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 -
Quibbling about what “air” is and whether it exists in the same way as phlogiston, and then bringing up Kant and positivism, is almost a parody of trying to avoid the obvious point that if we suck all the air out of your lungs or put you in a room without oxygen you will die, 100% of the time. By “metaphysical” you seem to mean “made up and you can’t disprove it with your wimpy naturalism.”
In contrast, divine power resists all attempts to study it in the same way Bigfoot eludes capture and Santa avoids showing up on radar. People do try though.
It’s very brave to bring up falsifiability as a standard when religious claims almost always avoid it. Religious faith and reason cannot be reconciled because the former is explicitly based on believing things without sufficient evidence as a virtue. “We don’t have demonstrable evidence and that’s a feature, not a bug.”
Leaving aside the fact that Saint Thomas Aquinas and millions of Catholics disagree with you, the existence of mystery should humble all ontological viewpoints. Which is my point.
The existence of mystery should not excuse holding beliefs without sufficient evidence, is a basic point of reason.
The most humble ontological view is perhaps one that assumes no deity, or anything else, without sufficient evidence.
So much of classical philosophy is simply special pleading and god of the gaps.
This is why I'm ultimately a (metaphysical) skeptic.
But when I hold to that position here people get mad because it reduces the majority of what we consider knowledge to trial and error. And then they try to exhibit their successes as evidence like every single person that's been wrong in history.
People act as if the only potent argument against skepticism isn't mere practicality. And sure, one has to act as if knowledge is possible. But that doesn't mean it is. And from that standpoint religion doesn't seem that silly compared to positivism.
At the least we all should have the humility to recognize that reason is limited in its understanding.
Religion is silly compared to positivism.
The way you can tell is that almost no on identifies as such after philosophers took a hammer to it for logical inconsistencies. And yet so many religions continue on, resolute in their beliefs that contradict what we know about reality.
Religion is way more wrong than logical positivism. Several orders of magnitude more wrong, both regarding the level of claim made relative to evidence, and the fact positivism was hoisted on its own petard and actually died off.
Religion gets a privileged position because it’s normal and people have strong emotional attachments to it. The evidence is laughably weak or nonexistent, and many religions practice a kind of epistemology that is directly opposed to reason and science. Apologists can’t prove skeptics (or competing religions) wrong by producing strong evidence, so they play philosophical special pleading games and hide their gods in the gaps and “non overlapping magisterial” as secular knowledge expands.
The fact that religions themselves can’t agree on core ideas and prove their case to other religions, let alone to militant atheists and fundamentalist skeptics, remains telling. The “there there” is humans on average prioritize emotion over reason and religions have developed to exploit that fact, while providing some adaptive (at least historically) benefits.
None of what you're saying is relevant to the question of the truth or justifiability of any of the metaphysical positions you're criticizing.
All that you are doing here is criticizing them from the standpoint of rationalism and/or empiricism, which is circular reasoning given the argument we are having is happening at a level of doubt where neither goes without saying. You can't criticize people for refusing to embrace a scientific worldview when we are unable to logically demonstrate that the results it produces are true, or indeed when we can demonstrate that there are true results it is unable to access.
Besides. The behavior of adherents to various doctrines does not, in and of itself, shine any light as to the truth or falsity of such doctrines. It is likely that every single person that has ever existed has believed true things without proper justification. You and I do as well. And yet I don't see you doubting such things as I do. How come if you reliably apply the standard you wish to deploy here?
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