Aphorism of the Day: BEING Me (or You), and Asserting the Practical Implication of This Truth–the Right to Pursue my own Will, is Not an IMPOSITION of my Will Upon Others

To say that my refusal to accept that it is moral to compel me against my will is somehow ITSELF an imposition of my will on others…is categorically irrational. It’s desperation in sophist guise. It is an admission of one’s utter rejection of reason, and an one’s arrant unwillingness to admit the Truth of the sanctity of the human being; the only rational moral and epistemological reference–the Self.

3 thoughts on “Aphorism of the Day: BEING Me (or You), and Asserting the Practical Implication of This Truth–the Right to Pursue my own Will, is Not an IMPOSITION of my Will Upon Others

  1. I’m curious as to what you would think about this little quote from this book https://books.google.com/books?pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=Belief+in+the+personality+of+man+and+belief+in+the+personality+of+God+stand+or+fall+together&sig=Hx8vevUV8pWXN0gGsfWf0ONZC4s&id=FedAAAAAYAAJ&ots=DOHzyXu1eQ#v=onepage&q=Belief%20in%20the%20personality%20of%20man%20and%20belief%20in%20the%20personality%20of%20God%20stand%20or%20fall%20together&f=false :

    [blockquote]Belief in the personality of man, and belief in the personality of God, stand or fall together. A glance at the history of religion would suggest that these two beliefs are for some reason inseparable. Where faith in the personality of God is weak, or is altogether wanting, as in the case of the pantheistic religions of the East, the perception which men have of their own personality is found to be in an equal degree indistinct. The feeling of individuality is dormant. The soul indolently ascribes to itself a merely phenomenal being. It conceives of itself as appearing for a moment, like a wave let on the ocean, to vanish again in the all-ingulfing essence whence it emerged. Recent philosophical theories which substitute matter, or an “Unknowable,” for the self-conscious Deity, likewise dissipate the personality of man as ordinarily conceived. If they deny that God is a Spirit, they deny with equal emphasis that man is a spirit. The pantheistic and atheistic schemes are in this respect consistent in their logic. Out of man’s perception of his own personal attributes arises the belief in a personal God. On this fact of our own personality the validity of the arguments for theism depends.

    The essential characteristics of personality are self-consciousness and self-determination: that is to say, these are the elements common to all spiritual beings. Perception, whether its object be material or mental, involves a perceiving subject. The “cogito ergo sum” of Descartes is not properly an argument. I do not deduce my existence from the fact of my putting forth an act of thought. The Cartesian maxim simply denotes that in the act the agent is of necessity brought to light, or disclosed to himself. He becomes cognizant of himself in the fluctuating states of thought, feeling and volition. This apprehension of self is intuitive. It is not an idea of self that emerges, not a bare phenomenon, as some philosophers have contended; but the ego is immediately presented, and there is an inexpugnable conviction of its reality. Idealism, or the doctrine that sense-perception is a modification of the mind that is due exclusively to its own nature, and is elicited by no object exterior to itself, is less repugnant to reason than is the denial of the reality of the ego. Whatever may be true of external things, of self we have an intuitive knowledge. If I judge that there is no real table before me on which I seem to be writing, and no corporeal organs for seeing or touching it, I nevertheless cannot escape the conviction that it is I who thus judge. To talk of thought without a thinker, of belief without a believer, is to utter words void of meaning. The unity and enduring identity of the ego are necessarily involved in self-consciousness. I know myself as a single, separate entity. Personal identity is presupposed in every act of memory. Go back as far as recollection can carry us, it is the same self who was the subject of all the mental experiences which memory can recall. When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but I who utter these words am the same being that I was a score or threescore years ago. I look forward to the future, and know that it is upon me, and not upon another, that the consequences of my actions will be visited. In the endless succession of thoughts, feelings, choices, in all the mutations of opinion and of character, the identity of the ego abides. From the dawn of consciousness to my last breath, I do not part with myself.
    [/blockquote]

    I’m thinking its true, from my experience debating Buddhists on the existence of the self. BTW, Trump winning the election has restored my faith in God. In a way I was headed back that direction anyway, because I took up gardening and began to be in awe of how God designed seeds to work, but also I was becoming more and more frustrated with Buddhism over time because of all the ninnies in it who are spewing nihilism.

  2. I like it, too. I don’t find much with which to take issue, if anything. Of course, further consideration is necessary before I form a definite conclusion, but based on first read I think it’s good. What’s the book?

  3. Just one of a few books I downloaded from google books recently searching for books about Theism or Deism and their relationship to the Old Testament. This one is called “The Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief” and is from 1885. I haven’t gotten much further in it than what I quoted but I plan to read the rest, at least up to the point that I get bored.

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