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					joined 2022 September 10 13:41:19 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 4, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What does this mean?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
kiwifarms.st the .pl domain was seized by a german provider.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Renaissance Europe is a very obvious example of a civilization which was both very scientifically/technologically advanced, and also deeply interested in religious/devotional matters




Intellectual work in renaissance europe was very different from today, the primary mode of argumentation was appeal to authority: they "knew" earth was spherical because aristotle said so, they "knew" it like they "knew" that nerves connected to the heart (not the brain), that planets were carried by large solid spheres of quintessence and that heavy objects fell faster.


They were doing "science" (the word is anachronistic in this context, but whatever) the same way they were doing theology: commentary on a small corpus of approved authors that were assumed to be nearly infallible and to contain the totality of all possible knowledge. It's no wonder that intellectual work and religiosity was compatible.


The cathedrals are beautiful but they are also not designed by intellectuals but by semi-literate head masons. And, tbh, when you understand why all the flying buttresses are really there they start to look kind of ugly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


this or something close to this might be right




Seriously? Sarah Palin was 49 years old 10 years ago so definitely not fertile. She was also not attractive in any conventional sense of the term.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So you are making the argument from contingency not from motion? I don't think it matters much, I still think the dismissal of infinites in these types of arguments lack rigor: they were formulated during a period of time where the principle of non-existence of actual infinity was commonly accepted, but this is not the case anymore. Mathematics rutinely deals with actual infinity in a way that is consistent, so you have to justify why this particular actual infinity is impossible.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Small golf-cart like cars exists in europe, for example this brand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_(marque)




If we had golf cart cities, it would be pretty easy to add secure storage compartments into them. And, I'll be honest, I don't feel that my car is that secure when I park it in Seattle. In fact, a golf cart might be superior since when I get robbed I won't have to replace my auto glass.




The general problem is that they are so light that thieves just take the whole thing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The argument of @OracleOutlook is (usually) an argument by necessity, "it is logically impossible that god does not exist because..."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You are trying to imagine a first hand raising but there wouldn't be a first hand, hands would just start raising backwards in time infinitely.
These arguments about the impossibility of infinite are weird, we know of logicaly consistent definitions of infinte that are extremely counterintuitive (a segment can be divided by two indefinitely, there are as many even numbers as there are numbers). You can't just say "I can't imagine" and expect to be done with it. Maybe the problem is with the infinite, maybe the problem is your imagination.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				In which I pine for a monastic escape from the sexual rat race
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You say you yearn for the monastic lifestyle yet you do not even attempt practicing the most basic of the ascetic practices: control over your internal feelings.
Stop experiencing envy and resentment, just stop. Then maybe you will learn to enjoy watching a thonged ass for what it is rather than tormenting yourself over the philosophies you have constructed around it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


also, it seems to me, in economic innovation (Europe is responsible for almost no major software companies).




With respect to software there are large path dependence effects: large software companies already in the area attract high quality talent which means there's a larger pool of high quality talent to hire from for new companies and that the possibility of an acquisition exit exists, which in turn means VC is less risky and the system feeds back into itself. We'll have to see if the pandemic and the high crime has finally broken the spell.


It would be interesting to see how big of a difference remains when you take out the effects of the software industry.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The problem with singling out Jesus as special (or as some kind of flesh robot remotely piloted by god) is that these are heretical (the former would be a kind of Docetism the latter similar to Apollinarianism), Jesus is supposed to be real god and real man.


The problem with making "motion" have a special meaning is that the argument is generally taken to proceed from self evident, observable properties of the universe and making "motion" be some metaphysical property would take that away. I'd argue that the distinction between per se and per accidens already does that but whatever.


Predestination is a whole other can of whorms with the free will problem, the soteriology problems, etc.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the comparison with Newton, assuming you are referring to Newton's works in physics and optics, is unwarranted because him and Pseudo-dyonisius stand on opposite sides of an epistemological divide. Pre modern intellectual work was primarily about interpreting and finding truth within a canon of works of authors in the antiquity. We don't care who wrote Newton's Principia because they stand on the strength of their argument and of empirical evidence. You can't say the same thing about De Coelesti Hierarchia because it doesn't make any argument it just states some facts that have been revealed to the author through divine revelation.


