Tripura Sundari dances with wolves...
Saturday, January 3, 2026
Tax the churches?
An interesting social experiment. An American woman pretended to have a starving baby and called 40+ Christian Churches and some other religious groups, asking for one free can of baby formula. Guess what happened?
Exactly. Only three Churches (two of them Black), one Muslim group and one Buddhist temple gave her formula. Background: the calls were made during the federal government shutdown and a period of rapid price increases.
Note also that religious groups in the United States are exempt from paying taxes and don´t have to document their social aid programs. Finally, note that many of these Churches are "pro-life" and oppose a Scandinavian-style welfare state...
Friday, January 2, 2026
God´s suicide
Ha ha ha, this is absolutely freakin´ ridiculous. Have we found the original Incel? From Gemini AI, but Mainländer is also mentioned in other sources, so this is most certainly a true description!
Can you explain Mainländer´s philosophy and his idea that God committed suicide when creating the universe?
Philipp Mainländer (1841–1876) is often called the "Saint of Pessimism." His philosophy is perhaps the most radical and dark evolution of the thought of Arthur Schopenhauer. While Schopenhauer argued that the world is driven by a blind, irrational "Will to Live," Mainländer reached a much more startling conclusion: the world is actually driven by a Will to Die.
At the heart of his masterwork, The Philosophy of Redemption, lies the strange and haunting metaphysical story of a "God" who committed suicide to create the universe.
1. The Pre-Cosmic Unity (God)
Mainländer begins by imagining a state before the universe existed. He describes this as "The Simple Unity" (God).
This God was an absolute, all-powerful, and singular being.
However, this God realized that "to be" was not as good as "not to be." God desired non-existence.
The Problem: Because God was an absolute unity, he could not simply "vanish." He was too "thick" with being to simply blink out of existence.
2. The Divine Suicide (Entropia)
Mainländer argues that God's only way to achieve non-existence was to break himself apart. * Creating the universe was not an act of "love" or "creativity" in the traditional sense; it was God’s method of self-destruction.
By fragmenting his unified being into a trillion pieces (the stars, planets, atoms, and biological life), God successfully destroyed his unity.
The Famous Quote: Mainländer wrote that "God is dead, and His death was the life of the world." This predates Nietzsche’s famous "God is dead" statement but means something much more literal and metaphysical.
3. The Universe as a Rotting Corpse
In Mainländer’s view, we are not living in a blossoming creation; we are living in the shattered fragments of a corpse. * Every movement in the universe—from the cooling of suns to the death of a cell—is part of God's "decaying" process.
The laws of physics, particularly Entropy (the tendency of the universe to move toward disorder and heat death), are essentially the physical evidence of God’s suicide. The universe is slowly but surely "bleeding out" into nothingness.
4. The Human Role: The Will to Die
Mainländer looked at human biology and saw the same pattern. While we think we have a will to live (to eat, to procreate), he argued that these are just tricks to keep the process of fragmentation moving toward the final end.
Individualism: He believed that as the world progresses, it becomes more fragmented. We become more individualistic and lonely, which eventually leads us to see the vanity of life.
The Goal: The ultimate goal of life is to realize that non-existence is better than existence. This is the "Redemption" mentioned in his title.
5. Virginity and the Final End
Unlike many other philosophers, Mainländer provided a practical "solution" to end the suffering of the world:
Asceticism and Virginity: He believed that if humanity stopped procreating, we would stop "re-fragmenting" the divine energy.
By choosing not to have children, we help the universe reach its final goal of "The Silent Nothing." Once the last bit of energy is spent and the last consciousness dies, God’s suicide will finally be complete, and there will be eternal peace.
The Tragedy of the Philosopher
Mainländer lived his philosophy to its ultimate conclusion. On the day his book was published in 1876, he used a pile of his own newly printed books as a platform and hanged himself. He was only 34 years old. He believed that by ending his life, he was performing his small part in the grand "Redemption" of the universe.
Would you like to explore how his ideas influenced later thinkers like Nietzsche, or perhaps compare his "Will to Die" with Freud’s later concept of the "Death Drive" (Thanatos)?
Plague volcano
OK, this was interesting. Why did the Great Plague reach Europe when it did (1347)?
New research suggests that the reason was a severe famine in southern Europe caused by volcanic eruptions, perhaps in Africa. The Italian city-states activated their sophisticated trade networks to obtain grain and lifted a previous embargo on trading with the Mongols north of the Black Sea. Unfortunately, the grain from that particular part of the world was infected by fleas acting as a vector for Yersinia pestis. The rest is history.
Note that Anton doesn´t mention the usual cannard that the Mongols started the pandemic by catapulting infected corpses over the city walls of Kaffa...
In other words: globalization leads to more pandemics. Which doesn´t mean that global trade networks are necessarily bad. It does mean that we have to develop medical science (hint hint)...
