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I want open by saying that I appreciate the point you're trying to make and I appreciate you putting in the effort to engage. Dead serious, comment reported for being actually being a quality contribution.
Having said that though I also gotta say I disagree, and I feel like that disagreement comes down to a difference in what we think we are optimizing for. You say that the Trad-Con position espoused by myself and others is "optimized for a particular model of human social organization", whereas I would argue that rather than being optimized for a specific model/environment it is optimized for a specific job/goal. That goal being to foster empathy trust and cooperation in otherwise dangerous low-trust environments. As it so happens this goal is highly adaptive if you are say, a soldier in enemy territory, a sailor on a ship in the middle of the ocean, or a member of a persecuted minority, and I would argue that this is why our ancestors were successful. Call it what you like "God's Favor" or "Escaping the defect-defect equilibrium" it worked, and it continues to work when those involved actually put the effort in.
Why does Cthulhu seem to swim left? Because right wing memes (more specifically the old-right's memes) are not optimized for mass appeal. Simple fact of the matter is that people do not enjoy being told to sit up straight and eat their vegetables, they do not enjoy being told that they are no better than anyone else. What they do enjoy is ice cream, lazing on the couch, and being told that they are special.
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I’m glad to hear this worldview works for you, but part of the point @Hoffmeister25 is making in my view is that this can’t and won’t work for most people. At least not in and urban modern context.
To repeat my response down thread, Christianity has clearly failed to adapt to the modern, secular worldview. This has been going on since at least the 18th century if not well before then, but the cracks in the religion of the day have been growing. There’s a reason less people are religious than ever.
And I agree that’s a bad thing! Religion is great for people! But if tradcons just sit in their villages and talk about how great their life is and try to push their outdated worldview nothing will change. You need to innovate and find a way to square your religion with the updated understanding we now have of the natural world.
Honestly, I’m rooting for y’all. I’d like to see a return to spirituality, but it has to be a new spirituality that’s true to our circumstance, not one from two thousand years ago.
@FarNearEverywhere this may be a more put together response than my other one downthread.
...and I disagree.
I don't think the issue is that it "can’t or won’t work" I think the issue is that it is difficult and that it's rewards are often deferred.
"Stand up straight, eat your vegetables, and stop thinking that you are any more deserving than the people around you" might not be a message people want but (as @urquan observes) it is often the message they need to hear. Mine is the radical notion that being healthy and being happy requires putting in effort and taking responsibility. It's one thing for a guy to say that he wants to look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club and entirely another for him to want it enough that he changes his diet and starts doing push-ups.
There's a meme floating around that goes "Hard times breed hard men, hard men bring good times, good times breed weak men, weak men bring hard times". If I had to posit a mechanism, it would be that as society becomes more affluent (or "complex" as @Hoffmeister25 puts it) the selection pressure for healthy/pro-social behavior decreases. It becomes easier to get away with being a parasite or becoming a soulless hedonist because you don't know everybody in your neighborhood, and why would anyone want to eat veggies when they can have ice cream? Problem is that if enough people start going down that road shit will eventually hit the fan and when it does it will be those that maintained those healthy/pro-social behaviors that tend to come out alive/ahead.
I think we’re on the same side? Obviously I think people should do the right thing and do what’s good and healthy for them. Religion is a way to coordinate and convince people to do that on a massive scale.
My point is that Christianity is no longer convincing for most people. It doesn’t do the job it was made for.
Possibly, but I feel like the claim that "It doesn’t do the job it was made for" is where we part ways. My core claim is that it sill does the job just fine. The contrast being that in my view the job in question is not "to be popular" or "make people feel better about themselves" the job is "to foster empathy trust and cooperation in otherwise dangerous low-trust environments". That it is how people behave in the breach that matters.
So what is your answer for those who don’t believe, or those who literally can’t make themselves believe due to cultural upbringing etc. Are they all doomed to eternal damnation?
That is not and I hope never will be a view of morality I endorse.
My answer is that I'm not sure that specific beliefs matter all that much. We were all born doomed, we are all on the hook. The test is in your response to this. Are you going to whinge about it? Or are you going to tuck your shoulder in and get to work?
I have put in plenty of work over my life, yes. The real test to me is figuring out where to put in the work and for whom.
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