nihilism

[promethean75]

"The Torture Never Stops"

That is an excellent selection, if i may say so. To understand the backstory of the Evil Prince (of Broadway), listen to the rock-opera Thing-Fish, one of Zappa's biggest studio endeavors. Give it a chance... it get's really good once it get's going.

p.s. Accelafine is Rhonda. Lol holy shit.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Okay, okay: I am doing my part at least!

"No, I have not the strength to bear this any longer. God, the things they are doing to me! They pour cold water upon my head! They do not heed me, nor see me, nor listen to me. What have I done to them? Why do they torture me? What do they want of poor me? What can I give them? I have nothing. My strength is gone, I cannot endure all this torture. My head is aflame, and everything spins before my eyès. Save me, someone! Take me away. Give me three steeds, steeds as fast as the whirling wind! Seat yourself, driver, ring out, little harness bell, wing your way up, steeds, and rush me out of this world. On and on, so that nothing be seen of it, nothing. Yonder the sky wheels its clouds; a tiny star glitters afar; a forest sweeps by with its dark trees, and the moon comes in its wake; a silver-gray mist swims below; a musical string twangs in the mist; there is the sea on one hand, there is Italy on the other; and now Russian peasant huts can be discerned. Is that my home looming blue in the distance? Is that my mother sitting there at her window? Mother dear, save your poor son! Shed a tear upon his aching head. See, how they torture him. Press the poor orphan to your heart. There is no place for him in the whole wide world! He is a hunted creature. Mother dear, take pity on your sick little child. And by the way, gentlemen, do you know that the Bey of Algiers has a round lump growing right under his nose?

Gogol; Diary of a Madman

[Alexiev]

I view the Garden of Eden as state of primal innocence. From this state of primal innocence , natural curiosity inspired Eve to eat the apple , which had the unhappy effect of giving her the idea that mankind can make his own way in the world with or without any reference to God's primal innocence, as he choses. This was the Genesis myth that describes man's freedom apart from all the rest of creation to make terrible mistakes. Genesis does not threaten or prescribe, but it truly describes the human condition.

My interpretation is similar, but more specific. The Garden of Eden story represents man's transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and animal husbandry. God specifically says that Adam will eat his bread through the sweat of his brow (or something like that). The Tree of Knowledge of good and evil represents the need for structured morality, which was unnecessary in small, hunting and gathering groups in which affection and kinship sufficed.

The theme continues when Cain is an agriculturalist and Abel a herdsmen. Abel's
sacrifice of the animal pleases God; Cain's offering does not.

Civilization necessitates the knowledge of good and evil, and, of course, the transition of which I speak occurred in the relatively recent past for those who told the story recounted in Genesis.

[Immanuel Can]

Nihilism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4

[promethean75]

That's not Nihilism, I.C. That's unmitigated audacity in the music video industry. To take an already excruciatingly slow hippie throwback, slow it down even more and have some overdramatic danzig looking guy walk around a wasteland singing it at twilight, is an affront to meaninglessnes. This is not Nihilism. It's too soft. This is not going into the void

It's time for you to learn how to rock proper, dude, and I salute you.

[Alexis Jacobi]

IC, I had some warning so I stopped that horrific rendition at second three. You intended to ruin my day — maybe even my life! — but you didn’t and you can’t.

The way that Simon did it is fine.

[Immanuel Can]

IC, I had some warning so I stopped that horrific rendition at second three. You intended to ruin my day — maybe even my life! — but you didn’t and you can’t.

Heh.

I the extremity of your visceral reaction shows I picked it just right.

[Belinda]

I view the Garden of Eden as state of primal innocence. From this state of primal innocence , natural curiosity inspired Eve to eat the apple , which had the unhappy effect of giving her the idea that mankind can make his own way in the world with or without any reference to God's primal innocence, as he choses. This was the Genesis myth that describes man's freedom apart from all the rest of creation to make terrible mistakes. Genesis does not threaten or prescribe, but it truly describes the human condition.

My interpretation is similar, but more specific. The Garden of Eden story represents man's transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and animal husbandry. God specifically says that Adam will eat his bread through the sweat of his brow (or something like that). The Tree of Knowledge of good and evil represents the need for structured morality, which was unnecessary in small, hunting and gathering groups in which affection and kinship sufficed.

The theme continues when Cain is an agriculturalist and Abel a herdsmen. Abel's
sacrifice of the animal pleases God; Cain's offering does not.

