Zompist Bboard Again

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Jul 03, 2025 5:34 pm

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jul 03, 2025 2:32 pm

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Jul 03, 2025 9:11 am Even if you consider the conditions in 1984 incredibly unlikely to pass, they still feel more likely than the world improving at this point.

Well, if you have no desire to protest or to stop glooming, you could always vote with your feet...I hear the MacDonald Islands are in desperate need of a human to live there, so Trump won't slap the penguins with crippling tarrifs.

All mockery aside,

I'm not mocking you. I'm trying to think of somewhere for you to go, a place where your fear of AI and adoration of Trump won't run into any of the troubles you feel are at hand and unavoidable.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Sun Jul 06, 2025 8:35 pm

keenir wrote: ↑Tue Jul 01, 2025 9:13 pm I don't know of anyone who treats Jesus like a prince...not in idols, artwork, or even Christmas Nativities. We speak of people coming to pay homage to him, yes, but we also speak of a community who lost track of him for at least a week...thats not "heir and spare", thats 323rd or further from the throne.

If you sing, "joy to the world; the lord is come" about a baby, the only human analogy I can think of is respectfully celebrating a newborn prince.

analogy? why use an analogy? for the people singing "the lord is come" about that baby, the baby is The Lord God. thats not a prince, unless you're referring to one of his titles as Prince Of Peace.

Religions are all human analogies. When Christians spread love for the Lord, it's medieval propaganda to love and obey your very earthly lord, the heavenly Lord's vice-regent here on earth.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Tue Jul 01, 2025 7:25 pmKrishna wouldn't command respect as a parent. He has a trickster personality. As a child, he was a notorious butter thief. If you worship Krishna as your child, you can catch the Divine stealing your butter and punish him for it. This pastime (a technical term) creates a kind of intimacy that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike imagining the Divine as a lover.

Posts like that really drive home why I am an atheist. It feels impossible for me to take something like that seriously as a hypothesis about how the universe works.

malloc wrote: ↑Mon Jul 07, 2025 8:13 pm

rotting bones wrote: ↑Tue Jul 01, 2025 7:25 pmKrishna wouldn't command respect as a parent. He has a trickster personality. As a child, he was a notorious butter thief. If you worship Krishna as your child, you can catch the Divine stealing your butter and punish him for it. This pastime (a technical term) creates a kind of intimacy that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike imagining the Divine as a lover.

Posts like that really drive home why I am an atheist. It feels impossible for me to take something like that seriously as a hypothesis about how the universe works.

and why can't you take it seriously? because you don't want to feel like a deity can be held or touched?

keenir wrote: ↑Mon Jul 07, 2025 9:29 pmand why can't you take it seriously? because you don't want to feel like a deity can be held or touched?

Perhaps so. I can kind of sympathize with the notion of an abstract transcendental god, even if I find the concept unnecessary to explain the universe. But a god who craves butter and acts like a juvenile Homo sapiens seems obviously absurd to me.

malloc wrote: ↑Mon Jul 07, 2025 9:36 pm

keenir wrote: ↑Mon Jul 07, 2025 9:29 pmand why can't you take it seriously? because you don't want to feel like a deity can be held or touched?

Perhaps so. I can kind of sympathize with the notion of an abstract transcendental god, even if I find the concept unnecessary to explain the universe. But a god who craves butter and acts like a juvenile Homo sapiens seems obviously absurd to me.

Not all gods are like the stereotypical views of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic views of God.

malloc wrote: ↑Mon Jul 07, 2025 9:36 pm

keenir wrote: ↑Mon Jul 07, 2025 9:29 pmand why can't you take it seriously? because you don't want to feel like a deity can be held or touched?

Perhaps so. I can kind of sympathize with the notion of an abstract transcendental god,

abstract? rather gnostic of you there...how exactly do you nail an abstraction to an object?

even if I find the concept unnecessary to explain the universe. But a god who craves butter and acts like a juvenile Homo sapiens seems obviously absurd to me.

you do realize that the Three Wise Men can easily be described as "three guys who showed up late for the baby shower"?

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Jul 07, 2025 11:26 pmNot all gods are like the stereotypical views of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic views of God.

Well yeah, I don't doubt that my background greatly shapes my expectations regarding religion. Though granted, the Abrahamic religions have their share of silly stuff as well.

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Jul 08, 2025 8:49 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Jul 07, 2025 11:26 pmNot all gods are like the stereotypical views of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic views of God.

Well yeah, I don't doubt that my background greatly shapes my expectations regarding religion. Though granted, the Abrahamic religions have their share of silly stuff as well.

