The mouth breathing youtube media uh stars own crappy thread

[Spark]

I mean this whole thesis of religion being the only possible saviour against strong government is just not supported by evidence. There are tons of very religious societies in the world which do tend towards either outright tyranny (Saudi Arabia, Iran), incompetent governance (hey, at least the reverend believes in the right deity, who cares if he siphons off a bit of the church coffers)., or sectarian violence and cycles of terror from either side (Latin America, Africa). He might be talking about the evangelical tradition of settler churches, but the problem with that model is that it often fails to last more than a generation - because guess what people get influence from outside their little settler towns and see that there is more to life than finding a girl in high school and sticking with banging her missionary for the rest of your life. And the post-communist experience hardly seems to have a clear distinction between religious and non-religious countries when it comes to the size of the state and role of big government.

I would argue that the industrial decline and the commodification of labour is far more important when trying to find reasons for the decline of religious mores in America (Geert Mak's In America is good on this). And these are inescapable consequences of economic and technological freedom: capital will always be more mobile than labor, so the manufacturing can go at any moment, and you can't put the drugs back in the bottle.

Eh, I would say that there is something within Protestant (and especially Calvinist) tradition which really lends itself to this whole idea of freemen-on-the-land shtick, where social mores are powerfully enforced by convention and is highly suspicious of government (read: the Catholic Church) dictat on social positions. Look at America, look at areas of South Africa where the Dutch Reformed Church was influential etc etc.

 

[Redbacks]

Lastly I think you're wrong about him wanting the morality of his God written into law (to the extent that it's not already). He didn't mention politics in that article and I can recall very little (if any) conflation of church and state in his speeches.

Reading the Article, there's just a massive vibe along those lines as the principles of secular western democracy (humanism) are essentially what he is attacking to try and make his point.

 

[Uppercut]

The view that the state should not be involved in marriage at all is extremely unconservative. Pretty clean break between conservatives and libertarians there.

I also don't really agree with it in practice, although it's fine in theory. As things stand it needs a legal dimension to govern stuff like inheritance in the absence of a will.

 

[Spark]

The view that the state should not be involved in marriage at all is extremely unconservative. Pretty clean break between conservatives and libertarians there.

I also don't really agree with it in practice, although it's fine in theory. As things stand it needs a legal dimension to govern stuff like inheritance in the absence of a will.

It's fine in theory but that really would go against millennia of social organisation and governmental (to the extent that, like, Ancient Sumeria had a government) practice, far moreso than being fine with gay people would be. I have no problem with calling them all civil unions/partnerships/whatever for legal purposes, but I strongly question whether this is practical way to organise a society.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Eh, I would say that there is something within Protestant (and especially Calvinist) tradition which really lends itself to this whole idea of freemen-on-the-land shtick, where social mores are powerfully enforced by convention and is highly suspicious of government (read: the Catholic Church) dictat on social positions. Look at America, look at areas of South Africa where the Dutch Reformed Church was influential etc etc.

Yeah but they both ran out of things to exploit didn't they.

And the scions of the Dutch Reformed Church didn't exactly introduce a non-tyrannical government once they had their Republic.

 

[Spark]

Yeah but they both ran out of things to exploit didn't they.

And the scions of the Dutch Reformed Church didn't exactly introduce a non-tyrannical government once they had their Republic.

Yeah, but the Calvinists didn't win the American Civil War. The Quakers did. Swap that around, and the parallel might become even clearer...

 

[Top_Cat]

because guess what people get influence from outside their little settler towns and see that there is more to life than finding a girl in high school and sticking with banging her missionary for the rest of your life.

Well maybe they should try banging her instead.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Yeah, but the Calvinists didn't win the American Civil War. The Quakers did. Swap that around, and the parallel might become even clearer...

I think you've got to hold my hand through this logic

They won in terms of control of federal government, but the settler spirit was still what went on to go on out west, no?

