u/Corp-Por

Have any of you seriously read Plotinus' Against the Gnostics (II.9), or the account in Porphyry of the dispute between Plotinus' circle and the Gnostics?

What do you think Plotinus gets wrong?

And where you disagree with him, what is the strongest Gnostic philosophical response - not simply "he misunderstood Gnosticism"?

The real difficulty is not believing in God, but believing in the God of religion

The God of the philosophers is comparatively easy to take seriously: Aristotle’s self-thinking thought, Plotinus’ One, Spinoza’s infinite substance, Leibniz’s necessary being, or Hegel’s Absolute Spirit. These are very different conceptions, and some, especially Leibniz and Hegel, stand much closer to revealed religion than others. But they are all intelligible attempts to think ultimate reality through reason

Such a God is not usually imagined as one being among others, subject to arbitrary passions or episodic changes of mind. In Aristotle, the divine eternally contemplates itself. In Plotinus, all reality proceeds from the One. In Spinoza, God is the immanent infinite reality of which all things are modes. We participate in the divine through knowledge and contemplation. As Spinoza puts it, our intellectual love of God is part of God’s eternal love of himself

The God of religion asks for something... much more difficult

One must believe not only in an ultimate divine reality, but that this reality disclosed itself through particular historical persons and events: that this particular Arab received revelations through an angel; that this particular carpenter in Palestine was the Son of God and rose bodily from the dead; or that this charioteer revealed himself as the supreme divine reality on the battlefield of Kurukshetra

These are claims that God entered history at a particular time, in a particular place, through particular people. And not only that, but that the account of this happening should be received with trust, love, and faith rather than with the ordinary skepticism we apply to extraordinary historical claims

In effect, one is asked to suspend doubt for one decisive exception

Fine, perhaps. But which exception?

Why believe this revelation rather than another one? Why accept the resurrection but reject Joseph Smith’s visions, or accept Muhammad’s encounter with Gabriel while rejecting the miracles attributed to Apollonius of Tyana? Why not believe all of them?

But if we believe all of them, they seem to make incompatible claims. And if we use reason to decide which revelation is more credible, why not use reason all the way down? Why not apply the same standards of textual criticism, historical probability, manuscript analysis, contradiction, development, and uncertainty that we apply everywhere else?

At that point, it becomes difficult to see how one could ever establish that a particular revelation was not merely sincere, profound, spiritually transformative, or symbolically true, but literally the unique intervention of God into history

A common philosophical solution is to say that religions express through narrative, symbol, and image the same ultimate reality that philosophers approach conceptually. Religious representation and philosophical thought would then be different forms of the same truth. This seems to have been the view of Hegel, for instance

But this solution risks dissolving the God of religion. If resurrection, revelation, incarnation, and miracle become symbolic expressions of a more general metaphysical truth, religion survives in some way, yes, but its distinctive historical claims lose their force

Christ becomes a symbol of divine self-emptying. Krishna becomes a symbol of the Absolute revealing itself in finite form. Revelation becomes the historical imagination of a people trying to express what philosophy later articulates more clearly

Perhaps that is true. But it is no longer quite what the religions themselves claim, and I believe it leads to the slow dissolution of religion

So the real question for me is not simply:

“Should we believe in God?”

It is:

How could a reflective person come to believe that the ultimate reality described by philosophers is also the particular, historical, and personal God proclaimed by one religion?

Like many people , when the 2013 NSA leaks dropped, I viewed Edward Snowden as a principled disruptor or even a hero. He exposed PRISM, bulk metadata collection, and unconstitutional domestic surveillance that the Director of National Intelligence had literally just lied to Congress about. For years, I bought into the narrative that he was a patriot forced into exile, making the best of a bad situation

But observing his trajectory over the last decade - and specifically his actions leading up to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine - has entirely changed my mind. I no longer see a whistleblower. I see someone who crossed the line into espionage and has willingly functioned as a propaganda node for the Kremlin

Here is why my view changed:

1. He ran active interference for Russia's invasion of Ukraine

In early 2022, U.S. and British intelligence took the unprecedented step of declassifying Russia's troop movements to warn the world about the impending invasion of Ukraine. Snowden used his massive, globally trusted platform to actively discredit these warnings. He mocked the idea of an invasion, calling U.S. intelligence "warmongering" and a "disinformation campaign," specifically taunting the Biden administration when they got the exact date wrong. When Russian tanks actually rolled across the border, proving the intelligence accurate, Snowden went incredibly quiet. In a critical pre-war window, he acted as a high-value asset in Russia’s information warfare strategy

