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The Church Courtyard => Non-Catholic Discussion Subforum => Topic started by: Vetus Ordo on September 17, 2020, 12:36:08 PM

Title: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Vetus Ordo on September 17, 2020, 12:36:08 PM
Excellent talk on building up character by Sheykh Nurjan Mirahmadi.

The good sheykh teaches us that this material world, the dunya, is continuously trying to drag us down and to change our characters in order to bind us to the temporal realm. The childish characters are those which see everything wrong in something or someone. However, true adulthood is to walk into an environment that is filled with cracks and being able to see the good in it. The propensity to find something wrong in everything is the worst of characters: finding the beauty in things and people is the best of characters and the goal of the God-fearing man.

Indeed, the one who does not have the peace that comes from knowing the truth is perpetually wrestling with himself and others. The one who knows the truth, lives it.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BdKxMQwE8s[/yt]

QuoteShaykh Nurjan Mirahmadi has taught and traveled extensively throughout the world from Uzbekistan to Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Cyprus, Argentina, Peru, and North America. He teaches the spiritual sciences of Classical Islam, including meditation (tafakkur), subtle energy points (lata'if), Islamic healing, the secrets of letters and numbers (ilm huroof), disciplining the self (tarbiyya), and the process of self-realization (ma'arifat). He teaches the Muslim communities, the prophetic ways of being kind, respectful and live in harmony with people. He emphasis on good manners and respect, and often reminds his students that the spiritual journey begins from within and "You can't give what you don't have."

One of Shaykh as-Sayyid Nurjan's greatest accomplishments has been the worldwide dissemination of the spiritual teachings of Classical Islam through his books and online presence. The Prophet Muhammad [s.a.w.] has told us, "Speak to people according to their levels." In an era of social media, Shaykh as-Sayyid Nurjan's ability to reach a new generation of spiritual seekers through the Internet has been remarkable. His NurMuhammad.com website alone has over 1,000 unique visitors each day, and since its inception has seen more than 150,000 downloads of the book "Dailal Khairat", 1,150,000 free downloads of Naqshbandi Muraqabah, and another 500,000 downloads of the Naqshbandi Book of Devotions (Awrad), as well as many more articles. As of Sept 2015, his Facebook pages "Shaykh Sayed Nurjan Mirahmadi" and "Nur Muhammad" combined have over 200,000 likes. Furthermore, his YouTube Channel "The Muhammadan Way" has over 1 million views, and his Google page, Shaykh Sayed Nurjan Mirahmadi has over 2.7 million views.

Shaykh Mirahmadi focuses on the worldwide social media presence working on ways to bring knowledge to all seekers around the world. In 2015 he launched an Online University called SimplyIman.org, to spread these traditional Spiritual Islamic teachings even further and make it accessible to all seekers around the world.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Croix de Fer on September 17, 2020, 02:40:12 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 17, 2020, 12:36:08 PM
Excellent talk on building up character by Sheykh Nurjan Mirahmadi.
[...]

This guy rejects the Divine Incarnation of Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity.

And every spirit that dissolveth Jesus, is not of God: and this is Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh, and he is now already in the world. ~ 1 John 4:3

Haydock Catholic Bible commentary:

Ver. 3. That dissolveth Jesus, viz. either by denying his humanity or his divinity. (Challoner) --- This is antichrist;[2] i.e. such is the spirit of antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh, or is to come in the latter times. --- And he is now already in the world, not the chief and great antichrist, but his precursors, in whom he may be said to come. (Witham) --- And he is now already in the world. Not in his person, but in his spirit and in his precursors. (Challoner)
https://web.archive.org/web/20170724223612/http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id278.html




Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Greg on September 17, 2020, 02:54:12 PM
In my experience most people I meet have something wrong with them.

Look at the 90% of Catholics contracepted.

The 66% of Irish who voted for abortion.

The 98% of covidiots wearing masks against something no more lethal than flu.

So the sheykh is an optimist.

The Islamic world is really screwed up. Corrupt as hell.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: The Theosist on September 17, 2020, 03:13:19 PM
Surely we can't carry out Jesus commandment without finding the good in another person.

QuoteIndeed, the one who does not have the peace that comes from knowing the truth is perpetually wrestling with himself and others. The one who knows the truth, lives it.

