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Cingulate posted:I teach - linguistics, philosophy of science and methods, mostly. In methods, I teach contemporary methods and open source software instead of the mainstream because it's objectively better. But when I teach the other stuff, here's the situation: I firmly hold a few beliefs, e.g. that Chomskian syntax is very bad. But I know around 49% of my field subscribes to the (in my view insane) Chomskian take, and you can't really take part in most of the debates if you don't know it. So when I teach, I try to do my best effort of representing the field, not so much my belief.* Like, sometimes I will be very open about what I personally believe: I will say, "ok, and I personally believe all of this is simply wrong. But that's not the point here; let's go back to how the actual argument goes", and I'll try to make the most persuasive account of it I can do. (And then, if it's part of the syllabus, I'll do the most persuasive argument for the other side.) Sometimes I'll be less open: I'll put two sides before the class (e.g. two texts as homework assignments), and then I'll check whatever side they pick and I will argue the other side, which often results in me arguing against my own beliefs, as hard as I can***. (I'll still usually at least once state where my personal sympathies are to make students aware of potential biases on my part - .e.g, I'll say, "ok, and here I should be open about the fact that I personally don't subscribe to view A".) I appreciate the effort post, but linguistics =/= physical sciences. I was a communication studies major, so I feel you in well educated people using theories I disagree with in large groups. Muted Group Theory is popular among feminist crowds, but I find that language is probably more effectively used by women and minorities and societal structures are entirely what is responsible for language not being as effective for those groups. But the problem here is social science theories are nowhere near the equivalent of physical science theories. They are closer than the colloquial use of "I have a theory", but are still nowhere near the equivalent of a physical science theory like gravity. We eventually found Newton's theory wasn't quite right and left out relativity. Then we found out Einstein's theory of relativity wasn't quite right either and we are trying to explain quantum mechanics now. But those men weren't "wrong", you could repeatedly use their models to get predictable results with practical application. When we were still Earthbound, for all intents and purposes plug in 9.8m/s^2 plus wind resistance and you can calculate trajectories on Earth like a motherfucker. Add in Einstein's additions when leaving Earth's gravity to actively map the forces required to get to other celestial bodies, like the Moon and Mars which we have successfully done. Who knows what we can figure out once we get quantum mechanics down. These theories have practical applications that are tested over and over and over again in lab settings and in the field. Linguistic theories don't have the same history or verifiability behind them. We can teach beliefs and theories as part of history, but it should be framed correctly. If Chomskian and ID are both popular theories that haven't been fully flushed out and accepted, than you should teach both and try to be more objective. When we discuss the breaking edge of research in science classes there are multiple competing theories presented as well. Is String Theory, Superstring Theory, or M-Theory accurate? We're not sure! Here's what the modern experts think might be likely. The science teacher shouldn't take a strong position if there isn't a consensus in the field. Being a moderate creationist or whatever is fine, even if I wouldn't prefer it. YEC is crazytown nonsense. The equivalent in the field of linguistics would be accepting a new linguistics teacher who believes that God created every language as is currently exists a few thousand years ago, no exceptions. It's something so outrageously wrong on a fundamental level that the person saying that has no business trying to teach linguistics to others. I'm sure there are plenty of creationist who are smarter than me, intelligence is a strange and varied thing. In fact the exceedingly rare genius YEC might be able to compartmentalize their inane belief in a science setting and make contributions, but the overwhelming effect of spreading and normalizing this belief is anti-science. It should be clarified again that I am exclusively talking about YEC, not creationists in general. While I'd still argue against the idea itself, if a teacher thinks God started the Big Bang and gently guided evolution to allow for humans then whatever. It wouldn't interfere with any of the actual science.
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Apr 18, 2017 22:58
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silence_kit posted:I get the impression that many posters in this thread treat a person's religious belief as a moral failing of that person. It seriously bothers posters here even if it were to have no effect on themselves or the rest of society. It doesn't put someone in the category of "bad person" automatically, but religious beliefs are an intellectual failing and by extension that damages moral capacity. They can still be good people, but they will always be held back by their adherence to a supernatural power structure. The ideas of sin, or karma, and/or an afterlife in general have negative effects on people's mental health. This in turn affects the health of society at large. It's a detriment to progress to have to fight through these archaic and biased ideas, making both cultural and structural changes more difficult. I can't speak for other posters, but it bothers me because I care about the well being of my fellow species and want all of us to have a better future. It doesn't matter if some pastor out the boondocks will never personally sermonize me, it's still hurting our collective community.
