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The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb

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Re: The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb

#31

Post by vidarh »

phjesusthatguy3 wrote: post #3

I stumbled across PKD in a Borders; I bought a collection of his short stories with "The Short Happy Life Of The Brown Oxford" on the cover. I had never seen this before, so thank you for that. These two weirdos were practically made for each other.

If you've just read that collection, you have a lot of the most mind-bending PKD stories left. Try one of his novels. I'd recommend A Scanner Darkly and Man in the High Castle as two of the more accessible ones (the latter is much less sci fi - it's more alternative history).

His short stories are very variable in quality - a lot of his early stories makes you feel trapped in a 50's idea of a post-nuclear holocaust world because he repeats that setting endlessly as he churned out stories to pay the bills (but there are great gems there too), so the more curated antologies are good starting points. Pick up some more and you'll probably also recognize the plot of any number of movies you may have seen (direct adaptions from his short stories includes Paycheck - in your antology I think - Total Recall, Screamers, Adjustment Bureau, Minority Report and more), where a single idea from his stories was dense enough for a movie.

Re: The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb

#32

Post by peterwwillis »

mmyyyy wrote: post #28
peterwwillis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://listverse.com/2013/06/30/ten-influences-on-the-bible... On top of those, the ones I remember relate to the Greeks. For a long time Greek language and culture influenced the Christian church, and their lettering and symbolism still linger in the church today. Early Christian versions of Jesus were basically copies of Eros, and Late Christian versions of Jesus were basically copies of Zeus, and then in the midd…

You seem to have fallen prey to propaganda sources online. It is undeniable that biblical mythology was affected by other cultures (especially Genesis for example). But other than that you have no idea what you're talking about. What books have you read about this? And by which scholars? >Early Christian versions of Jesus were basically copies of Eros, and Late Christian versions of Jesus were basically copies of Zeu…

You don't provide sources for your claim that my claim is false is false because you claim I don't provide sources, so your claim is false.

Re: The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb

#33

Post by rimliu »

grzm wrote: post #22
juliend2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please elaborate on those sources (Zoroastrian, Egyptian, etc)? I'm genuinely curious.

For starters, Wikipedia has an article on comparing the Christ story with other mythologies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_comparative_mythology

I think the better subject for comparison would be creation stories, not Jesus.

Re: The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb

#34

Post by grzm »

rimliu wrote: post #33
grzm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For starters, Wikipedia has an article on comparing the Christ story with other mythologies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_comparative_mythology

I think the better subject for comparison would be creation stories, not Jesus.

Sure. I grabbed a link close to hand which has a pretty decent discussion on one area. If you have others, I'm sure readers would find them useful.

Re: The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb

#35

Post by mmyyyy »

peterwwillis wrote: post #32
mmyyyy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have fallen prey to propaganda sources online. It is undeniable that biblical mythology was affected by other cultures (especially Genesis for example). But other than that you have no idea what you're talking about. What books have you read about this? And by which scholars? >Early Christian versions of Jesus were basically copies of Eros, and Late Christian versions of Jesus were basically copies of Zeu…

You don't provide sources for your claim that my claim is false is false because you claim I don't provide sources, so your claim is false.

Read for literally any new testament scholar and you won't find a single trace of that argument that you're presenting.

Bart Ehrman, Robert Funk, Dale Martin, John Dominic Crossan, Mark Goodacre, Gerd Lüdemann, James Dunn, and the list goes on and on.

If books are not your thing, you can find a great Yale course about the subject here: New Testament History and Literature with Dale B. Martin: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL279CFA55C51E75E0

Re: The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb

#36

Post by mrob »

harbie wrote: post #4

Interestingly enough, Kanye West had a nearly identical religious experience and breakdown, down to witnessing a divine pink beam. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/philip-k-dick...

>“I’ve heard that there are colors that are too bright for our eyes to see,”

I don't know about brightness, but psychedelic drugs routinely cause visuals of colors that are too saturated for the eyes to see. This is because the responsivity spectra of the eye's cone cells have a lot of overlap, especially between the red and the green types. See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cones_SMJ2_E.svg

Psychedelic drugs affect the nervous system directly, so they can trigger one color channel without triggering the others. Presumably religious experiences can do the same thing.

