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Invisiblekaiowas
lest we baguette
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Registered: 07/14/03
Posts: 5,501
Loc: oz
Re: The Nonsense of Morality [Re: Swami]
    #2908697 - 07/20/04 01:48 PM (19 years, 8 months ago)

agreed that it's self interest,  that's different than being selfish!

please continue  :thumbup:


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Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.

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OfflinePed
Interested In Your Brain
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Registered: 08/30/99
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Re: The Nonsense of Morality [Re: Swami]
    #2908702 - 07/20/04 01:49 PM (19 years, 8 months ago)

>> She gives of herself BECAUSE IT MAKES HER HAPPY. She did it for the personal satisfaction and reward. This is self-interest!

This was Anton LaVey's philosophy.

If one pursues concern for others only for the cause of making themselves happy and satisfied, they will not develop concern for others because they are motivated primarily by self-interest. They will be reduced to petty and egoistic self-congratulation for their unselfish behaviour. Ballooning one's pride in this way produces temporary happiness and long-term suffering.

A genuinely unselfish mindset is what produces genuine happiness and relief. If motivated only by the pursuit of one's own happiness and relief, one is fundamentally obstructed and cannot develop genuinely unselfish attitudes. To derrive authentic happiness from unselfish behaviour, one must have an authentic understanding of why others deserve our care and concern.

You may have the victory, Swami. I am withdrawing from this debate.


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:poison: Dark Triangles - New Psychedelic Techno Single - Listen on Soundcloud :poison:
Gyroscope full album available SoundCloud or MySpace

Edited by Ped (07/20/04 02:07 PM)

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Invisiblekaiowas
lest we baguette
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Registered: 07/14/03
Posts: 5,501
Loc: oz
Re: The Nonsense of Morality [Re: Ped]
    #2908960 - 07/20/04 02:55 PM (19 years, 8 months ago)

do you think swami there is a huge difference between self interest and being selfish? I do


--------------------
Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.

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InvisibleSwami
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Registered: 01/18/00
Posts: 15,413
Loc: In the hen house
Re: The Nonsense of Morality [Re: kaiowas]
    #2909014 - 07/20/04 03:05 PM (19 years, 8 months ago)

Why not elaborate first?

I think there is a huge difference between intelligent self-interest and retarded self-interest.

Retarded self-interest: (Most) Every country spending 10-20% of their gross national product on the the military.

Intelligent self-interest: Every country disbanding their military and cooperating with others and saving 10-20% of their gross national to increase the wealth and welfare of it's citizens.

Too utopian? Let's take another more down-to-earth example:

Goal: I want to get to the other side of town as quickly as possible.

Retarded self-interest: I run red lights and stop signs and speed like a demon. I selfishly disobey the agreed-upon rules.

Intelligent self-interest: I obey traffic signals and go slighty faster than usual. I am aware that a traffic accident will cost me money, physical harm and time and a speeding ticket will also cost me time and money, so I selfishly obey the agreed-upon rules.


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The proof is in the pudding.

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OfflineBlueCoyote
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Re: The Nonsense of Morality [Re: Swami]
    #2909066 - 07/20/04 03:17 PM (19 years, 8 months ago)

And I really think, cockroaches, ants, or bacteriums are mostly a lot more moral then humans.
Not to mention the 'higher' animals with low 'self-consciousness'.
Why should moral allways do the opposite of instinct ?


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Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

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Invisiblekaiowas
lest we baguette
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Registered: 07/14/03
Posts: 5,501
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Re: The Nonsense of Morality [Re: Swami]
    #2909102 - 07/20/04 03:24 PM (19 years, 8 months ago)

"to increase the wealth and welfare of it's citizens."

this is where I draw the line between self interest and selfishness. since you are increasing the wealth of the citizens, and that's the goal, then it isn't selfish at all. in fat I am having a hard time finding self interest here.


--------------------
Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.

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InvisibleSwami
Eggshell Walker

Registered: 01/18/00
Posts: 15,413
Loc: In the hen house
Re: The Nonsense of Morality [Re: kaiowas]
    #2909211 - 07/20/04 03:49 PM (19 years, 8 months ago)

If you are my neighbor and we are always fighting because your dog shat on my lawn, and I decide to kick down your fence and then you cut down my tree and then I pour dye in your swimming pool... It is a lose-lose situation. So we make peace - we cooperate for our self-interest: our monetary and emotional well-being.


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The proof is in the pudding.

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OfflineGGmaster
PsychedelicSociopath
Registered: 10/14/05
Posts: 24
Last seen: 18 years, 11 days
Re: The Nonsense of Morality [Re: Swami]
    #4844965 - 10/24/05 09:28 AM (18 years, 5 months ago)

I mentioned this one in another string but I think it applies here too:

Morality applies definitions of "good" and "right" to decide if something is moral (i.e., the 10 commandments). Without ethics (defining what is "good" and "right") we cannot make a moral judgement. So we can say that an action is a good action if it is done out of good will and with good intentions.


