Atheism

[Gary Childress]

You now seem to understand better. Good work — even for a rather pathetic pervert.

Consider Julius Evola (in his full gamut) but especially The Metaphysics of War.

There's nothing I understand now that I didn't understand before. You seem to be under the impression that you have something to offer in terms of "help". If you do, then please explain what you have to offer that counts as "help".

So far you seem to be fixated on "war". War is not a good thing by any means. It helps NO ONE, including the aggressor who starts a war. War should be avoided at ALL reasonable costs and be pursued only as a last resort, and only then in strict self-defense if one is physically invaded. Otherwise, no one should be physically invading anyone else or declaring "war" on anyone. If you disagree, then please educate or "enlighten" me on how that is the wrong way to view things.

If my sex life hurts you, then please explain how and I'll stop posting about it. Personally, I see no reason to hide the fact that I self-pleasure. If you don't self-pleasure, then fine. As I say, I don't have a wife or even a girlfriend. The only person who once in a while cooks eggs for me is my mother and that's all I'm going to ask of her--if that's going to be your next quip. In return for my mother's love, I love her back. I try to say "I love you" to my mom the best way I know how and I try I say, "thanks" for her help and sometimes buy her a treat from the supermarket as a surprise for no reason at all.

If you want to call me a "pervert", then whatever. If attention is all you want, then I have little problem with answering your posts. I'll give you all the attention you want or need. If you don't want me to reply, then I'll be happy to just stop replying to you also.

[Alexis Jacobi]

No, no ‘help’ — destruction.

then I have little problem with answering your posts.

Stop ‘answering’ my posts. From this moment on.

If you want to call me a "pervert"

It is a precise and accurate term. It has nothing to do with what I want or don’t want!

If you disagree, then please educate or "enlighten" me on how that is the wrong way to view things.

Phfffffffft!

[Gary Childress]

Note to forum: I did my best to help AJ out of pscyhopathyland. He doesn't want me answering his posts anymore, so I'll stop posting direct replies. If anyone else wants to give it a try to direct him to saner pastures and AJ will listen to you, I suggest proceeding with caution. The guy is psycho.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The fundamental principle underlying all justifications of war, from the point of view of human personality, is ‘heroism’. War, it is said, offers man the opportunity to awaken the hero who sleeps within him. War breaks the routine of comfortable life; by means of its severe ordeals, it offers a transfiguring knowledge of life, life according to death. The moment the individual succeeds in living as a hero, even if it is the final moment of his earthly life, weighs infinitely more on the scale of values than a protracted existence spent consuming monotonously among the trivialities of cities. From a spiritual point of view, these possibilities make up for the negative and destructive tendencies of war, which are one-sidedly and tendentiously highlighted by pacifist materialism. War makes one realize the relativity of human life and therefore also the law of a ‘more-than-life’, and thus war has always an anti-materialist value, a spiritual value.

Julius Evola, Metaphysics of War

[Gary Childress]

Oh joy! We have a "hero" among us. War makes "heroes". Forget about the victims, they're just a means for the "heroes".

[Iwannaplato]

Oh joy! We have a "hero" among us. War makes "heroes". Forget about the victims, they're just a means for the "heroes".

I notice that in the model he presents for war being spiritual, he assumes that people have these comfortable empty lives, when in fact many, perhaps most people, have all sorts of challenges and suffering already. Perhaps for some, some kind of ongoing long-term, terrifying life-threatening chaos is necessary for them to change in some way. But so-called everyday life offers all sorts of opportunities to be heroic, unless one is so brainwashed by Hollywood or old government produced myths leave on blind to them.

[Gary Childress]

Oh joy! We have a "hero" among us. War makes "heroes". Forget about the victims, they're just a means for the "heroes".

I notice that in the model he presents for war being spiritual, he assumes that people have these comfortable empty lives, when in fact many, perhaps most people, have all sorts of challenges and suffering already. Perhaps for some, some kind of ongoing long-term, terrifying life-threatening chaos is necessary for them to change in some way. But so-called everyday life offers all sorts of opportunities to be heroic, unless one is so brainwashed by Hollywood or old government produced myths leave on blind to them.

