“In the turbulent conscious stream, the unbearable lightness of being, and it’s finite.”
Religion: A dialogue
Demopheles: “Mystery,” is in reality only a technical theological term for religious allegory. All religions have their mysteries. Properly speaking, a mystery is a dogma which is plainly absurd, but which, nevertheless, conceals in itself a lofty truth, and one which by itself would be completely incomprehensible to the ordinary understanding of the raw multitude.
A mother had, for their education and betterment, given her children Aesop’s fables to read. Very soon, however, they brought the book back to her, and the eldest, who was very knowing and precocious, said:
“This is not a book for us! It’s much too childish and silly. We’ve got past believing that foxes, wolves and ravens can talk: we’re far too grown-up for such nonsense!”
Who cannot see in this hopeful lad the future enlightened Rationalist?
—Arthur Schopenhauer (The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion)
If your abilities are only mediocre, modesty is mere honesty; but if you possess great talents, it is hypocrisy.
—Arthur Schopenhauer - from the essay “On Psychology”
Face to face with death, Wittgenstein arrived at his fundamental insight …
“The meaning of the world does not reside in the world.”
Put a man on the brink of the abyss and – in the unlikely event that he doesn’t fall into it – he will become either a mystic or a madman … which is probably the same thing!
William Blake (28 Nov 1757 – 12 Aug 1827) is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form “what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language”.
His visual artistry has led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him “far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced”.
Although he lived in London his entire life except for three years spent in Felpham he produced a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced the imagination as “the body of God”, or “Human existence itself”.
Psychohistory & Big Data
Isaac Asimov introduced the fictional scientific field of psychohistory in his Foundation universe. In this science fiction setting, this science could predict the future by analyzing data and making inductive inferences from this data using various algorithms and formulas. The predictions resulting from the science are not about specific individuals, but rather about broad events. For example, the science could predict the fall of the Empire, but it could not be used to predict which specific person would be the emperor at that time.
Not surprisingly, real thinkers have been striving to make such predictions for quite some time and have met with some success at making statistical predictions involving large numbers of people. For example, the number of traffic accidents that will occur in a year can be predicted with a fair degree of accuracy as can the number of births. However, making the sort of predictions made in the Foundation series has been beyond the reach of current social sciences. However, this might change.
read more…
Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.
—David Hume - A Treatise of Human Nature
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
—Bertrand Russell via Greg Graffin’s book Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science and Bad Religion in a World Without God
(highly recomended for a great history on bad religion and graffins naturalist musings)
(Quelle: iwillbepatient)
Feeling small and insecure?…here’s Monty Python’s “The Galaxy Song” to put all into perspective for you
The gap between, say, Plato or Nietzsche and the average human… is greater than the gap between that chimpanzee and the average human. The realm of the real spirit, the true artist, the saint, the philosopher, is rarely achieved. Why so few? Why is world history and evolution not stories of progress… but rather this endless and futile addition of zeroes? No greater values have developed. Hell, the Greeks years ago were just as advanced as we are. So what are these barriers that keep people… from reaching anywhere near their real potential? The answer to that can be found in another question, and that’s this: Which is the most universal human characteristic - fear or laziness?
—
Waking Life (via morelikeamoat)
(Quelle: peemla, via delirium-of-disorder-deactivate)
NIGHTNIGHT by DEDDY
Edited by acideater 2010–2013
