baker

There is such a thing in some monotheisms, summarized in the tenet "You are an eternal servant of God." It's a tenet from which everything else can be...

Then what is an absolute good in itself, as far as human life goes?

What do you mean? That wealthy, influential people could be shallow, but aren't so necessarily?

It's not even necessary for a social government to keep them in check. It's in the nature of pursuing pleasure for the sake of pleasure that the perso...

Isn't confidence grand! :fire:

Have you ever read any self-help books etc. by very rich and influential people? Much of the advice is commonsensical, or New Age lite. But when you c...

Being aware of one's own station in society and of one's own level of knowledge of a topic is often enough for a person to self-moderate what they say...

Now apply this to very rich people: They still seek contentment, and they find it, and it would be hard to call their lives uninteresting. It's just t...

Are you sure it's wise to ask about this at an online forum?

To engage in that kind of strategic mathematics _deliberately_ would require an accurate picture of the entire populations involved. Because at any gi...

I looked up this old thread in order to better understand the recent one. It seems he's making the point that the weak are needed for the strong to ex...

Read some self-help books etc. written by very rich and very influential people, such as those by Arianna Huffington. These people still talk about "g...

But sometimes it does? That's news to me. Absolutely. Are you sure about the former, given the rise of rightwing politics? As for Xi, the situation is...

My point is easier to argue for.

You made your claim first. What do you have to back it up?

Like I said: I've been trying to get to answer whether it is possible to deliberately learn to view life as a blessing and worth living.

There have been high politicians who simply walked out of prison, literally, no guard stopped them. They were sentenced to jail, and they walked out o...

Are you so sure they wouldn't let him in?

Indeed. He that doesn't work should not eat.

So he tells them to unlock the door and let him in.

What gives is that you're making an unjustified generalization. People differ in how well they can simulate things, via different senses. Also, maybe ...

Ah. Go back. What you're quoting is from my brief discussion with , whose reply I'm still waiting for. I was actually furthering your point.

Look at the work of Matthew Ratcliffe, for example, here some of his titles: Evaluating Existential Despair The Phenomenology of Existential Feeling T...

Just read it.

Oh, and the West is heaven on earth, right. If you look at the history of corporal punishment in Asian countries (not just China), for the past severa...

What are you saying? That, for example, people with transplanted organs (and who are on lifelong immunosuppresant therapy) should rightfully be catego...

Really? How?

He looked round and saw the knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward. He had cleaned it many times, till there was no stain left upon it. It was bright, ...

The soul is what gets incarnated, not resurrected. (And the resurrection of the body is a bit of a tricky topic -- namely, a person's body at which st...

They do??? This has not been my experience. You'll need to express yourself in more direct terms, as it's still not clear what you're getting at.

Yet there are holy grails.

*sigh* You complain about the distribution of information being targeted nowadays. I point out that this is actually business as usual. So what gives?...

He just is allowed such. Could Trump walk up to the outer gate of the White House, and walk through, without anyone stopping him? He probably could. C...

It's not only that. Some administrations really, genuinely don't care about the people, and they make that clear. Some administrations expect that the...

https://cdn.quotesgram.com/img/98/81/562852317-Frodo-and-Sam-lord-of-the-rings-30758121-500-646.jpg I asked before, but nobody wants to reply: Is happ...

No. No, but at least a more precise one.

And we all know that "Easterners" are a completely homogenous group.

People love to be bossy, they love to at least attempt to rule over others. And to assume that others want to be ruled. http://pm1.narvii.com/7071/3a6...

Why absurd and dysfunctional?

For example, in Christianity, it's the "soul" that either goes to heaven or hell for all eternity. The "soul" is what is relevant about a person. That...

What fact are you asking about?

Generally, people invest vast amounts of time and effort in order to distract themselves. Life as it is usually lived is, basically, all about distrac...

There is some good in this world, but it's not worth fighting for.

What some old ones called "soul" is nowadays subsumed under "identity", "individuality" -- and highly valued.

Actually, our current government has been using the pandemic to advance its own agenda. These same politicians have tried to establish a totalitarian ...

Still waiting for you to tell me so.

It's not clear where you're going with this. (And given that you have a banana where there should be a sickel, it's even further unclear.) So, to try ...

Hold your horses. My proposal sets the bar high, so high that few mandatory impingements on bodily autonomy measure up. The right to bodily autonomy i...

Is this universal, or does it differ from person to person?

Like Michael said: And Elster: Which you can only say in hindsight, after catching your wife cheating on you. And it is only in hidsight that you will...