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Apr 19, 2017 20:13
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Agag posted:Then you need to swing some over to vote a different way. Maybe speaking to them using their own reference points will be more effective? Have you ever actually tried to use Progressive Jesus arguments with the religious right? I've had long, non-vile-spewing discussions with conservative Christians and that line of argument goes no where. The religious right starts putting up defenses for that roughy at birth when they are indoctrinated by their parents and community. "Be wary of an outsider talking about Jesus, because they are agents of the devil trying to steer you away from God.", is not an uncommon position from conservative Christians. Quote all the Bible at them you want and cite the context and history around it, they don't care. The only times the Bible explicitly mentions abortion it is to perform it genocidally. Jesus explicitly said to pay your taxes willingly in full. He explicitly said the most important thing is to abandon your worldly possessions and give everything to help the poor and desperate. They don't care. You can maybe sidestep the brainwashing with painstaking effort, but it would be far more effective to focus on secularizing culture and our youngest generations so we don't have to unbrainwash people in the first place. Focusing on tangible things in their lives and recent history yields more results anyways if you want to get political votes. One of the only semi-effective points I've used is bringing up the "golden age" of America in the 50s and 60s conservatives currently idolize so much. Start raving about how great the economy and production was then, and they will agree with you. Then tell them the tax rate on the top bracket was 75+% during that time and it coincided directly with strong unions and the massive expansion of the middle class They usually dismiss it as a different time and say it wouldn't be effective now, but it at least makes them pause a little. Using religious arguments just makes them defensive because you are attacking an identity. Also, tying to sell a benign brand of snake oil to stop people from buying the poisonous snake oil is a not a good long term solution to stop people from being vulnerable to snake oil salesmen. Covok posted:Yeah, to be honest, I'm slowly kind of agreeing that, at the very least, the people in this thread are hostile to religion. They seem like the kind of atheist who thinks being atheist makes them inherently smarter, which tends to be a bad position to take and is rather narcissistic. Being an atheist doesn't make you inherently smarter, it's just a justifiably correct neutral position. People can "convert" to atheism for either dumb or well thought out ideas. However, being religious does actually make people stupid. It doesn't make stupidity their defining trait, but it makes them more stupid. Someone could be a genius and come up with a whole new branch of mathematics. Certainly not a "stupid person". But if that same person also believed that 9/11 was an inside job with explosives in the tower, it makes that person more stupid. Religion functions in much the same way. Doesn't stop people from expressing intelligence, but it hurts it overall. Btw this is a terrible line of argument if you are trying to convince someone to secularize and comes off aggressively smug on matter how it's phrased. It's not very persuasive even if it's true.
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Apr 20, 2017 07:35
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Covok posted:Wow, holy loving poo poo, I can feel the fedora emanating from that post. I'm sure you can. I expanded on the point because you brought it up. That's why I ended it with saying it's a terrible persuasive argument and you shouldn't use it. You know what's really fedora worthy? "Atheists are so smug. They're just edgelords trying to poo poo all over Christian people and call them stupid. I'll just call them fedora wearing elitists without addressing any actual arguments. That'll totally prove how I'm above those annoying smug atheists" 
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Apr 20, 2017 20:45
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RandomBlue posted:A fun thing to realize about evangelicals, which makes up a huge portion of Republican voters, is that their hoped-for end game is the 2nd coming of Christ which is preceded by Armageddon taking place in the middle east. I don't think peace in the middle east is really something they're at all interested in. Yeah people itt like to pretend it's just Evangelicals with these crazy beliefs, but unfortunately Christians in general believe crazy poo poo. Brookings posted:Regarding the end of times and the return of Christ, 5% of Christians and 12% of Evangelicals thought it would happen in their lifetime. Most, 72% of Christians and 81% Evangelicals, believed it would happen but were not sure whether it would be tomorrow or in a thousand years. I guess it's nice only 12% of Evangelicals and 5% think Armageddon is happening now, but lol the majority of America believes in Biblical end times.
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Apr 20, 2017 21:54
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Alienwarehouse posted:Oh, I agree. The thing that pisses me off the most about conservative Christians is that they explicitly ignore the foundational principles of the New Testament. They consciously ignore everything Jesus had to say about poverty, greed, wealth, and envy. In a way, you could make the argument that Jesus was the first socialist. Progressive Christians ignore most of Jesus's teachings too, though. That's the thing about religions is you get to interpret them however you want, and luckily for us the Bible has an equally credible terrifying and violent Jesus if you want to take that interpretation instead. He definitely said some things about roasting the unfaithful and sinful: "As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man ... the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot ... the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all ... Remember Lot's wife." Luke 17:26-32 "So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Matthew 13:49-50 He also was not a fan of family or marriage structure. "And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." Matthew 19:29, Mark 10:29-30, Luke 18:29-30 "They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage." Luke 20:35 Jesus was totally ok with blaming racial groups and entire generations for problems. "The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs." Mark 7:26-27, Matthew 15:22-26 "Ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. ... Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? ... Upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar." Matthew 23:31-35 Sure Jesus also talked a lot about helping the poor, but he spent a lot of time talking about other nonsense too. It's not possible to accurately attack their beliefs from within the Bible because there's a lot of internal inconsistencies and anyone can pick out just about any message they want.  E: Year of the Dog
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Apr 21, 2017 02:51
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Calibanibal posted:aww yeah, groundfloor of another round of copy-pasted bible quotes. Did yall know jesus cursed a tree? pretty hosed up It needs to be pointed out when people claim a different sect of Christians is "ignoring" the core message of the New Testament. Christian leaders have been using whatever cherry picked passages they want to support their narrative for centuries, it's not a new thing. poo poo the Council of Nicaea was a bunch of rich dudes deciding exactly which interpretation of Jesus's life works best to maintain control of the state. There is no correct or incorrect way of practicing Christianity. And that's not a good thing it's a problem endemic to all religions.
