Religion

[David Jamieson]

so whats your guys' take on this?

looks like a really fancy still...or some freakshow's idea of "the manna machine"

[Syn7]

If you don't care, why do you argue?
You know the ego exists in all of us.
You chase an ideal whose only real manifestation is this:


What of those who donate their organs? Et Al? What of them? Or even the act of signing a donor card knowing full well you have no say in who gets what of your innards?

If you feel I'm condescending, so be it. What it is to me is that I disagree with the point you are presenting and giving you examples of why I disagree.

You want an absolute. I haven't got one.

actually, i already covered the organ donor thing a few posts ago... here it is again... one feels good about donating organs... they do it to help... they WANT to help... theres your self motivation... selfish... selfish isnt a bad word... it doesnt mean its wrong...

reminds me of a convo i had with a friend awhile ago... i called her inconsiderate and she got all ****y about it... so i look her in the eye and said "well, did you consider it?" of course she hadnt... the topic isnt important, i could sub in a million and one diff examples of the same type of scenario... it was no big deal to me, but she only saw negatives attached to that word... i disagree... same with selfish...

when it comes down to it we are ourSELVES... and thats okay... our most powerful instincts are the most selfish... like preserving ourselves and our loved ones...

if you give me a truly selfless example, i will concede, but i havent seen it yet... and you arent the only people ive had this convo with...

what ideal do you think im chasing???

thats the condescending part... you telling others what they think... funny, i dont recall laying out my philosophy... aside from a few lil things that couldnt produce a clear image of the bigger picture in my mind...

i love to argue... what i dont care about is whether or not i actually sway you to my way of thinking or not... this is a SELFISH exercise for me... and for all of you, whether youre willing to admit that or not... i argue to grow... debate is building...

[David Jamieson]

actually, i already covered the organ donor thing a few posts ago... here it is again... one feels good about donating organs... they do it to help... they WANT to help... theres your self motivation... selfish... selfish isnt a bad word... it doesnt mean its wrong...

What I'm saying is that this is not necessarily so. In fact, some people don't even think about it, or feel anything at all about it. They just do it because it's the right thing to do as far as they are concerned. perhaps they may even be conditioned into this modality of selflessness through group think.

when it comes down to it we are ourSELVES... and thats okay... our most powerful instincts are the most selfish... like preserving ourselves and our loved ones...

you contradict yourself by saying "our loved ones". By loving someone and sacrificing your very life for them, is that not unselfish? Or is it a matter of attachment and possession of the loved one as far as you are concerned? Whereby you are unable to distinguish your own existence from theirs?

if you give me a truly selfless example, i will concede, but i havent seen it yet... and you arent the only people ive had this convo with...

I have no doubt you have yet to clear this hurdle.

what ideal do you think im chasing???

Nihilism. I'm not sure if it's passive or active.

thats the condescending part... you telling others what they think... funny, i dont recall laying out my philosophy... aside from a few lil things that couldnt produce a clear image of the bigger picture in my mind...

You only perceive condescension. In fact I am not telling you what you think or what to think. I am telling you what I think and how I perceive what it is that you are writing here.

i love to argue... what i dont care about is whether or not i actually sway you to my way of thinking or not... this is a SELFISH exercise for me... and for all of you, whether youre willing to admit that or not... i argue to grow... debate is building...

then you aren't arguing by any sense of the word. the whole point of argument is to present different if not opposing views and to persuade through the process of arguing to an agreement in point of view and in some cases it may involve a reversal of p.o.v on one or the other arguing parties part. Otherwise, it is a selfish exercise in trolling or mere contradiction.

As you say, you see it as that, I guess that concludes our discussion on the matter. lol

[Syn7]

What I'm saying is that this is not necessarily so. In fact, some people don't even think about it, or feel anything at all about it. They just do it because it's the right thing to do as far as they are concerned. perhaps they may even be conditioned into this modality of selflessness through group think.

i see where youre going with the social conditioning thing, but i would argue that whether concious or subconcious all acts are somewhat selfish... by nature...

now, im not saying people dont do the right thing for good reasons and that some go further than others in helping others, but despite all the selfless reasons people do what they do i believe they also have selfish reasons...

i do whats right because I FEEL its right, not cause you feel its right... even if i learned right and wrong from you, once i chose to accept those beliefs, they became my own... they come from self, hence the term SELFISH... like i said, its not a bad thing, or atleast it doesnt have to be...

you contradict yourself by saying "our loved ones". By loving someone and sacrificing your very life for them, is that not unselfish? Or is it a matter of attachment and possession of the loved one as far as you are concerned? Whereby you are unable to distinguish your own existence from theirs?

love for someone is a type of attachement, of course its more than that, but it is in part an attachement, yeah... what im saying is that if I LOVE someone and do something for them because of MY love, that is selfish... not purely selfish, but in part it is self motivated... love is a one way deal, i can love one that doesnt love me and vice versa... i would be more inclined to sacrifice for someone I loved than for someone i didnt love but they loved me... feel me??? why is that? because my love is at least in part SELFISH... if someone i love dies, i feel it more than if it was anyone else... i feel it becuse of MY feelings... again SELFISH... i do things all the time that people would call selfless, but i would argue otherwise... selfish is an example of a word that has morphed into meaning more than it was intended to... like INCONSIDERATE... it means you didnt consider it, yet most take it to be an offensive term...

even if somebody gave their healthy heart, and in turn their life, to save somebody they dont know or never even saw before, the motivation to do that is not purely selfless... there has to be that motivation to do it, and that comes from self... like i said before, even if its learned behaviour, once you accept it and adopt it to your own beliefs it becomes yours... it comes from the self, hence the term SELFISH... its really that simple...

