Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
No bio...
User ID: 732
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
9mo ago
I’ll combine my response to you with my response to @Amadan, since you’re both basically making the same point here.
So, let’s take epistemics totally out of the equation for a second (since that’s all just stuff happening within my own head) and focus on the material tradeoffs here. Cost-benefit analysis. Supposing for a moment that the theology is all total bunk, let’s assess what I’m likely to get out of it, versus what I will be asked to sacrifice.
I’ll start with the sacrifices, as they are substantial. Obviously I will have to give up alcohol, coffee and tea; those are all things which have featured heavily in my social life at various points in my life, and all things which I enjoy consuming. (Others would probably also struggle with giving up tobacco, vaping, or drugs, although fortunately I never got seriously into any of those.) Tithing ten percent of my income will be a significant financial outlay, and will likely considerably reduce my discretionary spending, at least in the short term. I will likely be asked (although not forced) to take on duties to support church functions, including things like periodically performing baptisms for the dead. I will likely lose some friends who will be outraged by my joining a church whose stance on homosexuality and transgender issues they find repellent/offensive. Probably most notably, I am removing from my potential pool of romantic partners any woman who would not be comfortable converting to the church in order to be with me; this means closing off a great many possibilities and massively reduces my options. (There are also epistemic questions in terms of how I will explain/justify my beliefs to others, including my future children, but I’ll put those aside for now.)
Okay, so what do I get in return, materially speaking? As you’ve both noted, I get access to a pool of chaste young women with good values, who come pre-selected for being interested in children and family. (This is not actually the primary reason I’ve made this decision, although given my complaints about dating on the Motte in the past, I can understand why you both zeroed in on this topic.) I become enmeshed into a social network of upwardly-mobile people who may provide employment opportunities. I get to be around people — women, even! — who haven’t elected to make their entire personality about how queer they are and how much they hate anybody to the right of Hasan Piker. I get to feel (and to be perceived by others as) useful, respected, and necessary as I’m guided toward a position within the church that can utilize my talents. I get a good, airtight excuse not to even be asked to engage in behaviors that could be harmful or addictive to me. And, if necessary, I even get access to the church’s housing assistance program and other pieces of the famous “Mormon welfare”.
Again, this is all leaving aside questions of whether or not any of the religious claims of the church are true. I’m becoming far more comfortable with the proposition that at least the stuff about the afterlife (and the pre-mortal life, which is another cool aspect of LDS theology) is true. As for my other concerns about the church? I’ve been very transparent with the missionaries about those, including the guy who did my “baptism interview”, and it hasn’t been a problem.
The thing is, religious practice, for the vast majority of human beings who have ever existed, has probably always involved a delicate dance between public and private beliefs. It’s not like I’m getting constantly grilled to make sure that I really super seriously believe and know that ancient Levantine Jews sailed to America and built a continent-spanning civilization that lasted for centuries. That’s not actually very important to me, and doesn’t have any tangible effect on my behavior in the here and now. It could potentially pose an issue later on when I have to be a proper paterfamilias and spiritual teacher and guide to my future children. This is something I’ve already thought a lot about and will continue to figure out how to navigate.
You’ve both expressed horror and consternation at the thought that at some point I might actually convince myself that it’s true. As if this would be some catastrophic loss for me. But I honestly have to ask both of you: why would this be bad? What actual bad effects would that have on my life? I wouldn’t get to win any more arguments against sincerely-believing Christians/Mormons? Okay, what am I actually getting out of participating in those arguments now? I’ll have a flawed/incomplete model of the cosmos? Okay, how is that actually going to negatively impact my actions? Like, I agree that epistemic hygiene is a virtue, and that reducing cognitive dissonance is good, but clearly these things are not the only terminal values a person can have. What other concerns do you actually have about this decision? Do you just find it yucky? What would you have me do instead?
