ITT: I unequivocally BTFO all sad posters

Hello, Veeky Forums

Recently I've noticed an influx of threads filled with anons claiming to be sad, claiming to have no direction in life, claiming that they've had a raw deal, claiming this and that and the world has brought woe upon them. Here, in this thread, with my best prose, I will put a stop to this nonsense, if you choose to read it. Refute my points if you can, I encourage you to try. I will use God in my arguments, but not in a traditional Christian sense. God here will represent nature.

I shall restore you to good relations with God, who is best to the best of men. For it is not Nature's way to let good ever do harm to good; between good man and God exists a friendship sealed by virtue. Although, it is more than a friendship. No, rather it is a bond of relationship and similarity, since undoubtedly a good man differs from God only in the sphere of time; he is God's pupil and imitator, his true offspring to whom that illustrious parent, no gentle trainer in virtue, rears with severity, as strict fathers do.
And so, when you see good men of whom God approves toiling and sweating, with a steep road to climb, and bad men, on the other hand, enjoying themselves, surrounded by pleasures, consider that our sons please us by their self-control, while our fools please us by their free-spirit, that we restrain the former by tighter discipline, and nurture the latter's boldness of manner. It is no different with God, let me assure you: he does not pamper a good man like a favorite fool; he puts him to the test, hardens him, and makes him ready for service.

Cont.

>between good man and God exists a friendship sealed by virtue.

Nice prose OP, but citation needed. Your observations rely on estimating and placing value in virtuous men who are virtuous by their acts. But you do not strictly define virtue. Perhaps the bad man, the lazy man, the frivolous man is merely on his own path to God?

Now, some of you may ask:

"Why do many reversals of fortune happen to good men?"

To this I answer: Nothing bad CAN happen to a good man: opposites do not mix. Just as the vast number of rivers, all the rain that falls in showers from above, and the massive volume of mineral springs do not alter the taste of the sea, do not even moderate it, so adversity's onslaughts are powerless to affect the spirit of a brave man: it remains unshaken and makes all evens assume its own color; for it is stronger than all external forces. I do not mean that he is insensible to those forces but that he conquers them, and as a man who in all else is calm and tranquil of mind he rises to face whatever attacks him. All adversity he regards as a training exercise. Who, provided he is a man and intent on what is right, will shirk reasonable toil or show reluctance to face duties involving danger? What man of energy does not find inactivity to be a punishment?

Cont.

at least wait for him to continue.

>not using the advantages of technology to prepare your notes beforehand and presenting a thesis all together

sage, this thread is a waste. witness:

>Nothing bad CAN happen to a good man: opposites do not mix.

And yet, good men are struck down by fate every day. OP btfo.

>For it is not Nature's way to let good ever do harm to good

I disagree. Nature is ambivalent to good and evil. It simply is. You are ascribing human values to inanimate forces.

Let me finish.

You see, friends, excellence withers without an adversary: the time for us to see how great it is, how much its force, is when it displays its power through endurance. I assure you, good men should do the same: they should not be afraid to face hardships and difficulties, or complain of fate; whatever happens, good men should take it in good part, and turn it to a good end; it is not what you endure that matters, but HOW you endure it.

It is a father's heart that God shows to good men; he loves them in a manly way, and says, 'Let them know the pain of toil, of suffering, of loss, so that they may acquire true strength.' Bodies that have become fat and sluggish through lack of use, and not effort alone but even movement and their very own weight cause them to fail. Prosperity that is undiminished cannot withstand a single blow; bu the man who has struggled constantly against his own ills becomes hardened by suffering and no misfortune makes him yield, indeed, if he falls, he still fights on his knees.

Cont.

Manly way. Kek

I will address any and all questions, but let me finish.

Thank you.

Are you surprised that God who so loves good men and wants them to be as good, as virtuous as possible, assigns to them a fortune that will make them struggle? It causes me no surprise if God is sometimes moved by the desire to view great men struggling against some calamity.

As this discussion proceeds, I will show how true evils are not those which appear to be so. I now make this point, that the things you call hardships, that you call adversities and detestable, are actually of benefit, first to the very persons they happen to, and secondly to the whole human race, which matters more to God than individuals do; I also say that good men are willing that such things should happen to them, and that, if they are unwilling, misfortune is what they deserve.

Cont.

TLDR?

