PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Voltaire: “Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities”

15 November 2015

Voltaire: “Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities”

November 14th, 2015

Voltaire: “Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities”

Voltaire, the clearest of Enlightenment thinkers wrote those words in his 1765 essay, “Questions sur les miracles.” And they resonate as much now, 250 years later, as they did then.

Dan Colman

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MEDIOCRITY TO MERITOCRACY

How the Nazis Hijacked Nietzsche, and How It Can Happen to Anybody

Just as American politicians like to reference the ideas of dead American heroes like Washington and Jefferson, the Nazis sought great Germans to reference when justifying their new regime. Nietzsche, with the tweaks made to his philosophy by his sister, became the primary thinker for those Nazis looking to justify their beliefs with philosophy.

It could happen to any school of thought, and that should terrify you. Always make sure you get the full story before you make any decisions, philosophically speaking.

War and Warriors

By our best enemies we do not want to be spared, nor by those either whom we love from the very heart. So let me tell you the truth!

I know the hatred and envy of your hearts. Ye are not great enough not to know of hatred and envy. Then be great enough not to be ashamed of them!

And if ye cannot be saints of knowledge, then, I pray you, be at least its warriors. They are the companions and forerunners of such saintship.

I see many soldiers; could I but see many warriors! "Uniform" one calleth what they wear; may it not be uniform what they therewith hide!

One can only be silent and sit peacefully when one hath arrow and bow; otherwise one prateth and quarrelleth. Let your peace be a victory!

War and courage have done more great things than charity. Not your sympathy, but your bravery hath hitherto saved the victims.

Ye shall only have enemies to be hated, but not enemies to be despised. Ye must be proud of your enemies; then, the successes of your enemies are also your successes.

Resistance—that is the distinction of the slave. Let your distinction be obedience. Let your commanding itself be obeying!

To the good warrior soundeth "thou shalt" pleasanter than "I will." And all that is dear unto you, ye shall first have it commanded unto you.

Let your love to life be love to your highest hope; and let your highest hope be the highest thought of life!

Your highest thought, however, ye shall have it commanded unto you by me—and it is this: man is something that is to be surpassed.

So live your life of obedience and of war! What matter about long life! What warrior wisheth to be spared!

I spare you not, I love you from my very heart, my brethren in war!—

Thus spake Zarathustra.

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Once hadst thou passions and calledst them evil. But now hast thou only thy virtues: they grew out of thy passions.

Thou implantedst thy highest aim into the heart of those passions: then became they thy virtues and joys.

And though thou wert of the race of the hot-tempered, or of the voluptuous, or of the fanatical, or the vindictive;

All thy passions in the end became virtues, and all thy devils angels.

Once hadst thou wild dogs in thy cellar: but they changed at last into birds and charming songstresses.

Out of thy poisons brewedst thou balsam for thyself; thy cow, affliction, milkedst thou—now drinketh thou the sweet milk of her udder.

And nothing evil groweth in thee any longer, unless it be the evil that groweth out of the conflict of thy virtues.

A moving point generates a line

A moving line generates a plane

A moving plane generates a volume

A moving volume generates a hypervolume

The threshold movement is attained at the speed of light

At the speed of light mass becomes infinite and time ceases to be

A timeless, mass-less entity can travel to any point in the universe instantly

A timeless, mass-less entity can manifest to all points in the universe instantly

The mysterious aspect of a human, electromagnetic-ethereal, travels at or beyond the speed of light

ABORIGINAL INDIA

In an industrialized India, the destruction of the aboriginal life is as inevitable as the submergence of Egyptian temples caused by the dams of the Nile. As things are going there can be no grandeur in the primitive's end. It will not be even simple extinction which is not the worst of human destinies. It is to be feared that the aboriginal's last act will be squalid, instead of tragic. What will be seen with most regret will be, not his disappearance, but his enslavement and degradation. (Nirad C.Choudhury)

PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

THE USE OF KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

METAMATRIX - BEYOND DECEPTION

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15 November 2015

Voltaire: “Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities”

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