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Who's the most misquoted person in History? (pg. 5)
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| Lunar Phase 7 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lilith
I'm going with God.
Everything he said that we basically shouldn't do, people seem to have taken it to heart that they should do it with much enthusiasm.
Probably didn't help that he told it to a bunch of inbred iron age, illiterate nomadic spear chuckers and goat worriers several thousand years ago. So I guess we can forgive him for the lack of context and consistency over the years. |
If religious superstition wasn't around to hinder progress, how far do you think we would be now? |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| Charles Darwin. "Survival of the fittest". Actually coined by Herbert Spencer. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lunar Phase 7
If religious superstition wasn't around to hinder progress, how far do you think we would be now? |
I think that religion and art are, generally speaking, inexorable pillars of the human condition. Perhaps we would be more technologically/socially "advanced" if we did not have hyperconservative religious individuals with a great deal of political power in their hands, but a world without belief would probably be a very stark, depressing one; I think that humans would end up essentially filling the void of positive anticipation by chemical means - not alternative, healthy, social ones - and the whole thing would be doomed to addiction. Not to imply that isn't how things are now, or possibly could be, or that religion has provided its fair share of pitfalls and own ends, but the propulsion of belief - no matter how logical it is - has been one of the most compelling and dynamic forces in human history.
If we are indeed anything special, it is because we are apes with an appeal to something greater. This should not be underestimated. |
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| EgosXII |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
Nietzsche is terribly misunderstood not due to a lack of clarity but due to the depth and complexity of his thought exacerbated by the fact that very few people have the patience and attention span to fight their way through all the repetition and extreme wordiness of his very typical German style.
All of that said; I agree that he must be one of the most misunderstood and misquoted persons in history. |
THIS.
Nietzsche was controversial in his claims, and had a brilliant, but dense writing style... he was pre-existential.. in other words, he came up with what was, at heart a MORE existential philosophy than anything sartre managed to stick together, but it was before the world had any idea of it, and before sarte spoon-fed the idea of freedom to the masses...
It's important to note that Nietzsche didn't WANT most people to understand him... he accomplished that pretty well :p
my favourite mini bit of his is from "the gay science"... it simply outlines his views in a few pages and is really clear. religion, science, nationalism are ALL props... it's not just religion etc, they are all forms of morality which bind our potential to achieve our true desires (spiritual mostly)... |
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| Lunar Phase 7 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
I think that religion and art are, generally speaking, inexorable pillars of the human condition. Perhaps we would be more technologically/socially "advanced" if we did not have hyperconservative religious individuals with a great deal of political power in their hands, but a world without belief would probably be a very stark, depressing one; I think that humans would end up essentially filling the void of positive anticipation by chemical means - not alternative, healthy, social ones - and the whole thing would be doomed to addiction. Not to imply that isn't how things are now, or possibly could be, or that religion has provided its fair share of pitfalls and own ends, but the propulsion of belief - no matter how logical it is - has been one of the most compelling and dynamic forces in human history.
If we are indeed anything special, it is because we are apes with an appeal to something greater. This should not be underestimated. |
Excellent post. I'll reply when I'm not so tired, but I enjoyed your ideas. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lunar Phase 7
If religious superstition wasn't around to hinder progress, how far do you think we would be now? |
We'd be exactly where we are. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| What about music? |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
What about music? |
Are you talking about misquotes or religion here? |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| Religion, but I guess this isn't the thread for that. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
Religion, but I guess this isn't the thread for that. |
Well, I don't mind if the thread to swerves to something more interesting :)
But, regarding music, I think it'd be more like story telling without the advent of religion, as it used to be when people sang poems. That means Johannes Sebastian Bach would probably be a proto-rapper :p |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| Haha, that is a good point. Though I wonder if the oral tradition of storytelling would have taken the sort of transmissive imminence that it did as seen in shamanic proto-culture were it not for the kind of vaporous beginnings of religious belief. Of course none of us can concretely say what the world would be like sans religious thought altogether, but it's definitely an interesting question with an almost innumerable amount of ends to consider. |
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