Laird
Member
Then quit hypocritically bitching about bitching. Magda didn't deserve that. Listen and know sis.
Gnosticism - The world is a vampire, sent to drain? Secret destroyers hold you up to the flames?
Then quit hypocritically bitching about bitching. Magda didn't deserve that. Listen and know sis.
Laird
Member
That depends on what you mean by everything being "clear". If you mean, simply, knowing all the facts of any situation, then no, there would still be a choice to make. We have a choice in how to respond to any given situation even knowing the full facts about that situation. You might know that if you go one way, you meet an old friend, and if you go another, you meet a potential friend. Even fully knowing those facts, your choice is not fixed: you still have the choice of meeting an old friend or new friend.
But if by everything being "clear" you include the clarity of which decision "must" be made, then your statement is kind of tautological, and not saying very much: "If it were clear which choice we 'must' make then we wouldn't have a choice to make".
In any case, it's pretty "clear" to me that Magda was referring to the first type of clarity, or at least a closer approximation to it than we currently have.
hypermagda
Member
All I can say about Laird's post above (#140) is that I completely endorse every single word of it. I think I'm going to put it in a frame, in fact :-)
hypermagda
Member
Ah Hurmanetar, loved that blog post of yours….I wonder what happened to you since that has spoiled you so much, lol. Nah, only joking, and I'm very grateful to you that you and your lovely girlfriend keep those dogs and cats fat and happy :) I too hope I don't come across too strongly as implying you must see things my way but I probably do, sorry, hehe! Honestly, if this change of perspective (since 2011) has made you happier, I have no interest whatsoever in changing your view of things. One thing, however, I have to point out. By saying that "we can choose how we frame the things that happen" you end up implying that there is no objective moral truth. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder. The battered housewife (my favourite metaphor for those who, faced with all that’s wrong with this world, think either that “it’s all for the best” or “it”s not bad, it’s just how you look at it”) can reframe her miserable situation by thinking ‘He loves me really, so though he’s beating me black and blue that’s just an expression of his deep love for me”. Fair enough, it makes her happy (but frankly I pity her....) More difficult (or disingenuous, or callous, or hypocritical) would be for an outside observer to “reframe” her situation in the same way, and ignore her plight. You can “reframe” bruises as much as you like, they’ll still be bruises - caused by a man battering his wife. Or, more generally, “God” letting bad stuff happen in this world that he could have done something about. It would be very scary to me if people TRULY lived their lives reframing the bad things so that everything is fine and nothing needs to be done about anything, after all (nobody lives like that in fact). Someone (I think the one who accused me of "bitching about shit" btw) wrote in some post here on Skeptiko (I can find it if needed) that Hitler might have been an instrument of divine will for all we know. Now that would be a convenient way of reframing the Holocaust, right? "Comedy or tragedy? We choose”, you wrote….luckily, as I said, the vast majority of people, including new agers, do not live like that….
Last edited:
Laird
Member
You think we should love evil? That sounds... kind of evil in itself.
hypermagda
Member
I don't love the suicide bombers who blew themselves up here in Brussels on March 22nd causing the death (and the burning and mutilation) of dozens of people (and who could easily have killed me as well, incidentally, only that day I was not working and therefore did not use that subway station). So in your opinion I should start loving them? Please explain how this would be in any way sensible or even useful. I could perhaps understand if you said to me "do not hate them", but why should I LOVE them of all people? What is your definition of love, exactly?
Typoz
Member
That isn't what I said. What I said was love the perpetrator. I did not equate the two.
Laird
Member
If the perpetrator is evil, then loving the perpetrator is loving evil, is it not?
hypermagda
Member
Typoz, do you actually love this guy (just picked one among gazillions of other jihadi psychopaths)?
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world...ssian-hostage-beheading-Russian-militant-ISIS
The fighter speaks in Russian before beheading the prisoner wearing an orange jumpsuit - a trademark of ISIS hostages.
hypermagda
Member
Is killing dozens of innocent people or beheading a prisoner in cold blood just a "non-loving action"? That's an understatement if I've ever heard one...
And, pray, in what way are we relinquishing control and becoming victims by being "non-loving" toward someone who has not done anything to deserve love (quite the opposite), such as a suicide bomber or an unrepentant murderer? I think that "control" according to you means "feeling the way you are supposed to feel despite the facts, according to those who believe they have the moral high ground".
Typoz
Member
Please please don't make this about who has the right to claim the high moral ground. That's just another way to introduce an artificial barrier, making it harder for anyone to be understood.
What I'm saying is simple. We have free will. We can choose one path or another. So long as the path we follow is one which we have chosen, then all well and good. If we allow someone or something to dictate our choices, we have relinquished our free will and handed it over to another.
What I'm saying is simple. We have free will. We can choose one path or another. So long as the path we follow is one which we have chosen, then all well and good. If we allow someone or something to dictate our choices, we have relinquished our free will and handed it over to another.
Steve
Member
QUOTE="Laird, post: 89269, member: 1280"]On the other hand, I think it's important to recognise the logical inconsistencies in our own positions[/QUOTE]
Any logic we may treasure doesn't appear to be that important in reality as Quantum Mechanics has shown.
I don't know. Not too bothered about speculating.
I'm a father, I can tell you what I think. I'm not God. (Well maybe, but it's complicated.....:))
Maybe.
Maybe they're the ones who are lucky? You're assuming too much.
