Secretnude's Drabble Poetry Corner

[secretnude]

I think the problem is that people talk about knowing Jesus without doing him.

totally subjective and based on emotionality rather than objective doctrine

People don't really know what they don't do.

I can't verify your experience.

I do believe that your experience
is valid
for yourself but It may not be valid
for all.

All
Religions
maybe valid
or none of them maybe valid.

There's too much conflict between the Religions
such that
to assume that
all Religions
are valid
is an assumption that's
patently invalid.

I respect the validity
of your
Religious experience for yourself
and many others of your
Faith
that I don't hate
but the assumption of Universality
is patently
without empirical basis unless we can objectively
study Faith
but Faith
itself
maybe unverifiable as fate
has it.

Anecdotal evidence. A particular cure would be administered and – lo and behold – the patient would recover! Someone would get a patent on the treatment and hawk it as a “miracle drug.” What people didn’t realize is that anecdotal evidence is next to useless: People recover spontaneously due to circumstances that have nothing to do with the “miracle drug.” Modern science teaches that valid data must be collected through rigorously controlled methodology and in large enough numbers to discount randomness and coincidence.

I often see religious people point to anecdotal evidence to “prove” the validity of their belief system. I understand the impulse: I grew up practically worshiping personal testimonies. “Jesus rescued me from sin,” “My life was terrible until I found the Lord,” “God healed me after I prayed.” Of course these experiences are meaningful for those who tell them. But are they really valid “evidence” for others to accept a particular truth?

My thinking on this changed radically around 2002, when I realized that all religious people recount personal experiences, mystical healings and life-changing “encounters with the divine.” My church taught me that the personal spiritual experiences of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, Jews, etc. were Satanic deceptions designed to trick them into believing wrong doctrine. But as my blinders came off, I contemplated: If I considered pro-Christian anecdotal evidence persuasive, how could I discount the anecdotal evidence of other groups?

My spiritual experiences couldn’t be verified by anyone other than me, yet I expected others to take them on face value. How could I be so arrogant as to discount the spiritual experiences of people from other religious traditions? In the end, I couldn’t. That left me with two choices: Either everyone’s sincerely believed, dearly held spiritual experiences are equally valid, or none of them are. This realization was the beginning of the end of my religious belief.

http://de-conversion.com/2007/06/30/chr ... -evidence/

[secretnude]

28 Catholic Pilipinos throughout the island country reenacted Christ’s suffering on the cross, literally submitting to the ancient Roman punishment of crucifixion, the Manila Bulletin reported.

Men dressed as Roman legionnaires hammered nails through the so-called ‘penitents’ palms and raised wooden crosses aloft with the nailed penitent standing on a small ledge, rather than hanging from his or her palms. An AP video showed one penitent groaning in agony as crowds watched, with some onlookers snapping photos.

http://www.latitudenews.com/story/faith ... ucifixion/

Too much Religious Guilt
may indeed be harmful
and drive people to do harmful
things to assuage
their guilt
in this Modern Age.

I don't know how Jesus Christ
Himself would react
to see people that Christ
had already forgiven re-enact
His Suffering
on the Cross
and I don't know how cross
Christ
would be at such needless
suffering.

People suffer
because of the guilt
that their Faith thus induce
and produce
more needless
suffering
unless
they embrace the less
guilt
inducing
forms of Reformed Christianity
that I guess did save humanity
from so much Roman Catholic guilt
and suffering.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picture ... pines.html

Martin Luther claimed that what distinguished him from previous reformers was that while they attacked corruption in the life of the church, he went to the theological root of the problem—the perversion of the church’s doctrine of redemption and grace. Luther, a pastor and professor at the University of Wittenberg, deplored the entanglement of God’s free gift of grace in a complex system of indulgences and good works. In his Ninety-five Theses, he attacked the indulgence system, insisting that the pope had no authority over purgatory and that the doctrine of the merits of the saints had no foundation in the gospel. Here lay the key to Luther’s concerns for the ethical and theological reform of the church: Scripture alone is authoritative (sola sciptura) and justification is by faith (sola fide), not by works.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... eformation

[secretnude]

Please note, I'm not seeking to win a debate with you. I only seek to explain my experience as best I can (given the tenuous and ethereal nature of the topic.)

I don't know how well I have succeeded in the attempt.

