cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/46251814

A professor of philosophy finishes a trick four piece puzzle from the character's childhood

Professor Agneto: Ah well that was easy! Twas a trick, putting the fourth piece in, as if you put the first three pieces together, the fourth won't fit because of the topological constraints put on the system by the the initial axioms.

Smart man: Prove it!

Professor Agneto: I'm sorry?

Smart man: I outright reject your claim on the basis that if you said something you must prove it and I will not listen to you to thus continue this conversation without respecting you as a person OR any of your ideas. And I will continue it in the only manner I know how: in a pseudorespectfully hostile manner!

Professor Agneto: Oh, I've had this conversation a billion times. There are a lotta you. No, the puzzle represents an axiomatic system, and what I'm saying is a continuation of the logic of Gödel's incompleteness theorom to complete it based on orthogonal relativity.

Smart man: I don't know what those words mean. Speak English, which I say respectfully and not to evoke any feelings of inferiority in you! Prove it!

Professor Agneto: Well, I can teach you these words. But the "proof" needs to be on you because what I'm describing is what the Buddha described about the entanglement process that creates the illusion of a self and more.

Smart Man: I will make no effort to understand anything you say. I'm just going to command, demand, and expect an explanation. Prove it!

Professor Agneto: Here's a literal science experiment you can do to prove that your intention results in the procedurally generation of your reality!

Smart Man: Reeeeeee! Prove it!

Professor Agneto: Now listen here, why are you wasting my time? I mean, I am creating content for my educational (f)art project designed to provoke people who cannot control themselves (eg: pedophiles), and I honestly cannot tell if you are trolling - you're indistinguishable from each other - so when you're ready to not be a buttsniff...

Mod: R00D! Be civilized!

Smart Man: Prove it!

Mod: This is the smartest person on our side. You will respect him or I'll be forced to cultivate our echo chamber.

Professor Agneto: Ah, well. All Knowledge comes from möbiation, as we all know from the second story of the Bible, assuming you've sinned and corrected it before to know what is objectively good as you observe how the four puzzle pieces that compose your "self" manage to fit together, which no one but you can do. Assuming you've meditated to know what a jhana is.

Smart Man: Prove it!

As the proof is in the pudding, I would simply enjoy my desert.

I do immediately see some flaws in the chart, though. "Haitian Voodoo" is a composite of European Catholicism and West African ancestor worship. Santaria evolved along similar veins, combining Cuban Catholicism with diaspora religious traditions of enslaved natives and African peoples. Buddhism directly descends from Brahminism (never even mentioned despite its prodigious following) - a cousin of modern Hinduism - through the personage of Siddhartha Gautama, who began as a Brahmin cleric. Saying "Christianity began in 33 CE" really undercuts how much it was functionally just Judaism Plus until the Council of Nicea, which functionally codified the tenants of Catholicism (something the map doesn't acknowledge emerging for another 700 years).

And none of this explores the feedback loops - Islam and Christianity have been at interplay with one another for around 1500 years - which inform the real practice of the faiths over the course of their tenure. Case in point, Protestantism doesn't exist without the scientific revolution that began out of the Islamic world centuries earlier.

All that said, it's a fun and interesting map to traverse, just to see which religions made the author's cut as "worth including" and how they decided to date them.

The image was added as an afterthought as I went through my limited image collection to find something to catch the eyes of intellectual magpies and get them to read educational material. But your analysis is astute! I noticed the Buddhism tree wasn't right, so I assumed it had some other flaws.

this is not how any of this works. they cross-breed all the time. it's not a tree.

Yea, I know this as a flesh alchemist. I also have said twice before that I picked that picture as an afterthought to writing my art to catch intellectual magpies who can't help themselves to have done the work to realize they are the Smart Men.