I see arguments of this form from Christian Nationalists a lot:
1. If we were Christian, we would ban {a bunch of things like feminism}.
2. We really want to ban those things since they're bad.
3. Therefore, we should force Christianity on folks.
This is an affirming the consequent fallacy.
Further, we don't need to force this religion to ban bad things. Christianity, as history has shown, also brings its own bad things.
You're arguing against straw men claims that CN's never make.
Christian nationalism is not a theocracy, nor does it advocate for one. It advocates for basing law on a Christian moral framework because laws are simply moral "ought" claims, not just "I want because .. feels".
We supposedly already have that, since the legal system is based on the Byzantine Justinian Code, but that's being dismantled at record pace as you're seeing in real time.
As the 20th century experiments in communism and the current day West clearly demonstrates, moral frameworks cannot be derived from secularism.
That’s different than forcing belief or church attendance which is absurd.
The biggest single indictment of this is the fact that under secular morality, literally no Western society is able to reproduce itself.
The other part that is often missed is that this is largely Orthodox Christian in origin.
Protestanism has failed. Catholicism is failing before our very eyes. Both are considered heresies from the Ortho perspective, and this 1000-year argument is now at the "I told you so" stage.
Orthodoxy is based in Byzantium Empire, & since it's fall, has thrived on a decentralized model of church nationalism - Greek, Russian, Syriac etc.. that shares power with the state.
Not a theocracy.
"moral frameworks cannot be derived from secularism."
Say it again!
You 'can't run a society off of subjective morality. There must be some objective standard or we're wasting our time.
@basedbagel @UncleIroh How is Christian ethics not subjective? Unless you already believe the metaphysics, it's just as made up and subjective as any secular ethics.
I suppose if you don't believe in any higher power and that we randomly ended up here for no reason then yeah it would seem subjective to you.
However don't you find it interesting that the west's moral decay directly correlates to when they moved away from Christian values?
@basedbagel @UncleIroh No, it doesn't. Nietzche predicted EVERYTHING, and identified Christianity as the CAUSE. Further, the social gospel movement FOUNDED progressivism. This whole situation is the fault of Christian values!
You're conflating Christian values with human nature.
Nowhere in the bible does it say to give women rights and let people be gay.
It says the COMPLETE OPPOSITE.
Christian values are not the cause of progressivism and if you look deeply enough you will clearly see that the social engineers pushing progressivism were satanic/atheist.
@basedbagel @UncleIroh The Bible also says to not mix linens and avoid shellfish, but people don't exactly follow all the rules. Christians have always picked and chose what's convenient. So this doesn't mean much. Christians founded progressivism and their slave morality values continue to fuel the movement. You're only looking at the outside paint and not the engine.
@philosophy @UncleIroh I'm wasn't picking and choosing I made a point and you moved the goalpost.
I said "Nowhere in the bible does it say to give women rights and let people be gay."
You conveniently skipped that part though lol
And yes people don't follow all the rules but you judge Christianity based off it's principles, not the people.
If we judged religions off people we'd have scrapped it long ago.
Also progressivism has satanic orgins not christian.
@basedbagel @UncleIroh I didn't ignore that. That's exactly what I was responding to. Christians conveniently pick and choose what to follow and what not to follow all the time. They don't care about mixing linens or eating shellfish either...they're just taking "love your neighbor (even if he's gay)" over "don't be gay."
"Also progressivism has satanic orgins not christian."
No, it doesn't. It started in the late 19th century with the social gospel movement:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Gospel
"they're just taking "love your neighbor (even if he's gay)" over "don't be gay.""
This is CLEARLY disingenuous.
Love your neighbor just means don't be an asshole.
It has NOTHING to do with LGBT.
The bible CLEARLY states that all gay people should be killed.
You shouldn't say a whole religion should be jettisonned when you don't understand what you're removing.
@basedbagel @UncleIroh This is exactly the argument liberal Christians make: that "love your neighbor" supercedes anything in the Old Testament. You're the one being disingenuous if you don't recognize this.
"This is exactly the argument liberal Christians make:"
That had nothing to do with what I was saying, though.
You're talking to me, so address my points and not normie Christians who have never read the bible.
@basedbagel @UncleIroh And yet it has everything to do with the overall point. Being Christian has nothing to do with getting the results you want. There's a TON of Christians out there who pick and choose what they want to follow in the Bible, and there are as many interpretations of the Bible as there are Christians. Adopting Christianity, therefore, doesn't even guarantee we'll get rid of feminism, nor does it mean Christianity didn't give rise to feminism.
I'm losing my patience here as I think you're intentionally ignoring my points.
"There's a TON of Christians out there who pick and choose what they want to follow in the Bible"
AGAIN: people don't follow all the rules but you judge Christianity based off it's principles, not the people.
"Adopting Christianity, therefore, doesn't even guarantee we'll get rid of feminism"
There are no guarantees, but its a pretty safe bet
@basedbagel @UncleIroh You're losing patience because my points are completely countering everything you say but you're not seeing it. You're seeing YOUR version of Christianity: Christianity de jure. You're seeing its history through this bias, rather than seeing Christianity de facto, as it is. Christians, as they are, pick and choose what they want to follow. They justify progressivism through "love your neighbor." How much of the OT to follow is an argument as old as Christianity itself.
"You're seeing YOUR version of Christianity"
NO I AM NOT.
This is not a videogame or windows.
There are no versions of Christianity.
There is scripture and there are humans who twist words to serve their own ends as they have done from antiquity.
To sit here and pretend otherwise is asinine
@basedbagel @UncleIroh This is simply low level thinking. You think there's a "right way" to interpret Christianity and a "wrong way." But what determines the correct way? The people that say there's a right way?
This is the entire problem with this conversation and why it's REALLY tedious for me. You're stuck in Blue/level 4 Spiral Dynamics thinking. For every "right way" you have, another group has their "right way."
@basedbagel @UncleIroh "There are no versions of Christianity.
There is scripture and there are humans who twist words to serve their own ends as they have done from antiquity. "
And don't tell me you're not saying there's a "right way," because that's exactly what this quote is saying. "My group's interpretation of the Bible is the CORRECT one. Other people are twisting words."
It's so ludicrously lacking in self-awareness.
"don't tell me you're not saying there's a "right way," because that's exactly what this quote is saying."
How are you gonna quote me and then straw man me lol?
put the straw man down and address my actual point.
There is a book called the bible that me and a few people happen to live by.
Alot of people find the twist the bible to their own ends, which is WRONG. Get it now?
I'm not lacking in self awareness you're clearly lacking in reading comprehension.
@basedbagel @UncleIroh Ok, you're clearly lacking in self-awareness and my original diagnosis of level 4 thinking is dead on. This confirms it.
That's not a straw man at all. You're saying that YOUR understanding of the Bible is correct (or maybe, your group's). Other groups say you're the one twisting the scripture. How do you determine who's right? An epistemology answering the question would be level 5 thinking.
Lacking awareness of this problem is really clear in what you're saying.
This is you last chance to address my points:
1. Christianity is a patriarchal religion so it couldn't have caused feminism. Feminism = Satanism. NOT Christianity
2. Just because people twist/misinterpret the bible doesn't mean we should scrap it all.
It's funny you prove my point without realizing. Moral relitivsm can't work because people will just make up their own subjective morality to suit their current goals (like women) leading to chaos
@basedbagel @UncleIroh You accuse me of not arguing in bad faith, but then turn around and say I'm arguing for moral relativism.
I've addressed your points. You're just so stuck in one mode you're not seeing how what I said addresses them. Christianity is not inherently patriarchal: early feminists made reference to a lot of NT scripture to justify their position.
Your entire argument rests on "my interpretation is correct and their's isn't." This is why Christianity is such a mess.
@philosophy @UncleIroh
I don't know why I got into this debate but it does confirm my hypothesis.
I hypothesize that religiosity must be genetic.
It's the only way to explain why the idea of a higher power is so silly to you yet so obvious to me.
I tried to explain it the best I could but I don't see anything else I could say as it seems your mind is already made up about this.
And to think I promised myself I wouldn't debate with anyone who agrees with #TWRA.
@basedbagel @UncleIroh It's not just silly, it's clearly not something you actually, literally experience.
You can see a table, you can touch a table, you can think about a table. It shows up in multiple senses (I'm including thoughts as a sense here - you have a conscious experience of them the same way). God is not something you see, not something you touch...God is only something that appears mentally. We call things that only appear mentally "imaginary."
