you don’t really believe late term fetuses are human lives because you are a faker
This is an excellent opportunity to use the phrase 'begging the question' in its accurate sense, rather than as a synonym for 'raising the question'.
This is the position of all mainstream abortion-rights advocacy groups. I believe it’s the policy position of our president, as well.
There's evidence that that is not true. His interview with Relevant became an issue during the campaign. Via Politico:
The dustup began with the magazine interview in which Obama said he supported the ban on late-term abortions if there is a “strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother.” But he went on to draw a distinction between physical and mental health, voicing support for the former and not the latter.
The fooferaw was over the mental health exception, but that's irrelevant to the point that he supports a restriction on late-term abortions.
It's difficult to find the official position of NARAL. Their Issues page on Abortion doesn't address the topic of late term abortions. They are explicitly supportive of health exceptions for late term abortion bans, but it isn't clear whether that's a defensive concession or their ideal policy. Emily's List has the explicit goal of getting 'pro-choice Democratic women' elected. But we run into the problem that undergirds this entire discussion. What exactly do they mean by 'pro-choice'? It's just a label.
Magic should be magical. That’s one thing oft-forgotten in the fantasy world. A spell is much more than a fireball or the summoning of denizens of the deep to do a sorcerer’s wicked bidding.
...
Harry Potter
You're mad!
Recommendations: Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun. Stephen R Donaldson's Mordant's Need.
Whoops, missed matoko's comment while typing up the others.
You sure are right. You've convinced me of the error of my ways. Surely because I don't want mothers to be killed, I must think a fetus is something other than human life. QED
Thanks for the comments. Brief responses before I have to run: Roque Nuevo:
I agree that the state has the right to sanction killing the baby.
Aside from this, how can you explain opposition to state sanctioned abortion other than by calling it fanaticism? Nobody is forced to abort; it’s a choice that’s open to people under the law.
Does your opinion of the state's right to sanction the fetus' death differ depending on the age of the fetus? If so, you must have some intuitive conception of increasing rights. That's part of what the post was trying to get at. That for most people it's very difficult to even have an opinion in 1 dimension. To your second question, I suppose it depends on your definition of fanaticism. It surely can't be fanaticism just because it opposes something currently legal. Otherwise anti-prohibitionist and the anti-slavery movement were fanatics etc, etc. Approach it from this perspective: A fetus is a human life of at least some complexity. The state has an interest in protecting human lives and creates many laws to do so. Excluding a fetus from those laws is the result of convenience, not principle, and is a mistake. This is, I think, the foundational argument of abortion opponents. It doesn't strike me as fanatical.
Mark:
I think I'm guilty of inartful wording. When I say 'inconvenienced' I really do mean "I don't want to throw up for 3 months and walk like a duck for another 3". I'm referring just to the physical rigors of a typical pregnancy, which, at least in my conversations, is one of the (relatively minor) reasons a potential mother might want to avoid pregnancy. It wouldn't include a physical danger to the mother.
conrad:
The concept of granting rights to the fetus may seem deeply flawed in your analysis, but it's not a rhetorical choice. It is the foundational moral axiom of abortion opponents. After all, if a fetus has no rights, how could one possible oppose abortion? But why should it not have rights? 5 seconds after a child is born, if someone killed it it would be a heinous crime that would have people clamoring for the death penalty. But 5 seconds before it's born, it's a morally untroubling act? How is that? What happened in those 10 seconds? The baby moved a few feet from inside its mother to somewhere else. You might believe that that physical motion magically turns a pile of tissue into a human deserving of proctections. Many people disagree.
Jaybird:
The state is in the business of preventing people from doing the things they do not have the right to do, especially when doing so reduced the rights of others.
That said, it is a convincing argument to me that though I might find any abortion beyond the first few weeks morally heinous, state enforcement of an anti-abortion prohibition might be worse than the crime.
Potential progressives who oppose abortion - or moderates, for that matter - who might otherwise join the pro-life cause are repelled and repulsed by this divisiveness - this guilt by association.
Yeah, pretty much.
I'm opposed to abortion in principle, in the sense that I assign more rights to even a young fetus than would be outweighed by convenience, (but are well outweighed by the mother's health, rape, etc, etc), but I wouldn't touch the official pro-life movement with a 100 yard pole. I would not attend a pro-life meeting, I would not request pro-life literature, and I would not join a pro-life organization. Because they're rotted with messianic self-righteousness.
