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“I didn’t want there to be an easy way out,” she recently told me. “I wanted him to fight.” Attitude that keeps everything stagnant and backwards.

by Pyret 12y ago

MichaelGG 12y ago
It's repulsive how people think "no pain no gain". I think that might be some of the resistance against sucralose. It's a free ride. Same for the attitude about addiction. It's viewed as intrinsically bad, instead of just evaluating it in context of benefits.
- WiseWeasel 12y ago
  It's a very Catholic mentality, the notion that sin is atoned for with suffering. It would seem entirely foreign to a Buddhist, for example, who would see fortune as a result of accrued karma.
  - titanomachy 12y ago
    A Buddhist may also see fortune as irrelevant.
    - byEngineer 12y ago
      And then there is huge difference between Western so called Budhhist living in Southern California and buddhist peasant from a Chinese village.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    Catholics don't believe sin is atoned for with suffering. Sacrifice and repentance? Yes. Suffering? No.
    - MichaelGG 12y ago
      What about purgatory?
      - tptacek 12y ago
        Over 12 years of Catholic education I was taught that the whole concept of purgatory had been repudiated. But looking it up now, it seems to have been resuscitated, albeit as a sort of "waiting period" for souls that hadn't fully reconciled with God. In any case, at least in the modern Church, the concept of purgatory isn't an endorsement of the benefits of suffering.
        DonHopkins 12y ago
        Have you ever considered the possibility that for over 12 years of Catholic education, you were being lied to, and that many of the things you devoutly believe without question are simply not true? Case in point: your false beliefs that fly in the face of all the evidence (much of it from their own doctrine, statements and actions) that the Catholic Church believes and preaches that sin is atoned for with suffering. Haven't you ever heard of that guy named "Jesus"? Isn't there a commandment that says you're not supposed to lie? Penn and Teller and Christopher Hitchens certainly make a strong case that the Catholic Church and Mother Teresa and Bill Donohue are obsessed with suffering and totally full of Bullshit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6voAW_Go5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6voAW_Go5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UR-0Kdff4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UR-0Kdff4M
        72deluxe 12y ago
        I am not Catholic, but to assert that he devoutly believes things without question is a big assertion. For myself, to believe something I question it first. We should extend the same courtesy to others - they surely question things first.
        DonHopkins 12y ago
        He just stated that he believes something that is simply and provably not true, and contradicts Official Catholic Doctrine. People who don't devoutly believe Catholic Church doctrine, make up their own feel-good "factoids" that contradict the Church's teaching, yet still claim to be Catholic are lying. And there's a commandment against that. (But what do they care, if they don't actually believe what they claim to believe?) You don't get to make up your own doctrine and still call yourself Catholic. Not believing doctrine and making up your own religious beliefs, and spreading misinformation about the actual doctrine of the Catholic Church, is NOT an option for real Catholics. The Pope said so himself, and he's the one whose JOB it is to make "big assertions". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veritatis_Splendor#Moral_authority_of_the_Catholic_Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veritatis_Splendor#Moral_autho... >Moral authority of the Catholic Church >Ultimately, John Paul teaches, "to ask about the good, in fact, ultimately means to turn towards God, the fullness of goodness." Against the idea that the Church's teaching body has a mainly exhortatory role, the pope reiterates the Catholic doctrine that the magisterium of the Catholic Church has authority to definitively pronounce on moral questions. Even more, John Paul teaches that the Church is Christ's particular response to help answer everyone's question of what is right and wrong. The term "Cafeteria Catholic" describes people who think they can pick and choose what they want to believe and make up their own mythology. It's a pejorative that "real" Catholics use to describe people like tptacek. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafeteria_Catholicism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafeteria_Catholicism >In a similar vein, Pope John Paul II stated in his talk to the Bishops in Los Angeles in 1987: >It is sometimes reported that a large number of Catholics today do not adhere to the teaching of the Catholic Church on a number of questions, notably sexual and conjugal morality, divorce and remarriage. Some are reported as not accepting the clear position on abortion. It has to be noted that there is a tendency on the part of some Catholics to be selective in their adherence to the Church's moral teaching. It is sometimes claimed that dissent from the Magisterium is totally compatible with being a "good Catholic," and poses no obstacle to the reception of the Sacraments. This is a grave error that challenges the teaching of the Bishops in the United States and elsewhere." My point is that if he thinks he can make up his own doctrine and spread misinformation like "Catholics don't believe sin is atoned for with suffering", when they most certainly and provably do (and that's the whole point with their bizarre fetish about Christ being crucified on the cross and dying for our sins, and Mother Teresa's own words prove she is obsessed with people suffering for their sins, instead of preventing that suffering), he is committing a "grave error". Thats not just my opinion, it's the official doctrine, and I'm quoting Pope John Paul II. "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people." -Mother