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Apr 21, 2017 04:08
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Can we stop pretending this is an argument/debate in a vacuum given some of the things the current Administration is doing in the name of Christianity? I know you're not a Christian apologist so I'm curious as to why you think that isn't true. This administration, and others before it, and different leaders all over the world have done lovely things in the name of Christianity for roughly 2000 years. Team Trump might be particularly bad, but they haven't even come close to the the horrible poo poo the Catholic Church accomplished. This is true even just looking at the last century and ignoring their marathon of horror during the Middle Ages. Are you saying that Catholics aren't "real Christians" practicing "real Christianity" when they are the largest group of Christians in the world?
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Apr 21, 2017 19:01
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biracial bear for uncut posted:I'm pretty sure you misinterpreted my post, I meant to steer the mealy-mouthed No True Scotsman arguments about Christianity back to reality with regard to people in this thread trying to claim Christians do not tend to vote and act hardline Conservative. That makes a lot more sense thanks. Here's some data from our most recent election. Increasing church attendance was directly correlated with voting for Trump. Once a week 56% Once a month 49% A few times a year 47% Never 31% Religion is generally one of the best indicators for how a person votes, and has been for decades. Christians as a whole skew conservative pretty hard.
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Apr 21, 2017 21:18
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Agag posted:They definitely skew conservative. Knowing this, and knowing that the nation is three-quarters Christian, what is the best strategy for the left? The strategy should be to move away from tying religion to the left. We don't need "true Christian" leaders for the left. "Jesus would be a socialist today" is a bad strategy that instead of liberalizing people's faith, tends to make people them double down and galvanize tradition. The left should be embracing secular phrasing and distancing themselves from from religion in general. We don't need Democratic politicians to say "God bless America" to end every statement or talk about how their faith drives them to public service. The left should be focusing on the tangible here and now with solid policies that will help working Americans. Just look at Bernie Sanders. He's a secular Jew and the most popular politician in the United States. How often does he talk about God? Hillary brought up her faith far more often and actually was a devout Christian and that didn't win her any votes. Dragging religion into politics hurts progressives while bolstering conservatives. With the youngest generations rapidly becoming less religious, the smart move for the future is backing away from religion, not embracing it.
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Apr 21, 2017 23:46
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OwlFancier posted:Ignoring it doesn't generally elicit much support from the religious either. What does elicit support from religious people is getting them something like Medicare for All that is incredibly popular and easily understood. What elicits support is free college for everyone to give their kids more opportunity. Battling with voters over their faith is a deck stacked against progressives. As it has been since the dawn of civilization, reactionary conservatives have a stranglehold on religion. The left should be actively trying to move the battleground, not engaging in semantic apologetics.
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Apr 22, 2017 00:08
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OwlFancier posted:I think advocating those things while very pointedly ignoring the religious position is what gets you people voting against healthcare reform because they think it'll be used to do infinite abortions. I think that's nonsense and not backed up by how people vote. The people voting hardline against abortion were never going to be voting for progressives in any fashion. Being anti-choice is anti-woman no matter how you try to frame it, and most of that crowd doesn't even try to hide their raging my misogyny. Engaging their arguments about funding going to abortion, which doesn't happen by law already anyways, just muddies the water by spending time talking about abortion instead of the 99+% of medical services that are not abortion and isn't central to universal healthcare (though I would say abortions should be paid for by the government but we don't need to have that argument). Their mewling should absolutely be ignored with a single dismissive sentence "that's a lie no funding goes to that" and instead keep hammering on about the benefits of the policy. Bernie continuously speaking loudly about progressive policy is what people actually like about him. Maybe we should take that cue to ignore moralizing religious rhetoric and talk secular instead.
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Apr 22, 2017 01:03
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Alienwarehouse posted:Another thing that would help is if New Atheist shitheads would stop openly calling for the government to tax Churches out of existence. That kind of violates one of the most important aspects of the Constitution, as well. New Atheists are shitheads but taxing churches is something we probably should have started doing a long time ago. Of course this doesn't mean taxing every church but definitely tax some of them with some well thought out structure. Churches already operate in a business like fashion, with half of the budget going to (usually generous) salaries. Almost no church spends more than 20% of its budget on charity work, and that's being generous including "missions" that are about recruitment and not good works. In order to not disturb small towns from this, a simple exclusion for any church with a budget under $200,000 or something would make them not have to worry at all. Middle level churches can face nonprofit scrutiny where if it turns out the pastor takes 70% of the money for themselves they lose their exempt status. Megachurches should probably all be taxed as they are racketeering operations with a side bonus of merchandizing. Their leaders make literally millions every year, and there should be a cap on how much any nonprofit leader pays themselves when they are supposed to be a charity. If churches are running as businesses I don't see how it's unconstitutional for them to be taxed. Breaking tradition and requiring a change in tax laws, yes. But not unconstitutional. It would probably make the religious communities better because the charlatans could be weeded out much more easily.
