Pure Brutality

[Leonardo17]

“From my perspective, the one thing religions can't be is fake. That's the whole problem with abrahamic theism. Every single utterance or belief that forms the content of a particular religion could be in error from the bottom to the top, and all forms of theism are wrong in precisely this way.......consequentially and dangerously so, but the religion is still real. Still out there in the world and having social effects that don't depend on the accuracy of the belief but in the demographics of belief.”
 
- So that answers the first question.
 
   “Sure, I think that the history of abrahamic theism provides ample reason for concern...but allow me to give you a glimpse of the uncanny valley here. I think that right now, right this very moment, with all of the shit about kids...and sex rings.. and conflicts...and extremism... and terrorism...right now, is the "best" that abrahamic theism has ever been. There's a discussion to be had there about how this is in some large part not entirely voluntary, that the restraining hand of growing secularism has effected this outcome. I want to skip all of that and just acknowledge that, especially if the history of abrahamic belief in the world is our measuring stick...they're doing very well at present.”
 
   I’m not so sure I’m getting you right. But bigots and religious frauds are getting smarter every day. In the middle ages we had someone called Hasan Sabbah (1090-1124) in todays Iran. He used modern methods of brainwashing to train his assassins and send them on whoever he wanted. And he did that “In the name of God” by promising them (and actually showing them) a version of “Heaven”. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasan-i_Sabbah )
 

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  So you might understand why I cannot stay silent in world in which we have perhaps more than 1000 modern Hassan-I-Sabbah that are spread all over the world and as you said. Thanks to modern technologies, they are getting better at what they are doing every passing day. Hassan-I-Sabbah would not have parachuted his assassins upon a wedding ceremony or other festivity to “avenge” his brothers-in faith.
 
   See there has been a time in which belief meant something (to the majority of people). Why would early farming societies for instance invest so much energy carrying stones from hundreds of miles away to erect something like Stonehenge? Her in Göbeklitepe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe  ), they created this monument at about 9500 BC. Then they buried it so that nobody would be exposed to the “energies” present in that place. They did not abandon the place. They deliberately buried it and they hid it.
 
   That’s something common in Bronze Age societies. Egyptians made no distinction between ordinary life and religious life. Other cultures always mentions some past “Golden Age” in which people were more spiritual, taking moral issues much more seriously than we do.
  
   In my way of seeing things, I believe that we are returning to that kind of social organization. I am not talking about a return to theocracy. But I believe that our energy is increasing. The energy of Hassan-I-Sabbah like creatures is also increasing. So they are also getting better at doing things.
 
   Otherwise you believe in religion as an observable social phenomenon. I believe in Truth, to be honest. So I would be scared to do things in the axis of Hassan-I-Sabbah. For starters, I would not want that kind of Karma on my back. I believe in these things. Hassan-I-Sabbah like people pretend to believe these things because it suits their Ego. So you should include that to your observation based belief on religion. I think this is very important.

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“I don't think that abrahamic theism's religiosity is the problem, it's the contents. You simply can't get theism "right" in the moral sense that seems to be of particular concern to us both - because you can't premise a religion on a king in the sky without ending up with slaves on earth. Big g gods, soul forges, things like this are necessarily authoritarian and destructive premises. I'm not surprised by the bad outcomes, I'm surprised when and if it isn't worse. It is baseless and immediately apparent revisionism to suggest that people who treat women, for example..like property today are somehow not following in the footsteps of patriarchal slaveowners who saw fit to write a king in the skys seal of approval over the sex trade into the book they say...they say....came from a god. They may be "doing religion wrong" by our moral lights - but they are not "doing religion wrong" by religions rights, or even their specific religions explicit metrics. That you and deepak chopra have suggestions on entirely different ways we can get things wrong, factually, practically, morally, is, to my mind, no improvement in particular. Even less so when it's used to launder the reputation of the former.
 
I know I've said this to you before in a bunch of ways, but the difference between a maltheist and an antitheist is only that one of them believes in the gods they both agree are shit.”



 
   I don’t think I have a problem with that. But I might remind you that I don’t believe in a Freudian “Cosmic Persona” above treating us as slaves with Satan romantically rebelling to him etc. It’s more like “Shiva” (=he who is not) as in the empty space filling the emptiness in the universe as well as the emptiness in atomic and subatomic levels which is present within each and everyone of us (so there is actually no need even for religious teachings since that being has the power to lead us to spiritual enlightenment within a second if it choses to do so).

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  Yet your approach is very correct. I have had this conversation with a friend recently. Mosques and Churches have a maintenance fee. That’s money we can use to build schools, hospitals and opera houses. You can’t just keep investing into the priesthood or to a feudal type of Aristocracy that is being supported by this priesthood. We need to use our resources wisely.
 
   On a philosophical level, it’s not so clever to assume unproven facts either. As Richard Dawkins said “The garden is already amazing even without fairies living under it”. Nature can be our “God” if you like and science can be our “Rituals” if you allow me to put it that way.
 
   But as I said. What I’m talking about is something else. A typical Narcissist like Hassan-i-Sabbah will pretend to listen, shake his head in approval, pretend he understands every word I am saying and will in the meantime elaborate strategies on how to use my own “naivetés” against me in order to better manipulate me and make use of my resources.
 
   So this is also an empirical reality. Our society does not have the spiritual sincerity that (for instance) the Bronze Age societies seemed to have. But I think it is coming. Why?
 
- Look at the Fridays for future movement. Our extremely materialistic approach to live is not sustainable (even without political İslamists etc.) We are on a path of mass suicide. The problem with the forest fires in Brazil is that the guy sees money to be extracted from these lands. He does not perceive the oxygen, the global balance of the environment, the life that is present in those trees. To him it’s just cash.
 
  There was this documentary on DW. They were asking to people sitting in the park “What is the value of this tree to you?” Some said it’s a 1000 euros or more, others said “It cannot have a financial value”. So what is the value of something that does not have a price tag on it but has a value that is immeasurable? Like life itself for instance?

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   My theory is that these will be the main issues of 21st century spirituality. This transformation is already happening. And people like Deephak Chopra are sort of leading us toward that. And I think this is going to be very important. And Anti-Theists like yourself are sort of helping us to leave the superficiality aside and concentrating on the questions all spiritual peoples really need to ask themselves.