LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
No bio...
User ID: 657
Unfortunately it's just extremely difficult to reconcile modern scientific knowledge with old religious worldviews. I think what many religious people, especially on this forum, miss is that for many agnostics or athiests it's not that they don't want to believe, rather that they find it practically impossible to believe in a religion which demands they lay down the rules of science and empiricism.
Only because of an implicit scientism that is pervasive in our society, which is particularly popular among liberal atheistic/agnostic types. I can't speak for every religion but the Catholic Church believes that there is no conflict between (Catholic Christian) religion and science, a belief I share.
The issue with this scientism is really quite obvious when you ask a straight-forward question: is all knowledge (or all truths) discernable via science or the scientific method? The answer to this question to me is clearly no, and that some truths (e.g. moral truths) cannot be discerned through science, and this enters the realm of philosophy and ultimately religion or faith. Many a philosopher has attempted derive moral truths through scientific/materialist means (including atheist star Sam Harris, if we want to call him a philosopher), but these projects inevitably end up as failures trying to square the circle. The alternative is moral nihilism and a completely materialist outlook, but very few atheists seem to actually want to bite that bullet.
Many philosophers have identified religion has giving rise to science in the first place. Because at the most basic, fundamental level, believe in natural science assumes a priori that that reality is ordered and knowable, a proposition one must take on faith.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
How do men benefit more from marriage and what research are you referring to?
Keeping in mind that men are uniquely screwed over by divorce/family courts and that ~80% of divorces are intiated by women (of the top of my head).
This line on Russia also seems a bit paradoxical: the demand seems to be that the US treat Russia as an equal (it wasn't; they lost) but also that the US is responsible for Russia's economic and political malaise , as if it was a vassal or occupied state like Japan or South Korea (which, btw, didn't just uncritically bow to neoliberal policy- if a small Asian country could forge a smarter path...)
It's not paradoxical because I never used the word equal. As with all the other times, I commented on this issue on the Motte, I will say that Russia is and can only ever be a regional power in its current state. I used the word 'partnership' which does not require equal status. This is contrast to 'hegemony' which this absolutely the approach the US has taken in this region and many others. As to the issue of America's responsibility to the current political and economic status of Russia, I strongly recommend reading "Russia's Road to Corruption" a US Congressional report on the issue from the year 2000. At best, you can say this was the result of gross incompetence by the Clinton administration and their economic advisors. At worst, it wouldn't be remiss to believe that that Clinton administration's policies were actively malicious. At some level, it's hard to distinguish between the two.
I strongly disagree. This position presupposes that the Russians are/were a siginificant geopolitical threat to American interests, and ignores the decades of prior American foreign policy that led to this postion in the first place i.e. in some sense, the US is just 'solving' a foreign policy crisis it created in the first place.
The first is an issue because Russian geopolitical interests since the crisis of the 90s have been strictly regional, limit to Eastern Europe (and not even all of it), Central Asia and not much else. These are areas of relatively little interest or importance to the US, other than the mostly ideological (but not much else) goal of "democratising" the former Iron Curtain. Even if the idea is to somehow stop the "domino effect" of a resurgent Russia controlling Eastern Europe (a pretty unlikely scenario relying on some questionable assumptions) the reality is that Russia is not capable of excerting global influence even if it were to gain control of much of the former Soviet Union/Russian Empire. It's economy is weak, population dwindling, technology stagnant. It would take many decades of miracles for Russia to ever develop the power and influence to be a serious global player as it once was. The US has spent a lot of time, money, manpower and lives that could be been used elsewherte.
Second, the US has deliberately (or at least intentionally failed to avoid) developing an antagonistic relationship with Russia in the first place after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the first place. There was originally a real sense of optimism in the 90s for reconciliation between Russia and the US which was ultimately sabotaged (intentionally or not) by US actions which I have described in a previous comment on the Motte. US economic foreign policy towards Russia in the 90s is partially responsible for the creation of Putin's Russia in the first place. So it can be argued that the US, even if they are enjoying a geopolitical success with Ukraine, mostly just solving a problem they contributed to.
Third, even if Russia is weakened or neutralised by Ukrainian victory (whatever that entails), it's not exactly clear to me that will result in geopolitical success in the long term. The elephant in the room is China. A weakened Russia will almost certainly turn to Chinese patronage for support and protection, which would be a disaster for the US, give that China is that actual global geopolitical rival, not Russia. Even before this war, US antagonism towards Russia caused strange bedfellows as it pushed Russia and China together, two countries who have competing interests in Central Asia and would probably be weakly competing rather than weakly cooperating as they are now. If the concern is that the USA shouldn't cooperate/should be antagonistc to Russia on (liberal democratic) principle, fair enough, though I will point out that's not an issue with other counties and allies, most obviously Saudi Arabia. There are so a lot of actual really bad outcomes that could result from Russian collapse, including but no limited to: the rise of an extremist ideology in Russia, nukes being used (either by current Russia or successor state) the increase of global terrorism, including Islamic terrorism, based in Russian territory.
