# Reading > Religious Texts >  God's Purpose

## mcrane

I've posted this question in another thread before. However, i think it deserves a fair discuission. If an all-poweful and all-knowing being exists. What does this being need to create US for? I agree with Christians that God's nice gesture of forgiving his children reflects an awsome amount of generousity. I also agree with Muslims that Islam's teachings and the Quran provide us with just the perfect way to go through this life. But what is the purpose of this human life in the first place? Why does God need us? and if he doesnt, then y create us?

Any opinions, answers, please share!!

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## Amra

Bismillah..

55. But teach (thy Message) for teaching benefits the Believers. 

56. I have only created Jinns and men, that they may serve Me. 

57. No Sustenance do I require of them, nor do I require that they should feed Me. 

58. For Allah is He Who gives (all) Sustenance,- Lord of Power,- Steadfast (for ever). 

59. For the Wrong-doers, their portion is like unto the portion of their fellows (of earlier generations): then let them not ask Me to hasten (that portion)! 

(Surah 51, ayat 55-59)

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## mcrane

is this really enough?

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## Stanislaw

Maye we exist because God could create us, and thought it would be a neat thing to do, It would be a wonderfull thing if we had a greater purpose, but maybe we were created for the same reason that people create computer programs. Now before people start attacking this idea on the basis that "God didn't create us for entertainment!!!!" Just er read me out.

True programming masters, in a sense almost a guru of their trade, create programs to see if it can be done, and they try to make harder and harder programs to challenge themselves. The earth was made, plants, animals, water, land, night and day, and man, so...Maybe our existance is because God felt like creating a Universe, and maybe our purpose is to live a good life, die, and give feedback on earths existance, what we thought could use improvement, and from that maybe God in a way teaches us, as we would teach a child or a learning program, allowing us to make our own mistakes on a journey of enlightenment.

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## mcrane

> True programming masters, in a sense almost a guru of their trade, create programs to see if it can be done, and they try to make harder and harder programs to challenge themselves. The earth was made, plants, animals, water, land, night and day, and man, so...Maybe our existance is because God felt like creating a Universe, and maybe our purpose is to live a good life, die, and give feedback on earths existance, what we thought could use improvement,


what kind of God needs a rough draft? 

Certainly not the kind of God we should worship. I hate to say, ur point is not all unacceptable. BUT mind u _ u r defying the basis of religion with this kind of interpretation
am i wrong?

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## Stanislaw

> what kind of God needs a rough draft? 
> 
> Certainly not the kind of God we should worship. I hate to say, ur point is not all unacceptable. BUT mind u _ u r defying the basis of religion with this kind of interpretation
> am i wrong?


I don't believe that I am defying the basis of religion with this theory, the interpretation does not really change the nature of God's divinity nor does it make him less omniscient nor omnipotent. I think that maybe he is letting us fall down so that we might learn how to pick ourselves up again. 

I don't really think he needs a rough draft, but is in a sense allowing us to choose our destiny, by letting us come to the relization of what a good existance is through our own discovery. I believe that he is very worthy of research, through grace and gifts I think he very subtly tries to point us in the right direction, expecially when we deviate to far from the outcome of the program...like resetting a variable in a sense.

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## mcrane

I take it then, that all of u believers out there have no better answer. It is a shame that such deep faith is not well supported. All of those fighting for their christian and muslim beliefs should have at least an idea about the reason why they were created in the first place...
but thank u, Stn, for trying  :Cool:  
This does it, i guess..

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## Amra

Mccrane,

You cannot blame someone for not knowing. As a muslim, I gave you the reason God said He created human beings. That is all I can know. I cannot sit here and make up stories that cannot be supported by anything except my own wishful thinking and illusions to satisfy anyones desires. However, I have never been that much interested in knowing WHY I am created, as to how will I live this life, and where I am going after death. I mean, we are already here. There is nothing you can do about that, whether you like it or not, you are here on Earth, and you have been given life. What I know is how God wants us to live this life, and what the result of following HIs commandments is, as opposed to not following them. That is all I need to know. If in the end I found out that I was created for some bigger purpose, than that will be nice, if not, I think I will be satisfied in living forever in paradise looking at God.

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## bhekti

> I've posted this question in another thread before. However, i think it deserves a fair discuission. If an all-poweful and all-knowing being exists. What does this being need to create US for? I agree with Christians that God's nice gesture of forgiving his children reflects an awsome amount of generousity. I also agree with Muslims that Islam's teachings and the Quran provide us with just the perfect way to go through this life. But what is the purpose of this human life in the first place? Why does God need us? and if he doesnt, then y create us?
> 
> Any opinions, answers, please share!!



Mmm...I'm trying this one:

God creates us out of necessity. That is, because God _is_ Love (that is, not just possessing a capability to love, but _is_ himself Love) and Love, to exist, needs more than one participants (at least two). Thereefore, he creates us to be those participants of Love.

Comment?

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## Stanislaw

> I take it then, that all of u believers out there have no better answer. It is a shame that such deep faith is not well supported. All of those fighting for their christian and muslim beliefs should have at least an idea about the reason why they were created in the first place...
> but thank u, Stn, for trying  
> This does it, i guess..


Neither the bible nor the quaran give a clear purpose to our existance, other than that God wanted to.

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## daddysfiddler

I believe that God created human beings for his pleasure, and for his love. He needed someone to love. We are created to worship God and God alone. <><

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## jon1jt

You've heard this a million times but I'll say it a million and one. It's very interesting how we all come to know God, Yahweh, Jesus, the "Prophet" Muhammad, all embedded in some narrative that was written by human beings. It's also interesting that the Synoptic Gospels can be traced to the lost Q Text, which provided the continuity and general structure for Matthew and Luke, which most Christians are even unaware the disciples used. If you don't "buy" what I'm reporting, then just read Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13 (27/28 Greek words); Matthew 7:78 & Luke 11:910 (24/24 Greek words). THE WORDING IS CONCLUSIVE, A 2ND SOURCE WAS AVAILABLE AND COPIED FROM. Why would they have needed a second source to synchronize their plot lines if God the Father spoke _through_  them? I strongly recommend investigating these source documents as it will change your whole perspective on biblical narrative. Another discovery Christians wished hadn't turned up is the Gospel of Thomas, which was conveniently banned from canonizing. Its resemblance to parts of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John is indisputable and yet is not embedded in NT narrative! The Gnostics I'll save for a rainy day. 

Getting back to the question of God's purpose, I'd like to answer it now: I have no idea. Spinoza said long ago that humility _is_  foundational for atheism. So then, I must be an atheist.

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## jon1jt

THE DARK ROOM TEST: At conception, a child is locked away in a room for her entire life. One person in a dark rubber suit comes in to ensure the baby's feeding and machines monitor the baby's health throughout. Of course, a doctor is available, but she too is covered when entering. The child grows up alone in that room without books to teach her, parents to scold her, teachers to indoctrinate her. There is no social context beyond those four walls. At what point does the child utter "God" or "Jesus" or "Muhammad," or recite the Sermon on the Mount?

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## Mililalil XXIV

> You've heard this a million times but I'll say it a million and one. It's very interesting how we all come to know God, Yahweh, Jesus, the "Prophet" Muhammad, all embedded in some narrative that was written by human beings. It's also interesting that the Synoptic Gospels can be traced to the lost Q Text, which provided the continuity and general structure for Matthew and Luke, which most Christians are even unaware the disciples used. If you don't "buy" what I'm reporting, then just read Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13 (27/28 Greek words); Matthew 7:78 & Luke 11:910 (24/24 Greek words). THE WORDING IS CONCLUSIVE, A 2ND SOURCE WAS AVAILABLE AND COPIED FROM. Why would they have needed a second source to synchronize their plot lines if God the Father spoke _through_  them? I strongly recommend investigating these source documents as it will change your whole perspective on biblical narrative. Another discovery Christians wished hadn't turned up is the Gospel of Thomas, which was conveniently banned from canonizing. Its resemblance to parts of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John is indisputable and yet is not embedded in NT narrative! The Gnostics I'll save for a rainy day. 
> 
> Getting back to the question of God's purpose, I'd like to answer it now: I have no idea. Spinoza said long ago that humility _is_  foundational for atheism. So then, I must be an atheist.


With much repect to you as a person GOD created out of Love, none of the above is substantiated at all.

Where the socalled Gospel of Thomas is concerned, where it resembles the Synoptics, their agreement with one another, on the one hand, and the difference manifest in the latter - presuming there were such a thing as Q - would lend greater support to the Synoptics being nearer to an original Q in form than the latter could reasonably be thought to be.
We do not possess very much of the original Greek of the "Thomas Gospel". What language was it even first written in? Was Greek even the original language? 

As for the Q idea, it is rather all built on oversimplistic oversights. The Sayings and Deeds of the LORD were known firsthand to many. The bards of Britain used to pass on word for word the same legends as their fathers and as one another in a single generation. Why shouldn't the Evangelists have often referred to the same words? That doesn't ever have to indicate copying of texts. 

I have reasons for concluding that Matthew, then Mark and Luke, then John wrote their Gospels in that order (with the possibility Luke wrote either before, at the same time as, or after Mark).

As for constant discoveries, none of them are a threat to the Church. I took seriously the need to test the validity of the "Gospel of Thomas". Looking at the work right here, in two languages, I notice immediately the differences between the Coptic of the Nag Hammadi version and the Greek of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri fragments. The Coptic reads:
'These are the secret words which the LIVING JESUS spoke, and which Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down: and HE said: "He who shall find the interpretation of these words shall not taste death."'

The Greek remains read:
'These are the words which <...
JESUS spoke, the LIVING, a<nd..
and Thomas, and HE said <...
these words <...
will he not taste.'

As any one can see, the sentence structure is different enough between two language's versions that more difficult sentences might have been confused into a second language. We don't have all sorts of translations to compare in the case of this work. I wonder if it ever was known to a Latin audience, or to a Semitic one. 

The next saying is like another in the Gospel of the Hebrews, but not identical to it. In the Coptic of "Gosp.Th.":
'JESUS said: "He who seeks, let him not cease seeking until he finds;
and when he finds he will be troubled, and when he is troubled he will be amazed, and he will reign over the All."'

The translation of the fragmentary Greek suggested by those trying to elucidate what they know little about**:
'<JESUS says:
Let not him cease who is se<eking...
has found, and when he has found ,...
has been amazed (?) he will reign an<d find rest'
[Above, it has been guessed that it should open "JESUS says - which is very plausible. Because the last word in the first line of this "saying" has enough initial letters in tact to compare to a known Greek "seeking" verb, and the Coptic reads "seeking", this too is very plausible. But the translator's suggestion of the added "[an]d find rest" obviously has nothing to do with the Coptic text, but displays his wish to suggest his undemonstrated theory that this saying is exactly equal to the wording in the following saying from Gospel of the Hebrews:]

"He that seeks will not rest until he finds; and he that has found shall marvel; and he that has marvelled shall reign; and he that has reigned shall rest."
[Notice the difference between this and the saying in the Coptic version of the "Gosp. Th.". To take advantage of the fragmentary form of Greek remains as above, to invent a link between the "Gosp. Th." and the Gospel of the Hebrews is dishonest, and the trademark of those claiming to demonstrate the "Q Gospel".

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## Amra

> There is no social context beyond those four walls. At what point does the child utter "God" or "Jesus" or "Muhammad," or recite the Sermon on the Mount


Well, muslims believe that every child is born with fitra, which means it is born in submission to God, but that the society changes that fitra towards whatever the social context of that child's growing up may be. Whether or not the child would find God by itself is hard to tell, because there are many other factors that would have to be researched. For example, when we refer to "fitra", that mostly encompasses the human nature/soul/conscience that makes us feel guilty, ashamed, aware of our nature. When Adem ate from the tree of life, he became aware of himself, and that awareness of our being has been part of ourselves ever since. Muslims believe that every child is born sinless, and in submission to God, but if the child dies without ever coming in contact with Islam and the Qur'an, than it will not be responsible for its sins, because one cannot be blamed for something one is not aware of. Allah s.v.t sent Prophet a.s as His Mercy, and as His justice, because they came to remind people of their "fitra", and also, they came so that people will not have an excuse before God, because they have been warned and shown the right path.

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## Gozeta

> I've posted this question in another thread before. However, i think it deserves a fair discuission. If an all-poweful and all-knowing being exists. What does this being need to create US for? I agree with Christians that God's nice gesture of forgiving his children reflects an awsome amount of generousity. I also agree with Muslims that Islam's teachings and the Quran provide us with just the perfect way to go through this life. But what is the purpose of this human life in the first place? Why does God need us? and if he doesnt, then y create us?
> 
> Any opinions, answers, please share!!


I think God created us because he wanted a family of free will( someone of His likeness). Those who He didn't have to force to obey Him but to become willingly a part of Him. Is actually our singular purpose in life. To live a life through God.

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## Green Lady

> I think God created us because he wanted a family of free will( someone of His likeness). Those who He didn't have to force to obey Him but to become willingly a part of Him. Is actually our singular purpose in life. To live a life through God.


I agree that God created us because he wanted a family of free will. If we are His creation, doesn't that make us His children and like any other father He's going to want his children to grow up to be like him. In order to do this, we'd have to be put through a test (life) to decide for ourselves basically what we believe and whether we want to follow in His footsteps.

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## jon1jt

> With much repect to you as a person GOD created out of Love, none of the above is substantiated at all.
> 
> Where the socalled Gospel of Thomas is concerned, where it resembles the Synoptics, their agreement with one another, on the one hand, and the difference manifest in the latter - presuming there were such a thing as Q - would lend greater support to the Synoptics being nearer to an original Q in form than the latter could reasonably be thought to be.
> We do not possess very much of the original Greek of the "Thomas Gospel". What language was it even first written in? Was Greek even the original language? 
> 
> As for the Q idea, it is rather all built on oversimplistic oversights. The Sayings and Deeds of the LORD were known firsthand to many. The bards of Britain used to pass on word for word the same legends as their fathers and as one another in a single generation. Why shouldn't the Evangelists have often referred to the same words? That doesn't ever have to indicate copying of texts. 
> 
> I have reasons for concluding that Matthew, then Mark and Luke, then John wrote their Gospels in that order (with the possibility Luke wrote either before, at the same time as, or after Mark).
> 
> ...



"With much repect to you as a person GOD created out of Love, none of the above is substantiated at all."

Your opening remark that what I stated goes unsubstantiated comes from the dark and pious depths of an arrogant mind. So let me say, with as much respect to you as a person NATURE created out of NOTHING, we disagree on basic grounds.

You cleverly selected sections to make the case against Q and Thomas. At the same time, so did I, although I believe there is more conclusive evidence in the reportoire for than against. I acknowledge, however, there are limitations to what's available, whereas you reject it categorically. 

I've said elsewhere that at the end of the day christians will be christians and secularists will be secularists. We will never resolve the truthfulness of your narrative because God and Jesus the Messiah are here to stay, regardless of how much I'd like to embrace Nietzsche's declaration, "God is Dead!" I'm going to continue to believe that I don't know everything, unlike you. I raised the doctrinal controversy only to the extent to show that the jury isn't out about scriptural authenticity because what we know now is that your 27 "Books" were conveniently selected by high ranking clergy - that's indisputable - whereas other substantive and highly regarded texts by different segments of the population were discounted and deemed "heretical," including Thomas. The Synoptics themselves raise some serious questions about the semblance of narrative itself. At the same time, I'm equally disingenuous for posting my speel on Q and Thomas because I am quite aware that, whatever my claimed authority may be, there will always be people who won't give a hoot because, in the end, Faith and the demonic reign, and Faith and the demonic ultimately conceal that which is glaringly evident, that your god and your Jesus emanate from narrative. Minus narrative, there is Nothing. You claim to have the answers to the great mysteries of the universe. I know nothing. You use narrative as your transport behind the Nothing. The end. 

You chose not to respond to my Dark Room Theory, which brackets narrative from frame of reference; where God, Jesus, the Immaculate Conception, what have you, are where they ought to remain, out of sight, out of mind.

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## BeingaBunny

God created us because without followers he would not exist.

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## Scheherazade

We created God because we couldn't bear the thought of a purposeless existence?

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## BeingaBunny

Maybe God created us because He couldn't bear the thought of a purposeless existence.

In my opinion, God should worship us.

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## jon1jt

> We created God because we couldn't bear the thought of a purposeless existence?


Well said S. For many, the idea of a purposeless existence is too traumatic and thankfully religion is here for the psychologically needy. Religion serves a variety of convenient purposes, but mostly it's about power, a righteousness in the very idea that "they" are aware of truth in a way the rest of us benighted souls perceive as incomprehensible. There is an ecstasy of righteousness in the very adherence to doctrine and church membership. 

With the advent of the church comes a hierarchical superstructure that spins its own internal and external mosaic of power. Hence, the "club" mentality is affirmed in its membership and breeds from within. Yet, the Church has been and remains a meddlesome force in public affairs, especially the non-denominationals. _The Church plays an important public service ONLY in the sense it ameliorates psychological instability in the world, but not enough, unfortunately._ _That, then, is God's only true function._

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## jon1jt

> God created us because without followers he would not exist.


So that would make the collectivity god incarnate, wouldn't it? I like that idea!

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## Gozeta

Hmmm, out of nessesity? As if He was loney?

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## bhekti

> Hmmm, out of nessesity? As if He was loney?


I think "necessity" is not really the word.

PS: No, He's never lonely. He is in three personality, isn't he?  :Wink:

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## Scheherazade

> PS: No, He's never lonely. He is in three personality, isn't he?


Is that like MPD*? Or like me never feeling alone, thanks to the voices in my head?

*MPD: Multiple Personality Disorder

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## Green Lady

> We created God because we couldn't bear the thought of a purposeless existence?



I don't think anyone can say that life is purposeless. If that were true, then there would be no point in living.

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## jon1jt

"We read so that we think we're not alone."

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## jon1jt

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite."

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## Scheherazade

> I don't think anyone can say that life is purposeless. If that were true, then there would be no point in living.


Life has no purpose. It is not given to us like a recipe or a prescription. That is why we struggle hard to make sense of our existence. Some manage to find a purpose and live their lives trying to achieve a certain goal (whatever that might be). And some don't; end up floating through life till the very end.

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## Whifflingpin

"For many, the idea of a purposeless existence is too traumatic and thankfully religion is here for the psychologically needy."
I'm afraid this is just drivel. Maybe religions are attempts to describe what the purpose is - but the existence, the evident existence, of purpose comes first. Purpose in life is naturally experienced, not desperately sought after. 

Maybe, with great effort, you can convince yourself that there is no purpose, but to do that you have to reject the round of the seasons, the cycles of life, growth and death. You have to show that the orderly complexity of each blade of grass is mere gibberish, and that the amazing relationships sustained by each blade of grass with the world about it are an irrelevant accident. And, of course, you have to accept that even the so-called laws of science are mere moonshine.

"Religion serves a variety of convenient purposes, but mostly it's about power"
Religion serves, or can be made to serve, many purposes, convenient and otherwise, good and evil. Since one characteristic of humans is the pursuit of power, it would be odd if this did not enter into the practice of religion. But it must be said that religion can serve to limit or undermine the use of power as much as it can be used to legitimise it.

"Yet, the Church has been and remains a meddlesome force in public affairs,"
Yes - I can't speak for other countries, but in mine it was people who were acting out of religious conviction who ended slavery, stopped children working down mines and up chimneys, insisted on universal education, founded hospitals, inaugurated scientific research...

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## jon1jt

> "Yet, the Church has been and remains a meddlesome force in public affairs," 
> 
> Yes - I can't speak for other countries, but in mine it was people who were acting out of religious conviction who ended slavery, stopped children working down mines and up chimneys, insisted on universal education, founded hospitals, inaugurated scientific research...



Right! Didn't all those wonderful deeds happen sometime after...ahem...the Christian inquisitions?

Also interesting how such acts of kindness had to come from "religious conviction." What ever happened to the simple notion of good will?

"Drivel"? Surely ye jest!

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## SiHAc

I'm sure everyone here believes that there was such a man named Jesus.
The hard part about believing IN Jesus is that something He said, we have difficulty in grasping. He said that (probably not word for word) "If you believe in me, then you believe in Him"...
So basically, the argument is, what Jesus the son of God?

Any comments?

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## SiHAc

sorry, that you should read "was jesus the son of God?"

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## bhekti

> I'm sure everyone here believes that there was such a man named Jesus.
> The hard part about believing IN Jesus is that something He said, we have difficulty in grasping. He said that (probably not word for word) "If you believe in me, then you believe in Him"...
> So basically, the argument is, what Jesus the son of God?
> 
> Any comments?