Civilization necessitates the knowledge of good and evil, and, of course, the transition of which I speak occurred in the relatively recent past for those who told the story recounted in Genesis.

Ought we to suspect an interpretation that so successfully rides on the back of the economic theory that religious myths' purpose is to bolster the mores that must accompany the economic basis of a society? Your interpretation is so authoritatively modern that I don't want to be too gullible.

I'm not objecting, as I don't have any better suggestion.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Nihilism.

Going over Simon’s lyrics (I remember at my Reform Jewish summer camp our councilor had us “study” this song — he was an old hippy — to extract its meaning) I do not think he gets to any disturbing feeling of nihilism per se. Disunity, misunderstanding, deafness (you hear that IC?) but that darkness is a soft darkness of receptive night. Too imbued with visionary resonance. Also, if you worship a neon sign that flashes warnings, it is not nearly as dreadfully dark & hopeless as bona fide nihilism’s outcomes.

I’m not saying this gets at it better but tell me what you think.

I am a bee out in the fields of winter
And though I memorized the slope of water, Oblivion carries me on his shoulder:
Beyond the suns I speak and circuits shiver, But though I shout the wisdom of the maps, I am a salmon in the ring shape river.

[henry quirk]

In context: we're talking about the Creator, the Prime Mover, literally The First Principle. It's not right, then, to say morality extends from, or issues from, or was established by, God. God is morality. He is the Measure.

If we say *God created this world* we have to accept that God created a rather terrible, violent, uncompromising, cruel world. That is, the world of Nature. It is a world where creature consumes creature in a terribly process where energy, and being, is consumed and which cycles in what we note as *the ecological system*.

It is an unforgiving world, yes. Given the regularity of its workings, its mechanisms, why would anyone expect it to be otherwise? Is this unforgivingness cruel and terrible? That's an eye of the beholder assessment. I find such a view held, most commonly, by those with buffers between them and the world, like your average city dweller. Country folks tend to see less cruelty and terribleness in the natural or mechanistic world, becuz we live in it and understand.

In that world there is no morality -- not in any sense comparable to our human, social moralities. It seems to me that this is plain as day, and as such it is a frightening truth to face.

It is plain as day. Morality, as fact, is for man, persons, The bear mauling the hunter is an amoral being. It bears no, cannot bear, moral responsibility. The hurricane ripping apart a town is an amoral cluster of forces. It bears no, cannot bear, moral responsibility. The animal, the forces, are not good or evil, not moral or immoral, not right or wrong. The animal and the forces are very much examples of the regularity, the mechanisms, of the world.

Gary, it seems to me, struggles mightily with this problem. It is a dog eat dog world. Or, as the Rishis of ancient India thought, it is a fish eat fish world.

Gary is a broken soul. I say this without insult but as a matter of fact.

Now, our morality, and our sense of supernaturalism, always has to do with a countermanding Idea. That Idea, that sense of what is right and good, directly opposes *the way of the world*. It is established, in this sense, as operating *against the world*. And when the world is seen in that light, the world is *the domain of Satan*. The more that one gets subsumed into the *world*, the more one becomes naturalistic, as opposed to supernaturalistic. The more earthly you get, the more realistic you get in naturalistic terms, and the more involved in real power-dynamics.

Our morality is part and parcel to our being persons. We're free wills, in the libertarian sense. We're capable of moral discernment and judgement and therefore are subject to moral judgment. I don't see the conflict between this and the natural world. I can morally judge the murderer, the slaver, the rapist, the thief, the defrauder or anyone who chooses to use his fellows as commodity. He is a person, a hylomorph, same as me. Like me, he takes a dim view of being commodified. He chooses, though, unlike me, to commodify others. In short: he knows right from wrong and he can be judged, held accountable. I can hate the bear who eats my face, hate the hurricane that kills my family and leaves me ruined. But neither are accountable.

Again: I see no conflict.

I do, though, see the schizophrenia that arises when a person divorces himself from his own personhood. He is enraptured by, or boondoggied into, the idea man is a mechanism like the bear. He is not a, or has no, free will. His morality is subjective and relative and only a preference. He is left rudderless, adrift. His common sense negated. His own sense of himself as person is destroyed. The one small saving grace for him: he's not responsible. His thinking, his acts, are not his own. He is driven by his genes, his upbringing, to think this and do that. Further, he is small. The world is big, full of powers who allow him to be. So, it's not his fault he must, like those powers, lie, cheat, steal, and murder. Those powers take what and who they want, he reasons, so why shouldn't I?