Lastly, it's not even clear if the US has gained any clear long term economic advantage. Yes, other countries have become more dependent on US gas exports, which is good for US gas industry, but this ignores the huge damage the supply chain and economic disruption has caused to the global economy, including the US (broken window fallacy?). Maybe the US gains a relative economic advantage over China (probably not significantly if at all), even if US citizens have to suffer for it. Increased dependency on US gas might also be short lived, because the lack of cheap Russian gas has renewed efforts in Europe and elsewhere to seek alternative forms of energy, though it remains to be seen how that plays out.
Links to a couple of relevant comments of mine on the topic of feminism from the last Reddit CW thread that got buried.
I think what is lacking in this comment thread is an acknowledgement of male outgroup bias and female ingroup bias (there are quite a large number of studies that measure the core phenomenon, it's highly reproducible). Men are very strange in being perhaps the only (innate/biologically defined) social group to not have a ingroup bias. Men have a more favourable perception of women than they do of other men. While it's possible this is simply a consequence of modern gender ideology, this finding largely holds in cross-cultural studies, including in illiberal, "patriarchal" cultures. There's also circumstantial evidence from history, e.g. chivalric codes and courtly love. Men have an innate psychological need to want to protect, provide and care for women. To put it, men have a predisposition towards "simping" for women. This can manifest in different ways, such as extreme paternalism towards women, or liberalism towards women, depending on the circumstances.
The counterbalance to this effect was essentially nature. The world was a very dangerous place (and still is in many parts of the world), and the danger and the risks present in the world would naturally limit the roles and activity of women, from childbirth to hunting to political leadership. Security is preferred over liberty for women, by both men and women. As my linked comments and other commenters have already mentioned, modern technology, medicine, industrialisation and modernity generally changed this balance and there was no longer a natural counterbalance to men's innate desire to provide for women, and they began to do so in a maladaptive way. After modernity also destroyed the female role, women began feeling empty and resentful, blaming men of course, who were have always to provide for them, tend to their emotional needs and fix issues. If something is wrong, it's men's fault one way or another! Men lacking an ingroup bias means that most men were pretty content to go along with the demonisation of men too. Thus you have all the ingredients for feminism.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1mo ago
On the one hand, the US public appears to be overwhelmingly favoring Israel over Hamas (>80%), but I am not sure if this means as much as Israel's supporters claim. I've seen many pro-Palestinians and anti-Zionists denounce Hamas for other reasons and I got the sense that not all of them were for sake of optics.
It really fustrates me to no end how many pro-Israel hawks present a false dichotomy between Israel and Hamas, and imply Palestine is necessarily synonymous with Hamas. It doesn't even make sense as a direct comparison - it really should be Israel and Palestine. It's incredibly disingenuous.
Apparently, the Israel-Palestine conflict only began in 2005 with the creation of Hamas. It was all peaceful before that.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
There's a trend I've notice in the last couple of years where progressive/woke media will decry cancel culture, while at the same time completely ignoring the progressive/woke origin of cancel culture. They portray it as something that happens at random with no political or ideological impetus (or at least not for woke reasons).
I'm not sure why they do this, I suspect it's to poison the well or pre-empt criticism of the woke due to cancel culture by superficially criticising it themselves.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
I addressed most of your points in my original post. Ukraine isn't of real important to US interests, but the US has made it important to them for some (ideological) reason.
Calling Russia an existential threat to the US is ridiculous. How are they an exetential threat exactly? The only way I can see this as realistic is Russia a nuclear power - but then war and antagonism only increases the likelihood of nuclear exchange, not decreases it.
If Russia did not exist, the USA would try to create a Russia.
This is a good point, but this pivots the argument from "beating up Russia is good because Russia is an actual serious threat" to "beating up Russia is good because it's a scare tactic to keep the Europeans under American influence". It also basically concedes the point that Russia is an enemy of the US's own making. Although, I'm not really sure how important keeping the Europeans on tight American leash is given that the future geopolitical battle ground is primarily East and South-East Asia.
As for their cooperation with China, that is already occurring
Yes, but it wasn't occuring 25 years ago, but began occuring as a result of the deliberate antagonism towards Russia from the US over this period. That was my point - there is easily an alternate reality where Russia and China are instead regional rivals rather them cooperating as they are now.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
but their current solution is probably something like a dead-simple "no divorce allowed" stance.
