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 -
Publically stating such things is an applause light often meant to express contempt or condescension towards people of other religions, even when rationalists ignore that and treat such claims as logical propositions. It's like going on record in public saying that your opponent's children are ugly and his toupee looks fake. The fact that you actually believe these things is not why you said it.
Or to show devotion, even in the face of popular dislike of a tenet of your religion. Christianity as a faith might have some experience with this.
If you continually allow people to chip away at inconvenient elements of the faith you won't have a faith, or the benefits you believe it provides.
At a certain point, folding on "unkind" doctrine is just folding.
Any nontrivial attack on your ideological opponents would be disliked by them. If your opponents are numerous enough, that becomes popular dislike. You're writing a blank check to excuse all verbal attacks on your outgroup.
Christianity as a faith has attacked nonbelievers for an extremely long time, said attacks being only the start of more concrete bad things that it's done to nonbelievers. What's changed is that nonbelievers are no longer so weak that they have to just sit there and take it.
How is it an attack though? I’ve made strong statements of belief about all kinds of things. Those are not attacks on people who disagree, they’re statements of my beliefs. I don’t think aliens have visited earth. That doesn’t mean that I think anyone who disagrees is lesser in any form, just that I don’t believe aliens have come to earth. Mere statement of my beliefs isn’t an attack.
The difference is that the Christians believe misery awaits non-believers I guess. Although 'Aliens exist, and if you don't believe in them they are gonna torture the shit out of you next time they visit' doesn't seem like an attack either.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
"People say things they actually believe in order to garner approval from fellow believers." Yes, that sounds like an accurate description of a thing that happens.
Except that the "approval" part is only half of it.
In the real world, proclaiming that nonbelievers go to Hell is hostile to nonbelievers. Yes, they want other believers to approve of the hostility, but describing that as wanting to garner approval leaves out the important part.
Is it hostile? Non-believers don’t believe in hell. If they believed in hell then they would be believers. If a non-believer reads it then they would just see themselves going to fake belief place.
The sentiment is hostile. You don't need to believe Hell exists in order to understand that someone louldy proclaiming that you're going to go there probably doesn't like you very much.
You misunderstand the (guessing evangelical) Christian mindset. They think by telling you that you’re going to hell you will realize this and change your mind, accept Jesus, and go to heaven. Telling people they are going to hell is to cross streams a mitzvah.
Well, technically this may be true (and that's the cover), but c'mon, most of us know that "I'll pray for you" is kind of like "Bless your heart" (sounds nice, but it's Southern for "Fuck you"). Loudly and publicly proclaiming that non-Christians are going to go to hell is usually not done out of sincere concern for their eternal well-being. (Fred Phelps doesn't actually believe that screaming "God hates fags!" will save the souls of the people he's screaming at, even if he claims that's his goal.)
The problem is that this really is a core belief of many Christians, so conversely, demanding that they just never talk about it or else they are being "hostile" is basically demanding they shut up because their beliefs offend you.
Usually there is a sort of understood public peace treaty where we all know Christians think the rest of us are going to hell, but they should refrain from preaching that where it's unwelcome. However, some Christians really do feel called upon to preach where they are unwelcome, so Lizzie Marbach was kind of like the street preacher annoying everyone by standing on the corner and shouting things that are supposed to stay in church.
My understanding of WBC theology is not particularly in depth, but I don’t think they believe that changing hearts is possible- God has already enlightened the very, very few elect, and some crazy people with terrible signs is merely His implement to bring the- again, vanishingly small- number of the saved to be more pleasing to God.
More options
Context Copy link
I grew up around evangelicals. I can tell you they are in earnest. They believe non Christians are going to hell and if they can just somehow reach them, then they can save the mortal soul.
Oh, I'm sure many of them are earnest about wanting to save people. But there's a difference between opening a conversation with someone and just preaching at them in public. Granted, probably some people really are deluded enough to think shouting "Jesus saves!" on the street will actually save someone, but for the most part (especially when they're doing it on social media) I think it's virtue signaling for the consumption of other believers, not a sincere attempt to reach the unsaved.
