Why we need religion

[Danioover9000]

@Nilsi

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Who is "we?"

Take Judaism for example: it emerged in ancient Israel as a reaction to their enslavement and devastation - a "grand narrative" to give the "chosen people" a justification for their suffering.

Same with Christianity in ancient Rome.

 

If your story doesn't address all sentient beings (and by extension all of Reality), it's nothing more than an ideology (in the Marxist sense of justifying the power of the ruling class;

- e.g. of the "good" slaves ruling over the "evil" masters, in the case of Christianity; of the "superior" capitalists ruling over the "inferior" working class etc.) 

 

The whole notion of a "grand narrative" is absolutely preposterous. 

If anything, there has to be a conglomerate of grand narratives to draw from - which is more akin to a postmodern individualism, than it is to some fundamentalist one size fits all ruling ideology.

 

What we get when we take this issue seriously is something akin to Ken Wilber's or Daniel Schmachtenberger's work - which is more a framework for thinking through complex social issues, than it is a "grand narrative."

   So basically, these grand narratives are as problematic as saying "ALL LIVES MATTER!" to counter the prior claim of "ALL BLACK LIVES MATTER!"? So, what you're saying is that grand narratives can be weaponized here?

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Why do you think Schmachtenberger always avoids direct questions about his values and principles and instead rambles on about externalities and interconnectedness?

He understands that any linear narrative will inevitably turn into ideology and create injustice.

How do you unite the world without uniting under a grand narrative?

 

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

There is actually a good talk by Bret Weinstein and Jim Rutt (two members of the original Game B team), where they mention that the major reason why the Game B project got abandoned was, because one half of the group was demanding a "grand cosmic narrative" and the other half wanted to create a rational framework to tackle complex systemic issues.

If Tier 2 can't provide it, then people like ISIS or Nick Fuentes will provide it, and you'll be stuck trying to solve those "complex systemic issues" in some roundabout way.

[Nilsi]

13 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

How do you unite the world without uniting under a grand narrative?

By accepting that different people have different narratives.

What you call unity is uniformity.

True unity is not contingent on whether I'm a fascist or a Christian.

[Carl-Richard]

1 minute ago, Nilsi said:

By accepting that different people have different narratives.

What you call unity is uniformity.

True unity is not contingent on whether I'm a fascist or a Christian.

What if the narratives are at odds with each other and lead to conflict?

[Nilsi]

15 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

If Tier 2 can't provide it, then people like ISIS or Nick Fuentes will provide it, and you'll be stuck trying to solve those "complex systemic issues" in some roundabout way.

I'm not saying all narratives are made equal and I'm also not saying that solving complex systemic issues, the way Schmachtenberger does, is necessarily a fruitful activity.

I'm just trying to rid you of your neo-colonialist fantasies.

[Nilsi]

Just now, Carl-Richard said:

What if the narratives are at odds with each other and lead to conflict?

Conflict aka dialectic is right at the core of life and evolution - getting rid of conflict is literally death.

"Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony." - Heraclitus 

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Conflict aka dialectic is right at the core of life and evolution - getting rid of conflict is literally death.

"Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony." - Heraclitus 

"Rivalrous (win-lose) games multiplied by exponential technology self terminate. Rivalrous incentive has been the generator function of almost all the things humans have ever done that have sucked. Technologically mediated exponential suck becomes existential. Exponential tech cant be put back in the bag, so we figure out anti-rivalrous games or the human experiment completes. (Anti-fragility in the presence of decentralized exponential technology requires anti-rivalry.)" — Daniel Schmachtenberger

[Danioover9000]

@Carl-Richard

52 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

"Rivalrous (win-lose) games multiplied by exponential technology self terminate. Rivalrous incentive has been the generator function of almost all the things humans have ever done that have sucked. Technologically mediated exponential suck becomes existential. Exponential tech cant be put back in the bag, so we figure out anti-rivalrous games or the human experiment completes. (Anti-fragility in the presence of decentralized exponential technology requires anti-rivalry.)" — Daniel Schmachtenberger

   Nice quote. 1+ to @Carl-Richard , 0 to @Nilsi.

