Posts by Matt

Makes sense to me…if your entire philosophy is based on the aforementioned concepts of death, re-birth etc. it’s going to be on your mind constantly.

Yup anyone who is feeling “off”, depressed, or having ideations of hurting themselves should always seek professional medical help.

And to be clear about my earlier post about dying for my children if no other options are available. It stands to reason because my need to stay alive is a necessity for their survival, that the particular act of self-sacrifice means that I will sacrifice myself unto an “active” external threat.

Whether that means me getting hit by a bus or killed by another human or animal etc. I personally won’t be “opting out” by my own hand, because I can’t currently imagine a situation where if I did that it would be a benefit or a net positive for my offspring. So that means whatever the external threat is, it will need to be the thing to terminate me.

This whole topic has pushed my brain into an area of reflection about my individual perspectives of what my needs and wants are as a human being and what the agenda nature ultimately is.

Quote from Cassius

I agree with that, but with the critical caveat that the issue would not turn so much on "civilization" but on those who are our family and "friends" (which would be an interesting issue to tackle as to who fits that). In other words there are people whose existence are critical to us, and people who we have essentially no relationship to, so it would be important to make that distinction. But in the sense of "the world of living human beings" for example if the entire earth were being destroyed by a meteor there wouldn't be much to argue about

This is such an interesting idea. For me, my family’s preservation would be my only concern in the event of some catastrophe. My only real need to survive would be so that I am present to be able to defend and provide for them.

A friend of mine said recently that when he was a Marine overseas, he would’ve been willing to die for his fellows without question, but now with his kids, he has so much more of a reason to live. So a biological imperative could theoretically change a person’s perspective. Willing to die for friends one day, unwilling to risk death if it means your absence is a net negative for your family the next day.

I too follow his principle in that I’m linked to my kids preservation, therefore if I die I won’t be present for them to continue my fatherly duties, but I would die for them if no options presented themselves. But I won’t be performing any uncalculated heroic acts of bravery for strangers, for my children’s sake.

Nature and biology have entirely rewired my brain. If you asked me about virtuous acts of bravery for random people years ago, I might’ve given my Marine friend’s earlier answer, but things have changed.

I recommend all of Jeffery Burton Russell’s books for research into the subject of the anthropological origin of evil.

Since we are not explicitly talking about this in terms of Epicurean philosophy, it still might be helpful for us to conceive of where ideas of evil began in history. In theological terms evil is usually associated with some supernatural presence that represents “negative” qualities, darkness or chaos. Either a god or a spirit. Evil deities were prevalent in the myths of the near east and responsible for many human problems. The Persians had Ahriman the dualistic hostile spirit that was the opposite of the Lord of Wisdom Ahura Mazda. The Egyptians had Set, who was the god of chaos, who murdered Osiris. The Hebrews had various hostile spirits and fallen angels such as Azazel and Semjaza, which eventually evolved into the Christian devil and Satan. Sometimes these spirits were “gods” of neighboring hostile nations like Baal or Dagon, that were identified as evil. What’s interesting is that the Greeks didn’t have a specific diabolical deity that they identify as “evil.” The Greeks seem to have seen all the gods being capable of benevolence and evil, just like people. Whereas the other groups seem to have identified one or a group of gods as “good” and others as evil.

Perhaps this might be useful for a linguistic purposes of how various populations define “evil” in this sort of theological and mythological context. Supernatural entities that represent the occult, black magic, darkness, witchcraft, diseases, disasters, war, famine, drought, madness etc.

I will say I have also meditated on particular widespread groups that operate outside their own societal laws that perform “evil” acts. Such as the various central and South American cartels and crime syndicates. These people are literally the worst of the worst, and perform acts so heinous it would be a mental labor to describe them or categorize them…by “most” people’s standards they are truly evil. Not unlike other historical groups like certain pirates and even the Vikings fall into this category.

