Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 4:03 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 3:58 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 3:28 pm He's given you enough to make your life better, and you don't want to do it. For some reason, you prefer excuses.

This whole world is a useless pit of evil. There's nothing "better" to aspire to other than to be better at performing evil.

If that's all you want to see, then that is what you're going to make it. You'll surround yourself with bitterness, evil and ingratitude. You'll be miserable and defeated, and your potential will never be realized.

But you'll still have no justification for anger at God, then; you've made your life exactly what you intended it to be.

Here's what you need to realize: the people who are telling you what you want to hear -- that God is mean, that life is bad, that you can't do better -- are your hateful enemies. The people who are saying, "Gary, pick yourself up and use what you've got to make your life better," are your friends.

Why do you hate your friends and side with your enemies?

I'll go down a martyr of God's world. A martyr that no one believes. And I don't care anymore.

A martyr by the hand of God, I should clarify. my blood will be on God's hands and no one else's.

Immanuel Can to Gary recently wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 3:28 pm...

Great objective advice that addresses principles universal to everyone in every situation because it can light up contentment when one doesn’t look to subvert the advice.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 4:10 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 4:03 pm Why do you hate your friends and side with your enemies?

I'll go down a martyr of God's world. A martyr that no one believes. And I don't care anymore.

Oh. More pity, you want? It's God's fault?

Well, I guess you have to go to your enemies to get that. They'll offer you all the useless affirmation you're seeking, and none of them will ever tell you that you have any potential for better.

But to imagine yourself a "martyr"? Do you know what one is? It's somebody who dies in the service of a cause, and generally a noble one. What's noble about somebody refusing to take his advantages in life and use them to better himself, and dying in misery because he won't lift a finger to help himself? If you recognize any "martyr" in that, I'm pretty sure nobody else does. Most people would just say, "He was a bitter, self-pitying, God-hating, narcissistic layabout, who eventually got exactly what he set himself up for."

That's the plan that you and your enemies are preparing for you.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 4:23 pm It's God's fault?

Yes.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 4:25 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 4:23 pm It's God's fault?

Yes.

No. It's Gary's fault. He has many ways to make his life better. He could be thankful for what he has, instead of spending all his time on resentment over what he doesn't have. He prefers pity, inertia and bitterness. He's willfully making himself the worst Gary he can be.

Gary's his own worst enemy.

(continued)

Re: IC's advice to Gary, and the inner dialogue:

I've found that the inner receiver that we all talk to with our inner dialogue, is a true literalist. And, it's naive. The kind of audience easy to fool on April 1.

It will believe anything you tell it, even lies, because it trusts you. That's right, it trusts you literally and it has no nuance.

If you tell it the truth that you are miserable, it will believe you and believe just because you say it, not because you believe it. It will then proceed to produce thoughts and action that will make you miserable.

So, lie to it. It will believe you. It will cause to choose rightly, if you tell it the right lie.

For example, Orville told the inner literalist who listens to his inner dialogue that he could fly, when human flight was impossible. He told it a lie.

Being naive, that inner listener trusted him and directed all his actions to make it so. Wilbur did the same thing. And that's ... the rest of the story.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 4:03 pm But you'll still have no justification for anger at God, then;

You've decided that Gary has no justification for anger at God. Are there other people who do? Who are they? What are the criteria?
Do children who are sex trafficked, for example?

Walker wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 4:36 pm (continued)

Re: IC's advice to Gary, and the inner dialogue:

I've found that the inner receiver that we all talk to with our inner dialogue, is a true literalist. And, it's naive. The kind of audience easy to fool on April 1.

It will believe anything you tell it, even lies, because it trusts you. That's right, it trusts you literally and it has no nuance.

If you tell it the truth that you are miserable, it will believe you and believe just because you say it, not because you believe it. It will then proceed to produce thoughts and action that will make you miserable.

So, lie to it. It will believe you. It will cause to choose rightly, if you tell it the right lie.

This is profoundly true.

And nowhere is this more true than in matters of attribution. One may not be able to lie to one's inner self and end up doing the impossible, like flying without wings. But what one certainly can do is tell that inner person what he should believe is the interpretation of his world, the right set of feelings to have in response to one's situation and experiences.

The experiences we all have are a mix of the things we like and the things we don't, the assets and advantages we have, and the setbacks and shortcomings we face.

So one can tell the inner receiver to interpret one's misfortunes as fatal strokes, or as challenges to be overcome. One can tell one's inner receiver to feel bitter, miserable and aggrieved, or to be thankful, joyful and hopeful. And that inner self will oblige. And one's life will become, subjectively, exactly what one has instructed that inner receiver to believe it is.

But tragically, we can instruct the inner receiver to believe there are few or none of the former. We can program it to tell us always that there's no light, only darkness.

