/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18962871]

>A mother prayed to Apollo to reward her piety by bestowing on her two children the greatest gift in his power; the god consented, and the children immediately died without pain (Herodotus 1. 31. 1 ff.).

[Anonymous No.18962911]

>>18962871
yo what a fucking dick

[Anonymous No.18962941]

>>18962871
I didn’t know Apollo was a BVDDHIST

[Anonymous No.18962944]

>>18962911
Apollo is not actually real so he did not kill them. Rather they died of some natural cause like a miscarriage.

[Anonymous No.18962975]

>>18962941
>There is an ancient story that King Midas hunted in the forest a long time for the wise Silenus, the companion of Dionysus, without capturing him. When Silenus at last fell into his hands, the king asked what was the best and most desirable of all things for man. Fixed and immovable, the demigod said not a word, till at last, urged by the king, he gave a shrill laugh and broke out into these words: ‘Oh, wretched ephemeral race, children of chance and misery, why do you compel me to tell you what it would be most expedient for you not to hear? What is best of all is utterly beyond your reach: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best for you is—to die soon.
Greeks were kino pessimists.

[Anonymous No.18962998]

>>18962944
Thank you for clarifying.

[Anonymous No.18963027]

>>18962975
Did he died?

[Anonymous No.18963034]

>>18962941
>Buddhism is all just an elaborate drawn-out ritualized way of committing suicide
confirmed for nihilists

[Anonymous No.18963048]

>>18963027
Yes. Dionysus drives his mother and wife mad, causing them to rip Midas apart with their bare hands and cannibalize him.

[Anonymous No.18963050]

>>18963034
Pessimism in general and in the Buddhist isn't really "nihilism". Denouncing the material world in its entirety is one of the most spiritual acts one could do.

[Anonymous No.18963058]

>>18963048
Which book is the myth from?

[Anonymous No.18963078]

>>18963048
You're thinking about Pentheus or Orpheus.

[Anonymous No.18963082]

>>18963078
You’re right, I was thinking of Pentheus. Midas starved to death because he couldn’t eat anything due to everything he touched turning to gold.

[Anonymous No.18963088]

>>18963082
At least in some versions of the myth. In others, Dionysus takes pity on him and removes the curse.

[Anonymous No.18963138]

>>18963050
>Denouncing the material world in its entirety is one of the most spiritual acts one could do.
not if there is no spiritual life/realm afterwards like when you are composed of aggregates that end and nothing continues like Buddhists maintain

[Anonymous No.18963161]

>>18962871
Kek. This shit always get me.
This is an ancient greek black-pill.

[Anonymous No.18963228]

>>18962871
APOLOGIZE TO HERODOTUS RIGHT FUCKING NOW

[Anonymous No.18963241]

>>18962975
Sheesh, no wonder the Greeks took to Christianity when this was the alternative.
>life is suffering with no purpose; and if you’re anything less than a hero or philosopher when you die then you spend eternity sad in a meadow.
or
>life is suffering to test you to build up virtue and repent; if you’re faithful and virtuous you’ll spend the rest of time in paradise.
Wonder why Buddhism never took off in Greece like Christianity. There were Buddhists in Greece.

[Anonymous No.18963255]

>>18963241
>Wonder why Buddhism never took off in Greece like Christianity. There were Buddhists in Greece.
Maybe those buddhists didn't write their foundational texts in greek.

[Anonymous No.18963263]

>>18963082
Why not have someone chew the food and spit it into his mouth?

[Anonymous No.18963281]

>>18963228
Modern, fact-based history BTFO by ancient, wild rumors

[Anonymous No.18963285]

>>18963138
>and nothing continues like Buddhists maintain
They don't maintain that. Stop falling for troll memes. Read Nagarjuna

[Anonymous No.18963292]

>>18962871
Beyond based belief

[Anonymous No.18963298]

>>18962998
That's what Apollo does!

[Anonymous No.18963305]

>>18963241
>Wonder why Buddhism never took off in Greece like Christianity. There were Buddhists in Greece.
Converting people by thread of murder is prohibited in Buddhism, but not in Kikestianity.

[Anonymous No.18963356]

>>18963305
shit bait 3/10

[Anonymous No.18963384]

>>18963356
>seething kike has been found out

[Anonymous No.18963414]

>>18963241
The two options seems fundamentally the same tbqh.

[Anonymous No.18963472]

>>18963414
How so?

[Anonymous No.18963491]

>>18963472
For the Greeks, to be a hero or a philosopher you must build up virtue anyway; in Christianity there is the notion of Hell for the sinners. In both cases the fate of a person after death depends on his deeds when he was alive.

