GENIUS FORUMS

Kelly, I can't really respond to what you wrote---your characterization of what I said---because it is all you. I would point out that you quite often do this: take a portion of what someone wrote, perform an interpretation on it, assert that your interpretation is what the other person said, and then you argue against it. My own view, about myself or my thinking, is that there is indeed a 'center', and that center is a different apprehension of values, and a different focus in valuation. Personally, I could never read Gertrude Stein.

How do you view Kirkegaard's use of pseudonym? E.g. Judge William, Constantin Constantius, Hilarius Bookbinder, Anti-Climacus, and 'H.H'., which a few literary assholes (like the demon Nabokov) have used to their personal advantage?

David, I find it quite peculiar and something I've never been able to adjust to, that you rely so heavily on Kirkegaard, but not as Kirkegaard but as the Kirkegaard of your strong desire. And it seems you do the same thing with all the figures you get your hands on: Nietzsche, Weininger included. I often say that it seems to me that you 'possess' these men. For certainly there is no other man in the known universe aside from yourself who understands Kirkegaard, right? Many people were strongly influenced by Kirkegaard: Miguel de Unamuno, Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Buber, Paul Tillich, Albert Camus, but it seems that only Davin Quinn has read him closely enough, and has enough of an 'inkling of nirvana' to understand and interpret him.

If it is true that a great part of his of his thrust in philosophical work is focused on the question and importance of how one lives, with emphasis on the centrality and ultimate relevance of our concrete human existence over abstract thinking, which also highlights the issue of spiritual values in our personal choices and our commitment, I could make a case for being closer to his central message and you being further away. Again, it is a question of values, and what values are placed at the forefront.

You take quintessentially Christian writers, inhabit them, significantly take them out of their Christian context and focus, and dress them up as neo-Buddhists who support all your personal points. It is flatly absurd.

I'm calling the police!

David wrote: "The amount of time and effort you put into your posts for so little reward is quite remarkable, and quite touching, really."

Will I get a fake 'Wisdom Beard' too? Or some kind of sew-on 'Pathetic But Still Striving Inferior GF Member' Boy Scout patch?

I want one badly...

As to 'The Novel', this is where it stands: My focus had been discursive writing. Moving into the writing of fiction is a pretty radical shift. It has taken, or I should say is still taking, time to make that shift. I've been working on it for a year and a little more now. I don't really have a Novel begun but a group of stories which are probably 'novellas' more than stories. Since May 1st I have been quite busy with other things and will remain so until October. In the meantime I have been keeping up with reading (Gerhart Hauptmann, Chekhov, Hemingway, Huxley, Raymond Carver, Francois Mauriac, Selma Lagerlof, Rabindranath Tagore, Thomas Mann, Herman Melville, Leo Tolstoy, Truman Capote...)(not to mention the various theological writings which also interest me). I feel I am right on the verge of having the 'certainty' to finish what I have begun and, in one case, rewrite significantly a finished piece).

Thanks for asking. I'll guess I'll soon haver to set up a Twitter account. Then, you could subscribe and get updates tweeted your way...

;-)

Talking Ass wrote: David, I find it quite peculiar and something I've never been able to adjust to, that you rely so heavily on Kirkegaard, but not as Kirkegaard but as the Kirkegaard of your strong desire. And it seems you do the same thing with all the figures you get your hands on: Nietzsche, Weininger included. I often say that it seems to me that you 'possess' these men. For certainly there is no other man in the known universe aside from yourself who understands Kirkegaard, right?

I don't know and I'm not interested. What I do know is that Kierkegaard's words really only come alive when one tunes into nirvana. It is only then that one fully realizes that although he uses Christian concepts and terminology, he is as far from Christianity as can possibly be, and that in every sentence he writes his focus never wavers from the Infinite.

A true genius. I only wish there were more like him.

Many people were strongly influenced by Kirkegaard: Miguel de Unamuno, Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Buber, Paul Tillich, Albert Camus, but it seems that only Davin Quinn has read him closely enough, and has enough of an 'inkling of nirvana' to understand and interpret him.

Sartre, Tillich, Camus ...... Jeez, you really set your sights low, don't you.

-

• 'I want honesty. If that is what the human race or this generation wants, if it will honorably, honestly, openly, frankly, directly rebel against Christianity, if it will say to God, ‘We can but we will not subject ourselves to this power’ – but note that this must be done honorably, honestly, openly, frankly, directly – very well then, strange as it may seem, I am with them; for honesty is what I want, and wherever there is honesty I can take part.'

_______________________________________________________

Kierkegaard's theological work---a great portion of it---focused exclusively on Christian ethics and the institution of the Chrurch, and yet 'he is as far from Christianity as can possibly be'.

As I have been continually saying, your ignorance of your own cultural traditions and the vast influence of what I think can only be understood as the force of Jesus' personality through Christianity, renders you, it would seem, incapable of having a cogent opinion of what you are talking about. I am afraid to say that the only conclusion here is that you yourself are delusional. Your 'nirvana reading of Kierkegaard', though I think I understand it, is simply insufficient (well, utterly insufficient) to understand both the material that he dealt with (the 'revelation' of the Old and New Testaments) and the whole force of Jesus' personalism and humanitarianism which is the core message of Christianity, the ethical thrust. With your 'nirvana reading' you have completely side-stepped the most essential thing, and---in nearly complete intellectual dishonesty---performed a terrible hack-job on the man himself.

I sincerely doubt he'd appreciate it.

The list of people who have been influenced by Kierkegaard, and whose intellectual work has moved into the human domain and influenced culture (that is to say, if you'll permit me, 'the body of Christ') extends very far beyond the almost ridiculous value of your offerings and accomplishments. I am inclined, again, to see your extreme hubris as pathological, not as merely quaint, ignorant and blusteringly stupid. You may need to back up a little bit, think things through...

Philosophers: Jacques Derrida, Alasdair MacIntyre, Emmanuel Lévinas, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jürgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Martin Heidegger.

Writers and Literati: Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, W. H. Auden, Walker Percy, Rainer Maria Rilke, David Lodge, Flannery O'Connor, John Updike.

Theologians: Karl Jaspers, Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Martin Buber, Ferdinand Ebner, Rudolf Bultmann, Friedrich Gogarten, Franz Rosenzweig, Abraham Joshua Heschel.

A few quotes?

• "Christendom has done away with Christianity without being quite aware of it".

One could say David Quinn has done away with Christianity without being aware of it. How strangely appropriate since what you do is 'in ignorance' and not 'in knowledge')

• "Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him, for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low, could still be saved; the bitterest enemy and also he who was your friend could again be your friend; love that has grown cold can kindle".

Okay. The words deal on 'love' and such, but a nirvana-reading leads us beyond them to a radically different 'meaning'. For you, the hope you will always have for the Prodigal Son, is the hope that---one day!---he will see the light of your Buddhist-Nietzschean-Weiningerian-Kierkegaardianistic Wisdom Teachings! The 'fatted lamb' you will slaughter will be to celebrate the phantoms of his 'delusion' receding into 'emptiness'...

• "The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever".

Who is this 'God' who perceives the individual? Sin? What the heck is he talking about? 'Troubled disbelief'? But disbelief about WHAT? (Oh, right: A is A, the nature of The Totality and other such 'corner stones' of understanding of 'Reality'...)

• "Once you label me, you negate me".

But...but...QRStianity is involved in its own 'negation process' and as an a priori negates itself: the essential negation of the individual as individual. But Christian personalism places ALL the emphasis on the individual and his link or relation with God (or Jesus, his life-activity, his personalism, his relatedness). True, this whole spurious interpretation of Christianity is obviously delusional and one need only resort to a 'nirvana-reading' to clear things up. I'm supposing that the correct understanding is that any apprehension of what David Quinn says that is not exactly what David Quinn means to say, is a negation of the Wisdom of David Quinn? (Or any of the Illustrious such as Kelly and Diebert? And on that subject, Diebert, why is it that you offer nothing on this subject? You certainly have a little more preparation than Mahatma Quinn...)

• "To the frivolous, Christianity is certainly not glad tidings, for it wishes first of all to make them serious".

Get serious: toss the Bible and this whole 'revelation' on the trash heap, quit your job, and take up Nietzschean-Kirkegaardian Buddhism 'with passion'.

• "Most people believe that the Christian commandments are intentionally a little too severe - like setting a clock half an hour ahead to make sure of not being late in the morning."
  
  "What our age lacks is not reflection but passion."
  
  "The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins."
  
  "Teach me, O God, not to torture myself, not to make a martyr out of myself through stifling reflection, but rather teach me to breathe deeply in faith."
  
  "To the Christian, love is the works of love. To say that love is a feeling or anything of the kind is really an un-Christian conception of love. That is the aesthetic definition and therefore fits the erotic and everything of that nature. But to the Christian, love is the works of love. Christ's love was not an inner feeling, a full heart and what-not: it was the work of love which was his life."
  
  "Lord Jesus Christ! A whole life long didst thou suffer that I too might be saved; and yet thy suffering is not yet at an end; but this too wilt thou endure, saving and redeeming me, this patient suffering of having to do with me, I who so often go astray from the right path, or even when I remained on the straight path stumbled along it or crept so slowly along the right path. Infinite patience, suffering of infinite patience. How many times have I not been impatient, wished to give up and forsake everything; wished to take the terribly easy way out, despair: but thou didst not lose patience. Oh, I cannot say what thy chosen servant says: that he filled up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh; no, I can only say that I increased thy sufferings, added new ones to those which thou didst once suffer in order to save me."

And so on and so forth...

First to David.

DQ:

and can actually provide a challenge

A challenge to what? This sort of validates my suspicions. Just as a jock likes to be challenged in athletics to show off his muscles, so does a philosopher like to be challenged in endless philosophical debates to show off his brain-muscle. This leads nowhere in my opinion and is not characteristic of one who's obtained enlightenment.

