>My heuristic is that the more pagan, the more brilliant one’s mind, and the higher one’s ability to handle nuances and ambiguity. Purely monotheistic religious such as Protestant Christianity, Salafi Islam, or fundamentalist atheism accommodate literalist and mediocre minds that cannot handle ambiguity.
medium.com
Simple people prefer simple things, sure.
He should read some Dante or some Tolstoj
>Purely monotheistic religious such as Protestant Christianity, Salafi Islam, or fundamentalist atheism accommodate literalist and mediocre minds that cannot handle ambiguity
>doesn't mention Judaism
heh....
>I offered him a glass of that type of yellow sugared water with citric acid people sometimes call lemonade, almost certain that he would reject it owing to his dietary laws. He didn’t. He drank the liquid called lemonade
:(
you fool, you dont think this brilliant med has destroyed not only the western canon but also the eastern orth canon on his quest for med superiority?
>He should read some Dante
For him, Dante isn't a 'pure monotheist'.
Put another way, Dante is a sort of pagan.
But doesn't that prove that Christians can nuanced and intelligent, thus refuting his point? Or he is simply positing that christian=dunces pagans=geniuses?
Either way he's a retard
If you reread his original statement, you'll see that he denounces protestants, not Christians.
No, this means catholics can be nuanced and intelligent, something the eternal Teuton and their wretched - even worse, one might say - spawn, the Anglo, will never understand.
He looks like an Arab, is he an Arab?
probably. those hindus really seem to have a knack for telemarketing.
>shits on protestants, salafists and fedoras
Is he /ourguy/?
Ah I see
Your reading comprehension seems to be lacking. That, or you're some kind of imbecile who thinks only protestants are Christian.
He is a Christian himself I think, a Coptic or orthodox.
He doesn't look like an Arab. Have you ever even seen an actual Arab in your life?
Syriac Orthodox. The Copts only survive in Egypt and their diaspora.
>t. IYI
he looks more like salman rushdie than anyone else in terms of race. must be that tiger raj blood.
Orthodox by birth, not sure about his faith now.
Yeah he looks like a southern italian
Therefore a real christian, part of the Pentarchy, not some proto-capitalist mad he can't commit usury.
He's pure Ortho, Syriacs are aligned with the Catholics IIRC.
>nuance and ambiguity are inherently good
And Ethiopia. You know, the most ardently Christian country in the world until not long ago.
I wanted to call you a faggot, but European protestants are barely religious at all and Americans have turned Christianity into a series of McDojos so, yeah, I suppose you're right
no, but the ability of the brilliant mind to handle them is.
I think what's more important is that when one is profligate with the ideas they're willing to engage in, one gets a lot of experience and covers a lot of ground. Whereas when one refuses to engage with any ideas outside a narrow range, one becomes illiterate to many things but also, generally, learns how to stretch a limited amount of arguments and rhetoric a long way.
Think of it like a loose aggressive vs a tight aggressive poker player. The loose aggressive player probably knows more things if they're a good player, and may be more intelligent. They have a nearly infinite bag of psychological tricks, with endless gradient in terms of when and why to apply them, and this player has to differentiate in a moment's notice using only extremely limited information.
Now consider the tight aggressive player. They have, in essence, only a few tricks: game theory, tightness, position. The tight aggressive player will still tend to win against the loose aggressive player. Not because they are smarter, but because in this game of swordsmanship, they have the sharper sword and their heuristics, after practicing only using the same few tricks over and over again, are lightning fast, opaque, and good enough.
Christianity is tight aggressive in the sense that Christians only have a few arguments, rhetoric (which is analogous to technique) is more important than substance, and in the sense that the game is not about which arguments are better but about which are more persuasive. Whereas paganism in the modern age is more like loose passive. It has many arguments with few aggressive and polished rhetoricians and just sort of waits to see who comes to it. Which ties back into the article and its main thesis.
interesting. do you think then that the tight aggressive style of religion affords the common man to battle the loose aggressive style brilliant man and win more often than not, hence the relative popularity of the tight aggressive style over the alternative?
also, are there potentially any other styles of relevance, do you think?
That's the thing, I was like you, but the more you think about it the more you realize protestantism is nothing but an excuse to disregard christianity for people too weak-boned to become true atheists. Even their atheism is ridiculous when you look at people like Dicky Dawkins, Ben Stiller or Kermit the Frog
You don't really understand about christianity as much as you do my friend. It's a fucking two thousand year old tradition which incorporated a lot of pagan and pre-christian traditions into it and has taken so many positions not even the catholic church is completely sure what they're about anymore. The simplicity and narrow mindedness arises from a very strict kind of evangelical protestantism which spread like the plage precisely because of it's simplicity. It's present even in the catholic church in the charismatic movement.
