The religion of the future

Ponderer

IMO some LARP can be interesting, but it is better to give people free reign to discover something new and more relevant to them, rather than constrain them with practices ancient people may or may not have done. If it is truly important, it can be rediscovered.

Ponderer

I think the cosmic mind thing could simply be a different way of describing the laws that we observe, e.g. gravity, Newton's laws, inverse relationship of pressure and volume, etc.

I could see this. The noumenon exists in some real sense even though we can't physically touch it. This would be very similar to the Gnostic conception of God.

Ponderer

It looks like he said both:

the cyclical nature of civilization and time

Ponderer

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll have to check it out. I have similar reservations about the self-abnegation aspects attributed to Buddhism, but if it could be used similar to Stoicism as a form of mental self-control then that could be very useful.

btw, have you seen my other comment in this thread or considered checking out /s/altreligion? I'm asking everyone ITT because this is probably my all-time favorite subject in this intellectual space.

Ponderer

Interestingly enough this could be a point of contention among believers. To me, a cyclical nature of time is too fatalistic - I would rather see a linear progression towards an ideal state of existence. Others might reject historicism outright, and claim that history is not predetermined but instead lies in the hands of those willing to change it.

However, this sort of debate is healthy and shouldn't be suppressed.

Ponderer

I do know that Hinduism is a non dogmatic religion where much of it is up to interpretation including perception of their gods. I think having a non dogmatic religion is essential for a future religion.

I agree with this. Identifying gods, heroes, or archetypes should be left up to believers themselves.

For example, someone coming from a Christian background may identify Jesus as the ultimate Archetype, while someone coming from a pagan background may put Odin in this spot instead.

Allowing believers to define this hierarchy for themselves, as well as to debate it with others, leaves room for the belief system to grow.

btw, have you seen my other comment in this thread or considered checking out /s/altreligion?

Ponderer

Aryan Household

I've seen this book linked before. Is there any content from it that you would particularly recommend?

I agree with the rest of your assesments, btw. Have you seen my other comment in this thread or considered checking out /s/altreligion?

Ponderer

That's a great example. Even the most strident materialist must acknowledge a deeper sense of meaning in a cultural touchstone like that.

An everyday ritual like laying flowers on someone's grave is another example of this concept. Even a hardcore atheist would have difficulty opposing this practice, despite no living person actually benefitting from the flowers being there. Maybe you could say the person who puts them there benefits psychologically, but even then, what's the harm in that?

Some other aspects I might add to your ideas: the prediction of the future (through scientific means) and interpretation of dreams.

Btw, have you seen my other comment in this thread or considered checking out /s/altreligion?

Ponderer

phrenology

Maybe he means something like physiognomy, or maybe just the general idea of innate traits influencing outward behaviors.

Belief in a cosmic mind aka God which can be justified scientifically

Yeah, I don't totally agree with this except as a matter of interpretation.

Unless the universe has always existed, one could objectively say that there was a supernatural unmoved mover that somehow started time and created everything. However, such an entity does not need to be sentient.

Maybe one could posit some interesting beliefs about the nature of consciousness as well, but I don't think there is anything approximating a "cosmic mind" that can be equated to the traditional conception of God.

Ponderer

I don't see Catholicism as being in conflict with this idea. If anything, Catholicism is a sub-set of the ideology described here, or a specific iteration of it.

This is evidenced by the fact that a pagan, a Christian, and an atheist could all gravitate towards these same conclusions. And this underlying structure is what interests me the most, not the cultural idiosyncrasies that happen to be on top.

A man living on an island all alone, with no exposure to human culture, might independently discover the existence of a creator based on his own rational thought. However, it is highly dubious that he would end up as a devout Catholic, or a Muslim, or a Hindu. He would be something else entirely.

As you say yourself, much of Christianity has "devolved into a guessing game about random citations of the Bible". This doesn't interest me, as the Bible itself - and especially one's particular interpretation of the Bible - must be accepted on faith.

I have read philosophers like Thomas Aquinas and I simply don't believe you can arrive at Catholicism from pure reason based on his arguments. In fact I'm pretty sure he says the same. This doesn't interest me - and to be brutally honest, I don't agree with many of the values that Christianity teaches anyway.

My goal is to identify the bones that make up these belief systems, not become a believer in one that already exists. I wouldn't do what I'm doing if I thought any current religion was sufficient.

