Sure, I agree with you. I’m agnostic (because I feel that being an atheist is the same as being a theist), but I value very strongly the Greco-Roman-Christian roots of Western civilization. They ARE the bedrock of our modern civilization, liberalism (in the original sense), individualism, and a great many other core philosophies.
The point is that modern leftism and progressive leftism in particular has, in Hegelian terms, defined itself as the ANTITHESIS of this. It’s not that moral structures fall apart without “sky daddy,” it’s that the enemies of Western civilization attack each and every tenet of belief and philosophy.
Conservative religion is kind of like a vaccine against forced progressivism.
Brother, were you by chance alive during the Satanic Panic(TM) from a few decades ago?
I'm not fishing for anything, just honestly curious, because I myself lived through that, as well as decades of other nonsense that only happened because "God is Good, Jesus is King" Christians held institutional power.
I look at this from the lens of an old, jaded man who has seen both tines of the horseshoe. All the bullshit of modern leftism, of the church of "The Science(TM)", and etc. is simply all the bullshit of conservatism and bible-thumpery from decades past wearing a different trench coat.
There are many, many ways in which we can inoculate our society against destructive outside influences (and destructive inside influences) without simply changing masters from the man in Washington to the man in Rome. If you can recall the society of the 1990s and 2000s, for example, when the net was nascent and we didn't have the centralized control nodes we do now, most people were quite resistant to both being told "go to church or god will be upset" and being told "use my pronouns or big brother will be upset". It took over a decade of centralized, dedicated psy-ops and cultural control mechanisms to get us to our current state.
We must simply restore the liberty which has been taken from us. The rest will follow.
And nothing, not a single damned thing, will happen by simply praying about it, or by demanding people submit to god.
I lived through the 80s, my friend groups played D&D then, and I lived to tell!
The worst I ever personally saw was one friend who had to go to one Bible study because his mom had bought into the “D&D = Satan worship” thing. It sucked for him. His mom was non-denominational if you know what that means. He didn’t quit, and it worked out in the end.
Compare that today to people who use the wrong pronoun and get pilloried and attacked from peers, teachers, professors, strangers, etc., and I think the fundamentalists—progressive leftists—of today are worse than the Christian fundamentalists ever were in America.
Is your argument simply “what aboutism”? “Leftists are bad, but what about conservatives?” That’s the line for me. I am anti-neocon, I’m anti-theocracy, and I’m anti-leftist, in an interchangeable order. I don’t go in for what aboutism.
I think if you took the founding documents of the US, entirely removed the blight of slavery, and added a few more protections of liberty to defend against assaults that the founders never could have imagined, you’d have pretty close to an ideal political and social framework. It worked pretty damn well until the Civil War and progressivism birthed our modern state.
Conservative Christians, even the Deus Vult types, are allies because I think they are more right than wrong. The progressive leftists are far more wrong than right. The Christians are closer to believing in that original American ideal than the progressive leftists are. Thomas Jefferson’s red letter Bible is a great example of how intelligent, non-believing, Christian-centric, rational, belief systems can coexist. Jefferson didn’t attempt to rewrite the Bible to mean something it clearly did not, neither did he try to turn America into a theocracy. We could use more of that.
I'm glad you bring up Jefferson's bible, because it actually underscores the crux of my argument (and which I'm really not sure how you got "what about"ism out of).
My issue, as was Jefferson's, is the magic and mysticism of the bible (and, by extension, every other religion). Yes, leftism currently holds the reigns of power, and has held them with more vim and vitriol then the bible thumpers did a few decades ago. No, this is not a reason to embrace the viper of the "deus vult" types to your breast.
Consider this a simple "Scorpion and Turtle" allegory. The scorpion must sting, for that is its nature. The theist must expand the church, for that is his nature. If you accept the theist into your fold, you must either immediately and permanently hobble him, or else understand that he will continue to push the envelope until he has seized the reigns of power.
Magic and mystical thinking must never be accepted. This means no gods, no men becoming women, no magic soil, none of that horseshit. While it is true that, for example, a large portion of writing survived into the modern era only because christian and catholic monks and monasteries endeavored to save them during the dark ages, this doesn't erase the face that the majority of incorrect "folk knowledge" stemmed from religious or "mystical" practices, and the majority of religions would purge what came before them as heretical, the same way rising dynasties often destroyed records of prior dynasties (look to china as an amazing example of the latter, or afghanistan under the taliban for the former).
And don't get me started on all the people who try to blame all human evils on "demons", and insist we need jesus to come back and purge them to cure all of society's ills, instead of accepting that it is evil humans who do evil, and the only solution to evil humans is non-evil humans standing and sacrificing in opposition.
This is my line in the sand. No gods, no demons, no wizards; only men and the cold, uncaring universe we happen to exist in.
