Is the Left Hostile to Religion?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Is the Left Hostile to Religion?

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

OwlFancier posted:

Depends on which issues, if you're arguing against religion because observation-based materialism is the real absolute truth it's certainly a valid rebuttal.

That's only if you're taking the meaning of 'real absolute truth' to be 'truth without assumption' which isn't exactly a fair meaning to take, since it's already been taken as impossible. Like interpreting 'this rock is absolutely heavy' as meaning 'its an immovable object' - you could take that meaning, but the only reason you would is to pull a fast one.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 01:07

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 05:10

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

OwlFancier posted:

Well, no it's also true if you're being properly honest about the distinction between reason and observation versus faith as methods of knowing things. One, if understood properly, requires you to accept uncertainty. If you're adopting reason and observation based gnosis out of a desire to attain the truth of things I think you're a bit silly, as to do that you have to accept your observational abilities as being axiomatically truthful and if you're going to do that you might as well just skip the complicated bit and assume you just know everything, it will bring you as much happiness.

Reason and observation make the most sense if you're looking to do things with other people, especially if you start from the assumptions that other people are really people and also that interfering with other people (in some way) is a moral imperative, because that's where reality-by-consensus has the least issues. But that doesn't really require a desire for any philosophical truth and, I think, is also entirely compatible with a religious outlook.

Just because all knowledge must come from a prior assumption, does not mean that making poo poo up is equivalent to trying to figure things out.

You seem to be interpreting the search for truth as something having a final goal, and since the final goal is unreachable, it's a pointless thing. That's a really fatalistic and ignorant conception of the search for truth, a better interpretation is to cast it in a similar light as 'progress' - the journey is itself the goal, and refusing to partake in that journey is the what you're judged on, not whether or not you get 'there' (wherever 'there' is).

Religious faith, under that scheme (the one I have), is a crime not because it assumes thing, but because it is 'comfortable' in ignorance - you take something as an article of faith, and that's that.

Problem is, that's stagnation, death. Life is constant motion.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 05:21

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Except it's not arbitrary - I'm a person, so are you, we share things in common, we share common desires. So long as I'm talking to you, there are things I know you have that I can appeal to. The lack of an objective preference isn't important.

Were I speaking with a trans-dimensional lizard monster with incomprehensible intent, there'd be less in common, and therefore less grounds to engage with.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 05:34

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Such disagreement could equally come from a disagreement of knowledge, rather than intent.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 05:36

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Why would such a 'line' be necessary for it to be a disagreement of knowledge?

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 05:39

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

OwlFancier posted:

I'm arguing that there is no such thing as an absolute truth of either fact or ethics.

You seem to be disagreeing with that, and saying it's because I don't know enough.

So... where does your knowledge that there is an absolute truth come from?

You have not read my posts. My point is that you're shifting goal posts to avoid an actual debate on the meaningful difference between scientific and religious thought. Please read my previous posts, slower this time.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 05:48

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Here's a magic trick you might like: I'm going to make all the curtains you're trying to hide behind, ~disappear~

Your goal of morally equivocating religion and science is not grounded in a reasoned analysis, but a desire to reduce a political conflict between religious communities and modernity, or reflexively oppose people you do not like (harris et al).

The reason you oppose me, is because I'm suggesting that that conflict is an inevitability. This makes you uncomfortable.

Your hand-waving and sloppy debate about 'faith', 'absolute truth', etc. is just a bullshit smokescreen for this hidden concern.

Your mistake is assuming that the loss of religious community as the binding glue of society constitutes a loss of either humanity or human compassion.

In that, you're wrong, it simply means the loss of the structure of authority that religion represents, which has been continually used throughout history to promote the political agenda of whichever power has enough influence that community - whether that be particular governments (saudi arabia and islamism) or financial instiutions (prosperity gospel).

rudatron fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Mar 16, 2017

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 05:49

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Note that I'm not being judgemental here, your naked body isn't as ugly as you think

but I don't want to go on a stupid wild goose chase, which is what this debate has turned into

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 05:52

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Religious communities can not be anything but a roadblock for social change, because they represent the entrenched 'moral authority' of the societies in which they operate, itself tied to the ruling ideology, and therefore to the dominant productive modes.

