I’m hoping that J.D. Vance declares himself Pope and we have an American Antipope as well as a Pope, the multiple papacies in the 13th century was an entire vibe that people forgot about.
Just remember how many people - fellow Christians, supposedly! - were slaughtered, tortured to death on the rack, burned alive at the stake as public entertainment - as a result of these "doctrinal differences".
Yes, I am most definitely advocating to a return to the European Wars of Religion, to a simpler time, when men, woman and children burned down their neighbors houses and slaughtered them for practicing the wrong kind of Christianity.
Satire’s dead, people will unironically believe these things more than they are to take it as a joke.
I agree with your sentiment about solidarity, Hamilton, but I'd look a little further into what's going on in Nigeria. I think the protecting Christians line is just a cover for getting military into the region. And, of course, Nigeria is an oil rich nation.
The Christian “dogs” on one side of the debates typically support religious thought and citizenship praxis “within the limits of reason” as someone like Habermas might say, and they support solidarity. So calling their arguments “like talking with dogs” is not the most auspicious start to building solidarity. In part good judgment about this sort of thing depends on whether one thinks that religion is all or most of the time a “conversation stopper” as Rorty once said. But empirically it is likely mistaken to generalize this way. One can of course play with cherry picking cases and tailoring working definitions of “religion” and come up with many scenarios in which it would not necessarily be mistaken. But here again a less than auspicious approach to solidarity.
Excellent points. Simplistic generalizations aside, the article is tactically misguided, to put it gently:
‘Sir, we are trying to win religious people over to embrace solidarity. Any ideas?’
‘Well, have you tried impugning their ability to think critically? What about claiming that engaging them on their own terms is like talking to a dog?’
Of course I do agree with your comment, thanks. More people in center-right and "moderate” religious places are persuadable than people think. Still, it is true that others are not, especially further right on the spectrum, and in many contexts that is very important. It is hard to “right-size” worries about this and important to bring it down to cases.
My main worry about "tactics" is about how to build solidarity from center left to further left, where I think it is obvious that we need religious people in the "solidarity" coalitions. Sometimes this means religious people need to step back and not try to impose values-- but sometimes it means they need to step UP and not be so wishy-washy. Yes some of the people on the religious right like to call secularists and Muslims and feminists and whatnot "dogs"-- that's sickening and it is important to have a form of discourse that pushes against it. But in many contexts it is a conceptual and tactical disaster to go tit for tat at this point: "you're a dog! No you're the dog!" MAGA people are virtuosos at using this against the left. We need to create coalitions within the left where religious and non-religious part work in some sort of harmony. Sadly the framing in this article does more harm than good for that. I'm not saying that's true in all specific contexts, just insisting it is true in many contexts.
I've never heard it said better. Happy New Year to all. May we see our way through the insanity of this presidency to a sense of the common good that unites us.
This may be off topic, but I have a rule: "Post it or lose it." I've recently run across an old Pete Seeger song-"Which side are you on?" which was written about the coal miners' bloody strike against the mine owners. It has a message relevant to today's world.
"reason is the only thing that works equally for the Muslim and the Christian and the atheist..."
"Obviously not," he snarked. "If the Muslim and the Christian were capable of reason, they works be neither Muslim or Christian, because magic is not real."
Forgive me, I was an atheist before my age was in double digits, because it really is that simple.
Real late to this, as usual (had a rough Yuletide season). But I just want to say, when Mr. Nolan reaches into his expansive bag of writerly skills and pulls out optimism and hope, it fills me with joy.
As to discussing it. Can not debate liars. Too many atheists try.
As to the dogmas. Those are personal and political. Tribal too. So of course subjective.
Nobody cares about illegals. Until they move to town.
Or someone loses their job. Or the economy tanks.
Many want the cheap labor.
They don't want their illegal friend, wife, husband, coworker deported.
The Pope doesn't have to house them. Nor will he lose votes if they move to Europe or the US.
He causes part of the problem. Birth control in poor countries would be rational. It would reduce the numbers of immigrants. But they need believers, they need them poor and uneducated.
Yes, Vance is a heartless prick.
