On Medium: Jesus and Osiris: How Christianity Adapted Egyptian Myths
Here's a lengthy article on the Christ myth theory, Jesus and Osiris, the ancient Egyptian solar cycle, dying and rising gods, and the vulgarity of Christian spirituality.
I am always unsure if my comments went through. Therefore, just in case it didn't, here's what I had written:
Any thoughts on this? https://schopenhaueronmars.com/2022/01/03/suicide-prevention-laws-are-functionally-the-same-as-blasphemy-laws/
Apparently people who find life worthwhile despite disabilities are relying on "faith". This rhetoric is exasperatingly trite. What's interesting is how he doesn't seem to care about his presuppositions. He already believes that jobs are "demeaning", but then finds it strange why others might still value their lives. There could be many reasons for this:
1. The people doing the job might actually enjoy their work. If not, they might enjoy the company they get. Not everybody finds their job to be demeaning.
2. There could be other sources of value in a person's life besides their job. If EG doesn't find any significant value in meaningful relationships or the pursuit of knowledge, that's his prerogative. However, that does not give him the authority to declare that happiness doesn't matter.
3. As for the part about disabled people, I can't help but feel that EG is being somewhat hypocritical here. In a post that targets psychiatry for "irrationally" calling people mentally ill, he seems to insinuate that there is some "objective" standard that stipulates that all disabled people must find their lives to be not worth living. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. If there is no reason for saying that one ought to be happy, there's certainly no reason for saying that they ought to be sad. Unfortunately, much of efilism seems to rely on unjustified double standards. We'll see many more of them in the forthcoming "long-form" blog posts by Existential goof.
I'm sympathetic to his criticisms of psychiatry and of the overuse of the term "mental disorder." I've made similar criticisms. But there are dysfunctional mental abnormalities, and some of them do have well-understood causes, such as bipolar disorder, depression, and PTSD.
I also agree that the resistance to the right to commit suicide may be suspect in many cases. A liberal society specifically should have little objection to granting that right. Even in severe cases of mental disorder, assuming the suicidal person isn't harming others by the act, there's no overwhelming reason to prevent the ill person from taking his or her life. Of course, the problem with libertarianism is that we do harm or help each other indirectly all the time, no matter what we do. It’s the butterfly effect, so extreme individualism is itself dubious.
Also, some of the objections to suicide may be implicitly religious, which would make for only dubious grounds for the prohibition.
But I disagree with EG's strong claim, from which he later seems to backtrack, that "the reason that any attempt to introduce legalised assisted suicide draws an outcry from disabled groups is not because these people truly believe that they will be coerced into dying, but because it invalidates their belief that life is worth living, which is a position based in faith, rather than in evidence."
That’s a stretch if he’s talking about whether anyone’s life is worth living. I’d agree that suicide can be disheartening to others, and that optimists may prefer to ignore the phenomenon. But the existence of suicide doesn’t prove the truth of antinatalism or of efilism. Suicide might be expected under extreme forms of pessimism, but as I said in my article, the picture is muddied when we consider that not all suicides are caused by rational, sane, and sober commitment to a pessimistic philosophy. Indeed, I suspect that most suicides are caused by emotional outbursts or by real mental illnesses, as in those that are caused by neural abnormalities or by traumatic experiences.
If we’re talking just about whether the life of severely disabled people is worth living, I think it’s a personal choice. I don’t see why life would be necessarily worth living under all possible circumstances. As to which circumstances make suicide rational and justified, I doubt there’s an objective list, for the reasons I gave in the article. These issues are subjective because we adapt to circumstances, adjusting our expectations for happiness to avoid permanent misery. That’s why people say that time heals all wounds.
I do think that there is a degree of irrational fear pertaining the right to die. As someone who has advocated for it elsewhere, I've been frequently met people who believe that providing this right is some sort of unbridled evil, even though they don't seem to do a great job at justifying why it's a good idea to force people to endure a valueless existence.
However, EG seems to go on a dangerous road by saying that the idea that life is worth living is based on faith. This is an unsubstantiated claim (what objective evidence exists for the Idea that life is not worth living?) that could lead to perfectly happy people being told that they are deceiving themselves because they "ought" to hate life.
I don't think that life is worth living under all possible circumstances. All I am saying is that I shouldn't be the one making that judgement for an existing person capable of deciding for themselves.
The right to commit suicide could be abused because people could be pressured or talked into committing suicide. That's a question of regulation.
But EG seems to be using the issue of suicide as a stalking horse for his pessimistic philosophy. So what matters to him is the idea that the rationality of some suicides shows that life generally isn't worth living. Of course, there's a great variety in our situations in life, so just because some people's circumstances are dire, doesn't mean the same is true for everyone.
