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 -
Here's where the empiricist shrugs and says "I keep observing an ordered and knowable universe. Until that changes I'm accepting it as tentatively correct."
Also the word "faith" is so often tortured to accuse atheists of being faithful.
It's amusing. If one calls it "faith", atheists complain that you're trying to call them faithful. If one calls it axiomatic thinking, atheist's complain that your trying to whitewash irrationality.
Either way, accepting that a thing can't be proven and asserting it as true anyway is an unavoidable part of of the reasoning process. No one actually builds their entire logical understanding from personally-verified first principles.
I'm not saying you or Lackluster are doing it, but the word "faith" is much abused by some people to make a rhetorical attack on atheists. I've seen too much "Oh yeah, well, you atheists are the actually faithful people".
And to address Lackluster's point more directly: pointing out that people have "faith" in external reality existing isn't a very impressive point. Unless this discussion is actually about Descartes' demon, I'm going to roll my eyes about the great "faith" that atheists have about the material world actually existing.
The point of my original post is not to 'attack' atheists, but rather quite the opposite, rather to reconcile belief in science and belief in religion (or belief in God in the general sense). I only 'attack' atheists insofar as I am arguing against scientism which atheists may or may not believe in. Even then, 'attacking' is a pretty uncharitable description of arguing against something.
I think part of the rhetorical divide is that atheists implicitly think that 'faith' is a dirty word. I don't have such a view of the word or meaning behind faith. When I use the word 'faith' here, I'm being quite sincere.
You're also skipping a step with your stand-in empiricist - the empiricist has to first believe it is possible to observe the ordered and knowable universe in first place, and the observations he's make necessary correspond to an objective reality and not, say, it's all in his head to be a bit facetious. This axiomatic foundation is completely foundational religious thought (i.e. a belief in God), and one might argue tends to believe or even necessarily leads to belief in God. This is what Christians mean by God being Logos and God's Logos - that there is an inherent order/structure to the universe and this structure is discernable by Reason (which is one of the possible ways of translating of Logos along with Word). God is identified with this inherent (divine) structure of the universe.
Someone could write a paragraph dropping as many Sanskrit words as you did Greek words in defense of their position and I would be no more moved.
Someone could drop as many Taoist (or is it Daoist?) words and I would be even less moved.
All the Greek words I dropped being Logos, and... all the other ones?
Even if I had "dropped" a bunch of Greek words, how is this a rebuttal? Greek terminology is extremely commonly used in Western philosophy in general and a basic Greek vocabulary is useful for anyone wanting to engage with it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link