Social Media Outrage/Cancel Culture

[wuapinmon]

Yeah, that was an awfully cynical post.

All things said to me. I could spend time and come up with a further list of depressing shit I've had said to me that was supposedly God intervening in this world.

[creekster]

Theodicy is a real thing, and I've been bullied by those who wield it like a cudgel--and I do not react well to bullying, as I'm sure you all know after a decade of my being in your group. And, no it didn't make me feel better. Max Weber shared your opinion, and Peter Berger took it a step further in The Social Construction of Reality in which he posits that our entire social order in the modern age (meaning human civilization, during or after the paleolithic) arose as an attempt by groups of people to make sense of all the bad shit that happens in the world, especially that which seems "unfair" or "undeserved." We even see it dealt with the New Testament in Matthew 5:45, "For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."

The nihilist answer to this question is that you didn't exist for most of eternity until only recently, and it will soon go back to being that way again. There is no unseen hand at work. Life's a bitch and then you die.

Most people reject, outright that this is all there is, and that life is brief, brutal, and pointless. Therefore, Berger's attempt to give sense meaning to our world. Hence the belief in a higher power. Hence the interpretation of that power's will towards us. We want to make sense of this world, have it all mean something. This comforts most, because the alternative is depressing.

It reminds me of George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life. He wishes he'd never been born and his town of Bedford Falls is shown to be a crime-ridden awful place called Pottersville full of poor people and misery, with one fat cat (Potter) in control of all the capital. He is shaken from his self-pity and wishes for his old life back, and goes back to Bedford Falls to save everyone and get the angel Clarence his wings "the bell rings."

The shitty part about that film is that Pottersville is the world we actually inhabit, in a global sense. Bedford Falls is an ideal that cannot be reached, save by a few (e.g., First World vs Third World). In essence the film is a theodicy of capitalism. It could all be great if we all were just a little altruistic instead of greedy. It's a perfect post-war theodicy attempting to rouse Americans to the selflessness that prevailed during the War, and stave off the greed that was coming into society once the specter of death and national annihilation were diminished.

So, it doesn't make me feel better to point out the signals that are interpreted in the Name of the Father. I take no joy in signaling this behavior as self-serving delusion. I'm no better in dealing with my own shit; I just don't ascribe my dad's horrific death to God's Will. My dad died because shit happens, not because God or any other deity zapped him.

Why do you allow things people say to you to influence you so much? People say crazy crap all the time in church as they try to make sense of life. If I don't believe it, I ignore it. What's the point in getting worked up or imputing stupid crap to the belief system overall? And what is your point here, anyway? People in Potterville struggle to understand that which happens to them and so you reject christianity? I'm probably just too dumb to get your point.

[Moliere]

I see this in Christians all the time. You look for signals and can square any heinous, horrible, or evil act with God's Will through torturing the situation to make it fit. A child gets raped and murdered? God's will be done. The Beltway Sniper kills a father of six? God needed him beyond the veil, and this will teach those kids some lesson that only God knows they need.

You can make some truly awful shit be God's will if you look hard enough for signals that match your narrative.

I don’t think you understood the portion you quoted. I’m not saying your observation is wrong, but it’s not related to the argument. Christians excuse a lot of things by saying thy will be done. I think the quoted portion was saying that people look to validate things not excuse them away.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Theodicy is a real thing, and I've been bullied by those who wield it like a cudgel--and I do not react well to bullying, as I'm sure you all know after a decade of my being in your group. And, no it didn't make me feel better.

All things said to me. I could spend time and come up with a further list of depressing shit I've had said to me that was supposedly God intervening in this world.

Perhaps your habit of constantly taking offense colors your deeply cynical world view. Or is it the other way around? Hmm...

You forgot the bibliography at the end of your thesis, professor. I prefer APA style.

[wuapinmon]

I don’t think you understood the portion you quoted. I’m not saying your observation is wrong, but it’s not related to the argument. Christians excuse a lot of things by saying thy will be done. I think the quoted portion was saying that people look to validate things not excuse them away.

I'd argue that validation and excusing away are the same thing, ultimately, in any system, but especially in Christianity. We are commanded to marry. Jesus tells us that if we look on another's man's wife to covet her, we've committed adultery in our hearts. We can explain away our idle thoughts with "worldliness" or "carnal instinct" but the commandment is there is writing. How do we try and validate our feelings, our sins, our thoughts? "I'm good most of the time." "I don't let the thoughts persist when they come." And so on. But, what if the real sin is marrying someone without love and then copulating with them inside of a marriage? How many Mormon marriages were born of lust and continue soldiering on without love? Do we want the validation of marriage or of love? Do we excuse away the absence of love between two people due to the supposed nobility of the institution of marriage? I'm not sure if my point is clear here, so allow me another example.

