baker

My point is that the questions asked about the nature of the Tatagatha (whether after death he exists or not etc.) on which the tetralemma in the OP i...

I suppose if the story would be about, say, Vikings, people (with a Western background) would not bat an eyelid. Historical veracity is just not somet...

Religion as self-aggrandizement?

Of course. But the next step (the one you're missing) is that one would be prudent to learn to distinguish a dangerous dog from one that isn't, and to...

Schopenhauer thought something like that when he first wrote his Art of Being Right.

Yes. Attempts at social engineering are useless, at least as far as they have equality as their aim. Leaving aside what "natural" means or is supposed...

Your tribalism.

I really do feel like a dick, posting here, sometimes.

Hey, everyone has to die at some point, somehow, so who cares if a few billions die of hunger, floods, etc., right.

"Have you stopped beating your wife yet? Answer either with Yes, or No!" If someone said that to you, how would you reply (presuming that you're not m...

No, but just the right measure of poverty and exploitation.

Of course. It's the notion that one can hate and despise someone and consider them their enemy, but still expect this party to be nice and harmless th...

No. I'm saying, again, that the classism based on the inequality of human individuals is in place practically, even if not officially, and it prevails...

You have the right not to be an idiot.

That's just too general a characterization for what psychotherapists do.

I suspect it's different to be without the internet by one's own volition as opposed to being forced into it. Sometimes, I don't even turn on the comp...

No, think. If you agree that you're not acting on your right to flee suffering, then there must be a reason for this.

That's not enough time per day. You should try with 90 minutes per day, 6 days a week, for 3 months.

What's stopping you?

So how do you intend to approach scrupulosity?

It's not my life and it's not my wife? How do these people endure working 8, 10, 12 hours every day, without this being central to their lives? I do w...

My point is that people are different, and that what makes the workplace conditions good or at least fine for one person, might not be sufficient for ...

Or is it that some people have simply adapted sufficiently to the capitalist system, or even that they are somehow genetically or otherwise predispose...

Not only are we slaves, we're all slaves from the same series, for we react the same to the same stimulus! Yay. (The term "robot" comes from the Slavi...

Neither do I, but it seems that it is evolutionariliy advantageous to take for granted that wisdom and ethically appropriate behavior are known a prio...

No, I'm not talking about asceticism. I'm talking about your certainty. I question its foundation.

Eh? How could we possibly do anything about it, if it is, as you claim, "an undeniable part of us?

Chameleons.

Again, as a meta-analysis of this dialogue: I have no interest to convince you of anything Buddhism. I am skeptical about your certainty that we're in...

You know those things by which to guide your life also without the Bible. You don't need the Bible for its content, you need it for the institutional ...

Because one internalized this principle early in life, before one's cognitiive ability of critical thinking developed.

How is this not already happening? None. The classism based on the inequality of human individuals is in place practically, even if not officially, an...

This still implicitly frames anxiety as a pathological state, and, more importantly, it paints people as amorphous, unsystematic blobs. It's not that ...

You're committing another self-imposition: You take for granted that you're certain that there is no way out. (And that the materialistic outlook is t...

Camus didn't live long enough for time to show whether he'd be able to live out his life philosophy to the natural end of his life, so we don't know h...

And this is how might makes right. And how people end up shooting people.

It's shit -- to use even more shitty language -- retained at first and then later evacuated into a fancy toliet, at the time the evacuator chooses to ...

What exactly do you think the mistake was in all this?

You have an intimidating presence and history.

It's about the intention to kill. With which many people don't seem to have a problem to begin with. That being the case, it's not clear how to get th...

*sigh* It's not even my argument. I began making my argument, but you, as usual, jumped the gun. How dickish. Jesus. The phrase I most often want to u...

Because I didn't. It's the theme I'm pursuing in this thread, as initiated in my first reply in this thread. The OP has a consumerist approach to life...

Eh? You?! Talk about religion being the opiate of the people! And "soothing pleasure"? All intoxicants sooner or later show their ugly side.

If you prefer hot pizza over cold pizza, then you understand the principle of pursuing higher pleasures and are able to act on it. How consciously and...

Oh, but man is the beauty of the world, the best thing that ever happened to the Universe! Anxiety only befalls the weak and the unworthy.

As long as the intention behind one's consumption is the same (to satisfy a craving), it doesn't really matter whether one goes full blown hedonism or...

You can do this, you can give up lesser pleasures in the pursuit of better ones.

The idea that we're here merely to eat and shit is egregious.

There is an answer to this, but it's too politically incorrect to talk about it in public.

Probabably because we, at least nominally, live in a legal system where it is the action that is relevant. In some cultures in the past, killing one's...