I'm going to resurrect this thread instead of cluttering
Stuff You Love thread.
Of course, causality exists. But religious people say "everything happens for a reason" to mean that God has this incredibly intricate plan, and that every possible hardship, whether it's the death of your child or being paralyzed from the neck down, was done specifically to you for your spiritual wellbeing. "God won't send you any burdens you can't deal with," and that stupidity.
See it from my eyes, and
even that makes sense, although subjectively rather than literally. Then again, forget how I see it, it's not important to you, except for this point: In the Eastern Philosophy,
Everything happens for a reason idea is far more complex and realistic compared to that in America (although still referencing spiritualism) and encourages civilians to strive through the darkest hours until they find light (again, Sringtime Of Youth; you can't sit on your ass all day). Even the harshest tragedy is considered to be but one of the greatest trials of nature (don't say it's wrong, because even casualties are natural and sometimes inevitable). The idea is that the universe is incomplete without tragedies, and loss and sorrow will always hover above us. But these dark times strengthen humanity to
evolve.
As for "God won't send burdens" bit, yes, that is bullshit. Because if a God does exist, he's more interested in being the
Spiral King / Anti-Spiral, sending meteors (mass murders, WWII, extinction, etc.) towards our way just so we can stop being slackers and evolve, and subsequently pierce the heavens. You know, like a parent, or a military general.
I seem to have free will, even if an illusion, so I strive to exercise it until science nails it down completely.
I'm quoting this!
Sigh, I was having fun with the Stoics and still love a lot of the applied wisdom, but...after reading a couple books that explained the philosophy in-depth and traced its roots, it's obvious that it's all predicated on the assertion that humans have an ethereal soul; that people are just spirits dragging along corpses until separated. This is the basis of Stoic self-mastery; become spiritually virtuous, and everything else is selected in your interest according to nature and moderation.
Not surprising as majority of Buddhist philosophy was also influenced with Stoicism. You're smarter than an average Joe, so you can ignore the Spiritualism and only consider them from a subjective view, and try to deduce a more philosophical reasoning behind it. Even I was astounded when I did the same on certain texts; on the surface everything was ridiculous, but from a realistic standpoint it was
ingenious. ....Yeah, I don't believe in Spiritualism either.
Let me ease it out for you (doing my best without references, since I don't know what you're reading):
The universe is a natural one = Indeed! But a mysterious one nonetheless. There are plenty of thing we haven't grasped yet.
"supernatural" is a self-defeating oxymoron = Perhaps this
Supernatural could be forces beyond common people's comprehension, such as Gravitational-Fields, Event-Horizons and Bacteria?
Consciousness is an emergent phenomena of this incredible arrangement of matter = Eh... well, true.
There are no gods = I... won't get into that.
no heaven, no hell = They're all here!
Earth.
and no soul = Consciousness; Individuality; Identity.
there is no divine plan for the universe = Quantum Physics
or any feint to trusting in divine will or fate = Yeah, you can most certainly ignore that.
There is matter, frailty, and humanity, and nothing more = And
Chrono Trigger! Oh, and art! And Samosa.
It is impossible to completely detach physical sensations and emotions from the meaning and impressions we derive from them. Some may do it through psychoactive drugs, extreme asceticism, and other ways of bending the mind, but unfortunately, I'm already too aware of the scientific method and the truth that I'm thankful to know. I'll have to deal with being rational.
Yeah, I respect your choice, but I'd like to have an input here. While the texts often state things in simplistic and exaggerated terms
(most texts do, even biographies, but philosophical texts also are forms of art thus they mix facts with legends), the TRUE Learned Ones (note the emphasis, since a lot of folks lie) knows the difference between reality and fantasy despite laying on spiritualism. Detachment of soul from the body
wasn't meant to be taken literally in the first place, rather a simple term that meant that a person needed to conquer himself before he stepped forth to conquer the world. Example: Anger might be productive, but is also addictive, and if you get swayed away by it you turn into an idiot; certain amount of training gives you judgement how to control your desires and learn how / where to and not to use. Basically, how to be a master yourself and take control of your nightmares, and subsequently, your life.
The analogy of the soul springs from Gurus asking their disciples to see the whole picture before their trivial matters (old story, I'll get back to that some other time), a practice useful to get people to be aware of their priorities. When you look at the world with an unbiased view you get a clearer picture.
Poll