Codrus

Leo Tolstoy suffered over the same question: "I am a man, how should I live? What do I do?" His non-fiction on the very topic contains the very simple answer, thats been right there under our noses all along: love (selflessness), but it's become easy to miss due to its disguise of spiritual/supernatural this or that and incessant answers to the ideas of a God and an Afterlife—opposed to the value and capacity of our inherency to selflessness—being held as unquestionably true via these influences, only blinding the masses of the truth that's hidden underneath all the dogma.

https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/06/03/tolstoy-confession/

His non-fiction he wrote on his long quest for truth: Confession, What I Believe, The Gospel in Brief, and The Kingdom of God is Within You.

Some translations can be a bit of a chore to read, therefore I humbly suggest the ones linked below:

Confession: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Ivan-Ilyich-Confession/dp/0871402998/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=2VFW3UFEW6KSL&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.jtsLOLLlny2E4R1CizUAQfTFmX3uhoyhLaYp1jRAB-jj4X4zsKhxHrD1goOUa18DqMtbWJ54ARxwuRbuJUlgvQ._00Eo6KXVkde9aKXbUxA2s7VzsUhJkwGqHLobzktGlI&dib_tag=se&keywords=peter+carson+confession+leo+tolstoy&qid=1734895482&sprefix=peter+carson+confession+leo+tolstoy%2Caps%2C135&sr=8-1

What I Believe: https://www.amazon.com/My-Religion-What-I-believe/dp/B0863TFZRN/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=22AJKANSTR74Q&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.k5OKn9QGJzWF63UQKfaw1sfKdxRlaYfWh4D_6heGssZI9T2gCwdmjgUW5vHlkvyOe9cpaA-cno2kG98nkJii3KT6FMApMpihaC7loQ3QanESLoywaXkwKOc9nkROcrJXeCPvgWuUKo5UiU6wofXIezCnXhXUWz--uOV_qDtboMyZChD176KC02yHoj_DGF-Ytv3zlrRif1Jix6pJZ7RibQ.maxzbqvCUmpvA4qd_edL9rK_Mgcu1jPWc7uqjDgTEaY&dib_tag=se&keywords=what+i+believe+tolstoy&qid=1734895703&sprefix=what+i+belei%2Caps%2C167&sr=8-1

The Gospel In Brief: https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Brief-Harper-Perennial-Thought/dp/006199345X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3GDX0ZB7J79XD&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.PDu_uq6qxVnvpJz0KIG-b1LlAzdygRjpv6jgR5i_axl4JxTFwYHc9M9qups83hJD6pgfPiT-y7csh0ea1HnjKkpbrlkqJtWxN_PkwM9xVtANevjwypnggO45KHmcBFPsumpUE8ek4FNM-tnr7p-n6KoxkZWilqcHZQ_iMVXCFYZA4-NUsTqbVTfKP6PWvISM3pU0uJ85tguSu4p6nYN-JA.CEqd7eo2MuSGONN8eIHBg5hQcYYZMwomP2v1OTRcFcA&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+gospel+in+brief+leo+tolstoy&qid=1734895758&sprefix=ghe+gospel+in+brief+%2Caps%2C200&sr=8-1

The Kingdom Of God Is Within You: https://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Kingdom-of-God-Is-Within-You-Warbler-Classics-Annotated-Edition-Paperback-9781962572439/5323130468?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&wmlspartner=wlpa&cn=FY25-ENTP-PMAX_cnv_dps_dsn_dis_ad_entp_e_n&gclsrc=aw.ds&adid=222222222985323130468_0000000000_21835691471&wl0=&wl1=x&wl2=m&wl3=&wl4=&wl5=9019109&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=online&wl12=5323130468&veh=sem&gad_source=1

Vanity/Morality/Desire/Influence/Knowledge/Imagination/Conciousness/Sense Organs/Present Environment

"Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." - Solomon.

"Morality is the basis of things, and truth is the substance of all morality." - Gandhi.

