site banner
PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   30120 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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.

11
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Excavation after 14 anomalies detected at former residential school site found no evidence of graves: Manitoba chief

Although these excavations were at a different residential school than Kamloops, the technology and methodology used to identify the "potential" mass graves, GPR analysis, were the same that motivated the Manitoba excavations. Similar to Kamloops, the GPR results were combined with rumors and witness testimonies of atrocities to formulate a belief in the existence of mass graves on the Manitoba site which did lead to a 4 week excavation...

By using radar technology, 14 “anomalies” were previously detected at the site. This led to frenzied speculation by the media that mass graves existed, consisting of Indigenous children who were forced to attend the residential school...

... to this day, no human remains have been found at any former residential school in Canada.

Media in Canada first reported on mass graves at residential schools in May 2021. Archeologists detected what they believed to be 200 unmarked graves at an old school in Kamloops, British Columbia.

To this date, no excavations of that site has occurred, with local elders citing intergenerational trauma as the reason for leaving potential proof of a genocide buried.

The 200 “unmarked graves” in Kamloops were identified by the same technology that identified the 14 in Manitoba, which we now know turned out to be nothing more than a pile of rocks underground.

Even to this day, the CBC has been hellbent on perpetuating a ‘mass graves’ interpretation of said anomalies that have been detected at various former residential school sites.

The media’s absolute worst interpretation of the anomalies inspired protests and terrorist arson across the country.

Since the mass graves announcement, at least 83 churches have been burned to the ground or vandalized.

From the beginning I strongly suspected we were never going to see excavations at Kamloops, because this would be the result. This is a familiar M.O when waging culture war. Hysterically allege an atrocity that didn't happen, base those sensational claims on very thin evidence combined with rumor and witness testimony, and then claim some religious or spiritual dispensation for minimum-standard scientific investigation of the alleged mass graves. Lastly, make sure to denounce everyone who demands excavations as a genocide denier:

Genocide deniers ask: Where are the bodies of the residential schoolchildren?

But. Where. Are. The. Bodies?

They are where they were buried — in those secret or official graves. At this point, nobody is going to be digging up those children to satisfy a bunch of white settlers’ points of view as to what we should be doing with our tragically deceased little ones.

Currently, we don’t have protocols in place yet (that I’m aware of) on how to sensitively deal with the graves. However, we are taking our cultural beliefs into consideration, which go against unsettling rest spaces. This call for bodies is nothing more than a racist rant bordering on genocide denial.

How far will a denier go? When no longer able to refute the absurdly massive physical evidence, Holocaust deniers started to appeal to more “scientific” data. For example, they claimed that the chemical analysis of hydrogen cyanide compounds showed the amounts were not sufficient enough to kill people in gas chambers. Posing as tourists, these “scientists” would gouge chunks of plaster from the walls of gas chambers to send them for analysis.

What happened in residential schools is not about the evidence. This kind of trolling is part of genocide, as are the actual crimes. Gregory H. Stanton, an expert on crimes against humanity, described 10 stages of genocide; extermination is not the final step. Rather, its final stage is denial that it happened — such as high-profile commentators’ demands to see bodies.

I suspect we will continue to see smaller-scale excavations elsewhere, because finding any remains at all anywhere would at least be able to provide some fuel to the Kamloops narrative. But the alleged site of the Kamloops mass grave will simply become a memorial where the alleged victims can wage racial-grievance politics for financial and political gain, and it will be sacrilege to be so hateful as to demand excavations to actually investigate the claims which have been made.

This has all happened before. When the skepticism gets too great they dig where a known cemetery is and trumpet the finding of bodies.

(and no, this does not mean the holocaust didn't happen)

I am feeling a little stupid here. But what’s the big deal with graves? Your telling me people born before the 19th century died?

Mass graves have a different connotation of a “bad” group killed a bunch of a now viewed “good” group and hence buried them all at the same time. The only accusations I’m seeing on mass deaths would be from western diseases killing a lot at once. Which isn’t exactly the Churches fault.

Surely they don’t mean Catholics machine gunned a bunch of 7 year olds resulting in mass graves.

I feel like the promoters of this want “mass graves” = holocaust, Russia executing Polish military officers etc. But I am not seeing that argument and at best accusations of schools being overcrowded.

But what’s the big deal with graves?

Going by the furore here in Ireland over similar claims about mother and baby homes (places where women could go to have their illegitimate child), the train of thought runs something like this:

The graves, if any, are unmarked. This shows a lack of care and regard for the dead babies and the parents of those dead babies (now, there was a whole thing about burying unbaptised children whou would not get a funeral service or be buried in consecrated ground, but that's a different matter). The evil and wicked Church stigmatised women who were sexually active outside of marriage and who got pregnant outside of marriage. The illegitimate children who may have been orphans or snatched from their families and put into institutions like this were abused both passively, by neglect, and actively by the wicked and evil nuns.

That means not feeding them properly, not calling in doctors when they were sick, and not spending money on medicine or medical treatment for them. Because of this neglect, the death rates were higher than they should have been, and then to add insult to injury the bodies were dumped into mass graves with no markers or religious ceremonies or records or even notifying any family of the death. This was all done to stigmatise and punish the children for being bastards and the mothers for being unwed. Meanwhile, the religious orders took the money which should have gone to caring for the children and kept it to enrich themselves.

Because today we are much more sensitive around bereavement and death, this is completely unacceptable and the people responsible must be held accountable.

I imagine the Kamloops situation adds in racism, forced taking of children, and lack of burial by their tribal traditions and culture on top of all that.

Surely they don’t mean Catholics machine gunned a bunch of 7 year olds resulting in mass graves.

Not machine gunned, but yeah - the general idea is that the wicked and evil nuns/brothers/priests/Church treated these children as inferior and sub-human, hated them, and didn't care about them so pretty much wanted them dead. That means neglecting, starving, beating, not giving them heat when needed, not treating illnesses, and not caring if they all died off, then dumping the bodies like rubbish.

The unmarked bit is something that is difficult, because I see old graveyards round here with unmarked graves, or only a stone to mark where a burial happened. The original wooden markers all rotted away over the years, or people couldn't afford to put up a gravestone, so over the years locations of 'who is buried where' have been lost. I could see that happening too with residential schools; temporary markers put up which were lost over the years.

I've posted this before here, and it bears reposting here, with some edits meant as improvement:

This whole thing reminds me of the news stories about the children's mass grave in Tuam, Ireland, and of supposed mass graves in Tulsa, Oklahoma where racist mass-murdering demons buried the victims of the 1921 "race massacre", or so we're told.

When I try looking at these affairs without bias and prejudice, I try putting myself in the shoes of the average Western middle-class suburban white normie NPC, and frankly I realize that, unless some heretic specifically makes an effort to educate me on this, I'll probably have zero understanding of the following hard facts about the bygone days of the West:

1/ It was normal to bury people in unmarked individual paupers' graves, or even in unmarked mass paupers' graves (in the case of, say, an epidemic or some similar catastrophe) if nobody claimed the corpse, or if the relatives were too poor to, or unwilling to, afford a proper burial. This, in fact, was not rare.

2/ Back when national economies were yet too undeveloped to produce a surplus to be spent on, frankly, luxuries, there was exactly zero public support for spending tax money* to improve the material conditions of single mothers so that they have the same prospects in life as married wives**.

*Keep in mind, please, that, unlike today, milking the impregnators for child support under the threat of imprisonment wasn't an option either in most cases, because they were either dead, or already in prison/workhouse, or too poor to be milked for money.

**Again, let's be clear about this: back in the days of benighted Papist Ireland, or in any similar patriarchal society, I can assure you there were probably zero housewives willing to tolerate the spectre of the government basically confiscating a given % of her husband's income and giving it to unwed mothers in the form of state handouts. The extent to which Christian societies in such economic conditions were willing to go to look after the downtrodden was basically to shove them onto the Church and leave them to hold the bag. In the same way, the Church was basically expected to sweep up a portion of single men and women that were unmarriageable for whatever reason and train them to be monks, priests and nuns, so that they were no longer a problematic pain in the butt to their own families.

3/ Also, a society that poor is also unable to pay for lavishly equipped, professional, extensive police forces. This means extrajudicial punishment, communal vigilantism and mob justice was seen as normal and necessary by most people, at least to a certain extent.

4/ Stray dogs were normally slaughtered and their cadavers/bones were used for producing animal glue and other similar products, because you could be sure absolutely nobody was going to contribute material resources to founding and running comfy dog shelters. (I know this has nothing to do with these manufactured scandals, but I included it because we know that white liberals just love dogs.)

This is one of the things that I find utterly weird about our moment in history. We just have no concept of how much of what we have is a product of simply having abundance. We can afford to put people in jail being completely unproductive for years and even decades and still feed them for all that. We can afford to pay people who cannot (and often will not) do anything productive. We can afford to tolerate a great deal of deviant behavior and ideologies. And I’ve always strongly suspected that most of not all of our “enlightened ways” come down to us being wealthy enough to be enlightened.

