But random shit happens to more than 90% of the population. All the people born in North Korea...
Would you call that their responsibility? Would you tell them, "YOu could could end your lives, all of you"?
Why Does God Exist?
- Thread starter PsychoticEpisode
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But random shit happens to more than 90% of the population. All the people born in North Korea...
Would you call that their responsibility? Would you tell them, "YOu could could end your lives, all of you"?
Yes. I would. Do you know why? Because they can. It's true! If you find your life intolerable, you don't have to tolerate it! Simply kill yourself.
Or alternatively, you can learn to deal with the inevitable hardships in life instead of disingenuously blaming some bogeyman for something over which you have total control...
So let's see...
People born blind, deaf, genetic defect, cancer, unfairly imprisoned, AIDS, having beloved die because you were born in war-torn area, being born poor in single-parent home because your mom's a crack addict...
Solution?
Mass suicide.
It's true.
No more humans = world peace
People born blind, deaf, genetic defect, cancer, unfairly imprisoned, AIDS, having beloved die because you were born in war-torn area, being born poor in single-parent home because your mom's a crack addict...
Solution?
Mass suicide.
It's true.
No more humans = world peace
A great many of those you name have found happiness despite their apparent misfortune. You must wonder how that could have happened.
falcon22 said:
The world is cruel. Accept it and change your life accordingly. Whining like a little baby is about the worst thing you could do. (This is what you do, by the way.)
baums current rating on the empathy-o-meter:
While I agree with you in principle baum, most of the transformations from misery to happiness (or at least non-misery) take place with support, empathy, and kindness.
Allowing somebody to live in the illusion that he doesn't bear the burden of responsibility for his own actions and beliefs is not what I call support or kindness, though it is rather empathetic.
Number wise, yes. Great many. Percentage wise???
No, trying to justify it and ignoring the problems are the worst things you can do as they only result in perpetuation of things.
I whine, I admit that, but when I'm not on the computer, and when I'm not working or studying, I am volunteering, I am writing, I am trying my best to think of the best ways and to act on the best ways to accomodate for those suffering from social ills.
Look, social movements are all about whining and look how much they've accomplished. These whiners have implemented civil rights, women's suffrage, labor unions, schools for blind, deaf, and orphans; after school programs, substance rehabilitation centers, etc.
Look at how much things can happen through whining!!!
Responsibility is an American myth.
Hmm... I totally agree. The examples that were presented - I thought - cancer, hurricanes, blindness, etc. certainly don't fit the category of ones own actions or beliefs. Si?
It only takes one counterexample to demonstrate that it's possible. It's a wholly introspective affair.
falcon22 said:
But that's exactly what you're doing. You are trying to justify your self-victimization with scapegoats, and you are ignoring the source of your misery -- your emotions come from neither God nor cancer.
falcon22 said:
All wonderful things, but they are meaningless if they haven't changed you as a person. You do not grow by insisting on remaining a child and letting God the Father account for your internal state of affairs.
superluminal said:
Sí. One's choices in response to any such misfortune fits the category squarely, however. If your cancer, your hurricane, or your blindness make your life insufferable, then end it. If not, then life is obviously worth the effort, even with the sour hand you've been dealt; and if this is the case, why are you complaining about it?
falcon22 said:
Funny you should mention mythology in an artifact of your own. Sartre was French.
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Well, yeah, it's possible. But just sitting on your computer chair is not going to achieve what you want them to achieve, and through your cold apathy, that is what you're suggesting we do: nothing, nothing at all, not even whining.
self-victimization? I didn't victimize myself. LIfe itself does that to people. Shit happens in life and you've gotta accept the fact that most of the time, it's NO ONE's responsibility. I really don't believe God exists so it doesn't matter whether I blame him or not. Besides, even if I do blame God, how is that worse than justifying something like going to Iraq because it is God's will? Or that, homeless people are that way because they're too lazy to get jobs so you just ignore them and justify their homelessness with their laziness? Does that solve anything? And I hope you know: 20% of those who are homeless actually have jobs, some of them have two.
A moral lesson? I've grown a lot more as a person not relying on God than trusting him.
Even so, you can't say those things are meaningless. They've changed and bettered lives. Even if I didn't change as a person, that's still substantially positive result. They are not meaningless; they are social changes, for the better.
