lack understanding and subtlety. Also, in opposition to what especially the Chruch have thought at least in the past but apparently still; it has always been the conscientious and NOT the conscienceless who have had to suffer so incredibly much from the oppression of Hellfire preachers and the fears of Hell, especially when they were at the same time people of imagination. As a consequence, life has been made most miserable precisely for those who had need of joy and cheerfulness etc. Not only cheerfulness for their own recovery from themselves, but so that mankind might take pleasure in them and take joy in their gifts of imagination etc. In other words, the Church has caused more lost souls than saved ones, to use christian language. They have more often been an arc of damnation and destruction than the opposite, destroying sensitive people's lives. And those people who desired by means of these evil condemnations to gain the highest enjoyment of their oppresion because they hate what they call "the immoral" are perhaps the most wicked people to have ever lived. May I ask you, who do you consider to be the greatest sinner in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina?
Sure.
Quoting 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.
Quoting 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.
Quoting absoluteaspiration
I'm not in Western Christianity.
Quoting 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.
Quoting Beebert
No, I've actually read both quite extensively. I've read Nietzsche quite early in my life before I was a Christian.
Quoting Beebert
It's funny how ironical this statement is.
Quoting 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.
Quoting Beebert
Jesus Christ has always spoken of heaven as a place of bliss - in fact heaven just is the absence of suffering.
Quoting Beebert
I don't think it does have something worthy. When you don't have, you're frustrated, when you have, you're bored.
Quoting 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.
Quoting Beebert
I don't think that's true either.
Quoting Beebert
Not that there must be, but I would want that immorality be punished and justice be done.
Quoting 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.
Quoting 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.
Quoting Beebert
Because sin makes life bad. If there was no sin, life would be good.
Quoting 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).
I've never read it.
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.
I agree with the last bit, but not with the 'Anyone can do that'. Both are difficult, and both are important.
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.
They are not closeby :P
I can agree with this, although now it's not only what they wrote (and advocated), but again, how they behaved that matters.
We do have biographical material about some of them though. Not as extensive as we do about more recent figures, but we still do.
Quoting Noble Dust
Can a thinker's behaviour be divorced from his thought? Then he's a dishonest thinker in my eyes.
I understand your idealism (colloquial idealism). I wanted it once too. The reality is that the thinker never lives up to their ideas. It's helpful to accept that.
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).
Quoting 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.
It's not about accepting that a wrong thing is a right thing; it's about acknowledging the imperfect humanity of all; The imperfection of Aquinas, Kierkegaard and Socrates in their kind. It's the understanding of the common, imperfect nature of all. That's the thing I'm actually trying to get at here. Your view is inherently legalistic, and it's strangling. The greatest moralist you could think of is still morally imperfect; the worst offender still has redeeming qualities. Ironically, this is the crux of the Gospel.
Oh, don't pander to who you think I like. I don't give a rat's ass about Berdy's morality. His ideas changed my life. That's all I need.
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.
I dont think Aquinas Kierkegaard or Socrates would want to be considered "righteous"
What is righteous anyway? And whos righteousness. 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.
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.
I am not familiar with the horse forgive me of my ignorance.
It feels condescending of us however to judge the actions of people who have liveid in the past, but i shall leave it at that.
However i would be interested in hearing a response to my other question which i shall repeat.
What is righteousness? Since it is by "righteousness" that we are condeming peoples ideas.
I'll have to check him out... Thanks!
I dont know where you have gotten this idea from. Especially regarding Kierkegaard. You should read his biography by Peter Thielst for example, who was Regine Olsen's relative. You value human beings and demand things thereafter in a way that Christ did NOT. Period.
I spent some time researching K. He had nothing against marriage, he just thought he had a calling, and knew that he couldn't pursue his calling while he was married.
You must really dislike and have no respect for Scopenhauer then?
Finally someone here who understands something
You dont know their hearts. And if you value christian ethics, then Nietzsche's last act before insanity should be approved as great by you. And I agree if you think so. Him protecting that horse is deeply moving. You dont know what happened with him there.
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.
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.
Quoting Beebert
In certain regards, sure. However I have found his ideas to be significantly better than most other philosophers.
Or that you understand not even 0.1 percent of how complex human beings are
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.
But you should be consequent here. He was far from living out his ideas. Far from it. So, according to your earlier statements, he should be taken with a grain of salt
No he wasn't that far actually. He lived quite an ascetic life considering the fact he was born as one of the richest people of his day.
In the afterlife for sure, but why would that be so in this life? It's such a crock of nonsense.
