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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1761 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.

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.

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.

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.

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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