And I think when the surplus goes away (either because of space colonization or collapse) we’ll have to go back to the unenlightened ways of our ancestors. When you not doing productive work means a lack of food, or your deviant behavior puts others at risk or consumes too many resources, other people aren’t going to put up with that for long. If your “transition” in whatever form it takes, costs too many medical resources and you live in a place where medical care isn’t easy to come by, that by itself harms people. The blood used for your top surgery means a shortage of blood for people having accidents or something, or maybe a shortage of antibiotics as well, people aren’t going along with that because they understand that it means they might not get medical care.

Indeed. Just to provide one example off the top of my head, pencil lengtheners were routinely used in public education, especially primary schools, pretty much everywhere in the world until, say, the middle of the 20th century. Just think about it. Even though pencils were mass-produced as the cheapest writing instruments in existence, just buying the necessary number of pencils, even the cheapest ones, was considered by the average family an expense large enough that there was widespread demand for a dirt-cheap instrument that had no purpose other than lengthening the service life of a pencil. I's unfathomable when we look back to that.

I feel like I’m pounding this point because when I see the headlines of mass graves at Catholic Schools I’m thinking something akin to Katyn Massacre. Which this is clearly not. I have no idea if they treated them fairly but that’s not discussed. The headlines sound like the nuns were literally Hitler.

They don't match up with the existing documentation.

At the Kamloops school that started everything, there were 215 GPR hits but only 51 recognized deaths (I don't know if there are known graves for a total of 51+215 = 266 suspected total deaths, or if it was 215 - 51 = 164 suspected undocumented deaths.)

If there truly was a 70-80% under-reporting rate, it would indicate severe problems with the Truth and Reconciliation processes.

This has all happened before. When the skepticism gets too great they dig where a known cemetery is and trumpet the finding of bodies.

You mean they will rely on GPR results at the site of the alleged mass grave to stoke the narrative, and then go and dig elsewhere at a known cemetery to trumpet human remains? You are right, this has all happened before.

Sorry for the lateness of this reply, but you're banned for a week: egregiously obnoxious and single-issue posting (Jews).

Posting about the "mass graves" brouhaha (dare I say "hoax?") in Canada was fine; if someone else had posted about it and then you'd come in with this comment I would have hit you immediately for attempting to derail the conversation. My only hesitation, and why I discussed it with the other mods first, was that it's a bit weird to accuse you of derailing your own thread, I think? But it has this weird bait-and-switch feel to it; you were, refreshingly, not pounding your one-note piano for a change... just kidding, it was a post about Jews all along!

Don't do this.

Are the Catholic churches they are burning typically those frequented by natives, or are they those with largely European congregations?

From what I remember from summer 2021 mostly the former. They were typically churches on or near rural reserves, and in general indigenous Canadians are more church-going than your average Canadian of European descent. One of the amusing results of this was that indigenous elders tended to be much more outspoken against the church burnings (some links: 1, 2, 3), while you practically had to drag condemnations out of Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh (leaders of the major center and center-left parties, respectively).

There were a few exceptions, like an Egyptian Coptic church that was targeted, or a Vietnamese church..

By the way, does anyone know what the current status is of the sensationalized "investigations" into the "mass graves" of the victims of the Tulsa "race massacre"?

Can anyone who is not Holocaust denier, with SS-man as nickname, can confirm is this summary above is true and accurate?

  • -30

You are someone. You apparently have internet access. Be the change you want to see and verify if Canadian residential school mass graves have actual bodies found or merely widely reported "Archeologists detected what they believed..." but then no bodies were actually produced.

Look, I already dinged someone else about this.

It is completely reasonable for you to look at @SecureSignals's posts with suspicion. "Don't engage in ad hominems" does not mean "You cannot consider someone's history when evaluating how credible they are." But this is not the way to express your doubts. Address the argument, and if you find it questionable because of who's making it, you can just wait and see what other people say (usually you won't need to ask for a debunking if there is a debunking to be made). What we don't want is people flinging "Well, of course you'd say that, you're a Holocaust denier" and "You're just saying that because you're a liberal" back and forth.

The OP does not shy away from responding to critics and providing sources (see his other threads). His posts are content-heavy and often use primary sources. I don’t think it’s a good idea if we all start saying “I don’t like this person’s views, can someone from my in-group verify these claims”? If you don’t trust OP then you can wait for someone’s attempted debunk or take on that role yourself, no?

The OP does not shy away from responding to critics

Very often with a large amount of obfuscation and playing obtuse to a point where it takes 8 back-and-forths to get a semi-straight answer.

providing sources

Par for the course for a gish-galloper.

If @do_something had looked at their posting history they would easily have seen that and the length to which @SecureSignals goes to follow the rules of the forum and to engage in constructive discourse.

But that's not what their comment is driven by. It's pure outgroup + cognitive dissonance. They see someone they don't like posting something they don't agree with and they lash out.

People who act like this and the want to get away from them and the degenerative effect they have on discourse are the reason for the motte to exist.

The lack of the usual antagonistic and sneering remarks in Amadans mod post is disappointing for the first time ever. And his validation of the otherization of @SecureSignals and the implication that there might be something 'suspicious' going on is beyond poor form.

If @do_something had looked at their posting history they would easily have seen that and the length to which @SecureSignals goes to follow the rules of the forum and to engage in constructive discourse.

"Goes to great lengths to engage in constructive discourse" is definitely not the pattern I have experienced when interacting with SS (nor, for that matter, has "follow the rules of the forum", though on that count I'm not sure he's actually worse than the median strongly-opinionated-poster here).

Example of the non-constructive discourse pattern of "throw out a bunch of claims, then when those claims are refuted don't acknowledge that and instead throw out a bunch more expensive-to-refute claims" here.

Example of the non-constructive discourse pattern of "throw out a bunch of claims, then when those claims are refuted don't acknowledge that and instead throw out a bunch more expensive-to-refute claims" here.

Downvote all you want but that is exactly the MO I have encountered with him over and over and over again. SS is not a troll, but he is the functional equivalent of one.

Not sure lawyering your way into violating only the spirit of the rules should be that great an excuse to begin with.

This is actually the second excavation to turn up no actual corpses. I don't think there's any basis for doubt that a lot of children died at the residential schools, partly due to the fact that children dying was a common occurrence back then, and partly due to the fact that they were kept in crowded housing that promoted the spread of infectious disease. Poor nutrition and extra susceptibility to European diseases may or may not have been factors.

However, it's clear now that the false positive rate of these GPR investigations is very high (0 for 48, by my count), and representing these hits as the discovery of definite or probable corpses was grossly irresponsible.

I don't remember to what extent the media actively encouraged this misinterpretation, or at least failed to discourage it in their reporting, but a lot of people were under the impression that these GPR surveys provided proof of hundreds of deaths above and beyond those which had already been documented, and/or cover-ups of actual murders.

My name is a snarky reference to the bizarre fixation of the left on the imaginary crime of crossing state lines during coverage of the Rittenhouse case, and has nothing to do with Nazis.

As someone with fairly extensive geophysics experience, GPR is pretty meh and I've always found it weird that it's treated as though it was anything other than a very noisy form of sensing that can only tell you when the subsurface material changes (and even then, the depth and size of the change is hard to ever be sure about). Geophysics is inherently very unreliable when it comes to trying to identify small changes below the surface and I'm very much not surprised that these graves are false positives. Plenty of the actual papers that back up the use of the GPR for this purpose found as much and similar uses, like detecting utilities or animal burrows or cavities is just as unreliable. The effectiveness of GPR also depends on the materials involved, which can reduce your penetration to mere inches.

Do you geophys professionally?

I like to imagine someone geophysing my back yard 2000 years from now finding indications of high heat and excavating my burn pile pit. While interpreting it as some sort of 'ceremonial', offering location.

I've watched too much 'Time Team'.

I did lot in my grad school research, mostly seismic and resistivity. A little professionally afterwards.

Most won't have the resolution to pick up a small, residential burn pit, depending how deep it is anyway. Electrical methods might pick it up, since they're sometimes decent resolution near the surface.

In foundation engineering, finding trash pits and burn pits during development when doing test borings or excavations in long developed areas is pretty common. God forbid you hit an undocumented landfill. That's a good way to get your project delayed ($$$). Sometimes you'll need to have a cultural study done if they think it could be a historical landmark or archeological site, so your idle thoughts aren't too out of line with reality ha.

Could you elaborate a little More on the effects of materials? Does it work at all in wet soils which I imagine absorb microwaves very efficiently?

Well, GPR works based on reflecting em waves, so it runs into the same issues that pure electric geophysical methods and purely mechanical geophysical methods run into. Mechanical challenges like scattering or interference from voids, thin nonrepresentarive layers, layer inversions, boulders, etc. Electrical challenges like water content variations, voids, salt/contamination, etc. They are also generally way lower resolution than the layman would expect.

Electrical methods are generally more sensitive to moisture content, and in my experience, are more likely to detect a change in moisture rather than material (material and moisture are generally correlated). And that's kind of the thing with most geophysical methods, they're telling you when a material changes and by moving your sensing equipment you can see how that change is related to space.