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Apr 22, 2017 01:29
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Agag posted:I don't think mentioning religion is the lesson to take away from Hillary vs. Bernie. Hillary's general inauthenticity was the issue there, matched only by Trump's shallow pandering to the evangelical Republican base. It wasn't an election about religion, clearly. Looking at the state level, the current D strategy of offering Republican lite is a massive failure. "I believe in Jesus too! But I think we should accept LGBTQ people" is not something that sways voters. Local candidates should be pushing secular local issues, not trying to stir up a religious base. That has a terrible track record for progressives. Run on repairing the bridges, creating an opiate abuse program, a public works project that will bring new infrastructure and businesses, etc. Talk to the local people in the local vernacular. In the South this might include an occasional praise Jesus, I'm not saying that Democrats shouldn't ever mention their faith. I'm saying it should be avoided and downplayed because that strategy doesn't work. Democratic politicians should absolutely not be lecturing their constituents about secularizing that's a crazy strategy that would just alienate people. They just have to focus far more on secular projects and not mention Jesus as much. The active push for secularization needs to come from cultural sources like media. As for demographic changes, it's already happened. Religiously unaffiliated is now one of the largest groups when it's narrowed down to Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, etc. It's a severely undertapped group politically. Bolocko posted:Honestly it would empower megachurches and possibly steer American Christianity in precisely the direction opposite what you're hoping for. How the hell does this work? Megachurches all the sudden lose 30% of their war funds and their influence increases? Their base is already on max outrage mode they can't be any more vocal or vote more. Agag posted:Christian progressives in America brought you Abolition and the Civil Rights Movement, against right-wing Christians who opposed them. This can be done. Are you seriously arguing that progressive churches were the main driving force powering Abolition and the Civil Right Movement? I mean maybe you can argue for the Civil Rights Movement often being organized through Black churches, but that's for a variety of reasons and ignores the massive work done absence from churches like college campuses and outside the South. But arguing that Christianity led the movement for abolition is a crock of poo poo. The biggest defense pro-slavery assholes had was explicitly written in the Bible and most churches were not abolitionist. That movement didn't start happening until post 1830s leading up to the Civil War. America is heavily revisionist in teaching its own history in school. What actually triggered the political impetus to actually end slavery was a secular response to threats to first amendment rights. In 1836 the "gag rule" denied even hearing a petition to end slavery. This upset Northerners who saw it as an assault on the 1st amendment right to free petition. The Fugitive Slave Law fully broke this open and Northerners saw it as an assault on state's rights. Quakers and Baptists had been pushing abolition for hundreds of years already at this point. They were a radical minority until we included secular issues and things started changing. It's a much nicer narrative though that mass numbers of progressive Christians championed freedom through their faith. The truth is much less pretty because most churches didn't give a poo poo about slavery and the Pope even affirmed slavery is still ok sometimes after the Civil War. Don't get me wrong the progressive churches still helped by spreading knowledge of the tyranny of chattel slavery and definitely helped organize and publish. This was undeniably a good thing and I'm not trying to attack these institutions. But they weren't responsible for abolitionism or the ultimate success of the movement (that required a massive war fought for secular reasons). Progressive Christians didn't "bring us" these movements, they were fought for with blood and sweat by a wide range of people. They were a part of that but not the origin or even the strongest part.
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Apr 22, 2017 09:19
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Bolocko posted:Megachurches are the outliers who'd be able to take a 30% hit. A lot of smaller churches would be sunk. My parish of ~3000 would go under. And it's not just Christians  Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Neo-Pagans would be hobbled. Except if your church has a budget of less than a few hundred thousand dollars it wouldn't be affected at all. Or if it was bigger than that as long as your budget actually has more than a pittance for charity it wouldn't be affected. I didn't advocate taxing all churches, I said churches should be able to be taxed. If your church organizations is bringing in literally millions of dollars it should be large enough that it can handle accounting where the money is going. Buddhists, neo-pagans, Jews, etc would be under the same umbrella and most would be too small to worry about sane tax laws for churches. Seriously is it okay with you that your church is lumped in with Crystal Cathedral type grifting? Taxing greedy churches would add accountability and actually give more credibility to churches that maintain their tax free status. RasperFat fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Apr 22, 2017 |
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Apr 22, 2017 12:03
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Agag posted:There are already Christians in America who don't support the Republican agenda, otherwise they would be winning every election %75-%25. You're ignore and dismissing people for no reason except your personal distaste for some of their beliefs, which pretty much sums up the collapse of the left over the past 30 years. Except, the single largest data point for predicting people's vote is religiosity. This supersedes gender, race, location, or income. The left's attempt to coopt religion has never been successful, even during the Civil Rights Movement and Abolition. Ignoring the data and pushing with outdated strategies is why Democrats are being crushed electorally. I didn't say Democrats should become the anti-religion party, I said they should embrace being the secular party. It takes some serious hubris to unironically state Abolition was a "fundamentally Christian endeavor". I laid out the reasons why it wasn't that you conveniently ignored, and just reasserted your flawed position. Do you really not think that the victims themselves of slavery were not he driving force behind ending the practice of slavery? Freed and escaped slaves were always the biggest fighters for the movement, regardless of their religion. That's a serious white washing of history and takes away agency from all of the people we abused as a country for so long. "Nah it wasn't the African people of all faiths fighting against slavery, the movement was fundamentally Christian." Never mind that we forced our slaves to convert to Christianity in the first place. The Civil Rights movement was a lot more secular than you think. MLK called creationism intellectually soft, and spent far far more time talking up communism than he did God. It was organized in churches in part because Black people would literally be murdered if they tried to organize at a house or public building. Churches still got firebombed sometimes, but were still the safest places to organize without fear of being attacked. But again you prefer whitewashing history to make Good Christians be the driving force behind societal progress, when the reality is they tagged along riding on the back of secular movements.
