Thread for Retired Foolosophers

[Gary Childress]

Back when I was a foolosopher, I thought there might be practical and humane solutions to the world's problems. But then I realized, God accidentally created a world on whim one week (a long time ago) and, unable to fix the mistake, he got mad and kicked humans out of Eden. And that explains why the world is such a hopeless shit show where there are no humane solutions to problems. AND we deserve the hopeless shit show because our great, great, great, great (^1000) grandparents screwed up on our behalf. It's all our fault.

[Impenitent]

someone once said "the world is what you make it"

-Imp

[Gary Childress]

someone once said "the world is what you make it"

-Imp

They must have been talking to God.

[Gary Childress]

Back when I was a foolosopher, foolosophy was like a never-ending struggle against gravity. If you let your guard down for even a nano-second, all your beliefs vanished into thin air as they were chopped to pieces by another foolosopher, only to force you to resurrect them again. So now I'm a retired foolosopher. My highest priority in life is now to date a pretty girlfriend. The prospects for success don't seem very high, though. I think I might have missed that boat around age 40. Not sure.

Is there a "restart" button somewhere around here?

[promethean75]

Now you're getting it, Gary! Bout goddamn time, old chap.

[promethean75]

You'll settle for Pascal's wager after a lifelong battle with trying to make sense of what can only appear to be a world created by a malevolent 'god'. Exhausted, you finally give up: "Well, i can't beat ya... much less understand ya... but i don't wanna burn in eternal hell, so let's go with it, etc."

Ah, but what if Pascal was wrong? What if there is no 'god' and also it's NOT actually curtains when you die (so it DOES matter if you are wrong)? What if you get turned out by the universe again and again and again? What would be the MO if this theory were true. What else could be the ground of your will if it wasn't that same thing that guided you every other time you lived in this godless universe: your ego. It wouldn't be divine instruction, it wouldn't be 'right' and 'wrong' or a sense of duty or anything else binding and coercive. There would be nothing prohibiting you except for your own conscience.

So there you are, recurring over and over again... and each time you are poisoned by Pascal's wager and through doing so stricken yourself to live again as this pitiful thing broken by christianity. You would become an eternal gimp, Gary.

The question is, how do we prevent Gary from being Gary again. How can we make sure he doesn't fall into the same trap the next time around.

Why Nietzsche's wager is better than Pascal's is that the former doesn't require you to allow yourself to be confounded and befuddled as part of its conditions. At every turn in christianity, there are only more patently absurd claims. Not so in Nietzscheanity.

[Gary Childress]

Being a retired foolosopher is like being a retired alcoholic. There's just no dignity in it. You spend the rest of your life wishing you could have changed sooner.

But, in the end, perhaps once a foolosopher, always a foolosopher. That's me. Life gets boring when there is no 'chase'. Put me out to pasture. (Hopefully, not the one that leads to the glue factory.)