There are GPR "suitability maps" for the US that show vaguely where you can expect GPR to be accurate. I haven't seen one for Canada though, but GPR would be usable in areas with similar surface geology.

Broadly correct, but I would quibble with parts of the framing.

It's certainly true that the 'bodies' found at Kamloops have never been anything more than anomalies found on ground penetrating radar, and that media and activists have never really made any attempt to communicate this to their audiences. The vast majority of people would never realise that these bodies are entirely theoretical and could easily just not be there. Chalk another one up to the media being bullshitters.

However, what I would disagree with in SecureSignals post is the implication that this stuff therefore didn't happen, or that the backlash against the Catholic Church is unjustified. I personally see the 'graves' at Kamloops as a catalyst for action, rather than the substance of the grievance itself. It is undeniable that the Canadian government in association with the Catholic Church basically kidnapped tens of thousands of native children and stuffed them into places like Kamloops, where the conditions were pretty awful (though perhaps not so awful by the standards of the time). Many deaths resulted. Official records from Kamloops say 50 children died there; the true total is likely higher. Though I admit I have little sympathy for the Church to begin with, I don't see the arson of a couple dozen churches to be an outsize reaction to the Church's involvement in residential schools. You reap what you sow.

  • -12

One of the problems with excusing misrepresentations that you think are directionally correct is that many of the people doing so don't know how their own views have been shaped by lies or misrepresentations, building a new layer of bullshit on top of the old one. For instance:

It is undeniable that the Canadian government in association with the Catholic Church basically kidnapped tens of thousands of native children and stuffed them into places like Kamloops, where the conditions were pretty awful (though perhaps not so awful by the standards of the time).

This is how it is often described, but sending your children to residential school was optional.

https://fcpp.org/2018/08/22/myth-versus-evidence-your-choice/

Even the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has helped spread erroneous information. At the final National Gathering in Edmonton, one of the Commission’s information displays stated that, after 1920, criminal prosecution threatened First Nations parents who failed to enrol their children in a residential school. This falsehood, one frequently repeated by supposedly reputable journalists, is a reference to a clause in the revised Indian Act that said children had to be enrolled in some kind of school, a clause that was little different from the Ontario government’s 1891 legislation — nearly 30 years earlier — that made school attendance compulsory for that province’s children up to the age of 14, with legal penalties for failure to comply. Other provinces had similar laws.

And the “criminal prosecution”? The penalty specified by the Indian Act for the “crime” of not sending a child to school was “a fine of not more than two dollars and costs, or imprisonment for a period not exceeding ten days or both.” And as with provincial laws regarding school attendance, there would be no penalty if the child was “unable to attend school by reason of sickness or other unavoidable cause... or has been excused in writing by the Indian agent or teacher for temporary absence to assist in husbandry or urgent and necessary household duties.”

Now if you lived in a location without local schools residential schools were the only ones available, and the percentage of natives living in such locations was higher. But conversely getting out of sending your children to school was easier than it is today, and indeed native enrollment was low:

In 1921, when the revised Indian Act solidified the compulsory attendance of Indigenous children in some kind of school, about 11 percent of First Nations people were enrolled in either a residential school or a federal day school. By 1939, that figure had risen to approximately 15 percent of the First Nations population, but the total enrolment of 18,752 still represented only 70 percent of the 26,200 First Nations children aged 7 to 16. Not until the late 1950s were nearly all native children — about 23 percent of the First Nations population — enrolled in either a residential school (in 1959, about 9,000), a federal day school (about 18,000) or a provincial public school (about 8,000).

And absenteeism among those enrolled was high:

For most of the years in which the IRS operated, between 10 and 15 percent of residential students were absent on any given day

Day school attendance was far worse. In the 253 day schools operating in 1921, only 50 percent of native students were showing up, and until the 1950s, these poorly-funded, inadequately-staffed schools consistently had absentee rates in the 20 percent and 30 percent range. In the 1936-37 academic year, to choose just one example, attendance in Indian day schools sank as low as 63 percent. The only residential school in Atlantic Canada, at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, was established in part because two previously-established day schools had been forced to close due to poor attendance. Some of the reasons for this absenteeism — the movement of families to areas where seasonal work beckoned, the need to help out at home during the Depression, and the opportunity to take labouring jobs left vacant by servicemen — are understandable, and it is worth noting the the TRC Report acknowledges that very few parents were ever charged or convicted for keeping their children out of school. But children who aren’t in school aren’t getting an education.

The punishment for your children being truant was mild, seems easily avoided by giving an excuse like chronic illness, and most importantly hardly ever enforced to begin with. That is not the sort of coercion required to get parents to send their children to a concentration camp. Native children didn't go to residential schools because they were "kidnapped", they went because their parents believed it was better than the alternatives, including the alternative of not going to school at all. That is compatible with them being low-quality schools, it isn't compatible with the insane rhetoric about them that is prevalent today.

Many deaths resulted.

Many deaths resulted from native americans being biologically more vulnerable to diseases like tuberculosis. Is there even any evidence that the death rate of native children at residential schools was higher than the death rate of native children elsewhere? Skimming chapter 16 ("The deadly toll of infectious diseases: 1867–1939") from the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, it looks like the closest they come to an overall comparison instead of talking about individual outbreaks is this:

https://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.807830/publication.html

In response to the issues Tucker had raised, Indian Commissioner David Laird reviewed the death rates in the industrial schools on the Prairies for the five-year period ending in the summer of 1903. He concluded that the average death rate was 4%. He compared this to the 4.4% child mortality rate for the ten Indian agencies from which students were recruited for 1902. On this basis, he concluded that “consumption and other diseases are just as prevalent and fatal on the Reserves as in the schools.”

Good finds. Reading those articles seems to indicate that the entire narrative is wrong and this story is one part bigotry against Catholics and one part they are lying to use because that’s what they do.

I wouldn't say the entire narrative is wrong -- regardless of the laws on the books, there was definitely considerable coercion involved in 'encouraging' attendance -- this spin is similar in nature to how the authors of COVID restrictions said things like "nobody's forcing anyone to be vaccinated, we are just stopping them from eating out/leaving the country/etc if they don't".

What is quite pernicious (and I believe originates with the current government) is the spin towards blaming the church (churches actually -- many of the schools were run by protestant denominations, and at least some by non-religious entities) for the issues.

Whoever was running a given school was acting as an agent of the Canadian government -- so that fault for individual behaviour like molestation etc lies with the individuals involved, and the systemic issues (coercion, underfunding, 'cultural assimilation) with the sitting governments. Government has been trying to downplay this since forever, but have suddenly succeeded due to the surge in people who somehow didn't learn about this in elementary school (starting in the late 70s) and think they have discovered some new thing. (which happens to be the government narrative, and has only tenuous relations with the truth) Plus the general propensity for hating Catholics in the water these days I guess.

The Catholics were known to sometimes cover up instances of molestation and other misbehaviour by moving the offenders around and not reporting to authorities -- like many aspects of the story this is bad enough in itself! Yet someone there is the need to invent other things which would be even worse if they were true, but weaken the case IMO considering that they are not.

I guess Id say the systemic issues was just being poor. Which isn’t something your guilty of. It’s not like the Canadian government had unlimited resources. And it sounds like the schools outperformed alternative Options.

Eh, it shades towards Copenhagen Ethics I suppose, but "you touch it you own it" is still pretty valid in this situation. Conditions on reserves (govt related!) and in generally remote areas (not so much) were not great in the late 19th/early 20th centuries -- but if you want to take people away from their homes the bar should be pretty high to ensure that the results are much much better than just leaving them alone. Which very clearly seems not to be the case -- there's the odd satisfied 'customer' of the residential school system out there, but it's legitimately unusual. And normally the super-succesful FN people that you see in business/law/politics had their education in regular mixed day-schools, whether due to not living on the reserve at all or being in the sweet spot of 'reserve too small for its own school' and 'not too far away from regular towns' where it made the most sense for them to go to school with everyone else.

I guess I reject Copenhagen ethics. That’s basically saying we should only build gated communities because then we never interact with the lower class and can’t be blamed for it. Comes up a lot with trade. Like Nike getting yelled at for using cheap labor. Yet those people are better off because the factory is there.

So I disagree the bar needs to be very high. Improving the world should just be improving the world. 21st century mostly leftist ideology leads to worse outcomes.

More comments

While you may have a point there about "catalyst for action", what you are suggesting sounds like "It doesn't matter if it's all lies, so long as a conversation was started".

So if some Indigenous woman claims that she was raped, forcibly impregnated, had her baby taken away, and it was sacrificed by the local priest on the altar of the church - that doesn't matter if it's not true, it acted as a catalyst for action and that's the important thing! Because the Catholic Church did Bad Things in the past! Along with the Anglicans, who also operated residential schools, since that was the ideology of the day: give native children a Westernised upbringing so they could fit into mainstream society and be lifted out of primitive superstition and squalour.

Happened to white children as well, there's a long-running similar dispute about mother and baby homes in my country with similar claims of unmarked mass graves. And the movement to send orphan (though often they weren't) British children to new homes in Australia and Canada where they'd become (in time) farmers and settlers but in practice were treated as cheap, disposable labour by the people supposed to be fostering them.

