Philosophy

Intro

With rare exceptions, all abrahamisms agree on some basic concepts. Abrahamisms have certain indispensable beliefs (dogmas), without which the thought-system would collapse. (Aksharananda here.) Particular exceptions case of 0-theism is considered separately.

Fundamental incompatibility with paganisms

• “The principles of Abrahamism have been fundamentally formulated as “non-heathenism”” (MT).

True vs False Gods

• true God and false gods (supposedly unwitting followers of Satan), universal urge for religion/ divinity, religion (= worshiping the true God, rejecting false gods)
• References
  • BG here, here.
  • Hegel’s excellent observation IMG, prospects_folk.

Pagan criticisms

The “God” of the Abrahamists is not even real - it is but a psychotic demonic memetic construct, a part of a widespread mental disease. Abe’s monotheists are actually mentally ill atheists, for whom the Abrahamist God is a coping mechanism to compensate for the dissatisfactoriness of their atheism. Or, they may be viewed as mentally ill polytheists, who have (in their heads) turned ALL Gods into demons - including their - now psychotic - “One True God”.

Counter religious nature

• Abrahamisms = “Prophetic desert cults with replacement theology, where a later iteration abnegates the previous one. Mo’s genius is to seal the possibility by declaring himself to be final.”

Normative inversion

• Assmann used the term “normative inversion” to suggest that some aspects of Judaism were formulated in direct reaction to Egyptian practices and theology.

Restrictions on worship

See worship-restrictions page.

Divine plan and importance of history

“God has a plan for everyone. To understand that, history becomes important.”. Story vs history (here). - The contrast between pagan view of history and willingness to accord greater respect for past people, and the Abrahamistic concept of jahiliya (TW16).

Creation

• originally thought to have happened exactly as described in the book.
• reason: unknown, but deduced to be motivated by the desire to have others like himself. Granted various beings “free will” to that they can have this “peaceful garden”.
• satan was one of the angels, who broke off and has been “poisoning” human minds since. But he is being deliberately tolerated (for some time until the end of days) in order to prove that his counsel was counterproductive - that only God knows what’s good for mankind.

After-life, end of days and judgement

• In the end of days, messaiah (identified with Jesus) will come back, there will be a big war and he will murder all non-believers.
• Judgement day: All the dead will be resurrected (with body) for judgement.
  • Non-believers and evil doers will be tortured for ever. (In exceptional cults, they just wont get a chance at second life - Eg. Jehovah’s witnesses. )
• Salvation
  • salvation is reserved (but not guaranteed) for followers of (say) Christ and denied to other Pagan moral people.
    • Beyond acceptance of the main prophet’s teachings, one is dependent on “God’s grace” for salvation.
  • true/ false religion BG.

Millenarianism/ apocalypse

• A millennarian apocalyptic cult is a faith-based group in conflict with the world with voluntary membership contingent on personal conversion and a strong sense of chosenness, exclusiveness and ethical austerity.
• The main condition for joining was unconditional faith in the imminent and total destruction of the existing order of things, to be accompanied by the bloody revenge of the weak on the strong, with the weak inheriting the world.
• And it’s mostly in the expectation of that war that the hunt for possible traitors begins (Regin of Terror).
• Essentially three ways of dealing with the postponement of the fulfillment [[1:08:33]] of the prophecy with the nonarrival of the end of the world or the messiah, whatever the prophecy may be.
  • One is to die while trying to bring it about [[1:08:49]] and that was Trotsky’s position.
  • To claim that he has in fact arrived. This is the official view of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christianity.
  • And the third one is to reconcile oneself to the imperfections of human existence and learn how to live in a state of permanent expectation
• Happen in times of moral panics.

Revelation (in nature AND in the book)

• “nature reveals the handiwork of a single author”.
• Revelation in the book says *how* God should be worshiped.

