Philosophy

Disclaimer: This is all subject to change and nothing but my best guesses; my theories so far. That said, what are your genuine thoughts and criticisms of this draft?

_Son(s)/daughter(s)_: Product(s); products of the resurrection (Luke 20:36), products of this age (Luke 20:34), products of Jerusalem (Luke 23:28), products of your Father who is in Heaven (Matt 5:45), products of God (Matt 5:9)—product of the living God (Matt 16:16). Whatever we’re presently believing to be most right and rational, thus, true, is what determines what or who we ultimately become a product of and where we build our house (our life): Out on the sand, where the tide, moth, rust, and worm ultimately destroy, or on the rock, with people like Jesus and what the Ten Warnings (don’t do things like steal, murder, and make sure to honor your parents or you’ll only—ultimately—regret it like crazy when met with the sobering influence of our own death) were made of, a material with the ability to last far longer, potentially even eternally (Matt 7:24).

“One thing only is needful: the knowledge of the simple and clear truth which finds place in every soul that is not stupefied by religious and scientific superstitions—the truth that for our life one law is valid—the law of love [seen in the sense of things like the laws of physics], which brings the highest happiness to every individual as well as to all mankind. Free your minds from those overgrown, mountainous imbecilities which hinder your recognition of it, and at once the truth will emerge from amid the pseudo-religious nonsense that has been smothering it.” - Leo Tolstoy, A Letter To A Hindu, December of 1908 (roughly two years before his death): https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7176/7176-h/7176-h.htm

As I’m writing my work on Philosophy of Balance I also want to write something on moral views around the topic of property ownership. But to be honest, it’s probably the topic I have the least clear answers to right now. As a quick primer, the Philosophy of Balance is aimed to provide both rational as well as emphatic guidance to improve balance, both inwards within oneself, as well as outwards with those around us.

I’m fascinated by rituals. Especially rituals that have physical outcomes.

This book is one of my favorites. It’s not talked about as much though.

I’ve been reading Hanna Reichel’s excellent For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional.

I go to a weekly “Armchair Philosophers” discussion group, which involves philosophy debates around a topic that changes each week. Most attendees don’t have any formal background in philosophy. and I have volunteered to run a session, which involves writing 4 small passages relating to a topic, each followed by a few discussion questions. I’ve been cracking on with getting that prepared, and I have been wondering what makes a good discussion question, in general?

I’m curious about other people’s journeys.

Deception isn’t new but soon anyone can fabricate proof with AI. Plato’s cave isn’t a metaphor anymore it’s a feed. When everything can be faked, what’s left to believe? What happens to meaning when nothing is real anymore?

Today, “Christians” call the Garden of Eden, the story about Adam and Eve (https://biblehub.com/lsv/genesis/2.htm), “the fall,” but I think there’s a more profound moral lesson underneath what man has made it out to be ever since; the supernatural and miracles within being simply a means for people millenniums ago to express thought, words like consciousness not existing in these ancient languages, e.g., “I am _Who I Am_.” - Exodus 3:14. And knowledge is knowledge no matter its source and no matter what we’ve rendered it ever since it’s been revealed and labeled.

Our knowledge of anything—morality, time, of the experience, science, history, philosophy, math, and even the influence of the divine to whatever extent that we keep alive or “living” via our unique and profound ability to retain and transfer knowledge in contrast to nature, is a consequence of being as conscious to both ourselves and everything else as we humans sure seem to be. Sure, we may give life or create any degree of knowledge of morality or time, but that doesn’t make them not real. Sure, we give life to there being a past and a future via the images of either or that we instill in our minds through our imaginations, and right now may be the only time there is, but that doesn’t make time itself not real or cease to exist if theres something not capable of giving life to it so to speak, as we can plainly see when we observe something decaying or measure how long something has existed for. Of course the same can be said of our knowledge of morality no matter the source, like religion, stoicism, or even a proverb from where or whenever. Our knowledge of morality is of course born out of our imaginations as well, but more specifically when it comes to morality: Our unique and profound ability to imagine ourselves in someone or something else’s shoes and really try to imagine feeling all that they’re feeling, or in other words: Empathy (the law and the prophets as a whole that were meant to be fulfilled; “love thy neighbor as thyself").

This might be a heavy read so if you’re not in the mood for that I understand

Tolstoy references the Book of Jonah in What I Believe as a means to explain that we should still be of the world and not entirely give it up for the sake of the church. I think there’s more to it then that however.

Hey everyone

When Tolstoy speaks of Christianity, he’s referring to his more objective, philosophical, less supernatural interpretation of his translation of the Gospels: The Gospel In Brief. For context: https://lemmy.world/post/25679868

Periodically, throughout history, human beings have found ourselves in the midst of troubling times. These are passages taken together which comfort me and give me strength. Perhaps they will also comfort you a bit: