The story of Abraham teaches us that the arbitrary words of a desert spirit make even killing a child okay, and that blind obedience is the highest virtue. It's stock-standard 85 IQ morality and appeals to low-agency people due to their innate compatibility with it.
It is shocking that so many people read the stories of the OT and the behavior of the god and his tribe in it and say, “yes, this appeals to me”.
Great essay.
Perhaps the conclusion that we can explore next is whether taking on the inverted morality of a foreign and perverted people as our own somehow corrupts or alters our own identity?
I think the simplest answer is that it doesn’t. It simply negates and weakens it. Imagine a human that grew up with bears thinking he’s a bear and trying to walk and hunt like a bear.
That’s the disconnect that the Bible engenders in it’s victims of European descent. Ban it forever.
I've been trying to argue the point that European culture (art, letters, architecture, etc.) became great not because of Christianity ("the inverted morality of a foreign and perverted people"); European culture became great because the European people were great, and Christian (themed) art rode in on its coattails. Great European culture made great art, including (a lot of) Christian-themed art.
Agreed. Ancient Greeks and Egyptians had already explored areas of philosophy, morality, science and engineering centuries before Christianity dominated (by force, I might add) the European sphere. Achievements occurred during the Christian era were not BECAUSE of Christianity but DESPITE it. The same goes for the laughable concept of "Islamic science" whereby scientific progress and adoption was made not because of the backward cult of Islam, but in spite of it.
Yes, I say the same thing. We did everything we have done in history because of our genetics and our bio-spirit. The past 2000 years of innovation were accomplished in spite of Christianity, not because of it - the past 2000 years of innovation were accomplished due to all prior innovations, once the bronze age happened, the iron age was soon to come, and then industrialism. It's like first past the post, whoever gets there first gets to claim victory.
Agreed, except one point. You say "whoever gets there first gets to claim victory", but this is not always true. For example, the laughable claim of "Islamic science" by which Islamic apologists claim ownership over mathematical and astronomical concepts discovered centuries before Islam appeared in the mind of a demented psychopath like the "Prophet" Mohamed. They claim ownership not because they were the first but because they were the dominant. And yes, some scientific breakthroughs were added during the peak of the Arab empire (naming the stars and the efficient decimal system we use today), but by no means that can be attributed to the nonsense found in the Koran. Muslims conquered by the sword areas and concepts of superior civilizations (superior in everything except violence).
"The past 2000 years of innovation were accomplished in spite of Christianity, not because of it"
I thought almost exactly these your words after I had posted my comment, but after I had turned off this terminal and was resigned to having said as much as what was already in the comment. I'm rapt that we are in concurrence.
Christianity is not the cradle of the metaphysics underlying European cultures. Accordingly, the Renaissance - the cultural, artistic, political and economic rebirth in Europe from the 14th to the 17th century - was marked by a revival of Classical learning and wisdom. This exuberant flowering of European civilization was followed by The Age of Revolution, the period from the late-18th to the mid-19th centuries, and both this Age and the preceding historical and cultural episode of the Renaissance together were arguably the apices (or apexes, if you prefer American English) of European civilization since Classical Athens, and both transpired by a deliberate loosening of Christianity's repression of innate European vitality, and the demotion of Christianity's influence on society and culture in other periods.
It's another argument I've tried to make elsewhere, but when taking a broad view of Christianity's contribution to advancing the human condition, the human tendency to venality and savagery (in particular the ruling classes' whose power and exclusive command of resources makes them singularly responsible for the greatest harms inflicted on humanity), and to improving the human condition (the levels of injustice, turmoil, and oppositely, the promotion of peace and harmony) over the past more than 2000 years, one cannot seriously conclude that it has been a nett positive. My favorite examples are the "Harrying of the North" and the Albigensian Crusade, but not one war or skirmish or assassination or intrigue in two thousand years of history was prevented by Christianity, and few if any witches were saved from being burnt at the stake. Basically, not just in the case of European culture, but all of history has unfolded as it has in spite of Christianity.
"This exuberant flowering of European civilization was followed by The Age of Revolution, the period from the late-18th to the mid-19th centuries, and both this Age and the preceding historical and cultural episode of the Renaissance together were arguably the apices (or apexes, if you prefer American English) of European civilization since Classical Athens, and both transpired by a deliberate loosening of Christianity's repression of innate European vitality, and the demotion of Christianity's influence on society and culture in other periods."