They are sad because a life of isolation because of being weirdos and stressed out by the crazy amount of modern stimulation has fucked up their brain chemistry (like it should do to any sensible human being with rational and emotional awareness, people who are "happy" and "Well adjusted" in this society are tools and idiots >inb4 edgy xd)
They will not understand your text and do not have will to power because they lack electricity in their head
Protip: get on pills and sort yourself out
/thread

tl;dr OP is excited to show off his haunted house even though it's nowhere near Halloween

Now, the most difficult of the propositions I put forward appears to be the one I made first, that the things which induce fear and loathing in us are of benefit to the very persons to whom they happen.

'Is it to our benefit,' you ask, 'to be thrown into exile, to be reduced to poverty, to follow the funeral procession of our children or wife, to suffer public disgrace or be in broken health?'

If you are surprised that these things are of benefit to a man, you will be surprised that surgery and cauterization, yes, and abstinence from food or drink, sometimes make sick men whole.
But if you reflect that, in order to effect a cure, some men must have their bones removed, sometimes limbs amputated which could not be left without the whole body being destroyed, you will allow yourself also to be convinced of this fact, some things which are praised and eagerly sought are bad for those who take delight in them, things like over-eating, drinking too much, and the other activities that kill through pleasure.

Nothing seems to me more unhappy than the man who has no experience of adversity. For he has not been allowed to put himself to the test.

Cont.

>he puts him to the test, hardens him, and makes him ready for service.

How is this in any way desirable? The average man isn't some paragon to mankind, imbued with extraordinary capabilities to uplift the world into a golden age. We're men just trying to make ends meet, and the men that DO want to do something good, often fail to find their purpose and get their dreams stolen and crushed in front of them.

We are simple people living in a world ruled by the unwise and the unjust. How is constant testing in any way desirable, when most of us just want to be fulfilled? Self-actualized?

Of course I understand your point to a great extent, but I must posit the following complaint:
Take a single man and ´put him to test. He grows stronger. Put him to a second test. He yet grows stronger. Repeat this until, by necessity, he reaches his limit. Then, let him grow frail, weaken, so that he may once again be tested, and grow stronger, since to grow is what is good.
However, if you both acknowledge that to grow is good and that God made man and wishes him good, then it must follow that man can grow without limit, which is evidently false.
On the other hand, suppose that to be strong is good. Then, "to grow weaker" would be the worst of evils, yet it happens. Besides, then to "grow" strong would be unecessary, merely being born strong would suffice.

Take a hypothetical user for example:

Although everything has flowed in his direction according to prayer, even before his prayer, yet God has passed an unfavorable judgement on him: he was considered unworthy of ever gaining victory over Fortune, who draws back from all men with cowardly hearts, as though she were saying: ' Why should I select that fellow as my opponent? He will lower his weapons at once; I have no need of all my power against him- and idle threat will send him packing- he cannot bear to look me in the eye. Let me search for another man I can come to blows with: I am ashamed to fight a man who is ready to yield the victory.
Personally, I feel it is shameful to be matched against a lesser opponent, and I know that a victory won without danger is no victory at all.
With Fortune it is the same: she looks for the bravest men to match her, and passes some men by with scorn. She attacks all who are most unyielding and obdurate, men she can test her strength against: by fire, by poverty, by exile, by torture, by poison and by death. Only bad Fortune reveals a great example.

Cont.

Again guys, I'll get to your questions, let me finish however, you may find them answered in a later post. I will address your questions.

It is not in my power to keep you from finishing. I have impeded you not at all. So please continue, if you like. If, however, you mean to say you want a soapbox where participation is under your will only, you've come to the wrong pakistani brick maker's forum.

>bu the man who has struggled constantly against his own ills becomes hardened by suffering and no misfortune makes him yield

citation needed. i've witnessed a lot of bad shit. friends have killed themselves. i've allowed and done things i'm ashamed of. suffering has not hardened me, and misfortune has made me yield.

>the things you call hardships, that you call adversities and detestable, are actually of benefit, first to the very persons they happen to, and secondly to the whole human race, which matters more to God than individuals do;

you are preaching without a license, padre. you don't know shit from shinola. i hear the voice of a 27 year old boy who has never suffered at all. consider that your grandiose prose and twee affectations to Emerson are perhaps guided by your experience only, and even harmful to others who have not been so fortunate as to believe the violence demanded by thermodynamics and biology understood through the lens of evolution and "progress" is something the individual creature is meant to esteem.