But often living the truth calls for wrestling with oneself and others. Our existence in this world is a struggle, and we wouldn't be here in the first place if we weren't meant to struggle.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Vetus Ordo on September 17, 2020, 03:36:23 PM
Quote from: Greg on September 17, 2020, 02:54:12 PM
In my experience most people I meet have something wrong with them.

Look at the 90% of Catholics contracepted.

The 66% of Irish who voted for abortion.

The 98% of covidiots wearing masks against something no more lethal than flu.

So the sheykh is an optimist.

The Islamic world is really screwed up. Corrupt as hell.

The sheykh's point is not that we cannot identify the faults in others.

The point is that in order to build up a good character, one's priority is not to dwell on the cracks of a given vessel but on its whole as a creation of God. If we merely focus on the faults and sins of one's neighbors and enemies, it's a destructive approach that produces no spiritual growth.

Quote from: The Theosist on September 17, 2020, 03:13:19 PMBut often living the truth calls for wrestling with oneself and others. Our existence in this world is a struggle, and we wouldn't be here in the first place if we weren't meant to struggle.

To a certain point, yes.

But truth must bring about tranquility of mind and soul. It is the serenity of the saints: good manners, good character, a quiet spirit and a loving heart.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Greg on September 17, 2020, 03:43:48 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 17, 2020, 03:36:23 PM
[
The sheykh's point is not that we cannot identify the faults in others.


Of course we can.

Michael Voris, Fr. Corapi, the Resistance, Fr. Pfiffer, Tracy and Quis, Laura.

Many of us saw their faults accurately, predicted what would happen and it happened.

I get paid by companies to interview their potential salespeople and salesdirectors and filter out the crap people.  I am almost never wrong.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Croix de Fer on September 17, 2020, 06:03:39 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 17, 2020, 03:36:23 PM
But truth must bring about tranquility of mind and soul.
This is subjectivism. Man's "truth" usually isn't God's truth, which is why He sends people the operation of error, to believe lying (2 Thessalonians 2:10). Most people who think they're tranquil are deluded. It's artificial.


Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 17, 2020, 03:36:23 PMIt is the serenity of the saints: good manners, good character, a quiet spirit and a loving heart.
More neo-hippie, docile, domesticated humanism.
The serenity of the saints is of the Holy Ghost: to know, love & serve God with all their strength and mind, professing Jesus Christ even during violent opposition, to speak the inconvenient truth which is an act of charity, and to fear not.

Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Graham on September 17, 2020, 06:16:12 PM
The trouble with this advice is it means everything and nothing. I have always found that people with better character are discerning about who they spend time with and are not too free with their praise.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Vetus Ordo on September 17, 2020, 06:34:52 PM
Quote from: Greg on September 17, 2020, 03:43:48 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 17, 2020, 03:36:23 PM
The sheykh's point is not that we cannot identify the faults in others.

Of course we can.

Michael Voris, Fr. Corapi, the Resistance, Fr. Pfiffer, Tracy and Quis, Laura.

Many of us saw their faults accurately, predicted what would happen and it happened.

I get paid by companies to interview their potential salespeople and salesdirectors and filter out the crap people.  I am almost never wrong.

Yes but this time you misread my post.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: TheReturnofLive on September 17, 2020, 10:59:31 PM
This talk gave me the unquenchable urge to stick a knife into the corner of my eye to make it pop out.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Vetus Ordo on September 17, 2020, 11:01:48 PM
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on September 17, 2020, 10:59:31 PMThis talk gave me the unquenchable urge to stick a knife into the corner of my eye to make it pop out.

A fitting evangelical response to a perceived occasion of sin.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: TheReturnofLive on September 17, 2020, 11:03:56 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 17, 2020, 11:01:48 PM
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on September 17, 2020, 10:59:31 PMThis talk gave me the unquenchable urge to stick a knife into the corner of my eye to make it pop out.

A fitting evangelical response to a perceived occasion of sin.

Well, I get a similar urge to self-flagellate whenever I see a Franciscan, and I get an urge to sacrifice children to snake deities whenever I see an illegal Mexican immigrant
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Greg on September 18, 2020, 04:45:55 AM
Quoteone's priority is not to dwell on the cracks of a given vessel but on its whole as a creation of God.

How do you view a predatory paedophile as a creation of God?  And why would Jesus want them drowned in the depths of the ocean with a millstone around their necks if it were merely "cracks in the vessel?"

