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Do you think returning to god would help solve our cultural issues?

Kye 4y ago
Which one(s)? That's always the issue. Even people who nominally follow the same set can't agree on how to apply it down here on Earth. There's a reason the First Amendment says government and religion shouldn't meddle in each other's affairs.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  The one true god who created America as a shining city on a hill, through his apostles, the founding fathers. I think you'll find the 1st Amendment says no such thing; that was an interpretation recently corrected by the Supreme Court.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Kye 4y ago
    This is a great example of the issue. I don't have any issue with you being a bit of a nutter. I don't even mind you having representation in government! I just Don't want people like you you running the whole thing. I'd end up in a gas chamber quick, and I suspect most Christians would fail your test. I appreciate our tripartite system with all its goopy progress-slowing nonsense because while it slows down stuff I want, it gives people time to organize against stuff they don't. Like theocracy. edit: since HN won't let me reply... You misunderstand. It's about holding on to progress. It took decades for conservatives to dismantle the wins of the Civil Rights movement. Decades to start putting cracks in the progress for queer rights. And so on. Those wins were hard, and it took more work to undo them. And the undoing is so slow that there's still time to recover. That's the system your "apostles" created.
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      I wonder what it is you think you're progressing towards? And what you'd be willing to pay for it?
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      Have you considered that what you consider progress may be someone else's regress? And perhaps now we're back on the path of progress after decades of diversion?
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- ethbr0 4y ago
  But at the time the First Amendment was written, the "country" (read: voters) was much more culturally homogeneous and less diverse (effectively: western European, male, land-owning). Which is to say, as a consequence of increased liberty and acceptance over the past 250ish years, we now have challenges that the framers didn't have to deal with.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    > much more culturally homogeneous and less diverse (effectively: western European, male, land-owning). While I'd agree that this is how we would view the composition of the early colonies today, I somehow doubt that they would have agreed. The very existence of the United States has changed the baseline for what cultural diversity looks like, so that you can now say things like "Western European" without blinking.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      Does it matter how they would have seen themselves, for the modern outcomes I listed above?
      - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
        I think it probably does. If the founders saw themselves as already facing issues with a diverse population ("those scots-irish, jeesh"), then presumably they took that into account with the design of the government. If they didn't, then it would be correct to say that the Constitution (etc.) does not pay any attention to the implications of a more diverse population.
        ethbr0 4y ago
        Ah. I'd say that by any definition of "diverse", we're more diverse now. So whether they saw themselves as diverse or not, they weren't trying to solve the problem to the degree to which it now needs to be solved. Or, in other words, they designed a flexible democracy for the world they perceived and the world they could imagine, but at some point imagination fails.
protomyth 4y ago
Churches satisfied our need for tribe that seems to be a need of a large majority of humans. Churches weren't just about teaching values to aspire to, but also providing a ready made community that was stable and provided tribal activities in person. If you intend to turn anywhere, you need to understand what was without the cynicism of non-majority experiences of system breakdowns. Online communities don't do that job well. Worse, online communities are not stable and people are inclined to be more hateful. Humans need both sides of our nature satisfied. We are tribal but we must also have outlets for individual time, activities, and a achievement. We need to own things on our own too.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  > providing a ready made community that was stable and provided tribal activities in person Exactly! I'd also phrase it as "a consistent, nationally-shared narrative" (consistent, at least in a normal distribution sense). We have effectively excluded god as a unifying cultural force in the West, on both liberal and conservative sides (pop-political "god" is no substitute for an apolitical, moral god). And when our societies have subsequently fractured and cast around for any replacement unifying force, we've been puzzled about what's happening... It may indeed be that religion (or national religion, in the cases of DPRK, China, and Russia) is the worst unifying force, except for all the others.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    You paint a picture in which religion swept everyone up in its "unification", but this has hardly ever been true. Even in the societies that show the most "unification" around a given religion, there have always been alternatives, and there have always been non-believers. Every human religion has fractured into subsets and schisms (even Buddhism! even Catholicism!). The idea that it's a unifier comes mostly from those who benefit from widespread acceptance of that idea.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      Religion as a force for cultural homogenization doesn't require a single religion. A Catholic society with a pluralism of sects and opinions is still more homogeneous than a non-Catholic, more individually-independent alternative. Even a Catholic / Anglican split society is more homogeneous in the sense of grand bargains being feasible, in the sense that there are fewer, discrete, and more hierarchical power centers who can bargain with each other. One of the great failures of cultural liberalism in the 1960s to effect more change was an inability to organize into coherent, unified, large groups of voters that could function and bargain within a democracy. If every asshole gets an opinion, it's hard to arrive at a "nobody is happy, but everyone is optimally least-sad" bargain.
alexashka 4y ago
No, the attempt to insert God into people's lives would be yet another cultural issue that's irreconcilable.

