Four philosophical questions to make your brain hurt

Interesting article from the BBC. I think it's always good to examine your answers to questions like this, so you can learn more about yourself.

1. SHOULD WE KILL HEALTHY PEOPLE FOR THEIR ORGANS?

Suppose Bill is a healthy man without family or loved ones. Would it be ok painlessly to kill him if his organs would save five people, one of whom needs a heart, another a kidney, and so on? If not, why not?

2. ARE YOU THE SAME PERSON WHO STARTED READING THIS ARTICLE?

Consider a photo of someone you think is you eight years ago. What makes that person you? You might say he she was composed of the same cells as you now. But most of your cells are replaced every seven years. You might instead say you're an organism, a particular human being, and that organisms can survive cell replacement - this oak being the same tree as the sapling I planted last year.

3. IS THAT REALLY A COMPUTER SCREEN IN FRONT OF YOU?

4. DID YOU REALLY CHOOSE TO READ THIS ARTICLE?

Suppose that Fred existed shortly after the Big Bang. He had unlimited intelligence and memory, and knew all the scientific laws governing the universe and all the properties of every particle that then existed. Thus equipped, billions of years ago, he could have worked out that, eventually, planet Earth would come to exist, that you would too, and that right now you would be reading this article.

IN CONCLUSION

As TS Eliot once wrote:

"…the end of our exploring,

Will be to arrive where we started,

And know the place for the first time."

Mark Twain on Religion

“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” —- Mark Twain

A religion that comes of thought, and study, and deliberate conviction, sticks best. The revitalized convert who is scared in the direction of heaven because he sees hell yawn suddenly behind him, not only regains confidence when his scare is over, but is ashamed of himself for being scared, and often becomes more hopelessly and malignantly wicked than he was before.—- Mark Twain

We blindly follow our beliefs because we fear the consequences as preached by religious leaders . We are brainwashed in a way that limits our ability to think, study and form a deliberate conviction based on our ideals. Some form of religion and religious beliefs are vital for our own personal growth and character building, but we should never allow dumbfounded reasoning or scare tactics to guide our religious beliefs or to form a stereotypical view of others who don’t conform to our own. A religion should show us the pathway to happiness by practicing moral values and compassion for all Mankind.

We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles. —- Mark Twain

When our actions are not congruent with our own beliefs, we take refuge under the hood of our principles to justify our act of cowardice. If we avoid expressing our views of fairness and justice for any just cause that we feel deeply about, if we ignore our own inner voice to bring about the change that can transform our world for the better — we are doomed to forever fail to do what’s right . We use this word ‘principle’ at work and at home to avoid engaging ourselves in those actions that jeopardize our imaginary sense of security.

All of us have formed a stonewall of theories to justify our mental views of other people. When we don’t like something and when we struggle to rationalize our dislike, we wrap ourselves in the comfortable, secure blanket called ‘our principles‘. How can we grow ourselves if we are not truthful to our own inner-self? How can we make our world a better place to live if we wrap our views in a colorful yet fake stereotype formed on baseless reasoning? Try to abandon those fake theories that you have formed and embrace awareness by witnessing every thought that guides your every action. You’ll be amazed at the power of clarity that you will feel when you devote your life to bring about a profound change.

You cannot have a theory without principles. Principles is another name for prejudices. —— Mark Twain

All of us have formed a stonewall of theories to justify our mental views of other people. When we don’t like something and when we struggle to rationalize our dislike, we wrap ourselves in the comfortable, secure blanket called ‘our principles‘. How can we grow ourselves if we are not truthful to our own inner-self? How can we make our world a better place to live if we wrap our views in a colorful yet fake stereotype formed on baseless reasoning? Try to abandon those fake theories that you have formed and embrace awareness by witnessing every thought that guides your every action. You’ll be amazed at the power of clarity that you will feel when you devote your life to bring about a profound change.

Happy is he who forgets (ignores?) what cannot be changed. —- Mark Twain

The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, we will then be a happy and a virtuous people. —- Mark Twain

Happiness is a Swedish sunset–it is there for all, but most of us look the other way and lose it. —- Mark Twain

Gotta love good ole' Sam Clemens. Read more at SuccessSoul