>frogposter
Yeah not reading any of that

tl;dr OP's arguments contradict his experience

>Nothing seems to me more unhappy than the man who has no experience of adversity
Isn't your central point that sad people are sad because they feel the weight of adversity? Most normalfags have a relatively easy path to happiness, and if that is the best sensation life generally has to offer, shouldn't that indicate that God favors them more?

Also, why should one be pleased that God favors them if the result of that is living an almost objectively worse life?

You fell for the Utilitarian meme, read more and come back later.
Stop being a faggot.
No, he's saying the world metaphysically operates on values.
Or he's being more existential about it, wouldn't know.
Dummy frogman.

Checked. OP presumes to speak for God (Nature, in this case). OP says suffering is good because the ultimate reward of individual suffering is a stronger, more robust species.

OP is silent on the subject of suicide and war. OP is also a young man with a hat rack full of fedoras.

Let me ask you, and then I will take questions.

Is the man who seizes the fire of his enemy with his right hand and feels the searing pain of a burn, but manages to rout his enemy at the same time, winning victory over adversity, would this man be happier if he were warming his hand in his woman's tits?

Is the impoverished farmer unfortunate because he tills his own fields? Because he wages war on wealth? Because he dines at his own table on those very roots and herbs he pulled up while cleaning off his land, he, a poor farmer honored by triumph? Tell me, would he be happier if he heaped his belly with fish from a distant shore and fowl from foreign parts, if he stirred his dyspeptic stomach from is torpor with shellfish from the finest seas, if he had wild game of the first rank, taken at the cost of many a hunter's life, served up to him with a huge pile of fruit all around?

Is the exile unfortunate because the men who condemned him must now plead their case at every point possible, trying to cover every liability? And when this same man was recalled from banishment, is he unfortunate if he chooses to withdraw further and flee a greater distance? "Let those whom your 'happy age' has caught enjoy the sight of it, he says, for it is a perverse happiness, with gangs and drugs and crime that merely covers a greater sickness, and let those who can not undergo exile enjoy such sights."

Cont.

What harm did Fortune exact upon the tortured, the sufferer (for this example we will take a crucifixion, I can think of no greater suffering) in making him an example of honesty, an example of endurance? His skin is pierced by nails, and wherever he rests his exhausted frame he lies upon a wound; his eyes stare out in unending sleeplessness: yet the greater his torture is, the greater will be his fame. Do you wish to know how little he regrets that he set virtue at such a price?

Do you, then, consider a man with a beautiful wife, more fortunate, when he is daily distressed by affairs of the heart and lamenting the daily rebuffs of a cantankerous wife, would seek sleep by means of harmonious music playing softly at a distance? Though he steeps his senses in liquor, and diverts his anxious mind with the sound of water falling, beguiling it with a thousand pleasures, he will no more find sleep on his pillow than our sufferer on his cross; but while the one has the consolation of enduring hardship for what is right and dwells not on his suffering but on its cause, the other, enervated by pleasures and encumbered with excessive good fortune, is tormented more by the cause of his suffering than by what he suffers.

Cont.

Matthew 7:15-20

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

>tormented more by the cause of his suffering than by what he suffers.

sophists pls

Is it your opinion that Socrates was badly treated because he drank down the well-known drink that the Athenians mixed for him just as if it was the elixir of immortality, and discoursed on death right up to the point where it claimed him? Was he ill-used because his blood grew cold and gradually stopped pulsing in his veins, as the chill stole over him? How much more should we envy him than those who are served with goblets of gold, whose wine is diluted with snow held above in a golden bowl? These men will measure out whatever they have drunk in vomit, tasting anew with twisted lips their own bile, but Socrates will drink down poison cheerfully and with a happy heart.

Now, let me address so many of you now who say that good fortune comes to common men and even to those of inferior talent; but I say only a great man is able to triumph over the disasters and terrors afflicting mortal life.

To those who have never faced adversity but claim to be great men: You are a great man: but on what do I base this if Fortune denies you the opportunity to demonstrate your worth?
You have entered the Olympic Games, but you are the only competitor: you win the crown, but the victory is not yours; I congratulate you, but not as a brave man, rather as one who has won office: it is your personal standing that has been enhanced.