I really think this is the elephant in the living room when it comes to the political parties' relationships with various populations of citizens.
Wikipedia tells me the US population is roughly 66% white, 15% hispanic, 13% black, and 5% asian and more or less 50% female.
The Senate is 95% white, 2% hispanic, 2%asian, 1% black (and soon to be 0%, for unobjectionable idiosyncratic reasons). And it is 83% male and 17% female.
The Supreme Court is 88% white, 0% hispanic, 11% black, and 0% asian. It is 88% male and 11% female.
The House is 83% white, 5% hispanic, 10% black, and 2% asian. It's 83% male and 17% female.
(Side note: The male/female ratio is bizarrely consistent)
Now, as an outsider, here's my summary of GOP/conservative responses to this situation:
There's a small contingent that likes this fact and is willing to be explicit about it. That is, they believe that it is morally correct for the nation to be governed primarily or exclusively by white males and they will say so. There is a fairly large contingent (and this is where I'll get into trouble for mindreading) that likes this fact but knows they can't really say it out loud. This is the Limbaugh contingent. They don't necessarily think while male supremacy should be the law of the land, they just prefer having white males in power. There's another good sized contingent that recognizes that this skewed distribution of power is a problem, but they're opposed to doing anything about it. It is a legacy of less enlightened times, they'll say, but the cure is worse than the disease, for any value of x that represents a cure. And there is a very small faction that believes that it's a big problem and that something should be done about it.
On the other hand, in the Democratic party that last group is a massive contingent, with the remainder of the party coming from the previous 'let nature take its course' group.
Now, as a promising minority or female politician it should not be difficult for me to decide between a party that is heavily represented by people who are opposed to my having power and a party that believes I represent an underrepresented group.
It's a feedback loop that the GOP will have a very hard time getting out of. Perhaps their salvation will come when (assuming if) power is more evenly distributed and the distinction between the "it's bad, but don't do anything" and the "it's bad, and do something" groups becomes moot.
Second, are European soccer analysts developing their own brand of sabermetrics?
Football is much harder to analyze statistically because it's so continuous. Baseball is relatively easy, since it's mostly a serious of discrete events. A left-hander is up against a right-hander with men on first and second down 3-2 in the 8th. I can analyze that situation all night long, because the data has easy hooks. American Football comes close, with its series of discrete plays. Basketball is harder, because it's continuous, but the shooting events can be analyzed reasonably easily. Hockey is harder. Soccer is hugely difficult. Giggs knocks a pass into the corner and Ronaldo picks it up. That's good, but how do you describe it? Successful pass? Sure, but so is a 10-foot knockback to the keeper and they aren't the same value. Successful long pass? What's long? Does it matter if Ronaldo scores later? Does it matter if he got closed down on by 2 guys but Rooney over in the other corner had nobody marking him, so it was actually a bad pass?
Homeless people need special protection because they are inordinately the victims of random crimes, not simply because they are stuck on the street but because they are targeted by people who believe, often correctly, that there won’t be any consequences for hurting them.
Yes, but the critical fact is that the reason they're often correct in believing that there won't be any consequences is that the law is frequently not enforced on the perpetrators, because they are difficult to capture. This being the case, adding an extra law that also won't be enforced for the same reason provides no value. The solution is to put homeless people in a position where they cannot be victimized either by (preferably) making them less homeless or by ensuring that they receive every bit of protection and investigative effort that everyone else gets.
I'm curious as to which arguments in the linked thread you're considering 'uncommonly silly'. I've seen uncommonly silly arguments regarding hate crimes legislation of course, but I didn't notice any in that particular thread.
Surely the animating impulse in these crimes isn't 'hatred' towards homeless people, or at least not usually. Homeless people are targeted because they're easy targets. They're available (being in the street), they're often mentally ill, and they often have no one to turn to when under threat. I'm not sure how that squares with a hate crime law. I think the desire for hate crimes legislation stems from a fear of being the target of impersonal assault. Essentially, being targeted for something you have no control over. Nearly all property crime is impersonal, of course, but people seem to have a particular fear of impersonal violence.
If anyone is aggregating a poll, I'm opposed. I don't like hate crime legislation in general, on the principle that less law is better barring a compelling need, and I believe existing criminal law handles hate crimes without compelling additional need.
