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The 10 commandments for happiness and success

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Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#101

Post by rorrr2 »

ams6110 wrote: post #39
runn1ng wrote: post #36

I will share my two cents, how I overcome my depression. It sounds deadly simple, and it sort of is. 1) regular excercise. Make some small, daily routine (I prefer running) and stick to it. The endorphines work wonders. The body starts feeling good after a few days. 2) (and this will be maybe controversial due to The religious undertones) regular meditation. While excercise clears your body, meditation clears your mi…

I really don't get the anti-religion sentiment here. If you find in religious teachings a way to live happily, productively, in a socially positive way, why is that a problem or anything to apologize for?

Because most religious teachings are horrible at best. Most religious people don't even read their religious texts, yet they try to force them onto everyone.

Meditation is actually different from religion, since it demonstrably works, there are scientific studies. Sam Harris, for instance, strongly supports it.

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#102

Post by vladimirralev »

theorique wrote: post #98
vladimirralev wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While many of these common-sense things do really have peer-reviewed research behind them, most of the others do not. Pretty much everything that is under-defined, vague or unintuitive is wrong. Fear of failure, comparing yourself to others, surrounding yourself with positive people and so on - these are bullshit in general with no scientific backup. There is in fact more evidence that if you isolate yourself in your…

Nowhere in my comment or in the literature does anyone advocate ignorance or avoidance of reality.

I understand the difference between advocating something and stating facts or results of a study objectively.

For example, you refer to this blog where religion is mentioned which can be considered as both avoidance of reality and ignorance. I am not saying you or anybody advocates it.

And I just want to point out that many of these "happiness recipes" have no science behind them or at best some misinterpretation of a study. But I still agree that there are some legit studies as well (which are common-sense anyway though).

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#103

Post by enraged_camel »

crassus wrote: post #88
vukmir wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Where are the peaceable, prosperous, and happy atheist nations hiding?" In Scandinavia, perhaps?

In modern times perhaps. But they were Christian for a thousand years before that. Majority atheist nations have existed for only a fraction of an instant in historical terms (unless you count the Buddhists as atheists). The first was probably the USSR.

Stop moving goalposts.

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#104

Post by konstruktor »

Dewie wrote: post #81
giulivo wrote: post #35

I enjoyed the post but there is one sentence I can't understand: > 2/ Only surround yourself with brilliant and positive people. Negative and mediocre people are everywhere and their influence on you can be devastating. The thing is that I'm potentially one of those "mediocre" people and I don't see why my influence should be devastating. For instance, what is wrong about being negative? Not that my days are about it…

The human mind is so great that it came up with all modern society, and so irrational that it chooses to be miserable about people dying of famine and in wars on the other side of the world when there is nothing that the person can do about it and his life is devoid of any remotely immediate tragedies. What is wrong about ignoring (really, not so much ignore as simply not watching the news) things that you will do no…

Are you sure the people on the other side of the world, living in famine, also consider your ignorance bliss? What is more irrational: Choosing to ignore grave suffering that we have the resources to end, many times over, for the sake of avoiding bad feelings, or at least acknowledging the suffering of others? I think the latter is an essential step in bringing modern society to a state that can truly be called civilised.

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#105

Post by 6d0debc071 »

crassus wrote: post #46
ams6110 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get the anti-religion sentiment here. If you find in religious teachings a way to live happily, productively, in a socially positive way, why is that a problem or anything to apologize for?

Indeed, religion makes you happier[1], so its strange the author left it out of his ten points ""[9] and a review of 498 studies published in peer-reviewed journals concluded that a large majority of them showed a positive correlation between religious commitment and higher levels of perceived well-being and self-esteem and lower levels of hypertension, depression, and clinical delinquency.[12] A meta-analysis of 34…

Religion isn't necessarily something you can believe in if you're set up to reason in certain ways. Someone whose response is going to be, 'Where is the evidence and to how many places?' is not going to be able to create such a belief.

By the time people are adults, if they haven't grown up with religion, I suspect the response to such a commandment would be something along the lines of 'That instruction set isn't implemented on this architecture - and I'm not sure I can, or would like, to become the sort of architecture where it can be.'

So, that might be one line of thought as to why it was left out.