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Apr 22, 2017 19:22
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Alienwarehouse posted:Also, taxing churches is EASILY the best way to breed Christian extremists and terrorists, and I can't believe a few of you actually suggested doing that. They would correctly cite the separation of church and state clause in the constitution as justification for it. Social conservatives are already losing the argument on virtually every social and economic issue. Targeting churches would give Limbaugh, Fox News, et al all the ammunition they would ever need to cause even more destruction in this country than they already are. Furthermore, when has suppressing religion by monetary or physical means ever ended well? You're assuming that these organizations aren't already screaming about this nonsense. Separation of church and state has nothing to do with taxes, it's about not establishing a state religion. A tax affecting all religious institutions would not be a constitutional violation in any way. Churches wouldn't be "targeted". The plan I outlined would exclude the majority of churches right off the bat. For the other churches that claim oppression their tax records would now be public record. "They're oppressing us!!!! (For the millionth time before this new tax law)" "Ok how?" "They're making us pay taxes!" "I thought charities were exempt?" "They said we didn't do enough charity!" "Why would they say that? *checks filings* you realize your pastor and his friends personally got 2.5 million of your 4 million dollar budget? They only spent $50,000 all year doing charity. Dude that's only like 1.25%. Maybe you should reorganize your church to get a deserved exempt status" "Like I said! Oppression and tyranny!" These people are already rabid about being victimized, they would not gain any more traction because they have already been sending that message out on max volume for decades.
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Apr 22, 2017 19:43
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Bolocko posted:You know not all 501(c)(3) organizations are charities, right? Yes but churches claim to be highly charitable organizations. They don't just sell themselves as "non profit community builders", they clearly identify as a charity, not just non profit. Alhazred posted:No he did not: "And one day we must ask the question, 'Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.' When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I'm simply saying that more and more, we've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society Speech to Southern Christian Leadership Conference Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967. "Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children." - Speech to the Negro American Labor Council, 1961 "We must recognize that we can't solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power... this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together... you can't really get rid of one without getting rid of the others... the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order."- Report to SCLC Staff, May 1967. He may have specifically said communism was too materialistic, but his core message was always more economic justice than Jesus saving people. But again that doesn't fit the popular TV narrative that nice Christianity is the reason things got better. Agag posted:Yep. And an overwhelming majority of Americans are religious. Therefore the left has to speak to religious people in a persuasive manner to shave off some of those votes. You keep writing your own history of events. I already pointed out that it was only when secularism started getting involved in Abolition that progress started to be made. The reasons why those White Christians were persuaded to be against slavery were primarily secular arguments based on our government structure and constitution. But no progressives should keep trying to change Christianity to fit a progressive mold in the face of centuries of ineffectiveness. E: artifacts RasperFat fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Apr 22, 2017 |
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Apr 22, 2017 21:54
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Calibanibal posted:that quote should follow rasperflats around everywhere like an angry poltergeist I misspoke when I said communism specifically. Radical redistribution of capital coupled with racial justice was his core message. I guess I'm projecting on MLK when he repeatedly said capitalism as a system is a huge problem. He was a reverend of course he talked about God a lot, but that wasn't his primary message when speaking about civil rights. We just don't talk about he fact that he was pushing radical wealth redistribution all the time because the Cold War anti-communist view dominates our teaching of history.
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Apr 22, 2017 22:17
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Bolocko posted:"Churches" perform and manage a ton of charitable activity, but churches, more narrowly and, for our purposes here, defined, are not charities, they're churches: places to serve the spiritual needs of the local faith community. They don't sell themselves as either "non-profit community builders", or business enterprises, or as charities, though they may in part include each of those things — they sell themselves as houses of worship. In what world do churches not sell themselves as charity? Go ask any church leader if their church is a charity organization and they will say yes. "Doing the Lord's good work" and all that is a central message to basically every church. Have you ever read King's speeches in their entirety? Because what you are arguing is simply not true. King argued that principles laid out by the constitution granted rights to all Americans. He didn't use spiritual mumbo jumbo or proselytize with Jesus for his evidence. Let's take a look at his most famous speech: MLK posted:"I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. If you look you'll see some references to God's children and a single Bible quote. However, his overwhelming message was not religious. It was secular arguments based on secular ideas. Just a dashing of religious rhetoric, not sermonizing or trying to force other churches to be progressive. This was one of his most poetic and spiritual speeches that wasn't a straight up sermon. All of his movement speeches follow a similar format. I'm not taking out of my rear end when I say MLK's main push wasn't religion, it was justice. It's a deliberate rewriting of history. The overwhelming majority of churches didn't support the civil rights movement, just like they didn't support Abolition. The narrative framing makes it seem like there was widespread religious support for these movements, which is simply untrue. It makes American Christianity look a whole lot less lovely though, which is why it is popular. Can't have it look like 75%+ of our churches were complicit in systematic racism just a few decades ago.