An abortionist who for decades disposes of baby parts.  Or has a baby born alive and murders the baby.  Or sells body parts for medical experiments.

Stalin who killed 40 million people.  Those are just cracks?

Jihadists who kidnap and rape Yazidi children.  We are not suppose to dwell on that but try to find the good in these Jihadists?

In your wished-for world there would be no disincentive to sin.  Everyone would pat you on the head and try to find the good in you.

In my world punishment from the age of 2 would be swift, harsh and effective.  People often comment to me after Mass that my children are the best behaved kids in mass they have ever seen, completely quiet and sitting still, and I reply, "of course, because if they were not I would beat them".  They laugh like I am joking, but I am not joking.

Parents now are weaker than dishwasher.

I don't need to beat my kids very often because the mere threat that I would, and severely if needed, appropriate to their age and gender is enough.  They are told to be quiet and respectful in Church and what Papa says goes.

The way to raise good children is to watch for cracks when they start forming and come down on those cracks hard, heavy and force the child to acknowledge them and repair them.  My teenage son for example does not have a mobile phone and will never have a mobile phone until he leaves home, because he was unable to stick to basic rules about it.  Now he has learned his lesson he has the self-discipline and could probably have a mobile phone, but the punishment will continue for another 3 years at least.

I don't phuck around.  When I punish, I really punish, and that makes the threat of punishment effective.

The best punishment for people is rare, but very harsh, so they remember how painful physically or emotionally it was.  The big crimes should get big punishments.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: The Theosist on September 18, 2020, 05:15:13 AM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 17, 2020, 03:36:23 PM
Quote from: Greg on September 17, 2020, 02:54:12 PM
In my experience most people I meet have something wrong with them.

Look at the 90% of Catholics contracepted.

The 66% of Irish who voted for abortion.

The 98% of covidiots wearing masks against something no more lethal than flu.

So the sheykh is an optimist.

The Islamic world is really screwed up. Corrupt as hell.

The sheykh's point is not that we cannot identify the faults in others.

The point is that in order to build up a good character, one's priority is not to dwell on the cracks of a given vessel but on its whole as a creation of God. If we merely focus on the faults and sins of one's neighbors and enemies, it's a destructive approach that produces no spiritual growth.

Quote from: The Theosist on September 17, 2020, 03:13:19 PMBut often living the truth calls for wrestling with oneself and others. Our existence in this world is a struggle, and we wouldn't be here in the first place if we weren't meant to struggle.

To a certain point, yes.

But truth must bring about tranquility of mind and soul. It is the serenity of the saints: good manners, good character, a quiet spirit and a loving heart.

Indeed, theosis is impossible without this. Though one might return with that spirit enflamed and smash things up, like Elijah. Or Jesus himself.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: The Theosist on September 18, 2020, 05:22:41 AM
Quote from: Greg on September 18, 2020, 04:45:55 AM
Quoteone's priority is not to dwell on the cracks of a given vessel but on its whole as a creation of God.

How do you view a predatory paedophile as a creation of God?  And why would Jesus want them drowned in the depths of the ocean with a millstone around their necks if it were merely "cracks in the vessel?"

An abortionist who for decades disposes of baby parts.  Or has a baby born alive and murders the baby.  Or sells body parts for medical experiments.

Stalin who killed 40 million people.  Those are just cracks?

Jihadists who kidnap and rape Yazidi children.  We are not suppose to dwell on that but try to find the good in these Jihadists?

It doesn't take much looking to find good reason to hate everyone. Yet Jesus has commanded you to love them. Their vileness in this case is a given. Hating them is the easiest thing in the world. Slit their throats, well and good, but it's not something to dwell on, and you're a fool if you do.

QuoteIn your wished-for world there would be no disincentive to sin.  Everyone would pat you on the head and try to find the good in you.

You misunderstand the talk and the point.

QuoteIn my world punishment from the age of 2 would be swift, harsh and effective.  People often comment to me after Mass that my children are the best behaved kids in mass they have ever seen, completely quiet and sitting still, and I reply, "of course, because if they were not I would beat them".  They laugh like I am joking, but I am not joking.

Yes, you definitely misunderstand.


Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Greg on September 18, 2020, 06:48:45 AM
I disagree.  There are a lot of people who are easy to love.  Mentally handicapped people for example, such as those with Down's.  Or my wife's best friend's child who has severe autism and most people find terribly difficult to love or be around.  I like her and I always go out of my way to talk to her and shower her with attention, since it is not her fault that she is severely mentally handicapped.  She is completely innocent.