I would otherwise consider crime groups as fringe outliers. However, the sheer numbers of people who associate with them (either by force or choice) illustrate that they are almost communities within larger nations. When I meditate on this I see that these people continue to exist by performing absolutely gruesome acts day by day, and the larger part of the world typically condemns them as evil, however my personal revulsion is not based necessarily on the fact that my own society considers these acts as unlawful nor because of an ad populum argument that because the majority of the world rejects them as wrong or unlawful, I do as well…my own internal instinct tell me it’s “wrong” based on my natural experiences and empathetic reaction. So ultimately this explanation goes against my earlier statement above that we might define evil as purely “unlawful” since I subjectively have a natural revulsion to these acts… so it may not be possible to pin any definition of evil down to one particular source such as culturally unlawful or purely against nature or unnatural, because to the cartel member who is just trying to survive under their own set of circumstances , they are doing what they think is necessary to do so….even if I consider it gruesome, their government considers it unlawful and the majority of the world condemns it, it isn’t “universally wrong” because it is an accepted form of living among a large population of people who consider what they do necessary to survive.

A certain Dr. Lecter has appeared as a guest in the forum all of a sudden.

What crossed my mind after reading this was ultimately nature directs human behavior. So for an explicit example (since I made a joke about this in another thread) Cannibalism is usually considered pretty taboo…today anyway! And is often considered by “most” people to be “wrong” or “evil.” In historical extreme survival situations where death is imminent, humans have resorted to cannibalism. Now the question becomes at what point is cannibalism considered evil and by what standard? Nature or human edict?

Obviously nature directs us not to partake in this activity on any regular basis (humans anyway, animals are another story) but it does sometimes drive people to do things they would otherwise never consider doing. Yet still…will society still judge the act as evil? Though nature directs our behavior and is entirely neutral to the action, it ultimately is the human laws and taboos that decree something is “evil” or “wrong” based then entirely on circumstances which we would need to dissect situation by situation to determine if something “unlawful” happened by societal standards.

Right, and honestly I suspect we will determine that broadly “evil” will ultimately be reduced to a subjective thing that is more in line with something that is culturally “unlawful” or “taboo” as opposed to giving any concrete absolutes that could universally be considered “wrong” in every place and every time.

I could go very deep into this subject.

I wonder if “logic” could ever play into this at all? Since the subject matter is entirely subjective and cultural. Without absolutes or or metaphysical evil, this would make for a very good discussion.

But probably “user” beware, because this line of discussion could get intense quick.

Ah yes Good vs. Evil and whether they exist as absolutes…the great debate.

I feel these threads will be very active.

As far as the somberness comment goes it’s important to place it context.

Happiness and pleasure are not the same thing. And frankly this is a huge topic for another thread. Happiness is a very nebulous word that can mean many things for many different situations. The “happy” person who claims to be happy 100% of the time is either heavily medicated or is not being truthful about their experiences.

The reason why people seek out philosophy and religion is that they are seeking a pathway to “happiness”…but the reality is they go after an idealistic philosophy like Buddhism and they don’t find “pleasure” in it, only more unanswerable questions and dissatisfaction with its metaphysical claims.

Life is full of dissatisfaction and miserable circumstances. Life is NOT easy. Unhappiness is certainly rampant among many people who experience the sorrows and hardness of life. This is why many people adopt Stoicism as their main philosophy because they seek detachment. But in truth happiness is NOT the goal, the seeking of a pleasurable life is. Net positive pleasure, not painlessness. The person living in a country engulfed in civil war is probably pretty “unhappy” in general but can still find pleasure in basic things such as food and friends. That’s a pleasurable thing.

So we certainly may have droves of unhappy, dissatisfied, melancholy people walking around, which has more to do with nature, brain chemistry and biology than anything else.

Which again, as I mentioned in the depression thread is a clinical thing. True clinical depression is something that is in brain chemistry and is something that only a medical professional can diagnose or treat.

***If anyone believes they are depressed or experiencing some mental issues, detach from the internet and immediately consult a medical professional.***

Again, whatever form this “enlightenment” is, is specific to Buddhism. So if you can’t think your way to enlightenment and you practice it…that begs the question what are we being enlightened to? It means that the Buddha is making a very specific claim about the world that is only accessible through certain practices.

Meditation in its own right could be a pleasurable experience, but meditation to achieve “enlightenment” in the Buddhist context is very different.

