Tag Archives: Religion

Open Letter to Kansas School Board

Posted on by under Education, Philosophy, Politics, Religion

fsmdrawing

I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.

Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.

Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence.

What these people don’t understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease.

I’m sure you now realize how important it is that your students are taught this alternate theory. It is absolutely imperative that they realize that observable evidence is at the discretion of a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Furthermore, it is disrespectful to teach our beliefs without wearing His chosen outfit, which of course is full pirate regalia. I cannot stress the importance of this enough, and unfortunately cannot describe in detail why this must be done as I fear this letter is already becoming too long. The concise explanation is that He becomes angry if we don’t.

You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.

In conclusion, thank you for taking the time to hear our views and beliefs. I hope I was able to convey the importance of teaching this theory to your students. We will of course be able to train the teachers in this alternate theory. I am eagerly awaiting your response, and hope dearly that no legal action will need to be taken. I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism (Pastafarianism), and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.

Sincerely Yours,

Bobby Henderson, concerned citizen.

P.S. I have included an artistic drawing of Him creating a mountain, trees, and a midget. Remember, we are all His creatures.

On the Preachers of Death

Posted on by under Ethics, Nietzsche, Philosophy, Religion

There are preachers of death; and the earth is full of those to whom one must preach renunciation of life. The earth is full of the superfluous; life is spoiled by the all-too-many. May they be lured from this life with the “eternal life”! Yellow the preachers of death wear, or black. But I want to show them to you in still other colors.

There are the terrible ones who carry around within themselves the beast of prey and have no choice but lust or self-laceration. And even their lust is still self-laceration. They have not even become human beings yet, these terrible ones: let them preach renunciation of life and pass away themselves!

There are those with consumption of the soul: hardly are they born when they begin to die and to long for doctrines of weariness and renunciation. They would like to be dead, and we should welcome their wish. Let us beware of waking the dead and disturbing these living coffins!

They encounter a sick man or an old man or a corpse, and immediately they say, “Life is refuted.” But only they themselves are refuted, and their eyes, which see only this one face of existence. Shrouded in thick melancholy and eager for the little accidents that bring death, thus they wait with clenched teeth. Or they reach for sweets while mocking their own childishness; they clutch the straw of their life and mock that they still clutch a straw. Their wisdom says, “A fool who stays alive – but such fools are we. And this is surely the most foolish thing about life.”

“Life is only suffering,” others say, and do not lie: see to it, then, that you cease! See to it, then, that the life which is only suffering ceases!

And let this be the doctrine of your virtue: “Thou shalt kill thyself! Thou shalt steal away!”

“Lust is sin,” says one group that preaches death; “let us step aside and beget no children.”

“Giving birth is troublesome,” says another group; “why go on giving birth? One bears only unfortunates!”

And they too are preachers of death.

“Pity is needed,” says the third group. “Take from me what I have! Take from me what I am! Life will bind me that much less!”

If they were full of pity through and through, they would make life insufferable for their neighbors. To be evil, that would be their real goodness. But they want to get out of life: what do they care that with their chains and presents they bind others still more tightly?

And, you, too, for whome life is furious work and unrest – are you not very weary of life? Are you not very ripe for the preaching of death? All of you to whome furious work is dear, and whatever is fast, new, and strange – you find it hard to bear yourselves; your industry is escape and the will to forget yourselves. If you believed more in life you would fling yourselves less to the moment. But you do not have contents enough in yourselves for waiting – and not even for idleness.

Everywhere the voice of those who preach death is heard; and the earth is full of those to whom one must preach death. Or “eternal life” – that is the same to me, if only they pass away quickly.

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

– Friedrich Nietzsche

Nothing from Nothing Ever Yet was Born

Posted on by under Nietzsche, Philosophy, Religion

cathedral

When we hear the old bells ringing out on a Sunday morning, we ask ourselves: can it be possible? This is for a Jew, crucified two thousand years ago, who said he was the son of God. The proof for such a claim is wanting.

Within our times the Christian religion is surely an antiquity jutting out from a far-distant olden time; and the fact that people believe such a claim (while they are otherwise so strict in testing assertions) is perhaps the oldest part of this heritage. A god who conceives children with a mortal woman; a wise man who calls upon us to work no more, to judge no more, but to heed the signs of the imminent apocalypse; a justice that accepts the innocent man as a proxy sacrifice; someone who has his disciples drink his blood; prayers for miraculous interventions; sins against a god, atoned for by a god; fear of the afterlife, to which death is the gate; the figure of the cross as a symbol, in a time that no longer knows the purpose and shame of the cross—how horridly all this wafts over us, as from the grave of the ancient past! Are we to believe that such things are still believed?

–I cannot, at this place, avoid a sigh. There are days when I am visited by a feeling blacker than the blackest melancholy–contempt of man. Let me leave no doubt as to what I despise, whom I despise: it is the man of today, the man with whom I am unhappily contemporaneous. The man of today–I am suffocated by his foul breath! . . . Toward the past, like all who understand, I am full of tolerance, which is to say, generous self-control: with gloomy caution I pass through whole millenniums of this mad house of a world, call it “Christianity,” “Christian faith” or the “Christian church,” as you will–I take care not to hold mankind responsible for its lunacies. But my feeling changes and breaks out irresistibly the moment I enter modern times,our times. Our age knows better. . . What was formerly merely sickly now becomes indecent–it is indecent to be a Christian today. And here my disgust begins.–I look about me: not a word survives of what was once called “truth”; we can no longer bear to hear a priest pronounce the word. Even a man who makes the most modest pretensions to integrity must know that a theologian, a priest, a pope of today not only errs when he speaks, but actually lies–and that he no longer escapes blame for his lie through “innocence” or “ignorance.” The priest knows, as every one knows, that there is no longer any “God,” or any “sinner,” or any “Saviour”–that “free will” and the “moral order of the world” are lies–: serious reflection, the profound self-conquest of the spirit, allow no man to pretend that he does not know it. . . All the ideas of the church are now recognized for what they are–as the worst counterfeits in existence, invented to debase nature and all natural values; the priest himself is seen as he actually is–as the most dangerous form of parasite, as the venomous spider of creation. . – – We know, our conscience now knows–just what the real value of all those sinister inventions of priest and church has been and what ends they have served, with their debasement of humanity to a state of self-pollution, the very sight of which excites loathing,–the concepts “the other world,” “the last judgment,” “the immortality of the soul,” the “soul” itself: they are all merely so many in instruments of torture, systems of cruelty, whereby the priest becomes master and remains master. . . Every one knows this, but nevertheless things remain as before. What has become of the last trace of decent feeling, of self-respect, when our statesmen, otherwise an unconventional class of men and thoroughly anti-Christian in their acts, now call themselves Christians and go to the communion table? . . . A prince at the head of his armies, magnificent as the expression of the egoism and arrogance of his people–and yet acknowledging, without any shame, that he is a Christian! . . . Whom, then, does Christianity deny? what does it call “the world”? To be a soldier, to be a judge, to be a patriot; to defend one’s self; to be careful of one’s honour; to desire one’s own advantage; to be proud . . . every act of everyday, every instinct, every valuation that shows itself in a deed, is now anti-Christian: what a monster of falsehood the modern man must be to call himself nevertheless, and without shame, a Christian!–

Jesus said to his Jews: `The law was made for servants ? love God as I love him, as his son! What have we sons of God to do with morality!’

– Friedrich Nietzsche

Note #24719462

Posted on by under Religion, Uncategorized

“They are all children of God, loved and created by the same heart of God… Where is my faith? Even deep down… there is nothing but emptiness and darkness… If there be God — please forgive me… Such deep longing for God… Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal… What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true… Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.”

– Mother Teresa

Nishitani

Posted on by under Philosophy, Religion

Nishitani

“My life as a young man can be described in a single phrase: it was a period absolutely without hope… My life at the time lay entirely in the grips of nihility and despair… My decision, then, to study philosophy was in fact – melodramatic as it might sound – a matter of life and death… In the little history of my soul, this decision meant a kind of conversion.”

– Keiji Nishitani, “Religion and Nothingness”

Nishitani’s Buddhist Response to Nihilism

“Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation [which accounts for it] that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but [consists in the fact] that the relation relates itself to its own self.”

– Kierkegaard

Meta-Physical Non-Sense

Posted on by under Philosophy, Religion

Arguments for and against the Existence of God

The polytheistic conceptions of God were criticized and derided by the monotheistic religions. Since the Enlightenment, monotheistic concepts have also come under criticism from atheism and pantheism.

Definition of God

For our use here, we mean by the term “God” that entity written about in the holy books of monotheistic religions, which generally includes the properties of omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, and omnislash.

Arguments for the Existence of God

Philosophers have tried to provide rational proofs of God’s existence that go beyond dogmatic assertion or appeal to ancient scripture. The major proofs, with their corresponding objections, are as follows:

  1. Ontological Argument:

It is possible to imagine a perfect being. Such a being could not be perfect unless its essence included existence. Therefore a perfect being must exist. That perfect being is God.

Objection: You cannot define or imagine a thing into existence. Existence is not a predicate.

  1. Cosmological Argument:

Everything must have a cause. It is impossible to continue backwards to infinity with causes, therefore there must have been a first cause which was not conditioned by any other cause. That cause must be God.

Objections: If you allow one thing to exist without cause, you contradict your own premise. And if you do, there is no reason why the universe should not be the one thing that exists or originates without cause. Also, proof of an “unmoved mover” or a first cause tells us nothing about that cause, be it God or King Kong.