I can make the same point to a good man, if no more difficult circumstance has given him the chance to show his mental strength: 'You are unfortunate in my judgement, for you have never been unfortunate. You have passed through life with no antagonist to face you; no one will know what you were capable of, not even you yourself.' For a man needs to be put to the test if he is to gain self-knowledge; only by trying does he learn what his capacities are.

God, I say, is favoring those he wants to attain to the highest possible excellence whenever he gives them the means to preform a brave and courageous action, and for this purpose they must encounter some difficulty in life: you would come to know a ship's pilot in a storm and a soldier in the line of battle.

Ok, I will take some questions now before I continue. Anyone?

...

see

Hey, I'm OP, thank you for being intelligent

>No, he's saying the world metaphysically operates on values.

This is exactly what I mean.

>Ok, I will take some questions now before I continue. Anyone?

Why is your prose so purple? And did you really spend all that time stroking your dick to say Time + Experience = Character?

Experience, here, includes suffering. You could have done without all the ornamentation, now you have to defend some dumb throw-away statements you tacked on because they sounded nice.

I said in the OP I'd do it in my best prose because I'm sick of all of these fags making /r9k/ and /adv/ threads and shitting up the board.

There is more to my message than Time + Experience = Character.

You cannot deny that the prose is good, anyway.

What is my recourse if I'm both lazy and miserable? Like so many here I have neither the character to rise to a challenge nor the spirit to be happy; my lot seems to be one of masturbating to the drawings of the Orient and seeking escape in the scriptures of a Viennese wine-snow-and-vomit consuming forum.

Ok, not getting a whole lot of questions. I will continue if no one has any more, and I won't shy away from clarifying any points.

There is one caveat: You must understand what virtue is. That should be hard if you're actually a Veeky Forumsitzen, and not some shit-faced crossboarder.

Answer me.

I'll reply to a troll post once. This one, single time. Your recourse is to examine your life. Identify the things that need to be fixed, then set about fixing them. If you are faced with adversity in the process, then please refer to my entire fucking thread.

You don't actually have a logical, clear basis for defining good as overcoming strife other than "it isn't REAL happiness if you didn't EARN it".

>The average man isn't some paragon to mankind, imbued with extraordinary capabilities.

This applies to all men, not men you identify as "paragons" to mankind.

The rest of your question will be answered in coming posts.

Are there any others?

This was never the object of the thread. The object is the reason for the overcoming of adversity by all these sad cunts making pathetic /r9k/ threads. I'm going to continue now.

Not a troll, simply your average mechanical user whose life is devoid of adversity and whose problems are entirely his own neurotic creations.

I actually did deny your prose is good. I said it is purple and compared your affectation to Emerson.

>To those who have never faced adversity but claim to be great men: You are a great man: but on what do I base this if Fortune denies you the opportunity to demonstrate your worth?

Strawman, and not even logical. Everyone has faced adversity of some kind. Great men, especially. My question is this: what experience do you have that I should take you seriously? You inspire only my scorn. Your meandering soliloquy, conflating God (Nature) with God (Christianity) and insistence on "letting you finish" only demonstrates to me the depths of your ignorance and hubris.

You didn't address any of my other points.

My other question is what if God deprives men of opportunities to prove himself?

>OP is revealed to be a pseud.

I'm shocked, pic related.


I believe in you user. Do some pushups! I'll do some for you just now. Ready go.

How can I know with what strength of mind you would face poverty, if you abound in wealth? How can I know what fortitude you would show in the face of disgrace, dishonor, and the hatred of the people, if you grow old to the sound of cheers, if you attract an irresistible popularity that falls to you from a certain disposition of men's minds?

