Tanista
1yr ago
Not just Christians. There's the claim that Jews think Ezra is the son of God that people have puzzled over since.
The likely reason is that the author didn't have the Bible in front of him but was going off oral tradition (which explains the stew of both canonical sources and apocryphal ones, and straight up legendary elements or how the Qur'an could conflate two Marys). Reynolds also suggests that the author is weighing in on theological debates nearby churches had, things could have become extra garbled by disagreement by the time they got to the author.
Are you sure about this? I've been doing a bunch of research on Plato for personal reasons recently, and this really doesn't match up with what he seemed to believe. From my reading of ancient religions, I get the impression that a lot of ancient people understood religious myths as metaphorical, and they most definitely understood the importance of symbols and symbolic meanings - just look at the Eleusinian mysteries.
The people and faith clearly could think metaphorically or as God as a transcendent being before Islam.
@MaiqTheTrue is probably right in the sense that if you wanted to pick up the canonical texts and not run into an embodied God you'd fail with the OT and NT (assuming Jesus is God). They have a lot of language about an embodied God - just as they have more transcendent visions - because the books were written over a long time and don't agree with each other or even themselves.
Islam as a late redaction that emphasizes strict monotheism can cut out a lot of the embarrassing references (when the author even knows about them). It polemicizes against the other religions because of this too. Qur'an 5:75 rejects the deification of Jesus and Mary (why Mary is added is a question for another day) by pointing out that they can't be deities because they "both ate food".
This isn't going to phase any Christian that believes in the Trinity and Jesus' nature as both man and God and you'd think the divine author of the Qur'an would know that but w/e.
Weaponizing what is actually a very useful soft power tool against your new allies after one online disagreement is right up there with other "Elite Human Capital" moves like offering a solution to save some trapped kids, then calling someone closer to the situation a pedophile because he disagreed.
Can't believe Hanania has successfully sold "being an asshole on Twitter" as a sign of EHC.
Elon is a thin-skinned narcissist. Which is fine. But his new political project relies on maintaining an alliance with an even bigger one. Going around de-verifying Trump acolytes over some bullshit is not probably not a good play.
Tanista
1yr ago
I also don't know how "nerd representation" is in any way lacking in recent US media.
who had the resolve to cross oceans to seek a better life.
It's a nice story but the world has changed. Oceans have shrunk, they're now about three podcasts - or a good-sized audiobook on double speed - wide. On top of that, people have way more access to their original society than in the past. This works for America, in terms of how many people are Americanized, but it doesn't just work for America.
The world is smaller, more nations are willing to cater to expats looking for a low tax rate.
America is still the best deal on the table and shows every indication of remaining so (so they're net importers of the Sunaks and Scheers of the world) but there are substantial differences from whatever idealized sort of migration or migrants from the good old days you're appealing to.
Lots of surface area to attack though. Things have clearly not gone as well for archaeologists hoping to prove the Exodus which early modern biblical archaeology was all about. Now you have modern historians like Dever so embarrassed by even the name they want to be called "Syro-Palestinian” archaeologists"
A lot of the Old Testament is in someone's crosshairs. YMMV on how much that kicks Christianity's legs out from under it. A lot of people just deal with it.
Roman civilization was able to grow and succeed prior to Christianity
It expanded, for sure. Usually though, when I see people argue Christianity is pro-growth they mean in modern terms: Christianity (allegedly), through mechanisms like banning child marriage and insisting on monogamy created societies stable enough to function as market economies that advanced to an unprecedented level.
I feel pretty confident in saying you'll never get a majority of people to "believe" in Christianity in this ridiculous and performative way
Yeah, I've never been able to get past Paul's question of the value the things he subjected himself to to spread the the faith if Jesus be not risen.
A faith isn't just words. It's motivation. Peterson seems to be the sort of person capable of the effortful control of maintaining his Christian code regardless of whether we find some early source tomorrow that vitiates Jesus' divinity.
How scalable is this? How many people got the short end of the stick when it comes to conscientiousness who would be kept in check by strong social norms and a bone-deep fear of roasting in hell but not any of more loosey-goosey stuff? "Do this or burn in hell" can be understood by anyone. Once you start quoting Chesterton your audience shrinks.
But maybe it's because my background is in Islam. I've found it incredibly difficult to fulfill even a few of the pillars without faith motivating me. I'm not praying 5 times a day or fasting in perhaps the worst and most annoying way I can think of if I don't think it's for something. The omnipresence of Arabic certainly doesn't help. It sounds nice but a lot of the time you have to bring your own context to things.
I suppose it's much easier for Protestants. (On the other hand, maybe this doesn't bode well for cultural Christians when it comes time to sacrifice. Maybe they're just putting it off)
Tanista
1yr ago
Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher most likely. Specific individual beliefs were not unique. The faith created by him and his followers though, has been argued by at least some scholars to be very distinct in the ancient world. because of its combination of bookishness, strong moral rules and evangelism. Certainly in terms of its ability to motivate certain forms of behavior.
The idea of God being man and the importance of his crucifixion or him incarnating as the least of us, for example, is likely a response by his followers to his actual brutal death. Which would make it specific to him.
