This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
You are thinking in a worldly manner. If those people were God's followers, they are now in heaven, which is a far better fate than anything that could have happened to them here on earth.
Why doesn't God just end world hunger? For that matter, why doesn't he conjure me up a steak whenever I pray for one?
Any time you find yourself thinking 'If I were God, I would have done this instead...' you are demonstrating the cardinal sin of pride, i.e. putting yourself in the place of God. We are not God, which is why we don't know or understand everything He is up to. As the scripture says, 'My ways are not your ways.' But on the other hand, we can and do see the evidence of His work in our own lives and in our own hearts. At least, I do, and other Christians report that they do as well.
My hope for you is that you have the humility to consider asking Jesus into your life, not as a test, but as a genuine request for a relationship with your Creator. You might be surprised by what happens next.
Then why were they cowering in fear from the earthquake? Shouldn't they be looking forward to their deaths so they can ascend to eternal bliss?
Tyler Cowen's description of religious beliefs as a logically inconsistent but flexible mood portfolio seems like a pretty good explanation of why religious people respond to death and suffering the way they do.
From your linked post:
Here's the issue. The Christians that I know behave exactly how Tyler claims they should. I've been to funerals where the attitude is exactly as described - joyful that the deceased is with God. And I've also been to ones where the attitude was mournful, and those were the ones where the deceased weren't Christian. It's a stark difference.
Of course this is my anecdotal experience. But this argument in the form of 'If Christians really believed, they would do this' is exceptionally weak, especially since stories of Christians joyfully going to their deaths as martyrs are so common.
Indeed, this whole argument about Lisbon rests on the assumption that they were cowering in fear rather than joyfully praising God. As far as I can tell there's no basis for that assumption. You're assuming your conclusion.
I think, if anything, Tyler's and perhaps your experience are because so many people today who claim to be Christians simply don't actually believe. It's certainly true that polling of certain denominations shows mass amounts of people who don't believe in even basic doctrines. At my church, though, we rejoice when someone goes to be with God, knowing that they faithfully ran the race.
More options
Context Copy link
No matter what Andrew Huberman says about how good it is for me, I can't take a cold shower without flinching.
But Andrew Huberman wasn't the one who laid down the ontological fundamentals of how cold showers make people flinch, nor is he the one who designed reality such that you have to go through a cold shower to get its benefits instead of just embedding those as the default state of existence.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
You shouldn't have to use this line of argument, where you mysteriously can't provide any actual proof and defy the whole idea of proving your own case. Your God should never need clerics writing cope about how he mustn't be put to the test. What kind of deity shrinks from a test? In the Old Testament he was razing cities left and right.
It's wonderful how Christians think that sneering at these 'unworthy' wishes like wishing for steak is some incisive cutting response. Why not grant such wishes? Is your God not as powerful as industrial agriculture which puts so much meat on the table the poor struggle with obesity? Why not have the devout be capable of wishing for manna, isn't that something Christians are supposed to be capable of? Or were those relegated to metaphors since you can't actually accomplish such miracles, only intangible wishes and copes?
God's ways are doing nothing when his followers get massacred, repressed or blown up on their Feast Days. But that's totally fine, fantastic even because they'll get enormous rewards in the afterlife (but nobody can see this, only the dead know). Come on, this is cope from a deity who lacks the power to act physically in the world.
The sole power of your God is the organized religious devotion that has driven history for millennia. The Crusades, the Reconquista, The Thirty Years War... The discipline and will of soldiers can be tested, that's actually real. But he's just one force amongst many and a waning force at that.
The God I'm talking about actually created the universe, created the stars, mathematics, worldly thinking, hunger, cancer, death, cope, social constructs and everything else. If he didn't want us to think in a certain way, it would never happen.
Okay let's go back to first principles. What is your purpose? Why do you exist?
Christianity teaches that your purpose is not physical well-being, it is not hedonistic pleasure, it is not propagating your genetic material. It's not any of these worldly goals.
You are arguing strenuously that the Christian God doesn't make sense because He doesn't provide the very things He has clearly said are not important. The contradiction you are describing is between reality and this made-up version of God in your head. Again, "If I were God this is how I would see things..." It's quite literally the most basic error you can make in theology.
Christians do pray for many such things, and those prayers are often answered. I've personally witnessed God's provision, even to the point of the miraculous, and I know plenty of others who have seen similar things. Plus, there is a massive body of literature on miracles and the evidence for them. I recommend Dr Craig Keener if you're interested to learn more, he has a book "Miracles Today" that covers a lot of this. There's also a lot on Youtube you can check out. However, honestly I doubt you'll do any such thing, it sounds like you've already made up your mind without bothering to look at the evidence.
Christian theology is forced to take up this incredible burden of justifying how the structure of the universe necessitates all these problems from cancer to bad equilibriums, so they bring in original sin or free will or other constructs. But there is no need for them in the first place.