Like any subject nothing is binary. More legal immigration would be voter approved. If manageable. Mass immigration is not ever going to be liked. Legal or illegal.
Brexit was the response to too many immigrants in Europe.
MAGA is too in the US.
The US allowed so many to stay. It has been a mess for decades.
So a liberal minded person sees that as the person no longer being illegal.
A conservative mind is very literal. Letter of the law. No matter how long someone has been here. Or if brought in as a baby 35 years ago. They call them criminals and no exceptions allowed.
Sad when listening to someone aged 20 saying to kick somebody aged 50 out. Especially when that 50 year old has lived here for decades more than them
Reasonable minds did nothing. Now authoritarian populists are.
Well, kinda.
It is not easy to round up millions of people. Or popular. Businesses still want the cheap labor.
So they are using fear. Really just pretending to do something. But that is more than others did.
What the author calls solidarity I call love. God is love, according to the bible, and I'd be surprised if there was even one religion that did not also embrace the concept that God is love, or at least loving. Love, like the author's solidarity, puts us all on the same level and makes the same selfless demand on us, that we treat each other the way we want to be treated and that we see each other as important as we are to the world.
Except that solidarity doesn't necessarily require love. Sometimes you need to work with people that you don't or can't love. solidarity can be entered into for purely pragmatic reasons. And that's a good thing. If solidarity explicitly required love, then we would be doomed. But solitary does foment respect, at least conditionally.
I don't know about you, but I am here out of love, if not for the ones I work with, march with, have discussions with, it's out of love for ones I do it all for. If I do it out of pragmatism, it's out of a sense of justice, and what is justice if not love for what's right. I'm here because I want to see children happy, old folks taken care of after a lifetime of work, people treated with respect because it's right. That's love.
“We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools”.
Martin Luther King, March 22, 1964.
I’m hoping that J.D. Vance declares himself Pope and we have an American Antipope as well as a Pope, the multiple papacies in the 13th century was an entire vibe that people forgot about.
God is real, and the Pope is his infallible representative on Earth except when I disagree with him.
Just remember how many people - fellow Christians, supposedly! - were slaughtered, tortured to death on the rack, burned alive at the stake as public entertainment - as a result of these "doctrinal differences".
You want that to come back?
Yes, I am most definitely advocating to a return to the European Wars of Religion, to a simpler time, when men, woman and children burned down their neighbors houses and slaughtered them for practicing the wrong kind of Christianity.
Satire’s dead, people will unironically believe these things more than they are to take it as a joke.
One of the best. The truth-- think how many have suffered agonizing deaths because their Gods--all made by humans, were "different".
I agree with your sentiment about solidarity, Hamilton, but I'd look a little further into what's going on in Nigeria. I think the protecting Christians line is just a cover for getting military into the region. And, of course, Nigeria is an oil rich nation.
Yep.
EPSTEIN!
The Christian “dogs” on one side of the debates typically support religious thought and citizenship praxis “within the limits of reason” as someone like Habermas might say, and they support solidarity. So calling their arguments “like talking with dogs” is not the most auspicious start to building solidarity. In part good judgment about this sort of thing depends on whether one thinks that religion is all or most of the time a “conversation stopper” as Rorty once said. But empirically it is likely mistaken to generalize this way. One can of course play with cherry picking cases and tailoring working definitions of “religion” and come up with many scenarios in which it would not necessarily be mistaken. But here again a less than auspicious approach to solidarity.
Excellent points. Simplistic generalizations aside, the article is tactically misguided, to put it gently:
‘Sir, we are trying to win religious people over to embrace solidarity. Any ideas?’
‘Well, have you tried impugning their ability to think critically? What about claiming that engaging them on their own terms is like talking to a dog?’
Of course I do agree with your comment, thanks. More people in center-right and "moderate” religious places are persuadable than people think. Still, it is true that others are not, especially further right on the spectrum, and in many contexts that is very important. It is hard to “right-size” worries about this and important to bring it down to cases.