Comment: 

Some people believe that jesus was he that's called the Son of God. He was the Son of God not as I am the son of my parents. The "son" there posseses a particular significance. And, same people believe and can understand this significance.

Some more people do not believe that jesus was the Son of God. They have reasons for not believing and they believe in these reasons.

These two groups of people may or may not live together peacefully.

So, was jesus the Son of God? That depends on whether you believe it or not. If he was, and you don't believe... what's the use of any comments?

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## Whifflingpin

"Right! Didn't all those wonderful deeds happen sometime after...ahem...the Christian inquisitions?"
Oh yeah - those inquisitions again. No one today, as far as I know, would consider trying to justify the Inquisition, particularly the Spanish branch of that Office. However, it might be worth comparing the scale of the infamous and ever-quoted Spanish inquisition with the activities of a more recent atheist government.

The Spanish Inquisition maintained extensive records that are now being sifted through by historians. They paint a very different picture of sentencing patterns to traditional historians, although, like any historical document their accuracy can be disputed. Geoffrey Parker analyzed 49,000 trial records between 1540 and 1700, representing one third of the total, and found 776 executions. This suggests a total of about 2,250 in the period reviewed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition



Of 1,966 delegates to the 17th Communist Party congress in 1934 (the last congress before the trials), 1,108 were arrested and nearly all died.
The trials and executions of the former Bolshevik leaders were, however, only a minor part of the purges:
The number of people who perished in the purges is subject to hot disputes with death toll estimates ranging from 1 to 100 million people, depending on who counts and what is counted as a purge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge

hmm - I think you'd be a bit safer under the worst Christian regime that anyone ever mentions than under certain atheist regimes.

One of my more abiding memories of childhood is a magazine showing pictures of Budapest. I have no recollection of the architecture, only the headless bodies lying about the streets. In just a few days, more Hungarians were killed than the total number of religious martyrs in the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth in sixteenth century England.

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## SiHAc

> Comment: 
> 
> Some people believe that jesus was he that's called the Son of God. He was the Son of God not as I am the son of my parents. The "son" there posseses a particular significance. And, same people believe and can understand this significance.
> 
> Some more people do not believe that jesus was the Son of God. They have reasons for not believing and they believe in these reasons.
> 
> These two groups of people may or may not live together peacefully.
> 
> So, was jesus the Son of God? That depends on whether you believe it or not. If he was, and you don't believe... what's the use of any comments?



It would have been more appropriate of me to have used the words 'your thoughts?' rather than 'any comments'....good point.


The thing is...I want to believe.

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## jon1jt

> "Right! Didn't all those wonderful deeds happen sometime after...ahem...the Christian inquisitions?"
> Oh yeah - those inquisitions again. No one today, as far as I know, would consider trying to justify the Inquisition, particularly the Spanish branch of that Office. However, it might be worth comparing the scale of the infamous and ever-quoted Spanish inquisition with the activities of a more recent atheist government.
> 
> The Spanish Inquisition maintained extensive records that are now being sifted through by historians. They paint a very different picture of sentencing patterns to traditional historians, although, like any historical document their accuracy can be disputed. Geoffrey Parker analyzed 49,000 trial records between 1540 and 1700, representing one third of the total, and found 776 executions. This suggests a total of about 2,250 in the period reviewed.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition
> 
> 
> 
> Of 1,966 delegates to the 17th Communist Party congress in 1934 (the last congress before the trials), 1,108 were arrested and nearly all died.
> ...


I'm not interested in historical revisionism - the Christian Inquisition was very real, very brutal, and very discriminatory. I look at religious zealots in this country vying to change legislation and US Supreme Court decisions that render balanced judgments. I think it's fair to say that if atheists gained political control, the democratic system would remain firmly intact; unlike Christians, who'd force scripture down our throats in every area of public life.

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## Whifflingpin

"I'm not interested in historical revisionism - the Christian Inquisition was very real, very brutal, and very discriminatory."
What you do not seem to be interested in is the truth. There never was such an institution as the "Christian Inquisition." If you are not interested in historical revisionism, then your views and "knowledge" of the Inquisition are just those of the spiritual ancestors of the religious zealots whom you now despise so much. That is to say, protestants who engaged in propaganda against the Roman Catholic church, and who did not let truth stand in the way of a good story either.

Not all religious people are zealots or extremists. For good or ill, (and carefully avoiding histrorical revisionism,) it was religious people who founded the country that you would like to bar them from. They set up its democratic system and its Supreme Court. What have atheists ever done for America?

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## Green Lady

> Life has no purpose. It is not given to us like a recipe or a prescription. That is why we struggle hard to make sense of our existence. Some manage to find a purpose and live their lives trying to achieve a certain goal (whatever that might be). And some don't; end up floating through life till the very end.



What do you do for a living, Scheherazade?

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## jon1jt

> "I'm not interested in historical revisionism - the Christian Inquisition was very real, very brutal, and very discriminatory."
> What you do not seem to be interested in is the truth. There never was such an institution as the "Christian Inquisition." If you are not interested in historical revisionism, then your views and "knowledge" of the Inquisition are just those of the spiritual ancestors of the religious zealots whom you now despise so much. That is to say, protestants who engaged in propaganda against the Roman Catholic church, and who did not let truth stand in the way of a good story either.
> 
> Not all religious people are zealots or extremists. For good or ill, (and carefully avoiding histrorical revisionism,) it was religious people who founded the country that you would like to bar them from. They set up its democratic system and its Supreme Court. What have atheists ever done for America?


Why you insist on judging the worth of religion based on some insidious contribution it has made or is making to society is beyond me. Indisputable is that all religion is cultist in nature, and cults have a propensity for subverting outsiders, even if outsiders "tolerate" their practices. This is accomplished through a variety of political and social mechanisms, but most go hardly noticed in our culture. I'll get back to this. 

The Crusades was another crime against humanity propagated by Christian institutions and the reining political order, which at the time was also infected by Christian fanatacism. 

"Clement III was immediately committed to preaching a new Crusade. It was just absolutely unquestioned. Jerusalem had to be retaken. It had been in Christian hands for nearly 100 years. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher the most holy spot in the Christian world...An important monach in Western Europe who was eager to go on Crusade was Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman emperor...With him went the armies of Germany and Italy...Three kings together may have pitted forces of as much as 45,000 men." 
-Dr. Kenneth W. Harl, Tulane 

Religion is a breeding ground for the weak who metamorphosize into a bonefied collectivity which, when intact, promulgates a doctrine of subtle violence in the form of social distinctions - that made between believers and evildoers. 

Christianity today is far from through pillaging public institutions. Perhaps if the atheists of the world can do something constructive one day, it will be to band together to put an end to religious fanatacism, the kind at present which is highjacking governmental institutions from right under our noses, replacing the Laws of the Land with the god-laden, buying off politicians, defiling secular life, etc. etc. The growth of Christianity, world religion generally (excluding Eastern, which attack the self) are like a contagion that needs to be exposed for what they truly are - even if, at present, they appear compliant. Let us heed the canons of history with the example of Hitler and the Doctrine of Appeasement, when "tolerance" moved the whole world to turn a blind eye to Hitler - no less a fanatic at "that time" - when there was a political moment to defeat him before the Nazi machinery was in place, but who instead went on to plunder and kill in the name of racial nationalism.

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## Adelheid

Here's my 1 cent worth of thoughts:

1. God created us so we can have fellowship with Him.
2. God created us to worship and glorify a Triune God.
3. God created us to have dominion over the living creatures.

Here's a commentary on Genesis 1:26-28 by the Great Evangelist and founder of the Methodist Church John Wesley:




> "Gen 1:26-28 - We have here the second part of the sixth day's work, the creation of man, which we are in a special manner concerned to take notice of. Observe, That man was made last of all the creatures, which was both an honour and a favour to him: an honour, for the creation was to advance from that which was less perfect, to that which was more so and a favour, for it was not fit he should be lodged in the palace designed for him, till it was completely fitted and furnished for his reception. Man, as soon as he was made, had the whole visible creation before him, both to contemplate, and to take the comfort of. That man's creation was a mere signal act of divine wisdom and power, than that of the other creatures. The narrative of it is introduced with solemnity, and a manifest distinction from the rest. Hitherto it had been said, Let there be light, and Let there be a firmament: but now the word of command is turned into a word of consultation, Let us make man - For whose sake the rest of the creatures were made. Man was to be a creature different from all that had been hitherto made. Flesh and spirit, heaven and earth must be put together in him, and he must be allied to both worlds. And therefore God himself not only undertakes to make, but is pleased so to express himself, as if he called a council to consider of the making of him; Let us make man - The three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, consult about it, and concur in it; because man, when he was made, was to be dedicated and devoted to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That man was made in God's image, and after his likeness; two words to express the same thing. God's image upon man, consists,
> 
> In his nature, not that of his body, for God has not a body, but that of his soul. The soul is a spirit, an intelligent, immortal spirit, an active spirit, herein resembling God, the Father of spirits, and the soul of the world. In his place and authority. Let us make man in our image, and let him have dominion. As he has the government of the inferior creatures, he is as it were God's representative on earth. Yet his government of himself by the freedom of his will, has in it more of God's image, than his government of the creatures. And chiefly in his purity and rectitude. God's image upon man consists in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, Eph_4:24; Col_3:10. He was upright, Ecc_7:29. He had an habitual conformity of all his natural powers to the whole will of God. His understanding saw divine things clearly, and there were no errors in his knowledge: his will complied readily and universally with the will of God; without reluctancy: his affections were all regular, and he had no inordinate appetites or passions: his thoughts were easily fixed to the best subjects, and there was no vanity or ungovernableness in them. And all the inferior powers were subject to the dictates of the superior. Thus holy, thus happy, were our first parents, in having the image of God upon them. But how art thou fallen, O son of the morning? How is this image of God upon man defaced! How small are the remains of it, and how great the ruins of it! The Lord renew it upon our souls by his sanctifying grace! That man was made male and female, and blessed with fruitfulness. He created him male and female, Adam and Eve: Adam first out of earth, and Eve out of his side. God made but one male and one female, that all the nations of men might know themselves to be made of one blood, descendants, from one common stock, and might thereby be induced to love one another. God having made them capable of transmitting the nature they had received, said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth - Here he gave them,
> 
> A large inheritance; replenish the earth, in which God has set man to be the servant of his providence, in the government of the inferior creatures, and as it were the intelligence of this orb; to be likewise the collector of his praises in this lower world, and lastly, to be a probationer for a better state. A numerous lasting family to enjoy this inheritance; pronouncing a blessing upon them, in the virtue of which, their posterity should extend to the utmost corners of the earth, and continue to the utmost period of time.
> 
> That God gave to man a dominion over the inferior creatures, over fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air - Though man provides for neither, he has power over both, much more over every living thing that moveth upon the earth - God designed hereby to put an honour upon man, that he might find himself the more strongly obliged to bring honour to his Maker."


I hope this helps a little.  :Nod:

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## jon1jt

John Wesley is a silly man.

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## Scheherazade

> What do you do for a living, Scheherazade?


I am a teacher.

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## SleepyWitch

> Not all religious people are zealots or extremists. For good or ill, (and carefully avoiding histrorical revisionism,) it was religious people who founded the country that you would like to bar them from. They set up its democratic system and its Supreme Court. What have atheists ever done for America?


sorry to butt in on your debate... which founders of the US are you talking about? the Pilgrim Fathers (who were definitely relgious) or people like Jefferson, Washington etc...? whozzname, er Founding Fathers? I think Tommy Jefferson was something like a humanist and I'm not sure that makes him 'religious'.. depends on your definition of religious, course...

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## SleepyWitch

hm... disregarding the question about God's purpose for us for a minute, I'll stick to "What's the purpose of life?"....
so... what kind of qestion is this? do we really need to phrase it in such abstract terms? there's 6 bn people in the world... that's quite a lot.. so how are we expected to apply general, abstract questions about *the* meaning of life to so many individuals? maybe everybody's life has got a different meaning? how are these abstract questions and models supposed to help anyone when everybody lives in very specific, concrete or even unique circumstances?
don't get me wrong.. I'm not saying that human beings don't share certain basic experiences etc etc etc... but how have these questions ever helped anyone? eg. if you ask what's the purpose of life? you might get: to lead a good life ---> what's a good life?----> a) to get boozed up and scr*w around??? ----> nope it's harmful and you might hurt people's feelings ---> b)to live like a nun ---> it's not much fun, plus why would God give us a body if he didn't mean us to destroy...er use it? 
religions are full of these abstract questions and rules but once you try to apply them to any particular situation you don't get much mileage out of them.... (sorry for being polemic, I don't know the first thing about religions, I'm only talking about my personal impressions)
I'm not gonna quote any religious texts here, because I'm a heathen and don't know the first thing about religion... let's just say, if there was/is a God and if he created us, we'd be too stupid to see his purpose anyway
-------> therefore against the background of the overall and intrinsic unanswerability of such questions I would like to argue that the (preliminary) purpose of life is to go on living withouth asking useless questions about life's purpose and everything else will sort itself out.
*======wuahahahhaha SleepyWitch: smug wisecrack university phony=================================*
can't be bothered about God's purpose, wheeeeeeheeeeee  :Banana:  


PS: most of the time, thinking about the purpose of life doesn't even apply to actual situations... e.g. if you have to write a term paper, does it help to think about the purpose of life? (well, maybe it does if your term paper happens to be about the purpose of life  :Cool:  ) It's never helped me.. what i need to be clear about is "what's the purpose of this term paper?" --> to get me credits so I can creep towards my final exams. what's the purpose of my final exams?---> I need them to become a teacher. ... ok, I admit this one could go on and on, too, but at least it's concrete questions and concrete answers that enable you to take life step by step
PPS: hehehe, I'm being provocatively short-sighted on purpose  :Smile:  let's see who's gonna bang me one over the head...

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## ThatIndividual

The purpose of life is to create purpose for your life in a obstensibly purposeless existence. 

Man created God to avoid the problem. Whether God created man or not is of no consequence. Whether there is a God or not is of no consequence. It concerns us not. 

You can give your life meaning, and then whatever meaning that you lend it will be the meaning of your life. You can also live your life through to the end, totally bereft of meaning, and you will have lived a meaningless life.

Then you're going to die. After that, no one knows what's going to happen. 

Have you the strength to deal with this? Can you bear the weight of this reality or do you retreat; take refuge from the weather in one of our human constructions so you won't have to feel the rain?

If life has any meaning at all, independent of the subject, it is just this. To get wet.

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## jon1jt

> sorry to butt in on your debate... which founders of the US are you talking about? the Pilgrim Fathers (who were definitely relgious) or people like Jefferson, Washington etc...? whozzname, er Founding Fathers? I think Tommy Jefferson was something like a humanist and I'm not sure that makes him 'religious'.. depends on your definition of religious, course...


It's interesting how Whif conveniently left out how those same early Americans folks slaughtered the natives paving the way for a genocidal government, all in the name of Western expansion. I guess mentioning the role of the founders in preserving the institution of slavery (there was an 1808 manumission, but there were simple ways around it) would be stating the obvious.

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## myself

hey people, i read all these coments about the purpose of life, i am a muslim and as a muslim i believe that the purpose of craetion is to worhsip god (Allah). in my religion life is a test to see how humans will live when they have a chose. i dont know if this makes sense to you!!!!!

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## Whifflingpin

"I think it's fair to say that if atheists gained political control, the democratic system would remain firmly intact;"
If the atheists gained political control, it would certainly not be democratic.

In February and March 2002 the Pew Research Council conducted a survey of 2,002 adults. Questions about religious preference were included. The results are below: 
Religious Preference	% June 1996	% March 2001	March 2002
Christian 84 82 82
Jewish 1 1 1
Muslim * 1 *
Other non-Christian 3 2 1
Atheist * 1 1
Agnostic * 2 2
Something else * 1 2
No preference 11 8 10
Don't know/Refused 1 2 1
TOTAL 100 100	100

http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html

Just the first breakdown I found, but a mere 1% of atheists. How democratic would it be to have them in control? 



The Crusades was another crime against humanity propagated by Christian institutions and the reigning political order
All wars are a crime against humanity, and a sin against God. The Crusades were fought against a well matched and ultimately victorious enemy. They were no better or worse than other mediaeval wars, except that the Christian armies of the West eventually destroyed their Christian allies of the eastern Mediterranean. It is this treachery that makes the Crusades a byword for evil. If you were a Marxist kind of atheist, you would already know that all wars are merely economic in nature, and anything else is a mere excuse.

Galileo? Youve not mentioned him yet. Why arent you keeping to the script?

I think Tommy Jefferson was something like a humanist
I guess mentioning the role of the founders in preserving the institution of slavery
Bit of a double edged sword that  Tommy Jefferson was a slave owner. As Ive already said, slavery was ended in my country by people campaigning out of religious principles. I appreciate that your country was rather more backward, but look at the abolitionist heroes and tell me the proportion of atheists to Christians.

John Wesley is a silly man
That being about the level of your debate, I leave you the field.

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## Green Lady

> I am a teacher.


There's your purpose  :Biggrin:

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## jon1jt

[QUOTE=Whifflingpin]"I think it's fair to say that if atheists gained political control, the democratic system would remain firmly intact;"
If the atheists gained political control, it would certainly not be democratic.

In February and March 2002 the Pew Research Council conducted a survey of 2,002 adults. Questions about religious preference were included. The results are below: 
Religious Preference	% June 1996	% March 2001	March 2002
Christian 84 82 82
Jewish 1 1 1
Muslim * 1 *
Other non-Christian 3 2 1
Atheist * 1 1
Agnostic * 2 2
Something else  * 1 2
No preference 11 8 10
Don't know/Refused 1 2 1
TOTAL 100 100	100

http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html

Just the first breakdown I found, but a mere 1% of atheists. How democratic would it be to have them in control? QUOTE]
__________________________________________________ _______________

Let me try to interpret this mess. The US population consists of only 1% who classify themselves as atheist, so, your reasoning goes, a government run by atheists couldn't possibly be democratic because they're a minority religious group? This makes no sense logically. The US population is roughly 290 million, which gives us 290,000 bonefied atheists in the country, an ample amount to fill the US House of Representatives (495) and 100 Senate seats and all the state congressional seats and possible the federal judiciary. Assuming this is the case, what would motivate an atheist to initiate undemocratic laws? (The absurdity of this because if atheists controlled government, that would mean they were elected democratically.) Even assuming it wasn't the case, an atheist-led government would be far more democratic than the zealots we have in Washington today.  [B]*ATHEISTS HAVE NO MORAL AGENDA, ATHEISTS HAVE NO COOKBOOK; WHAT THEY HAVE IS THE INSIGHT THAT THEY DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING AND THAT LIFE IS HERE AND NOW, NOT IN SOME OTHER GLORIOUS AFTERLIFE FOR THE RIGHTEOUS. ATHEISTS DO NOT BELIEVE IN ANGELS OR THAT JESUS WALKED ON WATER OR THAT DEVILS TORTURE HUMAN SOULS BECAUSE ATHEISTS BELIEVE IN NEITHER DEVILS NOR SOULS IN THE CHRISTIAN SENSE. *  *KANT WAS RIGHT WHEN HE SAID WE CAN'T SEE OR UNDERSTAND THE THINGS THEMSELVES. ONLY DELUSION PERMITS THAT INSIGHT. ATHEISTS UPHOLD THE NOTION OF HUMILITY, NOT MORAL ARROGANCE, UNLIKE ORGANIZED RELIGION.*  

I didn't mention Newton because everybody knows, including you, how assinine the church claim was then, which is no wonder later the church admitted it was wrong. Where was the Catholic Church during the Holocaust? The United States turned a blind eye, but you would think the church being the moral authority it is, would have spoken out against the Jewish persecutions, particularly all the Anti-semitic laws enacted in Nazi Germany during phase I of the persecutions. There was isolated resistance, like the kind waged by Friedrich Bonhoeffer, but what about the good ol' pope and church leadership? The vast majority stood idly by!

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## jon1jt

DISREGARD THIS PLEASE.

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## jon1jt

> The purpose of life is to create purpose for your life in a obstensibly purposeless existence. 
> 
> Man created God to avoid the problem. Whether God created man or not is of no consequence. Whether there is a God or not is of no consequence. It concerns us not. 
> 
> You can give your life meaning, and then whatever meaning that you lend it will be the meaning of your life. You can also live your life through to the end, totally bereft of meaning, and you will have lived a meaningless life.
> 
> Then you're going to die. After that, no one knows what's going to happen. 
> 
> Have you the strength to deal with this? Can you bear the weight of this reality or do you retreat; take refuge from the weather in one of our human constructions so you won't have to feel the rain?
> ...


Now I like the way this user thinks!!! Bravo, bravo! This forum can always use another existentialist!