Vs
The simpler solution is better. It doesn't need to invent dogmatic justifications for what's going on. How are we to know that God's plans require his followers to be immolated in Lisbon? Blind faith. And the good things that happen? These miracles are actually good? They aren't some counterintuitive damnation to bring about more evil in the long run (since we're taking on this twisty reasoning process)? Again blind faith. It's not even consistent.
Theology is cope, it's a way to find some justification for the unjustifiable, baffling people with jargon when the case is very simple. Take Leibniz's 'best of all possible worlds' - that's real theology done by real theologians. It's obviously wrong. Any idiot could easily make a better world just by subtracting mosquitoes or cluster migraines, or some similar unpleasant aspect of the world.
But theologians erect these huge bulwarks of defence against thinking clearly, they maintain that you can't judge God's action or inaction since you don't know what he's planning. Yet they seem to be very sure about omnibenevolence and love... How do they know what he's like? Because they appeal to the legitimacy of one holy book amongst many about events that happened in the distant past, when supernatural events happened constantly.
It's galactic-scale motivated reasoning, like anthropology or social sciences but without even pretending to be falsifiable, since they deny the very idea of testing their work.
One thing I’ll give the secular crowd is their arguments make a lot of sense at least prima facie in contrast with my own camp’s. One thought I remember having as a child was an expression very similar to what I much later came across when someone said, “The Christians have to do all these huge, tremendous intellectual backflips, whereas everything the atheists were so simple and straightforward by comparison…”
More options
Context Copy link
This is simply false. A Christian should obviously test their beliefs. Scripture says, for instance: "Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil." [1 Thes 5:21-22] More importantly, the Christian faith is not a random philosophy untethered to the world, it is specifically tied to the resurrection: "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." [1 Cor 15:14]
You seem to by relying on this idea of 'blind faith' which, though a common refrain in pop atheism, is contrary to what Christians believe. The Christian faith is confirmed not just by the resurrection, which, being historically distant, you can certainly have skepticism about - but it is also confirmed by the miraculous work of God in the lives of believers, which you can still see today (I think I predicted correctly that you didn't even bother to Google the case for miracles).
I will repeat this as many times as I need to: you are tilting at windmills. You are arguing against your own made-up idea of God and of Christianity.
I did go have a look at the man you linked, I find it unsurprising that a Christian scholar believes in miracles. I could find a bunch of imams who believe and write about djinn. Let's see them use djinn in warfare. Let's see them act like they're truly real.
You should never even need to claim miracles. If God doesn't want something to happen, it would not be possible. Why introduce fornication to the world and then forbit it? Why have sodomy be a thing at all? Why have greed at all? There is no grand cosmic reason for men to derive sexual pleasure from buggery, nor for the human back to be weak compared to the weight of our heads and so get back pain.
By the way, you can use the Bible to argue for anything, there's so much contradictory or unclear writing in there that it can be interpreted in any direction:
This is similar to people who go around asking, “Why does God need prayer at all?” “If God is perfect and not lacking sufficiency in anything, why would He bother to even create humans; was He bored?”, etc. God has no need of anything from humans. Our relationship to prayer (or indeed our own existence) is for our benefit, not His. As a Catholic, Aquinas put forth a fairly straightforward theodicy that explains much of what you’ve alleged. God didn’t “introduce” these things, in the way you’re suggesting. “Sin” is a function of disordered desire that turns human beings away from God, and thus is a privation of the good. In its basic form. You could argue (as you’ve already pointed to), that that still doesn’t account for natural evils, but insofar as the physical world is corrupted, it demands God’s grace and faithful obedience from his adherents to the faith. It doesn’t preclude of accidental consequences.
Omnipotence disappears the moment it's called upon. Why can desire be disordered? Why can humans turn away from God? Why is the physical world corrupted at all? Why was there a tree of knowledge in the garden? Why make things and then forbid them?
Efforts to answer these questions presume the precepts of the faith and build up these huge abstract epicycles. Humans have to be able to turn away from God since that's obvious and we see it happening and so God, being omnipotent has to have allowed that to happen and it's somehow part of the plan or needed for free choice... But the other ways that our choices are limited by the structure of the universe are somehow not this grave restriction on free will. God is a lot more opposed to negentropy than sin, the former seems actually forbidden. The latter could be too but isn't. Maybe that's part of the mysterious plan we cannot understand, the catch-all defence.
The scripture, Aquinas and theodicy is written around this gulf between the grand claims of omnipotence and omnibenevolence and the meagre realities. It doesn't explain anything, Epicurean argument alone obliterates all of it. And so you say 'oh this is very basic stuff, we've dealt with the Epicurean argument' but you haven't and cannot without coming up with these question-begging excuses like disordered desire.
Whereas the blind watchmaker needs no excuses. Take away the omnibenevolence and everything falls into place.
Unless you’re asking this rhetorically, everyone knows the classic apologetic to this question, regardless if you agree with it or not: free will. To your point about forbidding things, anything available to you always has the opportunity to be misused. The fire that warms you can also burn you, the water that sustains you can also drown you. Your objection or dissatisfaction with the answer is predicated upon the assumption that an idealized world if such a God existed, would more or less be one populated with mindless automatons who are mechanically repetitious machines of virtue, devoid of the other divine qualities that make human action meaningful, and not just lifelessly giving the Almighty his due. But that’s not some kind of argument against His existence per se, that has to do with your theology:
“To call something irrational isn’t an argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.” - Nietzsche
The existence of contradictions (whether real or imagined, known or unknown) still persists even in secular philosophy. It’s why in the Maoist dialectic of Marxism, they think “contradiction” inheres in the existence of physical matter itself, because it’s the only way to explain how organic living systems can hold incompatible stances and propositions in their mind. Because if all contiguous physical reality is consistent and without contradiction at all times, how can contradictory impulses manifest themselves, since it should be logically impossible? If I accepted your framework of understanding, I’d buy the same conclusions you’re brought to. The question is, why bother accepting that framework to begin with? I see no logical argument that demands I accept that framework of understanding. I too can point to things I believe God does that leave me feeling wanting and dissatisfied, but aren’t logically incoherent necessarily. You may think it’s a cop out and catch-all defense (no doubt people also use it that way), but I can’t understand what I can’t understand, and can only try and inform you of what I do understand.
I don’t know what kind of heavy lifting you’re expecting Aquinas to do for you here, and specifically to Epicurus’ argument; there’s nothing logically incoherent about God having morally sufficient reasons for permitting the existence of evil in the world. That’s an argument that even Protestant theologians have dispatched to my satisfaction a long time ago. That’s why the modern defense of this argument was best captured by Wesley Morriston when he said, “If God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil in the world, then it’s whatever these reasons are that are the ultimate grounding of morality and not the fact that He has commanded them. Either way, the divine command theory is false…” (e.g. Euthrypho’s dilemma still remains and so does the Problem of Evil.) That is an argument that’s harder to refute. This is why the Logical form of the Problem of Evil is rarely defended anymore, and philosophers have pivoted to developing the Evidential Problem of Evil. I think it ultimately comes down to a definitional move you make over semantics at bottom and there really is no explicit logical contradiction (which gets down to logical epicycles if you want to call it that, but even so, that isn’t a logical argument against the proposition. All mathematics is ultimately tautological as well, this is what Bertrand Russell struggled with in trying to “prove” his thesis, but it still doesn’t mean 2+2 doesn’t equal 4.)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The purpose of miracles isn't to occasionally fix God's mistake of creating diseases and disasters in the first place. The purpose of miracles is to point humans to God.
Here's a thought experiment, I'm curious to hear your reaction. Let's assume that God wants to instill virtue in people. Should he: a) create a world with challenges and suffering or b) create a world with no challenge and no suffering?
An omnipotent God can directly create virtuous people and/or seed virtue into the universe at a base level. The universe could literally work on vibes-based storybook logic where the virtuous always prevail regardless of whatever challenges or suffering they may face. That is no more or less reasonable than having the universe run on atoms or gravity. Virtue is independent of challenge or suffering.
If he wanted no virtue, he could make the physics and incentives revolve around pure self-interest, maybe one has to eat the souls of others to survive. We don't live in that world.
If he wanted maximum virtue, he could have virtue directly translate into success and power and prestige, directly performing miracles in public. The medievals thought that could happen, they thought that kings could cure scrofula with the royal touch. We don't live in that world either.
God would certainly not resort to such indirect and ineffectual methods as getting people to write and constantly reinterpret holy books if he wanted virtue. There are much more direct levers to push.
Hard disagree. That is nonsensical to me.
How can you have courage without adversity? What would that even mean?
How can you have charity if there's nobody in distress to help?
How can you have industry if everything is already perfect and needs no improving?
How can you have temperance if there are no negative consequences to excess?
How can you care about another's wellbeing (i.e. love) if everyone's wellbeing is already met?
I can go on.
Yeah, my point. The question is 'why is there suffering in the world', and look at that, you've given an answer! "There are much more direct levers to push" - like, say, challenge or suffering that need to be overcome? Quod erat demonstrandum. By trying to pivot to some point about holy books, you've essentially argued that a world without challenge or suffering, but with holy books, is insufficient.
