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Originally Posted by JHL  If this can apply to magnets, why cant it apply to humans? (uh oh - glib answer approaching...) |
Why should it? Do you have any evidence that humans work like magnets? And do magnets have free wills?
As I said: Of course positive people will rather attract positive people because they share a common view of the world. And of course negative people will rather attract negative people so they can all lament about how bad the world is. But this is a simple action-reaction thing. The people act like this because they've come into contact with each other, not because the Universe remote-controlled them.
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No, I was not suggesting they personally desired the cruelty be inflicted on them. You read the context wrong, or I did not express it clearly enough.
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So there are things happening to you with you having intended them? Doesn't that go against the IM and LoA logic? Please explain.
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Why is this a cop out? Is it because I have no hard evidence for what I'm describing? If thats how you measure it, then yes, it is a cop out. But I did go to the effort of contextualizing it against the meaning of life and the role it plays in life, and it makes sense as such, at least to me.
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Fair enough, but that doesn't mean it's objectively true too.
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It occurred to me that when you raised this emotionally charged example, that you were setting me up for a kicker like the above. And you delivered  |
I take these examples because they are extreme. And it's at the extremes that you see whether or not a theory is coherent. Because a theory, and even more a law, has to be true for everybody. You can't just pick what confirms your theory and ignore the rest.
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Pain and suffering is a fact of life for us all, in all its shapes and forms. Its purpose remains unchanged. Unless of course one denies the link between suffering and growth.
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Of course you CAN grow through pain, and often even more than through love. But you cannot take this to the extreme and make it true for all situations.
There are people who suffer and grow. And other people will admire them.
There are people who suffer and fail. Other people will ignore them.
And if pain exist because of growth then I guess the millions that had to die in the Holocaust and similar events have to be thankful! Their cruel deaths hastened their enlightenment.