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## Scheherazade

> There's your purpose


Exactly my point. That is not a 'divine-given' purpose. _I_  have chosen that as my profession and a long with other things in my life, it is one of the things that keeps me going.

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## SleepyWitch

> hey people, i read all these coments about the purpose of life, i am a muslim and as a muslim i believe that the purpose of craetion is to worhsip god (Allah). in my religion life is a test to see how humans will live when they have a chose. i dont know if this makes sense to you!!!!!


heya, that's an interesting point... well, I respect your relgion and I think "life is a test to see how humans will live when they have a choice" is a very compelling argument.
but then, the problem about religions (or organized religion) is they do not actually give you much of a choice. the give you rules to live by and they don't care whether you just learn these rule by rote or arrive at them through experience or thinking...
whereas "The purpose of life is to create purpose for your life in a obstensibly purposeless existence." requires people to take a more active role... there really is an element of choice here because God or religious institutions don't figure in the equation at all.....
besides, if we really want to blame our situation on God, what does that say about him? I mean, if we say "God dropped us down here to see how we'll do when we have a choice!" wouldn't that mean he's a terribly cruel and nasty person? it would be like a scientist watching guinea pigs or rats in a lab experiment... why would a gracious and forgiving God want to do that???

hey *Whiff*, what do you mean by that: "I appreciate that your country was rather more backward " ???? 
we never had slavery in my country. 
we did have the Holocaust, though. as someone further up said: where was the pope then? 
were was God? was he giving the Jews a hard time to see how they would cope??? why doesn't he give Christians a Holocaust for a change, to test their faith??? don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing that Christians should be persecuted and killed. I'm just pointing to the fact that it's very easy to argue "God is testing people's faith in the face of suffering" as long as it's others, not oneself, this is happening to.
e.g. it's easy for the pope to say that Aids is a punishment for people's sins as long as it's mainly poor Africans who die of aids... what if all his priests somehow caught Aids and died of it? would he say "well, let them perish, it's God's will" or would he buy medicine for them????

errrr, what has any of this US Founding Fathers/Democracy/Crusades stuff to do with the topic of this thread anyway?????  :Confused:

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## madhura

> The purpose of life is to create purpose for your life in a obstensibly purposeless existence. 
> 
> Man created God to avoid the problem. Whether God created man or not is of no consequence. Whether there is a God or not is of no consequence. It concerns us not. 
> 
> You can give your life meaning, and then whatever meaning that you lend it will be the meaning of your life. You can also live your life through to the end, totally bereft of meaning, and you will have lived a meaningless life.
> 
> Then you're going to die. After that, no one knows what's going to happen. 
> 
> Have you the strength to deal with this? Can you bear the weight of this reality or do you retreat; take refuge from the weather in one of our human constructions so you won't have to feel the rain?
> ...


I'm new here, I'm not sure I'm following protocol but I saw something I liked and felt obliged to applaud it. At least someone, somewhere is capable of facing up to the naked truth. What purpose? What meaning in this cheap, cruddy pantomime? _("Life is the farce that all perform." -Rimbaud)_ All life is coping. All of humanity is presently engaged in the inglorious act of coping with the specific reality that confronts them: a reality that consistently falls short of the individual's expectations. Coping in whatever manner, splendidly, hideously or not at all, the extent/capacity determines the individual. All life is labour. The results of which may or may not be proportional or even remotely related to the amount of effort one puts in. Nothing is known for sure, nothing anyone says to you about God or heaven or angels is ever enough to fully ease the knot in your stomach for anything but a short span of time. God is an escapist's invention. Nothing anyone says can ever be enough to win your trust. No one, no one in the world deserves your trust completely. There are upper limits to everything, including, most commonly/significantly, people's honesty, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not.

___________________________________________
..Not sleep, which is grey with dreams,
nor death, which quivers with birth,
but heavy, sealing darkness, silence, all immovable.

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## myself

hey sleepy witch, the point you made was quite good, but humans have a free will to choose what to do in life, so if you choose to be a certain person with a ceratin personality or be in a certain religion then you lead your life as you go. god gave us so many guidance throughout life to tell us our purpose, but some people take it the wrong way, the bible has been changed a couple of times according to what people wanted so this is why the quran got sent down, god wants us to think and take the write path and he is not just wathcing us, he is helping us but in an indirect way. there is astory that goes: there was once a religion man who believed in god, one day there was a horrid flood, the man climbed up the roof and stayed there. helicopters, people and all sort of things that could help came to rescue him but he said i know god will save me, i dont need your help. this guy died at the end, when he went to god he asked gid why he didnt help him, god said i sent you people and helicopters to help you but you refused.

the point is that god is helping us through this life and there has to be a reason behind what happens. i hope i make sense

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## jon1jt

> I'm new here, I'm not sure I'm following protocol but I saw something I liked and felt obliged to applaud it. At least someone, somewhere is capable of facing up to the naked truth. What purpose? What meaning in this cheap, cruddy pantomime? _("Life is the farce that all perform." -Rimbaud)_ All life is coping. All of humanity is presently engaged in the inglorious act of coping with the specific reality that confronts them: a reality that consistently falls short of the individual's expectations. Coping in whatever manner, splendidly, hideously or not at all, the extent/capacity determines the individual. All life is labour. The results of which may or may not be proportional or even remotely related to the amount of effort one puts in. Nothing is known for sure, nothing anyone says to you about God or heaven or angels is ever enough to fully ease the knot in your stomach for anything but a short span of time. God is an escapist's invention. Nothing anyone says can ever be enough to win your trust. No one, no one in the world deserves your trust completely. There are upper limits to everything, including, most commonly/significantly, people's honesty, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not.
> 
> ___________________________________________
> ..Not sleep, which is grey with dreams,
> nor death, which quivers with birth,
> but heavy, sealing darkness, silence, all immovable.



I like the way this user thinks too! Fellow Existentialists of the world, unite!!

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## bhekti

> ....Nothing is known for sure, nothing anyone says to you about God or heaven or angels is ever enough to fully ease the knot in your stomach for anything but a short span of time. God is an escapist's invention. Nothing anyone says can ever be enough to win your trust. No one, no one in the world deserves your trust completely. There are upper limits to everything, including, most commonly/significantly, people's honesty, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not.


I can't comprehend this part. It is said 'nothing is known for sure" and what i can't understand is that it is being said confidently.

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## Green Lady

> Exactly my point. That is not a 'divine-given' purpose. _I_  have chosen that as my profession and a long with other things in my life, it is one of the things that keeps me going.


I would call it divine. Teaching is one of the greatest purposes in my opinion, and the most spread one too. It can be done in so many forms, it's amazing.

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## jon1jt

> I would call it divine. Teaching is one of the greatest purposes in my opinion, and the most spread one too. It can be done in so many forms, it's amazing.


I was a teacher once. If it's so divine and one of the greatest purposes, why are they paid below the salary of mechanics, custodians, car salesman, etc.? (I won't even mention the pay scale of celebrities because I'm sure somebody will right away mention the old "supply and demand" theory) Why aren't teachers compensated for their efforts? People have no idea the hard work that teachers endure after school, on weekends, during their so-called "prep time." Everybody whines about summers off and inflated teacher salaries. They ought to give teaching give high school English classes a day for just a month, then come back and tell me that teachers are overpaid.

I met a girl in a bar and ske asked me what I do for a living. When I told her I was a teacher, she mentioned what a "noble profession" it is. So I asked her why she didn't teach? She was a wonderful communicator, wwell-read, and had a dynamic personality. She answered, "I'm a corporate attorney; I make money."

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## sdr4jc

Yes, Jon, I agree wholeheartedly that teachers should make more than they do. It it a shame across our country how much emphasis is always placed on education, get that education, stay in school, keep learning, keep funding, keep attending. The shame is that teachers are on the frontlines of that battle and are paid as though they have dropped out of school themselves. It seems a bit of a double standard to me.

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## Green Lady

Completely agree with that. I'm around teachers a lot, not just the ones teaching me. My mother is a school nurse and I hear all the things they have to go through. In my state they apparently put a lot of money into education, but I don't think it's going into anything but building more schools.

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## madhura

> I can't comprehend this part. It is said 'nothing is known for sure" and what i can't understand is that it is being said confidently.


Hey Bhekti,
Maybe you'd disagree wholeheartedly with me on this, maybe your perspective on life is a lot more fresh and open and hopeful, as opposed to the hardened, caustic thing I've been growing into, but what am I wrong about? Whether we admit it or not, we are all constantly coming to terms with the fact that we live in a world where no matter what sort of judicial or religious moral grounds _we_ base our lives on, _the rest of the world_  owes us nothing, the rest of the world is not concerned with doing right by us, and is, in all likelihood, out to hurt us and make the most of the spectacle. There is no final, redeeming justice available to us at the end of our lives that makes our struggle worthwhile. There is no rule in the book that states that if I live my entire life in penury and hardship because I choose to be honest, I will be taken care of at the end of my days. I will _not_ be taken care of. I will be hurt, and hurt again, and exploited, and kicked aside, and trampled on - or simply ignored. There is no guarantee that anyone in the world apart from myself appreciates that honesty. Virtue is most certainly not its own reward. The meek do not inherit anything. There is no heaven waiting to receive me. What sort of world is this, in which disillusion is the primary and most readily available form of knowledge available to us? In this city, as in so many others, even people who die have the clothes stolen off their backs. How does one explain things like slavery and murder and rape to oneself? What sort of world is it where, even as we were children, we were dealing with the sense of everything being hopeless - people dying in thousands everyday on the news, the population growing in ways unforeseen, ways that render so many things uncontrollable, deforestation, global warming, nuclear war.. all concepts we came to understand when we were in school - everywhere, all these signs that the earth is dying, the earth is screaming in agony - and there is nothing to be done? 

What God? What strange, cruel sort of God could allow things to come to such a sorry state?

What I mean by nothing being known for sure is simply that there is no final scale, applicable to everyone, on which we could possibly judge our own actions or those of our fellow men. If you can appease your own conscience, if you can justify a negative action to yourself, then you can get away with it, for there is nothing out there more solid, that could possibly challenge you. Nothing is pure. Not the Church, nor the priests in their temples, nor the policemen on the streets, nor the magistrates in the courts, nor the teachers in their classrooms. Not our own parents. There is not a single institution among those that present day humanity cherishes, that is not rotten at the core, that is not corrupt. People get killed or die in accidents - who is to vindicate them? The law? (Hah!) 

There is no fairness, no justice. In this city or any other, you get by on your own wits, or you submit, you put yourself in the hands of your superiors. Your superiors by what standard, on the basis of what credentials? -You do not know, you only know that they have the power, and not you.

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## Virgil

> There is no fairness, no justice. In this city or any other, you get by on your own wits, or you submit, you put yourself in the hands of your superiors. Your superiors by what standard, on the basis of what credentials? -You do not know, you only know that they have the power, and not you.


Out of curiosity, where are you from? Who is "they"? I take it you live in a dictatorship?

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## madhura

:FRlol:  Umm.. No. Not quite. I'm Indian. I believe we're a democracy. And that's not the kind of power I meant, though it might apply. I also believe we have one of the highest populations in the world. My point was that in this world, there is no room for honest men, who want to work hard and earn a living and send their kids to college and retire. Universal truth: such men do not get promotions or bonuses or whatever else. Such men live and die without moving out of the economic station they were born into, after years of having the ambition and the life squeezed out of their souls in government jobs, after years of suffering neglect at the hands of the people providing them their livelihood. Its the snivelling nepotists who move up, its the unscrupulous, the morally crippled, the shameless, who have the money and the political clout and the cars and the clothes and cellphones and the million dollar weddings to which half the world is invited, who will do _anything_ to keep the money and the cars and half the world. Thats the "they" in my sentence. Could be anyone. Could be the cops who haul kids off the road for driving without licenses but are willing to let them go for money, the same cops who somehow prove so incompetent/powerless when your brother or your neighbour or your business partner cheats you out of huge amounts of money. (There was something in the news recently about this place where half the village went and filed a case against a four-year-old girl because she kept snatching toys from other kids. I cannot believe there are cops in this country who are actually capable of writing down something like that with a straight face. Its absurd. Its unheard of.) 

Oh well.

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## bhekti

[QUOTE=madhura]There is no fairness, no justice. In this city or any other, you get by on your own wits, or you submit, you put yourself in the hands of your superiors. Your superiors by what standard, on the basis of what credentials? -You do not know, you only know that they have the power, and not you...

....Its the snivelling nepotists who move up, its the unscrupulous, the morally crippled, the shameless, who have the money and the political clout and the cars and the clothes and cellphones and the million dollar weddings to which half the world is invited, who will do _anything_ to keep the money and the cars and half the world. Thats the "they" in my sentence. Could be anyone. Could be the cops who haul kids off the road for driving without licenses but are willing to let them go for money, the same cops who somehow prove so incompetent/powerless when your brother or your neighbour or your business partner cheats you out of huge amounts of money. ...[QUOTE]

Hmm... reading it, I see my country.

Anyway, I believe there is something to do, some purpose worth struggling even in _that_  kind of life. I believe in a "rebellion". I believe in a "revaluation of values". I am doing something now even here in my country, where people like me are looked at awkwardly by goverment or by my neighbours (and in may 20, 1998 we're positively sure that we weren't merely "looked at" ).

God is there, and His existence is none of my business. I sometimes construct ideas about God, but it's only for logical exercise.  :Tongue:  

I'm trying to do my best down here (I always think I'm doing something for others, yet in the same time I always find that it is I myself who is constinually being helped by others) without any absolutism.

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## madhura

I'm glad. (I'm not sure I personally have the strength or the resilience required for that sort of struggle. I'd rather opt out altogether.) But why are people like you looked at awkwardly by the government or your neighbours?

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## bhekti

> ....But why are people like you looked at awkwardly by the government or your neighbours?


 I've given you a clue.  :Wink:  ;can't go further for fear of violating the rule of this forum.

So, there is a purpose. Subjective, but there is.

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## Virgil

I can't speak to the situations in your countries. As to India, I see that economic growth has been robust the last few years. I have to believe that the standard of living has improved. There are no miracles or dreams come true; just improvements.

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## Scheherazade

> I would call it divine. Teaching is one of the greatest purposes in my opinion, and the most spread one too. It can be done in so many forms, it's amazing.


I am not sure I follow your argument. I have chosen this profession because, especially in my area chosen field, we believe we really do make a difference in people's lives. However, I cannot say my choice had anything to do with any Godly intervention or calling (it was rather this worldly, to be honest). Because a profession is worthwhile, it does not mean it is God sent.

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## madhura

> I can't speak to the situations in your countries. As to India, I see that economic growth has been robust the last few years. I have to believe that the standard of living has improved. There are no miracles or dreams come true; just improvements.


Yes, but please know that my complaint here is not that my country is in the hands of immoral, undeserving pigs, or that my country is economically backward, or that people don't have homes, or that kids have to work to feed themselves instead of going to school, or that if you take a drive in the capital, you're likely to come across at least a couple of cows wandering across or lying happily in the middle of the road sunning themselves. Please know that along with being an atheist, I am also violently apolitical and shamelessly unpatriotic. I speak only for myself. I negate all potential revolutionary instinct in myself by accepting the futility of revolution. I do not see any positive change as being a likely, feasible, practically available option to us: there is simply too much wrong. And that makes me deeply sad on a daily basis, that sadness is something I and most other children I have grown up with have swallowed painfully at the age of four or so, which was when we began to become aware of all the things that are unfair or simply wrong with the world. I am not naive enough to imagine that the problem exists only within this country. (I have Bhekti's word to back me up on that.) I am not quite naive enough to buy the notion that the problem is only because of illiteracy or over-population or poverty or whatever other problems there are, that are specific to this country. I know exactly nothing about India's economic growth. I know, without ever having been out of the country, that security guards and ministers accept bribes everywhere, that husbands beat wives everywhere, that men rape little girls everywhere, that honest people get cheated/framed/otherwise taken advantage of everywhere, that people are victims of social/cultural/racial prejudice everywhere, murder happens everywhere, parents are cruel to their children everywhere. Its human nature. My complaining has nothing to do with "the plight of my country" (another well-worn cliche). My complaining has only to do with the universal human characteristic of fickleness with regard to values, which is not the same as immorality.

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## bhekti

> ..... I do not see any positive change as being a likely, feasible, practically available option to us: there is simply too much wrong. .... My complaining has only to do with the universal human characteristic of fickleness with regard to values, which is not the same as immorality.


Madhura (hey,your name resembles the name of an island at the north of east java. Just disgressing...  :Tongue:  ) i wish i could write like you. I remember my reading Dostoevsky..... 

Have you read dostoevsky?

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## madhura

You mean Madura? (  :Smile:  I just googled for a map..) 

Unfortunately I haven't, even though I've wanted to for a long while now. What was it you remembered about your reading Dostoevsky?

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## Virgil

> I am not naive enough to imagine that the problem exists only within this country. (I have Bhekti's word to back me up on that.) I am not quite naive enough to buy the notion that the problem is only because of illiteracy or over-population or poverty or whatever other problems there are, that are specific to this country. I know exactly nothing about India's economic growth. I know, without ever having been out of the country, that security guards and ministers accept bribes everywhere, that husbands beat wives everywhere, that men rape little girls everywhere, that honest people get cheated/framed/otherwise taken advantage of everywhere, that people are victims of social/cultural/racial prejudice everywhere, murder happens everywhere, parents are cruel to their children everywhere. Its human nature. My complaining has nothing to do with "the plight of my country" (another well-worn cliche). My complaining has only to do with the universal human characteristic of fickleness with regard to values, which is not the same as immorality.


Such nihilism. Is this all you see? You don't see how many parents love their children or people in hospitals getting care or criminals brought to justice? You don't see how many people give to charities or how doctors reconstruct the face of a child that was in an accident or families getting together for holidays and enjoying family bonds or friends hanging out and telling jokes and helping each other? And even your dreadful politicians must be doing something right if economic situations keep improving. Or how about life expectency? In the United States in 1900 the life expectancy was 47, and we were already one of the most advanced countries in the world. Today it is around 80. That's right, almost double. And people are leading fuller lives with more free time, rather than suffer at farming for 16 hours a day. And education is almost universal now, with a large percentage going on to University. I don't know why you have such nihilism. It strikes me as more of an intellectual construct rather than experiencing the totality of life. And when I say totality I mean exactly that. You seem to have limited your view to the complete negative. I don't know how old you are, but as you go on with life, observe and count and see if the small, perhaps unnoticable, positves of life outweigh the negative ones. I'm 44. I was once that nihilistic, but then I started to look at life in it's entirety, and yes there is too much of bad things that go on, but the number of bad seemed to be rediculously small compared to the everyday warmth and love and intersting things that go on routinely.

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## yizxik

Is there ostensibly a God? Is there a real (in the metaphysical sense) idea of justice? I don't think so, however that doesn't mean that there aren't any of those ideas out there. I feel that doing something good, and sacraficing something is the reward in and of itself. In fact I would claim it to be selfish to do ameliorative and charitable things just because I thought in the end some long bearded omnipotent proprieter would give me a pat on the back and everlasting life. Just lighten up. I think as you grow up you'll realize that the key to happiness is realizing that the world is a lot more of what you make it, instead of what it makes you. Sure there is suffering, and pain but who is to say that its consciencely designed by this sense of "evil". Do what you can to help those people but don't sit here and ***** about how the world is out to get you, because like you said, the world doesn't care about how you feel, and I've got news for you, that isn't its job. Just have some hot tea, read some Spinoza, and relax. And I'm not picking on Madhura, I know how most of you feel about the injustice and amorality, but if we didn't have injustice we would never have a sense of justice according to your nominalist theories.

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## SleepyWitch

> Such nihilism. Is this all you see? You don't see how many parents love their children or people in hospitals getting care or criminals brought to justice? You don't see how many people give to charities or how doctors reconstruct the face of a child that was in an accident or families getting together for holidays and enjoying family bonds or friends hanging out and telling jokes and helping each other? And even your dreadful politicians must be doing something right if economic situations keep improving. Or how about life expectency? In the United States in 1900 the life expectancy was 47, and we were already one of the most advanced countries in the world. Today it is around 80. That's right, almost double. And people are leading fuller lives with more free time, rather than suffer at farming for 16 hours a day. And education is almost universal now, with a large percentage going on to University. I don't know why you have such nihilism. It strikes me as more of an intellectual construct rather than experiencing the totality of life. And when I say totality I mean exactly that. You seem to have limited your view to the complete negative. I don't know how old you are, but as you go on with life, observe and count and see if the small, perhaps unnoticable, positves of life outweigh the negative ones. I'm 44. I was once that nihilistic, but then I started to look at life in it's entirety, and yes there is too much of bad things that go on, but the number of bad seemed to be rediculously small compared to the everyday warmth and love and intersting things that go on routinely.


yep, you've got a good point there....
I do decidedly not believe that there is any purpose to life, but on the other hand, I agree that people tend to look exclusively at the negative side of things. also, it's interesting to see WHO the people are that come up with these grim pictures of life... most of the time it's intellectuals who don't have a single care in their life (no offence, I don't mean you *madhura* but the people who came up with these views in the first place)... I think it's because they themselves are not faced with problems like poverty, rape etc, so they get sick of life just to have something to whine about. Wallowing in self-pity about the dreadfulness of life in general is a good excuse for not doing anything about the real problems of this planet......this way one can always find an argument that proves how useless everything is.... errr.. now I'm beginning to sound like some interventionist bootlicker of Mr Bush, which I'm definitely not.....

