It is a commonplace that the Christian Heaven, as usually portrayed, would attract nobody. Almost all Christian writers dealing with Heaven either say frankly that it is indescribable or conjure up a vague picture of gold, precious stones, and the endless singing of hymns. This has, it is true, inspired some of the best poems in the world […] but what it could not do was to describe a condition in which the ordinary human being actively wanted to be.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1943-12-20), “Can Socialists Be Happy?” Tribune Newspaper [as John Freeman]
More about this quote: wist.info/orwell-george/85331/
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Orwell, George - Essay (1943-12-20), "Can Socialists Be Happy?" Tribune Newspaper [as John Freeman] | WIST Quotations
It is a commonplace that the Christian Heaven, as usually portrayed, would attract nobody. Almost all Christian writers dealing with Heaven either say frankly that it is indescribable or conjure up a vague picture of gold, precious stones, and the en…WIST Quotations
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🇪🇷Götterdämmerung
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🇪🇷Götterdämmerung
in reply to 🇪🇷Götterdämmerung • • •IOW Hell has eyewitnesses everywhere.
Nietzsche agreed that heaven was dull but rejected Schopie's conclusion. The trouble was that Christianity removes everything that makes existence interesting: danger/pride/desire/struggle/ambition/creation/overcoming. And describes the remainder "eternal life." Ergo, Nietzsche's wicked observation "all the interesting people are missing in heaven."
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🇪🇷Götterdämmerung
in reply to 🇪🇷Götterdämmerung • • •Christianity promises to cure existence of conflict. Nietzsche's objection is that the operation succeeds but the patient becomes deadly dull as fuck.
So Orwell finds a literary failure. Schopenhauer finds a metaphysical truth: we understand suffering better than happiness cuz desire structures consciousness.
Nietzsche finds an indictment: a paradise w/o striving abolishes suffering by abolishing life's intensity.
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🇪🇷Götterdämmerung
in reply to 🇪🇷Götterdämmerung • • •Schopenhauer wants release from the machinery of desire. Nietzsche wants us to become strong enough to affirm it.
Sam diagnosis, opposite prescriptions.
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