Of course, the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible is really not an "abstract transcendental god" at all in actuality.

malloc wrote: ↑Mon Jul 07, 2025 8:13 pm Posts like that really drive home why I am an atheist. It feels impossible for me to take something like that seriously as a hypothesis about how the universe works.

Is it that strange? I have heard many parents say they feel like their toddler is the real boss in the household.

There are also theological justifications: (Disclaimer: I read this stuff years ago. You might want to read the source texts yourself: https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/)

Hinduism has different theories of divinity than Abrahamic religions. One common definition of God in Hindu theology is Satchitananda, Truth-Consciousness-Joy. IIRC Krishna's antics correspond to God's Joy aspect. There's also a universal Consciousness, every aspect of which is divine. E.g:

When Krishna's adoptive mother caught him stealing butter, she wanted to punish him by tying him to a post. Miraculously, all the ropes she could find were too short to hold him. If that doesn't impress you, one time she caught him eating mud. He lied and said he didn't do it, so she told him to open his mouth. When she looked inside, she could see the whole universe.

Ignoring the ancient setting, this psychology is not so different from mooning over cute anime merchandise. Every aspect of the universal Consciousness is divine, even the parts that play with a kawaii blob or moon over a waifu. Besides, more transcendent-seeming gods are no less human. There has been an attempt to hide the human features of the monotheistic God by sublimation, but "transcendent" is just how a baby experiences its caregivers.

IIRC the SB describes what Krishna worshippers are trying to accomplish as "transcendental mellows". You could search for that phrase in the text linked above.

Krishna isn't hungry for butter as such. The significant factor is the theft, as required of him because of his theological function as Hari: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari#Etymology As a child, Krishna steals butter, which symbolizes love (since Indian villagers didn't have a lot of candy to steal thousands of years ago). That is to say, the Krishna child steals the hearts of men just as the Divine lures men away from temporal prosperity by tempting them to do their duty. In the form of a lover, Krishna plays out this symbolism by playing a flute that lures village girls out of their homes to dance with him under the full moon. (I suspect this Rasa Lila is the inspiration for all those Bollywood dance scenes.)

A warning: IIRC the Hare Krishna group takes 50% of your income.

One of my uncles is a traditional Muslim farmer. He thinks Krishna was a prophet of the monotheistic God whose teachings were corrupted over time. According to Islamic scholarship, Allah has sent around 124,000 prophets. One to each community just as their sins were piling up to the point where they would have been destroyed. In the end, He decided to make sure Muhammad's teachings would be divinely preserved in perfect condition, but there would be no more prophets after him (although there can still be religious figures not bearing the title of "prophet" who are otherwise indistinguishable from prophets).

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Jul 08, 2025 10:33 pm

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Jul 08, 2025 8:49 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Jul 07, 2025 11:26 pmNot all gods are like the stereotypical views of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic views of God.

Well yeah, I don't doubt that my background greatly shapes my expectations regarding religion. Though granted, the Abrahamic religions have their share of silly stuff as well.

Of course, the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible is really not an "abstract transcendental god" at all in actuality.

BTW, transcendental means something other than transcendent.

If you want an abstract god of the philosophers, read the Enneads of Plotinus. It's kind of hard to read, though.

Muslims tend to think their God is the most abstract. Islam tried to make the Abrahamic God more abstract to avoid idolatry, but it failed because it's still a parent.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 2:44 pm When Krishna's adoptive mother caught him stealing butter, she wanted to punish him by tying him to a post. Miraculously, all the ropes she could find were too short to hold him. If that doesn't impress you, one time she caught him eating mud. He lied and said he didn't do it, so she told him to open his mouth. When she looked inside, she could see the whole universe.

Ignoring the ancient setting, this psychology is not so different from mooning over cute anime merchandise. Every aspect of the universal Consciousness is divine, even the parts that play with a kawaii blob or moon over a waifu. Besides, more transcendent-seeming gods are no less human. There has been an attempt to hide the human features of the monotheistic God by sublimation, but "transcendent" is just how a baby experiences its caregivers.

The Krishna stories are charming, and I think intended to be. I'd wager that the stories of stealing butter came before the theological interpretations. Similar stories are told about Jesus, the Infancy Gospels. The church fathers considered them heretical, but they meet a human need, as witness the enormous popularity of Madonna-with-child pictures in medieval times and later. There's a whole subgenre of Jesus breastfeeding.

The "abstract transcendental god" meets some people's expectations— probably always a minority, because who can actually get excited by such a god? It quickly becomes a remote, mechanical, non-demanding figure. Humans like their god to act like a human.

