Is risk a prerequisite for joy in life?

The question I asked on the other thread was what brings you joy? I was hoping for some specifics. It might be interesting that when I was younger I was a very religious Christian. I understand the fear of sin felt by Christians.



From both a Christian perspective, and a secular perspective (since I have lived both) I completely disagree with this statement. When I was a Christian, I took a completely non-sinful trip to Egypt. Part of this was helping to support a fledgling church. Part of it was travel for fun (fun isn't in itself a sin). I ended up a young man doing something technically illegal traveling in places off the beaten path.

Even when I was a Christian I felt this risk was well worth taking.

When I was a Christian, I avoided sin because I was trying to live a righteous life.

I have never avoided risk, and I have certainly never avoided fun.

I am still curious... I get that you experience "divine forgiveness".

But what do you do for fun? What are the things that you enjoy doing?

I'm not online to discuss details of my personal life.

I discuss philosophy, politics, science, etc. online because I believe in public access to educational development/discourse.

As for the question of how to find joy, there is joy in connecting with other human beings, but it's not necessary to just socialize on a personal level. You can connect regarding higher issues and get the same joy.

Did you know that love is innate in all connections that occur between living things? Once you are aware of this, you don't need to search for love because you realize that it is everywhere (like it says in the Allman Brothers Band song).

Conscience is what you have to watch out for. When you are not in harmony with your conscience, a shadow falls over all the love and you become alienated from all the innate joy you would otherwise have access to. It's like the Jim Morrison song, People Are Strange says, "faces look ugly when you're alone." This phenomenon is actually described by the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where they become alienated from God by disobeying Him.

We connect with God via our conscience, so if/when you get in trouble with your conscience, you need forgiveness that you can truly believe in to get you back in harmony. That's why Christians are preaching and going on missions, etc.; i.e. to "spread the good news" of forgiveness in Christ.

I hope you're not offended by my mentioning religion as part of this discussion. You asked about what brings joy, so I feel a responsibility to explain this very traditional/ancient spiritual approach to joy, which is timeless in that it works as well today as it ever has for the last two millennia or so.

I always wonder if God set up the Fruit of the Tree of knowledge with the understanding that human beings needed to leave the Garden. Before eating the fruit Adam and Eve were not truly human. They were incapable of sin an incapable of love. If you are programmed to "love" with no choice, it isn't love.

Adam and Eve gave up the Garden of Eden, but what they got in return was all of human experience... the passion, the weakness, the capacity for evil and for heroism.

Humanity needed to leave the Garden in order to become human. My understanding of the biblical story is that God understood that. God created the serpent, I suspect that this was part of God's plan.

I would not choose to return to the Garden of Eden.

When I was religious, we were taught that the greatest love was the love for all humanity. That is bullshit (an I realized that at the time).

I love my children. I don't love other people's children in the same way. My children need this, they need to know that my love for them is unique and special and only for them.

Imagine having a father who didn't love you any more than he loved all of the children in the world. I think this would be horrible.

I love forests, but I don't feel the need to care for and tend every wild tree, plant, and animal I see because I know that they are all being cared for and loved in their own special life circumstances. Sometimes I might see something that warrants intervention, and it wouldn't cost me too much effort so I intervene, but I also know that if I waste too much effort intervening in some things, I end up shirking other responsibilities.

With your children and other family members, you try to allow/help them to be as self-sufficient as possible. You teach children to wash and brush on their own as soon as they are old enough, for example. The greatest love we can give is to help people love and care for themselves and thus be as independent as possible from others, who may fail to adequately love them, either intentionally or unintentionally.

What are some specific activities do you, livinglava, do for fun?

I already addressed that question earlier in the thread:
https://able2know.org/topic/527022-1#post-6878469

By this do you mean showing compassion and giving to those who have need? Or do you mean taking peoples children away as a deterrent so they will stay in desperate lives with no real hope of a decent future.

The conservative idea that not helping people, or worse yet that by hurting them we will somehow help them take responsibility for being born poor is the farthest thing from the gospel of Christ.

It is cruel. I can take the challenge for me to live a better life, and I can take responsibility... but then I was born a White, US citizen. My economic future was pretty much guaranteed before I was old enough to make my first mistake.

This philosophy of "teaching people in desperate situations to be self-reliant" is often cruel, unrealistic and lacking any compassion for what other people have gone through.

I sin joyfully, albeit in moderation. I have never had a problem with my particular vices (poker, whiskey and an activity that I have been asked not to mention). These things make me happy, and they have the benefit of being something to do with close friends.

I also have compassion. I have helped undocumented immigrants have a better life in the US. This originally was an issue because someone I knew and cared about was undocumented, but as I became involved with the wider community, I became more politically and socially active on this issue generally.

I am looking forward to my day in judgement... I am very curious how this will all balance out. I wonder if Jesus meant what he said when he said he "desires mercy rather than sacrifice".

Do you read? I said, " to help people love and care for themselves and thus be as independent as possible from others." I said this in response to you saying that you shouldn't love other people's children more than your own.

The point is that you don't have to DO anything, or at least not much, to act in the benefit of others. Mostly you just have to look at their situation and see what they're not doing for themselves, and ask them if they want help learning how.


Do you focus on what people lack or what they do have? Everyone has a body with various capabilities. When people are poor, the question is what can be done so that they can use their bodies to improve their own situation. In many cases, they are prohibited from using their bodies and/or other resources to do things for themselves.

Ironically, Democrats complain about Republicans blaming poverty on the poor yet they ignore when government regulations block poor people from helping themselves.

Just to give a common example: poor people can live in tents, if they have someplace to pitch their tent where they won't get harassed either by other poor people or police and land owners. If they could then get some leftover building materials, they could put together a small shanty house that's better than a tent. Poor people in many areas of the world do this because there are areas that the government allows it, unlike in US cities where regulations/codes/zoning/etc. usually prohibit even RVs and mobile homes from being used as permanent housing.

Why do regulators prohibit poor people from mustering their own cheap housing? Simple, because they want to force them into subsidized housing so that developers, contractors, and workers can get paid with the subsidy money. Allowing the poor to be self-sufficient would cut into all those people's cash flows.


So stop taking advantage of privilege. Cut your spending down to a minimum and accept the lowest-paying job you can live with.


You can't know that until you try it for yourself. How much self-reliance can you muster? Do you cook your own food? Do your own repairs? What about general maintenance? Do you mend your own clothes when they tear? Do you take care of your own health problems whenever possible?

If you don't do anything for yourself, how can you help anyone else learn to become more self-reliant?

The purpose of forgiveness through Christ is to save people from sin. If people think, "well I'm damned for sin regardless, so I may as well just keep sinning," then what hope is for them to be reborn as virtuous?

Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." So indeed sacrifice is replaced with mercy, but the purpose is to redeem us so that we will change our ways from sin to virtue out of gratitude for the mercy.

Jesus said... "judge others, and you will not be judged yourself".

This is being discussed in the Trump Christians thread.