<Chris Marti here: This is a new topic split apart from an existing topic - carry on, please.>

{A bit of context from O : this started because i responded to someone, who was quoting nietzsche ror the benefit of another poster, i said nietzsche's understanding of certain topics was limited, and that one should be aware of that. Previous poster asked to give specific examples, so i wrote this on the fly ; if i had known it would become a topic of its own, i would have spent more time and care on this, but oh well. You will find the converstiin quuckly escalates to a discussion about islam. The statements i make throughout are well documented and none of it is made up by me - i can give specific , serious, sources, if anybody wants to check anything... }

--

(not to derail this but -I like Nietzsche and i want to avoid denouncing the shortcomings of others, however let's see if i can name three things ;

1 He didn't realize that the unfabricated is something that can be accessed and was not a deluded fantasy of the weak and diseased ; 2 nor, thus, that christian philosophers such as pseudo-dionysus were deeper than the pre socratic dionysiacs, and had better understanding of the dynamics at play in say, the dionysiac/apollonian dynamic (from the birth of tragedy) {For instance here that's not exactly what I meant : a further post in this thread clarifies this...} ; 3 he didn't seem to understand  sacrifice ; 4 he thaught buddhism was a pessimist and "late" doctrine close to the "last man" which was fit for overly sensitive to pain people ; 5 he wrote we should destroy all churches and raise snakes in the place where they had been (in the antichrist) ; 6 he thaught islam had better ethics.)

aloha olivier,

   much thanx for playing our game...

   I dsagree with your points, though I am not sure arguing them would have much value. Still, let's give it a whirl.

   You clearly object to nietzsche's oft-repeated contention that christianity and judaism involve what he calls "slave morality." This involves a thorough-going analysis of morality itself and its instinctual springs.

   Human society is realized to be a herd of animals. Think about this obvious fact, because from this his arguments arise. A herd has a few leaders, to whom one "morality" or set of rules of conduct prevails. A herd has many followers, on whom another morality is imposed. 

   Christianity is a religion created by rulers to keep their subjects enslaved. Give the devil his due and you'll be rewarded in the (nonexistent) afterlife. The most obscene expression of this is the worship of the gibbet as a sign of one's complete surrender of all self will. In hoc signo vinces.


   To the points. "Christian philosophers" are uniformly platonists. For this reason nietzsche heavily criticized socrates and plato for their worship of immaterial being and their dualistic projection of a world of "real" forms as opposed to a lesser reality of phenomena. From philo down to the pseudo areopagite greek philosophy was minedt to shore up the silly repetition of timeworn miracle stories and hero-worship that modern scholarship recognizes as having been kicked around for 10,000 years. Wthout greek philosophy, particularly neoplatonism, we would have only pauline - the roman secret agent - mind manacles in the form of "just believe and you will be saved" as the authorites take everything you have and torture you to death. Kneel and kiss the instrument of your torture and death, you insignificant worm. Nietzsche recognized this as a slave religion. Wildly successful, rulers everywhere adopted it to keep people in line. A typical religious success story. Other successful religions all keep people on their knees. People want to be just like their fellows, chained in ignorance, their wills completely subjected so no conflicts arise. Of course, some aspire to be of the ruling class, and they must be either hunted down and killed or suffered to succeed. Part of being a slave is worshipping the oppressor (think of yahweh).

   The presocratics, a diverse group of whom nietzsche only whole-heartedly loved heraclitus, were not dionysiacs. Dionysiacs were not writers of philosophy, they were celebrants of the orphic mysteries, took intoxicants and had orgies and generally let it all hang out. The apollonian/dyonysian dynamic was nietzsche's own and was not known to the christian writers, who were all apollonians, that is rationalists and logicans. They hated dyonisiacs as evil beings, and worshipped only "the good." Heretics were to be burned, because it was immoral for the church to shed blood.

   The "via negativa" you are referring to is essentially a recognition that no philosophical god can be apprehended by the mind or senses. This recognition is the only sign of god they can acknowledge and perceive. Islam fortunately progressed far beyond this, and christian philosphy was vastly enriched, almost created, by muslim scholarship and the filosofehs preservation of greek texts.

   Nietzsche sacrificed everything for truth. Nietzsche so believed in living your philosophy that he proposed the idea of eternal return, that everyone will live their same life in every detail over and over forever. With eternal return as a core belief, one lives very mindfully.

   Your statements on nietzsche's beliefs about buddhism seem incoherent. Nietzsche was interested in the "european" mind and had nineteenth century views on race and women. In context, his views make sense to me. Nietzsche had no prejudices.

   You say he wanted to "destroy all churches."  I don't know where you got this idea from nietzsche, but I personally don't have a problem with it. The christians destroyed all the beautiful temples and libraries of antiquity, monumental works of art and intellect, and replaced them with shame and ignorance. People nowadays are pulling down statues of the great christian liberator and genocidist cristopher columbus, and surely the cross, symbol of torture and death, is even riper for falling. Though clearly the symbol of the cross has lost its impact. They were waving "jesus saves" banners during the capitol insurrection, along with trump 2020 and the confederate flag (talk about civil war, jefferson davis never accomplished that, it took a treason). In america today we can readily see the sort of mindless fanaticism and utterly delusional magical thinking that has always fueled cults like christianity. Notable that these movements are always state-sponsored and the utterly delusional always imagine they are exercising free will, their leaders say tell them exactly what to think and to think so. Like priests. It is important to see the susceptibility of human beings to this sort of hypnotism and mass delusion.

