You have heard of the prisoner’s dilemma. Bob and Joe did a crime. If they’re both silent, they get a year in jail. If one of them stays silent, while the other speaks, the traitor goes free, while the silent one gets three years. If they both rat each other out, they both get two years in jail. The correct move here is obvious of course: Rat out your buddy! We’re not a bunch of tree-hugging communists with weird bottle caps after all, we are rugged individualists.
But now I wonder, have you ever heard of the demiurg’s dilemma?
“Why no Mister Radagast, I have never heard of the demiurg’s dilemma!”
Well aren’t you a lucky little fellow, because I am about to explain it to you!
Imagine one day a man came up to you and said: I am God and I want you to acknowledge me as such.
You would look at this man, at his ugly head, his fat gut, his awkward demeanor, you would look up his name, you would look at all the lies he has told, how he lies about the most bizarre things you can’t imagine someone lying about, you would see how he lacks any sense of humor and you would think to yourself: “This must be the demiurg. An impostor of God who reigns over the material realm, but in whom all qualities of true divinity are absent, who can only make soulless copies of things. How do I handle this?”
So you decide to be diplomatic, you begin to explain to him that divinity is not limited to one man. So you tell him that God is to be found in the trees, in the little streams of water, in the homeless man sleeping under the stars, in the giant flocks of birds that traverse the sky at dusk, in the most pitiable man, doing the most undignified but necessary work possible at a boring office somewhere, whose wife yearns every day to find herself a tall, dark and handsome lover.
But then this man looks at you, without emotion and says: “No, I am God. And I have this big bag of golden coins for you, if you will bow down and worship me as God.”
So naturally, you do what any rugged individualist would do, you grab the bag of gold and sink down onto the floor, prostrating yourself before this abomination.
“Very well. But here’s the catch: I need you to convince everyone else I’m God as well. And you had better hurry, because the bag of gold could disappear at any moment, as long as you have not convinced everyone. Then all will have been in vain.”
So now you hear a tap on your shoulder. A man tells you: “Hey look, I saw what happened there and I’ll keep it simple. I’m going to join you in worshiping this thing, but I need you to pour half your bag of gold into my bag. And I don’t want to hear any complaints, I think I’m being pretty reasonable here, because we both know I could just beat you to a pulp and take all of it. But hand me half the bag and we’re buddies.”
And naturally, as a brave principled man, you agree to hand over half your bag of gold. A third guy comes along, he tells you “hey nerd hand over that gold”, but the other guy carrying half your gold intervenes and says: “No, that’s not how we play around here. And in fact, because you are such a brute, you’re getting exactly one coin from my bag as a reward for joining us, take it or leave it.”
The three of you walk along, discontented, until you approach an old sage sitting by a waterfall.
You tell him: Well look old man, we need you to come with us, to worship this man as God.
And the old man tells you: “Worship a man as God? Why look around you. God is everywhere. God is to be found in the trees. And God is in the little streams of water. And God is in the giant flocks of birds.”
And you say: “Yah yah we’ve heard it all before. Now look old man, I respect you, I have a big pile of gold here to offer you if you-“
“The only thing I yearn from you is for you to step out of my shadow.” He answers.
“Yeah I figured this would go that way. Now look old man, we can either do this the easy way or the hard way. I don’t think you want to find out how these fists feel.”
Suddenly you hear the voice of the demiurg in your head: “You’re not allowed to hurt anyone. They must worship me of their own volition.”
“Oh now you’re telling me huh!” You yell out, as the others look at you funny.
“Sorry.” You hear.
But what does it mean, to hurt someone? Well, he’s not answering your questions. So naturally, you interpret it in the most narrow way possible. So you start annoying the man. You stand in front of his sun. He just ignores you, so you start building a wall of mud around him. You reason that if you take away from him what he worships, he will have to worship what you worship.
Still no response. Well, time to start banging pots next to his ears. But now you realize, once he’s deaf, you can’t use sound to annoy him anymore. So you stop banging and you start scratching your nails on a chalkboard. And on top of that you start driving your car in circles around him. You annoy him with the exhaust fumes. You fly a helicopter overhead. You bring some crying children to join the part.