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## madhura

> ..I don't know why you have such nihilism. It strikes me as more of an intellectual construct rather than experiencing the totality of life. And when I say totality I mean exactly that. You seem to have limited your view to the complete negative. I don't know how old you are, but as you go on with life, observe and count and see if the small, perhaps unnoticable, positves of life outweigh the negative ones. I'm 44. I was once that nihilistic, but then I started to look at life in it's entirety, and yes there is too much of bad things that go on, but the number of bad seemed to be rediculously small compared to the everyday warmth and love and intersting things that go on routinely.


Perhaps you're right about it being an intellectual construct and not an objective viewpoint. In fact I'm almost certain I'm not being even remotely objective here, because it does feel like something hit me between the eyes, and I haven't quite found my footing yet. I'm 20. Maybe its one of those things we grow out of, maybe its one of those things we have to go through to reach certain other conclusions. But somehow, I seem to know in the deepest, most secret core of my being, that I will never be like you, Virgil, with your unshakeable calm, your warmth, nor like Bhekti, who chooses to fight back, nor like Rachel, who knows how to overcome all with her own goodness, how to heal all with her love. Of course I have seen beauty, of course I have known love, and of course I have felt things change for the better. I don't know if its enough. 

(I feel myself sitting here before you all, like some dilapidated Prufrockian figure, shaking my head with a strange, solemn, mildly apologetic expression on my face, saying over and over again, barely audibly.. So sorry. So sorry but I don't want this world. Its not good enough.. So sorry.)

Oh god.

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## Virgil

Madhura - You seem like a wonderful person. I certainly don't want you to apologize. A friend of mine gave me advice just before I was married. He said it's not as good as people say it is, but it's not as bad as people say it is either. I think this applies on looking at the world too.

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## madhura

> He said it's not as good as people say it is, but it's not as bad as people say it is either.


That sounds about enough to go on.  :Smile:

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## Theshizznigg

I'm not going to argue with any of you. 
Despite what I may think, it will not do me any good to evince my feelings upon you, no more than it is for me to steal, lie, or cheat. 
In the end, that only leaves me with the satisfaction of my own superflous victories, like a job well done, and leaves others intensely bitter. 

God created the universe.
In my opinion, yes. 
Why? I couldn't tell you, I am not God, nor know the ways of his mind.
Why did he create us? There could be any number of reasons, and probably are. 
The most evidence we ever been given for his reasons, are stated in the Bible. Which I'd encourage all of you to read.

Till later, thanks.
Shizz

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## bhekti

> ... But somehow, I seem to know in the deepest, most secret core of my being, that I will never be like you, Virgil, with your unshakeable calm, your warmth, nor like Bhekti, who chooses to fight back, nor like Rachel, who knows how to overcome all with her own goodness, how to heal all with her love. Of course I have seen beauty, of course I have known love, and of course I have felt things to change for the better. I don't know if its enough.


When reading you, i remember Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov, and sometimes i hear the undergroundman too

You don't have to be like anybody. And, often, i think, one should not be like oneself.

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## madhura

Aaaarrghh.. Have been reading Jonathan Swift for my final year exams next month, and after going over everyone's responses to my posts, am starting to have grotesque visions of myself metamorphosing slowly into some sort of Gulliver, who, by the end of his voyage, began so fervently to idealise the rationality and virtue of the Houyhnhnms and to detest the animal nature of the Yahoos - to the extent that when he was finally picked up by Don Pedro's ship to be taken home, he could not relate to humans at all - he kept addressing them as Yahoos and shrank from their smell and touch. He had been feeding his misanthropy on his idealisation of the Hou..(unpronouncable)s, and identifying himself as one of their kind, and he therefore became incapable of coming to terms with the fact that Don Pedro was as much a kind, gentle, polite, virtuous middle-class Englishman as he himself had been at the beginning of his journeys.

Swift himself was struggling with insanity by the end of his life.

God, what a horrible analogy. The sort of thing I'll have nightmares about for weeks to come.

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## madhura

By the way, why is it that there are close to 250 threads on religious issues? This is a literary forum - ?

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## The Unnamable

Interesting reading, madhura.

Life is in fact, a battle. On this point optimists and pessimists agree. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in very great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally, unhappy. But the world as it stands is no illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of a night; we wake up to it again for ever and ever; we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it. We can welcome experience as it comes, and give it what it demands, in exchange for something which it is idle to pause to call much or little so long as it contributes to swell the volume of consciousness. In this there is mingled pain and delight, but over the mysterious mixture there hovers a visible rule, that bids us learn to will and seek to understand.

Henry James

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## madhura

I seem to hold nothing inside me but years of fruitless rage, and contempt for man, and a taste in my mouth of burnt chocolate. I have nothing to give back to this world but lessons in ageless grace, lessons in patience: and tearful cries of "Shame! Shame!" and the foam from the mouths of horses that have been whipped and tortured, whipped and tortured, and have been broken in, broken down, broken to pieces or simply broken. That is all, no more. No more.

And as I have lately been told repeatedly by a friend - it is foolish to put oneself deliberately out there, _looking_ for experience, for life happens to us. It hits us right between the eyes just when were least expecting it, and there is nothing we can do about it. We cope. Theres that nasty word again - cope. And in the process, perhaps, discover certain .. hidden reserves .. within ourselves, that we would not otherwise have known of? Do things that we would not otherwise have believed ourselves capable of? Get to the point beyond which we cannot continue to hurl ourselves, heedless of pain, at insuperable obstacles, and then _cross_ that point? There is excruciating pain in that also, and enormous amounts of strength required, but I do believe there is a certain beauty in it. In seeing how time and experience mellow and temper the soul. In observing, perhaps, how age affects the way a woman holds her body - age and maybe the loss of a dearly loved child? The way she walks. The way she bends over her work. The way her mouth is darker and fuller, and slower to form a smile. 

Humans are capable of incredible things. Simply because if they are forced to do without, they do without. The mind adapts, strangely  to loss and absence and continual pain. The body also. Like a river forced to cleave itself another path, the mind finds consolation in something or the other. Because flow it must - until it runs dry, therefore flow it will, regardless. Sometimes, its beautiful to watch. I suppose whether one sees it as beautiful or not depends on whether one is capable of valuing in another person such things as grace, and forbearance, and temperance, and benevolence.

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## The Unnamable

*madhura*, 
you remind me of myself. You also sound like Hamlet. Dont get too depressed by these thoughts, especially the former. If you continue to think about things in the way you do, you will probably have many moments of unhappiness but, as I said once elsewhere on this board, at least your life will be real. You will also (as I have done) be able to add to your account of enchanted moments.

I once went through a particularly vicious and unpleasant divorce. It was the occasion of one of the nicer things anyone has ever said to me. I went through the ringer but was unexpectedly upbeat in the eyes of friend who knew the particulars. He pointed this out to me. Im okay, I said, she can do to me whatever she wants but she wont touch my core. To this he simply replied, thats because youve got one. From what Ive already read of yours, you appear to have one as well. Just do your best to keep it intact and ignore the trite moralising and bland, facile and cheery optimism of those who live in a tidy little cottage of the soul.

*blp* posted a link to a _Guardian_ article on Samuel Beckett by Terry Eagleton. It ends, 

It is the writing of a man who understood that sober, bleak-eyed realism serves the cause of human emancipation more faithfully than starry-eyed utopia.

I hope you let your own bleak-eyed realism continues to serve the same cause.

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## Petrarch's Love

Unnamable--I feel there is a substantial amount of truth in your response to Madhura, but I wanted to reply to your line about those with a "bland, facile and cheery optimism," particularly the word "facile." I am tired of hearing that optimism is some sort of easy way out of dealing with life. It can be a very difficult process to becoming a true optimist. It means discovering the unfairness and the horror of life, developing a true understanding of a "sober, bleak-eyed realism," and deciding that, even while knowing all this, there is still enough good or potential for good in this world to make living in it bearable and possibly even worthwhile. I don't know about everyone, but I suspect that several of the "optimists" here have not expressed a belief in the beauty of life lightly, but have made such statements after careful consideration of and experience with the ugly side of existence. 
I understand the point in the quote from Eagleton, that those after a "starry eyed Utopia" who blind themselves to the real circumstances of the world must accomplish very little, but I doubt that those who wallow in despair are much help either. When someone is alone and mourning it doesn't help to just say "cheer up" but it doesn't help to say "well, what do you expect, life's tough" either. What helps is to hold that person's hand and express an understanding, a human empathy with the sadness that person is feeling at the cruelty of life, but to also to give that person love and hope and to slowly help introduce joy back into their life. The guy who's freezing and hungry on the street corner doesn't need someone to walk by and ignore him because they'll only see the good in life, but he doesn't need someone to walk by and sagely inform him that life sucks either. He needs someone to acknowledge that fact, and then give him a sandwich and cofee and some money for a room for the night.

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## Xamonas Chegwe

Where pessimism scores over optimism every time is this; when the pessimist is wrong, he is happy to be so.  :Nod:

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## Virgil

> I am tired of hearing that optimism is some sort of easy way out of dealing with life. It can be a very difficult process to becoming a true optimist. It means discovering the unfairness and the horror of life, developing a true understanding of a "sober, bleak-eyed realism," and deciding that, even while knowing all this, there is still enough good or potential for good in this world to make living in it bearable and possibly even worthwhile. I don't know about everyone, but I suspect that several of the "optimists" here have not expressed a belief in the beauty of life lightly, but have made such statements after careful consideration of and experience with the ugly side of existence.


Here, here. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth.

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## Petrarch's Love

> Where pessimism scores over optimism every time is this; when the pessimist is wrong, he is happy to be so.


Which only goes to prove that pessimists could potentially be very happy people if they would only admit they're wrong now and again.  :Nod:

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## madhura

> You remind me of myself .. Dont get too depressed by these thoughts, especially the former.


Yes I know. I'd noticed, perhaps not with too much clarity and a lot more exuberance than was appropriate, but I had. (Perhaps sometime in the near future I could list out to you all those threads that I've read so far, and all the places where I'd felt the purest sense of relief reading something that you posted, because something in it rang unmistakably and consistently true? I have not been capable of such consistency myself, and in my whole life I have only met one other who is.) "Especially the former"? Save that for the sort of people you've been dealing with. I insist upon wearing it like a badge and being blatantly proud of it. If you had not responded to my posts, I would have responded to yours. 

How could I possibly think any other way? It is beyond me: irrespective of whatever moments of unhappiness I may encounter, I owe myself that much. My sanity depends on my honesty, as does my life. Do you think having lived in this manner all my years - what you call a real life - do you think it is possible after that to settle for something watered-down to the point of shapelessness, unrecognizability? Such a life would seem vulgar to me. Could you do it? These things, to an extent, I have lived, and known, all through my life, not with as much courage as you - but they are familiar nonetheless - therefore, the things you say now sink into me without so much as a murmur of protest, without surprise even, only gladness. 

Does anyone know better than you what it takes to keep that much of oneself intact? To have come this far without its dissolution, to live a whole life and maintain the same standards? To not permit sloppiness of any sort? To not permit complacency? One does not escape acres of loneliness, acres of longing, acres of pain. One does not escape becoming somewhat gnarly on the outside, twisted and hardened like an old tree trunk, and constantly chafing, wearing away at the edges, always slightly miserable under it all, and always unmistakably bitter. That is where I know you from. 

What I am trying to say very badly here is - whatever it is, its mine. I want no other life, nor is there another life available to me. The world may rush out to embrace me in the beginning, but I will still be too perceptive to blind myself to their fallacies, their projections, their shallow disregard for any sort of recognizable structure. So much easier, isn't it, after all, not to take responsibility for anything? Like how kids in college can't raise their hands to answer a question - Let someone else be wrong. Like how people just skirt around an injured bird lying in the middle of the road, or at the most, lift it up on a newspaper without getting their hands dirty and somehow get it onto somebody else's window ledge, so that its out of harm's way until of course the owner of the particular window decides - to hell with kindness and all that, he can't have a dead bird on his hands - back to the streets with the bugger. And so on. Now that sort of attitude, in my opinion, has potential for a far more effective application of the word 'pusillanimous'. (I shall resist all further urges to go into a rant. Enough.) There is nothing to rely upon except what is mine, and this is mine. I will do everything in my power to preserve it.

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## The Unnamable

> Unnamable--I feel there is a substantial amount of truth in your response to Madhura, but I wanted to reply to your line about those with a "bland, facile and cheery optimism," particularly the word "facile." I am tired of hearing that optimism is some sort of easy way out of dealing with life.


My response was for madhura  I wasnt bothered at all by what others think - but thank you for your version of Portias quality of mercy speech. Did you consider whether or not _I_ am one of those who make statements after careful consideration of and experience with the ugly side of life? I wonder if you are as tired of hearing optimists dismissed as I am of hearing pessimists offered either disapproval or the feeble advice of the comfortable.




> *I suspect* that several of the "optimists" here have not expressed a belief in the beauty of life lightly, but have made such statements after careful consideration of and experience with the ugly side of existence.


I dont. 




> I understand the point in the quote from Eagleton, that those after a "starry eyed Utopia" who blind themselves to the real circumstances of the world must accomplish very little, but I doubt that those who wallow in despair are much help either.


Are either madhura or I wallowing in despair? For that matter, was Beckett? Perhaps that is one of the differences between us, both in terms of literary taste and approach to life. I dont just _understand_ Eagletons point, I _agree with it_ and find that it informs my outlook. The same is true with Becketts work itself. What I find strange about this forum is that it supposedly exists for the discussion of Literature. Many works so labelled focus on the harsher aspects of the human condition yet few here seem to want to admit in a contributor to the forum what they can find in many of the writers discussed here. 




> When someone is alone and mourning it doesn't help to just say "cheer up" but it doesn't help to say "well, what do you expect, life's tough" either.


I dont think I suggested either, to madhura or anyone else.




> What helps is to hold that person's hand and express an understanding, a human empathy with the sadness that person is feeling at the cruelty of life, but to also to give that person love and hope and to slowly help introduce joy back into their life.


Yes, when he was alive, Id often telephone Beckett and offer him a cuddle and a shoulder to cry on. As Blake wrote in_ The Human Abstract_:

Pity would be no more,
If we did not make somebody Poor;
And Mercy no more could be.
If all were as happy as we;




> The guy who's freezing and hungry on the street corner doesn't need someone to walk by and ignore him because they'll only see the good in life, but he doesn't need someone to walk by and sagely inform him that life sucks either. He needs someone to acknowledge that fact, and then give him a sandwich and cofee and some money for a room for the night.


And that, of course, is how we can solve the problem of mans suffering  give everyone a nice sandwich, a coffee and a room for the night. Forgive me if my response seems unduly harsh but I face the dilemma you speak of every day here. I went to Pantip Plaza yesterday. The first picture I took through the taxi window and the second I took while there. Do you think the two worlds are in some way related?

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## The Unnamable

> How could I possibly think any other way? It is beyond me: irrespective of whatever moments of unhappiness I may encounter, I owe myself that much. My sanity depends on my honesty, as does my life. Do you think having lived in this manner all my years - what you call a real life - do you think it is possible after that to settle for something watered-down to the point of shapelessness, unrecognizability? Such a life would seem vulgar to me. *Could you do it*?


No, I cant. Be yourself is the worst advice you can give to some people but in your case it would be superfluous anyway. You cant be anything else, nor do you want to be. Thats because there is a you in the first place. You wont find very many here who will agree with you (they only deal in neat solutions) but you will find plenty of similar views in the authors represented here. Whenever I read a piece of home-spun philosophy or some crass moralising, I turn back to the ideas that matter to me  I know Ill get a more complex and authentic view from the likes of Shakespeare. As Saul Bellow said, You have to fight for your life; thats the chief condition on which you hold it. 

There is no antidote against the opium of time. The winter sun shows how soon the light fades from the ash, how soon night enfolds us. Hour upon hour is added to the sum. Time itself grows old. Pyramids, arches and obelisks are melting pillars of snow. Not even those who have found a place amidst the heavenly constellations have perpetuated their names: Nimrod is lost in Orion, and Osiris in the Dog Star. Indeed, old families last not three oaks. To set one's name to a work gives no one a title to be remembered, for who knows how many of the best of men have gone without a trace? The iniquity of oblivion blindly scatters her poppyseed and when wretchedness falls upon us one summers day like snow, all we wish for is to be forgotten.
W G Sebald, _The Rings of Saturn_

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## Petrarch's Love

> Did you consider whether or not I am one of those who make statements after careful consideration of and experience with the ugly side of life?


I assumed you did. I meant it when I said that I felt there was a lot of truth in your response. 



> And that, of course, is how we can solve the problem of mans suffering  give everyone a nice sandwich, a coffee and a room for the night. Forgive me if my response seems unduly harsh but I face the dilemma you speak of every day here. I went to Pantip Plaza yesterday. The first picture I took through the taxi window and the second I took while there. Do you think the two worlds are in some way related?


Yes, I do. I didn't think I was offering a solution to man's suffering. Forgive me for having come across as more preachy than I had intended (I certainly did not intend to suggest that this is not a problem you are all too familiar with, and I do apologize if that is how I sounded). I meant to suggest a situation for which, as you rightly point out, there is no realistic, happy and universal solution. Giving a person a little food for one day isn't all that great or lasting a contribution. But this impulse to give even something so little in the face of the overwhelming realization that it will not, in fact, change the world has to be born out of a spirit of optimism. If everyone completely embraced a pessimistic viewpoint they would simply give up against such odds and even the small amount of aid and compassion available in the world would no longer exist. I don't think that you yourself are so entirely nihilistic as this, but I did feel that in your casual dismissal of attempts to provide a more optimistic account of life you were refusing to acknowledge this better side of human nature, without which we would indeed have no alternative but wallowing in despair. This was my reaction. Perhaps this is not what you intended. 



> What I find strange about this forum is that it supposedly exists for the discussion of Literature. Many works so labelled focus on the harsher aspects of the human condition yet few here seem to want to admit in a contributor to the forum what they can find in many of the writers discussed here.


I can't speak for others. I personally have no desire to exclude you. There must be a consideration of both the more admirable and the harsher aspects of life. You serve an important role in not allowing us to forget the latter. I am only trying to ensure that we do not lose sight of the former. I think it is very easy to do.

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## The Unnamable

> If everyone completely embraced a pessimistic viewpoint they would simply give up against such odds and even the small amount of aid and compassion available in the world would no longer exist. I don't think that you yourself are so entirely nihilistic as this, but I did feel that in your casual dismissal of attempts to provide a more optimistic account of life you were refusing to acknowledge this better side of human nature, without which we would indeed have no alternative but wallowing in despair. This was my reaction. Perhaps this is not what you intended.


I was not dismissing a better side of human nature but responding to madhuras sense of despair and offering the small consolation that not everyone lives in Chocolate Land. The nature of madhuras post was not one that invited the easy answers offered. This is why I would describe my outlook as neither nihilistic nor pessimistic. I do not embrace a negative outlook, nor wallow in it. I still believe, however, that Eagleton is right. Real solutions will come from bleak-eyed realism rather than starry-eyed utopia. What you might call my pessimism does not encourage me to refuse to acknowledge the nice moments nor withdraw all support in order to precipitate mans downfall. I dont simply give up but I do despair when real suffering is met with pomposity or facile optimism, however well meant it might be.

"The difference between us, Wells, is fundamental. You don't care for humanity but think they are to be improved. I love humanity but know they are not!"
Conrad to HG Wells.

I dont care much for humanity nor do I think it can be improved. Ill still try, though  as long as people are serious.

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## bhekti

What is, then, to be done? Who is the enemy?

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## madhura

I don't know about Hamlet, I've been thinking Jimmy Porter.

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## Virgil

> Real solutions will come from bleak-eyed realism rather than starry-eyed utopia.


I agree with this one hundred percent. The question then becomes who's "bleak-eyed realism" do we believe.

