Theology is to religious life what Finance is to investing. You can be terrible at the former and great at the latter. You can also be great at the former and terrible at the latter. Systematicity is not a reliable source of alpha. This is the core insight of religious existentialism (Kierkegaard, Tillich, Rosenzweig, Buber), and more broadly of existentialism (Nietzsche, Heidegger).

One of Leo Strauss's core points is that we should read Great Books not because they are historically interesting, or politically useful, and not because they are good brain teasers, but because they might true. They might know something we don't. Does it help to know something about the historical context of the book? Sure. But does saying a bunch of factually correct things about it get us closer to truth? No.

Why do Humanities Departments trend Hamas friendly? Some theories:

https://twitter.com/RamFishman/status/1722258229668057429

1. Humanities aren't empirical

Their theories can't be falsified. You can say anything you want and the more radical, moralistic, edgy, or abstruse it sounds the more you are applauded for it. The name of the game is convincing other Humanities profs to let you into the guild.

This snippet from Richard Wolin (a constant gadfly to Heidegger) has rightly been commanding laughs in the Twittersphere, and it is indeed darkly comical (even Talmudic) to distinguish antisemitism from critique of "world Jewry." But I'd still like to give some context. First, Wolin article in full claims Heidegger's family deliberately tried to scrub his Nazism and antisemitism from his work. lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-he…

Leon Kass's life changed when he observed a chasm between intellectual virtue and moral virtue. "Rousseau argues that...progress in the arts and sciences does not lead to greater virtue. On the contrary, it necessarily produces luxury, augments inequality, debases tastes, softens character, corrupts morals, and weakens patriotism, leading ... to human servitude." Leon Kass

Following the lead of @AriLamm I'd like to share some thoughts on "Why Read the Bible in Hebrew." This is about crying in the Bible, particularly the tears of two twin brothers, Esau and Jacob. Many characters in the Bible cry: Abraham, Hagar, Joseph, but in the Five Books of Moses, only two characters are described as "lifting up their voices and weeping" (vayisa et kolo vayevch): Esau and Jacob.
2/x

GPT-3 on Heidegger on Technology is quite something. Impressive self-understanding

Just over 2 year ago, I sent my first @SubstackInc missive to 18 people. Today "What Is Called Thinking?" is reaching 5k+ people. I took a step back to reflect on my attempt to inspire more habits of thoughtfulness.

whatiscalledthinking.substack.com/p/the-war-for-… 1. Prayer, meditation, religious study, and university learning can't meet the overwhelming demand for intellectual life that is still broadly oriented around questions of personal meaning.

In the 18th century, it was a thought-crime to be a pantheist. The culture war was about whether reason inevitably leads to pantheism or whether it can provide an alternative. When you think about the discourse today, this debate seems terribly quaint. And yet...(thread) In some ways, this is still the question. 18th c. Skeptics like FH Jacobi thought we should place our trust in vibes and not listen to reason (fake news), while rationalists like Mendelssohn believed in something like what Jonathan Rauch calls the Constitution of Knowledge. 2/x

It's not a left-right thing.
Liberty is the new holiness.

My new essay explains the complicated legacy of religion in the modern liberal era:

whatiscalledthinking.substack.com/p/from-sacredp… In the ancient world, the distinction between “sacred” and “profane” was primary. Sacred things were useless, profane things were useful. Sacred things were set aside, profane things were mobilized.

Deceit is one of the oldest themes in the Bible. (Thread) Adam and Eve hide their nakedness with a fig leaf.

Jacob disguises himself as his brother Esau.

Leah hides behind a veil, posing as Rachel.

Joseph's brothers smear his coat in animal blood to hide their treachery.

Potifar's wife uses a garment to falsely accuse Joseph. 2/x

Wittgenstein's philosophy of language explains what AI is and isn't good for.

AI is great at simulating knowledge, but terrible at simulating poetry.

AI can write an OK op-Ed, but will never rival Beckett or Stein.

whatiscalledthinking.substack.com/p/wittgenstein… It is sometimes said that the people worshipped the Tower of Babel, but what if they worshipped language itself, this great mystery simulating the divine?

Reverse Survivorship Bias: When you believe something is great only to the extent that it didn’t make it. Reverse Confirmation Bias: When you believe something only if it disconfirms your bias.

The French Revolutionaries shot at the clock towers in an attempt to stop time, and the modern day Jacobins throw soup on paintings in an attempt to stop representation. Ironically, the art destroyers come at a time when AI and NFTs have further diminished the status of museums, making their iconoclasm a kind of nostalgic act.

Adam and Eve were always ashamed of their nakedness, but they did a good job pretending otherwise. When they gained knowledge of good and bad they realized that they had been living in a glass closet (thread) God knew the whole time that they knew they were naked. But they put on fig leaves so as to hide the fact that their shame was not new. God pretended not to know, and chided them for hiding, thus deceiving them into thinking they had deceived God.

Each day of Creation God sees that the world is “good” but when it comes to humanity whose existence is said to be “very good” God sees something “not good.” Being alone. It seems to be human is to be high variance. Or maybe loneliness is BOTH not good and very good. It's striking that in Western countries which are centered around individual liberties and the cultural norm of self-expressions, loneliness is a major epidemic.

Before studying Torah one recites a blessing.

Before meditating one sets an intention or dedicates the practice to someone else's well being.

Yet before philosophizing there is no dedication, no ritual. This is both a lost opportunity & fundamental shortcoming. Many of the great philosophers were also religious seekers and theologians and many of the great seekers were students of philosophy, seekers of wisdom. Think of Augustine and Abelard, Philo and Maimonides. But the posture of prayer and devotion is often missing from philosophy.

One of the best life hacks is not caring about losing social status, or better yet, having something you believe is worth losing your status for even when it hurts. Mindfulness meditation helps immunize against low self esteem and fear of social disgrace by showing you that your self image is just a story you tell yourself.

I have exciting news! I'm leading a seminar on the Book of Genesis, over a new app, called Threadable, which is like if a university seminar, medieval monasteries and Twitter had a baby. It's free and open to everyone. Please join & share

Use this link:

threadablenative.page.link/WpYNuhk11iZ4f9… We'll start discussion next week, you can comment and question directly on the text, and continue doing a weekly reading each week, so that we cover the whole book of Genesis (Bereishit) in 12 weeks.

And now, as a taste and reward, thread time!

Once a year, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies and perceive:

Nothing. Emily Dickinson:

Peter Thiel has a fascinating theory that Plato and Xenophon think you can seek the truth even under duress, but Gospels think humanity is thoroughly broken. Even Peter, on whom the Church lays its foundation, betrays Jesus.

Christianity is more pessimistic than Philosophy. The contrasting of Philosophy and Christianity is an old motif, but runs counter to the mainstream attempt to synthesize them, found in Aquinas and Hegel.