Has religion exterminated human passion?

[osho]

I have a feeling deeply entrenched but unexposed and for a variety of reasons, deferred, of discuss some very private thoughts with a few noninterventionist people here. Man, I think is a brute and wants to satisfy his urges, whatever they are. But he is circumscribed
since there are religions, authorities, conditionings, programming and he is compelled to shrink into his present confinement. If for instance he wants to have sex with someone he knows closely but there are barriers, familial, blood, racial, social and the like.

We have it in our sleep and we see dreams in the form of signs and symbols. In literature there are metaphorically invoked, expressed.

Man's real nature is nakedness underneath social and cultural drabs. I may sound rather oafish in my language, but this is an intellectual discussion and has more to do with the study of the nature of man, kind of neutral analysis

[JuniperWoolf]

Man's "real nature" is also cooperation and analysis. Could you cooperate with your neighbor if you started humping his leg? As social animals we desire the approval and respect of other people, THAT's why social rules, shame and unofficial taboos exist. These are also the reasons why we're so advanced.

[Alexander III]

But troughout history there have always been men, who succeded in pursuing their passions. It is called bravery. What you describe is cowardice. There have always been brave men and there have always been cowards. The importance is that there was always a choice.

If under tsarist russia, a Pushkin and Lermontov could be, I don't see why men can't do as they please nowadays, if not for their own cowardice.

[BienvenuJDC]

Is religion to blame? Or is it conscience?

Is moderation such a bad thing?

[Alexander III]

Is religion to blame? Or is it conscience?

Is moderation such a bad thing?

But that if freedom of choice, if you belive that a life of moderation shall bring you happiness, you are brave to pursue it - but if you believe that said life will not bring you happiness and you do not pursue it, in the light of history and all the men who have pursued it despite far greater limitation that we today can imagine, what other word is there but cowardice.

For example if I flunk out of university, I plan on joining the french foreign legion. Were I to simply go home and live of my parents and not do anything, and say it is because of society and expectaion and family that I cannot pursue my desires, what else would you call me if not a coward.

[JuniperWoolf]

But troughout history there have always been men, who succeded in pursuing their passions. It is called bravery. What you describe is cowardice.

No, it's comprimise. Following your impulses at every hour of the day isn't beneficial, you can't just eat and **** whatever, wherever and whenever you want. There's a time and a place. Refusing to indulge in your impulses at all times time is repression, but doing so constantly is impossible, you'd be locked up. If a society allowed you to indulge in every impulse you had, that society wouldn't get far.

[Jack of Hearts]

Fart noise.

It gets really boring hearing about how 'bad' man is by nature. Using consciousness to conceptually analyze fundamental condciousness is also disingenuous at best.

Religion has its purposes- or perhaps had. The noble lie. You're being lied to everyday to keep sometjing larger than yourself chugging right along.

As for rendering people passionless, hardly. People still do things and have done things that evolve out of passion. It's just in maintaining the bigger lie they have to tell lesser lies to themselves. Was there ever a man who thought himself evil when he believed he was doing the Lord's work?




J

[MarkBastable]

Is there any proposition, however nonsensical and internally disjointed, that we aren't prepared to discuss as soon as it's posted here?

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Is there any proposition, however nonsensical and internally disjointed, that we aren't prepared to discuss as soon as it's posted here?

Obviously not. I don't even know what Osho is trying to say, really.

I think the real issue here is that you changed your avatar, Mark.

[DocHeart]

Deleted double post.

[DocHeart]

In your previous thread you wonder whether the raped is as much to blame as the rapist. In this one you tell us about your suppressed sexual "passion".

Best advice you'll get: whoever it is you're thinking of jumping, don't do it. This forum is much more accommodating to your ponderings than any judge would ever be. You *will* go to jail.

[Delta40]

And is man a tribal, social being or does he operate alone? Free choice becomes limited when society enters into the equation - with or without religion.