My main worry about "tactics" is about how to build solidarity from center left to further left, where I think it is obvious that we need religious people in the "solidarity" coalitions. Sometimes this means religious people need to step back and not try to impose values-- but sometimes it means they need to step UP and not be so wishy-washy. Yes some of the people on the religious right like to call secularists and Muslims and feminists and whatnot "dogs"-- that's sickening and it is important to have a form of discourse that pushes against it. But in many contexts it is a conceptual and tactical disaster to go tit for tat at this point: "you're a dog! No you're the dog!" MAGA people are virtuosos at using this against the left. We need to create coalitions within the left where religious and non-religious part work in some sort of harmony. Sadly the framing in this article does more harm than good for that. I'm not saying that's true in all specific contexts, just insisting it is true in many contexts.
Thanks for putting this better than I could!
I've never heard it said better. Happy New Year to all. May we see our way through the insanity of this presidency to a sense of the common good that unites us.
This may be off topic, but I have a rule: "Post it or lose it." I've recently run across an old Pete Seeger song-"Which side are you on?" which was written about the coal miners' bloody strike against the mine owners. It has a message relevant to today's world.
"reason is the only thing that works equally for the Muslim and the Christian and the atheist..."
"Obviously not," he snarked. "If the Muslim and the Christian were capable of reason, they works be neither Muslim or Christian, because magic is not real."
Forgive me, I was an atheist before my age was in double digits, because it really is that simple.
Magnificent work
This moved me. Thank you.
This essay is really good. I’ve shared it.
We all long for community and a place of belonging. Religion seems to be the source of the opposite in so many cases. Thank you.
Real late to this, as usual (had a rough Yuletide season). But I just want to say, when Mr. Nolan reaches into his expansive bag of writerly skills and pulls out optimism and hope, it fills me with joy.
One of the few areas where you slip into being a narrow, blunt thinker is religion
Religions can be proved wrong.
Christianity has been proved wrong.
Not that Christians will agree.
As to discussing it. Can not debate liars. Too many atheists try.
As to the dogmas. Those are personal and political. Tribal too. So of course subjective.
Nobody cares about illegals. Until they move to town.
Or someone loses their job. Or the economy tanks.
Many want the cheap labor.
They don't want their illegal friend, wife, husband, coworker deported.
The Pope doesn't have to house them. Nor will he lose votes if they move to Europe or the US.
He causes part of the problem. Birth control in poor countries would be rational. It would reduce the numbers of immigrants. But they need believers, they need them poor and uneducated.
Yes, Vance is a heartless prick.
Like any subject nothing is binary. More legal immigration would be voter approved. If manageable. Mass immigration is not ever going to be liked. Legal or illegal.
Brexit was the response to too many immigrants in Europe.
MAGA is too in the US.
The US allowed so many to stay. It has been a mess for decades.
So a liberal minded person sees that as the person no longer being illegal.
A conservative mind is very literal. Letter of the law. No matter how long someone has been here. Or if brought in as a baby 35 years ago. They call them criminals and no exceptions allowed.
Sad when listening to someone aged 20 saying to kick somebody aged 50 out. Especially when that 50 year old has lived here for decades more than them
Reasonable minds did nothing. Now authoritarian populists are.
Well, kinda.
It is not easy to round up millions of people. Or popular. Businesses still want the cheap labor.
So they are using fear. Really just pretending to do something. But that is more than others did.
Elections have consequences.
Voters are morons.
Thanks, Ham No. Excellent food for thought.
What the author calls solidarity I call love. God is love, according to the bible, and I'd be surprised if there was even one religion that did not also embrace the concept that God is love, or at least loving. Love, like the author's solidarity, puts us all on the same level and makes the same selfless demand on us, that we treat each other the way we want to be treated and that we see each other as important as we are to the world.
Except that solidarity doesn't necessarily require love. Sometimes you need to work with people that you don't or can't love. solidarity can be entered into for purely pragmatic reasons. And that's a good thing. If solidarity explicitly required love, then we would be doomed. But solitary does foment respect, at least conditionally.
I don't know about you, but I am here out of love, if not for the ones I work with, march with, have discussions with, it's out of love for ones I do it all for. If I do it out of pragmatism, it's out of a sense of justice, and what is justice if not love for what's right. I'm here because I want to see children happy, old folks taken care of after a lifetime of work, people treated with respect because it's right. That's love.