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naraburns  nihil supernum  11mo ago (text post)   5261 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for April 2023

This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).

As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /r/theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.

These are mostly chronologically ordered, but I have in some cases tried to cluster comments by topic so if there is something you are looking for (or trying to avoid), this might be helpful. Here we go:

Quality Contributions to the Main Motte

@ymeskhout:

@gattsuru:

@johnfabian:

Contributions for the week of April 3, 2023

@Soriek:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@grendel-khan:

@ymeskhout:

Recognition Diplomacy

@naraburns:

@07mk:

@FiveHourMarathon:

Contributions for the week of April 10, 2023

@HlynkaCG:

@TracingWoodgrains:

@FlyingLionWithABook:

@Soriek:

@RandomRanger:

Transitive Reasoning

@Lewyn:

@self_made_human:

@roystgnr:

@RandomRanger:

@TracingWoodgrains:

Contributions for the week of April 17, 2023

@gattsuru:

@ControlsFreak:

@faul_sname:

Identity Politics

@throwawaygendertheorist:

@RenOS:

@SophisticatedHillbilly:

@FCfromSSC:

Contributions for the week of April 24, 2023

@naraburns:

@faul_sname:

@Dean:

@self_made_human:

Discriminating Taste

@RenOS:

@Unsaying:

@Esperanza:

@FCfromSSC:

@MonkeyWithAMachinegun:

@laxam:

@DaseindustriesLtd:

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Interestingly, I think organized Christianity in general (and maybe all historic faiths) are in a bit of a bind on matters like this. There are definitely people who separate themselves from their church as a result of, essentially, absorbing political views that are incompatible with received dogma. In an attempt to staunch the outflow, many churches have jettisoned millennia-old commitments... but this has led to further outflow, now from the committed faithful who see their churches placing retention (and, presumably, associated tithes...) ahead of doctrinal consistency, tradition, historical group identity, etc.

I don't know what the endgame is. I am certainly numbered among those who regard Wokism as, essentially, a neo-religion, a secular and distributed form of ideology that erroneously holds that because it doesn't do "supernatural," it must be immune from criticism along the lines of faith or metaphysics. But whether it will ultimately subsume Christianity (as Christianity subsumed so many faiths that came before it), or generate a successfully reactionary response along other lines, I cannot guess. Just by the numbers, Chinese statism, Indian Hinduism, and (to a slightly lesser extent) global Islam seem to be the relevant faiths of the future, anyhow. It would be interesting to know how Christianity and/or Wokism come through that development, but I will be long dead before that game is done, I expect.

Christianity should continue to be relevant. Per my recollection, Christianity will continue to be about a third of the world's population for decades to come per some projections.

I do not think jettisoning old things will work. Most of the churches which have done so and in large part capitulated to progressivism have been shrinking for some time now. What results in dedication to Christianity is dedication to Christianity, not removing parts that seem distasteful in order to make it harder to object to the rest.

What is more important to Christianity than being in line with culture as a whole is preserving a distinct Christian vision, as something valued internally.

As it is written, "Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to gentiles, but to those who are called, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

The problem with getting rid of the olds is that it always ends up undermining your credibility as “the faith”. People believe in it because they believe that it came from god(s) and that those preaching it are faithful to said god(s) over and above whatever the rest of the world thinks. Once you get rid of that, it’s just another social club, and then what?

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