Not all people are meant to marry. K. knew that if he had married he would have to abandon his devotion to God and to philosophy. — Agustino
>:O So what? There's not much to get out of life anyway. — Agustino
I'm not a Catholic ;) — Agustino
Depends on one's calling. Life long celibacy is as acceptable as marriage in Christianity - in fact it is even encouraged more than marriage.Isn't Kierkegaard's behavior especially strange from a Protestant perspective? Marriage is supposed to be an expression of one's devotion to God. The love between God and His church is the love between husband and wife in holy matrimony, right? — absoluteaspiration
The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband — 1 Corinthians 7:32-34
Even if that is so, there's nothing much to get out of this only life.On the contrary, this life is all there is to get anything out of at all. There is nothing else. — absoluteaspiration
Life long celibacy is as acceptable as marriage in Christianity - in fact it is even encouraged more than marriage. — Agustino
Even if that is so, there's nothing much to get out of this only life. — Agustino
It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sommbitch or another. — Malcolm Reynolds
What about you? If you like a writer/philosopher/historical figure, are there things about their personal life that would turn you off? — anonymous66
Yes, but personal behaviour is a lot more important than the policies they advocate. It's easy to advocate the good from a distance. It's easy to "love mankind" from far away. Anyone can do that. But when it comes to loving real men and women who are closeby, not many are able to.The objections to Gandhi, King and Russell are about their private behaviour, while the policies they promoted are widely admired. — andrewk
Well, I know you'll disagree, but to me, preaching belief in eternal Hell and condemning sexual immorality count as good things, not bad. People generally tend to take sexual immorality too lightly, so such preaching is more than welcome.Both CS Lewis and GK Chesterton promoted policies that I consider extremely harmful, preaching belief in eternal Hell for one thing, and that failure to conform to sexual norms was deserving of Hell. — andrewk
Well granted that marriage is a very significant part of someone's life (some would argue one of the most important parts), and cheating can ruin a marriage, I think your position is without much support. It's licensing a very perverse evil (ruining a very important part of someone's life) as insignificant - much like saying "oh well, if he owns slaves, it's not such a big deal, it won't sway my opinion of him too much!".Someone cheating on their spouse is probably not going to sway my opinion too much. — Brian
Yes, but personal behaviour is a lot more important than the policies they advocate. It's easy to advocate the good from a distance. It's easy to "love mankind" from far away. Anyone can do that. But when it comes to loving real men and women who are closeby, not many are able to. — Agustino
Yes, but personal behaviour is a lot more important than the policies they advocate. — Agustino
But when it comes to loving real men and women who are closeby, not many are able to. — Agustino
Sure.So you reject Luther's interpretation of the "command to marry". — absoluteaspiration
Yes, but only provided you find the right person. For example, I would like to get married, but I haven't so far found the right person. Most of the women I've met, I would never marry.I'm not saying he required everyone to marry, but Protestants usually consider marriage to be a component of a perfect Christian life. — absoluteaspiration
Devotion to God is a higher calling than marriage though. Scriptures repeatedly emphasise this point. So K. sacrificed marriage in order to devote himself more fully to God, all the while expecting - per impossible - that he would marry Regine. Much like Abraham was willing to sacrifice his own son Isaac - the person he treasured most - for the sake of God.Considering Kierkegaard was lucky enough to actually find love and have it reciprocated, the idea that Protestants wouldn't be more in favor of marriage than not confuses me. — absoluteaspiration
I'm not in Western Christianity.Assuming you're in Western Christianity at all, you must be a Nondenominationalist or in a denomination that is relaxed about personal interpretations. — absoluteaspiration
Yes, people do desire many of these opportunities, but these opportunities are ultimately empty - they don't offer any lasting satisfaction. From the outside - when you don't have them - you're always "oh how good it would be to have X Y Z". So you're lusting after them and unsatisfied with what you have. But then when you finally do have "X Y Z" sometimes you wish you didn't have it anymore.But this statement is empirically false. This life does in fact offer many opportunities that people do in fact desire if their own words are to be believed. — absoluteaspiration
