#pullmanism

[alethiosr]

Religions that try to enforce that you have no doubt in your spiritual leaders are not safe religions. It is simply too easy for a religious leader to deceive you if you are not allowed to criticize or doubt them. The idea that any spiritual leader is directly speaking the word of God or any higher power to you without any distortion is dangerous. That is not an idea that you should trust easily.

This only gets worse when coupled with discouragement from personal spiritual practice, such as banning any form of magic. This is especially true for divination practices. If you are not allowed to seek your own answers without breaking the rules of your religion, you are being purposely kept in the dark. Religions should never punish their followers for wanting to understand more about the world around them.

It is a way to keep control over people instead of helping them find spiritual fulfillment. This idea forces followers to cling to a select few who are privileged enough to actually engage directly with their faith. It does nothing to provide any meaningful growth because of an over-reliance on people, fallible people who can be deceitful. Most spiritual leaders are good people, but that doesn’t change that many still use their position for malevolence.

[alethiosr]

Something I realized a while ago is that generative AI seems to actually work better than organized religion to reduce human creativity and increase obedience. These are two of the things that the Authority aims to do in order to stay in control. We live in a society that is becoming more secular as time goes on, so a switch in approach makes total sense. The types of people who might never be lured in by gospel and praises may still be lured in by “helpful” advice and funny stories.

AI makes us weaker and lowers our ability to think for ourselves. It is being pushed as an alternative to real connections with other people. We are seeing people replace real experiences with artificial photos, videos, sounds, and writing. People are trusting AI to come up with things for them instead of inventing for themselves. More and more people are getting seriously hurt or dying because they trust AI over real people.

Creativity, knowledge, love, experience, everything else that makes us human is sacred. Machines shouldn’t do those things for us. Not only is it damaging on a material level but it is deeply damaging to our spirits as well. Whether you ascribe to a belief system like mine or not, of Dust and dæmons and all those things, you should surely see what is happening here. We are entering an age of ignorance and blindness but it’s not just mainstream religion at fault anymore.

[alethiosr]

Due to my beliefs I have such a strange perspective on death. I believe in the Land of the Dead from Philip Pullman’s books as a literal thing that everyone will one day go to. I don’t believe in a heaven or hell, so my moral actions have no baring on where I go after death. I do think I could possibly avoid this fate through something like deity work or self deification or many other options, but I’m pretty convinced where I’ll go. I’ll be stuck in an endless prison where I’m haunted by my worst memories and I’ll never see Fallon again.

This certainty is both scary and relieving. I don’t need to wonder as to where I go after the inevitable. I don’t obsess over my actions to ensure a good afterlife and I’m not scared that my loved ones will go somewhere horrible just for believing differently than I do. But also I’m terrified of what I’ll see once I’m there. I’m scared that even with all the work I’ll have done my whole life that I’ll be just another prisoner to the Authority. But at least I’m confident in where I’ll do and I don’t need to worry over it.

When many centuries from now two children break into purgatory to free us back out into the living world, I’ll be there. I’ll tell stories of my life and be able to feel the sun again.