Shinja
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One South Park episode which promotes a positive is the two part "Cartoon Wars" episode which is pro-free speech. The story is that Family Guy is going to show the Prophet Mohammed (not even in a negative light, I think he just hands a pizza to one of the other characters) which as we all know sends the Muslims a little bit totally fucking crazy. And so people blame Family Guy for bringing danger to America and they formulate a plan to literally bury their heads in the sand, but South Park argues that it's not the fault of the Family Guy team who have the right to free speech, it's the fault of the jerks who commit murder because their feelings are hurt. And the funny thing is that Comedy Central wouldn't allow South Park to show Mohammed in reality!
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True! If the Pope gives up his opulent palace and takes a vow of personal poverty I'd at least acknowledge that he practices what he preaches but last I heard the Vatican had it's own bowling alley so...
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For me a good sense of life and a good sense of humour are important.
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Meh... I prefer the Holy Grail, can we watch the Holy Grail instead? It's got a three-headed monster, shrubberies and multiple references to swallows.
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Hi Athena! You have an intriguing, and with the addition of indoor plumbing, a well rounded set of interests there! As someone who knows a few plumbers (or more properly Heating Engineers) I've seen the skill and hard work which goes into the trade for myself; plus having a practical skill saves quite a lot of money in the long run. I hope you gain as much from this forum as I have and just enjoy your time here.
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It was only until quite recently that I realised this. I read an alcohol related subject on this forum about two years ago when I first discovered Oism and as I remember the general consensus was that alcohol was immoral in any way shape or form. So with that in mind I stopped going to bars and clubs with my friends because I viewed them as inherently immoral, but I couldn't keep it up so I went through stages of working hard and regretting not going out, and then when it got too much I'd go out and drink to excess but neglect my work. The trouble is that here in the UK we have a terrible culture of binge drinking and if you can't 'down' a pint of beer you're a 'poof' (fag). It's pretty hard for someone without a firm foundation of self-esteem to resist this kind of peer pressure. Beer tastes horrible, I can bear to drink a pint or two but I could never drink it normally with the same enjoyment as I would a glass of orange juice.
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Strictly speaking Objectivists, as people who value and consistently practice the virtue of Rationality do not get stinking drunk. Students of Oism may consume excess alcohol for bad reasons, I was one of them, but hopefully they view it as unacceptable and are working on phasing it out. After all, it's counter-productive for most people to view 'thou shalt not consume alcohol' as a moral commandment because it can hinder self-acceptance and lead to self-repression.
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That is very helpful, thank you.
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I'm looking for audio books on self-help and psychology which I can download and use on my iPod. Disappointingly Dr Hurd, Dr Kenner and the ARI only offer audio books in CD format which would involve shipping costs, this is inconvenient as I live in the UK. Is there any place where I can find what I'm looking for on the internet?
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On the face of it it does seem that gay culture is very sexually promiscuous which is immoral; however you can say that about straight people as well so I'm not sure that homosexuality promotes sexual degeneration. I think that homosexuality can be influenced by biological factors and a child's upbringing, but like certain other things which are born out of bad premises (like a love of the sci-fi/fantasy genre and computer games which arguably arise from escapism) it can be a positive part of a person's life.
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"Then it is a matter of integrating the sum of your knowledge, to evaluate the relationship between the facts that you know and the conclusions that it supports. There will be some conclusions which get knocked out of consideration because you know a fact that runs counter to that claim. For your conclusion to be certain, the competing conclusions have to be shown to be false (which you know by this proces of actual evaluation)." I think that the problem some people are having with certainty is the possibility that one could make an error and create a chain of thought which deviates from the truth. But if this happens it would become apparent when you apply whatever it is to reality and then you can go back and review your thinking and discover your error.
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I guess beautiful people have a lot of praise and admiration directed at them all of the time; so they can get by without developing a good personality which recognises and responds to positive values- they get all of the consequences of those values regardless (albeit from irrational people). It's the similar to when a spoilt heir/heiress receives all of the money and material possessions they could ever want but without the work ad skill their parents needed to invest to accumulate the fortune in the first place. I'm not saying that this applies to all beautiful people but it is easier for them to fall into bad habits because of their good looks (and I should know ;-)) .
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I can recommend How to Talk to Women by Ron Louis and David Copeland. According to the book the best way to talk to women is through asking questions. For example, one of the authors describes a situation where he was on a long plane journey and he struck up a conversation with the guy in the seat next to him. The author managed to get through the entire plane journey by only asking the other passenger questions about himself. At the end of the flight the guy shook his hand and told him he was the most interesting person he'd ever met! This is good news from an Oist point of view as you can get enough information about a potential friend/romantic partner without investing to much time and effort on people you are incompatible with.
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Thank you all for the great welcome!
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My advice echoes what others have said: self-esteem is a definite must; what's the point in being a good communicator if you can communicate anything worthwhile? But I'd like to add that there is an art to socialising which you can learn through a good self-help book. If you haven't already tried it then try investing in a decent book and teaching yourself the basics of talking to people. Perhaps then you can express yourself more clearly and other rational people will see your moral worth and you theirs. There is one simple technique which helped me to break down the barriers between myself and other people which was to simply say 'hi' to a person. It seems pretty dumb doesn't it? I started with the goal of saying this to one colleague a day then worked my way to about 10 then 20 and so on. After doing this for a while (as well as learning more advanced techniques) conversation came naturally but it started with that one simple exercise.