Night of 11th-12th July 1941
The natural piety of man—Russian atheists know how to die—No atheistical education.
I think the man who contemplates the universe with his eyes wide open is the man with the greatest amount of natural piety: not in the religious sense, but in the sense of an intimate harmony with things.
Man has discovered in nature the wonderful notion of that all-mighty being whose law he worships. Fundamentally in everyone there is the feeling for this all-mighty, which we call God (that is to say, the dominion of natural laws throughout the whole universe). The priests, who have always succeeded in exploiting this feeling, threaten punishments for the man who refuses to accept the creed they impose. When one provokes in a child a fear of the dark, one awakens in him a feeling of atavistic dread. Thus this child will be ruled all his life by this dread, whereas another child, who has been intelligently brought up, will be free of it.
It’s said that every man needs a refuge where he can find consolation and help in unhappiness. I don’t believe it! If humanity follows that path, it’s solely a matter of tradition and habit. That’s a lesson, by the way, that can be drawn from the Bolshevik front. The Russians have no God, and that doesn’t prevent them from being able to face death. We don’t want to educate anyone in atheism.
2 replies on “Uncle Adolf’s table talk, 3”
I would better describe it as the question of the rational against the irrational. You can teach a Communist child to give up his life in the name of Stalin, Mother Russia or the goddess Kali instead of Jesus but it’s the same technique. Any desire is irrational for its basis is the belief that there are things outside your consciousness, the belief in “divine”, a capacity to love and sacrifice for something greater than one’s self. But that is alien to the current West indulged in pleasure which is a rational act, because you can only be aware of yourself, not of a nation (Protoss in StarCraft had Khala, that very connection to others). The logical continuation would be eternal life, but as it’s impossible, suicide is fine, too. However, they don’t even think about it, for deriving pleasure is living in the now, and having a desire is about looking into the future, beyond one’s self, one’s death, one’s mortal boundaries.
The question is how can you turn a rational person into an irrational one without lobotomy or direct violence? (And Europeans would sooner become martyrs than racists, I’m afraid. They have no desire for blood revenge.) That’s why I would say that starting with theists, with those whose minds are weak would be the best way. Atheists possess inherent doubt in them. By atheism, I mean true nihilism, not secular Christianity. How can a nihilist transvaluate his values if he has none?
Reblogged this on Kerberos616.