Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:
- Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
- Do not quote yourself
- Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
- No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
Which leads us to today's Umeshism: "Why are existing religions so troublesome? Because they're all false, the only ones that exist are so dangerous that they can survive the truth."
I'm not sure if I can really call myself Gnostic, but if I can, mine's neither troublesome*, nor does it make any claims inconsistent with a sufficiently strong simulation hypothesis.
-* (when e.g. Voegelin was complaining about "Gnostic" ideas of rearranging society, he was 1) obviously excluding any transformation he approved of, perhaps considering it "natural" and not dangerous meddling, and 2) blaming a fairly universal kind of radicalism correlated with all monotheistic or quasi-monotheistic worldviews; he's essentially privileging... (read more)