Is the Left Hostile to Religion?

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CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

Babylon Astronaut posted:

It's literally the opposite of what you just said. If god parted the clouds and farted, his existence would become a secular belief because we could use the scientific method to confirm his existence. What would convince a Christian that Muhammad is the messenger of God without them converting to Islam or logical reasoning and observation (because that would be the secular method of proving or disproving that Muhammad is the messenger of God)? Magic, the answer is magic.

There are plenty of Christians who become convinced that Muhammad is the messenger of God, they are called converts. They don't convert to Islam and then become convinced. No one converts to Islam unless they believe that is is true, or at least, that's how it works in theory, ruling out bad faith converts.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2017 19:46

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 00:30

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

zh1 posted:

Why are non-religious people arguing for the religious? Could it be a part of the moronic and unfounded backlash against atheism?

Attributing peoples' beliefs or actions to simply being part of a zeitgeist rather than to considered and rational thought processes, classic. Add a dash of ad hominem for flavor.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 00:48

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

rudatron posted:

I think it's more correct to say that religions have many distinct areas it overlaps into. It makes claims about reality (conflicting with the natural sciences), human beings (conflicting with the social sciences), morality (conflicting with moral philosophy) and society (conflicting with political ideologies). Once you separate out each individual aspect, structure it properly, religion becomes superfluous in its entirety, though of course you need more than just science to do that.

The key problem of religion is that that disentanglement is a difficult thing to do, which is what makes its usefulness in any one of those domains questionable - just because something is so, does not mean it should be so, and conversely just because something should be so, doesn't mean it is. Religion mixes those two things together and so ends up with a series of contradictory and useless statements.

Religious claims about reality are only in conflict to the degree that they are incompatible with reality. I believe that the Universe was created, and this is compatible with the claims of science about reality, vis a vis the big bang. What claims religion makes about human beings is inconsistently in conflict with the social sciences, given that the social sciences give no uniform/universal statement on human existence, and at times I'm sure there can be no agreements. Besides, I can present to you any number of scientists who would laugh at the idea of "social science." Moral philosophy is distinct from religious claims about morality in a similar way.

What you are saying about religion being stripped away to become superfluous could just as easily be said about philosophy, as modern day physics undermines are need for ontologies, modern day data theory and AI research takes preeminence over epistemology, and scientists begin to make the claim that ethics should be grounded in science chips away at ethical philosophy.

In a sense, the modern arena of ideas is a turf war between religion, philosophy, and science. The funny thing, all three are losing to crass consumerism.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2017 20:30

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

Avalerion posted:

One shouldn't need religion to know that charity and giving to the poor is good, those are things that are generally seen as positive and encouraged even by atheists and other secular groups. The twist is that religion also encourages things like bashing gays and picketing clinics, and it does that by convincing the people that doing those things is also good and necessary.

You wouldn't think so, but when one considers the popularity of Ayn Rand's work and the prosperity gospel one has to wonder.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2017 20:33

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

OwlFancier posted:

Mm, the problem with religion is not the believing in god part, it's the lovely political part, so it seems weird to conflate the two when they're manifestly capable of being independent.

There are plenty of atheist rightists as well.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2017 20:52

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

I refute your argument thus.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2017 21:27

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

RasperFat posted:

He also said render to Ceasar what is Ceasar's, that slaves should be good slaves in their roles and masters shouldn't beat them too much, and that it's cool for husbands to cheat but not wives.

Cite your sources please, in particular that last one there.

As for slavery, here's a link showing how Christianity laid the groundwork for the gradual softening and liberation of slaves and the deconstruction of slavery in Western civilization:

https://colemanford.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/gregory-of-nyssa-on-slavery/

quote:

Gregory (regrettably) holds a unique place among the early church as one who vehemently denounces the practice of slavery. Though the New Testament does not pronounce a wholesale abolishment of the Greco-Roman culture of slavery, it does establish a trajectory of radical redefinition of the slave-master relationship.

