Ecclesiastes And The "Property Mentality"

DaveFoster

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Dr. Peat in regards to marriage: "I think it’s based on the property mentality."

Low inflammation and stress optimizes physiological systems, and a resonance with someone's environment can lead to "flow" or a sense of timelessness. In opposition to this, we have an attachment to outcome, but at the same time, the healthy human organism has a preference for order, structure and meaning in its environment.

I often come back to Ecclesiastes 2:24 as my secondly-favored passage in the Bible, and I thought I'd share it here.

Toil Is Meaningless

17 So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. 18 I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. 19 And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. 20 So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. 21 For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. 22 What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? 23 All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.

24 A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, 25 for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? 26 To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
 
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ilikecats

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Peat said that about monogamy? I thought he was talking about marriage. That's really fascinating if he said that about monogamy though imo
 
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DaveFoster

DaveFoster

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Peat said that about monogamy? I thought he was talking about marriage. That's really fascinating if he said that about monogamy though imo
I meant marriage, so thank you for the correction: I'd assume Dr. Peat means any obligations placed upon romantic love.

"I think the nature of life is to be intimate with other living things, but the principle of scarcity has been institutionalized to make intimacy a proprietary matter, and to effectively outlaw unauthorized intimacies. Our economy and schooling and even our architecture are designed to attach strings, and to pathologize openness. Albert Schweitzer said he grasped the principle of reverence for life in 1915, but it had probably been part of his nature already for at least 35 years:" Raymond Peat, PhD​
 

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