Death vs. Hell.

[Phoenix]

Neither hell nor death exist.

[crow]

Neither hell nor death exist.

That is a very odd thing to say.
Every human in history over the age of 120 is dead. That's quite compelling evidence of death's existence.
As for hell...
Well, we don't know a great deal about that, except as a euphemism for the state of most things human.
Christians are keen on it though. It's existence, that is.

[Tralfamadorian]

Infek bin Laden

The intro is nice (except for mention of "transmissions" from beyond the grave), but wow, the actual content of that site is batshit crazy stuff. Like www.truthism.com for occult fags.

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.'

If the thought of your life repeating itself for all previous and successive iterations of the universe makes you feel remorse, you are in Hell.

[crow]

Death and hell are recurring themes in metal. Are they desirable to metalheads?
Is hell a place you'd like to be? Is being dead preferable to not being dead?
All of you are living, so this preoccupation could be seen to be at odds with reality.

[Cheeseburger Zombie]

Life is hell now and living death, so the only way out is to think about what hell and death are until we recognize where we are, dead in hell.

[crow]

Sorry, you're wrong. Life is assuredly not hell, although the lives many people live, are hellish.
My life is generally pretty magnificent, and brings me a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction.
I've lived a hellish life, among hellish people, in a hellish society, but now I don't.

This is why I seem to run counter to a few people on this site: they are the hardcore give-up-and-jerk-off-about-it types, that wreck and ruin for everyone else. They are just plain wrong about life, and hopefully they will get to see that. Although - to be honest - I am reasonably sure they won't.

There's nothing wrong with relishing deathmetal; you like what you like. It's what you do with it that counts.
There's a life, available to anyone who feels like grabbing it, and it is really, really good.
Death has not much to recommend it: absolutely anyone gets to experience that.
But how many ever really get to live?

[Tralfamadorian]

Death and hell are recurring themes in metal. Are they desirable to metalheads?
Is hell a place you'd like to be? Is being dead preferable to not being dead?
All of you are living, so this preoccupation could be seen to be at odds with reality.

Philosophy of Metal Cliffnotes:

Reality is made up of opposites: Light and dark, positive and negative, good and evil, life and death. One can't exist without the other.

Modern society wants to pretend this isn't the case. They want to wish away all the unpleasant aspects of reality.

Death metal forces us to confront these unpleasant, yet necessary aspects of reality, as they are beautiful when considered  in the context of their respective place in reality.

Metal's preoccupations with evil, death, darkness, etc. does not stem from a desire to embody those things, but to recognize their purpose.

[crow]

Fair enough. We are having a discussion here. It takes a bit of focus.
I've seen enough of death to not view it as beautiful. Inevitable, yes, and sometimes untimely.
What I am reminded of, here, are those advertisements for various events, selling products that "help get you in the mood" for whatever event it is. Christmas, Valentines, Mother's Day, etc.

For my part, I don't require anything to help get me in the mood for anything.
But I recognize that while I may not require something, that doesn't necessarily mean that nobody does.

Possibly Christianity and Churches were necessary to get people in the mood to focus on spiritual things.
They always seemed to have exactly the opposite effect on me. Although I did always admire the architecture of the buildings, and the tradition of the religion.

Now death...
I don't need anything to get me in the mood for that. I've spent much of my life barely avoiding it, while it dogged me like a shadow, never far behind. I know it will win, one day, but until then, no thanks.

[Tralfamadorian]

You mention you've had brushes with death. Have these not forced you to reevaluate your outlook on life? Perhaps made you cherish life even more? Metal has a similar modus operandi.

It seems contemplating death makes you uncomfortable, no? Does the weight of it's inevitable coming get heavier as one gets older? Right now, I'd say I'm whimsically aloof from the thought of death. It doesn't seem "real" to me; it's just there as some vague motivator to make the best of my time.

[crow]

Interesting perspective, but mostly inaccurate.
The first observation is true: near fatal events can wake you up to what life really is.
The rest is not: I don't know how much more comfortable anyone could be, concerning death, than I am.
Borrowed time is all I have. Every moment. I like the reality of this.
The older I get, the happier I am to welcome death when it comes for me.

Death will remain unreal to you for as long as you have never met it.
What you do, feel, and decide, when you do meet it, not only determines whether of not it lets you off, but the quality of your life, if you manage to win it back.

I suggest not looking, any more, at "your time" as 'your' time.
Time is not something that can be owned.
That is the secret to moving outside of it.
A crow taught me that.

[Tralfamadorian]

I think you understand death metal better than you know, crow.