I'm confident that you'll dismiss this and try some other avenue of attack, because your objection to faith in God doesn't originate from argument. You have clearly set your heart against the idea of God. I would guess it's because you want to persist in some kind of sin that God condemns, that's typically the reason. The good news, though, is that God can and will forgive you for your sins if you just turn to him. I recommend it!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Is Heaven not a place without challenge and suffering? It’s a ‘possible world’, as the philosophers would define it; which is to say a maximally consistent set of propositions. It only creates problems if you adhere to the axiom that God is omnibenevolent.
To your first point, you’re absolutely right. If your love of God is only conditional on the premise that He delivers you your hearts desires, this is no different than a parent who loves his children only if they do what it is he wants. But that’s the love of the sinners and tax collectors, it isn’t divine love. This is also an argument for why Christian philosophers dismiss Allah as a false God and why they don’t worship the same deity Christians do, because Islam has a morally deficient concept of God. Numerous times throughout the Quran, it details who it is God hates and who He loves.
Yeah that's a good question. I'm not confident about the nature of Heaven, I know plenty of theologians with different ideas about what it will look like. For instance, I've heard it argued that everything good on Earth will also be in Heaven, including things like tennis - but tennis by nature implies a winner and loser, and effort and challenge. So perhaps Heaven will have challenges, but we will rejoice in those things, as we are told by scripture to do now on earth. There's joy in overcoming limitations and growth, so why would we expect not to have that joy in Heaven?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The best arguments in this thread are atheists questioning the premise and a Catholic. The protestants have sneered or told me there will be no discussion. Which is amazing since they are heretics all the same, I guess just in the opposite direction.
Anyway, I have discussed why the demiurge cannot or will not give you the steak. As for the higher beings, gnosis is a way to get to their realm. So if we want their abundance, we can have it through that, not through material which attaches us to this realm. We are responsible for our own steak, if we want to stay here. This makes some sense, whereas their system forces you into double think, where one god is both cruel and merciful.
Yes, this angle is much more reasonable. Full responsibility.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Circular argument: your canon has coherency issues, but it says not to question itself. Not convincing to atheists and reasoners.
So do I, but I disagree with you on canon.
Well if he's pneumatic he might feel a faint direction to read the Gospel of Thomas. How would you know otherwise?
It doesn't say that. Interpretation of scripture is all about questioning the text to determine what it means.
Charitably, you seem to be assuming that certain fundamentalist interpretive frameworks are actually found in the text, rather than being imposed from without, but if you think that you've been misled.
By question I mean question whether the sentence is true, not what it means.
Actually, Revelation contains a chain mail curse like this which I take to be a sign of its false nature. But other than that good point, the canon is not actually in scripture.
Just as a side note, I don't think there's a nonfiction book in existence that tells its readers to question what it says. If someone writes something in a book it's a pretty fair assumption that the author wanted it to be treated as true.
This idea that 'the Bible tells you not to question it' is somehow a mark against it is just special pleading.
Hell for not believing is a chain letter curse in Revelation, and it's pretty close in the rest of it. I've done heresy in other subjects, but only in this one do people think God might torture me forever for ending up wrong.
Still not sure what you mean by 'chain letter curse'. Are you talking about 22:18-19? Revelation was a letter written to the churches that was meant to be copied and distributed, and this warning is pretty standard - don't change anything in this letter when you copy it. There's no curse for reading it and then failing to pass it on, which is what 'chain letter curse' implies. At this point I feel like you're just making things up all over the place.
This is not a standard warning:
This is a ridiculous, chain letter curse. When I de-canonize this and say it didn't happen, I take every word away from it. The text itself curses me. That is unacceptable epistemologically and I take it to mean the correct decision is to through it out of the canon.
And this is after vivid lake of fire for unbelievers stuff. So arguably anywhere else in the Bible where it says Gehenna, fire, or outer darkness for unbelievers, it's implying if you, idk, declare the book of Matthew invalid, you can go to hell. Again, unacceptable as instead of convincing with evidence it just spiritually threatens you. My method is not designed to remove hell theology but it largely goes away even if I hold the chain mail letter curse clause, so I think I'm on to something when I observe that this is lowly, despicible, and ugly behavior, not fit for the highest God, rather fit for some corrupters who want to keep worshiping their tribal god.
Okay, I'm not sure if you know what a chain letter is? A chain letter would say something like 'forward this letter to three people or you will be cursed'. Revelation says 'if you forward (I.e. teach the contents of) this letter, you will be punished if you alter it'.
Imagine I sent a letter with some of my teachings to my student, saying 'hey student, please go ahead and teach this to people, but if you're teaching it in my name don't add any of your own ideas in there!' That would be eminently reasonable. Now imagine if the letter is an actual inspired prophecy from God, in which case editing it is literal sacrilege.
You get worked up over the strangest things. Pretty much every other OT prophet, not to mention Jesus himself, also told the people to believe them. As does literally anyone else trying to teach literally anything. Seriously I can't get over what an absurd objection this is.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link