If morality serves as the basis of vanity, then I think the basis of morality is desire; the basis of desire is influence; the basis of influence is knowledge; the basis of knowledge is imagination; the basis of imagination is our sense organs reacting to our present environment, and the extent of how concious we are of this happening.

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” - Albert Einstein

The more open ones mind is to foreign influences, the more bigger and detailed its imagination can potentially become. It's loves influence on our ability to reason that governs the extent of our compassion and empathy, because it's love that leads a concious mind most willing to consider anything new (your parents divorcing and upon dating someone new your dad goes from cowboy boots only to flip flops for example). Thus the extent of its ability—even willingness to imagine the most amount of potential variables, when imagining themselves as someone else; and of how detailed it is. This is what not only makes knowledge in general so important, but especially the knowledge of selflessness and virtue. Because our imagination needs to be exercised by let's say reading books or imagining yourself in someones shoes as a couple examples.

When one strikes us accross the cheek, and we stike back in retaliation, we appeal to the more instinctive, barbaric mammal within all of us. But when we lower our hand, and offer our other cheek in return, we appeal to the logical, reasonable thinking being within all of us instead.

I think the only evidence needed to prove my claim made in the title is to use the "skin" that holds the wine of the knowledge of everything we've ever presently known as a species: observation. If we look at our world around us, we can plainly see a collection of capable, concious beings on a planet, presently holding the most capacity to not only imagine selflessness to the extent we can, but act upon this imagining, and the extent we can apply it to our environment, in contrast to anything—as far as we know—that's ever existed; God or not.

What would happen if the wine of our knowledge of morality was no longer kept separate from the skin we use to hold the knowledge of everything else: observation, and poured purely from the perspective of this skin? Opposed to poured into the one that its always been poured into, and thats kept it seperate at all in the first place: a religion. There's so much logic within religion, that's not being seen as such because of the appearance it's given when it's taught and advocated, being an entire concept on what exactly life is, and what the influences of a God or afterlife consist of, our failure to make them credible enough only potentially drawing people away from the value of the extremes of our sense of selflessness—even the relevance of the idea of a God or creator of some kind; becoming stigmatized as a result.

There's a long-standing potential within any consciously capable being—on any planet, a potential for the most possible good, considering its unique ability of perceiving anything good or evil in the first place. It may take centuries upon centuries of even the most wretched of evils and collective selfishness, but the potential for the greatest good and of collective selflessness will have always have been there. Like how men of previous centuries would only dream of humans flying in the air like the birds do, or the idea of democracy.

"We can't beat out all the hate in the world, with more hate; only love has that ability." - Martin Luthing King Jr.

"Morality is the basis of things, and truth is the substance of all morality." - Gandhi

"Respect was invented, to cover the empty place, where love should be." - Leo Tolstoy

"Never take an oath at all. Not to heaven (God and an afterlife), or Earth (humans)...Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ (regarding these influences); anything more than this comes from evil (a worry, a need, a fear for oneself; a selfishness, i.e., a religion). - Jesus, Matt 5:33

"The hardest to love, are the ones that need it the most." - Socrates

A lot of this I learned and thought out through reading Tolstoy's hard work in his non-fictions: Confession, What I Believe, The Gospel In Brief, and The Kingdom of God is Within You

"Socrates believed that his mission from a God (the one that supposedly spoke through the oracle at Delphi) was to examine his fellow citizens and persuade (teach) them that the most important good for a human being was the health of the soul. Wealth, he insisted, does not bring about human excellence or virtue, but virtue makes wealth and everything else good for human beings (Apology 30b)." https://iep.utm.edu/socrates/#:~:text=He%20believed%20that%20his%20mission,human%20beings%20(Apology%2030b). The story of Jonah in the bible (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jonah%201&version=NIV) teaches that the knowledge of the value of virtue, selflessness and goodness needs to be taught; it's a knowledge that needs to gained. Because like it teaches at the very end of the story: some people don't even have the ability to "tell their right hand from their left" (Autism Spectrum Disorder for example). Or in other words: ignorance (lack of knowledge) is an inevitability; nobody can know until they know. The now pejorative term is neither an insult, nor is it insulting; it's nothing more than an adjective to explain my, yours, or anythings lack of knowledge to anything in particular. All hate and evil can be catorgorized as this inevitable lack of knowledge—thus, warranting any degree of it infinite forgiveness, because again: you don't know until you know, this would of course include the lack of knowledge to the value of virtue that leads to hate, evil, and iniquity. Socrates on ignorance and evil: https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/apology/idea-nature-of-evil/

Jesus referenced the story of Jonah twice in The Gospels, both times being challenged to show a sign of his divinity: 4 "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” - Matt 16:4 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2016&version=ESV

Jesus would always refer to God as "Father" because that's how he was taught about what this God consists of, as having a parents kind of love for you—rememeber the very beginning of The Gospels, where he becomes lost and is found at a temple as a child? And is taught of God as being his "Father;" if you had a child and they committed suicide, would you want them to burn eternally in a lake of fire for it? Of course not. And Jesus didn't know who his real father was correct? Interesting right? Ultimately what I'm trying to say is that everything we know of God now has came from a collection of blind men, telling other blind men that what they have to say should be held as unquestionably true via the influences of the idea of a God and an Afterlife (of a "heaven"). Everything after Jesus—Paul's letters, The Gospels to a degree, The Nicene Creed, The Book of Revelation, the idea that a God of love unconditionally would bother with conditions like having to believe Jesus was divine or any of the seemingly infinite amount of external conditions that need to be met to call yourself a "true Christian." Despite Jesus calling the Pharisees hypocrites every chance he could get and when his disciples told him of some external thing that they needed (bread in the circumstance linked) he would dismiss it as completely unnecessary: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2016:5-20&version=NIV

Jesus calling out Pharisees: 8"But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers (to "our father"). 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven." - Matt 23:8 25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean." - Matt 23:25 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%2023&version=NIV

Now lets take a look at one of my favorite things Jesus said, on the the Sermon On the Mount (debately, the most publicized point of his teaching, thus, the most accurate in my opinion) that lead to another connection between what Socrates did and had to say, and Jesus (keep in mind the extent Greek influence made its way throughout Jerusalem and the surrounding areas at this point in time):

"Socrates believed that the most important pursuit in life was to constantly examine one's beliefs and actions through critical thinking," (lest you find yourself throwing the supposed messiah up on a cross—like the Pharisees, or persecuting early followers of Jesus' teaching convinced its right, true, and just—like Paul, or in a war between nations, or collectively hating someone or something, etc.) "and he would not back down from this practice even when it made others uncomfortable." https://philolibrary.crc.nd.edu/article/no-apologies/#:~:text=The%20Examined%20Life,still%20less%20likely%20to%20believe.

Oaths 33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ 34 But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.[g]

Anything more then yes or no regarding the influences that come from the idea of a heaven (God and an afterlife), or Earth (people and what they're presently sharing in), only comes from a worry, a need, a fear for oneself: a selfishness. Questions like that only come from our sense of selfishness, and only lead to division, i.e., religion or even more theoretical sciences and philosophy; this is why it's so important to always consider anything man made as questionably true, opposed to unquestionably true, and that it's no longer up for question, or whats called: infalliable (no longer capable of error). Questions like what does a God or Afterlife consist of or how exactly did the universe begin, pale in comparison to the truth that is our capacity for selflessness not only individually, but especially, collectively; God or not.

It's only what a man thinks that can truly defile it: "What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them." - Matt 15:11 "Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.” - Matt 15:17 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2015&version=NIV It's "oath-taking," so to speak, that leads to slander and the collective hate that's bred from it—racism, hate between cities or their high school sports teams, hate in general if you think about it enough, quarrel at all between nations and any potential war between them, and the list goes on. We're all humans; one race, brothers and sisters. The worst thing to come from "oath-taking" in my opinion is the hinderance of foreign influences or new knowledge and an open mind along with it. Because it's this that determines the capacity and how detailed ones imagination is, and it's imagination that serves as the basis of our ability to empathize, thus, love.