There's no "model" there. It's just someone telling us how "heroic" war is. Maybe the author of the piece was a Wagner, Clauswitz or a Sun Tzu fan. If war can be avoided, then there's no ethical reason to invest a lot of time in analyzing anything "heroic" about it.

Hollywood has its goods and bads regarding war. There are anti-war movies out there too, but in the end, people either have to figure out that war isn't a good thing via weighing observable evidence and drawing rational conclusions from it, or else they need to go through one just to find out how horrible it is and why to avoid it. Of course, the only people who survive wars are the ones who paid a lesser price. So maybe war will never seem horrible enough to us.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Iwannaplato]

There's no "model" there. It's just someone telling us how "heroic" war is.

He explains how it is spiritual/heoric.

Maybe the author of the piece was a Wagner, Clauswitz or a Sun Tzu fan. If war can be avoided, then there's no reason to invest a lot of time in analyzing anything else about it.

Sure, but once propaganda is presented, the problems with the argument in that propaganda might influence some people. No obligation to point out the problem with the argument/model, but that's part of what I focused on.

Hollywood has its goods and bads regarding war. There are anti-war movies out there too,

Sure, but even there there are often heroes, ones who recognize the horror or try to minimize it.

but in the end, people either have to figure out that war isn't a good thing via weighing observable evidence and drawing rational conclusions from it, or else they need to go through one just to find out how horrible it is and why to avoid it. Of course, the only people who survive wars are the ones who paid a lesser price. So maybe war will never seem horrible enough to us.

Compared to the days of WW1 and before that we have learned. Then it was often seen as noble in itself and soldiers were less shocked in later Euroamerican wars by the horror of war. Of course the propaganda machine chugs along and right now we've got pretty much everyone being reckless in relation to the war in the Ukraine.

[Dubious]

The fundamental principle underlying all justifications of war, from the point of view of human personality, is ‘heroism’. War, it is said, offers man the opportunity to awaken the hero who sleeps within him. War breaks the routine of comfortable life; by means of its severe ordeals, it offers a transfiguring knowledge of life, life according to death. The moment the individual succeeds in living as a hero, even if it is the final moment of his earthly life, weighs infinitely more on the scale of values than a protracted existence spent consuming monotonously among the trivialities of cities. From a spiritual point of view, these possibilities make up for the negative and destructive tendencies of war, which are one-sidedly and tendentiously highlighted by pacifist materialism. War makes one realize the relativity of human life and therefore also the law of a ‘more-than-life’, and thus war has always an anti-materialist value, a spiritual value.

Julius Evola, Metaphysics of War

There is no such thing as the Metaphysics of War, only physics like giving up a few parts of one's anatomy in order to gain some spiritual value. I wonder how many times such an exchange took place or if it was considered worth it.

There's absolutely no spiritual value in killing someone you'd normally have a beer with. Heroism doesn't require a war to prove itself, blindness or the amputation of limbs. If such is there within a person to begin with, it comes into play when required otherwise it's stupidly wasted. War, instead of being the least anti-materialistic enterprise is actually the most acute in its raw physicality.

If there's any spirituality to be gained through war it may only come about by the most extreme shock to one's psyche; even then one can't be sure if what emerges isn't the very opposite of spirituality.

Where's the spirituality in this....

https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/war-destruction

[Gary Childress]

Note to AJ:

Since you don't want any direct responses from me I'll just have to post this in hopes that you'll stumble on it and maybe you can put something tangibly helpful for humanity into action. I'm not a Russian citizen. I'm shamefully enough an American citizen. So I doubt Putin would listen to me. If you still live in the Caucuses and are a Russian citizen, then give what I say below to Putin as a gift that could potentially bring about amnesty for him. However, it would be a bit of a gamble. But it's better than continuing to do evil and only making things worse for all of us including him.

Putin feels cornered right now and probably continues to prosecute his war for fear of losing everything he now has, possibly including his life if he is put on trial. If I were in Putin's shoes at this point, this is what I'd do as the guy who's been launching missiles into Ukraine:

1. Withdraw from Ukraine. Tell the world that you cannot keep up your "special military operation" due to America's "imperialist interference".

2. IF and ONLY IF anyone suggests putting you (Putin) on trial to be held responsible for war crimes, then tell those who want to put you on trial that you'll be happy to stand trial IF and ONLY IF the world will also bring George Bush Jr and/or those who were instrumental in making the decision to invade Iraq and Afghanistan on trial.

Why do I say this: Because even the Democrats probably wouldn't put their fellow politicians in Washington D.C. on trial. Too many people in the United States would probably go apeshit over it and the Democrats would risk losing a lot of support possibly even a repeat of the January 6th protest/insurrection or whatever. Therefore, if I were Putin, I would say to Washington, "Hey, since you pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan, I'll pull out of Ukraine. If you want to put me on trial, then show me your own balls and put your own war criminals on trial."

Simple.

[Gary Childress]

There's no "model" there. It's just someone telling us how "heroic" war is.

He explains how it is spiritual/heoric.

Maybe the author of the piece was a Wagner, Clauswitz or a Sun Tzu fan. If war can be avoided, then there's no reason to invest a lot of time in analyzing anything else about it.

Sure, but once propaganda is presented, the problems with the argument in that propaganda might influence some people. No obligation to point out the problem with the argument/model, but that's part of what I focused on.

Hollywood has its goods and bads regarding war. There are anti-war movies out there too,

Sure, but even there there are often heroes, ones who recognize the horror or try to minimize it.

but in the end, people either have to figure out that war isn't a good thing via weighing observable evidence and drawing rational conclusions from it, or else they need to go through one just to find out how horrible it is and why to avoid it. Of course, the only people who survive wars are the ones who paid a lesser price. So maybe war will never seem horrible enough to us.

Compared to the days of WW1 and before that we have learned. Then it was often seen as noble in itself and soldiers were less shocked in later Euroamerican wars by the horror of war. Of course the propaganda machine chugs along and right now we've got pretty much everyone being reckless in relation to the war in the Ukraine.

Is there a useful point you're trying to argue with me or do you just want to nit pick for some vain reason? War is a bad thing hands down. I'll say that until my last breath. Otherwise, please don't waste everyone's time.

[Harbal]

The fundamental principle underlying all justifications of war, from the point of view of human personality, is ‘heroism’. War, it is said, offers man the opportunity to awaken the hero who sleeps within him. War breaks the routine of comfortable life; by means of its severe ordeals, it offers a transfiguring knowledge of life, life according to death. The moment the individual succeeds in living as a hero, even if it is the final moment of his earthly life, weighs infinitely more on the scale of values than a protracted existence spent consuming monotonously among the trivialities of cities. From a spiritual point of view, these possibilities make up for the negative and destructive tendencies of war, which are one-sidedly and tendentiously highlighted by pacifist materialism. War makes one realize the relativity of human life and therefore also the law of a ‘more-than-life’, and thus war has always an anti-materialist value, a spiritual value.

Julius Evola, Metaphysics of War

What an idiot!

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB4cdRgIcB8

[Sculptor]

No. No more than religion.

Agreed, though I tend to find more skepticism about technology amongst religious people, but it's certainly not forbidden.

Aside from Shakers Fakirs and Quakers, technological skepticism is fake. They shout the loudest from their tablets and smart phones. Pity American evangelists were not more skeptical about automatic weapons.

Nothing in religion proscribes that.

I was responding to VA. He has a problem with trying to impose religion. I don't think he quite listens to himself when he expounds his dreams of his secular utopias.

But that is what religion is all about; imposing your belief onto other people.

Because it is secular you can challenge it rather then look in some dusty out of date book.

Go ahead, challenge nanotech, AI and genetic modification. In my world I can challenge religions and I can challenge techocratic solutions. Generally speaking I can keep religions off my back. To the technocrats and their funders I'm like a fly buzzing on the other side of a mountain chain.

Progress, like it or not, is a systemic process. And those that rely on religions are ill equipped to counter tha system; in fact the neoliberal capitalist system (call it what you will) grew out of a religious world.

