This is an amazing essay. For me it brought specificity to observations I had rattling around in my brain. Something like ‘everyone has a theology’ is about as far as I got. Have observed my own youthful fears of the world ending with my generation being replicated with the climate “crisis” and hypothesized that it’s a common rite of passage. I’m looking forward to what more you have to say on this topic.
"He who lives by the sword dies by the sword, and he who pins his faith to empiricism and logic will see his faith broken on those very same instruments"
More generally, I hear some people, some frogs included, saying Christianity has good life guidelines (how to live) but obsolete metaphysics (how the world is). I have the opposite problem: much of the life style advice seems lame, but the metaphysics is fine (beliefmap.org again). Nietzsche seems right about the pale Christian vibe. So does Kierkegaard. Though both in different, and partly incompatible, ways. (N. wants you live epic Homeric life, unlike K. in his ideal of the admirable but non-epic Christian knight.) Once more, both N. and K. are wrong about the Christian metaphysics, they underestimate how smart and deep it is. Note that I dislike here, like they would, the current domesticated mediocre lifeless ugly dead-inside smothering (pseudo)Christian life "wisdom". Not the core Christian moral wisdom (the decalogue, classical forgiveness and charity, and the like; though Nietzsche often seems to dislike those too).
So I agree with you (and 2CB and BAP) that a merge of Nietzsche and Christianity might be promising. Maybe your forthcoming pt. 3 podcast on religion will help.
On the one hand, from the earliest days, I have been told that (contrary to what is often claimed), Christians in general and catholics in particular have always taught that there is no contradiction between faith and reason, founding universities, holding theology as the Queen of *sciences*. Saint Paul argued that anyone can attain to the truth of God’s existence merely from using his or her reason to reflect on the natural world. Aquinas held that human reason, without supernatural aid, can establish the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. And so on and so forth.
On the other hand, here I am, a lapsed catholic, broken and tainted by materialism, now thoroughly disenchanted with the modern world, looking back wistfully to christian faith but incapable of reciting the Credo with sincerity, left with a god-shaped hole in my life.
faith and science are compatible, but there is a threshold of scientific understanding past which they become antagonistic in practice. This need not be so, but it is so
yes I agree re: life advice and metaphysics. the Christian life advice is beyond terrible in the current year, and the metaphysics are fine.
I've met the smart christians though, I mean I am friends with a number of them. I think they are, like all smart people, very good at rationalizing around the various fatal flaws, hence the analogy to the oyster and the pearl. There is no twist or turn of logic, no fallacy that the human mind cannot bend into a fact.
If you try to engage one of them re: their favorite paradox, whether it's the doctrine of the trinity, or the historical evidence for the resurrection, or any of a host of other things, you will end up in an elaborate and ultimately irrelevant discussion where no one wins.
Dec 30, 2022·edited Jul 28, 2023Liked by Zero HP Lovecraft
I think some of their arguments are not just fine but very good, though one can always deny almost anything (unless it's glaringly obvious to any idiot, or glaringly hurtful to be denied). I don't think the issue is irrelevant as the modern emotional baseline (the feel about the universe) tends to be rather bleak and esp. the (ultimately very optimistic) Christian belief (if sincere) may help here a lot. Thing is, I just sometimes have this modern gut feeling that the universe is godless etc. So then I suspect there is something fishy even about the very best Christian and theistic arguments. But I can't spot what it is, though I've tried. Plus I know my irreligious gut feelings may well be biased, too. A somewhat schizoid state of mind. Anyways, be well.
it's not just that the trinity is a bundle of contradictions that are *impossible* to reconcile, it's also the fact that we can now trace it's emergence! A deep fight among believers each trying to have their cake (one all knowing all powerful omnipotent god) and eat it too (Jesus being God, God being incarnate, having a father son relationship between two different people, somehow them being the same god but each are gods but its one god, but you get the human god, and the human relationship of gods within a god.....)
Before science it crumbles under it's internal logic which is fundamentally broken and the history of it's creation, a human endeavor filled with fabrication, forgery and internal strife that managed to survive spectacularly well in-spite of it's blatant falsity.
