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In my circles on twitter, the Mystical Christianity conversation is cropping up again. It tends to come around every few months, at least for the past year I've been on the site.
Tyler Alterman writes a long post on it that is mostly summed up here:
Now to broaden this outside of just Christianity, I'm curious what the Motte thinks of symbolism as a whole? I will admit my own path back to religion came via a symbolic pathway, although I believe it goes far deeper than this.
That being said, from my short time here it seems like most of the Christians on this site aren't that into symbolism, and tend to be more "rationalist" and materialist in their worldview. Again, might have a mistaken impression.
I know this is a rationalist offshoot forum so not sure I expect a ton of mystical/symbolic discussion, but I'm kind of surprised by how little there is given how many professed religious folks there are here. And I do think from a Culture War angle, that materialism is definitely losing steam (especially amongst the right) as we see more and more cracks form in the edifice of Expert Scientific Opinion(tm).
On a deeper note, the symbolic worldview is all about seeing the world through the language of God (or meaning if you prefer), in a way that helps people bind together and understand events in the same way. Right now we are in "darkness" symbolically because, well, nobody can interpret events the same way! I personally think a return to the symbolic is inevitable given how confused everything is at the moment, although the transition may not be smooth or easy.
Huh? I've never seen anyone (on the right or elsewhere) go from "the institutions are politically compromised" to "there is nonphysical stuff."
As for discussion about symbolic beliefs: The famous quote "all models are wrong; some are useful" is actually redundant. It just needs to be "some models are useful." Useful means wrong, because if a model was right, you wouldn't give up and call it merely useful.
Anyways, symbolic beliefs are false. The Christians here are actually Christian, so why would they engage with symbolic (false) beliefs?
Allow me to provide.
It is trivial to demonstrate the existence of "non-physical stuff" from within a strictly materialist framework. With an understanding of the political compromise of institutions, and an awareness of the historical record of those institutions, it is fairly trivial to peel the consensus materialist framework like a banana.
Yes, some people assume materialism from a position of faith. Other people make no such assumption. I was more interested in why someone would change their axioms based on seeing the politically-compromised Science-as-Institution, since that was the literal reading I took from the OP. Maybe the OP was not trying to draw a causal arrow and was just doing the Journalist thing putting words together in a vaguely grammatically correct way.
One observes that things scrupulously labeled "Materialistic, evidence-based belief" turn out to be generated and maintained entirely by social consensus effects, and once one has seen the pattern, one can recognize it elsewhere. "Things labeled materialistic, evidence-based belief are what they say on the tin" is an axiom, and once you have a lot of strong evidence that this axiom is wrong by observing the politicially-compromised Science-as-institution, it's pretty easy to discard it and everything that depends on it, including consensus-narrative-style "materialism". then you're free to notice things like Determinism-of-the-gaps and "Materialism precludes free will = evidence of free will is evidence against Materialism", and a whole bunch of very carefully crafted and highly-rigorous arguments abruptly reverse polarity.
...This is a subject I dearly love to discuss, but I am in fact trying to answer your question. Observing the political compromise of Science-as-institution directly led to me changing axioms, and adopting a set that seem much stronger to me against Materialism itself, because the large majority of Materialist elements seem to me to obviously depend heavily on similar political compromise for their weight.
This is all well and good, but what stake do you put in your non-materialistic beliefs? How much does the Word of God guiding you trade off against anything an agnostic in your position would do?
I don't want to be a Redditor about it, but I don't see the point of modern Christianity. Coming from a largely apatheistic perspective, it's trivially obvious that the actual importance with which people generally and Christians especially treat religion is at an all-time low. Christians have gone from waging holy war against the heathens to missionary expeditions seeking conversions to "interfaith dialogue", from hanging homosexuals and other sinners to socially ostracizing them them to... IDK, frowning concernedly? From a historical perspective, nearly all Westerners are thoroughly unserious in their practice of religion. If the faithful don't take themselves seriously, why should I?
Have you heard of the book Dominion? It basically makes the argument that almost all of our modern moral worldview is a direct result of Christian teachings changing the moral landscape from pagan religions. Might interest you if you're genuinely curious here.
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The answer is "a considerable one"; I've completely changed most aspects of my life, in many cases entirely reversing my previous preferences or habits.
There is no point to "modern" Christianity. You are correct that many people claiming to be Christian are "cultural christians" for whom it is a fashion or a pose. On the other hand, there are also a lot of Christians like myself who are not partaking of "modern" Christianity but rather the old sort, and for whom it is an actual way of life. For us it appears to me that the benefits are as they always have been: considerable. It seems to me that the contrast grows increasingly stark as Modernity unspools itself into our collective society; the dating and relationship threads here on the Motte are as good an example as any.
