Best Philosopher

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by nostromo

I'm curious, where did he write about being aware of the Devil?

I'm fairly sure it was in 'The Varieties of Religious Experience' where he recounts his near nervous breakdown after becoming aware one afternoon of the presence (intangible) of a manifestation of evil.

I haven't read it in a long time, but I do recall it from reading his brother's work too- I seem to remember Henry mentioning it in the preface to 'The Turn of the Screw', which has much to do with intangible evil presences.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by CyberShy
I do appreciate Nietzsche because in him I read true words, eventhough he doesn't mean them like that. He's a christian prophet while he doesn't know it. That's quite ironic.

Hmmm, no.

"I don't promise anything, I don't want a better world". (Ecce Homo)

He does say that he "is Jesus", but he means it, literally. When me mean "Christian", we mean it as in St. Paul; Nietzsche takes the paradoxes of Jesus as he takes those of Socrates, and tries to surpass them. His rejection of time is on par with his aristocracy; mobility and organicism are dionysiac, i.e. cyclical.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by nostromo
The famous "God is dead" skit by the Kids in the Hall. The one to the right looks like Oncle Boris

I'm more handsome than this. Also I don't look as gay when I drink.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Platypus Rex
Giordano Bruno


Giordano Bruno (Nola, 1548–Rome, February 17, 1600) was an Italian philosopher, priest, cosmologist, and occultist. Bruno is known for his system of mnemonics based upon organized knowledge and as an early proponent of the idea of an infinite and homogeneous universe. Burned at the stake as a heretic, Bruno is seen by some as the first martyr to the cause of freethought

Yeah. You gotta give bonus points to anyone who gets themself burned at the stake for committing the crime of thinking.

[Nostromo]

I don't know. He died for nothing, if you ask me. Here's a song by Georges Brassens:

Die for ideas
Die for ideas, that's a great idea.
Me, I nearly died because I didn't have any.
Because those who had the ideals, an overwhelming crowd,
Fell on me yelling "Slaughter".
They were able to convince me, and my cheeky Muse
Admitted she was wrong, and rallied to their cause.
Just maintaining a tiny suspicion of doubt.
Die for ideas, OK, but just make it a slow death,
OK, a slow death.

Judging that there's no danger in staying at home,
Let's meander on the road to the other world.
Because if you force the pace, you end up dying
For ideals which are out of date tomorrow.
Now if there's one thing that's really bitter and upsetting
When you offer up your soul to God, its realising
That you took the wrong turning, got hold of the wrong idea.
Die for ideas, OK, but just make it a slow death,
OK, a slow death.

The Saint John Chrysotoms* who preach martyrdom
Usually manage to hang around on earth.
Dying for ideas, let's be clear about it,
That's their reason for living, so they're not going to lose it.
In all the different camps you can see people who take the place
Of Mathusalah when it comes to longevity.
I conclude from this that they must say to themselves, aside,
"Die for ideas, OK, but just make it a slow death,
OK, a slow death."

For ideas demanding the ultimate sacrifice,
Sects of every shade offer the sequel,
And the question arises in the minds of novice victims:
"Die for ideas, that's fine, but which ones?"
And as they all resemble each other,
When he sees them approaching under their big banners,
The wise man hesitates, turns around the tomb.
Die for ideas, OK, but just make it a slow death,
OK, a slow death.

Now, if it just needed a few hecatombs
For everything to change, everything fall into place,
After so many "great eves" when so many heads fall,
We would already have reached Paradise on earth.
But the golden age is constantly put off to the Kalends,
The gods are always thirsty, have never had enough,
And its death, death again and again.
Die for ideas, OK, but just make it a slow death,
OK, a slow death.

O all you firebreathers, o all you good apostles,
Go and die first, we stand back and let you through.
But please, I beg you, let the rest of us get on with living,
Life is just about our only luxury down here.
For after all, Death is sufficiently vigilant,
He doesn't need anyone to hold his scythe for him.
Let's have no more macabre dances around the scaffold.
Die for ideas, OK, but just make it a slow death,
OK, a slow death.

[Fake Boris]

If it's meaningless to die for your ideas, what meaning is there in living for them?

[Elok]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
If it's meaningless to die for your ideas, what meaning is there in living for them?

Whoever said there was? Ideas are worthless without the things they are ideas of.

Nietzsche wasn't a bad sort for a half-crazed syphilitic, but his aristocratic prejudices sucked donkey balls.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Elok
Whoever said there was? Ideas are worthless without the things they are ideas of.

So the idea that you shouldn't **** your mother is an idea of what, exactly?

Nietzsche wasn't a bad sort for a half-crazed syphilitic, but his aristocratic prejudices sucked donkey balls.