I have been waiting for a new podcast episode to come, and finally not just one episode I am getting- it's a three-part series! And for free?
My favorite section was the eschatology. Even though the later sections felt shorter, they were not lacking. Really amazing show and I await the next episode.
Always, have I seen ritualistic behavior as unavoidable. Thus, I strive for the noble ritual!
Dec 10, 2022·edited Dec 11, 2022Liked by Zero HP Lovecraft
"Progressive society is negrolatrous, which means that they worship Africans. Consequently, and owing I think to the trace of Christianity in progressive society, it is forbidden to ever say the name of God."
To this day, the "sacred name" cannot be fully known, as the pious have gone through great lengths to obscure its written form and punish offenders who dare say it aloud. The true meaning, otherwise conveyed by a complete expression of the sacred name, is lost to the reader.
Instead, all we have are some the consonants with little clue as to the direction or rules of pronounciation: NGRH.
EDIT: I was a fool to think this idea wasn't already used in the description.
I loved the essay. I think humans all have an intrinsic religious instinct and that can be quite beneficial. The problem with religion is not the belief of people in something better or higher than us but the blind faith that most adherents seem to acquire. I believe that modernity has made it quite hard to believe in anything beyond the individual, and people who belong to religious groups seem to stick quite hard to the dogma and lack any of the real faith
Where does the need to "manage the unmanageable" fit in this framework? Arguably one of the earliest functions of religious practice was to try to control/appease/supplicate powerful aspects of the world that lie beyond our ordinary understanding. "Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it" is not a syllogism exclusive to politicians.
Religious schemes of the form
1. Sacrifice a chicken to the corn god
2. ???
3. Profit?
were ubiquitous among pre-moderns, and the motivation for spiritual rituals aimed at material ends doesn't seem map cleanly to any of these proposed categories. Inasmuch as it's about a practical application of the connections between the spiritual and material worlds, it's *closer* to 'gnosis', but the knowledge here need not be esoteric. I'll be glad to remind you that the more chickens we collectively sacrifice, the more pleased the corn god will be, and the psychological payoff for me reminding you of this isn't (mainly) from feelings of superiority for knowing something you don't, it's from relieving my anxiety about the corn god's taking our community's harvest away.
The modern's machine-world understanding obviously limits the scope of this religious motivation today, but it's too prominent in historical practice to ignore, and few moderns are completely beyond wishing for an accessible intercessor. Where does, say, prayer directed to a saint for the healing of a loved one fit into this model?
Funnily enough, seeing the vacuousness of ecstatic experiences means you got quite close to enlightenment. What might be missing:
1. You haven't seen the vacuousness of doubt and skepticism
2. You believe that whatever negative emotion you feel means you aren't enlightened (they are vacuous also).
3. Maybe you believe there is no such thing as enlightenment (kinda true).
Enlightenment is no peak state. It's just the realization that everything that goes on in your mind is the movie, but you are not the movie, you are the screen. Possibly you may have heard this before, and I know I did years ago but it didn't sink in at the time. That actually is all there is to get regarding enlightenment. For the mystically inclined, they think there is something more, and if they could see past the desire for something more, they would be enlightened.
For you, possibly you don't believe in enlightenment, but certainly you don't think your mind is perfect. Improvement is possible, and the way to get it is disappointment, as Chogyam Trungpa said.
Ordinary cognition is to be stuck vacillating between the positive and the negative, which is why ecstasies are not enough: they are unstable, they go away and you sink back down. They also can be dangerous, as they can lead to delusion and ego inflation if they don't go away. But enlightenment is grasping something that is neither positive nor negative: metaphysical Zero. Once understood, you realize it's always been there, and yet, it's different to be conscious of it. Negative emotion arises and then it just goes away to no effect, and this includes doubt. At that point you are free to enjoy the positive, but from a place of stability this time, not a place of need.
I actually did stop meditating upon enlightenment (technically I wasn't practicing when it happened, but there was a time I took it fairly seriously). It isn't fun, and there isn't anything more to get there, now that existence has become an epiphany. Not all the time, but often enough.
Indeed I do not believe there is such a thing as enlightenment (though there is a cognitive change you can trigger through a lot of vipassana meditation, and I do not think that change is desirable in any way), nor do I think that skepticism is vacuous.