How can you know?
Who knows? Maybe it is. Maybe making bad choices forces us down a particular path, when a more loving choice would have avoided it. If we believe NDErs then it seems that death is not the horror that it is seen to be, most people report that they now have no fear of dying.
Most of your comments are based on an emotional reaction to what must be seen as pre-judging things that we just do not know.
So let's be clear. You're saying that a human is in a very good position to know how God should react. I humbly suggest that's preposterous. I can only think I might know from my perpective.
Typoz provided a better response to this than I might have done.
I don't think Jesus did anything to warrant his suffering.
Yes.
I had to smile at this. Hasn't this whole conversation been hypothetical?
Thanks Laird. I will leave any of your responses to Tom Campbell to others who might want to chip in. I really don't think very much of this matters, all that does, is that we try to make loving choices. The rest I'll leave in 'others' capable hands.
Any logic we may treasure doesn't appear to be that important in reality as Quantum Mechanics has shown.
I don't know. Not too bothered about speculating.
I'm a father, I can tell you what I think. I'm not God. (Well maybe, but it's complicated.....:))
Maybe.
Maybe they're the ones who are lucky? You're assuming too much.
How can you know?
Who knows? Maybe it is. Maybe making bad choices forces us down a particular path, when a more loving choice would have avoided it. If we believe NDErs then it seems that death is not the horror that it is seen to be, most people report that they now have no fear of dying.
Most of your comments are based on an emotional reaction to what must be seen as pre-judging things that we just do not know.
So let's be clear. You're saying that a human is in a very good position to know how God should react. I humbly suggest that's preposterous. I can only think I might know from my perpective.
Typoz provided a better response to this than I might have done.
I don't think Jesus did anything to warrant his suffering.
Yes.
I had to smile at this. Hasn't this whole conversation been hypothetical?
Thanks Laird. I will leave any of your responses to Tom Campbell to others who might want to chip in. I really don't think very much of this matters, all that does, is that we try to make loving choices. The rest I'll leave in 'others' capable hands.
hypermagda
Member
Ha! You are telling me that because HE did something horrific and therefore made himself unloveable by all human standards, I should love him just for the sake of proving that he's had no impact on me and I have free will (you wrote: " If you decline to love the perpetrator, you are giving him power over you") - incidentally, by telling me that I have to love him YOU are depriving me of my freewill. ....Anyway it's not a question of free will, it's a question of moral consistency: I do not love murderers IN GENERAL, hence I do not love this guy either, hence I am not relinquishing control or allowing anybody (including you) to dictate my choices.
Steve
Member
What do you think Jesus' response would be to jihadi's? How would he answer this?
I know that this may appear that I'm a Christian, I'm not. But it might be easier to put a more human perspective on these thoughts rather than any that involve God, one that is of a much higher consciousness than we are at. (There's a whole other discussion there, I think)
Hurmanetar
New
By a lack of clarity, I meant the ambiguity that is inherent in all symbol / meaning transformations and interpretations. These ambiguities come at us from the bottom up in the form of quantum uncertainty and they come at us from the top down in the form of literary deconstruction. The bottom-up ambiguity might be the break in the mechanistic macro-universe that enables an ethereal soul (whatever that is) to have influence (free choice). The top down ambiguity is what makes choice meaningful (would an omniscient perspective allow meaningful choice? Can we even fathom that?)
In the first case, we have some facts which might influence our choice, but we still don't have all the facts. Which friend will be the better friend? Will one stab us in the back later? Maybe the old friend is going through something tough and really needs us to show up right now. Often when we learn enough facts about a choice then we say, "well that's a no-brainer" or "I've got no choice".
If you could somehow know all the facts around a choice (including all the butterfly effects) and neither option was the clear winner, then the ambiguity is within you and your own motivations and intents. ...it's still ambiguity!
I once had a guy prophesy over me that "I would see heaven opened and paint pictures of it." Now what the hell does that mean? Haha.. I could interpret that however I want. I could say I'm doing that right now painting word pictures of the Great Beyond. Who knows?
hypermagda
Member
Why should Jesus' opinion be relevant here? I was asking Typoz (unless he's the new Messiah :-)) I thought Typoz was a human being like me so I was interested in hearing if he, sincerely, can bring himself to actually LOVE that guy (which is different from "not hating" btw).
Steve
Member
My feeling is that Typoz maybe regrets getting involved ! :)
Jesus is relevant here because that's the level of consciousness that we're striving towards and probably beyond. We may not be able to achieve these levels as humans, and fall very far short, but these are what we should aim for.
I 'got' what Typoz was saying in responding to Laird in post #144.
Anyway, what's your answer to my original question? ;)
hypermagda
Member
haha, in that case sorry Typoz, I won't insist :) ....but I rest my case.
Your question about Jesus? I am not a Christian, so I could only guess, and in any case Jesus is not the type of consciousness I am personally striving towards ("turn the other cheek"), so I don't see in what way his answer would be relevant to me (i.e., the fact that I cannot bring myself to love bloodthirsty, psychopathic murderers, nor do I consider it sensible or even useful). My answer to jihadis is the enforcement of human justice (mass murder must be punished and in no way condoned), since God himself (if he exists - that's my usual proviso) is letting them get away with....murder, precisely!
Are you trying to convert me to your religion Steve? I know I said I like you a lot, but don't hold your breath :)