How many prominent conservatives (particularly politicans) openly advocate for getting rid of no-fault divorce?
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
I'm not claiming Australian democracy is perfect, nor that there is nothing to criticise in the conduct of the Australian government in recent years (there is plenty to criticise in American democracy yet people still believe in the ideal). But I do think that Parliament House does reflect Australian political values that I value - including egalitarianism (in the general, not modern left sense), the 'fair go' for all.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
9mo ago
I also have sympathy for that view, and it's refreshing to see the discussion around religion evolve from 'religion is stupid and holding us back from rational utopia' to 'religion does have some real social utility'. However, it's hard for me to take this claim of wanting to believe seriously from some people who make this claim when I see a dismissal of all metaphysics out of hand from those same people, from what I believe is not from a serious consideration of metaphysics but a reflexive dismissal of anything that isn't materialist (scientism).
At the same time, I see a lot of what I'll perhaps uncharitably describe as 'playing' at atheism. That is, a refusal to engage with the actual consequences or logic conclusion of atheism, as outlined by philosophers like Nietzsche and Sartre - perhaps because the conclusion is so undesirable. Instead, we see this glossy and superficial atheism professed by the New Atheists, whose critics I think quite rightly point out are attacking Christianity while relying on an underlying implicit Christian morality in practice. They profess a rationalistic/scientific approach to moral issues which I think is a fool's errand - the scientism I was criticising in my original post.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
11mo ago
Sure, it was not incredibly likely, but it was still a much greater chance than anything happening for women.
Does it just not occur to people anymore that maybe women don't want the exact same things out of life as men?
I find it interesting that the historical female figure that is perhaps best known and fantasised about by women is Cleopatra. A figure who has entered the public conciousness as a master seductress and manipulator of men (albeit one that met a tragic end).
Why is it so many women today adore and imagine themselves as Marilyn Monroe, and very few as Madeleine Albright?
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
11mo ago
This is a pretty obvious weakman. The steelman is that Nuland being involved in an region is indictative of larger US interest and involvement in the region, of which Nuland herself is just one part of the effort. It's not like Nuland is acting by herself, a one woman agency - there are powerful USA agencies and actors as part of the foreign policy apparatus.
If you marry your ideology to claims that animals aren't sapient, are stupid, are incapable of reason, aren't conscious, you're... well I think you're just already wrong based on things I've seen animals do in life and studies.
Those things are true. Animals aren't capable of reason, they aren't sapient (which is distinct from sentience). Animals are incapable of making moral judgements, asking and dealing with abstract concepts.
Like sure, a crow can pick up a stick and use it get some food from a puzzle box. That doesn't make the crow capable of reason.
There has been I think general push to present animals as capable of human like reason, to the point of fraudulent science. Infamously Koko the sign language-using gorilla's abilities were highly misrepresented to the point of fraud. Even our nearest, smartest primate cousins are incapable of human reason. They can't learn grammar, they can't understand abstract concepts, no matter how much researchs tried to make it appear so.
In some sense I would say your argument has an even less stable intellectual foundation. It's basically 'humans have power over animals, so whatever we say goes'. This argument is just weak as as if you were apply it to humans - "justice is the advantage of the stronger" or "might makes right".
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
5mo ago
If you just take the Pauline letters as the orthodoxy in the early Church, which it was and still is, there's virtually nothing disagreeable (modern progressivism notwithstanding)
The point of my original post is not to 'attack' atheists, but rather quite the opposite, rather to reconcile belief in science and belief in religion (or belief in God in the general sense). I only 'attack' atheists insofar as I am arguing against scientism which atheists may or may not believe in. Even then, 'attacking' is a pretty uncharitable description of arguing against something.
I think part of the rhetorical divide is that atheists implicitly think that 'faith' is a dirty word. I don't have such a view of the word or meaning behind faith. When I use the word 'faith' here, I'm being quite sincere.
You're also skipping a step with your stand-in empiricist - the empiricist has to first believe it is possible to observe the ordered and knowable universe in first place, and the observations he's make necessary correspond to an objective reality and not, say, it's all in his head to be a bit facetious. This axiomatic foundation is completely foundational religious thought (i.e. a belief in God), and one might argue tends to believe or even necessarily leads to belief in God. This is what Christians mean by God being Logos and God's Logos - that there is an inherent order/structure to the universe and this structure is discernable by Reason (which is one of the possible ways of translating of Logos along with Word). God is identified with this inherent (divine) structure of the universe.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
If you could wave a magic wand to establish some collective norm to improve this situation, what would you do?
Unironically, as I say this as a pretty unobservant/lapsed Catholic, make everyone go to church. Alternatively, some substitute secular social club that theoretically fulfils a similar socializing role, but realistically this doesn't work, no matter how much atheists believe they can construct secular equivalents of the social role the religion plays.