To make GI Joe into a super-slick, superhuman fighting machine who is defined by his exceptional nature is to completely and totally miss the point of what Eisenhower was saying, about the real strength of the American war machine.
Yes, but it is also to make a lot more money, against which all the rest of these considerations are meaningless. What's your kid going to want you to buy for Christmas? Brave Everyman From Nebraska #12 or Stormshadow the Ninja?
Indeed. I helmet for the same reason, although not primarily because I want to set an example for my kids (they're too young for it to matter at this point), but because I'd like my kids to have a non-brain-damaged father.
However, I stopped bike commuting because despite Seattle being a comparatively bike-friendly city, it's not bike friendly enough that I didn't get nearly hit a dozen times in a couple years of commuting. Plus the 15 or so tire changes I had to make mid-route. Road-sharing is a joke, because the drivers aren't interested in sharing and because bikers assume it's a license to force traffic to drive at 15mph indefinitely, which just pisses everyone off.
Learning of the death of children makes me sick to my stomach. There's a child in our CHD support group that will be fortunate to survive the day due to a complication with a heart transplant. It is a tragedy from which you never fully recover. David Cameron has all my best.
I humbly request a 24 hour moratorium, at least in this thread, on political arguments, including health policy.
It's problematic for you to keep arguing specifics when the point is that specifics don't matter. Or more accurately, the set of specifics one uses to argue one's point is completely arbitrary.
Buddhists 'grew out' of the Hindu tradition? First, the 'grew out of' standard has been completely fabricated by you, just now. It is not objectively intrinsic to the definition of distinct religion. Second, understanding what 'grew out' of what requires an understanding of the evolution of the practices and beliefs of a people, not some handy lineage chart you can look up in an appendix. Jainism is in fact very similar and comes from the same lineage as Buddhism, but Buddhism is considered separate because Siddhartha rejected the Jainist focus on self-abuse and punishment. However, as a practical matter that's a very small distinction compared to that between Catholicism and Protestantism. And yet someone somewhere decided that Jainism and Buddhism are separate religions, and someone somewhere else decided that Catholicism and Lutheranism are both Christianity (even while someone somewhere else definitely stated the opposite, but didn't get to write the appropriate appendix).
Once you acknowledge that the organization of religions and sects is very arbitrary, you recognize that arguing specific doctrinal differences is meaningless.
And to rob's point making my argument 'fall short', I don't see it. Yes, by one standard of the definition of Judaism Christians are a sect of Jews. It happens to not be the standard that we (arbitrarily) use. It is entirely possible that in some alternate timeline another arbitrary definition of would have been accepted and Christians would now be considered Jews. This is again simply argument by assertion. There is no clean standard that divides Christians from Jews that also divides Mormons from Christians, because the differences are in all cases idiosyncratic.
You can't say that the critical difference is belief in the divinity of historical figures (which would divide Islam from Judeo-Christianity via the belief in Muhammad) because then Shiite and Sunni would be considered separate religions and the Papal divinity, complicated as it is, would probably require that Catholicism and Protestantism be different religions. But they're not. Why? Because everyone says so.
I'm reminded of a previous OrdinaryGents post (I think?) about how blogging is fundamentally just a bunch of laymen arguing about stuff that's already been decided by smarter people. There are literally millions of pages of theological work trying to organize and standardize belief systems, and I don't think any responsible reading of any part of them could lead to the conclusion that 'by no definition of the word' are Mormons Christians.
All well and good, but it's a big heap of argument by assertion. One man's 'foundational belief' is another man's 'sectarian difference'.
After all, the belief in Papal infallibility is a rather deep departure from other sects of Christianity, yeah?
It is, at root, a semantic argument. There's no absolute set of criteria for what distinguishes between sects vs between religions. There's no rational reason that Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana are all considered Buddhism but Jainism isn't (Prophylactic: I'm sure you can come up with an arbitrary reason for such a distinction, but it's no more rational than some other reason that doesn't create it).
I think the resistance to your claim in the original post was that it was absurdly too strong. Of course you can choose not to include Mormonism in Christianity by whatever definition you want, but to claim that " by no definition of the word" could Mormons be Christians is obviously silly. Here's a definition that would gain traction: Christians believe in the divinity of Christ as the child of the God of the Israelites. Oh look, now Mormons are Christians.