And when that doesn’t work, you bring the decaying skull of a deer you found in the woods, with maggots crawling out of the eye sockets. “Hey look old man! Is God present in this? Huh? Where is your God now? Hey since you’re such a wise man, why don’t you answer me?”
But this doesn’t seem to work either. So you decide to up the ante. Now you bring some war veterans, to tell him about how they watched their comrades stabbed with swords and trampled by horses. “Isn’t life horrible?” You ask him.
Still nothing.
And meanwhile, in the distance, hidden behind the trees, a good young husband and his wife are looking at these antics. “Quiet honey. Don’t get too close. When they see us, you know they’re coming for us. Let them harass the sage, for he knows how to handle this.” She says.
Now you up the ante again. The demiurg said nothing about terrifying him. You pretend to crash your motorcycle into him. You dress up like a maniac with a chainsaw at night. He does not flinch.
And you begin to get nervous. You keep checking the bag of gold. “Well it still seems to be there.”
But you’re not really enjoying the bag of gold much. Sure, every once in a while you go off with the other two to have a beer or visit the ladies of the night. But you don’t particularly like to hang around those two guys much and you feel like you’re always being watched, by people who don’t respect you.
And the bag of gold starts to feel more like a curse to you. You want what the old sage sitting by the waterfall has. And it angers you. You’re now motivated less by gold and more by resentment. But you’re not about to leave your gold unattended, you’re horrified by the idea of those other two guys who mistreated you ending up with more gold than you! You’re not going to be a loser, or a victim. You can not let those two, who are so much less deserving of this gold than you, win.
So you keep upping the ante. You start spending your gold on a stereo installation, to play horrifying sounds for the sage every day. You start eating fermented garlic and farting in his face.
But the sage continues to sit motionless.
And as time goes by, you start to wonder if the bag of gold can really just magically disappear. Was the demiurg just being vague? Did he just mean theft? Did the demiurg just not want to be held responsible for you beating someone up? Was it even the demiurg?
You realize you started taking a man really seriously, after he handed you a big bag full of gold.
And now you wonder where this demiurg who wants you all to bow down before him has gone. He is nowhere to be found.
And you start to wonder what the sage knows that you don’t.
You squeeze your eyes. You gaze upon the sage. Could it be… nah, don’t be silly!
I don’t know God.
I don’t know why people are constantly talking about God. Billions of people believe they have a personal relationship with the Master of the Universe but it makes no sense to me and it wasn’t always so. Monotheism is a fairly recent invention brought to us by the desert dwellers of the Middle East. Go back a couple of thousand years and for all of human history there was a glorious panoply of gods that lived in all the mysterious corners of the world.
I think this is a more natural and healthy spiritual landscape for a human.
The Catholic way of having a single God as well as secondary religious figures such as saints and angels to provide the folklore works too. I’m from the catholic cultural sphere (Croatia) and I love what we have, though I think what works for you is contingent on your genetics. Enough southern euro blood and you’ll be comfortable as a catholic, etc. Culture is an outgrowth of biology, religion included.
I have no idea why someone would approach a topic like spirituality from the perspective of, “whatever I think would be the most pragmatic thing for the flourishing of my society, is what I will assume to be true.” That’s not how the truth works, you don’t just get to pick and choose what’s convenient for you if you’re serious about figuring out what’s actually going on. I think some people falsely assume that we can’t actually come to know anything about the supernatural or metaphysical realms, so we might as well just make up whatever random bullshit happens to suit us.
Tryptie is right. What is true is what is most useful anyway, as knowing the truth better allows one to engage with reality.
What I find interesting about you anime avatars is whenever you disagree with anyone, you misquote him back at him and then ”debunk” said misquoting. Never asking for any clarification of potential miscommunication, never exchanging anecdotes or attempting to get at what would get the guy to think that way. You people clearly have no intention of actually communicating with anyone or attempting to reach the truth, or even understanding anyone else’s perspective even if you still completely disagree. You’re like that self-centred annoying kid at school who always tried to be funny.