I'm reminded of Jack Chick tracts, which are always premised on the idea that non-Christians, even in the U.S., have never heard of Jesus and know literally nothing about Christianity.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
If I tell someone shooting heroin that it's killing them and they need to stop, they can decide that actually I just hate them, and if they insist on doing so I certainly can't stop them. At a scale of the entire society, they're going to find no shortage of people who actually do hate heroin-shooters to conflate me with. That doesn't make their logic any less garbage.
Your insistence that Christians trying to warn non-believers away from Hell amounts to hatred and hostility seems nonsensical. Christians positing the existence of Hell neither breaks your leg nor picks your pocket, any more than your claiming our God and Heaven does not exist. To the extent that Christianity has been used to implement oppressive authoritarian norms in the past, so has literally every other ideology that has ever existed; where Christianity stands out is the number of states where it has played a significant role in allowing actual liberty, something secular humanism has a considerably worse record on.
You're free to despise Christians if that's your thing. Not liking people is legal. You're likewise free to coordinate meanness against them for believing things you disapprove of, since no system of law or custom will ever prevent such behavior. Just be clear-headed about the likely consequences of forcing several dozen million people to choose between peaceful coexistence or their faith.
There are certainly circumstances where someone telling people this would be mainly motivated by contempt of heroin users, and where it would be correct to infer hostility. Furthermore, society has norms of religious tolerance that it does not have around heroin tolerance, and by proclaiming that your outgroup is going to suffer, you are violating norms that you are not for heroin users.
I'm pretty sure you're quoting Jefferson out of context here.
Also, notice that actually saying "I hate you and you should die" neither breaks your leg nor picks your pocket. By your reasoning not only is loudly talking about your outgroup's suffering not hostile, literal direct hatred isn't hostile either.
Do you think the first amendment should be abolished?
No, it is possible to think something is bad without wanting it prohibited.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There is no norm that believing in hell is an attack on your outgroup. Religious tolerance emerged from people who universally believed that their opposites were going to suffer, because the core insight is that my beliefs about the afterlife don't make much difference to you in this life. Likewise, it would be idiotic for me to claim that your insistence that my God doesn't exist harms me. If you are worried about suffering in the afterlife, you are free to do something about that. If you are not, you don't have to. That's the deal, and you don't get to alter it.
I'm pretty sure I'm applying a solid principle to a more general context where it nonetheless applies.
If you hate me and want me to die, that has direct implications in this life, and while it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket, it has a strong correlation to both happening shortly.
"Loudly talking about your outgroup's suffering" is an interesting way to phrase it. It covers both "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but through me", and "GOD HATES FAGS". I readily concede that people can use the concept of hell to communicate hatred. That doesn't make the concept of Hell itself hateful, and the distinction is both necessary and useful if you want to maintain a pluralistic society. Any moral or ethical claim at all can be labeled hatred under your framework, and then used to exclude the disfavored from the public square. This is a bad thing to do for a lot of reasons, but doing it for a very large portion of society who already have a lot of bones to pick with the increasingly unstable social compact is just burning social cohesion for the fun of it. We Christians put up with all sorts of social bullshit already. Maybe you Atheists can try putting up with some bullshit as well.
Believing that your outgroup is going to Hell is not the same as loudly proclaiming in public that your outgroup is going to Hell, just like loudly proclaiming "your children are ugly and your toupee sucks".
This is also true for other types of hostility. If you yell in public that I'm going to Hell, that has a strong correlation to doing bad things to me.
"As well"? What? You're talking as if people who are not Christian have never put up with bullshit related to religious beliefs and this is the first time. This is absurd. You are not engaged in some sort of glorious table-turning where Christians "put up with bullshit" from everyone else and suddenly you get a chance to do it back.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Who says they don’t like you? That person would likely help you get baptized in a second.
That's help combined with condescension. Condescension is a type of hostility.
This just seems like Christian hating to me.
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
Yes, and? Obviously people often hold beliefs they know would be rude to state publicly, which leads to these sorts of fracases where someone does state it in a public venue.
"Christian expresses a fundamental tenet of most Christian denominations, non-Christians get offended" is a nothing story except for the personalities involved.
And there's a reason why influential people being rude gets in the news.
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