Your fantasy of religious communities not hating on leftists will always and forever remain a fantasy.

Religion, then, is not a 'trapping' of authority, but an inherent expression and force of it - it acts as the 'moral' force upon which the ruling ideology can base itself on, capable of 'absolving' the sins of society, without ever threatening the structures that created them.

It, like charity, acts as an essential component of the perpetuation of oppression, by acting as a salve on the moral consciousness of people, towards the inequities they see.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 06:03

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Even the most brutal autocracy still rules over human beings, and human beings have a moral consciousness. Therefore, such oppression cannot occur without a bullshit 'excuse' for why the oppression is not only necessary, but itself righteous.

Religious authority provides exactly that excuse. It is therefore a component of oppression, not an opposition to it.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 06:05

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Religious communities are as a 'cog' in the machine, not a response to it.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 06:07

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

No one's mentioned anything about 'banning', and I don't think banning religion would be anything other than a total failure.

I'm just trying to get you to open your eyes. You will never find meaningful opposition in religion, because that's not it's purpose for existence.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 06:13

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Religious communities are not simply collections of metaphysical statements. People do not kill themselves over that. They die over what that symbolically represents to them - community, in-group, out-group & power. Coming to that realization is a necessary part of an honest analysis of the role of religion in society.

I told you before, I don't think 'killing everyone'/'smash the whole thing'/'ban it all' is an acceptable answer. The situation we are in is more nuanced than that, the strategy must be more subtle & complex.

What I am advocating is an honest, critical assessment. An assessment which must come to this conclusion: 'Leftism will never find, in religion, a reliable ally, or even a neutral party, but rather, a constant source of frustration'.

Yet it is also true that religion is and will likely remain an influence far into the future. It is also true that a simple repression of religion will not work, towards either goal of emancipation from the authoritarianism that religion enables, nor the enculturing of a society of respect. Such a strategy will, instead, fail to achieve both, or push those goal backwards.

These two statements are not contradictory, they must both be taken into consideration.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 06:37

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

The Kingfish posted:

So what's the problem? How is that different than a political movement?

From that quote you have of me, nothing, but I was responding to OwlFanciers notion that the issue had anything to do with his little absolute truth derail.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2017 09:24

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

The realization that the universe is hostile & unforgiving is a precondition to changing it. A belief in a universe that is fundamentally 'just' encourages inaction.

You have to see things how they are, before you can fix it.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2017 07:57

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

The Kingfish posted:

Literally nothing happens in late-stage capitalism without a profit motive. But religion is the real problem because of reasons.

I don't think religiion is 'the real problem', because that implies it's effect is wholly independent of the context it's in (ie it's some kind of root issue). I don't think that's reasonable.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2017 12:37

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

The issue with the language of 'objectification' is that, more often then not, it's simply used to refer to 'sexualized' - the implication being that whenever a woman starts projecting a sexual image, or acts in a sexual manner, they automatically degrade themselves.

This is a trap that a lot of feminist thinkers fall into, and the 'flip side of the burka'/'high heels' thing is like exhibit A in this: A woman wearing high heels no more 'reinforces stereotypes'/'objectifies herself' than anyone does to themselves when they're flirting.

The truth is that arguments around the burqa have very little to do with women, and everything to do with relations between the west and the muslim world - the most prominent agitators of the 'sexism of muslims' are the exact same kind of people who, in any other context, demand that woman 'stop acting like sluts' (read: get back in the kitchen).

# ¿ Mar 22, 2017 12:48

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Accusing secularism of justifying racism is pretty weak sauce. 'racial science' is like the definition of a pseudoscience. You start with a conclusion, and then go hunting for evidence. It's all backwards.

The reason the enlightenment was concurrent with colonialism, was because the scientific revolution gave the Europeans better weapons, which they used to exploit. The rationalization for that exploitation comes after the fact, not before.

