6 ms·

It also has a lot of timeless wisdom

sjwright 7y ago
It is almost impossible to imagine that the writings of any long-lived society would not have ample quantities of "timeless wisdom". In fact it would be striking and unusual if it were otherwise. Much wisdom can be difficult to stumble upon but is self-evident once known. Long-lived societies are sure to import all such wisdom from around them, then discover more for themselves over time.
- mindcrime 7y ago
  Exactly. I'm pretty sure one can find "lots of timeless wisdom" in the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Norse Prose Edda and Poetic Edda, the Necronomicon, etc., etc.
  - lowercased 7y ago
    especially in the age of limited literacy and scribal skills, I'm not sure people would have invested much time in copying and archiving ideas and texts they thought were garbage. this is sort of a literary survivorship bias at play, it would seem.
  - eivarv 7y ago
    Yes. But the Necronomicon is one of two things (depending on what you're talking about): A fictional grimoire, or a piece of fiction (a hoax, even).
    - mindcrime 7y ago
      I know, throwing that in was my lame attempt at humor. :-)
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  You're right; the main way that the bible (and by extension religion) is important in this regard is that it's survived, in various forms, for as long as it has. I kinda believe you need a religion to preserve knowledge and wisdom like this for so long. I mean tangentially related, a while ago there was an article about how to safeguard nuclear waste storage for the next 100.000 years; one suggestion was to create a religion around it and its preservation. Something that can survive an intellectual step backwards. (Not unheard of; see the Greek and Roman societies of old. Their knowledge was lost for a long time, but Christianity survived. Of course their knowledge getting lost may be related to the rise of Christian religions as well)
  - eru 7y ago
    > I kinda believe you need a religion to preserve knowledge and wisdom like this for so long. Depends on how high you set the bar for 'survive'. We have a few of the writing of Euclid, Archimedes and other Greeks, and mostly they weren't preserved for religious reasons.
  - sjwright 7y ago
    Religion was certainly an effective carrier for stories prior to the age of the printing press. Unfortunately most religions lose the ability to adapt and error correct, which means that they end up stalling progress as surely as they preserve it.
mattigames 7y ago
I was going to post some parts of the old testament that could be deemed the opposite of wisdom, but here we try to avoid flame-wars so I ask for the same level of self-restrain from you when using adjetives about such controversial topics.
- mindcrime 7y ago
  I ask for the same level of self-restrain from you when using adjetives about the quality of the bible and similar kind of opinions. Note that the person you're replying to did not say that the bible was ALL timeless wisdom, or really say much at all about the overall quality of the bible. There's no contradiction between the bible containing lots of timeless wisdom AND containing lots of utter nonsense and complete bollocks. Even as somebody who is an atheist and who generally finds religion to be a blight on our society, I think one can find "timeless wisdom" in the bible mixed in with the other stuff. Whether that, on balance, makes it worth investing time in or not is another question.
  - jazoom 7y ago
    Yeah, New Testament is a fair bit nicer.
    - eitland 7y ago
      Much of the Old Testament can be read as a collection of stories about a small tribe becoming a nation and fighting for their survival over hundreds of years. The stories are interesting not always because they are nice but also often because they are not. Not everyone portrayed there is a hero. Then again, that is probably how it was and when I read the old viking stories they are equally - if not more violent. I have also enjoyed reading both the Viking age Håvamål as well as the ancient Proverbs (as well as a number of other sources).
    - nitrogen 7y ago
      Though as I recall the old testament has more quotably poetic one-liners.
    - 7y ago
DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y ago
Such as? I'm struggling to imaging something recorded in this draft that is useful, and not already known? A lot of timeless wisdom is also obvious.
- goto11 7y ago
  "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"
- drukenemo 7y ago
  It’s obvious exactly because it has been already incorporated as values in our societies.
- gwd 7y ago
  > A lot of timeless wisdom is also obvious. As another commenter said, it seems obvious to you because it's been incorporated into our culture. For instance, I lived in Turkey for a few months, and I had a Turkish roommate who was a devout Muslim. He gave me an English translation of the Qur'an to read, and I gave him a Turkish translation of the New Testament. He decided he would come and show me the places where it must have been changed (since Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet, but what he says in the New Testament obviously doesn't match what Mohammad said). What was the first place he found that was obviously changed? Matthew 5:38-39: "You have heard it said, 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them on the other cheek also." Well, there's a good example for you: Either that seems like good advice, in which case you certainly got that from your culture; or it doesn't, in which case it's worth chewing over to get some wisdom out of it. :-)
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    That reminds me of a surprisingly popular argument against religion which goes something like, "God is supposed to be good, but look, this part of the Bible disagrees with my cultural norms."
  - ensignavenger 7y ago