Any thoughts on this?
ReplyDeletehttps://schopenhaueronmars.com/2022/01/03/suicide-prevention-laws-are-functionally-the-same-as-blasphemy-laws/
I am always unsure if my comments went through. Therefore, just in case it didn't, here's what I had written:
ReplyDeleteAny thoughts on this? https://schopenhaueronmars.com/2022/01/03/suicide-prevention-laws-are-functionally-the-same-as-blasphemy-laws/
Apparently people who find life worthwhile despite disabilities are relying on "faith". This rhetoric is exasperatingly trite. What's interesting is how he doesn't seem to care about his presuppositions. He already believes that jobs are "demeaning", but then finds it strange why others might still value their lives. There could be many reasons for this:
1. The people doing the job might actually enjoy their work. If not, they might enjoy the company they get. Not everybody finds their job to be demeaning.
2. There could be other sources of value in a person's life besides their job. If EG doesn't find any significant value in meaningful relationships or the pursuit of knowledge, that's his prerogative. However, that does not give him the authority to declare that happiness doesn't matter.
3. As for the part about disabled people, I can't help but feel that EG is being somewhat hypocritical here. In a post that targets psychiatry for "irrationally" calling people mentally ill, he seems to insinuate that there is some "objective" standard that stipulates that all disabled people must find their lives to be not worth living. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. If there is no reason for saying that one ought to be happy, there's certainly no reason for saying that they ought to be sad. Unfortunately, much of efilism seems to rely on unjustified double standards. We'll see many more of them in the forthcoming "long-form" blog posts by Existential goof.
I'm sympathetic to his criticisms of psychiatry and of the overuse of the term "mental disorder." I've made similar criticisms. But there are dysfunctional mental abnormalities, and some of them do have well-understood causes, such as bipolar disorder, depression, and PTSD.
DeleteI also agree that the resistance to the right to commit suicide may be suspect in many cases. A liberal society specifically should have little objection to granting that right. Even in severe cases of mental disorder, assuming the suicidal person isn't harming others by the act, there's no overwhelming reason to prevent the ill person from taking his or her life. Of course, the problem with libertarianism is that we do harm or help each other indirectly all the time, no matter what we do. It’s the butterfly effect, so extreme individualism is itself dubious.
Also, some of the objections to suicide may be implicitly religious, which would make for only dubious grounds for the prohibition.
But I disagree with EG's strong claim, from which he later seems to backtrack, that "the reason that any attempt to introduce legalised assisted suicide draws an outcry from disabled groups is not because these people truly believe that they will be coerced into dying, but because it invalidates their belief that life is worth living, which is a position based in faith, rather than in evidence."
That’s a stretch if he’s talking about whether anyone’s life is worth living. I’d agree that suicide can be disheartening to others, and that optimists may prefer to ignore the phenomenon. But the existence of suicide doesn’t prove the truth of antinatalism or of efilism. Suicide might be expected under extreme forms of pessimism, but as I said in my article, the picture is muddied when we consider that not all suicides are caused by rational, sane, and sober commitment to a pessimistic philosophy. Indeed, I suspect that most suicides are caused by emotional outbursts or by real mental illnesses, as in those that are caused by neural abnormalities or by traumatic experiences.
If we’re talking just about whether the life of severely disabled people is worth living, I think it’s a personal choice. I don’t see why life would be necessarily worth living under all possible circumstances. As to which circumstances make suicide rational and justified, I doubt there’s an objective list, for the reasons I gave in the article. These issues are subjective because we adapt to circumstances, adjusting our expectations for happiness to avoid permanent misery. That’s why people say that time heals all wounds.
I do think that there is a degree of irrational fear pertaining the right to die. As someone who has advocated for it elsewhere, I've been frequently met people who believe that providing this right is some sort of unbridled evil, even though they don't seem to do a great job at justifying why it's a good idea to force people to endure a valueless existence.
DeleteHowever, EG seems to go on a dangerous road by saying that the idea that life is worth living is based on faith. This is an unsubstantiated claim (what objective evidence exists for the Idea that life is not worth living?) that could lead to perfectly happy people being told that they are deceiving themselves because they "ought" to hate life.
I don't think that life is worth living under all possible circumstances. All I am saying is that I shouldn't be the one making that judgement for an existing person capable of deciding for themselves.
The right to commit suicide could be abused because people could be pressured or talked into committing suicide. That's a question of regulation.
DeleteBut EG seems to be using the issue of suicide as a stalking horse for his pessimistic philosophy. So what matters to him is the idea that the rationality of some suicides shows that life generally isn't worth living. Of course, there's a great variety in our situations in life, so just because some people's circumstances are dire, doesn't mean the same is true for everyone.