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Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

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Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

Kepler said:
"When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."

Don't call them snowflakes, they're just like everyone else

The enemy is dominance. End dominance, by any grubby little group, and we can talk about a good society.
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Some great points.

The thing about ending dominance though? I feel ya, but how? Is it even possible? Even in Star Trek, there was an acknowledgement that there will always be someone else out there wanting it, fighting for it, not wanting peace or subjugation. And even within Starfleet, there was always some individuals who seemed to want to do things the old way. Christians would argue that only when a sinless perfectly Righteous Ruler comes that can rule in a perfectly just and fair way, whose omniscient nature makes it possible, only then can we have a truly good society?

And of course, in their story, the 1000 year Millenial Reign, even after 1000 years with a perfect ruler in charge, even then humanity still rebels and resists subjugation.

So Christians hope for the 2nd coming. Can non-Christians hope for this good society you mention?
 
Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

There will always be various f-cked up individuals whose brains are squirrely or whose wienies don't work right who want to control others, but maybe we can stop Group A from dominating Group Not A. We've been making progress on phase 1, taking those privileges out of the law. Next is to take them out of institutional culture in public entities. You never know -- we're due for another wave of progress after fifty years of retrenchment and the last stand of the bigots.
 
Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

Kepler said:
There will always be various f-cked up individuals whose brains are squirrely or whose wienies don't work right who want to control others, but maybe we can stop Group A from dominating Group Not A. We've been making progress on phase 1, taking those privileges out of the law. Next is to take them out of institutional culture in public entities. You never know -- we're due for another wave of progress after fifty years of retrenchment and the last stand of the bigots.
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But doesn't the vacuum created by taking out the privileges of one group, often lead to other groups just coming in and filling in that vacuum? I mean, if you are a part of the group taking over for the previous group, whether a leader or just a supporter, then maybe you are ok with that? And of course those whose privilege is being taken away are going to fight to prevent that from happening whether its right or not and the new group trying to take control will fight harder, whether right or wrong, with both groups believing that they are right. In the middle ages wars were fought between believers of this vs believers of that, mostly differing religious groups. Today's wars are still one group of believers vs another group of believers, its just that both groups are not always religious groups anymore. Now its governments vs religious groups or anti-religious groups vs religious groups. It's a form of war with just different degrees of victimization along with different victims, different types of weaponry, a war fought with words and labels and lies, etc.. It's still one group trying to impose its will upon others. Every group seems to think that they are the best group and their beliefs or ideas or ways of doing things are better than the other groups and for the most part want to want to impose their values and morals or ethics or beliefs or practices on everyone else. Even Democracy is just 51% trying to impose their views or ways on the 49%.

Or do you disagree?
 
Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

FredsDeadFriend said:
But doesn't the vacuum created by taking out the privileges of one group, often lead to other groups just coming in and filling in that vacuum?
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It can, but that is not the goal. The opposite of male chauvinism isn't female chauvinism, it's Get the F-ck Over Yourselfism.

The way democracy is tempered so that it doesn't become the tyranny of majorities is minority protections via the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment. The Church of Satan's trolling of the Christian Taliban is an example of how this works in practice: once the de facto discrimination in favor of Christianity was finally eliminated from federal law the Jesusharia nuts regrouped and tried to force their cross back down everybody's throat with "religious liberty." The COS throws that back in the Thumpers' faces by again returning the emphasis to equal protection under the law.

Now obviously the group that got to impose its arbitrary nonsense on the rest of us for 250 years reads this as someone else "dominating" them, but that's a logical fallacy. The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.
 
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Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

Kepler said:
It can, but that is not the goal. The opposite of male chauvinism isn't female chauvinism, it's Get the F-ck Over Yourselfism.

The way democracy is tempered so that it doesn't become the tyranny of majorities is minority protections via the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment. The Church of Satan's trolling of the Christian Taliban is an example of how this works in practice: once the de facto discrimination in favor of Christianity was finally eliminated from federal law the Jesusharia nuts regrouped and tried to force their cross back down everybody's throat with "religious liberty." The COS throws that back in the Thumpers' faces by again returning the emphasis to equal protection under the law.

Now obviously the group that got to impose its arbitrary nonsense on the rest of us for 250 years reads this as someone else "dominating" them, but that's a logical fallacy. The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.
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Wow, you really don't like Christians, do you?

And I'm not a Christian, and its ME who sees another group moving in to replace the former group, and I've known enough Christians in my lifetime to tell you that its not a logical fallacy that makes them think another group is moving in to replace them, they seem to see some of the same things that I see. We disagree on so many HUGE issues that I doubt you could mistake me as being one of them, but the idea remains that when a vacuum is created, something is always compelled to move in. Not saying something always does, sometimes barriers are created to prevent that. Like sucking the air out of a contained space that can handle the pressure that is created by doing this. And I am guessing that is what you are saying is the goal, to find a form of barrier that can prevent another group from moving in and taking over for the former group. But when it comes to humans, when one dominator is removed, it's usually replaced by those who helped remove it/them, or someone or some group supported by those who removed the former dominator.