I did suspect you wouldn't understand that comment. Try looking at it as a re-wording of the previous sentence, or even as a culmination of it.

I understand your comment perfectly well. Your comment could have just as easily come from any Taoist, Buddhist, Vedanta, or new age spiritual literature. It's a common sentiment among philosophical spiritualists. Of course it is one thing to regurgitate the sentiments of others and another thing to understand and experience it for yourself. I am just inquiring whether you have in fact have experienced it as you claim.

You hold tight to a dogmatic philosophy of everything, trying to contain it by words but ultimately fail. This could just be the fault of relying on less than adequate tools, but it is your lack of humility in this medium that really discredits the handful of truths you actually “point to”. Why you insist that your way is superior always causes you to slide back down the mountain and that is clear as day on your reasoning show – even when faced by a Christian rationalist ☺

When I respond to you, I quote your own wording as much as possible to avoid a debate in semantics. If I did not understand what you were trying to describe then I would not quote your words, but it greatly simplifies our discussion when I reference something that is mutually understood.

It is like the difference between following instructions, maps and road signs that lead directly to Rome, and that of looking at paintings of Rome, or hearing songs sung about it. The former can take you to Rome itself, while the latter at best can only awaken the desire to go there.

That is a good analogy, but I disagree with the methods you are referring to. You are saying that philosophical wording is a road map to understanding whereas art is just a representation. Wittgenstein clearly displayed that philosophical wording can only lead one to a representation and eventually becomes a road block to understanding. The final chapter of his masterpiece is one sentence "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence". My conclusion is that both art and philosophy are simply representations and neither are more effective as actual road maps. So explain to me why you feel that words are the best road maps to the understanding of

a mystery in which everything is understood and nothing is understood

liberation from the need to see or do anything or to even understand anything

the fullness of all things which don't really exist

??? You are relying on words to convey that which doesn’t need to be understood, when nothing needs to be understood, in describing the things that don’t really exist?

Again, I have a different understanding of enlightenment to you. For me, enlightenment means perfect understanding steeped in the experience of nirvanic freedom. For you, it would seem that enlightenment refers to sublime altered states or mystical experiences, which are an entirely different kettle of fish. This would account for why you consider music to be important.

This is the whole point of the conversation right? So far I do not think that we view enlightenment differently as much as I feel that our methods are different, our obtainment is different, and we are different people. For me enlightenment is not an "altered state", it is the experience of the quintessence of all existence – rather a super-conscious state. It is beyond the sublime (as I stated in my first post). As for "mystical experiences" the word "mystical" refers to "mystery" and is defined as "a spiritual meaning or reality that is neither apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence" - your description of

a mystery in which everything is understood and nothing is understood

- perfectly fits in the category of "mystical". You are describing a state that both includes the observable finite causes and effects and the infinite totality which exists within and beyond the duality of causality, space, and time. The infinite totality cannot be seen, heard, touched, smelled, tasted, "nor obvious to the intelligence". But we both agree that it can be experienced.

After all, a map is an IMAGE not words. So let me describe to you "my" map to Rome. The best illustration for me is the Lemniscate:
∞
The outer loops of the lemniscate represent causality, space, time. Most people are only aware of the surface value of the lemniscate and travel around and around each loop - enslaved by the delusions of the finite. Those outer loops reconfigure, evolve, and expand outwards infinitely. The very center at the cross section where the loops meet represents zero. It always remains the same - formless, unmoving, and unchangeable. This is the point where now (the timeless present) meets infinity and zero. All of existence radiates and emanates from this central cross section.

To put it in philosophical terms, Wittgenstein writes (and I've quoted before):

“2.027: Objects, the unalterable, and the subsistent are one and the same.

2.0271: Objects are what is unalterable and subsistent; their configuration is what is changing and unstable.”

So enlightenment to me is the experience of the sameness of "objects, the unalterable, and the subsistent". It is aligning consciousness with the true self, which in essence is a unified oneness, unalterable, infinite and non-existent simultaneously. There are many different ways to do this. One way is through arduous and extremely rigid philosophical discrimination, dispassion, and discernment. But since the inevitable conclusion is silence (as Wittgenstein clearly proves in philosophical terms) then one could simply skip to the heart of the matter instantly. No thoughts, no words, something still exists beyond thoughts and words, total immersion in what IS, liberation from what is not.
The Zen mind is not the “empty” mind more it is the receiving mind. So tapping into the infinite can come in the form of physical energy too. When you realize that the energy of life is not confined to the burning of calories or mere chemical reactions one could WOW the world with the grace of a superhuman athletic performance. Yes even an athlete can reach a type of enlightenment. Of course that would not impress you because you are not wowed by parlor tricks or the world of phenomena but once again you are only existing in ONE MANIFESTATION not the totality as you claim and I think you are still climbing even though you claim to have reached the top.

Thoughts themselves are a delusion so you must strip them away too. Nirvana is a state of pure consciousness, it is not merely an intellectual concept, so intellectualizing must eventually get stripped away. The constant interjection of the ego's opinions and analysis are a hindrance to that experience. Ramakrishna said that the surface of the water has to be completely still if one wants to see the pearls on the ocean floor.

Ramakrishna:

MASTER : "No one can say with finality that God is only 'this' and nothing else. He is formless, and again He has forms. For the bhakta He assumes forms. But He is formless for the jnani, that is, for him who looks on the world as a mere dream. The bhakta feels that he is one entity and the world another. Therefore God, reveals Himself to him as a Person. But the jnani — the Vedantist, for instance — always reasons, applying the process of 'Not this, not this'. Through this discrimination he realizes, by his inner perception, that the ego and the universe are both illusory, like a dream. Then the jnani realizes Brahman in his own consciousness. He cannot describe what Brahman is.

"Do you know what I mean? Think of Brahman, Existence-Knowledge- Bliss Absolute, as a shoreless ocean. Through the cooling influence, as it were, of the bhakta's love, the water has frozen at places into blocks of ice. In other words, God now and then assumes various forms for His lovers and reveals Himself to them as a Person. But with the rising of the sun of Knowledge, the blocks of ice melt. Then one doesn't feel any more that God is a Person, nor does one see God's forms. What He is cannot be described. Who will describe Him? He who would do so disappears. He cannot find his 'I' any more.

"If one analyses oneself, one doesn't find any such thing as 'I'. Take an onion, for instance. First of all you peel off the red outer skin; then you find thick white skins. Peel these off one after the other, and you won't find anything inside.

"In that state a man no longer finds the existence of his ego. And who is there left to seek it? Who can describe how he feels in that state — in his own Pure Consciousness — about the real nature of Brahman? Once a salt doll went to measure the depth of the ocean. No sooner was it in the water than it melted. Now who was to tell the depth?

"There is a sign of Perfect Knowledge. Man becomes silent when It is attained. Then the 'I', which may be likened to the salt doll, melts in the Ocean of Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute and becomes one with It. Not the slightest trace of distinction is left.

"As long as his self-analysis is not complete, man argues with much ado. But he becomes silent when he completes it. When the empty pitcher has been filled with water, when the water inside the pitcher becomes one with the water of the lake outside, no more sound is heard. Sound comes from the pitcher as long as the pitcher is not filled with water.

To quote Vivekananda:

In the Katha Upanishad the body is described as the chariot, the mind is the reins, the intellect is the charioteer, the senses are the horses, and the objects of the senses their road. The self is the rider, seated in the chariot. Unless the rider has understanding and can make the charioteer control his horses, he can never attain the goal; but the senses, like vicious steeds, will drag him where they please and may even destroy him. These two currents are the great "check rein" in the hands of the charioteer, and he must get control of this to control the horses.

Only when the rider (self) has the chariot, the reins, the charioteer, and horses perfectly still - is he in control. This is done through meditation, not by simply playing with the "reins" as you do.

Philosophical discrimination, dispassion, and discernment... "This" is a delusion because it is not God, "that" is a delusion because it is not God, everything I experience in the physical world is a delusion because it is not God, thinking is a delusion because it is not God, God is everything, this is God, that is God, thinking is a tool to understand God, acting is a means of fulfilling God’s will. With each breath I inhale I die, with each exhale I am born again… God Is.

To be honest, I don't think much of Vivekenanda.

I have to admit I am surprised by this. To me Vivekananda is the more intellectual and philosophically impenetrable. Likewise he is more cold, sterile, and seemingly lifeless. No offense, but I had you pawned as a Vivekananda personality. Ramakrishna was pure "heart". Much more emotional than intellectual. Song and Dance were his preferred forms of worship and led him to Samadhi more than any other practice (that scenario is described in virtually every chapter of his book). He spoke of shedding "tears" for God. He said:

God can be realized through all paths. All religions are true. The important thing is to reach the roof. You can reach it by stone stairs or by wooden stairs or by bamboo steps or by a rope. You can also climb up by a bamboo pole.

Oh yeah and he dressed as a woman stating that one has to be like a woman to truly understand God. It is often speculated that he fucked men. Hmmm… David Quinn recognizes Sri Ramakrishna as “a real genius”.

Talking Ass wrote:Kelly, I can't really respond to what you wrote---your characterization of what I said---because it is all you. I would point out that you quite often do this: take a portion of what someone wrote, perform an interpretation on it, assert that your interpretation is what the other person said, and then you argue against it. My own view, about myself or my thinking, is that there is indeed a 'center', and that center is a different apprehension of values, and a different focus in valuation. Personally, I could never read Gertrude Stein.

How do you view Kirkegaard's use of pseudonym? E.g. Judge William, Constantin Constantius, Hilarius Bookbinder, Anti-Climacus, and 'H.H'., which a few literary assholes (like the demon Nabokov) have used to their personal advantage?