   Islam unquestionably has better ethics. Christianity is a dead religion of somnambulists while islam is vibrant. Islamic people believe in their book, follow it, and universally perform five prayer sessions a day. Catholics notoriously don't believe in and disobey their religious leaders, as do jews, and most don't pray or attend services or practice anything. It was hegel who said "god is dead."

   If you want to give me some faith-based arguments, there is really no point. It's like listening to politiciasn, it all sounds good and it's all bullshit. What they say and what they do don't line up. True and good words said only to conceal depredation is like these people who literally wrap themselves in the flag and use sledgehammers to destroy cars. Nietzsche hated hypcorisy. Nietsche loved truth.

   Nothing personal, son. I like christians, they take books seriously and you can talk to them. Poor slaves. (wink) The problem with christians and jews, tim leary said, is that they always want to slot you into their grnd narrative somewhere.


terry





from "beyond good and evil" by nietzsche:


“There is a point in the history of society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining “punishment” and “being supposed to punish” hurts it, arouses fear in it. “Is it not enough to render him undangerous? Why still punish? Punishing itself is terrible.” With this question, herd morality, the morality of timidity, draws its ultimate consequence.”

terry, this sounds as immature and biased as the very similar things i used to believe when i was thirteen... basically hippy bs. Extremely caricatural, incoherent and self-denegating. you're a white guy of christian culture and saying those things is insulting to your ancestors and internal structuration. It saddens me to see such hatred based on ignorance... Have you even read the areopagite ? If so, you seriously didn't see how close to nagarjunian dialectic it is ?
I used to be a big fan of nietzsche. But i now know why he went crazy .

He acted all tough because he couldn't get Lou Andreas Salome

gassho

(smile)

I never was a big jesus fan...

I like him in pinocchio, where christ is seen as the wooden boy's insect advisor, jiminy cricket, whose name is southern american soft blasphemy for jesus christ.


t

Well this all might have been rebelliously cool a few decades ago but now it just comes off as provocatively silly. Also, marrying 9 year olds, lapidating apostates, homosexuals, adultery women, advocating the killing of kufar and those who associate with kufar, does not seem very ethical to me. 

lol...


and don't forget dynamiting 1000 foot high sculptures of the buddha...


but then, muhammed did not claim to be son of god, he didn't do miracles, he wasn't born of a virgin on the day the sun begins to set later, and he didn't forgive sins... he was amessenger of god, and a messiah...he was an actual person, with a real historical record, while jesus has no historical record at all and moses and the prophets were composites, placed in various time periods as suited the given storyteller...

if the mountain didn't come to muhammed, muhammed went to the mountain...



I don't think arguing the merits of specific religions is going to go very far here, so lets give it a rest, eh? you brought up nietsche's low regard for christianity as a bug, whilst I regard it as a feature, but the world has spun around a few more times since nietzsche's day, and this is a buddhist forum...I happily use christian materials if they reflect the buddhist path (as I broadly construe it), as well as islamic ones...


I'm with vivekanananda, who thought every human being should have their own religion...


t



"It's all one to me."
~monkey

(Last point terry : i invite you to reconsider this line of thinking... if you lived in my country, where grandmothers are being beheaded in churches (in Nice),, school teachers beheaded at school by 18 year old jihadists (i'm sure you've heard of samuel patty, killed in a small village in normandy of all places), people getting attacked on the subway and young women dragged on the ground for hundreds of meters by cars until the arms come off (lyon where i live) or young homosexual couples being stabbed in the back and face just for walking in the streets together, by recently arrived young people from maghreb (bordeaux - all this is just in the past few months) and such events have become a regular thing in the news, always done by recent migrants from muslim countries, and there was a salafist mosque in your village where young people have been known to rrequent before they left to fight with isis... you might start to understand the problems i'm talking about... Nietzsche woukd also reconsider his stance, i'm sure... Or be the useful idiot of this horror, just like the western leftists fighting in algeria and iran were, who got killed or ejected as soon as the wars of independance were over...

All one to me...

This is a case of Bad Conscience and slave morality, looking up to you agressing master, Nietzsche would say... I call it stockholm syndrom...

Now, Agreed on giving it a rest. Sorry for derailing your thread J W. But then again, perhaps this IS about voidness and headpressure ? Winkwink)

(the crusades are missing from your list)

Weak point, akin to a godwin point in such discussions, although it's one of the more pivotal arguments in the consensual guilty conscience... Comparing past misdeeds is absurd... Furthermore  Go claim mekka and medina and see what happens...

(1)The problem lies not in the specific deviations of history but in the potential inherent to the psychic imaginal figures at the root of instituting a tradition. A christian should imitate the life of jesus, and though individuals might deviate from time to time, the potential will always be that someone goes back to thet texts and examples and reactualizes the initial sacred sources. Ex : St Francis of Assises. I have no prob with the behaviors exhibited in the new testament or buddhist scriptures, however reading the life of muhammad and some sourates, like the 9th, is a distinctly unpleasant experience... And the pb id that, contextualize that as you will, it's the sacr d text, and there will always be someone to say "hey, that's not what the text says! It says marry young girls and kill kufar. And it's what the prophet and salafs did."

