But in order for that to be plausible, you would need a reason why the almost-truths they found are so goddamn antimemetic that the most studied and followed people in history weren’t able to make them stick.
A few thoughts:
I think many of the truths do stick (like “it’s never too late to repent for your misdeeds”), but end up getting wrapped up in a bunch of garbage.
The geeks, mops, and sociopaths model feels very relevant, with the great spiritual leaders / people who were serious about doing inner work being the geeks.
In some sense, these truths are fundamentally about beating Moloch, and so long as Moloch is in power, Moloch will naturally find ways to subvert them.
They’re so slippery that until you’ve gotten past one yourself it’s hard to believe they exist (especially when the phenomenal experience of knowing-something-that-was-once-utterly-unknowable can also seemingly be explained by developing a delusion).
YES. I think this is extraordinarily well-articulated.
I think you accidentally pointed the link about geeks, mops, and sociopaths to this article. I googled the term instead.
It does a really good work of explaining what happened in most religions in late antiquity, for evidence about Christianity actually being a better subculture than paganism back then you just have to look at how envious the last pagan emperor, Julian the Apostate, was of their spontaneous altruism.
A few thoughts:
I think many of the truths do stick (like “it’s never too late to repent for your misdeeds”), but end up getting wrapped up in a bunch of garbage.
The geeks, mops, and sociopaths model feels very relevant, with the great spiritual leaders / people who were serious about doing inner work being the geeks.
In some sense, these truths are fundamentally about beating Moloch, and so long as Moloch is in power, Moloch will naturally find ways to subvert them.
YES. I think this is extraordinarily well-articulated.
I think you accidentally pointed the link about geeks, mops, and sociopaths to this article. I googled the term instead.
It does a really good work of explaining what happened in most religions in late antiquity, for evidence about Christianity actually being a better subculture than paganism back then you just have to look at how envious the last pagan emperor, Julian the Apostate, was of their spontaneous altruism.