So it's not confined to the Indigenous peoples of the former British Empire/Commonwealth, by any means.

There are certainly grounds to argue about the ideas underpinning that view, and about how indigenous people have been treated badly. But "hey if it's all lies it's okay so long as it's the Indigenous who are telling the lies" is not helping anyone.

Though I admit I have little sympathy for the Church to begin with, I don't see the arson of a couple dozen churches to be an outsize reaction to the Church's involvement in residential schools. You reap what you sow.

And what of the crimes of the Indigenous peoples when they were the ones ruling the lands? I don't think it was all peaceful running around singing with the animals and the trees. Maybe they reaped what they sowed with karma for wars, murders, and massacres? Or is that a case of "one law for me, another for you"?

give native children a Westernised upbringing so they could fit into mainstream society and be lifted out of primitive superstition and squalour.

Honestly I'd love to get an unbiased, clinical review of what exactly the median life outcomes were of receiving a Westernized upbringing through 'the stolen generation' and/or other equivalents versus remaining in remote communities. I've yet to be convinced that the former strategy didn't actually do more good than harm, though it'd be absolute anathema to actually try publish that.

I think you're being uncharitable by calling this a 'lie'. Evidence for 200 child graves in Kamloops has been found. It's not great evidence, It could easily be incorrect, it is being treated as proof when it absolutely isn't. But it is evidence, it hasn't been invented, and the underlying atrocity to which this evidence refers is (to a greater or lesser extent) certainly true.

And let's make your analogy more representative of what has happened. If someone found a cave full of suspicious looking bone shards and says "hey we just found evidence of 200 babies that were killed in ritualistic sacrifice" and the Catholic Church says "nuh-uh, Thiose shards are probably from a goat or something, we only raped, impregnated, and sacrificed the babies of 50 indigenous women at that site. And besides everyone was doing it back then, it was really trendy." Well in that scenario I'm less bothered about the veracity of the find and more about the underlying atrocity. And if a group of indigenous people want to take mortal offense at what happened I think that's pretty fair. And if they burn down a church or two, well I don't advocate for that (I genuinely, honestly do not think it is a good thing that churches were destroyed over this), but it's hard for me to feel any indignation on behalf of the Church.

By way of example, let's say Andy viciously insults David's wife in an argument and David breaks his nose in response. I don't think that’s a good or right thing to do - you shouldn't be going around breaking people's noses because they upset you. David should probably be arrested. But at the same time it's a completely understandable and predictable response, and I have zero sympathy for Andy. Now replace Andy with the Catholic Church and David with Indigenous people.

  • -19

Evidence for 200 child graves in Kamloops has been found. It's not great evidence, It could easily be incorrect, it is being treated as proof when it absolutely isn't.

I mean this leaves out the important context that the evidence has been debunked by further investigation. And that this is mostly not actual indigenous being upset about it, either.

Evidence for 200 child graves in Kamloops has been found.

That's the precise thing we're arguing over; some are saying that it's not evidence, it's blips on ground-penetrating radar which could be any kind of anomaly, and because the tribespeople won't let the ground be excavated, we have no idea if there are 200 child graves or 60 child graves or 50 gopher holes.

But at the same time it's a completely understandable and predictable response, and I have zero sympathy for Andy. Now replace Andy with the Catholic Church and David with Indigenous people.

Which is not what you originally said about it not mattering if it was true or not. Suppose Dave breaks Andy's nose because Tom said "Hey, Andy insulted your wife" but Tom is lying because he wants to get Andy in trouble. Is that okay, then? Is Andy still the bad guy?

I want the truth to come out. If there are 200 graves there, I want that to be known. But someone claiming "There are 200 graves but no you can't check, just believe us" isn't good enough when it comes to a claim like this.

Because there have been similar claims of wrong-doing which turned out to be false and which got the credulous into trouble over jumping the gun:

Sir Cliff took the BBC to court after the broadcaster filmed a police raid on his home in Berkshire in 2014. The footage, which included aerial shots taken from a helicopter, was shown on news bulletins throughout the day.

Officers were investigating an allegation made by a man who claimed he was sexually assaulted by Sir Cliff in 1985. But the singer was never arrested or charged and the case was dropped two years later.

Should I believe the bare word of anyone who claims on here "Psst, shakenvac is a known embezzler and swindler, take it from me, would I lie to you?" and then ostracise you? Wouldn't you like the chance to exonerate your name? Would you find it acceptable if I said "Well my aunt lost a fortune to a swindler, I hate swindlers, so even if it was untrue I think I was still right to splash your name all over social media as a swindler and warn people about you"?

some are saying that it's not evidence, it's blips on ground-penetrating radar which could be any kind of anomaly

Some are wrong. Evidence is "a sign or indication of something". Grave-sized GPR returns 6ft under the ground is evidence of graves. Is it strong evidence? not really. You want more certainty? I don't blame you. But fundamentally, the truth of those 200 graves makes little difference, because...

Suppose Dave breaks Andy's nose because Tom said "Hey, Andy insulted your wife" but Tom is lying because he wants to get Andy in trouble.

It doesnt really matter if Andy insulted Dave's wife on the 13th October 2022 when we know he has done so every other day for the last 3 years. We know what we need to about Andy's big mouth.

It doesn't really matter if Sir Cliff sexually assaulted man X if it's already proven that he assaulted 24 other men*. We know what we need to about Sir Cliff's perversions.

It doesnt really matter if you accuse me of being a swindler with little basis if I am known and proven to have swindled 50 people. We know what we need to about my swindling tendancies.

And it doesnt really matter whether it was 50 or 200 children died in Kamloops if it is already known that thousands of children were kidnapped, abused, had their identity erased, and ultimately died of neglect by the Church. We know what we need to about the crimes of the Church.

*I know this isn't true, I'm making a point.

Grave-sized GPR returns 6ft under the ground is evidence of graves. Is it strong evidence? not really. You want more certainty? I don't blame you. But fundamentally, the truth of those 200 graves makes little difference, because...

Oh holy crap. Ever heard of a thing called "middens"? By your logic, that means that indications of middens are really graves, and it's okay to burn down the buildings of the people who dug those middens because fuck evidence and proof and truth.

At this point, I don't even know how to argue this with you. You seem to be standing firm that you don't care if it's all lies, because it's all in the cause of bashing the Catholic Church. Well, goodnight, goodbye, and good luck to you, and I hope to God you never get into a court case where your fate will be decided on "I don't care what the evidence says, this guy looks sketchy so I say he's guilty and he should go to jail for ten years".

If you want to argue it's all lies, then do so. You are arguing that the 200 graves are lies. Those 200 graves are not "all". they are ~1% of the enormity of the Residential Schools System, for which the church bears serious responsibility, and you have at no point indicated that you dispute the other 99%.

Either Dispute the evils of the Residential Schools, or admit that the Church fucked up.

  • -19
More comments

The truth always matters.

And it doesnt really matter whether it was 50 or 200 children died in Kamloops if it is already known that thousands of children were kidnapped, abused, had their identity erased, and ultimately died of neglect by the Church. We know what we need to about the crimes of the Church.

It matters a lot if 50 or 200 children died in Kamloops of natural causes, and not in greater numbers than would have happened elsewhere, or if they died because they were starved, abused, or murdered. The first would be a tragedy and you can certainly condemn the church for taking them from their homes in the first place, but claiming that the people who ran the schools were literally mass-murdering children is a crime of much greater enormity. "The Church did bad and misguided things in the past in less enlightened times" is not the same as "The Church conspired to commit genocide out of sheer evilness." You don't get to claim the latter (and use it to justify retribution) and then say it doesn't really matter which is true.

The truth always matters.

I never said it didn't. I said it makes little difference. If you'll forgive the invoking of Godwin's law, we could have a spirited debate over whether it was 2000 or 4000 jews were shot in some nameless polish town in 1940. While the truth of that question would matter in some sense, the conclusion wouldn't change the nature of the Holocaust, nor the guilt of the Nazis. Same principle.

but claiming that the people who ran the schools were literally mass-murdering children is a crime of much greater enormity.

Not something that I ever claimed.

"The Church conspired to commit genocide out of sheer evilness."

Also not something that I ever claimed.

Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, that the death rates in the Residential Schools were no worse than in tribal communities, and the abuse meted out in these Schools was hugely overstated, and that the Church only had the best interests of these poor ignorant savages in their hearts, and every single death was dutifully recorded with a heavy heart and a good Christian burial... Even if we accept all that, the Church was still instrumental in stealing these children away from their parents and expunging their culture and destroying their identities and burying them hundreds of miles from their homes when they died. That alone makes me have zero sympathy for the Church having a handful of cases of arson on their hands.

I'm not saying the arson justified per se, grievance resolution by arson is no way to run a society. I'm just saying I get it. If Scientologists had spirited away my great uncle when he was 6 and buried him in one of their godforsaken compounds I'd probably want to burn down a few buildings too.

