site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   6179 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 12, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Devout believers in the Bible as literally written are the fargroup. The threat that such people pose to, say, end banking like Jesus clearly said we should, or stop accumulating wealth and live like the birds and beasts of the field like he also said we should, are so remote it's not worth debunking their kooky beliefs.

On the other hand, the beliefs of the group that rallies around the label "Christian" and uses Bible scripture for mostly signalling purposes are cross-examined for their day in court. They rarely actually make a fuss about implementing literal Christian doctrine. The "prayer in school" crowd and "teach young earth rather than evolution" crowd have been driven pretty well underground.

I think a good analogy is if there was a tiny branch of woke people also believed in a magical pink space elephant who says we must build a great tower of mozzarella.

end banking like Jesus clearly said we should, or stop accumulating wealth and live like the birds and beasts of the field like he also said we should

It never ceases to amaze me how utterly poor people's reasoning becomes when they're trying to make their opponents sound bad. This is, like, woke-twitter-level atrocious.

end banking like Jesus clearly said we should, or stop accumulating wealth and live like the birds and beasts of the field like he also said we should

It never ceases to amaze me how utterly poor people's reasoning becomes when they're trying to make their opponents sound bad. This is, like, woke-twitter-level atrocious.

End banking: Deutoronomy explicitly forbids lending money for interest, but that's Old Testament, not Jesus. The Catholic Church did forbid lending money for interest as ipso facto usury for most of its history, so I'm not alone in my interpretation. The Catholic Church was not trying to make Chrisians look bad. I guess I will retract "clearly" as he does not explicitly forbid interest like I thought.

Stop accumulating weath and live like the birds and beasts of the field: This is something Jesus did pretty specifically say, in the sermon of the mount no less.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

[...]

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Of course, you can say "He didn't mean what he was saying literally!" but I resent the implication I'm contorting Jesus's words. He seems to be saying you should not create and store wealth.

Least you could do is read the entire chapter.

.... I did? It's been a while. Please provide some kind of counter rather than just sneering.

Ok, given the modding, I'm just surprised by your position. It's got nothing to do with maximizing reproduction/fitness, which is obviously the One True Message from your belief system. We even have examples of scientific eugenicists through the years to demonstrate that this is, without question, the real interpretation.

You may not like this argument, but you can engage with it properly.

I notice this "argument" doesn't actually cite an example, just claims that they exist. That makes it a little hard to see where you're coming from. "Be fruitful and multiply," maybe?

Your mockery falls a little flat when @popocatepetl has shown no signs of dodging this argument, or even of disliking it, seeing as you only just brought it up.

Nobody showed any sign of dodging the mockery of an argument he made when he randomly brought it up. And be serious; this whole chain was started by someone say, "Why don't we mock my opponents more?" Whelp, I guess we're mocking opponents now. Them's the grounds you wanted to live on.

Nobody showed any sign of dodging the mockery of an argument he made when he randomly brought it up. And be serious; this whole chain was started by someone say, "Why don't we mock my opponents more?" Whelp, I guess we're mocking opponents now. Them's the grounds you wanted to live on.

The original question from @Goodguy: Why don't we challenge the magical beliefs of Christianity as much as we challenge the beliefs of social justice? Are we handling christians with kid gloves?

My argument: Most christians do not use potentially magical beliefs in the literal words of the Bible as a basis for policies. The group of (possibly only hypothetical) christians who do is tiny and politically impotent. When mainstream christians oppose abortion, their arguments don't depend irreducibly on a belief that Jesus turned water to wine.

(There is a group who say "We should do X because Jesus said we should, and Jesus is God made flesh" but the X they choose is highly selective, and I think we can dismiss this as a rhetorical flourish because they provide other arguments rather than letting "Jesus said so" stand alone.)

On the other hand, social justice activists advocate things directly and irreducibly based on their potentially magical beliefs, so it's worth interrogating those beliefs. If SJ had extraneous beliefs in magical pink elephants, it would be a fallacy to spend time harping on that rather than addressing their load-bearing questionable beliefs.

There's nothing here that's mocking.

As for "maximizing reproduction/fitness, which is obviously the One True Message from [my] belief system" — where did that come from? — I suspect you're getting me confused with someone else. I've said on a few occasions I oppose any attempt to alter humanity or change the current distribution of types of humans, or even to let natural molochian processes that improve fitness/efficiency continue.

More comments

Nah, you started the sneering in your OP. My turn now.

No, he provided an argument in his OP, which you may find specious, but in that case you can engage with it properly.

What you are doing is low-effort sneering.

Don't do this.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats