When Do We Become the Person We Ought to Be?

(graphsaboutreligion.com)

27 points | by toomuchtodo 7 hours ago

9 comments

  • arjie 4 hours ago
    In a sense, Sunday mass is just an all-hands where you're told the CEO's vision and you get to think about how aligned you are with the vision.
    • FearNotDaniel 29 minutes ago
      In no sense is that true of a Catholic Mass. Nor, from what I hear, of an Orthodox liturgy though I’m no expert there. It might be true of some Evangelical Sunday worship services but they cannot be called a “Mass”
    • fellowniusmonk 8 minutes ago
      Among the moderns really only the Quakers could be said to follow The Way in who they follow, all the rest follow some different teacher of their choosing.
    • rexpop 45 minutes ago
      Yikes! Way to raise mammon up to the altar of God.

      CEOs are psychopaths.

      • skylurk 23 minutes ago
        Some pastors are psychopaths.
        • rexpop 3 minutes ago
          Sorry, I forgot pastors existed. I assumed OP meant "God".
  • comrade1234 5 hours ago
    I feel much more at peace now that my sex drive has decreased. Before this feeling it was my primary goal and I was very successful but now I couldn't care less about sex.

    So I often wonder about yogis and saints - are they better humans than me? But i dont think so when I read about people like mlk jr and jfk and how they were terrible people when it came to women, even worse than me.

    • tasty_freeze 4 hours ago
      I'm a 62 year old straight man. I've described the change this way.

      I've always been able to see a handsome man, say Pierce Brosnan back in the day, and say "he is quite handsome" without have a whit of sexual stirrings. When I was young seeing a beautiful woman would trigger desires, but now it is like looking at handsome men. I can recognize they are attractive but it is purely intellectual with no emotional or hormonal attachment.

    • sjdh76 5 hours ago
      There is flourishing and detachment - https://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/phil-181/lecture-8

      And there is flourishing and attachment - https://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/phil-181/lecture-7

    • zabriel_goss 5 hours ago
      Perhaps Freud was right about the libido!

      Masayoshi Takanaka is a virtuosic City Pop guitarist who saw a recent renewed popularity while riding the resurgence of the genre's popularity. When asked in an interview if there would be a new album, he stated no, saying that humans lose their creative drive as their sexual energy declines, and this is why he could not produce a new album.

    • chasd00 5 hours ago
      I have to admit, it is nice when that edge comes off a little bit. Such a perpetual monkey on your back.
    • appplication 4 hours ago
      Goodness, yes. I’m not even that old yet but just no longer being possessed by the relentless drive of my 20s makes life much more peaceful.
    • avazhi 44 minutes ago
      Were you not able to get laid or something?

      I’m nearly 40 and my sex drive has always been insane and to this day is higher (much higher) than young people I know. I don’t have sex any less than I did when I was younger but being less angry and less dissatisfied with one’s life just seems to be part of getting older. I know there’s that (hilarious) line in The Republic from the old man about not being a slave to his sex drive anymore but I always took that as more of a ‘women are more trouble than they’re worth’ kind of thing. Surely sex is a sine qua non of being satisfied with one’s life.

      Libido motivates so many things in life that I’m not sure that I’d be bothered getting out of bed without it.

    • _doctor_love 2 hours ago
      At risk of sounding insensitive, MLK Jr. and JFK were only on the farm team as far as being yogis and saints.

      For the pro league some names you need: Ramana Maharshi, Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Brahmananda, Sri Yogananda Paramahansa, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (yes, really), Chogyam Trungpa (yes, really). And many more names beside.

      • lioeters 2 hours ago
        Francis of Assisi, Lao Tzu, Gurdjieff (yes, really), Blavatsky (yes), Zhang Guolao, Nasreddin, Jesus of Nazareth.. These last three all have been known to ride a donkey backwards.
        • bitwize 2 hours ago
          L. Ron Hubbard (yes, really)
    • beebmam 4 hours ago
      There’s no serious evidence that humans or any animal has free will.
      • vintermann 8 minutes ago
        Category error.
      • lioeters 3 hours ago
        The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

        The laws of physics wrote that sentence, it was fated to be written when this deterministic system of a universe was set off like a mechanism. Or maybe not, let me use my non-free will to choose to say.. Aubergine. Periwinkle. Streptococcus.