Kierkegaard explained his use of pseudonyms as demonic. They were to indicate various attempts to be in relationship with the truth, that were not actuality. His own relationship to the truth in actuality was indicated by using his own name, as he did with the various upbuilding discourses and sermons. He wanted to indicate by the pseudonyms that what he expressed was a poet's understanding of the truth, or of a situation, rather than what his own actual existence could express an understanding of.

For instance, Climacus and Anti-Climacus were the pseudonyms he used most frequently in his most religious writings, the ones he produced after giving up a creative authorship. Climacus expressed the position of the one who declared he was not a Christian, while Anti-Climacus declared he was definitely a Christian. They were relative to the establishment, since where all declare they are a Christian, Climacus is announcing by his own life and knowledge that they lie, while Anti-Climacus is also announcing that they lie, again through his own life and knowledge. Kierkegaard didn't dare to take either position.

It's got nothing to do with playing around with various identities, which he would have regarded as foolish, and a lie.

Here are some quotes to indicate why he used pseudonyms:

after having disavowed the authorship of the many newspaper articles, which, to be sure, no one had attributed to me, I ended by asking people never to regard anything as mine that was not signed by me, and that was just the time I planned to begin using a pseudonym

A pseudonym is excellent for accentuating a point, a stance, a position. He is a poetic person. Therefore it is not as if I personally said: This is what I am fighting for — which indeed could become a duty almost for my entire life, but which external conditions could make it impossible for me ever to fulfill, if, for example, I find it necessary to use most of my time to work for a living.

In every one of the pseudonymous works the theme of 'the single individual' appears — yes, certainly, and the following is one of several ways: the pseudonymous writers concentrate upon working out the universal, the single individual [den Enkelte], the special individual [den sœrlige Enkelte], the exception, in order to find the meaning of the special individual in his suffering and his extraordinariness.

The Judge in Either/Or had already posed this with respect to the exception from being married.

Then came Fear and Trembling — Repetition, the psychological experiment — all commentaries on the category: the single individual.

But in relation to the reading public, the pseudonymous writers themselves as well as the books affirm the category of the single individual.

An understanding of the totality of my work as an author, its maieutic purpose, etc. requires also an understanding of my personal existence [Existeren] as an author, what I qua author have done with my personal existence to support it, illuminate it, conceal it, give it direction, etc., something which is more complicated than and just as interesting as the whole literary activity. Ideally the whole thing goes back to "the single individual" [den Enkelte], who is not I in an empirical sense but is the author.

That Socrates belonged together with what he taught, that his teaching ended in him, that he himself was his teaching, in the setting of actuality was himself artistically a product of that which he taught — we have learned to rattle this off by rote by have scarcely understood it. Even the systematicians talk this way about Socrates. But nowadays everything is supposed to be objective. And if someone were to use his own person maieutically, this would be labelled "à la Andersen."

And is it then a joy to me to introduce something like this into the world? Quite as if I were not a man — I who have so much of the poet in me.

But I am a penitent. And I cannot comprehend that it would please God if I were to begin flagellating myself (as the Middle Ages piously believed), but certainly it can please God that the truth be spoken. It is just the task for a penitent. That which I say, from a divine point of view, is the truth, this is eternally certain. But the point is that the truth, divinely speaking, is, humanly speaking, inimical to what it is to be human.

Christ was himself God, he could not propound anything else than the divine truth. The apostles were called by him. But in the course of time (I cannot understand it in any other way) there has to be a penitent to present the truth in this way, for only a penitent can be so anxious and fearful before God that he dares say nothing else but that which, humanly speaking, makes himself and everybody else unhappy.

I have to withdraw a step from this wanting personally to be what is presented, and then the task is mine. I will put all the more pressure on Christendom. I became the unhappy lover with respect to becoming personally the ideal Christian, and therefore I became its poet. I will never forget this humiliation and to that extent will be unlike the usual orator who wantonly confuses talking about something with being it. I did not get married, but I became the most enthusiastic champion of marriage. So also in a similar way with the second task. I do not have the strength to become a witness to the truth who is put to death for the truth. Nor do I have the temperament for it. I remain a poet and a thinker; for that I was born, but in relation to Christianity and the ideal for being a Christian. I perhaps can bring a minor sacrifice or two, but essentially I relate myself to being a witness for the truth in the true humility of confessing that in the strictest sense I am not a witness to the truth. My admitting this is the truth in me. But the fact that it is true in me produces a pain which is precisely the condition for the poet's and the philosopher's creativity.

I have ventured much farther out than a poet usually does. This too was necessary in order to accomplish the task: Christianity, the ideal for being a Christian.

Just as the sigh of a poet's own unhappy love is heard in his song, so also in all my enthusiastic discourse about the ideal for being a Christian my sign will be heard: Alas, I am not one, I am only a Christian poet and thinker.

In actuality the whole matter of publishing with or without my name perhaps would have been a bagatelle. But to me in my ideality it is a very taxing problem so that above all I do not falsely hold myself back or falsely go too far but in truth understand myself and continue to be myself.

The pseudonym is Johannes Anticlimacus in contrast with Climacus, who said he was not a Christian. Anticlimacus is the opposite extreme: a Christian on an extraordinary level — but I myself manage to be only a very simple Christian.

[In margin: The title of the book: The Sickness unto Death]
It finally came to bear the inscription:
For upbuilding and awakening.

This "for awakening" actually is the "more" that came out of the year 1848, but it is also the "more" that is so much higher than my own person that I use a pseudonym for it. [In margin: See p. 253 in this journal (i.e. X1 A 520).]

I use only the poetic designation: "upbuilding,", never "for upbuilding."

The Significance of the Pseudonyms

All communication of truth has become abstract: the public has become the authority; the newspapers call themselves the editorial staff; the professor calls himself speculation; the pastor is meditation; no man, none, dares to say I.

But since without qualification the first prerequisite for the communication of truth is personality, since "truth" cannot possibly be served by ventriloquism, personality has to come to the fore again.

But in these circumstances, since the world was so corrupted by never hearing an I, it was impossible to begin at once with one's own I. So it became my task to create author-personalities and let them enter in the actuality of life in order to get men a bit accustomed to hearing discourse in the first person.

Thus my task is no doubt only that of a forerunner until he comes who in the strictest sense says: I.

But to make a turn away from this inhuman abstraction to personality — that is my task.

It is absolutely right — a pseudonym had to be used.

When the demands of ideality are to be presented at their maximum, then one must take extreme care not to be confused with them himself, as if he himself were the ideal.

Protestations could be used to avoid this. But the only sure way is this redoubling.

The difference from the earlier pseudonyms is simply but essentially this, that I do not retract the whole thing humorously but identify myself as one who is striving.

The two works by Anti-Climacus ("Practice in Christianity") can be published immediately.

With this the writing stops; essentially it has already stopped (that which is wholly mine) with "The Friday Discourses." The pseudonymous writer at the end is a higher level, which I can only suggest. The second-round pseudonymity is precisely the expression for the halt. Qua author I am like the river Guadalquibir, which at some place plunges under the earth; there is a stretch which is mine: the upbuilding; behind and ahead lie the lower and the higher pseudonymities; the upbuilding is mine, not the esthetic not [the pseudonymous works] for upbuilding either, and even less those for awakening.

If "Practice in Christianity" is published, what has been intimated many places elsewhere will be carried out — in all earnestness to set forth the possibility of offense. This is also related essentially to my task, which is continually to jack up the price by bringing a dialectic to bear. But for this reason, too, a pseudonym must be used. That which represents the dialectical element has always been by a pseudonym. To want to make it my own would be both untrue and an all too frightful and violent means of awakening.

"Practice in Christianity" certainly should be published under a pseudonym. It is the dialectical element and would be much too strong if I brought it out personally.

Without question, in the context of Christian truth it certainly is the highest that has been granted to me. But in another sense it is too high for me to appropriate right off in life and walk in character.

This is the deeper significance of the new pseudonym, which is higher than I am myself.

O, I know I have not spared myself; even to the point of strain I have wanted to force myself to venture something rash, but I cannot do it, I cannot justify it.

This is how Governance continually keeps his hand on me — and governs. I had never considered getting a new pseudonym. And yet the new pseudonym — but note well that it is higher than my personal existence — precisely that is the truth of my nature, it is the expression for the limits of my nature. Otherwise I would finally become veritably more than human.

There are hundreds of other entries like this, indicating that Kierkegaard was constantly careful not to be positioned wrongly in respect to the truth.

...

• "I will allow someone else to speak, my poet, who, when he comes, will usher me to the place among those who have suffered for an idea and say: "The martyrdom this author suffered can be described quite briefly in this way: He suffered being a genius in a market town. ... Yet also here in the world he found what he sought: "that single individual"; if no one else was that, he himself was and became that more and more."
  
  - Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View in the Essential Kierkegaard, p.479-80

____________________________________________________

I don't know if you have the 'authority', or even perhaps the 'ultimate understanding' to claim to know how Kierkegaard (or any other figure of history) would have regarded the manifold yet internally consistant expressions of Alex Jacob aka The Talking Ass who has every once in a while seemed to write from the perspective of one Venezeualan macaw by the name of Weisenheimer Isaac bin Simon Katzenbogen. I think we could both 'weigh in' on either side and make a compelling case, and yet it also seems probable that the case we made would reflect not so much Kierkegaard's view (unless you are more adept with your Ouija Board than even I imagine), which neither of us could definitively know, but would assemble some 'opinion' based on our reading of the man's writing refracted through what I will here call our exclusive 'lenses of perception'. Now, it is true that we could perform here (I have been using the word 'perform' in a somewhat ironical sense to indicate the 'performance of conversation' that occurs on these pages which, and you must surely know this, I regard as farsical in many regards) a month-long hashing out of what the beloved Søren Kierkegaard might have thought of Alex Jacob and his various 'tactics', and I am sure it would be interesting to someone in the universe of concerns, but it just does not have a great deal of relevance to me. I don't know if the idea had yet dawned in your grey material (I would hope that it had) but one thing that Talking Ass and Weisenheimer love to do is to needle the over-serious. Similarly to Kierkagaard in this regard (hey, that rhymes!) my 'pseudonyms' are also demonic , and by this I mean that though Alex Jacob is a straight-shooter and tells it like it is, always and at all times, both the Talking Ass and Weisenheimer, a truly devilish macaw with Latin elan and an irritating squawk, would likely find almost bottomless glee in doing anything in their power to drive you nuts. They are, each of them, utterly irreverant. As a matter of fact they are both scoundrels of the first order, and if I were to tell the truth about them I would say they are utter and irreducible scoundrels. I know for a fact, though, that Talking Ass has a bit of a crush on you. Well, in truth quite a bit of a crush. Unfortunately, his amorousness never rises above the purely physical and he knows nothing of agape. For him as for common demons it is all about eros, and in that connection asked me the other day if I thought you might have a nice rear end. Now, Weisenheimer is different. He would (he has told me this numerous times) bite your fucking ears off if he had the chance! (Don't ever give him the chance). He has a way of looking all innocent and trustworthy and then---wham!---he gloms onto your finger and won't let off until you completey submit to his will. Weisenheimer is utterly indifferent to you. Talking Ass wants to mate with you. And Alex Jacob wants only to 'save your soul'.

It is not impossible that---somewhere, somehow---Kierkegaard, were he to hear of all this, would roll on the floor laughing at so much of it, and so much that occurs on this forum.

True, true, it also stands as possible that he would gravely take your side and David's side, belittle and abuse me (the Trinity as it were...) and glare at me from across the room.

I don't have to read Kierkegaard's mind, but study deeply what he wrote, to understand what his meaning was.

Since the truth of the nature of God is non-finite, to be in the closest relationship to God (to be in the truth) is to know oneself as non-finite. That means, all the finite identities and characteristics you play around with, Alex, are superfluous, and greatly distanced from God. It's playing around in the branches.

You do play around with a lot of superficial stuff, Alex, all the while deceiving yourself that you are exploring deep and mysterious weavings of the psyche. You haven't even hit Kierkegaard's aesthetic level, because you haven't positioned that level in respect to the truth.


...

Ass=Ass:

To cut to the chase: here, it seems, the predominating definition of spiritual life---'Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment'---is a very peculiar and (I think) quite non-rational path of harsh rationality, and all that pushed through a mill of neo-Buddhism where Buddhist personages are fetishized in a peculiar and I think unwholesome way.

Yes that is why if you follow their philosophy to its inevitable conclusion you will see that their methods of obtaining what they have claimed to obtain is impossible and no longer valid to logical deduction. Not to mention that they do not display most of the characteristics of the truths they value. But the only way to help them realize it is to put it in their own words using their own logic (I am not a Christ figure so I will not do this for them). If they truly experienced enlightenment according to their philosophy, then like the salt doll meeting the ocean, they would dissolve, go silent, no longer assert their "opinions" on this forum, and certainly wouldn't have the aggressive, singularly asserting egos that they display. The uncertainly runs deep. That is a good thing because they human after all. Fallible, stinking, human beings. And that is also what they secretly fear the most.

Dostoevsky could breath life into fiction because his intensity of spirit was so profound he had almost Godlike abilities at writing fiction. His fictional characters displayed a greater sense of "soul" than most living and breathing human beings. Then when he used the various contradictory natures of these unique souls in juxtaposition with one another - he conveyed a penetrating understanding of philosophical truths along with spiritual insight. That is the characteristic of a genius, multidimensional as existence is multidimensional. What you find here is very one-dimensional worldviews and tactics.

Christianity is such a diverse and all-encompassing religion. If you look at the historicity of Christianity's reasoning for compiling a book like the bible, you will see that at that time there were so many different religions and beliefs fighting with one another and that the Christians were simply trying to unify them. That's why so many different philosophical worldviews can find passages in the bible that inspire and or relate to their personal world views. Human psychology, the nature of the universe, and the Totality (God) are so complex that no single world view can encapsulate it. All attempts fail. Likewise it is possible for all attempts to succeed, depending on the individual. That's why the Kingdom of Heaven is Within. It is our personal responsibility to discover for ourselves. And in my opinion keep it to ourselves.

Kelly: I reckon that would be 'the glare across the room'?

I agape you.

I might add that my previous statement sounded incredibly selfish in comparison to what you were implying about altruism. But I am talking about spirituality not the physical and emotional qualities of service to humanity (in which regards I agree with you).

Nice post Alyosha. I'll be thinking about it.
___________________________________________________

Kelly wrote: "You do play around with a lot of superficial stuff, Alex, all the while deceiving yourself that you are exploring deep and mysterious weavings of the psyche. You haven't even hit Kierkegaard's aesthetic level, because you haven't positioned that level in respect to the truth."

Yes, yes, I do whatever it is I do.

I am very curious for a brief description of just what is this 'truth' that Kierkegaard has positioned himself in relation to. As you know David seems to feel that 'he is as far from Christianity as can possibly be', whereas I see him as fully within Christianity and dealing only with these essential concerns. When you think of Kierkagaard and the 'truth' he is standing in relation to, how would you describe that truth?

I am very curious for a brief description of just what is this 'truth' that Kierkegaard has positioned himself in relation to. As you know David seems to feel that 'he is as far from Christianity as can possibly be', whereas I see him as fully within Christianity and dealing only with these essential concerns. When you think of Kierkagaard and the 'truth' he is standing in relation to, how would you describe that truth?

I just explained it to you.

David meant by "Christianity" the established cities of lies built up by people to distance themselves from what Jesus taught. Precisely what most people call Christianity, in fact. But Kierkegaard used "Christianity" to refer to the truth. He called the false structure "Christendom", and contrasted it with Christianity.

Kierkegaard himself, in actuality, strove to be in the right relationship to God. I have already explained that God is not-finite, and to be in relationship to God is to realise that oneself is also God.


...

• "Geniuses are like thunderstorms ­ they go against the wind, terrify people, cleanse the air."
  
  "There are two kinds of geniuses. The characteristic of the one is roaring, but the lightning is meager and rarely strikes; the other kind is characterized by reflection by which it constrains itself or restrains the roaring. But the lightning is all the more intensive; with the speed and sureness of lightning it hits the selected particular points ­and is fatal."

___________________________________________________

Kelly writes: "Since the truth of the nature of God is non-finite, to be in the closest relationship to God (to be in the truth) is to know oneself as non-finite."

Yes, right. But you do know (you do know this I hope?!) that any description of 'truth' like this, coming from you and David (*laughs*) is regarded by me as equal perhaps to chicken shit on corn husks? You can't get wisdom from a fool. You only get foolishness from fools. In essence, what one hears from you, and David, is foolishness. I hope that you understand that though I read your pearl of wisdom, I paid it no heed. It is a grandiose phrasing and is an utter abstraction. I contend that, with some likelihood, our beloved Søren Kierkegaard would take issue with it for that reason. What you wrote is vain, little-useful, haughty and presumptuous.

That's the Kelly I know and love...

I expressed this to David in this way: "If it is true that a great part of his of his thrust in philosophical work is focused on the question and importance of how one lives, with emphasis on the centrality and ultimate relevance of our concrete human existence over abstract thinking, which also highlights the issue of spiritual values in our personal choices and our commitment, I could make a case for being closer to his central message and you being further away. Again, it is a question of values, and what values are placed at the forefront. You take quintessentially Christian writers, inhabit them, significantly take them out of their Christian context and focus, and dress them up as neo-Buddhists who support all your personal points. It is flatly absurd."

In philosophical and theological circles, Kierkegaard is generall understood to explore Christian values in existentialist, neo-orthodoxist, postmodernist, humanist, and individualist contexts. I suggest to you that interpreting him as some sort of disconnected preacher of this whole order of 'pseudo-values' that you privelage (...to death...) is outrightly maligning, intellectually, spiritually devious, and terribly misleading.

Here is a general reference to Neo-orthodoxy, and any buffoon can grasp the order of concerns here and clearly identify that they have next to nothing in common with whatever yours are. They have nothing at all to do with some abstract and rather crass definition of a 'non-finite' God, and other forms of childish bullshit, but focus on real issues, with real people, in a real human context, where the focus is 'the moral worth of the individual' and 'the primacy of the individual'. It is in this sense (as existentialist and Christian personalist) that Kierkegaard was and is a Christian theorist, exploring issues of Christian value and exhorting Christian individuals.

He wrote in his Journals:

• "I ask: what does it mean when we continue to behave as though all were as it should be, calling ourselves Christians according to the New Testament, when the ideals of the New Testament have gone out of life? The tremendous disproportion which this state of affairs represents has, moreover, been perceived by many. They like to give it this turn: the human race has outgrown Christianity."

And you, Kelly, never took the time to understand what Christianity is. Since you don't have an understanding of Christianity and the Gospels, how can you claim to know Kierkegaard?

I believe that when he refers to the New Testament he is referring to the three Gospels, the Johannine Gospel, the Acts, the Pauline Epistles and Revelations. In short, those documents are filled to the brim with a whole, wide order of values, ideas and praxis. When he speaks of 'the values of the New Testament' we can assume he means what he says, and that those 'values' are contained therein and not someplace else, or being of some radically different order. When those values 'go out of life', he seems to say, one strays from the values he, Soren Kirkegaard, held in the highest esteem. If there is a loss to persons or to the collective, it is for that reason and that reason alone.

