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Improving Ourselves to Death

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Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#81

Post by kernelbandwidth »

coldtea wrote: post #64
trowawee wrote: post #40

I'm a little frustrated at the tossed-off reference to Plato and Aristotle at the beginning - "The good life may have sufficed for Plato and Aristotle, but it is no longer enough." - because I feel like that ignores the fact that both Plato and Aristotle, along with a lot of philosophers, actually had a lot to say about physical fitness. Plato was a champion wrestler, and both he and Aristotle viewed physical educati…

> Plato was a champion wrestler And the name Plato is a nickname -- meaning "the broad/wide one" given to him for his broad shoulders because of that training and physical appereance. Real name: Aristocles.

It's funny to consider that one of the canonically great philosophers in history is known essentially by the equivalent of his WWE wrestling name. It's like if in the future there were classes taught on the philosophical ideas of "The Rock".

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#82

Post by kristofferR »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #72
kristofferR wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with being inspired by Jesus, the problem is only when people disregard all other inspiration other than the "main one" they have chosen. Christian teaching is good in a lot of ways, but it's also completely lacking in other ways. People should be inspired and take the best from Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, the Hindu gods, ancient philosophers, modern philosophers, self-helpers and all ot…

What do you feel is lacking in "Christian teachings"?

A main one would be a focus on the internal world (self-image, thought processes, confidence, inner peace), Christianity is often too focused on acting correctly instead of thinking correctly/crafting a good personality in my view.

Buddhism is stereotypically more focused the other direction. Christian mediation isn't really a thing for example.

Please note that I don't want to get into a stupid pedantic discussion about what Christianity may or may not contain/touch on, my point is simply that no single source will ever contain all the wisdom there can be found - which I don't think can be disputed by intellectually honest people.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#83

Post by galfarragem »

mziel wrote: post #6
the_greyd wrote: post #2

Very Interesting read. I'm someone who has been reading some self-help literature for the past year. Topics include Mindfulness, Buddhism, Stoicism, Social skills, Positive psychology, Habit forming, Assertiveness. I'm in my early 20s, and I justify this phase as un-learning the coping mechanisms/bad habits I formed in my childhood/teen years. Well intentioned but highly critical parents damaged my self-esteem; I als…

There's a lot of very bad pop-sci books on this topic. Do you mind sharing the ones you read and recommend?

Without doubt I would start with:

'No more Mr. nice guy' -- Robert Glover

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#84

Post by [deleted] »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #26

I know I will likely catch a lot of downvotes for this, but I found the teachings of Jesus to answer questions of how to run life. As well as the Proverbs of the old testament, and many other scriptures. Seek and you will find. When I get stuck, I found in the past I would look for excuses on why something isn't working, or why is this happening to me, or when will this end. But when I started to actually "seek" I al…

[deleted]

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#85

Post by [deleted] »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #26

I know I will likely catch a lot of downvotes for this, but I found the teachings of Jesus to answer questions of how to run life. As well as the Proverbs of the old testament, and many other scriptures. Seek and you will find. When I get stuck, I found in the past I would look for excuses on why something isn't working, or why is this happening to me, or when will this end. But when I started to actually "seek" I al…

[deleted]

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#86

Post by coldtea »

kdoherty wrote: post #69
coldtea wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can save time by learning from the mistakes of others. Only barely. For important life decisions/paths, people only learn from their own mistakes (and often not even from those). Heck, Computer Science as a field itself forgets its own collected wisdom every new generation hits the market, and re-invents BS that other eras have tried and buried with another fad name. What's even worse, those "self-help" books a…

>>You can save time by learning from the mistakes of others. >Only barely. For important life decisions/paths, people only learn from their own mistakes (and often not even from those). >Heck, Computer Science as a field itself forgets its own collected wisdom every new generation hits the market, and re-invents BS that other eras have tried and buried with another fad name. Your last statement sounds like it's in fa…

>Are you saying that the idea that folks in CS re-invent work which has previously failed is evidence that it is not possible to learn from the mistakes of others?

