Eros versus Thanatos

Eros versus Thanatos

Dr Raven Dolick MsD Nov 19, 2014

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Eros is the principle of life, energy, growth, vitality and an ascending trajectory while Thanatos is the principle of death, decay, degeneration, depression and a descending trajectory. Our world is full of Thanatos forces. Abrahamism - with its obsession with hell - is nothing but death. Capitalism - the cult of the object that even turns people into objects - is pure death. The privileged elite who reduce everyone else to mere bystanders, spectators and non-persons embody the gospel of death.

"Pascal's wager" probably encapsulates the cult of death better than anything else. The wager is this: 1) on the one hand, if God exists and you obey his laws, you will achieve the maximum possible gain (eternal joy in heaven) while if he doesn't exist your maximum loss will be your opportunity to live as you like on earth and 2) on the other hand, if God exists and you don't obey his laws you will achieve the maximum loss (eternal pain in hell) and if he doesn't exist your maximum gain will be that you can do whatever you like with your mortal life on earth.

Pascal thought it was a no-brainer that you should rationally wager on God's existence because your potential loss is so great if you get it wrong that he doesn't exist and your potential gain isn't all that much if you get it right. But the wager is much more complex than Pascal seemed to think. If there is no afterlife then if you obey some book of lies you have thrown away the only life you will ever have. This is an infinite loss since you will never again get a chance to live.

Moreover, if "God" is an entirely different type of being from the one Pascal envisaged then it's possible you are sentencing yourself to eternal pain by NOT living life as fully as you can. What if God punishes those who chose to believe lies rather than live life?

What if you can become God only by living a succession of great lives where you are true to yourself and not to some ancient book of revelation?

The entire basis of Pascal's wager is terror. This was a man who was petrified of God, the afterlife and indeed of life itself. Who wants to sign up to a wager of fear? Is that rational? Abrahamism functions entirely on this basis. It makes you afraid to live. It drowns you in the darkness of Thanatos.

All gospels of fear, terror and death must be INFINITELY rejected. They are an insult to life, just as Pascal himself was.

Nietzsche wrote of the "depraving of Pascal, who believed his reason had been depraved by original sin while it had only been depraved by his Christianity!" and described him as "the most instructive of all sacrifices to Christianity."