Posts by steelridge58

Jonathan Brooks8 said:I view volunteering through a much wider lens—as a form of activism; a genuine act of rebellion against the rigid frameworks of rules, contracts, and social agreements built upon strictly predefined rights and obligations. In many ways, it stands in opposition to capitalism—whether liberal or state-driven—and even to socialism and communism (which, arguably, took things to an extreme with its "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" doctrine). To me, this goes far beyond simple altruism or humanitarianism. Sure, donating extra cash or giving away surplus goods is certainly altruistic and kind, but true volunteering means committing your time—effectively gifting a portion of your own life, your energy, your youth, and even your capacity for empathy toward a fellow human, a plant, an animal, or a healthy environment...

You hit the nail on the head.

It really does go beyond simple charity

It’s about active, hands-on commitment.
Honestly, I think you did an amazing job breaking down those distinctions right there.
Basically, the world would be a much less hateful place if we simply had more volunteers out there....

But it makes me wonder, do you think that actually showing up and facing things firsthand might play a role in reducing that negativity? Like, could being present somehow touch people's consciences, raise awareness, challenge their existing biases or indifference, and really give them pause...
and eventually, spark a desire to volunteer themselves?

In other words, by creating that direct, lived experience.

You know, Jonathan Brooks8, I’ve come to this realization: everything shifts entirely once you actually face things head-on. Whether it's through some street performance by activists or a community initiative, or even just finding yourself standing there personally—looking a situation right in the eye—that’s when a person finally stops and sees.
All those empty words don't carry much weight because nothing can truly take the place of direct confrontation.
And when you really face something, it has to change you, even if just a little, by stirring your conscience and forcing you to be more aware.
There would be so much less evil in this world if we were all—in a real way—confronted with the impossible yet somehow existing ways, types, and dimensions of human suffering...

Jonathan Brooks8 said:How about this for a catchy headline: "Youth Volunteering as an Escape into Reality"
https://www.google.com/search?q=volunteer+opportunities+near+me&Itemid=28

There are plenty of volunteer organizations out there—just give Google a quick search and you'll find something that sticks...

Honestly, that title hits the nail on the head.

An escape into reality

Love—that was the true color of his songs, his soul, and his voice...

Matthew Evans said:The concept of 'good versus evil' is just what happens when you try to judge a single phenomenon by splitting its values apart. In this light, evil emerges as the byproduct of an Unconscious Corp choice—it’s how a Being tries to satisfy the belief systems dictated by its current level of awareness. Any division into good and evil is already a distortion of the truth regarding existence and creation. The reality is that even when the initial intent is warped during manifestation, it creates a polarized feeling. This unconsciously pushes us to label anything that supports our survival and individual preservation as 'good,' while labeling anything that threatens our existence or challenges our current set of beliefs as 'evil.' In such a Self-unaware state, a Being grants itself permission to do whatever it takes, justifying it through a primal drive for self-preservation fueled entirely by fear and the need to appease the convictions ruling its mind.

But if you step back and look at the full spectrum of information involved in any single moment of an individual's reality, it becomes obvious that a crime can't actually happen without two fundamental elements: the tyrant and the victim. A 'tyrant' can't exist unless there is someone on the other side of the action who is equally driven to experience being the 'victim.' If humanity, as a collective mass, simply stopped unconsciously demanding the experience of being a victim, tyrants would shrink significantly in their ability to manifest. If we completely erased the need for the victim experience... there wouldn't be any tyrants left on Earth or among people. Of course, that's a utopia. Achieving that kind of reality requires constant, total awareness—total alertness—of the Self and everything participating in the formation of every single moment. As far as the average 'human' is concerned, the Being hasn't yet matured enough to overcome the obstacles standing in the way of full self-realization and the harmony of free expression.

If we’re going by that logic—why don't we try looking at it this way instead:
A tyrant can't truly become a tyrant until there is a part of their own personality that craves the experience of being a victim just as intensely as the desire to dominate.
Why not just consolidate everything into one single person—the personality of the potential tyrant?

I mean, we see it all the time in real life where a tyrant or a criminal portrays themselves as the victim, and honestly, let's just assume they actually feel that way.