If we return to Deus Vult and the sword, will that satisfy you in some way? When Christians were serving in significant numbers in the recent middle east wars, and often saw those wars as a crusade, did that lend the faith more credibility?
We will continue on as we have before. Sometimes that will involve building, and sometimes that will involve fighting. We have done plenty of both, and will do plenty more of both in the future.
Sorry for the late response, I've drafted this far more times than I really should have.
You would consider you new preferences and habits to be unambiguously superior to before, yes? If so, where is the aforementioned trade-off?
To put it another way, a true believer in the Greek Pantheon is obliged to offer libations and sacrifices to the gods to remain pious. From a secular perspective, this serves zero purpose and is an active waste of valuable resources. In your worship, what do you sacrifice for your faith?
It would, yes. If the word of Christ really is the Way and the Truth and the Light, Christians ought to be far less complacent in their efforts to spread the gospel than they currently are. Should you not rout the disbelievers, those who lead souls astray with false idols and apathetic impiety? Should you not hate the heretics, those who twist revelation into abomination? Your predecessors certainly did, so what changed?
I think the Christianity you practice is actually quite different to the old sort, at least in practical implementation. For one, the demons of the earth who possessed the insane, swapped babies with changelings, communed with witches, and who many good Christians thought actually, literally existed have seemingly vanished. I can only assume that amulet technology and exorcism procedures have seen massive improvements in the last couple of centuries.
I don't mean to say that you're obligated to believe in witches and demons, or that you're a hypocrite for not. But I have a hunch that the sort of casual superstition that past Christians practiced may have been vital (or at least a factor) in avoiding the exact sort of secularization that modernity hath wrought, at least among the common folk. Us gentry might be able to satisfy ourselves with philosophies of the Good, but many don't see the point of belief when there's nothing concrete in it for them.
A physically-fit person exercises and eats vegetables and meat rather than ice cream by the tubful. They think that fitness is better than the pleasures of a sedentary life and a nutritionally-poor but flavor-rich diet. They sacrifice the joys of the one to gain the joys of the other, no? I sacrifice things I want, and even some things I want very, very badly, for a chance at things that are better. I sacrifice these things because I believe they are contrary to the will of God, no matter how much they please me, and no matter how much I want them. I could even argue that they are actually permitted, through this loophole or that shaky argument, but that would be rationalization and self-deception. So I have to let them go.
No Christian who has ever lived has succeeded in emulating Christ, in living without sin and in doing perfectly as Christ would do. All Christians stumble and fail, because they are human. Given that we know that all Christians fail to execute Christianity perfectly, it stands to reason that different Christians in different times fail in different ways. Some Christians fail by lacking mercy; others fail by lacking courage, some by lacking love, some by lacking faith. It behooves us to determine which failures we each are prone to and to make a special effort to guard ourselves against the failures we are weak to.
Suffice to say, my personal weaknesses do not include a deficit of hatred. The hard part for me is "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you," and "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us," so that is the part I must fortify. Further, Christianity cannot be spread by the sword. That doesn't mean the sword is useless, or that we are required to be pacifists; it means that we must recognize that the ends we can achieve through the tools of this mortal world are strictly limited. Evil, sin, impiety and false idols have always existed and will always exist so long as this present world remains; you cannot kill your way to a Heaven on earth, nor achieve a Heaven on earth by any other means. If we fight, we fight for the mortal aims of upholding justice, defending the innocent, and breaking the power of ascendant evil, and we do so with the understanding that our means must be as limited as our ends. If that compromises our victory or our survival, so be it; Christians have been martyred before and will be martyred again, and our God has promised to wipe every tear from our eyes.
Probably many who called themselves Christians in the past went too far, and were lacking in mercy. Certainly many who call themselves Christians now seem to have gone too far and abandoned everything but mercy, and are lacking in courage, zeal and righteousness. None have us have ever been perfect; many of us have been good enough for the challenges facing them.
I am skeptical that changelings ever existed, and that witches ever actually communed with the devil. The Old Testament itself condemns empty superstitions:
...And that was thousands of years before science and the cell-phone camera. Nor is atheism a novel development; there have been atheists as far back as we have writing. Nothing about the basic questions has ever really changed. "Many Christians" believing in changelings or witches makes no difference to me; I do aim to follow "Many Christians", but rather Christ.