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
9mo ago
Ha, you must have missed my first and only post to the main site.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
9mo ago
I would say this question belongs more in the Small Question Sunday Thread, or the Friday Fun Thread. This thread is more for posts about self-improvement and other personal matters.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
9mo ago
Your link goes to a removed Reddit post.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
9mo ago
Every person in the church with whom I’ve discussed it has been very clear that caffeinated drinks, other than coffee and tea, are unambiguously permitted. They believe that eliminating addiction from your life is pretty much always an unalloyed good, since it allows a fuller use of your agency and self-control, but that to a certain extent the church is willing to meet people where they’re at and to allow some leeway, particularly for things like caffeine which have clear benefits alongside their drawbacks.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
9mo ago
This past Sunday, I received baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
As some of you may be aware, I have been passively orbiting this church with various degrees of interest over the course of my entire life, as a result of family connections and several very close friends. Like most non-Mormons, I found various reasons not to pursue any active interest in the church: the total lack of anthropological/scientific evidence for historicity of its central religious text; the concerning signs of Joseph Smith’s charlatanry and general strategy of “making it up as he went”; the onerous lifestyle restrictions; the financial burden which tithing imposes, etc.
Furthermore, I’m occasionally cited here as an able critic of Christian ideas about theodicy, the efficacy of prayer, and the apparent contradictions between the idea of a loving and omnipotent God on the one hand, and the sheer amount of random and wanton suffering present in our world on the other. People have linked to my somewhat recent discussion with @FCfromSSC regarding this matter as an example.) Thus, it may strike many users here (and does seem to have struck at least some people in my IRL life) as surprising to see me commit myself to this church.
However, about eight weeks ago I was approached by a pair of pleasant-looking young sister missionaries at the mall while leaving the gym. Although I was sore and tired and just wanted to go home, I couldn’t resist stopping to speak with them. We had a conversation about what I believed about the Book of Mormon, and about my research into, and interest in, the church. They invited me to attend services with the local Young Single Adults ward that upcoming Sunday, and I accepted. I decided that this would probably be my last opportunity to sincerely immerse myself into the church, at least on a provisional basis, and see what my experience would be. I also, for reasons I’ll keep personal, saw this as at least possibly an answer to prayers I’d offered not too long ago. Since that day, I have consistently attended Sunday church services (both the sacrament meeting and the subsequent scripture discussion sessions, where I’ve been an active participant even since my first week of attendance as an “investigator” of the faith) and plan to continue doing so. I have successfully given up coffee (not caffeine entirely, although I’m actively working to reduce my daily caffeine consumption and dependence) and pornography. (I had already drastically decreased my alcohol consumption, so reducing it even further to zero has been trivially easy.) I’ve attended various social events organized by the ward, which has allowed me to ensconce myself into a community of bright, wholesome, surprisingly-mature and well-grounded young people. I finally decided that baptism is the next important step — a costly signal of my escalating commitment.
It is difficult for me to articulate the reasons for my decision in a way that would meet the intellectual standards of this forum. I still have many of the same doubts I did before accepting baptism; I still don’t believe that the Book of Mormon is a historically-accurate description of real events that took place in the pre-Columbian Americas. (Rather, I currently believe that it is an allegorical text, intended by God to usher in a new dispensation by providing a scriptural text which would be narratively and intellectually compelling to the specific audience to which He intended it to be presented, given their particular interests, level of historical understanding, and literary/religious frame of reference.) I still have a lot of questions about Joseph Smith’s character, intentions, and leadership qualities. I’m still working on wrapping my mind around what it actually means to aspire to live a Christ-like existence; toward what political/philosophical positions and actions does this obligate me? There are, however, many elements of Mormon theology and the Mormon lifestyle which appeal very strongly to me. (Ideas about the Plan of Salvation and the nature of the afterlife being chief among the theological appeals, and the sexual conservatism being the primary secular/lifestyle appeal.) I was strongly influenced and encouraged by a post a few months ago by @2rafa — arguably my favorite poster here, and the one with whom I probably feel the greatest degree of intellectual and personality kinship — in which she implored people here to embrace the benefits of a loving and welcoming religious community and to try hard not to ruin the experience by thinking too deeply and skeptically about the inner workings of the theology. I decided that if she could do it, I should probably try to see if I could as well. So far it has been more enriching than I could have imagined.
Over the coming weeks I will undergo the rites of the lay priesthood common to all male members of the church, set myself up to begin automatically tithing, and begin working towards obtaining a “temple recommend” allowing me to enter LDS temple buildings. I am actively working on finding a spouse with whom I can raise a family; I’ve already been on a lovely date with an intelligent and creative woman (one of the few female members of the ward somewhat close to my age, as most are closer to 18-20) and have another one already arranged. I expect at least a few of these people to become long-term friends. I don’t know what else to expect in terms of how this will affect my life trajectory, what will be asked of me, etc. All I know is that right now I am finally beginning to taste what it might be like to truly believe that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me, that my Redeemer lives, and that he has provided me with a way to dwell with Him eternally along with my loved ones.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
9mo ago
I struggle to think of a practical justification for this policy.
It could be a plan to purge the military of Muslims. (And Sikhs, although I imagine they’d just be collateral damage.)
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
Wheel of Fish from UHF
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
Clearly trying to accelerate our national Cold Civil War into a Hot War.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
But I do consider the argument that "this other behavior I engage is inconsistent with someone who hates [x]" as fully discredited, because it's neither engaging with the actual accusation nor engaging with the reality of cognitive dissonance.
Which “actual accusation” are you referring to? I obviously agree that the expansion of “hatred” to mean “supports policy positions which are less-than-maximally-optimal for some specific group” is a transparently bogus rhetorical trick.
Therefore, I am simply refusing to engage with it at all, and instead sticking to an intuitive definition of “hatred”: i.e. sustained negative emotions toward a particular individual or group, desire to see that individual or group come to harm, an aversion to interpersonal interactions with that individual or group, a belief that the individual or group is bad/harmful/obnoxious, etc. Under this understanding of hatred, it would take a pretty mighty and resolute level of cognitive dissonance to intentionally form a long-term intimate relationship with a member of the hated group. Yes, people are capable of cognitive dissonance, but for most people cognitive dissonance is resolved over time.
In the case of a [person who hates white men, married to a white man], that dissonance could be resolved in one of two directions: either the positive qualities of the white spouse, and the continued exposure to positive interactions with the spouse’s white family members and social circles would erode the degree of “hatred” felt by the anti-white spouse over time; or the relationship would break down over time as the white spouse emergent displays the qualities which the anti-white spouse suspected whites of possessing in the first place, or the friction involved with sustained aversive reactions with the white spouse’s white family and friends would cause the anti-white spouse to develop aversive emotions toward the white spouse, even if none were present at the start of the relationship.
Since Kamala has been married to Doug Emhoff for 11 years, presumably even if she hated white men when they got married, she doesn’t anymore. If she still did, I find it highly unlikely that the “compartmentalization” or “cognitive dissonance” which you propose exists would long ago have broken down and some inciting incident or slow buildup of aversive incidents would have caused the breakdown of the relationship.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
In an American context, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews are white, have always been white, and have never been considered anything other than white. One silver lining of America having so many laws throughout its history clearly delineating who counts as white and who doesn’t (which was relevant for determining things like who got to marry whom, who got access to which parts of public infrastructure, and even at times who was considered for citizenship) is that we can see exactly who counted as white and who didn’t! In the South, for example, there is a very long history of Jewish businessmen and slave traders, as well as Jewish politicians (such as Judah P. Benjamin, a member of the Confederate States Cabinet) which could not have been the case in such a racially-stratified society if those men were not universally recognized as white!
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
But, I'll reiterate, I've never actually observed this happening anywhere.
You are observing it right now, in this very conversation. And in fact you have observed it many times; the entire reason that progressives had to invent this galaxy-brain contrarian psychobabble you’re regurgitating is because so many normal people intuitively recognized that someone who hates X is actually pretty unlikely to form a long-term intimate relationship with an X. This view has not been “discredited”. It remains true, and you have let Social Science™️ enjoyers gaslight you into believing that “Oh, everyone knows that’s been discredited.” It has not! The contrarian critical theory take is actually just wrong!
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
I don't think I've ever seen being married to [x] as being genuinely interpreted as evidence against hatred against [x].
Sure you have. In fact it seems like a very strong piece of evidence against hatred.
You’re repeating a lot of progressive psychobabble, but the on-the-ground reality is that in the vast majority of cases, an individual who is motivated by a generalized hatred of a particular group is very unlikely to marry a member of that group. This is highly intuitive because of what marriage usually entails. You are not just marrying an atomized individual; you are marrying into a family, a social sphere, an inherited community, etc. By marrying a (Jewish) white man, Kamala committed to spending the next decades of her life surrounded by his white in-laws, his white friends, his white children from a previous marriage, the mostly white people who are part of whatever hobbies and social spaces he inhabits, etc.
Presumably Kamala Harris was not facing the binary choice of A) marry Doug Emhoff or B) die alone. She could have had her pick of plenty of well-placed non-white men. The fact that she chose Emhoff, knowing that by doing so she’d be inviting a large number of white men to become intimately involved with her life, is a pretty strong indicator that she does not in fact hate white men, does not want to limit the number of white men in her life, etc.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
my impression was that she genuinely hates white men
I loathe Kamala as much as anyone here and have said so many times, but this seems like an odd accusation given that she’s married to a white man.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
Linda Sarsour, perhaps?
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
jeans are real practical and comfortable
Jeans are absolutely not “American red tribe culture.” They were invented by two Jewish immigrants in San Francisco, and popularized as casual wear by urban greasers in the 1950s and 1960s.
country music is easy to inculturate and you can dance to it, etc.
This is only true if you strip it of much of the sociocultural content that was central to country music for much of its existence. The oeuvre of Conway Twitty is not global dance music. Country can only be made into a global commodity by converting it into “generically lower-middle-class music with aspirationally-American characteristics.”
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
He seems formidable! The puzzle-making background seems to really help him on wordplay categories, anagrams, etc.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
The soft bigotry of low expectations.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
Imagine the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys had just been murdered by a deranged Eagles fan.
When @FiveHourMarathon finally snaps and takes things too far, your comment will be used to link this site to stochastic terrorism.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
On the other hand, shows that have LONG outlived their relevance (IMHO) like Jeopardy
How so? At the very least, Jeopardy! will (and must) remain relevant until I’ve had my opportunity to compete on the show. And then, if I do well enough to be invited to any future in-show tournaments, its relevance will continue going strong indefinitely.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
I’m not trying to do a gotcha. I’m pointing out that a specific claim you made was wildly overblown. I’m not trying to be insightful or even attack the edifice of your post in any holistic way. I’m literally just focused on that specific claim, which I think was inaccurate.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
You made an over-broad claim, I countered it with actual evidence, and now you’re acting flabbergasted that I took your claim seriously enough to refute it, instead of treating it like the empty bluster it apparently was.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
I did read the contents. There are many of the Columbine-style mass shootings nestled in there among the personal beefs. Again, do you acknowledge that things like Kerch Polytechnic, Kazan, and Izhevsk (just to name three from Russia alone) are Columbine-style school shootings?
How about the École Polytechnic shooting in Montreal, which happened before Columbine? Or the Dawson College shooting, also in Montreal? Or the La Loche shootings in Saskatchewan?
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
Before Columbine, nobody had ever heard of a school shooting, so nobody did school shootings (and even today, outside America, nobody does them).
This is, of course, plainly false. Here’s a list of school shootings in Europe, another list from Canada, and one from Brazil. Russia alone has had a number of notable school shootings, including the Kerch Polytechnic shooting and the Kazan school shooting/bombing.
I didn’t say that this list is why I got baptized. But if I’m trying to justify/explain the decision to people who are totally uninterested in any non-secular reasons, it makes sense to actually take stock of what is happening on a secular level.
That being said, I will openly admit that I have no interest in “hating the world”, nor in spending my every waking hour preparing for the afterlife. I don’t actually believe that this is what Jesus demands of me, and if it is, then I’m going to fail to live up to his demands. I do think the things of the world, including the works of man in the material world, are beautiful and important and meaningful and worth preserving. I’m not especially concerned with the prospect of a rapture that will sweep away the civilizations of men and totally remake the world; I will leave that for future people who will be around for it to consider more closely. I think there are benefits to trying to check my own animal instincts by weighing them against the example of Christ-like charity and temperance, but I certainly do not plan to sell all of my possessions and forsake all material desire, as seemingly demanded by the Jesus of the Gospels.
More options
Context Copy link