[Anonymous No.18963506]

>>18962944
Stop talking out of your ass, they were already grown.

[Anonymous No.18963552]

>>18963491
I see. I’m not to familiar with the Greek afterlife, but aren’t the Elysian Fields more exclusive than Heaven?

[Anonymous No.18963983]

>>18962975
>pessimists
Wrong, the words of Silenus are life affirming.

[Anonymous No.18963995]

>>18963983
how so?

[Anonymous No.18964113]

>>18963263
Why not eat soup?

[Anonymous No.18964123]

>>18963285
Nagarjuna denies that there is any continuance of any soul or spirit into Parinirvana, he was a nihilist just like the rest of them. Buddhists and academics alike cant even agree among themselves what Nagarjunas positions were anyways

[Anonymous No.18964627]

>>18962871
The point of the story is that material goods don't define the happiness to a person

[Anonymous No.18964645]

/YJyySDaP
Join our new paganism server, all learners and believers are welcome.
Features:
-A channel where you'll find date converters and calendars for your faith
-Guides and ancient primary sources for beginners
-A channel to share pics of your sacred space
-Several roles for every brand of polytheist faith and philosophical school
-Theology, literature, history and philosophy channels
-A politically neutral community without idpol shit, progressives and ethnonationalist LARPers are banned on sight
Abrahamic believers and atheists may also join, but they have to agree not to proselytize or disparage the faith of the members of the community

[Anonymous No.18964686]

>>18963552
Elysian is paradise for hero, or as Hesiod puts it: the mortals that lived during the Heroic age. Everyone else that isn't a criminal just stays in a place in the underworld with no reward or punishment. So to answer your question, yes Elysium is more exclusive to the Christian Heaven.

[Anonymous No.18964717]

>>18962871
It is possible that it would have been for the best that those particular children would have died without pain. Or perhaps that was the greatest good he could bestow upon her for her measure of dedication and faith (if she had more faith or gave more goods, she may have had her sons improved).

Curious how you can just interpret every deed to be some 4D chess move, like Christians performing apologetics for YHWH in the OT

[Anonymous No.18964758]

>>18962975
Dangerously based

[Anonymous No.18964777]

>>18963552
>>18964686
There's more going on than just Tartarus - Hades - Elysium. It's more so that the Greeks, with their Indo-European conception of a soul as being a composite entity, had a standard series of beliefs as to how life went on after death (Tartarus, Hades which is actually really complicated itself, and Elysium), and then they had related yet orthogonal beliefs about how life continued after death including some kind of minor Godhood (which could be considered analogous to just being a ghost haunting a region), reincarnation, places run by deities, etc. Some of these "orthogonal afterlives" are pretty weird, like getting turned into a constellation.

What happens after death is the central focus of Christianity, but this isn't necessarily the case for all religions. A big part of Greek polytheism was interacting with the Gods, spirits, ancestors, etc in this life, and there was a large technical class that was concerned with that, and there was another technical class involved in what happens after death, and these two classes only partially overlapped, so you can see how this sort of thing crops up.

>>18964123
Why have an opinion on a text you haven't even read? I mean come the fuck on
>Nagarjuna denies that there is any continuance of any soul or spirit into Parinirvana
seriously? lmao

[Anonymous No.18964787]

>>18964686
neat

[Anonymous No.18964897]

>>18964777
A surviving religion like Buddhism seems closest to the Greek/Indo-European in their conceptions of the afterlife in my opinion. Except as an axial age religion Buddhism like pretty much all the rest rejected the martial/heroic virtues as being a valid path to a better afterlife and/or rebirth. Thumos basically got completely subsumed by the nous.

[Anonymous No.18964926]

am I the only one on this board who doesn't hate life and want to die?

[Anonymous No.18964949]

>>18964897
I don't really like the whole idea of the "axial age" as an anthropological system, but yes I would agree. There's an incredible amount of fluidity and multiplicity after death, and you keep living after you die, which really is the biggest differentiator of Abrahamic conceptions of death in that in Abrahamic religions even if you get an afterlife you stop living. Compare this to things like Chinese Folk Religion wherein you can be killed in one of the numerous heavens.

[Anonymous No.18964973]

>>18964777
>>Nagarjuna denies that there is any continuance of any soul or spirit into Parinirvana
>seriously? lmao

Yes, for Nagarjuna, consciousness, mind etc everything about our conscious lived experience is dependent on other things, and when all this process ceases and the cause of further arising of consciousness etc in another life ends, there is nothing left which continues into Parinirvana, why are you so hesitant to admit this? If I was wrong it would be easy to refute me but you can't.

