Post #60,141
10/30/02 1:44:43 AM
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I thought it was pretty straightforward
My opinion is that there is no reward for suffering. Lots of things will make you suffer in this life, but there isn't anyone handing out a gold star saying, "You suffered a bunch, time to collect your reward." There is a reward for doing something about the circumstances that are causing you suffering. Doing something about it typically doesn't (in my experience) mean going through that much suffering (certainly nothing compared to the alternative), but does take bravery because it generally means confronting things easier left unconfronted.
This was put a very different way once in the phrase, If I must be slave to my habits, then let me be slave to good habits. Very often joy is a result of good habits maintained. Getting there means establishing those habits. Establishing those habits isn't always easy. But the reward for establishing those habits isn't a reward for having gone through the effort, it is a reward from now having the good habits.
Tying it back to what you said, the Christian story doesn't make sense to me. It claims that Jesus' sacrifice redeemed the world, but as far as I can see, self-sacrifice doesn't generate much beyond fodder for guilt trips. You may consider this a continuation of a [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=17526|past discussion].
Cheers,
Ben
"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]
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Post #60,154
10/30/02 5:59:23 AM
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Good link.
I'm glad you mentioned it because it means I am reminded of an approach that doesn't work, so to speak. :-) No, I wasn't going to evangelise you. I'm just finding it an interesting insight into your character.
Wade.
"Ah. One of the difficult questions."
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Post #60,157
10/30/02 7:26:31 AM
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Ah. I am a character, aren't I?
"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]
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Post #60,311
10/30/02 6:32:49 PM
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Well, yes.
I was specifically thinking of how you've been responding to Norm, actually, but in general it's illumninating.
Wade.
"Ah. One of the difficult questions."
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Post #60,363
10/30/02 11:37:53 PM
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That fits
My reaction to Norm is part and parcel of how I am.
I do not believe in forgiveness. I do believe in learning. Until Norm demonstrates that he has learned, you won't hear much of sympathy from me.
I also believe in lost causes. They sadden me, but I will not lose sleep over things I can do nothing about. :-(
Cheers,
Ben
"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]
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Post #60,176
10/30/02 9:58:06 AM
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Suffering can provide clarity
The answer may well differ, if one steps away from the individual and into the domain of the societal. For example, the troops that stormed the scenic beaches of France and subsequently marched through Europe underwent some rather gruesome suffering and death. Are you saying that their sacrifice was in vain? Or is the freedom we have exactly because of those individuals that sacrificed themselves in a prior era?
Personally, I dislike the prospects of suffering - it plainly sucks. But suffering is perhaps the greatest teacher that we, as somewhat scentient beings, have. I would agree that the suffering is not so important in and of itself - only the lessons that it burns into our consciousness and our willingness to confront it - sometimes causing more short term pain in exchange for long term gain.
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Post #60,185
10/30/02 10:23:14 AM
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Absolutely
Beethoven is all about that idea - he even raises it to a metaphysical question - Must it be? It must be!
-drl
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Post #60,209
10/30/02 11:33:05 AM
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Re: Suffering can provide clarity
The answer may well differ, if one steps away from the individual and into the domain of the societal. For example, the troops that stormed the scenic beaches of France and subsequently marched through Europe underwent some rather gruesome suffering and death. Are you saying that their sacrifice was in vain? Or is the freedom we have exactly because of those individuals that sacrificed themselves in a prior era? Ben said: There is a reward for doing something about the circumstances that are causing you suffering. I don't think that you two are in such contradiction as you think... End of world rescheduled for day after tomorrow. Something should probably be done. Please advise.
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Post #60,219
10/30/02 12:11:35 PM
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Not sure
I'm not really looking for an argument, but what I was trying to get across is that sacrifice can have rewards that extend beyond the individual. In the case of individual soldiers, their death & suffering didn't seem to maximize their own personal utility. Their sacrifice, however, did buy me my freedom.
I would think that the sacrifice of the individual is very much consistent with the Darwanian view that the survival of a species is also a goal. Not so much a religious argument, as questioning at what level one measures the utility of sacrifice.
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Post #60,336
10/30/02 9:08:41 PM
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I've found useful a certain distinction between
suffering and ~intentional suffering. Ex: when you decide to conceive a child, you voluntarily embark upon a mix of joy + suffering - about which you cannot even remotely guess .. what's next. But you know that for ~18 years minimum: you shall be Responsible.
The suffering of a traffic accident (especially a solo one not involving the sudden breaking of the frame in 3 pieces?) .. is never an intentional event. Not even a particularly good example, that. Here a deranged view of 'causality' rears it's ugly head - deranged because it is insoluble in this context - except for lunatics, forensics and lawyer-type punctilious mindsets.