OK that’s all well and good but can you actually explain why Catholicism is truer than other faiths? Can you explain why we should take your religion seriously for reasons other than tradition and ancestry? Catholic traditions do look fun but cosplaying and other forms of larp also look fun. What truth has Catholicism given you and how has it helped you better understand reality?
Catholicism doesn’t even seem to have anything to say about the most paramount mission of this age, ending cruelty to animals, so I don’t know why I should care about it more than any other old mythology.
If you only care about religion as a cultural tradition than it’s just as replaceable as any other arbitrary cultural tradition.
I’m no theologian, nigga. I just know it works on a practical level because I see it with my own eyes. If you want people to convince you of the validity of catholic doctrine, there have been philosophers more well-read and more intelligent than you or me whom you can read.
Unless your question is ”why does it work?”, in which case it’s because it’s southern euros staying true to their nature while forming a spiritual tradition, while consistently picking the best of the best to formulate it. Alienation of your own inborn nature means death, on an individual as well as collective level.
>I just know it works on a practical level because I see it with my own eyes.
You were being criticized for exactly this mentality. You’re a simple creature and it’s easy to understand your perspective.
““whatever I think would be the most pragmatic thing for the flourishing of my society, is what I will assume to be true.”
Though perhaps you don’t even actually believe it in and it’s just a matter of pure utility for you, you clearly haven’t actually thought about this much since you can’t even elaborate on your own fucking faith.
Accept the L instead of bitching about anime avatars and the kids you didn’t like at school like a whiny subhuman who’s still mentally stuck as a high schooler.
Right, except why would I get into a theology debate with someone who clearly shows no willingness to hear me out and actually communicate? Once the other party strawmans you, like the anime avatar did and you just now did too, there is zero point in talking to you any further.
Since you didn’t continue the conversation with any meritable ideas of your own (if you felt you had been misunderstood, you were and are free to clarify your views at any time), I’ll just elaborate on my previous point:
To say that a spiritual idea of how reality works, is ‘more natural and healthy’ does not have a bearing on whether or not it is true. Likewise, to say that a particular belief “works for you” based on your genetics, culture or biology (the implications here being dubious at best), also has no bearing on whether or not the ideas in question actually align with the underlying reality of this world.
To take the stance that you’re taking here, is not actually spiritual at all. It is a fundamentally materialist take, which sees these spiritual ideas and traditions as competing human institutions or cultural artefacts first and foremost, treating them as mechanisms of social and cultural control or enhancement that have varying degrees of efficacy depending on which populace they are applied to, such that one might be more well suited for a certain group, whereas the other might be suitable for another. To treat spirituality in the manner in which one might treat a system of government or a lifestyle choice, is to not truly believe that any of them are more true than the others. It is to say that the spiritual ideas should be subordinate to materialist notions of what is healthy, natural, culturally syntonic, and so on. Otherwise, we would not say that to believe in untrue things or to adhere to a set of ideas which doesn’t align with reality, would ever be well-suited for ourselves or for others, provided we place any value on the truth at all.
On the other hand, I am speaking from the perspective of spirituality as a search for ultimate truth, with the idea that these spiritual concepts not only hold explanatory power for the fundamental ways in which reality works, but that certain spiritual ideas are closer to the truth than the scientific-materialist views and other prevailing wisdom that are common at present. That since there are numerous spiritual traditions which exist, many of which are mutually contradictory, as well as potentially countless spiritual concepts which are rarely or have yet to be explored, we also have a duty to sift out which among these best align with the truth through inquiry. So we’re really speaking about two different things, here.
Also, people who actively hate anime have something wrong with them. I’ve never seen an exception to this.
All you’ve been saying is that Catholicism is useful for your society. That is what you have been saying yourself, no one is strawmaning since no one is actually misrepresenting your arguments. You are being criticized for the information you are putting out here.