You seem to be one of that multitude.
Or of mentally oppressing and tormenting people so that they become insane of all superstitions and lose hope and the ability to love. So the opposite effect of what christianity should actually intend to preach. As I said;
Your problem is perhaps not that you lack fantasy, but that you lack understanding and subtlety. Also, in opposition to what especially the Chruch have thought at least in the past but apparently still; it has always been the conscientious and NOT the conscienceless who have had to suffer so incredibly much from the oppression of Hellfire preachers and the fears of Hell, especially when they were at the same time people of imagination. As a consequence, life has been made most miserable precisely for those who had need of joy and cheerfulness etc. Not only cheerfulness for their own recovery from themselves, but so that mankind might take pleasure in them and take joy in their gifts of imagination etc. In other words, the Church has caused more lost souls than saved ones, to use christian language. They have more often been an arc of damnation and destruction than the opposite, destroying sensitive people's lives. And those people who desired by means of these evil condemnations to gain the highest enjoyment of their oppresion because they hate what they call "the immoral" are among those that have caused the most harm to people in history.
Those people mentally torment themselves. Why do they do it?! As Spinoza said:
In this life too, stupid. It is the soul that suffers the most when someone has been raped. By the way, there is no soul seperate from the body I believe, but that is not the point now. You are almost a hopeless case when it comes to understanding.
Supporting the Nazi party seems really odd. What would the world be like if we were all Nazi sympathizers?
Like when he made a Woman fall down from the stairs and then rejoiced when she died years later? Or when he committed fornication?
I was actually referring the fact that the worst imaginable suffering of the soul only occurs (potentially) in the afterlife, not in this life. And again, you are a case in point. You hypocritically preach all encompassing love, and yet you hate people like me (by for example calling me stupid), who you're actually speaking with. As I said, it's easy to love mankind from a distance. It's unbelievable that you can't even look at yourself.
No, those are despicable moments from his life, which is exactly why I said that in those regards I don't admire him. However - considering who he was, he lived in a very restrained manner (excluding those incidents). He was one of the richest men of his time - you are aware that he could've had sex with a different woman every single night for example, and yet he didn't.
I see. So then what's your problem with eternal hell?
I do Believe you are stupid, but I neither hate nor love you. I despise some of your "opinions" though
Your problem is perhaps not that you lack fantasy, but that you lack understanding and subtlety. Also, in opposition to what especially the Chruch have thought at least in the past but apparently still; it has always been the conscientious and NOT the conscienceless who have had to suffer so incredibly much from the oppression of Hellfire preachers and the fears of Hell, especially when they were at the same time people of imagination. As a consequence, life has been made most miserable precisely for those who had need of joy and cheerfulness etc. Not only cheerfulness for their own recovery from themselves, but so that mankind might take pleasure in them and take joy in their gifts of imagination etc. In other words, the Church has caused more lost souls than saved ones, to use christian language. They have more often been an arc of damnation and destruction than the opposite, destroying sensitive people's lives. And those people who desired by means of these evil condemnations to gain the highest enjoyment of their oppresion because they hate what they call "the immoral" are among those that have caused the most harm to people in history.
Also, you seem to preach love, yet you have stated that you have the right to HATE Nietzsche. Despicable...
Do you literally pretend that I AM Ivan Karamazov?
The fact that it has destroyed the lives of many is stupid beyond measure. How does it destroy your life?! Do you, like a beast of the fields, think that if you are destined 100% to go to hell, than you might as well go around committing all the immoralities possible, and living a base life? Do you, if you are 100% destined to hell, refuse to enjoy the remaining time until that lake of fire?! That opinion is ABSURD.
People who have a problem with the belief in eternal hell don't actually have a problem with the belief itself, they have a problem with anxiety, which is different. They - not the belief in hell - are causing their own suffering.
Second: What do you then Think is the cause that makes People be sexually immoral?(something I by the way have never said I think is a good thing) Always just lust? Okay, that it is One component. But not the whole picture. Take a prostitute; perhaps her belief in love has betrayed her, Perhaps she was sexually abused by her father as a Child. Then comes a hell fire-preacher and condemns her. Is that your Christianity? Because that IS the impression you give me. Wasnt it Christ who ate with prostitutes because he loved them and wanted to cure them? And here is our difference : You seem to want Christ to Cure them for the SAKE of morality, because their behavior is "unjust", while I would want them cured so that they will not destroy themselves, so that they can finally trust that there are good things in life too, like love etc. You seem to consider morality almost to be an end in itself. You are a legalist. But I say : Fornication is bad NOT because you break a rule, but because you injure your soul and potentially therefore other souls too. But if they did, I would not condemn THEM. I would rather condemn those who condemn them. Like you seem to do.