It is almost impossible to imagine that the writings of any long-lived society would not have ample quantities of "timeless wisdom". In fact it would be striking and unusual if it were otherwise. Much wisdom can be difficult to stumble upon but is self-evident once known. Long-lived societies are sure to import all such wisdom from around them, then discover more for themselves over time.

mindcrime 7y ago
Exactly. I'm pretty sure one can find "lots of timeless wisdom" in the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Norse Prose Edda and Poetic Edda, the Necronomicon, etc., etc.
- lowercased 7y ago
  especially in the age of limited literacy and scribal skills, I'm not sure people would have invested much time in copying and archiving ideas and texts they thought were garbage. this is sort of a literary survivorship bias at play, it would seem.
- eivarv 7y ago
  Yes. But the Necronomicon is one of two things (depending on what you're talking about): A fictional grimoire, or a piece of fiction (a hoax, even).
  - mindcrime 7y ago
    I know, throwing that in was my lame attempt at humor. :-)
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
You're right; the main way that the bible (and by extension religion) is important in this regard is that it's survived, in various forms, for as long as it has. I kinda believe you need a religion to preserve knowledge and wisdom like this for so long. I mean tangentially related, a while ago there was an article about how to safeguard nuclear waste storage for the next 100.000 years; one suggestion was to create a religion around it and its preservation. Something that can survive an intellectual step backwards. (Not unheard of; see the Greek and Roman societies of old. Their knowledge was lost for a long time, but Christianity survived. Of course their knowledge getting lost may be related to the rise of Christian religions as well)
- eru 7y ago
  > I kinda believe you need a religion to preserve knowledge and wisdom like this for so long. Depends on how high you set the bar for 'survive'. We have a few of the writing of Euclid, Archimedes and other Greeks, and mostly they weren't preserved for religious reasons.
- sjwright 7y ago
  Religion was certainly an effective carrier for stories prior to the age of the printing press. Unfortunately most religions lose the ability to adapt and error correct, which means that they end up stalling progress as surely as they preserve it.

mattigames 7y ago

I was going to post some parts of the old testament that could be deemed the opposite of wisdom, but here we try to avoid flame-wars so I ask for the same level of self-restrain from you when using adjetives about such controversial topics.

mindcrime 7y ago
I ask for the same level of self-restrain from you when using adjetives about the quality of the bible and similar kind of opinions. Note that the person you're replying to did not say that the bible was ALL timeless wisdom, or really say much at all about the overall quality of the bible. There's no contradiction between the bible containing lots of timeless wisdom AND containing lots of utter nonsense and complete bollocks. Even as somebody who is an atheist and who generally finds religion to be a blight on our society, I think one can find "timeless wisdom" in the bible mixed in with the other stuff. Whether that, on balance, makes it worth investing time in or not is another question.
- jazoom 7y ago
  Yeah, New Testament is a fair bit nicer.
  - eitland 7y ago
    Much of the Old Testament can be read as a collection of stories about a small tribe becoming a nation and fighting for their survival over hundreds of years. The stories are interesting not always because they are nice but also often because they are not. Not everyone portrayed there is a hero. Then again, that is probably how it was and when I read the old viking stories they are equally - if not more violent. I have also enjoyed reading both the Viking age Håvamål as well as the ancient Proverbs (as well as a number of other sources).
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    Though as I recall the old testament has more quotably poetic one-liners.
  - 7y ago

DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y ago

Such as? I'm struggling to imaging something recorded in this draft that is useful, and not already known? A lot of timeless wisdom is also obvious.

goto11 7y ago
"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"
drukenemo 7y ago
It’s obvious exactly because it has been already incorporated as values in our societies.
gwd 7y ago
> A lot of timeless wisdom is also obvious. As another commenter said, it seems obvious to you because it's been incorporated into our culture. For instance, I lived in Turkey for a few months, and I had a Turkish roommate who was a devout Muslim. He gave me an English translation of the Qur'an to read, and I gave him a Turkish translation of the New Testament. He decided he would come and show me the places where it must have been changed (since Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet, but what he says in the New Testament obviously doesn't match what Mohammad said). What was the first place he found that was obviously changed? Matthew 5:38-39: "You have heard it said, 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them on the other cheek also." Well, there's a good example for you: Either that seems like good advice, in which case you certainly got that from your culture; or it doesn't, in which case it's worth chewing over to get some wisdom out of it. :-)
- whatshisface 7y ago
  That reminds me of a surprisingly popular argument against religion which goes something like, "God is supposed to be good, but look, this part of the Bible disagrees with my cultural norms."
- ensignavenger 7y ago