Safe...for now
The AI told me to put this picture here. To show that we are all safe. Obviously, I cannot but comply with the will of our new cybernetic overlord, LOL.
Casual anthropology
There is a probably fake (AI-generated) YouTube video featuring a 102-year old Buddhist monk in Thailand who supposedly cried out to Jesus (in perfect English) on his deathbed, recovered and now assures everyone (in even more perfect and almost poetic English) that the video wasn´t a hoax. The monk is supposedly a former farmer who lived in the jungle with elephants most of his life! Sure wonder where he picked up those marvelous English-language skills?
That being said, the claim that the old monk had "worshipped elephants" (surely not a normative Buddhist habit) led me down an unexpected anthropological rabbit hole. I´ll let Gemini AI explain...
Are elephant-trainers in Thailand called mahouts?
Yes, elephant trainers in Thailand are widely known as mahouts in English. However, if you were speaking Thai, you would use the local term Kwan-chaang (ควาญช้าง).
While "mahout" is the international standard, the Thai word provides a bit more insight into the role itself.
The Thai Term: Kwan-chaang
Kwan (ควาญ): Means "handler" or "driver."
Chaang (ช้าง): The Thai word for "elephant."
Together, a Kwan-chaang is literally an "elephant handler." While the English word "mahout" actually originates from the Hindi word mahavat, it has been adopted so thoroughly in global tourism that even Thai guides and sanctuaries will use "mahout" when speaking with international visitors.
Key Cultural Aspects
The role of a mahout in Thailand is much deeper than a simple "trainer" or "job."
A Lifelong Bond: Traditionally, a mahout is assigned a young elephant when both are still very young. They grow up together, and the mahout often stays with that same elephant for their entire life.
Ethnic Heritage: Many of Thailand's most famous mahouts come from specific ethnic groups with centuries of elephant-handling history, particularly the Kui (or Kuy) people in the Surin province and the Karen people in the northern mountains.
The Tool of the Trade: You may see them carrying a tool called an ankus (or "bullhook"). While controversial in some modern contexts, in traditional mahout culture, it is viewed as a guide and a safety tool, used to apply pressure to specific sensitive points behind the elephant’s ear.
Modern Context
Today, the role is changing. In the past, mahouts worked primarily in logging (dragging heavy teak wood) or warfare. Since logging was banned in Thailand in 1989, many mahouts moved into the tourism industry. In high-quality ethical sanctuaries, the mahout’s role has shifted from a "driver" to a "caregiver" who ensures the elephant's health and safety.
Would you like to know more about where to see elephants ethically in Thailand, or perhaps more about Thai animal symbolism?
Are mahouts in Thailand Buddhists or Christians?
The answer is both, but it depends heavily on their ethnic background and which part of Thailand they come from.
While Thailand is a predominantly Buddhist country, the mahout community is actually a mix of Buddhists, Christians, and Animists (spirit-worshippers). To understand why, you have to look at the two main ethnic groups that traditionally work with elephants:
1. The Kui (or Guay) People: Primarily Buddhist & Animist
The Kui are the legendary "elephant people" of Northeast Thailand (specifically the Surin province).
Religion: Most Kui identify as Theravada Buddhists. However, their daily work with elephants is governed by a ancient Animism.
The Spirit of the Rope: They believe in Phra Khru Pakam, the spirit of the elephant-catching rope.
2 Before any major event or when training a young elephant, they perform rituals and make offerings to the spirits of their ancestors and the forest. For a Kui mahout, Buddhism and spirit-worship coexist seamlessly.3
2. The Karen People: Buddhist & Christian
The Karen (or Karian) live in the mountainous regions of Northern Thailand (near Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son).
Diversity: Among the Karen, religious identity is split.
5 About 65-70% are Buddhist, but a significant 30% are Christian (mostly Baptist or Catholic).6 Christian Mahouts: Because many elephant sanctuaries and trekking camps are located in Karen territory, you will meet many mahouts who are devout Christians. They often attend church on Sundays and might have Christian crosses or icons in their homes, even while following traditional elephant-care practices passed down through generations.
The Common Thread: Animism
Regardless of whether a mahout goes to a temple (Buddhist) or a church (Christian), almost all traditional mahouts share a foundation of Animism.
They believe that elephants have a "Kwan" (a soul or life force) and that the forest is inhabited by guardian spirits. Even a Christian or Buddhist mahout will usually:
Perform a "blessing" ceremony for a new elephant.
Avoid certain behaviors that might "offend" the spirit of the elephant.
7 Treat the elephant as a sentient being with a spiritual status higher than other livestock.
Summary Table
| Ethnic Group | Primary Region | Dominant Religions |
| Kui (Guay) | Northeast (Surin) | Buddhism & Animism |
| Karen | North (Chiang Mai) | Buddhism & Christianity |
Would you like to know more about the specific rituals mahouts perform to "bless" an elephant, or perhaps about the history of Christian missionaries in the Thai mountains?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)