Wait. So is she a prostitute, or is she someone who has been sexually abused by her father? The latter wouldn't be her sin. The fact she is a prostitute is sinful if it's something she chooses (if she could do something else, but refuses). However, she shouldn't be condemned if she repents and feels sorry for what she has done in her heart.
Quoting Beebert
I agree with both those versions - they are in fact one and the same.
Quoting Beebert
Absolutely, I agree with that. I agree that virtue is its own reward, and vice is its own punishment.
Quoting Beebert
I would condemn them if they don't repent. If, and when they do repent, then I will join you in condemning those who condemn them.
The fact that someone has been sexually abused as a child often leads to prostitution later in life? Understand?
May I ask you; what is the purpose of "morality" according to you?
Sometimes, but not always. There are prostitutes, especially those who activate as escorts in the more expensive price ranges, who do it for pleasure and money (they can earn a lot in an easy way in that manner). I'm not talking about the side of the road type of prostitutes, most of whom are forced to do the work that they do, quite often under the threat of death or worse. They are indeed to be pitied and helped, not condemned.
Yes, yes I did.
Quoting Beebert
Eudaimonia.
Perhaps I didnt formulate myself good enough, but I meant that it seems to me that you just hate immorality and immoral People because you hate it, rather than feeling sorrow about Everything that make people seperate themselves from each other and everything that prevents people from loving each other and meeting each other for real
Hate is too strong. I dislike people who are immoral and don't even feel sorry for being immoral. I tend not to associate myself with such people. I have no problem with people who have been immoral and repent.
Much worse in a moral sense.
Eudaimonia doesn't translate as happiness. It translates best as flourishing. I'm not a utilitarian because I don't believe you do good for the reward, but rather you do good for itself - doing good is its own reward. Nor do I believe in the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers (another false utilitarian principle). As for being a hedonist, no - since a hedonist takes pleasure to be the highest good, and I don't. Flourishing may involve some element of pain too.
So suppose your friend robs an old lady in the street, and he comes and tells you. What do you do? Do you congratulate him for what he's done? What if he tells you: "well she deserved it, what does she need money for?! She's old, a step away from the grave, while I'm young, it's right that I get the dough". What will you say? Will you be like - "oh how nice of you, come here, I love you very much!"
Or what if this friend of yours comes to you and says "Oh I just fucked this girl from the bar, it felt so great! That's what we should always be doing, that's what makes life great! I love fucking many girls, there's nothing wrong with it as many people think!" What will you say? Congratulate him?
It does indeed. And that is good.
No, I think the problem was precisely that they did NOT actually follow the law, but quite the contrary. They pretended to follow the law only. When they brought the woman to be stoned, why did they not also bring the man? Jewish law demands that both are stoned, and they can only be stoned if caught in the act. So were they not hypocrites who did not respect the law?! That's exactly why Jesus told them that he who is without sin to cast the first stone.
Quoting Beebert
What if he refuses, and says that it's right for him to keep the money?
Only in cases like a few of those people from the Orthodox forum who cry about not being able to "enjoy" having sex with supermodels in this life, while their friends do exactly that, and they feel terribly envious about it, and think they deserve some great reward in heaven after they cast off moral restraint - probably some nice girls - while their friends sit in hell watching them from a distance >:)
Nazi? >:)
"What if he refuses, and says that it's right for him to keep the money?"
I would argue with him. Perhaps even calling the police if he keeps on. I would first ask him why he considers it a right thing, etc.
Nobody has ever asked me that. I would probably avoid the question and say that I'm a Christian.
So what if he tells you that he considers it a right thing because the young should have the money, since they need it, they have their whole lives ahead, while the old are almost dead, they have no more need of it?
I'm not sure. That's what you read into the Bible due to your modern sensibilities. What Jesus actually meant was relating to the Old Testament Law. If you remember, in all other parables and encounters with the Pharisees, they Pharisees try to trick Jesus in order to show that he doesn't know the Law, while it is actually them who don't know the Law.
Because a man cannot know if he will be in Heaven? :s And because by "are you saved?" they really mean to ask if I'm a Christian?
That is part of it. But what was the meaning of the law is something you must take in to consideration here. Love towards God and neighbour right?
Sure.
I see. Agree. (If there even is a heaven)Though when I read St Paul, I find a man who seems so certain one can possibly be that he Will go to heaven and that he is saved etc.
Well we don't even know if she was an adulterer. It may be possible that she wasn't and the Pharisees just lied about it. But if she was, then no. But they should condemn her and the man caught in adultery, unless they repent.
I honestly cant come up with any western philosopher in history who is as moral, righteous and honest as her.
I agree, but as criteria used to determine whether one is a Christian or not, these questions appear rather late in the history of Christianity, being largely an invention of Lutheran Pietists in the 17th century. If you asked your average Joe peasant in the Middle Ages what makes him or anyone a Christian in the most basic sense, he would respond by saying that it depends on assent to the major creeds and dogmatic pronouncements of the Church Councils along with participation in the sacraments. Protestants raised the Bible above that of Church Tradition and either modified beyond recognition or outright rejected most of the sacraments of the Church. In their place and by necessity, they began stressing "having a personal relationship with Jesus," "knowing that you're saved," and other such phrases to determine Christian identity.
I've read many of Chesterton's and Lewis' books. I don't see those same attitudes in Lewis and Chesterton, at all. I like their view of Christianity. I like the God they talk about. He's kind, and just, and even has a sense of humor.
After growing up in the church I did, I found their views of God and Christianity to be refreshingly gentle.
I don't think I share Chesterton's views on birth control and homosexuality. or Lewis' views on homosexuality.
"I like the God they talk about. He's kind, and just, and even has a sense of humor."
Well if God had no sense of humor things would be quite sad
Quoting Beebert
A very pithy summation. It also strikes me as constituting the fundamental difference between Christianity and Indian religions, the former seeking salvation of the world and the latter seeking salvation from the world (escape from samsara).
I find a Christianity of Universal Salvation to be appealing. What could anyone have against a God and/or religion whose plan included Universal Salvation ?
What would you say were Socrates' issues?
Wrong. Kierkegaard admired Socrates and sought to imitate him. He thought of himself, much like Socrates, a gadfly.
Quoting Beebert
Correct, although Nietzsche likes to strawman :P
*grabs gravity and grace from behind* ok.
Quoting Beebert
I'm not sure about that, why do you say so?
Really? We have the same texts. I've read quite a few of Plato's dialogues. Socrates is portrayed as a perfect man, IMHO. I don't particularly like his portrayal of the perfect society as described in The Republic, but there is always the question... Are we seeing the "real" Socrates, or just a character that Plato is using to promote his (Plato's) own views?
I agree about Socrates seeming perfect; but I recommend once again (despite possible criticism from Agustino) to look up Kierkegaard's view on some possible "defects" or "weakness" that Socrates had if one observes him in the text. A weakness that Socrates quite probably was aware of; that he was sinfull like all of us and couldnt reach the complete truth without divine help etc. Kierkegaard suggests that this is one of the reasons for Socrates irony; perhaps, even probably, he was despairing according to Kierkegaard
The famous Aristophanes is another briliant man who was famous for also being critical towards Socrates
But you havent read her. But the reason is that I simply can't come up with one. She was brilliantly honest and true to her philosophy etc. More than any other philosopher I know of. She lived what she wrote.
It's true that it's been quite a long time since I last read Sickness unto Death, but I certainly don't remember the claim that Socrates despaired over sin. I remember he discusses the Greek view that sin is ignorance, and contrasts it with the Christian one in the second part of the book, which I've actually found really really interesting. And I remember that he somehow reconciles the two by the end?
Quoting Beebert
That's false, this Christian right here is of the belief that God has revealed Himself through the other religions as well, however, only Christianity achieves the highest Truth, because only Christianity has Jesus Christ. So the other religions aren't "false" they just don't have the fullness of the Truth.
The quote and your commentary don't quite match. The former is talking about universalism in the sense that the truths the Upanishads attempts to covey are available to all people to discover, regardless of national origin. Ironically, though, the religion which these texts form the basis of, Hinduism, has remained largely the ethnic and tribal religion of the sub-continental Indians, paying virtually no attention to proselytization, whereas Christianity has embraced innumerable different peoples and cultures across the globe. Moreover, the Upanishads was a production of the Brahmanical caste and largely read and interpreted by that same caste down to the current day. The authors of the New Testament, while literate and fairly well read, were not in anything near the same status as the Brahmins or, in their context, Greek philosophers, and their audience was explicitly for all people, not just the intelligentsia.
Regarding Kierkegaard; Socrates wasn't sinless, do we agree? And, Kierkegaard makes the conclusion that Socrates was probably despairing.
I don't remember that, but it may be possible...
Quoting Beebert
??
I was using Augustino's examples as a counter argument there.
Paying no attention to proselytization is often a good thing. We know what many of those who have tried to proselytize have often done. Christianity embracing People from different Cultures hasn't only been about love and openess but about power, just as Russia probably would like to be the whole world.
?
More legalism; you've missed my point about imperfection.
Yes I know. And it shows.
>:O But of course, but it's a pragmatic issue. If you don't have power as a religion, you will be extinguished from the world. So religious leaders always struggle to balance the spiritual with the material.
“Even more disturbing as you [Dom] say, is the ghastly record of Christian persecution. It had begun in Our Lord?s time - ‘Ye know not what spirit ye are of’ (John of all people!) I think we must fully face the fact that when Christianity does not make a man very much better, it makes him very much worse…Conversion may make of one who was, if no better, no worse than an animal, something like a devil.”
No.
Quoting Beebert
It hasn't "only," yes. I wouldn't claim that Christian evangelization has had a spotless record. But it has achieved something that Hinduism has failed to achieve and is apparently more attractive to human beings generally, and not just Indians.
Quoting Beebert
A cleverly ambiguous reply!
If you ask Nietzsche, or Perhaps even Schopenhauer, the reason why christianity "is apparently more attractive to human beings generally" is because people are apparently more unintelligent than intelligent generally. That many believe in and appreciate/prefer christianity would not speak to its advantage if you ask them, or probably even if you ask Plato.
I know. That was my intention ;)
But if we really want to go down this road, then it's clearly the case that there have been just as many, if not more, and possibly more profound, Christian thinkers than Hindu thinkers. So, Christianity has produced, at minimum, the same number of geniuses as Hinduism, while also attracting more of the masses.
>:)
I don't think it's a question so much of intelligence. It's more of a question of temperament. Perhaps Christianity has repelled some of the most sensitive people because of the reasons you outline.
I must also say that I agree with both you and Thorongil that hinduism as a religion isnt more attractive than christianity. I am mainly talking about its spiritual texts : Baghavad Gita and The Upanishads.
One must also take into consideration, that if the religious texts of India (now I mean Baghavad Gita and The Upanishads) are possibly more stimulating and suiting for the "intelligent", then why have Christianity often in history (and today also many protestants, catholics and orthodox) preached eternal damnation for all those who follow another religion than theirs instead of accepting them? This shows that those "less intelligent" that christianity suits for have proclaimed something they dont know which potentially causes lots of harm.
Hmmm - the mystical writings is what I would recommend. Like these:
Cloud of Unknowing - By Unknown
Mystical Theology - Dionysus
Theologia Germanica - By Unknown
This would be where my comparison fails, yes. It's difficult to place "profundity" on a scale, and so we're now left with comparing subjective impressions. I will merely submit, speaking for myself, that the best of Christian theologico-philosophical writing is as profound, if not more so in some cases, than Hindu.
Quoting Agustino
I think this stands to reason, yes.
It is my understanding that Christianity teaches that the damned go to hell, not people who follow other religions. Some individual Christians may have believed the latter, but they are, as I say, individuals.
Moreover, one could turn the question around and ask: why would any intellectual assent to the possibility of hell as an afterlife destination were it not the case that they thought it followed from the truth of Christianity as a whole? The Church Councils could have declared hell to be a fiction and universalism to be true, and yet they didn't. Why? Were they trying to make it harder to attract people to the faith? One answer would be: no, they couldn't assert any other doctrine than the one they did, since that is the one the Holy Spirit guided them to accept and promulgate. Truth does not care about our preference or lack thereof for it. It remains what it is regardless.
Perhaps but this is not surprising. Christianity comes from a mixture of hellenic and jewish thought. These are thinking traditions, and Christianity has therefore, without surprise, had a tendency to philosophize rationally and been trying to define things. The Catholic Church also, had an immense power during the middle ages. They encountered many different cultures and Christianity has encountered and been influenced by many different cultures. But I still agree with Schopenhauer that nothing compares to The Upanishads but perhaps that is a matter lf taste. No matter how great Eckehart, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine or John of the Cross is, I stil treasure The Upanishads more.
Therefore I really wonder, when you say that the best of Christian theologico-philosophical writing is as profound, if not more so in some cases, than Hindu, do you then include Badhavad Gita and The Upanishads Into the Hindu writings here as something not as profound as the greatest Christian writings?