You can approximate this effect without drugs by tiring out the overlapping channels before viewing the one you're interested in. Fill your screen with pure cyan (#00FFFF), and set up another tab full of pure red (#FF0000). Turn your display brightness up and switch off the room lights. Stare at the cyan screen for several minutes, and then immediately switch to the red screen. I suspect this color is close to what Dick and West saw.

Re: The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb

#37

Post by peterwwillis »

mmyyyy wrote: post #35
peterwwillis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't provide sources for your claim that my claim is false is false because you claim I don't provide sources, so your claim is false.

Read for literally any new testament scholar and you won't find a single trace of that argument that you're presenting. Bart Ehrman, Robert Funk, Dale Martin, John Dominic Crossan, Mark Goodacre, Gerd Lüdemann, James Dunn, and the list goes on and on. If books are not your thing, you can find a great Yale course about the subject here: New Testament History and Literature with Dale B. Martin: https://www.youtube.com/…

k. But as for my assertion about depictions of Jesus as modeled after Roman or Greek gods, it's more of a fun theory than a fact, as all the depictions were just "What would we like him to look like?" They all just painted or sculpted him however they wanted to, which we know included classical depictions such as heroes, philosophers, and even gods, as well as with eastern influences and various other depictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depiction_of_Jesus https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3f59... (also I may have totally fucked up by saying the young Jesus was modeled after Eros, may have been a different youthful god, oops?)

Re: The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb

#38

Post by locrelite »

harbie wrote: post #15
locrelite wrote: post #13

Been there. I refer to it as "losing my fucking mind" but each to his own.

You should check out Valis, the book PKD wrote as part of his attempt to deal with his experience. He was very much aware he was likely going insane.

Already wrote my own, I'm covered.

Re: The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb

#39

Post by locrelite »

darkmighty wrote: post #17
locrelite wrote: post #13

Been there. I refer to it as "losing my fucking mind" but each to his own.

Were you diagnosed? Do you have neurological issues? (or suffer from risk factors? such as high blood pressure, overweight, diabetes, sedentarity) I wonder if that could be related (because of PKD's eventual tragic death by stroke). As far as my tiny medical knowledge goes schizophrenia hallucinations usually auditory in nature and not very explicit. There's also the question of the effect of the drug supposedly take…

Diagnosed, strapped to a gurney, and popped in the system for a couple of months. It was almost two decades ago, I'm fine. But having seen and thought most of the things people describe in these experiences, I find post facto attempts to elevate them (usually based on a few coincidences) wishful thinking.

Re: The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb

#40

Post by mmyyyy »

peterwwillis wrote: post #37
mmyyyy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read for literally any new testament scholar and you won't find a single trace of that argument that you're presenting. Bart Ehrman, Robert Funk, Dale Martin, John Dominic Crossan, Mark Goodacre, Gerd Lüdemann, James Dunn, and the list goes on and on. If books are not your thing, you can find a great Yale course about the subject here: New Testament History and Literature with Dale B. Martin: https://www.youtube.com/…

k. But as for my assertion about depictions of Jesus as modeled after Roman or Greek gods, it's more of a fun theory than a fact, as all the depictions were just "What would we like him to look like?" They all just painted or sculpted him however they wanted to, which we know included classical depictions such as heroes, philosophers, and even gods, as well as with eastern influences and various other depictions. htt…

Oh when you're talking about art, sure. People and cultures tend to want to identify with Christ and so end up depicting him in a certain way. Of course we know that Jesus was a Jewish man who lived in the middle east, so he's surely not black or white or hispanic, etc..

But you're original claim about the accounts about Jesus copying from Greek mythology, etc.. is just not viable historically.

I encourage you to delve into the literature actually it's quite fascinating! A good book to start with that I've enjoyed is Did Jesus Exist by Bart Ehrman.

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