[Anonymous No.18964983]

>>18962871
Thus Apollo, bod of laws, allows abortion.

[Anonymous No.18964984]

>>18964973
>nagarjuna
>ends
there you go refute lol

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18965000]

>>18963228
Marmots
https://youtu.be/poBT60QRwiw

[Anonymous No.18965008]

>>18964983
>Thus Apollo, bod of laws, allows abortion.
But where does life begin?
If you read Socrates you know Apollo wouldn't let you run from your duty of being alive and if he called you to Earth, you can only depart after he give you permission.
Anything other than that might be impiety.

[Anonymous No.18965028]

>>18964984
>dude nothing ever ends because nothing ever begins and so we didn't exist to begin with and we don't exist so it's not nihilism because an existing thing isn't ending because we don't exist!!!! Hahah it's not nihilism because we don't exist!!

[Anonymous No.18965029]

>>18964973
Your wish for something from this phenomenal world to continue into Nirvana is the true nihilism, for you cling to impermanent shadows and can't imagine living without them. Nirvana is empty (sunyata) as in there is not a single concept in the world of phenomana to even begin to describe it, no analogy can be made between the objects of samsara and Nirvana.
Nirvana is empty of any possibility of description, and yet there you are the nihilists who would gladly taint the Highest with the insubstatianl objects that you so madly crave.

[Anonymous No.18965045]

>>18964645
Gay

[Anonymous No.18965049]

>>18964717
Or you can take it at face value

[Anonymous No.18965063]

>>18965029
How can we know about nirvana at all if it's beyond understanding?

[Anonymous No.18965078]

>>18965008
I think it's a null argument as far as Apollo is concerned as the kids are already born, and it would be nonsensical to argue that children aren't alive.

[Anonymous No.18965081]

>>18965029
Not him but you say Nirvana is empty as there is no concept to describe it. But do not you people also believe that Samsara is empty too even though there are concepts to describe it with. So it seems the emptiness of Nirvana is not the essential indescribability of Nirvana.

[Anonymous No.18965111]

>>18962871
>>18962975
I knew the Greeks were based but not this based. I need to dive into all that. Thanks for sharing.

[Anonymous No.18965126]

>>18963228
>There is a sacred bird called the phoenix which I did not myself see except in painting, for in truth he comes to them very rarely, at intervals, as the people of Heliopolis say, of five hundred years

[Anonymous No.18965127]

>>18965029
>Your wish for something from this phenomenal world to continue into Nirvana is the true nihilism, for you cling to impermanent shadows and can't imagine living without them.
Parinirvana becomes indistinguishable from a complete annihilation if there is no way for us to experience it. Unless there is some way for us, our mind, our consciousness, or our soul to be aware of or experience Nirvana, it's no different from nothingness. Both involve the complete absence of sentience, consciousness, awareness, life, being etc since according to Buddhists these are all extinguished and don't continue in Parinirvana when the body dies. What I wish for or believe is completely irrelevant here, I'm just pointing out the logical implications of what Buddhists teach.

>Nirvana is empty (sunyata) as in there is not a single concept in the world of phenomana to even begin to describe it, no analogy can be made between the objects of samsara and Nirvana.
Consciousness isn't an object, so to speak of being conscious of Parinirvana isn't making a comparison with objects. In any case, if there is no way to be aware or conscious of Parinirvana when the body dies and there is no more rebirth, then it's no difference in practice from being obliterated into nothingness. You are unable to demonstrate how they are different.

>Nirvana is empty of any possibility of description, and yet there you are the nihilists who would gladly taint the Highest with the insubstatianl objects that you so madly crave.
Consciousness isn't an object, and if the """Highest""" is practically indistinguishable from nothingness it becomes identical to the materialist atheist conception of death.

[Anonymous No.18965138]

>>18962975
The Bible agrees

[Anonymous No.18965168]

>>18965127
>Consciousness isn't an object
Could you go spam this garbage somewhere else? You get refuted in every thread, have you considered taking this to some other board?

[Anonymous No.18965169]

>>18962944
This is correct.

[Anonymous No.18965182]

>>18965168
>Could you go spam this garbage somewhere else?
It is not garbage but the truth. Consciousness is what allows objects to be known, but it has no shape, form or density, it's not an object but is what all knowledge of objects presupposes. Because Buddhism is crypto-materialism, in order for their nonsensical logic to seemingly make sense they have to pretend that consciousness is a physical object just like the objects which are invariably known THROUGH consciousness.

>You get refuted in every thread
I have never been refuted, you are just coping.