I’m definitely not trying to 'amnesty' a criminal for their actions by suggesting that there has to be some "Other" out there who is Unconscious Corp enough to want to be a victim just to make the dynamic work. That doesn't hold water for me, except maybe in those weird, specific contexts where the whole tyrant-victim connection is just down to how you choose to interpret it.

Alright! I’m honestly really glad to see you taking this kind of feedback to heart.

🙂

It isn't really about deleting anything, it’s more about how these messages of yours end up triggering a whole chain of follow-up posts that—let's be honest—will probably just get flagged and wiped out as off-topic anyway. I pretty much laid out my full take on that situation in the comment above.
Just one tiny critique, though.

Dennis Rogers6 said:Honestly, I’m just not seeing why this argument is such a huge deal or even why it matters this much in the grand scheme of things. It’s not like anyone actually got hurt because of how I interpreted things—seriously, no harm was done at all. The posts were wiped because they veered off-topic, regardless of who wrote them or anything else. And when I told Mark Torres14 that I don't have an issue with him personally, it was really just because he keeps insisting on things that are flat-out wrong, which is exactly what he did back when we were talking about shamantrixx.

Well, if you take a look at your own 1, 2, 3 posts—which include three different moderator interventions—you'll see that one of them is bound to trigger exactly the kind of clutter that ends up getting deleted anyway.
I’m not out here trying to "defend" anyone, I promise, but I couldn't just sit by and watch this happen without saying something.

Dennis Rogers6 said:Some people just don't have any patience for what they see as pseudo-intellectualism.

Okay, and?
Are we supposed to build them some special little vacuum-sealed bubble where no "intellectual" particles can ever float their way?
I mean, seriously, what kind of argument is that even supposed to be?

I’ll just keep this brief.
Since when did we start demanding that people do their homework before they're allowed to jump into a forum discussion? Even in our book club, isn't everyone allowed to weigh in on the comments, even if they haven't actually finished the book? I mean, a person can always react to the specific points being raised in a thread, offering their own broad perspectives based on the context provided right there in the conversation. Why shouldn't someone be able to take a general stance—perhaps suggesting that things aren't quite as they seem—based solely on the information currently at hand, without feeling forced to become an expert on the subject matter first?
If it matters to you, try to talk him out of it; if it doesn't, then just let people express their views, even if those views are based on a shaky understanding of the facts or the specific parameters one would normally need to reliably back up a certain side of an argument.
In my opinion, stepping in to declare that this kind of participation is unwelcome—provided it isn't outright trolling, off-topic rambling, insults, or intentional sabotage—sets a really strange precedent for the philosophy of this community.
The real priority should be ensuring the opening post is solid; after all, the participants themselves are the ones who shape the quality of the debate later on. We ought to let everyone lay out their vision, even if we find it disagreeable, or think it lacks a proper foundation... and so on.

Pseudo-intellectualism?

: skeptical smiley :

Steven Allen9 said:Emotions are what really mess with a person's composure.
Acting serious helps the image, I guess.
Taking responsibility is what makes fixing things possible.
Will is constant in everyone; it just shows up more in some than others.
Same goes for even a little bit of security.
Being hrabar means being fully aware of the danger ahead. Without that awareness, you're just crazy.
Embrace your insecurity head-on, own it, and it'll slip through your fingers like sand.
That kind of insecurity is tied to puberty. I'm looking at it biologically.
The older you get, that internal insecurity doesn't hit the same way. Unless, of course, a person hasn't actually lived.
Insecurity is basically just observation paired with a lack of information.

I actually think what Ronald Rogers27 wrote above hits the nail right on the head regarding your point, because understanding Life within and truly knowing who you are is essentially this ongoing process of awakening... it’s not a destination, it’s a constant movement, and as we continue this process of awakening ourselves, our sense of security gradually builds upon much more truthful and steady foundations found deep within us.

And I guess I should just add that, looking at the title, you could pretty much conclude that the only thing we can actually count on is uncertainty itself. 🙂 Or maybe it’s just that change is the only constant we have.

What exactly is the foundation of our sense of security?
What could possibly shake it?
If our stability is built upon sheer will, then perhaps that will is precisely what we choose to believe in and lean on to feel safe. It follows that any insecurity we experience might actually be a byproduct of that will retreating, which would explain why the very security we thought was so solid suddenly starts to crumble.
If this will acts as a kind of "blind" knowledge that has been the bedrock of our trust, how are we supposed to know when it starts to falter? How do we recognize the moment it begins to fail us?