3 hours ago, Nilsi said:

I'm not saying all narratives are made equal and I'm also not saying that solving complex systemic issues, the way Schmachtenberger does, is necessarily a fruitful activity.

I'm just trying to rid you of your neo-colonialist fantasies.

   How do you know he has Neo-colonial fantasies?

[mr_engineer]

@Carl-Richard New-Agers do draw from religious traditions. Meditation is a thing from Hinduism/Buddhism. In fact, the New-Agers will know better about how to apply it practically to improve your life and the dangers of misapplying it. 

Religious people are not wise! They dogmatically hold onto their tradition thinking that it's the best one. You will most likely not get an objective perspective on the practical value of the practices. In fact, they will say 'If God says so, just do it. To think about practical value is egotism'. 

[Nilsi]

7 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

"Rivalrous (win-lose) games multiplied by exponential technology self terminate. Rivalrous incentive has been the generator function of almost all the things humans have ever done that have sucked. Technologically mediated exponential suck becomes existential. Exponential tech cant be put back in the bag, so we figure out anti-rivalrous games or the human experiment completes. (Anti-fragility in the presence of decentralized exponential technology requires anti-rivalry.)" — Daniel Schmachtenberger

In what world is dialectics a zero sum game? When I challenge your views and by extension subvert your grand narrative, we both grow - so what I'm talking about is already antirivalrous in nature.

I'm not advocating kinetic warfare. I precisely want to battle this out in the realm of ideas, instead of the trenches.

"Our ideas die, so we don't have to" - Alfred North Whitehead

Edited March 25, 2023 by Nilsi

[Nilsi]

6 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

@Carl-Richard

   Nice quote. 1+ to @Carl-Richard , 0 to @Nilsi.

   How do you know he has Neo-colonial fantasies?

He wants to create/take some grand narrative and shove it down everyone's throats - in the name of the "Good."

That's what European missionaries did, when they colonized the rest of the world and tried to convert all the "savages" to the "one true religion" of Christianity - of course, all in the name of the "Good."

Edited March 25, 2023 by Nilsi

[Gesundheit2]

12 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

How do you unite the world without uniting under a grand narrative?

Such a USA fascist/hegemonical narrative.

You shouldn't be worrying about this.

Quote

If Tier 2 can't provide it, then people like ISIS or Nick Fuentes will provide it, and you'll be stuck trying to solve those "complex systemic issues" in some roundabout way.

Nobody can provide one grand narrative for everyone. There will always be at least two grand narratives that are opposed to one another. It's the nature of human ego.

There will always be a group of people who don't like to be told what to do, and another group that does, and a group of asleep sheep that is also divided into two at least, and a group of an indifferent minority where the members are divided between super intelligent, and super dumb, and dumbs in the making of geniuses.

Edited March 25, 2023 by Gesundheit2

[Gesundheit2]

19 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

The guy in the call gives a theory for why he thinks that happened historically (why people sort of fell away from religion in the way that it used to be practiced). It's basically just sociocultural development and a staleness of the old institutions.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to watch it. The sound is low quality and he was gaming?

Anyway, I don't believe that notion. It's basically based in a reiteration of the Abrahamic religion's explanation of duality when Adam and Eve fell from heaven. It's literally the same idea, so the dude is likely a religious nut trying to pass religion as a some sort of absolute truth.

Like I said in my first comment, I think people naturally run away from genuine curious inquiry because it's too costly in this material/relative/human world. So they just take the closest and most easiest answer and use it as an crutch/opium/psychedelic to bypass the inquiry and suppress the curiosity. Most people prefer the comfort in false knowledge over the discomfort of not-knowing.

Edited March 25, 2023 by Gesundheit2

[Nilsi]

36 minutes ago, Gesundheit2 said:

Such a USA fascist/hegemonical narrative.

You shouldn't be worrying about this.

Nobody can provide one grand narrative for everyone. There will always be at least two grand narratives that are opposed to one another. It's the nature of human ego.

There will always be a group of people who don't like to be told what to do, and another group that does, and a group of asleep sheep that is also divided into two at least, and a group of an indifferent minority where the members are divided between super intelligent, and super dumb, and dumbs in the making of geniuses.

My God, youre speaking some sense for once.

Youre absolutely correct: antagonism is right at the core of reality - its what drives evolution and all narrative for that matter. 