When I said
>Though perhaps you don’t even actually believe it in and it’s just a matter of pure utility for you
This is not a strawman, I am not arguing against this, me stating this is a roundabout way of accusing you of being a atheist. Notice the “perhaps” in the sentence. All of your arguments could be made the same regardless of your actual metaphysical beliefs, a atheist could just as easily make the argument that Catholicism in preserving useful in preserving the group and expressing “inborn nature” You have said nothing about why Catholicism is true or useful on a higher level.
Any religion that isn’t vegan isn’t useful in preserving humanity or any of its tribes on the long-term anyway. Nature doesn’t care if you don’t respect her.
You yourself have stated that you haven’t thought much about this.
>I’m no theologian, nigga. I just know it works on a practical level because I see it with my own eyes.
That is a acknowledgment of not being well read on the theology of your religion. If you care about the theology, talk about some fucking theology.
Where is the strawmen? I just see whining and no actual arguments.
Tryptie, I have no idea why someone would approach a topic like religion or basic biological gender from the perspective of, “whatever I think would be the most pragmatic thing for the flourishing of me, is what I will assume to be true.”
That’s not how the truth works, you don’t just get to pick and choose what’s convenient for your particular brand of insanity.
My spiritual views are informed by actual supernatural experiences that I’ve had, coupled with a lot of reflection and consideration. It isn’t actually to my pragmatic benefit to believe that we are living in a hell realm, that material reality is the corpse of a goddess and that we reincarnate here repeatedly against our best interests until we manage to overcome a bunch of interdimensional demons. I didn’t arrive at these conclusions because they were easy or obviously beneficial to me in any way. I arrived at them because my experiences forced me to conclude many of them, and the rest could then be logically derived from there. I am furthermore usually careful to differentiate between what I know to be true with certainty, versus when I am merely speculating. I don’t really expect you, specifically, to understand the distinction, nor any of my views more generally, but I still like to share them regardless.
If someone’s parents are adopted and they refer to their adoptive mother as ‘mom’, we don’t go around constantly correcting them that ‘that’s not your real biological mother, you should stick to the family that “God” gave you.’ If someone loses their arm in an accident and gets a prosthetic replacement, and later refers to the prosthetic as “their arm”, most sane people will not say, “uhm ackshually that’s not a BIOLOGICAL arm, and you shouldn’t be allowed to have it or to refer to it as your arm because that goes against biological truth.” Sure, technically it’s not their biological parent or their biological arm, but in these contexts the biology is not the salient issue. So it is with transitioning. If I referred to myself as a guy in public, it would only confuse people because I just look and sound like any other woman. I transitioned many years ago, it went very well and it made my life incomparably better. Nobody who knows about my being trans is in denial that I have a penis, and in theory I would be fine telling people that I was trans (though nobody ever notices to ask) – but it’s simply beside the point entirely. I actually think it’s pretty based that trans people exist, and it is my strong belief that we all have the right to take whatever form we wish to, though the circumstances of our existence in material reality seek to limit our freedom in this and other ways.
” Billions of people believe they have a personal relationship with the Master of the Universe but it makes no sense to me and it wasn’t always so.”
It’s not a matter of belief due to reasoning, it’s a matter of what you experience. If you don’t actually experience God’s presence within you, helping you and guiding you, then you don’t. That is okay, as long as you act ethically. If you experience it in the birds, or as a bunch of different gods, that is okay, as long as it leads you to act right. But it is only fair and reasonable to try waiting patiently and quietly and see if the Christian expression of God will reach you (however you want to call it), if only as a mustard seed. And it does reach many people, when they are open to this. Also, a lot of religions that appear to have loads of gods will say that really those are just expressions of one Spirit; that is what many people in India say; some people who see God in the bird and trees and waves feel it is all one expression of the Great Spirit.
I say choose the one true God. But if you don’t want to do that, you should at LEAST choose the glorious panoply of Gods. Choosing “my own logical brain” is the worst mistake.