I have debated
our friend Strawman
as best as I can
I do welcome a chance to debate
ROU
since I do like both of you.

My heretical
views
aren't really typical
and may deserve
to be preserved.

I welcome the chance
to enhance
my cognitive faculties
as if I'm a Faculty
at a Theological University.

It's weird
that my abilities
at this form of interaction
at the intersection
between Poetry and Non-fiction
was brought out in a Forum that's
patently weird
and yes, I'm weird
but so are the rest of folks that's
reading
this weird
set of writings.

[strawman]

Nobody does anything
unselflessly
without reward since the so called selfless
self
experiences a Dopamine Kick
that quickly
kicks
in people with the Altruism Gene.

Mother Teresa made it for 90 years on dopamine kicks?
For a humanist, that seems like a materialist. Don't materialists claim that people don't really have free will? Teresa just had a selfless gene causing a brain chemistry that predisposes her choose to comfort the dying.

Actually, as letters published posthumously detail, she didn't exhibit much of a dopamine kick, and struggled daily with her faith. Some said "Aha!" and used her words to accuse her of being a fake. Predictable.

I just wish
that more Christians
indeed act Christian.

Not to act Christian is not to be Christian? Your wish is granted!
In the same way, even one who struggles with the idea of faith may be a Christian even while denying it. Jesus said 'Blessed are those who hear my words and put them into practice', and his teaching, "As I have loved you, love one another."

This love is not a feeling; it is a decision. People constantly lie with their lips, and emotions come and go. When someone ceases to produce the dopamine for you, you no longer feel love for them.

and to be
Christian
is to understand and not to judge.

That is part but not the whole. We must not forego stopping at red lights. Sometimes lack of judgement is called stupidity. But you are right about judging without compassion. Father, forgive them. They know not... even when they insist they know.

Evangelical Christianity
with the emphasis on Living
the 'Christ
Life'
without a profound understanding
of the Biblical Christian
Doctrinal Underpinnings
of their beliefs does create a Faith
Bubble
in which each person
Personalizes
his Faith
and this can lead to trouble.

I have a personal faith based on experience. But I also understand Doctrinal Underpinnings. I also was raised in a Catholic environment, and an all-male Catholic secondary boarding school. I also considered the priesthood. But part of my experience was coming to understand that going to Church may make me a nominal Christian, one who checks the appropriate box on entrance to the army, for example. But my disappointment was that Catholics don't encourage laymen to participate and engage with the world. They seem to prefer to take up a collection and hire professionals to do that.

I am very fond of the modern Catholic Church, and a fan of Pope Francis.
And yet, doing Jesus and being a spectator in a pew are two different things. As I have heard it said: one does not become a car by sitting in a garage.

As for faith bubbles leading to trouble, do you mean, for example, crucifixion?
You sound like you are sympathetic to Buddhism. While I'm not an expert, I'm a fan of Thomas Merton, who was well acquainted with Buddhist spirituality. The definition of agape love as "The willingness to suffer without the desire to retaliate; the willingness to serve without the desire for a return" is not incompatible with Buddhist teaching.

I have chosen my ideals as carefully as I can, because I believe that a person's ideal will influence what he becomes. If you want to change the world, then change...

Finally, I gotta add that DC is a great place for strange stories by strange authors. That you and ROU and I are having this story may be one of the stranger ones. Also, my brother and his son both have Asberger's, so thanks for the explanations.

[secretnude]

The existence of free will
has been the subject of debates
and as much as I want "free will"
to exist
I do hate
to acknowledge
the sad knowledge
that free will
might not exist
after all
since our brains
are indeed made of matter
and as such is subject to
the laws matter
is subject to.

I want free will
but I can't deny
the recent findings in Neuroscience that denies
the existence
of free will.

There's nothing wrong
about the nonexistence
of free will
as long
as we are still
held as responsible
for any act that's terrible.

Mother Teresa made it for 90 years on dopamine kicks?
For a humanist, that seems like a materialist. Don't materialists claim that people don't really have free will? Teresa just had a selfless gene causing a brain chemistry that predisposes her choose to comfort the dying.

The term "free will" has so many diverse connotations that I'm obliged to define it before I explain why we don't have it. I construe free will the way I think most people do: At the moment when you have to decide among alternatives, you have free will if you could have chosen otherwise. To put it more technically, if you could rerun the tape of your life up to the moment you make a choice, with every aspect of the universe configured identically, free will means that your choice could have been different.