Nobody hates these people, they just ignore them.

Same with little kids.  I go to kids parties frequently and the vast majority of parents would far rather drink wine and talk about viruses and soap opera plots than engage with their children or other people's children.  I don't know why they bothered to marry and have children if they don't like them.  They are little more than accessories that the parents take responsibility for clothing, feeding and shooing off to school each morning and then moan about how hard it is parenting 2 children.

You can tell they never get read stories and very often view their parents like they were fostered for the welfare childcare payments.  They don't hate their kids, they just don't like them very much.

Then there are my elderly neighbours who would otherwise be completely ignored and forgotten about by the rest of the street.  I visit them daily, do shopping for them and help them with errands, post, fixing jobs in the house.  They are easy to love and impossible to hate, but invisible to the community around them.

The world loves showing how merciful it is by forgiving the junkies, the dope-peddlers, the women who abort their children, the whores who sleep around and them claim 23 years later they were "raped".  The Presidents who get blow-jobs from interns and the former sodomites, who become self-appointed Catholic spokespeople and judges of who is too traditionalist and not Catholic enough.  Yet, somehow, all this mercy only serves to give us more, junkies, dope-peddlers, perverted politicians, unhinged Catholic-lay spokespeople and the next generation of children aborted in equal numbers to the generation before them.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: The Theosist on September 18, 2020, 08:04:48 AM
I don't disagree with what you've written there. But what that's actually been said are you disagreeing with?
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Greg on September 18, 2020, 09:15:04 AM
QuoteIt doesn't take much looking to find good reason to hate everyone

This is not true.  I tend to love the weak and lonely, old and frail and hate celebrities and the vacuous.

Most people I like, because most people are ordinary.

Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: The Theosist on September 18, 2020, 10:36:10 AM
Quote from: Greg on September 18, 2020, 09:15:04 AM
QuoteIt doesn't take much looking to find good reason to hate everyone

This is not true.  I tend to love the weak and lonely, old and frail and hate celebrities and the vacuous.

Most people I like, because most people are ordinary.

This is true, and that you and most of us don't look much or place much stead in good reasons in those cases doesn't make it untrue. Children are as vile as they are endearing, a fact I recall quite clearly from my memories of being around them every day of my childhood. Their much overplayed "innocence" doesn't change that anymore than it changes it for a mangy rat.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Greg on September 18, 2020, 10:50:27 AM
Children are not vile.

Compared to adults they are much more likeable.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: The Theosist on September 18, 2020, 11:05:43 AM
Quote from: Greg on September 18, 2020, 10:50:27 AM
Children are not vile.

Compared to adults they are much more likeable.

Really? I prefer someone who at least has the capacity for morals and reason to bipedal beasts who, if left to their own devices, would tear each other apart. Children are perverts, they laugh at toilet humour, they are tempestuous and violent, they are inveterate bullies who hunt in packs and sniff out weaknesses like bloodhounds, and they are ignorant and stupid.

Yes, of course they daren't try most of that with adults, which is all the more unfortunate for those adults who seems to have forgotten what is was to be a child. They're the ones we have to blame for this stupid post-Victorian view of kids.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Frank on September 18, 2020, 05:33:19 PM
I think Lord of the Flies sums up childhood in isolation quite well. I'm
sure that if I had not been a year younger than the rest of my class at
Gunnersbury I would have been one of the more odious members.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Jayne on September 18, 2020, 06:42:59 PM
Quote from: Frank on September 18, 2020, 05:33:19 PM
I think Lord of the Flies sums up childhood in isolation quite well.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months)

QuoteThe story concerned six boys who had been found three weeks earlier on a rocky islet south of Tonga, an island group in the Pacific Ocean. The boys had been rescued by an Australian sea captain after being marooned on the island of 'Ata for more than a year.
[...]
No one noticed the small craft leaving the harbour that evening. Skies were fair; only a mild breeze ruffled the calm sea. But that night the boys made a grave error. They fell asleep. A few hours later they awoke to water crashing down over their heads. It was dark. They hoisted the sail, which the wind promptly tore to shreds. Next to break was the rudder. "We drifted for eight days," Mano told me. "Without food. Without water." The boys tried catching fish. They managed to collect some rainwater in hollowed-out coconut shells and shared it equally between them, each taking a sip in the morning and another in the evening.