  • -19
More comments

Can you clearly state what you think the Church did bad? Kid dying of disease and being buried doesn’t strike me as bad. The mass grave thing seems to be a desire to associate this with far worse things. Are you accusing the church of executions? Otherwise why does this matter.

Complicit in the abduction of children by the Canadian Government, subjected them to emotional and physical abuse, often looked after them pretty poorly, and as a result many children died of preventable diseases. and of course, the whole point of the exercise was to expunge their culture from them. Which is, uh, bad.

I mean, is it really that difficult to see where the natives are coming from?

I think if I kidnapped your child, took him half a world away to learn Swahili and African culture and have that dumb Christianity beaten out of him, and then sent you a letter saying 'Sorry, young Mswati (that was his new name) died of malaria.' I think you'd probably feel a tad aggrieved.

  • -11

We do this every single day in America. What do you think schools in America do? Expunge bad culture teach good culture. The deaths honestly just sound like poor people deaths.

I’m fairly certain the people upset about this incident are the same people shoving pride and blm flags down people’s throats. The problem here just seems to be Christians = bad.

I have no issue with teaching poor people higher culture. Perhaps, I’m not being fair here but I don’t see anything obviously wrong with taking an outgroup and trying to incorporate them into your civilization.

Whether the conditions were particularly bad I don’t know. Would take a lot of study to differentiate.

Expunge bad culture teach good culture.

We used to that. Do you have children in school? We're homeschooling, now.

The view now is that previous attempts to inculcate native peoples with the mindset and skills necessary for survival in western civilization is genocide.

I don't know what definition of genocide was available to them at the time.

I suspect the alternative was a more immediate form of genocide.

The deaths honestly just sound like poor people deaths.

They weren't Poor People deaths though were they? They were Ward of the Church deaths. When you steal children away from their parents you get to take responsibility for what happens to them.

I have no issue with teaching poor people higher culture.

it was hardly """just""" that. If they had managed to do so without kidnapping, abuse, beatings, and deaths by neglect they'd have far less of a case to answer today, eh?

Whether the conditions were particularly bad I don’t know

Bad compared to conditions back at the tribe? Probably unknowable. They were certainly worse than they could have been. And like I said, when you steal children away from their parents you get to take responsibility for what happens to them. If you find that too burdensome feel free to not do it. Or engage in apologism for those that did.

More comments

It's not just the media; various First Nations tribes ALSO trumpet the GPR results as being proof of large numbers of bodies being anonymously buried.

However, what I would disagree with in SecureSignals post is the implication that this stuff therefore didn't happen

What stuff didn't happen? There were residential schools. The conditions there were often bad. They were an attempt to "civilize" the Indians. What didn't happen is large numbers of kids being killed or dying and then being surreptitiously buried to cover it up, and that's what's implied or sometimes claimed outright.

Official records from Kamloops say 50 children died there; the true total is likely higher.

On what evidence do you claim the true total is higher?

I don't see the arson of a couple dozen churches to be an outsize reaction to the Church's involvement in residential schools.

This is not a standard applied to any other crime. If I had relatives at the Zwaanendael Colony do I get to burn down Nantichoke tribal headquarters?

I just want to point out you are advocating for violence against innocent people from a story that ended up being false.

Property damage does lead to real death. People depend on property to support their life. In the case of a church people depend on their community church for socialization etc. Even if there are no direct deaths there could be a 78 year old whose community connection are based around that church. Who well life falls apart without it.

I guess it’s good we have a few people from the left popping up. But advocating for violence to innocent people seems radical to me. I could just as easily write something like the summer riots were violent so there’s nothing wrong with fire bombing a lot of Democrat office space. You reap what you sow. Atleast in this case you would have people involved with causing riots and not people with some historic connection.

That being said I don’t even understand what people think is wrong here other than Catholic hate. Your telling me you think it’s wrong that the church with the government educated poor kids?

Were those conditions more awful than the usual condition of native children in their own communities? Was their average death rate lower?

The poor conditions in their home communities were also the fault of the Canadian government, so relative rates aren't a very convincing argument.

EDIT: Nevermind, I've fallen for the narrative. Death rates at residential schools reached acceptable mortality rates by 1949 (Source Canada’s Residential Schools: Missing Children and Unmarked Burials (PDF), p17, from this website).

(As a sidenote, my thought process was "Why the downvotes? Motteposters are usually smarter than that. I'll show them with FACTS and LOGIC." lol.)

I don't find that plausible at all.

You don't think that the conditions on reserves are the responsibility of the Federal government, or you don't think that they were bad, or what?

How familiar are you with Canadian history?

I find implausible and frankly preposterous the notion that the authority of the federal government and the Church in Canada over local aborigines resulted in an increase of average child mortality among that population. The idea that the average aborigine child had a higher chance of surviving into adulthood before the evil colonizers showed up is simply ludicrous.

What are you talking about? Do you think that they were hopping in a time machine to get to their "home" in the 1860s when they were attending school in the 1960s?

Of course the conditions improved in a hundred years. You've correctly identified that it's simply ludicrous to deny that, but I'm not sure why you felt it was relevant.

In fact, let's imagine an alternate history: Colonization, settlement, and the Treaties happen like normal, but then the native population gets locked in and experiences zero changes in welfare/wealth/happiness/etc. from the pre-contact baseline. Would you think "Wow, the Federal Government is doing a great job. We haven't worsened their nasty, brutish, and short lives at all!"?

Maintaining the status quo doesn't meet my standards, and neither do the (frankly huge) improvements we have done in reality. This goes double when you cast your eye back a few decades.

More comments

Honestly this is what perplexes me the most about indigenous culture war. I feel like one side reads the horrors of colonialism, but then doesn't engage with the horrors of general pre-modern human life.

More comments

Is that necessarily relevant? For example, if a child was taken from their parents by CPS for their safety and went into foster care with a much more functional family, which offered him a better life than his alternatives with his previous family or in a orphanage or whatever, would that child still not have legitimate grievance if they were mistreated in a lesser way by the foster family?

It’s worth noting that this usually isn’t what happens- conditions in foster care are generally horrific.

Is that still true? I know several foster families, and they seem about equal with other middle class families, aside from greater compatibility challenges.

If they could properly vet, it’s probably no worse. But there are enough families slippping through the cracks that you end up with a lot of dysfunctional people as foster parents.

Who judges the mistreatment? The child is likely a poor judge.

The intervention in your hypothetical results in material improvement and better life. Grievance over something you can't change and resulted in better outcomes than non-intervention seems poorly considered. It may make the people who intervened wish they left you with your shitty birth family. Is that a better outcome, if it dissuades future positive interventions?

That depends on your definition of 'legitimate'. (Yeah, I actually just said that.) If 'legitimate grievance' in this context means 'grievances, when proven, used as justification to enact organizational reform of CPS so that no child abuse is committed under their watch in the future', then I think the answer is very obviously yes. Having said that, this is not at all what's happening in this particular case. Let's just be clear about this. This is simply pure culture war, nothing else.

Can you not open links? Yes, the summary is accurate. Whatever you think of his agenda and sources, I have never seen SecureSignals post anything he didn't believe was accurate before. Generally if you suspect someone is wrong or lying the onus is on you to debunk them.

I think part of rationality is assessing the reliability of your sources. If you don't have expert knowledge, then you need to defer to other people, and I don't blame do_something for being mistrustful of believing someone who spends most of his time on this site denying the most well documented mass killing in history.

Perhaps, but a larger part of rationality has always been equipping yourself with the tools to assess reliability on your own. But do_something didn't 'defer to other people' they straight up ignored the post and loudly asked for someone else to read it for them. It is an ad hominem argument in its purest form - no attempt at an argument is made, only an appeal to the op's status as a witch, to discredit them without having to bother with discrediting their arguments.

In my opinion, as a fan of the motte and someone who doesn't want it to turn into the rest of the internet, that post is the equivalent of squatting in the middle of the commons and taking a big greasy shit. I don't care how you justify it, I think it makes all our lives worse.

Side note - never forget that in the eyes of the perpetually offended, you are already tainted. You have been since long before SecureSignals ramped up his obsession. No amount of loudly declaring your disagreement with him will save you, nothing can save any of us now.

Oh don't worry, I'm not posturing against the resident Holocaust denier for my own sake. I just think he degrades the quality of the conversation here by bringing every other conversation back to his own pet pseudohistoric topic.

I realise that a place like this is vulnerable to witches and is to some extent a necessary compromise we have to make, but damn is it annoying.

The National Post is one of Canada's two major national newspapers (along with the Globe and Mail). This doesn't count as "expert knowledge" in my mind, and would go a long way towards determining its reliability (whatever answer you end up with).

If you want some background to this story I follow a substack that seems reputable (woke watch Canada). As far as I can tell it's actually a pretty interesting case of the facts not being covered by the msm.

This kind of trolling is part of genocide, as are the actual crimes.

Really? Can people say this with a straight face? I kind of get the appeal of creating a gigantic circular, question-begging argument as a naked flex of power, yet it's still so repulsive.

Consider other approaches of dealing with grievance politics. The Turkish interpretation of the Armenian Genocide is that the Armenians were traitors and bad elements trying to undermine the state and kill Muslims - effectively that they deserved what they got in the 'Armenian Matter'. That's what's taught in Turkish schools:

The question children are asked to debate is, "What should be done to promote our country's justification against Armenian claims?" Stating that "we have duties in relation to the internal and external threats against our country," students are invited to "be conscious of these threats."

And Turkey is still working to wreck Armenia today, in combination with Azerbaijan. There's no law of nature that says there's any need to feel guilty about wrecking other nations in the distant past. You don't see the Algerians and Tunisians apologizing for enslaving Europeans en masse. Genghis Khan is valorised in Mongolia and gets great statues erected to him.

There is besides the circular argument base stealing. Holocaust has denials. We have denials here. Therefore we are just like the Holocaust.

Since religion is also part of culture wars, it is time for sharing some latest religious culture war battles, this time on Judeo-Christian front, originating from the crucified bird site.

1/ Case of Lizzie Marbach

Lizzie Marbach, Republican and anti abortion activist from Ohio, person with 7k followers and otherwise not notable, posted this.

There's no hope for any of us outside of having faith in Jesus Christ alone.

This is Christianity 101, this is exactly what Christian is supposed to say and believe. There is no reason for anyone to be surprised.

Except Max Miller, Jewish Republican representative of Ohio with 52k followers who was not amused.

This is one of the most bigoted tweets I have ever seen

Mega dead bird storm ensued, and many people came to Lizzie's side to support her.

Including Ilhan Omar.

Things went so far that Max Miller was forced to apologize.

GOP lawmaker apologizes for ‘religious freedom’ tweet

But, nevertheless, Lizzie Marbach lost her job.

Pro Life Advocacy Group Fires Comms Director After GOP Rep Called Her A ‘Bigot’ For Sharing Her Faith

By sheer coincidence, Miller’s wife, Emily Moreno Miller, sits on the board of Ohio Right to Life.

This thing will continue, and it is not looking good for official GOP.

2/ Case of Darryl Cooper, rather lighter one.

Darryl Cooper, known as Martyr Made on the interwebs, substacker, podcaster on several sites and dead birder with 173k followers.

So this is rather important person, in internet terms, who suddenly decided that this is the time, of all things, to preach to Jewish people and convert them to Christianity.

It turned out that lot of his followers are Jews who do not appreciate being evangelized, especially by such D- apologetic piece. Massive dead bird storm ensued, and DC doubled, quartupled and octupled his efforts.

Darryl Cooper himself seems to be rather unorthodox Christian of somewhat Marcionite tinge. This makes the whole thing more confusing, what exactly are his Jewish followers supposed to convert to?

What have these cases in common? They illustrate the difficulty of actual interfaith cooperation between sincere believers in different faiths. If you really believe in truth of your religion, it is realy hard to desist from preaching and evangelizing, and even harder to do not take offence if you are (or perceive to be) preached at and evangelized by your fellows.

The first issue is fascinating: there is a serious disagreement between the left and the right in the US about what freedom of religion actually means. I think the left qualifies it in a sort of paradox-of-tolerance way: you don't get to excuse intolerant views by claiming that they are part of your religion. Otherwise, religion just becomes a giant loophole in the rules that make the pluralistic society of the US actually work: believe whatever you want as long as it doesn't make you impose anything on other people. All the recent fights about LGBT rights vs. religious freedom are a pretty strong demonstration of this actual fundamental values difference.

Therefore, for a lot of the left, the actual answer here is bluntly that these parts of Christianity are actually bigoted---drop them or deal with the justified condemnation. Omar/Miller's particular fight is just an important reminder that the divide on how much deference to give religious beliefs doesn't cleanly split left/right. If you feel that this divide is important, maybe you should rethink whether certain politicians are actually on your side or not. I personally much preferred the political alignment from back in the day of internet atheism fights.

I think the left qualifies it in a sort of paradox-of-tolerance way: you don't get to excuse intolerant views by claiming that they are part of your religion.

This is by no means limited to "the left" unless you can show that "the right" generally had nothing against 9/11, or would be in favor of bringing back human sacrifices, or being in favor of polygamy. Everyone thinks that religious freedom is fine as long as the exercise of that freedom doesn't impinge on someone else's rights to a sufficient degree.

Yes, you can be Muslim, but you can't jihad skyscrapers to the ground regardless of how sincere your religious conviction is. You can revive asatrue (or whatever one might call the aztec state religion), but you can't raid surrounding villagers for prisoners to sacrifice. Yes, you can be Mormon, but you can't have a harem of child brides, etc.

I think the left qualifies it in a sort of paradox-of-tolerance way

Not this again!

It also goes with the left’s view that so called bigotry in public is actually punishable. I think they misunderstood why Jim Crow was bad and don’t grasp Common Carrier v thick markets.

Common Carrier v thick markets

Do you mind expanding on this? I'm not familiar with the terms.

Common carrier is a designation from common law. It covered concepts like for example a single train line from X to Y. The idea was that because the market was thin, the common carrier should not discriminate against customer (and indeed since the service wasn’t bespoke at all this was easy). The idea was the common carrier was in a near monopolistic position. It also applies to say a single hotel between Oxford and London (same principle).

Compare that to thick markers where there are numerous providers of the same good. Since there is no monopolistic position there isn’t really a need to enforce a non discrimination provision.

It turned out that lot of his followers are Jews who do not appreciate being evangelized, especially by such D- apologetic piece. Massive dead bird storm ensued, and DC doubled, quartupled and octupled his efforts.

MartyrMade was actually responding to a comment from Rabbi Mike Harvey, who considers himself an expert on "interfaith dialogue" between Jews and Christians - and in the quintessential rabbinical fashion, this mostly involves cursing at Christians and calling for vague action against them. Rabbi Harvey has this odd habit of writing incendiary tweets calling Christians genocidaires, fascists, monsters, etc., then apologizing while claiming he was hacked, then deleting his account, and then doing the same thing all over again a few months later. He just deleted his Twitter account around the time MartyrMade posted that reply to him, and will probably be back by Christmas time to complain about the stifling environment of the holiday season. I don't know who he thinks he's fooling.

I'm sure Jews don't appreciate being mocked and evangelized, but posts like MartyrMade are really just returning the favor in kind. We put up with a lot of "interfaith dialogue" from them.

Part of the problem is that Rabbi is a much weaker designation than most Christian religious leaders (ie. priest/bishop/monk/reverend/whatever). The Christian designations typically involve actively leading a congregation, which means a moderate to considerable number of followers and/or having achieved some rank in the hierarchy of a large Christian institution (the Catholic church, Church of England, a large Evangelical denomination etc. that has standardized qualification for religious leaders and a hierarchy of power).

Rabbi means 'teacher' and the sole 'qualification' is that another rabbi declared you to be a rabbi. You don't need to be a religious leader, significant scholar or have any institutional role whatsoever. Even more organized Jewish groups that approximate some aspects of church credentialism are pretty lax when it comes to who counts as a rabbi, enforcement is usually reactive rather than proactive. In this guy's case he worked at a few reform synagogues and was then 'ordained' as a rabbi, but the Reform movement in the US has no real ordination process, so this is a pretty vague thing. You can't be kicked out of being an Orthodox or Reform rabbi, at most other Orthodox or Reform Jews might consider you less legitimate on some level. Only for Orthodox Jews in Israel is there some standard with the rabbinate (which can't declare you not a rabbi, it can only declare certain things you do illegitimate), and that obviously doesn't apply to an American reform rabbi.

For a Congressman to be so boisterously confrontational about religion as a member of a religion that constitutes only ~1-2% of a nation's population speaks volumes about some combination of American religious tolerance or the cultural supremacy of that Congressman's religion. I cannot imagine a Hindu or Buddhist Congresscritter acting this way. Muslim, perhaps, which is interesting in its own right.

I just don’t see how it would be controversial or more properly how backward people’s understanding of religion must be to be upset about the tenets of a religion or religious people stating them. To be a Muslim means thinking that everyone should become Muslim. To be Christian means believing that Christianity is the only way. Jews believe they were directly given a covenant by god himself giving them all of Israel. You can disagree, fine, but stating the facts of what your religion says, and especially believing in what the religion says is not bigotry.

But it’s part and parcel in my view of the decline of discourse in America that stating something as true that other people don’t want to be true is now seen as bigotry or hate or similar. It’s something that makes me fear for the future because we’ve completely lost ideas like truth, rationality, and honesty in favor of whispering comforting falsehoods. No society can last long when everyone is offended by truth.

Ironically Ilhan Omar chimed in on this to support the pro-life activist.

While Omar might not be an anti-Semite, I find that you'll correctly guess many of her positions if you model her as anti-Semite. In this case, I suppose you could arrive at the same guess by modeling her as someone who will maximally antagonize Republican Congressmen.

I'm a little bit surprised that Ilhan Omar came to Marbach's defense.

Optimistically, I'd like to think she actually believes that stuff about freedom of religion.

Cynically, I suspect she is just anticipating a fight over what her religion believes about LGBT folks.

Even more cynically, I wonder if she just saw an opportunity to slag a Republican Jew.

But I am often surprised that people are surprised that yes, orthodox Christians do in fact believe you (yes, you) are going to go to hell if you do not accept Jesus Christ. Yes, that means they literally believe every last atheist and Muslim and Jew and pagan and Hindu and Buddhist is going to burn in hell forever. (And a lot of the Protestant denominations include Catholics, Mormons, and JWs in that bucket.)

It's almost as amusing as watching liberals in Virginia discover recently that mainstream Muslims are mostly not, in fact, "queer-friendly."

But I am often surprised that people are surprised that yes, orthodox Christians do in fact believe you (yes, you) are going to go to hell if you do not accept Jesus Christ. Yes, that means they literally believe every last atheist and Muslim and Jew and pagan and Hindu and Buddhist is going to burn in hell forever. (And a lot of the Protestant denominations include Catholics, Mormons, and JWs in that bucket.)

Publically stating such things is an applause light often meant to express contempt or condescension towards people of other religions, even when rationalists ignore that and treat such claims as logical propositions. It's like going on record in public saying that your opponent's children are ugly and his toupee looks fake. The fact that you actually believe these things is not why you said it.

Publically stating such things is an applause light often meant to express contempt or condescension towards people of other religions

Or to show devotion, even in the face of popular dislike of a tenet of your religion. Christianity as a faith might have some experience with this.

If you continually allow people to chip away at inconvenient elements of the faith you won't have a faith, or the benefits you believe it provides.

At a certain point, folding on "unkind" doctrine is just folding.

Or to show devotion, even in the face of popular dislike of a tenet of your religion.

Any nontrivial attack on your ideological opponents would be disliked by them. If your opponents are numerous enough, that becomes popular dislike. You're writing a blank check to excuse all verbal attacks on your outgroup.

Christianity as a faith might have some experience with this.

Christianity as a faith has attacked nonbelievers for an extremely long time, said attacks being only the start of more concrete bad things that it's done to nonbelievers. What's changed is that nonbelievers are no longer so weak that they have to just sit there and take it.

How is it an attack though? I’ve made strong statements of belief about all kinds of things. Those are not attacks on people who disagree, they’re statements of my beliefs. I don’t think aliens have visited earth. That doesn’t mean that I think anyone who disagrees is lesser in any form, just that I don’t believe aliens have come to earth. Mere statement of my beliefs isn’t an attack.

The difference is that the Christians believe misery awaits non-believers I guess. Although 'Aliens exist, and if you don't believe in them they are gonna torture the shit out of you next time they visit' doesn't seem like an attack either.

"People say things they actually believe in order to garner approval from fellow believers." Yes, that sounds like an accurate description of a thing that happens.

Except that the "approval" part is only half of it.

In the real world, proclaiming that nonbelievers go to Hell is hostile to nonbelievers. Yes, they want other believers to approve of the hostility, but describing that as wanting to garner approval leaves out the important part.

Is it hostile? Non-believers don’t believe in hell. If they believed in hell then they would be believers. If a non-believer reads it then they would just see themselves going to fake belief place.

The sentiment is hostile. You don't need to believe Hell exists in order to understand that someone louldy proclaiming that you're going to go there probably doesn't like you very much.

You misunderstand the (guessing evangelical) Christian mindset. They think by telling you that you’re going to hell you will realize this and change your mind, accept Jesus, and go to heaven. Telling people they are going to hell is to cross streams a mitzvah.

Well, technically this may be true (and that's the cover), but c'mon, most of us know that "I'll pray for you" is kind of like "Bless your heart" (sounds nice, but it's Southern for "Fuck you"). Loudly and publicly proclaiming that non-Christians are going to go to hell is usually not done out of sincere concern for their eternal well-being. (Fred Phelps doesn't actually believe that screaming "God hates fags!" will save the souls of the people he's screaming at, even if he claims that's his goal.)

The problem is that this really is a core belief of many Christians, so conversely, demanding that they just never talk about it or else they are being "hostile" is basically demanding they shut up because their beliefs offend you.

Usually there is a sort of understood public peace treaty where we all know Christians think the rest of us are going to hell, but they should refrain from preaching that where it's unwelcome. However, some Christians really do feel called upon to preach where they are unwelcome, so Lizzie Marbach was kind of like the street preacher annoying everyone by standing on the corner and shouting things that are supposed to stay in church.

More comments

If I tell someone shooting heroin that it's killing them and they need to stop, they can decide that actually I just hate them, and if they insist on doing so I certainly can't stop them. At a scale of the entire society, they're going to find no shortage of people who actually do hate heroin-shooters to conflate me with. That doesn't make their logic any less garbage.

Your insistence that Christians trying to warn non-believers away from Hell amounts to hatred and hostility seems nonsensical. Christians positing the existence of Hell neither breaks your leg nor picks your pocket, any more than your claiming our God and Heaven does not exist. To the extent that Christianity has been used to implement oppressive authoritarian norms in the past, so has literally every other ideology that has ever existed; where Christianity stands out is the number of states where it has played a significant role in allowing actual liberty, something secular humanism has a considerably worse record on.

You're free to despise Christians if that's your thing. Not liking people is legal. You're likewise free to coordinate meanness against them for believing things you disapprove of, since no system of law or custom will ever prevent such behavior. Just be clear-headed about the likely consequences of forcing several dozen million people to choose between peaceful coexistence or their faith.

If I tell someone shooting heroin that it's killing them and they need to stop, they can decide that actually I just hate them, and if they insist on doing so I certainly can't stop them

There are certainly circumstances where someone telling people this would be mainly motivated by contempt of heroin users, and where it would be correct to infer hostility. Furthermore, society has norms of religious tolerance that it does not have around heroin tolerance, and by proclaiming that your outgroup is going to suffer, you are violating norms that you are not for heroin users.

Christians positing the existence of Hell neither breaks your leg nor picks your pocket

I'm pretty sure you're quoting Jefferson out of context here.

Also, notice that actually saying "I hate you and you should die" neither breaks your leg nor picks your pocket. By your reasoning not only is loudly talking about your outgroup's suffering not hostile, literal direct hatred isn't hostile either.

More comments

Who says they don’t like you? That person would likely help you get baptized in a second.

That's help combined with condescension. Condescension is a type of hostility.

More comments

In the real world, proclaiming that nonbelievers go to Hell is hostile to nonbelievers.

Yes, and? Obviously people often hold beliefs they know would be rude to state publicly, which leads to these sorts of fracases where someone does state it in a public venue.

"Christian expresses a fundamental tenet of most Christian denominations, non-Christians get offended" is a nothing story except for the personalities involved.

Obviously people often hold beliefs they know would be rude to state publicly

And there's a reason why influential people being rude gets in the news.

Silly religious people don't realize that hell only exists for those who make bad acausal trades with future AI Gods.

Cynically, I suspect she is just anticipating a fight over what her religion believes about LGBT folks.

Seems like the oldest justification for "believing that stuff" about freedom of religion.

I keep saying that one of the results of progressives dominating academia is that there is now a massive Hobbes/Leviathan shaped hole in the discourse and I think that one of the ways that hole manifests is in a lack of understanding of just how cynical the views of Smith and Madison were in comparison to modern theorists.

The whole silly blue v red pill discussion this last week also showed how many people in the online rat adjacent places lack the cynical view of enlightened self interest.

Jews are interesting for Christianity. It isn’t crystal clear their afterlife status.

Isn't crystal clear to whom? It seams clear to Paul.

Yeah, he wouldn't have said, "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh," if he didn't think the Jews were on the road to hell.

Heya, just a reply from a passing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka Mormons) who occasionally lurks here.

So... While that is true for us that we believe you need to believe in Christ, where we belive unbelievers is a little more complicated than that. So I just thought I'd clarify that a bit, if that's okay.

Basically, what we believe is that after you die, you first go to one of two temporary places (which is what traditional Christians would call heaven or hell). However, we believe the gospel is preached to those in prison, and to those who never had the oppurtunity to receive it. So it is possible for another person to die, be presented the gospel whole dead, and to embrace it whole heartedly, and therefore not go to hell (in the sense of anguish and pain). There will be many many good who this applies to. So yeah, you have to accept Jesus Christ, but you don't just get a free ticket to hell for not knowing, if that makes sense. Everyone gets that choice and oppurtunity. That's why we do proxy ordinances (like baptism for the dead).

Sometime later, we believe we will be judged by God, and then go to several other places. And even for people who are not good people, they still get to go to a place which is quite wonderful, just not as wonderful as those who chose to be near God. So that's not super hellish (as in the traditional Christian beliefs in hell) at least in my opinion :).

Anyways, you may have already known all this stuff, or not, but I figured it would be good to post.

I knew that, but actually what I meant by "include Catholics, Mormons, and JWs in that bucket" is that many Protestant denominations believe that Mormons (and Catholics, etc.) are not Christian and will go to hell. Which I'm sure you know.

As for the idea that those who never had the opportunity to hear the Word can get a second chance, that's also not unique to the LDS.

I think basically there are a vast number of Christians who know perfectly well what the official word of their religion says (don't accept Christ, go to hell, do not pass purgatory) but they're really uncomfortable (as they should be) with the idea that millions of good and sincere people, including their friends and family, will burn in hell forever because they made a wrong choice. So they construct all these elaborate exceptions and Get Out Of Hell passes to convince themselves the system is just.

Fail on my part. That's what I get for not double checking what I read XD.

And yeah, I figured there was probably some others who viewed it that way, though I wasn't sure which denominations and what the specifics are. There is a lot of denominations out there, and I probably just haven't had the right conversations yet :). I do know that certain Muslim groups belive it is possible to rise from 'hell' to a neutral place, and the neutral place to heaven... although I'm not sure which group in particular it was.

Yeah I wouldn't be suprised if that's the case. It's a bit of a moral dilemna there. I'm guessing most just imagine that God is just and merciful... so he'll have mercy and give them a chance to believe. But not sue on that count. I'll have to ask some of my friends. :)

The problem of hell is a classic theological issue. I do like the idea that hell is temporary. In short, despite being raised Protestant catholic ideas really appea to me

Hell in Catholicism is not temporary. I think you're thinking of purgatory, which is where the saved do penance for minor sins until they're expiated.

Some Catholic theologians came up with the concept of the empty hell.

And they are considered heretical. Heaven and hell are permanent destinations; purgatory is a temporary stopover on the way to heaven for people who are saved, but not by enough to go straight to heaven.

Ilhan Omar actually does seem to genuinely care about religious liberty even if she doesn’t always see eye to eye with conservative Christians.

AFAIK Catholics do not believe Jews go to hell, they are Chosen.

“Participants in God’s salvation” in an “unfathomable divine mystery” is not a clear assertion that Jews are saved ceteris paribus. It is consciously ambiguous language. The relevant text is Romans 11: https://biblehub.com/esv/romans/11.htm

So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened

This indicates that the true remnant of Israel were the Jews who accepted Christ, as well as the gentiles grafted in:

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

The above mentions that unbelieving Jews are “broken branches” which “God does not spare”. Next we read that some of the natural branches will be grafted in again,

And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree. Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved.

Lastly, we have this pretty ambiguous passage, which any side can use for their argument I suppose,

As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

I'm not a Catholic, but my understanding of Catholic theology on the subject of whether Jews and other non-Catholics can go to heaven is: "It's complicated." Basically, being a Catholic is the only sure way; if you're not a Catholic, theoretically there are a bunch of other criteria you have to meet which would make you eligible for heaven, but it's almost impossible to meet them without the guidance of the Church. Of course this leaves plenty of waffle room for more liberal-minded Catholics to say "Of course Jews can go to heaven."

Contrary to what you see on TV, though, pretty much no Christian denomination actually believes that being a "good person" (or a true believer in whatever your religion happens to be) is sufficient.

As a practicing catholic yes, this accurately summarizes the mainstream/official Catholic teaching on the subject however something missing is that observant Jews (as distinct from secular individuals of Jewish decent) are viewed a special case subject to their own distinct covenant. Whether they are saved is a matter for debate but also not up to us because God already made that call.

Of course this leaves plenty of waffle room for more liberal-minded Catholics to say "Of course Jews can go to heaven."

The waffle room that exists is in terms of consent. You only go to hell if you are informed and have the opportunity to accept Christ but refuse to do so. So a more liberal-minded Catholic has waffle room to say that a boy with a good heart who grows up in an Islamic society and gets no real "opportunity" to accept Christ is not doomed to hell.

The Catholic stance on the Jews is completely different. It's saying that they get salvation even if they knowingly reject Christ, but the justification is "unfathomable mystery" rather than trying to apply the other waffle room to all Jews. They are just special, so they get to go to heaven even if they reject Christ, and yes it's a complete contradiction with the Church but that's your mind on Yahweh.

The waffle room that exists is in terms of consent. You only go to hell if you are informed and have the opportunity to accept Christ but refuse to do so. So a more liberal-minded Catholic has waffle room to say that a boy with a good heart who grows up in an Islamic society and gets no real "opportunity" to accept Christ is not doomed to hell.

Yes, but they all pretty much define "opportunity" according to what they are personally most comfortable with. I've heard Christians express it the way you did, and I've heard Christians claim that if you've ever so much as heard the name "Jesus Christ," you have now heard the Word and have no excuse.

The Catholic stance on the Jews is completely different. It's saying that they get salvation even if they knowingly reject Christ, but the justification is "unfathomable mystery" rather than trying to apply the other waffle room to all Jews.

Again, there are protestant denominations that also believe this. Both Catholics and Protestants do consider Jews different from other non-Christians religions. Just as Muslims recognize Jews and Christians as fellow "People of the Book." The cause is the obvious historical relationship. It's not some sneaky Jewish tribal strategy to insert themselves even into their rivals' theology. Of course it is not rational, but one of the few things you and I probably agree on is that religion in general is not rational.

Mainstream Christians of any description do not like to talk about the salvation of Jews, but the bounds of catholic doctrine on the subject isn’t notably different from other denominations despite what liberal catholic apologists would like to pretend.

It is notably different, there is no salvation for those to deny Jesus according to the church, except for the Jews, and the reason for that is a "mystery." It's not really a mystery, though.

That the Jews are participants in God’s salvation is theologically unquestionable, but how that can be possible without confessing Christ explicitly, is and remains an unfathomable divine mystery.

It would be a theological problem if God reneged on His old covenant, even if He introduced a new one.

The Catholic position is that the only way through heaven is through Christ, Jesus himself said so quite directly- "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me". There is no other path. That is, except when it comes to being Jewish, that is apparently the second path. But the Catholics still don't say there are two paths, they only say there is one path, through Christ, and then say that a separate rule for Jews is just a mystery we cannot comprehend.

The Catholic position is that the only way through heaven is through Christ, Jesus himself said so quite directly- "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me". There is no other path. That is, except when it comes to being Jewish, that is apparently the second path. But the Catholics still don't say there are two paths, they only say there is one path, through Christ, and then say that a separate rule for Jews is just a mystery we cannot comprehend.

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" is John 14:6. It's not a Catholic doctrine; it's straight from the Bible. Catholics and Protestants have slightly different takes on the verse, but it's the core basis for what is known as the doctrine of Exclusive Salvation. Some Protestants believe in exclusive salvation, some don't, and Catholics kinda sorta do with asterisks. (Said asterisks not applying solely to Jews.) So no, what you are saying is flatly inaccurate. The sarcastic "just a mystery we cannot comprehend" (wink wink nudge nudge somethingsomething Jews) appears to me to be more intentional than an inability to grasp theological nuances and contradictions.

Quoting scripture is a very Protestant way of thinking.

More comments

It is notably different, there is no salvation for those to deny Jesus according to the church, except for the Jews, and the reason for that is a "mystery." It's not really a mystery, though.

It is not notably different. You hear very similar language from many Protestant denominations. (Many other Protestant denominations also say very clearly that Jews will go to hell - as have many Catholic theologians historically.) There isn't some special carve-out here somehow engineered by the Elders of Zion.

I meant Jews are regarded differently than the other groups you mentioned, I am aware that is the case across denominations, particularly among evangelicals.

There is a special carve-out, absolutely. And it was engineered by the Elders of Zion, AKA the Prophets of the bible who declared Jews to be God's Chosen people and then convinced the Gentiles to accept that proposition as part of their own religion. So it leads to these contradictions like, Jews knowingly reject Christ but they still go to heaven, obviously Christianity is going to digest that contradiction just fine because the religion itself is basically worshipping the Jews and their tribal god.

Your understanding of the history of Judaism and Christianity seems pretty lacking. Christianity began as a Jewish splinter sect. The "Elders of Zion" didn't "convince" the Gentiles to accept anything; the beliefs of early Christians were obviously informed by the fact that initially they considered themselves Jews who followed the promised Messiah. Since then, the situation has become vastly more complicated, with two thousand years of history and schisms and factions and subfactions, some still holding up Jews as "God's Chosen People" and some condemning them to hell for being Christ-killers.

I know you try to fit your ZOG narrative to everything, but it does not actually fit everything.

Saint Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, was a Jewish Pharisee. And of course Jesus was a Jewish teacher. So according to the Church's own history, the messiah and apostle to the gentiles were indeed "Elders of Zion": a Pharisee and the King of the Jews. They did convince the gentiles to accept the proposition that the only real god is the Jewish tribal god Yahweh, and that all who reject him suffer eternal torture, and that he chose Jews as his Chosen People and made his son born of the Jews.

More comments

This is bizarre just from the perspective of politicking. You’re a politician, in Ohio, how do you not know enough about Christians to expect this kind of response? I’m reading and apparently there was another politician in Ohio who also called on her to delete the tweet, Casey Weinstein, but he then deleted his tweet. This is just basic religion literacy. Christians as part of their religion are obliged to “confess the name of Jesus”, this is commanded of them and it’s a minor plot point during the Passion. This should be tolerated in the public sphere just as everyone should tolerate Jews professing a chosen status and Muslims calling Muhammad a prophet.


What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats