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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   38488 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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what stops someone from joining the mormon church? If you dont have tradition you can buy into some, after all converting new people is a big part of the Mormon tradition with the missions that guys go on.

I have a friend who actually did this. Met him at a tech job about 15 years ago in the bay area, and he appeared to be a clean-cut nerdy Mormon. Got to chatting with coworkers and found that just a year earlier he had been a normal tech dork (working for Falcon video no less, a well known gay porn company) and had converted recently.

I got to talking to him after working there a while and in a moment of...something, he confessed to me that he didn't really believe the Mormon doctrines, but had converted in hopes of getting a wife and family.

The thing is : it worked. He actually did get married, have kids, and move to Idaho to be a Mormon. From what I understand he is still living this way to this day.

I think it's fantastic that someone did that. And, yes, I think it would probably work!

But the fact that we're talking about this one example as some sort of strange and rare specimen shows you that the advice is not very practical. If it were so easy, surely more people would be doing it.

Even though it's possible for people to overcome their upbringing, we'd surely benefit if society was structured in a way that is more conducive to forming stable marriages.

what stops someone from joining the mormon church?

That what they preach is untrue.

There are dozens other similarly conservative groups, many of which have better apologetics and less outlandish beliefs.

Yet it doesn’t stop people from joining and working for the companies which espouse views they consider false. When I worked at FAANG, I knew plenty of people who were quite based in private, and ridiculed the letter religion. Obviously they considered it false, but nevertheless they stuck with their job and didn’t rock the boat. Sure, you can say they were in there just for the money, but so what? You can join the Mormons just for the wife, that’s not any different. This is exactly what I would have done myself if I needed.

Yet it doesn’t stop people from joining and working for the companies which espouse views they consider false.

It is not a condition of employment at any firm I've been a member of to even pretend to believe in any of their nonsense. Even with aggressive DEI departments I have not once been asked to affirm a progressive view. For me to join a church would be to lie, and to lie about something important to people who believe it is important. It's not the kind of thing I recommend anyone making a habit of.

You don't have to join to attend. Our church, fairly conservative, welcomes people interested in the historical christian faith, regardless of belief.

If your going to be obnoxious about your disbelief you may find nobody will sit next to for coffee and cake afterwards in the fellowship hall.

Are we to believe that sincere belief in God (let alone LDS mythology) is something that one can just improvise out of convenience? Are we furthermore to believe that the boons shall even come without sincerity?

Buying into a tradition is not impossible. But it is by no means easy or practical for most people, otherwise the zoomer tradcaths would have manifested their cargo planes by now.

I still wonder to this day how right and how wrong DeGobineau was when he said that civilization is incommunicable.

The internet larper tradcaths don’t actually go to church, is why their cargo cult doesn’t work. Irl tradcath communities have their fair share of problems, but the growth rate being low is not one of them.

You can certainly try to believe.

By which I mean, behave as if God's existence is more probable than you currently think it is. Try praying, in earnest (or as earnestly as you can when you think it is very unlikely anyone is listening). Try reading scripture with an openness to the possibility that there is something valuable and true there to learn. Try going to a church: don't pretend you already believe, but be open to the possibility that your mind could be changed.

If there are particular logical issues that prevent you from being open to the possibility of God's existence, then take time to research them. There are a great many very intelligent and well educated Christians out there: is it really the case that you know something they never realized? It's more likely that there is an answer to whatever objection you have. Be open to the possibility that the answer may be right.

If God doesn't exist, then all this will cost you is some of your time and energy. If He does exist then you may gain all the worldly good you were searching for (family, happiness, meaning, community) and the far greater good of salvation from your sins and hope for eternal life.

I can understand an atheist who has no desire to be religious deciding not to go through all that effort, but if you're an atheist who does desire to be religious then the cost-benefit ratio seems pretty good.

Pardon the question, and I hope it doesn't come across as too provocatory, but -- if there were evidence that believing every statement made by modern Progressivism made your life easier, and on the balance made you happier -- would you then go through this process in order to become a sincere Progressivist?

My advice is given to someone who has expressed a desire to believe, but does not. I have no desire to be a "Progressivist".

Can't speak for him, but I certainly would. But since the evidence is that it causes gin-soaked tears and ulcers as you struggle to win the battle over yourself and Try To Be Less White, I won't.

You can certainly try to believe.

You can, but it won't work if you have any intellectual honesty about your own beliefs.

I can understand an atheist who has no desire to be religious deciding not to go through all that effort, but if you're an atheist who does desire to be religious then the cost-benefit ratio seems pretty good.

What about atheists who have been through all that effort?

I've seen this kind of advice before: "Believe hard enough and you will." It sounds like clapping your hands for Tinkerbell, or the New Agey "manifest your desires (by wishing real hard)."

I can see how "Give it a try, maybe it will suit you" might work for someone agnostic who's never really thought about religion before, but it's not going to work for someone who has, in fact, spent time trying it and concluded there was nothing there. And advice that amounts to "pretend you're a believer so you can score a trad wife" seems pretty unethical to me.

I'm someone who probably wouldn't have trouble living a Mormon or Catholic or Muslim lifestyle. But there is no way I could go through life pretending to actually believe what they believe.

I do not, and never have, advised anyone to pretend that they believe something they don't. That would be dishonest, and dishonesty is a vice.

I don't see how the advice I gave "wouldn't work" if you have intellectual honesty about your own beliefs. You do not need to believe in God to attempt a prayer, or to attend a church, or to read the Bible with an open mind.

I don't see how the advice I gave "wouldn't work" if you have intellectual honesty about your own beliefs. You do not need to believe in God to attempt a prayer, or to attend a church, or to read the Bible with an open mind.

Sure, but what if one has already done those things? Your advice to atheists seems to assume that most atheists have never been in a church before. Granted a lot of people do grow up secular nowadays and may truly have had no exposure to religion, but a lot of atheists either did grow up with some religious education and/or devotion or have at least tried it out. IMO, "Give it a shot and try to believe" would only work with someone who's truly agnostic.

I mean I'm literally reading Ratzinger right now, so there is probably something to this advice. Can't say where it'll lead me though, despite the clear necessity of religion, I have a hard time overcoming the silliness of ritual. I may or may not remain the cynical perennialist I've landed at for now, time will tell.

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would you say your political orientation is more libertarian (left or right, it doesn't matter)?

My exact political alignment is a bit complicated, but yes I'm very much one of those people who cares more about freedom than hurting people and will say "live free or die" with total sincerity.

If you want a meditation of the importance of ritual from a non-Christian standpoint, I would suggest Xunzi.

I have a lot of sympathy for Confucianism, I just think it might be too culturally alien to me to be worth much in practice rather than study since I'm a westerner at the end of the day.

But study I certainly will.

Highly recommend Fr Alexander Schmemann, excellent writer and especially liturgical scholar.

I've known a few Christian (not specifically LDS) apologetics who defend faith as a choice to believe, and that doubt is a generally-inescapable part of that process. An earnest "I want to believe" may go further than you think.

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