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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026

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If there is no God, then there is no basis or criteria for categorizing anything as good or bad.

I never understood this argument. Wouldn’t good or evil just be God’s subjective morality, which anyone could theoretically disagree with? It’s not like human ethics haven’t varied throughout history, or that moral philosophers have formed much of a consensus. Like, could God convince a vegan that eating meat is okay? “I put these animals on Earth for you to eat!” “What the fuck, why did you create living sentient beings that suffer and need to be killed for nutrients instead of I don’t know making bacon grow on trees like apples?”

I’m not even vegan, but it’s a pretty good example of how humans disagree on some fairly fundamental issues.

And God having created us doesn’t give him any special right, like your parents don’t get to decide your morality, and him being able to enforce his opinions doesn’t make it objective anymore than living in North Korea makes Kim Jong Un objectively right about everything. Or if I designed a simulation of intelligent beings, and said to them “if you don’t follow these rules I’ll put you in a special sub-simulation where you’ll be in pain forever” that doesn’t make me objectively right in that world; I could change my mind later, they could convince me that I’m actually evil, that some of the rules are nonsense, or they could outsmart me and escape from the simulation etc.