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 -
The Christian understanding is that Jesus's self-sacrifice indeed fulfilled the law, with his final words being "it is finished". This is consonant with Jesus's teachings recorded in the Gospels, where he constantly clashes with the Pharisees and teachers of the law, arguing that the purpose of the law was never to inculcate legalism, but to help people understand the nature of evil and sin. Jesus violates his contemporaries' traditions about and understandings of the law repeatedly, and affirms his disciples doing so as well. Christians do not recognize a discontinuity between Jesus's teachings and Paul's. Maybe we are wrong in that assessment, but you have not demonstrated any reason why your own opinion is obviously more correct.
Indeed not: what they converted to was not Judaism as it was practiced and understood by Jews, then or now. Jews don't actually think that Christianity is Judaism, and Christians don't think Christianity is Judaism. They both think they are talking about the same God, but their respective understandings of that God are quite different, and largely unreconcilable. From the outside objective view, there is nothing useful conveyed in the claim that Christianity worships the Jewish God; this claim is only relevant once one accepts the axioms of the faith, which are flatly incompatible with your claims for other reasons.
I don't see what makes this view "sophisticated" or even colorable. It does not seem to be engaging in good-faith communication, which is about what I'd expect from a communist radical.
The Christians did not seize control of the government and then exterminate a significant portion of the Roman population. They converted the romans peacefully, quite often through their own mass-martyrdom, until a tipping point hit and mundane ingroup-outgroup mechanics enacted by a "cultural Christianity" cemented the new normal. Rome continue on under Christianity for more than a millennium, and smoothly transitioned to the post-Rome west that has built every comfort you've ever enjoyed.
Who's "we", kemosabe?
Again, Christianity split with the Judaism he's appealing to from the start. Jewish contemporaries to the first generation of Christians were actively working to stamp them out with extreme prejudice, a process that continued until the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, at which point the Jewish community was busy merely trying to survive, forming insular communities with minimal contact with or influence over a Christianity which was busy conquering the world. None of that history is compatible with his pretense that Christianity, which my guess is he has nothing but contempt for, owes anything at all to the "Judaism" he claims to speak for.
This isn't evidence for your position, it's a radical jackoff arguing in bad faith in an effort to shock and offend. You're repeating his lies because they're convinient to you, but that doesn't make them less obviously stupid.
Or could it be that people like him have never understood my church's Jewish teachings? That claim would have equal basis, it seems to me.
Yeah, this guy has no idea what Christianity even is, and I'll reiterate that you don't either if you thought an argument this bad was compelling. And that's fine! Just don't expect actual Christians to be persuaded by insights that don't actually engage with anything we believe.
More options
Context Copy link