  1. Teleological Argument:

Animals, plants and planets show clear signs of being designed for specific ends, therefore there must have been a designer. Therefore, God exists.

Objection: The principles of self-organization and evolution provide complete explanations for apparent design. Once again, even if this argument is accepted as valid it would tell us nothing about this universal architect, be it God or King Kong.

3a. Modern Design Argument:

The Anthropic Cosmological Principle: The laws of the universe seem to have been framed in such a way that stars and planets will form and life can emerge. Many constants of nature appear to be very finely tuned for this, and the odds against this happening by chance are astronomical. Therefore, God exists.

Objections: The odds against all possible universes are equally astronomical, yet one of them must be the actual universe. Moreover, if there are very many universes, then some of these will contain the possibility of life. Kant argued that any form of the cosmological argument is in fact the ontological argument in disguise. Even if valid, the anthropic cosmological principle guarantees only that stars and planets and life will emerge – not intelligent life. In its weak form, the anthropic cosmological principle merely states that if we are here to observe the universe, it follows that the universe must have properties that permit intelligent life to emerge.

  1. Experiential:

A very large number of people claim to have personal religious experiences of God.

Objections: We cannot assume that everything imagined in mental experiences (which include dreams, hallucinations etc.) actually exists. Such experiences cannot be repeated, tested or publicly verified. Mystical and other personal experiences can be explained by other causes.

  1. Pragmatic:

Human societies require ethics to survive. Ethics are more effectively enforced if people fear God and Hell and hope for Heaven (cf. the origin of ethical systems).

Objections: The usefulness of a belief does not prove its truth. In any case, many societies have thrived without these beliefs, while crime has thrived in theistic societies believing in heaven and hell. Moreover, ethics can be completely seperated from religion (e.g. virtue ethics).

General objection against all the rational proofs for God:

Each of the above arguments is independent of the others and cannot logically be used to reinforce the others.

The cosmological argument – even if it were valid – would prove only a first cause. It would tell us nothing about the nature of that cause, nor whether the cause was mental or physical. It would not prove that the first cause was the personal, judging, forgiving God of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. It would not prove the existence of a designer or of a perfect being. Equally, the design argument would prove only a designer, the ontological argument would prove only the existence of a perfect being, and so on. None of these arguments individually can prove that the cause, designer or perfect being were one and the same – they could be three different beings.

Arguments against the existence of God

The major philosophical criticisms of God as viewed by Judaism, Christianity and Islam are as follows:

1. Evil:
Because evil exists, God cannot be all-powerful. all-knowing and loving and good at the same time.
2. Pain:
Because God allows pain, disease and natural disasters to exist, he cannot be all-powerful and also loving and good in the human sense of these words.
3. Injustice:
Destinies are not allocated on the basis of merit or equality. They are allocated either arbitrarily, or on the principle of “to him who has, shall be given, and from him who has not shall be taken even that which he has.” It follows that God cannot be all-powerful and all-knowing and also just in the human sense of the word.
4. Multiplicity:
Since the Gods of various religions differ widely in their characteristics, only one of these religions, or none, can be right about God.
5. Simplicity:
Since God is invisible, and the universe is no different than if he did not exist, it is simpler to assume he does not exist (see Occam’s Razor).None of these criticisms apply to the God of pantheism, which is identical with the universe and nature.

Source: Principia Cybernetica Web

“When one man investigates objectively the problem of immortality, and another embraces an uncertainty with the passion of the infinite: where is there most truth, and who has the greater certainty? The one has entered upon a never-ending approximation, for the certainty of immortality lies precisely in the subjectivity of the individual; the other is immortal, and fights for his immortality by struggling with the uncertainty. Let us consider Socrates. Nowadays everyone dabbles in a few proofs; some have several such proofs, others fewer. But Socrates! He puts the question objectively in a problematic manner: if there is an immortality. He must therefore be accounted a doubter in comparison with one of our modern thinkers with the three proofs? By no means. On this “if” he risks his entire life, he has the courage to meet death, and he has with the passion of the infinite so determined the pattern of his life that it must be found acceptable – if there is an immortality. Is any better proof capable of being given for the immortality of the soul? But those who have the three proofs do not at all determine their lives in conformity therewith; if there is an immortality it must feel disgust over their manner of life: can any better refutation be given of the three proofs? The bit of uncertainty that Socrates had, helped him because he himself contributed the passion of the infinite; the three proofs that the others have do not profit them at all, because they are dead to spirit and enthusiasm, and their three proofs, in lieu of proving anything else, prove just this. A young girl may enjoy all the sweetness of love on the basis of what is merely a weak hope that she is beloved, because she rests everything on this weak hope; but many a wedded matron more than once subjected to the strongest expressions of love, has in so far indeed had proofs, but strangely enough has not enjoyed quod erat demonstrandum.”

– Kierkegaard

“If these glad tidings of your Bible were written on your faces, you would not need to insist so obstinately on the authority of that book… As things are, however, all your apologies for Christianity have their roots in your lack of Christianity; with your defence plea you inscribe your own bill of indictment.”

“In former times, one sought to prove that there is no God – today one indicates how the belief that there is a God arose and how this belief acquired its weight and importance: a counter-proof that there is no God thereby becomes superfluous.- When in former times one had refuted the ‘proofs of the existence of God’ put forward, there always remained the doubt whether better proofs might not be adduced than those just refuted: in those days atheists did not know how to make a clean sweep.”

“After Buddha was dead, his shadow was still shown for centuries in a cave – a tremendous, gruesome shadow. God is dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. -And we- we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.”

– Nietzsche

Further Reading

Natural Theology & Classical Apologetics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God

Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

And of course: Nietzsche and Kierkegaard

Lau Tzu say…

Posted on by under Philosophy, Religion

The way that can be spoken of

Is not the constant way;

The name that can be named

Is not the constant name.

The nameless was the beginning of heaven and earth;

The named was the mother of the myriad creatures.

Hence always rid yourself of desires in order to observe its manifestations.

But always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations.

These two are the same

But diverge in name as they issue forth.

Being the same they are called mysteries,

Mystery upon mystery –

The gateway of the manifold secrets.

…

The whole world recognizes the beautiful as the beautiful,

yet this is only the ugly; the whole world recognizes the

good as the good, yet this is only the bad.

Thus Something and Nothing produce each other;

The difficult and the easy complement each other;

The long and the short offset each other;

The high and the low incline towards each other;

Note and sound harmonize with each other;

Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the sage keeps to the deed that consists in taking

no action and practices the teaching that uses no words.

The myriad creatures rise from it yet it claims no authority;

It gives them life yet claims no possession;

It benefits them yet exacts no gratitude;

It accomplishes its task yet lays claim to no merit.

It is because it lays claim to no merit

That its merit never deserts it.

…

Therefore in governing the people, the sage empties their minds but fills their bellies, weakens their wills, but strengthens their bones. He always keep them innocent of knowledge and free from desire, and ensures that the clever never dare to act.

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

…

Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs;

the sage is ruthless, and treats the people as straw dogs.

Is not the space between heaven and earth like a bellows?

It is empty without being exhausted:

The more it works the more comes out.

Much speech leads inevitably to silence.

Better to hold fast to the void.

…

The five colours make man’s eyes blind;

The five notes make his ears deaf;

The five tastes injure his palate;

Riding and hunting

Make his mind go wild with excitement;

…

The reason I have great trouble is that I have a body. When I no longer have a body, what trouble have I?

…

The ability to know the beginning of antiquity

Is called the thread running through the Way.

…

Of old he who was well versed in the Way

Was minutely subtle, mysteriously comprehending,

And too profound to be known.

…

I do my utmost to attain emptiness;

I hold firmly to stillness.

…

Returning to one’s roots is known as stillness.

This is what is meant by returning to one’s destiny.

Returning to one’s destiny is known as the constant.

Knowledge of the constant is known as discernment.

Woe to him who willfully innovates

While ignorant of the constant.

…

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

Next comes the ruler they love and praise;

Next comes one they fear;

Next comes one with whom they take liberties.

Where there is not enough faith, there is lack of good faith.

Hesitant, he does not utter words lightly.

When his task is accomplished and his work done

The people all say, “It happened to us naturally.”

…

When the great way falls into disuse

There are benevolence and rectitude;

When cleverness emerges

There is great hypocrisy.

…

Exterminate the sage, discard the wise,

And the people will benefit a hundredfold;

Exterminate benevolence, discard rectitude,

And the people will again be filial.

…

Have little thought of self and as few desires as possible.

…

Exterminate learning and there will no longer be worries.

Between yea and nay

How much difference is there?

Between good and evil

How great is the distance?

…

The multitude are joyous

I alone am inactive and reveal no signs,

My mind is that of a food – how blank!

Vulgar people are clear.

I alone am drowsy.

Vulgar people are alert.

I alone am muddled.

Calm like the sea;

Like a high wind that never ceases.

The multitude all have a purpose.

I alone am foolish and uncouth.

I alone am different from others

And value being fed by the mother.

…

To use words but rarely

Is to be natural.

…

A man of the way conforms to the way;

A man of virtue conforms to virtue;

A man of loss conforms to loss.

He who conforms to the way is gladly accepted by the way;

He who conforms to virtue is gladly accepted by virtue;

He who conforms to loss is gladly accepted by loss.

He who shows himself is not conspicuous;

He who considers himself right is not illustrious;

He who brags will have no merit;

He who boasts will not endure.

…

One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know.