Teresa, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#1990s https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#1990s It's not surprising he's wrong and doesn't even realize it, because: Survey: Atheists, Agnostics Know More About Religion Than Religious http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/09/28/130191248/atheists-and-agnostics-know-more-about-bible-than-religious http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/09/28/130191248/ath... That's why many Cafeteria Catholics are happy to explain to you that Transubstantiation is only a metaphor and Catholics don't actually believe such crazy baloney that they're literally eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ. But Transubstantiation is most certainly NOT a metaphor, and anyone Catholic who says so is committing a "grave error". So of course he's confused about Catholic doctrine after 12 years of Catholic school, after having been indoctrinated with inconsistent self contradictory lies about both the real world and the fictional Catholic mythology, as well as their historic waffling on purgatory and other doctrine. It's ALL about suffering and punishment: don't let tptacek fool you, even if he's fooled himself. "MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go? The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been—she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself — and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Excuse me, but this is modesty and humility?" Christopher Hitchens, "Mommie Dearest: The pope beatifies Mother Teresa, a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud.", Slate, 2003-10-20 https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Quotes_about_Mother_Teresa https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Quotes_about_Mot...
    - DonHopkins 12y ago
      Mother Teresa certainly did. Penn and Teller - "Bullshit - Holier than Thou" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6voAW_Go5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6voAW_Go5Y https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa She was sometimes accused by Hindus in her adopted country of trying to convert the poor to Catholicism by "stealth".[6] Christopher Hitchens described Mother Teresa's organization as a cult which promoted suffering and did not help those in need. He said that Mother Teresa's own words on poverty proved that her intention was not to help people, quoting her words at a 1981 press conference in which she was asked: "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?" She replied: "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."[2]:11[7]
  - thret 12y ago
    Unless I'm completely misunderstanding Buddhism, they would also see suffering as a result of accrued sin. Karma works both ways.
    - sls 12y ago
      Yes, many people raised in Buddhist households would say that, but it's not an accurate representation of what the Buddha taught, based on the Pali texts which are the earliest written record. You can decide whether that means it's "Buddhism" or not.
      - thret 12y ago
        Are you able to give a more accurate representation, or point me to a source that would do so? I am genuinely curious, this is the first I've heard someone say differently (I know several Buddhists/Hindus although none could be considered devout).
        shellshocked 12y ago
        Take a look ,or listen, into Ken McLeod's Pragmatic Buddism. His podcast The Unfettered Mind is quite a resource. He describes a culture that began with a base of perception and the experience of the now and due to the foolhardy nature of humans always trying to describe what is a unique and individual experience, if even describable at all, led to a disconnect and subsequent acadamization and institutionlization that seems to me to be what all religions suffer from. The "Story of Tea" is a tale told in some of his sessions that is quite relevant. The phenomenon seems also to be related to what legislative bodies suffer from as well though not entirely so.
        stolio 12y ago
        So Western karma and Buddhist karma can be a bit different, as the West has adopted the term it's become the Western version of the idea. And Buddhist karma is a bit different from Hindu karma. I haven't found a fully consistent use of the word across Buddhism even. But one common theme is that you shouldn't be ascribing the suffering of others to their karma. Overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism Theravadan view: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/kamma.html http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/kamma.html Soto Zen view: " We say, result is—will result immediately, not later punishment. To do something is already punishment. That you do something is already punishment. Not later." (edit: I may be taking this out of context....) http://suzukiroshi.sfzc.org/dharma-talks/october-1968-9th-talk/ http://suzukiroshi.sfzc.org/dharma-talks/october-1968-9th-ta... Secular view: http://www.stephenbatchelor.org/index.php/en/karma-and-its-fruits http://www.stephenbatchelor.org/index.php/en/karma-and-its-f...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
b_emery 12y ago
I read that quote as his wife saying that she didn't want him to give up and die. She wanted him to fight the cancer rather than obtain a "profound acceptance" of it.
- delluminatus 12y ago
  I think that's a false dilemma. In my mind, part of "fighting" cancer is trying to mitigate its impact on your everyday life, and acceptance probably plays a key role in that process. It's not like being angry and afraid makes you any better at fighting a disease. If anything "fighting" and "accepting" could be said to go hand-in-hand, especially with respect to illness.
  - saiya-jin 12y ago
    in fact, constant stress would make body even weaker. psychosomatism is a real thingie. not that happy people cannot die from cancer
rayiner 12y ago
The psychedelics weren't offering him a pain-free cancer treatment. Their purpose was to get him prepared to die.

