A Guide to the Good Life • Hacker News Board

Re: A Guide to the Good Life

#31

Post by joshuacc » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 12:34 PM UTC

fit2rule wrote: post #23

NextUserName wrote: post #21

> Medieval Christian scholars were faced with a dilemma: their religious beliefs required them to believe that the soul was saved through a relationship with Jesus, yet going through the newly discovered Greek and Roman writings it was obvious to them that great men of virtue and honor were alive many centuries before Jesus lived. How could these people be of such high caliber yet believe such vastly different things…

Oh great, you read the Bible. The Christians you're talking about hadn't even written the thing in their day and age.

The Bible was certainly written before the medieval period. The Biblical canon was pretty much set by the late 4th century. And all of the books included in the canon had been complete before that point.

Re: A Guide to the Good Life

#32

Post by johnchristopher » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 2:22 PM UTC

yarrel wrote: post #17

_bfhp wrote: post #15

"Following Socrates, the Stoics held that unhappiness and evil are the results of human ignorance of the reason in nature. If someone is unkind, it is because they are unaware of their own universal reason, which leads to the conclusion of kindness." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism#Stoic_ethics_and_virt... That's often not why people are unkind. People can be unkind because of specific systems we can name, l…

Those systems are not supernatural though. Do you believe racism is rational?

In a given context being racist means you are part of the group/family that you really need to belong to in order to ensure your survival.

Emphasis is on `being` racist.

Re: A Guide to the Good Life

#33

Post by Zen101 » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 5:20 PM UTC

_bfhp wrote: post #15

"Following Socrates, the Stoics held that unhappiness and evil are the results of human ignorance of the reason in nature. If someone is unkind, it is because they are unaware of their own universal reason, which leads to the conclusion of kindness." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism#Stoic_ethics_and_virt... That's often not why people are unkind. People can be unkind because of specific systems we can name, l…

Interesting

Re: A Guide to the Good Life

#34

Post by gcr » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 5:34 PM UTC

thewarrior wrote: post #22

acabal wrote: post #2

I read this a long time ago and I can't recommend it enough. It does a good job of introducing the concepts of stoicism and defending the philosophy from our modern assumptions of the word. A very good read. The word 'stoicism' has kind of a bad rap, but I find it a very peaceful and comforting philosophy, and one I actively try to model my life against. Like most life philosophies it's not something that comes natur…

I've found Ecclesiastes very comforting : http://www.readbibleonline.net/?page_id=28

"The Voice" has also a great translation, in my opinion. Very insightful! Thanks for sharing. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+1&v...

Re: A Guide to the Good Life

#35

Post by Renaud » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 8:03 AM UTC

lpolovets wrote: post #19

If anyone's interested, I posted thorough notes for the book about a year ago: https://booknotes.quora.com/Notes-on-A-Guide-to-the-Good-Lif...

Thank you for that. It's helpful to have such a high-level, yet concise, view of the book.

Re: A Guide to the Good Life

#36

Post by Renaud » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 8:14 AM UTC

_bfhp wrote: post #15

"Following Socrates, the Stoics held that unhappiness and evil are the results of human ignorance of the reason in nature. If someone is unkind, it is because they are unaware of their own universal reason, which leads to the conclusion of kindness." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism#Stoic_ethics_and_virt... That's often not why people are unkind. People can be unkind because of specific systems we can name, l…

Isn't racism just ignorance of the fact that others are just like us? I don't really see why this particular example contradicts what the Stoics believed.

We could say that racism as an idea rose out of the need for the self-preservation of one's kin, by rejecting those who do not look like us out of a belief that they are somehow inferior.

Yet, nature teaches us that we're all basically made the same and that mixing our DNA with other groups actually strengthen our kin's chances of survival.

Looks to me that racism arose out of an 'ignorance of the reason in nature', and we ended up believing something that is the opposite of what we should strive for.