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I'm not sure you quite grab the problem here. Let me posit something to you: flat earth theory is not incompatible with reality. Proof: whatever piece of evidence you present to disprove, I just throw on another ad-hoc theory to make the whole thing work. "Nasa has pictures" -> "they're fake", "gravity would vary as you move over the surface" -> "gravity isn't spatially independent", "you can see the horizon" -> "that's from a special light bending pattern", etc etc. If I was so specially inclined and gifted, it would definitely be possible to construct an internally consistent theory of why the earth is flat, that fits with every observation I've made. But said theory wouldn't be parsimonious - it makes too many stupid assumptions. Ergo, it'd be unscientific. Your creationism is essentially the same thing, it's a claim about reality that conflicts with science (ie it's unscientific). It's not 'outside' of that area, it's a direct conflict. It's just a conflict that, to you, doesn't seem to matter because it doesn't change your day to day life. But, it's a piece of knowledge about the world outside your head, and thus, in conflict with the scientific way of determining reality. Also, the belief morality can be grounded in science is 100% wrong my friend. There's a deep philosophical problem with that, called the is-ought gap, that means any attempt to derive, in full, intent from knowledge is destined to failure. A statement about truth cannot transform into a statement of preference, without assuming another statement of preference. I'd also question whether or not science is losing to crass consumerism - it seems to be doing quite well for itself. It's religion that's threatened by modern consumerism, and a good thing to, I much prefer consumerism. Societies that don't require citizens to contribute to the good of society are dystopian hellscapes of starvation, poverty, inequality, suffering & death. They're also the precursors to revolution. It's also really funny that taxation and welfare is supposed to be this massive burden, but the constant burden that is the theft of surplus labor from the working class, that occurs every loving day in capitalism, is 'normal'. Maybe societies should be 'extremely careful' about allow such appropriation from the poor to the rich to exist in the first place, hmmm?
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Mar 12, 2017 02:30
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rudatron posted:It's also really funny that taxation and welfare is supposed to be this massive burden, but the constant burden that is the theft of surplus labor from the working class, that occurs every loving day in capitalism, is 'normal'. Maybe societies should be 'extremely careful' about allow such appropriation from the poor to the rich to exist in the first place, hmmm? And socialism, I say, in contrast to social democracy, has a bad track record.
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Mar 12, 2017 02:39
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rudatron posted:I'm not sure you quite grab the problem here. Let me posit something to you: flat earth theory is not incompatible with reality. Proof: whatever piece of evidence you present to disprove, I just throw on another ad-hoc theory to make the whole thing work. "Nasa has pictures" -> "they're fake", "gravity would vary as you move over the surface" -> "gravity isn't spatially independent", "you can see the horizon" -> "that's from a special light bending pattern", etc etc. If I was so specially inclined and gifted, it would definitely be possible to construct an internally consistent theory of why the earth is flat, that fits with every observation I've made. I'll be honest with you, parsimony isn't a trait I particularly value in philosophy. The desire to reduce things to essentials strikes me as, hmmm, reductionistic? rudatron posted:Your creationism is essentially the same thing, it's a claim about reality that conflicts with science (ie it's unscientific). It's not 'outside' of that area, it's a direct conflict. It's just a conflict that, to you, doesn't seem to matter because it doesn't change your day to day life. But, it's a piece of knowledge about the world outside your head, and thus, in conflict with the scientific way of determining reality. My creationism? My creationism is that the universe as we know it stems from the big bang, an act which I describe as an act of creation. I think that you exaggerate the degree to which my beliefs are in conflict with science. Now, I interpret the big bang as having intent, and atheist scientists interpret it as having no intent, but the basic physics of the matter I am completely comfortable agreeing with. rudatron posted:Also, the belief morality can be grounded in science is 100% wrong my friend. There's a deep philosophical problem with that, called the is-ought gap, that means any attempt to derive, in full, intent from knowledge is destined to failure. A statement about truth cannot transform into a statement of preference, without assuming another statement of preference. Tell that to Lawrence Krauss. Funnily enough, Hume was making a statement about what philosophical statements ought to be based on what he observed - the is. I would agree that morality cannot be grounded from science. Can it be grounded in philosophy though? For us to let our ethics depend on ethical philosophers seems a bit precarious, given that as humans we cannot but be fallible. rudatron posted:I'd also question whether or not science is losing to crass consumerism - it seems to be doing quite well for itself. It's religion that's threatened by modern consumerism, and a good thing to, I much prefer consumerism. Science as it relates to doing it's job is doing quite well. Science as a driver of culture, human society and human goals, not as much. You talk about appropriation from the poor to the rich as though it were a bad thing, but you seem to have no problem with consumerism, the modern day opiate of the masses? The bread and circuses on which the capitalist system depends? Do you genuinely think that for a citizen to derive real meaning from the consumerist pleasure of owning trinkets and baubles is really what we should be striving for?