Anyone who reads what you write, Kelly, knows that in no sense do you refer to those Gospel values, or Epistle values, but to some confounded concoction that you have dreamed up in your own, vain, puffed-up, petite kiki, girlish head.

Kelly wrote: "Kierkegaard himself, in actuality, strove to be in the right relationship to God. I have already explained that God is not-finite, and to be in relationship to God is to realise that oneself is also God."

He may indeed have done that. But he did it through the mediumship of the person of Christ, the 'person' of God, and through the values of the Gospels. You remodel Kierkegaard untruthfully to serve your own project, 'whatever the heck it is' as I have said a frew times before.

"I just explained it to you."

You didn't really explain anything. You vainly attempted pontification. I would rather think you had a few things explained to you.

AJ wrote:

KJ: Since the truth of the nature of God is non-finite, to be in the closest relationship to God (to be in the truth) is to know oneself as non-finite.

AJ: I hope that you understand that though I read your pearl of wisdom, I paid it no heed. It is a grandiose phrasing and is an utter abstraction. I contend that, with some likelihood, our beloved Søren Kierkegaard would take issue with it for that reason.

Well, here's what Kierkegaard wrote about truth. And, lo and behold, how is he regarded?

A thoroughly Christian Christian I have not seen. The highest examples I have seen are some few of what I call human-lovable Christianity. But here the authentic qualification of the absolute is missing. It is more a quiet human kindliness, sympathetic concern, and the like, which of course was also found in paganism.

The Christian requirement of sacrifice stops at no point. One gives up everything, unconditionally everything, chooses God, holds to God. Enormous task, how rarely, how rarely does it happen. And yet Christianity does not stop here. I seem to hear such a man say: Well, now, I choose God — and forsake everything. But then — then God can surely be depended upon, then he will certainly not abandon me. Here we have the ultimate. The prototype teaches that Christian suffering also includes God's abandoning you right in your heaviest suffering. Frightful! And this is the teaching those job-holding men call the mild doctrine of truth.

A Christian pastor I have never known. The whole battle of orthodoxy and heterodoxy has no useful purpose whatsoever.

But now as to my situation. Without being so bold as to maintain that I am a fairly perfect Christian, I have existentially striven to express something of what is distinctive to Christianity, that there is some absolute — and I am regarded as mad, proud, selfish. Most ridiculous of all is that the setting is in Christendom and that there are 1,000 preachers, approximately 2 million Christians, and they all flatly regard me as mad.

...

The list of people who have been influenced by Kierkegaard [includes] ...

Philosophers: Jacques Derrida, Alasdair MacIntyre, Emmanuel Lévinas, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jürgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Martin Heidegger.

- Talking Ass

Keiji Nishitani of the Zen Kyoto School was for three years Heidegger's student, and material on Kierkegaard - of whom I know nothing - appears in Nishitani's work Religion and Nothingness. In that work Nishitani also deals with Sartre, Nietzsche, and other Westerns in a spirit not of disdain but instead, and as one would expect of an Eastern religious person, one of brotherhood. Zen and Tibetan Buddhism have been reaching out to the West, both by living here and by undertaking dialog in Western religion and philosophy. When Zen and Tibetan Buddhism advocate peace, what would one expect except peaceful dialog and not dismissal by those adopting the pretense of haughty superiority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_school

• "At times I have considered laying down my pen and, if anything should be done, to use my voice. Meanwhile I came by way of further reflection to the realization that it perhaps is more appropriate for me . . . once again to use my pen but in a different way, as I would use my voice, consequently in direct address to my contemporaries, winning men, if possible." (from 'For Self Examination').

_______________________________________________________

The reading of Kierkegaard is almost universally perceived as a difficult task and one fraught with danger, and the danger of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Sorting through his tactics of use of psuedonym, irony, 'subtlety' and 'paradox', render him especially difficult. Similarly to Nietzsche it is perhaps best to regard him as 'dynamite', and also similar to Nietzsche (if not in philosophy then in effect) understand that the dynamite works on 'the self' and the self's cohesion. After all, what ultimately is at stake here Kelly? If it is true that the Kierkegaardian 'dispair' results from 'an individual straying from the "pathway to selfhood," a path in which self-consciousness and self-analysis leads the way to a relationship with God' (Sylvia I. Walsh), I think we may locate that there is a danger and also where the danger lies: loss of 'selfhood' and loss of connection to self.

In regard to Walsh's 'Living Christianly: Kierkegaard's Dialectic of Christian Existence', the following point may have some relevance here:

• The pseudonymous works Kierkegaard wrote during the period 1843–46 have been responsible for establishing his reputation as an important philosophical thinker, but for Kierkegaard himself, they were merely preparatory for what he saw as the primary task of his authorship: to elucidate the meaning of what it is to live as a Christian and thus to show his readers how they could become truly Christian. The more overtly religious and specifically Christian works Kierkegaard produced in the period 1847–51 were devoted to this task. In this book Sylvia Walsh focuses on the writings of this later period and locates the key to Kierkegaard’s understanding of Christianity in the “inverse dialectic” that is involved in “living Christianly.”

My suggestion at this point, though nothing is as yet absolutely definitive, is that Quinn---and you as the female 'project' of QRStianity: the female weaned of her femininity and pulled with a certain violence into a realm of 'pure rationality'---take very specific aspects of Kierkegaard's spiritual and intellectual process and abstract it from the whole. It is crucial to understand this basic point: you remove Kierkegaard from his matrix within a Gospel Christianity and highlight certain extreme points which you then blend in with your own psychological extremism and with what begins to appear like a desire to 'extinguish the self'. At that point, I suggest, you utterly separate yourself from connection to Kierkegaard and his field of concerns and you become uniquely your own special animals. In regard to that, one could spend days-weeks-months-years trying to get to the bottom of 'what you are in fact doing in all this', which is none-too-clear despite the lucidity of the declarations of the nature of your project.

If it is true that the principal thrust of Kierkegaard is 'to elucidate the meaning of what it is to live as a Christian and thus to show his readers how they could become truly Christian', and if Christianity is defined as a relationship to the person of Jesus and the personalism of the Gospels, it leads to the question: What in the Holy Fuck are you doing in the midst of all this? I would suggest that you and Quinn have separated yourselves completely from the value-structure as well as the central spiritual relatedness that defines even the Kierkegaardian Christian (which is certainly not the only definition available, considerable or relevant). You have expropriated his 'genius' and you seek to mount it and to ride it toward some unrecognizable horizon. Heaven alone knows what you do when the lights are low. Now, while it is true that one gets to do anything one wants in the intellectual and existential world, and many people have focused on just an aspect of Kierkegaard and left the rest unconsidered, and in this you are no different than anyone else, still the appalling thing to me is the ridiculous arrogance of your assumptions and the preferencing of your own understanding, the hubristic assumption that you 'own' these intellectual figures and can dole out their meaning to all comers.

At least Robert Larkin admits he knows nothing of Kierkegaard.

But Alex Jacob, quoting a description of a book written by its publisher, how much does that tell us? The ideal of the true Christian, the near impossible task (did you read the book you trotted so hastily out, Alex? Do you know what means "the positive is known and expressed through the negative"?) is pretty much in line with how the gospels are interpreted by Quinn (this for example), or by myself, and others here. Do I need to add that you have zero experience or exposure to Christianity, unlike myself? What the fuck are you doing here in the midst of this discussion. Not long ago you needed basic introduction to the Bible, for heaven's sake!

And for removing Kierkegaard from centrality of his matrix within a Gospel Christianity, why don't you read some articles from this list, probably the largest online list of articles on Kierkegaard, maintained actually by a close friend of mine. The larger point being (while irrelevant if it didn't expose your ignorance wrapped up as stage act) that most of the analysis does not "centralize" in the Gospels or its usual interpretation. And then, the complex field of theology turns the idea of any "centering" in the gospels into something rather meaningless.

The mentioned list gives an impression of the broad scope and meanings, dialectic and reverse dialectic, contained inside the material and the many possible approaches towards interpretation inside the mainstream. To criticize one approach as being invalidated because there are a few others, is just insane, and by the way opposed to the whole ideal of Kierkegaard's existentialism anyway.

Some interesting ones to consider, from the ones I've read, from the top of my head:

• *Kierkegaard's Stages Toward Authentic Religious Experience And The Bodhisattva Path To Enlightenment
  * Kierkegaard and Iqbal
  * The Predicament of Man in Zen Buddhism and Kierkegaard

Talking Ass wrote: Kierkegaard's theological work---a great portion of it---focused exclusively on Christian ethics and the institution of the Chrurch, and yet 'he is as far from Christianity as can possibly be'.

Diebert's right. You give every impression that the sum total of your knowledge on Kierkegaard comes from the back of a cereal box.

Kierkegaard never engaged in theological work, in the sense of writing academic treaties on the Christian God or apolgetics for the creeds of Christianity. On the contrary, he despised theologians and the way they watered everything down and turned everything into a kind of soothing syrup.

His writings on "Christian ethics and the institution of the Church", as you put it, were simply his attempts to introduce the Infinite in small doses to the ordinary people in Denmark, all of whom were staunch members of the Christian religion. The Infinite still shines through these works behind the Christian language. It's not the sort of thing I would do myself, but he evidently thought it important.

And it obviously had an impact - since his death in 1855, Denmark has since been transformed from a pious Christian state to one of the most atheistic states in the world. So there may be something in it, after all.

The list of people who have been influenced by Kierkegaard, and whose intellectual work has moved into the human domain and influenced culture (that is to say, if you'll permit me, 'the body of Christ') extends very far beyond the almost ridiculous value of your offerings and accomplishments. I am inclined, again, to see your extreme hubris as pathological, not as merely quaint, ignorant and blusteringly stupid. You may need to back up a little bit, think things through...

Philosophers: Jacques Derrida, Alasdair MacIntyre, Emmanuel Lévinas, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jürgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Martin Heidegger.

