somethingsomething
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User ID: 1123
somethingsomething
2mo ago
Well the "uncalled for" quip does kind of point at a question of who started it, the easiest way to avoid that is to describe the smear campaign sans judgement. I feel like on this site you constantly get reminded of all the reasons why the innocent conservatives just had to rebel against the mean democrat which conveniently ignores how dems felt under his predecessor (and "we hated him too" doesn't quite make up for it)
Definitely not unique, this is a component of ascetism, Buddism, Schopenhauer(ism?). You can try Nietzsche as a embodiment-affirming response to these feelings.
somethingsomething
3mo ago
I think it's literally just the shape of their heads and relative size.
somethingsomething
3mo ago
I agree that the mainstream media environment is not trustworthy and I don't go for them for unvarnished truth. But again I think there's a good comparison on the other side, so many on the left believe that Trump can never be right about anything, so they believe the opposite of whatever he says, which creates a huge blind spot that ultimately degrades societal trust. It can be a similar problem regarding what the right believes about mainstream media.
somethingsomething
3mo ago
The question is how much noise and populist rage does this justify, and does it justify the language that has enabled people broadly to believe in much more conspiratorial takes under the umbrella of "the election was stolen". For instance I think it is a very good thing that that effect was much more muted after Al Gore lost, and the adults in the room encouraged moving on, at least much more than in this case where believing the election was stolen is a requirement to be a part of the Trump admin.
somethingsomething
3mo ago
I think that's a fair point, I could probably have targeted my critique more precisely. You could make a parallel to the "russia hoax" where Trump made it very much appear that he was a Russian asset, moreso than he really was. How much do we blame Democrats for going rabid because of that? I think ideally the democrat media would have been more measured and patient, and the temperature on everything could have stayed more reasonable while the professionals did there work, and I think an honest Democrat who engaged in any over-the-top accusations would reflect on that behavior as ultimately net-negative.
It is possible that bad behavior is so obvious that the rabble rousing is correct, but I should have clarified my point which is that when it is a failure, like it is here, those who were in the thick of it should acknowledge it, and move towards acting with more prudence if they realize the evidence wasn't quite so open and shut as they thought. If what I believe is true, then a very large amount of social trust was lost with little provocation from the party that supposedly highly values social trust. That party should reflect on that if it's being honest with itself.
somethingsomething
3mo ago
I agree that this question should definitely be asked here. The dissident right doomerism (which mirrors the 2016 Sanders whining) reminds me of my black/white thinking depressive episodes. It's a kind of justification, not a logical argument. What the right wants to do, just like what Sanders wanted to do, is difficult. Being an outsider is difficult. It is a political miracle for Trump-aligned right-wingers that Trump is electable, when every historical precedent would suggest otherwise. There will probably never be anyone like him in our lifetimes. The fact that he closely lost an election to a former Democrat Vice President under a fairly popular administration should not cause people to spiral so hard. It's an emotional reaction to a very normal possibility that your preferred outsider candidate can lose.
I happen to strongly believe that the election was not stolen, but I imagine that the people here who do also want to live in a high-trust society. My question for those people is, what does it mean if you're wrong about the election? If you learned for a fact the election wasn't stolen, and you had been shouting otherwise, you'd be forced to consider how you contributed towards lowering societal trust by lowering its faith in our democratic process unnecessarily. It's been totally reckless for the right-wing to jump on this boat with so little meaningful evidence. For all I hear about high-trust societies here, that aspect of things, the fact that the right-wing very loudly questioned an election that was very likely totally fine, seems to me to have massively increased distrust. And again, if they're wrong, then what was it all for?
somethingsomething
3mo ago
Well I think the most advanced societies that we know about that existed the earliest were in the fertile crescent, presumably they have some kind of lineage going back. I agree animals iterate but the question is whether they have some kind of upper bound which our lineage surpassed, which I'd argue we did, probably around when we learned to make fire and passed that knowledge on to our descendants
somethingsomething
3mo ago
Society? Going backwards modern western morality is basically reformation, germanic conversion to christianity, roman conversion, greek + judaic philophy, fertile crescent society, etc. Thousands of years of iteration that animals don't have?
