Hello there. Sorry I haven't been writing very much here recently. I'm trying to write "321" the evangelistic book right now. Please pray for that project if you remember. And perhaps you can help me with something....
At one point in the book I talk about the four fundamental realities you can choose between in the beginning - nothing, chaos, power or love (see here for the seed of the idea). Was wondering if you had any good quotes for each of the options.
If you believe in the beginning there was nothing - life is absurd, meaningless, hopeless.
If you believe in the beginning there was chaos - life is endless struggle and power plays.
If you believe in the beginning there was power - life is a slavery to almighty god or law or fate.
If you believe in the beginning there was love - life is about finding your place in God's family of love.
Do you have any quotes from nihilists, ultra-Darwinians, determinists, theologians or others that would put flesh on those bones?
Some things that come to mind:
Gordon Liddy, who worked in the US President Nixon's administration, was a hard core Nietzschean at one point. He said in an interview, when asked what happens after death, that he would be wormfood.
Could mine through Dostoevysky's Inquisitor scene in Brothers Karamazov for some good stuff.
There's a scene in the show Game of Thrones where Littlefinger gives a speech about how all things are illusions except the "Ladder". Life is about power.
And, of course, the ever famous Augustine's "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you" bit.
Could probably also find some stuff from Schopenhauer and Rand that'd also fit your bill.
Here's the Littlefinger quote: "Chaos isn't a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some, are given a chance to climb. They refuse, they cling to the realm or the gods or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is."
Whether Petyr Baelish, Lord of Harrenhall is really going to honestly express his opinion to Varys - who is his biggest rival and a similar climber - however, is another matter. That said it is close to describing his character's methods, and while showing any of his cards to someone who hasn't lost The Game was out of character, he was gloating about getting one over on Varys, plus it gave a neat bit of screenwriting with the links to events elsewhere.
“But what becomes of the divinity when it reveals itself in icons, when it is simply incarnated in images as a visible theology? Or does it volatilize itself in the simulacra that, alone, deploy their power and pomp of fascination - the visible machinery of icons substituted for the pure and intelligible Idea of God? This is precisely what was feared by Iconoclasts, whose millennial quarrel is still with us today. This is precisely because they predicted this omnipotence of simulacra, the faculty simulacra have of effacing God from the conscience of man, and the destructive, annihilating truth that they allow to appear - that deep down God never existed, even God himself was never anything but his own simulacra - from this came their urge to destroy the images. If they could have believed that these images only obfuscated or masked the Platonic Idea of God, there would have been no reason to destroy them. One can live with the idea of distorted truth. But their metaphysical despair came from the idea that the image didn't conceal anything at all.”
― Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation
Helpful guys, thank you. On reflection, I'm gonna go more pop culture. These will be useful :)
for nothingness - ‘There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendour, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing. Why live in such a world? Why even die?’ - Bertrand Russell
I'm totally dry. Sorry to be of no help
“As far as I’m concerned, the Universe is a junk yard, with everything in it overpriced. I am through poking around in the junk heaps, looking for bargains. Every so-called bargain has been connected by fine wires to a dynamite bouquet.”---Malachi Constant in "The Sirens of Titan", by Kurt Vonnegut