I think it’s funny the protagonist of this story starts to lose his gold as soon as he receives it, first other men come to take his gold, then he himself spends it to try and convert the sage to worshiping the man of gold. You get the impression the protagonist himself doesn’t even know why he does the things he does. Why does he care so much to convert the sage at first? He’s a zombie enslaved to the will of the money he has received it seems. Long after the man of gold is gone the protagonist is still enslaved to a phantom of the self proclaimed Demiurge, the protagonist is cursed.
Selling your soul for money is never a good trade, if your whole focus is on the rat race soon you lose touch with the beauty and truth that’s right in-front of you. The wealthy really do get what they deserve.
i dont think evolution really even works on a timescale for me to become genetically catholic as a central european, all of that shit repulses me even as i occassionally do feel a craving sometimes for wide open plains and some horse milk. either way it seems exceptionally dangerous to adopt a viewpoint of “whatever provides utility is true” because utility is fairly subjective and hard to evaluate and if you’re lazy enough to think that way you’re also probably lazy enough to conflate genuine utility with whatever makes your brain leak yummers, anyway im a gay guy with big muscles and im afraid of what this means for my future.
Well, the argument, and I’ll present it since Vlajdermen isn’t doing so, is that God made the earth and the rest of the universe (both physical and spiritual) so as to line up with human reasoning as properly performed. God did this so that reasoning really can get you to God’s will. However, most people are too stupid to reason very well, so Christ passed the Church on to Paul, and the Church has been doing the reasoning for everyone ever since. And I will say that they are good at reasoning. They feel that societies do flourish under these teachings, since they match up with the nature of the universe. So it is unfair to say that they are not taking spiritual reality into account; they are; it is just that they think it is accessible through human reason, because God made things that way.
It all coheres. But is it true? The Catholic church has had a lot of mystics, like Madame Guyon, who waited faithfully and quietly in order to be one with God. They did imprison some of them.
I would argue that while the church might have been following the will of nature in the past, it no longer does so and as such its teachings are false today even if they weren’t false yesterday. If the world really was only 4000 years old in 0 AD then something has changed the universe since it is clearly billions of years old today. The fact the Church doesn’t advocate for anything actually useful to saving the world, like veganism, shows that it is not following the will of any higher will today as-well.
Human reason and empirical yet subjective experience are the only two ways to be able to understand anything, but I think reason alone enough is not enough and you shouldn’t believe something just because it sounds reasonable. You do need to be reasonable in your understanding of experience however, for example, trying to reason out the intentions of why some entity try to says its God even if it potentially isn’t actually that. Actions speak louder than words.
Does a self proclaimed God actually act like a God or a narcissistic psychopath? Was Emperor Nero a God just because he said he was one? I think a real God would actually live up to its claims.
I think we’re all like gods but that means less than it sounds like.
I think you can tell a lot about a religion by how they treat animals. Hindus treat animals very well and are usually very peaceful, while with catholics, rintrah could fill an entire channel just filled with horror stories like Griet from their 1260 year reign of terror over Europe. There is only one major Christian denomination that is vegetarian and actively promotes that lifestyle. (looks like some groups in Karen’s quaker friends do too, so props there)
Human females are animals, too. If you read about how women are treated in Hindu society, it is pretty bad. Female infanticide and sex selective abortion, among other things (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_women). There is a huge shortage of women of marriage age in India because of this; these missing women didn’t have a great death experience. Korea did the same thing but then changed, and India may be changing (https://www.reuters.com/article/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/feature-as-capable-as-a-son-indians-say-no-to-the-abortion-of-girls-idUSL8N2ZF70Y/). But even if they do now change, it does show that being Hindu (or any other religion) doesn’t necessarily mean that you are kind to other creatures.
I don’t think this comparison is entirely fair.
It’s much easier to survive winter in India without eating animals, than it is in Europe. The climate is just different.
In addition, Catholicism has a long list of holidays during which people are supposed to fast and abstain from eating meat. In Eastern orthodoxy vegetarianism is the norm for the monks.