Although we can't really rerun that tape, this sort of free will is ruled out, simply and decisively, by the laws of physics. Your brain and body, the vehicles that make "choices," are composed of molecules, and the arrangement of those molecules is entirely determined by your genes and your environment. Your decisions result from molecular-based electrical impulses and chemical substances transmitted from one brain cell to another. These molecules must obey the laws of physics, so the outputs of our brain—our "choices"—are dictated by those laws. (It's possible, though improbable, that the indeterminacy of quantum physics may tweak behavior a bit, but such random effects can't be part of free will.) And deliberating about your choices in advance doesn't help matters, for that deliberation also reflects brain activity that must obey physical laws.

To assert that we can freely choose among alternatives is to claim, then, that we can somehow step outside the physical structure of our brain and change its workings. That is impossible. Like the output of a programmed computer, only one choice is ever physically possible: the one you made. As such, the burden of proof rests on those who argue that we can make alternative choices, for that's a claim that our brains, unique among all forms of matter, are exempt from the laws of physics by a spooky, nonphysical "will" that can redirect our own molecules.

My claim that free will as defined above is an illusion leads to a prediction: Our sense of controlling our actions might sometimes be decoupled from those actions themselves. Recent experiments in cognitive science show that some deliberate acts occur before they reach our consciousness (typing or driving, for example), while in other cases, brain scans can predict our choices several seconds before we're conscious of having made them. Additionally, stimulation of the brain, or clever psychological experiments, can significantly increase or decrease our sense of control over our choices.

So what are the consequences of realizing that physical determinism negates our ability to choose freely? Well, nihilism is not an option: We humans are so constituted, through evolution or otherwise, to believe that we can choose. What is seriously affected is our idea of moral responsibility, which should be discarded along with the idea of free will. If whether we act well or badly is predetermined rather than a real choice, then there is no moral responsibility—only actions that hurt or help others. That realization shouldn't seriously change the way we punish or reward people, because we still need to protect society from criminals, and observing punishment or reward can alter the brains of others, acting as a deterrent or stimulus. What we should discard is the idea of punishment as retribution, which rests on the false notion that people can choose to do wrong.

The absence of real choice also has implications for religion. Many sects of Christianity, for example, grant salvation only to those who freely choose Jesus as their savior. And some theologians explain human evil as an unavoidable byproduct of God's gift of free will. If free will goes, so do those beliefs. But of course religion won't relinquish those ideas, for such important dogma is immune to scientific advances.

Finally, on the lighter side, knowing that we don't have free will can perhaps temper our sense of regret or self-recrimination, since we never had real choices in our past. No, we couldn't have had that V8, and Robert Frost couldn't have taken the other road.

Although science strongly suggests that free will of the sort I defined doesn't exist, this view is unpopular because it contradicts our powerful feeling that we make real choices. In response, some philosophers—most of them determinists who agree with me that our decisions are preordained—have redefined free will in ways that allow us to have it. I see most of these definitions as face-saving devices designed to prop up our feeling of autonomy. To eliminate the confusion produced by multiple and contradictory concepts of free will, I propose that we reject the term entirely and adopt the suggestion of the cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky: Instead of saying my decision arises from free will, we might say, "My decision was determined by internal forces I do not understand."

http://chronicle.com/article/Jerry-A-Coyne/131165/

[strawman]

While Coyne may be correct, how many layers does determinism go?
For example, what I said about "If you want to change the world, then change".
Does Determinism claim that a decision to change is embedded in the molecules that determine our immediate choices?
Is an epiphany experience and resultant change of ideals the result of these molecules?
I'm predicting that a pure Determinist would by definition have to argue that there are no exceptions. (This sounds a lot like Calvinism, doesn't it?)
Well, Determinism makes a certain amount of sense. If our earliest ancestors were atomic elements without free will. But if people are nothing but particles, they can't be held responsible for anything. The Holocaust was nothing more than molecules running their natural predetermined course. Uck.

[secretnude]

I don't subscribe
to what some people would describe
as Cartesian Dualism.

I prefer the simplicity of Materialism
as a Philosophical Stance
by chance.

