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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   2138 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 23, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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If anyone is interested, mister Turok is over on the SSC open thread complaining about us: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-409/comment/180699602

I'm curious, why on earth do people think this is a "hugbox for fundamentalist Christians"? If anything I see progressive folks get more leniency. Anyway, sad to see.

Hugbox for fundamentalist Christians? Nobody told me.

Thanks for defending our honor, and hopefully some new people will follow the links over.

Lol I thought of you when I read it. Exactly!!!

And no problem. I try to post the link here over on the open thread every now and then just to make sure folks know we're here.

Yer a Christian, Harry.

IIRC he had the same issue with DSL as well, despite some very active atheists there. I wouldn't consider the Christians either here or on DSL to be particularly fundamentalist, but they are better received than in other rationalist adjacent spaces, I suppose.

There's definitely a fair amount of talk about Christianity, but that word "fundamentalist" is doing a lot of work there. Just looking at the Wikipedia pages on Christian Fundamentalism makes my head spin, because I have literally never heard of 99% of the people mentioned. There's like a tiny amount which I know from reading about creationism.

Look at the page for the admittedly ancient essays described as "widely considered to be the foundation of modern Christian fundamentalism." It's just a long parade of names that I've never heard about.

This is something that I've noticed about people who criticize "evangelicals" too. I hear a lot of talk about them, but I almost never hear names of actual evangelical writers mentioned, much less their specific ideas. It looks a lot like there's a rich history there that I'm just unaware of, and I suspect that's true for a lot of people on The Motte.

Are you seriously asking? Yes, it does come off as a bit of a Christian hugbox at times.

Many posters here, yourself included (yourself especially?), take ample opportunity to mention that they are Christian, and often use the forum to discuss Christian topics and Christian theology as if it would be uncontroversial.

It's not so frequent that I can quickly dig up an example, but I've noticed it and been annoyed by it before. It's innocent enough - one person sees the other mention their faith, and takes that as license to proceed in a discussion where the baseline axioms of Christianity are assumed. I hope you can appreciate that an atheist watching a thread devolve into bible study would be miffed.

I hope you can appreciate that an atheist watching a thread devolve into bible study would be miffed.

I'm an atheist/antitheist. My stance on the Bible study threads is bemused tolerance, sure, it's not for me, but I'm sure that my passion for AI alignment research isn't what others are looking for. In both cases, the sensible thing to do is collapse the thread and look for something else to read. Perhaps appreciate that this sub has a diversity of opinion and discussions!

I certainly don't see an assumption of Christianity in general, most of the discussion is usually found away from the CWR threads, and where it does come in, well, topics like abortion or immigration and one's attitudes towards the same do hinge on religious beliefs or lack thereof.

Yes, it does come off as a bit of a Christian hugbox at times.

Somewhat true

Many posters here, yourself included (yourself especially?), take ample opportunity to mention that they are Christian, and often use the forum to discuss Christian topics and Christian theology

Definitely true

I hope you can appreciate that an atheist watching a thread devolve into bible study would be miffed.

Wait why? I just immediately close these threads because I have no interest in them, just like I close every thread I have no interest in. Why does this bother you? I'm happy they have their hugbox and I don't interact with it.

Now the pre-marital sex-ed discussions, those are fun to wade into

I hope you can appreciate that an atheist watching a thread devolve into bible study would be miffed.

Why would you be miffed? Atheists and agnostics regularly talk about AI, transhumanism, and all sorts of other things here as well. I genuinely don't get why this is a problem, or makes this place seem like a hugbox?

Just because this type of convo is allowed?

Why would you be miffed?

I'm not @celluloid_dream, and I am also not an atheist. I am not observant, and I am not even certain that I could say that I am a Christian, even though I desperately wish that I could say that I was.

There is something about that particular kind of thread that bothers me. It seems, for lack of better terms, both condescending and sinful.

It feels to me like many of those threads are rooted in a faith that is almost Calvinist, where anyone who is not already among the elect will not and cannot understand the ineffable nature of God's grace; it seems more a way to reaffirm the holiness of the speaker rather than to spread the Good News of universal salvation that is offered to anyone. I'm not sure if this is the intent, but it feels that way when you are on the "other side".

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Jesus himself said to be circumspect about discussions of faith. It is difficult for me to reconcile that with what I have written above.

Idk man I have seen prideful faith, and it’s bad. I don’t see that here.