(2) The problem is what's happening in the present... i would never blame someone's kids for any misdeeds they might have done, agnostic... 

And this literalist revival is what's happening in the islasmic world today and you have no idea how bad it is, it seems.. and the letter of the islamic texts is not the same as, say, christian of buddhist or jewish scriptures... And in any case, what matters is what people see as "the letter" : currently there is no problem with the buddhist/christian letter - in the minimal sense that they do not advocate violence and conquering, even though that might have existed.

I can assure you that this is a vital and enormously important issue that needs balanced and informed and courageous discussiin...

Reading Boualem Sansal, if he has been translated, might be a wake up call... I have many other things to recommend but most of it is in french, unfortunately...  Alexandre Del Valle is a great islamologist and has a book or two on the subject...

For instance, do you guys know anything about the historical and ideological ties between nazism and the muslim Brotherhood ? Anything about what's happening in karabakh a'd what Turkey is up to ? Erdogan being close to the muslim brotherhood... Anything about the organisation for the islamic conference, second only in size to the UN , involving some 57 countries, which is based in Qatar i believe, and is pouring massive money into the propagation of radical wahhabite and salafist ideologies to all muslims with a goal of cultural expansion and conquest ? The brotherhood, ikhwan, is extremely tactically intelligent... If one bother to dive-in, the situation appears very grim a'd actually reminiscent of the darkest hours.......

I think it's a man's duty to look at things lucidly and position himself on very delicate, sensitive, controversial issues such as this, hiwever unpleasant it is, and despite the tremendous success that the islamists have had, thx to the gulf monarchies' money, in making everybody in the world censor themselves about this, through the relentless promotion of this inherently gaslighting concept of islamophobia...

France was as much fooled by takiya as any other place, but the obviousness and prevalence of the issue here and radical dissonance hetween the picture and the reality, has changed the perception of people in recent years. From the inside, i can tell you that most people think there will be a civil war, not only in france, but in the whole of europe...

Nazism DID Happen. Wwii happened. Not many saw it coming. Barabarism exists. Where is it now ? What is its current face ?

Unless the west clears self-identification with the past and ensuing self-rejection, it will never reconquer health and naturalness. Love thyself... Be proud...

Tabula rasa is the recipe for madness.......

(3) final point for a bit of provocation - are you guys aware of the kalachakra tantra prophecy ?

The West is still very much identified with Christianity in the modern era in its various imperialist ventures throughout the Middle East, much of it driven by thirst for oil. It can be hard to accept, but worth thinking about next time we fill up the car (or fly off to a meditation retreat).

I still have moderator power. I can split this recent discussion away from JW's topic and you all can discuss the fate of civilization on the new topic I create.

Just say the word.

Olivier, can you explain this please.

Westerns leftists fighting in Iran for independence war!? I am not aware of any independence war in Iran. Nor any westerner that was or is fighting in Iran!

Hey guys, I don't mind either way, if we want to split it off that would make sense as it does seem to get off track. I have not had a chance to catch up on what looks to be a very in depth debate, which may indeed have some stuff relevant to the original post.

EDIT: okay I see since this is my thread, I have to make a decision. Split it!

Either way, I am not going to be reading Nietzsche, simply because his vocabulary is too advanced for me. 




EDIT #2: so I read through the discussion and it doesn't seem to be super related to the original topic which was more about practical advice for dealing with certain issues.  Let's split the thread just so that it doesn't distract anyone else who might read this at some point.
Very interesting thoughts everyone though!

There's no way for me to split the topic without taking some relevant posts to the new topic. I'm not going to move individual posts. So JW, are you okay with that? The alternate is to leave things as is.

you are a moderator? or can I flag your posts too?


the snake told eve(ryman), "god lied to you," and the snake spoke truly, but was punished anyway


there is a fundamental paradox between the pursuit of wisdom, "philosophia" as symbolized by the tree of knowledge, and living in ignorant bliss in the garden of eden as a simple gardener...


(I have no idea what the significance of "flagging a post" is, but I am comfortable with what I posted...

less comfortable with you...)


t

   ah, we agree...

now, I would flag this if I were a flagger...

count me out, I'm scotched...

I'm out. You win!

I think everything through 1/12 was on-topic, if you can split the thread after that date?  Or wherever you think it makes sense. Many thanks.

Terry, you seem to be holding the exoteric, children's story version of the thing, as what actually fueled the whole history of christianity. Nothing is farther from history... That tim would be, as a christian, disturbed by your disrespectful yet ignorant attacks at his religion seems pretty fair to me ; he doesn't do that kind of thing to people actually, although he might lose his temper sometimes.