Block the openings;

Shut the doors.

Blunt the sharpness;

Untangle the knots;

Soften the glare;

Let your wheels move only along old ruts.

This is known as mysterious sameness.

…

The whole world says that my way is vast and resembles nothing. It is because it is vast that it resembles nothing. If it resembled anything, it would, long before now, have become small.

…

My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice, yet no one in the world can understand them or put them into practice.

Words have an ancestor and affairs have a sovereign.

It is because people are ignorant that they fail to understand me.

Those who understand me are few;

Those who imitate me are honoured.

Therefore the sage, while clad in homespun, conceals on his person a priceless piece of jade.

…

To know yet to think that one does not know is best;

Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

It is by being alive to difficulty that one can avoid it.

The sage meets with no difficulty.

It is because he is alive to it that he meets with no difficulty.

…

Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good. He who knows has no wide learning; he who has wide learning does not know.

…

There is a thing confusedly formed,

Born before heaven and earth.

Silent and void

It stands alone and does not change,

Goes round and does not weary.

It is capable of being the mother of the world.

I know not its name

So I style it “the way.”

– Tao Te Ching

————————————–

@ Lao Tzu: I understand your Tao, your “Way.” I appreciate the existential nature of the Tao (from 500 years BC mind you!) and your advice on governing the people and wartime strategy. But going with the flow and following the way of Heaven just to avoid difficulty is too good. Embrace the hunt. Embrace the dark side as well as the way of Heaven. For they are one.

 

Kierkegaard Attacked the Christianity of the Church, Nietzsche Attacked Christendom as Such

Posted on by under Kierkegaard, Philosophy, Religion

When the question about truth is asked objectively, truth is reflected upon objectively as an object to which the knower relates himself. What is reflected upon is not the relation but that what he relates himself to is the truth, the true. If only that to which he relates himself is the truth, the true, then the subject is in the truth. When the question about truth is asked subjectively, the individual’s relation is reflected upon subjectively. If only the how of this relation is in truth, the individual is in truth, even if he in this way were to relate himself to untruth.

Objectively the emphasis is on what is said; subjectively the emphasis is on how it is said.

…

When subjectivity is truth, the definition of truth must also contain in itself an expression of the antithesis to objectivity, a memento of that fork in the road, and this expression will at the same time indicate the resilience of the inwardness.

Here is such a definition of truth: An objective uncertainty, held fast through appropriration with the most passionate inwardness, is the truth, the highest truth there is for an existing person.

At the point where the road swings off (and where that is cannot be stated objectively, since it is precisely subjectivity), objective knowledge is suspended. Objectively he then has only uncertainty, but this is precisely what intensifies the infinite passion of inwardness, and truth is precisely the daring venture of choosing the objective uncertainty with the passion of the infinite.

I observe nature in order to find God, and I do indeed see omnipotence and wisdom, but I also see much that troubles and disturbs. The sum total of this is an objective uncertainty, but the inwardness is so very great, precisely because it grasps this objective uncertainty with all the passion of the infinite.

In a mathematical proposition, for example, the objectivity is given, but therefore its truth is also an indifferent truth.

But the definition of truth stated above is a paraphrasing of faith. Without risk, no faith. Faith is the contradiction between the infinite passion of inwardness and the objective uncertainty. If I am able to apprehend God objectively, I do not have faith; but because I cannot do this, I must have faith.

…

Sin is: before God in despair not to will to be oneself, or before God in despair to will to be oneself.

Very often, however, it is overlooked that the opposite of sin is by no means virtue. In part, this is a pagan view, which is satisfied with a merely human criterion and simply does not know what sin is, that all sin is before God.

No, the opposite of sin is faith, as it says in Romans 14:23: “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” And this is one of the most decisive definitions for all Christianity – that the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith.

The thought of death is a nimble dancer. Everybody is too serious for me. My whole thought is the task of becoming a Christian.

– Søren Kierkegaard

—————————

“Merciful Heavens! but what do I care for the laws of nature and arithmetic, when, for some reason, I dislike those laws and the fact that twice two makes four? … I write only for myself, and I wish to declare once and for all that if I write as though I were addressing readers, that is simply because it is easier for me to write in that form. It is a form, an empty form – I shall never have readers.”

– Dostoevsky (Notes from Underground)

Great Doubt, Great Death, Great Awakening

Posted on by under Education, History, Philosophy, Religion

The Kyoto School of Philosophy

The Kyoto School (京都学派, Kyōto-gakuha) is the name given to the Japanese philosophical movement centered at Kyoto University that assimilated western philosophy and religious ideas and used them to reformulate religious and moral insights unique to the East Asian cultural tradition.”[1] However, it is also used to describe several postwar scholars from various disciplines who have taught at the same university, been influenced by the foundational thinkers of Kyoto school philosophy, and who have developed distinctive theories of Japanese uniqueness. To disambiguate the term, therefore, thinkers and writers covered by this second sense appear under The Kyoto University Research Centre for the Cultural Sciences.

Beginning roughly in 1913 with Nishida Kitaro, it survived the serious controversy it garnered after World War II to develop into a well-known and active movement. However, it is not a “school” of philosophy in the traditional sense of the phrase, such as with the Frankfurt School or Plato’s Academy. Instead, the group of academics gathered around Kyoto University as a de facto meeting place, and as its founder, Nishida, steadfastly encouraged independent thinking.

According to James Heisig, the name “Kyoto School” was first used in 1932 by a student of Nishida and Hajime Tanabe. Tosaka Jun (1900–45) considered himself to be part of the ‘Marxist left-wing’ of the school.[2] Afterwards, the media and other academic institutions outside of Japan began to use the moniker, and by the 1970s it had become a universal title – practically by default.

Contents

  • 1 History
  • 2 Significance of its notable members
    • 1 Kitaro Nishida
    • 2 Hajime Tanabe
    • 3 Keiji Nishitani
    • 4 Masao Abe
    • 5 Shizuteru Ueda
    • 6 Eshin Nishimura
  • 3 Criticism of the Kyoto School
  • 4 Members
  • 5 Suggested reading
    • 1 Readings byindividual members
    • 2 Secondary sources onindividual members
  • 6 References
  • 7 External links

History

Masao Abe writes in his introduction to a new English translation of Nishida’s magnum opus, that if one thinks of philosophy in terms of Kant or Hegel, then there is no philosophy taking place in Japan. But if it is instead thought of in terms of the tradition carried out by Augustine and Kierkegaard, then Japan has a rich philosophical history, composed of the great thinkers Kūkai, Shinran, Dōgen, and others.[3]

The group of philosophers involved with the Kyoto School in its nearly 100 year history is a diverse one. Individual members often come from very different social backgrounds. At the same time, in the heat of intellectual they did not hesitate to criticise each others’ work.

The following criteria roughly characterize the features of this school:

  1. Teaching at Kyoto University or at a nearby affiliated school
  2. Share some basic assumptions about using Asian thought in the framework of western philosophical tradition.
  3. Introduce and rationally investigate the meaning of “nothingness” and its importance in the history of philosophical debate.
  4. Expand on the philosophical vocabulary introduced by Nishida.

Generally, most were strongly influenced by the German philosophical tradition, especially the thought of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. In addition, many employed their cultural resources in formulating their philosophy and bringing it to play to add to the philosophical enterprise. However, while their work was not expressly religious it was informed significantly by it. For example, both Tanabe and Keiji Nishitani wrote on Christianity and Buddhism and identified common elements between the two religions.[4] For this reason, some scholars classify the intellectual products of the school as “religious philosophy.”

Although the group was fluidic and largely informal, traditionally whoever occupied the Chair of the Department of Modern Philosophy at the University of Kyoto was considered its leader. Nishida was the first, from 1913 to 1928. Hajime Tanabe succeeded him until the mid-1930s. By this time, Nishitani had graduated from Kyoto University, studied with Martin Heidegger for two years in Germany, and returned to a teaching post since 1928. From 1955 to 1963, Nishitani officially occupied the Chair and since his departure, leadership of the school has crumbled – turning the movement into a very decentralized group of philosophers with common beliefs and common interests.

Significance of its notable members

The significance of the group continues to grow, especially in American departments of religion and philosophy. Since the mid-1980s, there has been a growing interest in East/West dialogue, especially inter-faith scholarship. Masao Abe traveled to both coasts of the United States on professorships, and lectured to many groups on Buddhist-Christian relations.

In addition, although Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki was closely connected to the Kyoto school and in some ways critical to the development of thought that occurred there—indeed, Suzuki personally knew Nishida, Tanabe, and Nishitani—he is not considered a true member of the group.[5]

Kitaro Nishida

Main article: Kitaro Nishida

Nishida, the school’s founder, is most known for his groundbreaking work An Inquiry into the Good and later for his elucidation of the “logic of basho” (Japanese: ??; usually translated as “place,” or the Greek topos) – which brought him fame outside of Japan, and contributed largely to the attention later paid to philosophers from the Kyoto School.

Nishida’s work is notable for a few reasons, chief among them however is how much they are related to the German tradition of philosophy since Schopenhauer. The logic of basho is a non-dualistic ‘concrete’ logic, meant to overcome the inadequacy of the subject-object distinction essential to the subject logic of Aristotle and the predicate logic of Kant, through the affirmation of what he calls the ‘absolutely contradictory self-identity’, a dynamic tension of opposites that, unlike the dialectical logic of Hegel, does not resolve in a synthesis, but rather defines its proper subject by maintaining the tension between affirmation and negation as opposite poles or perspectives.

Nishitani describes East Asian philosophy as something very different from what the Western tradition of Descartes, Leibniz or Hume would indicate,

It is ‘intuitive and practical,’ with its emphasis on religious aspects of experience not lending themselves readily to theoretical description. True wisdom is to be distinguished from intellectual understanding of the kind appropriate to the sciences. The ‘appropriation’ of Nishida’s thought,…’embraces difficulties entirely different from those of intellectual understanding’…and those who ‘pretend to understand much but do not really understand, no matter how much they intellectually understand’ are the object of his scorn.[1]

Before his death Nishida wrote The Logic of Place and the Religious Worldview, developing more fully the religious implications of his work and philosophy through “Absolute Nothingness,” which “contains its own absolute self-negation within itself.”[6] By this Nishida means that, while the divine is dynamically paradoxical, it should not be construed as pantheism or transcendent theism. Both Nishitani and Abe spent much of their academic lives dedicated to this development of nothingness and the Absolute, leading on occasion topanentheism.[citation needed]

Hajime Tanabe

Main article: Hajime Tanabe

Keiji Nishitani

Main article: Keiji Nishitani

Nishitani, one of Nishida’s main disciples, would become the doyen in the post-war period. Nishitani’s works, such as his Religion and Nothingness, primarily dealt with the Western notion of nihilism, inherited from Nietzsche, and religious interpretation of nothingness, as found in the Buddhist idea of sunyata and the specifically Zen Buddhist concept of mu.

Masao Abe

Main article: Masao Abe

Shizuteru Ueda

A disciple of Keiji Nishitani.

Main article: Shizuteru Ueda

Eshin Nishimura

Main article: Eshin Nishimura

Criticism of the Kyoto School

Today, there is a great deal of critical research into the school’s role prior to and during the Second World War. Hajime Tanabe bears the greatest brunt of the criticism for bringing his work on the “Logic of Species” into Japanese politics, which was used to buttress the militarist project to formulate imperialist ideology and propaganda. Tanabe’s notion is that the logical category of “species” and nation are equivalent, and each nation or “species” provides a fundamental set of characteristics which define and determine the lives and outlooks of those who participate in it.

Some western scholars think this criticism of the Kyoto School is inaccurate and spurious.[7] They have shown that Tanabe did not support the war effort and that Nishitani tried to organize intellectuals to question and criticize the growing militarism of the Tojo junta. This scholarly work attempts to provide an historical understanding of these thinkers’ work in terms of opposition to western colonial imperialism at the same as the thinkers opposed fascist reactionary politics.[8]

Members

  • Kitaro Nishida: 1870 – 1945 (KU Philosophy Dept. 1910-13, Chair 1913-28)
  • Hajime Tanabe: 1885 – 1962 (KU Philosophy Dept. ?, Chair, 1928-35?)
  • Keiji Nishitani: 1900 – 1990 (KU Philosophy Dept. 1928-35, Chair 1935-63)
  • Masao Abe
  • Miki Kiyoshi
  • Hisamatsu Shinichi
  • Shizuteru Ueda
  • Saneshige Komaki
  • Yamanouchi Tokuryu
  • Takeuchi Yoshinori

Suggested reading

Scholarly books

  • The Buddha Eye: An Anthology of the Kyoto School.Edited by Frederick Franck. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1982.

—Seventeen essays, most from The Eastern Buddhist, on Zen and Pure Land Buddhism.

—Anthology of texts by Kyoto scholars themselves, with additional biographical essays.

  • The Thought of the Kyoto School,edited by Ohashi Ryosuke. 2004.

—Collection of essays dealing with the history of its name, and its members contributions to philosophy.

  • Philosophers of Nothingnessby James Heisig. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8248-2481-4

—Excellent introduction to the School’s history and content; includes rich multilingual bibliography.

  • Absolute Nothingness: Foundations for a Buddhist-Christian Dialogue,Hans Waldenfels. New York: Paulist Press, 1980.

—Good early work, focuses mostly on Nishitani’s relevance for the perspective of Buddhist-Christian dialogue.

  • James W. Heisig, John C. Maraldo (Ed.): “Rude Awakenings. Zen, the Kyoto School, & the Question of Nationalism”, Honololu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994.

Journal articles

  • “The Religious Philosophy of the Kyoto School: An Overview,” by James Heisig.Japanese Journal of Religious Studies17, No.1, (1990), p51-81.
  • “Heidegger and Buddhism,” by T. Umehara. Philosophy East and West,20 (1970), p271-281.
  • “Nishida’s Philosophy of ‘Place’,” by Masao Abe, International Philosophical Quarterly28, No.4 (Winter 1988), p. 355-371.
  • “In Memoriam: Keiji Nishitani (1900-1990),” by E. Kawamura-Hanoka. Buddhist-Christian Studies,12 (1992), p241-245.

Readings by individual members

For further information, see the Nanzan Institute’s Complete Bibliography for all Kyoto School members

  • Kitaro Nishida, An Inquiry into the Good,Translated by Masao Abe and Christopher Ives. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987 (1921).
  • ——, Art and Morality,Translated by D. Dilworth and Valdo Viglielmo. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1973.
  • ——, Intelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothingness,Translated by Robert Schinzinger. Westport: 1958.
  • Tanabe, Hajime, “Demonstratio of Christianity”, in Introduction to the philosophy of Tanabe: According to the English translation of the seventh chapter of the demonstratio of Christianity, translated by Makoto Ozaki, Rodopi Bv Editions, January 1990, ISBN 90-5183-205-2,ISBN 978-90-5183-205-1, ASIN B0006F1CBU.
  • –, “The Logic of The Species as Dialectics,” trns. David Dilworth; Taira Sato, inMonumenta Nipponica, Vol. 24, No. 3, 1969, pp. 273-288. [Available as pdf through JSTOR]
  • –, Philosophy as Metanoetics(Nanzan studies in religion and culture), Yoshinori Takeuchi, Valdo Viglielmo, and James W. Heisig (Translators), University of California Press, April 1987, ISBN 0-520-05490-3.
  • Keiji Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness,Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. ISBN 0-520-04946-2
  • ——, The Self-overcoming of Nihilism,translated by Graham Parkes and Setsuko Aihara. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.
  • Yoshinori Takeuchi, The Heart of Buddhism,translated by James Heisig. New York: 1983.

Secondary sources on individual members

  • Nishida Kitaro,by Nishitani Keiji, translated by Yamamoto Sesaku and James Heisig. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
  • The Religious Philosophy of Tanabe Hajime,edited by Taitetsu Unno and James Heisig. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
  • The Religious Philosophy of Nishitani Keiji,edited by Taitetsu Unno. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

References

  1. ^ a b D.S. Clarke, Jr. “Introduction” in Nishida Kitaro by Nishitani Keiji, 1991.
  2. ^ Heisig 2001, p.4
  3. ^ Masao Abe, “Introduction” in An Inquiry into the Good, 1987, (1921).
  4. ^ Tanabe in Philosophy as Metanoetics and Demonstratio of Christianity, and Nishitani in Religion and Nothingness and On Buddhism.
  5. ^ Robert Lee, “Review of The Buddha Eye: An Anthology of the Kyoto School,” in The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol.42, No.4 (Aug.,1983).
  6. ^ The Kyoto School (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
  7. ^ Parkes, Graham, ‘Heidegger and Japanese Fascism: An Unsubstantiated Connection,’ in Japanese and Continental Philosophy, Indiana University press, 2011. Parkes exposes the shabby scholarship of the accusers of the Kyoto School, while leaving open the question of what exactly the politics of the Kyoto school philosophers consisted in.
  8. ^ David Williams, Defending Japan’s Pacific War: The Kyoto School philosophers and post-White power Routledge Curzon, London and New York 2004

External links

  • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • The Fascist Next Door? Nishitani Keiji and the ChuokoronDiscussions in Perspective, Discussion Paper by Xiaofei Tu in the electronic journal of contemporary Japanese studies, 27 July 2006.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_School

Incomplete Thoughts (Formerly “Finish It”)

Posted on by under 2012, Uncategorized

And one more special message to go,

And then I’m done, then I can go home.

Over the past two years or so I have “blogged” 160 notes on Facebook. Their contents range from trivial mundane matters to the deepest concern for the human condition. This final note is simply a collection of my unfinished and/or unelaborated notes and ideas. These notes have been primarily for my own edification and this will serve as a type of Nachlass, if you will. As for myself, I’ve reached the paradoxical point in the book of life that demands of the student, if the student has ascertained the essence of the teaching, to give the book away and choose to cease reading and begin living.

Free Spirit – In the deepest and most spiritual sense is existential liberation from mundane existence and morality. It is difficult to accept and become at peace with the real idea of your own mortality, but it is almost impossible to accept and become at peace with the real idea of your own existence. To embrace the absurd is to truly exist.

You are not your fucking Facebook! The internet is the death of spirit. Look around you! This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time. A thousand questions remain, but I smile and remain still, dancing in the moment and seeking only to live intentionally.

EDIT: I’ve recently had the good fortune of recovering some old essays of which I had thought were forever lost. I had penned them during a great transitional period in my life. If I no longer agree with the contents of these ancient relics, it doesn’t matter. They remain invaluable as part of my spiritual journey, if you will. Therefore, as a postscript, I will upload them and be finished.

Natural Theology and Classical Apologetics

Epistemology and the Metaphysics of the Soul

The History of an Error

That which has been is what will be,

That which is done is what will be done,

And there is nothing new under the sun.

Let go, or be dragged.

Sincerely,

Joshua Synon

… … …

Disclaimer: You enter the abyss at your own risk of life. Sanity is not guaranteed to follow.

Edit (5/7/2017): As this entire post was originally a Facebook Note, all of the links included will redirect through Facebook. I can’t be bothered to go through and fix them all.

LIST OF UNSOLVED PROBLEMS

https://www.causes.com/jsynon

– Existential Psychology

– Students for Sensible Drug Policy

– American Civil Liberties Union

– Libertarian Party

Click to view my discussions and debates on Christian Forums (2004-2010)

– This 5-6 year time span covers the gradual deterioration of my faith. It appears that I took part in 104 discussion threads with topics ranging from “evolution vs. creation” to “biblical prophecy” and much, much more. You may have to create an account to view this link. Only takes a minute, though. If the link is ever broken you can simply search for all posts by username: JSynon. This is one of my later threads and still makes me laugh when I read it: http://www.christianforums.com/t5724862/.

“Morality is the essence of all philosophy and all conscious actions for that matter. Kant and Sartre were correct in asserting that man acts to define man. Whenever anybody makes a claim to an objective truth or universal moral value they are actually saying: “This is how Isee things. This is how I want things to be!” In this way, all philosophical discourse is indeed merely autobiography and creation of values. Some people would call this a will to power, but call it what you will. Hence, my thesis: For anybody to attempt to invoke absolute moral values or objective truth claims on me is nothing other than a declaration of war against me.It is no longer an argument over what the truth is. The truth is created by the stronger party. It is by understanding this that you begin to understand what is truly meant by “God is dead.” Philosophy itself has died: metaphysics, ethics, and all. Truth and the will to truth are dead. The big lie of the priestly caste (dare I say the weak souls and slavish), the attribution of absolute value to – Truth, God, Form, Noumena, Being, Reality, the Good, the Perfect, the Infinite, the Unconditional and Absolute, the Unknown, the First Cause, ens realissimum– to control strong and healthy souls, will soon end.”

“To base our entire conventional system of time on the life of Jesus of Nazareth: is there a better way to undermine everything this man was?”

“To commit living myth and legend to lifeless script would be to imprison it and sound its death knell. Christ himself refused to compromise his authentic spirit by committing it to lifeless script, but instead he chose to live the very spirit of the Law and the Prophets. It is precisely in this living authenticity whereby Christ became equated with Divinity and the Holy Spirit. For so it is written – the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Likewise, Buddha is also threefold nature.”

“Will I destroy myself by saving myself? Or will I save myself by destroying myself? Do not confuse spoken language and the written word with your own mind and your own existence. That is, do not believe that language represents reality. The word is not alive. Logic does not exist outside of thought. You are not what you think. The word is dead. Is this not also a significant part of the realization that God is dead? Is it not precisely madness and insanity to truly exist?”

“The faith of a child consists in trusting his parents moral imperatives as for his own good. When the child grows older he may or may not test these imperatives and if he does he will not only learn the reasoning behind them, but he will also surely suffer in some way from the learning. Likewise, it seems that the decadence found toward the end of every age necessitates a renewal of our faith in our collective parents – nature and ancestors. Only then may we again flourish in all our glory.”

“Numbing myself and shutting off my mind,

I walk a mile to work as another.”

– Joshua Synon

“Every belief, every considering something true is necessarily illusion because there is simply no true world.”

– Nietzsche

https://www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

http://atheism.about.com/od/einsteingodreligion/tp/Einstein-s-Religious-Critiques.htm

http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Albert_Einstein

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tillich

Numinosity.

http://www.etymonline.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics

http://genealogyreligion.net/

The Philosophy Pages

Squashed Philosophers – Full Text Index
Spoiler Alert: You Do Not Exist

Psychedelics and religion.

Shamanism.

Native Indians.

Psychonauts.

Entheogens.

Marijuana.

Ayahuasca.

DMT and the pineal gland? (cf. Strassman and Descartes)

Peyote.

Near-death experience.

Panic disorder.

Mystical experience.

Opiates.

Modern “anti-depressants” and benzodiazepines.

Pharmaceutical business and psychiatry.

Why the Buddha does not recommend substances to force enlightenment: Attachment.

Erowid.org – “Earth Wisdom”

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies

http://listverse.com/2013/03/11/10-reasons-the-war-on-drugs-is-killing-you/

Benzodiazepines: How They Work & How to Withdraw

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

War as business.

The Greek Olympics & the Roman Colosseum.

Monsanto.

Harvesting Justice

http://vulgarmorality.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/the-great-adventure/

Dionysian nature of music.

– Reconsidering Nietzsche: Six Questions for Julian Young

Redeeming Nietzsche – On the Piety of Unbelief by Giles Fraser

Vicious Circle by Pierre Klossowski

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Friedrich_Nietzsche

http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/quotes/popular-quotes.htm

Nietzschean conspiracy.

– Regarding his insanity.

– Regarding the interpretation of his work.

– Regarding the colloquium at Cerisy.

Dan Gilbert: The Surprising Science of Happiness

Rollo May: The Human Dilemma

“In my personal interpretation of much of the ‘dubstep’ musical genre I hear expression of the consequences of a postmodern, digitally networked age in which “Generation Z” grew up. Never knowing life without the internet, the “online profile” provides their identity, while the ego suffers a bombardment of information (and disinformation) overload. It’s a situation in which humanity is further abstracted away from nature, perhaps more so than ever before, and in which a sense of coherence and purpose are sometimes difficult to ascertain as the world is experienced as fundamentally disordered, if not chaotic.”

– Joshua Synon

Skrillex – Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites

TIME – “Is God Dead?”

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/best-lex-luthor-quotes-smallville-20110204-162800-761.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_%28novel%29

Meaning is found in language as representation. What does life or experience itself represent?

Is there something of significance to investigate regarding the very human association of the sound of an alarm clock with feelings of disappointment?

In all seriousness I ask of you: Precisely how autonomous are we?

It is only when we have nothing left to lose that we are free to do anything and have everything to gain.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esotericism

Kierkegaard Wikiquote

Kierkegaard vs. Nietzsche: Discerning the Nature of True Christian Faith

http://www.sorenkierkegaard.org

http://www.philosophicalfragments.com/

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard

Nietzsche’s Criticism of the Herd Mentality and Kierkegaard’s Individual

Kierkegaard’s Conception of God

Heaven and Hell as state of mind.

God incarnate, as Logos incarnate, as Form of the Good incarnate, as Tao incarnate?

– Logic was made a man to contrast personality?

– “In the beginning was the Logic, and the Logic was with God, and the Logic was God. And the Logic became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

“Ever since the dawn of Platonism we have constructed a fairytale world to live in – and we have found ourselves trapped in it. Awakening, Salvation, Redemption, Enlightenment, Faith – whichever label we use – all are the act of letting go of delusions of the mind, attachment to those delusions (despair), abstraction, dualistic mind, in complete surrender to God or Nature or Tao, and – quite literally – waking up to become an authentic individual. Upon waking, all suffering, impermanence, death, despair – all are rendered meaningless as all attachment to abstraction, which is the origin of suffering, are emptied out of our mind and we discover our original face, before we were born.”
– Joshua Synon
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-parmenides/

Presuppositional Christian apologetics (essentially Platonism) and Kierkegaard.

Messiah ideology as hope.

Robert Anton Wilson’s reality tunnels.

Gordon Clark.

Transcendental argument for the existence of God.

Fideism.

Aesthetic – Ethical – Religious.

Thesis – Antithesis – Synthesis.

Mind – Body – Spirit.

Subject – Object – Relation (Consciousness or Experience).

Calvinism – TULIP

Buddhist practice of non-thinking similar to Christian practice of prayer.

That very moment experienced as a profound burden fading away when accepting Christ in faith and the Buddhist experience of Enlightenment as identical feelings in which the whole world is transformed. Freedom and oneness are actualized as nature’s (or God’s) acceptance is realized.

The Real God: An Epiphany

Deism.

Pantheism.

Religion Facts – Just the Facts on Religion

Just the facts on religion? I can’t imagine a greater stupidity. Perhaps,http://www.realapologetics.org/blog/. Or CARM.org. Or LeaderU.com? or …

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

The Serenity Prayer.

For every ailment under the sun

There is a remedy, or there is none;

If there be one, try to find it;

If there be none, never mind it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_too_shall_pass

Jimmy Reid, Alienation

The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot

“If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”

“Thank you Lord Vishnu for introducing me to Christ… Thank you for coming in the form of a fish and saving our lives.”

“Which story do you prefer?”

– Life of Pi

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

– Gandhi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahlil_Gibran

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agorism

Zen Buddhism

Buddhism is Not What You Think by Steve Hagen

Common Things People Believe About Buddhism That Aren’t True

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Buddhism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism

Buddhism and the God-Idea

On Buddhism by Nishitani Keiji

The Zen Teaching of Rinzai

The Buddha and His Teachings

Light of Asia by Sir Edwin Arnold

Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture

Advaita Vedanta

Nirvana Shatakam by Adi Shankara.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satori

An Imperfect God

“No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.”

– Nietzsche

What is love? And madness?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/

Religion (institutionalized) as means of control.

Nietzsche’s often overlooked understanding of asceticism and slave morality being necessary for the survival of the priestly caste. Often mislabeled as a nihilist, Nietzsche’s love for mankind is an essential part of his teaching. However, inevitably, the time has come to “philosophize with a hammer.”

Nietzsche’s coined term, “Moraline.”

Is it possible to reject as much of our moral and linguistic tradition as Nietzsche did without following him down the road to insanity? One of the reasons biography is relevant to the answer is that his drift towards madness cannot be separated from the lifelong history of malaise. Fighting against headaches, pain in and around the eyes, stomach pains, vomiting, debility, he was simultaneously cultivating his potential for madness. His friend Franz Overbeck thought he had been ‘living his way towards’ the final breakdown…

There was nothing sudden about his movement into madness. He was only twenty-four when he wrote: ‘What frightens me is not the fearful shape behind the chair but its voice; also not the words but the terrifyingly unarticulated, inhuman tone of that shape. Yes, if only it would speak in a human way.’ By 1880 he was able to prescribe methods of going mad. In Morgenröte (Sunrise) he makes the point that madness – or at least the semblance of it – had been the sine qua non of moral evolution. The men driven to reject tradition and propose new norms had had either to feign madness or to induce it by means of fasting, sexual abstinence, solitude, and ‘concentrating resolutely on nothing except what provokes ecstasy and derangment.’ He appears to have been thinking of himself, St Paul and Plato, who said that ‘from madness Greece derived its greatest benefits.'”

– Ronald Hayman

Daddy issues?

“Dying in general, or dying from drugs, I’ve thought about dying all my life like any normal person. I’ve thought about killing myself for so long because of my stomach thing that I didn’t give a fuck if I was gonna die or not. If i was gonna blow my head off with a gun I may as well take the risk of dying from drugs.”

– Kurt Cobain

“I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I’m not. Wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are.”

– Kurt Cobain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVwSmG3eYBw (Kurt Cobain Interview Clips)

I’m such a nihilistic jerk half the time. I’m so fucking sarcastic at times and then at other times I’m so vulnerable and so sincere. And that’s pretty much how every song comes out. It’s like a mixture of both of them. And that’s pretty much how most people my age are. They’re sarcastic one minute and then caring the next.

One time I read an interview in his office and I said, “Jesus Christ, this makes me look like such a moody, emotional, depressive person.” And he said, “But you are.” I go, “No I’m not. I like to have fun sometimes.” It’s just, every one thinks of me as like this emotional wreck, this total negative black star. People are constantly accusing me of being in a bad mood and always ask me, “What’s the matter?” And there’s nothing wrong with me at all. I’m not feeling blue at all. It got to the point where I had to look at myself and maybe figure out what people are seeing and I thought, “Maybe I should shave my eyebrows. That might help, ya know.” People ask me that all the time, like even I went out to a club a couple of months ago and this kid just nonchalantly said, just out of the blue, “Geez Kurt, why do you always look like you’re mad?” I said, “I’m not mad. I’m in a perfectly happy mood right now, you asshole.” You know, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong with you? Are you sad?” Ya know, most people think that if I look at them and I don’t smile, that I’m pissed off so I go out of my way to make it look like I’m enjoying myself, ya know. I usually am enjoying myself. I’m hardly ever depressed any more so it’s a lot easier to be able to do that.

Opiates have always made me feel the security that I wanted to feel to where I didn’t hate people as much, ya know. I had a little bit of affection for them or, ya know, at least can see past the superficiality of their personality and think of them as a real person. Maybe they had a fucked up childhood or maybe it’s their environment that’s making them this way. It relieves some of the animosity that I have towards people. And I needed to do that because I was tired of hating people so much, ya know, and being so judgmental towards every one. I know it sounds like I’m almost defending my drug use. It sounds like a lot of denial. I need to go off on a little anti-drug tirade just to put things in better perspective. The last couple of months where I was doing $400 worth every day I was definitely noticing things about my memory and I knew that eventually my health would start getting a lot worse. It’s the truth though. I was healthier and fatter at that time than I am now. I said right out that I don’t regret it and I don’t, but that’s because I used it as a tool. I used it basically as a pain medication to get rid of a pain. That’s the biggest reason why I did it. And in that sense I don’t regret it, but anybody else who’s gonna get addicted to drugs are obviously going to fuck up their lives eventually. If it doesn’t take a year it’ll be next year. It’s so obvious. I mean, I’ve seen it happen with every person to ever get strung out and it’s the typical classic case that drugs are bad for you. They will fuck you up.

– Kurt Cobain

http://kurtcobainssuicidenote.com/kurt_cobains_suicide_note.html

“The thought of suicide is a powerful solace: by means of it one gets through many a bad night.”

– Nietzsche

Some of my undisclosed unique experiences.

– Jury duty.

– Pharmaceuticals.

– Hospitals.

– Local government (City of Wayne v. Skateboarding)

– Criminal underworld.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5 update May 2013)

Psychology as moralism.

https://www.yourmorals.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_psychology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism

The psychology of psychics.

Psychology behind “The Secret.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Psychology

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpersonal_psychology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

Social and cult psychology.

Cult of culture.

Depression and the Limits of Psychiatry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_religion

Kumaré. Fake guru. Real experience.

“Fuck psychiatrists. They all have severe mental disorders.”

– Joshua Synon

Applied Phenomenology & Existential Psychotherapy

– http://www.brill.com/journal-phenomenological-psychology

– http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Existential_Psychotherapy

– http://www.saybrook.edu/newexistentialists/

– http://www.ehinstitute.org/

– http://www.existentialpsychology.org/

– http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evil-deeds/201101/what-is-existential-psychotherapy

– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_therapy

Related

– http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/husserl/

– http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/

– http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/

– Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Rollo May, Viktor Frankl, Irvin Yalom, etc.

Applied Phenomenology – The ability to know what to do while being completely emerged in a situation.

Books by Kirk J. Schneider & Rollo May.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nous

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noema

Philosophy of science.

The Evolving Science of Chiropractic Philosophy

Bio-Energetic Synchronization Technique.

Eulogy for Aaron Swartz by Quinn Norton

http://www.conferencealerts.com/index

STFU, Continental Philosophers

“When the leaders become conscious of mass psychology and take it into their own hands, it ceases to exist in a certain sense. […] Just as little as people believe in the depth of their hearts that the Jews are the devil, do they completely believe in their leader. They do not really identify themselves with him but act this identification, perform their own enthusiasm, and thus participate in their leader’s performance. […] It is probably the suspicion of this fictitiousness of their own ‘group psychology’ which makes fascist crowds so merciless and unapproachable. If they would stop to reason for a second, the whole performance would go to pieces, and they would be left to panic.”

– T. W. Adorno

http://www.gotquestions.org/Buddhist-Christian.html

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/

– Would it matter if Buddha (literally, “awakened one”) was not an historical figure?

– Would it matter if Jesus (literally, “savior”) was not an historical figure?

Messianic Judaism.

http://30ce.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebionites

http://www.iep.utm.edu/neoplato/

“It rests with every professor of the religion of Jesus to settle within himself to which of the two religions, that of Jesus or that of Paul, he will adhere.”

– Jeremy Bentham, in Not Paul But Jesus

Buddha & Christ

http://www.jesusisbuddha.com/

http://www.thezensite.com/non_Zen/Was_Jesus_Buddhist.html

http://shindharmanet.com/passage/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_Christianity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_influences_on_Christianity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Buddhism_and_Christianity

http://www.gotquestions.org/Buddhist-Christian.html

http://www.amazon.com/Yeshua-Buddha-Interpretation-Testament-Meaningful/dp/0835605159

http://dyneslines.blogspot.com/2011/06/did-new-testament-rip-off-buddhism.html

Buddha and Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard as Bodhisattva.

Buddha’s response to Nietzsche.

http://www.urbandharma.org/sitemap.html

Zionism in The Matrix.

http://reason.com/ (Libertarian research organization)

ACLU.org

ADL.org

Anonymous Hacktivist group (http://anonnews.org/)

http://localleaks.blogs.ru/

National news (propaganda) and private interests.

Private sector influence on government.

Authentic journalism.

Political realism.

Realpolitik.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen_movement

http://www.freedomactivist.net/

http://political-activism.meetup.com/

Not only does the Constitution specifically allow the formation of a Federal Army, it also recognizes the inherent right of the people to form militia. Further, it recognizes that the citizen and his personal armaments are the foundation of the militia. The arming of the militia is not left to the state but to the citizen. However, should the state choose to arm its citizen militia, it is free to do so (bearing in mind the Constitution is not a document limiting the citizen, but rather limiting the power of government). But should the state fail to arm its citizen militia, the right of the people to keep and bear arms becomes the source of the guarantee that the state will not be found defenseless in the presence of a threat to its security. It makes no sense whatsoever to look to the Constitution of the United States or that of any state for permission to form a citizen militia since logically, the power to permit is also the power to deny. If brought to its logical conclusion in this case, government may deny the citizen the right to form a militia. If this were to happen, the state would assert itself as the principle of the contract making the people the agents. Liberty then would depend on the state’s grant of liberty. Such a concept is foreign to American thought…

One other important point needs to be made. Since The Constitution is the limiting document upon the government, the government cannot become greater than the granting power. That is, the servant cannot become greater than its master. Therefore, should the chief executive or the other branch of government or all branches together act to suspend The Constitution under a rule of martial law, all power granted to government would be cancelled and deferred back to the granting power. That is the people. And I’ll conclude with this statement: Martial law shall not be possible in this country as long as the people recognize the bill of rights as inalienable.

