2017-12-23: Bible #4, Maps of Meaning #4

topic

https://discuss.bevry.me/t/bible-lecture-4/39

podcast

What were your biggest takeaways from this week?

  • Mutual sharing leads to trust

    • But someone has to take the first step.

    • Fear that people will use your faults against you.

  • Using your self-vulnerability as a force of good rather than using it to hurt people.

    • How to treat people ?
  • Redemptive power of the truth

  • Suffering

    • Job: He gains seven time what he has lost. In a way that justified his suffering for no reason.

    • Why the beggar was born blind ?

    • Types of suffering

      • Self-Inflicted

      • Suffering because of sin

      • Voluntary Suffering

      • Unearned suffering

  • Sacrificing animals as a way to build resilience.

  • Giving away 10% of what you earn would mean you work harder.

  • Don’t work on the sabbath (you can strategize that day ?)

    • Relaxation leads to innovation.
  • Responsibility to help others

    • Toxic Charity - people become dependent upon the help and don’t become independent.

    • In case of injustice and great calamity - help them in a way that only has to do once.

  • Not doing things you are supposed to do, and doing things you are not supposed to do (by your own set of rules).

    • Importance of having a schedule.

    • Create circumstances in the external world that inhibits your sins.

Taking Points

  • @ExplorerSumit

    • What if you don’t gain much from your suffering ? Is your suffering still justified ?

      • There is something to be said about the reason because of you suffer.

      • We are focused too much on suffering but not on the quality of truth because of which you are suffering.

discussion notes

bible #4

first meeting

  • Idea that truth has redemptive powers.

    • By truth he doesn’t mean a literal truth but more like coherence vs dissonance.

      • Axiom: We are vulnerable to judgement (God and others).

        • Plus you know Good and Evil.
      • Your actions should be in line with your own set of rules.

      • How to do the right things because it’s really hard ?

        • Cues on whats right from intuition
      • Doing things we don’t want to do.

        • There is a reason we do them.

        • Why regrets only happens afterwards so many times ?

      • Not doing things we want to them.

        • Opposite reasons/Deceptive reason.
      • Prescription

        • Build a schedule and try stick to it.

        • Clean your room.

        • Awareness - stay there and fight the resistance in you to do right things.

      • Truth coming out in arguments when you keep poking people.

      • Living comfortably in positive delusion - culture that you are supposed to be happy all the time.

        • Can lead to disastrous consequences over time since problem stays buried.

        • Fear that people will judge/attack/backstab you for sharing your problems/issues with you.

        • Abstracting out the role of the judge to supreme authority God.

          • This allows you to tolerate other people’s judgement and attacks and keep doing what’s right.
        • It all starts when Adam & Eve felt the need to cover themselves up - knowledge of your own vulnerability.

      • Past, Present and Future Self

        • Present self always have a choice - indulge in it’s own fantasy or indulge in future self improvement/building.

        • Future self impacting the present and giving you cues.

  • Animals not having any morality/consciousness.

    • Morality is built into biology.

      • Rats not playing with other rats who cheat.

      • Maybe they have less refined version of morality.

      • Why humans only have cats/dogs as pets ?

      • The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt

        • Biological basis for good behaviour:

          • Caring - Mothers caring for infants.

          • Respecting authority - Need to respect the top most leader otherwise you will be killed.

          • Equality - Leads to more stable society otherwise people will revolt against the status quo.

          • Disgust - Protection from infection.

  • Misc. Stuff

    • Reality as affected by consciousness

    • Perception beyond our 4-d world.

    • Time started with the fall of humans so we don’t know for how long we were there.

  • Human tendency to look for obstacles to you aims could result in dual nature of ideologies.

  • Dying for a cause for the good of society

    • I don’t think it works out that way - The individual is personally motivated to follow his path and that ends up getting him killed and uplifting the society.

    • It’s not dying we need to focus on but the pursuit of the truth by these people, because it’s that which puts them at odds with the society.

  • Suffering

    • Redemptive power of suffering

    • Three kinds of suffering

      • Self-imposed/created

      • Because of your own doings

      • Unearned suffering

    • You need to go through certain amount of suffering to attain your goals.

      • Why would you then (after honeymoon phase is over) ?

        • The spirit of exploration and looking at this world as place to explore.

          • You can move the slider up by eating right/exercising.

          • And overcoming addiction.

    • Attribution of the cause of suffering

      • External attribution can result in disaster consequences for others but can also help you put an end to a tyrant.

      • Internal attribution can wreak havoc on your psycho-physiology but also give you an opportunity to improve yourself.

        • Two archetypes:

          • The main character learns the lessons from suffering too late or dies and others learn from it.

          • The main character reforms himself and we have happy ending.

    • Suffering of coal-miners admirable ?

  • Thousands were meant to be destroyed.

    • Kind of makes failure easy to bear because maybe you are the one who’s meant to fail and perish while confronting the dragon. If you accept it it’s easy to take the journey and not worry about fear of failure or

    • It could mean that these are the people who never try and fail to begin with.

      • DNA requires that every individual try (even the ones who will perish in future) its best.

      • Duty of every individual to act out the truth.

  • Jews - Why are they so successful ?

    • Don’t work on sabbath

      • So need to have your life organized so that you can rest on last day.
    • Charity ?

@ExplorerSumit’s notes

  • Mutual sharing leads to trust

    • But someone has to take the first step.

    • Fear that people will use your faults against you.

  • Using your self-vulnerability as a force of good rather than using it to hurt people.

    • How to treat people ?

@JohnBuck’s notes

  • Karl Marx

    • Evolution works because there are thousands ultimately created for destruction.

    • Ideas also are very similar, they spread through beings, infecting us with an idea of truth, and we have responsibility to act out these truths that we think we know for sure, because if we do not speak them, or act upon them then there is no way to prove a higher truth of the two options.

    • Marx acted out his truth that he believed to be so, and suffered for it, and we gain a lot from him, unfortunately for him, what we gain is the knowledge that his ‘truth’ is sub-optimal, but there are still elements within it that need addressing, because if we do not address it then that leads to chaos.

    • He deserves a certain amount of respect, because had he instead done nothing, hid his truth inside himself then we in our current existence would not realize the negative aspects to communism.

  • Job

    • His suffering was ‘deserved’ in a funny sort of way because he gained a greater reward in the end, had he just gotten 7 times his original wealth he wouldn’t **deserve **it then
  • Kierkegaard

    • He also suffered, but wasn’t rewarded in the end. The reward from his suffering is enjoyed by us, but he gained meaning by knowing that at some point, even after his death, that his work will be useful.

    • Funnily enough he lived out an aspect of Abraham’s story because he worked hard towards something that he could’ve seen as futile, because everyone around him mocked him and his books meant nothing to the people he wrote for. But he lived in faith, like Abraham, and only from the future can we judge that what he did was indeed very worthwhile.

  • Vulnerability

    • If you cannot speak your truth even to your family, Your inability to trust them assumes that THEY are planning of taking your weaknesses or thoughts and will crucify you for them. If you cannot speak your truths to your family that means that you don’t trust them not to be evil.

second meeting

  • People doing things just because they feel good but not the right thing to do.

    • Toxic Charity