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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   5629 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 12, 2023

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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I find it interesting that The Motte tends to treat Christianity with kid gloves that are not reserved for other belief systems. For example, the idea that there is no difference in intelligence between different genetic groups of humans is widely called out here as being simply wrong. Which it almost certainly is, in my opinion. But consider the idea that a man 2000 years ago was god incarnate and rose from the dead and we should believe this because a few people who lived decades later wrote that this was true and because some other people have had some visions and powerful feelings. This idea is, I think, even less likely to be true than the idea that there is no difference in intelligence between different genetic groups of humans. But Christianity on The Motte is usually not met with accusations that it is as absurd, indeed perhaps more absurd, as any flavor of wokism. Wokeism gets often and in my opinion properly pilloried on here for being nonsensical on the level of correspondence to objective reality, but Christianity typically gets a free pass. Even the atheists on here mostly refuse to really call it out as being absurd when the topic comes up.

Does this happen because Christianity is largely not viewed as a threat and because since wokeism is this community's main out-group and Christianity is vaguely right-aligned in the modern West, people here tend to follow the principle of "the enemy of an enemy is my friend"? Or, to be more charitable, maybe it is because wokism can fairly easily be criticized on the level of normal scientific investigation, whereas the claims that Christianity makes go so far beyond typical materialism that one makes an exception for it because its claims are fundamentally viewed as being orthogonal to scientific investigation?

I find it interesting that The Motte tends to treat Christianity with kid gloves that are not reserved for other belief systems.

As others said, these other belief systems are clear and present danger while Christianity is not.

The noughties are over, Bush of out of office, intelligent design is out of schools, it is just not a live issue any more. If Christians were here to agressively preach and proselytize, I am sure they would met with strong pushback.

Similar example: I presume most people here strongly condemn communism, but it is not discussed there often. If some hard core tankies arrived and started forcefully explaining how Stalin did nothing wrong, it would change quickly.

Christianity is much less of a wedge in American politics than it was in 2003. The coalitions firmed up, and the constant blare of Christian and atheist squabbles peeled off most everyone open to being affected. Religious status is taken as a prerequisite for other issues: of course XYZ opposes trans, he's a fundamentalist!

But religion in general flies under the radar, here. Even Islam, the natural enemy of the American right, mostly shows up in straw arguments about how much the wokes must love it. It's just not the current CW battlefield.

Blank slatists are the out-group, but Christians are the far-group.

Or the in-group.

We have quite a few regulars who are explicitly Christian. Those who aren't probably know a ton if they live anywhere in America other than the largest cities. Those who don't still had a decent chance of being raised Christian.

But consider the idea that a man 2000 years ago was god incarnate and rose from the dead and we should believe this because a few people who lived decades later wrote that this was true and because some other people have had some visions and powerful feelings.

It is harder to run into true-believing Christians where Mottezians are generally found. (coastal cities)

Simply put, I have yet to meet a practicing Christian who expressed strong beliefs in the supernatural elements of Jesus's story. On the other hand, I run into true believers of every other religion fairly often. I know coastal Muslims who pray in the direction of Mecca a few times per day. I grew up in India and have seen every flavor of Indic peoples, including hyperstitious fundamentalists. Hasidic Jews are hard to avoid if you are in a coastal US city.

I had a sort of similar journey with Hinduism. Went angry atheist in my teens and disavowed my religion. Parents and people around me were like, "Yeah, whatever, do what you like. Maybe don't eat cows, they're friends. But if you do, don't tell us." I could not sustain my criticism of this imagined oppressive Hinduism when my lived experience ran so counter to it. "Haha, your religion's supernatural beliefs are stupid" is useful criticism when around someone who will actually try to justify their belief in said supernatural phenomena.

The sub doesn't push back against true-believer Christians because the vast majority of soft-agnostic Christians already disarm them to a large degree. This is demonstrably untrue with Islam, which tends to be religion that gets the most flak on here.

I have yet to meet a practicing Christian who expressed strong beliefs in the supernatural elements of Jesus's story.

Although you were talking about meeting such people IRL in coastal cities, I figured I’d introduce myself. Hi, I’m DuplexFields, young-Earth Creationist and Evangelical/Pentecostal Christian. Also a libertarian/Objectivist registered Republican and unabashed Trump voter/fan.