Morality is largely useless as an objective concept. Identity comes first. But otherwise I agree that the OT is clearly about an evil demon. Keep writing!
This is exactly the kind of insight I look for. Thank you. I've been constructing a theory about morality and identity. What if morality (adhering to certain moral principles) is a way to achieve identity? After all, our values make us who we are. What do you think?
no, identity is innate. an immoral wolf doesn’t stop being a wolf. in terms of preferable behavior, it is all based on identity. a mongoose should behave differently from a snake. what is good for a snake isn’t good for a mongoose.
Yes, here you mean the base identity or species, race, gender, physical characteristics. Beyond that, there are overlying identities that are more meaningful because they are chosen. We have tribal identity, and then we have ideological identity, and moral identity, etc. What you mean by "identity>ideology>morality" is basically that the first level (identity) is the base physical unchosen identity. Which is why people with identity issues tend to want to change the unchangeable (e.g. their gender).
right i see what you are saying but ideological "identity" or moral "identity" is an anti-identity. because these things are artificial, arbitrary and elective. a true identity is none of that. thus the concept of ideology is antagonistic to identity.
This is very interesting. Yes, higher levels of identity are artificial, of course. But that’s what makes them meaningful, because they are free choices and they are earned. I’ll have to read more of your blog posts. Where do I start on this subject?
This is the insight at the black heart of globohomo: dilute and pervert identity to death, and what remains will be a pulpy mass without form that is easily malleable.
True, there are levels to identity. A base identity (race, gender, even age) is innate and cannot be changed or chose. This is why it's not that meaningful. Yet there are other layers such as tribal identity and individual identity, the latter of which is based on the principles and values one freely chooses to honour.
I disagree with you quite a lot, especially concerning religion, but I'm very much in agreement with this statement, and in fact I don't think it goes far enough.
"You would be moral even if you did not believe in a god watching over you. That’s the only morality worth having."
I would go so far as to change "even" to "only". And I am a believer in "fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom". But a morality based on fear isn't a morality at all. It doesn't matter whether the source of the fear is a guard with a gun or a God that some might not believe in.
I anticipate disagreement. This is how we get wiser. Regarding the "Fear of God," it's worth noting that there's a prevalent mistranslation from Ancient Greek that originally states "Respect God" and poorly translated to "Fear God." The same mistranslation is found in the infamous statement "Woman shall fear man" when it's not fear; it's respect.
“I am concerned more with discovering morality than divinity; divinity it seems is not interested in being discovered.”
Right off the bat, a point of disagreement.
YHWH—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—gave His only begotten Son so that humanity could know what Divinity is like.
Jesus is the express image of God, the Father. The two are not one person, but One Thing—Divinity (as is the Holy Spirit who empowered Jesus’s earthly ministry).
Yeshua is God in the flesh.
Jesus reflects the Father in a context that is humanly embraceable.
Yes but surely that cannot constitute proof that divinity wants to be discovered. That’s but one religion with innumerable denominations after thousands and thousands of years of human existence without such gnosis. I’m writing a piece now contemplating on the notion that perhaps it is impossible for divinity to be revealed to us in this reality.
Btw, I am currently writing a piece on hierophany and - believe it or not - it's in defense of religion. I'm glad some people even know the meaning of the word :)
Sending Your Son (often sons were sent as envoys to express or enforce their father's will in matters of estate, etc., from ancient times up to the present) is sending an "expression" of yourself.
I believe that it is explicit that in sending His Son, Jesus, as the express representative of Himself, God (the Father) wanted people to know and understand His character.
What I means was that the claim "God sent His Son" is unverifiable. Only a tiny fraction of the current population of earth believes this, and an even smaller fraction of the people who have ever lived. This cannot be how a God creator chooses to sacrifice his Son. You may call it an argument from incredulity.
The Gospel record comprises eye witness accounts of events in the life of Jesus, the Messiah.
Ultimately, He was executed for making the claim of Deity. Again, this is on the record, historically, in scripture.
Then there are the eye witness accounts of seeing and interacting with the resurrected Messiah—which were never disproven by His detractors.