The relevant part of your argument seems to be that previous Christians were very much not Materialists, but then I am very much not a Materialist either. Even though the the demons are silent and the miracles have ceased, I take the reality of their respective sources as an axiom, and shape my life accordingly.
And this is the crux, one might say. I am not advocating a philosophy of the Good. Sin is very real in the most concrete sense, and its lethal effects can be directly observed. If you let it have its way in your life, it can and will erode your substance until little that is human remains. It was not hard to observe the process in my own life, and it is trivial to observe it doing so in the lives of others.
Nor does it seem to me that the superstitions have ever gone away. At every point through the few centuries of the modern era, superstition has remained as strong and ubiquitous a force as it ever was; only the details have changed, not the mechanism. Science is now dominant, so our superstitions tend to be built out of technobabble, rather than legends and folktales; in both cases, they are built from the available pool of loose information. Humans don't seem to change; we are as we ever have been. There is nothing "concrete" in current beliefs; there is practical knowledge kept honest by constant feedback from reality, with precision both sufficient for and equal to the tools available to implement it, and then there is superstition expanding to fill what space remains. That's the way it's always been, and my bet is that it is the way it will always be, no matter how long we last.
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Yeah if anything I think Christianity was farther from Christ's actual teachings at that point, than we are today. Turning the other cheek does not translate to massive, bloody crusades, up to and including sacking cities of other Christians and killing so many the streets run red with blood. (Yes, I'm still mad about the sack of Constantinople.)
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I did not read the entire discussion in detail and only skimmed it. I guess the other poster at some point admitted his "evidence-based-belief" in materialism is in fact just social consensus vibes? If so then that is a helpful example of "science-belief" as social consensus.
In light of your testimony that your axioms changed, the entire discussion seems even more relevant now, so thank you. I've noticed, and so have others -- in fact IIRC your interlocutor for that discussion pointed this out rudely -- that the Motte has more religious posters than Scott's blog or the original CW Roundup threads ever had. I skimmed your recent post history to double check my gut. This also helps explain why you think Materialism is controversial. My central examples of controversial Science would be recent, like the importance of BLM protesting to health; or would be controversial-according-to-me, like that race is just a social construct or whatever.
Is Noticing Science, Inc.'s political capture the reason why you you're Christian then?
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Why would someone change their axioms? Because you grow up in our culture hearing Science as an institution say it has all the answers. They promote orthodox materialism. And as you grow older and realize that Science actually has a lot of flaws and lies quite a bit, you lose confidence/faith in their answers. You begin to question. Ultimately, you question materialism.
Can you explain a bit more where this doesn't make sense to you? I'm confused as to how you're confused.
I think I understand now, thanks for saying it with more words.
This reminds me of the back and forth between Robin Hanson and Scott on the effectiveness of medicine. I tried tracing the conversation but it involves links to so many papers and blog posts that I couldn't find the exact quote in a timely manner. But Hanson said (or Scott had speculated) that the real reason people go to doctors isn't because medicine is effective, but because doctors are the local culturally-respected authorities about health.
I think that's right because ancient peoples and uncontacted tribes today obviously go to their local culturally-respected authorities, too. And if our local culturally-respected authorities do happen to be effective (let's assume), that fact doesn't necessarily correlate with the true reason we go to them.
(I wrote this before I saw the other reply to me, so I feel good that I am understanding the discussion)
There is a kind of liberal sneer that groups QAnon, a rejection of the liberal political order, and science-denial as a Trumpian mind-virus. If science-believing really is just social signaling, would you say that cluster really is correlated, and we will be seeing more of that? (Ignoring the value-judgement of the sneering)
I don't think science-believing is 100% social signaling. I think that unfortunately Science and actual science have become increasingly decoupled, and the capital that science built up by being incredibly good at figuring material causes out is being squandered by bad actors.
Seeing more of what, in particular? More people disbelieving science? Absolutely. At this point the ship has basically sailed as far as I'm concerned - academia's reputation is cratering and I don't see a good way for them to arrest the descent.
Why of course, I have correctly picked apart where Science, Inc. departs from the truth, it's simply [list of my political assumptions]. My neighbor has his list. In neither case are we weighing the evidence, although I suppose we're not exactly social signaling. Rather, we use Science, Inc.'s local cultural authority as a soldier in arguments about beliefs.
I'm curious if people "disbelieving science" will really result in people changing their beliefs. Maybe they will re-evaluate everything they think they know (at some point, people become flat-earthers, right?). On the other hand, people may just argue over what is science. Maybe the belief that science created antibiotics, rocket ships, and computers isn't so much of a fact as it is a soldier in an argument.
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