Religion is not about literal scientific claims. “Religious language” is unique. Definitions of God are also not as simple as imagined. Origen was writing about how Genesis is figurative in the 3rd century, Tertullian was writing about how the absurdity of Christian led to a stronger belief, and the earliest Gospel commentary we have is allegorical (Fortunatianus).

While the point of the religion is to have a perfect belief that God was born to a virgin, walked on water, converted water into wine, and so forth, this is tremendously difficult. The number of Christians who truly believe these things on a deep level are approximately the number of Saints. Consider how differently a person would act if they had a true, deep certainty that Jesus as depicted in the Gospel is returning: that imitating Jesus leads to true happiness, that you receive a new life, that Godly suffering leads to joy. You would be the most restless missionary ever while having no anxieties.

Christianity uses all kinds of things as propaganda to draw people into the inner faith, but at the heart of it it’s not “literal”. It’s true, and in fact more true than the literal. But not literal-scientific.

I don't think this is right. Or if it is, the "on a deep level" is doing all the work there.

It really isn't that difficult to believe that water was changed to wine or that Jesus was born to a virgin when you keep in mind that Christians believe that God is omnipotent.

And I was about to cite the passage of 1 Corinthians on the Resurrection, before I saw that I had been preempted.

While the point of the religion is to have a perfect belief that God was born to a virgin, walked on water, converted water into wine, and so forth, this is tremendously difficult. The number of Christians who truly believe these things on a deep level are approximately the number of Saints

I don't really think they're that rare. I mean I believe those things. And while I'm not the most restless missionary ever, I feel pretty guilty that I'm not. It sure seemed like everyone at my church believed those things, and was also pretty obsessed with missionary work.

C. S. Lewis put my perspective pretty well in his essay "The Grand Miracle":

One is very often asked at present whether we could not have a Christianity stripped, or, as people who ask it say, "freed" from its miraculous elements, a Christianity with the miraculous elements suppressed. Now, it seems to me that precisely the one religion in the world, or at least the only one I know, with which you could not do that is Christianity. In a religion like Buddhism, if you took away the miracles attributed to Gautama Buddha in some very late sources, there would be no loss; in fact, the religion would get on very much better without them because in that case the miracles largely contradict the teaching. Or even in the case of a religion like Mohammedanism, nothing essential would be altered if you took away the miracles. You could have a great prophet preaching his dogmas without bringing in any miracles; they are only in the nature of a digression, or illuminated capitals. But you cannot possibly do that with Christianity, because the Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, which is uncreated, eternal, came into Nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing Nature up with Him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away there is nothing specifically Christian left. There may be many admirable human things which Christianity shares with all other systems in the world, but there would be nothing specifically Christian.

I disagree with Lewis. In an alternate universe where Pontius Pilate let Jesus off with a whipping and he later died in a cholera outbreak, you could still have a religion based on his ministry of the Kingdom of God — the infinite grace of the Father, the equality of sinners be Him, the need to forgive debtors as one's debt has been forgiven... it's a spicy take on judaism. Without the resurrection, "Christians" might teach the same doctrines, but grace wouldn't be mediated personally through Christ.

If tomorrow, incontrovertible evidence came out that the apostles lied, you could still salvage a religion from the wreckage. Christians would have to perform some interprative surgery on the parts of the Bible where Jesus claims to be God — maybe make it like Buddhism where any enlightened person can be God? — but there are already stretches in biblical interpretation, as is.

I think you could salvage a religion out of Christianity if Christ did not rise from the dead, but it wouldn't be Christianity. I agree with Paul (emphasis mine):

Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.

But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him,” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.

Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead? And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”

You beat me to it.

Does this happen because Christianity is largely not viewed as a threat and because since wokeism is this community's main out-group and Christianity is vaguely right-aligned in the modern West, people here tend to follow the principle of "the enemy of an enemy is my friend"?

Ding-ding-ding, we have a winner! I grew up in a conservative christian environment (even went to a private christian school), was just about the only kid who actually read the bible, and relentlessly mocked the absolute silliness of it back then. Despite being overall conservative, my religious teachers were surprisingly accepting (mostly along the line of "we're sad to see you not wanting to be part of us but will always welcome you back") and I got into no meaningful trouble for being an edgy atheist.