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Mar 12, 2017 02:55
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Cingulate posted:Well that the Bible is not explicitly abolitionist doesn't show the Bible can't have inspired the abolitionists right? The Bible also doesn't mention stem cell research after all, and IIRC it's actually pretty quiet on the abortion thing. It's not that the Bible isn't abolitionist, it's that it explicitly supports the idea of slavery as part of a normal, faithful society. Sure you can say it's a product of its time, but the fact that the Bible is simply not good on the issue of slavery remains. It endorses the monstrous act repeatedly in the Old and New Testament. That doesn't mean that no Christian groups weren't abolitionist, it means the source of that sect or person being against slavery doesn't come from their religion. The Bible is horribly wrong with basically every biological statement it made, it was written millennia before people even knew that cells existed. It's not surprising it has nothing to say on the matter of modern biology nuances. The only time the Bible even mentions anything like abortion, it's nothing like the anti-choicers today. It says the punishment for a man striking a woman and causing her to miscarry is just a fine. Also in Numbers 5 the Bible says priests should perform abortions on fetuses that are the product of adultery. Once again, the problem is that biblical support for abolition can be countered with biblical support for slavery. CountFosco posted:The pillar holding up institutional slavery in the West, and in fact the entire world, is the human desire to have other humans do your chores and work for you. I never said Christianity was the source of slavery, that had been around for thousands of years before even Judaism was a thing. It was a pillar by acting as a an incredibly powerful social structure and moral arbiter that was okay with slavery.
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Mar 12, 2017 07:37
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RasperFat posted:Numbers 5 the Bible says priests should perform abortions on fetuses that are the product of adultery. EDIT: I should be more charitable: an *interpretation* of the very, uh, distinctive NIV interpretation. Bolocko fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Mar 12, 2017 |
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Mar 12, 2017 08:04
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Bolocko posted:Someone's been digging their mitts through the NIV again, I see. Is there a translation for this that isn't incredibly sexist? That whole section is about removing the tainted purity curse from women who commit adultery. They will be barren and a curse upon their people without the special ceremony with the priest. The passage taken in entirety in its context is pretty terrible, even without the fetus removal part.
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Mar 12, 2017 08:13
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whether or not you value parsimony in philosophy isn't relevant, it's the foundation of science as a method/process, and therefore relevant to the point i was replying to. Similarly, if you believe the universe was created with intent, that is in direct conflict with science, because it's a statement about the universe, and science is a method of developing a model for the universe, and a belief in the creation of the universe with intent is unscientific, given what we already know. Now, you're partially correct in saying that this, practically speaking, is not a noticeable conflict, so long as you simply limit that 'intent' to the act of creation. Since we are well past the start of the universe, and there's no real meaningful difference that could result from that, it's again not a conflict that is directly impactful on your life. But the conflict does exist. And lawrence krauss can suck my balls. He's wrong, there's no way to sugar coat it. The fact that he's disappeared up his own rear end in a top hat doesn't mean the rest of us have to follow.
