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Curosinonotoday at 4:00 PM6 repliesview on HN

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ecshafertoday at 5:16 PM

Newton, Tolkien, Aquinas, Descarte, Pascal, CS Lewis, Lemaitre, Bach. All famously uncritical humans.

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aerodexistoday at 4:13 PM

The most depressing thing of all is when ppl encounter "bootstrapping" and only see "control"

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gobdovantoday at 4:05 PM

I was referring to the analysis of Christianity's spread and evolution as amazing. I was not making a subjective judgment about Christianity itself.

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mc32today at 4:06 PM

There was a time when monks were the few who had time to dedicate to learning and discovery eventually leading to the renaissance.

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talentedcointoday at 4:48 PM

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gausswhotoday at 5:13 PM

Critical thinking, by some boundaries of how you define it, was a threat to power that led to the many schisms the video demonstrates. Suppression of it I find to be endemic in monotheistic organized religions. As an outsider to Christianity, it's always seemed odd to me the fluid boundaries of what you can critique and what you can't while remaining faithful. Most Christians would argue you cannot reason your way to the will of God due to the inherent flaws of humanity. I find that a convenient way of saying 'don't rock the boat'.

As a separate aside, you may be interested to learn about the Manichean faith, which for a short period rivaled Christianity as a kind of syncretic mix of faiths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism

I suspect (but am not expert enough to claim) that Christianity's suppression of reasoning-your-way-to-God is a historical artifact of this rivalry. Manichean faith borrowed the ancient Greek concept of the Great Nous and the concept of the "Five Limbs": Reason, Mind, Intelligence, Thought, Understanding.

Many recovering Christians that remain pious, in my experience, retreat to a kind of uber-faith that is not unlike this concept. "I see truth in all religions".

The Christian churches that retained power said: you don't get to determine that.

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