ellauri028.html on line 184: This was Twain's most serious, philosophical and private book. He kept it locked in his desk, considered it to be his Bible, and spoke of it as such to friends when he read them passages. He had written it, rewritten it, was finally satisfied with it, but still chose not to release it until after his death. It appears in the form of a dialogue between an old man and a young man who discuss who and what mankind really is and provides a new and different way of looking at who we are and the way we live. Anyone who thinks Twain was not a brilliant philosopher should read this book. We consider ourselves as free and autonomous people, yet this book puts forth the ideas that 1) We are nothing more than machines and originate nothing - not even a single thought; 2) All conduct arises from one motive - self-satisfaction; 3) Our temperament is completely permanent and unchangeable; and 4) Man is of course a product of heredity, and our future, being fixed, is irrevocable -- which makes life completely predetermined. If these points are true, then buying and reading this book is not in your control, but simply must be done because it was meant to be. If these points are not true you might still wish to make an independent decision to enjoy a thought-provoking book by a great and legendary writer.
ellauri052.html on line 567: The split became irrevocable when Annie Besant, then president of the Theosophical Society, presented the child Jiddu Krishnamurti as the reincarnated Christ. Steiner strongly objected and considered any comparison between Krishnamurti and Christ to be nonsense; many years later, Krishnamurti also repudiated the assertion.
ellauri155.html on line 870: Strawson’s purposed to dissolve the so-called problem of determinism and responsibility by drawing a contrast between two different perspectives we can take on the world: the ‘participant’ and ‘objective’ standpoints. These perspectives involve different explanations of other people’s actions. From the objective point of view, we see people as elements of the natural world, causally manipulated and manipulable in various ways. From the participant point of view, we see others as appropriate objects of ‘reactive attitudes’, attitudes such as gratitude, anger, sympathy and resentment, which presuppose the responsibility of other people. These two perspectives are opposed to one another, but both are legitimate. In particular, Strawson argues that our reactive attitudes towards others and ourselves are natural and irrevocable. They are a central part of what it is to be human. The truth of determinism cannot, then, force us to give up the participant standpoint, because the reactive attitudes are too deeply embedded in our humanity. Fuck humanity, and fuck viewpoints. Game theory is an optimization technology used by animals. As such it forms a part of the causal net.
xxx/ellauri068.html on line 400: “Everyone once, once only. Just once and no more. And we also once. Never again. But this having been once, although only once, to have been of the earth, seems irrevocable.”
xxx/ellauri122.html on line 984: ``The Holocaust is a national and historic trauma and a split over it could create an irrevocable rift in our people,″ Culture Minister Shulamit Aloni of the liberal Meretz party said.
xxx/ellauri165.html on line 660: According to the Alliance Commission on Unity & Truth among Evangelicals (ACUTE) the majority of Protestants have held that hell will be a place of perpetual conscious torment, both physical and spiritual. This is known as the eternal conscious torment (ECT) view. Some recent writers such as Anglican layman C. S. Lewis[86] and J.P. Moreland have cast people to hell in terms of "eternal separation" from God. Certain biblical texts have led some theologians[who?] to the conclusion that punishment in hell, though eternal and irrevocable, will be proportional to the deeds of each soul (e.g., Matthew 10:15, Luke 12:46-48).
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