The knowledge being downgraded in the tree of knowledge imagery is both (1) the kind of reifying, moralist good/bad opposition that Nietzsche shat on (its full name is the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil - the meaning in a nutshell is this : "don't hold rigid views on what good and bad are !", ie basically the opposite of a dogmatist and rigid moral...) ; (2) the one that is shat on throughout buddhism and in particular in the zen stories you often quote ! Good quotes usually btw. Mental, small mind knowledge, conscious I-knowledge, objective, dualistic knowledge.

That is the kind of knowledge pursuied by philosophers, sure, but only the Aristotelian types (- a "fallen" type, a catastrophy, according to Heidegger (!)) ; the pre-socratics, among which Heraclitus and Parmenides, knew about the deeper knowledge that is non-objective knowledge, they called it aletheia but it's also prajña, avidya - wisdom.

Later on, the Aristotelian-logician philosopher types were also shat on by the early church fathers such as Dionysius, who knew that small mind knowledge was crap compared to the unknowing opened up by contemplation. The church fathers, because of this, called themselves the "true philosophers". Christian philosophy was always much deeper than the naturalist-logician thing of the greeks.

Aletheia is the wisdom-knowledge which is exalted in christianity as well as in buddhism, as well as in esoteric islam and all spiritual traditions with provide access to truth : it is called Life, the Kingdom, Heaven.

Christian revelation is the revelation of the truth of life : the seeing of the essence of reality ; the training is keeping constant company with the emptiness-absence-unfindability-shunyata that is the absent creator (god), your natural face ; that is to say, Mahamudra training, lol, and the beginning of true wisdom. See Michel Henry's text, I am the truth. For a Philosophy of Christianity.

Cf. pseudo Dionysius' Mystical Theology, it's only a few pages long but damn. Essential. In it he explains why in his earlier longer works where he showed why the version of the dogma with a guy who created the world named god, dualistic in essence and kinda tupid, is just a gross version of the more subtle truth, but told to fit the more simple minds of some of the followers-practicioners. But closer to the essence, is the Mystical Theology, and that is basically Madhyamika, lol. The guy is talking about asankhata, but calls it god. 

Or, alternatively, read Plotinus' stuff on "intelligible beauty", Enneades, V, 8 [31], which is basically a Dzogchen text, only, he is using metaphors of "the heavens" and the gods, and it's all using greek mentality and references such as Zeus, etc. 

Cheers.

lol !

The muslim brotherhood is a recognized terrorist organization... "Today, the primary state backers of the Muslim Brotherhood are Qatar and Turkey.[17] As of 2015, it is considered a terrorist organization by the governments of Bahrain,[18] Egypt,[19] Russia,[20] Syria,[21] Saudi Arabia[22] and the United Arab Emirates.[23]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood


The ties with nazism are not only ideological but historical... that is just factual : it even found its way to wikipedia. Hassan Al-Bannah was agreat admiror of Hitler, and many former nazis converted to islam after WWII, including important swiss people/bankers who then invited Al-Bannah and Said Qutb to switzerland to do their works. Why do you think people like Tariq Ramadan ended up in Geneva ?

Very well documented stuff... Learning about this person who was a close associate of Hitler and Goebbels and never forsook his allegiance to nazism, for instance might be a start : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Genoud

What you dot see in the eng version of this article is that he then became banker of the algerian FLN and was the one who brought the muslim brotherhood to europe after converting to islam...

Furthermore...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relations_between_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Arab_world

"Allah in heaven, Hitler on earth" was the motto of the great mufti of jerusalm :p

Lol. The godwin point is an attack on one of the participants of a discussion comparing him to a nazi, which disqualifies further discussion. The crusade thing has that function for any discussion of the relative merits of christianity VS islam. "Yeah but you frogot to say crusades ; end of discussion"

Mentionning nazism is not the godwin point I'm not calling you a nazi, I'm saying nazism existed as a proof that dark, evil large scale forces have sometimes found the way to get power and do things which a few years before they happened were dimmed unimaginable. You realize Saudi Arabia is currently at the head of the G20 and nobody seems to be commenting on that much... ?

That is all. 

edit :

apologies to J W again, I hope this gets all moved out of here quickly, or even deleted for that matter...

Split thread, this new topic is now ready to roll on its own.

- CM

Ok, seeing as it's a slow Friday afternoon, here's one for starters ... As I see it, we're bouncing around worldviews here. Isn't the way to nibbana samsara to accept the world rather than try to change it?

We accept what our senses bring to us, our experience. We use our hard-won wisdom to change things. Buddhism is not about becoming a door mat.

I agree. I guess the question is whether one is actually being a doormat or imagining barbarians at the gate ...

You lost me there. Can you elaborate?

I mean there are real threats and imagined threats, as well as all stuff in-between. Sometimes we ignore real threats and it's fatal. Sometimes we take real small threats and imagine them to be larger than they are, which creates a kind of antagonistic worldview which eventually causes the imagined larger threats to be realized. And in the bigger picture history rolls inexorably on, empires rise and fall, and one wonders what's worse - the stress of accepting it and possibly missing threats, or resisting it and possibly magnifying threats.

terry, i am truly sorry for my heavy-handed over-reaction. I was pissed off, and added an unnecessary and gratuitous note of ugliness all around. Chris's move, a clean split of the threads in light of the emergent reality of a substantial second party having begun, was perfect, and would have happened perfectly well in its win-win way, without me muddying the waters with my hot-headedness. I pooped two parties. I hope you will forgive me. Please know that I value your presence here, the range of your experience, thought, and study, and your passion and authenticity. Don't let me being an asshole occasionally slow you down, brah. (I know you, won't, actually, lol.)