Do not, I implore you, live in dread of what God applies like spurs to your soul: disaster is the opportunity for true worth. It would be just to describe as wretched those who are dulled by excessive good fortune, who remain at rest, as it were, in dead calm upon untroubled sea: whatever happens to them will come as a change.
The cruelty of Fortune bears harder on the inexperienced; it is the tender neck that finds the yoke oppressive; the raw recruit grows pale at the thought of a wound, but fearlessly the veteran looks at his own gore, knowing that blood has often been the price to pay for victory. And so it is that God hardens, reviews, and disciplines those who have won his approval and love; but those whom he seems to favor, whom he seems to spare, he is keeping soft against the misfortunes that are yet to come. You are wrong if you think anyone has been exempted from ill; the man who has known happiness for many a year will receive his share some day; whoever seems to have been set free from this has only been granted a delay.
Why does God afflict the best men with bad health, or grief, or other misfortunes? Because in the army the bravest men are ordered to carry out dangerous missions: it is the picked soldiers whom a general sends to take the enemy by surprise in an attack by night, or to reconnoiter a route, or to force a garrison to yield their position. Not one of them as he goes off says, 'the general has done me a bad turn', but rather, 'this is a sign of his favor'. The same should be said by men who are ordered to undergo trials that would make faint-hearted cowards weep: 'God has judged us worthy instruments of his purpose to ascertain how much human nature can bear'.

Cont.

Shun luxury, shun good fortune that makes men weak and causes their minds to grow sodden, and, unless something happens to remind them of their human lot, they waste away, lulled to sleep, as it were, in a drunkenness that has no end.

Although all things in excess bring harm, the greatest danger comes from excessive good fortune: it stirs in the brain, invites the mind to entertain idle fancies, and shrouds it in a thick fog for the distinction between falsehood and truth. Would it not be better to endure unending misfortune, having enlisted the help of virtue, than to burst with limitless and extravagant blessings?

So God follows the same rule in the case of good men as teachers do in dealing with their pupils, requiring greater effort from those who inspire surer hope.

Cont.

I was diagnosed with BPD

Never is the proof of virtue mild. Fortune lays into us with the whip and tears our flesh: let us endure it. It is not cruelty but a contest, and the more often we engage in it, the stronger our hearts will be: the sturdiest part of the body is the one kept in constant use.

Now, Veeky Forumsizens, any respectable persons who can appreciate my prose and message, I am taking a brief respite. Please ask any questions for now while I am temporarily away. I will answer them when I return. I will have to use a tripcode for this, which I don't like to do, but I cannot have other people identify as me if I am to answer questions.

Don't come back.

>ITT: I unequivocally BTFO all sad posters
>let me finish, i'll answer questions at the end
>let me finish, i'll answer questions at the end
>let me finish, i'll answer questions at the end
>receives questions, doesn't answer them
>"okay i gotta go now bye"

Please, commit yourself. You need professional help. Your self-indulgent empty philosophizing tantalizes people who are actually suffering. Go away and stay gone.

Was expecting something good but it's just another pseud who haven't even lurked the fuck more

>silent on suicide or war

see
this actually wasn't me so looks pretty stupid

And I hear someone who has not even read the message in its entirety, who is unable to comprehend its merits, wallowing in self-pity

Interesting passage, but I don't see what you were getting at.

If you think such men do not exist, you haven't lived among them.

I don't consider that an insult.

Also this phrase is not a strawman, its a discourse. Its meant to provoke thought.

>Everyone has faced adversity of some kind

This is the point I am making. If you have faced no adversity, how do I base my assessment on if you are a great man? You seem to not be understanding the purpose of this text.

>My question is this: what experience do you have that I should take you seriously?

Ad hom? Although it is not true, I will say to you none. No experience. If you attempt to tie my own character up in this discourse, expecting anecdotal stories, you have misinterpreted the purpose of my thread.

>The cruelty of Fortune bears harder on the inexperienced; it is the tender neck that finds the yoke oppressive; the raw recruit grows pale at the thought of a wound, but fearlessly the veteran looks at his own gore, knowing that blood has often been the price to pay for victory. And so it is that God hardens, reviews, and disciplines those who have won his approval and love; but those whom he seems to favor, whom he seems to spare, he is keeping soft against the misfortunes that are yet to come. You are wrong if you think anyone has been exempted from ill; the man who has known happiness for many a year will receive his share some day; whoever seems to have been set free from this has only been granted a delay.

>Ad hom? Although it is not true, I will say to you none. No experience.

You answer your questions with lies, eh? I fucking called it. This thread is a waste.

>If you attempt to tie my own character up in this discourse, expecting anecdotal stories, you have misinterpreted the purpose of my thread.

I'm calling on you to demonstrate your authority. You have presumed to lecture Veeky Forums from the mercy seat. You have spoken for God and Fate in this thread, and refused to answer questions. Meanwhile, your prose is purple as my rock hard dick. You ignored the problem of evil (as relates to war) and washed it over with some pablum about soldiers bravely doing their duty. I have been a soldier. You don't know s.h.i.t.

