It’s perfectly rational for an atheist to hold that Christianity was sparked by some kind of rare mass hallucination, preferring that explanation on the basis that, while improbable, mass hallucination is less improbable than a resurrection.
Clipping
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clippings > The resurrection of Jesus could have been a mass hallucination
[https://aeon.co/essays/i-now-think-a-heretical-form-of-christianity-might-be-true]
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books > the:humans (Haig, Matt)
A homo sapiens was a primitive hunter who had woken each day with the knowledge he could kill. And now, the equivalent knowledge was only that he would wake up each day and buy something.
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books > the:humans (Haig, Matt)
Two mirrors, opposite and facing each other at perfectly parallel angles, viewing themselves through the other, the view as deep as infinity. Yes, that was what love was for.
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books > the:humans (Haig, Matt)
Magazines are very popular, despite no human ever feeling better for having read them. Indeed, their chief purpose is to generate a sense of inferiority in the reader that consequently leads to them needing to buy something, which they do, and then feel even worse, and so need to buy another magazine to see what they can buy next.
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books > alien:clay (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
The greatest privilege of power is being able to overlook that you’re even wielding it.
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books > fifth:science (Exurb1a)
All explanations are an attempt by humankind to divide itself from the world. An explanation without including the explainer is as a tree without the trunk. One is inseparable from the other. No system of knowledge can avoid this limitation. Numbers are not the true face of measure. Words are not the true description of things. The world is the explanation.
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books > fifth:science (Exurb1a)
The core of heroism isn’t bravery, or even self-sacrifice. It is a commitment to what one knows to be the virtuous course of action, despite whatever the consequences may be.
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books > fifth:science (Exurb1a)
Inaction is the primary refuge of those who prefer their own constructed realities to the beautiful chaos of the real world.
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books > fifth:science (Exurb1a)
“I do not want to take any more photos. I don’t like photos. I don’t want to remember any of this horseshit. What the fuck are we doing with all this? Trying to make celebrities of ourselves, everyone screaming down everyone’s throat and no one stopping to shut up. I don’t like photos. I don’t want any more taken of me.”
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clippings > Content feeds have turned us from hunters into farm animals
[https://slate.com/culture/2024/10/me-movie-don-hertzfeldt-arcade-fire-taylor-swift.html]
Not to sound like a curmudgeon, but when I was a teenager, I took the train to go to the record store to find rare stuff. Spotify is way more convenient, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to get out and to feel like you’re hunting, to feel like you’re living your life. I’m going to the movies, I’m going to this show. What streaming has done—it’s very convenient, but it’s taken the feeling of going hunting and turned it into we’re all just being fed. We’re all farm animals that are just being fed, and we’re being fed content. You can just stay home. Just stay home. We’ll just feed it to you. No wonder everyone’s depressed.