It's your own egalitarian prejudice that sucks donkey balls. Don't people already agree that a liberal market is wishable, for that precise reason that it entails victory of the fittest?

[Berzerker]

Frederic Bastiat

Don't we know next to nothing about Democritus anyway?

I believe he was the Father of Greek astronomy too, after traveling to Egypt and Mesopotamia he told his colleagues there were more planets than could be seen by the eye.

[aneeshm]

Among Europeans:

Aristotle
Nietzsche
Descartes
Spinoza

Among Indian philosophers:

(Semi-mythical bunch)

Kapila
Patanjali
Yagnyavalkya
The authors of the Upanishads

(Historical figures)

The Buddha
Adi Shankaracharya
Ramanuja

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Berzerker
I believe he was the Father of Greek astronomy too, after traveling to Egypt and Mesopotamia he told his colleagues there were more planets than could be seen by the eye.

Neither the Greeks, nor Egyptians nor Mesopotamia were ever aware of any planet that can't be seen by the naked eye.
1. They have never recorded anything about it.
2. Assuming otherwise would imply they were able to build good telescopes, which they weren't.
First planet that can't be seen by the naked eye is Uranus and was discovered in 1781 ... (which is about 200 years after the discovery of telescopes in Europe. Even with good telescopes, it's not obvious to find a new planet.)
We're a far cry from the 400 BC of Democritus...

Ptolemy is usually considered the most important Greek astrologer.

Democritus is not considered an important astrologer, as far as I know, although he is attributed the hypothesis that the Milky Way is made of stars.

[Fake Boris]

Aneeshm, you read some Spinoza at last? Have you noticed the similarity of his interpretation of Jesus with that of the Hindu text you posted a while ago?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Zkribbler


Yeah. You gotta give bonus points to anyone who gets themself burned at the stake for committing the crime of thinking.

He also seems to have been involved in espionage too.

I recommend Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair to anyone interested in him- it has a corking Titian on the cover too.


Calvin also killed for the crime of thinking:

Michael Servetus (1509 or 1511-October 27, 1553), a Spaniard martyred in the Reformation for his criticism of the doctrine of the trinity and his opposition to infant baptism, has often been considered an early unitarian.

[...]

Inspired by some of the medical works published by Trechsel, Servetus decided to return to the study of medicine. From 1536-38 he was a medical student at the University of Paris. He followed Andreas Vesalius as assistant to Hans Gunther in dissection. Gunther wrote that "Michael Villonovanus" had a knowledge of Galen "second to none." Servetus soon came to differ from Galen in the matter of pulmonary circulation. Galen had supposed aeration of the blood took place in the heart and assigned the lungs a fairly minor function. Servetus, by examining the wall of the heart and noting the size of the pulmonary artery, concluded that transformation of the blood, accomplished by the release of waste gases and the infusion of air, occurred in the lungs. It is not clear whether Servetus or a contemporary, unknown to Servetus, first made this discovery. Servetus was the first to publish. Although he only expressed the new knowledge as a lengthy metaphorical aside in his theological writing, he was the first person to record a modern understanding of pulmonary respiration.

http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/michaelservetus.html

[Fake Boris]

Molly, will you ever cease to be an encyclopaedia?

Do you keep all these pictures and links on your computer?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Molly, will you ever cease to be an encyclopaedia?

Do you keep all these pictures and links on your computer?

Selected pictures occasionally serve as desktops, but I know about Michael Servetus from my reading. I'm not a big fan of Calvin or the idea of a pre-ordained 'elect'.


The Roman Catholic Church occasionally gets a bad press (its obscurantism, corruption, willingness to hide Croatian Ustasha, Vichy murderers, fleeing Nazis and child-abusing priests....) but certainly in the 16th-17th centuries it didn't have a monopoly on intolerance, either of individuals or movements.

The Hussites could fall out with each other in Bohemia, and Calvinists and Lutherans could anathematize one another as vigorously as they did Roman Catholics- and as for Anti-Trinitarians and Anabaptists, nearly everyone thought they were beyond the pale except people like John Milton.

Having been brought up Catholic, I am now happily without any religious faith, and usually in favour of most heretics... most, but not all:

27th February 1534

Armed bands, urged on by Matthys, ran through the streets yelling: "Get out you godless ones, and never come back, you enemies of the Father." Hundreds of people fled the city, forced to leave all their possessions behind. The remaining Lutherans and Catholics were rebaptized in the marketplace. After this point it became a capital offense to be unbaptized.

15th March 1534


Jan Matthys banned all books except the Bible. The library in Domhof was burned, intentionally destroying the land title records. All privately owned books had to be brought to the Cathedral square and thrown on a great bonfire.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/5578/munster.html

Torture, German style: