/lit/ - Literature

can you btfo the paralyzing supra-human abraham narrative? can you find a conclusive analysis to the adam & eve & eden narrative?

if yes, I will cast off the jew books forever

>>6872378

It used to be polytheistic. When it was turned into a monotheistic narrative, the contradictions that arise from deleting multiple gods wasn't properly dealt with

aliens invented cell phones

>>6872373

citations, rigour, etc. please.

These threads are the worst: analogous to the yoga phenomenon in the west being picked up for being exotic and mystical. In fact the only philological study of merit pertains to texts which have a timeless or (excuse connotations) transcendental reading. Anything less is just painting a caricature of another culture, or extricating philosophical dead-ends.

This is why mythology is fascinating to all, while folk-tales and legends are commonly bland to an outsider. Mysticism is a waste because mystical experiences are not candidates for truth by anyone but the beholder.

Leave this Indomania in the doldrums along with Chinoserie and Japonisme.

>>6872373
>Nietzsche
he never went to india. all he had was some western delirium about india

>>6872420
k

>>6872441
LOL so true

>>6872373
>everything is infinite, infinite comes from infinite!

>>6872373
wat

Nietzsche wrote that india was a dirty stupid shithole

>>6872476
so deep

>>6872378
>can you find a conclusive analysis to the adam & eve & eden narrative?
Here: those are stone age sandnigger fairy tales.

>>6872482

Nietzsche's interpretation of the Law of Manu is very interesting. Contrary to Schopenhauer who thought that the preist Brahmin caste was superior because they let go of thier carnal desires and live in spiritual meditation, Nietzsche thought that the stronger will to power among the castes was to be found in the Chandalas, the outcasts. If you think about he is right, the crimminals, the poor,gypsies etc. have the strongest will to live becuase they are hardened by their conditions.

This outlook is very similar with the "Rats" of Trakl, people who invade society to upset it and shake it to it's core by bringing new ideas or social conditions like a virus.

>>6872373
eating restrictions are for practicality purposes, idiot

who cares lmao
nietzsche was a fag and spookmonger

>>6872378

Acording to Nietzsche jews, once the settled in Israel did not feel at home and begun to interpret what God whats from them (the Torah). This created a problematic relationship were man was not comfortable in the world with the demands God had for him and the reason why Abrahamic religions have so many commandements in terms of morality. Instead of studying man in nature, the look at man in trancedental relationship with God. But this creates obvious problems since trancedance is never possible, so religion becomes an inversion of the real world by doubling reality with the first one to philosophicaly lay grounds on that being Plato.

God is dead becuase he cannot be belived in anymore, and the morality which was once thought to be able to be lived is now wholy impossible.

>spiritual level
Eh. Christianity is the highest form of spirituality. Hinduism is sophistry and madness. Buddhism is all right.

>>6872649
>revealing your plebery this badly
>2015

>>6872649

>muh elaborated primitive tribal mythology is the highest form of spirituality

>the infinite process from the infinite and is thus infinite
Dude whoa fucking deep

>>6872668
> communicating in memepix instead of words, like an ape
> 2015

>>6872578
>have the strongest will to live becuase they are hardened by their conditions.

no, because they are not dominant. Nothing is more ferocious than some powerless guy craving power

remove every desire and and that is gaining power for sure

>>6872690
He's right, though. Christianity is the endgame of religious profundity. From creation ex nihilo to the need for special revelation to the one God to the Incarnation, it properly reconciles the transcendent with the immanent without sacrificing either.

India and the East are stuck in the swamps of pre-Socratic ignorance and never left; everything interesting there has long been refined and digested by the best of the West.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>arguing tiers and rankings for something so subjective and context dependent as spirituality.
All below this line shall define their terms before speaking forthwith. All above are faggots.

>>6872850
faggot detected

>>6872373

Not comparing like with like.

>In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth

As a statement of ultimate principle, this is true profundity.

To be created- to be other than unqualified being, but not nothing, is not to be independent, nor to be identical or subsumed into ultimate being, but to exist at the centre of one's being in relation with the other, one's creator. In this relation lies the possibility of spiritual discovery, personal perfection and creaturely joy.

