Rustin Cohle is one half of the lead characters of Hbo's True Detective, which is my best Tv series of all time. I created this thread to share some of my favorite quotes from him.

Although his philosophical views on certain aspects of life are fueled by nihilistic and existential ideas, they are thought provoking, mentally stimulating and interesting to an open mind. And I hope you find them interesting as well.

I decided to post this here because there are more rational and objective minds on this section who can decode Rustin's point of view, than on any other section on this forum. And also because most of his quotes have a bearing on religion.

I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self aware. Nature, created an aspect of nature, separate from itself. We are creatures who shouldn't exist by natural law. We are beings who labor under the illusion of having a self, that accretion of sensory experience and feelings, programmed with the total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact, we are every body's nobody

I think the honorable thing for us species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing. Walk hand in hand into extinction. One last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.

If the only thing keeping a person decent is an expectation of a divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of_shit.

I have seen the finale of thousands of life man. Young, old, each one so sure of their realness. You know that their sensory experience constituted a unique individual with purpose and meaning. So certain that they were more than a biological puppet. The truth rules out and everyone see. Once the strings are cut, all falls down.

The ontological fallacy of expecting a light at the end of the tunnel, well, that's what the preacher sells, same as a shrink. See, the preacher, he encourages your capacity for illusion. Then he tells you it's a_fucking virtue. Always a buck to be had doing that, and it's such a desperate sense of entitlement, isn't it?... Surely this is all for me. Me, me me. I, I, I. I am so fucking important.

Transference of fear and self-loathing to an authoritarian vessel. It's catharsis. He absorbs their dread with his narrative. Because of this, he's effective at proportion to the amount of certainty he can project. Certain linguistic anthropologists think that religion is a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain. Dulls critical thinking.

This... This is what I'm talking about. This is what I mean when I'm talkin' about time, and death, and futility. all right there are broader ideas at work, mainly what is owed between us as a society for our mutual illusions. 14 straight hours of staring at DB's, these are the things ya think of. You ever done that? You look in their eyes, even in a picture, doesn't matter if they're dead or alive, you can still read 'em. You know what you see? They welcomed it... not at first, but... right there in the last instant. It's an unmistakable relief.

See, cause they were afraid, and now they saw for the very first time how easy it was to just... let go. Yeah They saw, in that last nanosecond, they saw... what they were. You, yourself, this whole big drama, it was never more than a jerry rig of presumption and dumb will, and you could just let go. To finally know that you didn't have to hold on so tight. To realize that all your life, all your love, all your hate, all your memories, all your pain, it was all the same thing. It was all the same dream, a dream that you had inside a locked room, a dream about being a person. And like a lot of dreams, there's a monster at the end of it.

Think of the hubris it must take to yank a soul out of non-existence, into this... meat. Into this thresher. So my daughter, she spared me the sin of being a father

There is no such thing as forgiveness, people just have short memories.

In eternity, where there is no time, nothing can grow. Nothing can become. Nothing changes. So death created time to grow the things that it would kill... and you are reborn but into the same life that you've always been born into. I mean, how many times have we had this conversation, detectives? Well, who knows? When you can't remember your lives, you can't change your lives, and that is the terrible and the secret fate of all life. You're trapped... like a nightmare you keep waking up into.

It's like in this universe we process time linearly forward. But outside of our space time from what would be a fourth dimensional perspective time wouldn't exist. And from that vantage could we attain it? We see our space time would look flattened. Like a single sculpture of matter and super-position of every place it ever occupied. Our sentience is just cycling through our lives like carts on a track. See everything outside our dimension that's eternity. Eternity looking down on us. Now to us its a sphere but to them its a circle.

When you can't remember your life, you can't change your life and that's the secret fate of all life. You are trapped by the nightmare you keep waking up into.

While within a church congregation.

Detective Rustin Cohle: What do you think the average IQ of this group is, huh?

Detective Martin Hart: Can you see Texas up there on your high horse? What do you know about these people?

Detective Rustin Cohle: Just observation and deduction. I see a propensity for obesity. Poverty. A yearn for fairy tales. Folks puttin' what few bucks they do have into a little wicca basket being passed around. I think it's safe to say nobody here's gonna be splitting the atom, Marty.

Detective Martin Hart: You see that. Your fucking attitude. Not everybody wants to sit alone in an empty room beating off to murder manuals. Some folks enjoy community. A common good.

Detective Rustin Cohle: Yeah, well if the common good's gotta make up fairy tales then it's not good for anybody.

Detective Martin Hart: I mean, can you imagine if people didn't believe, what things they'd get up to?

Detective Rustin Cohle: Exact same thing they do now. Just out in the open.

Detective Martin Hart: Bullshit. It'd be a fucking freak show of murder and debauchery and you know it.

Detective Rustin Cohle: If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of shit; and I'd like to get as many of them out in the open as possible.

Detective Martin Hart: Well, I guess your judgment is infallible, piece-of-shit-wise. You think that notebook is a stone tablet?

Detective Rustin Cohle: What's it say about life, hmm? You gotta get together, tell yourself stories that violate every law of the universe just to get through the god damn day. Nah. What's that say about your reality?

Decker:
I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self aware. Nature, created an aspect of nature, separate from itself. We are creatures who shouldn't exist by natural law. We are beings who labor under the illusion of having a self, that accretion of sensory experience and feelings, programmed with the total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact, we are every body's nobody

I think the honorable thing for us species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing. Walk hand in hand into extinction. One last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.

@bolded... It's a good and wonderful perspective..

It's tiring and surprising how people seem to keep themselves under the objective of doing what others are doing or the ways others are doing it..

They do not want to stand out, so they choose to follow rules... Whereas the rules were made by 'someone' who was once in that position..

What differentiate rulers from followers is that "they make the rules.."

Then why the fvck do people conform to some imaginary society or media standard?

Why can't they just stand out from the whirlpool of mediocrity and make their OWN life rule..?

#FreedomFromIgnoranceAndFear..

Djboosting:



@bolded... It's a good and wonderful perspective..

It's tiring and surprising how people seem to keep themselves under the objective of doing what others are doing or the ways others are doing it..

They do not want to stand out, so they choose to follow rules... Whereas the rules were made by 'someone' who was once in that position..

What differentiate rulers from followers is that "they make the rules.."

Then why the fvck do people conform to some imaginary society or media standard?

Why can't they just stand out from the whirlpool of mediocrity and make their OWN life rule..?

#FreedomFromIgnoranceAndFear..

Exactly.

Decker:


Exactly.

My warm Greetings to you bro, I trust ur weekend went well .


Just as I promised to remind you earlier on, the Mr Nairaland voting will commence today by 9am.


I want to appreciate you once again for agreeing to vote falconey. Thanks so much bro.