When all of your arguments are appeals to authority, who the author is becomes extermely important. Are you really going to believe some anonymous guy that tells you they received divine revelation when they are also pretending to be a mythical character that lived 500 years earlier?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Think about it from the perspective of someone who is already religious: you are already prepared to believe on faith that the gospels are a historical account. Many miracles would have only a few witnesses, so it is not surprising that they would not be recorded by historians (there probably were many false accounts of miracolous healers at the time and it would get lost among the fakes). But some of them are so huge and public that they couldn't escape notice.


As far as I am concerned I only believe (1) and partially (6) of that list with any certainty. There's too much conjecture in this part of history, if this standard of proof was applied uniformly we would believe in the existence of the philosopher stone too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


A true believer should allow life to happen to them, because the outcomes are determined by the omni-potent God.




This position was historically held by quietists and you can read the general principles in the papal encyclical condemning them as heretical: https://www.papalencyclicals.net/Innoc11/i11coel.htm


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I’m merely pointing out that the specific argument “the Prime Mover argument is wrong because even a Prime Mover would need a mover” is a bad argument




Yes, you are right about this. I've just been thinking about this for a while and latched on to your message to write it down since you also said: "You’re rejecting Christians’ conception of God out of hand, but then acting like you actually refuted their argument". The argument has other problems, though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think you can reconcile any religion with modern science, but I also think you are going to have some serious work to do.


For example, for christianity, the pain points would be:


    

  • original sin/early genesis and evolution
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  • soul and thermodynamics/neurology
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  • lack of evidence for angels and demons compared to the medieval way of conceiving them, demonic possessions especially
    • 

  • angelology being largely based on a forgery (de coelesti hierarchia)
    • 

  • transubstantiation/consubstantiation and atomism
    • 

  • lack of evidence for some of jesus miracles
    • 

  • the lack of contemporary miracles (or poor evidence for them) compared to biblical times
some you can discard as medieval superstitions that don't really matter (even ardently religious people don't believe them anymore), others not so much. You have to have an explanation for original sin, I think.
    • 



Other religions would have different pain points.




Somewhere along the way, yes, a religion implies some unmoved mover (or a pantheon of them?).




Ironically I think the unmoved mover argument is very hard to reconcile with modern science, however it's more of a christian thing and even there it doesn't really matter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Also I wanted to point out how bizarre the entry about the wager in the pensées is: it ends with a note that, if this argument (the wager) isn't enough to convince you to believe you should then go to mass every day and the monotonous repetition of the liturgy will make you as stupid as a beast and then you will be able to believe. It seems unexplicably blasphemous to me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Let's say that all that argumentation fails. There still seem to be reasons that it might be a sensible thing to adhere to, even if you think it's relatively unlikely. Pascal's wager is formidable, for one.




Pascal's wager is terrible because infinite rewards break game theory.


Suppose I ask you to give me $10 and in exchange I will reward you with $10000. Should you take this wager? To answer this question you could estimate the probability p that I'm telling the truth and calculate the expected value of the wager: 10000p - 10(1-p). If it is positive you should pay, if it isn't you shouldn't. It's unlikely that you will be able to prove that p=0 but it also doesn't matter, as long as you estimate it to be low enough that all you need to know.


But suppose I promise you an infinite reward for your $10. The condition is now ∞p - 10(1-p) > 0 which is always true if p > 0. So, as long as you can't call me a liar certainly you have to enter the wager. What's worse this is independent of the entry price. As long as I ask for a finite price, no matter how large, you have to pay it.


What does this mean? Either we should reject all wagers that involve infinite rewards (because otherwise we would have to take all of them) or, if we choose not to, we are lucky that there are multiple incompatible religion. Because taking one religion's wager means rejecting many other and some of the other will have infinite punishments for rejecting them all of the wagers are undecidable and we are free to choose whichever we want or reject all of them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You lose a lot of the persuasive power of the argument if you admit that there are things (Jesus Christ) that appear to be moving but do not in fact count as "moving" for the argument. The observation that there are some things that move falls away, as far as I am concerned everything could be like Jesus and actually be motionless.


