• ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      I really don’t get it, like, I thought the reason we were all annoying atheists because of a sense of love for humanity, equality, etc. and seeing that Christianity was the most powerful force for regression and subjugation for the last 1500 years or so.

      Like, how did we go from atheism to “protecting western civilization”? What is western civilization if not the societies produced by hegemonic Christianity? My atheism is a big part of what drew me to oppose the values of western civilization. And I really thought we were all on the same page on that.

      And I guess I wasn’t entirely wrong, as it seems like Russel Brand went the other way around and became a Christian to keep supporting western ideals.

        • buh [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          3 months ago

          there’s that, but also I think for some of them being a new atheist libertarian was a way to be conservative while separating themselves from the unfun aspects of religious conservative ideology (but specifically the anti-drug and anti sex before marriage parts)

          but now they’re old, their days of partying and chasing girls are behind them and they’ve either settled down with a partner or accepted being foreveralone, so they no longer need the veneer of being a fun dudebro, and even if on the inside they don’t really believe in religion, they realize that it supports their interests with regard to upholding social hierarchies, so they turn back to it

      • nohaybanda [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        The new atheist movement was for neocons who didn’t care to do the Jesus stuff but still wanted in on being racist to Middle Eastern people

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        I really don’t get it, like, I thought the reason we were all annoying atheists because of a sense of love for humanity, equality, etc. and seeing that Christianity was the most powerful force for regression and subjugation for the last 1500 years or so.

        I believed that too, until Elevatorgate and the “Dear Muslima” letter from Dawkins showed me otherwise.

          • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            3 months ago

            The reactionary rage against even the idea of “Atheism+” damned the New Atheist moment for me. Perish the thought that atheism as a movement actually try to improve society somewhat. No! The purpose of atheism is a sense of superiority against those impoverished, ignorant, superstitious fools! Atheism is cruise control for smartness and total immunity to being tricked or conned! smuglord

            • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              3 months ago

              This. Same thing i went through. Eventually i asked what’s the point? And for nu atheism the only point was watching Hitchens epically own some nobody with Oxford debate shit on Youtube. I started looking at humanism - but all they cared about was stories about “they’re making my kids say god in the pledge of allegiance” or “some southern city is building a ten commandments monument!” No movement that isn’t explicitly left wing can ever even imagine the possiblity of a better world*

              *actually Sam Harris thinks he’s imagining a better world, but its through genocide, holy wars, and phrenology.

              • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                3 months ago

                Sam Harris’ cult is so fucked up that they see a “better” world as a vulgar deterministic panopticon of cishet white techbros lording over whatever remnant of the rest of humanity they haven’t outright annihilated yet.

                • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  3 months ago

                  Its no wonder that Sam Harris was Dave Rubin’s first guest, and was Joe Rigan’s original “smart guy guest”. He is the ultimate dumb guys intellectual. Like he knows absolutely nothing about anything he talks about.

                  That’s why everything is a “thought experiment.” He doesn’t know anything outside of his own thoughts

      • BashfulBob [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        Christianity was the most powerful force for regression and subjugation for the last 1500 years or so.

        Turns out it wasn’t Christianity, just aristocracy.

        Russel Brand went the other way around and became a Christian to keep supporting western ideals.

        He was always a mediocre entertainer. First he rejected Christianity as part of his dog-and-pony show. Now he’s come around, because the original bit couldn’t pull the same audience. But its always just been a performance. The only thing he cares about as the attention (and the money it generates).

      • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        Yeah I mean at that point Christianity was all about bombing people and hating LGBT people and those were big factors for me in rejecting it but it turns out there were also people who rejected it for some other reason and then realized that they’d accidentally undermined their justifications for bombing people and hating LGBT people and had to scramble to come up with new ones.

      • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        I really don’t get it, like, I thought the reason we were all annoying atheists because of a sense of love for humanity, equality, etc.

        That was what I thought too, and was the reason I moved away from nu atheist stuff

      • Lussy [any, hy/hym]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        This breed of atheism is all about opposing the values of religion that are humane, harmonizing, and fundamentally good. The sense of community and goodwill for others is a tenet of many religions that still hasn’t been completely annihiliated and at least bregudgingly accepted by the most reactionary.

        These atheists, in contrast, and ironically enough in the words of steve harvey, truly have zero moral compass that binds them to any sort of pesky virtues that would have them accept others.

      • BashfulBob [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        Reminds me of Christopher Hitchens. A man who made a living on the talk show circuit by tweaking people’s noses and saying “Are you mad? Are you mad, yet?”

        All fun and games when the people getting tweaked were self-important holy rollers. But as soon as he saw a payday in pissing on anti-war protesters by calling them Islamists, the man was urinating like a fucking fire hose.

        Dawkins is just a lower-rent Hitchens.

        • CarbonScored [any]@hexbear.net
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          3 months ago

          I really disagree. The guy was argumentative for the sake of it, but I don’t think it’s fair to say he was ungenuine or just chasing a pay day.

          • BashfulBob [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            3 months ago

            I don’t think it’s fair to say he was ungenuine or just chasing a pay day.

            He did a good job of delivery early on. But once he started defending George Bush Jr - a man who stacked his career on phony religious pandering - the mask dropped like a rock. No one who goes this hard for an American Christian Conservative can possibly hold the views he claimed a decade earlier.