Conservative ability

• Greater staticness of divine law in the Abrahamisms.
  • The laws given by the Abrahamic God in the revelations, and the dictates of the main prophet are considered inviolable. Change or deviation is not readily allowed.
  • By contrast, the hindu dharmashAstra-s are fluid and context (place/ time) dependent, encouraging giving up practices detested by the society at large. (More here)
  • There is also the history vs myth contrast, leading to the texts being understood far more literally.
• Prophets as a bug in the code
  • the prathamonmatta-s did recognize the link between a sādhāraṇonmatta and a prophet, although they are careful to distinguish the two. Jeremiah 29.26 states: “The lord (i.e. the eka-rākṣasa) made you a priest in place of Jehoiada, and you are now the chief officer in the temple. It is your duty to see that every man that is mad and makes himself a prophet is placed in chains with an iron collar round his neck.” … Deuteronomy 13.2–6 gives the clear prescription regarding how this should be done: “If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spoke unto thee, saying, “Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them,” thou shall not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams…And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death, because he hath spoken to turn you away from the lord your god…” [MT]
  • “The founder of tṛtīyonmāda realized that there was a “bug” in the formulation of the previous unmāda-s and wrote into his version of the unmāda-code that there could be no “unmatta” after him.” [MT]
• Acculturation vs heathenization tension
  • “Abrahamism has a certain internal “thermometer” which can sense whether a doctrinal patina is strategic acculturation which is good for takeover of heathens, or actually a dangerous counter-intrusion of heathenism into their own doctrine. This sensory process had been perfected in the midst of the prathamonmatta-s well before the pretācarin-s and Bardaisan. We know that with the rise of Neo-Platonism and Hermetic traditions, prathamonmatta-s were being absorbed into syncretic or even openly Hellenistic traditions on a large-scale. This led a quick response where the errant were killed or cut out.” [MT]

On tolerance and evangelism:

• Rare forms of U1, many forms of U2 and U3 proselytize broadly.
• Common hooks:
  • Why is there suffering and “injustice” in the world? Why was man created? We have all the answers, and the world can be paradise.
• Common reasons for failure
  • Familial, social and political resistance.
• The urge to proselityze is motivated by:
  • The need to umulate Jesus or Mohammed as ideal abrahamists.
  • The desire to root out erroneous beliefs of people (especially with regards to God’s true intents, supposedly congruous with Satan’s aspersions on him) and make them have the “right belief”.
    • Shreevatsa’s example to contrast the nature of Abrahamist belief with Pagan belief: “You may “believe” that your spouse and children are the most wonderful in the world, and so might your colleague about their own spouse and children, but this need not necessarily lead to conflict. Maybe even though you strongly “believe” it – and even want to believe it – you don’t think it’s a claim about facts: the “belief” here is a matter of attitude, not truth. Plus there is the social contract that it is rude to try and impose this private belief of yours on others, and that it is rude to try to dissuade someone else from their belief. Nor is there is the sense that contradictory beliefs of this sort must necessarily be resolved one way or the other, or that the fact of someone else holding a contradictory belief is by itself (as opposed to via their actions) a threat to you.”
  • In some cases (especially U2), facilitating the prosperity of ummah by waging war.

Condemnation of ancestors, and effect on civilizational achievement.

• Other than the “chosen people” concept of jews, converts to Christianity and Islam condemn their pagan ancestors to ignorance and hell.
• “pride in you ancestors is IMO important for achievement as a civilization. Perhaps eventual decline of marUnmatta achievement. stems from this v. cause. OTH, the U2s have developed something called “racism” or on the other hand leftism which allows for such pride to reenter through the backdoor often with the claim of false ancestries. As for U1s their whole achievement stems stems from their mata being closely aligned with the concept of being a people whose ancestors were chosen ones.” [TW17]

Fake universalism

• As Ketkar pointed out, Christianity can be regarded only as a tribal tradition and thus cannot lay claims to universality which is rather the domain of the Hindu dharma.

Conflict with science

• There is the history vs myth contrast, and the literal sense of the words taken far more seriously than in the case of polytheism.
• This leads to a lot more conflict with science.

Other comparisons

• KE’s summary: Christianity vs Hinduism/ paganism 1.
• As a memetic virus or plasmid vs vertically inherited trait - MT here.
• Rabid dogs and the elephants - KV16.