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Mar 12, 2017 09:19
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Also a side-note - the classist bullshit behind 'bread and circuses' has always annoyed me. People need bread to eat, and some level of entertainment to say sane. Mocking people for enjoying what little scraps they have, has always come from people who never have to worry about such concerns, because they're privileged enough to get that handed to them anyway - leaving them free to pursue a 'higher' purpose. When the only thing you have is the clothes on your back, the only real education you had was from the school of hard knocks, and the only people you can trust being your small group of friends, you don't have time to fret over a stupid loving 'higher purpose' - you've got to deal with the here and now.
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Mar 12, 2017 09:22
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Nah, there's major sexual asymmetry here: there's no equivalent of this procedure for a man if he was suspected of straying. On the other hand, if found "guilty" by this procedure she'd not still be sentenced to capital punishment, but only shamed and, likely, divorced. (If CAUGHT in the act of adultery, man and woman alike were due death.) Reading about it right now after checking other translations, it's a surprisingly interesting piece of text. Robert Alter in his translation footnote writes, quote:This troubling and also fascinating ritual is the only clear-cut trial by ordeal in the Bible. It became the basis for a whole tractate of the Talmud, Sotah ("the straying woman"), . . . Apologetic approaches seem questionable . . . The ordeal, moreover, is based on a kind of archaic magic, however one seeks to square it with loftier versions of monotheism. Parallels have been noted with the Code of Hammurabi, which provides for an oath by the woman if her husband accuses her of unfaithfulness, and an ordeal of jumping into a river, sink or swim, if the accusation comes from someone else (compare the prominence of water here). Our passage powerfully records an ideology of marital relations, but in point of historical fact, there is no way of knowing to what extent it was actually practiced in ancient Israel. It is doubtful whether this was a living legal institution in the Second Temple period, and if the sanctuary setting of the ritual is the Tabernacle, it may even have not been observed in the First Temple period. In any case, it is a vivid male fantasy of testing and exposing sexual "defilement" in a woman. In support of your prior comment and the NIV (really though, friends don't let friends read NIV), I must stand corrected: Alter also notes that while translation is unclear, if this procedure is taken to address a woman who's suspected of adultery because she is already pregnant (which may not be the case), the sudden negative reaction to the water could be referring to a miscarriage, "though this remains uncertain." I have seen one take that suggests that because the simple concoction and consequent violent reaction were unlikely to occur, this was a placebo for the husband's conscience to make things easy for the woman. If this didn't satisfy him he'd have to take it up with God, as the wife had already effectively been found innocent. This might be supported by the speculation that this practice, if truly practiced at all, was discontinued because society's adultery problem only got worse. Still very sexist! I will continue reading up on this one later.
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Mar 12, 2017 09:26
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EDIT: Argh, double post, sorryrudatron posted:Similarly, if you believe the universe was created with intent, that is in direct conflict with science, because it's a statement about the universe, and science is a method of developing a model for the universe, and a belief in the creation of the universe with intent is unscientific, given what we already know.
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Mar 12, 2017 09:33
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I'm not terribly interested in your own personal beliefs, or how you rationalize them, for the purposes of this argument. My point is that, whatever they may be, they are a statement of knowledge about The World™, and a statement of knowledge about The World™, it is in the same magisterium as scientific thought. Going by what we already know, a belief in a continuous creation and destruction, sustained by an entity with intent, must be characterized as 'unscientific'.
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Mar 12, 2017 10:40
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CountFosco posted:I'm not enough of a Biblical scholar to cite scripture, but it's worth noting that as early as Tertullian we have records of the Church speaking out against abortion: Although I'm sure what Paul would have said. Abort the woman I'm making a very simple and weak point: the Bible isn't explicitly abolitionist, and it tacitly approves of a contemporary praxis of existing slavery. Could have been better, could have been worse (e.g. explicitly endorse slavery). I can really understand how somebody would take on the context-free spirit of Jesus' core teachings (love thy neighbor etc., blessed are the meek etc.), see the context-dependent parts as being just about that time (guides of how to interact with Roman society), and become an abolitionist inspired by religion. Clearly, we can also imagine the reverse: somebody who justifies slavery with the Bible. RasperFat posted:Is there a translation for this that isn't incredibly sexist? That whole section is about removing the tainted purity curse from women who commit adultery. They will be barren and a curse upon their people without the special ceremony with the priest.