Tanista
1yr ago
What's the "good point" here? This is just the conservative heatmap meme with some liberal keywords thrown in.
In fact, most "owns" on abortion in particular tend to be insipid. Not sure why.
Perhaps that's a sign that there's a deep disagreement we can't resolve beneath it all. So all owns must caricature the opponent or be unsatisfying since they can't fully resolve the issue with the level of certainty and decisiveness desired.
If I had to find something about it to nitpick, the only thing I can come up with is that the people who usually resent the patriarchy, condescension and political incorrectness are normally suburban middle-class college-educated white liberal culture warriors and their mulatto allies of similar backgrounds
I mean, you could also argue that most people who buy into these sorts of ideas don't relinquish their "privilege" either, despite rhetorical concessions.
In fact, they use these concessions to better abuse their less enlightened fellow citizens. You'd think a pastor would be aware of the issues around ostentatious piety.
Or that well-meaning but ultimately harmful policy is not a good idea for governments. No matter what Christians do in their private life.
Tanista
1yr ago
Things like the fertility crisis that make it harder to bounce back (and act as a justification for migration) seem to predate people lying about black women inventing telescopes.
Tanista
1yr ago
I mean, in part, it goes to back to some things I said about "DEI" not being about diversity per se, but about raising up the most questionable unqualified people deliberately. Because they fundamentally don't believe in merit, or accomplishment at all.
I have been thinking of it more and more as a vastly less consequential form of a third world country just grabbing all of the farmland or positions on the grounds that the privileged stole it and things will run just fine when others are given their chance. Except we're redistributing glory instead of material assets. Which makes sense given the sort of person interested in this sort of thing.
At least when it goes wrong no one starves or gets shot.
I do disagree with you on Harris though. I think there was just no one else Biden could have picked that fit the demographic criteria he decided he wanted. It's not "deliberately pick the worst person" it's "set up criteria you can't meet given the number of qualified candidates in that class then shoehorn whoever you have into the niche"
As for Walz, they really did seem to believe that a "weird" lying sitcom dad was positive masculinity. That and Shapiro was apparently not as deferential as they wanted. (Which makes sense; if you're jumping on a sinking ship you should be compensated for the risk. All of the celebrities were)
Tanista
1yr ago
Speaking of Civilization: has anyone played The Old World? How's it?
I dipped out of the genre around the end of Civ 5 but it looks attractive as a Civ clone with some CK2 elements.
shame (less powerful in a more atomised society)
Welfare itself makes it less powerful.
More Daniel Pennys or Kyle Rittenhouses can't magic up a high trust society. They're mainly useful in showing the insane behavior of agovernment that abdicated responsibility and then punished anyone that refused to be preyed on.
The government just has to do its job and enforce order. But apparently that's too much to ask for a variety of reasons.
Tanista
1yr ago
Definitely not the one idea I'd expect to see grow in strength from my admittedly cursory undergrad study, and definitely much later than any example I could think of.
Thanks!
Tanista
1yr ago
I'm 98% sure it's this Graham Factor piece:Earl Warren's greatest mistake?
What was the last big win for this state-sponsored critical reflection?
It's bad but those people are doing science and are subject to review so we are least have some idea when they stray. In theory.
How many people pick up "truthy" ideas from these courses and then just disappear from the perspective of the academy when they graduate and carry those ideas into daily life? How do you count those people or subject their views to some sort of objective discipline?
Tanista
1yr ago
The disillusionment is also just half the issue. The people who haven't become disillusioned may also be suffering direct damage from absorbing whatever fashionable stuff is coming out of academia.
Kamala lost women and minorities relative to 2020
Can't overestimate the body blow of losing Latinos to a guy they've been trying to protect Latinos from since he came off the elevator escalator. Total narrative collapse.
Only thing worse would be losing black people. That'd be existential.
Tanista
1yr ago
"Men" and "white people" are not cabals. They are not coordinated, possibly clandestine (relatively) small groups with a shared goal. They're just...populations.
When progressives talk about, for example, "white flight" they do not generally frame it as behavior driven by some small set of elites. It's driven by a mix of inherited inequities and certain biases and attitudes towards black people across the white population as a whole. That is what they blame.
Otherwise the career of someone like Robin DiAngelo makes no sense and is in fact, an act of sadism. They target normal people for retraining on the grounds that normal people - who know nothing about any coordinated racist plan - and their biases matter.
Tanista
1yr ago
Silly poster, he should have known that the only acceptable way to speak of shadowy cabals is to give them a name like "the patriarchy" or "systemic racism"
Leftists will immediately say that they don't think of those as cabals.
They claim a set of structures and incentives that cause people to act in certain ways. Which structures? Which incentives? Well, varies depending on the phenomenon. Or maybe all of them
They're closer to constructs like aether trying to fill in a hole in a mechanical understanding of the world than claims about Jews or elites in a smoky room.
What's even "the education system" in a notoriously poor and fractured country? It's not like everyone was going to some full K12 thing paid for by the US.
The US could totally win over everyone in a large circle around Kabul and still end up losing the war.
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