Posts by fadedbison

Jason Kim6 said:Once, an American psychiatrist asked if I experience "strange thoughts." I assume she was referring to some specific psychiatric definition—if such a term even exists—but I wasn't quite sure what she meant by it.
I told her I don't have any strange thoughts, to which she responded with a skeptical "Are you sure?" It seems some professionals just don't know how to do their jobs properly.

Yeah, definitely the second part.
But seriously, why didn't you just ask her, "What do you mean by that?"?

How is anyone supposed to know what she meant? And man, the context matters too.

hiddeneagle98 said:If I actually had that kind of certainty myself, I’d probably be out there trying to convince the whole world about it too. 😬

Honestly, it feels more like insecurity looking for backup—like they need others to "have" to believe just to feel validated. Real faith doesn't need an audience. It either laughs at skeptics, pities them, or treats them like kids. It doesn't need to drag anyone else down to feel steady. If you truly believe—or better yet, if you *know*—why do you even care what the non-believers think? That's the whole point of being a missionary, right? Just trying to convince yourself. Same goes for those "missionary atheists." They're just trying to prove to themselves that what they were taught isn't true, trying to shake off the baggage their "bad parents" or society dumped on them. If that happened when they were toddlers, they'll never get over it, so they end up swinging to the opposite extreme, attacking "beings" they don't even believe exist in the first place.

Human psychology is wild. 🤣

Basically, all these threads hiddenpuma75 keeps starting just boil down to that whole "life after death" talk.

The witch is tagging addx said:So you're talking about herd mentality... like how people stop acting like individuals... which totally reminds me of "patriotism"... honestly, I think right-wing politics is just a super politicized version of that herd instinct...☕

First off, addx never even mentioned herd mentality. Second, patriotism isn't some exclusive club for the "right wing." And third, calling it a "politicized herd instinct" is just wrong. That’s three massive misses in such a short post. 🙂

hiddeneagle98 said:Grid:

individual collective

real human society

ideal God utopia

😬

Does the rational imperative require us to strive toward the ideal?

Can a person living in a utopia strive to become God themselves?

Can God, within a utopia, be distinguished from humanity?

In any case, if we’re looking at this through an ethical lens, it seems that ethics (or what Hegel refers to as Sittlichkeit) only truly makes sense—or is even achievable—within a society, within the collective. That’s what provides the actual substance to moral obligation, which stands in stark contrast to the purely formal, hollow concept of ethics proposed by Kant. Beyond that, it’s only within a social framework that such an obligation can actually be realized; it's the only way to bridge the gap between how things "ought" to be and how they actually "are." Furthermore, true individual freedom only arrives when nature (which includes those "primitive" human communities in their natural state) is restructured to meet the demands of reason. Taylor points out that this is precisely where Hegel deviates from the moral intuition of
"This is the point where Hegel runs counter to the moral instinct of
liberalism then and now."
Partly because of this, it’s impossible to truly decouple the individual from the collective; in fact, trying to separate them usually flies in the face of reality.
People have this tendency to view their personal morality as something far more fundamental than social morality (that is, more important than Sittlichkeit), largely because a moral person always faces the lurking danger that their society might demand they act against their own conscience ("And particularly so in an age of nationalism.", as Taylor puts it). Interestingly, he also notes that Hegel’s two greatest inspirations, his "heroes," were Socrates and Jesus. Both men, in their own way, undermined or even broke away from the Sittlichkeit of their respective societies, and they paid for it with their lives. However, no matter how profound the spiritual truths a person uncovers, those truths cannot be realized or embodied if that person remains isolated. Radical individualism is a dead end. If someone refuses to compromise their truth, they are forced either to withdraw from society entirely or to go to war with it, inevitably facing the same fate as Jesus or Socrates.

I remember once, I think it was in a different chat thread, when I was asked about the essence of being human, I gave a brief answer: that a human is simply a reflection in another person. Looking at this quote of yours and your previous posts, I feel like that same argument is running through everything you're saying here.

On another note, I’d argue that Jesus was radically individualistic by design (being the Son of God and all...), and while it occurred to me that a conflict isn't strictly necessary, it can certainly serve as a catalyst or an amplifier. I'm mostly thinking about that ultimate sacrifice, which, naturally, would have to be preceded by some kind of confrontation...

Since we’re already diving into this whole concept of God: does the very definition of the term imply that God is, by nature, radically individual?

P.S. Does the tension between the individual and the collective follow its own Hegel triangle? Is there some kind of synthesis that happens when you finally bridge those two worlds? 😬

Here, take this and go hunt:

https://www.hegel.net/en/e0.htm

😁

BTW, I feel like this site could be the most exciting thing on the web for Sigmund. 😁
Super slammed lately so my posts might stay short or even unanswered. Later!

Self-proclaimed expert,
Can't even dig a hole in the backyard.

🤦
The West is going down the drain.

You’re like two days, two hours, and fifty-six minutes late to the party:

There's a reason people call me a trendsetter.

Anyway, yeah, this definitely needs its own thread. Not sure if the mod will go for it, though.

crimsonwolf21 said:Eternal life is just a fancy way of describing hell. Imagine being stuck watching human stupidity for 500 years straight? Is there actually a worse curse than that? 😲

Wait, you think 500 years counts as "forever"? 🙄 🙄 🙄