CountFosco fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Mar 11, 2017

# ¿ Mar 11, 2017 22:11

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

Shbobdb posted:

Nothing immoral about smashing the olds and removing reactionaries through violent class struggle.

You really, really, really need to go back and reread the history of the French revolution.

"Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.�

# ¿ Mar 12, 2017 02:11

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

RasperFat posted:

I was responding to an assertion that Christianity was the impetus for abolition. I was arguing that isn't the case, and it's kind of bullshit to imply that when Christianity was a pillar holding up institutional slavey in the West.

I would actually say that the Bible is definitely pro-slavery. There is a mountain of textual and historical evidence that supports this. By extension, Jesus was also an enabler of slavery. He had many opportunities to speak out against the evils of slavery, but didn't. He also supported the traditions of the Hebrew people, despite explicitly changing some practices, like sacrifices. I wouldn't say Jesus was going around promoting the enslavement of people, but he certainly didn't seem to be against it either.

The pillar holding up institutional slavery in the West, and in fact the entire world, is the human desire to have other humans do your chores and work for you.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2017 02:20

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

Cingulate posted:

Well that the Bible is not explicitly abolitionist doesn't show the Bible can't have inspired the abolitionists right? The Bible also doesn't mention stem cell research after all, and IIRC it's actually pretty quiet on the abortion thing.

I'm not enough of a Biblical scholar to cite scripture, but it's worth noting that as early as Tertullian we have records of the Church speaking out against abortion:

quote:

In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the foetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in the seed.

- Apologia 9.6

# ¿ Mar 12, 2017 02:23

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

rudatron posted:

I'm not sure you quite grab the problem here. Let me posit something to you: flat earth theory is not incompatible with reality. Proof: whatever piece of evidence you present to disprove, I just throw on another ad-hoc theory to make the whole thing work. "Nasa has pictures" -> "they're fake", "gravity would vary as you move over the surface" -> "gravity isn't spatially independent", "you can see the horizon" -> "that's from a special light bending pattern", etc etc. If I was so specially inclined and gifted, it would definitely be possible to construct an internally consistent theory of why the earth is flat, that fits with every observation I've made.

But said theory wouldn't be parsimonious - it makes too many stupid assumptions. Ergo, it'd be unscientific.

I'll be honest with you, parsimony isn't a trait I particularly value in philosophy. The desire to reduce things to essentials strikes me as, hmmm, reductionistic?

rudatron posted:

Your creationism is essentially the same thing, it's a claim about reality that conflicts with science (ie it's unscientific). It's not 'outside' of that area, it's a direct conflict. It's just a conflict that, to you, doesn't seem to matter because it doesn't change your day to day life. But, it's a piece of knowledge about the world outside your head, and thus, in conflict with the scientific way of determining reality.

My creationism? My creationism is that the universe as we know it stems from the big bang, an act which I describe as an act of creation. I think that you exaggerate the degree to which my beliefs are in conflict with science. Now, I interpret the big bang as having intent, and atheist scientists interpret it as having no intent, but the basic physics of the matter I am completely comfortable agreeing with.

rudatron posted:

Also, the belief morality can be grounded in science is 100% wrong my friend. There's a deep philosophical problem with that, called the is-ought gap, that means any attempt to derive, in full, intent from knowledge is destined to failure. A statement about truth cannot transform into a statement of preference, without assuming another statement of preference.

Tell that to Lawrence Krauss.

Funnily enough, Hume was making a statement about what philosophical statements ought to be based on what he observed - the is. I would agree that morality cannot be grounded from science. Can it be grounded in philosophy though? For us to let our ethics depend on ethical philosophers seems a bit precarious, given that as humans we cannot but be fallible.

rudatron posted:

I'd also question whether or not science is losing to crass consumerism - it seems to be doing quite well for itself. It's religion that's threatened by modern consumerism, and a good thing to, I much prefer consumerism.