Because maybe complaining is what affects social change? That's how Chinese immigrants got their rights.
Although... some times complaining doesn't work.
Rwanda and Darfur complained to U.S and UN that they were suffering from genocide... They got never got an answerr back.
falcon22, if I was apathetic, then I wouldn't be typing. My suggestion is far from your own, that nothing be done at all. My suggestion is to own up to the fact that you can change your life if you feel you must.
falcon22 said:
Self-victimization is making a victim out of yourself. Falsely blaming your circumstances on your misery -- claiming that life victimizes you, just as you do in this above passage -- is doing just that. If your misery really comes from God, or a hurricane, or the color of your skin, or the hate of those who blame their own misery on your skin's color, then the only thing you could change to make that misery go away is the source. You would have to change God, you would have to make the hurricane or the hateful bastards go away.
But this clearly isn't the case. Suicide is the extreme example. Change yourself -- kill yourself, if you like -- and the pain goes away. You are the true source of your misery, not whatever else you blame for it.
falcon22 said:
You still trust him for a certain thing.
falcon22 said:
If you were the one to bring about such a social change, if you had nothing to genuinely show to yourself for it, then what was the worth of it?
Demanding change is one thing. A toddler's lamentation that he is completely at the mercy of his environment is another.
If God does exist, I do trust him for one thing: that he'll send me to hell. Yippee.
As for self-victimization, that's empathy. By knowing what others feel and by realizing their pain and how horrible life is and can be, I can learn from that experience to help others and try to make them accomodate to their horrible circumstances in life. Given I'm only one man, but I will try to reach to as many as I can.
And as for having to genuinely show myself for it, I don't need to. I'm not doing things for me. I'm doing it for society. So the worth? Betterment of society. The worth is not me, it shouldn't be a shitty ugly ass Asian like me but for other people that had been dealt bad cards in life from the beginning.
and btw, who the fuck is sartre?
As for self-victimization, that's empathy. By knowing what others feel and by realizing their pain and how horrible life is and can be, I can learn from that experience to help others and try to make them accomodate to their horrible circumstances in life. Given I'm only one man, but I will try to reach to as many as I can.
And as for having to genuinely show myself for it, I don't need to. I'm not doing things for me. I'm doing it for society. So the worth? Betterment of society. The worth is not me, it shouldn't be a shitty ugly ass Asian like me but for other people that had been dealt bad cards in life from the beginning.
and btw, who the fuck is sartre?
You do. And when you get to the Pearly Gates and the floor falls out from under you and you plummet into the hot black abyss, he'll tell you that you sent yourself there. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy, he'll say.
falcon22 said:
But we're not really talking about circumstances, are we? Can you accomodate to their misery?
Some of the most depressed individuals on the planet have among the most comfortable, privileged lives.
falcon22 said:
I find it hard to believe that you wouldn't continue to try to better society if you didn't find it gratifying.
falcon22 said:
I don't know. He probably believed in responsibility, though.
Take a course in Social Work. Accomodating is what social workers do. It's what psychiatrists do, what psychotheraphists do, what doctors, dentists do. It's what Peace Corps Officers do. So yes, with enough training, idealism, empahty, and sympathy, I CAN accomodate to their misery.
You weren't talking about helping others being gratifying. Of course, it's gratifying; it makes me feel like I actually kind of sort of deserve to live on this planet, wasting oxygen and eating murdered animals each day to survive... But I can help and love helping, and still at the same time, hate God. Didn't you know, we humans are pretty multi-talented.
So how is that an argument against my claim that responsiblity is an American myth? And if you don't know who he is, why mention him?
Oh, and respond on this too.
And if the patient refuses treatment? What can you do then?
I have known my share of social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists. None ever claimed that it wasn't ultimately up to the patient.
falcon22 said:
If it is gratifying, then you must have some gratification to show yourself for your effort. But you are right, this is only tangential to either of our points.
falcon22 said:
It would be a French myth, wouldn't it? Or perhaps a Babylonian myth? Upon what was Hammurabi's code predicated?
Sartre was a very famous man who had some very strong beliefs about responsibility. That's the only reason I mentioned him in particular.