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Comment by abeppu | Hacker News Reader

As a non-religious gay, I fully agree that continually denying yourself something that makes you happy isn't a virtue.

However, raiding the cabinet of historically religious practices and stripping god out of them can be helpful. A lot of things we do on impulse don't actually make us happy, and cutting them out for a bit can be a good way to examine whether they've become unhelpful/unskillful habits. I don't think drinking is inherently bad, but "dry January" can be a nice way to check that I'm not developing a dependency. I'm glad I have a smartphone but I do find that periodically being completely away from screens is a good check. Sex, food, other substances, media, can all be good but can also become parts of habits that don't actually lead to happiness. Temporary self-denial can be a useful tool in reworking one's relationship to these, even if you're definitely going to keep them in your life in some form.

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Yea and as a Muslim - I view it more as practicing discipline rather than suppressing desires. Like one the other posts said, you can't be blamed or sinned for having desires or whatever thoughts you have in your head. If we were, then basically no one is getting into heaven. And for some desires, Islam offers ways to fulfill them in a way that it views as permissiable. Whether or not you buy that ultimately comes down to faith but that's a separate topic.

Notice how imams are not celibate like Catholic priests. In fact celibacy isn't even a thing in Islam. You're actively encouraged to get into a relationship and get married so you can fulfill your sexual desires. There's even a prophetic quote that says getting married is half of your religion. It's that important. Of course some things like drinking is not allowed even if you desire it and that's just something you have to deal with. But even if you cave it's not the end of the world because the grading system is heavily curved in your favor.

Having desires is natural and human and it's even ok to indulge in them every once in a while in a healthy way.

The Islamic term for this is nafs which means "self" or sometimes "ego". So fulfilling human desires is filling your nafs. But just like overfilling your stomach can be bad, overfilling your nafs is also bad so you need to practice discipline in not getting carried away.

> I fully agree that continually denying yourself something that makes you happy isn't a virtue.

Murder? Mayhem? Destruction? Greed?

I agree homosexuality is a fine thing, but your comment is altogether far tooo broad.

Societal morals are often about denying ourselves things we want to do: often because our actions affect others or offend others, but also often for no strong reason at all. Virtue is almost defined by holding ourselves back from unvirtuous actions: can virtue exist in the world if we can all do whatever we will?

As a vegetarian for ethical reasons who grew up enjoying eating dead animals, I think we're on the same page actually. But strictly speaking, the virtue (perhaps a loaded word) I think you're alluding to is a willingness to pursue policies which maximize utility function which sums over agents other than oneself, not self-denial per se. Greed is perhaps the most illustrative "vice" on your list; satisfying one's personal greed only sometimes will cause any harm to others, and sometimes will be appropriate to pursue.

> > I fully agree that continually denying yourself something that makes you happy isn't a virtue.

> Murder? Mayhem? Destruction? Greed?

The bar is so low you consider not being a dangerous sociopath a virtue?

You think a dangerous sociopath is not virtuous if, for moral reasons, they hold back from acting upon their antisocial base desires?

You think they hold back from acting upon their desires because of god?

A dangerous sociopath with functioning moral compass? That sounds like an oxymoron, don't you think?

And no, fulfilling the very bare minimum is not virtuous. When virtuous person stops being virtuous, they fall to "average", not to the lowest possible.

You introduced the term sociopath, not me. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_portrayals_of_psychopat...

freedom in the matter of choosing your own actions is definitely a nice tool to have when planning your week or day, or or responding to stressful suprises.

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