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Apr 23, 2017 00:03
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BrandorKP posted:It is all religious and what you're doing is disengenious and ignores the history of Christianity. I also think you know enough to know why your arguement is one of bad faith. It's not an argument in bad faith at all. The history of Christianity is reactionary, not progressive. A few splinters joining the tide of secular progress does not get to define Christianity when it represents an extreme minority. MLK was a brilliant rhetor and that's why he allied his cause and rhetoric with secularism. Many of his closest allies were not even Christian. The entire speech is framed around the promises of the explicitly secular constitution and the promises of democracy. These are not spiritual arguments no matter how you try to frame it.
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Apr 23, 2017 00:53
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Calibanibal posted:yeah bit see mlk didnt go up on stage and shout 'ooga booga' and sacrifice a chicken so im pretty sure it wasnt religious How inflammatory and edgy, and not at all what I was talking about. What you don't see is MLK promising damnation or salvation for opposing/joining the civil rights cause. You know, religious based arguments.
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Apr 23, 2017 00:58
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BrandorKP posted:Where does the idea of equality under law come from? The idea of equality under law was an Enlightenment ideal that was borne out of separating religion from the government. Religious laws explicitly state different rules for non believers or people of different birth. It wound up in America because of the Diest influence from the founding fathers. Agag posted:No offense, man, but that is major bullshit. Except it's not. I already laid out the secular reasons that actually caused a turning point for the abolition movement. Northern White Christians were not of mind that Black people were equal and very few cared about them being abused or oppressed. They saw the South's actions as an assault on the secular liberties laid out in the constitution. Some churches helped spread the word about how terrible slavery was, but they were not what changed public opinion. Secular writings like Uncle Tom's Cabin and Frederick Douglas did way more than the efforts of churches.
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Apr 23, 2017 04:25
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Agag posted:I'm sure the 19 and 20 year old farmboys marching to war singing abolitionist hymns were really concerned with secular constitutional liberties. I'm sure the kids we send off to war were the arbiters of public opinion. They likely weren't concerned with either secular or spiritual liberties, they were forced or coerced to the battlefield like most of our soldiers have been for centuries. You seem to have a problem separating a person's faith from their works. Would you seriously argue that Douglas wouldn't have been an abolitionist if happened to be Muslim, or atheists, or Diest? Same with Stowe. Their works focused on the personal ways in which slavery affected them. Uncle Tom's Cabin put a narrative on the slave experience which was previously not well known to northern Whites. Douglas's writings were brutal and detailed gruesome scenes of bigotry like Black people starved and beaten to death hanging in cages as a warning for other people of color. Though they may have been religious themselves, their writings were not based around religion. BrandorKP posted:Enlightenment is looking back to something. It's a stoic idea. The Enlightenment was a revival of secular ideas practiced by the Greeks and Romans with a twist of romanticization. It's widely accepted as a secular movement that promoted secularism, championing free thought and scientific pursuit.
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Apr 23, 2017 09:03
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BrandorKP posted:The Greek philosophy schools were religions. They fit well most definitions of cults. They even have saviors. What we think of as the characteristics of religions, well quite a lot of that comes from them. Further, secular has changed in meaning over the years, what was meant by the word at the time of founding fathers? Except that the Enlightenment was a cherry picking of democratic and philosophical ideas, not going whole hog on the cults of honor that were rampant with the Greeks and Romans. Also, secularism wasn't used in its modern vernacular until the 1800s. We are using modern terms to describe the actions and expressed beliefs of people in the past. Jefferson "threw shade" at people, even if he would never use those words. The evidence for the secularism of the founding fathers doesn't come from them specifically saying "secularism is good".