I do not think it constitutes any kind of improvement or useful change. It is, in my opinion, a form of mental masturbation. Moreover, I do not think there is much value in Buddhist philosophy, though it has the occasional clever parable.
I wouldn't say I'm derealized is the thing, I have been there (it was part of my second psychosis), this isn't the same thing.
I really am extremely curious what would happen if you became enlightened, it would be so anathema to your whole schtick, I think something incredible would happen. Or maybe it would be like what happened to Thomas Aquinas, who dismissed his whole works as straw.
The fact that you don't think you are derealized argues strongly to me that either you are not enlightened (and you are mistaken), or that you are having trouble recognizing enlightenment for what it is.
I am sure under some interpretations I am not enlightened (namely, those that believe enlightenment is some super-duper esoteric mindstate), but many others talk about everyone being enlightened from beginninglessness, about how the realm of one's self is not far away, and how it's nearer than near. Zen says if you go looking for it, you have already missed the way, and I wasn't even looking for it when it happened for me. But I doth protest too much: you are an interesting mind, and I guess there is a desire to impress you, but I have never seen anyone change their mind on the internet.
Ultimately, I am a charlatan and deluded if you think I am that, these things can't be forced.
"What would a disruptive idea of spirituality be for the 21st century? When I say disruptive idea, I'm talking about a thing that is so new and outside the framework of how we currently understand things, that although it takes little effort or investment to start, it has potential to overtake the entire playing field... I am not saying 'what would a new religion look like,' I'm saying what could a new understanding of religion or spirituality be in the data-driven infocracy that we live in today."
I misplaced this comment to pt 2 (I've just deleted it there), so here it goes again:
Sir, I wonder what you think about some allegedly intersubjective mystical experiences like some of those induced by the Buddhist fire kasina practice promoted, e.g., by D. Ingram.
In the 1st ch. of https://firekasina.org/fire-kasina-book/ he claims people in deep concentration on kasina retreats can see what others visualize or manifest by will and without telling a word beforehand.
I'm conflicted about this little lecture. About usage of drugs in particular and their importance, to be specific.
Application of hallucinogens(and all else) isn't sustainable, because human brain has a rather limited capcacity to process strong stimuli, and overdoing strong experiences can even damage one's ability to process and experience those: accumulated tolerance towards heroin, and the likes, in drug addicts, which results in constantly increased dose uptake to keep the high no less, - is a similar scenario. That means religions and cults which rely on constant supply of loosely controlled substances for loosening the control over the human mind will soon find themselves losing the control over their subjects too, because those stop being so receptive towards introduced "wisdoms" of new religions, or maybe they will even break down due to "psychic(physical) damage" sustained over time. Can't follow the God's commandments if the brain is fried by chemicals like burnt spagetti in/on acid.
From that follows two conclusions: 1) A "smart" "pastor" of new religion will use his chemistry set once, or maybe twice tops, to induce necessary state of mind. Bigger numbers have bigger risk of damaging the patient; 2) Substances should be used to weave a new experience, feeling good alone shouldn't be the goal. It's harder to believe old things after you learn something new which old doesn't take into account. And no drug is as powerful as a sober mind focused in one direction.
And possibly, a third trend - if there's a danger in the act, then all it means you need to find a way to circumvent it. Ayahuasca creates an evolutionary pressure in humans, selecting for people resistant to negative effects of it. Or maybe people just need to be sufficiently numbed to the experience first already - can't damage what is already broken. A shot in the dark - SSRIs usage risen pretty significantly lately, and it's common effect is feeling "emotionally numb". I feel like it contributes to modern landscape somehow, but i know not enough to arrive to a solid conclusion. What do you think?
This is an amazing essay. For me it brought specificity to observations I had rattling around in my brain. Something like ‘everyone has a theology’ is about as far as I got. Have observed my own youthful fears of the world ending with my generation being replicated with the climate “crisis” and hypothesized that it’s a common rite of passage. I’m looking forward to what more you have to say on this topic.
