I have a few questions Wanderer:
How is Christianity nihilistic?
What is Jewish morality? (I ask this because I don't think jewish and christian morality are one)
How was Socrates the first sign of degradation?
How does Eastern history display a passive-aggression? A passive-aggressive is someone who cannot openly confront (passive pose) but then displays aggressive action in response to what they cannot confront. For example a husband forgets his wifes wedding anniversary. She is angry but says nothing. Next day instead of reminding him she goes shopping and charges $500 on the credit card.
Would you agree that judaism itself encourages and fosters philosophical
debate within its religion?
Now see those are interesting and thoughtful quesntions.
I begin:
How is Christianity nihilistic?
Christianity is a part of a group of religions, Christianity/Islam/Judaism, that were birthed around a common geographical area and share a common ancestry and a common thread of thought.
I believe all three are referred to as the religions of Abraham.
They share the same singular creative entity they call ‘God’ and they all urge total and complete obedience to a series of tenets passed down to them directly from God.
They also share a claim to a direct communication line to the almighty that their preachers and spiritualists often use to ensure personal privileges, status and power.
All of these religions, also, have been power centers and co-operators with the status quo to ensure their own growth and prosperity and have created a clerical ultra-class of individuals.
Now why are all three of them plus a series of other religions {In fact all major religions in the world today are nihilistic] nihilistic?
The direct answer is that they all aspire to nothingness at the expense of life.
They all preach an extreme ascetic ideal which denies corporeal pleasures and rejects the world of the here and now for some utopian after-life or ultra-existence referred to as, Heaven or Nirvana or whatever.
But what is this hypothetical state of after-life being in reality?
To be perfect or to live in perfection, never mind if this is even possible or just a mythological construct, is to want nothing, to need nothing, to aspire to nothing, to struggle for nothing, to suffer nothing, to change into nothing-in other words another definition for death- it is to seek out an escape or a state of being that is the antithesis of what life is.
Life is wanting, needing, struggling, suffering, hoping, changing and so on.
So to aspire to a theoretical after-existence or ultra-existence, which usually also demands the sacrificing of life and all its pleasures and pains, is to deny becoming for a state of non-becoming.
But let us see what is required for the achievement of this promised nihilistic state of being without becoming.
-Total obedience to a single authority.
-Total subjugation to God or authority or nature.
-A dependence on prayer [grovelling] rather than action.
-Unquestioning loyalty and undoubting faith.
-A denial of instinctive drives and inclinations; dubbing them sinful of dirty or evil. In other words a denial of a part of the human condition.
-Selflessness. The sacrifice of self to a whole in search for transcendence.
In other words everything that denies human nature and life.
What can be more nihilistic than this?
What is Jewish morality? (I ask this because I don't think Jewish and Christian morality are one)
Christianity is a religion that has taken Hebrew morality coupled it with Socratic thought and added a few Buddhist wisdoms to create a childish faith for the weak and overwhelmed.
Jewish morality is the morality of self-hatred. It believes in the inherit vileness of the human condition [Sin] and preaches the payment for this sin through total self-denial and self-flagellation. God becomes the unreachable, the incomprehensible the unfathomable and so a total subjugation to this hypothetical entity is necessary.
Man must suffer for being man and shame is created to keep the strong from expressing and enjoying their superiority.
This is the morality of vengeance and hatred for all that is noble and strong. It is a moral system created in a people that has suffered greatly at the hands of greater nations and is a sort of retribution against past indiscretions; a moral system that levels man so no high or low peaks exist within the human family.
This is a moral system that makes pride into a sin and attempts to sublimate the human instincts that seek to dominate and overcome.
It is a moral system by the weak for the weak and this is why it is so popular and attractive. Most people are unfortunately weak and it is natural that they would be attracted to a morality that protects them, makes their inferiority into a virtue, the meek shall inherit the earth, and that exacts revenge on all that remind them of this weakness or attempt to use it.
How was Socrates the first sign of degradation?
Because he preached doubt and scepticism and left in the minds of the young nothing in its place. He preached the loss of faith but replaced it with nothing but self-doubt and nihilism.
Because he destroyed the notion of ‘Truth’ not realizing that this would lead to a human loss of dignity and meaning.
Because he surrendered to the will of lesser men when he had a chance to escape, in the name of some loyalty to a greater whole, making the self nothing but an impotent participant, in other words he sacrificed the self for the undeserving many. A Christian act before Christianity existed. With this act he stated that the power derived through quantity was superior to the authority derived through quality, laying the groundwork for the spread of Democratic idealism and Christian servitude.
Because he advocated the existence of a single transcending authority that forced mankind to later subjugate themselves and their minds to It. Where in past pagan beliefs the gods were approachable and fallible and one could use one against the other, making science possible and the search for truth possible, in this new mindset the only choice left was complete surrender.
Socrates was the first sign of Hellenic decline, he was a messenger of degradation.
Would you agree that judaism itself encourages and fosters philosophical debate within its religion?
No all religions and ideologies encourage and foster debate if the debate remains within the confines of its most important premises.
For instance, a debate on what God said is encouraged but that God exists or doubting or alternative creation explanations, is not or is restricted.
Science does the same thing. In science one can hypothesize and debate issues but the original a priori prejudices of time/space are never questioned because that would make any debate moot.
Philosophy is the only discipline that includes all and everything. If it is practiced correctly, honestly and with courage.
How does Eastern history display a passive-aggression?
If we look at India and China we see huge countries with large population but little influence other than a regional one.
Why?
Because their religious traditions are ones that preach non-resistance and non-aggression.
Whereas in the west due to the influence of Hellenic thought man become aggressive, an explorer and a challenger of nature, in the east progress is slowed by fatalism and this overdependence on conforming to social and natural norms and this glorification of humility.
China becomes influential only through bulk and nature being something one must harmonize with is rarely challenged.
We can witness eastern psychology not only in how Orientals behave and discipline themselves to the prevailing cultural norm but even in the martial arts.
The martial arts preach non-aggression and the usage of the opponent’s strength against him.
See how the arts are mostly show and screaming and acrobatics and myth meant to deter through intimidation and the avoidance of battle through a threat.
It is mostly psychology.
I’ve seen so called Karate experts revert to swinging and primitive methods in fights forgetting their training and if we watch Ultimate Fighting there is never a martial artist that wins. In fact very few even participate.
These martial arts subsist through movie mythology and staged manoeuvres, exhibitions of form, a spiritualism teaching asceticism and self-discipline and a macho myth that attracts males and females with low self-esteem and high gullibility who seek empowerment.