Cloud of Unknowing - By Unknown
Mystical Theology - Dionysus
Theologia Germanica - By Unknown"
Thank you!
That's fine. I won't begrudge you your preference. But by the same token, I would prefer that you not begrudge me mine. :)
Quoting Beebert
I would say "as" profound in those cases.
Quoting Beebert
I wish to thoroughly acquaint myself with the primary literature of the world's religions before committing to any one of them, if I commit at all. As Aristotle allegedly said, it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Hence, sometimes I may speak as though I am a Christian (or a Buddhist, or something else) when in fact I am not one. It's a way of testing claims without having to submit to them and so to engage in a kind of Socratic dialogue with myself.
That said, there are significant hurdles to overcome before I could become a Christian. These are some of the issues I have with Christianity:
- The Fall and the nature of God as revealed in Christ in light of evolution and the history and nature of life on the planet, which is and has been for hundreds of millions of years filled with disease, predation, suffering, natural calamities, and death.
- The doctrine of creation ex nihilo and why God would choose to create anything at all, given that he is apparently free in some sense to do so and already completely fulfilled by the love between the persons in the Trinity.
- Biblical inerrancy and why God appears to command genocide and other atrocities in the Old Testament.
- The permissibility of meat eating and, despite my changing views on the topic, procreation.
- Hell's reality and/or eternality.
- Whether epistemological idealism, to which I subscribe, is compatible with Christian doctrine and with the tradition I am most attracted to (Catholicism).
There are probably some other difficulties I have, but these are the main ones that I can think of. However, instead of simply ruling out the possibility of ever becoming a Christian due my prima facie disagreement with certain Christian doctrines, my goal is to explore, to the best of my knowledge and ability, the possible ways in which Christians have responded to these issues.
Interesting. You dont think procreation should be permitted?
Dedication to truth regardless of the social consequences, basically, and while I couldn't personally achieve that level of commitment I can at least admire it from afar.
I also respect the 'normal' person who fulfills his or her domestic and social responsibilities, and in a vast majority of cases without gaining anything of significance that the world values (money, fame, material goods, etc.). Unfortunately these types don't typically make it into the history books but I'd imagine most of us know at least a few of them in 'real' life.
Activists for their cause--one greater than themselves--are also admirable as long as they're consistent and don't compensate for their complete inability to act decently a personal level with a more abstract theoretical goodness. But if you're willing to forego comforts for a noble cause then that's clearly an admirable trait, even if you're an otherwise flawed human being. In certain ways those 'defects' makes them even more admirable in my eyes.
I guess I'm pretty conservative in my opinions on this matter. Not much originality or insight here.
I do actually think it's morally permissible, but I'm less comfortable viewing procreation as a positive good in itself. In other words, just because something is permissible does not mean it is recommended. Something not being wrong does not make it right. My views on this issue are very much in flux at this point, as you can see in schop1's thread.
I might add that Christianity adds a new dimension to the issue. If hell is real and eternal, then it's a serious question whether it is morally permissible to create human beings, who may end up in it. Why provide more souls to be potentially ensnared by the Devil?
Yor point about eternal hell does araise serios questions about procreation. If it is in anyway possible that two people may create a new consince that will be damed to an eternity of suffering it does not seem moral in anway to permit that action.
But to believe that one is condemed to eternal suffering one must first believe in God, Christian or otherwise, I will merely focus on the Christian standpoint, since it is the one being talked about. The christian doctrine states that God is an all loving being. God loves every individual so much that he was willing to sacrafice his son so that or sins may be forgiven etc etc
My question is what kind of "All loving God" condemns anyone to an eternity of suffering? Either no one shall go to hell or God is not "All loving". If the former we have nothing to fear, in fact it might even be a moral act to raise children. But if the Later; in everysingle way it would be Immoral and wrong to bring a new conscience to this earth. If God were Condemning i would rather Suffer eternity in hell than to live in heaven with an evil God.
My conclusion is that afterlife does not exist, but since this has shattering implications to the foundations of almost all religion i shall not delve into the third alternative. (Unless asked).
The reply will be that you're right, God doesn't condemn anyone. We condemn ourselves. God doesn't throw people into hell so much as we leap there with our own two feet. As Agustino is fond of saying, those in heaven experience the fire of God's love as bliss and those in hell as torment. God's love doesn't change in either case. The bulwark separating God's ability to whisk everyone away to heaven appears to be free will. God cannot violate it without violating his own nature, which it is impossible for him to do.