“I didn’t want there to be an easy way out,” she recently told me. “I wanted him to fight.” Attitude that keeps everything stagnant and backwards.

by Pyret 12y ago

“I didn’t want there to be an easy way out,” she recently told me. “I wanted him to fight.” Attitude that keeps everything stagnant and backwards.

MichaelGG 12y ago

It's repulsive how people think "no pain no gain". I think that might be some of the resistance against sucralose. It's a free ride. Same for the attitude about addiction. It's viewed as intrinsically bad, instead of just evaluating it in context of benefits.

WiseWeasel 12y ago
It's a very Catholic mentality, the notion that sin is atoned for with suffering. It would seem entirely foreign to a Buddhist, for example, who would see fortune as a result of accrued karma.
- titanomachy 12y ago
  A Buddhist may also see fortune as irrelevant.
  - byEngineer 12y ago
    And then there is huge difference between Western so called Budhhist living in Southern California and buddhist peasant from a Chinese village.
- tptacek 12y ago
  Catholics don't believe sin is atoned for with suffering. Sacrifice and repentance? Yes. Suffering? No.
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    What about purgatory?
    - tptacek 12y ago
      Over 12 years of Catholic education I was taught that the whole concept of purgatory had been repudiated. But looking it up now, it seems to have been resuscitated, albeit as a sort of "waiting period" for souls that hadn't fully reconciled with God. In any case, at least in the modern Church, the concept of purgatory isn't an endorsement of the benefits of suffering.
      - DonHopkins 12y ago
        Have you ever considered the possibility that for over 12 years of Catholic education, you were being lied to, and that many of the things you devoutly believe without question are simply not true? Case in point: your false beliefs that fly in the face of all the evidence (much of it from their own doctrine, statements and actions) that the Catholic Church believes and preaches that sin is atoned for with suffering. Haven't you ever heard of that guy named "Jesus"? Isn't there a commandment that says you're not supposed to lie? Penn and Teller and Christopher Hitchens certainly make a strong case that the Catholic Church and Mother Teresa and Bill Donohue are obsessed with suffering and totally full of Bullshit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6voAW_Go5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6voAW_Go5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UR-0Kdff4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UR-0Kdff4M
        72deluxe 12y ago
        I am not Catholic, but to assert that he devoutly believes things without question is a big assertion. For myself, to believe something I question it first. We should extend the same courtesy to others - they surely question things first.
        DonHopkins 12y ago
        He just stated that he believes something that is simply and provably not true, and contradicts Official Catholic Doctrine. People who don't devoutly believe Catholic Church doctrine, make up their own feel-good "factoids" that contradict the Church's teaching, yet still claim to be Catholic are lying. And there's a commandment against that. (But what do they care, if they don't actually believe what they claim to believe?) You don't get to make up your own doctrine and still call yourself Catholic. Not believing doctrine and making up your own religious beliefs, and spreading misinformation about the actual doctrine of the Catholic Church, is NOT an option for real Catholics. The Pope said so himself, and he's the one whose JOB it is to make "big assertions". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veritatis_Splendor#Moral_authority_of_the_Catholic_Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veritatis_Splendor#Moral_autho... >Moral authority of the Catholic Church >Ultimately, John Paul teaches, "to ask about the good, in fact, ultimately means to turn towards God, the fullness of goodness." Against the idea that the Church's teaching body has a mainly exhortatory role, the pope reiterates the Catholic doctrine that the magisterium of the Catholic Church has authority to definitively pronounce on moral questions. Even more, John Paul teaches that the Church is Christ's particular response to help answer everyone's question of what is right and wrong. The term "Cafeteria Catholic" describes people who think they can pick and choose what they want to believe and make up their own mythology. It's a pejorative that "real" Catholics use to describe people like tptacek. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafeteria_Catholicism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafeteria_Catholicism >In a similar vein, Pope John Paul II stated in his talk to the Bishops in Los Angeles in 1987: >It is sometimes reported that a large number of Catholics today do not adhere to the teaching of the Catholic Church on a number of questions, notably sexual and conjugal morality, divorce and remarriage. Some are reported as not accepting the clear position on abortion. It has to be noted that there is a tendency on the part of some Catholics to be selective in their adherence to the Church's moral teaching. It is sometimes claimed that dissent from the Magisterium is totally compatible with being a "good Catholic," and poses no obstacle to the reception of the Sacraments. This is a grave error that challenges the teaching of the Bishops in the United States and elsewhere." My point is that if he thinks he can make up his own doctrine and spread misinformation like "Catholics don't believe sin is atoned for with suffering", when they most certainly and provably do (and that's the whole point with their bizarre fetish about Christ being crucified on the cross and dying for our sins, and Mother Teresa's own words prove she is obsessed with people suffering for their sins, instead of preventing that suffering), he is committing a "grave error". Thats not just my opinion, it's the official doctrine, and I'm quoting Pope John Paul