RE: Admitting You're a Sinner
January 22, 2018 at 2:09 pm
(This post was last modified: January 22, 2018 at 2:11 pm by Whateverist.)
(January 22, 2018 at 1:02 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:(January 22, 2018 at 12:25 pm)Whateverist Wrote: Perhaps sin is just that part of what we are naturally inclined to do which we ought not do out consideration for social cohesion. It makes sense that social demands would evolve more quickly than our ingrained dispositions. So as a naturally gregarious animal living in large social groups we might have a good number of inclinations which we are required to hold in check because one very strong ingrained inclination is to be accepted by and feel that we belong with our group.
Nietzsche Wrote:Is it your wish, my brother, to go into solitude? Is it your wish to seek the way to yourself? Then linger a moment, and listen to me.
"He who seeks, easily gets lost. All loneliness is guilt"—thus speaks the herd. And you have long belonged to the herd. The voice of the herd will still be audible in you. And when you will say, "I no longer have a common conscience with you," it will be a lament and an agony. Behold, this agony itself was born of the common conscience, and the last glimmer of that conscience still glows on your affliction.
But do you want to go the way of your affliction, which is the way to yourself? Then show me your right and your strength to do so. Are you a new strength and a new right? A first movement? A self-propelled wheel? Can you compel the very stars to revolve around you?
I thought this was relevant. (The bolded part anyway.)
It is much easier to adopt a relativist stance toward the herd when instant distant communication constantly brings us news of other we's which don't include us, some of which seem a better fit than the shit we're in. (Looking at you, Donald Trump.)
(January 22, 2018 at 12:53 pm)Khemikal Wrote: In the larger view, it's hard to say that people weren't at least trying to express some notion of the greater good - or simple harm avoidance. They may have made mistakes..confusing conformity with decency, for example...but for the majority of our time on this planet we've had no means of transmitting knowledge other than by word of mouth and memory, and so mistakes like that are relatable. What does it mean to be good? It means to be like Bob. OFC, when a person tells you that, they may remember bob differently than you..and so you walk away thinking "being good is to have bushy eyebrows" when..in point of fact, being like bob was meant to be taken as being generous. When you tell the story to your grandchildren they won;t know who or wtf a bob is, and so it -becomes- a story about bushy eyebrows. 4k years later...half of the people are glueing on fluff and the other half are shaving and before you know it everyone is killing each other. It only sounds silly until we remember how many people have died over ghost stories.
How many people could accurately tell me the story of green eggs and ham even if they did read the original? Why is blasphemy sinful? Maybe bobs last words were "goddamit!". Long story short, you don't tempt the gods no matter how bushy your brows.
Bushy eyebrows in the sky guy? Screw Him.