/lit/ - Literature

>>18757466
…the claim that the world is crafted by a benevolent God and that matter and the world is good. There are only a few other faiths like this: Islam is another, and Schopenhauer claims Greek and Roman paganism are same, although this is not the full truth. Greek optimism is of an entirely different sort than Biblical optimism anyway. But Hinduism and Buddhism see the world as something you must escape, they believe in nirvana or moksa that frees you from the cycle of rebirths. This is more normal, and a lot more widespread in history. And this is in a sense true since suffering so obviously outweighs its opposite: in any individual life this is true, where moments of happiness are rare and pass quickly. But also, if you imagine the pleasure of an animal eating versus the pain and agony of the animal being eaten, you can’t be fooled …you see that suffering exceeds pleasure or happiness in this world, by many magnitudes. Many bears, some African hunting dogs and others, they bite out of animal before it is even dead. Best, like I said, to be killed by jaguar that dispatches you with quick bite to the skull! Its jaws are strong, grown to bite through turtle. I believe it’s the most compassionate cat, but most murder in nature isn’t like this. Houellebecq talks about how as a boy he couldn’t stand the self-satisfied, dronelike and calm “reasonable” voice of narrators on nature shows, that try to obscure the worst agonies of animals, murder in blood. According to any rational calculation, life is not worth living, because pain far outweighs pleasure. Heavily medicated nihilists are likely to deny this—the blessed and happy know it’s true…but also know that reason and rationality are false.