I want you to prove your worth. You take on the mantle of psychopomp and spiritual doctor but you are clearly unqualified to meet your goal of treating "sadposters" (or BTFOing them, as you put it). I want you to show me why they should listen to you, but most of all I want you to stop fainting all over your own precious dialogue. Please, die.

>please die

We're done here.

I will take other questions.

I haven't heard the word "psychopomp" in a while

nice

This is excellent bait

Cont.

Stop it with the reddit spaces for fuck sake this place is fucking shit.

...

For anyone who wanted to read it all. This is for the sad cunts. Read it and understand. If you have any questions ask me.

The incredible hubris to use Socrates as your trip. The geyser of ignorance that are your posts ITT. The refusal to engage in actual dialogue. If bait, the amount of effort you've put into portraying a brainlet.

Seriously, seek medical assistance OP. People here will be glad you did.

Minus the 5th one. That's an accident. Not me.

Attack the argument, not the speaker... For one to harp on about fallacies this is pretty ironic

Interesting read. Prose seemed a bit superfluous but it was nice anyway. You know, this wont stop those /r9k/s though.

>Attack the argument, not the speaker
I'm well aware. OP's argument, however, makes him a special case: his self-referential masturbatory prose depends on the authority of his experience. If he is to be the wise sage figure imparting wisdom to "sad cunts," he should not sound like a 27 year old virgin who has never paid a bill in his life.

Whatever you may think of OP's prose, I read his words for their content, I mean, he asked us to look at his message. I think its good at its core, even if his prose makes him sound like he has some sort of authority on the matter.

Even if he has a pompous prose I'm not going to ignore what he's saying if it makes sense.

I gave my critique here . He ignored my points and said I was wallowing in self-pity. Here is the kernel of OP's argument:

>the things you call hardships, that you call adversities and detestable, are actually of benefit, first to the very persons they happen to, and secondly to the whole human race, which matters more to God than individuals do; I also say that good men are willing that such things should happen to them, and that, if they are unwilling, misfortune is what they deserve.

So, sadposters of Veeky Forums. OP speaks for God (Nature AND Christ ) and He says the species matters more than you do. And, in OP's wisdom, the good man should adorn himself with suffering and those unwilling to bear it deserve to be unhappy (and, by natural extension and "refusal of the call," pruned from existence). We have two choices: self-actualized ubermensch or genetic dead end.

Forgive me, user, if I think OP is a harmful pseudointellectual who is stroking his own ego at the expense of his potentially seriously ill audience. As I said, I've had friends kill themselves. I've watched a gunshot create a fountain of brain and blood. OP is a brainlet and his masturbatory sermon deserves condemnation.

ITT: teenagers aping what they believe sounds like intelligent discourse

this post brought to you by Veeky Forums

What point or argument would you need to see demonstrated to consider your argument refuted?

I would posit that you have created an argument akin to “the whole world started last Thursday”

The natural response is why there are things are much older than 2 days
The reply “but was ingeniously designed in such a way to make it look much older right down to the memories in your mind.”

An unfalsifyable answer which prove the first point whilst its only proof is the first point being correct

In your argument it starts as all suffering being to an individuals benefit – of course this argument like the first point falls down very quickly once you move past idealised examples.

Accordingly the only way to reconcile this is take a collective argument – “well yes it might not benefit all individuals but it benefits the collective which God loves more (which unlike the above contradicts the original point mind you)”

Like the above it cannot be falsified and only proves the inital point whilst its only proof is an assumption that the initial point is correct

Shoulnd you want to take up the suffering by responding to his post?

your a faggot

...

Question why should we accept the existence of God and your description of God

>I will use God in my arguments,
stopped reading right there

*farts*

There, want do you think of that?

hget a job

Kek wills OP is a faggot. Not one dubs among any of OP's posts, either. Sad!

(Before you Philistines attempt to destroy me: specify the difference between belief in dubs and belief in God.)

Can you please go back to /pol/ so they can tell you to go back to t_d?

the idea of dubs is actually kind of an ironic patronization of God.
interesting question but that's literally the difference.

ironic, sure, but it relies on the same mechanism of faith. it means something if you assign meaning.

nah. it's just funny arbitrary patterns in chaos. in this case on the most basic level, two identical images that just happen to be caught side by side.