Writers and Literati: Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, W. H. Auden, Walker Percy, Rainer Maria Rilke, David Lodge, Flannery O'Connor, John Updike.

Theologians: Karl Jaspers, Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Martin Buber, Ferdinand Ebner, Rudolf Bultmann, Friedrich Gogarten, Franz Rosenzweig, Abraham Joshua Heschel.

I'm not familiar with most of these people, but are there any here who are as ugly and as dishonest as me?

If so, I want to know them!

Talking Ass wrote:

• "Christendom has done away with Christianity without being quite aware of it".

One could say David Quinn has done away with Christianity without being aware of it. How strangely appropriate since what you do is 'in ignorance' and not 'in knowledge')

Funnily enough, I am actually trying to bring Christianity back into being again, just as Kierkegaard tried to do. "Christianity", in its pure sense, simply means following Jesus. In other words, the authentic Christian is one who follows in the footsteps of Jesus by "abandoning everything he holds dear" for the sake of "loving the Lord his God with all his heart all his mind, and all his soul", even though it will mean being "hated by all men".

But as Kierkegaard spent his life pointing out, this kind of thing ("imitation") is a little too earnest for the average Christian and so the established Christian religion ("Christendom") has long since turned everything upside down and transformed Christianity into a banal syrupy thing best suited to children and old women. Hence this quote (and many others like it):

• "Before long the generation finds imitation to be inconvenient and hits upon something new. They say: To imitate in this way is a little too earnest. Let us rather go out to the meadow and play at Christianity, but call it Christianity. That is, they introduce another actuality, an artistic actuality, or they introduce Christianity into the arts, removed from actuality by the distance of imagination."

And another appropriate one:

• "Nowadays everything must be done quite automatically. They have sunk down into sheer meaninglessness, and corresponding to this, Christianity has been remodeled into some kind of soothing syrup which, like other sweets: is offered for sale by pastry women (clergy in silk and velvet) and which further corrupts people."

And another:

• "If someone suggests that discipleship of imitation should be in earnest, then they say "This is blasphemy" - consequently, the truth is blasphemy."

And yet another:

• "Think of a very long railway train - but long ago the locomotive ran away from it. Christendom is the unmoving train, each generation linked to the previous one. The locomotive is Christianity, the restlessness of the eternal."

This earnestness, this singular, one-dimensional devotion to God, is the very thing that you find fault in me. I can just imagine you going up to Jesus and saying," Look here, Mr J, it's all very well you preaching that people should leave the world behind and do everything they can to reach the kingdom of heaven, but it all sounds a little pathological and adolescent to me. You should get out more and take in other people's points of view. Don't be so narrow-minded. Read some novels, listen to some music, look at some paintings, write some poetry - that will surely snap you out of it."

Yes indeed, Alex, you will surely make for a very good Christian.

However, I have to admit that your post wasn't a complete waste of space. I did actually learn something from you today - namely, the existence of the

• function. Never took any notice of it before. So - thanks!
  
  -

Alex, when you say I'm off track with my responses about Kierkegaard, you're only shooting the messenger. My response was pretty much literally what Kierkegaard wrote. But I didn't merely copy and paste. The messenger cannot be a messenger who has not immersed themselves wholly, wholly, wholly in penitence. There is no truth in abstraction, in saying "he said that" or "that is Kierkegaard". There is absolutely no way one can hope to understand him, unless one lives and experiences self-denial, the abandonment of finitude. It isn't "Kierkegaardian". For God's sake, if you had only understood anything of what he has left us, you would never misrepresent him like that.

It is "I understand, because I live it." One must dare to imitate, not merely to parrot or copy. Imitation (in Kierkegaard's words) means to be the same as. It is not Kierkegaard that one imitates. It is the authorship of the spirit, the submission of oneself to the truth, and hoaxing all that is purely human.

I have studied his personal writings very deeply, and not just skim-reading or picking things out at random. I typed everything he wrote in his private journals, letters, and papers, in chronological order, word by word. I learnt German and some Greek. It took me over two years, while deliberately arranging my life activities so as not to forget his concepts. I have never wanted to be a scholar, but to use his example in solitude as raw materials to help construct a taller ladder, as second-hand tools to teach me to make my own. Throughout the whole process, I was strung upon the frame, knowing never to assume similarity but remembering my own actuality, and the fact that the ladder and tools that I was constructing were my own.

And, yes, his concepts are profound, sometimes impossible for anyone other than himself to understand - and I wouldn't dare to try, since he doesn't give enough information. It is not merely intellectual, however, but a matter of having placed oneself into the equations, whereupon the whole ballgame can be played. That is why study of Kierkegaard is utterly wrong-headed that doesn't take full possession of the truths, or rather, a study is utterly wrong where one isn't totally and abysmally immersed in the ideas. There is no intellectual distancing possible in this.

There's no second-hand. One's knowledge is about one's own relationship to the truth. Kierkegaard cannot replace this, but he most certainly can reveal if one has no soul.


...

Diebert writes: "Why don't you read some articles from this list, probably the largest online list of articles on Kierkegaard, maintained actually by a close friend of mine".

How good of a friend, I ask hesitatingly? Are you FUCKING him Diebert?! What is the point of mentioning this?

;-)

I mean, really Diebert. You are such a fop! As much as you'd like it to be that way you are not my Teacher, and I don't really feel I have a great deal to learn from you, though learning from anyone is always a pleasure and a great reason to participate in these forums. Can you begin to get this into your head, maybe just a bit today? You and Kelly and Quinn have this sort of disease that you are here to 'instruct', it is a subtext to all you write, but when push comes to shove you'll really lay it on the line: "Here, read these!" And each of them sounds just like how YOU sound! It is like a machine that gets turned on and just sputters forth this ridiculous type of prose. But what really is one to take away from them? What is the existential value?

The whole originating initiative of this forum, apparently, is intimately wedded to this idea of 'salvation through teaching', but I suggest to you (and you I always thought were one to receive it) that you don't have anywhere near as much to teach as you have to learn. Does that not sit well with you? I can imagine it doesn't given the exalted and over-blown sense you have of yourself. All I can tell you, man, is that the roads of life are long and one way or another learning comes.

I presented, over a series of posts, some pretty strong challenges to the assumptions---certainly of Kelly---but of this forum generally with your-plural relationship to Kierkegaard as the focus, though all the intellects admired are similarly 'fetishized' (and this needs to be challenged). Despite your blathering and pompous post, those critiques still stand. In any case I am quite content with them. If you REALLY and in good faith want to discuss the points I am bringing up then we can do that. But this stupidity of challenging my understanding of Kierkegaard who has also been an influence on my thinking by implying that I need to read whatever crap you read to get familiarity---is just more of the same preposterousness one gets all the time around here.

David writes: "This earnestness, this singular, one-dimensional devotion to God, is the very thing that you find fault in me."

No, that is not it at all. Though I am learning to be suspicious of your declarations of commitment, I still accept your commitment as you describe it more or less at face value. It is rather that I think your commitment is 'neurotic'. I have said this numerous times. One can be 'commited' to the wrong thing in the wrong way, people do this all the time. This is a danger of our 'post-modern condition', it is a symptom of desperation, and I have also written about that. You seem to grab on to extremes and to push extremism. I question what you are getting all extreme ABOUT. Your concept of spiritual life, your understanding of 'Jesus', your shallow rendering of Christianity, your lack of understanding of a group of very basic things that have to do with the heart of man, the emotional self, the process of transformation of the self through (what I would call) genuine spirituality---all these things point in the direction of someone who---and who know why?---has gone off the rails.

But I know that none of this makes any sense to you, and for that reason you remain Mahatma Quinn, backed up by the Forth Genius and L'il Sis.

You don't think I am writing to convince you, do you? ;-) (And btw, we both owe the list feature to Diebert. Hit [*] when you want to make a bullet. It is fun!

Hello again, Alyosha.

This is a long post, I'm afraid, which I normally don't like. But it can't be helped in this case, as the issues involved are too important. Let's hope you're patient!

AlyOshA wrote: Philosophical discrimination, dispassion, and discernment... "This" is a delusion because it is not God, "that" is a delusion because it is not God, everything I experience in the physical world is a delusion because it is not God, thinking is a delusion because it is not God, God is everything, this is God, that is God, thinking is a tool to understand God, acting is a means of fulfilling God’s will. With each breath I inhale I die, with each exhale I am born again… God Is.

I like that. Very nicely phrased and expressing an important truth. I've quoted it first up because I'll be referring to it several times in the course of this post. For convenience - and in a perfectly dry, Vivekenandian manner - I'll refer to it as your God Statement, or GS, for short.

AlyOshA wrote:

David Quinn wrote:]and can actually provide a challenge

A challenge to what? This sort of validates my suspicions. Just as a jock likes to be challenged in athletics to show off his muscles, so does a philosopher like to be challenged in endless philosophical debates to show off his brain-muscle. This leads nowhere in my opinion and is not characteristic of one who's obtained enlightenment.

Point taken.

AlyOshA wrote:You hold tight to a dogmatic philosophy of everything, trying to contain it by words but ultimately fail.

Not at all. I use words to confront, provoke, irritate, wound, stimulate, inspire - anything to awaken people out of their slumbers and have them valuing wisdom. But I never use them to capture or contain anything, or to construct dogmatic edifices.

This could just be the fault of relying on less than adequate tools, but it is your lack of humility in this medium that really discredits the handful of truths you actually “point to”.

I am humble towards truth, which is the only form of humility there is. Everything else is pretence.