Ironically, once I went to university I realised that they do not take kindly to disagreements about certain dogmas, and that here, I can get into real trouble if I point out the wrong kind of basic biology lessons. Ultimately I think that Mainstream Christianity is far past its prime, knows it, and largely behaves accordingly. I don't consider myself on the right, but I also don't consider Mainstream Christianity a threat, so I'm fine with treating them nicely.

The funny thing is people have been saying that "Christianity is far past its prime" since the 5th century, and maybe if we define "it's prime" as the days of the Martyrs and the Apostles the might be right, but then what of everything since.

Ironically, once I went to university, I realized that they do not take kindly to disagreements about certain dogmas.

What I think you've accidentally stumbled across is major part of why Christianity has endured and even thrived in spite of persecution. Someone of sincere faith might feel annoyed, disappointed by, or even offended by your edgy Atheist antics, but what they aren't going to feel is threatened. In contrast someone who's whole world is "the world" will always be on-edge. Any suggestion that they are not the center of the universe. Any suggestion that their status, wealth, educational attainment or what have you is a product of anything other than their status as a member of "The Elect", any suggestion that they are no better than anyone else, poses an existential threat to them, or at least their sense of self.

Christianity certainly used to be more dogmatic. My own parents told me that when a brothel was established in our village, the local church started a campaign were a rotation of people would stake out the brothel and report on everyone who visited it. Wild stuff. They themselves were protesting at the brothel as well, so this is not a hostile report by a non-religious, quite the opposite; They were proud that they successfully got rid of them.

My parents were also living together before marrying which got them into trouble since that was considered a "wild marriage" and the more conservative christians clearly tried to shame them into marrying(which my parents wanted to do anyway). And so on, I can give you a million examples of the church having been not much better than the woke not too long ago, from people who personally were around when it happened. Despite my more positive short description, I also had my fair share of bad experiences with dogmatic christians.

I'm also not claiming that it can never make a resurgence, but it is obvious that in many parts of the world Christianity had a certain position of dominance that they do not have anymore. And I'm cynical enough to attribute their recent mellowing out less to intrinsic do-good-ness than the good old "when I'm power" vs "when you're in power".

Finally, don't misunderstand me, I don't really have much beef with Christianity in particular anymore, and even got some newfound appreciation for it (my daughter even goes to an explicitly christian daycare!). But with age I'm more and more convinced that all ideologies get mean once they're to solidly in power, and I don't believe Christianity to be an exception. There are some genuinely nice devout that I know which are similar to what you're talking about, but most people unfortunately suck more than that.

Conservative Christians are not about to start imposing their views on anyone who doesn’t go out of their way to get into a scenario where that will happen.

Now you bring it up, I do think Christianity is incredibly dumb and of the same essence as wokeism. By this I mean Christianity as it's practiced, which is something that has some level of correspondence with the Bible but is not necessarily the same. Most people don't take fundamentalists as mainstream Christians. Anyway:

Both defy verification of their physical claims

Both are universalist, seeking to convert everyone

Both take human moral/economic/intellectual equality as an axiom that must be imposed on the world

Both have a heavy emphasis on the underdog, upon liberation

It's the WEIRD countries who came up with wokeism, all of whom were Christian to some extent. Based on their own distinct philosophical traditions, India would never have come up with it. China and Japan would never have come up with it. The Arabs would never have invented it.

For example - the British Empire went to enormous efforts to eliminate the slave trade, spending something like 5% of GDP on buying slaves back from their owners (a huge sum back in the 1830s considering the small size of the state). Nobody else ever did something like this, not the Arabs or the Chinese or anyone. Nobody else ever apologizes for their imperial history, teaches in their schoolbooks that they were wrong to go out and conquer others. Mostly they maintain that they were totally in the right whatever they did (it didn't happen and if it did the other guy deserved it anyway). The Turks don't apologize for their slave-raiding of Slavs, same with the Algerians and Tunisians who couldn't care less about their history of actually raiding the coast of Europe for slaves.

Only Christians feel guilty and apologize - that is the essence of wokeness. Apologizing for inequality, apologizing for discrimination and so on. We talk about white guilt but I think it's the legacy of Christianity.