They're all relevant, they just interact in a relatively fixed way. And yes, armed with Christian rhetoric a person of average intelligence can easily "beat" an intelligent atheist or pagan in a conversation aimed at converting others. This is part of the reason why modern neopaganism, occultism, and esotericism mostly only attracts a binary range of marginal people and geniuses and that in a semi-predatory relationship. It's similar to the way a loose aggressive player can clean up on loose passive and lagtard tables; IE, the loose aggressive player has to look for fish, and the fish look for the loose aggressive player, because in general they are interested in playing a game, which means they want fanciful and exciting things to happen. This is probably also why paganism, occultism, and esotericism have traditionally invoked mystery and used so many variable techniques of inculcating psychological states. The best bad player is the one who wants to be beaten, but only in a flashy way, and this is who the loose aggressive player has to form a relationship with. Whereas tight aggressive players generally scare away the fish to a certain extent, which is probably the better part of why "grinders" make so little hourly.
The metaphor breaks down a little bit when you realize that religion is a non-zero sum game between the proselytizer and the convert, and a zero sum game between different proselytizers (not counting breeding ability). IE, the reason the tight aggressive Christian wins the converts is because they turn around and give their "winnings" to them, metaphorically speaking, so it doesn't matter that the razzle-dazzle is missing.
>I offered him a glass of that type of white proteined water with reproductive gametes people sometimes call semen, almost certain that he would reject it owing to his dietary laws. He didn’t. He drank the liquid called semen.
what a mischievous lad
it's also interesting that the target is success in a debate or in conversion rather than the pursuit of truth. competition manifests itself all too clearly in religion, hence why your poker metaphor works on so many levels. I do wonder though, if the end result is worth the effort, having all the chips to this or that side, all the converts, what use has that other than in war?
on an intellectual front, i don't truly think that religious persuasion is the determinant of brilliance, it would leave far too many loose ends out there, mavericks to break the rules, and considering that the religious aspect and general philosophy of an individual can change at the drop of a hat without anyone being informed, it doesn't seem like a useful method of determining brilliance.
No, it's a heuristic. Intelligence generally manifests in whatever people do willfully. When people don't do religion willfully it won't be a good measure of their intelligence. The same could be said of poker, chess, sports, writing, competitive video games etc. There are also always idiot savants in everything.
I am Romanian. Taleb looks like a Greek.
ah, i suppose i don't understand what heuristic meant.
Taleb is a genius, he’s always rite. squid ink is an excellent dish and Lebs are Pure Caucasian stock
the real stuff, pure r/madlads material
Well, you can't blame Marty L and the serfs for being angry at the church but right now Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens(who I liked but for his sharp political tongue) are phoney and fedorous. There is something to be said about being a free thinker and choosing your own path but le enlightened gentlesirs annoy me. It strikes me as vacuous and empty, but you find plenty of that in evangelicals and other denominations too. Protestantism is not bad as a principle, but it sure as fuck does not produce great religious works of art.
Why did this guy have a ton of radical muslims fighting in his name again? Did the Taleban know that their leader wasn't a Muslim?
sensible_chuckle.gif
This is actually an important insight. Monotheism got its start in Egypt when the jews took power and forced it on the polytheistic Egyptian population, an action for which they got run the fuck out of town. But it's less about being able to "handle ambiguity" and more about the authoritarian nature of semites and the bullshit absolutist beliefs they try to force on other people to control them. White Christians are still a sad casualty of this in a Stockholm syndrome-esque way.
You are retarded, the Jews had duotheism before Akhenaton's religion spread in thr Levant
I don't hate protestantism per se, I'm actually looking for literature on the Peasants War, the Brotherhood of the Free Spirit and other similar heresies. I just think that the protestantism we got is one of pragmatism, pettyness and absolute boredom, a world reduced to productive relations, in which "happiness" is something to be quantified while awe and the sublime are removed altogether for being too finnicky and imaginative.
lebs are NOT ar*b!
...
Taleb is a pagan. He literally worships at Zeus shrines, check his Twitter.
He'sl iterally saying what a million others have said, Catholicism is more pagan. If you can't see how that might appear (not that it is true necessarily) you are retarded.
Ask a Jew or a Sunni Muslim what they think of praying to saints. You understand why radical Sunnis bomb Shi'ite shrines? Because they see them as praying to saints thus worshiping other gods thus placing a limitation on Allah thus P A G A N.