Science as it relates to doing it's job is doing quite well. Science as a driver of culture, human society and human goals, not as much. You talk about appropriation from the poor to the rich as though it were a bad thing, but you seem to have no problem with consumerism, the modern day opiate of the masses? The bread and circuses on which the capitalist system depends? Do you genuinely think that for a citizen to derive real meaning from the consumerist pleasure of owning trinkets and baubles is really what we should be striving for?

# ¿ Mar 12, 2017 02:55

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

rudatron posted:

The loss of religion is a necessary stage in achieving real self-awareness. That's a difficult thing to do, because illusions are comforting.

For example, believing that 'praying' works is emotionally empowering. That's the illusion.

The scary truth is that you are irrelevant, your actions and thoughts have no affect on reality, because the universe does not give a poo poo about you.

Worse, lying to yourself always comes back to bite you. You start believing your own bullshit, and it effects your decision making ability.

Whatever other value you think religion provides, the truth is that there's always a way to do that, without lying. If you're honest.

Yes. Now go the next step and realize that the self-awareness you feel from abandoning illusions is yet another illusion. What Max Stirner would call a "spook." Also realize that the value religion provides, to help provide meaning, is now something you can create on your own, because any meaning is actually an illusion. If you're being really honest with yourself.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2017 15:10

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

rudatron posted:

Even the most brutal autocracy still rules over human beings, and human beings have a moral consciousness. Therefore, such oppression cannot occur without a bullshit 'excuse' for why the oppression is not only necessary, but itself righteous.

Religious authority provides exactly that excuse. It is therefore a component of oppression, not an opposition to it.

Human beings have a moral consciousness? Now who's being naive.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 18:07

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

Tonetta posted:

Science acknowledges that while we are fascinating creatures, we hold no significance on the cosmic scale. However, one day we could achieve such significance.

I believe in the significance of all, man and woman, old and young, educated and not, intelligent and dumb. If by significance you're indulging in some level of post-humanity technological fantasy, well, Lord save me from such significance.

Ftr, I believed these particular things when I was an atheist too.

CountFosco fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Mar 20, 2017

# ¿ Mar 20, 2017 20:45

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

Who What Now posted:

This is what people talk about when they call some religions denigrating. If you think mankind is a bunch of lame gently caress-ups then that's incredibly sad and disappointing.

The inherent flawedness of mankind isn't a mere emotional position. It's a legitimate philosophical question. When I was taking a course in Confucianism years ago, I remember seeing the debate over whether man was inherently good, only to be corrupted by the world, vs. man being inherently bad, to be reformed by civilization, play out among their scholars as well.

Mankind is a bunch of lame gently caress ups. It's also a bunch of incredible, bold, wonderful people as well.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2017 03:16

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

rudatron posted:

The realization that the universe is hostile & unforgiving is a precondition to changing it. A belief in a universe that is fundamentally 'just' encourages inaction.

You have to see things how they are, before you can fix it.

A belief that the universe is hostile and unforgiving can just as easily be taken as a reason for inaction. After all, if the universe is hostile and unforgiving, how can we hope with our own small means to possibly effect it positively? Similarly, a belief in a just universe encourages inaction when you take it to a fundamentalist, irrational extreme. Clearly there is injustice in (what I believe) to be a universe meant for justice. This injustice encourages me to be just, in order to help the universe, which is just in intention, to be more itself.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2017 22:22

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RasperFat posted:

How in the hell can you conceive of people being gently caress ups in a scientific view?

We are winning so hard we almost circle back around to losing. We have literally dominated the land area of Earth. There is absolutely nothing that poses a threat to us besides ourselves and astronomical level events. Even a mass virus outbreak that kills 90% of humans we would recover from in a few hundred years, which is nothing really in the scope of life.

If your conception of victory is merely the continuation of human genetic material, and simple existence then I really don't know what to say.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2017 22:24

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RasperFat posted:

It basically is though ultimately? I mean surviving the death of our solar system would be the most amazing thing imaginable. We could outlive the life cycle of our original planet.

I can think of several things more amazing.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2017 04:52

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RasperFat posted:

Religious garb for women that covers them "sexually" has always been a huge sore spot in meshing religion with progressive ideology. Whether it be nuns, hajibs, or just a head scarf there is a not subtle implication that women are sexual objects.

You can't group nuns in there. No one (at least nowadays) is forced to be a nun and take the habit. It is a symbolic piece of clothing that a nun wears as part of her vows. Male monastics have similar rules about clothing.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2017 19:51

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Shbobdb posted:

There is a finesse to my metaphor, though.

Defenders of religion, when not appealing to ignorance, will speak to the importance of moral education. This is an area where I agree with defenders of religion.

But, like Phlogiston theory, reality is the opposite. Dephlogistonated air is just pure oxygen. In terms of moral education, we aren't corrupted beings that decorrupt through religion. We are moral beings that realize ourselves through actualization. Religion, from a metrics perspective, appears to retard or possibly even prevent this actualization.

Ash is pure phlogistonated matter and oxygen is purely dephlogistonated air.

Ash heap of history indeed!

"Actualization" is a God of the modern secularist, what Max Stirner would call a "spook." When Maslow elucidated on the idea, it wasn't as though he were coming up with empirical tests to determine who was "actualized" and who was not. The self-actualized man of Maslow, like Einstein or Thoreau, is more a saint of the naturalist culture than a valid psychological category.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2017 22:18

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doverhog posted:

That all sounds nice. The moment you stray to the side of opposing a thing like abortion or stem cell research, it is no longer nice.

Are those really the hills you want to die on? Besides, there are secular arguments and atheists against abortion. A minority, sure, but what are you going to do about them?

# ¿ Mar 29, 2017 21:28

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Not a Step posted:

Hey now, The All Loving God promised to never again murder every living thing on the planet save a chosen few in a fit of pique. Thats where rainbows come from!

And its been a long time since He last firebombed cities for being naughty and turned a woman into salt for the sin of not being able to look away from the horror. He's one up on the modern world there.

But seriously religion doesnt accomplish anything positive over and above what a naturally good person would have done anyways, but it does normalize a whole bunch of really horrible poo poo and protects just awful cultural practices in the guise of god and tradition.

In the tale of the flood, it doesn't happen because of a fit of pique. It happens because all of humanity reaches a threshold of evil that is unsustainable and is made actionable. It's hard for us to imagine a society that is so universally wicked that it is better for it to be euthanised than to attempt to reform it, but just because it is hard for us to imagine such a society does not make it impossible.

Further, in the Sodom story, God already knows that it's a wicked place, a place where justice demands action, but in an act of mercy sends a couple of angels to try to find ten righteous people in order to spare the city as a whole. Before they even can get started, a mob literally comes to Lot's door demanding to rape angels. Naughty indeed.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2017 04:13

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RasperFat posted:

How many atheist anti-abortion people are there anyways?

Pew says 87% of atheists favor legal abortion

That's higher than even the non-affiliated group at 78%. The only group that's not majority in favor of legal abortion is white Evangelical Protestants. Even Catholics are 54/42 in favor of legal abortion.

Religious opposition is like 98%+ the driving force behind public and legal abortion opposition. I'd bet most of the atheist anti-choice rear end in a top hat on tv/print is a paid conservative shill like S.E. Cupp.

I'm surprised that it's as low as 87%. I'd expect atheist support of legal abortion would be higher, around 90 or 95%. 13% is a pretty significant minority.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2017 04:16

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Bates posted:

Yeah I can't imagine a society that's so bad that every child in it deserves to be drowned and I find the idea revolting. God is oddly supportive of Lot considering he offers up his daughters to be raped.

If Lot was the one good enough to be allowed to escape, imagine how bad the rest were.

Again, I think this represents a failure of imagination on your part.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2017 11:38

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rudatron posted:

I'm okay with granting certain elements of contemporary religion as part of a kind of mythic language, but the vast majority of religious believers do not treat it that way, and ingrained in every religion is both a set of statements about the world (metaphysical claims) and moral arguments, and the two are often mixed together in a confusing way.

