/lit/ - Literature

>>14233034
>How does one go about being an intellectual without looking like a fag?
Lift weights. Be humble.

>>14234258
>I heard this one helped the Japanese strengthen their (already justified) disliking of ×tianity.
I will admit it MAY encourage people who already doubt Christianity to take an even dimmer view, hearing its early critics. But it's a good read, especially if you're interested in comparing philosophical schools to early Christianity. Recommended. Would read Origen's Contra Celsum afterwards.

>>14233094
>dozens of musts and shoulds
>no reason why

>except "you might like the typeface"
>but most of them are worthless

Who wrote this syllabus.

>>14234602
>>14234561
be nice to your mom. being tired and stressed is part of living and having responsibilities. do your best and try to avoid getting on bad terms. if you have some deeper resentment of your mom try to talk it out reasonably with her before it gets worse.

>>14234309
based

>>14233783
None of us will ever leave, not really. We'll stop visiting eventually, it might even be shut down and replaced by some lame alternative that just isn't the same. But for people like us, 4chan is permanently imprinted on our being. There's no escape.

>>14234436
you can find that set for 1/6th the price used, at least. i've seen some anons here walk away with it for free just for moving it themselves.

a book without external pressures acting on you to read it is a leisure activity.

set yourself a schedule.

>>14227982

>>14222916
>So what is morality? What *ought* sentient beings like ourselves do? Understand how the world works (facts), so that we can avoid what sucks (values).
He literally made himself into a caricature of a culture-destroying stereotype. Wow.

>>14228412
>We dont have faith, and we need faith to resist temptations.
Precisely.

>Most rich people are unpious, and I don't think you could find one 'pious' wealthy person who is as pious as a saint.
But are they any less deserving of mercy? I think you're right here, but it's a bad assumption that wealth automatically equals misguidedness or a lack of faith. Some degree of wealth is necessary to fulfill God's command to be fruitful and multiply in the sacrament of marriage. What's important is a willingness to give up that wealth as you have said.

>>14228317
https://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html

Para. 46 & 47

>The right to possess private property is derived from nature, not from man; and the State has the right to control its use in the interests of the public good alone, but by no means to absorb it altogether. The State would therefore be unjust and cruel if under the name of taxation it were to deprive the private owner of more than is fair.

tldr: Man needs some kind of capital because he exists in a capitalist system. Loans existed even in Jesus' day. Without private property there can be no charity. Etc etc.

>it isnt enough to be rich and charitable, you must be charitable enough to the extent that you are made poor by it, and have less to turn you from your faith
Right.

>Also I think assuming that ones faith is strong enough to resist the temptations inherent with earthly wealth is foolish
Well that's your opinion.

Yup.

>>14228241
>the bible is explicitly anti-capital
Not exactly.

>What is the protestant ethic? Is it a book worth reading?
You tell me.

>when people trash talk protties, are you referring to the german protestant reformation
I don't but I assume yeah that's what people are talking about.

To answer your first question the Protestant work ethic is real, and a cultural feature. Ethnic groups, their culture, and their religion are extremely closely related, and this is one of those times when the wrong label got applied. There is no particular drive to generate capital in Protestant theology afaik. It's a cultural feature that survived in a people who moved out of Europe to the American colonies and frontier.

>>14226115
Was never really an atheist, an agnostic at worst.

>Joseph Campbell's Masks of God
For recognizing the sacred exists in all cultures' religious traditions.

>Plotinus, On Beauty
For explaining to me the notion of a perfect being and its association with the good.

>Plato
For learning how to think about these things or be interested in them at all.

>The Bible, particularly the NT read in light of the aforementioned
Obvious reasons.

>>14223928
The western canon is by definition inherently conservative, and therefore so are the liberal arts. Any works that attempt undermining or deterritorializing or deconstructing what is known to be true and good and beautiful should be viewed with suspicion.

>>14223278
>300 word essay
that's literally a single 4chan post

>>14223194
Haven't read them yet, I'll check it out thanks.

>>14223266
based, you're off to a good start. all you have to do it take each topic one at a time and write, say, 4-5 paragraphs each.

>>14223131
>I'm doing it on why the death penalty should be abolished
so what's your argument founded on? is it moral? legal? both? if you're in the US are you going to critique the 13th amendment? what does the Catholic Church have to say about the death penalty? isn't performing executions via the death penalty literally just the state throwing its hands in the air and abandoning the possibility of restorative justice? (after all, the dead guy won't be around to be able to amend.) find examples of guys who have been executed. find out their stories and whether they were repentant or not. read enough on the topic and you'll start to form an opinion which you can turn into a thesis for your paper. you've got a whole day and a half, it's doable my man.

look this stuff up on wikipedia and look further into their citations, you can probably find a lot of this is out there on google books or whatever.

>>14223093
*scxchzzz* fren, fren. come in fren. You can do it fren! *schcclick*

Do it. Just start. Take a look at your assignment, remind yourself of the rubric/critera and start thinking. Grab a pen and record your thoughts on paper. Draw it out.

>>14221353
Has anyone read Accepting the Yoke of Heaven? Seems like a good read, one that is seriously concerned with the obedience to God and recognizing the limits of man's capacity in that regard. (And what we should do about that.)

>>14222644
>This is most likely a very bad place to ask this
Nah.

Holy Bible, specifically Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Proverbs, Psalms

Enchiridion of Epictetus

Plato's Euthyphro, and trial and death of Socrates

>>14222726
>Any good stoic critiques and no i don't think I want the bible
Look up the cardinal virtues: Justice, Temperance, Fortitude (aka Courage), and Prudence. Christians call them the cardinal virtues because they are essential to living a good life. You'll notice they are the same virtues of a good man praised by stoics. I think you'll appreciate Epictetus.

forgot pic. not mine but same edition. picked it out of a library sale for a dollar.

>>14222138
Fitzgerald or nothing

>>14221930
Read it twice more than a decade ago. Only image I really remember is some super saiyan wonder woman character flying over wheat fields to go merc a dude. As propaganda, it's an interesting peek at how the great were honored as something more than human or larger than life, and how those honors worked as a kind of currency. We're still talking about them now so maybe they are immortal.