I think in reality it’s just culture shock from seeing Christians who actually deeply believe speak. Most Christians in the modern world are in name only sadly.

Genuinely not trying to be condescending here but at least imo I haven’t seen much bragging or holier-than-thou. Usually it’s people nerding out about weird historical or theological points. Not talking about how often they pray or that they met this Saint or elder or got to touch this relic or icon, went to this or that monastery, etc.

I'm not exactly sure how to articulate it, but I've seen a lot of discussion between Christians and atheists here where the Christian stance has a strong theme of "you just don't get it". I don't know if it's because the other side of the conversation has a fundamental difference in viewpoint, but the "vibe" is frequently there. Much like the 2014 era meme of "it's not my job to educate you", it feels like it's meant to absolve the speaker of having to explain their stance in a way that allows someone to get it.

That is such a strange stance for me. If Christianity is real, and I could bring myself to believe, I don't think that I would morally be capable of saying something like that.

I don't remember who it was, but someone on this forum once wrote up a long response that could be compressed to "Jesus loves you. Yes, even you, even though you don't think he should." It was probably the single best case for Christianity that I have ever read. It actually made the faith make sense on a visceral level for the first time in my life. I wish we saw more of that here, rather than comments about religion social technology.

Isn't that a pretty standard proselytizing angle, used especially on criminals and drug addicts etc? It may work on spiritual/culturally christian but nonpracticing people, but why would anyone use that line here? It would be a comically bad misread of rationality-community adjacent atheists to believe they "don't think Jesus should love them".

Interesting! I was initially attracted to the faith due to the social technology discussion, but over time Christ's love is what fully won me over.

If it helps, I absolutely believe that the fact that God loves us personally is the most unique and shocking thing about Christianity. I was healed of a horrible set of chronic pain and illness issues in large part by coming to Christ.

Not a problem. It's just mildly annoying sometimes.

The difference between topics of material fact and those of a spiritual bent is that the former are comprehensible to anyone, and the latter only make sense if you have already bought in to a specific belief system. You can discuss geopolitics or tech without anyone having to accept contested metaphysics. The annoyance comes from moving the discussion to a place where not everyone can play.

The term "hugbox" is probably not fair. It's more like the accumulated weight of all the Christian-posting starts to make the place feel kind of Christian by default.

As an atheist/agnostic, I am rather happy to have a community where I can talk to Christians who take Christianity seriously, and aren't ashamed of having serious beliefs. If themotte can occasionally feel very Christian by rationalist standards, that's because basically every other grey/blue tribe space are aggressively atheist hugboxes for obvious historical reasons (descent from New Atheism etc.).

Turok needs to take his meds.

I don't know of any meds that can help, he's not psychotic, he's just a dick. Can't cure ASPD.

In that case, he should log off.

TLDR: To an atheist, Christianity is quite literally 'unbelievable' and not being able to say so loudly and clearly (and repeatedly) is ridiculous.

As a former militant atheist, anything that prevents one from saying, "Fuck off with your stupid fairy-tales, and don't come back to debate unless you can find a basis for your way of life that isn't 'but sky-Daddy said so'" comes across as a Christian hugbox. It's somewhat equivalent to the reaction I have to being told by trans activists that a man can become a woman by wishing really hard and to be fair to Turok it is probably true that I would be reported for the Christian bit and not for the trans bit.

OTOH you are perfectly able to make the atheist argument here provided you aren't obnoxious about it, and indeed lots of people do if you actually try to assert the tenets of Christianity as literally true in a debate (we had one a while ago about 'what does it mean that God allows bad things to happen' where I earned a decent number of downvotes and pushback for giving what I see as the Christian answer. 'Christian culture has a pretty good track record even if we can't prove the religion is literally true' is a much easier sale and offends fewer people here.

we had one a while ago about 'what does it mean that God allows bad things to happen' where I earned a decent number of downvotes and pushback for giving what I see as the Christian answer.

Damn I might try and dig this up, sounds funny

TLDR: To an atheist, Christianity is quite literally 'unbelievable' and not being able to say so loudly and clearly (and repeatedly) is ridiculous.

I am so confused by this conversational mindset. What could someone perceive as the value to themselves of jumping into a discussion among Christians, with Christian premises, to declare that actually Christians are morons who believe in a "sky fairy" or whatever? If you truly believe that Christians are benighted superstitious freaks, then surely you're wasting your time yelling at them on the internet. Or if you think they're ordinary people with mistaken beliefs, then it seems like the attitude should be one of polite curiosity and question-asking?