That's where Gary is. He's programming his inner receiver with rage, spite, darkness, defeatism and resentment. So it's not at all surprising his inner receiver is feeding back to him exactly those emotions, which then loop with his original decision about how to be in the world, and convince him he was right, which imparts more dark interpretations to his inner receiver, who then gives him less to be happy about, nothing to be grateful for, and increases his resentment.

He doesn't want to break his own death-spiral of self-pity and rage. And what I want him to do is to start feeding some positive messages into his inner receiver. But he's telling me there's nothing to feed his inner receiver, because he likes his misery.

That's lamentable. But it's not tragic. Because tragedy requires some element of nobility, and it has none of that. He's not a martyr. He's a victim of his own bad treatment of his inner receiver, and the myopia with which he's programming it all the time.

That's a really good insight. Thanks for that.

Thank you.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 4:03 pm But you'll still have no justification for anger at God,

I think that's the first time you've said something about God that I agree with.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 4:43 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 4:03 pm But you'll still have no justification for anger at God, then;

You've decided that Gary has no justification for anger at God.

Well, Gary's male, able-bodied, white, educated, at least somewhat athletic, at least reasonably intelligent, has a computer, has leisure activities, has an income...

This puts him in at least the top 10% of the world's wealthy and privileged. But it's not the first time I've seen privilege result in bitterness and misery.

To answer the other part of your question, let me tell you about two places I've been.

One is a small village in the hills of Honduras. They are at least 30 km off anything you could call a decent road, behind some mountains. When we arrived, they asked, "How did you find us? Even our government doesn't know we're here." They have a cluster of a dozen huts, and two cinder-block structures. There's no electricity, no cars, no lights at night. They were without clean or running water, at least until we came.

They had no dental care, no medicine (yes, we got them some), and very little schooling. Their diet was extremely limited...subsistence stuff. Their clothes were as neat as they could make them, but basic and with only a couple of changes per person. Their houses had clay roofs (we got them tin). They didn't have basic digging tools (we got them some). They had no stores nearby at all. They lived mostly off the land. They spoke no English, just their own rural Spanish.

These people were happy, personable, sociable...and astonishingly generous. Having nothing, they would share anything. And grateful -- any kindness you showed was not just met but surpassed by their generosity of spirit.

There is no way Gary has anywhere near so many things going against them as these Hondurans had. And yet, they were joyous, kind, loyal and generous. I was privileged -- and humbled -- to have had the chance to walk among them, and have been happy every time I returned.

Then there's the other place I went. It's called Los Angeles, but it should be called "Lost and Angry." There are more people there per square mile who fit into the category "rich and beautiful" than in any other place on Earth, perhaps. Yet the place is filled with entitled, bratty, self-important, ignorant types, who regard anybody who lives beyond the tetons, their tiny hills, as if they were nobodies, nothings and deplorables. Everybody, they believe, wants to be them: they are the pinnacle of human existence, they think. They drive expensive cars, live in lavish mansions, ignore the ghettos in their southern areas, and bask in global envy.

There's any number of spiteful, corrupt, selfish, greedy and debauched types there, and you can smell it in the culture. Nowadays their streets are full of tent-camps, needles and excrement, and still they promote the polititicans and policies who have taken their climate paradise and turned it into an open sewer. But still, there are millionaires and billionaires on every side there, and people keep coming, even thought the native residents are trying to escape.

I couldn't wait to leave.

Now, you ask who has a right to complain, and who does not? Well, those who might claim the right don't; and those who have no justification in doing so, do. What does that tell you?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 3:06 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 2:34 pm And all that means is that you're not good at logic.

I'm no worse at logic than you are.

Doesn't anyone else find this very funny?

Even the mentally-unhinged (sorry, Gary) can demonstrate more logic than I.C. who is completely intoxicated with an archaic book and an invisible, inconsistent, and illogical god.

I think Gary makes some very good points in his rantings at God, even though he's ranting at something he doesn't believe in.

Walker wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 4:36 pm I've found that the inner receiver that we all talk to with our inner dialogue, is a true literalist. And, it's naive. The kind of audience easy to fool on April 1.

It will believe anything you tell it, even lies, because it trusts you. That's right, it trusts you literally and it has no nuance.

This is insightful about you on multiple levels. Are you aware of that?

You and I.C. are two of the least credible people on this forum. Many other people here see that and point it out to you. But you continue telling your lies to yourselves and others... even ramping them up to more extreme and nonsensical proportions as if telling the truth is such a great threat.

Lacewing wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 6:11 pm I think Gary makes some very good points in his rantings at God, even though he's ranting at something he doesn't believe in.

Logically speaking, only an actor who pretends can rant at something he doesn't believe in. In that sense, actors are like AI. They can convincingly pretend to those who are as sophisticated as they.

I think that believing in God and also ranting at God is closer to the mark.

As you know, you can't believe just a say so. People lie all the time, to themselves and others although those lies can be convincing to oneself. Agnostic likely isn't the order of the day.