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Apr 23, 2017 19:43
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BrandorKP posted:They are Christian, but American Christianity is just weird in general in both political directions. The problem is this isn't limited to American Christians and their weirdness. The weirdness is world wide. It is also mainstream, not that there are weird fringes everywhere. The Orthodox and Catholic Churches were the source of most of this, but collectively they represent the origin of like 99% of modern sects. Agnosticnixie posted:So are you planning on just pretending 2000 years of church history isn't true christianity because it doesn't fit your politics? Because Schweitzer had something to say about that. I'm assuming he had an American education in history, and our teaching is almost cult like. The narrative we teach until the college level is spiritually injected until it becomes propaganda for Christian morality. It's so powerful that people were aghast that I asserted MLK's speeches and works on civil rights were secularly focused. It started with the framing of Puritans escaping for religious freedom. The truth was Puritans were intolerant and worked against commonwealth laws and customs that they didn't think were extreme enough. After being trouble causing assholes they got kicked out to go create a religious based community that would prove their faith is the best. Within months of moving here they were shocked and dismayed they had to execute a young man who committed beastiality. They thought by distancing themselves from other corrupt sects then people left would be pure good Christians and their society wouldn't have such ungodly disgusting things. They were a weird people and more like a cult than a group of martyrs escaping persecution. Also, it ignores that the overwhelming majority of early settlers were looking for economic opportunity and religion was secondary. It's a nice start to the framing of America being firmly linked to progressive Christianity though. Then the founding fathers are all presented as Christians who believed in religious freedom. This ignores that Diests are barely even Christian, and they explicitly wanted religion kept out of their legal framework. They still bring up separation of church and state, but Puritans, Quakers, Calvanists, etc and their influence is given far more focus, despite being pretty small minorities in terms of demographics. The abolition movement, as I've already discussed previously, has been skewed through the historical lens to the point of fun house mirrors. The major things that successfully moved public opinion and tangibly ended slavery were secular. Assault on the right to petition, equal protection under the law, state's rights, etc. is what moved northern Whites en masse. The biggest movements protecting slavery were religiously based though, and the Baptist and Catholic churches were far, far larger than the northern abolitionist churches. They effectively made more people pro-slavery than the northern churches made people anti-slavery. But somehow Christianity was super important and helpful in the abolition movement. It's a rewriting of history that continues to this day.
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Apr 24, 2017 02:12
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Cingulate posted:Sorry for not having picked up on this. Are you still interested in my response RF? Sure I am. I always find non-hostile discussions like this interesting.
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May 25, 2017 23:27
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Cingulate posted:Ok, I think this has gotten me a bit closer to getting RasperFat's point. I will admit that teaching and research are two different beasts, and research should be open regardless of religious leaning. Some of the best scientists, historically and currently, are religious or even creationist. However, our educational system is currently under attack by RW Christians who have politicized basic science and are actively trying to infiltrate and subvert our institutes of learning. We need to take steps to ensure that teachers aren't creating an environment of doubt things like evolution and climate change which Evangelicals have been doing for decades now. The difference between a creationist and Young Earth Creationist again needs to be noted, because one is plausible and one is batshit crazy. The equivalent in linguistics might be someone who holds the belief that modern American English is God's chosen language and all other languages are demon tongues that are Satan's temptation. Sure they could get a doctorate in linguistics and have intimate knowledge of the field, but would you trust them to impartially teach an entire class of students? We should start teaching our students (and teachers) to be better at disagreeing with others, but that's a tall order to put on just teachers. I think there's a strong cultural influence as well as individual personality in how people deal with opposition whether they are in the right or wrong or somewhere in the middle. And speaking of the middle it's a problematic framing with our current physical science fields. When there are disagreements within String Theory, it's generally being unsure of the exact mechanism of quantum mechanics. It's a question of "Do quarks act like this because of an extra dimension, an undiscovered force, undiscovered/unproved particle, or a different answer we can't see yet?". There's wide areas of interpretation, but the foundation they are based on is not changing. The periodic table is mapped the same and protons still have a positive charge and electrons still have a negative charge and neutrons are still neutral. We can make exciting discoveries but what we know right now that you'll learn in any undergrad or lower class is pretty set in stone at this point. Any "big" changes in any field have to explain all the evidence and previous experiments, making it increasingly difficult to have massive paradigm shifts like we had throughout the Enlightenment when modern science was being established.
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May 27, 2017 05:00
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Cingulate posted:Well, I wouldn't trust them blindly, but I wouldn't trust anyone blindly - I'd test them and supervise them. If the YEC believer can give a good trial lecture, I'll be surprised, but also willing to hire them. (I actually don't know how teachers are hired - I know professors have to give example lectures, but they're not on the stuff they'll end up teaching ...) If 1 year later their students score proportionally on their biology exams, then I don't see how the teacher's crazy private beliefs should be held against them. If a committed Science Fan could rant for 2 hours about the fallacies of the Bible and how Mohammed was a pedo, but failed to explain planetary formation, I'd take the YEC creationist who can explain it over them. I agree that a religious test is not the answer, for obvious reasons both historically and constitutionally. A test including things like the age of the universe and the validity of evolution is probably the right way to go because those are fact based questions. Physics makes YEC have to work in crazy poo poo because we can see stars that are millions of light years away, meaning accepting basic things like the speed of light have to be retconned for a universe only thousands of years old, like claiming God sent the beams of light ahead magically only making it appear as though the light was traveling for millions of years to reach us. The changes I'm looking for in education isn't having strictly atheist teachers, it's sidelining the increasingly common evangelist influence in our education system. No more "just a theory" monologues in high school biology when evolution is taught. No more letting over zealous reactionists choose curriculums and textbooks. Less exemptions for "charter schools" that are just extensions of a church. No more capitulating to "free speech" and "religious freedom" arguments for when people want to teach falsehoods and spread dogma using our government funded schools. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt, and should a YEC be an effective teacher of science they should be given a chance. But there is a coordinated attack from conservatives right now. They are colluding to push Evangelical views in our classrooms and want to delegitimize science. We need to take proactive measures to make sure America doesn't fall behind in science education.
