The billions of people who actually commit themselves to specific religions would generally disagree.
Think of what Christians believe: “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (I can’t speak for any other world faiths.) Plenty of very, very intelligent people find good reason to not believe in the idea that all religions are basically the same thing.
The whole “stand for nothing, fall for anything” thing comes to mind. I don’t know if it’s pertinent or not though.
I’m assuming that @The_Myth was speaking in a general secular sense, where all religions can be viewed as “wisdom traditions” that seek to understand the world around us and our place in it.
In a theological sense you are correct. You can’t be a Christian Muslim Wiccan unless you’re one of those people with a Dr. of Divinity degree purchased from the Universal Life Church, who also sell Jedi Knight certificates.
Jihadis definitely see people who don’t believe what they do as rivals.
That was my intent, however poorly I wrote it. To me, they aren’t vying for my membership as rivals.
I do think organized religion is a human construct created to control the proletariat. Focusing on the differences between two religions as a reason to justify murder certainly does make them rivals.
There’s a really cool book I found when I was in high school or middle school. Talked about all sorts of geometry and patterns that show up in nature and architecture and so on. Highly recommend it.
And even some music theory. The “perfect” ratio Pythagorean tuning from greek times, that lasted up until roughly Bach’s time, where eventually Equal temperament replaced it. How most instruments are tuned today, especially pianos.
(I do have an instrument I tune with the ratio-based Pythagorean tuning though, a Chinese guqin. If you want to really geek out on that, you can read this)
Many Buddhists who have also studied Christianity believe that Jesus was likely a Bodhisattva - an enlightened being who chose to remain in the human realm and teach meaning/wisdom to those who would listen.
These kinds of things are fascinating, especially when contemplating whether these patterns would naturally arise in an universe constantly increasing in entropy or if there was some sort of divine creation.
It’s a very different musical tradition. A lot of the music is… maybe not unpleasant, but not really pleasant or relatable. Things that sound off key. Rhythms are all over the place. Lots of repeated notes that don’t make much sense as a listener. (There’s often at least 4 ways to play any note, so the repeated note that you hear is usually played a different way than the first time.)
It was an instrument for the scholar-gentleman class, and one of the Four Arts that everyone studied. It’s an “artsy” instrument. It was more like mastering the skills for self development, rather than for listening enjoyment. It’s a very quiet instrument and not traditionally used for performance.
But it’s got some cool things going for it.
It has the oldest musical notation of any instrument we know of. (That may not be an entirely true statement anymore.) I once opened up a pdf of a very old manuscript (1400s ish) and could play from it.
It also has a crazy amount of harmonic positions. You get a few harmonics with a guitar, but the guqin has 7 different harmonics that can be played, per string. (13 harmonic positions, but only 7 distinct harmonic notes).
Then the more normal things you expect from a string instrument: “Open” notes, where you just pluck the string with your right hand, and “Pressed” notes where your left hand presses down on the string when you pluck with the right.
There’s also a ton of techniques with the left hand. Slides, vibrato, releases (where you press two fingers on the string, and lift one after it’s played), and can pluck with the left fingers too. Layers of complexity.
From a sound, it’s kind of like a mix of standard string pluck, but with more of resonance you get with a bell or a gong.
Here’s one of the more accessible pieces. 神人暢 from at least 1525. Translated roughly like “a conversation between the gods and man”. Starts out with a slow melody with harmonics, and then moves into pressed notes with slides around 1:55. And then the guy basically rocks out in the middle of it.
(It’s actually really hard to play those harmonics and get all of them to sound good all the time. Even for the experts.)
This is another guy playing the same thing. You can clearly see how the repetition at the beginning is actually played on different positions. This one’s a somewhat less animated performance.
This is my favorite piece. 瀟湘水雲 “Mist over the Xiao and Xiang Rivers”. From at least 1425. Starts out slow and speeds up, like the other one.
It took me a really long time to start to make sense of it musically and appreciate it as more than off-key rhythm-less noise.
I created this thread in 2018 for peeps to discuss woo woo shit. It is truly an open thread - old, for sure, but it pops up once in a while when we need space to talk woo woo shit.
I have these reoccurring dreams about the same imaginary places.
One is a floating island in the sky that has maybe 5 acres, waterfalls pouring out, and a tourist version of a Parthenon structure. Wine, gardens, and three diffrent suns - yellow, green, and purple.
The second is a big grey stone Vermont-Style mansion with a winding road and brown trees and snow. The house is full of things that look slightly dangerous to touch, like antique paintings with glass shards pointing out, all the flowers strewn on the floor have thorns, half of the building is crumbled.
The third is in a car on a highway with specific stops and gas stations, but it’s never a road I’ve actually driven, looking right with a woman dressed in a green sundress with gold hair, and a cornfield in the window.
The fourth is a school on a hill, with a circular road and parking lot where I have to come back to because something was uncompleted. I’m always in a state of undress, but no one seems to notice.
The last one is an old chapel where vines have climbed up inside and there’s a long kitchen where people are bustling around and a huge fireplace.
I’m calling this woowoo because I have had multiple dreams over years about these places. It feels familiar until I wake up.
I could provide architectural diagrams at this point.
!
Wow!
Its pretty reliable!