There's inherently nothing "immoral"
about this stance
unless by chance
you want the "Soul"
to exist as an entity wholly
outside the bounds of the 'Material'.

There is Economic Materialism
and Philosophical Materialism
and Materialism
in the Philosophical Sense isn't the greedy
Economic Materialism
that needy
Catechism
deplores
unless we explore
the more
abstract theories about the "Soul".

We are biological machines and whole
research into the Mind-Brain problem does find
little support
for a 'Soul'.

For the desire to accumulate material goods, see Economic materialism. For the Marxist and other meanings, see Materialism (disambiguation).

In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that all things are composed of material, and that all emergent phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material properties and interactions. In other words, the theory claims that our reality consists entirely of physical matter that is the sole cause of every possible occurrence, including human thought, feeling, and action.

Materialism is typically considered to be closely related to physicalism; although, to some philosophers, materialism is synonymous with physicalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism


Neuroscience and Free Will viewtopic.php?f=70&t=5327&p=48767#p48767

[secretnude]

While Coyne may be correct, how many layers does determinism go?
For example, what I said about "If you want to change the world, then change".
Does Determinism claim that a decision to change is embedded in the molecules that determine our immediate choices?
Is an epiphany experience and resultant change of ideals the result of these molecules?
I'm predicting that a pure Determinist would by definition have to argue that there are no exceptions. (This sounds a lot like Calvinism, doesn't it?)
Well, Determinism makes a certain amount of sense. If our earliest ancestors were atomic elements without free will. But if people are nothing but particles, they can't be held responsible for anything. The Holocaust was nothing more than molecules running their natural predetermined course. Uck.

Then let me address the main misconceptions:

If you do not have free will you cannot or do not have to make decisions.

Regardless of whether you have free will or not, your brain performs evaluations and produces results and that’s what it means to make a decision. You cannot not make decisions. Just because your thought process is deterministic doesn’t mean the process doesn’t have to be executed in real time. The same is true if it has a random component.

This misconception stems from a split-personality perspective: People picture themselves as trying to make a decision but being hindered by some evil free-will-defying law of nature. That is nonsense of course. You are whatever brain process works with whatever input you receive. If you don’t have free will, you’ve never had free will and so far you’ve lived just fine. You can continue to think the same way you’ve always thought. You’ll do that anyway.

If you do not have free will you have no responsibility for your actions.

This misconception also comes from the split-personality perspective. You are what makes the decisions (takes in information and processes it) and performs the actions (acts on the results). If your actions are problematic for other people, you are the source of the problem and they’ll take measures to solve that problem. It’s not like they have any choice… If the result of your brain processes makes other people’s lives difficult, it’s you who will be blamed, locked away, sent to psychotherapy or get kicked where it really hurts. It is entirely irrelevant that your faulty information processing was inscribed in the initial conditions of the universe, the relevant question is what your future will bring if others try to get rid of you. The word ‘responsibility’ is just a red herring because it’s both ill-defined and unnecessary.

People should not be told they don’t have free will because that would undermine the rules of morally just societies.

This misconception goes back to the first two and is based the idea that if people don’t have free will they don’t have any reason to reflect on their actions and to consider other people’s wellbeing. This is wrong of course. Evolution has endowed us with the ability to estimate the future impact of our actions and natural selection preferred those who acted so that others were supportive of their needs, or at least not outright aggressive towards them. If people don’t have free will they still have to make decisions and they still will be blamed for making other peoples’ lives miserable.

Occasionally somebody refers me to this study which allegedly shows that “Encouraging a Belief in Determinism Increases Cheating.” This study also encourages misconception 2, so the finding is hardly surprising. I would like to see this repeated with the added explanation that the test subjects are of course still making decisions, regardless of whether the outcome was predetermined or not, and of course it matters what that outcome is.

If you do not have free will your actions can be predicted.

Even if your brain processes were predictable in principle it is highly questionable anybody could do this in practice. Besides, as I explained above, these processes might have a random component that is even in principle not predictable. It is presently not very well understood just exactly how relevant such a random component might be.

If you do not have free will the future is determined by the past.

Same misconception that underlies 4. Randomness is for all we presently know a component of the fundamental laws. In this case the future is not determined by the past, but neither do you have free will because nothing can influence this randomness.

If we do not have free will we can derive human morals.

I don’t know why people get so hung up on this. Morals and values are just thought patterns that humans use to make decisions. Their relevance stems from these thought patterns being shared by many in similar versions. If the fundamental laws of the universe are deterministic and if you were really good at computation, then you could in principle compute them. In practice nobody can do it.

It is also not actually what people mean when they talk about ‘deriving morals’. What they actually mean is whether one can derive what humans “should do”. That however one can only do once a goal is defined – “should do” to achieve what? – and that just moves the question elsewere. Science can’t answer this question because it’s ill-defined. Science can’t tell what anybody should be doing because that’s a meaningless phrase. Science can, in the best case, just tell what they will be doing.

More to the point is (as I explained in length in this earlier blogpost) that at any time there are questions that science cannot answer because the knowledge we have is insufficient. These are the questions we leave to political decision. All the “should do” questions are of this type.

Free will is impossible.

Not necessarily. As I explained here (paper here) it is possible to conceive of laws of nature that are neither deterministic nor random and that can plausibly be said to allow for free will. Alas, we do not presently have any evidence whatsoever that this is realized in nature and neither is it known whether this is even compatible with the laws of nature that we know. Send me a big enough paycheck and give me some years and I’ll find out.

You need to be a neuroscientist to talk about free will.

We associate free will with autonomous systems that make choices, with activation patterns in human brains, which is the realm of neurobiology. However, your brain as much as every other part of the universe obeys the fundamental laws of nature. That these fundamental laws allow for free will is a necessary condition for free will to exist, and these laws fall into the realm of physics.

You need to be a philosopher to be allowed to talk about free will.

If you want to know how everybody and their dog throughout the history of mankind defined free will, you had better read several thousand years’ worth of discussion on the issue. But I don’t like to waste time on definitions and I don’t see the merit in listing all variants of free will that somebody sometime has come up with. I told you above very clearly what I mean with ‘absence of free will’ and that is the core of the problem in two paragraphs. If you want to name this other than “free will”, I don’t care, it’s still the core of the problem.

If we do not have free will we cannot do science.

I added this misconception because this comes up every time I talk about superdeterminism in quantum mechanics. The basic reason we can do science is that our universe evolves so that we are able to extract regularities in that evolution. You need to be able to measure what happens to similar systems under similar conditions and find patterns in that. But just how these similar systems came about is entirely irrelevant. It does not matter, for example, whether the laboratory and all the detector settings were predetermined already at the beginning of the universe. All that matters is that there are similar systems, that detections can be done, and the results are processed by you (or some computer) to extract regularities.

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2014/0 ... -will.html

[secretnude]

Evangelical Christianity
with the emphasis on Living
the 'Christ
Life'
without a profound understanding
of the Biblical Christian
Doctrinal Underpinnings
of their beliefs does create a Faith
Bubble
in which each person
Personalizes
his Faith
and this can lead to trouble.

I have a personal faith based on experience. But I also understand Doctrinal Underpinnings. I also was raised in a Catholic environment, and an all-male Catholic secondary boarding school. I also considered the priesthood. But part of my experience was coming to understand that going to Church may make me a nominal Christian, one who checks the appropriate box on entrance to the army, for example. But my disappointment was that Catholics don't encourage laymen to participate and engage with the world. They seem to prefer to take up a collection and hire professionals to do that.

I am very fond of the modern Catholic Church, and a fan of Pope Francis.
And yet, doing Jesus and being a spectator in a pew are two different things. As I have heard it said: one does not become a car by sitting in a garage.

As for faith bubbles leading to trouble, do you mean, for example, crucifixion?

People that sadly crucify
to sanctify
themselves in the eyes of a forgiving
God aren't giving
the Bible a proper reading
in my opinion.

In my opinion
the Modern Catholic Church is great
but I do hate
the practice of crucifixion
by poor Catholics in my poor nation.

They aren't Evangelicals
but Evangelicals
may also commit
similar acts in the pursuit of fervent belief
that maybe personalized to a point
that's beyond belief.

You're right to point
that Catholics
are mostly armchair Christians
since I was a Catholic
and my Non-Catholic
Christian friends
seem less armchair Christian
in the end.

[secretnude]

and to be
Christian
is to understand and not to judge.

That is part but not the whole. We must not forego stopping at red lights. Sometimes lack of judgement is called stupidity. But you are right about judging without compassion. Father, forgive them. They know not... even when they insist they know.