If the enlightenment hadn't of happened, but they still got that opportunity, or if any other region of the world 'got there first', they would used their local cultural value system to justify their exploitation, after the fact. There's nothing unique to European values or secularism that makes that exploitation any easier, saying otherwise is lacking perspective, and also kind of racist.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 00:30

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

The grandiosity of cathedrals represents extreme amounts of approproated surplus labor, from a population whose standard of living was so incredibly low, that it would be regarded as inhumane today. Yet, functionally, these buildings serve no other purpose than to aggrandize both the religion they were built for, and the ego of the of the people that paid for them.

Every stone of that building represents an unfed mouth, an unpaved road, or the unclean water peasants had to drink. It represents wasted effort, that could have improved real lives, that instead satisfied the pride of the aristocratic class.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 00:43

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

The metaphor explicitly casts the attainment of knowledge as a bad deed deserving of punishment. The snake is the good guy.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 05:10

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

TomViolence posted:

And yet destroying them won't undo the harm done in their construction. Some might call it a wasted effort.

Yeah, that's true, but they should be seen for what they are, products of excess, and not whatever you want them to be.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 05:12

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Willful ignorance is immoral.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 05:27

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

The Kingfish posted:

The snake tempts mankind with knowledge of its death.

If we're treating the story as a metaphor for sentience, then what the snake is offering is a realization of what is going to happen anyway. The death itself is certain to occur.

Like I said, he's the good guy.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 05:29

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

The Kingfish posted:

That's simply not true. A society that doesn't know how to wage war would be a moral society than our own.

Does the technical inability to commit evil absolve someone of the intent to commit evil? I don't think so, if you're willing, then you're just as bad as someone both willing and able.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 05:52

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

OwlFancier posted:

The Kingfish posted:

Committing an action requires two things - means, and intent. Those aren't equivalent things. All 4 combinations of having/not having means or intent are possible, they're independent variables. What makes a person/society 'bad' is whether they would do something, not whether they can do something. If a society does not know war, but would be willing to commit it if it learned it, is a bad society.

TomViolence posted:

How does that make sense? If no harm is done that absolutely is better than if harm is done, regardless of intent. If I fantasise about killing someone that's massively different from actually murdering them.

'Fantasy' =/= Intent. People fantasize about a lot of things. The measure of a person is what they would do, if they were actually in a position of power.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 06:55

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Bolocko posted:

The bad deed isn't the attainment of knowledge. The bad deed, among the two creations walking in the backyard with the creator of the cosmos, was disobeying God's one specific command because either they knew better than God via some creature, or, God's lying to them to deny them something to which they think themselves entitled, also via the testimony of not-God. Yeah, God wasn't loving around when he said eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would result in death. They serpent conned them by saying it would make them gods, and guess what it didn't do.

Kingfish was taking it as a metaphor for sentience, in which case 'eating the fruit' does not make them die, it simply makes them aware of their impending death - had they not eaten the fruit, they would still have died, they just would not know about it beforehand.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 06:57

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Knowledge of a concept is separate from the approval of a concept. If, theoretically, they would approve of war after learning the concept, they were always bad, even if they do not know.

So if, say, Adam raped Eve after eating the fruit, then he was always a rapist, even before he ate the fruit, because he always had that intent to.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 07:02

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Yet it is obviously the case that mere knowledge of an evil act is not sufficient to commit evil. The majority of human beings are not rapists, even if they are aware of what rape is. Therefore, knowledge does not create crime. Therefore, there must be some other factor, let's say Q, that preceded his knowledge of rape, but after attaining the knowledge, motivated him to rape, so that (Q + knowledge = rape).

What, exactly, are you going to call 'Q', if not 'intent'?

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 07:11

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

If I shoot someone, and miss, and they live, are you suggesting I have not committed a crime? Because that's what you're suggesting when you say that 'no rape' is the only metric that matters.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 07:15

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

You said that the 'only thing that matters' was that 'no knowledge = no rape' - the implicit assumption being that the morality of all actions can be judged by consequences alone. That's not a moral system shared by society or by other human beings.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 07:22

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

The issue is that we're not talking about 'temptation'.