Extra-biblical references to Jesus are found in Josephus and other sources.
This does not even take into account hundreds of prophetic writings indicating precise details of Messiah’s coming—all of which were fulfilled by Jesus of Nazareth.
I’m OK with your saying that you simply don’t believe scripture. But neither you or I were there. So we must rely on the scriptures as the historical documents they are.
Did you ever meet your great, great, great grandfather? (Or Socrates, or Nero)
Yes, I agree with your assessment. No, I don't know if Socrates or Nero or Shakespeare existed. I cannot prove they existed, nor will I ever make the claim that I know for a fact that they did. But the ideas attributed to them (rightfully or falsely) are what matter. Similarly, to me it doesn't matter if Jesus existed or, if he did, if he were just a man. Many of his ideas resonate with me.
A bit glib but according to a Wired article from 2007:
Old Testament Murder Count: God Vs. Satan
..”God's kill count is 227,037% higher than Satan's. These numbers do not include women and children, so it's possible that Satan made up some of the slack punt-kicking Jewish children into the Dead Sea, but I tend to doubt it…”
But the essence of those religions is that the ruling class needs some people that religiously want to build an empire in order to put their messiah in charge (Jews), and some people that already had theirs and their only purpose now is to endure pain and suffering, authoritarianism and injustice until they pass to the afterlife where everything is okay (Christians). They are all pawns though and they don't know it.
Very insightful. Truly religion (at least the Abrahamic ones) are politically motivated. I’ll go a step further and claim that Christianity was the end of the Hellenistic era. There is nothing left of it today when half of self-proclaimed Greeks are religious fanatics and the other half socialist cult fanatics, with very few being neither.
Saul of Tarsus had a vision which led to his conversion on the road to Damascus. The epistles attributed to Paul, his name after conversion (Saul is a Hebrew name, but Paul is Roman - rather politically astute, wouldn't you say?), were collected in the New Testament, which are the first Christian theological writing and the source of much Christian doctrine.
The Prophet Muhammad was visited by the angel Jibril (Gabriel), who revealed to him the beginnings of what would later become the Qur’an.
Mood disorders, delusions, hallucinations, schizophrenia, or temporal lobe epilepsy seem to be instrumental to Abrahamic faiths.
People of faith call me an atheist (I emphatically do not, but it's a pain in the ass explaining the absurdity of the term "atheist" every time), but I am even more emphatically NOT a statist. Huck phtoo!
I'm an anarchist, and the foundation and practice of true anarchy is love.
"True morality is being able to be immoral and get away with it, and still choose to be moral. True strength is being able to tyrannize at no expense, and still choose to treat others as equals."
Thank you for giving me another way to describe true morality, which I intrinsically understand and which guides my life. You have written an absolute gem of a column, thank you so much for publishing it!
I am glad that we are so ideologically aligned. Not a religionist, not an atheist, just an advocate of freedom sourced from love. Splendid way to put it. Thanks you loads for your awesome words. If you don’t mind, I’ll share your comments.
I am bristling with keenness to look through your oeuvre to read and learn more.
Accordingly, I cannot recommend more highly Rurik's work. The man is a phenomenon, an intellectual colossus.
But for your Substack as for Rurik's, it mortifies me that I cannot pay for a subscription. Four years ago my moral and anarchic compasses lead me to walk-out of paid work (also so that I don't pay taxes) and give up the income I received from it. As a result, I have no means with which to pay for anything besides the absolute essentials other than with sincere appreciation.
Don't worry about it. I think I have managed to disable payments here (I think), and all my work is free. I'll never ask for money, even though people do ask me how they show their appreciation with money. I don't do this for money. I do this for the adventure.
"Many consider Judaism and/or Christianity (the European interpretation of Judaism) . . ." Haha, shots fired, in the first sentence, lol. Nice.
Here's one part that people could point to to stand for the story of Abraham being true in the sense that it would have been supernatural, and not just schizophrenic: He was very, very old, as was his wife, and they were not able to conceive a child, and then at like eighty, for the wife, Isaac was conceived from them, after God said he would be and she laughed, thus giving Isaac his name.
"'Are you crazy Abraham?'" Yeah, that's a pretty good summation of your point, with the sentences preceding it. The big one for me was that God would indeed care so much about the allegiance of his creations, although one could say "made in God's image" carries a lot, so he could see them as himself. In any case, that spoke loudly. And GREAT connection to how that accurately reflects the government mindset.