[Anonymous No.18965192]

>>18963983
Please explain

[Anonymous No.18965202]

>>18965182
>I have never been refuted
based

[Anonymous No.18965241]

>>18965049
Of course face value means "Apollo is morally repugnant and/or arbitrary." There is no face value, that's just a byword for the simplest or most culturally appropriate explanation (Christianity posits a good, all-powerful God, obviously the pagan gods are just petty, more powerful humans)

[Anonymous No.18965329]

[Anonymous No.18965366]

>>18965241
>obviously the pagan gods are just petty, more powerful humans
According to Christians.

Modern Christians have had 2000 years of Christian going over every line of the Bible with commentary upon commentary, all using the same basic agreed upon system of interpretation. I am sure if the Greeks had united under one sole philosophical system and then spent the last 2000 years writing commentaries and apologetics for every ancient quote on the gods then you could have gone on Amazon right now and ordered yourself a massive tome on why this particular Herodotus quote has such immense spiritual depth and if you're big brained like the Amazon author then it should actually make your faith in the gods even stronger.

[Anonymous No.18965381]

>>18965241
>yahweh sends child to be tortured for eternity for being a gentile
>apollo sends kid to be a constellation or hang out in [insert afterlife #32]
Yeah, Apollo's the morally repugnant one here.

[Anonymous No.18965385]

>>18965366
Actually this anon>>18963983 was just going to give us such an apologetic

[Anonymous No.18965398]

>>18965241
not sure where you got that from, the simplest and most appropriate explanation is that apollo spared them the toils of life and sent them right to the afterlife. i dont see what some random desert people have to do with this.

[Anonymous No.18965405]

>>18965063
Noble Buddha told us about it

>>18965081
Some schools see Samsara and Nirvana as the same thing but seen on different levels, Samsara when we refer to everyday phenomana (that are empty of self-existence) and Nirvana when we talk about the supra-phenomenal aspect of it (which is empty of any description and analogy). See Nagarjuna's two truth doctrine and the parallels that have been found with Kant's philosophy.

>>18965127
Consciousness is always of some thing, and since all things are conditioned, consciousness must be too. Nirvana, not being a thing, can not be grasped by counscioiusness and as such it's real nature has not been stated by the Buddha as to not taint our idea of it with expectations born from craving worldly things such as soul, counsciousness and personal ego. (See the unaswered questions). Materialist atheism negates any metaphysics, Buddha claims that metaphysics are beyond ordinary experience (and therefore consciousness) and if you can't grasp this then give up and maybe in the next life.

[Anonymous No.18965434]

>>18965366
Of course, mate.

>>18965381
I'm not defending YHWH here, the sentence in parentheses was supposed to be an example of the "culturally appropriate explanation" that I personally reject.

The point is that there exists a better explanation for the actions and supposed pettiness of the gods than an Augustine-tier polemical "face-value" interpretation. Nothing wrong with taking it at face value, but I thought that by "face value" >>18965049 (this anon) meant something disparaging to non-Christian deities.

>>18965398
I misunderstood your intentions.

[Anonymous No.18965492]

>>18965405
>Consciousness is always of some thing, and since all things are conditioned, consciousness must be too.
That’s a completely nonsensical and unjustified assertion, just because objects are conditioned does not show that the consciousness through which they are known is conditioned. Consciousness is unchanged by the objects appearing in it, whatever appears it simply remains consciousness, since it remains unchanged there is no conditioning of it which can be established. Similarly the expanse of room or space which contains objects remains as unchanging expanse regardless of the objects appearing within it, similarly, extension on a graph remains unchanged as extension by the addition of depth and width which are predicated on that extension and appearing in association with it.

At a more basic level, just because A and B appear in association doesn’t prove or show that A partakes in B’s nature or qualities or is otherwise changed by B; space is not burnt or changed by a fire taking place in that space. There is no epistemic or logical basis whatsoever for the claim that consciousness is conditioned like objects, it’s impossible to demonstrate.

>Nirvana, not being a thing, can not be grasped by counscioiusness and as such it's real nature has not been stated by the Buddha
He did say that our consciousness, mind, awareness etc are aggregates which are extinguished and which dont continue into Parinirvana, so it becomes completely indistinguishable from nothingness, the claim that its different from nothingness cannot be demonstrated logically or otherwise shown, Buddhists accept it completely on faith despite it being illogical. For people with discerning minds however this isn’t compelling as a world-view because of the contradictions involved.