Then, on the eighth day, they spied a miracle on the horizon. A small island, to be precise. Not a tropical paradise with waving palm trees and sandy beaches, but a hulking mass of rock, jutting up more than a thousand feet out of the ocean. These days, 'Ata is considered uninhabitable. But "by the time we arrived," Captain Warner wrote in his memoirs, "the boys had set up a small commune with food garden, hollowed-out tree trunks to store rainwater, a gymnasium with curious weights, a badminton court, chicken pens and a permanent fire, all from handiwork, an old knife blade and much determination." While the boys in Lord of the Flies come to blows over the fire, those in this real-life version tended their flame so it never went out, for more than a year.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Greg on September 18, 2020, 09:51:10 PM
Well I guess I understand why children flock around me and Jesus.

We both like them.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: The Theosist on September 19, 2020, 01:58:12 AM
Quote from: Jayne on September 18, 2020, 06:42:59 PM
Quote from: Frank on September 18, 2020, 05:33:19 PM
I think Lord of the Flies sums up childhood in isolation quite well.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months)

These were six teenagers, not children. Any playground is more horrific than this and a reflection of a chaos reigned in only by adult supervision.

Apropos the author

QuoteA book whose subtitle is "A Hopeful History" should be welcome at a time when people are gagging for cheering news. It fits the mood too, appearing just as neighbours are helping neighbours, people are clapping for carers, and humans the world over are cooperating to save each other's lives. What's more, as some are talking of a radical fresh start once we emerge from this crisis, a 1945-style new settlement, Humankind offers a roadmap for how we might organise ourselves very differently.


QuoteFame would not be wholly unfamiliar to Bregman, who recently turned 32. He briefly became an online sensation at Davos last year when he turned on his audience, condemning the absurdity of the rich taking 1,500 private jets to hear David Attenborough warn of the climate crisis and, above all, their failure to pay their taxes or even to mention the word. He said he felt as if he were "at a firefighters' conference and no one's allowed to speak about water".

Oh, I remember this c**t's face now.

QuoteHe had already made waves with his book Utopia for Realists, a call for a universal basic income or UBI: an idea once dismissed as absurd, but which seems positively mainstream now that the UK government is paying 80% of the wages of all those furloughed by the virus crisis.

QuoteBregman charts how Hobbes won the argument. Society and its key institutions –schools, companies, prisons – have been designed based on a set of bleak assumptions about human nature. But, Bregman says, the scientific evidence suggests those assumptions are badly flawed, that as a species we've been getting ourselves wrong for far too long.

QuoteBack when we were hunter-gatherers, we roamed peacefully in the Garden of Eden; then we enclosed a square of land, called it our own, invented property and settled down to defend it, wars began and our innocence was lost.

Piss off. Another looney Scandinavian socialist, mollycoddled his whole life and cherry picking data to support a conclusion


Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Jayne on September 19, 2020, 05:06:52 AM
Quote from: The Theosist on September 19, 2020, 01:58:12 AM
Piss off. Another looney Scandinavian socialist, mollycoddled his whole life and cherry picking data to support a conclusion

Lord of the Flies is a work of fiction.  It is not data at all.  It is one man's imagining.

The story of the real ship-wrecked boys is one data point.  This is too small a sample to draw  conclusions from, but it is an interesting contrast to Golding's views expressed in fiction.  It was not "cherry picking".  The author, as far as we know, did not ignore other incidents of ship-wrecked boys while only choosing to write about the positive one.  He claims that he was only able to find one and I see no reason to doubt this.  Groups of boys being ship-wrecked is not a common occurrence.

You are the one who seems to be selecting data to support your conclusion.  You look for excuses to reject the true story while treating the work of fiction as if it really happened.  You compare the ages of the fictional boys  (around 12) with those of the real boys (13-16) as if this were the significant difference between them.  Golding's boys did not behave so much worse because they were a few years younger.  It was because that was the story Golding wanted to tell.  You find Golding's story more compelling because it matches what you already believe, not because you made some objective analysis of what happens to ship-wrecked boys.

Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: The Theosist on September 19, 2020, 08:00:54 AM
Quote from: Jayne on September 19, 2020, 05:06:52 AM
Quote from: The Theosist on September 19, 2020, 01:58:12 AM
Piss off. Another looney Scandinavian socialist, mollycoddled his whole life and cherry picking data to support a conclusion

Lord of the Flies is a work of fiction.  It is not data at all.  It is one man's imagining.