somethingsomething
3mo ago
I had similar reactions reading the republic recently with how much felt like it could apply to our times but I didn't quite pin it as "progressive left" entirely, although there are definitely some echoes there. I think there are clear echoes in modern populism generally, as well as with liberalism which both have strains in both American parties, and the left/right divide in general. Given that Plato's alternative suggestions were completely unworkable, the temptation for me is to throw my arms up and say "that's life", but the other commentator's description of Aristotle makes me want to follow up with his writings which I've barely explored.
somethingsomething
3mo ago
Thoughts on Fellini's Casanova?
somethingsomething
4mo ago
Yeah rereading that you're right about the followers, so my characterization would not have been totally accurate, but I have to imagine there was some turnover and generally that the apostles were reacting to unexpected events at the death of Jesus, and didn't have the intense spiritual hallucinogenic experiences Paul had to give them as clear of a direction forward beyond just waiting for the apocalypse and continuing Jesus' teachings and proselytizing.
So I'd mark out the difference by saying that they didn't "know" what was going to happen next in the way Paul did, beyond reference to Jewish apocalypticism. When James says the Lord it is ambiguous if he means Jesus or God, and Paul says Jesus is Lord but does that mean he is God? Jesus probably comes back as a messiah figure but is it Jesus as God or is it just because all the prophets are coming back too and everyone lives forever with heaven on Earth? I just think there's a lot more ambiguity compared to the crystal clear metaphysics with Paul. Obviously it helps that we have his letters but I also feel like it fits the events that occurred, and the personality of Paul that comes through his letters where it seems like the mechanics of how everything works interests him far more than it did Jesus and James.
Regarding the holy spirit I don't think it's totally clear what the holy spirit was which is why I think it took a while to eventually flesh it out as part of the trinity down the line, but to me it just seems like a Paul thing, where he's differentiating between those with faith in Jesus as having this spiritual thing that connects them with God, ensures their heavenly body, and also affects their actions to be more "Godly", and I imagine it's something all his followers said all the time, "holy spirit" this and "holy spirit" that, and so it crops up in the stories the ended up writing about Jesus and the other apostles, but it's basically just when they act Godly, it just looks like word substitution to me.
somethingsomething
4mo ago
I don't know, I think they are actually disagreeing and I think that's the common view of it. Paul is prioritizing faith over works, and James is more emphasizing works. James seems to be saying, just like you shouldn't discriminate between parts of the law (I.E. you should follow all of it), you shouldn't discriminate between rich and poor (treat everyone equally).
I think the Jewish followers still believed in some form of coming heaven on Earth, I think they probably believed Jesus would come back, but I think it's unlikely that they invented/incorporated the Platonic ideas Paul preached. I imagine them being pretty shaken and confused after Jesus' death, and having lost a lot of followers presumably, but still believing in the mission and believing they would be rewarded in some way on Earth by God. I think that would've contrasted with the manic energy of Paul's movement which was probably pretty a pretty exciting thing to be a part of, and Paul seemed to have a very clear idea of what was going to happen next. But I just imagine after their meetings, a bewildered James saying "just remember the poor, whatever you're doing out there..."
If Peter 1 was written by Peter then that would be good evidence for the jewish sect being on the same page with the afterlife, but I think it's a pretty common view that it's a forgery.
I don't know what the significance of Acts 5 is, I think both gentile and jewish groups were preparing for a looming apocalypse, maybe Paul more fervently, but I could see the story fitting both Paul's thoughts and the original Jesus-style apocalyptic ideas.
somethingsomething
4mo ago
No I consider Q Jesus' teachings, but it was placed into the bible from the Pauline school, and I don't think the way the holy spirit is referenced in Q has the kind of theological qualities that it does in the more explicitly Paul writings, it's more just used as a kind of addendum or exclamation mark, there's not much meaning in how it's used there and could be removed without changing the meaning of things.