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#106

Post by Dewie »

konstruktor wrote: post #104
Dewie wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The human mind is so great that it came up with all modern society, and so irrational that it chooses to be miserable about people dying of famine and in wars on the other side of the world when there is nothing that the person can do about it and his life is devoid of any remotely immediate tragedies. What is wrong about ignoring (really, not so much ignore as simply not watching the news) things that you will do no…

Are you sure the people on the other side of the world, living in famine, also consider your ignorance bliss? What is more irrational: Choosing to ignore grave suffering that we have the resources to end, many times over, for the sake of avoiding bad feelings, or at least acknowledging the suffering of others? I think the latter is an essential step in bringing modern society to a state that can truly be called civil…

I was specifically talking about people that wallow in the idea of suffering of others, while doing nothing about it. "Acknowledging" without actions helps no one. By consuming a lot of the fear inducing news, people are acknowledging the suffering of such a large amount of people, by such diverse groups, that they have absolutely no hope of making a meaningful impact on the suffering of all those groups. But instead of researching a particular problem (anything from the local homeless shelter to mosquito nets in central Africa) and giving something like a tithe of their income to that cause, additionally getting a little involved to make sure their money and efforts make an impact, most people would rather shake their heads and "raise awareness" on social media, and still have to have people literally coming to their front doors to socially cajole people into giving them money (because apparently all that 'awareness' that they got through the news weren't enough to get them to donate solely by their own accord).

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#107

Post by Dewie »

gsk wrote: post #73

Graham Greene said: "Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil - or else an absolute ignorance." This world isn't built for maximising happiness of humans, this is true whether you follow scientific rationale or religious faith. When you pursue happiness, you are working against the system. There in nothing wrong with it, however it does tell you why Graham Greene concluded…

Selfishness and having a positive impact on others/your surroundings are far from mutually exclusive.

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#108

Post by runn1ng »

johnchristopher wrote: post #87
runn1ng wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I cannot really believe in a higher power. I don't believe in ghosts and try not to ve superstitious. I think most of the religious texts (even in buddhism) is bullshit. I constantly try to question everything. And yet I ended up in a zen group, basically a religious organization. (A little like Ivan Karamazov.)

> I think most of the religious texts (even in buddhism) is bullshit. I constantly try to question everything. Doubt is the beginning of wisdom, not the end. Most of the religious texts aren't bullshit. Especially the bible, which is anchored in a very old tradition and way of thinking. Theology is really an interesting body of knowledge. Out-of-context quotes of the bible, it is almost always cited like that, aren't…

No doubt buddhism in the west is "softened up", but you know what, maybe it works better that way.

Christianity never made sense to me, with its insistence on guilt. You are supposed to feel guilty for what Adam did, guilty for what people did to Jesus, guilty for your inner thoughts, guilty for your supposed sins that the Satan put there.

That's the opposite of what I need, thank you.

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#109

Post by dragonwriter »

runn1ng wrote: post #108
johnchristopher wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think most of the religious texts (even in buddhism) is bullshit. I constantly try to question everything. Doubt is the beginning of wisdom, not the end. Most of the religious texts aren't bullshit. Especially the bible, which is anchored in a very old tradition and way of thinking. Theology is really an interesting body of knowledge. Out-of-context quotes of the bible, it is almost always cited like that, aren't…

No doubt buddhism in the west is "softened up", but you know what, maybe it works better that way. Christianity never made sense to me, with its insistence on guilt. You are supposed to feel guilty for what Adam did, guilty for what people did to Jesus, guilty for your inner thoughts, guilty for your supposed sins that the Satan put there. That's the opposite of what I need, thank you.

> Christianity never made sense to me, with its insistence on guilt. You are supposed to feel guilty for what Adam did, guilty for what people did to Jesus, guilty for your inner thoughts, guilty for your supposed sins that the Satan put there.

That's certainly a way that many people approach Christianity, but I would say its not the best understanding of Christianity. Certainly, it is central to Christianity to acknowledge responsibility for sin as part developing humility, understanding the necessity of both human forgiveness and divine grace, etc.

But an excessive focus on "feeling guilty" moves away from that and into the sin of Judas, despair. OTOH, some people take a lot to get to the point of accepting responsibility, so what for some people is excessive for other people is simply necessary, not in terms of the point they need to get to, but in terms of the presentation it takes to get there.

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#110

Post by crassus »

enraged_camel wrote: post #103
crassus wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In modern times perhaps. But they were Christian for a thousand years before that. Majority atheist nations have existed for only a fraction of an instant in historical terms (unless you count the Buddhists as atheists). The first was probably the USSR.

Stop moving goalposts.

I just think it amusing that his example of atheist nations are countries with crosses on their flags. You can't separate the history of the West from the history of Christianity without committing ahistorical absurdities.
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