The story of the real ship-wrecked boys is one data point.  This is too small a sample to draw  conclusions from, but it is an interesting contrast to Golding's views expressed in fiction.  It was not "cherry picking".  The author, as far as we know, did not ignore other incidents of ship-wrecked boys while only choosing to write about the positive one.  He claims that he was only able to find one and I see no reason to doubt this.  Groups of boys being ship-wrecked is not a common occurrence.

You are the one who seems to be selecting data to support your conclusion.  You look for excuses to reject the true story while treating the work of fiction as if it really happened.  You compare the ages of the fictional boys  (around 12) with those of the real boys (13-16) as if this were the significant difference between them. 

Golding's boys did not behave so much worse because they were a few years younger.  It was because that was the story Golding wanted to tell.  You find Golding's story more compelling because it matches what you already believe, not because you made some objective analysis of what happens to ship-wrecked boys.

What? Frank said, "I think Lord of the Flies sums up childhood in isolation quite well." You linked to this story as if it refuted his belief. It doesn't. It doesn't because the story doesn't concern children and childhood but six teenage males. There is no comparison. End of discussion.

These are the "boys" in 1968 after being rescued, just a couple years after their ordeal that began in June of 1965.

(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3d5468583631446b302ce3b304d5e9ab108097dd/0_326_3581_2150/master/3581.jpg?width=860&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=a56ff34ffdda462147d72411bec82a2f)

More of the "boys".

(https://www.abc.net.au/cm/rimage/12249248-4x3-large.jpg?v=7)

(https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/498/694/fb7.png)

Note also that the premise is entirely different, as these were a small group of already close-knit friends running away together and more than capable of surviving in the situation from their native lifestyle. These weren't a mixed group of English schoolchildren randomly marooned in a foreign environment. And even if Golding had just projected the carryings-on of a public boarding school, with authority taken out of the picture onto the group it would have painted a nightmarish picture.

Oh look, he wants a movie.

https://twitter.com/rcbregman/status/1263873279737159682 (https://twitter.com/rcbregman/status/1263873279737159682)


QuoteThe story of the real ship-wrecked boys is one data point.  This is too small a sample to draw  conclusions from, but it is an interesting contrast to Golding's views expressed in fiction.  It was not "cherry picking". 

I didn't claim the story is a cherry picking of data on shipwrecked "boys". What's cherry picking is the author's book itself, an intentional search for data to support his contention that human beings are "basically good", an effort that requires turning a blind eye to six millennia of data on wars, revolutions, riots, criminals, slavery and the sordid lives of people on the ground. It's not just about the Holocaust, which is a blip on the radar when one looks at the last 150 years and Isis, Maoist China, Vietnam, the Holodomor, Bolshevism, nationalism, genocides on every continent but Antarctica ancient, and all our daily lives in-between, a never-ending narrative of deception, betrayal, theft, sexual deviance and even murder. How can any historian even entertain such nonsense? Just looking at the Middle Ages, whether its political structures, serfdom, standard practices of warfare, peasant revolts, witch hunts or the chronicles of daily life  should be enough to fill one with utter contempt for man in his fallen state. It's so monumentally absurd.

I don't need "data points" like stupid faux scientist to "prove" what is plain to see about human and child nature, and if you disagree with that I disagree with your dumb epistemology, but as it is every reform school is a "data point" against this one; but if you believe children are "basically good", rather than tamed beasts, by all means, don't punish them, don't supervise them and don't try to order them. You're not needed. They will take care of themselves.

Quote
The author, as far as we know, did not ignore other incidents of ship-wrecked boys while only choosing to write about the positive one.  He claims that he was only able to find one and I see no reason to doubt this.

I have absolutely no reason to trust a single word that proceeds from the pen of a man setting out to prove a contention for the sake of providing a justification for the Communist socio-political ideology he's peddling.

Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Jayne on September 19, 2020, 10:00:57 AM
The ship-wrecked boys were 13-16 years old.  Showing pictures of them a few years later does not show that they were not boys. 

I posted the story because it was interesting and Frank's comment reminded me of it.  Obviously it does not prove anything one way or another.  Theosist's emotional and lengthy response comes across as an over-reaction.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: The Theosist on September 19, 2020, 11:39:48 AM
Quote from: Jayne on September 19, 2020, 10:00:57 AM
The ship-wrecked boys were 13-16 years old.  Showing pictures of them a few years later does not show that they were not boys.