Hey, nice quote from Conrad: I believe in this too:"I love humanity but know they are not!" [Referring to humanity being improved.]

With one qualification: Yes, humanity fundementally doesn't change, but the structures in which humanity functions and lives can be improved to provide for better lives.

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## madhura

> ..the small consolation that not everyone lives in Chocolate Land. The nature of madhuras post was not one that invited the easy answers offered. *This is why I would describe my outlook as neither nihilistic nor pessimistic. I do not embrace a negative outlook, nor wallow in it.* .. What you might call my pessimism does not encourage me to refuse to acknowledge the nice moments nor withdraw all support in order to precipitate mans downfall. I dont simply give up but I do despair when real suffering is met with pomposity or facile optimism, however well meant it might be.


I'm still trying to understand that, trying to remember why (though it didn't consciously register at the time) in some corner of my mind I resented the over-simplification and reduction of whatever I said before on this thread to one word, 'pessimism'. I hate such tidy binaries as optimism/pessimism. All my life I've done all I could to prove that binaries do not exist in real life, the real thing is far more complex, and by resorting to such terms, one is essentially leaving enormous chunks of consciousness unaccounted for. What I see is what I see in as many words, hopefully as precise as possible. Whatever inferences I may draw from that, I do not want them all piled indiscriminately under a single header, for there are distinctions. Is it that people are incapable of grasping these distinctions and therefore they read it all as one long rant against God and man and life in general? Therefore in my posts I was obviously *'*****ing'*, in the words of one of the posters on this thread? The biggest complaint against Look Back in Anger is that while Porter brilliantly takes apart all that is despicable or loathsome in contemporary society, he offers no elaboration of his view of what an alternative culture might be like. "But what next? There is no answer." What if I were to say that what is implied in the play is not that _Jimmy_ has no answer but that there _is_ no answer? That it ends with as much futility as it began? That the whole point of what I have been struggling to say, is that there is nothing to be achieved with a godforsaken "sandwich and a coffee and some money and a room for the night" or whatever the inane suggestion was there? I have yet to work out why I cannot stop myself believing that the cynic is the truest sort of person, that if other people do not see things the way he does, it is their escapism that keeps them from doing so. There is something they do not see, or something they refuse to accept, something they are in denial of. Some sort of piercing pain that they cannot feel, and therefore they are able to go back to society and hold up its ideals as their own, and live out the rest of their lives guiltlessly.

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## Petrarch's Love

> I was not dismissing a better side of human nature but responding to madhuras sense of despair and offering the small consolation that not everyone lives in Chocolate Land. The nature of madhuras post was not one that invited the easy answers offered. This is why I would describe my outlook as neither nihilistic nor pessimistic. I do not embrace a negative outlook, nor wallow in it. I still believe, however, that Eagleton is right. Real solutions will come from bleak-eyed realism rather than starry-eyed utopia. What you might call my pessimism does not encourage me to refuse to acknowledge the nice moments nor withdraw all support in order to precipitate mans downfall. I dont simply give up but I do despair when real suffering is met with pomposity or facile optimism, however well meant it might be.


I think I misinterpreted your stance. Madhura is very wise in saying that we should avoid binaries. I thought that you were setting up a binary by characterizing optimism as "facile," and I was trying to express (very badly perhaps) that hopeful, "optimistic" opinions are not always expressed without a simultaneous awareness of "pessimistic" opinions, but that the two are more complexly related. It is clearer to me now that you were addressing a particular type of easy way out. I think this exchange has given me a better understanding of the views you post here. I'm still not sure we agree entirely on things, but I do agree with you in that I don't think humanity can be improved, but that I'll still try.

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## bhekti

> ... I have yet to work out why I cannot stop myself believing that the cynic is the truest sort of person, that if other people do not see things the way he does, it is their escapism that keeps them from doing so. There is something they do not see, or something they refuse to accept, something they are in denial of. Some sort of piercing pain that they cannot feel, and therefore they are able to go back to society and hold up its ideals as their own, and live out the rest of their lives guiltlessly.


No. A cynical person is truer but not truest. There clearly is cynicism at the beginning, but there must be a "then..." that follows immediately after it. It may take some time for a recovering process, a gathering of strengths. To remain cynical is to become dishonest to the source of the cynicism. A perpetual cynic is a liar, at least until he/she dies. He/she certainly is seeing something else, _something other_ than what is there in his/her eyes. It is what is there behind, or under (for it was turned upside down), the very world he/she is being a part of, but not his/her "heart". When he/she is not acknowledging it, by "fighting" for it, his/her cynicism becomes nothing but a form of escapism which he/she seems to overlook perhaps unconsciously. Unconsciously, because it is very pleasant. (For cynicism creates a certain, particular delight; a peculiar relief it gives. It makes us a drama, a tragedy in which we are the hero, the tragic hero, and that's why we secretly, deeply, truly, madly enjoy it so much.)

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## bhekti

A part of me is sick. Another part is not. The rest I don't know. I think a part of every individual's humanity is sick, dying, and can't be improved. Such is its normal condition, its "innocent" condition. And, this part is very strong, forever young, very rich in variety.

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## madhura

> Humans are capable of incredible things. Simply because if they are forced to do without, they do without. The mind adapts, strangely  to loss and absence and continual pain. The body also. Like a river forced to cleave itself another path, the mind finds consolation in something or the other. Because flow it must - until it runs dry, therefore flow it will, regardless.


(A continuation of this was supposed to be - Therefore I will live. As I have lived this far, by clinging desperately to fragments of a fractured truth. I will live. I will live out this life of mine, fill out my days with words and sound, and smells I have not known before, my love for my mother - she sings, she has the most beautiful voice - and the two or three other people I care for. I will live because I want to go on listening to the music I love, because I want to learn someday to play the violin. I want to have children of my own. 
Nothing else. 
But not here. Not in this city. In this city I will die of a shortage of breath. Or will die simply and quietly of sadness. Of starvation. Of inadequate joy.)

But then I am no longer sure of these things. I am no longer sure of my capacity; if I lie quiet enough in bed, I can hear the groans and creaks of a mind weighed down by a weight it cannot possibly hold, beginning to give way, beginning to fray and snap in the more tender places.

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## madhura

> I have yet to work out why I cannot stop myself believing that the cynic is the truest sort of person, that if other people do not finally see things the way he does, it is their escapism that keeps them from doing so. There is something they do not see, or something they refuse to accept, something they are in denial of. Some sort of piercing pain that they cannot feel, and therefore they are able to go back to society and hold up its ideals as their own, and live out the rest of their lives guiltlessly.


And a continuation of this was supposed to be - I wonder if the difference between the way I look at the world and the way all the other people who claim also to have examined the "negative" aspects of life look at it, has something to do with the fact that their awareness of pain and sorrow is largely circumstantial? Just a theory, of course, not meant to glorify one or the other - simply an attempt at making finer distinctions. (Circumstantial - for lack of a better word.) In the sense of being generated, and then ingrained by specific situational factors - which can be traced back to *a particular* cause/incident/other influence - rather than, (as in my case, the way I see it) an unforced, cumulative appreciation/awareness/understanding of reality, not stimulated or brought to its crisis/culmination by (a) specific event(s)? I say that because life has, in general, been good to me. I have not suffered years at the hands of callous parents, I have never had to live on the streets, I have not been raped (physically abused? well yes, perhaps), I have never lost anyone close to me, I have never gone to bed hungry. I have had things made available to me when I required them. None of the typical causes for complaint apply to me.

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## Virgil

> And that, of course, is how we can solve the problem of mans suffering  give everyone a nice sandwich, a coffee and a room for the night. Forgive me if my response seems unduly harsh but I face the dilemma you speak of every day here. I went to Pantip Plaza yesterday. The first picture I took through the taxi window and the second I took while there. Do you think the two worlds are in some way related?


I fail to understand what you are trying to say with the two pictures. Can you clarify? There are a couple of different possible thoughts running through my mind, and I don't want to assume the wrong one.

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## lavendar1

Can you imagine the man with his hands uplifted as a participant in the world depicted in the second picture? It's the 'have-nots' vs the 'haves.' 

And it's not occurring in another realm. It's in your town, too. It's in everyone's town. 

So...we can get cynical...or we can help "those who need a light for the night" in whatever small way we can...with a sandwich and a place, if that's what's required. There is no solution. Face it.

We can only do "small things with great love."

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## madhura

Ah, yes, Rachel, my squirrel's dead.

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## madhura

:FRlol:   :Biggrin:  


> I understand your position even less. You are offering me a Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary page as evidence that I have misspelled Unnamable when the word is a proper noun  Unnamable is the actual title of the third book of Becketts Trilogy. As this is a Literature forum, its not unreasonable to expect that some users might have heard of Samuel Beckett, winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize for, wait for it, LITERATURE! This was, according to the Academy, for his writing, which - in new forms for the novel and drama - in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation. Im sure that the correct spelling should now be applied to all future copies of his work to be published. He might have won the Nobel Prize but hes not too clever to take a lesson in language from an Internet user armed with Merriams Online Dictionary. No doubt Mr. Beckett should have waited for the Internet and spelled it Godeau as well. .. Dec 21, 2005


I don't know how you do it, one after the other after the other. Isn't it exhausting? Isn't it mind-numbingly repetitive? And at the end of it, still futile? I can't do it, I give up. I just purse my lips, sigh, perhaps, and slide back into silence. I've been told that's bad for the spirit - One should fight.

 :FRlol:  But DAMN if I had a penny for every single time I've been told I "think too much" ..  :FRlol:

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## The Unnamable

> Yes I know precisely what you meant by it, my point is what drove you to the point where you say things like "don't get too depressed by the fact that you're like me," to a stranger? .
> 
> And I don't know about Hamlet, but I've been thinking Jimmy Porter.


It wasnt really an honest disclaimer. As for why it sounds like one, I dont know. Virgil said once that my avatar is off-putting for many people  they must assume I look like that and so suppose I am some serious old fart. When I said that you reminded me of me I meant it. The title of the thread is Gods purpose and it seemed that you were suggesting that life simply has no purpose. I can accept that now with a lot more equanimity than I did when I was an undergraduate twenty years ago. Having placed so much faith in the powers of human reason, it was difficult to conclude that life is a desire rather than a meaning. Im glad you like Jimmy Porter, though. Now theres someone who would be even more unwelcome than I am on the forum. He can be admired by the dilettantes who use their appreciation of Literature as evidence of their sensitivity credentials but make him a real person and the umbrage starts flying. 




> I'm still trying to understand that, trying to remember why (though it didn't consciously register at the time) in some corner of my mind I resented the over-simplification and reduction of whatever I said before on this thread to one word, 'pessimism'. I hate such tidy binarisms as optimism/pessimism. All my life I've done all I could to prove that binarisms do not exist in real life, the real thing is far more complex, and by resorting to such terms, one is essentially leaving enormous chunks of consciousness unaccounted for. What I see is what I see in as many words, hopefully as precise as possible. Whatever inferences I may draw from that, I do not want them all piled indiscriminately under a single header, for there are distinctions. Is it that people are incapable of grasping these distinctions and therefore they read it all as one long rant against God and man and life in general?


This is a very understandable gripe and goes some way to expressing my own irritation. You are right  the simple minded want easy answers and so need to dismiss anything that exposes the fact that there arent any. With many people, theres so much less to them than meets the eye. 




> Therefore in my posts I was obviously '*****ing', in the words of one of the posters on this thread? The biggest complaint against Look Back in Anger is that while Porter brilliantly takes apart all that is despicable or loathsome in contemporary society, he offers no elaboration of his view of what an alternative culture might be like. "But what next? There is no answer." What if I were to say that what is implied in the play is not that Jimmy has no answer but that there is no answer? That it ends with as much futility as it began? That the whole point of what I have been struggling to say, is that there is nothing to be achieved with a godforsaken "sandwich and a coffee and some money and a room for the night" or whatever the inane suggestion was there? I have yet to work out why I cannot stop myself believing that the cynic is the truest sort of person, that if other people do not see things the way he does, it is their escapism that keeps them from doing so. There is something they do not see, or something they refuse to accept, something they are in denial of. Some sort of piercing pain that they cannot feel, and therefore they are able to go back to society and hold up its ideals as their own, and live out the rest of their lives guiltlessly.


Have a look at the Larkin poem thread  its interesting for a number of reasons relating to the sorts of points you have made throughout this thread.

http://www.online-literature.com/for...&page=14&pp=15

It begins at #201 and continues into the discussion of the next poem so carry on to page 17 and beyond.




> I don't know how you do it, one after the other after the other. Isn't it exhausting? Isn't it mind-numbingly repetitive? And at the end of it, still futile? I can't do it, I give up. I just purse my lips, sigh, perhaps, and slide back into silence. I've been told that's bad for the spirit - One should fight.


What are you trying to do to me?! Picking the scabs off old wounds can be fun but it does cause blood to start flowing again.  :Brow:  

Yes, it is exhausting carrying on with what Yeats called, the day's war with every knave and dolt, and it really is a war of attrition. Fortunately, I have a few kindred spirits to accompany me into battle. Without them, Id be utterly lost. Then of course, theres Beckett who also lightens the load - by making me realise just how heavy it is. He is assumed to be too bleak to appeal to any but the suicidal but he was a kind and gentle man. Harold Pinter recounts a story of when he and Beckett went on a night of carousing. It ended with Pinter slumped over the table, feeling the worse for drink. Beckett disappeared and returned a few hours later at around 3. a.m. Ive been over the whole of damn Paris for this he said and put a tin of bicarbonate of soda on the table.

Just before he died, he was asked what he would miss. His answer was as economical and uncompromising as ever: Precious little. But its the precious little things that can make me feel it was worth getting out of bed. 




> But DAMN if I had a penny for every single time I've been told I "think too much" ..


Usually by those who have never had a thought in their life, no doubt. 

Keep fighting no matter how futile it is. Its one of the things I like about Macbeth:

They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,
But, bear-like, I must fight the course.
_Act V scene vii_

Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.
_Act V scene v_

Don't take off your harness.

Ill leave the final words to Beckett:

"Let me say before I go any further that I forgive nobody. I wish them all an atrocious life and then the fires and ice of hell and in the execrable generations to come an honoured name. Enough for this evening." _Malone Dies_

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## madhura

> It wasnt really an honest disclaimer. As for why it sounds like one, I dont know.


Hmmm. My misjudgement, then.




> When I said that you reminded me of me I meant it. The title of the thread is Gods purpose and it seemed that you were suggesting that life simply has no purpose. I can accept that now with a lot more equanimity than I did when I was an undergraduate twenty years ago. Having placed so much faith in the powers of human reason, it was difficult to conclude that life is a desire rather than a meaning.


I wasn't suggesting that life has no purpose, I was screaming it out in terror to anyone who cared to listen or respond, registering my protest against the cosmos in general, without a fragment of hope left that any other possibility could exist. How it could be possible to face that with the vaguest trace of equanimity or anything remotely resembling it is something beyond my understanding, at least thus far. 




> Im glad you like Jimmy Porter, though. Now theres someone who would be even more unwelcome than I am on the forum.


Excellent. That gives me something to look forward to.  :Wink:  




> This is a very understandable gripe and goes some way to expressing my own irritation. You are right  the simple minded want easy answers and so need to dismiss anything that exposes the fact that there arent any. With many people, theres so much less to them than meets the eye.


I'm running out of options, though. I cannot do it, I cannot fake my way through life, I cannot lie, I cannot lose sight of the spaces I am coming from nor the person I have been and I cannot deal effectively with whatever is put before me, in general, in the world - I cannot help being disappointed with it. I don't know what to do with the vast bulk of the answers that are given me when I raise questions. They are imaginary responses based on imaginary data from imaginary realities. I stopped attending classes within the first month of college starting (which shaved 5-10% off my final score), because it seemed to me to project nothing different from the socially conditioned, tame, milk-and-sugar reality that is fed - pre-masticated - into every child's mind in school, so that when the child comes out into the world, he must first, if he wishes to make any claims upon any sort of originality, unlearn all that has been taught him, and then set about constructing from scratch, an actual and vastly more vital sense of personal reality, based on what has been seen or felt or known. Well - college didn't seem to break any of those neat, gridded structures that the present-day insular morality thrives on, only to reaffirm them, more shoddily than ever because it was easier for me to see through them. Whatever breaking of such structures may have happened in my life, I did quietly by myself or with the guidance provided by a select few, themselves malcontents. I am unable to find a way to do right by myself. 




> What are you trying to do to me?! Picking the scabs off old wounds can be fun but it does cause blood to start flowing again. .. Yes, it is exhausting carrying on with what Yeats called, the day's war with every knave and dolt, and it really is a war of attrition.


Forgive me. It wasn't meant to be anything more than a private joke of a sort, implying only that I know, I understand the sheer size of what confronts you everyday of your life, and that I deeply appreciate the fight you put up against it. It is not something I can do with as much consistency as you. I cannot keep a regular path. I go berserk in spurts, hacking away at everything in my way, knocking out support structures and then maliciously watching things collapse around me. Burning bridges, like I said. Not something I'm proud of.




> Usually by those who have never had a thought in their life, no doubt.


But of course.




> Keep fighting no matter how futile it is.


I only have this much. I will hold on to it as long as I can and refuse to betray it no matter what the cost to my happiness. When I can't, I can't.

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## Virgil

> I don't know what to do with the vast bulk of the answers that are given me when I raise questions. They are imaginary responses based on imaginary data from imaginary realities. I stopped attending classes within the first month of college starting (which shaved 5-10% off my final score), because it seemed to me to project nothing different from the socially conditioned, tame, milk-and-sugar reality that is fed - pre-masticated - into every child's mind in school, so that when the child comes out into the world, he must first, if he wishes to make any claims upon any sort of originality, unlearn all that has been taught him, and then set about constructing from scratch, an actual and vastly more vital sense of personal reality, based on what has been seen or felt or known. Well - college didn't seem to break any of those neat, gridded structures that the present-day insular morality thrives on, only to reaffirm them, more shoddily than ever because it was easier for me to see through them. Whatever breaking of such structures may have happened in my life, I did quietly by myself or with the guidance provided by a select few, themselves malcontents. I am unable to find a way to do right by myself.


I have felt the same way about college and the sub-culture it has spawned. The people there are frankly removed from reality. This is my advice, take it for what it's worth. Get your degree and then do something that satisfies you. Get out into the world. Travel a little. Earn a living. Have a family. In your spare time (if such exists) explore the realms of thought which intrigue your soul. Schooling has enormous limitations. But get your degree. You'll need it.



> if he wishes to make any claims upon any sort of originality, unlearn all that has been taught him, and then set about constructing from scratch, an actual and vastly more vital sense of personal reality, based on what has been seen or felt or known.


You are quite right. Are you sure you are only 20? You sound like me at 35.

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## madhura

> Are you sure you are only 20?


  :Wink:  You were THIRTY FIVE before you had that much figured? Oh man..

Of course I'll get my degree, Virgil. I can't ever hope to get a job or any sort of life without one. Whatever happened in college, happened. In my second year I figured I was probably better off on my own. Cancelled admission to college and enrolled for distance learning. 

Turns out I was better off on my own.  :Smile:  
This year's been a little more edgy - I've been going all over the place in my head and frankly too much growing up has happened in too little time. I'm not sure I even care what sort of result I get. But of course I'll get my degree.

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## Virgil

> You were THIRTY FIVE before you had that much figured? Oh man..


Well, I just picked thirty-five out of the air. In was in my thirties. If you read my profile and my intro in the first page of the Introduce Yourself and Say Hi thread, you'll see I had attended college classes in some form for a long time. I think I wound up with something like 230 undergraduate credits (I think that's like double from what most people need for an undergraduate degree) and then a Masters in literature. At some point in my thirties I felt very disgruntled with the whole thing. [Side note: I think my exact words to myself were "What the F**** am I doing?"  :Wink:  ] Since I was working a regular job and married and traveling, I saw such a dichotome of perspective between those in the academe and those who weren't. It didn't seem like they were living life, they were contemplating how many angels could fit on the head of a pin. The writer who most influenced me in this regard (and I'll have to find all sorts of quotes from him which are priceless) is D.H. Lawrence. If you get a chance, pick him up. I'd think you'd like him.

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## Petrarch's Love

> I wonder if the difference between the way I look at the world and the way all the other people who claim also to have examined the "negative" aspects of life look at it, has something to do with the fact that their awareness of pain and sorrow is largely circumstantial? Just a theory, of course, not meant to glorify one or the other - simply an attempt at making finer distinctions. (Circumstantial - for lack of a better word.) In the sense of being generated, and then ingrained by specific situational factors - which can be traced back to a particular cause/incident/other influence - rather than, (as in my case, the way I see it) an unforced, cumulative appreciation/awareness/understanding of reality, not stimulated or brought to its crisis/culmination by (a) specific event(s)?


