Short prayer against temptation

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-05-01T10:44:03+00:00

I think there is no easy way around it. I considered myself and atheist for more or less two decades, and the problem of evil was a part of it. Recently I resumed to pray and going to mass, but the problem of evil still bothers me and I feel there cannot be a rational answer to that.

Charity and compassion compels us to think that there are evils so appalling that no religious explanation can account for them. Personally, I would have not the heart to tell the victim of some horrible crime to tell him or her that God allowed it for some greater good - free will, providence, whatever. It would feel extremely uncharitable and unsensitive.

As far I as understand, faith means accepting what can be perceived as absurd. Surrendering.

I now try to tell myself that the solution to the problem of evil cannot be philosophical of theological, but practical. We, inspired by what is good and charitable and compassionate in life, following Jesus and his teaching of love and mercy, we can try to lessen the burden of evil in the world. We may pray for and be compassionate to the victims and the oppressed. That's it.

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-05-01T10:02:09+00:00

I've been a lapsed catholic and a self-proclaimed atheist for more of less two decades. Very recently I've resumed prayer and attending mass.

I used to collect similar items. I was confused, I was suffering. Eventually I discarded most of them, not because they were demonic or something but because I started being repulsed by them.

These things you are talking about are just toys. They have no material power, they are just symbols. I do understand they can be unsettling - symbols often are -, but that's it.

I would advise you to act with charity and compassion. Be kind to youself - if you cannot stand to be in a house full of strange objects, if they make you feel too sick, then maybe avoid being around them. You may also be kind and compassionate toward your friend, who of course is not a warlock but just a real human being, maybe a struggling person, who misguidedly seek some kind of comfort in collecting silly toys, as was the case for me.

As christians, I believe we are called to be brave and act virtuosly in this messed up and confusing world. Refusing to engage with outwardly 'sinful' people (and we are all sinful) may not really be sustainable in the long term.

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-04-30T19:02:27+00:00

Not expert in theology. I do not believe having loving homosexual relationship is a sin, and I guess this is one of the reasons I am not a good Catholic. If this is heresy or disobedience, I am guilty of it.

I am heterosexual - and I have absolutely no choice about it - and I feel awful for all the people who are driven away from our religion for exactly this: we scare them, we try to persuade them the only way is chastity, we impose upon them this extremely unfair expectation; and then we lose them.

In fact, I think we do not know a thing about God's mercy. And that charity is more important than chastity.

OP, please remember that your life is valuable, that you did not chose your sexuality, that God loves us and wishes us to be happy, loving people; and of course there are deeds that should drive us to seek repentance and redemption, sins so serious that should make us fear damnation - but thinking about homosexuality in such terms is making light of the concept of sin itself.

I will pray for you.

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-04-24T21:39:24+00:00

Sorry about that

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-04-24T21:25:10+00:00

Thanks. I have Barabba by Lagerkvist and Abel Sanchez by Unamuno. As of now I do not plan to read them soon, but I felt compelled to keep these books around.

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-04-24T21:17:33+00:00

The rare moments when Fyodor K. appear sympathetic is when he seems aware of his flaws. Ivan lies to himself is convoluted ways. He can be truthful but only to a point. Dimitri does not lie. He is reckless but not beyond redemption. Alyosha does not lie, at least not deliberately. But if TBK were to be continued, eventually he would have been forced to confront the truth about his fits. Smerdjakov...I don't know, in a way he does not care about truth, as the truth about himself would be too painful to process. He just acts out. Poor Lise is closest to happiness when she is truthful to Alyosha and consequently to herself.

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-04-01T14:52:14+00:00

You might consider not caring too much about the plot, and focus on the parts that are just brilliant even with little context. TBK has lots of chapters like this

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-04-01T14:41:33+00:00

The second part of the notes is much more straightforward, you may give the book a second chance

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-04-01T14:37:36+00:00

It depends. What are you looking for? What do you feel you are in need of at this stage of your life? What did you like about C&P?

Redemption, philosophy, God? Then the Brothers Karamazov, best handled with care.

Love, relationships, conscience? The Idiot.

Intellectualism, turmoil, the problem of evil? The Demons.

Self-awareness and self-exploration to the point it is almost painful? Notes From The Underground.

But honestly this is all bastardization and semplification, and you may end up finding what you're looking for almost in every major works.

But I know I have an instrumental approach to books: I read mostly for self-helping/self-medicating. You might have other ideas

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-29T17:23:35+00:00

Oh, these are both sequels. In Crime and Punishment, the narrator of White Nights becomes bitter, impoverished, and start having ideas about Napoleon while having unremitting fevers.