Taking the time to explain one's reasoning for why one's audience is incapable of reason seems like a weird self-own more than anything.

I'm an atheist, and an antitheist, but I don't bother with being militant about it.

I feel like we reached the heat death of the theism debate sometime around 2011. Every argument has been deployed, countered, steelmanned, mothballed, and then resurrected as a zombie argument so many times that the marginal utility of another forum post is effectively zero. I am happy to report that life as a Western atheist is actually quite pleasant. I leave them alone; they generally leave me alone. It is a functional equilibrium.

I am so confused by this conversational mindset. What could someone perceive as the value to themselves of jumping into a discussion among Christians, with Christian premises, to declare that actually Christians are morons who believe in a "sky fairy" or whatever? If you truly believe that Christians are benighted superstitious freaks, then surely you're wasting your time yelling at them on the internet. Or if you think they're ordinary people with mistaken beliefs, then it seems like the attitude should be one of polite curiosity and question-asking?

But I want to push back on the quoted dichotomy. It suggests that if I believe religious people hold fundamentally absurd beliefs, I must either view them as raving lunatics worthy of scorn or simply be politely curious about their worldview.

This assumes a unitary model of the human mind which psychology tells us is almost certainly false. The correct model is that humans are world-class champions at compartmentalization.

The average religious believer is not a caricature. They are behaviourally indistinct from the general population. They take out thirty-year mortgages. They trust the FDIC to insure their deposits. They accept the efficacy of amoxicillin. They engage in normal signaling regarding movies and electoral politics. They are hosting a parasitic memeplex, yes, but it appears to be a commensal organism rather than a fatal one. It is not metabolizing their ability to function in a modern economy.

I have an uncle who is a highly credentialed microbiologist. He spends his days applying the scientific method to bacteria, running PCRs, and adhering to rigorous evidentiary standards. He also believes, with total sincerity, in homeopathy. If you tried to model this as a consistent worldview, you would fail. But he doesn't have a consistent worldview. He has a work-mode partition where dilution removes active ingredients, and a home-mode partition where dilution increases potency. I have tried to bridge this gap in debate. It does not work. It only generates heat, not light.

The peace treaty works both ways. The religious generally grant that despite my lack of a divine command theory of ethics, I am probably not going to eat their babies or harvest their organs for the black market. I am a Cooperator in the Prisoner's Dilemma of civilization.

In return, I acknowledge that their "God module" is just an unfortunate quirk of their hardware. It is a glitch, perhaps a spandrel of our evolutionary history that makes them susceptible to hyper-active agency detection. Maybe they genuinely do have a God-shaped Hole, which I fortunately lack. But outside of that specific theological blast radius, we share a surprising amount of epistemological territory. We can agree on the price of tea in China. We can agree on the laws of thermodynamics. We can agree that the new Star Wars movies were disappointing.

I feel a certain distant pity for the condition, the same way I might pity someone with a benign but annoying tinnitus. But since they are otherwise high-functioning members of the tribe, I see no utility in screaming at them until they admit the ringing sound isn't real. We can (usually) just ignore the noise and watch the movie.

I am happy to report that life as a Western atheist is actually quite pleasant.

In terms of not being subject to Christianity, yes.

It's a deep personal irony for me that while I had my minor annoyances with Christianity as a youth, most of my atheist grievances were secondhand. The personal grievance was being forced to engage with it at all; a lot of time spent being bored, bored enough to dwell on how in addition to being boring, it contradicted all the science/natural history stuff that I was actually interested in. In a conflict between Jesus and Dinosaurs, Jesus didn't have a chance.

Now, as an adult, I actually have experienced being subject to an oppressive ideology that deranges the people around me in obviously unhealthy ways.

Everyone assumes I share this ideology, but also talks constantly about how much they hate/fear those who don't, resulting in a vibe of "You better agree with me, or else". I get to hear incessant little digs about my immutable characteristics that imply they make me a Less-Than. Sometimes I even get a backhanded compliment that's the equivalent of "Wow, you're very articulate for a Black."

Just about everyone (as in, a social peer, not a rando) who's been interpersonally foul to me in the last six years has used ideological lingo while doing so. And didn't suffer social consequences for their foulness, once more because of ideology, and my immutable characteristics that are disfavored by said ideology.