        • beebmam 1 hour ago
          I didn't say there is evidence of absence.

          There's also no evidence that mystical leprechauns exist. Do you seriously consider their possible existence in the decisions you make? But somehow, we all seem to presume free will exists in virtually every part of society.

    • analog8374 4 hours ago
      I relate. There was this one saint, Augustine I think, who, entering puberty, realized that the mind-control orbs dangling between his legs were gonna interfere with his life-goals, so he cut em off.

      Maybe that's the smart thing to do. I mean, does "fight and fuck" really enter into your saner agenda? Do you want it to?

      • ButlerianJihad 4 hours ago
        That was definitely not St. Augustine, who was well-known for a lifestyle of patronizing harlots before his conversion of heart.

        Apparently, this action is attributed to Origen of Alexandria, who was never "canonized" and is not regarded as a saint in any Christian tradition. It has consistently been viewed as a bad idea and a sin to be castrating or mutilating anyone's genitals, even your own.

        • wahern 3 hours ago
          Origen was anathematized because some people believed he taught universal salvation, i.e. everybody, regardless of belief, will ultimately be reunited with god. Whether he taught that is debatable, but certainly much of his exegesis was quite abstract, which tracks with this argument that Origen likely didn't castrate himself: https://medievalhistorygeek.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/did-ori... Likewise, he was a polarizing figure during a formative time in the development of Christianity, so it's quite believable his opponents would spread gossip about him. In the first few centuries there were some virulently anti-sex (and anti-women) Christian cults that preached that any sex, including marital sex, was dirty and demanded things like lay continence or lauded castration.[1] Despite clerical continence being normative, mainstream Christianity forcefully rejected the notion that there was anything inherently wrong with (marital) sex, so to claim Origen castrated himself would be to insinuate his beliefs aligned with radical, non-orthodox, sexually deviant (in a sense) groups.

          EDIT: [1] I originally used celibacy. But celibacy and continence are distinct. Celibacy implies continence, because only only married couples are permitted to have sex, but even married couples can be continent. Therein lies the confusion about the origins of modern-day Roman Catholic clerical celibacy and its relation to early clerical practices, including practices of the apostles.

      • Barrin92 4 hours ago
        You're likely thinking of Origen although people question whether it's true.

        >Maybe that's the smart thing to do

        Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols:

        "The Church combats passion by means of excision of all kinds: its practice, its “remedy,” is castration. It never inquires “how can a desire be spiritualised, beautified, deified?”—In all ages it has laid the weight of discipline in the process of extirpation (the extirpation of sensuality, pride, lust of dominion, lust of property, and revenge).—But to attack the passions at their roots, means attacking life itself at its source: the method of the Church is hostile to life."

        • lioeters 3 hours ago
          My man Nietzsche, of reason and passion, Apollo and Dionysus. Rest in eternal restlessness of the spirit, to live and suffer the beauty.
  • datas 6 hours ago
    Makes sense, believers are on a journey of sanctification. The first battle is won when your soul is saved. The second battle is a lifelong struggle between the flesh and the spirit.

    They are in constant opposition.

  • socalgal2 5 hours ago
    > It’s pretty clear that the typical American is always on the lookout for ways to improve their lives on a whole bunch of different dimensions.

    This is not clear to me at all.

  • ge96 5 hours ago
    I'm in my 30s and I'm still a dumbass, six fig job still living check to check
    • DeluluDon 3 hours ago
      I make 40k and in my 30s and still able to save at least $200 per check, are you that spoiled still?

      Or do you still have 5 simultaneous dating app subscriptions you haven't canceled?

    • Roland303 5 hours ago
      that feeling will pass, brains keep on developing right through mid-40's. But I implore you to find a great accountant asap, you get what you pay for.
    • comrade1234 5 hours ago
      Move out of CA.
  • biglyburrito 5 hours ago
    August 29, 1997
  • avazhi 43 minutes ago
    Judging from the chart the answer is TLDR: We don’t.
  • black_13 3 hours ago
    [dead]