bahman wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 7:08 pm
By negative suffering, I mean that you gain nothing while suffering (such as diseases or disasters) whereas in positive suffering you gain something while suffering (like physical and mental exercise).
Well, I can tell you what the Christian view of suffering is.
Suffering's not something to be sought out for its own sake. Nobody likes to suffer. But what Christians believe is that suffering has meaning. And there could be no greater symbol of the depth of their belief in that than the symbol of a cross. That tells you everything you need to know, really, about their understanding of suffering.
In Christian thought, suffering is not accidental or meaningless, just because we humans don't have the full picture of what's going on. As I recall, Leibniz described our perspective as if we were all standing with our noses up against a huge tapestry, and wondering why we don't see a pattern in the threads. We are too close to too short a part of the whole picture to be able to say what's really going on. But from the standing-back perspective that only God has, the pattern in the threads on the tapestry all make sense, and combine into a complex picture of what He is doing in the world, and how we fit into that.
It's a nice analogy. It's not Biblical, but it is descriptive of our situation, as being finite creatures with very little information about all that's going on. The best and smartest of us can't hope to understand the whole "picture." But we really don't need to, so long as God is there to see the full picture.
Suffering is purposeful, in Christian thought. Not only does it achieve some grand plan for the world (though it contributes to that, of course) but more importantly for us, it refines us and makes us better people -- so long as we let our struggles and trials do their designed work, and don't become nihilistic or despairing.
And that's not such a foreign thought, is it? Haven't you noticed that the best people in this world are people who have suffered; and that people who never have are almost invariably more shallow, self-confident and unsympathetic than people who have experienced suffering? I would certainly say I've seen that. So there's a potential transformation of each person who suffers, a work God is keen to do, but which we have to agree to let Him do.
But it makes a huge difference whether we think our suffering is possibly the wise overruling or even dispensation of a loving God, or merely the quirks of an indifferent fate, meaningless and tragic as that would be.
It is however obvious that meaning is not in the category of thought since otherwise people would talk about it and would agree with what the meaning of life is. In fact, those who think more find life meaningless sooner.
No, neither claim is obvious to me at all.
As for the second one, it's true that some people have thought their way into Nihilism like that. But it is equally true that some have thought their way into hope and happiness, in spite of difficult circumstances. The difference seems not so much to be the fact of thinking, but the content of it.
As for the first, there's no reason, it seems to me, that we should suppose that people are equally good at thinking and talking about it, or that thinking people always come to the same conclusions. In fact, the opposite seems obvious to me: people can think hard, but think differently at the end. What's more crucial is the suppositions from which they launch their thinking in the first place: their "first principles," if you will, the things so fundamental to thinking at all that one cannot think without already assuming some view of them.
One of these fundamentals is whether or not God exists. If He does not, one set of things seems logical. And that road can indeed lead to Nihilism, if a man pursues it far enough. If God does exist, it is simply not any longer possible to be Nihilistic. Some measure of optimism automatically returns to one's thinking: and what seemed unthinkable to the Atheist becomes quite understandable to the person of faith. The reasoning from first principles flows differently thereafter.
So here's the good news: thinking does not have to result in misery and despair. And here's the bad news: it can. But here's some more good news: the world looks different when you engage with God. Either way, thinking, all alone, will not force anyone to a singular conclusion. Much more depends on the premises from which one launches the thought.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 5:35 pm
What is good? A pleasurable mental state.
That would seem hard to reconcile with your previous claims that meaning isn't a "feeling" and can't be "thought."
Why?
Well "a pleasurable mental state" -- isn't that a feeling? Or is it a type of thought? Either way, you did say you didn' t think the good was either of those things.
Doesn't something have to be objectively good, if there is to be any good at all? Is just the "pleasurable" imagining of a good that does not exist the same as "being genuinely happy, or blessed, or whatever?
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 5:35 pm
It would also raise questions about things that produce pleasurable mental states, but are not good...such as cocaine.
It is people's right to use any substance knowing the danger related to each drug. That is their life.
Well, that's assumptive.
But even were it true, it would still be problematic. It might be their "right" to kill themselves; would you call it also "good"?