Logically, I can look at life and see that part of its beauty, nay, the essence of its beauty, lies in its impermanence. Emotionally, I still say "fuck death". But I'm not too concerned with actively trying to change this. When it happens, it happens.

I suggest not looking, any more, at "your time" as 'your' time.
Time is not something that can be owned.
That is the secret to moving outside of it.
A crow taught me that.

"my time" is a colloquial expression; I realize that the passage of time itself is impersonal, and that, furthermore, one owes his "free time" to the betterment of the world.

[crow]

Sorta brings us full-circle, doesn't it?
"Do you think the world is perfect?" Lao Tzu was on to something there.
I no longer pay any attention to the betterment of the world.
It is what it is, and only how I behave has any slight influence on it.
I will do my bit. Perhaps you'll do yours.

[fallot]

I must ask crow, exactly what did you study in order to arrive at your conclusions on metal and hessians? Somehow I suspect it was the front page of this website. For me, death metal was never really a memento mori, but an expression of the masculine warrior spirit that I wished to cultivate in myself (but did not understand). Specifically the spirit of the Mujahid, the muslim holy warrior. Rather I understood it intellectually but didn't really feel it, though I desired it.

Heavy metal all the way down to black metal revealed some of it to me, the rest was through life. Too lost in intellect, it was difficult for me understand warfare and killing in particular as something that could be enjoyed. Amorally, not in any good/evil sort of way. In modernity, men are not men and some lessons of authority, strength and majesty came to me from really unlocking (the best of) metal music. Some people can get that kind of thing out of reading The Republic or something, not me.

A caveat, while it may not be true for the rest of the people on this board, I am indeed fascinated by the morbid and violent. I don't know why. I don't actually crave death or violence, but I smile at it where the expectation of the world is for me to reject it.

When we say this is really beautiful music, we (at least I) don't mean in a subjective sense. I reject this sort of subjectivity. Most of metal was inaccessible to me initially, a blur of confusing noise. With patience, desire, memorization and a resource that was fascist about quality in metal (this website), the beauty made itself apparent. It's just beautiful, not beautiful for us. But ego and human nature prevent the absorption of this when stated directly, so you have to do it sideways somehow... it's worked for a couple of people I've interacted with one-to-one, but that's about it.

You will always be an outsider to this music without un-crow-like immersion. You cannot be an observer. So if you do not wish to do this, I suggest dropping the topic, because even if we reach some sort of dialectical compromise, your heart and our hearts will not be aligned. A false compromise.

I no longer pay any attention to the betterment of the world.
It is what it is, and only how I behave has any slight influence on it.
I will do my bit. Perhaps you'll do yours.

Jack Donovan had a pretty pithy way of expressing this last sentiment "Hate globally, like locally".

[istaros]

Neither hell nor death exist.

That is a very odd thing to say.
Every human in history over the age of 120 is dead. That's quite compelling evidence of death's existence.
As for hell...
Well, we don't know a great deal about that, except as a euphemism for the state of most things human.
Christians are keen on it though. It's existence, that is.

I agree with Transcix's statement - or, at least, I would say the same thing myself despite possibly meaning something else. I don't know what he meant by it. What I mean by it is that life is not made up of opposites, as someone else claimed. Cold, darkness, vaccuum, evil - these do not exist, for they are not things. Neither is death; it is the cessation of something that does exist, does move, does shine.

These concepts are attempts by a living (existent) being to understand the void in a way that "it" can be interacted with in a practical way. But it describes human nature more than it describes reality itself. There is no light AND dark, warmth AND cold. You cannot quantify darkness, or cold, or emptiness, or evil. These are just states of absence. Life is an emergent event. "Death" is the common state - or non-state, as it were. Death and hell are not innately negative; they just are. Or rather, they just are not One describes an absence of life, the other an absence of God. This is why, at least in Christian religions, God is described not as a source of life and love, but as being life itself, love itself. For God to exist, He has to encompass all. But "all" does not include things that are not actually there.

There is not a dichotomy between what exists and what does not; there is only what exists. Any focus on "what does not" is either the tortured thrashings of a soul breaking, or a roundabout way to imply focus on what does. No death and no hell, only glory and triumph.
y

[fallot]

This is why, at least in Christian religions, God is described not as a source of life and love, but as being life itself, love itself. For God to exist, He has to encompass all. But "all" does not include things that are not actually there.

This is a distinction lost on even most Christians. Evil is a privation. God cannot be evil. Yet God is the source of all evil i.e. the source of the human response to reality that is called "evil".

Hence the internet atheist asks, if there is a God, why is there suffering? The only deserved response to that is a brutal beating.