No, I've actually read both quite extensively. I've read Nietzsche quite early in my life before I was a Christian.Like with Nietzsche and Dostoevsky right? — Beebert
It's funny how ironical this statement is.That you can not see that your judgements are cruel beyond Words is fascinating. — Beebert
No that's absolutely wrong. K. would have any day abandoned philosophy for God. What you have just said there is antithetical to everything K. stood for.Correction:
K. knew that if he had married he would have to abandon his devotion to philosophy — Beebert
Jesus Christ has always spoken of heaven as a place of bliss - in fact heaven just is the absence of suffering.But if you feel this way about this life; dont expect joy in your heaven! — Beebert
I don't think it does have something worthy. When you don't have, you're frustrated, when you have, you're bored.Really, if you havent acquired the ability to see that this life actually does have something worthy — Beebert
That's just false. Life doesn't have to be "worth it" to be endurable if there is no God. Life is just the default state. One can't be bothered to change it.It seems like if you were honest with yourself, what makes you the way you are is that you think life is unendurable if there is no God — Beebert
I don't think that's true either.Rather, the truth seems to be that your life can not be endured if its foundation lacks a moral purpose in a metaphysical sense! — Beebert
Not that there must be, but I would want that immorality be punished and justice be done.Therefore there must be a God who punishes the immoral, right? — Beebert
No, because I am commanded to care for my wife more than I care for other people if I have to choose between the two. Although I would seek to stop her and refrain her from doing that.Would you slice the head of your wife if she attacked another man, unprovocked and greedy because she wants his money? — Beebert
I think that's false. Rather I find a desire for justice, which has no consideration for whether justice actually exists or not in a metaphysical sense.That your metaphysical morality is necessary to you and for your preservation I can understand — Beebert
Because sin makes life bad. If there was no sin, life would be good.Why strive to kill your passions and sins so much that you become the greatest hater against sin, passions and sinners possible? — Beebert
Oh it is there. Quite peculiar, that it is you, who just like Ivan Karamazov, promotes an all expanding benevolence towards all of mankind, but just like him, you can't even love your own father (and that's a figure of speech - you can't even love any of the actual, real people close to you, but you feel a love for all mankind - absurd).What happened to the love preached by Buddha or your savior? — Beebert
Okay, but I'm not a utilitarian. I don't care about the effect. I am a virtue ethicist, I care about their characters. What your policies say tells me less about your character than your personal behaviour. Therefore your personal behaviour matters more.It is important to do both, since both have a measurable effect, but the latter has a much stronger effect. — absoluteaspiration
I agree with the last bit, but not with the 'Anyone can do that'. Both are difficult, and both are important.Yes, but personal behaviour is a lot more important than the policies they advocate. It's easy to advocate the good from a distance. It's easy to "love mankind" from far away. Anyone can do that. But when it comes to loving real men and women who are closeby, not many are able to. — Agustino
They are not closeby :PYes, could you love Ghandi, Nietzsche, Russell, et al? (Oh wait, of course the answer is yes...you're the underdog and all that...?) — Noble Dust
I can agree with this, although now it's not only what they wrote (and advocated), but again, how they behaved that matters.Few have the courage to go to jail, be beaten into unconsciousness, or undergo torrents of public hatred and ridicule for their beliefs. I am very thankful for those that have had the courage to do that for causes that I see as important, regardless of whether they also personally helped old people cross the road. — andrewk
We do have biographical material about some of them though. Not as extensive as we do about more recent figures, but we still do.but what do we really know about the ancient Greek thinkers you mentioned earlier? — Noble Dust
Can a thinker's behaviour be divorced from his thought? Then he's a dishonest thinker in my eyes.The point is that, when it comes to thinkers, the answer is NO: their personal behavior is not more important than their policies. They are THINKERS. — Noble Dust
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