The commandment to love thy neighbor as thyself. We are told to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, and to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, not on this earth. Why? Treasures on earth cause sin. We can explain away material wealth via "blessings" that validate our success or luck, or excuse them away with "I don't know why I'm wealthy like I am; I feel guilty about it." The real sin, to me, would be laying up so much treasure that you provoke your neighbor who doesn't have what you have to sin and envy or covet or steal or take it. The neighbor doing the stealing would validate his theft by appealing to the "I got nothing to eat and I have to feed my family" argument that's so often used. Think Johnny Rivers' cover of "Midnight Special" or Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath when their friend comes to bulldoze their house for $3.00 (30 dimes = 30 pieces of silver). He was their friend, but $3 is $3. We can explain away our misdeeds or seek to validate them; it's just a Janus coin we flip.

Imagine a world wherein everyone acted exactly as God commanded. There would be no need of a Savior. He exists precisely because people sin, but if there were no sin, he would be pointless since there's no Original Sin. If He negates sin, and there is no sin, it's a negation of a negation. Jesus exists because the wound can be healed only by the spear that smote it, i.e., God is the author of sin, if it be His will. That's the point I'm getting at, creekster. You can make any heinous shit you want into God's will, whether it is or not, whether He is or not. That validation or explaining away gives us sense meaning in life, and, as you said earlier, that's just people trying to feel better. But, ascribing evil deeds to the hand of a benevolent god is especially obtuse.

Why do I let things bother me, you ask? I'm just drawn that way.

[YOhio]

I agree. We have it too good in the US.

Yet Wuap is still being bullied.

[wuapinmon]

Perhaps your habit of constantly taking offense colors your deeply cynical world view. Or is it the other way around? Hmm...

You forgot the bibliography at the end of your thesis, professor. I prefer APA style.

You are so adorable when you try to be mean.

[Jeff Lebowski]

But, ascribing evil deeds to the hand of a benevolent god is especially obtuse.

You ever stop to think that maybe ... just maybe ... God does or allows things for reasons you and I don’t comprehend?

And maybe these folks are you are mocking as foolish and obtuse, are doing nothing more than humbly recognizing that?

[wuapinmon]

You ever stop to think that maybe ... just maybe ... God does or allows things for reasons you and I don’t comprehend?

And maybe these folks are you are mocking as foolish and obtuse, are doing nothing more than humbly recognizing that?

Yes, I have stopped to think that, and, well, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

[swampfrog]

I see this in Christians all the time. You look for signals and can square any heinous, horrible, or evil act with God's Will through torturing the situation to make it fit. A child gets raped and murdered? God's will be done. The Beltway Sniper kills a father of six? God needed him beyond the veil, and this will teach those kids some lesson that only God knows they need.

You can make some truly awful shit be God's will if you look hard enough for signals that match your narrative.

I let this sit for a day. Not sure I really have anything of significance to contribute, but I have some thoughts I'll share anyway. I'm not quite deist, but approaching there. God must be subject to some higher laws. If His Power is actually Honor, then to become dishonorable would be to abdicate godship. For God to be perceived as acting honorably in this world requires the premortal and postmortal existence be true. If those don't exist, neither does God. Which option I'm not completely discounting, at this point I still choose faith. Someday that might change.

I believe His main will is for His children to learn what it means to act honorably and then choose to become creatures that do so. That doesn't work if the only time to learn how to do this is constricted to this life. The full extent of acting with honor is far beyond us, we're not even close. True honor requires that everything be stacked against us, including our own mortal flesh. Christ is the exemplar. He acted as if the entirety of evil that has or ever will exist was His fault. When every reason exists to give up, to curse God and die, the narrow and difficult path is to choose to act honorably anyway. That's the path of the true Christian, to accept Christ's invitation to yoke oneself to Him and help Him carry the responsibility for the failures of mankind and do what one can to atone for them.

I don't think God can provide instructions on how each individual bears His cross. To do so would be to act dishonorably. The spirit of Christ strives within each individual. Too much guidance and support retards the required growth. Walking honorably cannot be taught. It is learned. Each act of dishonor both performed and observed is new information that must be willingly incorporated into future actions. On this we are judged. There is no other way.

Removing God from this narrative still leaves the option to walk the honorable path in the face of the suffering of life. Not a journey to simply find peace within, but to actively try to alleviate the suffering in the world around us. Is there any better path? Whether death is a doorway or a final end, does it really matter? Is it not better to end having mitigated at least some suffering?

Do many (maybe even most) Christians fail to walk the honorable path? Of course they do. Life is capricious and difficult. Evolution has left us with bodies and personalities that crave survival and status. Inhibiting those appetites is difficult. Culture, tradition, and community are ways of adding to the options for overcoming selfishness, however they are all likely to fail miserably. It doesn't take much corruption to unravel them, inviting the most selfish desires to manifest.

It is the truly honorable that press forward anyway.

[wuapinmon]

Removing God from this narrative still leaves the option to walk the honorable path in the face of the suffering of life. Not a journey to simply find peace within, but to actively try to alleviate the suffering in the world around us. Is there any better path? Whether death is a doorway or a final end, does it really matter? Is it not better to end having mitigated at least some suffering?