Kye 4y ago

Which one(s)? That's always the issue. Even people who nominally follow the same set can't agree on how to apply it down here on Earth. There's a reason the First Amendment says government and religion shouldn't meddle in each other's affairs.

hotpotamus 4y ago
The one true god who created America as a shining city on a hill, through his apostles, the founding fathers. I think you'll find the 1st Amendment says no such thing; that was an interpretation recently corrected by the Supreme Court.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Kye 4y ago
  This is a great example of the issue. I don't have any issue with you being a bit of a nutter. I don't even mind you having representation in government! I just Don't want people like you you running the whole thing. I'd end up in a gas chamber quick, and I suspect most Christians would fail your test. I appreciate our tripartite system with all its goopy progress-slowing nonsense because while it slows down stuff I want, it gives people time to organize against stuff they don't. Like theocracy. edit: since HN won't let me reply... You misunderstand. It's about holding on to progress. It took decades for conservatives to dismantle the wins of the Civil Rights movement. Decades to start putting cracks in the progress for queer rights. And so on. Those wins were hard, and it took more work to undo them. And the undoing is so slow that there's still time to recover. That's the system your "apostles" created.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    I wonder what it is you think you're progressing towards? And what you'd be willing to pay for it?
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    Have you considered that what you consider progress may be someone else's regress? And perhaps now we're back on the path of progress after decades of diversion?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
ethbr0 4y ago
But at the time the First Amendment was written, the "country" (read: voters) was much more culturally homogeneous and less diverse (effectively: western European, male, land-owning). Which is to say, as a consequence of increased liberty and acceptance over the past 250ish years, we now have challenges that the framers didn't have to deal with.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  > much more culturally homogeneous and less diverse (effectively: western European, male, land-owning). While I'd agree that this is how we would view the composition of the early colonies today, I somehow doubt that they would have agreed. The very existence of the United States has changed the baseline for what cultural diversity looks like, so that you can now say things like "Western European" without blinking.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Does it matter how they would have seen themselves, for the modern outcomes I listed above?
    - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
      I think it probably does. If the founders saw themselves as already facing issues with a diverse population ("those scots-irish, jeesh"), then presumably they took that into account with the design of the government. If they didn't, then it would be correct to say that the Constitution (etc.) does not pay any attention to the implications of a more diverse population.
      - ethbr0 4y ago
        Ah. I'd say that by any definition of "diverse", we're more diverse now. So whether they saw themselves as diverse or not, they weren't trying to solve the problem to the degree to which it now needs to be solved. Or, in other words, they designed a flexible democracy for the world they perceived and the world they could imagine, but at some point imagination fails.

protomyth 4y ago

Churches satisfied our need for tribe that seems to be a need of a large majority of humans. Churches weren't just about teaching values to aspire to, but also providing a ready made community that was stable and provided tribal activities in person. If you intend to turn anywhere, you need to understand what was without the cynicism of non-majority experiences of system breakdowns. Online communities don't do that job well. Worse, online communities are not stable and people are inclined to be more hateful. Humans need both sides of our nature satisfied. We are tribal but we must also have outlets for individual time, activities, and a achievement. We need to own things on our own too.

ethbr0 4y ago
> providing a ready made community that was stable and provided tribal activities in person Exactly! I'd also phrase it as "a consistent, nationally-shared narrative" (consistent, at least in a normal distribution sense). We have effectively excluded god as a unifying cultural force in the West, on both liberal and conservative sides (pop-political "god" is no substitute for an apolitical, moral god). And when our societies have subsequently fractured and cast around for any replacement unifying force, we've been puzzled about what's happening... It may indeed be that religion (or national religion, in the cases of DPRK, China, and Russia) is the worst unifying force, except for all the others.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  You paint a picture in which religion swept everyone up in its "unification", but this has hardly ever been true. Even in the societies that show the most "unification" around a given religion, there have always been alternatives, and there have always been non-believers. Every human religion has fractured into subsets and schisms (even Buddhism! even Catholicism!). The idea that it's a unifier comes mostly from those who benefit from widespread acceptance of that idea.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Religion as a force for cultural homogenization doesn't require a single religion. A Catholic society with a pluralism of sects and opinions is still more homogeneous than a non-Catholic, more individually-independent alternative. Even a Catholic / Anglican split society is more homogeneous in the sense of grand bargains being feasible, in the sense that there are fewer, discrete, and more hierarchical power centers who can bargain with each other. One of the great failures of cultural liberalism in the 1960s to effect more change was an inability to organize into coherent, unified, large groups of voters that could function and bargain within a democracy. If every asshole gets an opinion, it's hard to arrive at a "nobody is happy, but everyone is optimally least-sad" bargain.

alexashka 4y ago

No, the attempt to insert God into people's lives would be yet another cultural issue that's irreconcilable.