[Anonymous No.18965511]

>>18965405
>Some schools see Samsara and Nirvana as the same thing but seen on different levels, Samsara when we refer to everyday phenomana (that are empty of self-existence) and Nirvana when we talk about the supra-phenomenal aspect of it (which is empty of any description and analogy). See Nagarjuna's two truth doctrine and the parallels that have been found with Kant's philosophy.
Thanks. I haven't read any Nagarjuna yet even though I have a lot of respect for Buddhist philosophy. I just have some problems with the praxis and more religious aspects of Buddhism which generally keeps me from diving too deep into Buddhism. Guess I've read too much vikangz/greek myth/stories and people like Nietzsche to allow myself to believe that the person crushing his enemies, sees them driven before him, and hears the lamentation of the women will have a worse afterlife because of it than the guy being crushed and driven while hearing the lamentation of his women.

[Anonymous No.18965907]

>>18965126
Maybe they were describing C/1853 G1

[Anonymous No.18965918]

>>18963228
Herodotus is more accurate than modern historians

[Anonymous No.18966055]

>>18962944
Prove Apollo is not actually real

Pro-tip: You cannot

[Anonymous No.18966084]

>>18963384
>raving retard has been discovered

[Anonymous No.18966182]

>>18966055
He told me he isn't real

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18966241]

Apollo is Leviathan

[Anonymous No.18966458]

>>18965063
I have ‘seen’ my soul disparate of all being, that allows no knowledge even within itself, only half truths.
I recognize time not stoping and moment upon moment occuring, though now all as alien and intrusive.
You can’t know anything in the world, so how even pretend one could ‘know’ of the one truth through same manner as your half truths. You can’t but seemingly you can. It is only knowable as it itself, though it is not as the world is.
That’s how I ‘understood’ Nirvana, still within the bounds of possible knowledge( a la Kant).

[Anonymous No.18966497]

>>18965398
>not sure where you got that from, the simplest and most appropriate explanation is that apollo spared them the toils of life and sent them right to the afterlife.
So I was right in my interpretation, afterall.
I think Niestche talks about it in "The Birth of Tragedy"

[Anonymous No.18966518]

>Who would be so presumptuous as to claim that he could accurately conceive the greatness and divine sublimity of the visual world of Greek antiquity? A mere glance at a single fragment of the ruins remaining to us makes us realise with awe that we here face a culture which we are not in the very least equipped to judge. That world had acquired the privilege even out of its ruins to teach us for evermore how the further course of life in this world could be shaped.

[Anonymous No.18966535]

>>18962944
>a plethora of divinely-inspired Apollonian texts
>atheists still refuse to believe

Sad!

[Anonymous No.18966537]

Apollo bros....

[Anonymous No.18967472]

I thought Greeks were supposed to be some of the happiest people in the world.

[Anonymous No.18967506]

>>18964926
Me too

[Anonymous No.18967605]

>>18965398
>random desert people
The Greeks had more in common with the Near East than the rest of Europe. Physically and culturally.

[Anonymous No.18967966]

>>18967605
Well, other than the fact that they weren't, and all of the evidence to support otherwise of course, but hey, Modernity means that you are allowed to have your own (wrong) opinion.

>>18966182
Riddle me this fedoras, if Apollo isn't real, then where did music come from? Hmm?
Zeus: 1
Atheists: 0

[Anonymous No.18967996]

>>18962944
Who dies from a miscarriage? Why did they die at the same time, and right after the mother made the prayer?

[Anonymous No.18968025]

>>18962871
Holy based Apollo

[Anonymous No.18968035]

>>18962871
Le troll

[Anonymous No.18968128]

>>18962944
>Apollo is not actually real so he did not kill them. Rather they died of some natural cause like a miscarriage.
so this is the power of atheism

[Anonymous No.18968146]

>>18965511>>18965405

>>>Some schools see Samsara and Nirvana as the same thing but seen on different levels, Samsara when we refer to everyday phenomana (that are empty of self-existence) and Nirvana when we talk about the supra-phenomenal aspect of it (which is empty of any description and analogy). See Nagarjuna's two truth doctrine and the parallels that have been found with Kant's philosophy.
>Thanks. I haven't read any Nagarjuna yet even though I have a lot of respect for Buddhist philosophy.
to be clear nagarjuna was a brhamin who rejected the buddhist sutras, precisely because in the sutra nirvana and samsara are not equal, so he started a new branch and passed it as buddhism.

>>18965492
consciousness is conditioned because it arises and ceases from a condition.

[Anonymous No.18968190]

>>18968146
>consciousness is conditioned
No it’s not, there’s no proof of that
>because it arises and ceases from a condition.
And what is that alleged condition, and where is the proof that consciousness arises from it?

[Anonymous No.18968224]

>>18963228