II. "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people." -Mother Teresa, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#1990s https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#1990s It's not surprising he's wrong and doesn't even realize it, because: Survey: Atheists, Agnostics Know More About Religion Than Religious http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/09/28/130191248/atheists-and-agnostics-know-more-about-bible-than-religious http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/09/28/130191248/ath... That's why many Cafeteria Catholics are happy to explain to you that Transubstantiation is only a metaphor and Catholics don't actually believe such crazy baloney that they're literally eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ. But Transubstantiation is most certainly NOT a metaphor, and anyone Catholic who says so is committing a "grave error". So of course he's confused about Catholic doctrine after 12 years of Catholic school, after having been indoctrinated with inconsistent self contradictory lies about both the real world and the fictional Catholic mythology, as well as their historic waffling on purgatory and other doctrine. It's ALL about suffering and punishment: don't let tptacek fool you, even if he's fooled himself. "MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go? The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been—she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself — and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Excuse me, but this is modesty and humility?" Christopher Hitchens, "Mommie Dearest: The pope beatifies Mother Teresa, a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud.", Slate, 2003-10-20 https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Quotes_about_Mother_Teresa https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Quotes_about_Mot...
  - DonHopkins 12y ago
    Mother Teresa certainly did. Penn and Teller - "Bullshit - Holier than Thou" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6voAW_Go5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6voAW_Go5Y https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa She was sometimes accused by Hindus in her adopted country of trying to convert the poor to Catholicism by "stealth".[6] Christopher Hitchens described Mother Teresa's organization as a cult which promoted suffering and did not help those in need. He said that Mother Teresa's own words on poverty proved that her intention was not to help people, quoting her words at a 1981 press conference in which she was asked: "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?" She replied: "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."[2]:11[7]
- thret 12y ago
  Unless I'm completely misunderstanding Buddhism, they would also see suffering as a result of accrued sin. Karma works both ways.
  - sls 12y ago
    Yes, many people raised in Buddhist households would say that, but it's not an accurate representation of what the Buddha taught, based on the Pali texts which are the earliest written record. You can decide whether that means it's "Buddhism" or not.
    - thret 12y ago
      Are you able to give a more accurate representation, or point me to a source that would do so? I am genuinely curious, this is the first I've heard someone say differently (I know several Buddhists/Hindus although none could be considered devout).
      - shellshocked 12y ago
        Take a look ,or listen, into Ken McLeod's Pragmatic Buddism. His podcast The Unfettered Mind is quite a resource. He describes a culture that began with a base of perception and the experience of the now and due to the foolhardy nature of humans always trying to describe what is a unique and individual experience, if even describable at all, led to a disconnect and subsequent acadamization and institutionlization that seems to me to be what all religions suffer from. The "Story of Tea" is a tale told in some of his sessions that is quite relevant. The phenomenon seems also to be related to what legislative bodies suffer from as well though not entirely so.
      - stolio 12y ago
        So Western karma and Buddhist karma can be a bit different, as the West has adopted the term it's become the Western version of the idea. And Buddhist karma is a bit different from Hindu karma. I haven't found a fully consistent use of the word across Buddhism even. But one common theme is that you shouldn't be ascribing the suffering of others to their karma. Overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism Theravadan view: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/kamma.html http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/kamma.html Soto Zen view: " We say, result is—will result immediately, not later punishment. To do something is already punishment. That you do something is already punishment. Not later." (edit: I may be taking this out of context....) http://suzukiroshi.sfzc.org/dharma-talks/october-1968-9th-talk/ http://suzukiroshi.sfzc.org/dharma-talks/october-1968-9th-ta... Secular view: http://www.stephenbatchelor.org/index.php/en/karma-and-its-fruits http://www.stephenbatchelor.org/index.php/en/karma-and-its-f...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

b_emery 12y ago

I read that quote as his wife saying that she didn't want him to give up and die. She wanted him to fight the cancer rather than obtain a "profound acceptance" of it.

delluminatus 12y ago
I think that's a false dilemma. In my mind, part of "fighting" cancer is trying to mitigate its impact on your everyday life, and acceptance probably plays a key role in that process. It's not like being angry and afraid makes you any better at fighting a disease. If anything "fighting" and "accepting" could be said to go hand-in-hand, especially with respect to illness.
- saiya-jin 12y ago
  in fact, constant stress would make body even weaker. psychosomatism is a real thingie. not that happy people cannot die from cancer

rayiner 12y ago

The psychedelics weren't offering him a pain-free cancer treatment. Their purpose was to get him prepared to die.