... if you follow their philosophy to its inevitable conclusion you will see that their methods of obtaining what they have claimed to obtain is impossible and no longer valid to logical deduction. Not to mention that they do not display most of the characteristics of the truths they value. But the only way to help them realize it is to put it in their own words using their own logic (I am not a Christ figure so I will not do this for them). If they truly experienced enlightenment according to their philosophy, then like the salt doll meeting the ocean, they would dissolve, go silent, no longer assert their "opinions" on this forum, and certainly wouldn't have the aggressive, singularly asserting egos that they display.

Like Alex, you must have a singularly low opinion of Jesus.....

If you look over my posts, you will see that there is very little aggression in them, if any. Yes, I am direct, I speak my mind, I address people in a simple, straightforward manner, I don't pad things out and pander to people's egos - to all this I readily concede. But aggression, no.

I think what really upsets you is that I don't affirm what you value. Simple as that. This irritates you because you believe that you are in the right and I am seemingly implacable in my refusal to acknowledge it. This is unfortunate, but it doesn't make me the aggressive, dogmatic turd that you are painting me to be. You must allow me the right to stand up for what I believe to be true.

Why you insist that your way is superior always causes you to slide back down the mountain and that is clear as day on your reasoning show – even when faced by a Christian rationalist ☺

I have no idea what any part of this sentence means. Even the full-stop is having trouble handling it!

AlyOshA wrote:

It is like the difference between following instructions, maps and road signs that lead directly to Rome, and that of looking at paintings of Rome, or hearing songs sung about it. The former can take you to Rome itself, while the latter at best can only awaken the desire to go there.

That is a good analogy, but I disagree with the methods you are referring to. You are saying that philosophical wording is a road map to understanding whereas art is just a representation.

Not even a representation. More of a vague whiff, if that.

Wittgenstein clearly displayed that philosophical wording can only lead one to a representation and eventually becomes a road block to understanding. The final chapter of his masterpiece is one sentence "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence".

Wittgenstein, Dostoevsky - again like Alex, you really do set your sights low. Wittgenstein is highy over-rated and had no knowledge of infinite matters. I have no idea why you would think it appropriate to refer to him.

Unless all this is just an exercise in name-dropping, you really need to demonstrate the claims you make. In this case, you need to provide good sound reasons for the claim that the use of philosophic words and concept invariably leads to a road block to understanding. Simply making references to dubious characters is meaningless to me.

AlyOshA wrote:So explain to me why you feel that words are the best road maps to the understanding of

a mystery in which everything is understood and nothing is understood

liberation from the need to see or do anything or to even understand anything

the fullness of all things which don't really exist

??? You are relying on words to convey that which doesn’t need to be understood, when nothing needs to be understood, in describing the things that don’t really exist?

If you follow my words and reflect on them - or the words of any of the great thinkers, like Lao Tzu, Huang Po, Hakuin, Kierkegaard, etc - then you will easily come to understand these matters for yourself. Their words are powerful sling-shots into the Infinite.

The power of words to enlighten is really only limited by the person uttering them and his listener absorbing them. Great, skillful words coming from a sage who is steeped in the light of nirvana can take his listener to the very brink of nirvana, providing that the listener himself is intelligent and responsive and seriously desiring of becoming enlightened.

Failing this, then yes, your point begins to have some merit. The unsagely person doing the uttering (like a Wittgenstein) directs his words ignorantly and aimlessly, hoping blindly that something will happen, and the ignorant listener clumsily strips even further meaning and value from the words he receives. In such a situation, which is very much the norm in this world, the best you can hope for out of this mess is some kind of meaningful "representation".

Seen in this light, it is no wonder that people often find art more stimulating and meaningful. It's like choosing one mess over another.

AlyOshA wrote:

Again, I have a different understanding of enlightenment to you. For me, enlightenment means perfect understanding steeped in the experience of nirvanic freedom. For you, it would seem that enlightenment refers to sublime altered states or mystical experiences, which are an entirely different kettle of fish. This would account for why
you consider music to be important.

This is the whole point of the conversation right? So far I do not think that we view enlightenment differently as much as I feel that our methods are different, our obtainment is different, and we are different people.

No, our views of enlightenment are very different, and it is precisely because of this difference that our views on method are also very different.

To me, enlightenment simply means sanity, the natural flow of a pure mind which is undistorted by delusion. For you, it seems to be a kind of otherworldly, off-the-wall experience of "isness".

AlyOshA wrote: For me enlightenment is not an "altered state", it is the experience of the quintessence of all existence – rather a super-conscious state. It is beyond the sublime (as I stated in my first post). As for "mystical experiences" the word "mystical" refers to "mystery" and is defined as "a spiritual meaning or reality that is neither apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence" - your description of

a mystery in which everything is understood and nothing is understood

- perfectly fits in the category of "mystical". You are describing a state that both includes the observable finite causes and effects and the infinite totality which exists within and beyond the duality of causality, space, and time. The infinite totality cannot be seen, heard, touched, smelled, tasted, "nor obvious to the intelligence". But we both agree that it can be experienced.

On the contrary, it can never be experienced. But neither can we ever stop experiencing it.

I refer you back to your GS.

AlyOshA wrote:After all, a map is an IMAGE not words. So let me describe to you "my" map to Rome. The best illustration for me is the Lemniscate:
∞
The outer loops of the lemniscate represent causality, space, time. Most people are only aware of the surface value of the lemniscate and travel around and around each loop - enslaved by the delusions of the finite. Those outer loops reconfigure, evolve, and expand outwards infinitely. The very center at the cross section where the loops meet represents zero. It always remains the same - formless, unmoving, and unchangeable. This is the point where now (the timeless present) meets infinity and zero. All of existence radiates and emanates from this central cross section.

To put it in philosophical terms, Wittgenstein writes (and I've quoted before):

“2.027: Objects, the unalterable, and the subsistent are one and the same.

2.0271: Objects are what is unalterable and subsistent; their configuration is what is changing and unstable.”

So enlightenment to me is the experience of the sameness of "objects, the unalterable, and the subsistent". It is aligning consciousness with the true self, which in essence is a unified oneness, unalterable, infinite and non-existent simultaneously.

I am getting all sorts of information here, not all of it consistent. The Lemniscate quote is okay, sort of on the right track, but still rather convoluted and naive to my ears. God knows why you included the Wittgestein quotes, they have nothing to do with the matter. Your final sentence is the best of the lot, but it still doesn't disguise the basic problem that I have with you - namely, that you are still treating spiritual enlightenment in a mystical, dualistic manner.

There are many different ways to do this. One way is through arduous and extremely rigid philosophical discrimination, dispassion, and discernment. But since the inevitable conclusion is silence (as Wittgenstein clearly proves in philosophical terms) then one could simply skip to the heart of the matter instantly. No thoughts, no words, something still exists beyond thoughts and words, total immersion in what IS, liberation from what is not.

Again, your naive mysticism is at play. Silence is certainly not the final conclusion! You are still thinking in terms of duality. You are still dividing reality into "this" and "that", and then allowing yourself to believe that reality is only confined to "that".

AlyOshA wrote:

To be honest, I don't think much of Vivekenanda.

I have to admit I am surprised by this. To me Vivekananda is the more intellectual and philosophically impenetrable. Likewise he is more cold, sterile, and seemingly lifeless. No offense, but I had you pawned as a Vivekananda personality. Ramakrishna was pure "heart". Much more emotional than intellectual. Song and Dance were his preferred forms of worship and led him to Samadhi more than any other practice (that scenario is described in virtually every chapter of his book). He spoke of shedding "tears" for God.

I don't go along with the dichotomy you make here, even though it is a popular one. The path to enlightenment is really a combination of intellect and heart. You can't reach God without having the sheer passion to be immersed in Him, without, as Ramakrishna says, "shedding tears" for Him, just as you can't reach Him without knowing how to systematically shed the conceptual delusions that form the barrier between you and Him. In the end, pure heart is just as ineffective as dry intellect.

For mine, the predominant personality trait of Ramakrishna is not emtionalism or heart, but childlikeness. He is mischevious, playful, impulsive, unworldly, loves the theatrical, etc. He refused to grow up into an adult, but instead deviated into a saintly kind of childishness.

As for his going into trance-like "samadhis", I must admit that this had me puzzled for a long time because I have long known that this sort of behaviour has nothing to do with being wise and leading the enlightened life. The truly enlightened person doesn't have to go anywhere to experience enlightenment, neither inwardly nor outwardly. His enlightenment is literally everywhere. The very idea of having to go into a trance and lose consciousness of the world in order to experience enlightenment would immediately strike him as laughably absurd. Like "painting legs on a snake", as a Zen master once qupped. (I again refer you back to your GS).

So why did Ramakrishna do it?

Firstly, I believe that it was beyond his control, that it was a habit he developed at a very young age and became so entrenched over the years that later in life he would just fall into it at the drop of a hat, without him having any say in the matter. It was a kind of pathology, one that happened to have dove-tailed into his interests as a guru and which only added to his mystique.

It is similar to what happens in people who develop multiple personalities, or "dissociative identity disorder", as it is called these days. In these cases, young children who are severely abused and traumatized on a regular basis learn to cope with it by creating mental spaces into which they can hide and lose consciousness of what is happening to them. Over time this becomes a habitual coping mechanism, such that when any kind of stressful event occurs they instinctively scurry off into their hiding place in the mind. This hiding place, in turn, begins to take on a life of its own, complete with its own ever-growing neural network, and before you know it a new and separate personality has developed.

I think something similar happened with Ramakrishna. I'm not necessarily saying that he was abused or traumatized as a child, although he may have been, but I believe that at a very young age he cottoned onto the trick of creating a space in the mind and devoted it to the exploration of a childlike experiences, including naive forms of mysticism. In effect, he created a kind of magical inner world that contrasted with humdrum realities of Indian life, one that he could enter into at will with the help of a few mental tricks. And as he grew older, it was something that he returned to time and time again, until it eventually became instinctive and beyond his control. In later life, even something as trivial as a few musical notes could set him off.

