Ran Prieurhttp://ranprieur.com/#9a417fe513f58988c3b5b1e84cfc57397194a79b2019-12-25T13:10:26ZRan Prieurhttp://ranprieur.com/ranprieur@gmail.comDecember 25.http://ranprieur.com/#1425dfc9c697fed8d9cebc0d23144a957668e4992019-12-25T13:10:26Z
December 25. For Christmas, I want to write about Jesus. I'm not a Christian, more like a pantheist, and I don't believe in hell, a place with arguably no biblical evidence. So salvation is not necessary, except being saved from the illusions of this world. I like the neo-Gnostic idea that we're in a simulation and Jesus hacked it.
Matt comments over email, "I think the appeal of Jesus, on one level, is the appeal of Superman. The universe sucks and we want someone to fix it in one fell swoop." I would add: they both came from the sky, they both have magical powers, they both have no character flaws, and they even have a similar iconic posture -- Superman's arms are just more above his head.
As a character, Superman is boring. I would find the story of Jesus more inspiring if he started out as a bad person, and then became a good person, like Ryan Leaf. George Carlin has said that the story of Jesus would be better if he were not the son of God, just some loser who God decided to adopt. Then we'd think twice about being mean to someone, because God might adopt that person next. Update: there's actually a fringe Christian doctrine, Adoptionism, that believes this.
Jesus said: Judge not, that ye be not judged. It occurs to me, if you judge anyone for being not as good as you in any way, then your advantage is a matter of luck. If it were skill, then you would have had to climb up from being where they are; and in that case, you would know what it's like to be where they are, and you wouldn't judge them.]]>
December 24.http://ranprieur.com/#2a3229584a45eb879e675c31ff7af741b7d977592019-12-24T12:00:26Z
December 24. For Christmas eve, these are my top five Christmas songs that you won't hear on the radio:
Ramsey Lewis Trio - What Are You Doing New Year's Eve]]>
December 23.http://ranprieur.com/#df23cf92715a49b861d333d0ba257dd34a1866d92019-12-23T23:50:23Z
December 23. Another thought about that hypersanity article. The author is trying to reframe our thinking about weird people, as a spectrum with normal people in the middle, the insane on one side, and the supersane on the other. He thinks he's being helpful: "Be nice to that weird person, they might be supersane."
Speaking for the weird people, stop trying to divide us. Consider supposed supersane Nelson Mandela. He started out as a violent militant fighting for racial justice, exactly like American abolitionist John Brown. If history had gone differently, we would see Brown as a saintly patriarch, and Mandela as a failed loony.
Or, the difference between the "insane" and "supersane" is not their personality or their mental state, but how useful they are to the normals.]]>