Madhura--I think you're right in identifying the way people can understand pain on both a macrocosmic and a microcosmic level. I think for me the understanding of both began when I was eleven with a very specific and painful event in my life. In my grief and confusion I asked myself the obvious question, "why me?" It is so easy to be selfish when you are hurt. But as I tried to make sense of my specific misfortune, I began not only to see, but to really understand that I was not alone, that in fact there were people who had suffered worse. That was where the thinking of my childhood ended and I began to be aware of how truly endless the problems of the world are. In subsequent years my knowledge of life expanded (as it still does), and even as I personally entered a happier phase in my life, I struggled with the fact that suffering is endless, that there is no way to heal humanity, with guilt in my own inability or unwilliness to give up everything for the sake of others...the list goes on. There are times when it really does seem as though one's head is going to explode with the futility of it all, and that never really goes away. For me, however (and this may just be the sort of person I am) I could not stop with being aware of pain on a macrocosmic level. I felt compelled to take that awareness and do something about it, but I know that it is simply beyond my ability to change all of humanity for the better, nor am I courageous enough to attempt such a project with the knowledge of certain failure. This is why I returned again to the specific, to doing the very little I can for a few people and to seeking out the more beautiful aspects of life (which exist as surely, but possibly more rarely, as the painful aspects) and storing them in my core as a reserve of strength for myself in difficult times, and to share with a few others who I am able to reach with a modest amount of aid and comfort. I do think that specific painful personal experiences have reinforced this philosophy in me. There's simply enough pain in life without wasting those precious happy moments when they come in creating sadness for myself by worrying abstractly about things I can't change. This is a glimpse of how I approach life and it is only one opinion. I offer it because you seem to be searching and to be interested to hear different opinions. You may take it or leave it.

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## Debinem

The only philosophy that makes any sense to me is Buddhism. We are in the world of suffering (Samsara) and we continue to be reborn into this world. I believe in this because I had personal experience with someone who remembered a past life and certain events that led me to this path. Most of our suffering is brought about by conditions in the world or bad karma from a past life. The only way to correct this is through certain practices such as meditation, compassion for all living beings (that includes people, animals and insects) and mindful living. 

This is just one spiritual path. Jesus was a compassionate teacher and I believe Mohammed was also. The problem is that religion uses great spiritual truths and brings them into Samsara in order to wield power and control people. God is too abstract an idea for me but I believe in a Great Spirit that lives in everything.

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## madhura

> .. The writer who most influenced me in this regard (and I'll have to find all sorts of quotes from him which are priceless) is D.H. Lawrence. If you get a chance, pick him up. I'd think you'd like him.


My first signature, when I first joined Lit Net towards the end of last month:

..Not sleep, which is grey with dreams,
nor death, which quivers with birth,
but heavy, sealing darkness, silence, all immovable.

was the last three lines of a Lawrence poem - I forget the name.  :Wink:  I used to love Lawrence, his style, now I'm not exactly sure that the content (or as some have told me, the lack of it) or his usual choice of subject appeals to me.

And I have _Sons and Lovers_  in my final year course. The Modernism paper. And Woolf, and Conrad, and Eliot, and Yeats, and Beckett.

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## madhura

I have just discovered and immediately been mortified by the fact that the word 'binarism' does not exist. Dictionary.com asked me - Did you mean _'binaries'_? (Gasp) And I've been using it happily all over this thread! 




> In subsequent years my knowledge of life expanded (as it still does), and even as I personally entered a happier phase in my life, I struggled with the fact that suffering is endless, that there is no way to heal humanity, with guilt in my own inability or unwillingness to give up everything for the sake of others...the list goes on. There are times when it really does seem as though one's head is going to explode with the futility of it all, and that never really goes away. For me, however (and this may just be the sort of person I am) I could not stop with being aware of pain on a macrocosmic level.


Ummm.. I would like to clarify here, that I am not out to save humanity, nor heal it, nor whatever. I have absolutely no altruistic motives whatsoever in the back of my head - never have, never will. Because, 1. It is pointless: most of them don't deserve it. Half of them are hypocrites, the other half are cowards. I have no respect for either. 2. All of them are selfish, I believe that is their natural state. Kindness, yes, kindness is something else, but I do not believe in charity. I am tempted to believe that even charity stems from selfish motives, an attempt to make one feel better about oneself, and a despicable one at that. I therefore feel no "*guilt* in my own inability or unwillingness to give up everything for the sake of others". I am no Florence Freaking Nightingale, nor do I wish to be. Call me a cynic, call me a miser, call me cruel or what you will, but this *is* just the sort of person *I* am. If you had read my earlier posts, you would have registered that fact: my griping is because of man's faddishness, his inconstancy. My despair - is because of *my* inability to come to terms with it. There would be no griping, no anger dredged in the bottom of my heart if I had only selflessness in mind, if I only wanted to heal the world. Then there would only be sorrow and helplessness. My present helplessness is different from yours, if you understand anything of what I have just said.




> There's simply enough pain in life without wasting those precious happy moments when they come in creating sadness for myself by worrying abstractly about things I can't change.


Again. (sigh ..) Wonder how many times I've heard that?




> This is a glimpse of how I approach life and it is only one opinion. I offer it because you seem to be searching and to be interested to hear different opinions. You may take it or leave it.


You seem to have put some thought into those last couple of sentences. In response, yes, this is your opinion, and, don't worry, I have no desire to challenge it, but that is merely because you and I are addressing different issues here.

______________________________________________

(Dish me out another tailor-made compliment
Tell me about some destiny I can't prevent
And however much I squirm
There ain't no way out
There ain't no way out
I don't care what you say, boy
There ain't no way out

Won't somebody tell me how to get out of this place?!)

-The Who, 'However Much I Booze'
_Who By Numbers_

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## Virgil

> Madhura--I think you're right in identifying the way people can understand pain on both a macrocosmic and a microcosmic level. I think for me the understanding of both began when I was eleven with a very specific and painful event in my life. In my grief and confusion I asked myself the obvious question, "why me?" It is so easy to be selfish when you are hurt. But as I tried to make sense of my specific misfortune, I began not only to see, but to really understand that I was not alone, that in fact there were people who had suffered worse. That was where the thinking of my childhood ended and I began to be aware of how truly endless the problems of the world are. In subsequent years my knowledge of life expanded (as it still does), and even as I personally entered a happier phase in my life, I struggled with the fact that suffering is endless, that there is no way to heal humanity, with guilt in my own inability or unwilliness to give up everything for the sake of others...the list goes on. There are times when it really does seem as though one's head is going to explode with the futility of it all, and that never really goes away. For me, however (and this may just be the sort of person I am) I could not stop with being aware of pain on a macrocosmic level. I felt compelled to take that awareness and do something about it, but I know that it is simply beyond my ability to change all of humanity for the better, nor am I courageous enough to attempt such a project with the knowledge of certain failure. This is why I returned again to the specific, to doing the very little I can for a few people and to seeking out the more beautiful aspects of life (which exist as surely, but possibly more rarely, as the painful aspects) and storing them in my core as a reserve of strength for myself in difficult times, and to share with a few others who I am able to reach with a modest amount of aid and comfort. I do think that specific painful personal experiences have reinforced this philosophy in me. There's simply enough pain in life without wasting those precious happy moments when they come in creating sadness for myself by worrying abstractly about things I can't change. This is a glimpse of how I approach life and it is only one opinion. I offer it because you seem to be searching and to be interested to hear different opinions. You may take it or leave it.


That is quite touching, Petrarch. I was going to consolidate the quote down to a core couple of sentences, but I felt guilty cutting a single word.

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## madhura

And THEN, on the subject of Milgram's experiment and _Crow Tyrannosaurus_, there is also Ionesco's _Rhinoceros_. Wondering if I should start a thread.

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## madhura

On second thoughts, none of them so obviously related.

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## madhura

People tend to hate me
'Cause I never smile

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## Virgil

> People tend to hate me
> 'Cause I never smile


Oh my. Even Unnamable smiles. I know he does.  I can see it! 

Well, no one hates anyone here at Lit Net (I hope). We may become petulant and irritable with each other, even point out the arrogance of a certain person (me!), but I think we respect each other and enjoy the give and take. At least I do.

And we'll have to work on you, madhura, on getting you to smile. What's a true cynic without a smile upon looking at human folly? ---wait, I think I just saw you smile.

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## madhura

That's not a smile you see, Virgil, its a sneer. Not _quite_ the same thing.

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## The Unnamable

> Oh my. Even Unnamable smiles. I know he does. I can see it!


Happiness, happiness, the greatest gift that I possess 
I thank the lord, that I possess more than my share of happiness.

Ken Dodd


I certainly smiled at the thought of you as a moustachioed, leather-clad swinger.

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## The Unnamable

> And a continuation of this was supposed to be - I wonder if the difference between the way I look at the world and the way all the other people who claim also to have examined the "negative" aspects of life look at it, has something to do with the fact that their awareness of pain and sorrow is largely circumstantial? Just a theory, of course, not meant to glorify one or the other - simply an attempt at making finer distinctions. (Circumstantial - for lack of a better word.) In the sense of being generated, and then ingrained by specific situational factors - which can be traced back to *a particular* cause/incident/other influence - rather than, (as in my case, the way I see it) an unforced, cumulative appreciation/awareness/understanding of reality, not stimulated or brought to its crisis/culmination by (a) specific event(s)? I say that because life has, in general, been good to me. I have not suffered years at the hands of callous parents, I have never had to live on the streets, I have not been raped (physically abused? well yes, perhaps), I have never lost anyone close to me, I have never gone to bed hungry. I have had things made available to me when I required them. None of the typical causes for complaint apply to me.


This is a very difficult question. My gut instinct is to assume that some people get it and some dont (this is not meant to ascribe one side with more validity than the other). I think that those people I know who have suffered tend to be far more on my wavelength than shiny happy people are. Pain and suffering do different things to different people but I suppose its our awareness of the larger picture that determines how it affects us in the end. Some people tell me to smile and be happy because theres plenty worse off than you, as if the thought that lots of other people are suffering should cheer me. While personal experience of pain must make a difference, I think that its awareness of pain as a permanent fixture in human life that leads to the cumulative effect you mention. I think you yourself are making the mistake that others would make with you. There is an assumption that a pessimistic outlook is caused by personal tragedy. This is a self-centred way of looking at it. Im not the person I am simply because of my own experiences but also because of the things I see happening to others (and I dont mean people I know). I can trace back a lot of what I think and feel to having seen _The World At War_ episode about the Shoah  the one called simply, _Genocide_. It presented me with a picture of humanity that I have never been able (or tried) to erase. As T S Eliot wrote in _Gerontian_, After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

Try reading this again and remind yourself that some people do get it.

HAMLET: What's the news?

ROSENCRANTZ: None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.

HAMLET: Then is doomsday near: but your news is not true. Let me question more in particular: what have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

GUILDENSTERN: Prison, my lord!

HAMLET: Denmark's a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ: Then is the world one.

HAMLET: A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.

ROSENCRANTZ: We think not so, my lord.

HAMLET: Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ: Why then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind.

HAMLET: O God, I could be bounded in a nut-shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

GUILDENSTERN: Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

HAMLET: A dream itself is but a shadow.

ROSENCRANTZ: Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow.

HAMLET: Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.

Act II scene i

I also suggest listening to The Smiths and Morrissey. Once again, Ill leave you with some Beckett since you mentioned equanimity above somewhere:


"I am interested in the shape of ideas even if I do not believe in them. There is a wonderful sentence in Augustine:... '*Do not despair; one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned*.'"

and

No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

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## The Unnamable

> That's not a smile you see, Virgil, *its a sneer*. Not _quite_ the same thing.


How would you like to be my Press Agent?

Mr. Bennet smiles as well as sneers. It depends on what he sees.

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## madhura

Okay. Now here's what I said.



> I wonder if the difference between the way I look at the world and the way all the other people who claim also to have examined the "negative" aspects of life look at it, has something to do with the fact that their awareness of pain and sorrow is largely circumstantial? In the sense of being generated, and then ingrained by specific situational factors - which can be traced back to a particular cause - rather than, (as in my case, the way I see it) an unforced, cumulative appreciation/awareness/understanding of reality, not stimulated or brought to its crisis/culmination by (a) specific event(s)?


And here's what you said.



> While personal experience of pain must make a difference, I think that its *awareness of pain as a permanent fixture in human life that leads to the cumulative effect you mention*. I think you yourself are making the mistake that others would make with you. There is an assumption that a pessimistic outlook is caused by personal tragedy. This is a self-centred way of looking at it. Im not the person I am simply because of my own experiences but also because of the things I see happening to others (and I dont mean people I know). ..


Ah. 
(I was simply going to put the pair of them side by side and ask you what's the difference? like there wasn't one. Then I tried that segment in bold and stood back for effect. And well .. I see.) 

But:
"There is an assumption that a pessimistic outlook is caused by personal tragedy." No - initiated, or even catalyzed, perhaps, would have been a better choice in that context rather than generated - *also* by personal tragedy. That its one of two possibilities, is the assumption I made, the other being purely detached observation, independent of personal experience of pain of any sort (which basically implies a healthy, happy childhood etc.) and I aligned myself (on the grounds that I have not suffered real personal tragedy) with the latter.

I'm now confused. Not about what you said, but where I was imagining I'd go with it next. Have tried phrasing the question in my head in about six different ways but can't get it right. Maybe because it was a superfluous question in the first place. Also I feel I run the risk of contradicting myself.

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## Grumbleguts

> I'm now confused. Not about what you said, but where I was imagining I'd go with it next. Have tried phrasing the question in my head in about six different ways but can't get it right. Maybe because it was a superfluous question in the first place. Also I feel I run the risk of contradicting myself.


Madhura,

One should never be afraid of contradicting oneself. The only way to avoid it is to avoid arguing with oneself and ultimately to avoid questioning oneself. To whit, to avoid questioning the very person to whom the majority of ones questions should be put. Whoever said that contradictory views cannot both have some simultaneous validity?

It is obvious that you do suffer, you are human after all. You list the ways in which you haven't suffered as if these are the only 'valid' causes of an unhappy childhood. This is simply not the case. The lack of any 'major' catastrophe can disproportionately amplify the less obvious pain. We all experience highs and lows in our lives. When a team (pick your sport) that is used to winning every game only manages a draw against inferior opposition, that teams fans are as devastated if not more so than those of another team enduring it's 10th loss in a row. All things are relative even pain.

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## The Unnamable

When I said "There is an assumption that a pessimistic outlook is caused by personal tragedy," I wasnt trying to suggest that _all_ pessimists have had some kind of personal tragedy or that _all_ personal tragedy makes you pessimistic. I meant that there is an assumption among many people that a pessimistic person has probably had a _personal_, experiential pain. Someone who has had an idyllic childhood might still be pessimistic. I wouldnt call my childhood idyllic but I think I loved that mud-luscious, puddle-wonderful world.

It was less my own confused irritations with the world and far more the enormity of the horror I saw that sent me off in my own particular direction. Subsequent experiences simply confirmed that first confrontation with the horror. But subsequent observations also confirmed my sense of the sometimes painful, sometimes hilarious, absurdity of it all. I know this sounds dreadfully pretentious but The Marx Brothers are as vital to me as Beckett. And what better comment on the limitations of friendship is there than that moment in the Laurel and Hardy short where Ollie is in hospital with a broken leg in plaster and Stan brings him hard boiled eggs and nuts? Or, as Ollie so despairingly puts it, hard boiled eggs and nuts! Humph.

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## The Unnamable

> All things are relative even pain.


Ive often thought about this and found it too difficult to come to any satisfactory conclusion. If an extremely self-obsessed, vain and privileged young man returns to his brand new Porsche, finds a scratch on it and becomes hysterical with grief, is his pain as profound and deeply felt as that of the mother who watches her children being butchered? Its possible that his pain is greater but is what he feels really pain? Obviously, I dont want to think so but there is probably no way of knowing:

It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun.
Joseph Conrad

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## Petrarch's Love

> I am tempted to believe that even charity stems from selfish motives, an attempt to make one feel better about oneself, and a despicable one at that. I therefore feel no "guilt in my own inability or unwillingness to give up everything for the sake of others". I am no Florence Freaking Nightingale, nor do I wish to be.


I wasn't really referring to a guilt that I'm not Florence Freaking Nightingale, as much as a coming to terms with my part, even my complicity in a world in which pictures like the two Unnamable posted are possible. As Unnamable suggested, the two are related, but there are simply very, very few people who would voluntarily move from the world of the haves to that of the have nots, even if it would mean that such pictures would cease to exist. It is simply not generally human nature to do so, and that is a fact I had to come to terms with, not only in others, but in myself. 



> My present helplessness is different from yours, if you understand anything of what I have just said.


I understand that your concerns are different than mine, but I must confess that I don't really understand your concerns. You complain about those who "live out their lives guiltlessly," and then you proudly state that you have no guilt. You say that you're completely selfish and don't give a damn about the rest of humanity, so I don't really understand what there is to be so upset about? If you're really not concerned about others, wouldn't you just blithely sit back and watch the fools go to hell in a handbasket (a perfectly viable approach to the world)? Or is it the fact that you have to interact with the fools that's getting you down? I'm not trying to be facetious or argumentative here, I'm just genuinely confused about your stance in all this. I'm glad Unnamable gets it. Maybe I'll be able to understand better as I read the exchange unfolding between you two.

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## Virgil

> Also I feel I run the risk of contradicting myself.






> Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.


 Walt Whitman

I'm not always overwhelmed with Whitman's poetry (he is sloppy, like the Beats, who admired him) but there are times where he is absolutely perfect. I've always wanted to use that quote. I identify with it.

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## Petrarch's Love

> Some people tell me to smile and be happy because theres plenty worse off than you, as if the thought that lots of other people are suffering should cheer me.


Unnamable--I had to smile when I saw this (or maybe it was a sneer? I think it must have been.) I've always been puzzled by this particular brand of "comfort" myself. Gee, not only am I down in the mouth, but other people are in agony. Nothing like that thought to put a smile on my face. People can be so awful. 




> The Marx Brothers are as vital to me as Beckett. And what better comment on the limitations of friendship is there than that moment in the Laurel and Hardy short where Ollie is in hospital with a broken leg in plaster and Stan brings him hard boiled eggs and nuts? Or, as Ollie so despairingly puts it, hard boiled eggs and nuts! Humph.


  :FRlol:  That Laurel and Hardy short always makes me laugh. Poor long suffering Ollie. I should have known you were a Marx brothers fan. Dare I assume that your favorite is Groucho?  :Brow:  (I've always thought this smilie had very Grouchoesque brows). I've been practicing lately trying to mimic Chico's piano playing style. It's not easy.

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## Virgil

> as much as a coming to terms with my part, even my complicity in a world in which pictures like the two Unnamable posted are possible. As Unnamable suggested, the two are related, but there are simply very, very few people who would voluntarily move from the world of the haves to that of the have nots, even if it would mean that such pictures would cease to exist.


Is that what those two pictures where supposed to say? I find it very odd that someone would say that. First of all, that poor man was probably begging even before the Mall was built. How many such beggers existed before there was any infusion of capital to that society? Is the problem not enough capital there or too much capital? I fail to understand. And let's say that mall was taken down. So the people that work there would do what? Join the begger in begging? And what about all the people who work in making products to put for sale in that mall? More beggers? And all the people who work in that mall that pay taxes that ultimately go to teacher's salaries? How many teachers will become beggers?

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## Petrarch's Love

My response to Madhura was concerning the description of questions I asked myself at a very young age, particularly the very obvious question of why people who have more than enought don't all just give away what is superflous to those who have too little. I thought the pictures related to this early question of mine (even if they weren't making precisely the point I ended with) in that they contrast the ridiculous amount available to some people with the next to nothing available to others (Unnamable can correct me if I've missed his point in some vital way). That said, I have since asked myself other questions too, some of them much like yours. Obviously an idealized redistribution of wealth simply isn't going to happen in the real world, so we have to turn to what is happening. You're probably right that the mall has created jobs, etc. I don't think that taking the mall down is the great solution (I don't have a great solution), if I did I wouldn't ever shop in malls (which I do). I'm not necessarily going to nominate some electronics company in that mall for the philanthropist of the year award for having employed some people while on the quest for personal gain (not that I'm suggesting you would), but I'll agree that the creation of some jobs is preferable to no jobs and benefits people (in some cases to a greater extent than others, depending on how fair the wages are etc.) regardless of what the motivations are.

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## madhura

> All things are relative even pain.





> Its possible that his pain is greater but is what he feels really pain? Obviously, I dont want to think so but there is probably no way of knowing.