Interesting how neither Jesus or Socrates wrote anything down, and both even went as far as giving their lives dying a martyr trying to teach what they had to say.

"The hardest to love, are the ones that need it the most." - Socrates

Supposition is defined as an uncertain belief. Therefore, there not being a reason for things or a why would be just as much of a supposition as if I were to say that there is.

There being no why or reason for things is worthy of the same amount of burden of evidence/explanation for if I were to say the opposite. And to say there isn't a reason or a why for things wouldn't/shouldn't make anything being a supposition not worthy of ones consideration just because anything born from an is or an isn't can be considered as supposition based off metaphysical assumptions.

So you're saying scientific theory is not worth the time and energy to even consider? Scientific theory being based off metaphysical assumptions. If so, you're saying The Big Bang wasn't worth not only the time and effort to think up in the first place, but not even worthy of anyone's consideration?

"The whole historic existence of mankind is nothing else than the gradual transition from the personal, animal conception of life (the savage recognizes life only in himself alone; the highest happiness for him is the fullest satisfaction of his desires), to the social conception of life (recognizing life not in himself alone, but in societies of men—in the tribe, the clan, the family, the kingdom, the government—and sacrifices his personal good for these societies), and from the social conception of life to the divine conception of life (recognizing life not in his own individuality, and not in societies of individualities, but in the eternal undying source of life—in God; and to fulfill the will of God he is ready to sacrifice his own individuality and family and social welfare). The whole history of the ancient peoples, lasting through thousands of years and ending with the history of Rome, is the history of the transition from the animal, personal view of life to the social view of life. The whole history from the time of the Roman Empire and the appearance of Christianity is the history of the transition, through which we are still passing now, from the social view to life to the divine view of life." - Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherent the Earth." - Jesus, Matt 5:5

Not the traditional Christianity; Revelation this and Corinthians that. One that consists of a more philosophical interpretation of The Gospels that's hiding underneath all the dogma ever since Paul. One that emphasizes The Sermon On the Mount, debately, the most publicized point of his time spent suffering to teach the value of selflessness and virtue, thus, the most accurate in my opinion. Tolstoy learned ancient Greek and translated The Gospels himself as: The Gospel In Brief, if you're interested. This translation I've found to be the best:

https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Brief-Harper-Perennial-Thought/dp/006199345X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3D3DFNAHJZ0HW&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.PDu_uq6qxVnvpJz0KIG-b3A_2LHIOiMZVR0RKKtF83S6AFUEgh9WpJkMXm4L9m8wgaDpLwiy9wO3DcM6mWe8437xrZ3VoRRh78Xrvbtsok_AvOSV4XHBkbDXhJLt0i0oZki2XoDQ4FrSTXKpK29x_EJzw2574ecE-w-WAqvm_uxLyQkWJQl2nN__-z-W8ndodRZXs0hMU2WgkkyncC7pSg.f9O0rDg6mxe0FRxZXY5PIdYhSUieBDWJ45gCAINx75k&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+gospel+in+brief&qid=1734199112&sprefix=the+gospel+in+brief%2Caps%2C158&sr=8-1