2. The 2014 Putin Telethon Stunt

In 2014, Snowden appeared on video during Vladimir Putin’s tightly controlled, annual televised Q&A. He asked Putin if Russia intercepts and stores the communications of its citizens. Putin smiled, greeted him as a fellow former intelligence professional, and flatly denied it, claiming Russian agencies are strictly controlled by law. Snowden later defended this by claiming he was trying to "trap" Putin in a lie. That is either an insulting level of naivety or deliberate complicity. You do not trap a dictator on his own state-run television broadcast. Snowden allowed himself to be used as a PR prop to legitimize the Russian security state and draw a false moral equivalence between the U.S. and Russia

3. The Scope of the Theft was Espionage, beyond "Whistleblowing"

If Snowden had only taken documents related to domestic surveillance, his defense would hold. But he took an estimated 1.5 million files. The vast majority had absolutely nothing to do with domestic civil liberties. He stole and exposed the blueprints of how the U.S. tracks foreign adversaries, military intelligence, and offensive cybersecurity capabilities against countries like China and Russia. Stealing a nation's foreign intelligence apparatus and handing it over to adversarial journalists - knowing the FSB would inevitably get it - is the textbook definition of treason

4. The Illusion of his "Independence"

Snowden's defenders argue he is just a hostage making the best of it. Yes, he occasionally tweets mild critiques of vague Russian internet censorship laws. But these are carefully calibrated. He never targets Putin’s inner circle. He remains completely silent on the FSB's assassination of dissidents, the poisoning of political rivals, and the brutal suppression of anti-war protesters. The FSB is one of the most ruthless intelligence agencies on earth. They do not provide free housing, security, and eventually Russian citizenship to an American fugitive out of charity. The rent for his survival is his compliance. He pays that rent by pointing his ideological artillery exclusively at the West

I am open to the idea that he didn't start out as a Russian spy in 2013, but practically speaking, the distinction no longer matters. His legacy isn't civil liberties; it's serving as a geopolitical pawn for an authoritarian state

CMV

Time: (tentative; we can coordinate) 7:30 CET, every day including weekends. 45 minutes.

Format: Voice channel, cameras optional, mic muted by default. No facilitation, no teaching, no discussion. Just a quick "hello" and bell and start. Channel opens 5 minutes before, soft start at 7:30, sit, leave silently when finished. Whoever's there sits together; whoever isn't, doesn't

Who it's for: Anyone with a sustained practice in any tradition - Theravada, Zen, Dzogchen, TMI, pragmatic dharma, whatever you're working with, even non-Buddhist; Christian prayer, Sufi, no limits. - The silence is the same silence. Not a teaching group, not a beginners' container

Background: I just came from a Dzogchen retreat last month and want to keep daily practice alive between retreats. since I have no local sangha, sitting with others works as a great motivator for me between retreats

Why daily, why early: Anchoring the morning makes the rest of the day workable. Showing up before the self has fully booted is the point. It is important to sit before checking any screen, internet, etc.

DM me for the Discord invite. If there's enough interest later I'll add an evening sit. We can discuss the exact time of the morning sit and find something that works for all.

My sister and I live in a house that is split into two separate units. Whenever she leaves, her dog turns into an absolute nightmare. Right now, she’s been away on holiday for two days, and this creature has been crying and barking incessantly, 24 hours a day. I literally cannot sleep.

The worst part is the sheer mindlessness of it. The dog is perfectly well cared for. The rest of the family has tried to play with him, distract him, and spoil him with treats. None of it matters. He just glues himself to the front door and screams.

When I confronted my sister about it, she brushed it off and claimed, "It’s just the breed, they are like this." I don't buy it. I have never seen any other animal exhibit this level of obsessive, dysfunctional behavior. How can a living creature physically scream for days on end without stopping?

I do feel a tiny bit of pity for him on some level because he's clearly miserable, but he is making everyone else's life an absolute living hell. It makes me wonder: did we genetically engineer these things to be mindless, codependent slaves? No normal animal acts like this. I’m exhausted, annoyed, and trapped in my own home.