That's something that's been bothering me for a while now. Between any two people, who ought to make a compromise on personal happiness, because the other's pain is greater. If the person who makes the compromise finds his compromise unacknowledged by the other, ought he to feel invalidated? And at which point does the unfairness begin? Impossible to tell.

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## madhura

Petrarch's Love,
I like the way you keep coming back.




> You complain about those who "live out their lives guiltlessly," and then you proudly state that you have no guilt.


I think the guilt I was referring to in both cases is different. 




> I have yet to work out why I cannot stop myself believing that the cynic is the truest sort of person, that if other people do not finally see things the way he does, it is their escapism that keeps them from doing so. There is something they do not see, or something they refuse to accept, something they are in denial of. Some sort of piercing pain that they cannot feel, and therefore they *are able to go back to society and hold up its ideals as their own, and live out the rest of their lives guiltlessly.*


This had to do with people who look around them, see all the suffering there is, and instead of admitting (truthfully, in my opinion) that the problem is a lot bigger than even what is visible, in that - there are no answers, there is no help at hand in the form of God or whatever, should our position become irrevocable, which it quickly is becoming (I don't think that life on this planet can last that much longer with the sort of idiots that hold the means of destruction in their hands today) - they take the soft option, which is to go back to their temples and their schools and their courthouses and their social gatherings and the various other institutions that uphold their safe, sorry little lives and proceed, levelly, to carry on with the farce, thinking everything's going to be alright if they just send a cheque off to Greenpeace every month. "There. I've done my bit. I don't have to think about it anymore. Isn't life just wonderful?" Perhaps 'guiltlessly' was the wrong word to use here. Complacency would do just fine. This of course is only my heretical opinion.

I'm not suggesting that everyone roll over and die of sorrow in the face of helplessness, but a little more honesty, perhaps? A little less of the false bravado?

And the second "guilt" is obviously the guilt you referred to while speaking of the ordinary human's unwillingness to sacrifice. You see, I just don't believe sacrifice is the key. 

My apologies for the Florence F. Nightingale business. The vehemence was uncalled for and misdirected at you. I stand by the essence of what I said, however.




> You say that you're completely selfish and don't give a damn about the rest of humanity, so I don't really understand what there is to be so upset about? If you're really not concerned about others, wouldn't you just blithely sit back and watch the fools go to hell in a handbasket (a perfectly viable approach to the world)? Or is it the fact that you have to interact with the fools that's getting you down?


I am selfish in that I do not believe in the way people go about trying to heal the world. Like I said, I consider charity and self sacrifice to be, while not counterproductive, at the very least, superfluous. I think even _some_ of these people do not escape being to some extent, pretentious farts. Some. I don't know. Its not as bad as that - I've gone about rescuing squirrels and birds - babies - and lost them, and been heart-broken, and not let it stop me from picking up the next baby I see on the road and taking it home, only to have it not survive either. Its only deadening after a while. The second time around you anticipate it, and an iron blanket goes on over your heart. But humans? Maybe I just feel so let down I don't want to help. Broken trust. Or broken illusions, however one chooses to look at it. Maybe I've lost faith in goodness? I have no issues with giving all my savings to someone who I feel deserves it. (The trouble is in judging who such a person might be. On what grounds?) Of course I've seen people die. Of course I would have done anything to save them. Of course I wouldn't wish suffering on anyone. But people are so stupid! I fail to see why anyone in the universe would require a nuclear bomb. Why? How abysmally foolish and small must the man be who is proud of such a horrific achievement? And they build a whole country's "morale", apparently, on the basis of such things, and they teach children to be proud of such things. I don't want any part of this madness, I refuse to condone or laud or in any way validate a society or a civilization capable of such magnificent horrors.

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## muhsin

Greetings,
To my own childish perspective, I dont think we-Human beings-must know why we are created because of the following reason(s)
We just see our selves and our parents just see themselves and their parents so and also their parents and grandparents. So, for us to know this, why dont our for-parents know this before, the only reasons it is so it that: its FUTILE.

Do re-think my people.

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## madhura

> Greetings,
> To my own childish perspective, I dont think we-Human beings-must know why we are created because of the following reason(s)
> We just see our selves and our parents just see themselves and their parents so and also their parents and grandparents. So, for us to know this, why dont our for-parents know this before, the only reasons it is so it that: its FUTILE.
> 
> Do re-think my people.


You don't say.

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## Petrarch's Love

Madhura--OK, I think I'm getting some of what you're saying now. I'm still confused on some points (maybe I just don't agree), but your last post seemed to make things a bit clearer. 




> This had to do with people who look around them, see all the suffering there is, and instead of admitting (truthfully, in my opinion) that the problem is a lot bigger than even what is visible, in that - there are no answers, there is no help at hand in the form of God or whatever, should our position become irrevocable, which it quickly is becoming (I don't think that life on this planet can last that much longer with the sort of idiots that hold the means of destruction in their hands today) - they take the soft option, which is to go back to their temples and their schools and their courthouses and their social gatherings and the various other institutions that uphold their safe, sorry little lives and proceed, levelly, to carry on with the farce


I see here that you are disgusted with people who are, in your opinion, clinging to a false hope and pretending everything is just fantastic when it's not. What I don't quite understand is what you think people should do. Let's say for a moment that a person does admit that the world's problems are too immense to be fixed, "that the problem is a lot bigger than even what is visible" and that there is no deus ex machina who's going to descend and save everything. What now? You're saying you don't think this person should absolutely wallow in misery, but they shouldn't just go ahead and do the best they can with what the world's dishing out to them and try to be content either, and they shouldn't charitably try to help others just get by for a time in the mess we're all in. I guess I don't understand what a person is supposed to do once they've come to this realization. 

I'm also not entirely clear why just because someone is a part of human society going to "their temples and their schools and their courthouses and their social gatherings and the various other institutions" that really means that they aren't aware of problems with those institutions or that they fully support everything that society does including building atomic weaponry? Should one ideally be a hermit? What is really that wrong with saying that life should be better but it it isn't and then dealing the best we can with what is here and seeing if we can't enjoy whatever good exists in that reality? 

I suppose I just tend to forgive people a lot if they personally aren't actively trying to do harm to others or blow up the world or something. It's hard enough to find people who aren't going out of their way to do something nasty to the next guy. I really can't get into condemning some lady who goes to temple regularly, works as a nurse maybe, raises her kids, has friends over, loves her family, and volunteers for charity once in awhile (maybe she sends a check to greenpeace). I guess in your schema this kind of person is leading a "sorry little life" and taking the "soft option," but I suppose I don't really care. She's not hurting anyone, she's been loving and helpful to a few people around her. It's her own business if she believes in God (even if God doesn't exist). I really don't know what more one can ask of people in this world? 



> but a little more honesty, perhaps? A little less of the false bravado?


I guess this is just something I've accepted isn't necessarily going to happen in the real world (at least not with great regularity). 




> Like I said, I consider charity and self sacrifice to be, while not counterproductive, at the very least, superfluous. I think even some of these people do not escape being to some extent, pretentious farts.


Two points here:

1. I guess I tend to bring these things to a very individual level. I figure if I were hungry I'd be pretty glad to see someone bringing food. I know when I've been ill I've been pretty glad that someone could help me get medicine I needed. I don't think charity is considered superfluous by those who have been able to stay alive because of the assistance of others. 

2. Who gives a damn if they are pretentious farts (try finding someone who isn't every once in awhile). We can't expect everyone to be a selfless Mother Teressa here (or Florence F. Nightengale  :Wink: --sorry, I love the alliteration there). Sometimes I really don't care what the motives are as long as the end result is that someone gets something they need without anyone else getting hurt.



> I have no issues with giving all my savings to someone who I feel deserves it. (The trouble is in judging who such a person might be. On what grounds?)


Well, there's the rub. 



> Of course I've seen people die. Of course I would have done anything to save them. Of course I wouldn't wish suffering on anyone. But people are so stupid! I fail to see why anyone in the universe would require a nuclear bomb. Why? How abysmally foolish and small must the man be who is proud of such a horrific achievement? And they build a whole country's "morale", apparently, on the basis of such things, and they teach children to be proud of such things. I don't want any part of this madness, I refuse to condone or laud or in any way validate a society or a civilization capable of such magnificent horrors.


I don't mean to suggest that you haven't felt for others and know you "wouldn't wish suffering on anyone." It may be that it is the caring part of you that has been so wounded and appalled by the circumstances you describe (perhaps I am wrong, it is just how it seems to me). Yes, people are stupid. Yes, they are absurdly proud of their ability to kill. Yes they make big parades with horrors lurking behind them. As you know, this is absolutely nothing new to human society. The atomic bomb is a more absurdly frightening and horrific weapon than we have had before, but people who burnt a city and slaughtered nearly its whole population in past warfare were pretty horrific as well. Look at ancient epics. They're largely about glorifying warfare. What I'm saying is, it's a part of humans and society. I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how rejecting all of society is going to help. Isn't it awfully dramatic to say you condone no part of human society because of one aspect of it? "Society" is a pretty complex thing with many different individual people in it. Why not say you accept some pieces of what society has to offer, but reject others? I'm not judging, just asking.

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## mcrane

> they take the soft option, which is to go back to their temples and their schools and their courthouses and their social gatherings and the various other institutions that uphold their safe, sorry little lives and proceed, levelly, to carry on with the farce, thinking everything's going to be alright if they just send a cheque off to Greenpeace every month. "There. I've done my bit. I don't have to think about it anymore. Isn't life just wonderful?" Perhaps 'guiltlessly' was the wrong word to use here. Complacency would do just fine. This of course is only my heretical opinion.


Unfortunately your heretical opinion, madhura, is absolutely correct. This is what we, at least the majority of the people around me, continue to do everyday. The problem is not only with people who do it. The problem is the struggle of those who refuse to give in or take the soft option, as you refer to it. Within Social frames, people are compelled to forget about the suffering in the world and just on. This happens when societies give you the potion of happiness.. "ignore it all." And how hard do u think it is to throw this potion away? Not only this, people like you, who refuse to let go of the realities they have come to understand, can never "promote" these realities because they dont have solutions. They dont have solutions because this is who they are; they are people who believe there are no solutions. So sad, but also so true. 
Hope im not confusing anyone  :Smile:

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## madhura

> What now? You're saying you don't think this person should absolutely wallow in misery, but they shouldn't just go ahead and do the best they can with what the world's dishing out to them and try to be content either, and they shouldn't charitably try to help others just get by for a time in the mess we're all in. I guess I don't understand what a person is supposed to do once they've come to this realization.


Drown. They should drown. They should write a pained, loving note to whomever they are leaving behind, ideally not too long, then go find themselves a nice river, fill their pockets with big, shiny stones, like Woolf did, and step into the water. Hopefully it'll all be over in five minutes at the most. 

(Groan..) Go read my previous posts woman. I've been over all this at least three times before. I'm done here. I'm outta here.




> Should one ideally be a hermit?


Have you heard me say that? All I said is to hell with this charade, I for one refuse to be a part of it. 

(Stop the world
Stop the world
I'm getting off)




> What is really that wrong with saying that life should be better but it it isn't and then dealing the best we can with what is here and seeing if we can't enjoy whatever good exists in that reality?


Oh by all means, go right ahead. Don't be letting _me_ stop you.




> I suppose I just tend to forgive people a lot if they personally aren't actively trying to do harm to others or blow up the world or something.


I don't.

The bomb thing is just one extreme example - its not my only grouch, for pete's sake.




> Isn't it awfully dramatic to say you condone no part of human society because of one aspect of it? "Society" is a pretty complex thing with many different individual people in it.


Oh please. Society is a lousy bloody concept that exists because people think there's safety in numbers. 




> Why not say you accept some pieces of what society has to offer, but reject others?


No! For one I don't need to, I can do without building my life on such pathetic bull**** altogether. Besides I'll probably make a better job of it with nothing else to rely on other than myself. Secondly, _how_ is it possible to accept "some pieces" of an entire value system gone awry? I fail to understand.

(I'm getting off
Can't get enough
I'm getting off)

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## Pendragon

When you try to explain the unexplainable, to know that which is beyond human comprehension, i.e., The Mind of God, and how it works: you are setting yourself up for a major headache. By definition, God is so far beyond humans that it would be worse than comparing an insect trying to figure out the complexity of a human mind. With the finest scientific minds in the world, working non-stop on everything imaginable, there is still a great deal that is not understood about the very planet we live upon. New discoveries are made almost every day. If we believe that God created our marvelous world, and we have yet to fully understand or find all the neat things that are here, the things that keep scientists fired up enough to continue searching, how could we know the whys and hows of our being? 

Now what I believe is that God wanted the companionship of man, someone with whom to share His creation. The scripture reads "and he gave him [man] dominion over the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, and over every living thing." And man has show his gratitude by causing the extinction of many species, and driving many more to the "endangered" list. But that's MY belief, I do not say it must be everyone's.

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## Psycheinaboat

This thread has been interesting, if a little too "involved" for this sleepy morning.

All I can really add to this topic is that, for me, I distinctly remember a time during my teens when I chose to be happy. In spite of it all, all the darkness I could not change, I chose to be personally happy. In the end, all we can control is our response to what is around us.

I feel that choosing to be happy has allowed me to be a more positive influence in this world and has given me something to carry with me during my most difficult moments. I seek experience and also share this need to feel life in an authentic and raw way, but this happiness in something in my core that allows me to persevere emotionally intact. I guess it is as much a part of me as Madhura's "realism" is in the kernel of his worldview.

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## Petrarch's Love

> (Groan..) Go read my previous posts woman. I've been over all this at least three times before. I'm done here. I'm outta here.


I guess I was still genuinely confused about your point, even having read your previous posts. Yours is a point of view I've come across before, and it is one I don't completely understand. I was trying to understand by asking you all this, but maybe I'm just too thick...or maybe we just think too differently. I get the feeling you're going to sigh and groan at whatever I say, so perhaps you're right, and we should just stop here.

I know that you will continue to stick to your ideals as you see them. I respect that need in you to hold the world to impossibly high standards, even as I don't quite see what it's accomplishing. If it works for you, and gives you something to strive against, and define yourself against, then perhaps it has accomplished enough. I honestly wish you well.

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## Virgil

> This thread has been interesting, if a little too "involved" for this sleepy morning.
> 
> All I can really add to this topic is that, for me, I distinctly remember a time during my teens when I chose to be happy. In spite of it all, all the darkness I could not change, I chose to be personally happy. In the end, all we can control is our response to what is around us.
> 
> I feel that choosing to be happy has allowed me to be a more positive influence in this world and has given me something to carry with me during my most difficult moments. I seek experience and also share this need to feel life in an authentic and raw way, but this happiness in something in my core that allows me to persevere emotionally intact. I guess it is as much a part of me as Madhura's "realism" is at the kernel of worldview.


Good for you Psych. You did that in your teens, which to me is quite unusual. I'm not sure when that similar revelation came to me, but it was around my late twenties, early thirties. Of course life's circumstances can play a role. But I'm coming to a conclusion that it is part of a particular person's make up, their internal brain chemistry, if you will. But then again I can think of a person or two who had late life changes (in their fifties, for one). Sort of like the scrooge conversion. So no one perhaps is doomed in any particular direction. And it's not always in the positive direction; I guess mid-life crises can be considered such a change. Although no one comes to mind who starts out with a positive outlook and becomes a cynic. I'm sure there are.

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## madhura

> I guess it is as much a part of me as Madhura's "realism" is in the kernel of *his* worldview.


Excuse me. I couldn't let this pass. Madhura is a girl.

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## Grumbleguts

> Excuse me. I couldn't let this pass. Madhura is a girl.


I see. So you only feel so doom-laden for a week every month. It all becomes clear to me now.  :Biggrin:  

(sorry. I couldn't let that pass either.  :FRlol: )

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## madhura

:Smile:  Oh come on. Just how is that a fair thing to say? For me to even answer that is to dig myself a deeper hole.

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## The Unnamable

> 1. I guess I tend to bring these things to a very individual level. I figure if I were hungry I'd be pretty glad to see someone bringing food. I know when I've been ill I've been pretty glad that someone could help me get medicine I needed. I don't think charity is considered superfluous by those who have been able to stay alive because of the assistance of others.


Petrarch, I hope you dont mind me responding to comments addressed to *madhura*. 

"In civilized society, personal merit will not serve you so much as money will. Sir, you may make the experiment. Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most."
James Boswell: _Life of Johnson_

So Dr. Johnson would agree with you (and so would I, which generates even more _kudos_ for you). However, isnt _the reason_ that this is true more interesting than the fact that it is? Really, although few would like to admit this, money is the most important thing in life. Only those who have it deny that it is. This makes us terribly shallow in many peoples eyes, so we invent elaborate ways of preserving our sense of ourselves as anything but shallow. We have two sets of value systems  one for things like Literature and one for life. This explains why some people on here will enthuse over the profundity of certain ideas when they are encountered in Literature but hate them with a passion when they encounter them in life. The hungry man especially would prefer the shilling but why? Because in the world as it is, money is what matters most. Literature serves not a moral purpose but a way of equalising in the imagination what is never equal in social practice. This leads to all sorts of ambiguities and inconsistencies. This is why I find your confusion over madhuras stance rather puzzling. Of course there are inconsistencies  there are bound to be in all of us given that we construct our own identities out of many different discourses. 

Have you ever thought that by giving the man money or any kind of material assistance, you are merely helping to sustain the system that produces him? We prevent too much scrutiny of the real causes by doing nothing beyond dropping money in the cup and convincing ourselves its the only possible solution (not in terms of a solution to the problem of poverty but as a solution to our own troubled awareness of our indifference to suffering). If you really want to help, try to change that system. Helping in the short term might only make it less likely that we will obtain success in the long term. In order not to sacrifice those relative few in current need, perhaps we condemn millions of others to the same suffering.


If the truth is that there will always be poverty and suffering, then why cant it be limited to the right people?

The injustice of it is almost perfect! The wrong people going hungry, the wrong people being loved, the wrong people dying!

_Look Back In Anger_ (which a far less angry John Osborne originally called Look Sideways In A Huff').

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## Grumbleguts

> Oh come on. Just how is that a fair thing to say? For me to even answer that is to dig myself a deeper hole.


I did apologise. I have a lot in common with Oscar Wilde when it comes to resisting temptation. However funny it might have been it was a cheap shot. Sorry again.  :Biggrin:

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## The Unnamable

> Is that what those two pictures where supposed to say? I find it very odd that someone would say that. First of all, that poor man was probably begging even before the Mall was built. How many such beggers existed before there was any infusion of capital to that society? Is the problem not enough capital there or too much capital? I fail to understand. And let's say that mall was taken down. So the people that work there would do what? Join the begger in begging? And what about all the people who work in making products to put for sale in that mall? More beggers? And all the people who work in that mall that pay taxes that ultimately go to teacher's salaries? How many teachers will become beggers?


Virgil, this has to be your funniest post yet. How can you be so literal? Also, can you not see that you are viewing the situation in a way that never questions the simplistic and ideological explanation of the world in terms of capitalist discourse? I find it interesting that you have drawn conclusions about the Mall on the basis of what you assume. Pantip Plaza does contain legitimate outlets but the majority of the stalls inside sell pirated DVDs, cracked computer software and other assorted illegal items. You can buy tazars, riot batons, machetes, pornography and even women if you know the right people to ask. Hooray for the free market! Adobe Photoshop CS2 will cost you 100 baht  about 2 dollars 60 cents. When Mr. Gates visited Bangkok a few years ago, Pantip was temporarily closed. Trading recommenced as Gates was on his way back to the airport. Its all about supply and demand, eh? As long as capitalism thrives on the basis of winners and losers, there will always be extreme poverty, otherwise how could there be extreme wealth?
Having said that, my point was not really a political one  merely that there are two worlds  the one we dont want to see and the one we use to cover that world. Whatever we decide in coming to terms with this fact affects only us  the man will continue to try to hide his thin and weathered face in shame at having to beg and we will continue to demand our freedom to buy things we want but dont need. Eventually we come to believe that we do need them and, in effect, opt to be consumers instead of citizens. No one needs to worry though  we can fill up our lives with so much rubbish that there is no room left for a genuine thought.

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## The Unnamable

> That Laurel and Hardy short always makes me laugh. Poor long suffering Ollie. I should have known you were a Marx brothers fan. Dare I assume that your favorite is Groucho?  (I've always thought this smilie had very Grouchoesque brows). I've been practicing lately trying to mimic Chico's piano playing style. It's not easy.


I can still hear Ollie saying it, as well as the equally exasperated Why dont you try to do something to help me! This is one of the reasons youll see a smile as often as a sneer on my face. Its all so ****ing funny! 