Suffering/Hate/Anger/Fear/Selfishness/Conciousness

What would be the remedy of fear, and the selfishness that creates it? Knowledge, but of the value of virtue and selflessness specifically. Therefore, all hate and evil would be a lack of knowledge—an ignorance. This is what inspired Socrates (debatably, the founding father of philosophy) to begin teaching strangers around his community, because he knew that it's a knowledge that needs to be gained thus, taught, to the point where he even took his own life to die a martyr to what he had to say. And the knowledge that the fear that would've otherwise have stopped him from even teaching anything at all would be a selfishness. This is what warrants hate and evil to any degree infinite forgiveness, and why it's so important to teach it the error of its ways, through love. Whether through meeting what you would consider as hate when you're met with it, with love, or exemplifying it via selfless actions. Because some people don't even have the ability to tell their left hand from their right (Jonah 4:11), but we can use the influence of an Earth (what a collection of people are presently sharing in—society, driving cars, holding the door open for strangers etc.) to teach the more difficult to do so; if everyone were sharing in selflessness and virtue, wouldn't it be seen as typical as driving a car is today? Therefore, nowhere near the chore it would be seen as otherwise, considering everyone would be participating in it. And what does a cat begin to do—despite its, what we call "instinct"—when raised amongst dogs? Pant. We are what we've been surrounded with, like racists, they just don't know any better, being abscent of the other side of it especially. And love (selflessness) is the greatest teacher, it renders the ears and the mind of a conscious, capable being—on any planet, to be the most open-minded, thus the most willing to truly consider foreign influences.

"We can't beat out all the hate in the world, with more hate; only love has that ability." - Martin Luther King Jr.

What if the most logical explanation as to why a concious mind exists—on any planet, is to suffer? Suffer, however, based off our more fortunate standards specifically: to suffer the—what we would consider—"pains" of things like inconvenience, discomfort, misfortune, and displeasure.

Its the incessant indulgence in these things that lead a concious mind to be completely blind to the woes of such, thus the compassion and ability to empathize that comes with the experience (or knowledge) of suffering. It's hardly just an "eye for an eye"—the inherent need for ourselves to retaliate due to being concious of ourselves—that leads the world to be blind, it's our sense organs reacting to our environment and any desire for ourselves conjured from this reaction that is the most blinding; it's this that leads to the vanities we imagine in our heads, that we end up revolving our lives around, and make most important, that leads away from the "true life" a life of selflessness has to offer: a life most lived in the present, opposed to stuck in our heads, the images of what we consider the pain of our "past" and the thirst or fear for the "future" (our sense of time being yet another consequence of consciousness—like selfishness) dominating how we feel today.

It's our sense organs reacting to the extent we've presently manipulated our environment that leads to an addiction to it, even happiness, to the point where we become convinced that it's even lifes meaning: to become as happy as possible, but when we make our highest happiness the satisfaction of our greatest desires, we're only lead to an inevitable, massive disappointment, due to all exploitation of desire only being temporary. This begs the question: out of all the desire, and vanity that's bred from it, would there by any that don't end in inevitable disappointment due to being temporary? Love—but not Disney World kind of love, no, the Gandhi, MLK, Leo Tolstoy kind: selflessness—is the only desire that not only holds the ability to potentially last as long as man does, but also doesn't lead to inevitable disappointment. Dare I say: it's what the idea of a God or creator of some kind (not any man made God, but the substance of them)—its will: selflessness, to even it's extremes like self-sacrifice, that is the only desire worth seeking. But if you're someone against the idea of a God or creator (good luck finding the will to be selfless to the extremes) then let the fact that we're the only living things that have ever existed (on this planet, as far we know) that can even begin to consider abstaining from itself for any reason at all, be enough.

It's this that would end all suffering, but not by ending it, but by normalizing it I suppose you could say; to suffer for the sake of selflessness. To take the empty, ultimately only disappointing desire of stimulating our sense organs and fulfilling our vanities—for the sake of ourselves, and replace it, with the logic and alternative perspectives and behaviors that our inherency to selflessness breeds, that comes from our inherent ability to logic and reason.

What if we're designed to not be comforted or pleasured incessantly? Just look at the rich, most upper to lower middle class, even the poorest in a nation crippled by convenience; people of fortune (in life or in wealth) in general (like me): obese or crooked in some way or another, the idea of their temporary lifestyle they've become so attached to no longer being an avenue to being comforted and pleasured, saps or corrupts their concious mind, to the point where their willing to even kill to keep it—in some cases. Could a life of abstaining from your sense organs, and teaching yourself to thirst, desire and fantasize for the least, be what ultimately leads to a life of the most?

"Comfort is the worst addiction." - Marcus Aurelius