In his bones, deep down, he knows he's wrong. He knows he's been gypped. He lacks the courage to be a person, to be responsible, to be accountable, even as he continues to, privately, judge his fellows and hold them accountable. He is a mad coward. The man who would be meat machine.

Now, how do we reconcile the God who fabricated The World as it actually is, with the God of *goodness*? It is certainly just a wee bit of a problem!

The two are not reconcilable becuz both are wrongheaded ideas. God is not good. God is just. God is moral. Justice and morality can be harsh. The world simply is. It has no metaphysical undergirding. It is forces and particles. And we, persons, are in the world but not of the world. We are hylomorphic (in the Thomistic sense), bodies and souls. Not a one of us is small or powerless. Our choices matter. We have moral weight. We're accountable, to ourselves, to our fellows when we wrong them, and to God (yes, I'm a deist, a particular and, admittedly, peculiar kind of deist. No, it does not seem to me God interferes. If we are to remain free wills how can He? Our choices must be free or those choices are morally vacant. We must be hands off. In the same way, for the same reason, we must be a mystery to Him. Can he know what I will do? Probably. Does He? It does not seem to me He does. I, for one, am not a robot, which is all I could be if He chose to know my next five minutes, hours, weeks, etc. If this sounds like an extreme variant of Open Theism it's becuz it is.)

All that I would say is that one must either awaken to that *metaphysical principle* (supernaturalism) and choose to the degree one can, to live through it, and mold the world by it, or to choose to return to *naturalism*: the power-dynamic, the realness of the will to power.

Yes. We choose to recognize ourselves as persons and in doing so acknowledge we are sumthin' more than mechanism. We conclude there is a Creator and we are in His image. Or, we choose to see ourselves as particles and forces.

I do not quite understand what you take away from this statement.

Here it is again: to the degree we play interpretation games with this metaphysical principle, we distance ourselves from the principle. More concretely, borrowing from a post I made sometime back in the Christianity thread: when we focus on the jar -- it's ornamentation, let's say -- we ignore the jar's purpose (holding life-preserving water). We're dying of thirst as we dicker on filigree.

Simply: like a city dweller buffered against the unforgivingness of the natural world, who sees the world as cruel and terrible, when we buffer ourselves from a just and moral God, creating human intermediaries and constructs -- lenses -- we distort what is in front of our face. The water, the truth, is free, wholly accessible to everyone. It requires nuthin' more than a *cupped hand. We bottle it, mystify it, sell it. And we make the packaging as important as the content.

if you wanted to get really the the heart of this conflict

That conflict is a false one. It sez, at the root, my god is right and yours is wrong. The true conflict is between those folks (who are one camp) and those who mind their own business and keep their hands to themselves, who expect nuthin' from their fellows except respect for life, liberty, and property.

Personally, I find the Church too buffering, too distorting. Christianity, though, raw and mere, that's a bird of a different color. I would be an exceedingly **bad Christian. I respect it, and those who have taken it up, just the same.





*An important image. The cupped hand implies intent, decision, we choose to drink. How can it be otherwise? A person, a free will, must choose his living. I recognize myself as what I am, or I choose the lie I am sumthin' less.

**I will not turn the other cheek. Lay hands on me (interfere with my life, liberty, and property) and I will hold you accountable. I go out of my way to mind my own business and keep my hands to myself. My expectation is you do the same.

[Alexiev]

Ought we to suspect an interpretation that so successfully rides on the back of the economic theory that religious myths' purpose is to bolster the mores that must accompany the economic basis of a society? Your interpretation is so authoritatively modern that I don't want to be too gullible.

I'm not objecting, as I don't have any better suggestion.

I certainly don't suggest there is only one "correct" interpretation or analysis of any story or myth. The best stories lend themselves to many reasonable interpretations. (Literalists are, perhaps, missing some of the fun.)

[promethean75]

"We are hylomorphic (in the Thomistic sense)"

OMG you did not just say "hylomorphic", Henry.

[henry quirk]

OMG you did not just say "hylomorphic", Henry.

I did. Is that a problem for you?

[promethean75]

Oh uh... no i jus.. uh, uh no... it's no problem, sir.

[holds hands up and backs away]

[henry quirk]

Oh uh... no i jus.. uh, uh no... it's no problem, sir.

[holds hands up and backs away]

Yeah, right. Sumthin' about my declaration amused or offended enough for you to post. Follow thru: speak your mind.