And the context which matters, to bring it around, is the one surrounding Sullivan's label of 'Christianist' which broadly describes a movement to ensconce (particularly fundamentalist) Christian theology and mores into American law and conduct.
Which is a reasonable description of LDS activity from his perspective.
Mormons are not, by any definition of the word, Christian
Eh? Here are the first five Articles of Faith of the LDS church:
1. We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
2. We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression.
3. We believe that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
4. We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.
5. We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.
No sane disinterested observer could look at the list and not come to the conclusion that the religion in question is Christian. I'm aware that most mainline Christians don't regard Mormons as Christians, but that's an internal division that's of less interest to non-Christians and is in fact irrelevant to Sullivan's outsider concerns about Christianism.
And, again, I still don’t know what particular Dawkins text is being taken here as trying to “prove” God doesn’t exist.
Take your pick. It's a significant part of the totality of his writings. I'm not sure why you need a specific volume to work from but if so, let's go with the The Infected Mind chapter of A Devil's Chaplain.
they are doing exactly what you just said they should do — namely, show that the way that we so often defer to religious beliefs and practices is inconsistent with some of our most important values
That's not what I said they should do at all; nor does it accurately describe the practice of attacking the foundational beliefs of religion. It is one thing to say 'this particular manifestation or practice is inconsistent with a free society and inconsistent with the ethical principles of your own faith'. It is another to say 'Your faith is a delusion and is inherently poisonous to society'. You're not going to convince anyone with that tack. Literally no one. The only people who agree will be the people who already agree.
There’s also a kind of ‘window’ effect here
I totally agree and very much endorse atheists making their atheism known and furthering the perception that it's a common and reasonable path to take. But contemptuous criticism of theists is not a better example. It's prosyletization. And a clear display of overcompensation for insecurity.
But it seems to him — and to a lot of others — that it is a vocal faction of the religious who are the primary threat today to the ideal of “Who honestly cares what one person or another believes so long as they are all free to do so?” And they need to be opposed, equally vocally.
Be that as it may, does anyone really think that the best mechanism of opposition to resurgent theocracy is an attempt to prove God doesn't exist? That's a purely orthogonal hobby.
If you want to undo the influence of televangelists and culture war baiters, you do it by convincing their followers that their influence is poisonous to our society and discordant with their own values. Telling them that God doesn't exist is hardly an effective strategy.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Ah, Abortion”
This is an excellent opportunity to use the phrase 'begging the question' in its accurate sense, rather than as a synonym for 'raising the question'.
There's evidence that that is not true. His interview with Relevant became an issue during the campaign. Via Politico:
The fooferaw was over the mental health exception, but that's irrelevant to the point that he supports a restriction on late-term abortions.
It's difficult to find the official position of NARAL. Their Issues page on Abortion doesn't address the topic of late term abortions. They are explicitly supportive of health exceptions for late term abortion bans, but it isn't clear whether that's a defensive concession or their ideal policy. Emily's List has the explicit goal of getting 'pro-choice Democratic women' elected. But we run into the problem that undergirds this entire discussion. What exactly do they mean by 'pro-choice'? It's just a label.
On “the art of magic in fiction”
You're mad!
Recommendations: Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun. Stephen R Donaldson's Mordant's Need.
On “Ah, Abortion”
Whoops, missed matoko's comment while typing up the others.
You sure are right. You've convinced me of the error of my ways. Surely because I don't want mothers to be killed, I must think a fetus is something other than human life. QED
"
Thanks for the comments. Brief responses before I have to run:
Roque Nuevo:
Does your opinion of the state's right to sanction the fetus' death differ depending on the age of the fetus? If so, you must have some intuitive conception of increasing rights. That's part of what the post was trying to get at. That for most people it's very difficult to even have an opinion in 1 dimension. To your second question, I suppose it depends on your definition of fanaticism. It surely can't be fanaticism just because it opposes something currently legal. Otherwise anti-prohibitionist and the anti-slavery movement were fanatics etc, etc. Approach it from this perspective: A fetus is a human life of at least some complexity. The state has an interest in protecting human lives and creates many laws to do so. Excluding a fetus from those laws is the result of convenience, not principle, and is a mistake. This is, I think, the foundational argument of abortion opponents. It doesn't strike me as fanatical.
Mark:
I think I'm guilty of inartful wording. When I say 'inconvenienced' I really do mean "I don't want to throw up for 3 months and walk like a duck for another 3". I'm referring just to the physical rigors of a typical pregnancy, which, at least in my conversations, is one of the (relatively minor) reasons a potential mother might want to avoid pregnancy. It wouldn't include a physical danger to the mother.
conrad:
The concept of granting rights to the fetus may seem deeply flawed in your analysis, but it's not a rhetorical choice. It is the foundational moral axiom of abortion opponents. After all, if a fetus has no rights, how could one possible oppose abortion? But why should it not have rights? 5 seconds after a child is born, if someone killed it it would be a heinous crime that would have people clamoring for the death penalty. But 5 seconds before it's born, it's a morally untroubling act? How is that? What happened in those 10 seconds? The baby moved a few feet from inside its mother to somewhere else. You might believe that that physical motion magically turns a pile of tissue into a human deserving of proctections. Many people disagree.
Jaybird:
The state is in the business of preventing people from doing the things they do not have the right to do, especially when doing so reduced the rights of others.
That said, it is a convincing argument to me that though I might find any abortion beyond the first few weeks morally heinous, state enforcement of an anti-abortion prohibition might be worse than the crime.
On “George Tiller”
Yeah, pretty much.
I'm opposed to abortion in principle, in the sense that I assign more rights to even a young fetus than would be outweighed by convenience, (but are well outweighed by the mother's health, rape, etc, etc), but I wouldn't touch the official pro-life movement with a 100 yard pole. I would not attend a pro-life meeting, I would not request pro-life literature, and I would not join a pro-life organization. Because they're rotted with messianic self-righteousness.
On “In Defense of Figureheads”
I really think this is the elephant in the living room when it comes to the political parties' relationships with various populations of citizens.
Wikipedia tells me the US population is roughly 66% white, 15% hispanic, 13% black, and 5% asian and more or less 50% female.
The Senate is 95% white, 2% hispanic, 2%asian, 1% black (and soon to be 0%, for unobjectionable idiosyncratic reasons). And it is 83% male and 17% female.
The Supreme Court is 88% white, 0% hispanic, 11% black, and 0% asian. It is 88% male and 11% female.
The House is 83% white, 5% hispanic, 10% black, and 2% asian. It's 83% male and 17% female.
(Side note: The male/female ratio is bizarrely consistent)
Now, as an outsider, here's my summary of GOP/conservative responses to this situation:
There's a small contingent that likes this fact and is willing to be explicit about it. That is, they believe that it is morally correct for the nation to be governed primarily or exclusively by white males and they will say so. There is a fairly large contingent (and this is where I'll get into trouble for mindreading) that likes this fact but knows they can't really say it out loud. This is the Limbaugh contingent. They don't necessarily think while male supremacy should be the law of the land, they just prefer having white males in power. There's another good sized contingent that recognizes that this skewed distribution of power is a problem, but they're opposed to doing anything about it. It is a legacy of less enlightened times, they'll say, but the cure is worse than the disease, for any value of x that represents a cure. And there is a very small faction that believes that it's a big problem and that something should be done about it.
On the other hand, in the Democratic party that last group is a massive contingent, with the remainder of the party coming from the previous 'let nature take its course' group.
Now, as a promising minority or female politician it should not be difficult for me to decide between a party that is heavily represented by people who are opposed to my having power and a party that believes I represent an underrepresented group.
It's a feedback loop that the GOP will have a very hard time getting out of. Perhaps their salvation will come when (assuming if) power is more evenly distributed and the distinction between the "it's bad, but don't do anything" and the "it's bad, and do something" groups becomes moot.
On “Thoughts on the Champions League Final”
Second, are European soccer analysts developing their own brand of sabermetrics?
Football is much harder to analyze statistically because it's so continuous. Baseball is relatively easy, since it's mostly a serious of discrete events. A left-hander is up against a right-hander with men on first and second down 3-2 in the 8th. I can analyze that situation all night long, because the data has easy hooks. American Football comes close, with its series of discrete plays. Basketball is harder, because it's continuous, but the shooting events can be analyzed reasonably easily. Hockey is harder. Soccer is hugely difficult. Giggs knocks a pass into the corner and Ronaldo picks it up. That's good, but how do you describe it? Successful pass? Sure, but so is a 10-foot knockback to the keeper and they aren't the same value. Successful long pass? What's long? Does it matter if Ronaldo scores later? Does it matter if he got closed down on by 2 guys but Rooney over in the other corner had nobody marking him, so it was actually a bad pass?
All that said, yes, that analysis is being done
On “Silly Arguments Against Hate Crimes Legislation”
Okay now we've heard a silly argument against hate crime laws.
On “two quotes for the afternoon”
I bet he's wrong. And I also bet I'd get obscenely rich manufacturing and selling televisions!
On “Master of Divinity”
YOU HAVE THE POOOOWWWERRRR!!
On “Silly Arguments Against Hate Crimes Legislation”
And to what extent are the punishments for premeditated murder insufficiently 'harsh'?
"
Yes, but the critical fact is that the reason they're often correct in believing that there won't be any consequences is that the law is frequently not enforced on the perpetrators, because they are difficult to capture. This being the case, adding an extra law that also won't be enforced for the same reason provides no value. The solution is to put homeless people in a position where they cannot be victimized either by (preferably) making them less homeless or by ensuring that they receive every bit of protection and investigative effort that everyone else gets.
"
I'm curious as to which arguments in the linked thread you're considering 'uncommonly silly'. I've seen uncommonly silly arguments regarding hate crimes legislation of course, but I didn't notice any in that particular thread.
On “Hate Crimes and the homeless”
Surely the animating impulse in these crimes isn't 'hatred' towards homeless people, or at least not usually. Homeless people are targeted because they're easy targets. They're available (being in the street), they're often mentally ill, and they often have no one to turn to when under threat. I'm not sure how that squares with a hate crime law. I think the desire for hate crimes legislation stems from a fear of being the target of impersonal assault. Essentially, being targeted for something you have no control over. Nearly all property crime is impersonal, of course, but people seem to have a particular fear of impersonal violence.
If anyone is aggregating a poll, I'm opposed. I don't like hate crime legislation in general, on the principle that less law is better barring a compelling need, and I believe existing criminal law handles hate crimes without compelling additional need.
On “Joe, the GI”
Yes, but it is also to make a lot more money, against which all the rest of these considerations are meaningless. What's your kid going to want you to buy for Christmas? Brave Everyman From Nebraska #12 or Stormshadow the Ninja?
On “To Helmet or Not to Helmet?”
Indeed. I helmet for the same reason, although not primarily because I want to set an example for my kids (they're too young for it to matter at this point), but because I'd like my kids to have a non-brain-damaged father.
However, I stopped bike commuting because despite Seattle being a comparatively bike-friendly city, it's not bike friendly enough that I didn't get nearly hit a dozen times in a couple years of commuting. Plus the 15 or so tire changes I had to make mid-route. Road-sharing is a joke, because the drivers aren't interested in sharing and because bikers assume it's a license to force traffic to drive at 15mph indefinitely, which just pisses everyone off.
Dedicated bike paths or it's not going to work.
On “Watchmen”
And "This! Is! Sparta!". Oh wait, we were talking about Alan Moore, not Frank Miller.
On “Sad news”
Oh, that was fine. I was referring to the probably inevitable eventual use of Ivan Cameron in the commentariat as a political football.
"
Learning of the death of children makes me sick to my stomach. There's a child in our CHD support group that will be fortunate to survive the day due to a complication with a heart transplant. It is a tragedy from which you never fully recover. David Cameron has all my best.
I humbly request a 24 hour moratorium, at least in this thread, on political arguments, including health policy.
On ““by no definition of the word…””
What?
This conversation isn't going anywhere. I apologize for starting it.
"
It's problematic for you to keep arguing specifics when the point is that specifics don't matter. Or more accurately, the set of specifics one uses to argue one's point is completely arbitrary.
Buddhists 'grew out' of the Hindu tradition? First, the 'grew out of' standard has been completely fabricated by you, just now. It is not objectively intrinsic to the definition of distinct religion. Second, understanding what 'grew out' of what requires an understanding of the evolution of the practices and beliefs of a people, not some handy lineage chart you can look up in an appendix. Jainism is in fact very similar and comes from the same lineage as Buddhism, but Buddhism is considered separate because Siddhartha rejected the Jainist focus on self-abuse and punishment. However, as a practical matter that's a very small distinction compared to that between Catholicism and Protestantism. And yet someone somewhere decided that Jainism and Buddhism are separate religions, and someone somewhere else decided that Catholicism and Lutheranism are both Christianity (even while someone somewhere else definitely stated the opposite, but didn't get to write the appropriate appendix).
Once you acknowledge that the organization of religions and sects is very arbitrary, you recognize that arguing specific doctrinal differences is meaningless.
And to rob's point making my argument 'fall short', I don't see it. Yes, by one standard of the definition of Judaism Christians are a sect of Jews. It happens to not be the standard that we (arbitrarily) use. It is entirely possible that in some alternate timeline another arbitrary definition of would have been accepted and Christians would now be considered Jews. This is again simply argument by assertion. There is no clean standard that divides Christians from Jews that also divides Mormons from Christians, because the differences are in all cases idiosyncratic.
You can't say that the critical difference is belief in the divinity of historical figures (which would divide Islam from Judeo-Christianity via the belief in Muhammad) because then Shiite and Sunni would be considered separate religions and the Papal divinity, complicated as it is, would probably require that Catholicism and Protestantism be different religions. But they're not. Why? Because everyone says so.
I'm reminded of a previous OrdinaryGents post (I think?) about how blogging is fundamentally just a bunch of laymen arguing about stuff that's already been decided by smarter people. There are literally millions of pages of theological work trying to organize and standardize belief systems, and I don't think any responsible reading of any part of them could lead to the conclusion that 'by no definition of the word' are Mormons Christians.
"
All well and good, but it's a big heap of argument by assertion. One man's 'foundational belief' is another man's 'sectarian difference'.
After all, the belief in Papal infallibility is a rather deep departure from other sects of Christianity, yeah?
It is, at root, a semantic argument. There's no absolute set of criteria for what distinguishes between sects vs between religions. There's no rational reason that Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana are all considered Buddhism but Jainism isn't (Prophylactic: I'm sure you can come up with an arbitrary reason for such a distinction, but it's no more rational than some other reason that doesn't create it).
I think the resistance to your claim in the original post was that it was absurdly too strong. Of course you can choose not to include Mormonism in Christianity by whatever definition you want, but to claim that " by no definition of the word" could Mormons be Christians is obviously silly. Here's a definition that would gain traction: Christians believe in the divinity of Christ as the child of the God of the Israelites. Oh look, now Mormons are Christians.
And the context which matters, to bring it around, is the one surrounding Sullivan's label of 'Christianist' which broadly describes a movement to ensconce (particularly fundamentalist) Christian theology and mores into American law and conduct.
Which is a reasonable description of LDS activity from his perspective.
On “Christianism and the Gay Marriage Debate”
Eh? Here are the first five Articles of Faith of the LDS church:
No sane disinterested observer could look at the list and not come to the conclusion that the religion in question is Christian. I'm aware that most mainline Christians don't regard Mormons as Christians, but that's an internal division that's of less interest to non-Christians and is in fact irrelevant to Sullivan's outsider concerns about Christianism.
On “Tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury…”
James:
Take your pick. It's a significant part of the totality of his writings. I'm not sure why you need a specific volume to work from but if so, let's go with the The Infected Mind chapter of A Devil's Chaplain.
That's not what I said they should do at all; nor does it accurately describe the practice of attacking the foundational beliefs of religion. It is one thing to say 'this particular manifestation or practice is inconsistent with a free society and inconsistent with the ethical principles of your own faith'. It is another to say 'Your faith is a delusion and is inherently poisonous to society'. You're not going to convince anyone with that tack. Literally no one. The only people who agree will be the people who already agree.
I totally agree and very much endorse atheists making their atheism known and furthering the perception that it's a common and reasonable path to take. But contemptuous criticism of theists is not a better example. It's prosyletization. And a clear display of overcompensation for insecurity.
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Be that as it may, does anyone really think that the best mechanism of opposition to resurgent theocracy is an attempt to prove God doesn't exist? That's a purely orthogonal hobby.
If you want to undo the influence of televangelists and culture war baiters, you do it by convincing their followers that their influence is poisonous to our society and discordant with their own values. Telling them that God doesn't exist is hardly an effective strategy.
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