...
As for faith bubbles leading to trouble

A faith bubble
may also cause trouble
in the Muslim World when fervent
belief is internalized
and realized
as the Terrorist Events
in the World Trade Center
that could have been prevented
if they stuck to the Islamic Doctrinal Center.

I admit to not liking
the Abrahamic Faiths
and liking
the Buddhist Faith
due to Doctrinal Flexibility
and less ability
to cause such Faith Bubbles
and similar troubles
that we may actually
rightfully
pass judgement
as characteristically
UnChristian or UnIslamic.

I'm not adverse to passing judgement.

I do reserve judgement
only for things that are exceptionally bad
or exceptionally sad.

[secretnude]

You sound like you are sympathetic to Buddhism. While I'm not an expert, I'm a fan of Thomas Merton, who was well acquainted with Buddhist spirituality. The definition of agape love as "The willingness to suffer without the desire to retaliate; the willingness to serve without the desire for a return" is not incompatible with Buddhist teaching.

I agree that Christianity
and Buddhism
aren't totally incompatible
but that compatibility
does tend towards Buddhism
being more inclusive
than Christianity.

Buddhism
can doctrinally accommodate a God
many Gods
or no Gods
but Christianity
will only accept one Almighty God.

I love Philosophy
and Buddhism is almost Philosophy
that's quite secular
compared to the regular
Abrahamic Faiths
that does breed so much hate.

I admit to having
practiced Meditation
but not believing
in reincarnation.

Meditation
does clear one's mind.

I do find
Meditation
a way to focus just like Spock on Star Trek
as I do an internal mind trek.

Is Buddhism a Monotheistic or Polytheistic Religion?
..
The Buddha was not a god or prophet but an ordinary man who taught the path to awakening.

As a religion, Buddhism is neither monotheistic nor polytheistic. There is no personal god or monotheistic creator God in Buddhism, as there is in Christianity, Judaism or Islam. Buddhism is a spiritual path based on the teachings of the Buddha, an ordinary man who attained “nirvana,” enlightenment or awakening, around the sixth century B.C. In Buddhism, each individual is responsible for his or her own spiritual awakening, which is achieved through meditation, moral and ethical living, and attainment of wisdom. Buddhism is not based on, or concerned with the human-divine relationship, therefore it is misleading to call it atheistic, monotheistic or polytheistic .

Core Teachings of Buddhism

One of the core foundations of Buddhism is the realization that suffering is an essential part of life due to human craving and desires. Impermanence, moreover, is the nature of life itself, and because all things in existence are impermanent, human beings face suffering sooner or later in life. The Buddha taught that there is a way out of suffering and rebirth. These Buddhist teachings are known collectively as the Four Noble Truths. The Buddhist path toward awakening is summarized in the teachings of the Noble Eightfold Path. Because there is no ultimate deity or dependence on faith in anything unseen, Buddhism is considered by many to be more of a spiritual philosophy than a religion.

http://people.opposingviews.com/buddhis ... -7094.html

[strawman]

I have seen to Phillipino self-crucifixions, and think it must be something like what motivates a suicide bomber. Surely since it has no redeeming value, it is a perversion. But it is a very human characteristic to be led by emotions to engage in very strange behaviors. EG: Teenagers.

no dependence on faith in anything unseen

What does one do with an experience of "seeing"?
Suffering can lead to coming to the end of one's self. AA and NA refer to "Hitting Bottom". The sudden relinquishment of a desire to control, a "letting go", is a kind of spiritual detachment that often produces a strong sense of revelation and inner peace that leads to recovery.

Whether this is just a chemical reaction of the brain or a supernatural event, the transformative power is the same. And it seems to me that, especially if it is a chemical reaction, then it's wonderful that my stardust has this transformative quality built into it.

[secretnude]

A Religion
that goes for moderation
between Hedonism
and Asceticism
gets my endorsement
for being more clement
to the needs
of its practitioners indeed
and not encouraging deeds
of self harm
that might lead to indirect community harm
due to the medical costs
and work hours lost.

Buddhism
might almost be a Religion
based on a balance for compassion
for self
and others
since harming
oneself
does harm
others
maybe in an indirect manner
as resentment
builds in self styled martyrs leading
to estrangement
in abusive and co-dependent
relationships
that are unhip.

