Philosophy Discussion Forums

Page 31 - “We can’t help starving children because we can’t even help ourselves.”

I don’t agree that we can’t help starving children or that the reason we don’t (and some of us do donate to causes that help starving children) is because we can’t help ourselves. There are so many injustices and horrible things in this world. If we thought about them all the time we wouldn’t be able to function. So many of us choose causes to support, and many of us choose starving children. It would be more effective if we could come up with a way for governments and larger organizations to help starving children. In the US, we do have programs (like free lunch programs at school or some schools have developed programs to help these kids during the summer as well) that aim to help children who don’t have enough to eat at home. There are organizations that raise funds for kids starving in other countries. Many of us do try.

I always believe that self-help books reflect the author's views on various aspects of life. Reading this book, I encountered different perspectives on certain things that made me rethink my own views.

Yes I agree with everything you said in the book. However. I feel like some readers may find some thing. Especially the unconditional love . My wife has an issue with that lol. She says there's no such thing as unconditional love.

Gladis Ratish Kumar wrote: ↑July 22nd, 2024, 4:31 am I agree with everything in the book. Although some sentences were initially confusing, the further explanations provided clarity. The book is wonderfully written with clear and precise answers. For example, the sentence "We are vampires who no longer even resist our lifestyle of disregard for human life and human suffering" felt somewhat offensive. However, the further elaborations helped me understand how selfish we truly are.

Exactly my thought. It was kind of offensive to an extent.

"But as the conscious presence that makes the present into a present, the present is the one place you can never leave and never need to do anything to get to. For better or worse, you are always and eternally stuck in the eternal present, for you are that which illuminates the would-be dark and would-be non-present into a present. You are already there, you are already it, and you need not take another step." Kindle Page 127.

I believe that there is a future to look forward to and a possibility to attain that future if we live long enough. Even though events in the future are non-existent, as they have nit happened or are not happening, I deduct from those lines above that there might be nothing like the future. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. However, I would want you to speak on the future itself outside of the events of the future. Is the future something one should look forward to?

Yes, I do agree with everything in the book that makes you YOU! In it together has so much to offer to its readers and discussing things from different point of view point is commendable.

"There is no problem of evil because there is no evil."
I can't logically explain the existence of evil, but I know it exists because I've encountered it. And the only way I can describe it is... Evil. It's not physical, it's spiritual. And it fights against the good of humanity and the world at large.

Alissa Nesson wrote: ↑July 28th, 2024, 10:38 am Page 31 - “We can’t help starving children because we can’t even help ourselves.”

I don’t agree that we can’t help starving children or that the reason we don’t (and some of us do donate to causes that help starving children) is because we can’t help ourselves. There are so many injustices and horrible things in this world. If we thought about them all the time we wouldn’t be able to function. So many of us choose causes to support, and many of us choose starving children. It would be more effective if we could come up with a way for governments and larger organizations to help starving children. In the US, we do have programs (like free lunch programs at school or some schools have developed programs to help these kids during the summer as well) that aim to help children who don’t have enough to eat at home. There are organizations that raise funds for kids starving in other countries. Many of us do try.

Hi, Alissa Nesson,

You seem to be conflating "trying" with "doing".

Thus, I suggest you not only re-read my book, In It Together, but also read and reply to these forum topics of mine:


Trying, failure, underachievement, and should-not-have-ness are imaginary phantoms that cause you real misery.

There is no 'should', no 'ought', and no 'try'. You are 100% in control of your choices.

Failure is a miserable hellish self-deceiving illusion. There is no try. Everyone and everything is a success.

Beware: The phrase "work hard" can be just as dishonest and dangerous as the word "try". Be very careful with it!

(Q&A) Despite trying so hard, I am a failure. What is your advice?

My Three Principles for Happiness and Success (in that order!) | Be Happy and Achieve Incredible Success Guaranteed | Success is a choice!

Success is a choice.

My sincere advice: Be lazy and stubborn. Don't try, ever. Avoid productivity addicts, money lovers, and safety freaks.

If you try to win, you choose to lose. Trying is lying. Don't try. Be honest. Do your best, and fully accept the rest.


We "try" to save starving children and end child starvation (and "fail") in the same sense that a cheating spouse "tries" to be faithful and fails and in the same sense that a drinking alcoholic "tries" to not drink and "fails". Fundamentally, the alcoholic and cheating spouse "fail" (to save themselves from alcohol and cheating) in the same way you/I/we "fail" to end child starvation. That is what I mean when I say that we can't (or, really, don't) end child starvation for the same reason we can't (or don't) help ourselves. But, in all three cases and any and all others, the "trying" and "failure" are just dishonest illusions.

We don't try because we can't try because there is no try.




With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

Annabell Samuel wrote: ↑July 30th, 2024, 5:23 am "But as the conscious presence that makes the present into a present, the present is the one place you can never leave and never need to do anything to get to. For better or worse, you are always and eternally stuck in the eternal present, for you are that which illuminates the would-be dark and would-be non-present into a present. You are already there, you are already it, and you need not take another step." Kindle Page 127.

I believe that there is a future to look forward to and a possibility to attain that future if we live long enough. Even though events in the future are non-existent, as they have not happened or are not happening, I deduct from those lines above that there might be nothing like the future. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. However, I would want you to speak on the future itself outside of the events of the future. Is the future something one should look forward to?

