I had never had an account on X before trying Nostr, but since there was so much talk about it on here, I figured I should try X out. And man, what a shit show that platform is. The way people communicate, the lifeless beliefs and ideas, the lack of curiosity and interest in what other people have to think and say, what they have to share; it’s all there on X. Nostr is different. There’s an electricity that’s moving through here. And I’m stoked to get to experience it. Please keep the great content coming, people are onto something here.

Personally, I think what you say at the end is correct. When a text presents itself as perplexing and an effort is made toward positioning oneself so as to allow it to disclose its meaning, the success of that process should result, I think, in further, deeper, more insightful questions. If such a development were to terminate, the desire and motivation for something spiritual and meaningful would go with it. Something I find interesting about what you have to say, and about biblical passages more generally, is the anthropomorphic verbs, adjectives, nouns, etc., used to speak about God. I think they will always fail to disclose insight when taken literally. Their meaning has to lie in suggestion and metaphor. When attributing wrath to God, its an error to then begin picturing some infinite being who is literally angry, who feels a wrath on account of the ways human beings have been conducting themselves, and who will inflict punishment to rectify the situation for the sake of some eternal justice. Rather, the more appropriate interpretive strategy, I believe, is to locate this notion of wrath in the ways human beings live. It’s suggesting something about how there’s a true way such creatures should comport themselves that corresponds to an inner nature and reality that is being obstructed, frustrated, and subverted by other capacities that are bent toward injustice, inequality, unfairness, self-absorption, heartlessness, and so forth. I see the Divine as having more to do with the way of things, their process and nature, where the task is to align oneself with it through virtue, than as something relating to literal stories about characters in a drama who play specific roles that are dictated by some higher, anthropomorphic being.

Absolutely. I started out doing jui jitsu when I was a kid and then switched to wrestling around middle school. I got pretty good in high school, but I couldn’t ever get past my mental game. I was always in my head thinking about things that had no real relevance to my improvement. And so, to use your language, I couldn’t ultimately overcome my ego. But because of the tools those kinds of sports (or martial arts or whatever) gave me, it definitely has helped me to keep learning how to sort through and gain insight into ego later in life.

Yeah that’s interesting. It could be the case though that those who are exploited (e.g., society B) have been disciplined in a way by society A to see violence as a hindrance (or too costly) to their needs or projects, but whereas in fact it may be their only way toward some form of liberation. So violence has incrementally been reduced due to an expanding monopoly on violence that was achieved through convincing others that violence is contrary to their interests.

If there is no human nature, if human beings aren’t, in essence, rational, reasonable creatures, then my demand for someone to give me their reasons for what they say and do is no different than the gangster with a gun who demands to be given money. Rather than being frightened by violence, they are anxious to not look foolish, stupid, shameful.

Laws are contingent. Other than the legal institutions that embody them, they have no objective, humans-independent reality. But while all laws could’ve been otherwise, what they express may be inscribed onto something universal and unchangable, and which informs the good laws, the ones that are just and worthy for a society to adopt and enact in their institutions. But where would this higher Law come from? How would it be know to exist? When the first amendment is invoked, are we only referencing a document, something that means nothing past the society it exists within and that wouldn’t of come into being under different social conditions, or are we referring to an objective, universal principle that is captured by a law?