Quoting Gotterdammerung
Lol, what's this alternative? Are you gonna pull a Sartre and say that hell is other people? :P
No the third alternative is that neither heavan or hell exist. I do not need to claim like sartre that hell is other people, hell just doesn't exist.
I might add that Christianity adds a new dimension to the issue. If hell is real and eternal, then it's a serious question whether it is morally permissible to create human beings, who may end up in it. Why provide more souls to be potentially ensnared by the Devil?"
I also find this very problematic and agree with you 100 percent. I find it astonishing how the Catholic and Orthodox Church's priests insists that Couples should have Children (many priests go so far as to claim that being married without having Children is a sin). Not to mention most protestant denominations! It is extremely ignorant to claim that life is Only a blessing for so many reasons : First we have wars etc. But Most of all christianity's own doctrine about hell and even more the fact that Most Christian branches and theologians in history claim that Most People end up in hell (Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus, John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Pascal and Calvin to just name a few). This is very strange IMO. ESPECIALLY if you go down Augustine's path and claim that God has predestined Everything and doesnt even WANT to save all (Read City of God), a line of thought that Calvin followed. It gets more problematic: In Augustine's eyes an infant who dies without having been baptized is damned and condemmed to eternal fire. If christians were consequent, it seems to me they would try to do everything in their power to prevent people from having children. Listen to this absurdity; Evangelicals that follow MacArthur and Piper and their line of thought believe in double predestination, that God predetermines before the world began which people are saved and damned only to display his wrath and mercy for the sake of his own "glory". BUT, they also claim these two pathetically contradictory things: 1. Abortion is basically the worst sin you can commit. 2. All aborted children go to heaven...
You see, if you believe in double predestination and yet think that all aborted children go to heaven, then abortion should be considered a virtue and a great act it seems to me. Because if you dont abort the child, it will very likely go to hell.
This view is IMO the only possibly acceptable one, but we hardly know if it is true and in tradition it doesnt have that much support. The idea is originally attributed to the great Saint Isaac of Nineveh who lived in the 7th century. He was quite probably also a believer in universal salvation though. This idea also doesnt hold much support in Scripture... In Scripture God displays his wrath and actively punishes etc... If one is to read "literally" that is. But if we understand it as Isaac of Nineveh did (Who basically Said that God's wrath is his love experienced differently), then why not as well take the next step in to understanding the whole idea of hell as a metaphor?
No worries :)
I did spend some time reading these articles....
https://www.chesterton.org/shop/chesterton-on-war-and-peace/
https://juicyecumenism.com/2013/09/02/g-k-chestertons-thoughts-on-war/
http://irishchesterton.blogspot.com/2010/07/chesterton-and-world-war-one.html (including the responses)
And the issue is a complex one.
There is a tension between life-affirming optimism and life-denying pessimism that Christianity has never fully resolved. It's witnessed in the books of the Bible, the Church Fathers, and all across the rest of Christian history.
Quoting Beebert
Yes, this is a particularly wicked doctrine that anyone with any moral fiber ought to reject. Even atheism is morally superior to such a Calvinist view, as David Bentley Hart says.
Quoting Beebert
Being pro-life, I don't oppose either of these claims, but you are right that they become absurd in light of double predestination.
Quoting Beebert
But I would still say that, if it is agreed that hell, as the experience of God's love from a certain perspective, is real, then it can't be metaphorical. What's metaphorical is any language seeming to suggest that God is torturing people in a literal place and the like.
I often wonder what kind of christianity Nietzsche encountered...
Anyway, regarding calvinism, I have often said that it is One of the worst and most pathetic world views a human being can hold, and I stand by that.
"But I would still say that, if it is agreed that hell, as the experience of God's love from a certain perspective, is real, then it can't be metaphorical. What's metaphorical is any language seeming to suggest that God is torturing people in a literal place and the like."
Perhaps yes. But who knows? There is unquestionably a Point in Einstein words (if you hold a rationalistic view on christianity and God): "I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him."
But Einstein was likewise right about "fanatical atheists": "[T]he fanatical atheists...are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional 'opium of the people'—cannot hear the music of the spheres."
As would I.
Quoting Beebert
Nice quote. In a sense, the Christian mystics and apophatic theologians might agree with him, who often assert that God is beyond being or existence.
So, the question is: Did his personal beliefs and affiliation with the Nazi party show flaws inherent in his philosophical conceptions? Or were his personal beliefs and affiliation with the Nazi party merely personal errors, having no bearing on his philosophy?
You forget:
Thanks for that. I hadn't seen it.
I don't think we can compare people with institutions. The current pope for example can't be responsible for the Inquisition.
