Quote:

The greatest danger that always hovered over humanity and still hovers over it is the eruption of madness - which means the eruption of arbitrariness in feeling, seeing and hearing, the enjoyment of the mind's lack of discipline, the joy in human unreason. Not truth and certainty are the opposite of the world of the madman, but the universality and the universal binding force of a faith; in sum, the non-arbitrary character of judgements... Thus the virtuous intellects are needed - oh, let me use the most unambiguous word - what is needed is virtuous stupidity, stolid metronomes for the slow spirit, to make sure that the faithful of the great shared faith stay together and continue their dance... We others are the exception and the danger - and we need eternally to be opposed. - Well, there actually are things to be said in favor of the exception, provided that it never wants to become the rule.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

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Ravus said:

Perhaps there will be a day when Nihilism is the great escape to madness this world needs, and Nietzsche is regarded as the intelligent prophet rather than the delusional idols we have worshipped for so long.

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Quote:

The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.
Hunter S. Thompson

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Quote:

Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed; - history treats almost exclusively of these bad men who subsequently became good men!
-Friedrich Nietzsche

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Ravus said:

I bet if Jesus had lived a full life though, he would've eventually became old, judgemental and condescending, like everyone else who hates the abandonment of old useless rituals and beliefs.

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I will make that bet with you, but MAYBE you will choose not to pay up now(perhaps, not in this lifetime?)..... 
----But, all I will ask in return for payment of this bet would be a smile....)   
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So, I have two questions about your hypothetical bet....
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1)  Of what "rituals" did Jesus Christ have....?
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2)  And what part of his "beliefs" were  "useless"....?
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3)  Of what reasons would Jesus get "judgemental and condescending"....?    (He saved people).... 
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4)  Define "useless"....
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5)  "like everyone else who hates"....  HHhhhmmmm..... 
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This one made me laugh.....!   
"he would've eventually became old"
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You are as OLD as you have ever been in your ENTIRE PHYSICAL LIFE at the moment you get to this point....  =====> X
 
(and you can read it over and over again, and it will be true every time....) 


Blessings....! 

Quote:

You must learn to love death. It is more holy than any prophet that has gone before us, more accepting than any religion or philosophy, more generous than any other force in existence. Death and chaos are what gives birth to everything that has come before, is existing now and will be created after this fleeting moment.

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JacquesCousteau said:

Good post, eggo! 

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the_phoenix said:

The way I see it, at first a person is ignorant of the world around him and forget about finding meaning in it for this person doesn't even think for himself. As the world is discovered, chaos comes into view, all sorts of things the person doesn't yet understand. He tries to find meaning but things are too contradictory and none of it makes sense. This is the only truth he is left with, that it is all chaos, but at least now he is conscious of the world instead of blind to it.

From here, meaning is not found, but *created*. He gives up looking for external answers and turns inwards. Now as he creates meaning, it's a matter of finding a framework of understanding that makes order out of contradicting world facets that he is all-too conscious of. He has truly experienced the world, but discovers that as he re-experiences it through the lens of his self-created perspective, it is different. Relative understanding of the chaos begins to make some sense out of things, order out of chaos.

After writing this out, I see there are many other paths. If one were to learn straight away of relativity then perhaps nihilism could be avoided. But I must say, it was enjoyable for me. It was freedom. This was long ago of course, and it's hard to remember it well. But I was nothing in particular, hardly a super-ego, more like a totally undefined ego made of chaos, of whatever arbitrary thing I wished. It was an important growing experience for me, in which I assertively threw out my old world model that no longer held true in the slightest.

Now as he progresses, it becomes less and less a matter of creating a world model that fits. External things become better understood symbolically, implying themselves, and implying the profound self common to all things, the Ineffable, the original chaos that could not be made sense of. His new self-created world model, once constantly entertained superficially in his mind, progressively becomes symbolically manifest in his surroundings, allowing his mind to peacefully observe it and find meaning in the world which he did and did not create himself. Symbolic understanding, that is, relative understanding; understanding things mean one thing as they superficially appear, and many other things depending on how deeply and symbolically they are considered.

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Yes now i understand what you mean. Nihilism is not what you mean, you are talking about discovering that everything you once believed in is meaningless, and then the progressive stages toward discovering meaning in life and thew world anew, this is not nihilism at all, nihilism is a negation of everything in favor of nothing, its an extreme conception of emptiness derived from a negative conception of reality itself lacking any meaning. What you are speaking of is a positive transformation of perspective form the socially conditioned robot, zombie mode, to a more free and 'meaningful' existence. Chaos is the gap between disgarding and discovery.

In Buddhism generally, relative truth is presented first, so there is little need for such a radical gap in the discarding of past conditioning in the transformation process, its more of a slowly shifting perception of ones previous conditioned existence to a more meaningful, evolutionary path of gradual transformation of the gross perception of reality toward the subtle ultimate truth of emptiness. This is how its presented in the more gradual sutrics path's.

For someone who isn't presented with the relative truth straight off, i can see that it would take more time to discover these things within oneself without guidence, hence the wider, more radical gap in the process of discarding conditioned existence toward finding meaning anew. Until as you know, eventually everything is seen with pure vision as an empty wisdom symbol of enlightenment itself.