12-17-2007, 12:33 PM | #81 |
Elven Maiden
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I'm officially following this thread now. There's a few things I wanted to comment on a couple pages back, but I'll resist for now. About those absolutes though...
I'm starting to become a bit of a pantheist. I wrote a term paper on pantheism and won myself over with it. If I was more sure of myself, my opinion might go like this: "I believe that the only absolute is God, who is everything." Replace God with Brahman, Tao, non-divine "everything", whatever your preference. "everything" is a little bit more than just the totality of everything in the universe but... I'm not sure how to describe it. I think it's beyond description or knowledge. 'Course I agree with BJ about not knowing anything for sure. Including whether I know or not or anything. But I gotta have some sorta guess. My other favorite absolute is absolute zero but I can't remember why. But I had this preoccupation with giving temperature in Kelvins for a while. Half of me believes in love as the most important and beautiful thing ever but the other half of me believes that pure love or compassion is impossible and it's just very very well disguised ego/selfishness/fear/etc. It depends on my mood. My beliefs and my personality are hardly absolute either. |
12-18-2007, 12:33 PM | #82 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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12-18-2007, 03:10 PM | #83 |
Elven Maiden
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Yes, i equate that with love. That and really truly wishing people happiness without selfish motives. Something like that.
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12-18-2007, 03:45 PM | #84 |
Elf Lady
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I believe everyone is ultimately selfish, but I don't see that as bad.
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Love always, deeply and true ★ Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. ★ Friendship is sharing openly, laughing often, trusting always, caring deeply.
...The Earth laughs in flowers ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Hamatreya"... |
12-18-2007, 04:08 PM | #85 |
Elven Maiden
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Sometimes I think so too, sometimes I think maybe there's something more that we're capable of. Other times I think there's just a sort of scale, like seeing someone happy makes me happy because I empathize with them, which is selfish too but not so much as thinking you want someone to be happy because then they'll love you. I don't know.
I'm starting to think something else too, more along the lines of "does it benefit people". It doesn't matter if you're doing the housework and being benevolent to people for selfish reasons- if it benefits the household it's a noble deed. Type thing. |
12-19-2007, 04:32 AM | #86 | |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
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12-19-2007, 12:13 PM | #87 |
Advocatus Diaboli
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Everyone is ultimately selfish, with everything they do. But, there is a difference between being selfish in an intelligent and empathic way, thinking longterm and big picture, and being selfish in a more instant-gratification kind of way.
If you truely understand the society you live in, you realize that what is best for yourself coincides with what is best for society.
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
12-19-2007, 12:33 PM | #88 | |
Elf Lord
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Best for me, for example, would be tree-ripe fruit delivered daily. I can assure you, that would be awesome for me. Awesome for you, too, I'd bet. Unfortunately, it requires an awful lot of petroleum to get it to me. So. Shall I support Chilean fruit farmers, or not? Shall I buy organic, or local? Should I insist on union produce? Should I freeze fruit in season, or buy frozen fruit? Even applying "long term thinking" and "empathy" to the issue of what I have for dinner doesn't give me ONE answer, it gives me a cascading series of trade-offs. And I have a set of standards that overlaps with yours pretty well. What if I had a different set? Won't work. It's too vague.
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That would be the swirling vortex to another world. Cool. I want one. TMNT No, I'm not emo. I just have a really poor sense of direction. (Thanks to katya for this quote) This is the best news story EVER! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26087293/ “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”...John McCain "I shall go back. And I shall find that therapist. And I shall whack her upside her head with my blanket full of rocks." ...Louisa May |
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12-19-2007, 01:40 PM | #89 | |
Elf Lord
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 12-19-2007 at 01:42 PM. |
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12-19-2007, 02:01 PM | #90 | |
Elf Lord
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That would be the swirling vortex to another world. Cool. I want one. TMNT No, I'm not emo. I just have a really poor sense of direction. (Thanks to katya for this quote) This is the best news story EVER! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26087293/ “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”...John McCain "I shall go back. And I shall find that therapist. And I shall whack her upside her head with my blanket full of rocks." ...Louisa May |
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12-19-2007, 02:03 PM | #91 |
Elf Lady
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Can't love be selfish according to you then? I want to be loved, so I give love first hoping someone will return "the favour". Nothing wrong with that.
And giving your life for other people... How many people are truly giving their lives up for the sake of others? Isn't it more often that people give up their lives for their own believes or ideologies proclaiming that their ideas are for the sake of everyone else? I don't think that being selfish is always a conscious action though.
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Love always, deeply and true ★ Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. ★ Friendship is sharing openly, laughing often, trusting always, caring deeply.
...The Earth laughs in flowers ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Hamatreya"... |
12-19-2007, 02:31 PM | #92 |
Elf Lord
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Love is a condition where another's welfare is more important to you than your own. As such, it has selfish possibilities.
It's good, though.
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That would be the swirling vortex to another world. Cool. I want one. TMNT No, I'm not emo. I just have a really poor sense of direction. (Thanks to katya for this quote) This is the best news story EVER! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26087293/ “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”...John McCain "I shall go back. And I shall find that therapist. And I shall whack her upside her head with my blanket full of rocks." ...Louisa May |
12-19-2007, 05:43 PM | #93 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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Many intelligent people can not even do that.
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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12-19-2007, 09:32 PM | #94 | |||||
Elf Lord
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There are often self-serving aspects to love, but some love is far beyond such things. Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 12-19-2007 at 09:35 PM. |
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12-19-2007, 09:43 PM | #95 |
the Shrike
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But Leif, those people are being PAID to do a job. That dying is a possibility is very often built into additional benefits that come with that type of job. So, are they really being unselfish ?
Additionally, things like armed forces are working towards spreading some kind of ideology, right? Not exactly unselfish.
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12-20-2007, 12:30 PM | #96 | |
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Many in the armed forces are there because they want to protect American lives. But as regards those are there because they want to spread democracy or freedom, they too are risking their lives to try to help other people. You may not agree with what they are doing, but their motives still put (from their perspective) the wellbeing of others ahead of their own.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 12-20-2007 at 12:33 PM. |
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12-20-2007, 12:51 PM | #97 |
Elven Maiden
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I think a lot of people who sacrifice their lives or commit suicide don't really understand the finality of death. Likewise I think anyone who cares at all what happens at their funeral or with their corpse doesn't understand death. I think a lot of people do somewhere deep down inside want to see the people they left behind say "He/She was so brave, to give their life!" or something of the sort.
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12-20-2007, 02:38 PM | #98 | ||
Elf Lord
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You guys are all so cynical!
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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12-20-2007, 04:37 PM | #99 |
Advocatus Diaboli
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Only if you insist on defining selfishness as a bad thing. I think the type of selfishness we all have, the longterm kind, is perfectly normal.
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
12-21-2007, 02:08 AM | #100 | |
Elven Maiden
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