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Conscience over Nonsense

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Abhijit Naskar

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“And there is a rule in every major religion, called the Golden Rule. Essentially: treat other people the way you’d like to be treated yourself. If we all did this, the whole world would work instantaneously. Praying, meditation—fine. But just follow the Golden Rule and the whole world works. Making the world work could be that simple.”

ReligionSpiritualityHumanismGolden Rule
Book:Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens
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“Forget all labels and simply live as a human, and you'll have all the morality in you - this morality is text-less - it is law-less - it is boundless - it's simply your whole being, beyond conditioning, beyond norms, beyond stereotypes, beyond definitions, beyond theories, beyond intellectualism, beyond ideologies, beyond sects and beyond images. That morality has no Naskar in it - it has no Nietzsche in it - it has no Schopenhauer in it - it has no bible, no quran, no vedas in it - nor has it any messiah or prophet whatsoever.”

HumanismSecularismScripturesMoral PrinciplesMoral PhilosophyMorality Without ReligionMoral Progress
Book:Morality Absolute
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“Morality is like defecation. When you have the urge to defecate, do you ask an intellectual, what it is like to feel like defecating and how to perform the act of defecation, before you actually go to defecate! You simply feel it and go defecating. The same is with morality. You don't ask a scientist, a philosopher or a priest what morality really is, and how to perform it. You simply feel it and act on it.”

HumanismSecularismScripturesMoral PrinciplesMoral PhilosophyMorality Without ReligionMoral Progress
Book:Morality Absolute
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“The Renaissance was the culture of a wealthy and powerful upper class, on the crest of the wave which was whipped up by the storm of new economic forces. The masses who did not share the wealth and power of the ruling group had lost the security of their former status and had become a shapeless mass, to be flattered or to be threatened—but always to be manipulated and exploited by those in power. A new despotism arose side by side with the new individualism. Freedom and tyranny, individually and disorder, were inextricably interwoven. The Renaissance was not a culture of small shopkeepers and petty bourgeois but of wealthy nobles and burghers. Their economic activity and their wealth gave them a feeling of freedom and a sense of individually. But at the same time, these same people had lost something: the security and feeling of belonging which the medieval social structure had offered. They were more free, but they were also more alone. They used their power and wealth to squeeze the last ounce of pleasure out of life; but in doing so, they had to use ruthlessly every means, from physical torture to psychological manipulation, to rule over the masses and to check their competitors within their own class. All human relationships were poisoned by this fierce life-and-death struggle for the maintenance of power and wealth. Solidarity with one's fellow man—or at least with the members of one's own class—was replaced by a cynical detached attitude; other individuals were looked upon as "objects" to be used and manipulated, or they were ruthlessly destroyed if it suited one's own ends. The individual was absorbed by a passionate egocentricity, an insatiable greed for power and wealth. As a result of all this, the successful individual's relation to his own self, his sense of security and confidence were poisoned too. His own self became as much an object of manipulation to him as other persons had become. We have reasons to doubt whether the powerful masters of Renaissance capitalism were as happy and as secure as they are often portrayed. It seems that the new freedom brought two things to them: an increased feeling of strength and at the same time an increased isolation, doubt, scepticism, and—resulting from all these—anxiety. It is the same contradiction that we find in the philosophical writings of the humanists. Side by side with their emphasis on human dignity, individuality, and strength, they exhibited insecurity and despair in their philosophy.”

HumanismParadoxRenaissanceReformationClass Warfare1941
Book:Escape from Freedom
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“I must assume that knowing is better than not know, venturing better than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit. I take with deep seriousness Thomas Hardy's words, 'If a way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst.”

RealityTruthSelf ImprovementHumanismPsychotherapyPracticality
Book:Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy
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