In the doctrine of creation lies all plenitude, all drama, all dread and all hope. Because of creation, everything other than God is made a possible object of understanding, hence the world can be filled with many things which are not God, and not nothing. If one is created, one's existence is gratuitous, and therefore something which might, considered only in itself, fail at any time- the creaturely existence is always on the existential knife-edge. There is thus the possibility of ultimate failure, balanced against hope in the infinite Creator for ultimate fulfilment. Because one is created, in the very act of existing there is a purpose and a good to strive for, evil to be avoided. Creaturely life is affirmed, its substance all lit up with heavenly rays.

In a supremely concise starting point, the writer of Genesis avoids the sterile ignorance of the polytheist, who multiplies principles not so much to understand as to scratch an itch, the sterile arrogance of the epicurean or atomist, who loses their humanity precisely in the attempt to be concerned only with the human,and the sterile despair of the pantheist who is forced to blot out everything but his ultimate principle.

Compare that to this heathen foolishness:

>"That (Brahman) is infinite, and this (universe) is infinite. the infinite proceeds from the infinite.
>(Then) taking the infinitude of the infinite (universe), it remains as the infinite (Brahman) alone."

Basically, it's as if Genesis began, "In the beginning, God-" and left it at that. When faced with this, all that remains is the yawn of infinite despair, for the infinite is incomprehensible, and if all is the incomprehensible infinite, there is nothing for man but to wonder and perish. Because the very act of understanding is an act of hope, such tyrannous ignorance is the platform for spiritual and intellectual suicide. With the pantheistic move here, the Hindu does not get as far as the preconditions for his own existence or his own inquiry.

>>6872884


>To be created- to be other than unqualified being, but not nothing, is not to be independent, nor to be identical or subsumed into ultimate being, but to exist at the centre of one's being in relation with the other, one's creator. In this relation lies the possibility of spiritual discovery, personal perfection and creaturely joy.

Why should the trancedent relationship with God imply independance? It is in fact a relationship of submition or infinite resignation. The greatest absudity of Christianity and Abrahamic dogma is to assume man is teh center of creation and occupies a privileged postion of trancedence with God. This is problematic because you arrive at problems such as Theodicity and Onto-theology.

>In the doctrine of creation lies all plenitude, all drama, all dread and all hope. Because of creation, everything other than God is made a possible object of understanding, hence the world can be filled with many things which are not God, and not nothing. If one is created, one's existence is gratuitous, and therefore something which might, considered only in itself, fail at any time- the creaturely existence is always on the existential knife-edge. There is thus the possibility of ultimate failure, balanced against hope in the infinite Creator for ultimate fulfilment. Because one is created, in the very act of existing there is a purpose and a good to strive for, evil to be avoided. Creaturely life is affirmed, its substance all lit up with heavenly rays.

Again you go back to some naive humanistic conception of christianity which is not existentialist at all, how can it be life affirming if the only thing which affirms life is domething beyond this world an utterly unkowable creator. Life as Tragedy of the Greeks is far more wise and humble in my opinion because it affirms the one principle present in almost all religions, man cannot go outside his own limits, he cannot presume to know fate or the cosmos.

>In a supremely concise starting point, the writer of Genesis avoids the sterile ignorance of the polytheist, who multiplies principles not so much to understand as to scratch an itch, the sterile arrogance of the epicurean or atomist, who loses their humanity precisely in the attempt to be concerned only with the human,and the sterile despair of the pantheist who is forced to blot out everything but his ultimate principle.

This is an incorrect interpretation of the Pre-Socratics. The pre-Socratics did not concern themselves with what is "Human", this is a later concern developed with Hellenistic philosophy and Stoicism. Instead tehy wanted to know what is Being, that i what principles govern the world. This is why Science and Philosophy begun with them , it was an expedition to find what is the world man occupies.

>>6872850

>>6872884

>Basically, it's as if Genesis began, "In the beginning, God-" and left it at that. When faced with this, all that remains is the yawn of infinite despair, for the infinite is incomprehensible, and if all is the incomprehensible infinite, there is nothing for man but to wonder and perish. Because the very act of understanding is an act of hope, such tyrannous ignorance is the platform for spiritual and intellectual suicide. With the pantheistic move here, the Hindu does not get as far as the preconditions for his own existence or his own inquiry.