I like Adichie as well, but it's worth noting that unless there are writers being nurtured in minority communities or lesser known cultures, it's difficult to read literature about those people if nobody, or hardly anybody, is writing about it! When a Adichie or Hosseini comes along, though, certainly their contributions to world literature are worthy of admiration, :)
That sounds like a pretty good policy. But, what about adding "... admirable acts and qualities"?
X-)
Study of the Black Notebooks as of 2014 shows that not only Heidegger held anti-semitic views, but that his views were fairly non-sophisticated (as far as you can have sophisticated racism). It wasn't demonic racism, but it surely informed his interactions.
And his relations to Arendt and Blochmann aren't indicative of anything, except that he was a leech. Arendt herself later called him a " likely psychopath", "who I would not be surprised to learn that he had murdered someone".
So, this leaves me with a couple of prominent philosophers.
The Stoics, I have no preference; but, at the same time, it's hard to understand how Marcus Aurelius wanted his Meditations to be burned and not given to the public, while at the same time being so hard on himself in his Meditations. Knowing the fact that he wanted the Meditations to be burned really changed my mind about his inner life.
Diogenes, although I don't really like philosophers who act like fundamentalists or take their philosophy to the extreme, it seems that the Stoics were right about the Cynics just taking a shortcut to practicing good moral conduct.
Wittgenstein, I think this doesn't require further explanation. It's obvious that he was not only a supreme philosopher but as well as a great human being at it, too.
And, Socrates. He might have been a martyr; but, again the cause was worth it.
That's not obvious actually.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haidbauer_incident
http://www.openculture.com/2015/05/ludwig-wittgensteins-short-strange-brutal-stint-as-an-elementary-school-teacher.html
Good point in the second link. Wittgenstein wasn't a saint but sure comes damm close.
He'd have probably been horrified to hear you say that. The church was not friendly to homosexuals.
Of that I am aware of. I just used the term figuratively.
Probably are alternative words less offensive.
I didn't know calling Wittgenstein as a 'saint' could be interpreted as offensive.
I stand corrected.
And yet, Wittgenstein was most likely a believer.
>:O >:O >:O
As others have pointed out, he had some serious flaws.
I know some who are trained in the classics believe that he did intend to have them published.
It was hard to be gay. More so then than now.
Homosexuality was illegal and heavily scorned by social pressure. It led Alan Turing to kill himself.
What is your source of information for Wittgenstein's sexual orientation? I've seen some speculation, but is there anything more concrete?
From Philosophy Now.
I cannot speak for him actually having gay sex, that's not the issue.
The fact of his sexual orientation has never been at issue as far as I am aware. I was reflecting that such an orientation, even these days, can leave a person with a deep sense of alienation - hence "hard to be gay".
I still don't know why it is that you believe this to be true.
I'm actually fairly liberal and am in favor of same-sex marriages.
You've already offered evidence in your own post.
Wittgenstein spent his life in existential angst wrestling with his own nature. Nothing I have read denies this anxiety, and his homosexuality.
I can't offer you hard evidence.
He came close to losing his mind and suicide while in Norway, supposedly relaxing and thinking about philosophy. That's what going against Proposition 7 in the TLP, will do. And,
He was homosexual from what I've read but may have been celibate his whole life. I don't know about that last past though.
He also had 3 brothers who committed suicide.
Anyone whose very nature is anathematised by the culture he lives in is not going to have an easy time of it. Life is hard enough as it is without being marginalised.
Heard he had multiple casual relations with his students.
Stop, your making Wittgenstein sound like a human!
Sorry for being an apologetic Wittgensteinian, haha!
Well, good, reading again my comment I didn't want to make him sound like an asshole. I mean, very often, when a teacher sleep with his student, that's in part because he's an asshole, but sometimes its not. So yeah, a human being.
Anyways, even if I think he wasn't a saint and that he probably was a tortured individual (Karl W. seemed like a fucking psychopath), he was still significantly less creepy than Heiddy.
I suppose he did have some good qualities. He valued honesty. He even went so far as to go back and apologize to the schoolchildren.
He definitely had some interesting things to say about philosophy.
First of all, there is no evidence that Wittgenstein had sex with his male students. And I certainly doubt it, since he had some very ascetic sexual views, regardless of what his orientation happened to be.
Factually wrong. He had a long-term relationship with Francis Skinner, one of his students, starting around 1933. He later expressed guilt and regret at how manipulative he had been with Skinner.
Hmmm I've never come across this before, but seems to be true.