What if the most logical explanation as to why a concious mind exists—on any planet, is to suffer? Suffer, however, based off our more fortunate standards specifically: to suffer the—what we would consider—“pains” of things like inconvenience, discomfort, misfortune, and displeasure.
Its the incessant indulgence in these things that lead a concious mind to be completely blind to the woes of such, thus the compassion and ability to empathize that comes with the experience (or knowledge) of suffering. It’s hardly just an “eye for an eye”—the inherent need for ourselves to retaliate due to being concious of ourselves—that leads the world to be blind, it’s our sense organs reacting to our environment and any desire for ourselves conjured from this reaction that is the most blinding; it’s this that leads to the vanities we imagine in our heads, that we end up revolving our lives around, and make most important, that leads away from the “true life” a life of selflessness has to offer: a life most lived in the present, opposed to stuck in our heads, the images of what we consider the pain of our “past” and the thirst or fear for the “future” (our sense of time being yet another consequence of consciousness—like selfishness) dominating how we feel today.
It’s our sense organs reacting to the extent we’ve presently manipulated our environment that leads to an addiction to it, even happiness, to the point where we become convinced that it’s even lifes meaning: to become as happy as possible, but when we make our highest happiness the satisfaction of our greatest desires, we’re only lead to an inevitable, massive disappointment, due to all exploitation of desire only being temporary. This begs the question: out of all the desire, and vanity that’s bred from it, would there by any that don’t end in inevitable disappointment due to being temporary? Love—but not Disney World kind of love, no, the Gandhi, MLK, Leo Tolstoy kind: selflessness—is the only desire that not only holds the ability to potentially last as long as man does, but also doesn’t lead to inevitable disappointment. Dare I say: it’s what the idea of a God or creator of some kind (not any man made God, but the substance of them)—its will: selflessness, to even it’s extremes like self-sacrifice, that is the only desire worth seeking. But if you’re someone against the idea of a God or creator (good luck finding the will to be selfless to the extremes) then let the fact that we’re the only living things that have ever existed (on this planet, as far we know) that can even begin to consider abstaining from itself for any reason at all, be enough.
It’s this that would end all suffering, but not by ending it, but by normalizing it I suppose you could say; to suffer for the sake of selflessness. To take the empty, ultimately only disappointing desire of stimulating our sense organs and fulfilling our vanities—for the sake of ourselves, and replace it, with the logic and alternative perspectives and behaviors that our inherency to selflessness breeds, that comes from our inherent ability to logic and reason.
What if we’re designed to not be comforted or pleasured incessantly? Just look at the rich, most upper to lower middle class, even the poorest in a nation crippled by convenience; people of fortune (in life or in wealth) in general (like me): obese or crooked in some way or another, the idea of their temporary lifestyle they’ve become so attached to no longer being an avenue to being comforted and pleasured, saps or corrupts their concious mind, to the point where their willing to even kill to keep it—in some cases. Could a life of abstaining from your sense organs, and teaching yourself to thirst, desire and fantasize for the least, be what ultimately leads to a life of the most?
“Comfort is the worst addiction.” - Marcus Aurelius
Hey just wanted to make sure I explain myself a little more clearly, especially considering it sounds like you may have been a man of a God or creator of some kind at one time or another.
The story of Jonah teaches that the knowledge of the value of virtue, selflessness and goodness needs to be taught; it’s a knowledge that needs to gained. Because like the story of Jonah teaches at the very end of the story: some people don’t even have the ability to tell from their left or right hand. Or in other words: ignorance (lack of knowledge) is an inevitability, nobody can know until they know. The now pejorative word is neither an insult, nor is it insulting; it’s nothing more than an adjective to explain my or someones lack of knowledge to anything in particular.
All hate and evil can be catorgorized as this inevitable lack of knowledge—thus warranting any degree of it infinite forgiveness, because again: you don’t know until you know, this would of course include the lack of knowledge that leads to hate, evil, and iniquity.
Jesus would always refer to God as “Father” because that’s how he was taught about what this God consists of, as having a parents kind of love for you—rememebe the very beginning of The Gospels, where he becomes lost and is found at a temple? And is taught of God as being his “Father;” if you had a child and they committed suicide, would you want them to burn eternally in a lake of fire for it? Of course not. And Jesus didn’t know who his real father was correct? Interesting right? Ultimately what I’m trying to say is that everything we know of God now has came from a collection of blind men, telling other blind men that what they have to say should be held as unquestionably true via the influences of the idea of a God and an afterlife (of a “heaven”). Everything ever since Jesus—Paul’s letters, The Nicene Creed, The Book of Revelation, the idea that a God of love unconditionally would bother with conditions like having to believe Jesus was divine or any of the seemingly infinite amount of external conditions that need to be met to call yourself a “true Christian.” Despite Jesus calling the Pharisees as hypocritical every chance he could get and when his disciples told him of some external thing that they needed (bread in the circumstance linked) he would dismiss it as completely unnecessary: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+16%3A5-20&version=NIV
Jesus calling out Pharisees: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+23&version=NIV 8"But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven."
I’d like to end with my one of my favorite things Jesus said, on the the Sermon On the Mount (debately, the most publicized point of his teaching, thus, the most accurate) that lead to the connection between what Socrates had to say and Jesus: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5&version=ESV
Oaths
33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ 34 But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.[g]
Anything more then yes or no regarding the influences that come from the idea of a heaven (God and an afterlife), or Earth (people and what their presently sharing in), only comes from a worry; a need; a fear for oneself: a selfishness. This is what I meant when I said it doesn’t matter what the meaning of existence is exactly, because questions like that only come from our sense of selfishness, and only lead to division, i.e., religion or more theoretical sciences and philosophy; they pale in comparison to the truth that is our capacity for selflessness not only individually, but especially collectively.
First, I am a woman. Second, this is no longer fun. I’m not interested in continuing this discussion. Perhaps join a bible study group or something? I’m interested in discussing philosophy, and religion is not that.
I stated in the comment that I’m linking what Socrates had to say and the story of Jonah, and what Jesus really meant when he referenced it.
It’s looking at religion from a philosophical point of view.