Agree with substantialfrivolity, atheists are often tired veterans of the 2000’s internet atheism wars, so we observe a loose ceasefire, as long as the religious don’t try to prove the existence of god, bring up god as a causal explanation, or as a justification for a nonbeliever to do anything. Which they rarely do nowadays. People say new atheism failed, but the religious have basically conceded to a total secularization of the discourse. It’s a private matter now, no skin off my back. But yes, it is an absurd belief. Source: Richard Dawkins, Twitter Influencer.

This is a good point - I see Christians on here, but I don't often see them using religious doctrine as an argument for/against something. I would hope that we push back against that when they do.

Big-brained atheists won the 'god real' debate.

Now to move on to that oh-so-important question, how to breed?

If only there was some kind of guidebook somewhere to help them breed.

Honestly, it's because I'm into Christian theology as a hobby, and it's more fun to have a nuanced discussion with believers than it is to tear the foundations of their belief system to shreds.

Devout believers in the Bible as literally written are the fargroup. The threat that such people pose to, say, end banking like Jesus clearly said we should, or stop accumulating wealth and live like the birds and beasts of the field like he also said we should, are so remote it's not worth debunking their kooky beliefs.

On the other hand, the beliefs of the group that rallies around the label "Christian" and uses Bible scripture for mostly signalling purposes are cross-examined for their day in court. They rarely actually make a fuss about implementing literal Christian doctrine. The "prayer in school" crowd and "teach young earth rather than evolution" crowd have been driven pretty well underground.

I think a good analogy is if there was a tiny branch of woke people also believed in a magical pink space elephant who says we must build a great tower of mozzarella.

end banking like Jesus clearly said we should, or stop accumulating wealth and live like the birds and beasts of the field like he also said we should

It never ceases to amaze me how utterly poor people's reasoning becomes when they're trying to make their opponents sound bad. This is, like, woke-twitter-level atrocious.

end banking like Jesus clearly said we should, or stop accumulating wealth and live like the birds and beasts of the field like he also said we should

It never ceases to amaze me how utterly poor people's reasoning becomes when they're trying to make their opponents sound bad. This is, like, woke-twitter-level atrocious.

End banking: Deutoronomy explicitly forbids lending money for interest, but that's Old Testament, not Jesus. The Catholic Church did forbid lending money for interest as ipso facto usury for most of its history, so I'm not alone in my interpretation. The Catholic Church was not trying to make Chrisians look bad. I guess I will retract "clearly" as he does not explicitly forbid interest like I thought.

Stop accumulating weath and live like the birds and beasts of the field: This is something Jesus did pretty specifically say, in the sermon of the mount no less.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

[...]

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Of course, you can say "He didn't mean what he was saying literally!" but I resent the implication I'm contorting Jesus's words. He seems to be saying you should not create and store wealth.

Least you could do is read the entire chapter.

.... I did? It's been a while. Please provide some kind of counter rather than just sneering.

Ok, given the modding, I'm just surprised by your position. It's got nothing to do with maximizing reproduction/fitness, which is obviously the One True Message from your belief system. We even have examples of scientific eugenicists through the years to demonstrate that this is, without question, the real interpretation.

You may not like this argument, but you can engage with it properly.

I notice this "argument" doesn't actually cite an example, just claims that they exist. That makes it a little hard to see where you're coming from. "Be fruitful and multiply," maybe?

Your mockery falls a little flat when @popocatepetl has shown no signs of dodging this argument, or even of disliking it, seeing as you only just brought it up.

Nobody showed any sign of dodging the mockery of an argument he made when he randomly brought it up. And be serious; this whole chain was started by someone say, "Why don't we mock my opponents more?" Whelp, I guess we're mocking opponents now. Them's the grounds you wanted to live on.

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Nah, you started the sneering in your OP. My turn now.

No, he provided an argument in his OP, which you may find specious, but in that case you can engage with it properly.

What you are doing is low-effort sneering.

Don't do this.

I would imagine it's because the Great Internet Christianity Debates already happened 20 years ago. It's just kind of a dead topic now, with everyone being pretty well set on their opinions and not really likely to change anyone's mind. I certainly have no desire to go around arguing with atheists about their belief system for pretty much that reason.

If this forum were active in 2010, it would probably be a persistently reoccurring topic, to everyone's immense frustration (and we'd probably have a contingent of "intelligent design" advocates).

Boy I'm glad that culture war has simmered down, because there are few debates as unproductive as those about religion.

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