Interesting. Thanks for your comment. I am currently writing a piece in defense of religion, which takes stories like Abraham's in a more positive light. I think you'd appreciate it. Let's see how it unfolds...
I do get a bit despondent at this kind of simplistic reductive analysis from people who are outside faith or who have minimal understanding of it. It leads to category errors. It's like criticising a TV show about Antarctica because the TV screen is warm instead of freezing. Or criticising the famous Buddhist koan by saying "one hand clapping has no sound, duh!". Or criticising an algebraic equation because the letters don't make a good haiku. It misunderstands the nature of the material. They are the errors of schoolboys, and Dawkins, and they're just not very serious.
Just to throw a few things out there, it's understood in serious Christianity that God is not condoning every action of the Hebrews or even of the patriarchs. Far from it. This is self evident from reading the OT, and trying to cherry pick cases like this, and testing them against the obvious strawman "God condone all this behaviour" is not a good faith argument. And that's the bigger problem. These are not good faith engagements with the material. They are motivated attacks, and the motivation is external to the material, it comes from some other place, from inside the critic, who picks some passage as a target to "prove" a preconceived view via this strawman framework. This take on Abraham is one such. There are many many takes on Abraham and Isaac, but this one here is, I don't want to be harsh, but it's incredibly immature. An extreme example, just for clarity (this is exaggerated), the general approach of not understanding the material is like a brownshirt stamping on a book of quantum mechanics and calling it "Jew science" before throwing it in the fire. He has not engaged with the material on its own terms. He has brought his preconceived prejudice to the material and condemned it within his own framework, for reasons external to the material, that he brought to it from elsewhere.
Some readers may know that this passage is perhaps the oldest recorded text in written English? That's how important it is. Yet you think it can be so easily dismissed as transparently unethical? You think Anglo Saxon kings and warriors were less independent of will than you are, had less pride, less sense of self? Of course not. They could kill any of us with their bare hands for a perceived insult. And would. But they found this passage deeply important. That's because they met the material and actually thought about it, instead of trying to show their schoolboy cleverness, like a pupil of a brilliant teacher who pins a "kick me" note on that teachers back. So yes, this isn't a good faith engagement with the material, and it seems to be done both in ignorance and with arrogance. What's the point really? Why do atheists and the atheist-adjacent invest so much time and energy in these circular "disproofs" which simply proceed from their own premises? There are so many interesting and valuable discussions that can be had from the Abraham and Isaac passage, instead of this "flying spaghetti monster child murderer" crap. Do you guys really think everyone who lived before you for 3000 years was an idiot, and you just happened to be born in some magically enlightened age of truth? It's kind of embarrassing. Meh. It's pointless. Go ahead and keep pulling the legs off spiders if it turns you on. Nobody else is really interested. I just wish your intellects were directed to something a little more sophisticated and constructive. Something more mature, to be honest. You're not teenage boys, I'm sure, but it sure looks like it from the level of insight shown here.
You said: "simplistic reductive analysis from people who are outside faith or who have minimal understanding of it." This is not true. I was possess deep understanding of Christianity, was raised Christian and was even a trainee monk for a short period. But this is just an appeal to authority. I am concerned with discussing ideas, not bashing on people. Which is why I end the piece by giving people of any persuasion the benefit of the doubt.
The story of Abraham teaches us that the arbitrary words of a desert spirit make even killing a child okay, and that blind obedience is the highest virtue. It's stock-standard 85 IQ morality and appeals to low-agency people due to their innate compatibility with it.
Yes. Well put. Sadly, we have to say the quiet part out loud on this one.
Thanks
Superb comment! Permission to copy and repeat, with full attribution of course.
Sure
It is shocking that so many people read the stories of the OT and the behavior of the god and his tribe in it and say, “yes, this appeals to me”.
Great essay.
Perhaps the conclusion that we can explore next is whether taking on the inverted morality of a foreign and perverted people as our own somehow corrupts or alters our own identity?
I think the simplest answer is that it doesn’t. It simply negates and weakens it. Imagine a human that grew up with bears thinking he’s a bear and trying to walk and hunt like a bear.
That’s the disconnect that the Bible engenders in it’s victims of European descent. Ban it forever.
I've been trying to argue the point that European culture (art, letters, architecture, etc.) became great not because of Christianity ("the inverted morality of a foreign and perverted people"); European culture became great because the European people were great, and Christian (themed) art rode in on its coattails. Great European culture made great art, including (a lot of) Christian-themed art.
Agreed. Ancient Greeks and Egyptians had already explored areas of philosophy, morality, science and engineering centuries before Christianity dominated (by force, I might add) the European sphere. Achievements occurred during the Christian era were not BECAUSE of Christianity but DESPITE it. The same goes for the laughable concept of "Islamic science" whereby scientific progress and adoption was made not because of the backward cult of Islam, but in spite of it.
Yes, I say the same thing. We did everything we have done in history because of our genetics and our bio-spirit. The past 2000 years of innovation were accomplished in spite of Christianity, not because of it - the past 2000 years of innovation were accomplished due to all prior innovations, once the bronze age happened, the iron age was soon to come, and then industrialism. It's like first past the post, whoever gets there first gets to claim victory.
Agreed, except one point. You say "whoever gets there first gets to claim victory", but this is not always true. For example, the laughable claim of "Islamic science" by which Islamic apologists claim ownership over mathematical and astronomical concepts discovered centuries before Islam appeared in the mind of a demented psychopath like the "Prophet" Mohamed. They claim ownership not because they were the first but because they were the dominant. And yes, some scientific breakthroughs were added during the peak of the Arab empire (naming the stars and the efficient decimal system we use today), but by no means that can be attributed to the nonsense found in the Koran. Muslims conquered by the sword areas and concepts of superior civilizations (superior in everything except violence).
"The past 2000 years of innovation were accomplished in spite of Christianity, not because of it"
I thought almost exactly these your words after I had posted my comment, but after I had turned off this terminal and was resigned to having said as much as what was already in the comment. I'm rapt that we are in concurrence.
Christianity is not the cradle of the metaphysics underlying European cultures. Accordingly, the Renaissance - the cultural, artistic, political and economic rebirth in Europe from the 14th to the 17th century - was marked by a revival of Classical learning and wisdom. This exuberant flowering of European civilization was followed by The Age of Revolution, the period from the late-18th to the mid-19th centuries, and both this Age and the preceding historical and cultural episode of the Renaissance together were arguably the apices (or apexes, if you prefer American English) of European civilization since Classical Athens, and both transpired by a deliberate loosening of Christianity's repression of innate European vitality, and the demotion of Christianity's influence on society and culture in other periods.
It's another argument I've tried to make elsewhere, but when taking a broad view of Christianity's contribution to advancing the human condition, the human tendency to venality and savagery (in particular the ruling classes' whose power and exclusive command of resources makes them singularly responsible for the greatest harms inflicted on humanity), and to improving the human condition (the levels of injustice, turmoil, and oppositely, the promotion of peace and harmony) over the past more than 2000 years, one cannot seriously conclude that it has been a nett positive. My favorite examples are the "Harrying of the North" and the Albigensian Crusade, but not one war or skirmish or assassination or intrigue in two thousand years of history was prevented by Christianity, and few if any witches were saved from being burnt at the stake. Basically, not just in the case of European culture, but all of history has unfolded as it has in spite of Christianity.
This is incredibly insightful:
"This exuberant flowering of European civilization was followed by The Age of Revolution, the period from the late-18th to the mid-19th centuries, and both this Age and the preceding historical and cultural episode of the Renaissance together were arguably the apices (or apexes, if you prefer American English) of European civilization since Classical Athens, and both transpired by a deliberate loosening of Christianity's repression of innate European vitality, and the demotion of Christianity's influence on society and culture in other periods."
Morality is largely useless as an objective concept. Identity comes first. But otherwise I agree that the OT is clearly about an evil demon. Keep writing!