            Maybe he changed over time. Or maybe Rupert Murdoch found the price for his soul. But the guy sold out hard all through the '00s.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      The holdouts that still claim to be atheists but “culturally Christian” are the worst.

      Well, maybe the worst are the “TradCath means Warhammer 40k LARPing” converts.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      I tried to steer it in to a militant occult organization but, obvious, i got distracted yelling at the memes guy about Islamic history and forgot to train my godslaying army.

    • Yllych [any]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      They were anti religious without being anti capitalist. So they were farcical Voltaire esque liberals at best

  • Tomboymoder [she/her, pup/pup's]@hexbear.net
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    3 months ago

    “‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.“

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      Somehow that one has never made an impact on anyone, ever, except weirdly enough Prince who is semi-famous for doing concerts in places that were having a bad time so he could have an excuse to be in the area to quietly do good work because idk Prince?

    • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      “‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.“

      And then the Catholic church decided the best way to interpret that and other Jesus teachings was big garish cathedrals and lots of pompous ceremonies.

      • Tomboymoder [she/her, pup/pup's]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        Tbf I think, at the very least theoretically, there is a difference between earnestly celebrating a mass with other believers and social media influencers doing whatever this is at a January 6th event or whatever for millions of views.

      • milk_thief [it/its]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        Just saying, the most austere and egalitarian churches and mass were done by calvinists out of all fucking people, so much the other protestants thought they were radical freakos. I am pretty sure if christianity survives into higher socialism we will have one sect mutating to fit the new paradigm and they will not be like shining paragons of the ideology, but close enough to at least try and wiggle into the halls of power somehow (source: vibes and looking at Xian ability to always have been actually about supporting the warlord/king/freedom and democracy)

      • NPa [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        ok but this one slaps:

        also are the 12 rules really this stupid and meaningless? “Don’t let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.” like wtf does that mean? “Do not bother children when they are skateboarding” ??? “be precise in your speech” yeah sure

        • Leon_Grotsky [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          3 months ago

          also are the 12 rules really this stupid and meaningless?

          Yes, the prevailing critique since the book first came out has been “This is boring fungible self help stuff, why’d you have to cloak it in Jungian mysticism and Fascism? What’s that? You’re an esoteric fascist? Carry on then.”

        • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          3 months ago

          “be precise in your speech”

          “You took me out of context, bucko! You need to watch at least 10+ hours of me crying on Youtube to understand what I mean by defeating the feeemale dragons of chaos! You’ll know you got there once you start agreeing with me!” up-yours-woke-moralists

        • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          3 months ago

          Yes, they’re all useless pablum and Peterson doesn’t follow most of them himself. It is astonishing that he is taken seriously by anyone.

          1. “Stand up straight with your shoulders back.”
          2. “Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.”
          3. “Make friends with people who want the best for you.”
          4. “Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.”
          5. “Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.”
          6. “Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.”
          7. “Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient).”
          8. “Tell the truth – or, at least, don’t lie.”
          9. “Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.”
          10. “Be precise in your speech.”
          11. “Do not bother children when they are skateboarding.”
          12. “Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.”
        • REEEEvolution@lemmygrad.ml
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          3 months ago

          The youtuber Cass Eris (who is a cognitive psychologist herself) went though the entire book. It’s all pseudointellectual hogwash full off misgony, chauvinism, classism and lobsterson hating everyone who might want to make things better.

          • NPa [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            3 months ago

            oh right, I think I actually watched that one a few years back. Guess my brain just decided Peterson’s ideas weren’t worth keeping rofl

    • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      It’s his new grift since 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓐𝓵𝓵𝓮𝓰𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓼 came out last year. Now every public appearance is some kind of Born Again Christian ritual because everyone knows you can’t be a paedophile and religious.

  • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    3 months ago

    No, the problem with being dumb is that, while you get to avoid some of the existential mores, there are other pains that you suffer as a result. You’ll make (comparatively more) mistakes that are obvious in hindsight. You’ll leave a beer on the ledge while you make a funny emote and your flailing arm will hit it into the pool below. In addition, your interpersonal relationships feel more random in terms of success and failure. Another attribute of intelligence is using of theory of mind to help know when an action makes those around you happy and sad. It’s the difference between thinking that North Korea and Iran are just violent maniacs and thinking they might have legitimate grievances with the US and its vassals. If you “only made out with her because our rule is that you can’t fuck other people” then you’ll likely lose your relationship and think they were being unreasonable. Your relationship with your boss will be generally amiable but sometimes they just explode about random things about your work. These random acts of punishment will extend to the self and nature as well. All sorts of tummy aches, head aches, and bad moods are sidestepped entirely via introspection and adaptation. So many valuable things in life go more smoothly the more you’re able to use that noggin to think about responses to actions and adapt because of it.

    Or whatever haha

    • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      I think you’re on to something: the “happy ignorant” people I’ve known and have seen around me do some really avoidable Ls, like eating Hot Pockets and pounding down soda with every meal (their shopping carts said it all when I saw them in line) and smoking like chimneys until it’s no surprise that they are utterly wrecked by 50 and are maybe have an oxygen tank, colostomy bag, or both.

    • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      Good ol’ KKK anti-Papist rhetoric making a return, iC.

      You’d think they’d drop that to recruit more Irish and Italians into their ranks after 1930s European immigration began to decline and the descendants of those immigrants cashing in their skin color to join in hating non-whites.