"He who lives by the sword dies by the sword, and he who pins his faith to empiricism and logic will see his faith broken on those very same instruments"
You underestimate how smart and deep some Christians are. They know all the moves and at the same time ain't shallow sophist. Take a look at beliefmap.org, e.g. this section, https://beliefmap.org/jesus/exist#witness-testimony
More generally, I hear some people, some frogs included, saying Christianity has good life guidelines (how to live) but obsolete metaphysics (how the world is). I have the opposite problem: much of the life style advice seems lame, but the metaphysics is fine (beliefmap.org again). Nietzsche seems right about the pale Christian vibe. So does Kierkegaard. Though both in different, and partly incompatible, ways. (N. wants you live epic Homeric life, unlike K. in his ideal of the admirable but non-epic Christian knight.) Once more, both N. and K. are wrong about the Christian metaphysics, they underestimate how smart and deep it is. Note that I dislike here, like they would, the current domesticated mediocre lifeless ugly dead-inside smothering (pseudo)Christian life "wisdom". Not the core Christian moral wisdom (the decalogue, classical forgiveness and charity, and the like; though Nietzsche often seems to dislike those too).
So I agree with you (and 2CB and BAP) that a merge of Nietzsche and Christianity might be promising. Maybe your forthcoming pt. 3 podcast on religion will help.
I don't know what to think about that.
On the one hand, from the earliest days, I have been told that (contrary to what is often claimed), Christians in general and catholics in particular have always taught that there is no contradiction between faith and reason, founding universities, holding theology as the Queen of *sciences*. Saint Paul argued that anyone can attain to the truth of God’s existence merely from using his or her reason to reflect on the natural world. Aquinas held that human reason, without supernatural aid, can establish the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. And so on and so forth.
On the other hand, here I am, a lapsed catholic, broken and tainted by materialism, now thoroughly disenchanted with the modern world, looking back wistfully to christian faith but incapable of reciting the Credo with sincerity, left with a god-shaped hole in my life.
faith and science are compatible, but there is a threshold of scientific understanding past which they become antagonistic in practice. This need not be so, but it is so
yes I agree re: life advice and metaphysics. the Christian life advice is beyond terrible in the current year, and the metaphysics are fine.
I've met the smart christians though, I mean I am friends with a number of them. I think they are, like all smart people, very good at rationalizing around the various fatal flaws, hence the analogy to the oyster and the pearl. There is no twist or turn of logic, no fallacy that the human mind cannot bend into a fact.
If you try to engage one of them re: their favorite paradox, whether it's the doctrine of the trinity, or the historical evidence for the resurrection, or any of a host of other things, you will end up in an elaborate and ultimately irrelevant discussion where no one wins.
I think some of their arguments are not just fine but very good, though one can always deny almost anything (unless it's glaringly obvious to any idiot, or glaringly hurtful to be denied). I don't think the issue is irrelevant as the modern emotional baseline (the feel about the universe) tends to be rather bleak and esp. the (ultimately very optimistic) Christian belief (if sincere) may help here a lot. Thing is, I just sometimes have this modern gut feeling that the universe is godless etc. So then I suspect there is something fishy even about the very best Christian and theistic arguments. But I can't spot what it is, though I've tried. Plus I know my irreligious gut feelings may well be biased, too. A somewhat schizoid state of mind. Anyways, be well.
it's not just that the trinity is a bundle of contradictions that are *impossible* to reconcile, it's also the fact that we can now trace it's emergence! A deep fight among believers each trying to have their cake (one all knowing all powerful omnipotent god) and eat it too (Jesus being God, God being incarnate, having a father son relationship between two different people, somehow them being the same god but each are gods but its one god, but you get the human god, and the human relationship of gods within a god.....)
Before science it crumbles under it's internal logic which is fundamentally broken and the history of it's creation, a human endeavor filled with fabrication, forgery and internal strife that managed to survive spectacularly well in-spite of it's blatant falsity.
I have been waiting for a new podcast episode to come, and finally not just one episode I am getting- it's a three-part series! And for free?
My favorite section was the eschatology. Even though the later sections felt shorter, they were not lacking. Really amazing show and I await the next episode.
Always, have I seen ritualistic behavior as unavoidable. Thus, I strive for the noble ritual!
