Thread: Is That Cancer Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

^That's the rub though. That sort of judgment of value is a personal one, but most of us who take up that belief (I was one of them myself) sort of decide on that midset before actually trying it out and actually finding it true for ourselves, mostly because some of us are unwilling to even try it out due to the sacrifices you mentioned.

The basic reason why scams like this work is the fact that religion requires you to believe things without evidence to back them up.

Therefore the bar for otherwise sensible people to believe in that which is false is lowered when it comes to the subject of religion, making religiously flavoured con artistry much simpler to pull off than its secular counterpart. Thus we get cases like this, where literally thousands of people are completely blinded to the truth. And blind trust is stupidity by another name.


And I also question why asceticism is something positive. What benefit does it bring? There is nothing inherently positive about denying yourself pleasure just for its own sake on a personal level. In fact i'd say that it's quite the opposite.

Originally Posted by Urameshi-sama

^That's the rub though. That sort of judgment of value is a personal one, but most of us who take up that belief (I was one of them myself) sort of decide on that midset before actually trying it out and actually finding it true for ourselves, mostly because some of us are unwilling to even try it out due to the sacrifices you mentioned.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but are you implying there actually is some sort of advantage to that lifestyle?

Originally Posted by Terasiel

But I imagine we have. There have been so many Buddhist, and Christian, monks and nuns over the years who said that they've commited their lives to asceticism. A few of them had to have succeeded at it.

The question is, what the Earthly reward? I sure as hell wouldn't want to live a life where all I do is read old religious documents, clean, garden, and pray all day.

According to the majority of the world thats the epitome of life.

Originally Posted by Terasiel

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but are you implying there actually is some sort of advantage to that lifestyle?

Nope, I'm not. I'm just saying we really can't say there isn't one simply because we haven't tried it.

I'm saying that the majority of those of us who are severely skeptical of the value of asceticism (me included) haven't actually tried it, so our judgment of it as a form of needless self-flagellation may be off.

And this argument has very little to do with secular or nonsecular. I'm fairly secular (an atheist), and I'm still making this argument. Moreover, many of the more secular religions like Buddhism practice asceticism.

@Saizou-That's a pretty strong generalization about religion as a whole. I'd agree that most religions are complete poppycock and follow the trend you mentioned (ahem Christianity), but there are more secular religions that are less crap-based. And on the inherent value of denial of pleasure, how about the normalizing of other values or regaining balance?

And by asceticism I don't mean the classical or religious sense of becoming a monk/nun/clergy/sage, but the idea of literally denying or inhibiting some pleasures to achieve balance. Most of us do this to an extent anyways to achieve our goals, so I don't understand the huge stigma behind the term apart from its religious association.

Originally Posted by Urameshi-sama

And by asceticism I don't mean the classical or religious sense of becoming a monk/nun/clergy/sage, but the idea of literally denying or inhibiting some pleasures to achieve balance. Most of us do this to an extent anyways to achieve our goals...

I like your definition.

Originally Posted by Urameshi-sama

That, my friend, is my definition of stupidity right there. If you're so sheltered that you don't even suspect how your donations or spendings are actually used or misused, then you're stupid. Everyone kept this guy off their radar because he was a pastor; that was stupid.

I don´t think stupidity and naivity are the same thing. there are proffesors on my university I would call naive but extreme intelligent.
Of course beeing gullible is not a good thing, and this people were gullible, but call them stupid for that is too much.

about religions in general
Most people believing in the "modern" monotheistic religions seem to think that they are right, all others are wrong and the one´s believing in religions with more than one good are especially stupid and primitive...
At least that is how some of the christians I know think...
As atheist I really don´t get the last point, for me, to believe in a race of poverfull beeings, able to change live even seems to be less inexplicable than one almighty beeing, existing without beginning or end, creating defect beeings without any particular reason. (Or just fot the reason to beeing able to judge them later... seems to be a bored god)

Originally Posted by Urameshi-sama

And by asceticism I don't mean the classical or religious sense of becoming a monk/nun/clergy/sage, but the idea of literally denying or inhibiting some pleasures to achieve balance. Most of us do this to an extent anyways to achieve our goals, so I don't understand the huge stigma behind the term apart from its religious association.

I don't think hurting yourself can really help you. If you keep it in the realm of common sense I think the world can do a pretty good job of fucking you up without you kicking yourself in the back of the head because you think the world won't do a good enough job.

Originally Posted by Urameshi-sama

@Saizou-That's a pretty strong generalization about religion as a whole. I'd agree that most religions are complete poppycock and follow the trend you mentioned (ahem Christianity), but there are more secular religions that are less crap-based.

Actually this criticism applies to every religion, as every religion expects you to accept certain things based on faith. It's an characteristic of the religious mentality itself.

Therefore the idea of a "secular religion" is inherently oxymoronic. It's really not a question about what the individual religions believe, it's more of a criticism against the philosophical foundations of the concept of religion in general, and the religious theory of knowledge in particular.

Originally Posted by Urameshi-sama

And on the inherent value of denial of pleasure, how about the normalizing of other values or regaining balance?

What are you talking about? "Regaining balance"? Why should you strive for balance when one end of the spectrum is clearly preferrable to the other?

Originally Posted by Urameshi-sama

Nope, I'm not. I'm just saying we really can't say there isn't one simply because we haven't tried it.

I'm saying that the majority of those of us who are severely skeptical of the value of asceticism (me included) haven't actually tried it, so our judgment of it as a form of needless self-flagellation may be off.

I find this argument to be highly absurd. While I haven't tried self-flagellation I really don't see how I would have to do that in order to conclude that it's not a good thing. I've had unpleasant stuff happen to me by accident, and I can't see how voluntarily inflicting unpleasant stuff on myself would be any better.

Or to put it another way, if you slip while using a kitchen knife and cut yourself you get hurt. From that I can clearly conclude that stabbing myself with a knife would hurt me. I don't actually have to stab myself in order to know that it's bad.

...and now that I take a second look I find that Steal already said the same thing. Curses, foiled again!