Pantheism is not despair, I have never understood why the Christians gathered all of their arsenal against pantheism attacking it as "pessimist" or "nihilistic". Christianity is the most nihilistic religion out there, instead of affirming the world in it's unity they split it by doubling it. The pantheist says something completely different set limitations to what you presume to know because the world is infinite, this is an attempt to make man at home in the world once more, while Christianity tortures the individual by demanding him the bifurcation of his body from the physical world.

>"This world, the same for all, neither any of the gods nor any man has made, but it always was, and is, and shall be, an ever living fire, kindled in due measure, and in due measure extinguished."

-Heraclitus

>>6872441
He's right about the west though.

You know, I fucking love philosophies from India, I read something new on it everyday and I'm planning to visit India and Nepal later this year.

But what the fuck is wrong with all of you?
>superiority
>this earlier than that
>this more complex than that
>why dont you throw everything out the window and accept this as your master

When are you fags going to grow up out of those comparisons? Do you have any idea of how ridiculous it is to see you guys quote ancient classics, Nietzsche and whatever and still get rustled in that way? At one point you talk about complex non-identification with one's personal self and yadda yadda and then you jump right into defending it as if it was you.

You're stuck in values, in judgement, in "good and evil", in memory. You're not interested in knowing anything about anything, just to have your hands in whatever secure ideology that will keep yourselves up there in your rethoric in this Vedanta Paper Maché Discussion Forum.

>>6872941

>Why should the transcedent relationship with God imply independance?

I didn't say it did. I said that the metaphysical middle ground (between unqualified being and non-being) occupied by the creation qua creation, entails a form of being that exists through relation to the creator. The creature's relationship with God implies dependence, which is not negation, for the dependent has to have its own distinct principle of being, even if it is not an underived or self-sufficient one. Since only God is independent, to imagine oneself as a self-sufficient thing-unto-oneself is a recipe for existential despair.

>It is in fact a relationship of submission or infinite resignation

Nope. To embrace creaturely existence is to avoid the illusion that one can be fulfilled by imagining oneself to be a self-sufficient being (i.e., a God). It is to love being what you are, without the despair born of arrogance (the desire to, in some fashion, be God oneself) or metaphysical timidity.

>The greatest absudity of Christianity and Abrahamic dogma is to assume man is teh center of creation and occupies a privileged postion of trancedence with God.

In the Abrahamic dogma Creation is centred around its Creator, not man. I have no idea what "a privileged position of transcendence" is. Man has a unique gift and destiny, sure, but at best this is because he is the apex of the material world (being, as the rational animal, sort of by definition the maximum possible participation in spiritual reality possible for a material creature). The material world, of course, is not all there is.

>how can it be life affirming if the only thing which affirms life is domething beyond this world an utterly unkowable creator

But on Christianity, the Creator is knowable. The whole point of the religion is that God became man, to dwell among men and definitively reveal himself in the immortal person of Jesus Christ. To know God, it turns out, means entering into personal relation with the Christ, not in trying to comprehend God's naked metaphysical essence. It is in the person of the God-man that human nature and the divine come into union without one negating the other. It is to say, that human life, without ceasing to be human, is more than human beings could dare dream possible.

>Life as Tragedy of the Greeks is far more wise... man cannot go outside his own limits...

Been there, done that. Christianity calls this original sin. It is not because of what man has done, but because of what God has done, that the limitations of human nature (as orphaned from God) are transcended, and man is made whole again in life and hope and knowledge. Christianity begins with the despair of the pagan world and shows the only way out.

>This is an incorrect interpretation of the Pre-Socratics.

I was a bit carried away there. When I spoke of the "human" I didn't mean the "human qua human," but things on the human metaphysical level and below- the elements, atoms, pleasure.

>>6873031

you mean most people come here to shitpost ?

>>6872884
>God created everything and nothing created him.
>This makes more sense because I said so.

>>6873044
Wasn't my argument.

>>6873050
Except it is, you just declare that one is better than the other and use a bunch of big words to hide your complete lack of an argument.

Then you brush aside the Hindu version (which is actually a cool explanation of the mathematical concept of infinity, as expected of a culture that gave us decimal numbers) as hethan trash with the justification of WAAAA INFINITY SCARES ME!

And face it, a prime mover is logically absurd. Everything in nature is caused by something else, picking one entity to be the sole first cause is just a justification for laziness. I don't care what's beyond that hill, so I'm just going to declare it the end.