One intelligent discourse and it's gonna slide from shot threads? Bump

Woah thanks OP, now I feel motivated down to my core to continue working my 9 to 5 job and have enugh courage to continue my mediocre, uneventful life

>for this example we will take a crucifixion, I can think of no greater suffering

are you serious?

ITT: an imitation

How an OP post a greek without defining the greek virtue.

ARETE - EFFICIENCY simply being EXCELLENT at something, ie, a virtuous man is an excellent one at being a man. Well how is being a man to be determined? IDEALS, as determined collectively. Bear your cross faggots

It's funny that you are among the few people here who can actually comprehend what virtue is, something that OP clearly stated you must have an understanding of in order to learn from him.

/thread

Wow the salt is real, but what else should you expect from redditors and /r9k/ers? Good on you OP, good read. Like another user pointed out though, you should have defined virtue, because apparently Veeky Forums is filled will brain dead retards now. There's a thread about fucking basketball, lmao. I think there's an influx of literal retards who can't understand what you are saying.

Sadposters btfo

this is not good

>it's just
The magic words.
>arbitrary
Grand master wizard!

I count one salty sad poster and a handful of salty trolls, along with 2 or 3 good responses. Is this the best Veeky Forums has to offer now? Damn.

Absolute sophistry
You have failed to define what virtue even is, which your entire argument rests on
You also seem to have used different definitions of "God", as opposed to what you claimed at the start

>Well how is being a man to be determined? IDEALS, as determined collectively.

So it just boils down to common sense dude lmao?

i do find the prose mastubatory to the point of being a pastiche of what OP has read

Good post, this is what the faggot OP should have done, this is what anyone who attempting to make an argument should do, fucking DEFINE his TERMS

OP, can you actually address the frogposter? You just ignored him

>OP, can you actually address the frogposter? You just ignored him

Frogposter here. Not gonna happen. OP said his pretty words and got the attention he wanted. This: is the extent of interaction OP wants.

OP made a thread for the benefit of the depressed and the sad, then jerked off into their mouths and was indignant when they didn't thank him for it. OP is a charlatan, unmanly by his own terms, and (imo) actually qualifies as evil. He treats sick humans as devices for his pleasure. It's all vanity and gratification.

Was that Cicero?

I told you that I would invite you to attempt to refute my points. I will explain where you have misunderstood.

God is central to this discourse. God is considered here as Nature, striving for us to be as robust as possible, and Fortune, the great tester of strength. I said nothing about Christ.

>Now, the most difficult of the propositions I put forward appears to be the one I made first, that the things which induce fear and loathing in us are of benefit to the very persons to whom they happen.

I did say this.

>Accordingly the only way to reconcile this is take a collective argument – “well yes it might not benefit all individuals but it benefits the collective which God loves more (which unlike the above contradicts the original point mind you)”

Please cite the contradiction.

I said one would have to understand virtue before I began.

For you who do not understand the collective, let me put it another way for you.
You will say to me 'But it is unjust that a good man should be maimed or pierced with weapons or put in fetters, while bad men proceed on their way freely, pampered and quite unscathed.' But consider: is it not unjust that brave men should take up arms and spend all night standing guard, while in the city perverts and those who live on vice have not a care to trouble them? Toil summons the bravest men. It is the same in this great commonwealth of mankind: good men work, spend their energies and have them spent, and all without complaint; they are not dragged along by Fortune but follow her and match her pace; if they had known how, they would have left her in their wake.

A brave man once said: 'I can only make one complaint of God, and it is that you did not make your will known to me before now; for all the sooner would I have reached the state I am now in, after your summons. Do you wish to take my children? It was for you I fathered them. Do you wish to take some part of my body? Take it: it is of not great thing I offer you, and soon I will leave the whole behind. Do you wish to take my life? Why should I object at all to your taking back what you gave me? All that you ask for shall willingly be given. What troubles me, then? I should have preferred to offer than to deliver. What need was there to take by force? You could have had it as a gift; but not even now will you take it so, for nothing is forced from a man's grip unless he seeks to keep it there.

I am in no way under compulsion, I suffer nothing against my will, and I follow God, not as his slave, but as his pupil.