The idea of one grand narrative at the end of history, or whatever, is the grandest of fantasies.

[Gesundheit2]

@Nilsi Yes, I accept your friend request 

Some people mistake me for a modern dude, but I'm actually post-post-modern, baby 

[Nilsi]

3 minutes ago, Gesundheit2 said:

@Nilsi Yes, I accept your friend request 

Some people mistake me for a modern dude, but I'm actually post-post-modern, baby 

Dont push it  Well see how post-post anything you are... 

[UnbornTao]

Quote

"God has no religion."

- Mahatma Gandhi

In the context of enlightenment work, what you need is not-knowing and a genuine passion to know.

Why would there be a need for religion in the first place? Because you lack understanding, consciousness, personal experience of what's true. Religion is antithetical to the pursuit of truth as it is faith-based and embraces beliefs. It essentially is about doctrine and ideas to be believed in and not questioned. What else?

Edited April 2, 2023 by UnbornTao

[zurew]

15 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Conflict aka dialectic is right at the core of life and evolution

Totally depends on the conflict. Not agreeing on the main goals and not agreeing on the main values and having completely different sensemaking processes (by having different metaphyiscs) just creates a place (what we have right now) ,where development is incredibly slowed down - by everyone having opposed incentives - and it doesn't just slows the development down, but it makes problemsolving either impossible or 10x more harder.

If the incentives are aligned and we can agree on the main values and goals, then we can 10x our development and we can 10x our problemsolving capabilities and then proper cooperation is possible. That doesn't mean, that within that system we have to agree about everything, that just means we need to agree on the main building blocks.

5 hours ago, Nilsi said:

In what world is dialectics a zero sum game? When I challenge your views and by extension subvert your grand narrative, we both grow - so what I'm talking about is already antirivalrous in nature.

When you say "I challenge your views" you are essentially saying ,that  you are trying to challenge people's deepest valuesystem and morals. If you two are starting from completely different valuesystems (that are inherently consistent) you won't be able to debate people out from their position.

Sometimes you have two different valuesystems - that cancel each other out  - where there is disagreement at the core levle and because of that, you are essentially ending up with wars (and from each valuesystem's perspective, it can be completely justified).

5 hours ago, Nilsi said:

I precisely want to battle this out in the realm of ideas, instead of the trenches.

But you can't, because 1) the disagreement is at a deeper level than just having different ideas (you two are essentially viewing and experiencing the world from a totally different lense) - and what you would want is a lense change, but the lense change almost never happens just by debating about this. 2) It almost never stops at just " battleing this out in the realm of ideas" and almost always leads to war (especially when your valuesystem is threatened at its core by another one).

Edited March 25, 2023 by zurew

[Carl-Richard]

8 hours ago, mr_engineer said:

@Carl-Richard New-Agers do draw from religious traditions. Meditation is a thing from Hinduism/Buddhism. In fact, the New-Agers will know better about how to apply it practically to improve your life and the dangers of misapplying it. 

They tend to only pick the juicy parts, like meditation, and reduce all of spirituality down to that, which is dangerous.

 

8 hours ago, mr_engineer said:

 Religious people are not wise! They dogmatically hold onto their tradition thinking that it's the best one. You will most likely not get an objective perspective on the practical value of the practices. In fact, they will say 'If God says so, just do it. To think about practical value is egotism'. 

Spiritual people are not wise either. They reduce spirituality down to almost nothing, they dogmatically hold on to their "tradition", etc. They have the same problems. Besides, you're strawmanning religion by pointing at the fundamentalists. There are highly developed people who are pro-religion.

Edited March 25, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

4 hours ago, Gesundheit2 said:

Such a USA fascist/hegemonical narrative.

You shouldn't be worrying about this.

Nobody can provide one grand narrative for everyone. There will always be at least two grand narratives that are opposed to one another. It's the nature of human ego.

There will always be a group of people who don't like to be told what to do, and another group that does, and a group of asleep sheep that is also divided into two at least, and a group of an indifferent minority where the members are divided between super intelligent, and super dumb, and dumbs in the making of geniuses.

You're not going to force it on anyone. You just need to have the right goal in mind and sow the seeds for it.