[Sculptor]

The fundamental principle underlying all justifications of war, from the point of view of human personality, is ‘heroism’. War, it is said, offers man the opportunity to awaken the hero who sleeps within him. War breaks the routine of comfortable life; by means of its severe ordeals, it offers a transfiguring knowledge of life, life according to death. The moment the individual succeeds in living as a hero, even if it is the final moment of his earthly life, weighs infinitely more on the scale of values than a protracted existence spent consuming monotonously among the trivialities of cities. From a spiritual point of view, these possibilities make up for the negative and destructive tendencies of war, which are one-sidedly and tendentiously highlighted by pacifist materialism. War makes one realize the relativity of human life and therefore also the law of a ‘more-than-life’, and thus war has always an anti-materialist value, a spiritual value.

Julius Evola, Metaphysics of War

[/quote]

I'm always puzzled why dickheads that like war so much don't just fuck off and join up. The fewer morons the better I say.
Just do not press the big button on your way out the door.

[Alexis Jacobi]

As a Traditionalist Evola has a traditional perspective on a man who through his engagement with struggle — in his world and principally inside himself — lives through a metaphysical ideal. In all his endeavors — mountain climbing among them — he honors and attempts to strengthen the heroic personality.

Here, in this thread, a weak, defeated man who longs for death to cart him off, who enlists everyone in coddling and enabling the most pathetic depth of human depravity which I would define as life without higher (metaphysical) values, creates anti-heroic justification for sheer non-heroism. This man is a total victim crushed under a wheel that rolls over him and for this reason is emblematic of a common sickness: surrender to mutable conditions.

The conversations here must remain impersonal though persons engage in it.

What a man chooses to do in his ‘battle’ is what Evola is concerned with. The field of battle is everywhere. And if a man found himself enlisted (as a soldier) there too he would still have his duty, his heroism: his self worth even at the dusk of his life.

Yes, Dubious, I recognize that in your conception there is no ‘metaphysics’. Be that as it may my perspective is completely different. I see (for example) that IC’s position as religious literalist is pathological. But ‘atheism’ is locked into a rejection of an infantile, pathologically-inclined counter-conception, is similarly bound. And calls forth — in my view of course, not yours — a transcending manoeuvre. In fact this manoeuvre enables one to hold to a range of values & ideals that nihilistic atheism csn do little else but annihilate. Again in my view.

Now we move on to the dominant idea of this ancient heroic tradition, namely the mystical conception of victory. The fundamental assumption is that of a true correspondence between the physical and metaphysical, between the visible and the invisible, whereby the deeds of the spirit reveal supra-individual traits and express themselves through action and real events. On this basis, a spiritual realization is presumed to be the hidden soul of certain martial endeavors, which are crowned by the actual victory. Then the material, military victory becomes the correlation to a spiritual event, which has called forth victory in the place where outer and inner connect. The victory appears as a tangible sign for a consecration and mystical rebirth that are fulfilled in the same instant. The Furies and the death which the warrior withstood physically on the battlefield also confront him internally, in his spiritual element, in the form of a dangerous and threatening outburst of the primordial energy of his being.

In triumphing over this, victory is his.

This connection clarifies why, in the Traditional world, every victory also takes on a sacred meaning. The celebrated commander on the battlefield thus provided the experience of the presence of a mystical, transformative energy. In the same way we can understand the deep meaning a supra-wordly character that breaks forth in the victory’s glory and 'divinity', as well as the fact that the ancient Roman triumphal ceremony had far more of a sacred quality than a military one. It sheds a totally different light on those recurring symbols of the ancient Aryan tradition of Victories, Valkyries, and similar beings who leads the souls of warriors into 'Heaven', as well as on the myth of a victorious hero such as the Doric Hercules, who receives the crown from Nike, the 'victory goddess', enabling him to participate in Olympian immortality. And now it becomes obvious how paralyzing and frivolous that viewpoint is which prefers to see only 'poetics', rhetorics, and fairy tales in all of this.

Julius Evola, Metaphysics of War