I had terminated unbalanced
relationships
to get balance.

Middle Way was used in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the first teaching that the Buddha delivered after his awakening.[c] In this sutta the Buddha describes the middle way as a path of moderation, between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification. This, according to him, was the path of wisdom.

Monks, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the household life. (What are the two?) There is addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy, and unprofitable; and there is addiction to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable.

Avoiding both these extremes, the Tathagata (the Perfect One) has realized the Middle Path; it gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment and to Nibbana. And what is that Middle Path realized by the Tathagata...? It is the Noble Eightfold path, and nothing else, namely: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Way

Other martyr complexes involve willful suffering in the name of love or duty. This has been observed in women, especially in poor families, as well as in codependent or abusive relationships.
...
desire for martyrdom is sometimes considered a form of masochism.[6] Allan Berger, however, described it as one of several patterns of "pain/suffering seeking behavior", including asceticism and penance.[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr_complex

[secretnude]

no dependence on faith in anything unseen

What does one do with an experience of "seeing"?
Suffering can lead to coming to the end of one's self.

Buddha was wise
and wisely
adopted a naturalistic position.

Buddha may be right
since we had so many fights
due to Stories of Creation
that are impervious to modification
despite generations
of Scientific Discoveries
such that some Christians ignore self discovery
and maybe some of the Scientists
too
but in my view
most Scientists
are less dogmatic
and more pragmatic
than those that seek an enigmatic
belief in the Divine
that we can't fully divine.

Nirvana
was a great band
that sadly disbanded
due to a suicide.

If Kurt Cobain decided
to seek Nirvana
we could be still enjoying 'Nirvana'.

Gautama Buddha rejected the existence of a creator deity,[1][2] refused to endorse many views on creation[3] and stated that questions on the origin of the world are not ultimately useful for ending suffering.[4][5]

Buddhism, instead, emphasizes the system of causal relationships underlying the universe (pratītyasamutpāda or Dependent Origination) which constitute the natural order (dhamma) and source of enlightenment. No dependence of phenomena on a supernatural reality is asserted in order to explain the behaviour of matter. According to the doctrine of the Buddha, a human being must study nature (dhamma vicaya) in order to attain personal wisdom (prajna) regarding the nature of things (dharma). In Buddhism, the sole aim of spiritual practice is the complete alleviation of stress in samsara,[6][7] which is called nirvana.

Some teachers tell students beginning Buddhist meditation that the notion of divinity is not incompatible with Buddhism,[8] and at least one Buddhist scholar has indicated that describing Buddhism as nontheistic may be overly simplistic;[9] but many traditional theist beliefs are considered to pose a hindrance to the attainment of nirvana,[10] the highest goal of Buddhist practice.[11]

Despite this apparent nontheism, Buddhists consider veneration of the worthy ones[12] very important,[13] although the two main traditions of Buddhism differ mildly in their reverential attitudes. While Theravada Buddhists view the Buddha as a human being who attained nirvana or Buddhahood, through human efforts,[14] some Mahayana Buddhists consider him an embodiment of the cosmic Dharmakaya, born for the benefit of others.[15] In addition, some Mahayana Buddhists worship their chief Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara,[16] and hope to embody him.[17]

Some Buddhists accept the existence of beings in higher realms (see Buddhist cosmology), known as devas, but they, like humans, are said to be suffering in samsara,[18] and are not necessarily wiser than us. In fact, the Buddha is often portrayed as a teacher of the gods,[19] and superior to them.[20] Despite this there are believed to be enlightened devas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism

[secretnude]

The Almighty Cosmic Cat
already did that
"much suffering"
thing
that brings
Cute Salvation
from Uncute Damnation
but we still get Uncute 'Copy Cats'
that
want to suffer
the way the Cute Cosmic Cat
did suffer.

The Cosmic Cat
was sad
that these poor people did that
"much suffering"
thing
that's
simply very bad
since this Deity Cat
already did that
and had
experienced that
Uncute pain
to gain
Cute Salvation
from Uncute Damnation
from DLL Hell
where things are unwell.

However, this Deity Cat
didn't prohibit that
"much suffering"
thing
and much suffering
to 'Copy Cats'
it thus bring.