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Mar 12, 2017 12:18
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Bolocko posted:Nah, there's major sexual asymmetry here: there's no equivalent of this procedure for a man if he was suspected of straying. On the other hand, if found "guilty" by this procedure she'd not still be sentenced to capital punishment, but only shamed and, likely, divorced. (If CAUGHT in the act of adultery, man and woman alike were due death.) I appreciate that you took a respectful consideration of the intent of my argument. I know I might come off kind of harsh sometimes, so I should reiterate that I don't think religious people are all crazy, stupid, or delusional. I think that they are mistaken about things, but this doesn't mean they are all bad people or anything. My drive to argue against religion isn't a vendetta against an extremist upbringing. My parents are moderately Protestant, and we only sporadically and briefly attended church. I've attended a variety of other services, mostly because of summer camps or hanging out with friends who went to them. I've also taken some classes in religious and literature studies, and I read the Bible in its entirety but it's been over a decade so I'm shaky on the details so I have to google passages, which is how I ended up using the NIV which is admittedly a kookier translation. I argue against religion because it is mostly a distraction and a waste of effort and time. I want humanity to better itself, and more importantly survive. Climate change denial is a creation of the fossil fuel industry, but the main tool they use is religious dogma. Anti-science attitudes are undeniably fostered by religions and mystical thinking, and this leaves people vulnerable to exploitation. The idea of an ethereal soul becomes silly when you look at how the universe is constructed. Sure you can say God started the Big Bang and guided evolution, retaining a spiritual angle while mostly accepting the science. But what we now know to be true about the universe, and biology, does actually throw a wrench into the entire paradigm of spirituality. We know evolution, taking place over billions of years, happened. We are probably more scientifically certain of this fact than we are of any other scientific claim in the history of mankind, including things like gravity. All life on earth developed from single celled organisms, so when in evolutionary history does the soul come in? Does every single living entity have a soul, down to bacteria and parameciums? What about things that aren't exactly living but kind of are like viruses? Does the flu have a soul? Even with just humans this is an issue. Do our ape cousins have souls? What about neanderthals? What about homo erectus, homo habilius, or any of the transitional hominids? These sort of details are never answered, where does the God part come in exactly? And also it's difficult to ignore that humans can literally only live on about 25% of the surface of Earth. On a single planet in a solar system of eight planets, which is one of a hundred billion solar systems in the Milky Way, which is one of a hundred billion galaxies, which could potentially be part of a bubble universe or something we aren't sure on the full scope of existence yet. This massive scale of time, life, and space is absolutely nothing like what is described in religions, and it seems to show that humans and earth are very likely a nothing blip in the scope of the universe. And not some predestined or lucky random one in a billion chance, literally next to nothing. If we don't expand to the stars, it is 100% certain humans will go extinct eventually even if it's billions of years in the future (even though by nature of evolution over that time scale and our self destructive tendencies, lol at humans existing that far out). When this inevitable event occurs, it is extremely likely that nothing will happen. The universe will carry on and humans will have been nothing. An estimated 99% of all species that ever existed on Earth have gone extinct, and there hasn't been any divine intervention yet, so why would humans be any different. With the core axioms of spirituality being wrong, everything spiraling out of it is twisted or vulnerable. There are no real answers to be found through religion. Praying doesn't do much except for self reflection. Prayer healing does not actually heal anyone, and any effort spent praying for a sick person could be spent volunteering, donating, or even slacktivism raising awareness for a disease or a hospital would have actual benefit to people that need it. This applies to almost all aspects of religions where the effort put in would be more effective in a secular execution including feeding the hungry, educating children, and charity work in general. God didn't guide us here, we clawed out way through mass extinction events and chaos. We only get one shot at life, and it is brief and difficult. I want people to have the most accurate view of reality so that they can make better decisions for themselves, society, and future generations. When you realize our tenuous position in the universe, shifting away from spirituality becomes pertinent.
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Mar 12, 2017 12:56
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hmmm yeah well, religion... i dunno. why not adopt this extremely milquetoast humanist scientism instead
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Mar 12, 2017 13:19
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Full communism is inevitable, thanks be to God.
