Virtue is the last Bastion of Evil

[Cred]

I was working on a moral system the other day, and it turned out that it is hard to define what evil is. I'm a satanist and I don't believe that cruelty or selfishness are evil and love and altruism are good for example.

I came to the conclusion, that morality might not be absolute, but a historical process and different levels of scarcity necessitate different moral systems. I came to the conclusion, that self-hatred is the "last of the evils" so to say. However, self-hatred is only a symptom. I believe that the cause of self-hatred is virtue and the "good vs bad" dichotomy itself.

If you think about it, it makes complete sense from a mythological standpoint. Lucifer is the most sneaky force in the universe, wouldn't it make sense for it to win the war of good vs evil by embodying the war itself? 

Any time you affirm virtue, goodness, beauty, ability, competence, etc. you participate in the war against the respective opposite and therefore are evil, if it does not come from a place of scarcity.

The alternative that needs to be put forward to replace virtue is authenticity. Don't ask: Is it good? Ask instead: Is it authentic?

Only if one replaces virtue with authenticity, radical self-acceptance is possible, since virtue is too restrictive. Think about it. If you engage in a restrictive (moral) system, how do you expect to be able to breathe freely?

Since I ditched virtuousness I feel so alive and have never been this productive.

Edited yesterday at 12:28 AM by Cred

[Oeaohoo]

[Human Mint]

I get the sense that you instead meant "perfectionism". Because the flow states that you enter are virtue itself. Or Spirit the way I see it.

[Cred]

@Human Mint 

Why excellence is the enemy of flow

The Problem that I have with virtue is that it includes "ideal", "moral", "manly", "excellence".

Excellence and flow are not supposed to be goals or an ideal. They are meant to be a byproduct of authenticity.

If you value excellence, then you automatically fear mediocrity. So If you value excellence, you become less effective. Why? Because if you do, and you engage in something, you don't engage in the thing but rather in the question "am I being excellent or mediocre?" which is actually a distraction from the object and therefore ineffective and the opposite of flow.

Edit: I hope I was able to make clear that my claim is a lot more radiacal then just "perfectionism is evil". No I'm saying ANY notion of good that is not authenticity is evil. This also includes "responsibility" for example.

Edited yesterday at 12:54 AM by Cred

[Joseph Maynor]

People only tolerate evil when they can stop it (have the power to stop it).  So it's a power issue.  If you're on the other side of evil that you can't control (power you don't have), your naivete about evil will disappear fast.  It's easy to be ambivalent about power when you have the actual power to regulate a system.

[gettoefl]

Authenticity isn't that special since it is just the egoic reaction to conformity. Try alignment. Alignment is me getting out of the way so the absolute has the reins. 

[Cred]

@gettoefl I'm not sure what you mean. Can you please elaborate?

[gettoefl]

32 minutes ago, Cred said:

@gettoefl I'm not sure what you mean. Can you please elaborate?

You posited authenticity as being an absolute foundation but according to what I suggested that is not the case.

[Cred]

What do you mean by "reaction to conformity"

Also what do you mean with being aligned with the absolute. Isn't the absolute everything? So it's impossible not to align with the absolute? Do you mean align with emptiness?

[gettoefl]

35 minutes ago, Cred said:

What do you mean by "reaction to conformity"

Also what do you mean with being aligned with the absolute. Isn't the absolute everything? So it's impossible not to align with the absolute? Do you mean align with emptiness?

They are opposite poles and so cannot be absolute. Most have never aligned with the absolute; this is also called awakening. Life for such people is blocking the absolute in favor of them being their own god. To align with the absolute as I mentioned is getting out of God's way.

[Cred]

Ah okay I think I get it. Thanks for elaborating.

I assume with "they" you mean emptiness and authenticity?

Can you please define what you mean when you say "absolute" and "god" and how your definitions are seperate from emptiness.

Currently my definitions are:

• The absolute is the set of all possible ideas (spirit fragments) and therefore fragments and therefore existences plus emptiness
• The Spirit is the Fragment which is the set of fragments that actually managed to come into existence in this universe. I described how that happend in a recent post.
• Emptiness is non-spirit.
• My current definition of God is: The Fragment + emptiness

If you mean emptiness when you talk about the absolute, can you differentiate it from asceticism?

[gettoefl]

For me the absolute which sometimes we refer to as God is quite simply all there is - similar to what you describe above. Problem is most have never experienced it! Everything we see before our eyes is a veil over reality that we are thoroughly convinced exists and therefore appears but in fact has no meaning. We prefer limitation and specialness and suffering to infinity and equality and harmony. And that is an okay choice to make. When we want it to end, we will choose reality instead of fantasy, or better said stop blocking awareness of the truth.

[gettoefl]