In Jayne's world, boys turn into men in the space of a year. The youngest chap in these pictures will have been no older than fifteen in them, which is younger than the eldest during the ordeal. Now, please point out who in these photos looks like he's a child.

Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: awkwardcustomer on September 20, 2020, 03:45:12 AM
Quote from: The Theosist on September 18, 2020, 11:05:43 AM
Really? I prefer someone who at least has the capacity for morals and reason to bipedal beasts who, if left to their own devices, would tear each other apart. Children are perverts, they laugh at toilet humour, they are tempestuous and violent, they are inveterate bullies who hunt in packs and sniff out weaknesses like bloodhounds, and they are ignorant and stupid.

Yes, of course they daren't try most of that with adults, which is all the more unfortunate for those adults who seems to have forgotten what is was to be a child. They're the ones we have to blame for this stupid post-Victorian view of kids.

The idea of children's innate 'innocence' seems to be Victorian, or so I've heard.

Some children are vicious, as anyone who has any experience of being bullied in childhood knows.  And they do hunt in packs seeking out victims.  And some children are kind and sweet, while others are somewhere in between to varying degrees.

But the idea that ALL children are innocent implies that vicious adult behaviour begins overnight, when the child becomes an adult when in fact it's far more likely that adult psychopaths were also psychopaths as children.  There are signs, apparently, to watch out for in childhood such as a liking for the mistreatment and even torture of small animals. But who cares to notice, especially when the assumption of innocence is being made?

Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: St.Justin on September 20, 2020, 08:36:51 PM
Quote from: The Theosist on September 19, 2020, 01:58:12 AM
Quote from: Jayne on September 18, 2020, 06:42:59 PM
Quote from: Frank on September 18, 2020, 05:33:19 PM
I think Lord of the Flies sums up childhood in isolation quite well.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months)

These were six teenagers, not children. Any playground is more horrific than this and a reflection of a chaos reigned in only by adult supervision.

Apropos the author

QuoteA book whose subtitle is "A Hopeful History" should be welcome at a time when people are gagging for cheering news. It fits the mood too, appearing just as neighbours are helping neighbours, people are clapping for carers, and humans the world over are cooperating to save each other's lives. What's more, as some are talking of a radical fresh start once we emerge from this crisis, a 1945-style new settlement, Humankind offers a roadmap for how we might organise ourselves very differently.


QuoteFame would not be wholly unfamiliar to Bregman, who recently turned 32. He briefly became an online sensation at Davos last year when he turned on his audience, condemning the absurdity of the rich taking 1,500 private jets to hear David Attenborough warn of the climate crisis and, above all, their failure to pay their taxes or even to mention the word. He said he felt as if he were "at a firefighters' conference and no one's allowed to speak about water".

Oh, I remember this c**t's face now.

QuoteHe had already made waves with his book Utopia for Realists, a call for a universal basic income or UBI: an idea once dismissed as absurd, but which seems positively mainstream now that the UK government is paying 80% of the wages of all those furloughed by the virus crisis.

QuoteBregman charts how Hobbes won the argument. Society and its key institutions –schools, companies, prisons – have been designed based on a set of bleak assumptions about human nature. But, Bregman says, the scientific evidence suggests those assumptions are badly flawed, that as a species we've been getting ourselves wrong for far too long.

QuoteBack when we were hunter-gatherers, we roamed peacefully in the Garden of Eden; then we enclosed a square of land, called it our own, invented property and settled down to defend it, wars began and our innocence was lost.

Piss off. Another looney Scandinavian socialist, mollycoddled his whole life and cherry picking data to support a conclusion

Quit attacking people. You must have had one miserable childhood.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: The Theosist on September 21, 2020, 12:55:15 AM
You want me to stop attacking an effeminate crypto-communist and atheist peddling a false anthropology that flies in the face Christian doctrine? No.
Title: Re: Sufi Way: Building Up Character
Post by: Graham on September 21, 2020, 06:20:20 AM
Quote from: The Theosist on September 21, 2020, 12:55:15 AM
You want me to stop attacking an effeminate crypto-communist and atheist peddling a false anthropology that flies in the face Christian doctrine? No.

In the spirit of this thread, tell us some of the good things you see in the author.