Again, this isn't really a spiritual trait on his part, but rather a form of pathological behaviour which allowed him to experience various forms of mental bliss, which needn't have had any connection to enlightenment and probably often didn't. Interestingly, though, it did serve him well in his role as a guru. In a land where gurus have to compete fiercely with one another for customers - some having to bury themselves for years on end, or roll along the ground, or do handstands, or perform magic tricks, or grow their fingernails to inordinate lengths - his habit of theatrically slipping into trances was undoubtedly very useful. It also gave him an escape route to avoid stressful situations, much like how certain kinds of people develop the knack of magically falling "sick" in order to avoid unpleasant situations, or to stop people being nasty to them.

It was a win-win situation for him. No wonder he was always so happy!

No offense, but I had you pawned as a Vivekananda personality. Ramakrishna was pure "heart".

I'm situated somewhere between Ramakrishna and Vivekenanda. I'm very childlike in my personality as well (I too resisted all attempts to grow into an adult), but I rarely have the desire to be all theatrical like Ramakrishna. My communication is more intellectual than Ramakrishna, and more playful and Zennish than Vivekenanda.

AlyOshA wrote:Ramakrishna:

MASTER : "No one can say with finality that God is only 'this' and nothing else. He is formless, and again He has forms. For the bhakta He assumes forms. But He is formless for the jnani, that is, for him who looks on the world as a mere dream. The bhakta feels that he is one entity and the world another. Therefore God, reveals Himself to him as a Person. But
the jnani — the Vedantist, for instance — always reasons, applying the process of 'Not this, not this'. Through this discrimination he realizes, by his inner perception, that the ego and the universe are both illusory, like a dream. Then the jnani realizes Brahman in his own consciousness. He cannot describe what Brahman is.

"Do you know what I mean? Think of Brahman, Existence-Knowledge- Bliss Absolute, as a shoreless ocean. Through the cooling influence, as it were, of the bhakta's love, the water has frozen at places into blocks of ice. In other words, God now and then assumes various forms for His lovers and reveals Himself to them as a Person. But with the rising of the sun of
Knowledge, the blocks of ice melt. Then one doesn't feel any more that God is a Person, nor does one see God's forms. What He is cannot be described. Who will describe Him? He who would do so disappears. He cannot find his 'I' any more.

"If one analyses oneself, one doesn't find any such thing as 'I'. Take an onion, for instance. First of all you peel off the red outer skin; then you find thick white skins. Peel these off one after the other, and you won't find anything inside.

"In that state a man no longer finds the existence of his ego. And who is there left to seek it? Who can describe how he feels in that state — in his own Pure Consciousness — about the real nature of Brahman? Once a salt doll went to measure the depth of the ocean. No sooner was it in the water than it melted. Now who was to tell the depth?

"There is a sign of Perfect Knowledge. Man becomes silent when It is attained. Then the 'I', which may be likened to the salt doll, melts in the Ocean of Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute and becomes one with It. Not the slightest trace of distinction is left.

"As long as his self-analysis is not complete, man argues with much ado. But he becomes silent when he completes it. When the empty pitcher has been filled with water, when the water inside the pitcher becomes one with the water of the lake outside, no more sound is heard. Sound comes from the pitcher as long as the pitcher is not filled with water.

It's good that you posted this because it neatly sums up what Ramrakrishna was all about, together with his virtues and flaws.

Firstly, regarding the "Man becomes silent when It is attained" bit, this refers to the stillness of understanding that arises when the illusion of one's existence is utterly seen through and all concerns and worries vanish. It has nothing to do with refraining from speaking or writing, as Ramakrishna's penchant for the verbose clearly shows.

The part that really interests me here, however, is the first two paragraphs, in which Ramakrishna tries to justify his decision to teach people the bhakti path (the path of unthinking devotion). He says:

"No one can say with finality that God is only 'this' and nothing else. He is formless, and again He has forms. For the bhakta He assumes forms. But He is formless for the jnani, that is, for him who looks on the world as a mere dream. The bhakta feels that he is one entity and the world another. Therefore God, reveals Himself to him as a Person. But the jnani — the Vedantist, for instance — always reasons, applying the process of 'Not this, not this'. Through this discrimination he realizes, by his inner perception, that the ego and the universe are both illusory, like a dream. Then the jnani realizes Brahman in his own consciousness. He cannot describe what Brahman is.

Ramakrishana is straight away playing a funny kind of double game here.

On the one hand, he affirms the truth that God is formless and treats it as the superior form of knowledge (as he should). But then immediately, he also adds to this a lie (that God possesses, or can possess, form). Not only this, he wavers between treating this additional information as an inferior piece of knowledge, as an equal piece of knowledge, and as a lie.

Moreover, the lie itself has a double meaning - it could be a reference to the truth that all forms are God, or it could be a reference to the personal deities that so many love to worship - Krishna, Kali, Jesus, Virgin Mary, Buddha, etc. In this way, you are never quite sure whether he wants people to regard this as a valid path to wisdom or not, because he is constantly oscillating between the affirmation of both.

And so already, in the space of a few words, a smokescreen filled with all sorts of complex scenarios arises.

This is not good at all.

You can see the cunning behind it. If challenged by anyone, Ramakrishna can easily defend his lying by saying that he is actually pointing to the truth that all forms are God. But there is no denying the reality that he is presenting it as an affirmation that the worship of personal deities is a perfectly sound stepping stone to wisdom. In other words, he is simply giving his followers what they want to hear, no matter how dubious it is.

He then goes onto say:

"Do you know what I mean? Think of Brahman, Existence-Knowledge- Bliss Absolute, as a shoreless ocean. Through the cooling influence, as it were, of the bhakta's love, the water has frozen at places into blocks of ice. In other words, God now and then assumes various forms for His lovers and reveals Himself to them as a Person. But with the rising of the sun of Knowledge, the blocks of ice melt. Then one doesn't feel any more that God is a Person, nor does one see God's forms. What He is cannot be described.

The justification here for his teaching of the bhakti path is that pure devotion to a diety can of itself lead to the arising of the great knowledge of God's formlessness. The trouble is, this hardly ever happens in the real world. Most worshippers of deities never graduate to the next level. If anything, when such devotees experience an altered state or a mystical experience or some other such aspect of the "sun of Knowledge", it usually only causes a strengthening of their attachment to the deity, believing that it was the deity itself which caused the magical experience. In this way, through Ramakrishna's mealy-mouthed approach to this issue, the evil of religion is perpetuated and the terrible suffering it causes in the world continues unabated.

All this points to a significant flaw in Ramakrishna' s character. Because he was so childlike, he had the natural desire to be chummy with people and not hurt anyone. He was like a puppy in that regard, which only wants to dance about and play. As such, he naturally thought that it is better to give people lies and half-truths if it makes them happy, than it is to hurt them through a more uncompromising expression of truth. And we have all been paying for this weak, compromised behaviour ever since.

-

Talking Ass wrote: David writes: "This earnestness, this singular, one-dimensional devotion to God, is the very thing that you find fault in me."

No, that is not it at all. Though I am learning to be suspicious of your declarations of commitment, I still accept your commitment as you describe it more or less at face value. It is rather that I think your commitment is 'neurotic'. I have said this numerous times. One can be 'commited' to the wrong thing in the wrong way, people do this all the time. This is a danger of our 'post-modern condition', it is a symptom of desperation, and I have also written about that. You seem to grab on to extremes and to push extremism. I question what you are getting all extreme ABOUT. Your concept of spiritual life, your understanding of 'Jesus', your shallow rendering of Christianity, your lack of understanding of a group of very basic things that have to do with the heart of man, the emotional self, the process of transformation of the self through (what I would call) genuine spirituality---all these things point in the direction of someone who---and who know why?---has gone off the rails.

Aw, Alex, should you really be telling me this? Given my pathological state, you know that I will only be taking it as confirmation that I am on the right track. After all, Jesus was considered to be mad in his day, as was Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, while Socrates was deemed to gone off the rails too .....

-

All this discussion of Kierkegaard. I've actually only read Either/Or, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and something I usually never do but for some ungodly reason I read some type of greatest hits compilation. Will someone please recommend what they feel to be one of his strongest books? Or at least a good next step in consuming his output because I feel what I've read so far has not really grabbed at the heart of what he has to offer.

Kierkegaard often repeated certain concepts, that struck him deeply. He would continue to revisit them, digging deeper, using them like life-mantras. So I would recommend the Hongs' volumes, that have those concepts arranged by theme. It's like listening to his thought, his own voice at home, rather than getting a formal lecture in a seminary. They're also very succinct, much less wordy than his formal pseudonymous writings.

I have scanned all the volumes, and could create several PDFs for you. But I didn't use OCR, and sometimes <150dpi. I'll have to check but I don't think they'd be searchable PDFs.

Other than those, I'd recommend Bretall's anthology.


...

Alex, you didn't have a little toe to stand on in your arguments about Kierkegaard's pseudonyms. You haven't even studied him, so when I gave you a straight answer to your question of why he used pseudonyms, you called me haughty and arrogant. You don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Don't you have an ounce of integrity, to move you to apologise for your ignorance?

Calling me "little sister" or "sisterly helpmate" is real sick. It's an attempt to belittle and mock a female who is serious, intelligent, and strong-minded. It's as if you regard all women as nothingnesses, so when you find one that irritates you, you try to squash her into a similar subservient role --- or, you totally ignore her, to send the message that she is a nothing, a mere house-fly buzzing irritatingly at the window. It's a form of murder. Your view of women is deeply unfair, since you believe that a female who is clearly a reason-loving person, and supportive of others she sees as reasonable, is merely playing dress-ups and dabbling like a three-year-old.

Instead of apologising, you mock the people you have wronged.


...