– Norman Olson, http://www.potowmack.org/emerappb.html

Privately owned for-profit universities and prisons?

http://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/ndic-moved.html

http://www.justice.gov/dea/index.shtml

http://www1.assumption.edu/users/lknoles/douglassproslaveryargs.html

The Universe Next Door

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy

Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks

“What truly is logic? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me to the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back. I have made the most important discovery of my career – the most important discovery of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found. I am only here tonight because of you. You are the only reason I am. You are all my reasons. Thank you.”

– John Nash, A Beautiful Mind

http://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blockade.html

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2011/video/opensecrets/

George Orwell.

Thought police.

Political Language.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Orwell

Alan Watts.

Cornel West.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interpretations_of_The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Worldwide_Intelligence_Communications_System

http://www.infidels.org/

http://www.the-brights.net/

http://www.mensa.org/

Integral theory.

http://truthcontest.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_dollar

www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Democritus & Bertrand Russell.

Stoicism + Platonism = Christendom

Personal Biblical reinterpretation

Acts 17:16-32 (Paul in Athens)

Matthew 27:46 (cf. Psalm 22)

1 Tim. 6:20-21.

1 Peter 3;15.

1 Cor. 1:20-25 (Foolishness of Christ risen)

Gen. 32 (Jacob wrestles God)

http://gnosis.org/welcome.html

Mysticism

– Christian Gnosticism.

– Islamic Sufism.

– Jewish Hasidism and Kabbala.

– Hindu Advaita Vedanta.

– Buddhist Zen and Dzogchen.

Sikhism.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/boethius/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quietism

http://www.archive.org/

José Ortega y Gasset, “Man has no Nature”

Authenticity: An Existential Virtue by MarJorie Grene.

Involution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-ethics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism

Concept of taboo.

History is written by the victors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_hypothesis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy
Illuminati. Freemasons. Jesuits.
Unknown agenda behind secret societies.

Beyond secret societies: unknown individuals.

Fiat money in a digital age.

Privately owned Federal Reserve.

Infowars.com – Alex Jones’ disinformation agenda.

CIA use of Facebook.

Admitted/proven CIA conspiracies.

http://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-InternmentResettlement.pdf

New World Order.

Banking monopoly.

False flag operations.

Zionism.

http://usaspending.gov/

“Forcefully spreading tolerance is intolerant.” – and democracy? and freedom?

The political and economic atmosphere of MMORPG Tibia (created in 1997) as a truly unique look at human nature and the political animal.

– Social Darwinism

– EVE Online as social experiment in free market capitalism.

– U.S. as well. Maybe also civilization as planted by aliens on Earth long ago!

Hindu Untouchables.

My philosophy brings the triumphant idea of which all other modes of thought will ultimately perish. It is the great cultivating idea: the races that cannot bear it stand condemned; those who find it the greatest benefit are chosen to rule…

To endure the idea of the recurrence one needs: freedom from morality; new means against the fact of pain ( pain conceived as a tool, as the father of pleasure…); the enjoyment of all kinds of uncertainty, experimentalism, as a counterweight to this extreme fatalism; abolition of the concept of necessity; abolition of the “will”; abolition of “knowledge-in-itself.”

– Nietzsche

What is it to laugh in the face of death?

Ayn Rand

Objectivism defined as ethics determined by the nature of reality.

Ayn Rand – The Virtue of Selfishness

Eudaimonia.

“Trust me, I’m telling you stories. I can change the story. I am the story.”

– Jeanette Winterson

Death Note

Western decreasing value of maintaining a large family and the power of the surname (in a practical and non-moral sense). The tried and true way to worldly power is to maintain a large family and invest in a large family inheritance, rather than slaving away at an hourly paid job. To partake in the world community at the highest and most meaningful level. To be present among the elite – the small community of individuals that understand that nothing is true and everything is permitted. The few that truly exist. Perhaps this would be the highest level teaching in a secret society of gods among men.

“What I am describing is not merely a master-race whose task would be to govern, but a race with its own sphere of life, with an excess of force for beauty, courage, culture, manners, right up to the highest spiritual realm; an affirming race which can accord itself every luxury… powerful enough not to need the tyranny of the virtue-imperative, neither parsimonious nor given to pedantry, beyond good and evil; a hothouse for strange and exotic plants.”

– Nietzsche

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life

www.worldwisdom.com/

“The force of mind is only as great as its expression; its depth only as deep as its power to expand and lose itself.”

– Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit

“The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure.”

– Sigmund Freud

“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.” -Kahlil Gibran

“[Man] sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then he dies having never really lived.” -Dalai Lama

INTERPOL

– Intergovernmental organization

– Member States

– United Nations

– New World Order

– Planet Government

http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/

http://www.un.org/disarmament/ATT/

http://www.unwatch.org/

http://www.economist.com/

Economics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Establishment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-economics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_economy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-market_anarchism

North Korean caste system.

U.S. caste system.

The Debt Limit Explained

Why TV News is a Waste of Human Effort

http://www.theonion.com/

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_peace

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacyclosis

Plato as origin of theism and, ipso facto, indirect cause of modern nihilism.

Platonic zeitgeist still reigns as “science,” in spite of Christianity’s suicide.

The self-overcoming of nihilism explained.

http://www.burningtrue.com/2013/03/insecurity-third-choice.html

Names of the Monotheistic God of Abraham

Islamic Theology / Philosophy

– http://quran.com/

– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_philosophy

– al-Ghazali.

– Sufism – The Tale of the Sands.

– Language barriers.

Moses Maimonides.

Forgotten Truth by Huston Smith.

http://dramaofdogma.blogspot.com/2008/03/gift-of-place.html

– “All living is local.”

http://www.musicbysunset.com/Great%20Literature/

Buddhism and transhumanism?

“From the perspective of the subject, death is never experienced, and man is therefore subjectively immortal. Now, from the perspective of the object…”

– Joshua Synon

Schopenhauer.

– The World as Will and Representation

Escapism and technology.

Second Skin documentary.

Call of Duty “Replacer” advertisement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity

Pope Benedict XVI resignation and Saint Malachi.

Will as all that exists.

Matter / energy as all that exists.

Relation as all that exists.

Qualia as all that exists.

Crime & Punishment

Theories of Criminal Law

“From a purely psychological point of view, I really believe that the police aid the criminal in not coming to repent.”

– Kierkegaard

“But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!”

– Nietzsche

Criminal Psychology

– Irreverence of “outside” authority and law.

– Reverence of personal autonomy, integrity, authenticity.

– Proximity to “state of nature.”

– View of law enforcement contemptuous.

– Street ethics (e.g. code of silence).

– Police as rival gang.

There is no empathy in the courtroom. Just arbitrary arbitration.

“Imprisonment is not an appropriate means of promoting correction and rehabilitation.”

– 18 USC § 3582

Four Forms of Human Being

Living intentionally. (will)

Living on purpose. (function)

Living for a reason (idealism).

Living on accident (fatalism).

Everything matters (samsara, conventional life) and nothing matters (sunyata, emptiness behind convention).

Relation to Platonic Forms.

The eternal moment.

Life as “play.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine

Liberation and freedom in this context.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_attraction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_thought

Critique of militant “New Atheism.”

– Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion.

– Sam Harris, The End of Faith.

The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake

The Grand Design – Stephen Hawking.

“The worst readers — the worst readers are those who proceed like plundering soldiers: they pick up a few things they can use, soil and confuse the rest, and blaspheme the whole.”

– Nietzsche

Theosophy.

Anthroposophy.

Apocrypha.

Theology

– http://www.iep.utm.edu/theo-nat/

– http://www.theopedia.com/

Decadence of Americans.

Honest Man: The Life of R. Budd Dwyer

“You [white folks] have not only altered and malformed your winged and four-legged cousins; you have done it to yourselves. You have changed men into chairmen of boards, into office workers, into time-clock punchers. You have changed your women into housewives, truly fearful creatures. I was once invited to the house of one. ‘Watch the ashes, don’t smoke, you’ll stain the curtains. Watch the goldfish bowl, don’t lean your head against the wallpaper; your hair may be greasy. Don’t spill liquor on that table: it has a delicate finish. You should have wiped your boots; the floor was just varnished. Don’t don’t don’t’ That is crazy. You live in prisons you have built for yourselves, calling them ‘homes, offices, factories.'”

– John (Fire) Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes, Lame Deer Seeker of Visions.

https://www.youtube.com/user/EgoDiversion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-domestication

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication

“Through domesticating ourselves like cattle, people began civilization.”

– Masahiro Morioka

The Domestication of Animals and of Man (Part 1)

The Domestication of Animals and of Man (Part 2)

The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension

“Much like Ebenezer Scrooge, I realized that what I want more than anything is to live happily ever after. And do you know what the secret to living happily ever after is? Power. Money and power. See, once you have those two things, you can secure everything else — and keep it that way.”

– Lex Luthor

Money as power incarnate.

The will to power.

Power as control.

Money as the sole interest of everything political and/or in the “news.”

Political plight of idealists.

Money as a tool, as a means to an end, not as an end-in-itself.

Desire as the ground of morality.

Value of truth: “I will not deceive, not even myself” as moral prejudice.

Superman and Smallville as exploration of Nietzsche.

Lex Luthor as the real overman.

Or perhaps Clark Kent and Lex Luthor as opposite overmen.

Lex Luthor: Man of Steel (comic).

Clark Kent is Superman’s critique of mankind.

“If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people.”

– Gregory House

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/johann-fichte/

CRITIQUE OF SCIENCE

Define Science

– “Progress”.

