(urth) Science catches up to the New Sun

[Matthew Keeley]

On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:53 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> That's true. If you parse the imagery, you don't get anything really
> meaningful. When you take into account further information like the
> Secret Files (Lilith and Adam are organisms created by the 'First
> Ancestral [Alien] Race' as part of a panspermia program, but
> accidentally they both end up on Earth etc.), Evangelion is, if
> anything, profoundly atheistic.
>
> (Personally, I consider the case for a cynical atheistic Evangelion
> infinitely stronger than the one for a cynical atheistic New Sun.
> There's an interesting essay I once saw in this vein -
> http://www.geocities.com/sephkhan/rants/dharma.html )
>
> Random trivia: Kaworu, in the early outlines, was a cat.

> If you want to analyze Eva, it's much more profitable to approach it
> from a Buddhist or Western psychological perspective - both are fields
> that Anno actually does know quite a bit about.
>
>> I mustn't run away...
>
> "It's strange that 'Evangelion' has become such a hit - all the
> characters are so sick!" —Hideaki Anno
>
> - --
> gwern

We have Eva fans here? And I thought I was the only one.

I'd love to have an involved debate, but I think I agree with
everything you said. I do think Eva is atheistic (or I think I do) but
a Buddhist brand of atheism as opposed to a Death-of-God sort of
atheism. The end of the show harps so damn much on relativism that
it's hard to conclude otherwise.

Video for the initiated: Shinji's voice actor, frustrated at the end
of the show (some language)

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/shinjis-rant-animated/48171386

"'If I were to run away, OK, let's analyze that, where the f--- would I go!?"

-Matt