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 -
Well, it's more than that. If you use the popular trope that "gods are powerful in proportion to how many believers they have" then yeah, you would expect a world with Christianity to have made Yahweh into a really powerful god.
Except - you are implying that the Christian God is really just another god among many, and not qualitatively different from Zeus or Astarte or some ancient forgotten Slavic bog-demon, He just happened to go viral at the right time and now He's got really good ratings. Christians (and Muslims) believe in the One True God who is Alpha and Omega. The idea that if Christianity as a religion became fringe, God would become just another wispy little godlet competing with the likes of Quetzalcoatl and Tiw is literal heresy.
Of course the sort of Christian (or Muslim) who reads urban fantasy or plays RPGs could probably handle this in a fictional world. But mainstream fantasy series or games that demote Jesus to Just Another Demigod are often accused of mocking Christianity. (And nowadays I wonder if anyone would dare giving Mohamed a stat block.)
Sure, but the alternative is to deny God's existence, which may be even more heretical. Authors tend to skirt around this question, and that's fine, but if they don't address it then I'd prefer they not address adjacent issues either. If your world is "All gods exist except for the Christian God, but people still believe in him and follow the Bible anyways" then that's fine so long as you mostly ignore that side of things. But if your story has strong themes revolving around homosexuality and homophobia, and all your in-story homophobes are Christians, that feels to me like you're cheating. Essentially you're obliquely asking "Assume your religion and its teachings are false. Are your religion's teachings false? Let's explore that question!"
Even that would be OK if this hypothetical universe's new rules were consistent, but they're not; they seem to go out of their way to also directly contradict Christian beliefs even when it wouldn't be internally consistent. So all I'm asking is that if you decide to cripple your magic system in order to support your ideology, you don't go way further out of your way to also center your book's themes around the part of your magic system you just crippled.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link