Again, my bad.

I've always looked at your participation here as representing several sigmas above and below the mean. Your posting variation can be troublesome to some, especially when you take on the roles of savior/defender/Quixote, but that's most often both thought-provoking and entertaining.

Like 10 sigmas. And thank god for that. 

Another attribute I value - willingness to admit error and apologize sincerely.

   Was nietzsche a doormat? Unlike myself, nietzsche wanted to be a lightning rod for criticism from the bourgeois and the amateur theologians (the majority of the germans of his day). Easy targets he relished skewering. The antichrist was translated into english by an intellect near to nietzsche's own power, h l mencken, and the introduction (which is hilarious) by mencken is worthy of the (deliberately provocative) text.

   Nietzsche would smile at being condemed for all the evils which in fact are a mirror of the critics own self-loathing. All the self-refuting criticism and downright hate speech, conflating philosophy, politics, "history" and upholding what is commonly believed as authoritative, are proofs of his points and their raison d'etre. Piling up wildly irrelevant assertions in paragraph after paragraph as though any were worthy of addressing in the first place and as though by their very mass they carry weight: this is the sort of flow that sweeps people away and makes it seem to the disinterested or deluded that a rational discussion has taken place. Nietzsche understood very well that mere calmly reasoned, sober truth is hardly listened to and easily shouted down and undermined.

   Once it is established that an interlocutor is a closed-minded fanatic, that is indeed the end of argument. Nietzsche's point and may lightning strike him deader if it's not true.

terry
   



from the introduction to nietzsche's "the antichrist" by h l mencken:



In truth, the present philippic is as necessary to the completeness of the whole of Nietzsche’s system as the keystone is to the arch. All the curves of his speculation lead up to it. What he flung himself against, from beginning to end of his days of writing, was always, in the last analysis, Christianity in some form or other—Christianity as a system of practical ethics, Christianity as a political code, Christianity as meta physics, Christianity as a gauge of the truth. It would be difficult to think of any intellectual enterprise on his long list that did not, more or less directly and clearly, relate itself to this master enterprise of them all. It was as if his apostasy from the faith of his fathers, filling him with the fiery zeal of the convert, and particularly of the convert to heresy, had blinded him to every other element in the gigantic self-delusion of civilized man. The will to power was his answer to Christianity’s affectation of humility and self-sacrifice; eternal recurrence was his mocking criticism of Christian optimism and millennialism; the superman was his candidate for the place of the Christian ideal of the “good” man, prudently abased before the throne of God. The things he chiefly argued for were anti-Christian things—the abandonment of the purely moral view of life, the rehabilitation of instinct, the dethronement of weakness and timidity as ideals, the renunciation of the whole hocus-pocus of dogmatic religion, the extermination of false aristocracies (of the priest, of the politician, of the plutocrat), the revival of the healthy, lordly “innocence” that was Greek. If he was anything in a word, Nietzsche was a Greek born two thousand  years too late. His dreams were thoroughly Hellenic; his whole manner of thinking was Hellenic; his peculiar errors were Hellenic no less. But his Hellenism, I need not add, was anything but the pale neo-Platonism that has run like a thread through the thinking of the Western world since the days of the Christian Fathers. From Plato, to be sure, he got what all of us must get, but his real forefather was Heraclitus. It is in Heraclitus that one finds the germ of his primary view of the universe—a view, to wit, that sees it, not as moral phenomenon, but as mere aesthetic representation. The God that Nietzsche imagined, in the end, was not far from the God that such an artist as Joseph Conrad imagines—a supreme craftsman, ever experimenting, ever coming closer to an ideal balancing of lines and forces, and yet always failing to work out the final harmony.

  
    there is always grace, isn't there...

bless you...

(wink)

+1

(gassho)

Since we have a new thread here, and nietzsche's views on buddhism have been grossly represented, perhaps I may quote him here. I suspect a lot of people may have not read "the antichrist" simply because of the scary title - "all hope abandon, ye who enter here" -but actually its typical nietzsche, brilliant, funny and always refreshingly genuine and sincere.



from "the antichrist." nietzsche, trans mencken:




20.