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Mar 12, 2017 16:03
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Cingulate posted:I'm making a very simple and weak point: the Bible isn't explicitly abolitionist, and it tacitly approves of a contemporary praxis of existing slavery. Could have been better, could have been worse (e.g. explicitly endorse slavery). It's not just Paul. Essentially the entire Bible treats women as secondary to men. If that is your point is an incredibly weak one. While it is possible for one to come to an abolitionist interpretation, one has to ignore huge chunks of the text and history that explicitly support the practice. After filtering the teachings through centuries of translations and shifting cultural perspectives, you can sort of argue that metaphorically God wanted people to be free, when you quote passages originally having nothing to do with slavery and say those metaphorical spiritual ideas can be used despite the original text and Jesus himself never doing so. So I would posit, why start from the Christian position from the first place? Why does one have to ignore explicit teachings and ideas to reshape the religion to apply to the modern world? Why does one have to rules lawyer and apologia in order to make Christianity not be a horrendous faith? It's a lot of effort to force outdated and disproven ideas into the modern era.
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Mar 12, 2017 19:33
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RasperFat posted:It's not just Paul. Essentially the entire Bible treats women as secondary to men. Paul added a whole new layer of intellectual justification on top of that. RasperFat posted:If that is your point is an incredibly weak one. While it is possible for one to come to an abolitionist interpretation, one has to ignore huge chunks of the text and history that explicitly support the practice. After filtering the teachings through centuries of translations and shifting cultural perspectives, you can sort of argue that metaphorically God wanted people to be free, when you quote passages originally having nothing to do with slavery and say those metaphorical spiritual ideas can be used despite the original text and Jesus himself never doing so. RasperFat posted:So I would posit, why start from the Christian position from the first place? Why does one have to ignore explicit teachings and ideas to reshape the religion to apply to the modern world? Why does one have to rules lawyer and apologia in order to make Christianity not be a horrendous faith? It's a lot of effort to force outdated and disproven ideas into the modern era. Next, I'm only trying to be fair and accurate. I'm not trying to convince you the Bible is cool and good. I just think, there are wrong ways to speak about it, ways that don't treat it fairly, and I'm arguing against these. If you tried to put up the Bible as this example of perfect eternal goodness, I'd also argue against that, cause it's not that either.
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Mar 12, 2017 21:50
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Cingulate posted:I think passages such as "love your neighbor as you love yourself" are very hard to reconcile with slavery for us. It's certainly possible, but if you took just the Golden Rule as your moral foundations, wouldn't you have to go into some extreme mental contortions to arrive at slavery? It explicitly says love thy neighbor, I read that as people who are part of your community, not some randos living on the other side of the mountain. Presumably they were free to hate those others.
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Mar 12, 2017 22:30
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Avalerion posted:It explicitly says love thy neighbor, I read that as people who are part of your community, not some randos living on the other side of the mountain. Presumably they were free to hate those others. Read the parable and you'll see this is explicitly wrong. E: Jesus' listeners would have considered the Samaritans as cultural enemies: a group of mixed-race heathens. The Kingfish fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Mar 12, 2017 |
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Mar 12, 2017 23:01
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Love your neighbor indiscriminately because they deserve it regardless of whether you think otherwise" is the proper reading as I understand it.
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Mar 12, 2017 23:03
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Yeah the implication of "the guy who actually owns the house next to yours and is in your in group" might be a bit of a peculiarity of the English translation (in my own language, I had always interpreted it as meaning something like "the other" or "whoever you happen to face right now"). In context, it's fairly clear what it means. Jesus was always about not the in group, but about those who need love, who don't get it otherwise - prostitutes, lepers etc. But still, plenty of people were and are capable of somehow reconciling that line with being slavers, or waging war, or murdering gay people (who may actually be their neighbors), in various ways.
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Mar 12, 2017 23:17
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"Not all who say to me 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven."
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Mar 12, 2017 23:34
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The Kingfish posted:Not all who say to me 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven. I really cannot understand where you get to faith alone as a vehicle for salvation when that line exists. Yet some people do.