 

[Spark]

I think you've got to hold my hand through this logic

They won in terms of control of federal government, but the settler spirit was still what went on to go on out west, no?

i meant more that had the calvinists won control over the country, then they would have instituted a similarly tyrannical government across the country. The South was a hotbed of state sanctioned terrorism even as it was. I'd say the western settler spirit was a product more of geography more than anything else.

 

[Ausage]

This is literally what society is for, no?

Sure, but the process isn't top down. If humanity deems homosexuality to be acceptable (and I'd argue that battle's already been won) what right does a government or religious entity have to impose that as a right, either in the affirmative or negative?

Reading the Article, there's just a massive vibe along those lines as the principles of secular western democracy (humanism) are essentially what he is attacking to try and make his point.

He's arguing against atheism, a spiritual position. That it reads to you as an attack on the pillars of our society is more evidence for the argument that we use government as a replacement for god.

 

[Ausage]

Good listen. Nice reference of the memory hole at the end there.

I hope you youtube haters enjoyed your ride home with Katy Perry and Kyle Sandilands.

 

[zorax]

Came here for YouTube videos and found walls of text instead

Disappointed

 

[Ausage]

Came here for YouTube videos and found walls of text instead

Disappointed

That's what they want you to post. Fight the power man!

 

[Magrat Garlick]

i meant more that had the calvinists won control over the country, then they would have instituted a similarly tyrannical government across the country. The South was a hotbed of state sanctioned terrorism even as it was. I'd say the western settler spirit was a product more of geography more than anything else.

That I can agree with. But I think there were enough cults out west too (free church people from Northern Europe, Latter-Day Saints) who would also see themselves as subscribing to this freemen-on-the-land idea..

In the end they all end up making laws and government. Because, as you say, people want it.

 

[straw man]

We implicitly accept that the government has the right to tell people who they can marry as much as they can tell priests who they'll accept at the altar. Obama and the SC are making a moral judgement (homosexuality is ok), it's just the side that you agree with.

There's an absolutely essential difference between the legalise/don't-legalise positions though. This is because:
- Things are legal unless it's explicitly stated that they're not.
- The loosening of legal bounds still allows everyone in this case (for or against) to act within their own morality. But, the converse is not true.
Therefore the symmetry you or Shapiro are claiming between the two positions does not exist. It would only exist if the law was somehow forcing anti-same-***-marriage people to marry against their wishes. Seeing as it's not, I don't see the equivalence.

Whether bakers have to bake cakes for gay couples or religious institutions should have to marry gay couples are two separate issues from same-*** marriage itself. These are both less clear cut and I think a range of views are reasonable and I don't really disagree with yours (I have less sympathy for the cake-bakers though - what's a market good for if you're not open to all?). The separate idea that government need have no role in marriage fits in there too. None of those were what I was talking about though.

"Representing the argument as it really is" is frankly a really dangerous reduction of what is an extremely complex issue. You're projecting your own prejudice on to the argument (ie. the only reason to oppose SSM is if you're a fundamentalist idiot) to dismiss a much more complex point (the government shouldn't be involved in dictating religious practice).

There are many many complex issues out there but I really find it hard to see that this is one of them. The core of it seems remarkably simple to me. The only complexity is that it's pushing against cultural and religious tradition.

Don't know where the bolded came from - seems unusually grumpy from you .
Again, there's nothing in the legalisation of same-*** marriage that involves 'dictating religious practice'. You're talking about a different issue.

The god/government thing depends on how you've constructed god. If you're looking at god as the literal, white bearded spiritual being who sent his son to be crucified a couple of thousand years ago then there's very little resemblance. If you're looking at god as the moral arbiter of society, the monolith that bestows providence alongside human free will, the defender of the weak and smiter of the unjust then it's extremely similar. Having to explain to people that there's a difference between legality and morality is a good example of the phenomenon. To the question of whether I'd prefer a government or a god to be these things, I'd answer neither.

I get the argument that when people feel something is unjust or unhandled or are at their wits end, then they may look around for some all-encompassing entity for their recompense - something bigger and other that had perhaps fallen short and should be responsible for making things right, in their minds. This might be god or the government or (the common one when I was growing up) 'the system', or some other higher power. My reaction to that is a great big meh, if anyone thinks the government is going to solve all their problems, they're fairly soon going to find they're out of luck.