The troops in WW-II, at least some of those: had an idea of what was worth the risk of dying-for. It is from this *kind* of voluntary suffering that we get the Beethovens ;-) and from a succession of 'the daily accidents' we often get the serial killers (who never noticed that their own actions created their finally deranging.. accumulation of 'sufferings').
Ashton
Attitude is *All* (we have the slightest control over, ever)
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Post #60,461
10/31/02 12:06:58 PM
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I think it depends upon the point of view.
I'll use the soldier example. The Allies were "suffering" to achieve a goal when fighting the Germans. -but- The Germans were also "suffering" to achieve a goal when fighting the Allies. A woman in an abusive marriage can "suffer" because she hopes that he will change (she is "suffering" to achieve a goal). The suffering of a traffic accident (especially a solo one not involving the sudden breaking of the frame in 3 pieces?) .. is never an intentional event. Not even a particularly good example, that. Here a deranged view of 'causality' rears it's ugly head - deranged because it is insoluble in this context - except for lunatics, forensics and lawyer-type punctilious mindsets. The world is a hazardous place. Sometimes, things happen. They happen to you because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Take what precautions you can and realize that you are not immortal nor invincible nor are you guaranteed anything in this life.
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Post #60,364
10/30/02 11:49:22 PM
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Inthane is right - we don't necessarily differ by that much
That which is worth doing may involve suffering. Some amount of suffering seems to me to be the price of human being human. Where it it needed it is not to be avoided. Where it is not needed it should not be accepted needlessly. It is not the suffering that makes it worth the doing, nor the pain experienced which accomplishes the task.
In your case of WW II it is not by and large the ones who died who made the difference. Rather it was the ones who survived to complete the mission.
Cheers,
Ben
"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]
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Post #60,221
10/30/02 12:24:46 PM
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Well, that wasn't the point.
It claims that Jesus' sacrifice redeemed the world, but as far as I can see, self-sacrifice doesn't generate much beyond fodder for guilt trips. You're taking an event where one person sacrificed himself for others and applying it to a discussion about suffering for your own benefit (or not). Jesus' sacrifice didn't redeem the world because of some generic payment-for-suffering karma. It redeemed the world by bringing to completion the sacrificial system under Mosaic Law; you can't discuss Jesus without referring to Moses. Self-sacrifice for Christians is a response to that, not an attempt at payment. If there's any payment involved, it's in the other direction: me trying in my own small way to give back to God what he gave me. Small but meaningful. It's difficult to discuss this with you, since you are a lot like me: we tend to believe any trouble in our lives is the result of either misunderstanding or bad timing--something to do better next time, but not anything that needs forgiveness. Most of the time this is true; I try to do what I believe is right. In this context, I couldn't agree with you more about redemption and forgiveness (although working with parties who ascribe malice where there was only ignorance can throw a wrench in the works). However, that's not the context of which I'm speaking (above). I'm talking specifically about those times in our lives when we know what is right and yet do something else. People expect relational recompense for that, usually in the form of ceremonial humility, by choosing to lose face or material goods or ...? Symbolic, perhaps, but no less necessary for that. In the agreement God made with Moses and his people, you were expected to sacrifice animals to this end, as a symbol of your acknowledgement of wrongdoing and your desire to work toward reestablishment of the agreement whose terms you broke. Jesus died as the final, all-encompassing sacrifice in this chain, bringing to a close that agreement (since its terms were now fully satisfied) and bringing into existence a new one. It's much more a legal, contractual issue than a metaphysical or even behavioral one.
Many fears are born of stupidity and ignorance -
Which you should be feeding with rumour and generalisation.
BOfH, 2002 "Episode" 10
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Post #60,361
10/30/02 11:24:52 PM
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Ah...
A basic difference is that I am emotionally neither Christian nor Jewish. Within the Christian mythology what you say makes sense, and within the Jewish it makes potential system. But since I don't accept the Mosaic Law either, it doesn't ring any bells for me.
As for redemption and forgiveness, I don't believe that we get what we deserve. We do what we do. We get what we get. There is correlation between the one and the other, but there are also factors beyond our control. And we start with a history about which we can do little.
The world has no respect for fairness. Justice is a human invention. We do what we can, as best as we can, then we pass on.
This is not a comfortable philosophy. It happens to be the only one that I can honestly own.
Cheers,
Ben
"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]
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Post #60,480
10/31/02 1:42:53 PM
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I have a lot of respect for uncomfortable philo :)
Many fears are born of stupidity and ignorance -
Which you should be feeding with rumour and generalisation.
BOfH, 2002 "Episode" 10
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