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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I'll probably be censured for this, because for some reason--- religion, despite ZERO proof, needs to be respected on this forum. This is pure fantasy and shouldn't even be brought up as a serious topic. It is like watching Harry Potter fans argue over what fanfic should be cannon. It is made up out of whole cloth and shouldn't be in a rational adjacent forum.
Agreed. This forum's meta treatment of Christianity is very goofy. You can call trans people delusional and nothing will happen. You can call people in favor of covid lockdowns delusional and nothing will happen. You can even call people you're arguing against delusional as an ad-hominem and nothing will happen. But call religious people delusional and you should absolutely expect to get warned/banned.
You haven't gotten banned for it.
...try calling atheists delusional, and see what you get. Try saying that atheists are treated with kid gloves, and see what happens.
I didn't get banned for it, sure, but I sure did get warned for it. It was back on the old site where I said something along the lines of "Biblical literalism is delusional belief in fairy tales" and I got a warning from one of the mods who told me to use the term "superstitions" instead. I can't find the exact comment unfortunately since Reddit is horrendous to search through.
I just hope there'd be some consistency from the moderators. Outside of the mod team, you'd obviously get flak for being wrong, especially if your implicit belief was that Christianity was the alternative, but that's to be expected.
Try it and see. Try calling atheists delusional or saying that they're treated with kid gloves. You might be surprised, and then you might not make such silly claims as your original comment.
I don't get the point of your comment. I assume you're implying that you're not able to call atheists delusional, and that makes it symmetric? First off that's not true e.g. this post had almost 300 comments with no mod warnings that I could see. It uses the term "irrational" which is slightly less fighty than "delusional", but it's in the same ballpark. If you have an example of someone getting modded for decrying atheists as delusional then I'd like to see it.
Also, my point was that there should be broad consistency in using such terms across different topics, not just consistency if you're for or against religion. If someone can call trans people delusional and not get modded, they should be able to call religious people delusional as well.
I have been trying to get clarification on "slurs", but it hasn't been forthcoming. "Delusional" is an item of serious lack of clarity in the rules. Your cite really rested the entire "irrational" claim on, "The essential danger for people of any belief system is becoming dogmatic and therefore irrational." Which is pretty weaksauce and is probably ignored by most people, because it's just not really what people mean when they use the term. Here's an example that didn't even say delusional, just the weaksauce about kid gloves (c.f. unmodded).
I agree that there should be consistency, but I don't know that you actually agree. Most folks everywhere want their sacred positions protected.
Your cite about atheism and kids gloves doesn't really prove your point since the moderator clearly saw that you were flipping the script (without mentioning it in the post) to try to do a "gotcha". That and your belligerent attitude is what got you modded, not specifically the atheism and kids gloves aspect.
I sincerely do want consistency. The best policy would probably be a blanket ban on words like that for any large group of people. Calling trans people delusional might be how a lot of people genuinely feel on this site, but it doesn't add much light to the conversation.
Nah. They said that part was okay.
You say "belligerent attitude". I say "simply responding to the swarm of people who jumped on me". What's "belligerent" about it? Later, they say it was "holistic", with no post actually being bad. Just that I replied to a lot of responders. I know enough to know that "holistic" means "bullshit", just like when it's used in university admissions or in academic journal reviews (I've seen this, and I've seen it get slapped down by the EIC). You just can't skewer the sacred without being viewed as "belligerent". I'm sure many historical atheist heroes were considered "belligerent" by the boot of the Catholic church that was stomping on them.
I would suggest advocating for that rather than advocating for calling religious people delusional. It might actually get you what you want.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link