The Kingfish posted:

A society that could never rape is exactly as good as a society that knows about rape but nobody is ever raped.

A society with the willingness to rape, but lacking the means, is still immoral, it's only constrained by factors outside of it's control. A serial killer in solitary confinement is still a serial killer. They are still bad, even if they cannot hurt anyone. That's the issue.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 08:46

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Knowledge is its own goal, even if it makes you unhappy. Simple happiness/joy is not sufficient for human well being, you also need self-respect, socialization, and purpose. That's what 'self-actualization' is.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2017 02:07

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

'Blissful ignorance' is actually something people find anxious and stressful, because the truth never really goes away, you are always aware, on some subconscious level, that what you see isn't real.

Eg- people in the first world are aware that they are surrounded by suffering, even if this knowledge never impacts their day to day life. But it still has an effect on their mind, which expresses itself in various ways, from guilt (self-flagellation) to prejudice (rationalization/self-deception).

Blissful ignorance is then an oxymoron, unless you're referring to the kind of bliss that removes or inhibits your ability to think ie- drugs

rudatron fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Mar 24, 2017

# ¿ Mar 24, 2017 02:13

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Conscious ignorance didn't preclude subconscious ignorance. As long as you're aware, on some level, you'll get those symptoms.

And if you have subconscious ignorance, you're effectively no longer sentient anymore.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2017 02:57

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Also simple joy isn't a first order goal. If I hooked you up to a machine that pumped drugs into you, so that you never felt bad, whatever happened, would you really agree to get in? How does that sound like a good idea?

# ¿ Mar 24, 2017 02:59

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

The Kingfish posted:

Do not think I have come to bring peace on earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother. . . .

wow, jesus predicted boomers

# ¿ Mar 24, 2017 17:56

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

OwlFancier posted:

Preferable solution:

1. Discrimination against women based on how they dress is given the same weight as you would racially motivated crime, hate crime, whatever, it's serious.

2. Organizations with which people "voluntarily" associate such as employers, clubs, schools etc, cannot use gendered language in the construction of dress codes, all dress codes must apply universally.

3. Heavily fund legal aid, women's shelters, other organizations focused on emancipating women and those in poverty from the limitations of their social circle. People have somewhere to go if they cannot get help within their normal social environment.

4. Mandatory public schooling, everyone gets the same basic education. Private schooling/homeschooling is illegal.

Look, the patriarchy is bad and all, but the first 2 items on this list are dumb and unenforceable. People will judge you based on how you dress, that's a basic fact of life. Literally everyone else is going to laugh in your face if you demand that that gets the same legal treatment as a hate crime, and organizations/clubs are going to be real mad they can't even set their own dress codes, even if their reasonable.

The 3rd isn't even strictly feminist, overcoming the 'limitations of your social circle' is someone anyone in poverty is going to find useful, because that means being economically independent.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2017 15:37

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

I'm okay with granting certain elements of contemporary religion as part of a kind of mythic language, but the vast majority of religious believers do not treat it that way, and ingrained in every religion is both a set of statements about the world (metaphysical claims) and moral arguments, and the two are often mixed together in a confusing way.

The purpose of a language is to not just express things, but express things clearly and concisely, and religious-mythos-as-a-language fails on that last test.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2017 11:23

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Scientology is exactly as metaphysical valid as any other religion, the only reason you wouldn't call it one, is that it doesn't have the political clout to demand it be seen as legitimate.

How's the saying go, a language is a dialect with a navy?

So, that would make: a religion is a cult with a voting bloc.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2017 05:17

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 05:10

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

CountFosco posted:

The purpose of language is to express truth. If the truth as it is in the world is neither clear nor concise, that's tough for us.

Quantum mechanics is not simple, yet the language of QM is actually very clear and concise. There are no double meanings. Obsfucation in the language acts as a barrier to understanding, and only serves to make the complex truths harder to reach or verify.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2017 14:09

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