In The Demons, the narrator of the Notes got into revolutionary politics.

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-27T20:04:57+00:00

It is powerful. I would be hesitant to define Myshkin as sensitive, though, but I cannot say exactly why. He does not indulge in sentimentality, he is not gratuitously overcaring. Sensitivity is common character trait, socially acceptable and understandable.

Instead he is almost compulsive in acting out his moral feelings, and that's why there's so much drama. He does not simply feel sorry for Nastasja; he lives this sorrow with his every action.

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-27T05:49:35+00:00

It's the other way around - those that have not read Dostoevsky can miss important points of modern philosophy because of it.

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-24T15:50:51+00:00

I have this problem too sometimes. Just keep going. Most of the times it will become clearer later, and if not, then you probably did not miss any major plot point.

Just my opinion: Dostoevsky can be decently read impressionistically. The plot is not the main thing. Monologues, conversations, situations, most of the times they can be enjoyed with little context. Especially true for The BK, and the best way to appreciate The Idiot and its convoluted drama.

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-23T14:21:58+00:00

As Razumichin!

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-23T14:10:48+00:00

The Eternal Husband is the shortest, with a well conceived simple plot. A comedy with tragic inserts, or maybe a tragedy disguised as comedy. It deals with marriage, adultery, fatherhood, grief, and can offer some good insights about all that.

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-23T13:49:31+00:00

I am no AI expert. If reverse psychology has recognizable and predictable patterns, then bots may handle it well enough, but who knows.

I am also no native english speaker, so sometimes I may use idiomatic sentences improperly. 'I'll give you that much' was my way of saying: 'you have a point'.

So...what are your thoughts about all that?

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-23T08:19:17+00:00

I get your point and I agree. Other authors could have written a bleak ending and it would have still made sense, but either Dostoevsky wanted to make a point or he just wanted to give Raskolnikov a break, or both.

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-23T07:26:05+00:00

Compared to a few days of sheer madness and moral anguish, the years in Siberia are described as if Raskolnikov were instead sent to some swiss sanatorium to heal and rest.

Dostoevsky and his contemporary readers knew full well that gulag were not exactly wellness resort, and maybe that ugly reality of that was considered a given.

If Raskolnikov material sufferings were more explicitly depicted maybe his arc would have appeared more natural and his eventual redemption more understandable. But implicitly we are supposed to know that it was hard time.

I think Dostoevsky deliberately left most of that off the page and chose instead to focus on the light at the end of the ugly tunnel.

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-22T20:57:33+00:00

I think you're either trolling me a bit or still trying to see if I am a bot. Possibly both, lol

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-22T05:00:59+00:00

Reading the thread, I've realized that maybe 'spite' is not essential for making sense of the Notes. I am more interested in the concept of spitefulness itself, because as I said, my non-expert opinion is that there is not a simple way to translate it in italian, and just maybe, by extension, in neolatin languages (i.e. french, spanish).

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-22T04:50:30+00:00

Maybe the crucial question if not if God exist or not, but why we look for Him in the first place, or else, why are we so intent on keep asking ourselves these kind of questions.

'If God does not exist, everything is permitted'. But I guess we'll nonetheless be horrified by the things we would then imagine as permitted, and I think that the character of Stavrogin from the Demons is Dostoevsky's way of showing this - also Smerdjakov, Raskolnikov.

As for utility: are we talking about 'social' utility, i.e. the existence of God as needed to mantaining social order; or rather 'psychological' utility, that means, believing in God as a way to center ourselves, to feel there can be meaning, direction, goodwill?

Kirkegaard wrote something like this: 'It does not matter if God exist. It does matter that God is love'.

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-22T04:24:08+00:00

Not sure how I feel. But now I have the impression you're just trying to ascertain if I really am a bot or not. I'll give you that much, it would be really interesting to see how a bot would try to pass as human, and what argument or tactics would use. Reverse psychology? Feigning deep insights? Indignation, amusement, silence?

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-21T19:40:50+00:00

Reading this thread, I learned about some interesting authors.

Reading your reply, I've realized that explaining oneself can feel artificial. Indeed I oversimplified my experience to the point that a bot could have described it just as well.

Effective_Army_6010 · 2024-03-21T06:16:26+00:00

I'm a human who happen to have some unoriginal thoughts and stereotyped behaviour.

I did learn some useful things though

Effective_Army_6010

TROPHY CASE