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Mar 12, 2017 23:35
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OwlFancier posted:I really cannot understand where you get to faith alone as a vehicle for salvation when that line exists. Yet some people do. Also, heretic pope supporter detected
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Mar 12, 2017 23:44
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Look to the previous verse though: quote:15“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. The key in verses 22-23 is "in your name." I think "mighty" is value neutral but I'm not sure.
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Mar 12, 2017 23:53
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To me this all seems compatible with a focus on the inner faith. It does say "you will recognize those who do not have faith inside by their actions", but it doesn't say "their actions is what they deserve damnation for". The real protestants I know (I mean, those who, unlike me, actually believe) also say having faith will automatically translate into good actions. I see how you can read it the other way around though, too.
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Mar 13, 2017 00:01
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Cingulate posted:It does , but most of that is just the Bible coming from an ordinary bronze/iron age society, almost all of which treated women as second class citizens. I agree with this sentiment completely. Paul had a special place in his heart for sexism and promoted it joyfully. He also never even met Jesus so I always wondered why he was given so much importance, besides that he helped spread early Christianity. Cingulate posted:I think passages such as "love your neighbor as you love yourself" are very hard to reconcile with slavery for us. It's certainly possible, but if you took just the Golden Rule as your moral foundations, wouldn't you have to go into some extreme mental contortions to arrive at slavery? I agree as well that the Golden Rule is a pretty solid foundation. The New Testament does repeatedly hammer home that non Jews, the poor, and the sick are all equal in the eyes of God. It would seem that enslaving people would be treating them with partiality, which is also repeatedly decried as going against God's wishes. It's one example of many where the Bible has little internal consistency, making it a suspect source as a moral guidepost. Cingulate posted:Christianity is first of all a part of reality. You can argue about it as much as you want, it's there and a significant factor in 1 billion people's lives. I never meant to imply that Christianity isn't a large part of our political and cultural history, or that it isn't important to a billion people. You've been pretty open and honest in our discussion, I don't feel that you aren't being fair and I hope you feel that is reciprocated. I am actually trying to argue that the Bible, Christianity, and religion in general fall on the side of "bad" things. I wouldn't try to argue for the Bible being evil either, that's not what I'm trying to say. Religion has a lot of positive impact both in communities and individual lives, but ultimately I think that bad outweighs the good. I don't want to crush religion, it is a fascinating part of our culture and history. In a hypothetical, I would want to educate all of the world to have at minimum a lower college level knowledge of history, physical sciences, and social sciences. After a few generations of all children being well educated and have critical thinking skills, religion would slowly fade to historical myths. The trend in countries that have high levels of science competency and education is massively increased secularism. Japan, New Zealand, Scandinavian countries, etc. have been doing far better than the U.S. in education, and they have been more or less peacefully transitioning into agnostic/atheist societies. And while they still have a lot of cultural issues of equality (Japan and LGBTQ people, hatred of Romanian people for Europe, etc.), they overall seem to have better track record with civil rights than both the United States and essentially every nation with high religiosity. Bringing it back to the topic of leftism and religion, being less religious generally makes it easier to enact social progress. This is especially true in America with its diverse population. Ascribing to specific religions creates divisions between people, often carrying historical baggage of hate between the groups (hello, Ireland and Pakistan). The kicker here is converts to a religion can inherit that hate even if their ancestors/living relations haven't been hurt by the conflict. Religions are also by nature conservative. They are based on traditions, and require traditions to continue to survive. This creates a resistance to change on both the structural level as religions hold economic and political influence, and also on personal levels as it's devotees accept and embrace tradition. Traditions aren't always a bad thing, but being firmly entrenched with the backing of God himself means that enacting change in those people's minds will be that much harder for anything they perceive, or are told, goes against their honored traditions. As a society becomes less bound by mysticism, it can focus more on changing social structures and adapting for the future. Moving away from religion is a step towards unity, where everyone can agree on the basic facts of reality and move forward from there. E: for missing quote bracket RasperFat fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Mar 14, 2017 |
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Mar 13, 2017 01:29
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RasperFat posted:As a society becomes less bound by mysticism, it can focus more on changing social structures and adapting for the future. Moving away from religion is a step towards unity, where everyone can agree on the basic facts of reality and move forward from there. Why is a monocultural society an ideal one?
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Mar 13, 2017 03:36
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Also if you want a monocultural society lol if you think that just giving everyone a bunch of information will create that.
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Mar 13, 2017 03:37
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Brainiac Five posted:Why is a monocultural society an ideal one? Religion isn't required for a multicultural society.
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Mar 13, 2017 04:03
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Avenging_Mikon posted:Religion isn't required for a multicultural society. The argument I am quoting is that the elimination of religion will push things towards "unity" and this is characterized as monolithic.
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Mar 13, 2017 04:04
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Brainiac Five posted:The argument I am quoting is that the elimination of religion will push things towards "unity" and this is characterized as monolithic. Unity of facts, such as "don't murder gays, women are people with bodily autonomy, and things like that."
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Mar 13, 2017 04:06
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Avenging_Mikon posted:Unity of facts, such as "don't murder gays, women are people with bodily autonomy, and things like that." Okay, so why is eliminating religion necessary for that, since there are religions that believe those things which exist today? It seems like if this is all that is desired, there is no reason to eliminate religion. So either we classify the speaker as an imbecile or we assume they know what they're talking about. Which is it?
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Mar 13, 2017 04:07
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I think religion is incompatible with true progress because every single religious authority has come out right-wing or reactionary and this is proven by recorded history.
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Mar 13, 2017 04:12
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As long as you are extremely careful about what you choose to consider a "religious authority."
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Mar 13, 2017 04:15
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Brainiac Five posted:Okay, so why is eliminating religion necessary for that, since there are religions that believe those things which exist today? It seems like if this is all that is desired, there is no reason to eliminate religion. So either we classify the speaker as an imbecile or we assume they know what they're talking about. Which is it? Did you even read his post, or just decide to be a dick about it? RasperFat posted:
Bolded. A step. Not the way, or the first step even. Simply part of a plan. So it's not necessary. There's other parts of the post that reinforce that. I'm going to assume you're just an imbecile instead of arguing in bad faith, so go back and read the whole post, a few times, and then think about it. Don't post about it tonight unless you've a question about wording for clarification.
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Mar 13, 2017 04:19
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Avenging_Mikon posted:Did you even read his post, or just decide to be a dick about it? I suggest you get off your pedestal, since people who put themselves on one are liable to a fall, or to being pushed, if you get what I mean. You have failed to engage with my argument, which is that eliminating religion does not have anything to do with "unity of facts" in the sense you outlined, and only makes sense in the sense of establishing a monoculture. To put it another way, eliminating the Presbyterian Church (USA), which began performing gay marriages a year before Obergefell v. Hodges, does not make sense as a way to get everyone on the same page regarding LGBT people, so either you and the guy you're stanning for are pig-ignorant about things, or you have an ulterior motive.
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Mar 13, 2017 04:25
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I mean if I was trying to create a unified monocultural society I would probably include a strong spiritualist element to it and definitely wouldn't found it on the idea that everyone should have access to lots of information and trust that they'll all come to the same conclusions.
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Mar 13, 2017 04:25
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OwlFancier posted:I mean if I was trying to create a unified monocultural society I would probably include a strong spiritualist element to it and definitely wouldn't found it on the idea that everyone should have access to lots of information and trust that they'll all come to the same conclusions. I'm not suggesting this notion is likely to create one, I am questioning why "unity" is seen as a goal in and of itself rather than, say, mutual respect or other ways of formulating human rights concerns.
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Mar 13, 2017 04:27
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Eh, I can see the logic from a position that differences are the main cause of conflict between people so eliminating them would create a more co-operative society and probably a happier one because people wouldn't be in conflict but I would strongly question the idea that you can just give people information and they'll sort all that out themselves. You'd have to fight against the forces that create societal differences constantly which would be much better achieved by strict regulation of information and control of what people are exposed to.
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Mar 13, 2017 04:31
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