Heaven and Hell

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Thesis: At one time heaven and hell were pragmatic...

At the end of the last Ice age prehistoric hunter gatherers who had lived in small tribal units formed agrarian communities. In order for the group of tribal units to function efficiently it was necessary to having standards of conduct (i.e. a moral code).

For a moral code to work it has to be enforced. The leaders of the communities told the people that the gods expected them to adhere to the societies moral standards and if the people did not obey the commands of the gods they would be condemned to eternal suffering; but if they obeyed the rules (i.e. do as they were told) the would spend eternity in bliss.

Using God as a Corporation impossible to challenge.

We can see how some felt that necessary but how easily it can also be taken advantage of.

Especially when the constituency setting rules truly have mistaken themselves for God.

Although there is the realm of the sub-con, however, visited each night when we sleep. It's not too far-fetched of an idea that once dead any remaining awareness would continue on in that dream realm (most often, if not always, unpleasant).

But considering a practical benefit for sub-con to always be running.

1. Diversity in personalities; distinguishing quirks (not intended to go as far as Cop VS Robber but perhaps Smoking Long Haired Guy VS Mr. Business Suit and Brief Case Dude.

2. A defense mechanism intentionally introducing paranoia in unfamiliar situations.

3. Visual/Audio activity to keep the brain stimulated while sleeping (which may explain "Bordo" or, as noted above, "Hell." )

And I think you should enlarge that image and paste it on a billboard in the heart of Missouri.

Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals says much of the same thing: that religion was more or less a way of enforcing a herd morality among people and that it was a reinvention of slave morality including the same rechristening of traits. Impotence becomes goodness of
heart, craven fear becomes humility, submission becomes obedience, cowardice and being forced to wait become patience, the inability to take revenge becomes forgiveness.

And then on the other side of the coin, the desire for revenge becomes a desire for justice, a hatred of one’s enemy becomes a hatred of injustice.

So this "morality" actually strips humanity of its values. According to him anyway.

It can still be flipped around for good however so it leaves one wondering what was originally intended:

Impotence becomes goodness of heart

If you meant abstinence: respecting the world and your child is first taking into consideration population VS currently available resources

craven fear becomes humility

We later see this as not being afraid to look foolish or failed.
Not because we can never know better but rather because we understand how little importance 'better than' has in the big scheme of a system offering peace and prosperity for all.

submission becomes obedience

Depends on how one submits. ie; "Who gives a f*** what God said in the Bible, us church-goers spend more time helping the poor than knit-picking the texts."

cowardice and being forced to wait become patience

Depends on the context of the situation.

Am I standing in line in a concentration camp?

or

Am I standing in line in Disney World?




the inability to take revenge becomes forgiveness.

We can also see this as choosing not to take revenge for the sake of hypocrisy.

Nietzsche was right in holding too suspicion and investigating even if some suspicions were just paranoia.

Most insights are often double-edged and counter-productive in the hands of the selfish.

The basic premise of what he was getting at is that herd morality began with an ascetic element as its goal and then quickly lost it, degrading people from their potential in order to keep them subdued and submissive to a morality that had no intrinsic value and in fact endangered something of much greater value which was human greatness.

As it evolved it lost that ascetic ideal and became some kind of utilitarianism focused on happiness rather than redemption, but there was nothing left to inspire people to become better by overcoming weakness or being creative, or finding powerful, revolutionary or defiant responses to their position in the world.

The herd morality (according to him) stripped the world of its values and left it more or less chewed up and spit out in a form that made it nearly impossible to be anything but a member of the heard.

Tried to take the warrior out of everyone and therefor the challenge?

It just hid the 'Survivors' behind bureaucratic string pulling.
Behind some versions of the church as well.

Moderation I would suppose - Referring back to my Pig Pen Battle Arena thread.

Not the place I care to live any longer as demonstrated below:

"Sorry Alicia, daddy won't be able to afford braces for you because he has been fired from work."

"Why?"

"For smoking"

"Is that wrong?"

"It was never good but intentionally made worse. "God" preached that natural tobacco was "Satan" so those upholding "God's" law added poisons to the tobacco making it harder on people who continued to enjoy that freedom.

The increased poisons now made smoking more of a taboo to everyone

With this new taboo in place it is much easier to level out competition for limited employment opportunities by calling accusation on those who smoke - Much like being a "witch" (also known a 'women refusing arranged marriages' ) during the 1700's"

"But don't they care about me?"

"Not as much as God's law I'm afraid."

Yes.



Prob'ly.

Some people want a challenge.

Some people just want life.

Seems the problem is whoever did whatever dumped us all into the same terrarium.

And here some find that they can not successfully have a beautiful romance story while everyone else is playing Halo around them.

Ultimately I think you will discover (taking my smoking demonstration into consideration) is that such instances are because most are not real enough to think for themselves.

And such a world degrades to two mages.
One on either end of a floating plateau.
Sending sheep herds back and forth at one another in attempt to knock the other mage off.

All beauty and marvel is lost to such a morbidly comical puppet show that strong efforts/emotions invested in such a world become wasteful.

According to the Genealogy of Morals they aren't real enough to think for themselves because of that morality/mentality that's been enforced on them over generations.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree.

I did not know that. Thanks

Tribal units were able to produce just enough to survive. With agriculture an individuals could produce more than they consumed. This could be how slavery started. The slaves (the workers) had to be managed and a supernatural power was a good way to do it.


Any ideas on how working class and the aristocracy (ruling class) developed? The stronger subjugating the weak.

And in the same model, using religion, someone had to wear the funny pope's hat.

I think the class system really comes from religion in a way, and as recently as the 1600s politics and science and philosophy were all more or less handmaidens to the church.

As I understand it early civilizations were mostly theocracies.

City states considered their god and their moral code to be universal and the only correct morality. When trade between different groups started people found that there were other gods and other moralities. This may have contributed to the beginning of ethics and philosophy independent of theology.

It is not clear to me how aristocracies formed but it seems to be a universal. Maybe one tribal unit in the culture was stronger and subjugated the weaker. I will Google and see what I can find.

You will likely find a lot that's contrary to what I just said. I'm really just making guesses.