 

[Spark]

Sure, but the process isn't top down. If humanity deems homosexuality to be acceptable (and I'd argue that battle's already been won) what right does a government or religious entity have to impose that as a right, either in the affirmative or negative?

I don't understand how the affirmative or negative parts of this equation are remotely equal.

 

[Uppercut]

The point at which I departed from his thinking was when he argued that the definition of 'law' should be chosen based on which definition most 'advances our moral deliberations'. I'm a linguistic descriptivist; I think language means what most people generally understand it to mean. Since I think most people distinguish law from morality, this makes me a positivist.

But I don't even think that natural law is the most useful framework for deliberating. The core difference in our thinking is that he seems to consider the word 'criminal' so uniquely powerful that it's a travesty if horrendously immoral people escape that label. This forms the crux of his argument for natural law, but I just don't feel that way. There are good criminals, and there are evil people that aren't criminals. OK, this means that people in power potentially can't be criminals. But the solution isn't to redefine the word "criminal", the solution is to create institutional frameworks where everyone can be held to account.

 

[Anil]

Look the title is inflammatory, but the main thrust of the article is saying that there's no inherent morality built into our biology and that society needs some sort of moral framework to function. Good for goodness sake is a meaningless term. Throw in the case that our consciousness is more than a set of chemicals reacting to stimuli and that's basically the article. There's no conflation of religion and politics, there's no demonisation of individual atheists (he expressly atheism is fine for individuals). Why that would get anyone worked up is beyond me.

I think it's stupid that so many in the US think that an atheist politician is not able to be trusted, it's equally stupid to think the same about a religious person.

you have sanitized the extremities of his arguments quite nicely in your post but his language and his posture in that article are significantly more aggressive and judgemental than your summary...the thrust of his argument is that religion is the only thing that can provide a moral framework, a fundamentally untrue position...and the kind of rubbish argument that i have seen religious loons make...there is nothing profound about his throwaway comment that atheists can be moral and religious people can be immoral, he is just stating the blindingly obvious and it makes his overall commentary slightly better than that of those religious fanatics, that's about it...

also nobody distrusts religious politicians in the u.s just because they are religious, this country is full of them, there is however a pervading mistrust of atheists in the political arena which is why the few politicians who seem to be not overtly religious pretend they are...so whatever scenario is being suggested doesn't exist here...

 

[Top_Cat]

The point at which I departed from his thinking was when he argued that the definition of 'law' should be chosen based on which definition most 'advances our moral deliberations'. I'm a linguistic descriptivist; I think language means what most people generally understand it to mean. Since I think most people distinguish law from morality, this makes me a positivist.

But I don't even think that natural law is the most useful framework for deliberating. The core difference in our thinking is that he seems to consider the word 'criminal' so uniquely powerful that it's a travesty if horrendously immoral people escape that label. This forms the crux of his argument for natural law, but I just don't feel that way. There are good criminals, and there are evil people that aren't criminals. OK, this means that people in power potentially can't be criminals. But the solution isn't to redefine the word "criminal", the solution is to create institutional frameworks where everyone can be held to account.

Yep, this. Was a huge (and good) build-up to rush through saying not very much at the end. I mean, picking on Nazism and slavery is low-hanging fruit, why not really test the boundaries of what he's saying with something modern and far more consequential, say, corporate malfeasance? Let's hear more about objective criminality, victimhood and who the 'sovereign' really is in the age of Google and Uber, pls.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

i guess this is more the youtube style that appeals to me. A clear, cogent argument about the difficulties of governing, and striking a good balance between generalization and domain-specific ideas.

It's a little too much a child of the slatestarcodex memeplex, but I prefer that to people who knock down straw men.

(and this is kinda the thing I mean when deriding TYT's sub count. CGP has three million, and the only real-world institution to really give him any boost is the University of Nottingham.)