– Science-in-itself, or science-for-itself.

– What is the ground of science?

– Science as descriptive and not explanatory.

– Science is to outwardness as religion is to inwardness.

– Science as the latest form of ascetic ideal, following Platonism and Christianity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

– Problem of Induction.

– Inductive logic (presupposition) as faith.

– Brain-in-a-vat.

– The butterfly dream.

Modern Science

– Roots in Western philosophical tradition.

– Ptolemy and Copernicus.

– Newton.

– Galileo.

– Theoretical physics.

– Einstein’s special and general relativity.

– Quantum mechanics.

Philosophy & Quantum Mysticism

– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics

– Kant’s transcendental idealism = Einstein’s general relativity = Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle?

– http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/history/

– http://philosophynow.org/issues/45/Bohr_and_Kant_and_Zeno

– http://www.friesian.com/space-2.htm

Ontological theory of relativity?

Problem of science and religion?

Mathematics and Theoretical Physics

– Calculus and infinite.

– Cyclical nature of time and space (and the material universe).

– Space and time as a priori experiential “faculties.” (Kant)

– Bending space-time to imagine higher dimensions than three.

– The curvature of the universe encompassing itself.

– Traversing “relatively” vast distances instantly.

– Zero energy universe.

– Computer simulation and higher dimensions.

– Ontological status of purely mathematical objects? Math as solely description of relation?

–http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_philosophy#Mathematical_objects

– http://www.friesian.com/goedel/chap-2.htm

https://www.youtube.com/user/10thdim

http://www.youtube.com/user/minutephysics

Overcoming Nihilism

– Death of God.

– Science-inspired nihilism.

– Nishitani and Buddha

– Original state (sunyata). (state of nature, original face)

– Domestication of man.

– No nihilism without Plato?

– Technology-inspired nihilism (Heidegger & Nishitani).

– http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/deleuze/

Unknowns

– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems

– Why is there something rather than nothing?

– Why is there gravity? (Kantian “faculty?”)

– What is nothing? Empty space?

– Induction problem.

– Ineffability of qualia (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness).

Is essential chaos possible?

– Posited as the dualistic opposite of order.

– Determinism and free will.

– Compatiblism.

Evolution/Science and/or Creation/Intelligent Design

– This is a debate that I have long since left behind because of the utter superficiality of both sides and the fact that each side has predispositions necessarily interpreting facts.

– Arguments for and against (irreducible complexity, 2nd law of thermodynamics, carbon-14 dating, etc. – answersingenesis.org, http://www.fixedearth.com/)

– Theistic evolution.

– Instinct and free will.

– Do any animals other than humans intentionally commit suicide (or even have knowledge of impermanence)?

– Why is the origin of written history (Mesopotamia: Sumerians, 4000 BC) such a recent phenomenon?

Is essential randomness possible?

– In computer science.

– In reality.

– Correlation to the possibility of autonomous machines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilemma_of_determinism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe

Logical determinism?

http://crestroyertheory.com/the-theory/

“What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism… For some time now, our whole European culture has been moving towards a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong like a river that wants to reach the end, that no longer reflects, that is afraid to reflect.”

– Nietzsche

Waking Life Transcript

Maybe Logic Transcript

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_science

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiphilosophy

Buddhism as anti-philosophy.

– Metaphysics and morality as means to an end.

Influential Eastern Minds

Nāgārjuna

Nishida Kitar?

Buddha

Dogen

Hakuin

Nishitani

Confucius

Lao Tzu

Zarathustra

– Eckhart Tolle, teaches Buddhism in the West

– http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle

– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle

– Purpose of Ego

Meister Eckhart

– Godhead as “God-as-God-is-in-Godself.”
“All Faith is false, all Faith is true: Truth is the shattered mirror strown
In myriad bits; while each believes his little bit the whole to own.”

– Sir Richard Francis Burton

Epicurus.

Al Ma’arri.

Jean Meslier.

Robert Ingersoll.

A message to Islamic terrorists (if there be such a thing) and other world condemners: hatred will never cease by hatred, but by love. The way that leads to the destruction of the corruptions of materialistic society is education, not violence.
Plato’s Philosopher-King.

http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale

Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations Quotes

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/

Marcus Aurelius and Stoicism

Max Stirner

Continue work on https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nishitani_Keiji

– “All things that are in the world are linked together…” – p. 149 (added to Wikiquote)

http://itsnotwhatyouthink.co.uk/

“You are not what you think you are. You are not what other people think you are. You are what you think other people think you are.”

Vast exploration of philosophical ideas in novel form.

Metaphysics

People cannot see themselves, only Others?

Enlightenment as ability to see oneself?

Spirituality as sustained personality (on a ground of emptiness)?

Karma and rebirth as Sartre’s created Self?

Christian mysticism and Buddhism.

Kensho (seeing essence).

Zen Koans.

The nature of fire.

Idealism – dualism – objectivism – subjectivism – perspectivism – relationism?

Theories of truth.

History of religions and influences on each other.

Two Truths of Buddhism.

Science and religion.

Human existence as knowledge of facts alone, but no experience at all.

Morality

Relationship to religion. 

As the true end of life.

Current morality, laws, and customs as seen from the year 3000.

Locking people in cages for non-violent crime is fucked up. But, alas, justice is the advantage of the stronger.

Law purged of moral bias, consisting of only pragmatic concerns – or, political philosophy liberated from moral philosophy. (Realpolitik)

Substance Abuse

Cultural interest in vampire blood lust as substance addiction in real life.

Video games, movies, drugs, etc. as escapism.

Internet effect on younger generations’ social skills.

My Video Game Design & Development

Bing (Pong simulation created in 2003-04 at LTU)

Custom Media Player (created at LTU)

Noxia (RPG Maker)

JSynon 7.6 RPG (Open Tibia Server)

Many other projects using 3D GameStudio (3D fighter, driving simulation, unfinished online FPS, and more)

Other simple projects using C and C++ with DirectX on Windows API (Chess, etc.)

Current project idea: Combine elements of Tibia (polity), EVE (economy), Terraria (player created content), to create an MMORPG with skill based gameplay.

Politics

Social Contract and tacit consent.

State of nature and apocalyptic film (revolution, the walking dead, Lost).

What is “the government?” (individual people; the state is the people).

What is “government?” As verb. As noun.

Public image as necessarily illusory. (Kierkegaard)

And representatives?

Illusion of government / democracy.

Democratic (or oligarchic) republic?

Government as noun does not exist.

Government as verb; politics as the most clever game man has ever invented.

Every form of government that man has experimented.

Political theory.

Ancient Greek polity size.

War provides meaning to life (will to power)?

Military-industrial complex and vested interests.

Police force as largest gang.

Politically correct world domination (i.e. the spread of “democracy and freedom“).

Taxation.

Born, raised, and living in the USA – I am not free to live my life as I see fit. In fact, I feel completely and utterly bound in chains.

Economics and “The Establishment.”

Elitist theory (aristocracy, plutocracy, oligarchy, timocracy, etc).

Conspiracy theories.

Actual corruption.

Capitalist anarchy.

Refusing to participate in the national responsibility of voting: silence is a powerful weapon.

National security – when should we lie to the public?

Ethics

Other as an end-in-itself. (Kant; categorical imperative)

“Virtue ethics” reformed.

Morality as emotion.

Evolution of morality.

A spiritual journey, something akin to “zen & the art of motorcycle maintenance”

(using “My Journey” note as skeleton)

Buddhism as escapism?

Is it possible to break a Buddha mind (i.e. through use of physical or mental torture)?

I am not a noun, but a verb. I am not a being, but a becoming. I am not a relation, but a relating. I am not a will, but a willing. I am not, but I am.

Into the Wild.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_farming

http://www.ehow.com/how_2125327_get-security-clearance.html

www.globalsecurity.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_anarchism

Alain Badiou’s conception of Truth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

http://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/Philosophical/Putative_Fascism.htm

Contract work for government ideology, persuasive philosophical [propaganda] writing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/

http://www.planetebook.com/ebooks/The-Great-Gatsby.pdf

http://rense.com/general62/destroy.htm (How to destroy a nation from within)

Scale of the Universe

“Crazed scientists at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina have wired the brains of two rats to the internet, allowing them to exchange sensory information in real time, even though they were separated by thousands of miles (one rat was in North Carolina, and the other in Brazil). The wired brain implants allowed tactile and motor signals to be sent from one rat to another, creating the first ever brain-to-brain interface. It was repeatedly found that once one rat had learned to complete a task in return for a reward of food, the other rat too now knew how to complete the same task. The behaviour of the lab rats apparently indicated that the communication between them was in both directions. It is not yet clear how the information is coded by the rats’ brains so as to be usable by the other brain. The head of the team, Professor Miguel Nicolelis, predicted that the system could eventually be tried with larger animals and in time extended to humans: “We will have a way to exchange information across millions of people without using keyboards, voice recognition devices or the type of interfaces that we normally use today.” Clearly this would depend on the development of non-invasive techniques to share information between human brains. Professor Christopher James, an expert in neural engineering at Warwick University, noted that it is not yet possible to put information into a brain using just electrodes on the surface of the scalp.”

– Philosophy Now Magazine
“What does ‘outside of the universe’ even mean? Does anything exist outside of qualia? What is thinking, but a recollection of qualia? What stupid questionable questions. Thinking is stupid. I’m gonna go build a house… ON A ROCK!”
– Joshua Synon, signing out…