My definition of suffering, is experiencing pain, or some similar feeling.

I would say that the effort you put into writing a good story of poem for your own leissure, and the effort you put into writing the same good story or poem for a homework assignment are the same. (Ofcourse they are not really the same because rarely does a person put in equal effort for both, but I hope the meaning is clear.) Similarly, it would be the same if you had to write that same good story or poem for no purpose whatsoever, other than you are being forced to.

I would say that in both you suffer to produce your good work. One is more "tolerable" than the other because of your perspective of what is important to you.

Again, you can read Kant's perpetual peace, or the Capitalist theory of competition to see how these ideas play out in non-religious contexts.

Did you actually read my post?

To a person who loves writing stories, it is not suffering. Whether or not other people would consider it suffering, we're not talking about other people. We're talking about a person who does this in his/her free time, as something they enjoy. Therefore, it is not unpleasant to them, which is the only relevant perspective in this case. All your posts seem to assert is that different people have different opinions on what is and isn't unpleasant, and, well, I'd be very worried if anyone on this board actually needs that explained to them.

Er, no? It's not just a matter of perspective. It's a matter of whether there is suffering or not. Some people enjoy being spanked; would I be justified in running down the street hitting people with a paddle and claiming that their pain is merely a matter of perspective?

Daganev, if we're going into perspective, the terms "Good and evil" are absolute BS anyway.

Good and Evil are usually defined as being on either side of some sort of abstract moral barrier. Of course, this barrier changes depending on your perspective. Nobody is inherently good, or inherently evil. Then again, Celest might see Magnagora as being inherently evil, and themselves being inherently good, while Magangorans may see things in reverse to this.

You can't try and talk about good and evil and justify it with perspective. It just doesn't work.

So is Daganev actually arguing for moral relativism, or is that my imagination?

It is your imagination.

I am arguing that humans have subjective observations.

Don't confuse the perspective of human action from the point of view of "the universe" and human action from the point of view of other humans.


I didn't realize these were such complex ideas.

Probably just confusing because I use the language of different "camps" since they all come to the same conclusion from different angles.

Basically, I don't care what the divine thinks. I cannot possibly understand Them well enough to make it worth my time. I try to do well by my fellow humans, and hope that They can understand.

If the Divine judge me harshly because I'm mortal, not much I can do about that.

The conversation seems to have progressed far past my post but I wanted to be sure you knew I wasn't directing my words at you. I read through a little bit of the essay and was quite annoyed at it generally. You should read my words as being directed at the author of the essay. I apologize for the confusion.

The subject of Elias is one possibly deserving of its own thread but I can't promise I'll have enough time to articulate my own views in a prompt enough manner to make it worthwhile.

I would be curious to know about it.

To me it is one of those big giant red flags.