I think the injunction against suicide may have been in play as well when these particular Christians confronted the doubtless bewildered proconsul. D...
I find Balrogs and the Ringwraiths interesting, myself. It's interesting Tolkien and Lewis knew each other and both chose to flaunt, as it were, their...
I delved into this a bit in a post on my blog, and for those curious (and in a fit of shameless self-promotion; and because I'm too lazy to repeat mys...
Ideally? By doing the best we can with what we have, to paraphrase Epictetus, and not seeking power over others and to possess things we don't have. B...
I hadn't noticed this thread earlier. I was too busy waging the war against Christmas, in my case on behalf of Sol Invictus whose feast day, Dies Nata...
I aspire to be a Stoic, but may be something of a cynic as I think it's very unlikely anyone has ever needed or ever will need to acquire money, statu...
I think that for a Stoic there is nothing admirable about making money or possessing it; one should be indifferent to it in that sense. It isn't somet...
Seneca wrote wonderfully of Stoicism, but his accumulation of riches and power has always made Stoics and aspiring Stoics somewhat uncomfortable. I'm ...
I read a great deal of Dostoyevsky some time ago. Among Russian authors, I prefer Chekov and Turgenev. Dostoyevsky is too overwrought for me. He doesn...
I'm not sure anything has a non-physical origin. But assuming arguendo that's possible, does the fact I'm incapable (due to an aversion to unilaterall...
Yes, but I think a Stoic would view what should be altered and how it should be altered very differently than most. A Stoic is supposed to be largely ...
From the Stoic perspective, I think the fact that there are people different from us (other than we are) is not in our control; what is in our control...
The Stoics were materialists, but their materialism didn't (and doesn't!) preclude them from being spiritual or recognizing a God; that God is simply ...
Perhaps we men respond differently to the spiritual. Since we're quoting song writers (or some of us are), and they do sometimes get things right, I r...
It seems to me that in the Western religious tradition, by which I mean the Abrahamic tradition (Christian and Muslim) women are either the vessels or...
The clothes we wear, the food we eat, who we have sex with and how often we do, have little or nothing to do with our well being except in limited cir...
The tendency to think of God as "Big Daddy" is a primitive one, though not peculiarly Christian. My guess would be that it has its basis in our self-r...
It will come wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross, as Sinclair Lewis said fascism would come to America. And it will look much like Anthony Comsto...
God's teeth. Are there people who drink alcohol to attain a glimpse of "higher, nobler states of being"? I tend to drink whiskey, for example, or wine...
The significance of the conduct has to be considered. "Philosophical contemplation" of suicide doesn't strike me as particularly significant; it's unu...
I don't think the fact I disapprove of something or believe it's futile necessarily means that it shouldn't be done or that I should be disturbed by i...
I do contend that, yes--in the same way that "philosophical contemplation" of bipolar disorder or cancer would belittle them. It would be contemplatio...
Damn. I was going to interview myself, or ask my cat Sulla to do so, or interview Sulla. But now everybody will want to be interviewed. If not by them...
But I'm not contending Camus and others shouldn't philosophically contemplate suicide. They may do so to their hearts' content (though Camus may have ...
There is nothing called "suicide" which can be subjected to philosophical contemplation (whatever that may be). There are suicides, each of them diffe...
There are sick people, people in trouble because of "real life" problems, desperate people who contemplate suicide. They're not putting the back of th...
It's a problem that can be a most serious one in particular cases. Treating it as a general, abstract--"philosophical"--problem renders it a mere inte...
So I understand. But as it addressed a huge Nazi rally with hundreds of thousands of people, I think its focus on depicting a mass of people at an eve...
I think it's quite true that Trump was successful because his opponent was Hillary Clinton. I personally feel she would have been the lesser of two ev...
I think it's famous not so much for its basic story (which was daring and interesting for the time, when William Randolph Hearst was still around and ...
Some say Jackson would foam at the mouth when angered. More savage than obnoxious, I think, and what he did to the Cherokee and others, the Creeks and...
The version I've seen substitutes "the American public" for "the average American." A fuller version of what I've quoted is this, which gives a better...
The question I thought was: What is it appropriate for Harvard to do now that this is unquestionably known to it to have taken place? There may be no ...
If Trump is elected, it will be established that the great Sage of Baltimore's poor opinion of us and of our democracy was accurate, and that he was s...
It seems the First Amendment issue has been raised contra sexual harassment/discrimination claims when professors indulge in pontificating about women...
I suggest Harvard had no option but to do something. As Pete Townsend would say, or sing, it's a legal matter, baby. My experience with the law of sex...
Perhaps it's a failing in me, but I find it difficult to think of this issue as anything but trivial, when looked at in the abstract, at least. For me...
I wonder if there's a me-in-myself I should be concerned about. People do refer to the "real me" sometimes. For example, sometimes people say somethin...
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