Practice Good Theory

Why do some gurus endure? Jesus was not the only  Jewish preacher, and I bet Mohammad and Buddha had competition too. In modern parlance: why did they "go viral"? Christianity really took off in Rome. Buddhism declined in India, but spread in China. Clearly, early advocates -- Paul in Christianity -- were critical. I listened ( thanks to Librivox ) to about half of an old book, titled History Of The Christian Church During The First Six Centuries . The book documents Christianities leaders, branches and debates up to around 600 AD. The book documents the growth of the church. It also explains how they changed some practices -- e.g. did not insist on circumcision -- in order to make conversion more palatable to gentiles. However, the author did not explain why those gentiles (or other Jews) would switch to the Christian sect of Judaism. After Constantine moved the Roman empire to Christianity around 300AD, the rise of the religion can be explained by political spons...

" We come from a line of strong Norse and Celtic mix. We take what is our due ." This is a line I read from a father, to a daughter, advising her to demand something she considered her right. It is interesting how people look to their history in this way, because -- in fact -- this is myth. There's no biological transfer of philosophy across that time, and yet people invoke the myth, because it stirs emotion. It works like good heroic literature: it shows us what humans can do. We are inspired. If " these people could do so, so could I ". The emotional reality is stronger, if we add " my own ancestors could do this,… " which translates to " people just like me could do this… and, so can I ". I was always puzzled by Rand's mention of the TV series " Roots ". Though she said the author's idea of tracing his biological ancestors was tribalist, she also praised him for producing " a representative image of blac...