Nihilism. I'm not sure if it's passive or active.

lol... nobody has ever called me a Nihilist before...

i can see why you would think that, and in some ways my thoughts could fit somewhat into one of the many views of what Nihilism actually is... its a pretty broad term... theres the original definition and then there are the many different version of it that people use... like many many other terms, its morphed into diff meanings for different people... but as far as the dictionary definition, no i dont feel i fit into that model... maybe some aspects would seem to, but many others would contradict that model...
which nihilism are you refering to? whos interpretation? you mean existential nihilism, ethical nihilism, metaphysical nihilism? Nietzsche nihilism? Jungers?

then you aren't arguing by any sense of the word. the whole point of argument is to present different if not opposing views and to persuade through the process of arguing to an agreement in point of view and in some cases it may involve a reversal of p.o.v on one or the other arguing parties part. Otherwise, it is a selfish exercise in trolling or mere contradiction.

dont get me wrong, it would be cool to sway you, i just dont expect you to agree with me... i would love it if you swayed me, but you havent... im not here to ruin a balance in the forum or anything, trollling as you call it... but my motivation for THIS TOPIC is to solicit ideas from others... i would like it if others would jump in with their two cents... whether i agree with you or not, theres always something to be learned thru this type of discussion...


i feel that people who disagree are not looking at the word selfish in the same light as i am... if you define selfish as an act that is purely for one self then yeah, i would agree that alot of acts couldnt be considered selfish... but if you remember i never said there is no such thing as a selfless act, i said there is no such thing as a purely selfless act... that all actions are at least in part selfish... its the nature of the beast and its why we are so strong... when we learn to balance between the two we will be better for it...


do you think someone can be a nihilist and belive in god at the same time? my spiritual beliefs go hand in hand with my argument here, yet they would not and could not be considered nihilist...

you arent a fideist are you? do you believe reason is hostile to faith? that faith can lead to certain greater truths than reason???


sorry if this is all jumbled, im multi-tasking like a mutherfukcer right now

i'll try and take some time to write a real argument later on... if i can get the time...


so do you really believe that giving organs to people you never met is purely selfless???

[GeneChing]

We've been posting on China's new Buddhist authenticity tests here.

China’s Clampdown on ‘Hundreds of Millions of Religious Believers’ Drives More of the Faithful Underground


AP Photo/Didi Tang

by THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D. 23 Feb 2016

As Communist China continues to tighten restrictions on religious practice, more and more believers are opting out of official, state-sanctioned religious organizations and moving their faith underground, according to recent reports.

Frustration among China’s hundreds of millions of religious believers is building and is now said to be “running higher than at any time since Chairman Mao’s death in 1976.”

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has issued another devastating report card criticizing the Chinese government for its ever more restrictive control over religious practice.

In its recently issued World Report 2016, HRW documents ongoing egregious abuses of religious liberty in China, noting that its authoritarian Communist regime “systematically curtails a wide range of fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion.”

Three weeks ago police arrested and jailed Gu Yuese, the pastor of the 10,000-member Chongyi Church, which is China’s first Christian megachurch.

Police sent Gu to a “black jail,” a detention facility outside of the country’s established penal system, capping a series of arrests and various forms of harassment of religious personnel, notably the ongoing crusade to remove visible crosses from Christian church buildings. More than 1,500 crosses have been removed so far.

As a member of China’s state-approved Protestant denomination, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), Gu was a pastor in good standing with the Communist Party until he began publicly protesting the government-sponsored campaign to remove and demolish crosses in the Zhejiang province in 2014.

Though the pastor is ostensibly being held under charges of embezzlement of funds, Gu’s detention is actually “political revenge” for Mr Gu’s “disloyalty to the Chinese Communist Party’s religious policy” according to Bob Fu, president of the US-based Christian human rights group China Aid.

Meanwhile, in an effort to increase its direct control of religious groups, Beijing has recently begun assigning certificates detailing the secular name, religious name, national ID card number and a new, unique faith number to Buddhist monks across the country, and intends to extend this practice to Catholic and Taoist priests later this year.

Religious personnel without the proper certificates will be barred from conducting religious activities, according to the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the government body that manages religious activity across China.

This latest move has already ignited a backlash as believers refuse to submit their faith and religious practice to state control. According to reports, priests belonging to China’s state-backed Catholic Church have said that instead of procuring the necessary certification, they may instead go underground.

As criticism mounts against China’s heavy-handedness, party apparatchiks have been scrambling to defend China’s human rights record, while believers scatter to avoid state constraints.

Writing for China Daily, a Communist Party lackey named Li Yunlong said that criticism of recent crackdowns on religious freedom in China are “a product of subjective bias and prejudice” with “no foundation in reality.”

“In China, all citizens can freely choose their own religious beliefs, express their beliefs and take part in religious activities. The social environment is constantly improving for the prosperity of religion in China, and society has becomes more and more objective and reasonable toward religions,” Mr. Li dutifully wrote.

The Chinese government has reason to be afraid, as Christian believers in the country now outnumber membership in the Communist Party itself, in what is still an officially atheist nation.