"Progressive society is negrolatrous, which means that they worship Africans. Consequently, and owing I think to the trace of Christianity in progressive society, it is forbidden to ever say the name of God."
To this day, the "sacred name" cannot be fully known, as the pious have gone through great lengths to obscure its written form and punish offenders who dare say it aloud. The true meaning, otherwise conveyed by a complete expression of the sacred name, is lost to the reader.
Instead, all we have are some the consonants with little clue as to the direction or rules of pronounciation: NGRH.
EDIT: I was a fool to think this idea wasn't already used in the description.
I loved the essay. I think humans all have an intrinsic religious instinct and that can be quite beneficial. The problem with religion is not the belief of people in something better or higher than us but the blind faith that most adherents seem to acquire. I believe that modernity has made it quite hard to believe in anything beyond the individual, and people who belong to religious groups seem to stick quite hard to the dogma and lack any of the real faith
Love the Chrono Trigger music intro and outro.
Very interesting episode dude
“In any case [both] the sacred cows could lose weight” KEK
Mfw I have an especially relevant meme and substack comments don't support images.
ಥ_ಥ
“If all women walked around bare breasted it seems likely that the breast would cease to titillate.”
Good sentence. Artful, even. Bad example tho.
It was hard to put aside my baked in beliefs but I think I did it enough that I was able to appreciate the essay
Where does the need to "manage the unmanageable" fit in this framework? Arguably one of the earliest functions of religious practice was to try to control/appease/supplicate powerful aspects of the world that lie beyond our ordinary understanding. "Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it" is not a syllogism exclusive to politicians.
Religious schemes of the form
1. Sacrifice a chicken to the corn god
2. ???
3. Profit?
were ubiquitous among pre-moderns, and the motivation for spiritual rituals aimed at material ends doesn't seem map cleanly to any of these proposed categories. Inasmuch as it's about a practical application of the connections between the spiritual and material worlds, it's *closer* to 'gnosis', but the knowledge here need not be esoteric. I'll be glad to remind you that the more chickens we collectively sacrifice, the more pleased the corn god will be, and the psychological payoff for me reminding you of this isn't (mainly) from feelings of superiority for knowing something you don't, it's from relieving my anxiety about the corn god's taking our community's harvest away.
The modern's machine-world understanding obviously limits the scope of this religious motivation today, but it's too prominent in historical practice to ignore, and few moderns are completely beyond wishing for an accessible intercessor. Where does, say, prayer directed to a saint for the healing of a loved one fit into this model?
Funnily enough, seeing the vacuousness of ecstatic experiences means you got quite close to enlightenment. What might be missing:
1. You haven't seen the vacuousness of doubt and skepticism
2. You believe that whatever negative emotion you feel means you aren't enlightened (they are vacuous also).
3. Maybe you believe there is no such thing as enlightenment (kinda true).
Enlightenment is no peak state. It's just the realization that everything that goes on in your mind is the movie, but you are not the movie, you are the screen. Possibly you may have heard this before, and I know I did years ago but it didn't sink in at the time. That actually is all there is to get regarding enlightenment. For the mystically inclined, they think there is something more, and if they could see past the desire for something more, they would be enlightened.
For you, possibly you don't believe in enlightenment, but certainly you don't think your mind is perfect. Improvement is possible, and the way to get it is disappointment, as Chogyam Trungpa said.
Ordinary cognition is to be stuck vacillating between the positive and the negative, which is why ecstasies are not enough: they are unstable, they go away and you sink back down. They also can be dangerous, as they can lead to delusion and ego inflation if they don't go away. But enlightenment is grasping something that is neither positive nor negative: metaphysical Zero. Once understood, you realize it's always been there, and yet, it's different to be conscious of it. Negative emotion arises and then it just goes away to no effect, and this includes doubt. At that point you are free to enjoy the positive, but from a place of stability this time, not a place of need.
I actually did stop meditating upon enlightenment (technically I wasn't practicing when it happened, but there was a time I took it fairly seriously). It isn't fun, and there isn't anything more to get there, now that existence has become an epiphany. Not all the time, but often enough.