These are two very separate things.

My concern with this thread is that it seems to want to become ambiguous about the nature of what Buddhism is and why the religion and philosophy came into existence and what specifically it came for. You can’t have a cure for something if there isn’t something to cure.

I don’t believe it is helpful for an Epicurean comparison if we cannot pin down generic qualities that are universally “Buddhist.” Almost as if there are so many disconnected versions of Buddhism with such radically different doctrines that we can’t pin them down at all under the coinage of “Buddhism.” I very much disagree with this.

Buddhism is no different than Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Neoplatonism and Stoicism in that we can apprehend and certainly comprehend “what” it’s about in generic terms. There is nothing “special” about Buddhist doctrine, Its “various” doctrines can 100% be understood by non-Buddhists who can easily analyze it…if a person believes this isn’t the case then most likely they are far more Buddhist than Epicurean.

I totally understand that there may be some subconscious sympathies and deference for the Buddha by some who have experience in it…I get that, but the reality is that Buddhism is not Epicurean Philosophy…it’s in fact quite different and often hostile to it. My position is that we as Epicureans need to be able pin down what Buddhism is in generic terms to be able to criticize it and analyze it. Just as someone who may have come from an Islamic background would need to be objective about criticism and analysis of Mohammed and Islam. We are not here to bolster the often fanciful claims of the Buddha or further his philosophy, we are here for Epicurus.

I believe Buddhism to be, among other Indian schools of thought, to address the common “metaphysical” beliefs of karma, reincarnation and the various soteriological ways to be released from this cycle that are native to Indian thought as would be accessible to the “common” uneducated person living in the 5th and 6th century BCE.

I want succinct outlines of the core tenets of the main Buddhist schools…the ones that make up the major populations of Asia. Mahayana, Theravada, Vajrayana and Tibetan Buddhism…and secular Buddhism. So we can see without any controversy of interpretation what each school’s common precepts are. And I’m certain that there are common concepts among them….

That way we can lay them out without controversy of interpretation and see what they are. That way we won’t have disagreement about the basics.

Here’s a good test…if a historical critic of Buddhism (Adi Shankara) spent enough time to attempt to refute Buddhist doctrine (and there were many other Vedantists who did) it must’ve meant that the interpretation of concepts even back in medieval times in India were close enough to the Hindu interpretations that they needed to attack them.

Adi Shankara’s critique of Buddhism - Home

While maintaining the existence of only Brahman in the absolute sense, Sankara posits that the experience of the world is not invalid at the time of that…

cisindus.org

This tells me that at the very least, what we know as “historical” Buddhism shared deep commonalities with other Indian philosophies. This is why especially in Southern India there was syncretism between Buddhism and Hindu Shaivism. In fact there are temples that simultaneously invoke images of Shiva, while also depicting Buddhist stories. If this is the case, it meant that the historical Buddhists must’ve shared commonalities with certain Hindu doctrines for them to be compatible enough for devotees to mix and match the traditions.

I know we are beating this dead horse into the dust, but the issues can’t be obfuscated about what the core tenets are within Buddhism.

I would say yes to three outlines…

So that we can see clearly what the core common articles that all Buddhists share are without any controversy about interpretations.

I’ve read the Dhammapada and In the Buddha’s words:

https://ia800909.us.archive.org/2/items/InTheBuddhasWordsBhikkhuBodhi/In%20the%20Buddha%27s%20Words%20-%20Bhikkhu%20Bodhi%20%28Editor%29.pdf

I personally cannot see how the ideas of karma, nirvana, and re-birth are somehow not a part of the original Buddhist doctrine when the main historical branches such as Theravada, Mahayana and Tibetan Buddhism all seem to share them and the neighboring Indian philosophies within Hinduism and Jainism also use the same terminology, albeit slightly different from tradition to tradition, but still they have them. Any sort of dissenting opinion would appear to to be an extreme minority.

Here is an expansive compilation of Buddhist texts online. Mahayana and Theravada Pali texts:

Buddhist Sutra's : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

A collection of Buddhist Sutras

archive.org

Ancient Buddhist Texts Home Page