Can you guess who I believe is trying to take over as dominator? And/or why I have a problem with them/it?
 
Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

FredsDeadFriend said:
Wow, you really don't like Christians, do you?
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Christians are fine. Christian authoritarians are not.

Your "nature abhors a vacuum" model assumes dominance must always operate in society -- groups must always rank order. That certainly may be true. It has been true until now. I'd offer two reasons for hope that it may be changing.

1. Hitherto, the threat of violence underlay all social organizing principles -- even deliberately non-coercive schemes were conceived as a balance of coercive forces assumed to spontaneously emanate from inside every social body and push outwards like radiation. This only began to change in the last 150 years*. We need to give it time.

2. Hitherto, it has always been men running the show with unspoken (indeed unconscious) hyper-masculine Weenie Baggage (TM). This only began to change in the last 50 years. We need to give it time.

* You'll like this part: one of the reform philosophies to challenge this was... Christianity -- at least a highly radical interpretation. See Tolstoy, "The Kingdom of God Is within You" for a brilliant and methodical telling of this story -- it is from a certain POV the only Christianity worthy of the name and as such has never been approached by Christian institutions, although many individuals all over the world have given it their best and bravest shot. You can guess what happened to most of them. I mean, the first guy who thunk it up we nailed to a telephone pole for his trouble.
 
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Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

Kepler said:
Christians are fine. Christian authoritarians are not.

Your "nature abhors a vacuum" model assumes dominance must always operate in society -- groups must always rank order. That certainly may be true. It has been true until now. I'd offer two reasons for hope that it may be changing.

1. Hitherto, the threat of violence underlay all social organizing principles -- even deliberately non-coercive schemes were conceived as a balance of coercive forces assumed to spontaneously emanate from inside every social body and push outwards like radiation. This only began to change in the last 150 years*. We need to give it time.

2. Hitherto, it has always been men running the show with unspoken (indeed unconscious) hyper-masculine Weenie Baggage (TM). This only began to change in the last 50 years. We need to give it time.

* You'll like this part: one of the reform philosophies to challenge this was... Christianity -- at least a highly radical interpretation. See Tolstoy, "The Kingdom of God Is within You" for a brilliant and methodical telling of this story -- it is from a certain POV the only Christianity worthy of the name and as such has never been approached by Christian institutions, although many individuals all over the world have given it their best and bravest shot. You can guess what happened to most of them. I mean, the first guy who thunk it up we nailed to a telephone pole for his trouble.
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Ok, that's fair, I guess. So you mean Christians that feel the need or calling to run the Govt, make the rules, etc.?

And I wasn't saying that dominance "must" always operate in society, simply that it seems to, I think you even acknowledged that so far that has been the case. Just seems to be something within the nature of humanity, that a large enough portion of the population finds themselves compelled to dominate or control the rest. Not sure what your beliefs in regards to evolution are, but I would think that anyone who believed in evolution would say this is simply something ingrained in humans for millions of years and that trying to change that is akin to trying to stop all the animals of the world from mating. It's what they do. It's what we do. If 1 person in a room of 10 is the only one with this drive, he/she naturally exerts control over the rest. If 2 of the 10 have this drive, then they try to solicit others to their side and some sort of battle, of flesh or mind ensues with the winner being awarded control.

As for men always running the show, while that may be true the vast majority of the time, there have been a few examples of women running the show and they didn't exactly show the world a new way of doing things, in both the men's and women's cases, I'm sure there are rare exceptions, but in general.

And not being a Christian, not sure how I feel about the part you said I'd like, but I will say that rarely has any religious institution ever acted in accordance to their own beliefs and rules, etc., so those who go against those institutions are almost always persecuted, unless tolerated long enough that they can gain followers, and then they form a new institution and the problems start all over again even to the point of wars starting. But yeah, I suppose its sort of ironic that one of the reform philosophies to challenge it came out of Christianity as well. But depending on your view of the Bible, that shouldn't be all that surprising.


Christianity today bears little if any resemblance to what it was when it started.
 
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Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

Arrrggggghhhhhh! If it was a demolition night, I might be in favor.

Fun times ahead! Join (Milwaukee) Archbishop Listecki for Dinner and an Evening of Sing-a-Long Songs as we remember the church folk music of the 60s and 70s. The cost to attend is $25 per person. Sponsorship tables start at $500.00. Check it out here: https://archmil.regfox.com/retro-night
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Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

I gave my love a cherry / That had no stone...
 
Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It's kind of amazing to see all of the Christians who think nothing of going to a yoga class. There are many excellent ways to get in shape that do not involve participating in Hindu worship.</p>— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/959070593961332736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 1, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

ScoobyDoo said:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It's kind of amazing to see all of the Christians who think nothing of going to a yoga class. There are many excellent ways to get in shape that do not involve participating in Hindu worship.</p>— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/959070593961332736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 1, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Do you agree with Matt about that Scooby?
 
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