This is exactly the kind of insight I look for. Thank you. I've been constructing a theory about morality and identity. What if morality (adhering to certain moral principles) is a way to achieve identity? After all, our values make us who we are. What do you think?
no, identity is innate. an immoral wolf doesn’t stop being a wolf. in terms of preferable behavior, it is all based on identity. a mongoose should behave differently from a snake. what is good for a snake isn’t good for a mongoose.
identity>ideology>morality
Yes, here you mean the base identity or species, race, gender, physical characteristics. Beyond that, there are overlying identities that are more meaningful because they are chosen. We have tribal identity, and then we have ideological identity, and moral identity, etc. What you mean by "identity>ideology>morality" is basically that the first level (identity) is the base physical unchosen identity. Which is why people with identity issues tend to want to change the unchangeable (e.g. their gender).
right i see what you are saying but ideological "identity" or moral "identity" is an anti-identity. because these things are artificial, arbitrary and elective. a true identity is none of that. thus the concept of ideology is antagonistic to identity.
I write a lot about this on my blog.
This is very interesting. Yes, higher levels of identity are artificial, of course. But that’s what makes them meaningful, because they are free choices and they are earned. I’ll have to read more of your blog posts. Where do I start on this subject?
Anything in the metaphysics section
"identity>ideology>morality"
This is the insight at the black heart of globohomo: dilute and pervert identity to death, and what remains will be a pulpy mass without form that is easily malleable.
True, there are levels to identity. A base identity (race, gender, even age) is innate and cannot be changed or chose. This is why it's not that meaningful. Yet there are other layers such as tribal identity and individual identity, the latter of which is based on the principles and values one freely chooses to honour.
Well said, Rurik.
I disagree with you quite a lot, especially concerning religion, but I'm very much in agreement with this statement, and in fact I don't think it goes far enough.
"You would be moral even if you did not believe in a god watching over you. That’s the only morality worth having."
I would go so far as to change "even" to "only". And I am a believer in "fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom". But a morality based on fear isn't a morality at all. It doesn't matter whether the source of the fear is a guard with a gun or a God that some might not believe in.
"I would go so far as to change "even" to "only". "
You have seen through to the very heart of the matter. Thanks for sharing your clarity.
I anticipate disagreement. This is how we get wiser. Regarding the "Fear of God," it's worth noting that there's a prevalent mistranslation from Ancient Greek that originally states "Respect God" and poorly translated to "Fear God." The same mistranslation is found in the infamous statement "Woman shall fear man" when it's not fear; it's respect.
You wrote:
“I am concerned more with discovering morality than divinity; divinity it seems is not interested in being discovered.”
Right off the bat, a point of disagreement.
YHWH—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—gave His only begotten Son so that humanity could know what Divinity is like.
Jesus is the express image of God, the Father. The two are not one person, but One Thing—Divinity (as is the Holy Spirit who empowered Jesus’s earthly ministry).
Yeshua is God in the flesh.
Jesus reflects the Father in a context that is humanly embraceable.
Yes but surely that cannot constitute proof that divinity wants to be discovered. That’s but one religion with innumerable denominations after thousands and thousands of years of human existence without such gnosis. I’m writing a piece now contemplating on the notion that perhaps it is impossible for divinity to be revealed to us in this reality.
So the whole thing is that you haven't experienced hierophany then. Or maybe you did, but you reasoned your way out of it.
Not Christian hierophany, just hierophany in general.
Btw, I am currently writing a piece on hierophany and - believe it or not - it's in defense of religion. I'm glad some people even know the meaning of the word :)
Sotiris, I don't follow your reasoning.
Sending Your Son (often sons were sent as envoys to express or enforce their father's will in matters of estate, etc., from ancient times up to the present) is sending an "expression" of yourself.
I believe that it is explicit that in sending His Son, Jesus, as the express representative of Himself, God (the Father) wanted people to know and understand His character.
What I means was that the claim "God sent His Son" is unverifiable. Only a tiny fraction of the current population of earth believes this, and an even smaller fraction of the people who have ever lived. This cannot be how a God creator chooses to sacrifice his Son. You may call it an argument from incredulity.
Sotiris, I sincerely appreciate our conversation.
Thank you.
Thank you. Likewise.
The Gospel record comprises eye witness accounts of events in the life of Jesus, the Messiah.
Ultimately, He was executed for making the claim of Deity. Again, this is on the record, historically, in scripture.
Then there are the eye witness accounts of seeing and interacting with the resurrected Messiah—which were never disproven by His detractors.
Extra-biblical references to Jesus are found in Josephus and other sources.
