peeling back our soul and we find?

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Peter Kropotkin
Posts: 1455
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am

peeling back our soul and we find?

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

think of human beings, our souls as an onion.. and we begin to peel back
that soul/onion and what do we find?

I hold that because we are so engaged with seeking those baubles of
existence, money, fame, power, titles, material goods, that there is
nothing inside of us. Remove the baubles of existence and what do we have?

and therein lies part of the "human problem" The very values we hold
dear lead us nowhere... all you get out of pursing money.. is more money,
and you can get out of pursuing fame is... more fame.. and all you can get
out of pursing power is... yep, more power.... and none of these values,
money, fame, power has any lasting effect... Money comes and go,
and the same is true of fame.. does anyone remember
"The Refrigerator?" Nope.....

and of material goods? Who still has their first car? I sure don't....

The goals, the things, the values that are the bedrock of American beliefs,
are all empty, barren, hollow.... they have no value for the right now
and they have no value for tomorrow... it is no different that eating
empty calories... you'll be better off eating the packaging of most
food in grocery stores than the food itself...

the search is for values that can sustain us, from today to our dying day..
and this means we are engaged in seeking values like,love, freedom, justice,
peace, charity, honor.. (among many other values) are values that
don't just bring back more of the same, but they bring us something of
great value... if we seek love and we love, we get back more than just love,
we get food for our souls.. hate begats hate and anger begats anger,
but love begats comfort, contentment, peace of the soul, in love,
we become something more.. and in seeking money, fame, hate,
titles, we don't get what is above us, but what is below us..
for seeking material goods is not engaging in our higher self,
but engaging in our animal, lower self....

the emptiness of our soul comes from the emptiness of our values...
fill up on values worth having, love, peace, charity, justice, hope,
integrity.. just to name a few values worth having.... values like
these are substantial values worth having.. and the point of having
these values is to give us some guidelines as to what we believe in,
and what we act upon and how we are to live our lives....

and by doing so, we no longer embrace the religious life, but
we can embrace the ethical life... ethics without religion...
and that is exactly what Nietzsche tried to do... create a morality
that wasn't based on a religion... or on God's commandments.....
"thou shall not....."

we do the right thing, not because god commanded it, but because it
is the right thing to do... and not on Kant's "moral imperative"
making ethics into a universal principle, turn moral values into
a universal law.. what if everyone lied? Lying cannot be turn into
a universal value.. thus we must tell the truth....

the problem with morals is that in some situations, what is moral isn't
and in some situations, what isn't moral, is... morality, ethics is
really "situational ethics" the situation dictates the ethics, the morals.....
and it is impossible to turn situational ethics into a universal law....

peel back a human being and do we find ethics, morals?

no, because morals, ethics are not universal, but situational
and based on the current situation on the ground...... and so,
in Ancient Greece, moral/ethics were different than today
and what was moral/ethical in the Middle Ages, isn't moral or
ethical today....

and this situational ethics suggest to us that ethics/moral are not
universal in nature... and thus when we peel back a human being,
we do not find ethics/morals/values.... we find, as Locke suggested,
a blank slate.... and what values do we fill human beings with?
that is the question....

Kropotkin
bobmax
Posts: 596
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2022 7:38 am

Re: peeling back our soul and we find?

Post by bobmax »

You know the answer to the question.

Because the answer is just who you are.

Isn't everything played out from non-being to being?
Were we not thrown into the world and then slowly return home?

From the non-being of our existence, love leads us back to being.
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