The purpose of a language is to not just express things, but express things clearly and concisely, and religious-mythos-as-a-language fails on that last test.

The purpose of language is to express truth. If the truth as it is in the world is neither clear nor concise, that's tough for us.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2017 11:44

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WhitemageofDOOM posted:

Funny when this statement is demonstrably false, we use language to convey things that aren't true all the time after all.

Sure, but that's not language's purpose. I mean, if you're a materialist, language has no "purpose" other than whatever purpose we give it, or just no intrinsic purpose at all. Just because something doesn't act according to its purpose doesn't mean it doesn't have a purpose.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2017 12:21

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biracial bear for uncut posted:

We're still talking about the religion where the God in question straight up tells you that he's responsible for both "Good" and "Evil" (Isaiah 45:7), right?

The one where Jesus also tells people gathered around him multiple times that unless you're going to turn away from/against every person you love, you are no follower of his teachings (in hilarious contradiction to his other statements about caring for and serving each other)?

The one with eternal damnation in pits of fire with maggots burrowing through your flesh forever; perpetually in a state of dying but without any release from torment?

The one that claims God loves humanity so much he substituted his own son as a blood sacrifice to pay for the "sins" of humanity, while completely ignoring how hosed up that sequence of events is?

If the God of the Bible is portrayed accurately, he doesn't love humanity. Humanity is the battered daughter to God's narcassistic abusive/incestuous father power fantasy. That God deserves no love or loyalty or worship, and the Lucifer character was right to defy him.

No, we're not talking about the same religion. You seem to be confusing me with a sola fide, sola scriptura, right wing fundamentalist.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2017 20:13

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

biracial bear for uncut posted:

Nah, pretty sure we were talking about the same one since the stories in question are all told in every translation of the scripture that is commonly used by Christianity. It wasn't a matter of lack of imagination since in context of the rest of the Bible, God does some pretty hosed up poo poo to humanity.

The point is that God is a hypocrite to condemn Sodom and Gomorrah.

One book, two stories. My interpretations are so radically different from yours as to constitute a different faith entirely.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2017 20:29

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zeal posted:

the medieval mongols were the most successful humans who ever lived, and the most human humans

partially because they regarded anyone who did not live primarily on horseback as subhuman

the real failure of imagination was crowsbeak mentioning an inbred hapsburg failson like ferdinand ii in the same breath as temujin genghis khan, as though some pissant monarch of the european interior has anything meaningfully in common with the most awesome and terrible human being to yet live

Actually, I'm pretty sure you'll find that the characteristic of regarding certain humans as subhuman is in fact not a positive character trait, hth.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2017 20:31

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Bates posted:

Just a few pages ago religion as a whole was credited with everything from the civil rights movement to math but now it's suddenly wrong to talk about some brands of Christianity.

It's not wrong to talk about some brands of Christianity, but it is wrong to conflate certain brands of Christianity with the whole. Fundamentalist Christians are, globally, in the minority. They just seem like the biggest because they're relatively popular in america and they get a looooot of press. Squeaky wheel and all that. Roman Catholics are the single biggest denomination at 1.272 billion, and the Eastern Orthodox represent the second biggest unified denomination at approximately 270 million. Protestants are larger than that at 800 million, but within Protestantism the beliefs, doctrines, and ideas are so diverse that it's really difficult to know how many of those protestants are literalist fundamentalists. According to wiki, methodism represents at least 50 million protestants, and methodists are among the most progressive Christians out there.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2017 23:38

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 00:30

CountFosco: Jan 9, 2012; Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

RasperFat posted:

Is it really? American Christianity has become more pro-capitalism over the centuries, not more lefty. The lovely reactionary churches are all the ones that are growing most rapidly, both within the United States and the world abroad.

[CITATION NEEDED]

# ¿ Apr 18, 2017 20:33

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