This does not even take into account hundreds of prophetic writings indicating precise details of Messiah’s coming—all of which were fulfilled by Jesus of Nazareth.
I’m OK with your saying that you simply don’t believe scripture. But neither you or I were there. So we must rely on the scriptures as the historical documents they are.
Did you ever meet your great, great, great grandfather? (Or Socrates, or Nero)
How do you know he existed and was not a myth?
Can you prove he existed?
How can I believe you?
Yes, I agree with your assessment. No, I don't know if Socrates or Nero or Shakespeare existed. I cannot prove they existed, nor will I ever make the claim that I know for a fact that they did. But the ideas attributed to them (rightfully or falsely) are what matter. Similarly, to me it doesn't matter if Jesus existed or, if he did, if he were just a man. Many of his ideas resonate with me.
That was great, ty!
And the moral of the story, without blind faith, these man made stories don't work...
Glad you enjoyed it. Thank you.
A bit glib but according to a Wired article from 2007:
Old Testament Murder Count: God Vs. Satan
..”God's kill count is 227,037% higher than Satan's. These numbers do not include women and children, so it's possible that Satan made up some of the slack punt-kicking Jewish children into the Dead Sea, but I tend to doubt it…”
I would edit the quote:
…”god’s kill count..”
“Satan did nothing wrong” 🤣🤷♂️
You’re not wrong
Very nice essay.
But the essence of those religions is that the ruling class needs some people that religiously want to build an empire in order to put their messiah in charge (Jews), and some people that already had theirs and their only purpose now is to endure pain and suffering, authoritarianism and injustice until they pass to the afterlife where everything is okay (Christians). They are all pawns though and they don't know it.
Very insightful. Truly religion (at least the Abrahamic ones) are politically motivated. I’ll go a step further and claim that Christianity was the end of the Hellenistic era. There is nothing left of it today when half of self-proclaimed Greeks are religious fanatics and the other half socialist cult fanatics, with very few being neither.
As above, so below.
Saul of Tarsus had a vision which led to his conversion on the road to Damascus. The epistles attributed to Paul, his name after conversion (Saul is a Hebrew name, but Paul is Roman - rather politically astute, wouldn't you say?), were collected in the New Testament, which are the first Christian theological writing and the source of much Christian doctrine.
The Prophet Muhammad was visited by the angel Jibril (Gabriel), who revealed to him the beginnings of what would later become the Qur’an.
Mood disorders, delusions, hallucinations, schizophrenia, or temporal lobe epilepsy seem to be instrumental to Abrahamic faiths.
People of faith call me an atheist (I emphatically do not, but it's a pain in the ass explaining the absurdity of the term "atheist" every time), but I am even more emphatically NOT a statist. Huck phtoo!
I'm an anarchist, and the foundation and practice of true anarchy is love.
"True morality is being able to be immoral and get away with it, and still choose to be moral. True strength is being able to tyrannize at no expense, and still choose to treat others as equals."
Thank you for giving me another way to describe true morality, which I intrinsically understand and which guides my life. You have written an absolute gem of a column, thank you so much for publishing it!
I am glad that we are so ideologically aligned. Not a religionist, not an atheist, just an advocate of freedom sourced from love. Splendid way to put it. Thanks you loads for your awesome words. If you don’t mind, I’ll share your comments.
You do me a great honor indeed!
I am bristling with keenness to look through your oeuvre to read and learn more.
Accordingly, I cannot recommend more highly Rurik's work. The man is a phenomenon, an intellectual colossus.
But for your Substack as for Rurik's, it mortifies me that I cannot pay for a subscription. Four years ago my moral and anarchic compasses lead me to walk-out of paid work (also so that I don't pay taxes) and give up the income I received from it. As a result, I have no means with which to pay for anything besides the absolute essentials other than with sincere appreciation.
Don't worry about it. I think I have managed to disable payments here (I think), and all my work is free. I'll never ask for money, even though people do ask me how they show their appreciation with money. I don't do this for money. I do this for the adventure.
"Many consider Judaism and/or Christianity (the European interpretation of Judaism) . . ." Haha, shots fired, in the first sentence, lol. Nice.