And naturally my favourite is Groucho. I love the combination of course but my deepest loyalties lie with him. 

As for "but I do agree with you in that I don't think humanity can be improved, but that I'll still try", here's a variation:

"Ernest Hemingway once wrote 'The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I agree with the 2nd part." - Detective Lt. William Somerset _Se7en_

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## The Unnamable

Just look at this thread  its all over the place! Wonderful!  As if to underline the fact that the purpose is basically how we manage to fill the time, it is strewn with an assortment of people doing just that  with moments of agony, passion, absurdity, nonsense, the profound and the trivial. Remind you of anything?

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## Petrarch's Love

> Petrarch, I hope you dont mind me responding to comments addressed to madhura.


Unnamable--Not at all, it's a public post after all. :Smile: 




> Really, although few would like to admit this, money is the most important thing in life. Only those who have it deny that it is. This makes us terribly shallow in many peoples eyes, so we invent elaborate ways of preserving our sense of ourselves as anything but shallow.


Yes, I think this was what was really at the heart of my comment about realizing I wouldn't sacrifice everything for others. Along with that realization came the awareness that I, like other human beings, really do value the security and comforts that money can provide. Some people are undeniably more into money than others (I had to stop dating this guy recently because the only thing he could talk about was money, and never about doing anything with it for others. If I had to hear one more time about his fancy car or how close he was to his first million I was going to lose it.  :FRlol:  ). Still, all of us value having enough money to lead a comfortable life, and I suppose that does make us shallow in a certain way. 



> This is why I find your confusion over madhuras stance rather puzzling. Of course there are inconsistencies  there are bound to be in all of us given that we construct our own identities out of many different discourses.


If your comments in this post are a reflection of Madhura's stance, then perhaps I am not so confused as I thought. I'm not so certain if it is Madhura's opinions themselves that I disagree with (she seems to be making some pretty accurate observations), as much as I question the extent to which these observations should be a central part of our lives, and what she is suggesting we do once we have made these observations (naturally this is something I ask, not just Madhura but myself). If there's one thing I don't think is going to effect a change in the way people view themselves and their world, it's telling them all that I reject everything they and their society stand for (this seemed to be where Madhura was going in some of her responses. Apologies in advance if this is yet another misunderstanding, Madhura). Human beings don't respond to that very well. They tend to ignore it. I'm not saying that appealing to their better natures is necessarily going to accomplish everything either, but I have at least seen that work in some cases. 



> Have you ever thought that by giving the man money or any kind of material assistance, you are merely helping to sustain the system that produces him? We prevent too much scrutiny of the real causes by doing nothing beyond dropping money in the cup and convincing ourselves its the only possible solution (not in terms of a solution to the problem of poverty but as a solution to our own troubled awareness of our indifference to suffering). If you really want to help, try to change that system. Helping in the short term might only make it less likely that we will obtain success in the long term. In order not to sacrifice those relative few in current need, perhaps we condemn millions of others to the same suffering.


The thought had crossed my mind. My problem is that I am not really certain how I can act to "change that system." For one thing, it would mean somehow changing a lot of people over whom I have little to no control, and who don't much care about effecting change. That doesn't mean it isn't something I think about, just that, while I'm waiting to figure out a better way to handle my, and all of our, indifference to suffering I at least do know that the man will appreciate the shilling (or dollar bill in my case). I am, seriously, open to suggestions. I just don't want to waste half my life being depressed without any productive outcome, so I try (but do not always succeed) to limit myself to worrying about things I know I can change, and to allow myself some happiness rather than be consumed by something that may be truly out of my hands. I readily confess that this may be shallow of me, but, as someone posted above, I do have to choose to be happy sometimes. 




> If the truth is that there will always be poverty and suffering, then why cant it be limited to the right people?


Why indeed?  :Mad:   :Frown: 

P.S. Very appropriately, John Lennon's "Imagine" just came on the radio as I was typing this.

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## Psycheinaboat

Sorry Madhura. I agree that having ovaries certainly makes us deserving of our own pronouns.  :Smile:

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## madhura

> I respect that need in you to *hold the world to impossibly high standards*, even as I don't quite see what it's accomplishing. If it works for you, and gives you something to strive against, and define yourself against, then perhaps it has accomplished enough.


 I couldn't help piping up again. I know this has been said about The Unnamable too, and I don't understand why. Why are they impossibly high standards? Is it so inconcievable that man could ever be decent? Or is it that standards have fallen all around, so its a shock to most people to come across someone who expects others to actually be genuine? Situation: Girl on bus. Girl fights her way through sweaty crowd of people and takes an aisle seat. Standing over girl holding onto rails is gentleman of about fifty. Three minutes later, girl realises gentleman is not merely leaning over her because of the bus lurching, but that he is shoving his dick into her shoulder, while staring straight out of the window with a blank expresion on his face.

Now here's the pitiful thing: *most girls in that situation would not move a muscle.* They would simply grit their teeth, look the other way, shift in their seats, etc, and hope the man moves of his own accord. A smaller number would get up and find another seat away from man. A still smaller number would tell him firmly to go stand somewhere else. A still smaller number would kick up a stink in the whole bus, start shrieking all over the place, slap him, or complain to a conductor or something, like that helps. Not a single one will get up calmly and drive her knee into his crotch, or her heel into his shin. The pitiful bit is this - it happens everyday. The saddest thing to be seen in all the world is people's resignation to such devaluation. How many men will she kick in the crotch? How many times will she put herself through the humiliation of admitting that something like this happened to her - to whomever - her mother, her friends? Who else? Why should any rape victim trust any policeman/conductor when another of the same sex is capable of doing this to her? Even if she decides to remove herself from that position, what sort of queer, dehumanised sense of dignity will remain available to her as consolation, as she stands up and walks away? 

The pity is that girls go on being born, living, going to college, travelling in buses.

My mother has been an Indian Music teacher in a Convent school for over thirty years, retired last year, and lately she's been talking about the old days, when the girls that came to this school used to be truly beautiful, a pleasure to look at, lovely in their behaviour.. and they had _class_. These days, she says, kids don't care - they have no definition, they have no particularity to their character that makes them stand distinct. They're vague, they dress shoddy, and they have shoddy values. These kids don't have class, they only have attitude, and too much of it. My problem with the world is that everything these days is plastic, from man's most basic value systems to the stuff his bikes are built of to the panelling on the interior of his car. Everything is shoddy, and goes at half price. 




> If there's one thing I don't think is going to effect a change in the way people view themselves and their world, it's telling them all that I reject everything they and their society stand for (this seemed to be where Madhura was going in some of her responses. Apologies in advance if this is yet another misunderstanding, Madhura). Human beings don't respond to that very well. They tend to ignore it. I'm not saying that appealing to their better natures is necessarily going to accomplish everything either, but I have at least seen that work in some cases.


But then like I said - I'm not trying to effect change. I'm not interested in a revolution - far from it. I'm still trying to find a way to survive myself - to find an odd state of balance between varied uncertainties - to find some sort of precise needle-point position of self-sustainability, like a patch of stable ground with precipices on all sides, and live life fruitfully, however that may be. Treacherous, this life seems to be. I need to figure out a way to live even if it is like a rat in a burrow for the rest of my life, which is not, in any case too far removed from what I'm doing presently. My friend had a lovely expression for this state; he called it "a working balance between several complexes".

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## Xamonas Chegwe

Perhaps you just need to stand up, lean close to the man on the bus, and whisper in his ear, 

"I know what you're thinking: Is she the kind of girl that would knee me in the nuts? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I kind of lost track myself. But being as I'm standing in front of you with my knee by your crotch, you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?" 

Prod the world - see which way it jumps. Or maybe not. Up to you really...

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## madhura

Nah, I'm the one who got off the bus.

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## madhura

And subsequently got a driver's license.

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## jon1jt

> I'm still trying to find a way to survive myself - to find an odd state of balance between varied uncertainties - to find some sort of precise needle-point position of self-sustainability, like a patch of stable ground with precipices on all sides, and live life fruitfully, however that may be".


I enjoy reading your musings, especially the one above, which, I realize, is the product of a long and ongoing conversation dealing with morality (?) which I missed. For what it's worth, I'll throw out some questions that came to mind while reading it. Did you ever think of the possibility that you are all ready there, living life fruitfully, in this struggle against finititude, and the reality is that there is no such psychological/existential ground on which to "balance" yourself, beyond the warm, fuzzy idea of it? Perhaps we're swaying over an abyss - the clash between being-toward-death and caring about things? Would you really have your life any other way? Is this balance, perhaps, more amply reserved for the ignorant, the automatons, those Thoreau and Rand refer to as "sleepers" in the sense that, for many, the self is innoculated from this proverbial noise with which you grapple so eloquently, because the precipice you desire has always been gifted to them? Perhaps we're not so fortunate; perhaps we were born this way; perhaps we're defective in the midst of these incongruous forces roaring at the center of world change, which includes ourselves, and that's not such a bad thing, or is it? In the scheme of things, whether your contribution effects change, intentionally or unintentionally, is besides the point. The micro- and macrocosm will play as it will, despite your intended target. What's important to you, it appears, is the task at hand, which matters, and ought to matter.

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## Petrarch's Love

> I couldn't help piping up again. I know this has been said about The Unnamable too, and I don't understand why. Why are they impossibly high standards? Is it so inconcievable that man could ever be decent?


I don't think it's at all inconcievable that man could ever be decent. This was my point from the beginning, in fact, that there is a lot in everyday life that is both decent and worthwhile, and a lot in people that is good. This is what I was heading toward when I suggested that it was a bit dramatic of you to say you condone no part of human society. What I think confused me was not the standards themselves so much as the absolute inflexible rigidity with which you seemed to be applying them. It seemed to me you were saying that because there is a lot of hypocrisy and horror in society you could validate no part of it (this is only how I was reading your response, I may have slightly misconstrued your intent). Wouldn't that also mean you're also failing to recognize or validate the decent part of people? You also seemed to be saying that even peope who aren't doing harm but just trying to lead good, if not especially insightful, lives are not to be forgiven or be beyond contempt because they are taking the "soft option." I think that's where I most felt you were holding people to impossibly high standards. Not everyone is going to be perfectly rigorous about life. For me at least, there must be a little forgiveness of peoples' weaknesses--because every one of us has them--in order to be able to appreciate the decency that is in people. 

I should also say that I did not mean "impossibly high standards" in an entirely negative sense. I was applauding that impulse in you, even as I didn't really understand the all or nothing stance you seemed to be taking--as though everyone had to live up to those standards or suffer disdain (this is how you were coming across to me, again I might have misread). Of course you should expect the best out of people and out of yourself. I know I do. I would just encourage you not to let your heart be too broken when they fall short, and possibly to try to have a little forgiveness for those who won't or can't understand your standards for them. I find for myself that this makes it easier to see what is decent in people and to encourage the development of that part in them. (I know that you will perhaps be tempted to claim once more that you're not out to change people at this juncture. If that's the case, then I don't understand why the high expectations for them?) 




> Now here's the pitiful thing: most girls in that situation would not move a muscle. They would simply grit their teeth, look the other way, shift in their seats, etc, and hope the man moves of his own accord. A smaller number would get up and find another seat away from man. A still smaller number would tell him firmly to go stand somewhere else. A still smaller number would kick up a stink in the whole bus, start shrieking all over the place, slap him, or complain to a conductor or something, like that helps. Not a single one will get up calmly and drive her knee into his crotch, or her heel into his shin. The pitiful bit is this - it happens everyday. The saddest thing to be seen in all the world is people's resignation to such devaluation. How many men will she kick in the crotch? How many times will she put herself through the humiliation of admitting that something like this happened to her - to whomever - her mother, her friends? Who else? Why should any rape victim trust any policeman/conductor when another of the same sex is capable of doing this to her? Even if she decides to remove herself from that position, what sort of queer, dehumanised sense of dignity will remain available to her as consolation, as she stands up and walks away?


Well, yet again I deal with things on a very individual level. In this case there has been more than one individual dirty old man whose foot has been calmly but systematically tread on by my high heel, or whose gut has met with the sharp end of my elbow (one, much to my amazement, was doubled over and just about had the breath knocked out of him--and he even apologized for "accidently getting in my way"--an interesting way of refering to reaching his hand up my skirt). I felt it was accomplished in such a way that my dignity remained intact. They quickly and effectively got the message without too much fuss or bother for me. Haven't kneed anyone in the crotch yet though.  :FRlol: 




> But then like I said - I'm not trying to effect change. I'm not interested in a revolution - far from it. I'm still trying to find a way to survive myself - to find an odd state of balance between varied uncertainties - to find some sort of precise needle-point position of self-sustainability, like a patch of stable ground with precipices on all sides, and live life fruitfully, however that may be. Treacherous, this life seems to be. I need to figure out a way to live even if it is like a rat in a burrow for the rest of my life, which is not, in any case too far removed from what I'm doing presently. My friend had a lovely expression for this state; he called it "a working balance between several complexes".


Keep on with your searching and your attempts to find "a working balance between several complexes," as your friend says. I think the last few posts by you and Unnamable have given me a better idea of where you stand. I hope you will continue (to quote slightly out of context) "To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."

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## Virgil

> Virgil, this has to be your funniest post yet.


  :Biggrin:  I'm glad to be of use. Sometimes I feel you need a good laugh to prevent you from ending it all.




> Also, can you not see that you are viewing the situation in a way that never questions the simplistic and ideological explanation of the world in terms of capitalist discourse?


I asked, and I even said there were several possibilities running through my mind. (Old world/new world, religious/secular, uneducated/educated, and a couple of others which I don't recall now). But after looking at your context I did settle on the economic perspective. You never replied and I was going to let it go. Petrarch, who also read your context, also assumed the economic perspective, and when she brought it up I thought I'd jump on one of my hobby horses. Plus, unless you really didnt intend what Petrarch and I assumed, you too were thinking in economic discourse.




> Pantip Plaza does contain legitimate outlets but the majority of the stalls inside sell pirated DVDs, cracked computer software and other assorted illegal items. You can buy tazars, riot batons, machetes, pornography and even women if you know the right people to ask.


Most of the things you mention are outlawed in my country, and my country is known for its capitalism. Every country proscribes what is lawful based on its moral values and ethics. If I had my druthers I would outlaw pornography, but unfortunately I've lost that argument. That has nothing to do with capitalism. Are you saying that communist countries (if any exist anymore) didn't have pornography or prostitution?




> Hooray for the free market! Adobe Photoshop CS2 will cost you 100 baht  about 2 dollars 60 cents.


Are you saying that people could afford that before capitalism came to the country. Are you saying that people there (and I admit I have no knowledge of what peoples lives are like there) haven't had their standard of living rise with economic growth? There are no utopias. We agree there, don't we? 




> Its all about supply and demand, eh? As long as capitalism thrives on the basis of winners and losers, there will always be extreme poverty, otherwise how could there be extreme wealth?


Heres where my hobby horse comes in. Its absolutely amazing to me the economic ignorance of the intellectual class. They have PhDs and yet have never taken an economic class. They (and Im not saying you do, because I dont know, but Im just going by my experience) drop the name of Marx in every class as if he had any real economic relevance. Winners and losers is a perspective of one who views the economy as a zero some game. If that were the case we should still be at the standard of living of the middle ages. But economics doesnt work that way. The tag line is that a rising tide lifts all boats. Yes, it will not be equally distributed. But the poor in my country (and probably in most western capitalist countries) have a higher standard of living than the middle class of most of the countries that have not had capitalism exploit them. That is bleak-eyed realism. You said the following earlier in this thread, which I whole heartedly agreed: _Real solutions will come from bleak-eyed realism rather than starry-eyed utopia._  So Ill repeat myself, by closing that Mall down, how many more beggars will exist?




> Having said that, my point was not really a political one  merely that there are two worlds  the one we dont want to see and the one we use to cover that world.


Good. I agree with you. I have lots of compassion for him. But I believe we can help that man. But it seems to me that your nihilism offers him nothing but utopias.

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## jon1jt

Why does profit necessarily have to be the measure of success for capitalist societies? Why not base it on the poverty rate?

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## Virgil

> Is it so inconcievable that man could ever be decent? Or is it that standards have fallen all around, so its a shock to most people to come across someone who expects others to actually be genuine? Situation: Girl on bus. Girl fights her way through sweaty crowd of people and takes an aisle seat. Standing over girl holding onto rails is gentleman of about fifty. Three minutes later, girl realises gentleman is not merely leaning over her because of the bus lurching, but that he is shoving his dick into her shoulder, while staring straight out of the window with a blank expresion on his face.


As a man I don't experience this kind of stuff, and it's always a surprise when I hear about it and apparently (as Petrarch confirms above) it happens to many women. But I haven't done that or any of my friends to my knowledge done that. They wouldn't be my friends if they did. A bus load of people and one is a low life slime doesn't mean all or most men are that way. And it can't be every bus ride has such a slime. To generalize of life or men based on a fraction of a percentage is tenuous argument. I bet there are women who do something equally slimy.

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## madhura

> Is this balance, perhaps, more amply reserved for the ignorant, the automatons, those Thoreau and Rand refer to as "sleepers" in the sense that, for many, the self is innoculated from this proverbial noise with which you grapple so eloquently, because the precipice you desire has always been gifted to them? Perhaps we're not so fortunate; perhaps we were born this way; perhaps we're defective in the midst of these incongruous forces roaring at the center of world change, which includes ourselves, and that's not such a bad thing, or is it?


The precipice I desire?

Explain this to me please, I'm not sure I understand, especially since I see you've been editing and tweaking certain sentences.

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## madhura

> As a man I don't experience this kind of stuff, and it's always a surprise when I hear about it and apparently (as Petrarch confirms above) it happens to many women. But I haven't done that or any of my friends to my knowledge done that. They wouldn't be my friends if they did. A bus load of people and one is a low life slime doesn't mean all or most men are that way. And it can't be every bus ride has such a slime. To generalize of life or men based on a fraction of a percentage is tenuous argument. I bet there are women who do something equally slimy.


If you can say that, Virgil, and keep a straight face, then I must think you are totally, and completely, out of it. Wake up, this is the real world. A fraction of a percentage? Surely you mean every second man on the streets. What do you think I mean when I say - IT HAPPENS EVERYDAY? It happens everyday and so many times and so often that people don't even pay attention to it anymore, its no big deal. And this is me, and I am not a feminist, I have no patience for the lot of them, I'm sure there are women out there who've done creepier things but my point -

My point is lost on you. I don't know why I keep trying.

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## jon1jt

> As long as capitalism thrives on the basis of winners and losers, there will always be extreme poverty, otherwise how could there be extreme wealth? Having said that, my point was not really a political one  merely that there are two worlds  the one we dont want to see and the one we use to cover that world. Whatever we decide in coming to terms with this fact affects only us  the man will continue to try to hide his thin and weathered face in shame at having to beg and we will continue to demand our freedom to buy things we want but dont need. Eventually we come to believe that we do need them and, in effect, opt to be consumers instead of citizens. No one needs to worry though  we can fill up our lives with so much rubbish that there is no room left for a genuine thought.


Wow!!!! You're a breath of fresh air, Unnamable! The community died on the day people bought into the idea that they had to mimic the rich.

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## Virgil

> If you can say that, Virgil, and keep a straight face, then I must think you are totally, and completely, out of it. Wake up, this is the real world. A fraction of a percentage? Surely you mean every second man on the streets. What do you think I mean when I say - IT HAPPENS EVERYDAY? It happens everyday and so many times and so often that people don't even pay attention to it anymore, its no big deal. And this is me, and I am not a feminist, I have no patience for the lot of them, I'm sure there are women out there who've done creepier things but my point is ..
> 
> My point is lost on you. I don't know why I keep trying.


  :Nod:  I guess so. Well, you must be very attractive then.

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## madhura

What does that have to do with anything? 

I don't MEAN me - I mean every single chick who has ever - ever been out on those streets.

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## Virgil

> What does that have to do with anything? 
> 
> I don't MEAN me - I mean every single chick who has ever - ever been out on those streets.


Actually it doesn't. I've heard unattractive grls who have experienced similar. Low life's will pick an easy target. I was just being flippant with my comment. My apologies if it offended you.

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## madhura

Oh god. No it didn't. It didn't offend me. But you're still looking in the opposite direction from where I'm pointing.

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## Virgil

> Oh god. No it didn't. It didn't offend me. But you're still looking in the opposite direction from where I'm pointing.


Perhaps. I just see the majorty of mankind as being roughly decent. Self-interested, yes, but not low life's. And hey, I grew up in Brooklyn, New York.

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## Logos

Since this topic isn't really about "God's Purpose" anymore I'm going to close it, but Virgil/madura ? please feel free to start another topic to continue, maybe in General Chat?

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