There is no "the future", there is no "the past", and there is no "should".

For more on this, please read the following topics of mine:

- Your entire life and death can be in someone's past even if their life and death is in your past. Time isn't real.

- Q&A: "You have said that time is not real and there is no 'the past' and no 'the future'. Isn't yesterday in the past?

- There is no objective now. If there are subjective nows, there's infinite ones equally existing across all of spacetime.

- In the same sense leftness is not real, time is not real.

- You can't be a physicalist if you believe in objective time or that there is an objective now

- Would Flat-Land Four-Eyed Freddy Notice a Difference?

- Neither time, time-ness, unconscious here-ness, unconscious now-ness, nor any unconscious presence exist.

- Your left is not the left. There is no "the left". Likewise, there is no "the past" or "the future". Time is not real.

- Time is not real. Correspondingly, nothing real is temporary.

- Without subjectivity (i.e. consciousness), there is no present. With subjectivity, there are infinite presents.

- Scientifically, the whole world you see is an obviously fake impossible world created by a brain in a dark quiet skull.

- There's no slice, chunk, or part of the universe that is 'now' versus not 'now' without you. There is no objective now.

- Objective leftness and rightness do not exist.

- The beauty and peace of spatiotemporal presence itself will be with you, always, anywhere.

- 2D Maps of the Earth's Surface Act as Analogy for the Wrongness of Objective Time Theories & Classical/Newtonian Physics



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

Ajay pratap singh Tomar wrote: ↑July 20th, 2024, 2:19 am The assertion made on page 157 that unconditional forgiveness is simply the passive act of not making mistakes is not supported by the author. According to them, there is nothing to forgive since serious transgressions of human decency are "tough to forgive." They aspire to develop spiritually and embrace unconditional forgiveness because it is a vital first step on the road to recovery and development.

Hi, Ajay pratap singh Tomar,

That is not a quote from my book.

If you don't agree with every single sentence from the book, please post a verbatim quote of the very first sentence in the book with which you disagree, meaning the sentence closest to the beginning of the book.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

Ajay pratap singh Tomar wrote: ↑July 20th, 2024, 2:57 am The author disagrees with Eckhart Aurelius Hughes' book "In It Together" and the first sentence they disagreed with. They believe unconditional forgiveness is the transcendence of the feeling that there is anything to forgive, and that spiritual freedom manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace. They suggest breaking down the sentence into "it is what it is until it isn't" and "it is what it is until it isn't." In conclusion, the author emphasizes the importance of accepting and accepting others' actions, as well as the concept of "shoulds and oughts."

Hi, Ajay pratap singh Tomar,

That is not a quote from my book.

If you don't agree with every single sentence from the book, please post a verbatim quote of the very first sentence in the book with which you disagree, meaning the sentence closest to the beginning of the book.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

Among the statements I disagree with is definitely the one on page 156, which says, "If you were fully in their shoes, you would do exactly as they do, so there is nothing to forgive." First of all, it needs to be contextualized. It depends on what a person has done, but not everything can be justified regardless. Clearly, I don’t judge the person themselves, but rather their actions.

I cannot say I disagreed with anything in this book, however I had tough time understanding few concepts particularly unconditional love and forgiveness. I can see many other readers came across the similar problem. However, when I read it second time I really got it. The problem was that I was trying to understand everything from my own perspective but as soon as I tried another way by becoming the person on the other side using empathy, it started getting clearer and made sense to me. I also got hold of the concept of unconditional love and forgiveness. So, I do agree with everything in this book!

I am not a philosopher. But I do consider myself to be a person of faith. Thus, my interpretation of this material is very much informed by the morality born to me by Christianity.
I could analyze the ideas or opinions of this book, and find fault in many places should I decide to look deeper. But as the author states, this could simply be my way of excusing the idea or shifting fault away from my own intention.

So instead, I will write of the part I disagree with most. The existence of evil.
This is a fact, not an opinion.
Page 37, Chapter "We Can't help starving children because we cannot help ourselves."
Referencing the quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

I could understand why someone of his nature would seek to separate the two. To assuage his own guilt or behaviors. But inherently-Biblically the two are tied together through choice. While I agree with some of what this author has stated, I cannot separate the "Yous" from themselves.
From the days Eve indulged in the forbidden fruit, evil has had a toe hold in this world. It is both physical and conceptual.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12

The presence of evil beyond human control does not inherently disqualify human behavior. We are born with free will. Therefore our choices are entirely our own. Evil is invited into our physical space. Our minds, or souls. But only through our own allowance - knowingly or not. It is not some innate part of our being. It is an intentional parasite meant to keep us from God.

So the point being. We can in some ways separate evil from ourselves and think of them as two parts of a whole. But in order for wickedness to prevail, you must first have given yourself over to it.

Eckhart Aurelius Hughes wrote: ↑June 10th, 2024, 5:08 pm


Also, if you can provide me the quote from the Christian Bible, preferably something said by Jesus himself, that supports the claim that "Satan is evil" (i.e. that God did something he shouldn't have when he chose to create Satan knowing Satan would do exactly what Satan would do based on the way God created him), that would be great.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

Matthew 13:38 would be Jesus claiming Satan is evil.