No, I'm not dealing in absolutes ("not possible").

I'm merely saying that the reality that "folks in CS re-invent work which has previously failed" is supportive argument in how people in general don't learn from other's mistakes.

Of course it IS possible. It's just that it's rare.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#87

Post by pazimzadeh »

mkirklions wrote: post #68
RobertRoberts wrote: post #26

I know I will likely catch a lot of downvotes for this, but I found the teachings of Jesus to answer questions of how to run life. As well as the Proverbs of the old testament, and many other scriptures. Seek and you will find. When I get stuck, I found in the past I would look for excuses on why something isn't working, or why is this happening to me, or when will this end. But when I started to actually "seek" I al…

I'm a christian, but I'm probably more interested in my personal stoic philosophy first. What is God? Is God a programmer? What language was our universe written in? I find Atheism an excuse to skip these question. I think Agnostic is significantly a better way for Atheists to approach problems. I'm starting to believe in Simulation Theory, and that a nerd like me created a universe. Thats our Christian "God".

I think you have it backwards:

Atheism is saying "I don't know."

Agnosticism is saying "I don't think it's possible to know."

Most religions are saying "I do know - it written in this book."

Being an atheist does not preclude you from searching for answers, it just means admitting that we haven't found them yet. Agnosticism and religion are excuses to either pretend we can't know, or that we already know.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#88

Post by coldtea »

kernelbandwidth wrote: post #81
coldtea wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plato was a champion wrestler And the name Plato is a nickname -- meaning "the broad/wide one" given to him for his broad shoulders because of that training and physical appereance. Real name: Aristocles.

It's funny to consider that one of the canonically great philosophers in history is known essentially by the equivalent of his WWE wrestling name. It's like if in the future there were classes taught on the philosophical ideas of "The Rock".

Some other amusing related stuff: so, Plato, was called for for the ancient greek word for broad/wide.

Modern english words that stem from the same root: plateau, platitude, plat, plate -- via French and Latin (plattus) from Greek (platis "flat, wide, broad").

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#89

Post by enkid »

jdtang13 wrote: post #50
trowawee wrote: post #40

I'm a little frustrated at the tossed-off reference to Plato and Aristotle at the beginning - "The good life may have sufficed for Plato and Aristotle, but it is no longer enough." - because I feel like that ignores the fact that both Plato and Aristotle, along with a lot of philosophers, actually had a lot to say about physical fitness. Plato was a champion wrestler, and both he and Aristotle viewed physical educati…

I think the author, who admittedly sweeps through a lot of strange generalizations on classical history in this article, is just using the idea of Aristotle and Plato "not being enough" to illustrate the delusions of consumer culture. We are no longer satisfied with pure virtue but instead have to buy things to display our success. I do agree that self-help writers have a strong tendency to completely ignore Aristotl…

Unneeded consumption is not unique to this period. Cynicism could be seen as an attack on modern consumerism.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#90

Post by codingdave »

kristofferR wrote: post #82
RobertRoberts wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you feel is lacking in "Christian teachings"?

A main one would be a focus on the internal world (self-image, thought processes, confidence, inner peace), Christianity is often too focused on acting correctly instead of thinking correctly/crafting a good personality in my view. Buddhism is stereotypically more focused the other direction. Christian mediation isn't really a thing for example. Please note that I don't want to get into a stupid pedantic discussion a…

> I don't want to get into a stupid pedantic discussion about what Christianity may or may not contain/touch on

Except that you clearly don't know all the teachings, so pre-dismissing anyone helping you learn the parts you think are missing seems short-sighted.

That being said, you are partly right... In general, Christianity answers the question of "What do I do?", while Buddhism answer "How do I do it?" But there are internally-focused teachings throughout the New Testament. The Old Testament was more what you describe than Jesus' teachings.

Sadly, when you conclude that anyone who disagrees with you must not be intellectually honest, it makes me feel you are not very far along ANY spiritual path. Even though again, you are partly correct... your approach to all of this is very ego-driven, and it doesn't sound like you are open to much in the way of discussion.

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