Dec 19, 2023·edited Dec 19, 2023Liked by Luke Croft
I would like to add also the total failure of Theocrats standing their ground even dialectically to science and secularism. They think they can get points labeling science, atheism or progress in general as "new religions". Ok, let's say science or atheism are religions as well as christianity: the logical answer would be "Ok, and?". Religious people labeling things they don't like as a religion think to be supersmart, when in reality they are just mocking themselves. Why in fact, if you consider yourself a religious person use the "religious" label as a pejorative? Do you think acting like this to serve your own interests? No, dude, you are just admitting religious is an intrinsecally bad thing, and you have owned yourself. Congratulation, genius!
Btw, let's go back serious again and moreover let's give us a bit of satisfation to religious fundamentalists and admit progress is the new religion. If we see that from a historical prespective we see religions are always been cyclical phenomena. Before Christianity there was paganism, and before paganism there were several prehistoric cults. A question always fascinated me was: why the romans after a certain time decided to embrace Christianity and repudiate their ancestral cults till to ban and persecute whoever didn’t want to bend to the new God? Many historians retain Christianity won because the s.c. “paganism” had nothing more to offer to the men of Its age. Since I’m not a historian myself I cannot say if this is the true, but I have no doubt that can be the most logical and plausible reason. And then now we should ask? Why people are abandoning Christiniaty and embracing science and secularism in a para-religious way? Well, for the same reason ancient Romans abandoned paganism for Christianity, because it has nothing to offer anymore. And so the cycle goes, the hmanity discover new gods and embrace new faith. We can calli t “rationality”, “progress”, even “satanism” if we want, but as a famous quote from a famous movie says: if theocrats want to know why people prefer venereting Baphomet or Pfizer instead of Jesus and Mary they have just to look in the mirror.
I don't think it would be accurate to describe belief in science and progress as a religion per se, as that would require belief in the supernatural. However, I would say that science and progress can replace the old religions because they provide a hopeful story and one more grounded in reality. Such a story can hold at bay the forces of nihilism and unite and inspire humanity to greatness.
You plainly don't know what "theocracy" is. Iran is a theocracy, because it has a Council of Guardians. The US is not, because religious office does not come with political office. The US didn't require Satanists to not have a theocracy, we have been that way from the beginning and the very First Amendment prohibits any laws establishing a religion (thus avoiding issues like the Scottish Covenanters switching sides in the English Civil War in hopes of Presbyterianism being established, although England itself was caesaropapist rather than theocractic since it was political office that implied religious office). Kim Reynolds (who, again, does not hold office by virtue of a position in any church) has a reasonable take.
These scared seculars ignore that not even in the Middle ages we had "theocracy" in the west.
In fact, this was the main driver of countless wars between the Pope and the Kings of europe, who refused to give up power to the Papacy.... eventually resulting in the REFORMATION.
you don't have to be a christian or brainwashed by christianity to recognize that a Baphomet statue is fundamentally different to one of the virgin Mary. The values they embody and communicate are radically different. "A free society requires the defence of Satanism" only if you understand freedom in an individualistic sense where one has the right to morality pollute society as he please. Well such a "free society" deserves to be destroyed
A Baphomet statue is not at all comparable to a Madonna because the latter represents a faith, and the former is intended as a giant middle finger towards a particular religion. The group behind it, the Satanic Temple, has admitted this in no uncertain terms. There is no difference between their Satanic display and an insulting cartoon of Mohammed or a giant statue of Vishnu eating beef. Such expressions are, of course, protected in a free society, but for the state to display them in a government building is to endorse an attack on a specific religion, which violates the separation of church and state.
I frankly find the entire episode rather tiresome, for it is a win-win for both the Christian right and your sort. You get to rail against the evil theocrats and their intolerance, and they get to push their Satanic panic nonsense. Congratulations to you both.
"A Baphomet statue is not at all comparable to a Madonna because the latter represents a faith, and the former is intended as a giant middle finger towards a particular religion."
- Correct.
"Such expressions are, of course, protected in a free society, but for the state to display them in a government building is to endorse an attack on a specific religion, which violates the separation of church and state."
This doesn't sound necessarily true to me. If the State of Iowa wanted to set up a "Flame War" room in the capitol in which members of the public could create temporary signs declaring any hateful thing to any person or group, that would surely be a bad idea, but would it be unconstitutional? I don't think so.
I think the Establishment Clause is satisfied if the State says that this temporary display space is open to any group that meets certain reasonable criteria that are applied equally and not obviously targeting any specific group. One obvious criterion should be that the display is put up in good faith, and not primarily to offend or provoke.
"it is a win-win for both the Christian right and your sort. You get to rail against the evil theocrats and their intolerance, and they get to push their Satanic panic nonsense."
I suppose I'm a member of the religious right, and I don't see it that way. I don't think there are any winners here. No one on the right gains any new power or privilege as a result of any of this. Everyone just loses a little more trust in this country and its institutions, becomes a little more wary of the other side.
I don't know what that is. Gab, as in the Twitter alternative?
But yeah, plenty of people are happy it was destroyed. I'm not displeased that it was destroyed, but that's just a return to the status quo. Not really a win in terms of advancing any political cause. In a week it will be forgotten and we'll all have moved on to something else. The Satanists don't care that their thing was destroyed, the way that practitioners of a real religion would care if a symbol of their religion was defaced.
And as usual, a childish and elementary school understanding of the vision of the Christian Right
this feared THEOCRACY has barely existed in the west, not even in the Middle ages it was widespread outside the papal states or certain lands controlled by Christian orders like the teutonic knights.
"The fundamentalists were right: religion cannot survive modernity. "
nah, the new religions were just rebranded as being NOT, and promoted with the same zeal:
liberalism, socialism, communism.
BTW-...... what happens to non-believers under a totally secular cult like COMMUNISM or SOCIALISM?
I would like to add also the total failure of Theocrats standing their ground even dialectically to science and secularism. They think they can get points labeling science, atheism or progress in general as "new religions". Ok, let's say science or atheism are religions as well as christianity: the logical answer would be "Ok, and?". Religious people labeling things they don't like as a religion think to be supersmart, when in reality they are just mocking themselves. Why in fact, if you consider yourself a religious person use the "religious" label as a pejorative? Do you think acting like this to serve your own interests? No, dude, you are just admitting religious is an intrinsecally bad thing, and you have owned yourself. Congratulation, genius!
Btw, let's go back serious again and moreover let's give us a bit of satisfation to religious fundamentalists and admit progress is the new religion. If we see that from a historical prespective we see religions are always been cyclical phenomena. Before Christianity there was paganism, and before paganism there were several prehistoric cults. A question always fascinated me was: why the romans after a certain time decided to embrace Christianity and repudiate their ancestral cults till to ban and persecute whoever didn’t want to bend to the new God? Many historians retain Christianity won because the s.c. “paganism” had nothing more to offer to the men of Its age. Since I’m not a historian myself I cannot say if this is the true, but I have no doubt that can be the most logical and plausible reason. And then now we should ask? Why people are abandoning Christiniaty and embracing science and secularism in a para-religious way? Well, for the same reason ancient Romans abandoned paganism for Christianity, because it has nothing to offer anymore. And so the cycle goes, the hmanity discover new gods and embrace new faith. We can calli t “rationality”, “progress”, even “satanism” if we want, but as a famous quote from a famous movie says: if theocrats want to know why people prefer venereting Baphomet or Pfizer instead of Jesus and Mary they have just to look in the mirror.
I don't think it would be accurate to describe belief in science and progress as a religion per se, as that would require belief in the supernatural. However, I would say that science and progress can replace the old religions because they provide a hopeful story and one more grounded in reality. Such a story can hold at bay the forces of nihilism and unite and inspire humanity to greatness.
Per Robin Hanson, Christians were opposed to infanticide and outbred pagans within urban Rome.
You plainly don't know what "theocracy" is. Iran is a theocracy, because it has a Council of Guardians. The US is not, because religious office does not come with political office. The US didn't require Satanists to not have a theocracy, we have been that way from the beginning and the very First Amendment prohibits any laws establishing a religion (thus avoiding issues like the Scottish Covenanters switching sides in the English Civil War in hopes of Presbyterianism being established, although England itself was caesaropapist rather than theocractic since it was political office that implied religious office). Kim Reynolds (who, again, does not hold office by virtue of a position in any church) has a reasonable take.
These scared seculars ignore that not even in the Middle ages we had "theocracy" in the west.
In fact, this was the main driver of countless wars between the Pope and the Kings of europe, who refused to give up power to the Papacy.... eventually resulting in the REFORMATION.
There were Papal states back then, which encompassed a much larger territory than Vatican City.
oh I know
but the Pope wanted to extend his authority further
Not exactly a theocracy, but the Pope meddling in all Christian kingdom affairs
you don't have to be a christian or brainwashed by christianity to recognize that a Baphomet statue is fundamentally different to one of the virgin Mary. The values they embody and communicate are radically different. "A free society requires the defence of Satanism" only if you understand freedom in an individualistic sense where one has the right to morality pollute society as he please. Well such a "free society" deserves to be destroyed
A Baphomet statue is not at all comparable to a Madonna because the latter represents a faith, and the former is intended as a giant middle finger towards a particular religion. The group behind it, the Satanic Temple, has admitted this in no uncertain terms. There is no difference between their Satanic display and an insulting cartoon of Mohammed or a giant statue of Vishnu eating beef. Such expressions are, of course, protected in a free society, but for the state to display them in a government building is to endorse an attack on a specific religion, which violates the separation of church and state.
I frankly find the entire episode rather tiresome, for it is a win-win for both the Christian right and your sort. You get to rail against the evil theocrats and their intolerance, and they get to push their Satanic panic nonsense. Congratulations to you both.
"A Baphomet statue is not at all comparable to a Madonna because the latter represents a faith, and the former is intended as a giant middle finger towards a particular religion."
- Correct.
"Such expressions are, of course, protected in a free society, but for the state to display them in a government building is to endorse an attack on a specific religion, which violates the separation of church and state."
This doesn't sound necessarily true to me. If the State of Iowa wanted to set up a "Flame War" room in the capitol in which members of the public could create temporary signs declaring any hateful thing to any person or group, that would surely be a bad idea, but would it be unconstitutional? I don't think so.
I think the Establishment Clause is satisfied if the State says that this temporary display space is open to any group that meets certain reasonable criteria that are applied equally and not obviously targeting any specific group. One obvious criterion should be that the display is put up in good faith, and not primarily to offend or provoke.
"it is a win-win for both the Christian right and your sort. You get to rail against the evil theocrats and their intolerance, and they get to push their Satanic panic nonsense."
I suppose I'm a member of the religious right, and I don't see it that way. I don't think there are any winners here. No one on the right gains any new power or privilege as a result of any of this. Everyone just loses a little more trust in this country and its institutions, becomes a little more wary of the other side.
The GAB newsletter seemed ecstatic about the destruction of the Satanic statue.
I don't know what that is. Gab, as in the Twitter alternative?
But yeah, plenty of people are happy it was destroyed. I'm not displeased that it was destroyed, but that's just a return to the status quo. Not really a win in terms of advancing any political cause. In a week it will be forgotten and we'll all have moved on to something else. The Satanists don't care that their thing was destroyed, the way that practitioners of a real religion would care if a symbol of their religion was defaced.
Yes, the twitter alternative. They send out a newsletter that advocates for Torba's political beliefs.
Ok, so what's your persuasion? Are you Jewish?
How do you define “good” & “evil”?
>If something or someone is good it is/they are prudent, healthy, beautiful, intelligent and considerate.
>If something or someone is evil it is/they are impulsive, unhealthy, ugly, stupid and thoughtless.
Why?
Edgy troll defending those who troll.
And as usual, a childish and elementary school understanding of the vision of the Christian Right
this feared THEOCRACY has barely existed in the west, not even in the Middle ages it was widespread outside the papal states or certain lands controlled by Christian orders like the teutonic knights.
"The fundamentalists were right: religion cannot survive modernity. "
nah, the new religions were just rebranded as being NOT, and promoted with the same zeal:
liberalism, socialism, communism.
BTW-...... what happens to non-believers under a totally secular cult like COMMUNISM or SOCIALISM?