I'm bringing this up because you were talking about the connection between the past and the present, specifically linking it back to the concept of will.
If there was something else at play besides that—what could it have been?

So, I guess I'm circling back to my original question: what are we actually basing our (in)security on?

I feel like I should draw a little parallel here. A short while ago, I was watching some news footage that showed this kid trying to smash a storefront window with a rock just to get to whatever he was after. I have no clue what his motive was or what he was aiming for, but every single time he hurled a stone at the glass, it just bounced right back until, finally, one of them caught him square in the head—it must have been some heavy-duty reinforced glass or something. 🙂

The other day, I heard someone say that logic is unforgiving. What they meant was that regardless of how much we might wish things were different, if a conclusion follows validly from its premises, then that’s just the reality we have to face.

Patrick Wright2 said:I love how you lay things out so clearly because if I actually tried to match that kind of precision myself, I’d probably end up cutting half my response just to keep up with you. 😉

Think of it this way. Logic is basically just a tool, right? It’s like having a heavy-duty hammer in your kit that you use to build out an airtight argument from scratch. But at the same time, it’s that exact same hammer you swing to absolutely demolish someone else's point if their reasoning turns out to have flimsy walls or a shaky foundation.
Look, the thing is, sometimes our own arguments have these massive walls and foundations that our hammer can just absolutely demolish. If we’ve already got that hammer in our hands and actually know how to swing it, isn't it way better to just tear down our own shaky claims ourselves before they fall apart? Otherwise, those half-baked ideas are just gonna come crashing down on our heads right when we least expect it.

If an idea isn't true, it's definitely better not to stay trapped inside it.
And if we aren't even sure it's true, that alone should be enough reason to go out and try to find the actual truth.

Patrick Wright2 said:Pretty much. You can totally see it happening—people pour all this massive energy into logically dismantling someone else's point just to prove them wrong, yet their own arguments are built on nothing but sand.
How do you even explain that kind of behavior, where a person goes absolutely scorched earth on someone making an illogical claim while their own stance lacks any actual logical foundation? Honestly, I'd call it pure intellectual hypocrisy. It wouldn't even bug me that much if it weren't coming from people who constantly brag about knowing philosophy or formal logic, so it honestly blows my mind how far some folks will go to ignore a blatant error in their own reasoning, even when it's staring them right in the face like a glaring mistake to any objective observer.
Maybe it’s just because some people straight-up lack the capacity to look at themselves objectively. 🤷

I think I follow what you mean when you talk about intellectual inconsistency, though I tend to view it a bit differently—more like an inconsistency with the very definition of what intellect actually is, since at its core, intellect is all about perception, cognition, and true understanding, which really shouldn't be closed off to any kind of exploration, especially since the whole point of using our minds is to investigate the very possibilities that allow us to keep searching, meaning we have to stay open to every single facet of a problem we're looking at.

Patrick Wright2 said:Pretty much. You can totally see it happening—people pour all this massive energy into logically dismantling someone else's point just to prove them wrong, yet their own arguments are built on nothing but sand.
How do you even explain that kind of behavior, where a person goes absolutely scorched earth on someone making an illogical claim while their own stance lacks any actual logical foundation? Honestly, I'd call it pure intellectual hypocrisy. It wouldn't even bug me that much if it weren't coming from people who constantly brag about knowing philosophy or formal logic, so it honestly blows my mind how far some folks will go to ignore a blatant error in their own reasoning, even when it's staring them right in the face like a glaring mistake to any objective observer.
Maybe it’s just because some people straight-up lack the capacity to look at themselves objectively. 🤷

It's probably more about a lack of willingness to look at oneself with enough objectivity or from a certain distance, rather than a literal inability to do so. When you actually have that willingness, doors open up to understanding and the possibility of revising your own stances and so on. But when that willingness isn't there, then all that insisting on pointing out a logical fallacy—one that some third-party observer clearly sees in their own reasoning—is just futile and pointless.
Now, why that willingness is missing... well, that depends entirely on the individual and their deep-seated beliefs. You can only tolerate your own mistake if you're aware of it or at least harbor some doubt; otherwise, you don't even have a relationship with the error to begin with (so you couldn't possibly tolerate it).

As has already been pointed out here, being right isn't the point; that shouldn't be the goal of a discussion anyway. So, as an outside observer, if you spot something you feel the need to react to, it's enough to just state your opinion and stay involved in the conversation as long as it remains meaningful and constructive, without feeling any pressure to convince anyone of anything.

Patrick Wright2 said:I’ve been noticing lately on this forum that some folks—and I’m talking about the ones who actually show a spark of intelligence and common sense, not the clowns who basically trip over their own feet in a single sentence 🤦—who tend to lean into logical, coherent reasoning and follow a thought process pretty selectively when they're using their brains.

For example, someone will grab a logical argument just to tear down someone else's point, completely failing to see that the exact same logic totally nukes their own argument too. So, they just pick and choose where to apply logic, staying totally blind to it whenever it hits their own side of the fence.

That kind of intellectual hypocrisy and inconsistency really gets under my skin. Personally, if I ever debunk a claim and realize it might actually mess with my own stance, I’m more than willing to pivot and revise my view if it turns out I was being illogical.

Have you guys run into this kind of mindset before, and honestly, how do you even get people to start applying the same logical standards to themselves as they do to everyone else?

So, what we're looking at here is someone using their own logical reasoning to tear down a theory without realizing they're simultaneously tearing down their own argument in the process.
If they truly don't see it, then you can't really accuse them of being intellectually hypocritical or inconsistent, since they aren't even aware they're creating a contradiction if one exists.
In that scenario, all you can really do is point out where the contradiction lies and try to defend your position logically, or rather, start from the premise of the contradiction itself to prove it.

Regardless, if someone actually realizes their own claim is contradictory and fundamentally unsustainable, but they stubbornly cling to it anyway just because they refuse to back down, then honestly, that's not your problem to solve. 🙂

I'm assuming when you say "quite selectively" or "choosing where to apply logic," you're referring to people who are willing to be critical of others, but lack any sense of self-criticism?

Jonathan Brooks8 said:"Do not take gold, silver, or copper coins in your belts; no travel bag, no extra tunic, no shoes, nor a staff, for the worker is worthy of his food!" (Matthew 10:9-10)

It is often said that these specific passages from the Gospel of Matthew served as the blueprint for Saint Francis's entire way of life—leading him to preach while wearing nothing but a simple robe tied with a rope. He walked away from his family's wealth entirely to take a vow of poverty... which, by any definition, is certainly a path of Asceticism...

You hit the nail on the head—the path of Asceticism... because you really have to persevere on any journey, and his was definitely one defined by intense self-discipline as an essential part of the trek. This thought from the Gospel is just beautiful, a true Philosophy... yet it remains deeply symbolic, much like the ancient wisdoms we study.

Francis of Assisi founded the Franciscan order, and while my knowledge of their actual work here is pretty limited—really just enough to know that when you hear the name of that order, you know they are people you can truly lean on and trust... I didn't know much at all. But then I found myself wanting to dig deeper into the life of Saint Francis after someone asked me: "Do you honestly believe truly holy people exist...?" and they followed up with the answer: "Well, I think Francis of Assisi is one."

Patrick Wright2 said:It’s totally possible that it is a way of curbing desires—mostly the material stuff and physical cravings—with the ultimate goal being to break free from them entirely, and once you actually hit that goal, it isn't really restraint anymore, so it's not even Asceticism anymore.😉

Then it becomes a fundamental part of who you are, a core element that shapes how you relate to the entire world, stemming from within yourself, where your relationship with yourself defines everything else...

Anyway, like Jonathan Brooks8 was mentioning in another thread regarding the nature of good, I really think this is an internal calling. Honestly, I don't believe there’s any kind of perfect model out there for anyone if it isn't completely authentic to who they truly are.

I’ve been really chewing on what Patrick Wright2 wrote earlier about how Asceticism is essentially just the act of curbing your desires, and it got me wondering if we have to view it as this constant struggle of restraint, or if it could actually be more about finding true liberation through a complete shift in our values and how we see the world—which would mean that "restraint" isn't even really happening anymore because the desire itself has changed. It made me think of Saint Francis of Assisi; though honestly, maybe I'm only making that connection because I only recently started reading up on him, so I'm curious if it's okay to make that association here and whether you all think he could truly be considered an ascetic?