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 don't know why any of those were more plausible centuries ago – people 1723, 23, and 2023 BC were all very much aware that e.g. people did not come back from the dead, and Christ's proclamation that He was one with God was considered so outrageous at the time that it nearly led to His being stoned according to the New Testament text. We haven't made any revolutionary discoveries in science over the past few thousand years that have made those sorts of things seem less plausible. (If anything, rather the opposite – for instance, although a virgin birth in the 1st Century remains miraculous, one happening in 2023 is merely an oddity. This line of thinking inevitably concludes in things like Ridley Scott trying to incorporate Jesus into the Alien canon.)
If you think this is an admission against evidence, it follows that you think that Matthew was written in the 1st century, while eyewitnesses were still alive (somebody writing Matthew in, say, the second century would be less likely to include this if it was obviously untrue) which of course makes it more likely that Matthew is an accurate account, not less.
HOWEVER (although this puts me in mind of John's visions in Revelation, where he does see a vision of the the Son of Man coming to rule the Earth) what's going on here is likely significantly less interesting than either an admission against evidence or a reference to the last and perhaps most controversial book in the New Testament canon: Matthew is setting up what happens immediately in the very next verse, when Jesus is transfigured before some of the people present in the previous chapter. (Chapter divisions were not present in the original text, so this is arguably a case where they confuse more than clarify).
Back in the day people were constantly engaging with the divine/spiritual world. Generals would routinely consult oracles, soothsayers and the entrails of various animals. There were all kinds of spells, rituals and magical forces going on. It wouldn't be a big stretch to imagine that this fellow resurrected from the dead, conjured up some bread, healed the sick. That was pretty standard stuff, especially in Judea. There were of course doubters and pragmatic sorts but the cultural milieu was far more accepting of this kind of thing.
There was plenty of witchcraft going on in Early Modern Europe, though 1723 is towards the end of that era.
But now witchcraft and magic (taken seriously) is mostly a sub-Saharan thing.
Regardless of when the line was written, I think it's very reasonable to say that the Son of Man did not come in his kingdom. Surely we would've noticed?
I don't doubt that Jesus lived but I don't think he was the son of God, just as I don't think Muhammed was given divine instructions and is the most perfect man to ever live. Jesus and Muhammed likely got some kind of power surge, so did some others. Sometimes people emerge with great charismatic abilities, it doesn't mean that they're divine.
And to the extent that this was true but not longer is, past Christians may have taken as a sign that Christianity was correct: as I've mentioned on here before, early Christian apologists made use of the decline in paranormal phenomena as evidence that Christ's coming at upended the old order of things.
But I'm not so sure things are that different from 1st century Judea. In Christ's time, generals consulted the entrails of animals; roughly two thousand years later, the generals consulted psychics. Divination and astrology remain popular, rogue billionaires fund research into the question of life after death, insiders from shadowy oracular government agencies tell Congress that UFOs could be coming from other dimensions, the New York Times runs articles about demon exorcism. I could see future generations looking back on 21st century America as a heyday of superstition and belief in the paranormal.
It might be true that OP's statement "claims that may have seemed more plausible centuries ago but are no longer so persuasive" is true in the literal sense that, as you say, the "cultural milieu" may be more skeptical of them now. But I'm not sure the cultural milieu is the best way of evaluating the truth of a claim. And even if it was, it seems fairly constant to me that the majority of people believe in the paranormal or spiritual, while a minority of people (often well-educated) express skepticism of it, with varying levels of outspokenness.
I've got a note on the context above you may have missed. That being said – two of my favorite passages of Scripture (and quite topical to Christmas, for they roughly bookend the Gospel accounts of Christ's life) touch on this question:
The above is from Matthew 2. Below, from John 18 - 19:
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link