>>6872965

It's despair because, if all is God, the inquirer qua inquirer is negated. Christianity is not nihilistic precisely because it creates the necessary conceptual space for the inquirer and the inquiry to exist: it answers the question of how to be happy, rather than merely insinuating that unhappiness is a mere illusion, because the unhappy inquirer doesn't exist.

And again, because the infinite is incomprehensible, the world in its unity cannot be grasped, pantheism implies that the whole intellectual project is doomed from the beginning. It's total despair. It doesn't situate man in the world, because it obliterates man qua man.

Christianity affirms man in his physicality. It's why Jesus rose from the dead in the flesh, and why the body is treated as a temple. In the light of the Christian affirmation of the body, all creation shines with reflected divine intent- the world is made right by being raised up. The Resurrection permeates everything.

>>6873078
So in other words Christianity is a religion for spiritual babies who can't deal with reality as it is.

>>6873098
It's unclear to me what you mean.

>>6873066

My argument is right there, pretending it doesn't exist because you're scared of "big words" just makes you look illiterate.

It's clear you don't want to engage the argument I actually gave for why the monotheistic creation-narrative is superior (because it gives space for and affirms the existence of the created, qualified, contingent world as good, which in turn enables everything humans do and ought to value).

You also don't want to engage my criticism of the heathen (which you really don't understand, in any case- it's talking about the metaphysical infinite, not the mathematical one). Infinity doesn't "scare me." I happen to have a personal relationship with Infinity, as a Christian. But to reduce everything to the Infinite is just purely irrational and despairing for a creature. No argument could conceivably establish this, because its conclusion is the death of all rationality, and the existential consequences are unlivable.

The only thing approaching a rational thought is your absolute pleb-tier "but what caused God?!" objection, which just shows that you don't even understand the positions being taken here. That there is an ultimate principle of being is not a taxicab fallacy, because it's established by argument rather than fiat.

There is a Prime Mover because, considered only in itself, whatever moves insofar as it is moved has no motion. If there were no prime mover, everything would only be things which move insofar as they are moved, and there would be no motion. Since there is motion, there is a prime mover.

The Prime Mover must be one because it must be simple- a complex thing is the actualisation of potentials in its parts to form the whole, hence is a subject of motion from potentiality to actuality, hence no complex thing could be a Prime Mover. But things of which there could be more than one are necessarily complex and therefore subject to motion- there has to be some principle in common and some individuating principle for multiply-instantiable things. Since the Prime Mover must be simple, it must also be unique.

>>6873098

No, Christianity teaches us what reality is truly like, and that frees us from despair. It's why Christianity is the endgame of philosophy.

>>6873185

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when an aquinasfag tackles philosophy that actually isn't simplistic and black or white. He strangles himself with his own words

Don't worry, you'll grow bored of purple prose very quickly.

>>6873218

I was dealing with a case of logophobia, not any kind of philosophy.

>>6873246

So you were reading your own posts?

>>6873232
But he's already growing out of Christianity

>>6873270
One does not grow out of Christianity. One merely degenerates.

>>6873270
You don't grow out of Christianity, like all religions you grow into it.

>>6873272
>>6873274
>muh slave morality

>>6873272
>>6873274

I highly doubt you'll still be an edgy contrarian /pol/ Catholic in about 5 years. People like you just jump on bandwagons, and in a few years, you'll do a full 180 and denounce all your views, jump on the next bandwagon of enlightenment and once again denounce yourself for how foolish you were and congratulate yourself on how wonderful your life will be

>>6872373
>Schopenhauer said that the re-discovery of the Upanishads by Europe is comparable to the rediscovery of ancient Greek materials in the Renaissance
>comparable to the rediscovery of ancient Greek materials in the Renaissance
> ancient Greek materials in the Renaissance
well Schopenhauer was fucking stupid lol

>>6873295
>Catholic
>Not Orthodox
How fucking new are you?

>>6873295

I'm actually Protestant, and have been into Thomistic philosophy for much longer than it's been a meme on /lit/. It's been pretty neat to find a comparative oasis in this desolate part of the internet.