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"Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results" - Albert Einstein

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OfflineBlueCoyote
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Re: The Nonsense of Morality [Re: GGmaster]
    #4845881 - 10/24/05 01:51 PM (18 years, 5 months ago)

(wow I was alive one year before :laugh:)

"So we can say that an action is a good action if it is done out of good will and with good intentions."
No, sorrowly not. For the most evil dictatorships, that statement will be true, too. Their 'goodwill' only was for a smaller part of the population.


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

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OfflineDeviate
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Registered: 04/20/03
Posts: 4,497
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Re: The Nonsense of Morality [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #4851699 - 10/25/05 07:37 PM (18 years, 5 months ago)

swami, youre misunderstanding what morality means. when you help others you are helping yourself. in other words, being moral is your own highest self interest and as mother teresa confirms, leads to great happiness. selfish and unselfish are not defined the way youre making them out to be. for example if you choose to make dinner for a sick person instead of watching tv that would be defined as selfless behavior, even if you did it because you find happiness in helping others. and isn't that how it should be? as long as you don't expect anything in return except your own happiness you are acting selflessly. however if you only did it because you wanted to be seen as a good person then it would be selfish. so in both instances you are acting in a way that promotes self interest but one is moral and one is immoral.

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OfflineDeviate
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Re: The Nonsense of Morality [Re: Nomad]
    #4851762 - 10/25/05 07:54 PM (18 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Nomad said:
Perhaps I was too vauge. Buddha said that our main wish is for happiness and freedom from suffering. The point here is that chasing happiness and avoiding suffering -- attachment and aversion -- are the momentum behind everything that we do.

In that case, I agree with the latter and disagree with the former. You see, I'm not trying to fool around with details here, I really consider this an important point. The idea that life is about happiness, the achievement and upkeeping of happiness, was a relatively minor philosophical idea in ancient greece, then it disappeared, and then it somehow stepped back onto the scene and conquered the western world. And it's not hard to see why this is so if we look at where this idea is pushed forward the hardest: It's in advertisement. Capitalism is the shady figure in the background here.

The claim that our main wish is happiness reduces life to a drug experience, and, respectively, humans to drug addicts. We have labeled the molecules which cause happiness, we can isolate them, we know drugs which artificially trigger the mechanism in the brain. And just like with any other drug, the body shows the distinct pattern of developing resistance: Don't ask me how, but psychologists are somehow able to measure the happiness of a person using a questionnaire, at least they claim so. Now, when a person marries, their level of happiness rises above that of the unmarried person, but then, after some time, drops down to normal. If the spouse dies, their happiness is lowered below the level of the unmarried person, then returns to normal. So if one is going for happiness, why not do it with drugs in the first place? I'm not joking about that shooting heroine thing - I mean, if you have the money to get clean heroine without the usual rat poison in it, you wouldn't even damage your health. Of course, you would be an utter unproductive member of society, lying around like a wreck most of the time, your life completely wasted, yet quite happy you would be, I guess.

As a buddhist, I do not think that life is about getting high. I would like to think that it is about the pursuit of truth. The idea that the goal of life, especially the religious life, is to sit around being blissfully happy is essentially a hindu concept.

Gonig on-topic again, I remember when I first read the Buddha's ten reasons why we should develop unconditional love towards all creatures. What amazed me was that all of the ten reasons were completely selfish! One was that you would sleep better and awake refreshed. One was that, if you die before your enlightenment, you would at least go to heaven (which makes love a kind of spiritual safety net). Wild animals would be less likely to attack you, your skills in meditation would dramatically increase, and, last but not least, little invisible creatures - devas, although I imagine them as elves - attracted to love the same way moths are attracted to light, would flutter around you and protect you.

Some time ago, I thought that I should really brush up on the ethical aspect of my path, that ethical behaviour is not some side effect of the religious life, but that the whole thing should flow from that as a base which cannot be shattered. What I discovered is that just that, just trying to be the best possible person at any moment, really set things off for me, as if, somewhere deep within the dark bottom of the universe, something switched, and now my subconscious was suddenly working in favor of me instead of against. It's true, actually, ethical behaviour is almost (almost!) a complete path to awakening. Happiness here is just a side effect, arising and passing, but other things last. It's as if the wind was blowing at your back, astonishing. Swami seems to point out that there is a selfish part in our moral behaviour, that we help those close to us because we get something back from them. But even unconditional love is selfish, which does not belittle it, but makes it greater actually.

I understand that this is not an idea which will gather much friends these times. Very well, then: Let them be evil. This only creates more opportunities for me to be good.




no you would not. have you ever met a happy junkie? i tried to make myself happy with drugs and it was a miserable failure and i realized i was happier before i began using drugs then i was when i was using drugs. as buddha would say heroin is only different levels of samsara. you feel much suffering and then there is releaf when you get your heroin shot. how is this happiness? it only lasts a few hours, then you feel nauseas, weak and sick. taking more heroin only leads to diminished highs and more sick feelings. eventually your drug stops getting you high at all and then youre really screwed. this is not happiness.

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