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>But in every way that mattered he made those changes worse, our culture coarser and crueler and more sterile I know that this is a political and personal, but

>But in every way that mattered he made those changes worse, our culture coarser and crueler and more sterile I know that this is a political and personal, but hope this article and topic does not get shunned as yet another politically incorrect crime of thought. There is something about culture that is at least approaching a resemblance to science: it is inescapable that cultures evolved alongside people over thousands of years as not just individuals, but groups competed for resources to survive. Therefore, our cultures--including ethics and morals--are not just incidental to random variables, but the product of the competition and very bluntly the deaths of untold numbers of people. Since The Enlightenment and subsequent developments in Western ideology such as The Age of Reason, major aspects of status quo Western culture such as god-fearing Christianity have been tossed out as unreasonable. But there is maybe something to be careful about here. We are not as rational as we believe. Even scientists, even the greatest scientist ever, Newton, was a devoted Christian who spent countless hours studying and publishing secret messages in the Bible. I'm not saying we should be Christians, but perhaps there were certain aspects of organized religion that were productive and the baby is now being thrown out with the bath water. If we are not rational, perhaps there is value in, for the time being, balancing logical reasoning with traditional culture. Right now it feels liberalism has us rethinking and reshaping everything. For me personally, I am not afraid to say porn was an unredeemable and destructive vice in my life. It cultivated low self confidence in myself, and objectified and over-sexuaized women in my mind. I am glad to be away from that now. I don't think it is government's role to restrict personal liberties either: if it works for you and everyone else involved, that's none of my business. But culture could help guide us with this kind of thing. After seeing some recent Bill Nye and Adam Savage productions, this growing theme of sexualizing children's minds in particular is why I want to start a conversation. See NSFW: https://m.imgur.com/26YWvus https://m.imgur.com/26YWvus

ralfn 9y ago
Two thoughts immediately cross my mind. 1. You are not European, but more likely American. And 2. You didn't get the raw uncensored version of history. Show me a temple, a Playboy mansion or a church. And I'll show you a place whose sole purpose is sexual abuse. In Europe we've had to deconstruct organised religion not because it was so different from the Playboy Mansion, but because it was the same. A scam of power to enable sexual abuse. When Bill Clinton had sex with a young intern the question some people had was 'why would he jepordize his career for sex with a young girl?'. Whereas the honest question would be the reverse: 'why would he have ambition to become president if he couldn't?' The understanding of just how we are repressed by our own evolution is not making things worse -- just less hidden. We no longer sell a 12 year to an adult for ownership/sexual-abuse/marriage in a legal contract overseen by the Church. The world is actually a better place now. Not because everything is okidoki right now, but because the power structures of the past were not as glamorous or sinfree as you may seem to think. At the height of Christianity in the Roman empire having a little boy to abuse was the default. Seriously, Hugh Heffner, although not very interesting isn't anywhere near the perversion of organized religion.
- aswanson 9y ago
  Im an athestic/agnostic American. I think you are missing the gist of what the GP is saying. Abuses aside (which will happen in any institution with humans and power assymmetry), the aspirations of these beliefs were motivational, socially constructive foundations for mass culture. To immediately dismiss all of why they were so powerful and prevalent in the first place could have unpredicted negative consequence.
  - marcus_holmes 9y ago
    Europe is mostly free of control by religious organisations. Even Ireland is shaking off the shackles. Compare Europe (mostly atheist) with the US (mostly religious) to discover the consequences of dismissing religion in society.
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      This is overstating it. In Europe you still have state sponsored churches which were shunned from the earliest days of the US (at least partially). The church attendance rate in some parts of Europe is still very high. Poland is 60%, Ireland is 50%, Italy is 30%. Those rates are very comparable to the most religious states in the US (Poland tops all but Utah). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_attendance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_attendance You also don't realize how a lot of church attendance in the US is mostly cultural/social. Not to mention, Europe isn't without flaw, so it's hard to "compare" anything objectively. Echoing the person you are responding to: the OP's original point is more about the abandonment of some guiding framework for morality, not necessarily about religious institutions.
      - marcus_holmes 9y ago
        Sorry, I meant to say Western Europe, where Ireland is an outlier. And church attendance is VERY generational - the vast majority of attendees are over 50. Western European morals and philosophy are no longer influenced or controlled by religious considerations. I wish I could say the same for Australia. While Western Europe is far from perfect, it's also not a morality-free wasteland of depravation and selfishness. This is what happens if you abandon religious moral guidance: nothing.
cm2012 9y ago
As a separate anecdote, I've been watching porn since I was 11, but have had a healthy monogamous relationship with my now wife for 11 years now.
- mercer 9y ago
  Anecdotally I can say the same, but I think it's important to keep in mind that it can take at least a full generation to see the effects of changes like this.
moomin 9y ago
Picking out one thread from here: I'm one of those extremists who believes hard drugs should be legalised. I also believe they can be extremely damaging and would not want to be friends with a habitual meth user. And, in all honesty, pornography's like that too. I find it hard to say it should be illegal, but it's not good for you. Not even in small controlled doses. And yes, I drink alcohol.
nine_k 9y ago
Traditional religious may be feeling a decline, but religion as a trait, the unquestioning faith and zeal, has not gone anywhere. For examples, look at the modern political movements.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  I completely agree with this, and it is an under-rated and under-investigated idea.
  - mercer 9y ago
    This is the main reason I'm often bothered by lack of nuance and sometimes outright 'religious' anti-religious sentiment I find in 'rational' circles. Dismissing religion as some kind of overpowered source of evil, even in the unlikely case that this might be true, strikes me as a waste of some very valuable lessons in human behavior.
pm 9y ago
The beneficial aspects of organised religion are overshadowed by the abuses they enable. It continues to segregate based on race, sex, culture, sexual orientation, not to forget other religions. It restricted knowledge to those deemed acceptable, until inventions like the printing press enabled dissemination of knowledge far and wide. If you want to see a modern example of the effects of organised religion (more to the point, theocracy), you don't have to look any further than the Iranian Revolution in the 1970s. Iran went from a secular, pro-science society to one ruled purely through fear induced by the dominant religion. I have always tried to maintain a dialogue with people, no matter their way of thinking. However, in recent times I've come to realise that unless you subscribe to a person's religion, any respect they give you is false. They think, by definition, that you are going to a different place to them in an afterlife that nobody truly knows exists. It doesn't become apparent until you come into conflict with the tenets of their belief (sexual orientation being a current one) - then watch them try to politely tell you wrong. The truth is organised religion is more a burden than a boon, and the quicker we move past it as a species, the quicker we can move on to things that actually matter.

