It has been said in another thread that the concept of God serves no purpose but to allay a weak mind's fear. I am assuming that there is also such a thing as a 'strong mind'. What is a strong mind like, a strong mind - a mind that does not need God to allay its fear?
I'd think that a "strong mind" would be one that can justify what it believes by standing firm on its convictions and will warrant much information to change its primary position on its views.
By that token, then there is but a mere fine line between a strong mind, and a deluded one. Most devout Christians do exactly what is in the bold above. Most devout <insert religion here> do exactly that too. At least all but one of those groups are delusional. So strong mind or deluded?
To the outside world. A very active social life and happiness overall. Satisfaction can be a badge of the strong mind perhaps? Or perhaps there is a more evidential sign of a strong mind that I'm not getting?
Do you think that being 'adapted to the outside world' is the only way, or the best way, to have 'very active social life and happiness overall'? And that the happiness a person gets from this adaptation is as good as it gets, ever, for anyone? You said: So I presume you know well about the 'strong mind'.
I would say a strong mind is one that does what it does not want to do, because its the right thing to do.
Education, research, ferreting out the truth and questioning stuff as well as many other ways to gain a strong mind.
So if I was standing strong in the practice of filming my erotic games with livestock under the influence of drugs with blaring death metal music, and criticized you for knocking it with out trying it, that would be a strong mind? Your going to find a wide range of responses unless you hone down what people are actually talking about when they say "mind".
Its the one with the will/discipline to make the right choice, whether for morality, prudence or delayed gratification. I think the ability to deny yourself for later or selfless interest is one of the most difficult things to do consistently
Nietzsche's overman: [story of philosophy will durant] Friedrich Nietzsche 395 O The Superman Just as morality lies not in kindness but in strength, so the goal of human effort should be not the elevation of all but the development of finer and stronger individuals. "Not mankind, but superman is the goal." The very last thing a sensible man would undertake would be to improve mankind: mankind does not improve, it does not even exist it is an abstraction; all that exists is a vast ant-hill of individuals. The aspect of the whole is much more like that of a huge experimental work-shop where some things in every age succeed, while most things fail; and the aim of all the experiments is not the happiness of the mass but the improvement of the type. Better that societies should come to an end than that no higher type should appear. Society is an instrument for the enhancement of the power and personality of the individual; the group is not an end in itself. "To what purpose then are the machines, if all individuals are only of use in maintaining them? Machines" or social organizations "that are ends in them- selvesis that the umana commedia?" 7G At first Nietzsche spoke as if his hope were for the production of a new species; 70 later he came to think of his superman as the superior individual rising precariously out of the mire of mass mediocrity, and owing his existence more to deliberate breeding and careful nurture than to the hazards of natural selection. For the biological process is biased against the exceptional individual; nature is most cruel to her finest products; she loves rather, and protects, the average and the mediocre; there is in nature a perpetual reversion to type, to the level of the mass, a recurrent mastery of the best by the most. 77 The super- man can survive only by human selection, by eugenic foresight and an ennobling education. Mow absurd it is, after all, to let higher individuals marry for love- heroes with servant girls, and geniuses with seamstresses! Schopen- hauer was wrong; love is not eugenic; when a man is in love he should not be permitted to make decisions affecting his entire life; it is not given to man to love and be wise. We should declare invalid the vows of lovers and should make love a legal impediment to marriage. The best should marry only the best; love should be left to the rabble. The purpose of marriage is not merely reproduction, it should also be development.
