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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26687 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023

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Im a little drunk on thanksgiving. Can someone tell me the pope having lunch with transgenders is false.

https://twitter.com/richardhanania/status/1727444933207056730?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ

This was low effort. I think a 7-day ban is too much. But this is still something where as a Catholic you would be like what I’m seeing has to be wrong. I will eat it. This isn’t an unworthy culture war post if it fact checks which from Hannania I assumed he did.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Christianity is at least as unbacked by evidence and reason as transgender ideology. Believing that a certain man 2000 years ago was the son of god and rose from the dead is at least as unbacked by evidence and reason as believing that a man can become a woman by calling himself a woman and doing surgeries. But many people here on The Motte give Christianity a pass because it's really old and really popular and so it seems "normal", because they like its cultural/political connotations, and probably in some cases because they were raised Christian.

But I don't give Christianity a pass. When people tell me that they are Christian, I have pretty much the same reaction as I have when people try to convince me that a trans woman is a real woman. In both cases, I think that their beliefs are ludicrous and deeply irrational.

Unfortunately, your atheism is at least as unbacked by evidence and reason as either. You are personally as irrational as the trans ideologues, but you give yourself a pass out of pure self-serving smugness. From whence comes equality between methodological constraints of science and metaphysical theory of ontology? It's nothing but really old and really popular and so it seems "normal". You probably like the cultural/political connotations, and you may have been raised to believe such irrational things. If you're going to act like anyone is "given a pass", it is you, and every time you pull this schick, it eats away at the detente that the mods claim to believe in/enforce. The result of you continuing to break down the detente is that, unless the mods continue to protect you, your irrationality will no longer be given a pass. It'll be made clear that you're no different than trans ideologues.

Unfortunately, your atheism is at least as unbacked by evidence and reason as either.

That's a relatively new one in these parts eh? Leave aside arguing why my ideology is superior, let me claim that yours is just as bad. I can see this is an immensely convincing argument.

There is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that the universe operates according to a mechanistic evolution of relatively simple laws of physics, with no external intervention at all.

To people like Goodguy, the only point is to hear himself call his ideological opponents irrational. That is the ground where the battle has been declared.

There is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that the universe operates according to a mechanistic evolution of relatively simple laws of physics, with no external intervention at all.

What experiment have you conducted which demonstrates equality between methodological constraints of science and metaphysical theory of ontology?

EDIT:

That's a relatively new one in these parts eh? Leave aside arguing why my ideology is superior, let me claim that yours is just as bad. I can see this is an immensely convincing argument.

Also, it's telling that you didn't come to say that... to Goodguy, who, after all, did nearly nothing but say that someone's ideology is just as bad as another one. Big oof by you, but telling of the fact that you're far more critical of things you're predisposed to disagree with than things you're predisposed to agree with.

Also, it's telling that you didn't come to say that... to Goodguy, who, after all, did nearly nothing but say that someone's ideology is just as bad as another one. Big oof by you, but telling of the fact that you're far more critical of things you're predisposed to disagree with than things you're predisposed to agree with.

What exactly is it telling of? If you wish to call it hypocrisy, feel free, but I can wholeheartedly assure you that people will leap to the defense of things they care about/prefer more than those they don't.

I am on record defending particular ideologies/movements I strongly dislike from false accusations.

For a recent example, when another atheist reclaimed religion as innately irrational, I strong disagreed, there's nothing wrong with the concept of religion from the standpoint of rationality, it's the belief in it in the face of the monumental amount of evidence against the supernatural elements seen in believers that makes them irrational. Belief in the supernatural ceases to be irrational when there's net positive evidence of supernatural events.

I see nothing wrong with claiming that religion/Catholicism is as bad/unfounded as trans-ideology and Wokism, or at least comparable in terms of harm, certainly in terms of the basis of their claims where it pertains to empirical reality.

My objection to you is that you didn't submit anything more than post-modernist nonsense about how, since atheism makes metaphysical claims, it's just as unfounded as religion. That is not the stance of anyone who has more convincing examples to show me, and believe me plenty of religious people try to do that, I and many others are atheists because such evidence is utterly inadequate for the magnitude of the claims

What exactly is it telling of? If you wish to call it hypocrisy, feel free, but I can wholeheartedly assure you that people will leap to the defense of things they care about/prefer more than those they don't.

People will obviously engage more with topics that they care about than topics they don't care about. But you specifically raised a concern with what you perceived as the form of an argument. We can go back to antiquity to find good reason to think that one should consider the form of an argument apart from its particulars.

My objection to you is that you didn't submit anything more than post-modernist nonsense about how, since atheism makes metaphysical claims, it's just as unfounded as religion.

Huge ROFL. I've never said that. Just not even. Double ROFL in thinking that it's anything post-modernist. Instead, it's like, core classical philosophy. I've seen some kind of ridiculous misunderstandings/misaccusations about post-modernist philosophy, but this is a new one. Just comically off the mark.

For reference I said:

That's a relatively new one in these parts eh? Leave aside arguing why my ideology is superior, let me claim that yours is just as bad. I can see this is an immensely convincing argument.

Quoting you saying:

Unfortunately, your atheism is at least as unbacked by evidence and reason as either. You are personally as irrational as the trans ideologues, but you give yourself a pass out of pure self-serving smugness.

Hmm.. Did you happen to notice that @Goodguy was claiming that trans ideo was comparably awful to Catholicism, while condemning both? And not being an adherent of either?

And that my gripe with you is that you are presumably a Christian or at least religious, and your sole argument in that specific comment was claiming atheism is just as unfounded as religion, while being religious?

In other words, "both of you suck" versus "you suck just as much as I do". The former is, well, a just a value judgement, whereas the latter is what I expect someone to jump to when they've got nothing else worth saying.

You do you, but I'm leaving, my time to pointlessly quibble here is limited since I have no expectation of an eternal afterlife, or at least one not of our own making, and it's not here yet.

I see. You seem to have just imagined me saying something about my personal beliefs. Moreover, you have some weird post-modernist idea that your perception of my beliefs/identity has some bearing on the validity of the form of my argument. Also, you struggle with "greater than or equal to".

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