Students are barely taught how to read and write in English (as an example, one couldn't spell "America") and the state requirements are effectively optional or used as a study hall.
So they're performing about as well as the rest of New York then?
Lame jokes aside, New York has the second lowest literacy rate of any state in the US, behind California. Rough a quarter of all New York adults are (functionally illiterate), though this depends on how one defines illiteracy. Focusing on the Hasidic Jews at this point seems remarkably short sighted, when much of the rest of the education system in New York is performing just as poorly, and state education funding to public schools is similarly siphoned away to administrators and DEI enforcers and all other sorts non-educational processes.
Maybe if the public school system in New York was more functional there would be a leg to stand on. Obviously, there is a cultural ethno-religious element to the Hasidic Jewish education that is not present in the public school system needs that should be addressed (although... woke influence on the education system does have some eerie similarities). But it's hard to single them out for change while so much of the rest of the public education system is just as, if not more, dysfunctional. At least self-isolation of the Hasidic Jews means their poor educational outcomes don't have wider negative social consequences as public schools do.
OTOH, for 99% of women, even well-off educated women, what's the thing they can fantasize about doing in 1740's France, Sweden during the Viking Era, or the height of the Roman Empire?
Yeah, it's a real shame there's exactly zero noteworthy women who affected any political or social change before the 19th century or so. I can't think of a single one.
Yes I am being sarcastic. There are obviously plenty of women throughout history have 'done stuff', which can and does serve has historical fantasy fodder for women (assuming they want to identify with women who take on a masculine role, which liberal feminist society does want them to).
To go on a slight tangent, it's both endlessly frustrating and amusing how feminists on one hand will decry the past as an oppressive patriarchy where women were treated little more than slaves, and on the other hand constantly laud historical female figures (Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great random Viking "Valkyries" buried with their weapons etc etc) for being powerful and influential, and seeing no contradiction there.
The feminist try to patch this over this inconsistence with some post-hoc justifications, usually some just-so justification that these were exceptional women that somehow managed to break the chains of patriarchy (despite it literally being a universal phenomenon), though it's remarkable how common these 'exceptions' are. The craziest feminist explanation of this was that men occasionally allowed a very small handful of women to rise to the top as a conspiracy to better help them subjugate women... as for why women just didn't subjugate all women to begin was unclear.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
I mean, I agree with your point about Putin but I'm not sure why people are insistent or implying that the US has been actively seeking peace in contrast. The foreign policy of the US for the last thirty or so years (at the very least in this region) has be pursing unreleting, antagonistic hegemony.
So sure, maybe the US was not actively seeking war, but at best they weren't really taking efforts to ensure peaceble relations either.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
I find this interesting in light of an ongoing debate about cthulhu theory: Whether new leftist causes are relatively obvious consequences of general principles that have already been driving the movement for a long time, or have more short-term cynical explanations. I lean towards the former and think this example supports that
A while ago, I had a thought. God granted humanity stewardship over nature. Humans are above nature and have a responsibility towards nature for this reason. But you remove God, and that's all good. Then you only have two logical conclusions. That humans are no better than animals, and that animals are raised to the same status as humans. I think that trend and this article are examples of both of that.
I used the term 'God' generally here. For any metaphysical doctrine that similarly gives special status to humans the argument stays the same. If you adopt a purely materialist or naturalist outlook it's hard not to reach the conclusion that human are no different or better than animals.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
I don’t think the US can be exhausted.
I would just say Iraq and Afghanistan.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
Pretty much anyone who ruffles their feathers gets called a reactionary, or some similar term. Including DeBoer.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
7mo ago
More and more young men are deciding to defect from a combination of pure lust mixed with either anger at the world, rejection of God and/or other religions, rejection from women they can't emotionally process, or all three at the same time.
To be fair, it wasn't men who defected first, men are finally playing catchup after women have been defecting for the last 60 years and men have finally realised that women aren't going to stop defecting. Unfortunately everyone is worse for it.
Not fuck up Russia in the first place with the Clinton administration's disasterious attempt to 'reform' a post-Soviet Russia and seek partnership instead of hegemony? Agree to a healthy buffer zone in Eastern Europe? Not create and amplify the various revolutions in Eastern Europe, including the various 'Color Revolutions', and more recently and relevantly the heavy American involvement in Euromaidan and Ukrainian politics generally? Not deliberately antagonize Russia by constantly demanding Ukraine and Georgia should be admitted into NATO (despite their questionable strategic value) the same way the US would never tolerate a country in their immediate sphere (Monroe Doctrine) to ally with a hostile power (e.g. China or Russia) let alone one on their border?
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