### Links ###
Previous viewtopic.php?f=70&t=5327&p=49101#p49101

Cosmic or Celestial Cat viewtopic.php?f=70&t=5327&start=1440#p48665

"Much Suffer... So Pain.." viewtopic.php?f=70&t=5327&p=49130#p49113

The Catholic Church frowns on self-crucifixion as a form of devotion: "Penitential practices leading to self-crucifixion with nails are not to be encouraged."[110] Nevertheless the practice is not unknown.

In the Philippines, some Catholics are voluntarily, non-lethally crucified for a limited time on Good Friday to imitate the suffering of Jesus Christ. Nails are driven through the palm of the hand, a step is used to stand on, and the period is short. Rolando del Campo, a carpenter in Pampanga, vowed to be crucified every Good Friday for 15 years if God would carry his wife through a difficult childbirth.[111] In San Pedro Cutud, devotee Ruben Enaje has been crucified 27 times during Passion Week celebrations.[112] Although the country's dominant Catholic Church disapproves of the ritual, the Filipino government says it cannot stop the devotees from crucifying and whipping themselves; while the health department insists that those taking part in the rituals should have tetanus shots and that the nails used to pierce their limbs should be sterilized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion

[secretnude]

The poor Copy Cats
of that Almighty Cosmic Cat
had disobeyed the orders of that
CatLick Church that
discouraged that
"much suffering"
thing
but nothing
could be done to prevent
people from participating
in such "Uncute Events"
and such acute
pain
for so little gain
except maybe for a lessening
of CatLick Guilt that
can sometimes be life threatening.

Some Copy Cats
did that
"much suffering"
thing
that didn't actually bring
Cute Salvation
from UnCute Damnation
many times over.

It took some time to recover
from the wounds that
made the extremely poor
penitents poorer
despite being Charity Ward Patients.

[secretnude]

This particularly poor family starved
as the Cute
wife carved
a living while her 'Copy Cat'
husband that
did that UnCute
"much suffering" thing
was still in the hospital suffering
from acute
complications
caused by deep tissue infection.

This particular Copy Cat
of that
Almighty Cosmic Cat
soon did depart believing that
he was Cute
but he was very well
sent to DLL Hell
for UnCute
practices
that
he practiced
since it's UnCute Doctrinal Heresy
to contaminate the Cute Doctrinal Purity
of Cute CatLick Church
as he did lurch
and accept his predestined fate
that he will most definitely hate.

### Links ###
UnCute Heresies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_heresies

Predestination viewtopic.php?f=70&t=5327&start=1600#p49066

Goto Hell: viewtopic.php?f=70&t=5327&p=45764#p45764

[secretnude]

The Cosmic Cat
frowned upon people that
are "Second Rate
Trying Hard Copy Cats"
that
are at any rate
trying to emulate
the Cosmic Cat
in a way that
causes harm to themselves
and to others.

The family of that
poor Copy Cat
that's now in DLL Hell
didn't take his death well
and starved
as the widow carved
a meagre living selling fish
which is a staple dish.

The widow, they say
tried to pay
the CatLick Church to give
her husband forgiveness
but the Cosmic Cat
determined that
it's best
not to reward a practice that
we detest.

Bituing Walang Ningning (lit. Star Without Sparkle) is a Filipino television serial drama.
...
The film is also the source of one of Philippine cinema's most recognized lines: "You're nothing but a second-rate, trying hard copycat!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bituing_Walang_Ningning

Next viewtopic.php?f=70&t=5327&p=49166#p49161

[ROU Killing Time]

It's possible (probable) you mentioned George Price and that it got lost amid TL;DR but it seems relevant to link now anyway.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Price

[secretnude]

I haven't mentioned George Price
and I see some parallels with Price
in my life as an Atheist
and a Chemist
with published papers, having
a tumor and working
in Data Processing.

However, I haven't uncovered any profound
Equation
or have any profound
Religious Conversion
and Genetically,
my Family
maybe a Dead End as me
and my brother
don't seem to bother
to reproduce.

We seem content to reproduce
ourselves in the Intellectual Sphere
rather than the Physical Sphere
since I do think we do fear
"relationships" and hence our foolish
Genes
will soon be out of the Gene
Pool.

It's possible (probable) you mentioned George Price and that it got lost amid TL;DR but it seems relevant to link now anyway.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Price