Corinthians 15:35 (and a bit preceding it) goes over what I think are his unique ideas that I don't think the Jewish followers of Jesus really had in mind, and have that platonic quality. When he's talking about "glories" of things that is basically Platonic "ideal" versions of things.
I think that contrasts with James' "whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." I'm not totally familiar with all the evidence on what Jewish Jesus followers believed, I think there would be knowledge of Greek ideas and the traditional Jewish views of it not being much, but I don't see anything like passage of Paul in the above passage along with his certainty. I only find one passage in Q that seems anything like an afterlife heaven and that may have been phrased differently in Jesus' original words, referring to what I think most scholars understand that he believed in an earthly heaven that he would rule.
And sorry I meant James 2:10 which I think Paul very much disagrees with.
somethingsomething
4mo ago
I think Galatians 2 emphasizes the kind of separateness Paul has with the Jewish sect, you have some calling Paul's authority or teachings into question, probably because of not following the law and the other ideas of Paul, so he goes to get the blessing of the James etc. (who he says added nothing to his message), and they decide to accept what he's doing, but then that's it and he goes back off on his own. I don't think the groups were enemies or cut off from each other, just that they were different groups with differences of belief and that there was probably some tension there.
Specifically I think Paul's peculiar beliefs were in the holy spirit which I think he invented, how rapture/apocalypse works and ideas around afterlife which I think draw from Greek philosophy and Platonism, and not needing to follow Jewish law.
I don't have a ready explanation for the unclean foods thing, but I tend to think that the more visions are involved the less I'm inclined to believe it. It's one thing if Paul has his visions and I think that probably happened, since he seemed very intently motivated by whatever he experienced. I don't think all the other apostles were also getting visions from god, nor do I think they were actually healing people in miraculous ways etc. after Jesus' death. This story is also very convenient for Paul if you have Peter have a vision that confirms that you don't need to follow the law if God says so. Compare that to James 2:8.
somethingsomething
4mo ago
I think there a few seemingly fundamental mysteries of existence that make the universe a bit more than the dark void that atheists typically characterize it as, but I would bet against those mysteries pointing to some kind of 1 identity "god" type, I don't really know what the other options are, but it's a difficult question. But if I was in a worshipping group, and some people saw it in the "god" style, and I left things more open for myself, it wouldn't be a problem for me. It becomes a problem for me when it's worshipping a human being, or some subset of humanity, as God, because that seems very unlikely to me to be true.
I think there was a lot of intellectual Jewish and Greek thought at the time that an educated Jew like Paul was drawing from, in addition to certainly being inspired by Jesus. I think he clearly responded to Jesus' death differently than original apostles, not having been part of the original group and having visionary experiences afterwards, and I think intellectually he brought in platonic ideas to make sense of them and spread them through his followers. I don't think these ideas were incorporated in the Jewish Jesus groups and I think it was probably a point of tension.
And I just think his attitude in not following Jewish law went beyond Jesus' teachings and was his own innovation. Any of the original 12 could have taken Paul's role as the gentile baptizer, you could imagine half of them or more taking that role considering how many gentiles there are compared to Jews. But it's the outsider who does it and appears to mostly do it on his own. For me that strongly points to Paul having a lot of his own ideas and following them on his own accord, rather than being a outreach plan devised by the original Jewish movement.
somethingsomething
4mo ago
I really disagree with this, I think the analogy would be that if all the cooks in Italy believed their work was done in the name of the flying spaghetti monster, it wouldn't make all of their work worthless.