The problem with those biblical quotes is that there is a colloquial meaning to change and a philosophical one, cosmological arguments only work with the latter but those quotes in context point to the former.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's amazing to me how much sway the aristotelian unmoved mover god has on a religion that clearly describes a moving, changing god. In genesis god has human emotions, moves around and even shows up at the door of Abraham, on earth. In other words he behaves more like Odin (or rather Baal) than like god-the-philosophical-entity. And even if you discount genesis (and much of the old testament) as analogical writing and superstitions of simple people, how can it be that Jesus is god and also that god is unmoved, unchanging, simple, etc?


For problems with cosmological arguments see Sobel, Logic and Theism, chapter 5.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's so depressing to me when I see this happen: "I used to enjoy X but now that I espouse ideology A I see how misguided my enjoyment was and can no longer experience it". Their brain has literally been attacked by a parasite that is eating away their personality, how sad. Like a psychological version of Alzheimer. I hope it never happens to me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Several people in response to this have mentioned New Atheism and this is something I've been curious about for a while. Can someone explain the whole New Atheism / internet atheism wars thing to me?




America was going through its mini great awakening with a christian evangelical president when 9/11 happened, to which the Bush responded by starting his own holy war in the middle east. It seemed like religious fanatics would just keep ruining everyone's day forever and atheism looked very good by comparison. A few books were published about the topic, somewhat coincidentally and it sort of picked up steam on the internet, especially the nascent youtube.


The label "New Atheism" is mostly just a press label, like IDW, it doesn't really denote anything in particular. If you read arguments about atheism from the late 1600s almost everything is already there (minus evolution and geology).


And then the evangelical awakening died out, McCain lost to Obama (who acknowledged atheism in his inauguration speech) and there was no reason for the movement anymore. What remained ended up being the first victim of SJWs in 2012. Then gamergate happened and people from new atheism either became sjws or anti-sjw (the "skeptics"). The anti-sjw side of atheism doesn't really have a home in american politics (it can't be with the democrats but it also can't be republican because it would alienate the reliable evangelical voter base); when tech platforms (twitter and youtube in particular) moved to do politically biased content moderation (mid 2017 and 2018) the atheistic side of anit-sjw was essentially wiped out.


I think atheism is due for a comeback, this decade, because of all the dissident right people who are adopting orthodoxy/sedevacantism to own the libs.




While I am not a fan of stereotypical Redditors, I also fail to see why being convinced that a man 2000 years ago rose from the dead despite a near-total lack of evidence that this happened other than the writings of a few people who probably never knew him in real life is supposed to make one better than a stereotypical Redditor.




Boy, you're opening a huge can of worms here...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If you’re raised in a culture that is absolutely convinced that the Eucharist is literal actually the Body and Blood, you will believe it.




I didn't. I was raised in a culture that was monolithically christian (at least nominally) and I always took it as a metaphor until I was explained that it was actually meant to be taken literally (transubstantiation) and it seemed... idiotic? That was the first crack for me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
We used to have to commit things to memory to remember them, then we invented writing to do the remembering for us. Just like we don't need to use our minds to remember, by using AI we can also offload the process of hallucination to a computer.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The bible is vague on a lot of things, so early theologians filled in by borrowing from greek philosophy, mystery cults, etc. The idea that an infinitely good god will eventually save everyone, and therefore that hell is temporary (i.e. apokatastasis), is not that far fetched (certainly less so than a hierarchy of angels, or the trinity) and thus it circulated, pretty much for all of the history of christianity.


Eriugena's version is explained in his book de divisione naturae and it's a very abstract philosophical theory where creation starts in god as ideas (he thinks platonic forms) which eventually become material. Because god has to be the ultimate form of all aristotelian causes he's also the ultimate final cause so everything returns to him through an inverse process.