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There seems to be a revival of non-religious conservativism, often called as Cultural Christianity. One such example is for instance Carl Benjamin AKA Sargon of Akkad - a self declared atheist who nevertheless is socially conservative, and lately even started going to church on Sunday. This is also very common for Jews, as judaism is more open to legalistic forms of worship, but I also find it quite common right now amongst former atheists.
It may also be one of the reasons why Orthodoxy is now on the rise, as they have more space for orthopraxy/lived theology/theosis as eventually leading to redemption as opposed to Catholicism and other churches, which put faith above all else.
aqouta
27m ago
I think the major difference is people who have monosexual friend groups vs mixed friend groups. If all your friends are nerdy guys you're probably not going to the kinds of parties where there are lots of single ladies to hook up with and you're relegated mostly to cold opens. People have been making less friends now than ever before so it's pretty common to not have one member of the opposite sex that you see regularly and platonically, and if you meet your friends through mostly male hobbies then, lets just say monosexual friend groups aren't rare.
kky
27m ago
I’d disagree with you - your post seems to be entirely aligned with the blackpillers, in that it shares a central outlook on things. That outlook could be summed as nihilism, but the overtones of philosophical malice which that word implies are pretty misleading, in my opinion. If I were to give a real summary, it would be: the feeling that nothing one does is working. And to be quite clear, I think this is not about dating specifically.
There’s a particular psychological phenomenon, which I’m sure has a proper name but which I will term traction. Traction is the guttural sense that you are getting somewhere. It is the feeling that the things you do have a palpable effect on larger circumstances, and especially on your own fate. Traction is the internal representation of your own agency. Failing to find traction is, correspondingly, absolute torture.
Traction requires the experience of matching your own efforts to meaningful results. If you work hard, and do the right things, you will be rewarded. But there are two ways for this to go wrong: first, for a person to fail to find things to do which will yield tangible rewards, and second, for a person to get rewards despite failing. Both paths lead to despair, to the sense that what you are doing doesn’t matter. A person without traction is perpetually frustrated, in a sort of frictionless distortion of a world, all intangible images and no hard if painful reality. This experience is outright torture.
I’d argue that our immediate society is effectively set up to maximize frustration, starting from childhood. Schools have few avenues for real success or failure. If you are convenient for the teacher you will get approval, but excellence at the material has no outward effect. There’s no actual way to fail either, no real consequences to suffer, No Child will be Left Behind. And kids are stuck in that fake world for most of the day, leaving little time to go explore elsewhere. At home may be better, but a complacent parent will provide distractions for the kid that have no connection to their behavior (we used to call this spoiling the child) and make no real demands of them. College is little better, of course. And the political moment is so far against failure that even adults who should be failures are able to scrape by as if nothing was ever truly lost, and even collect Social Security as childless elders instead of facing their failure to directly or adjunctly reproduce the next generation who will care for them.
Anyway. Career trajectory is obviously part of this. If you can’t swing extra work into extra pay, or if that extra pay cannot visibly lead to things that concretely matter to you, then you have no traction at work. Why not skate by at minimum? Dating is as well. There’s a phenomenon where someone is trying to make a bigger leap, in terms of their own ability, than they think they are - usually because they’ve been carried past the point where they’d typically learn the elementary pieces. But making that leap in a single burst of effort is impractical, and the inevitable failure is frustrating. And if you keep getting your dole payments that bring the floor up on where you should be, such that if you were to go stand on your own two feet it would be a long and painful journey to get what you can currently get for free, then getting traction is a monumental task.
Dating is like this, I think. Porn, both for men and women (romance literature), gives a person sexual experiences they don’t really have a right to. Ditto the sorts of wish-fulfillment literature that lets a person self-insert into an infinitely pleasant and unchallenging relationship. Meanwhile, the actual starting point is obscured: the person who wants to date needs to start by learning to be decent around the opposite sex, what things they do or don’t appreciate, how to charm them and not offend them, and only then progress to things like flirting and courtship. An explicit dating relationship can only really happen on top of that foundation. And this applies to women too: if you’ve heard anything from the women miserable that they’re stuck in a “situationship” where they put out for a guy who won’t date them, it sure sounds like they’re the unfortunate equivalent of a guy who’s been relegated to simp orbiter. Neither knows what to do to get what they actually want.