>Their names included the following: Venerable Ājñāta kauṇḍinya, Venerable Aśvajit,Venerable Vāṣpa, Venerable Mahānāma, Venerable Bhadrajit, Ven erable Vimala, Venerable Yaśodeva, Venerable Subāhu, Ven erable Pūrṇaka, Venerable Ga vāṃpati, Venerable Uru vilvā kāśyapa, Venerable Ga yākā śyapa, Venerable Nadī kāśyapa, Venerable Mahākāśyapa, Venerable Śāri putra, Ven erable Mahāmaudgalyāyana, Venerable Kapphiṇa, Venerable Mahākauṣṭhila, Venerable Mahākātyāyana, Venerable Mahā cunda, Venerable Pūrṇa maitrā yaṇīputra, Ven erable Ani ruddha, Venerable Revata, Venerable Kimpila, Venerable Amogha rāja, Venerable Pārāyaṇika, Ven erable Vakkula, Venerable Nanda, Venerable Svāgata, Venerable Rāhula, and Venerable Ānanda

majestic

>>6873301

Who cares what type of special snowflake denomination you chose, the point is that you're a dumb bandwagoner, you're about as sincere as a 14 year old Nirvana fan and you'll almost certainly denounce all your views in a few years when you discover they're not hip anymore and they actually take effort and risk to uphold.

Basically, you're everything that's wrong with modern life. You're insincere, and fake as hell

>>6873320
>special snowflake
>Orthodox

>>6873320
>projecting this fucking hard

All these faggots don't realize Hinduism is monotheistic

>>6873329

There's monotheistic, pantheistic, nihilistic and polytheistic kinds of Hinduism. They're basically the pre-Socratics if Plato and Aristotle and Christianity never happened.

>>6873218
Hinduism is simplistic as fuck.
>you're simultaneously Atman and Brahman, now go meditate until your Atman is one with Brahman
If you haven't actually engaged with Aquinas or Christian philosophy I can see how you'd think that's somehow deeper than or more complex than Christianity.

>>6873335
Hinduism is just polytheism. There's not even necessarily a unifying current among all Hindi sects. It's like Homer if Homer had spent more than just the second chapter of the Iliad counting soldiers and had decided the gods didn't have to behave in a manner becoming g a deity. Comparing the Upanishads to anything but the Homeric poems is unfair.

Buddhism is Eastern Platonism, but that doesn't mean Hinduism is pre-Socrstic. It's not even at the level of philosophy.

>>6873389
>Buddhism is Eastern Platonism

Huh, never heard that comparison before. Could you elaborate?

>>6873418
>Huh, never heard that comparison before. Could you elaborate?
I second this

>>6873389
>>6873418
>Huh, never heard that comparison before. Could you elaborate?
I second this

>>6873418
>>6873479
They can't, Buddhism is the literal opposite of Platonism.

>>6873418
Only way I can think of is both are philosophical traditions.

The depths of both show polar opposites.

>>6872373
because people can't be bothered with thoughtfully examining spiritual philosophy that isn't mainstream and culturally immediate

>Nietzsche claimed something

>>6873690
Thus the Eastern part. Platonism is the necessary presupposition of Western thought. Buddhism is the fundamental Eastern presupposition.

>>6872373
>Why do we still waste so much time & energy with Desert Trilogy when our own, Indo-European heritage, is so much more richer and profound?
Muh spirituality
Muh enlightenment
You don't care about philosophy this just an anti Abrahamic post

>>6872668
>hinduism
>not the ultimate peasant tryhard plebshit
topkek

>>6873295
>I highly doubt you'll still be an edgy contrarian /pol/ Catholic in about 5 years. People like you just jump on bandwagons, and in a few years, you'll do a full 180 and denounce all your views, jump on the next bandwagon of enlightenment and once again denounce yourself for how foolish you were and congratulate yourself on how wonderful your life will be
Edgiest shit I've read all day. How the fuck does someone like this even make friends? topkek virgin

>>6872690
>Hinduism
>Not just unelaborated tribal mythology

look at these nitpicking faggots

why do you fuckers ride nietzsches dick so much
holy shit whatever he says doesnt automatically make it gospel (that would be Schoppy btw).
Take what you heard from him and see if it has any merit.

>>6872461
average orientalismfag

>>6873272
>degenerates
Suddenly, /pol/ rears its ugly head in /lit/ once again...

>>6873272

You mean Christianity makes your body and mind degenerate untill all life your life is wasted?

Because that's more accurate.

>>6873389
damn you are so full of shit lmao