So yeah, all my under-justified dislike of Christianity has been redirected into a quite-justified dislike of, you guessed it, Intersectionalist Leftist-ism.

From "I Am A New Atheist, And I Repent" by Eneasz Brodski:

Over the past few years I watched a new religion born. A secular religion, which doesn’t have the dead-easy failure mode of requiring belief in a sky-fairy. But, since it was created in America, with strong Christian roots, it has all the trappings of Christianity.

  • Original sin
  • Essentialism
  • Repentance and confession
  • Manichean good/evil dichotomy
  • Focus on martyrdom and victimhood
  • Salvation dispensed by the church and needing constant reaffirmation

Even worse, since it is a new religion that is being seized as a lifeline by people who’ve been spiritually drowning for over a decade, it is full of fiery zealots. All conflicts are recast as spiritual struggles focused around the original sin. Like the puritans, they can harbor no dissent in their midst. Everyone must be equally zealous and on their side, or they are on the side of evil. Any price is worth paying to save a soul from evil.

When the scales fell from my eyes and I finally realized what had happened, I felt true crushing failure. Not because I had failed in my objective. Tradition religion is less relevant than ever. The New Atheists won. But in winning, having not realized how different others are, we left a massive religion-vacuum in society. We laid the groundwork for a new religion. One that had been purged of the greatest weaknesses of traditional religions, and with a dense underbrush of religion-starved kindling to tear into.

So, yes. New Atheism helped to create Wokeism. I repent of my ways, I was wrong. Religion is needed, and we should have focused on strengthening the least harmful religion(s) while tearing down the most harmful ones, rather than trying to eliminate them all. Forgive us, for we knew not what we did. :(

try to assert the tenets of Christianity as literally true in a debate

It's not so much that people do this (although it does happen). More often they proceed with a discussion as if the tenets of Christianity are literally true, and at that point, it would be rude to question them, because they're trying to talk about kenosis or apokatastasis or whatever and not have an edgy 2000s atheism debate.

As a former militant atheist, anything that prevents one from saying, "Fuck off with your stupid fairy-tales, and don't come back to debate unless you can find a basis for your way of life that isn't 'but sky-Daddy said so'" comes across as a Christian hugbox. It's somewhat equivalent to the reaction I have to being told by trans activists that a man can become a woman by wishing really hard and to be fair to Turok it is probably true that I would be reported for the Christian bit and not for the trans bit.

Yeah exactly. People over there were claiming the Motte is full of "Christian literalists" and I'm like huh... do you just mean people who believe Christ literally rose from the dead? Because yeah, that's kind of the whole point.

It is interesting how hard it can be to have conversations across these inferential gaps. Makes me sad that we have so few progressive / liberal folks.

But the motte is still, last I checked, majority atheist/agnostic, Turok was upset that he was required to not flamebait pro-lifers. The motte sometimes discusses the metaphysics of Christianity but rarely takes a Christian frame particularly seriously. ‘God says so’ is not treated as an argument here. Turok was upset that ‘you believe in a sky fairy’ as an argument against pro-lifers who had only made secular arguments thus far wasn’t either.

IDK, I don't think you/we want this. If the gap is too big, no meaningful discussion can happen. At best, when everyone is careful and on their best behaviour, every conversation is a careful working through to 'we disagree because you axiomatically believe stuff that I don't' and you each end up at Ozy's position of 'it's not that I hate you, it's just that you're the carrier for a set of memes that needs to be wiped from the earth'. It's nice to agree on generalities but disagree on specifics or have different experiences, because then you can learn something that might help you.

I like my debating partners to follow the Goldilocks Principle: not too similar (boring or infuriating) but not too different.

I found this on a quick search: https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2018/06/25/conservatives-as-moral-mutants/

Wait what, Ozy said that? Can you link? That is pretty wild. Ugh.

Yeah fundamental value differences are pretty tough but like, it's best to acknowledge them at least, no? And hopefully shed some light on why we value what we value?

Yes, it's the Moral Mutants essay. She's not wrong, either, it's just there's not much to be done from there.

it's best to acknowledge them at least, no? And hopefully shed some light on why we value what we value?

Granted, and those can be valuable conversations. I just feel like I had enough of those convos when I was younger. I have a reasonable theory of mind now IMO and I'm interested into digging into the details of how to work with my beliefs rather than changing them.

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