Indeed I do not believe there is such a thing as enlightenment (though there is a cognitive change you can trigger through a lot of vipassana meditation, and I do not think that change is desirable in any way), nor do I think that skepticism is vacuous.
I have no interest in the phenomenon which is described in this paper as "euphoric derealization": https://www.nonsymbolic.org/PNSE-Article.pdf
I do not think it constitutes any kind of improvement or useful change. It is, in my opinion, a form of mental masturbation. Moreover, I do not think there is much value in Buddhist philosophy, though it has the occasional clever parable.
I wouldn't say I'm derealized is the thing, I have been there (it was part of my second psychosis), this isn't the same thing.
I really am extremely curious what would happen if you became enlightened, it would be so anathema to your whole schtick, I think something incredible would happen. Or maybe it would be like what happened to Thomas Aquinas, who dismissed his whole works as straw.
The fact that you don't think you are derealized argues strongly to me that either you are not enlightened (and you are mistaken), or that you are having trouble recognizing enlightenment for what it is.
I am sure under some interpretations I am not enlightened (namely, those that believe enlightenment is some super-duper esoteric mindstate), but many others talk about everyone being enlightened from beginninglessness, about how the realm of one's self is not far away, and how it's nearer than near. Zen says if you go looking for it, you have already missed the way, and I wasn't even looking for it when it happened for me. But I doth protest too much: you are an interesting mind, and I guess there is a desire to impress you, but I have never seen anyone change their mind on the internet.
Ultimately, I am a charlatan and deluded if you think I am that, these things can't be forced.
This is interesting and maybe relevant for pt 3.
"What would a disruptive idea of spirituality be for the 21st century? When I say disruptive idea, I'm talking about a thing that is so new and outside the framework of how we currently understand things, that although it takes little effort or investment to start, it has potential to overtake the entire playing field... I am not saying 'what would a new religion look like,' I'm saying what could a new understanding of religion or spirituality be in the data-driven infocracy that we live in today."
https://www.otherlife.co/signs94/?ref=other-life-newsletter
I misplaced this comment to pt 2 (I've just deleted it there), so here it goes again:
Sir, I wonder what you think about some allegedly intersubjective mystical experiences like some of those induced by the Buddhist fire kasina practice promoted, e.g., by D. Ingram.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW884GpnDvc
In the 1st ch. of https://firekasina.org/fire-kasina-book/ he claims people in deep concentration on kasina retreats can see what others visualize or manifest by will and without telling a word beforehand.
I know you posted some tweets about him.
I'm conflicted about this little lecture. About usage of drugs in particular and their importance, to be specific.
Application of hallucinogens(and all else) isn't sustainable, because human brain has a rather limited capcacity to process strong stimuli, and overdoing strong experiences can even damage one's ability to process and experience those: accumulated tolerance towards heroin, and the likes, in drug addicts, which results in constantly increased dose uptake to keep the high no less, - is a similar scenario. That means religions and cults which rely on constant supply of loosely controlled substances for loosening the control over the human mind will soon find themselves losing the control over their subjects too, because those stop being so receptive towards introduced "wisdoms" of new religions, or maybe they will even break down due to "psychic(physical) damage" sustained over time. Can't follow the God's commandments if the brain is fried by chemicals like burnt spagetti in/on acid.
From that follows two conclusions: 1) A "smart" "pastor" of new religion will use his chemistry set once, or maybe twice tops, to induce necessary state of mind. Bigger numbers have bigger risk of damaging the patient; 2) Substances should be used to weave a new experience, feeling good alone shouldn't be the goal. It's harder to believe old things after you learn something new which old doesn't take into account. And no drug is as powerful as a sober mind focused in one direction.
And possibly, a third trend - if there's a danger in the act, then all it means you need to find a way to circumvent it. Ayahuasca creates an evolutionary pressure in humans, selecting for people resistant to negative effects of it. Or maybe people just need to be sufficiently numbed to the experience first already - can't damage what is already broken. A shot in the dark - SSRIs usage risen pretty significantly lately, and it's common effect is feeling "emotionally numb". I feel like it contributes to modern landscape somehow, but i know not enough to arrive to a solid conclusion. What do you think?
I think what you are trying to say is you do not care for my ideology. I am right about mysticism, though.