The blackpill is nothing more than an expression of this condition. Nothing you do seems to matter; maybe nothing could ever be done at all? And it can apply to anything: dating, career, hobbies, even politics. We have a lot of political blackpillers on this forum, which I personally take as a sign that they’re trying to influence national politics instead of the more appropriate first step of coming to terms with one’s friends, family, neighbors. But national politics continues to deliver people political wins they don’t deserve, so we’re likely to continue seeing frustrated people for the time being in that dimension. And for you, friend, I have sympathy. I don’t particularly know what your struggles are, as your post mostly talked about generalities, but I’m guessing you’re from a striver background and are on the first or second rung of some or other intense career and feeling pretty lost. Or something else! I’m not a psychic. In any case, I wish you the best in finding something that is, to you specifically, worth the effort which you are capable of.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
34m ago
The substance of prayer is cultivating a disposition, salience / sensitivity, and object of thanks. I mean I’m sure there are Christians out there praying to win a lottery ticket, but this is not the sophisticated method of prayer. I think most traditional churches would advise that you pray for spiritual benefits and basic needs. You could argue that Christ even advises a person to pray only for the kingdom and righteousness and not even basic needs. However I think there’s room to pray regarding all feasible goal pursuits with undue confidence, because that’s beneficial for a person.
Arrogance and narcissism
Arrogance and narcissism are bad because they are antisocial. If a person believes that a loving God cares about everyone maximally, this would have prosocial behavioral consequences. Calling this narcissistic or arrogant is a category error of sorts. It’s just a mismatch of terminology.
it’s far more invested in preserving its own status and influence than in any genuine truth. Most of the people at its core seem more concerned with hierarchy and control than with the transcendental.
I see a lot wrong with nearly every church so I can’t disagree here. But that doesn’t mean that we should throw out all the developments of Western religion.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
38m ago
Can you really blame them, Christianity as an institution has been speedrunning blasphemies upon blasphemies with a straight face for centuries, from the absorption of the Trinitanism cult nonsense (god being three beings yet one), the constant Idolatry (Icons, Crosses, holy trinkets, holly sites) the base and mundane nonsense (The Pope says trans rights). It's all so tiresome.
Yeah, this is why I have gone straight for Orthodoxy. Although Icons are definitely not heretical, they were used in the early church, you can look it up blah blah.
Wait the Trinity is a cult? Huh. You mind unpacking your beliefs more I'm curious what you think the true Gospel is?
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
39m ago
I don't want to be a Redditor about it, but I don't see the point of modern Christianity. Coming from a largely apatheistic perspective, it's trivially obvious that the actual importance with which people generally and Christians especially treat religion is at an all-time low.
Have you heard of the book Dominion? It basically makes the argument that almost all of our modern moral worldview is a direct result of Christian teachings changing the moral landscape from pagan religions. Might interest you if you're genuinely curious here.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
40m ago
If we return to Deus Vult and the sword, will that satisfy you in some way? When Christians were serving in significant numbers in the recent middle east wars, and often saw those wars as a crusade, did that lend the faith more credibility?
Yeah if anything I think Christianity was farther from Christ's actual teachings at that point, than we are today. Turning the other cheek does not translate to massive, bloody crusades, up to and including sacking cities of other Christians and killing so many the streets run red with blood. (Yes, I'm still mad about the sack of Constantinople.)
georgioz
43m ago
It’s not some new thing caused by the awfulness of modern women
I am not sure. In the past being a spinster/old maid was considered as negative. Nowadays 40 years old childless women are viewed as empowered role models. This is by definition two sides of the same coin - for every solitary woman there is a solitary man. The only difference is social stigma - seasonal worker who earns just enough to survive is still viewed negatively as if it is his own character flaw, while for women it is either empowerment if they like it or they are victims of society if they are femcels. If you normalize antisocial female behavior, it automatically impacts men who are supposed to be in relationship with those women. Of course it also applies the other way around, so the genders can blame each other in vicious spiral. Welcome to modern gender relationships.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
48m ago
I'm new to the Orthodoxy stuff (there are at least three of us on here???)
