Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'What do powers do when they are not manifested?' and 'Contrib to Critique of Hegel's Phil of Right'

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3 ideas

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / a. Religious Belief
Religion is the opium of the people, and real happiness requires its abolition [Marx]
     Full Idea: Religion is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness.
     From: Karl Marx (Contrib to Critique of Hegel's Phil of Right [1844], Intro)
     A reaction: Not being religious myself, I have some sympathy with this ringing clarion-call. However, while opium satisfies an artificial and superficial need, religion certainly seems to speak to something deeper and more central in people.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / b. Soul
Death can't separate soul from body, because incorporeal soul can't unite with body [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: Death is a separation of soul from body. But nothing incorporeal can be separated from a body. For neither does anything incorporeal touch a body, and the soul touches and is separated from the body. Therefore the soul is not incorporeal.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Tertullian - The Soul as an 'Astral Body' 5.3
     A reaction: This is the classic interaction difficulty for substance dualist theories of mind.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / d. Natural Evil
There is a rationale in terrible disasters; they are useful to the whole, and make good possible [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: The evil which occurs in terrible disasters has a rationale [logos] peculiar to itself: for in a sense it occurs in accordance with universal reason, and is not without usefulness in relation to the whole. For without it there could be no good.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.4.5
     A reaction: [a quotation from Chrysippus. Plutarch, Comm Not 1065b] A nice question about any terrible disaster is whether it is in some way 'useful', if we take a broader view of things. Almost everything has a good aspect, from that perspective.