/lit/ - Literature

>>17020059
Disapprove of Islam but Rushdie is a waste of space, I would literally rather have a conversation with the Grand Vizier.

Meanwhile about fascism rising in Europe, having been there, it seems never to have left.

>>17025695
Rome's behavior is just further evidence to me that the last 200 years has been a disaster for the west.

>>16353105
>I've already become an associate of Stalin in your head
And of Machiavelli, Talleyrand, Molotov, and just about any other fool who can only think of God as a means of controlling the masses. The stupid thing is that you yourself are guilty of a sweeping statement by saying that no person can genuinely believe in God, it's just some politically useful, fear-based psychosis.

The most self-evident thing in the world is that even if religion is without substance, that it was never designed to instill fear any more than the laws induce fear in non-criminals. For the most part God and law have been made for mankind's general happiness and peaceful enjoyment. Only those who are envious and covetous of power can read the phrase "holy fear" and conceive of terror.

>>16337685
I by no means accept the blasphemous axiom, Human fear first invented the gods.[Primus in orbe deos fecit timor. This passage, whose true author is unknown, is to be found amongst the fragments of Petronius. It is quite at home there.]

On the contrary, I am happy to notice that men, by giving God names expressing greatness, power, and goodness, by calling him Lord, Master, Father, and so on, show clearly enough that the idea of divinity cannot be born of fear. It can be seen also that music, poetry, dance, in a word all the pleasing arts, have been called on in religious ceremonies and that the idea of rejoicing was always so closely involved in the idea of festival that the last became everywhere synonymous with the first.

Far be it from me, moreover, to believe that the idea of God could have started with humanity or, in other words, that humanity can be older than the idea.

It must, however, be confessed, after having made sure that this is orthodox, that history shows man to be convinced at all times of this terrible truth, that he lives under the hand of an angry power and that this power can be appeased only by sacrifice.

At first sight, it is not at all easy to reconcile so apparently contradictory ideas, but, if they are studied closely, it can easily be understood how they agree and why the feeling of terror has always existed side by side with that of joy without the one ever having been able to destroy the other.

"The gods are good, and we are indebted to them for all the good things we enjoy: we owe them praise and thanks. But the gods are just and we are guilty. They must be appeased and we must expiate our sins; and, to do this, the most effective means is sacrifice."

Such was the ancient belief and such is still, in different forms, the belief of the whole world. Primitive men, from whom the whole of humanity has received its fundamental opinions, believed themselves culpable. All social institutions have been founded on this dogma, so that men of every age have continually admitted original and universal degradation and said like us, if less explicitly, our Mothers conceived us in sin; for there is no Christian dogma that is not rooted in man's inner nature and in a tradition as old as humanity.

- Enlightenment on Sacrifices, Chapter 1.

>>15456517
You have to read John 1 and Genesis 1, this dumb chart meme is awful and doesn't explain Jesus. John 1 says that Jesus is the "Word of God," that is, Jesus is a manifestation of God's will. It's a metaphorical analogy with how our own words show our will to other people. And it is building off the idea in Genesis 1 where God "spoke" the world into existence. This is metaphorical language, but it's highly important because without a belief in the Trinity you are cut off from God because you've denied the Spirit. This is the unforgivable sin, btw.

What then is the Spirit? The spirit is explained as the love that the Son has for the Father and the Father for the Son, so by participating in the Spirit we can become sons of God through the merits of Christ. In this way, Christian theology and philosophy believes we have access to the Godhead through the participation in this love of God for Himself (which in a funny way still includes us if and only if we wish to be included because we are His creations). This is why it's the unforgivable sin to deny the Spirit, if you say that there is no Spirit or no Trinity, then you have said "it's impossible for man to participate in the divine life." Now I doubt that just saying so leads to final separation from God (i.e. hell) but acting like it is so, consistently and with determination, is certainly going to lead you there.

So in short, the Trinity is an admittedly anthropocentric concept; nobody is actually saying that God literally "spoke" but the point stands that He has a will, and the character of being omnibenevolent.

Hope that helps

>>12585782
What would you call someone who believes the French Revolution was a mistake, then? "Reactionary" may be a pejorative term but I'm not sure what a better one would be for someone like De Maistre, who is clearly well to the right of Peterson.

>2018
>not being a monarchist/aristocrat

Musk is behind the times.

>>10940056
>>10940113
You have learned, in a helpfully empirical way, that most men are not fit to govern themselves, and are in need of a master.

You've taken your first step into a larger world.

Does anywhere stockpile traditionalism like marxists.org stockpiles communism?