Me, you, @Gaashk, @ortherox (sp?) and I think @TheDag (?) are Orthodox. Probably more if I had to guess.
The notion of symbolic over and against literal is a very anachronistic way of reading the symbols that are being described and referenced in Scripture and the writings of the saints and church fathers. Similar to the false dichotomy of spiritual vs physical.
Is this true? I've heard over and over that the allegorical/symbolic reading of the Scriptures is something the Church Fathers did. We even have the words allegorical and symbolic in many Orthodox chants. Perhaps symbolic over and against literal I agree with - the literal and the symbolic were seen as one. Symbol literally means "where heaven and earth meet."
And hey I'm working on converting the techies on twitter. Come help out!!
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
50m ago
But Americans aren't like that, and ultimately my husband and I are American, and feel miserable coming and going from the church service to the children's room and back as necessary.
Huh, most folks in my church will just have their kids in the Liturgy with them, and if the kid is screaming no big deal. Our bishop came in one time and literally admonished people if they thought to judge the children who were crying during a service, strongly saying that kids are closer to God than we are.
It's interesting, Orthodoxy is so different based on where you go and who you talk to. From @urquan's post above sounds like he and you have both had some more ascetic/intense parishes. I'm grateful to have not found that! Hah. But we do still have the grace and beauty, and I am incredibly lucky in that way.
In terms of feasting, and kids going in and out of the liturgy running around, that does sound lovely. I do wish it was even more relaxed here in America, maybe one day.
I was interviewing at a mining company way back when and they were just so boring and dry
Also, thanks to my parents I am an east-coast latte-sipping downtown elitist lib-pilled yuppie (see my flair). So moving to Calgary (and Alberta generally, although I liked Austin so if Calgary was cool I'd deal with the awful governance) is not a very appealing option. Soy-jacking aside, I love the vibe of big cities, and the absurd fun and convenience they provide.
It's not so much "city fun kid boring", I fucking loved growing up in Toronto. I want my kid to experience that. And Toronto is so much better now than when I was a kid.
No offense, but I started out predisposed to believing you, but the more you post, the more I think the revealed preferences people are correct, at least in your particular case. Whatever you wish to be true, large, especially capital cities in the west have been on a trajectory of being increasingly fun and cool for the young, childless and high-powered careerist, while becoming less and less affordable for families. The same goes for all the popular jobs. You pay a significant premium to have a job that is fun, and if that premium is so expensive that you can't afford kids, it means you value that fun higher than kids. No, people in the past didn't have fun jobs, in fact if boring and dry is the worst you can come up with, that's probably a top 1% job in terms of satisfaction right there, certainly in the past and to some degree even currently.
I did my PhD in London. For my career, and probably even for that of my wife, it would have been MUCH better to stay there. My PhD supervisor was ready to take me over as a postdoc, and she is quite successful. My wife, meanwhile, had worked with Friston (the neuroscientist), and would have had a decent shot at getting a postdoc there as well. But we both chose against it, for multiple reasons, but primarily because raising kids in London sucks. My PhD supervisor had her first child almost simultaneously with mine (just a few weeks difference), and I really can't see her getting more than one. We went back to [small university city in germany] and are now on our second child and counting. We will probably have three, maybe four (though more are unlikely, since we didn't start early enough and I'm also not a particular fan of having babies past 40).
And it was totally worth it! Kids really are the greatest meaning-generators. Fun also gets a lot cheaper; Suddenly, I don't need to go on expensive vacations or the like. All the simple things that have become boring for me, if I do it with our eldest and she is having fun, I have fun as well through the magic of empathy. Hell, even playing peekaboo with our baby is lots of fun. And no, doing it with other kids isn't the same.
Tbh, I'd say that you're stuck in a local maximum that is pleasant and fun right now but will lead to you being dissatisfied in the long-term, and you even recognise that fact, but you don't leave bc you aren't willing to suffer a little in the valley on the way towards a better maximum.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
52m ago
what are "the" passions?
Pleasures and pains.
I am more qualified
Then why do you take mere discussion of the phenomenon as an attack on your rights?
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
52m ago
You're in for a treat.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
54m ago
I strongly believe the “gung ho liturgy go hard fasting is hard everyone must follow rules originally followed by monks” energy of Orthodoxy, which attracts the competitive male converts to it, is also the greatest problem for the Orthodox Church. The “standard” practice is incredibly high — and in service of an incredibly high goal, total union with God. Literally to “have everything that God has.”
This REALLY depends on your parish my friend. I've read a lot of the Orthodox Church Fathers and yeah, the asceticism can be pretty harsh.
That being said, my own parish is very chill and the priest has basically told me that if it isn't good for my soul, don't worry about it. Hell, he even told me that my girlfriend and I living together was ok as long as it was good for the relationship, since we were dating before I converted.
Overall my experience has absolutely NOT been of a super militant, super strict fasting, hardcore church. I would strongly urge you to check out different parishes, or hang out with different groups.
Also, online Orthodoxy is horrible and I wouldn't go near it tbh. I have found very few public, online Orthodox folks that I think are actually humble. And humility is the chief virtue, without her we have nothing.
AmericanSaxeCoburgGothic
Happy to be here! Goal is to post the most exclamation points.
1hr ago
Time is a terrible thing to waste. The question to be asked of younger folk not using their time employed or in education is "How are you going to fund your retirement?" Working hard and making money in your 20s / 30s I think definitely beats working as an old person. Banking on the AI miracle seems too low probability to me. The adage I think of is the job you are doing now often leads to what you do in the future. And short unemployment begets long-term unemployment.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
1hr ago
In reality though, they should "just go be Orthodox." ;P
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
1hr ago
but I'll bet even the average Catholic priest doesn't really, truly believe in angels and demons and would freak out as much as any secular person if he experienced something actually supernatural.
You're probably not wrong, sadly! I don't have a ton of experience with the Catholic church so I can't say one way or another, but I wouldn't be surprised if you were correct here. 100% with Protestants, I don't think most of them genuinely believe at all.
I will say though, it is different with Orthodox clergy! Again, insofar as my own experience is a guide. The Orthodox clergy I have talked to genuinely believe, discuss supernatural phenomena happening to them and other congregants, and are incredibly committed to the preternatural as a part of their worldview. Now, this doesn't mean all the laity deeply believe and that's a separate problem, but I have noticed a big difference.
I remain a materialist atheist and it's very unlikely anything will convince me to change. @FCfromSSC writes some very cogent criticisms of materialism and I get his point that materialists often base their "knowledge" on constructs no more inherently trustworthy than faith, but that just tells me no one can really "know" anything. Maybe for some people that leaves belief wide open as a choose-your-own-adventure, but I find myself unable to just make myself believe things. "You don't have an answer for how the universe started, therefore Jesus" is such a huge leap that I don't understand how people get there, though clearly many do.
Hmmm, I'm not sure you are fully grasping the point @FCfromSSC is making. I may be butchering it, but the basic idea is an invitation to interrogate your own axioms. You may say nobody can really "know" anything, but regardless, to live and function in the world you do have to "know" things and have some axioms. Perhaps this idea that nobody can "know" anything is an axiom itself. Once you start to dig deeper into the structures of your beliefs, you find that a lot of them are built on houses of cards.
As for the leap - it's not as ridiculous as it may seem. It does take some reading and some genuine motivation and learning, but I'd recommend some books on Biblical symbolism like The Language of Creation, or Peterson's Holy are We Who Wrestle. If you want a deeper, historiographical lens, check out Violence Unveiled - Humanity at the Crossroads.
No argument will convince me to just "reason" my way into accepting Jesus or Mohammad PBUH or the Tao. (Don't try; you do not have an argument I have not heard before.) The only thing that would trigger a conversion in me is witnessing something with my own eyes. Show me an angel, so to speak.
These beings don't necessarily appear to us everyday, especially if we don't try to reach out to them. Our minds can be quite closed. Have you tried fasting, or camping alone in the wilderness for 3+ days? Or, alternatively and frankly much riskier, you could try psychedelics and pray to an angel and ask for a sign. He who seeks shall find, and to he who knocks, it shall be opened.
Does being "religious" actually change anyone's beliefs or behavior? Not really. I've long been of the opinion that being religious has almost no impact on an individual's character and says little about him
My conversion dramatically changed my own actions and character, in concrete ways. I have seen and heard many other stories of this being true. I do agree in general though that too often Christianity is worn as a sort of facade of piety while doing whatever you want. Christ had that in his own day, and I'm sure we will always have religious hypocrites amongst us. I am hypocritical in my own ways. That doesn't mean that He isn't alive, and active in the world.
AmericanSaxeCoburgGothic
Happy to be here! Goal is to post the most exclamation points.
1hr ago
I think of the survivor who jumped from the Golden Gate bridge- all their problems suddenly seemed very solvable. What I see in friends and colleagues is a lack of faith (organized religion) that is coupled or leads to a lack of optimism in the world; and I think poor planning for their future (you're saving how much for retirement!). But I guess a Marxist interpretation would be the false lies distort a workers' view to accept their station in life. I guess my point is a strict reasoning and rationalist approach to life can be more harmful given certain personal characteristics and the human capacity of self delusion.
Thank you for the response. Just to press the point, is the worst that would happen to a hypothetical child that he or she would end up like you? Is that so bad?
RenOS
something is wrong
1hr ago
It's not about having no experience, it's about them having a tendency to tell you that behaving like a good christian or [insert religion] will surely lead to you finding and holding a partner, when it's at best unrelated or at worst actively counterproductive.
Ironically, I would actually say that they are better equipped to give good relationship advice once you already are committed to each other, for the same reason.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
2hr ago
But what I'm saying is that my friends really aren't too 5% Giga-chads and those last two example friends are extremely not that.
So if I know lots of non-alphas who are fucking, what's up?
incognitomaorach
2hr ago
Anecdata but my views have changed substantially (civ nat/soc dem to "quite a bit further right") via online discourse, osmosis, and frankly I think my views coming into contact with reality. A large amount of my IRL contacts have also moved further to the right on social issues specifically, mostly driven my immigration, or at least online discourse and media that is shaped by immigration. How much of this is driven my argumentation vs. just looking at reality is difficult to parse, but what I would say is once certain dominoes fall, one becomes much more receptive to argumentation around other points and policies. The nature of tribalism means that it's extremely hard to remain iconoclastic and the step from "I'm on the left except for the extreme culture war stuff" to "I'm on the right" is an order of magnitude smaller than the step from "I'm on the left" to "I'm on the right".
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
2hr ago
This team in one day produced themselves 70 opportunities for video. Again, boasting or all but, "Yeah sometimes we hit people behind our targets. Bummer." Where's the video? We do know this happened, since both sides say it did. 70 opportunities from one team in one day for video of a bad shot.
Nothing.
Surely this should make you investigate your priors? If we accept that this happened but can't find video, then it shows that video isn't needed to prove something happened!
Firstly, I think there is video but we just don't see it since we're not in the Arab media-sphere, not on the right telegram channels. I've read some books and reports, that's enough. Here's one video of a prisoner being raped: https://youtube.com/watch?v=qmjGdzyj5BA
Furthermore, video footage is often misleading. It can be selectively edited or leave out context as we're both aware. Nobody is going to watch enough video to distinguish excecptions from standard, on the scale of armies and states.
Finally, the standard for believing that Israel acts with cruelty should not be high. We know there were violent protests when the Israelis started investigating torture of prisoners - protests against the prosecutions. This indicates that there's a good number of Israelis who are in favour of torturing prisoners, shooting prisoners.
I don't need live video to know that there's a lot of rape in South Africa, even if it's politically relevant in that many don't like blacks or the end of apartheid. Likewise with Venezuela. We don't need extensive evidence to prove it's a shithole. Some things are just straightforward and make sense. They can be derived from first principles.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
2hr ago
Oh, there used to be android instructions. It's not too hard though it's pretty much - install on Windows using the Windows instructions, then install onscripter plus on your tablet, then transfer the game's folders across to your tablet, then run it. If you can get umineko project running may as well stick with that though - when I played it UP ran like crap on android.
Is the term you are leading toward learned helplessness?
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