In my condemnation of Christianity I surely hope I do no injustice to a related religion with an even larger number of believers: I allude to Buddhism. Both are to be reckoned among the nihilistic religions—they are both décadence  religions—but they are separated from each other in a very remarkable way. For the fact that he is able to compare them at all the critic of Christianity is indebted to the scholars of India.—Buddhism is a hundred times as realistic as Christianity—it is part of its living heritage that it is able to face problems objectively and coolly; it is the product of long centuries of philosophical speculation. The concept, “god,” was already disposed of before it appeared. Buddhism is the only genuinely positive religion to be encountered in history, and this applies even to its epistemology (which is a strict phenomenalism). It does not speak of a “struggle with sin,” but, yielding to reality, of the “struggle with suffering.” Sharply differentiating itself from Christianity, it puts the self-deception that lies in moral concepts behind it; it is, in my phrase, beyond good and evil.—The two physiological facts upon which it grounds itself and upon which it bestows its chief attention are: first, an excessive sensitiveness to sensation, which manifests itself as a refined susceptibility to pain, and secondly, an extraordinary spirituality, a too protracted concern with concepts and logical procedures, under  the influence of which the instinct of personality has yielded to a notion of the “impersonal.” (—Both of these states will be familiar to a few of my readers, the objectivists, by experience, as they are to me). These physiological states produced a depression, and Buddha tried to combat it by hygienic measures. Against it he prescribed a life in the open, a life of travel; moderation in eating and a careful selection of foods; caution in the use of intoxicants; the same caution in arousing any of the passions that foster a bilious habit and heat the blood; finally, no worry, either on one’s own account or on account of others. He encourages ideas that make for either quiet contentment or good cheer—he finds means to combat ideas of other sorts. He understands good, the state of goodness, as something which promotes health. Prayer is not included, and neither is asceticism. There is no categorical imperative nor any disciplines, even within the walls of a monastery (—it is always possible to leave—). These things would have been simply means of increasing the excessive sensitiveness above mentioned. For the same reason he does not advocate any conflict with unbelievers; his teaching  is antagonistic to nothing so much as to revenge, aversion, ressentiment (—“enmity never brings an end to enmity”: the moving refrain of all Buddhism....) And in all this he was right, for it is precisely these passions which, in view of his main regiminal purpose, are unhealthful. The mental fatigue that he observes, already plainly displayed in too much “objectivity” (that is, in the individual’s loss of interest in himself, in loss of balance and of “egoism”), he combats by strong efforts to lead even the spiritual interests back to the ego. In Buddha’s teaching egoism is a duty. The “one thing needful,” the question “how can you be delivered from suffering,” regulates and determines the whole spiritual diet. (—Perhaps one will here recall that Athenian who also declared war upon pure “scientificality,” to wit, Socrates, who also elevated egoism to the estate of a morality).

and


21.
The things necessary to Buddhism are a very mild climate, customs of great gentleness and liberality, and no militarism; moreover, it must get its start among the higher and better educated classes. Cheerfulness, quiet and the absence of desire are the chief desiderata, and they are attained. Buddhism is not a religion in which perfection is merely an object of aspiration: perfection is actually normal.—

...


and


 23.
Buddhism, I repeat, is a hundred times more austere, more honest, more objective. It no longer has to justify its pains, its susceptibility to suffering, by interpreting these things in terms of sin—it simply says, as it simply thinks, “I suffer.” To the barbarian, however, suffering in itself is scarcely understandable: what he needs, first of all, is an explanation as to why he suffers. (His mere instinct prompts him to deny his suffering altogether, or to endure it in silence.) Here the word “devil” was a blessing: man had to have an omnipotent and terrible enemy—there was no need to be ashamed of suffering at the hands of such an enemy.—

....

Not true. He says it's nihilist and decadent, that is to say, it seeks to escape life and desire, which is the figure of the "last man". Ever heard the word anagami ? Non-returner. That's the goal of buddhism as presented by Nietzsche : escaping existence and ending desire. Close to the suttas... My original point was "4 he thaught buddhism was a pessimist and "late" doctrine close to the "last man" which was fit for overly sensitive to pain people". That is entirely correct... 

Further, what he says about buddhism, is what a 19th century person could know about buddhism... that is to say, not very accurate, and I'm surprised you don't realize that. Buddhism has no discipline ? His view is also heavily influenced by Schopenhauer... 

I stand by what I said : his reading of christianity and spirituality in general is superficial, coming from a lack of experience/realization, and somehow materialist. Thus, in some ways, very damaging. I know a lot of people who are enamored with the truth seeking radicality of Nietzsche and kind of use his critiques as an excuse not to practice and not to behave ethically. 

I have read The antichrist indeed, and perhaps more closely than you have, since it appears you didn't recognize the quote about snakes and churches, which is in there... I used to be a HUGE Nietzsche fan, read his biographies, including the one by LAS, as well as his books. I do have a lot of love for that man. I just see the limitations, and that is all I said. 

I still remember, when I lived in greece, and I told my (greek) gf of the time that I used to be totally taken up by Nietzsche, and she said "me too !" and kind of laughed it off saying "man, that's really an author you love most when you're a teenager, isn't it." I would have fallen in love right there right then, lol, if that hadn't already been the case ...

...

Cheers

Chris, agnostic asked me to tell you he did apologize to me in private after the december events.

Okay, thanks for letting me know.

Funny thing: when I posted my comment about sincere apologies I wasn't speaking to agnostic at all - he took it that way, so that's a happy thing that seems to have lead recently to a more grounded agnostic. But when I posted that comment I was describing Tim Farrington, who has periodic explosions and then comes back a day later with sincere apologies, like his most recent one to terry.

Yeah that's how I read your comment, but he had a sense that it was maybe indirectly directed at him.

Guilty conscience, happy accident. Thanks Guys! 

    Now that we have observed that the christian religion, among many others, was invented as a tool of (the roman) empire to control a restive population, it might as well be noted that the jewish religion was similarly invented by the assyrian empire.

   The best book about the bible that I've read since eric voegelin's "israel and revelation" is thomas thompson's "the mythic past; biblical archeology and the myth of israel," (1999), now quite accepted mainstream science (and reinterpretation), as fundamentalists and conservatives begin to lose their grip on the field. Although ignorance in biblical scholarship and even archaeology is still very well funded by enthusiastic plutocrats and well-heeled amateur theologians.



from "the mythic past" by thompson:


The invention of new ancestor gods was an Assyrian imperial policy that helped create religious ties between societies around regional and local deities. Its counterpart was to develop legends about the 'return' of 'old', long-neglected and forgotten gods. The promotion of imperial interests, and especially the growing practice of forcibly moving people from one region of the empire to another, tended more and more to explain different and distinct gods as expressions of a single concept, representing the divine. It is also from the Assyrians' perception of empire as a world-embracing political reality, and from their view of the king as the supreme servant of the gods, that we find an increasingly universal concept of divinity developing in Syria and Palestine in the course of the Iron Age. Early references to the 'Lord [Ba'al] of Heaven' encourage an understanding of transcendence. The more abstract and distant conception of the divine, which included all of the powers of the gods and all that was divine, seems to have been the first step towards a comprehensive view of the world of religion. It was a more philosophical rendering of the story motif of the 'divine council' or 'assembly of the gods'. Tracing what we know of the cult of Yahweh, one can recognize this imperial concept of the god of heaven, which lay at the roots of the Bible's later understanding of Yahweh as the old and traditional name of such a god. It was this transcendent and universal deity, however, who could be described as the God of gods, lord of lords, and finally as the one, true, and only God.

Recent interest in the history of intellectual views and concepts has brought us a long way towards understanding the development of such ideas in Palestine, and hence the assumptions reflected in many biblical narratives. What we did know about Palestine's religion during the Iron Age has long seemed an embarrassment to conservative scholarship. Evidence accumulating from excavations hardly supported a picture of Mosaic monotheism that one might expect if one read the Bible as history. Even the cult of Yahweh proved to be more typical of the ancient Near Eastern religious world than of biblical tradition. Many scholars have been inclined to offer complex reinterpretations of this evidence in order to bring it into line with their understanding of biblical monotheism. Some deny the existence of the historical and archaeological evidence for ancient Palestinian religion. Such misunderstanding, if not misrepresentation, has become commonplace in theology.

Interesting. Monotheism reminds me of what happens in economics when one company becomes too strong and subsumes its competitors, becoming a monopoly. It can raise prices by restricting supply (access via the priesthood) which continues until eventually the customers squeal and it becomes in the government's interest to bust the trust instead of colluding with it through captive regulators (comingling of church and state).

I agree that monotheism became dominant because it's convenient and simple for the individual, takes lots of responsibility away from the practitioner, and also gives the ruling class a better way to control the masses. It's a win/win!

religious ambiguities...


"I am Lord Supreme" ~krishna, gita
"I am Lord Supreme" ~pharoah, bible


"I am the Enlightened One!" -buddha
"I am the EnlightenedOne!" ~mara




read from the mouth of isaiah  the voice of the assyrian empire, the king of king and lord of lords, often coceived of as born of a virgin just after the solstice with a star blazing in the heavens, etc etc....isaiah here is as bent toward the assyrian power structure as the nt is to the roman...


bottom line: pax for tax...

(there is nothing new under the sun...king of kings, lord of lords, vanity of vanities)



40.

6  A voice says, “Cry!”

And I said, “What shall I cry?”

All flesh is grass,

and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

 7  The grass withers, the flower fades

when the breath of the Lord blows on it;

surely the people are grass.



 10  Behold, the Lord God comes with might,

and his arm rules for him;

behold, his reward is with him,

and his recompense before him.

 11  He will tend his flock like a shepherd;

he will gather the lambs in his arms;

he will carry them in his bosom,

and gently lead those that are with young.

 12  Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand

and marked off the heavens with a span,

enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure

and weighed the mountains in scales

and the hills in a balance?

 13  Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord,

or what man shows him his counsel?

 14  Whom did he consult,

and who made him understand?

Who taught him the path of justice,

and taught him knowledge,

and showed him the way of understanding?

 15  Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,

and are accounted as the dust on the scales;

behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.

 16  Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,

nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.

 17  All the nations are as nothing before him,

they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

 18  To whom then will you liken God,

or what likeness compare with him?

 19  An idol! A craftsman casts it,

and a goldsmith overlays it with gold

and casts for it silver chains.

 20  He who is too impoverished for an offering

chooses wood that will not rot;

he seeks out a skillful craftsman

to set up an idol that will not move.

 21  Do you not know? Do you not hear?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

 22  It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,

and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;

who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,

and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;

 23  who brings princes to nothing,

and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

 24  Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,

scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,

when he blows on them, and they wither,

and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

 25  To whom then will you compare me,

that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

 26  Lift up your eyes on high and see:

who created these?

He who brings out their host by number,

calling them all by name;

by the greatness of his might

and because he is strong in power,

not one is missing.



41 Listen to me in silence, O coastlands;

let the peoples renew their strength;

let them approach, then let them speak;

let us together draw near for judgment.

 2  Who stirred up one from the east

whom victory meets at every step?

He gives up nations before him,

so that he tramples kings underfoot;

he makes them like dust with his sword,

like driven stubble with his bow.

 3  He pursues them and passes on safely,

by paths his feet have not trod.

 4  Who has performed and done this,

calling the generations from the beginning?

I, the Lord, the first,

and with the last; I am he.

 5  The coastlands have seen and are afraid;

the ends of the earth tremble;

they have drawn near and come.

 6  Everyone helps his neighbor

and says to his brother, “Be strong!”

 7  The craftsman strengthens the goldsmith,

and he who smooths with the hammer him who strikes the anvil,

saying of the soldering, “It is good”;

and they strengthen it with nails so that it cannot be moved.

 8  But you, Israel, my servant,

Jacob, whom I have chosen,

the offspring of Abraham, my friend;

 9  you whom I took from the ends of the earth,

and called from its farthest corners,

saying to you, “You are my servant,

I have chosen you and not cast you off”;

 10  fear not, for I am with you;

be not dismayed, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

 11  Behold, all who are incensed against you

shall be put to shame and confounded;

those who strive against you

shall be as nothing and shall perish.

 12  You shall seek those who contend with you,

but you shall not find them;

fthose who war against you

shall be as nothing at all.

 13  For I, the Lord your God,

hold your right hand;

it is I who say to you, “Fear not,

I am the one who helps you.”

 14  Fear not, you worm Jacob,

you men of Israel!

I am the one who helps you, declares the Lord;

your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

 15  Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge,

new, sharp, and having teeth;

you shall thresh the mountains and crush them,

and you shall make the hills like chaff;

 16  you shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away,

and the tempest shall scatter them.

And you shall rejoice in the Lord;

in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory.

 17  When the poor and needy seek water,

and there is none,

and their tongue is parched with thirst,

I the Lord will answer them;

I the God of Israel will not forsake them.

 18  I will open rivers on the bare heights,

and fountains in the midst of the valleys.

I will make the wilderness a pool of water,

and the dry land springs of water.

 19  I will put in the wilderness the cedar,

the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive.

I will set in the desert the cypress,

the plane and the pine together,

 20  that they may see and know,

may consider and understand together,

that the hand of the Lord has done this,

the Holy One of Israel has created it.

from "the marriage of heaven and hell," william blake:



The ancient poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged and numerous senses could perceive. And particularly they studied the Genius of each city and country, placing it under its mental deity. Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of and enslaved the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects. Thus began Priesthood. Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales. And at length they pronounced that the Gods had ordered such things. Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast.

Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley - 1792-1822



OZYMANDIAS
(percy bysshe shelley)

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

"Some men are born posthumously."

friedrich nietzsche, from "the antichrist"

if this is the new interface, it's the usual sort of "improvement" we associate with an "upgrade"...

and not being able to 'reply with quote' is messing with my chi...


looks like the update alsocut a few of my quotes, like this one:


from 'the marriage of heaven and hell' by william blake:

The ancient poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged and numerous senses could perceive. And particularly they studied the Genius of each city and country, placing it under its mental deity. Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of and enslaved the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects. Thus began Priesthood. Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales. And at length they pronounced that the Gods had ordered such things. Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast.



and this one:



OZYMANDIUS
(percy bysshe shelley)

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

(note that the "two vast and trunkless legs' the poet is alluding to are christianity and judaism...}


and lastly, if you have never heard of larkin poe you are in for a treat with this cover of "preachin' blues":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rggq8gw5tA


though the son house original can't be beat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmR7jjOoFOw


PREACHIN' BLUES
(larkin poe, after son hose)

I'm gonna get me some religion
I'm gonna join the Baptist church
I'm gonna get me some religion
I'm gonna join the Baptist church
Gonna be a preacher
So I don't have to work

I wish I had a heaven
A heaven of my own
I wish I had a heaven
A heaven of my own
Give all of my women
A long and happy home

I'm gonna preach these blues
I'm gonna pick my seat and sit down
I'm gonna preach these blues
I'm gonna pick my seat and sit down
'Cause when the spirit comes
Lord knows I'm gonna watch it too

Grabbed up my suitcase
And took off down the road
Grabbed up my suitcase
And took off down the road
I said farewell my church
May the good Lord bless your soul
Bless your soul
Bless your soul
Bless your soul
Bless your soul

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx67wTRhSX4&list=OLAK5uy_mLTY-QO4bA3WNmSe8qiXv-C5MEOl8MAyw&index=7

yeah, I'm confused...

terry, your quotes are still there, if you search them on this page. It's just that because of the difference in the appearance and order of the posts, they are not shown at the bottom of the page, and instead they are shown under the post which you have replied to.  

I totally cannot make any sense of this new interface...

the threads are just a jumble of unrelated posts and I don't know how to reply, but it makes no sense as nothing seems to be continuous...

is there some way of tiling the material so I can comprehend who is responding to what?

messages don't seem to work either, not that I ever paid much attention to them

I woud be willing to attempt to master the new complexities but don't know where to start, it's all greek to me...


terry, erstwhile poster....