Gertie wrote: ↑March 1st, 2021, 11:38 am
But morality isn't a false idol
I respectfully disagree. I see absolutely no evidence that some kind of moral law exists. At best, it's existence is as believable as unicorns and the tooth fairy.
In
my spiritual philosophy, there are no
shoulds or
oughts (and no vampires, fairies, or Loch Ness Monsters).
I don't believe in supernatural or paranormal things. I exercise Occam's Razor (i.e. parsimony).
Gertie wrote: ↑March 1st, 2021, 11:38 amfreedom from morality isn't spiritual - it's psychopathy.
Again, I respectfully disagree.
Psychopathy is primarily defined by the lack of empathy.
If a person treats other humans kindly because one has empathy for those other humans (or animals) and/or because one loves those other humans (or animals), then one is not a psychopath.
If one lacks empathy but treats other humans kindly due to some religious-like belief that there is a supernatural law to obey (defining what a person "should" do), then that person is a psychopath.
For example, and this is just one example of many, imagine there is a man named Edward Empathyless who believes there is a a god who will reward him with a heavenly afterlife if he behaves in a seemingly kind way to his fellow human. Edward Empathyless has no empathy for others but out of selfishness he wants to get into heaven, so he mimics the
'good' behavior of what he thinks an empathetic individual would do to earn a spot in heaven. Edward is a psychopath.
Even if one doesn't believe in god, the same logical formula is at play for godless morality. The same logic is at play if someone believes in some kind of mystical rules acting as some of kind metaphysical law called morality, presumably without any real evidence.
Regardless of whether there is such a metaphysical law or not (I believe there is not), if one only treats others kindly (or seemingly kindly) merely because they want to earn the favor of that law and not be a criminal/baddie under that mystical law, then one is a psychopath.
If one needs morality or god to behave kindly, then one is a psychopath.
In contrast, if one treats others kindly or lovingly because one has empathy, then one is not a psychopath.
Granted, the illusion of morality could be a useful tool to trick psychopaths into behaving kindly, getting them to mimic empathetic behavior under the delusion of morality existing.
Gertie wrote: ↑March 1st, 2021, 11:38 am
The world [...] wasn't created by an artist.
Perhaps that depends what you mean by created. It is shaped
at least in part by the decisions of artists and consciously creative entities. When a sculptor sculpts a huge boulder that he found by chipping away at it to mold it into the image of a person, would you say the resulting sculpture is something he created? It was created by reshaping pre-existing materials, particularly via removal; is the end result still created by the artist? If so, then indeed the world is likewise created by artists.
The world we see, especially here on Earth, is clearly shaped by the existence of consciousness, including but not limited to conscious will and conscious creativity.
The extent of that shaping is debatable. Some may think it is very minor like a child painting eyes on a pet rock; some may think it is more major as with the cities I used to build in SimCity as a kid, reflecting much more conscious willful creation than happenstance. The degree of that extent one will tend to see depends in part by how one answers the
Observer Problem and by one's chosen interpretation of quantum mechanics, all of which is very debatable and very open to interpretation. For example, and again this is just one example of countless, a person will have a very different view on the matter if they believe the Big Bang currently exists in a superposition of many different coherent histories, rather than in a singular fully wave-collapsed Newtonian-like state.
Gertie wrote: ↑March 1st, 2021, 11:38 am
Because morality isn't aesthetics.
I agree that morality isn't aesthetics. Aesthetics exist. Morality doesn't. Therefore, they are different.
***
Scott wrote: ↑February 28th, 2021, 11:35 pm
Count Lucanor wrote: ↑February 28th, 2021, 2:53 pm
I find it very hard to conciliate these two concepts: discipline and freedom, and that these words could be used interchangeably, as if they were synonymous
Count Lucanor wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 11:29 am
People always find themselves thrown into the world, their existence is inexorably tied to it. No one lives in a bubble of their own self. Both discipline and freedom...
To clarify, I am not saying I use the words
"freedom" and
"discipline" interchangeably (i.e. as synonyms), but rather I am saying that I use the terms
"spiritual freedom" and
"self-discipline" interchangeably (i.e. as synonyms).
I don't understand what you mean here. Are you using the word discipline to refer to "self-discipline" and the word "freedom" to refer to "spiritual freedom", which to me are synonymous, or are you using the words "discipline" and "freedom" to refer to something else? If so, what is that something else?
Count Lucanor wrote: ↑March 1st, 2021, 10:38 pmI understood it was not your precise selection of words, but I stripped off "spiritual" and "self" from the terms you used. Those two could be used interchangeably, so you could have said spiritual discipline and self-freedom, without sacrificing the intended meaning. The spiritual in spiritual freedom implies the self, while the self in self-discipline implies the person's spirit. So, the true essential concepts are freedom and discipline, which can not be used interchangeably.
In the way I use the terms, you can use the concept of
spirit and of
true self interchangeably.
But you can
not strip the spiritual/self from the phrases self-discipline and spiritual freedom and maintain the synonymous of the meaning.
In the way I use the terms,
spiritual freedom is interchangeable with
self-discipline.
In the way I use the terms,
freedom is
not interchangeable with
discipline.
In the way I use the terms
political freedom is interchangeable with
self-government.
In the way I use the terms,
freedom is
not interchangeable with
government.
The use of a hyphen in the nouns is important, versus the use of an adjective preceding the noun with no hyphen. It is not the same to take away an adjective as it is to take away half of a hyphenated noun.
Count Lucanor wrote: ↑March 1st, 2021, 10:38 pmI'm confident that I understood what you meant, but I cannot see those terms as synonymous.
It's totally fine if you don't use the words the same as I do. I can use two words synonymously and you can use them differently. I can use the word desert to only refer to delicious food and never use it to refer to sandy dry hot places, and you can do vice versa, and neither of us is wrong. A British friend of mine told me that in her country they use the word 'quite' to mean the exact opposite of what we use it to mean here in my home state of Connecticut. That doesn't mean one of us is wrong; rather, it's just the way words are: equivocal.
A rose by any other name smells just as sweet.
I think we can agree that what matters is that you understand what I mean by the words as I use the words I use, and that I understand what you mean by the words as you use the words that you use.
If you don't think the phrases
political freedom and
self-government are essentially synonymous, I invite you to give the definition you use for each of those two phrases in my other topic:
Man Is Not Fit to Govern Man
The narrower field of political freedom in particular can be a useful analogue for the broader matter of spiritual freedom in general.
***
baker wrote: ↑March 2nd, 2021, 12:00 am
Do you read what other people have written? Do you take their ideas and internalize them? Have you done this in the past, and do you intend to do that in the future?
I believe my answer to all four questions is yes.