[Jack of Hearts]

Quit ruining the fun you guys. Some of us are bored at work and need a little empty sound and fury to round out the jagged corners of a completely drab and depressing day.





J

[JuniperWoolf]

It gets really boring hearing about how 'bad' man is by nature.

Yes. So yes. It's the thing that irritates me most, I almost can't not AT LEAST make a rude, dismissive noise.


I think the real issue here is that you changed your avatar, Mark.

:yesnod: Mutatis has his priorities straight. I'm going to miss your Joker, Bastable.


In your previous thread you wonder whether the raped is as much to blame as the rapist. In this one you tell us about your suppressed sexual "passion".

Best advice you'll get: whoever it is you're thinking of jumping, don't do it. This forum is much more accommodating to your ponderings than any judge would ever be. You *will* go to jail.

That was my immediate impression as well, but who knows? Maybe he just likes to fantasize.

[NikolaiI]

If for instance he wants to have sex with someone he knows closely but there are barriers, familial, blood, racial, social and the like.

This is one of problem in some of your posts in a new thread. You pose a question and then touch on a ton of different, somewhat related subjects as well. It makes it difficult to know what to address.

Still, having gone this far,
What makes you think man is a brute? A pretty clever brute to have invented the internet. Human nature encompasses such a wide range of attributes; there are brutes among humans, but there's also divine, selfless love. Vivekananda once said that he felt anything which makes men and women more like a brute is evil, and anything which raises us up to be more divine is good.

We're shaped a lot by our environment, but at a certain point we environ ourselves, we create our life ourself. You can make up your mind to believe this or that, no one can stop you - a place composed of positive and negative elements, and that is your world, and you have free will to act as you choose - but your actions have impact on others around you, and that is a key point. One of the most important things in life is living so that your life benefits others, relieves suffering, and doesn't cause harm. You can often do so much good just by being happy and peaceful yourself, because it doesn't just go to one person, they pass it on and on as well.

I also find it interesting that sometimes the happiest people are celibate ones. The Dalai Lama is one. Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh for example, has got to be one of the happiest, most peaceful people on the planet. I consider him my teacher, though I haven't met him I listen to his Dharma talks. But it doesn't always work for people who choose monastic life in religion. We've all become aware of the extreme abuses of power within the Catholic church.

So it's complex, at least it is seems so. I think a lot of it has to do with how we are raised, what ideas we're brought up with - because those early formations in our mind tend to take deep root. Ideas of the most fundamental nature such as who are we, how do we act, what do we need to be happy, are given to us as children and form the core of our personality. When I say ideas I don't just mean verbal ones - everything that we experience and absorb, behaviors, tones of voice, physical contact, every little thing goes into our psyche and we understand a lot more than we know.

Abraham Maslow and William James have both talked about a certain type of individual, who lives in a lot of happiness, almost all the time. They both consider this type to be of the healthiest kind. Walt Whitman was an example. Maslow says that this type of person doesn't struggle painstakingly over moral issues very often; James says that they abjectly shy away from morbid considerations, about how dark our instincts are, or whatever. Walt Whitman was said to be incredibly awed by nature, even small things, and he was said to basically never experience anger or dark moods, or say negative things about people (or plants or animals), even though he had 'enemies.'

But basically, what Juniper said. Live life in balance.

I do think that an important thing is to consider the other people around you, and how your actions impact them. Do they hurt or help?
A lot of society's boundaries are there for good reason.

[Alexander III]

Meh if you wish to rape someone go ahead and get it over with, "sooner murder an infant in it's craddle, than nurse unacted desires"

[BookBeauty]

I think that in exercising discipline and humility, one becomes a stronger human-being with integrity.

Religion has nothing to do with being in control of oneself.

Even if we have an 'urge' to do something, doesn't give us the right to exercise that urge. In being human, we have stumbled upon decision-making and an understanding between what we conceive as being 'right' and 'wrong'. Forcing another human being, or living being, to your will is undoubtedly violent, unethical, and terrible. It is corruption and perversity.

Many atheists have a stronger foundation of ethics and morals than most religious people. In a lot of cases, I think religion just keeps the sheep in line. They would do horrible things if they thought they could get away with it, without going to Hell.

More intelligent religious and non-religious people recognize that acting in violent, reprehensible ways is simply a mark of the insane. People who would willingly do horrible things based upon urges are people who have neurons that aren't connecting quite right, likely due to problems in brain, or moral development.

Let's step back a bit now, and look at basic psychology. A killer, or rapist, when they don't have that moral compass, it may be due to the fact that they are lacking the 'ego'. I believe it's a psychological theory that goes something like this:

'Superego' is the ethics and morals we learn as children from our parents, whether religious or not. The 'id' is the basic urge and desire, and most of it is subconscious. Only the tip of the iceberg is upon our consciousness. 'Ego' balances the two, and decides which we follow when a given decision is upon us. The example I was given in a psychology lecture was a little child in a kitchen wants a cookie. Mom says, ''Don't you dare take a cookie from the cookie jar, because you'll spoil your dinner.'' So the 'ego' goes: Hmm... Well, if I take the cookie, I may be punished, or it's just simply the wrong thing to do. But, if I eat it, my hunger will be satisfied. If knowing what's right is strong enough, then they will not give in to their id, even if they really, really, really want a cookie.

But, if their id is strong enough.... You get the picture.

Without the ego to balance these decisions, there is chaos, and something 'not quite right' in the brain. That's my own interpretation of the theory, anyway.

[cacian]

First of all I do not know what you mean by human passion.
Do you mean human feelings?
Religion just like politics is dated and need to move on. It is procrastinations of the mind something to fill your time keeps occupied and fills you up with secular old and frankly useless problems.
Ideally none of these concepts would /should last go on because of their very destructive nature.

[DocHeart]

Some of us are bored at work...




J

What are you doing at work, man? Didn't we make a pact we would never succumb to the toad (http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Philip_Larkin/4819)?

:) :)

[MarkBastable]

I think the real issue here is that you changed your avatar, Mark.

Evidently I look better in make-up.

[MarkBastable]

Meh if you wish to rape someone go ahead and get it over with, "sooner murder an infant in it's craddle, than nurse unacted desires"

Quotation marks don't make a sentence true, or even sensible.

It'd be interesting to have a thread dedicated to finding a literary or philosophical quotation stupider than that one.

[Alexander III]

Quotation marks don't make a sentence true, or even sensible.

It'd be interesting to have a thread dedicated to finding a literary or philosophical quotation stupider than that one.

I have never considered Blake stupid, but then again the great genius mark has spoken, who shall surley outlast blake.

No problem if you dont agree, just disagree calmly, no need to pull out your dick and wave it about.

[Jack of Hearts]

What are you doing at work, man? Didn't we make a pact we would never succumb to the toad (http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Philip_Larkin/4819)?

:) :)

Musta been a lie, Doc. JoH has only one real talent, and that's being a dirty little corporate whore.









J

[OrphanPip]

I have never considered Blake stupid, but then again the great genius mark has spoken, who shall surley outlast blake.

No problem if you dont agree, just disagree calmly, no need to pull out your dick and wave it about.

Except that Blake was advocating a blending of reason and desire in the text, the hyperbolic examples of the energetic passion of Hell are not meant to be proscriptive guides to behaviour.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Meh if you wish to rape someone go ahead and get it over with, "sooner murder an infant in it's craddle, than nurse unacted desires"

:willy_nilly:

[MarkBastable]

Except that Blake was advocating a blending of reason and desire in the text, the hyperbolic examples of the energetic passion of Hell are not meant to be proscriptive guides to behaviour.

Precisely. If Lexie thinks that Blake was suggesting that the impulse to rape is a justification for rape, then it's not Blake or me that's being stupid.

[Darcy88]

Religion is an expression of human passion. No passion in the Bible? The Iliad? The Koran? The Bhagavad Gita? Hahaha. No, no. Religion is a sublimation of passion.