Ponderer

This is a fascinating concept and one of the main reasons why I made an account here. In fact a sub already exists for this, and I would encourage everyone with an interest to give it a look: /s/altreligion

The ideas you've mentioned are remarkably similar to my own ideas on it:

I also think that neither Christianity nor paganism can be a model in the days to come. The former has internal inconsistencies, promotes bad values, and requires the believer to accept the existence of supernatural beings on faith alone. The latter is more traditional, but also requires faith over reason and in the modern age just feels like LARPing.
Neoplatonism and ancestor-worship are belief systems that invoke strong feelings of spirituality, but both can be said to be objectively true even in a purely scientific universe.
Viewing natural law as an extension of the will of God, or at least something that must be acknowledged and respected, is another belief system that promotes strong spiritual feelings while being compatible with "materialism".
Allowing heroic figures to become archetypes is a brilliant idea. This would also make the new religion more appealing to those who followed Christianity or paganism, as well as give the new religion much-needed roots. Heroic figures of the past were not weird heretics or unbelievers, but were past saints. Perhaps Jesus might be re-conceptualized as an Archetype of Mercy, or Odin as an Archetype of Wisdom.

Ponderer

Quality post with excellent information. Thanks for writing this.

Ponderer

From what I can tell there might've been a plot to create an artificial pandemic and increase deaths by rolling out a faulty vaccine but I don't think it was anything more than that based on the evidence, and given that governments have been able to act against it the conspiracy wasn't as overarching as some assume.

I was considering making a thread for all the conspiracies (or benign possibilities) that there could possibly be for the COVID vaccine. Everything from "the vaccines are the mark of the beast" to "governments just had the best interest of their people at heart".

Would there be interest in this?

Ponderer

Antivax was a monumental failure of the right. A lot of political capital was spent on an issue that was factually dubious at best, thousands of right-wingers died because of it and little was achieved.

IMO it's more nuanced than this. The issues involved are very complicated.

Tens of thousands of people work with vaccine research and safety and they are spread across a tripple digit number of countries. No conspiracy that size has a snowball's chance in hell to survive.

Right-wingers have good reason to distrust authorities. There are thousands of medical experts who advocate for transgenderism, for example, or who work in the psychiatry industry cooking up bogus disorders like "toxic masculinity".

Of course you could say that the field of vaccine research is a lot more solid and more difficult to politicize than other fields. But when many of the most vocal proponents of vaccines are people who said they wanted you dead just a few weeks earlier, it's hard to shift gears and change heuristics.

The greater failure for the right was the lack of debate or discussion before coming to a position on COVID-related issues. Most positions were just kneejerk reactions against what the left was doing. Fortunately, many of these reactions ended up being right: lockdowns really were a way to disadvantage small businesses in favor of corporations, and the media really was pushing double-standards in calling right-wing gatherings "superspreader events" while praising left-wing protests.

However, other reactions were very wrong, such as treating covid like it didn't exist at all.

Ultimately this comes from the right's disorganization and (unintentionally) decentralized nature. The sad truth is that this sub is one of the few places where rightists can actually debate and think critically, unlike many of the echo chambers where one must take a hardline in one direction or the other.

Ponderer

The vaccine passports were a de facto way to exclude vaccine skeptics from society.

I could see that. From your perspective, were the spike proteins included on purpose, by accident, or because those in power just didn't care?

Ponderer

Honestly I'm not sure what the angle really is with the vaccine, but my best guess would be that these big vaccine makers put a lot of money in the right pockets to create the vaccine mandates and then made an order of magnitude more in profits from said vaccine mandates.

This makes sense. Corporations just being greedy, and there being nothing terribly wrong with the vaccine itself, would be a relatively more "benign" reason for the vaccine push.

Ponderer

Tumblr in action? If you want to see even more evidence of the self destruction of US and Europe.

I used to be subbed to this but it's all demoralization at this point. I think there's a real reason Reddit leaves these doomer blackpilled subs up, while banning funny meme subs or discussion-based subs. If you're already redpilled continuing to binge on TiA and stuff like it is bad for your mindset.

Only thing it's useful for now is couple of purely tech subs

Totally agree. Sadly the network effect is still in full swing. It would be great to move those tech discussions here, but Reddit has more people and thus tends to be better for them.

Ponderer

The easy one would be mandating only female babies from IVF embryo selection, it would go a long way towards closing the gap

Ponderer

All of this internet talk essentially amounts to nothing. A sound and a fury. Our real life comradery and building of families, health, fitness, and security is the most important thing right now.

Incredibly based.

I would suggest checking out https://communities.win/c/parallelsociety as well.

Ponderer

Fun fact: every country in the world has leftover men since there are more males than females at birth. As many as 1 in 20 are leftovers below age 40 or so. This only equalizes later on since men have a much higher death rate.

This isn't abortion-related, in fact you see the same trend in animals. Look up 'sex ratios at birth'.

Why this isn't widely acknowledged is a mystery to me. The disparity obviously causes social problems and there's several technological solutions already available.

Ponderer

Excellent breakdown and hilariously written. Well done.

Ponderer

This is absolutely incredible. Thank you for making this. How can I help?

Ponderer

I've been hearing good things about Searx.

Ponderer