Muslims tend to think their God is the most abstract. Islam tried to make the Abrahamic God more abstract to avoid idolatry, but it failed because it's still a parent

As a belief system, Islam is uproariously successul, and is well able to resist Christianity. Still, it's able to deal with emotion in its Sufi form, and for that matter it praises God for his emotions ("the compassionate and merciful"). (And the Shi'a keep emotions running high over a 1300-year-old political affront.)

zompist wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 4:10 pm The Krishna stories are charming, and I think intended to be. I'd wager that the stories of stealing butter came before the theological interpretations.

Yes, this is why Hindus think Christianity is a blunted version of Hinduism.

I did mention intimacy first. It sounded like Eddy wanted theological justifications.

zompist wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 4:10 pm The "abstract transcendental god" meets some people's expectations— probably always a minority, because who can actually get excited by such a god? It quickly becomes a remote, mechanical, non-demanding figure. Humans like their god to act like a human.

I think the God of Plotinus is attractive. It occupies an analogous position in the world of ideas that the point does in geometry. Trying to resolve paradoxes in Plotinian theology gave rise to wonders such as the dialectics of Proclus and the mystery of the Trinity.

zompist wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 4:10 pm As a belief system, Islam is uproariously successul, and is well able to resist Christianity. Still, it's able to deal with emotion in its Sufi form, and for that matter it praises God for his emotions ("the compassionate and merciful"). (And the Shi'a keep emotions running high over a 1300-year-old political affront.)

According to Islam, the abstract is important for the emotions. "Ya Rahim" means "O Compassion!" "O Compassion, have pity on me!" is more emotional and less mundane than merely calling out to some sky father. Metaphysical transcendence is an important factor in reliably stirring the emotions.

My family didn't patronize any Pirs. Just reciting some verses of the Quran is enough to make Muslims cry: https://youtu.be/_P0amsUimJg https://youtu.be/P4_--6zN43M https://youtu.be/_1y9c3Jvwhw

malloc wrote: ↑Mon Jul 07, 2025 9:36 pm

keenir wrote: ↑Mon Jul 07, 2025 9:29 pmand why can't you take it seriously? because you don't want to feel like a deity can be held or touched?

Perhaps so. I can kind of sympathize with the notion of an abstract transcendental god, even if I find the concept unnecessary to explain the universe. But a god who craves butter and acts like a juvenile Homo sapiens seems obviously absurd to me.

I think I vaguely remember that a few years ago, you asked why people ever gave up the rich mythologies of the old polytheistic religions for the monotheisms that replaced them.

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Jul 11, 2025 3:06 pmI think I vaguely remember that a few years ago, you asked why people ever gave up the rich mythologies of the old polytheistic religions for the monotheisms that replaced them.

Oh yeah, I remember that now. Looks like I have my answer finally and it came from within.

Incidentally, it occurs to me that the Maya glyph for /ni/ looks like Nietzsche in profile.

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Jul 11, 2025 6:34 pmIncidentally, it occurs to me that the Maya glyph for /ni/ looks like Nietzsche in profile.

When you look Long Count into the abyss, the abyss looks Long Count into you.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but do I get this right that mosquitos are very prevalent in polar and tropic climates, but relatively somewhat less prevalent in temperate climates?

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Jul 12, 2025 5:22 pmCorrect me if I'm wrong, but do I get this right that mosquitos are very prevalent in polar and tropic climates, but relatively somewhat less prevalent in temperate climates?

Is that so? I always assumed that mosquitos, like most insects and ectotherms more generally, avoided the arctic because it was too cold.

malloc wrote: ↑Sat Jul 12, 2025 6:12 pm

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Jul 12, 2025 5:22 pmCorrect me if I'm wrong, but do I get this right that mosquitos are very prevalent in polar and tropic climates, but relatively somewhat less prevalent in temperate climates?

Is that so? I always assumed that mosquitos, like most insects and ectotherms more generally, avoided the arctic because it was too cold.

Long ago, I read a travel book by someone who had, among other places, visited the Canadian Arctic. He wrote that mosquitos were a really serious problem there. Then, he wrote that people there advised him to cover himself in musk oil, which would have the effect that the mosquitos wouldn't like him any more. Finally, he wrote that that trick worked well, but the downside was that he could understand the mosquitos' position on musk oil perfectly well.

I sometimes think of that story when I hear the latest news about Elon Musk.

From watching nature documentaries with my daughter years ago (before we ran out of the local library system's full selection of nature documentaries), I specifically remember hearing about how simply awful the mosquitos are up in the Arctic, which really cannot be understated.