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May 28, 2017 07:43
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Cingulate posted:Then it seems we're not in disagreement: your concerns seem to be about the curriculum, not about the ideology of the teacher. I agree the curriculum should be consensus science, and teachers who stray from that because they want to teach their own personal favourite stories should be treated the same regardless of of their reasons for doing so. I think you not having experienced the American education system has created a rift to understanding why I'm so wary of YEC trying to game the system. I went to school in Southern California and Long Island, New York and there were discrepancies in my science teaching even in well funded suburban schools. In both states I was presented materials that cast doubt on climate change and evolution. If that was my experience in more progressive areas with good schools, imagine learning in a deep red state, a rural area, or an underfunded inner city school. My concern for America remaining a leader in science isn't about competitive advantage, it's about the negative consequences in both our local community and global community. America is the richest and one of the best educated countries, if we aren't a leader in scientific research it means we are squandering our resources. It means delays in finding cures, developing new sources of energy/energy storage, new types of transportation, etc. Science research is one of the best long term investments for our entire species, without it we wouldn't even be able to feed our current population levels. America trending anti-science and anti-environmentalism is a bad thing for everybody, especially with the coming man-made climate change.
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May 29, 2017 06:03
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Dead Cosmonaut posted:This has already happened. Already entire segments of our research community are occupied foreigners who are attracted to research at American universities and American citizenships. This was 70% of the makeup of my last research lab. Research in American universities is already propped up by foreigners and this will last only as long as the above remains attractive. Exactly. This is a large scale problem that's been unaddressed for many years already. Our universities are still chugging along because of the strong system that's still partially in tact but the right wing's dismantling has already been crippling. Cingulate posted:I'm reasonably aware of that. It's unambiguously awful that you have, partially successful, attempts to "teach the controversy" etc. The curriculum should be unassailable - Intelligent Design belongs in anthropology lectures, not biology classes. The "teach the controversy" has been more than partially successful. About 40% of Americans believe that humans were created by God in their present form. 32% don't believe humans are a driving force behind climate change. They are technically a minority, but they are an incredibly loud one. Their continuous efforts to subvert our education are a keystone to the success of Evangelical's influence on national narratives. Also it would be fine and expected that China will overtake the U.S. on everything, they have three times as many people. But Japan and especially Sweden are tiny in comparison to America. If the U.S. is behind them then we have seriously hosed up our education system. If we don't stop the religious zealot's attacks on our school and government we might get to that point though.
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May 30, 2017 20:20
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Nah, I'm perfectly comfortable with saying that any religious person that votes Republican is a monster and their religion is monstrous. That's not entirely fair because voting Republican is monstrous independent of religious beliefs. There's plenty of atheist asshat libertarians that vote straight ticket R in full FYGM fashion. If your faith is an influencing factor in voting Republican though, than you are either incredibly ignorant or your religious interpretations are indeed monstrous.
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May 31, 2017 22:25
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biracial bear for uncut posted:There are literally entire denominations of christianity that use the pulpit to coerce their congregations into voting Republican because a vote for Republicans is a vote for God and a vote for Democrats is a vote for The Devil. Oh I'm not defending those assholes. Earlier in the thread I supported taxing churches that directly endorse politicians or parties. If they want to run their scams and take half million dollar salaries and be pulpits from the pew they can be taxed like the propaganda businesses they are instead of the charities they pretend to be. Also I said if your faith leads you to vote Republican there is something very wrong. Either your religion or your perception of reality is broken.
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Jun 2, 2017 23:11
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RandomBlue posted:Yeah, but that's still a large portion of the religious (especially Christianity) in America. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/ Yes I know and that's a huge problem. I think Megachurches should be to focus because those tend to have thousands of congregants and large, shady budgets. Making a few examples would help stop smaller churches from copying their structure.
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Jun 3, 2017 02:35
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:this is super late but lol at your interpretation of the US school system. It might surprise you, but I have actually gone to churches many times and am close with many religious people, including some of my family. It's not like I've never been a part of a Christian community. It's good that you had some quality science teachers, but the facts are that the United States is uniquely lovely among Western developed nations with our resistance to climate change and evolution. Here's an NPR article about American's science literacy. Some notable takeaways, only 37% agreed with the statement that humans developed from earlier species, and 53% thought humans and dinosaurs were alive at the same time. Nearly half of Americans still don't think climate change is happening. There are serious issues with American's education in science, and evangelical fuckery is one of the bigger factors keeping up this nonsense, even if they aren't the only problem. I'm not concerned about an "evangelical takeover", they appear to be on the decline in the U.S. However, that doesn't mean they don't have a strong influence in certain regions. They are also pushing hard to export their religion to developing nations to rope as many people as possible into their zealotry. It would be in the interest of basically everyone to push back against these assholes, "moderate" Christians included. But it's much easier to smear me as an atheist just poo poo talking because I'm spiteful or something, rather than examining the toxicity within large segments Christianity.
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Jul 8, 2017 22:21
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