I think it's really important that Christianity imported Jewish morality to pagan Europe along with some Platonic philosophy, and that its followers stemmed the tide of Islam. Islam or something like it may be contingent on Christianity, you start getting into a rabbit hole of alt-history, but I think a pagan Europe would have been much weaker regardless and that would have been bad. Europe as it existed with Christianity basically created modern society, vastly increased the wealth of the world, and vastly decreased its overall suffering. If Jesus died for anything, you can at least say it was for that, even if he wasn't really God. And he did get a good millenium of unquestioning worship too, it's just that it's over with now.
Either way, Merry Christmas!
somethingsomething
4mo ago
I don't think they were in total conflict, I just think like I said they were different schools. I also think Acts was written by the Paul school so it's going to paper over what might have been more difficult disagreements to make it look like everyone important was okay with what Paul was doing.
Worshipping with no Jesus messiah would just be worshipping God, the sacredness of each human's existence, the mystery of consciousness, the light of love and morality in a vast dark universe, channeled through the best moral teachers we have including Jesus, yada yada. Yeah it's kind of just new-age humanism, and all the mechanisms keeping the church together would probably fall apart, but I do think if everyone could let go of the superstitions and utopian ideas while still keeping the machinery running there'd still be plenty worth worshipping in neo-Christianity.
somethingsomething
4mo ago
I'm no scholar but the answer may be two authors/traditions. The Q source of Jesus' teachings along with the book of James representing the Jewish Jesus' traditional arguments, and the rest coming out of Paul's more radical anti-law, platonic tradition that survived into modern Christianity while the James school died out.
But I agree that from what I've read, Jesus as super moral innovator seems a bit overboard, I have to imagine he cribbed a good amount from John the Baptist and there was a kind of apocalyptic Jewish movement he was joining and learning from.
As an atheist I just feel like when the Christians try to make any kind of historical argument I find it unconvincing because they gloss over the details. Obviously there's no perfect person, Jesus had flaws, and the fact he is so worshipped today is as much an accident as history as how much Mohammed is worshipped. The issue with Christians is they really want Jesus to be the messiah. If they dropped that then they could actually understand something about themselves, and then I would feel comfortable worshipping with them.
somethingsomething
4mo ago
Yeah that scene captures the movie well, it's not just rough or forgetful, but kind of a jaw droppingly overwritten, stilted, over budget high school play.
somethingsomething
4mo ago
I watched jt in the theater and it has to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and I was rooting for it, since I knew going in that Copolla was going against the cultural grain.
Nathalie Emmanuel's performance is the worst I've ever seen on film. The dialogue between her and Driver are a joke, and delivered with zero chemistry. Aubrey Plaza is hilariously unconvincing.
The themes are broadcast in screaming capital letter, absolutely zero subtlety. "What do you think is the most important institution?" "Marriage" with no further comment.
There are a few good visual pieces but mostly it's a blown out, blurry mess when it tries to get fancy.
Then there's the fucking crossbow scene.
It gave me a lot to think about how such a great artist can put out such total drek.
somethingsomething
6mo ago
3 different candidates vs 1 candidate? Two females vs one male? rederendum on Trump vs referendum on Democrats? Pandemic vs no pandemic? Trump telling people not to mail in votes vs not doing that? Height of BLM popularity vs. not? Sometimes people get more votes and sometimes less?
somethingsomething
6mo ago
Occam's razor in my opinion is that Harris, Clinton, and Obama in his 2nd year underperformed, and turnout has been increasing as America becomes more polarized and politically activated.
Biden overperformed for the same reason normies went to BLM rallies in 2020, there was an huge anti-Trump awakening, it's just petered out.
Compare that to a 15 million vote fraud coverup, which is more likely?
somethingsomething
6mo ago
I'm a lifelong democrat voter who would vote Haley, but I do think it's up in the air how much better she'd do. Trump does energize Democrats too.
My thinking is that the right-wing elite collapsed, due to and resulting in more rising right-wing populism, and populism basically selects for bad characters. It's the responsibility of the elites to not screw up so much that no one has faith in them anymore, and they failed to do that
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