Here's one part that people could point to to stand for the story of Abraham being true in the sense that it would have been supernatural, and not just schizophrenic: He was very, very old, as was his wife, and they were not able to conceive a child, and then at like eighty, for the wife, Isaac was conceived from them, after God said he would be and she laughed, thus giving Isaac his name.
"'Are you crazy Abraham?'" Yeah, that's a pretty good summation of your point, with the sentences preceding it. The big one for me was that God would indeed care so much about the allegiance of his creations, although one could say "made in God's image" carries a lot, so he could see them as himself. In any case, that spoke loudly. And GREAT connection to how that accurately reflects the government mindset.
Just incredible. Really good stuff.
Interesting. Thanks for your comment. I am currently writing a piece in defense of religion, which takes stories like Abraham's in a more positive light. I think you'd appreciate it. Let's see how it unfolds...
Oh, cool, that would be a nice counterpart to this. I’ll be interested to see how these concepts go together with religion, otherwise.
I still need insight from people like you. It helps to inspire thinking processes that I would otherwise not initiate.
Oh, I appreciate it. Glad to help put forth some ideas. I have really gotten a lot out of your essays so far, so it means a lot to hear.
Thanks. It also means the world to me to hear that people get something out of my ideas. I aim to make a small albeit positive impact
I do get a bit despondent at this kind of simplistic reductive analysis from people who are outside faith or who have minimal understanding of it. It leads to category errors. It's like criticising a TV show about Antarctica because the TV screen is warm instead of freezing. Or criticising the famous Buddhist koan by saying "one hand clapping has no sound, duh!". Or criticising an algebraic equation because the letters don't make a good haiku. It misunderstands the nature of the material. They are the errors of schoolboys, and Dawkins, and they're just not very serious.
Just to throw a few things out there, it's understood in serious Christianity that God is not condoning every action of the Hebrews or even of the patriarchs. Far from it. This is self evident from reading the OT, and trying to cherry pick cases like this, and testing them against the obvious strawman "God condone all this behaviour" is not a good faith argument. And that's the bigger problem. These are not good faith engagements with the material. They are motivated attacks, and the motivation is external to the material, it comes from some other place, from inside the critic, who picks some passage as a target to "prove" a preconceived view via this strawman framework. This take on Abraham is one such. There are many many takes on Abraham and Isaac, but this one here is, I don't want to be harsh, but it's incredibly immature. An extreme example, just for clarity (this is exaggerated), the general approach of not understanding the material is like a brownshirt stamping on a book of quantum mechanics and calling it "Jew science" before throwing it in the fire. He has not engaged with the material on its own terms. He has brought his preconceived prejudice to the material and condemned it within his own framework, for reasons external to the material, that he brought to it from elsewhere.
Some readers may know that this passage is perhaps the oldest recorded text in written English? That's how important it is. Yet you think it can be so easily dismissed as transparently unethical? You think Anglo Saxon kings and warriors were less independent of will than you are, had less pride, less sense of self? Of course not. They could kill any of us with their bare hands for a perceived insult. And would. But they found this passage deeply important. That's because they met the material and actually thought about it, instead of trying to show their schoolboy cleverness, like a pupil of a brilliant teacher who pins a "kick me" note on that teachers back. So yes, this isn't a good faith engagement with the material, and it seems to be done both in ignorance and with arrogance. What's the point really? Why do atheists and the atheist-adjacent invest so much time and energy in these circular "disproofs" which simply proceed from their own premises? There are so many interesting and valuable discussions that can be had from the Abraham and Isaac passage, instead of this "flying spaghetti monster child murderer" crap. Do you guys really think everyone who lived before you for 3000 years was an idiot, and you just happened to be born in some magically enlightened age of truth? It's kind of embarrassing. Meh. It's pointless. Go ahead and keep pulling the legs off spiders if it turns you on. Nobody else is really interested. I just wish your intellects were directed to something a little more sophisticated and constructive. Something more mature, to be honest. You're not teenage boys, I'm sure, but it sure looks like it from the level of insight shown here.
You said: "simplistic reductive analysis from people who are outside faith or who have minimal understanding of it." This is not true. I was possess deep understanding of Christianity, was raised Christian and was even a trainee monk for a short period. But this is just an appeal to authority. I am concerned with discussing ideas, not bashing on people. Which is why I end the piece by giving people of any persuasion the benefit of the doubt.