Sure, I agree with you. I’m agnostic (because I feel that being an atheist is the same as being a theist), but I value very strongly the Greco-Roman-Christian roots of Western civilization. They ARE the bedrock of our modern civilization, liberalism (in the original sense), individualism, and a great many other core philosophies.
The point is that modern leftism and progressive leftism in particular has, in Hegelian terms, defined itself as the ANTITHESIS of this. It’s not that moral structures fall apart without “sky daddy,” it’s that the enemies of Western civilization attack each and every tenet of belief and philosophy.
Conservative religion is kind of like a vaccine against forced progressivism.
Brother, were you by chance alive during the Satanic Panic(TM) from a few decades ago?
I'm not fishing for anything, just honestly curious, because I myself lived through that, as well as decades of other nonsense that only happened because "God is Good, Jesus is King" Christians held institutional power.
I look at this from the lens of an old, jaded man who has seen both tines of the horseshoe. All the bullshit of modern leftism, of the church of "The Science(TM)", and etc. is simply all the bullshit of conservatism and bible-thumpery from decades past wearing a different trench coat.
There are many, many ways in which we can inoculate our society against destructive outside influences (and destructive inside influences) without simply changing masters from the man in Washington to the man in Rome. If you can recall the society of the 1990s and 2000s, for example, when the net was nascent and we didn't have the centralized control nodes we do now, most people were quite resistant to both being told "go to church or god will be upset" and being told "use my pronouns or big brother will be upset". It took over a decade of centralized, dedicated psy-ops and cultural control mechanisms to get us to our current state.
We must simply restore the liberty which has been taken from us. The rest will follow.
And nothing, not a single damned thing, will happen by simply praying about it, or by demanding people submit to god.
I lived through the 80s, my friend groups played D&D then, and I lived to tell!
The worst I ever personally saw was one friend who had to go to one Bible study because his mom had bought into the “D&D = Satan worship” thing. It sucked for him. His mom was non-denominational if you know what that means. He didn’t quit, and it worked out in the end.
Compare that today to people who use the wrong pronoun and get pilloried and attacked from peers, teachers, professors, strangers, etc., and I think the fundamentalists—progressive leftists—of today are worse than the Christian fundamentalists ever were in America.
Is your argument simply “what aboutism”? “Leftists are bad, but what about conservatives?” That’s the line for me. I am anti-neocon, I’m anti-theocracy, and I’m anti-leftist, in an interchangeable order. I don’t go in for what aboutism.
I think if you took the founding documents of the US, entirely removed the blight of slavery, and added a few more protections of liberty to defend against assaults that the founders never could have imagined, you’d have pretty close to an ideal political and social framework. It worked pretty damn well until the Civil War and progressivism birthed our modern state.
Conservative Christians, even the Deus Vult types, are allies because I think they are more right than wrong. The progressive leftists are far more wrong than right. The Christians are closer to believing in that original American ideal than the progressive leftists are. Thomas Jefferson’s red letter Bible is a great example of how intelligent, non-believing, Christian-centric, rational, belief systems can coexist. Jefferson didn’t attempt to rewrite the Bible to mean something it clearly did not, neither did he try to turn America into a theocracy. We could use more of that.
I'm glad you bring up Jefferson's bible, because it actually underscores the crux of my argument (and which I'm really not sure how you got "what about"ism out of).
My issue, as was Jefferson's, is the magic and mysticism of the bible (and, by extension, every other religion). Yes, leftism currently holds the reigns of power, and has held them with more vim and vitriol then the bible thumpers did a few decades ago. No, this is not a reason to embrace the viper of the "deus vult" types to your breast.
Consider this a simple "Scorpion and Turtle" allegory. The scorpion must sting, for that is its nature. The theist must expand the church, for that is his nature. If you accept the theist into your fold, you must either immediately and permanently hobble him, or else understand that he will continue to push the envelope until he has seized the reigns of power.
Magic and mystical thinking must never be accepted. This means no gods, no men becoming women, no magic soil, none of that horseshit. While it is true that, for example, a large portion of writing survived into the modern era only because christian and catholic monks and monasteries endeavored to save them during the dark ages, this doesn't erase the face that the majority of incorrect "folk knowledge" stemmed from religious or "mystical" practices, and the majority of religions would purge what came before them as heretical, the same way rising dynasties often destroyed records of prior dynasties (look to china as an amazing example of the latter, or afghanistan under the taliban for the former).
And don't get me started on all the people who try to blame all human evils on "demons", and insist we need jesus to come back and purge them to cure all of society's ills, instead of accepting that it is evil humans who do evil, and the only solution to evil humans is non-evil humans standing and sacrificing in opposition.
This is my line in the sand. No gods, no demons, no wizards; only men and the cold, uncaring universe we happen to exist in.