ralfn 9y ago

Two thoughts immediately cross my mind. 1. You are not European, but more likely American. And 2. You didn't get the raw uncensored version of history. Show me a temple, a Playboy mansion or a church. And I'll show you a place whose sole purpose is sexual abuse. In Europe we've had to deconstruct organised religion not because it was so different from the Playboy Mansion, but because it was the same. A scam of power to enable sexual abuse. When Bill Clinton had sex with a young intern the question some people had was 'why would he jepordize his career for sex with a young girl?'. Whereas the honest question would be the reverse: 'why would he have ambition to become president if he couldn't?' The understanding of just how we are repressed by our own evolution is not making things worse -- just less hidden. We no longer sell a 12 year to an adult for ownership/sexual-abuse/marriage in a legal contract overseen by the Church. The world is actually a better place now. Not because everything is okidoki right now, but because the power structures of the past were not as glamorous or sinfree as you may seem to think. At the height of Christianity in the Roman empire having a little boy to abuse was the default. Seriously, Hugh Heffner, although not very interesting isn't anywhere near the perversion of organized religion.

aswanson 9y ago
Im an athestic/agnostic American. I think you are missing the gist of what the GP is saying. Abuses aside (which will happen in any institution with humans and power assymmetry), the aspirations of these beliefs were motivational, socially constructive foundations for mass culture. To immediately dismiss all of why they were so powerful and prevalent in the first place could have unpredicted negative consequence.
- marcus_holmes 9y ago
  Europe is mostly free of control by religious organisations. Even Ireland is shaking off the shackles. Compare Europe (mostly atheist) with the US (mostly religious) to discover the consequences of dismissing religion in society.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    This is overstating it. In Europe you still have state sponsored churches which were shunned from the earliest days of the US (at least partially). The church attendance rate in some parts of Europe is still very high. Poland is 60%, Ireland is 50%, Italy is 30%. Those rates are very comparable to the most religious states in the US (Poland tops all but Utah). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_attendance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_attendance You also don't realize how a lot of church attendance in the US is mostly cultural/social. Not to mention, Europe isn't without flaw, so it's hard to "compare" anything objectively. Echoing the person you are responding to: the OP's original point is more about the abandonment of some guiding framework for morality, not necessarily about religious institutions.
    - marcus_holmes 9y ago
      Sorry, I meant to say Western Europe, where Ireland is an outlier. And church attendance is VERY generational - the vast majority of attendees are over 50. Western European morals and philosophy are no longer influenced or controlled by religious considerations. I wish I could say the same for Australia. While Western Europe is far from perfect, it's also not a morality-free wasteland of depravation and selfishness. This is what happens if you abandon religious moral guidance: nothing.

cm2012 9y ago

As a separate anecdote, I've been watching porn since I was 11, but have had a healthy monogamous relationship with my now wife for 11 years now.

mercer 9y ago
Anecdotally I can say the same, but I think it's important to keep in mind that it can take at least a full generation to see the effects of changes like this.

moomin 9y ago

Picking out one thread from here: I'm one of those extremists who believes hard drugs should be legalised. I also believe they can be extremely damaging and would not want to be friends with a habitual meth user. And, in all honesty, pornography's like that too. I find it hard to say it should be illegal, but it's not good for you. Not even in small controlled doses. And yes, I drink alcohol.

nine_k 9y ago

Traditional religious may be feeling a decline, but religion as a trait, the unquestioning faith and zeal, has not gone anywhere. For examples, look at the modern political movements.

wallace_f 9y ago
I completely agree with this, and it is an under-rated and under-investigated idea.
- mercer 9y ago
  This is the main reason I'm often bothered by lack of nuance and sometimes outright 'religious' anti-religious sentiment I find in 'rational' circles. Dismissing religion as some kind of overpowered source of evil, even in the unlikely case that this might be true, strikes me as a waste of some very valuable lessons in human behavior.

pm 9y ago

The beneficial aspects of organised religion are overshadowed by the abuses they enable. It continues to segregate based on race, sex, culture, sexual orientation, not to forget other religions. It restricted knowledge to those deemed acceptable, until inventions like the printing press enabled dissemination of knowledge far and wide. If you want to see a modern example of the effects of organised religion (more to the point, theocracy), you don't have to look any further than the Iranian Revolution in the 1970s. Iran went from a secular, pro-science society to one ruled purely through fear induced by the dominant religion. I have always tried to maintain a dialogue with people, no matter their way of thinking. However, in recent times I've come to realise that unless you subscribe to a person's religion, any respect they give you is false. They think, by definition, that you are going to a different place to them in an afterlife that nobody truly knows exists. It doesn't become apparent until you come into conflict with the tenets of their belief (sexual orientation being a current one) - then watch them try to politely tell you wrong. The truth is organised religion is more a burden than a boon, and the quicker we move past it as a species, the quicker we can move on to things that actually matter.