Yes, absolutely! This is why I still consider myself a Christian, even though I'm basically an agnostic. Some days I want to believe, but, man, I just can't get there. Now, as for alleviating suffering, this is essentially what Christ programs into the two great commandments. If we live peace and share of our plenty, we can alleviate suffering worldwide. It's impossible, but only due to the tragedy of the commons. If we all just thought and lived the I-can-make-a-difference idea(l), then the world would be a better place. About 15 years ago I began rejecting the need to earn a celestial glory. I read Borges's "Pascal's Sphere" and it shook me to my core. It's short and worth a quick read if you're interested. But, these are the parts that got me:

the world was the infinite effect of an infinite cause and the divinity was near, “because it is in us even more than we ourselves are in us.” He [Giordano Bruno] searched for the words that would explain Copernican space to mankind, and on one famous page he wrote: “We can state with certainty that the universe is all center, or that the center of the universe is everywhere and the circumference nowhere” ( De la causa, principio e uno, V).

He [Pascal] hated the universe, and yearned to adore God. But God was less real to him than the hated universe. He was sorry that the firmament could not speak; he compared our lives to those of shipwrecked men on a desert island. He felt the incessant weight of the physical world; he felt confused, afraid, and alone; and he expressed his feelings like this: “It [nature] is an infinite sphere, the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere.” That is the text of the Brunschvicg edition, but the critical edition of Tourneur (Paris, 1941), which reproduces the cancellations and the hesitations of the manuscript, reveals that Pascal started to write effroyable: “A frightful sphere, the center of which is everywhere, and the circumference nowhere.”

The idea that everywhere is the center of the universe, an attempt to explain Copernican astronomy to the world, really got to me, some five centuries after Bruno wrote that. If God is Love, and loving our fellow man is how we show love to god, then, life means just doing your best. The second quote is what sent me down the rejection of the need of an afterlife. I disliked the world; I yearned to adore God, but God was far less real to me that the world in which I lived. I never heard the firmament speak, even though the rhetoric of my faith was that the visions and blessings of old had returned to the earth in a living prophet et. al. I stood before some rocks in the desert near St. George, contemplated the upheaval, energy, and eons it had to have taken to put them where they are and how they are, and I realized that my life is but an insignificant blip. The Pascal quote, firmly rooted in the same kind of Pantheism that Baruch Spinoza was writing around the same time (and that got Bruno in dutch with Rome) made me want to be a good man because it was the right way to be, not because I needed some afterlife or forgiveness of sins or anything else other than trying to be the best person that I can be. I try to do what's right now because I want to be a good person, to live the Socratic Good Life, and to sow peace and harmony in the world. I don't always manage it, but I also don't need someone dying to atone for what I've done. I walk this road, paying for my own mistakes, not worrying about getting back to a god who might have started it all. But, using Pascal again. His Wager applies to me. I life a good life. If there's a God when this is all over, awesome, I've been a good man. Even the Mormon one can't really indict me for much. But, if there isn't, it won't matter, and my name will still be had for good, until I suffer the Second Death of the last person who remembers me also dying, and now my very memory is gone from the universe.

But, I don't worry about the Second Death. I'm not that vain.

[Walter Sobchak]

Trans rights will destroy women's sports as we know it. It's just a matter of a decade or two. Navratilova sees what is painfully obvious. But too bad she's not woke enough to keep it to herself.

Oh, you got cut by the Men's bball team at college? Just switch to the ladies side. Boom. Dominate in ladies college bball and then wreck WNBA players! Hello Subaru endorsement. Ka-ching! The WNBA would be particularly well suited for a trans-takeover. Half the fans are ladies that can be mistaken for men.

It really demands that we decide what women's sports are. I find it hard to accept that they should be a celebration of the best athletes that choose to call themselves women.

A long well-researched article published today at Quillette on this topic.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) this week upheld the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) regulations governing eligibility for the women’s category in international elite athletics competition. In effect, CAS decided the question “who is a woman” for purposes of elite sport. And it ratified the IAAF’s preferred answer: A woman in sport is anyone whose legal identity is female—whether they personally identify as such or not—and who has testosterone (T) levels in the female range. That may seem like a mere technical ruling. But as I’ll explain in this article, the ramifications are profound for female athletics everywhere—a cause that has been central to my life and to the lives of millions of girls and women worldwide.

[...]

Specifically, if it were decided that eligibility for the women’s category should be based on identity rather than gonadal sex—or if we adopted the theoretical proposition that because some males identify as females, some females have testes—it would be impossible to achieve parity of opportunity in this realm of society, and for sport to meet its associated goals. Despite the arguments of some social scientists who prefer theory to facts, this is not a legitimately debatable proposition.

For example, as my colleague Wickliffe Shreve and I have shown, just in the single year 2017, Olympic and World Champion Allyson Felix’s lifetime best in the 400 meters of 49.26 seconds was surpassed over 15,000 times by boys and by men. This overwhelming dominance by male-bodied athletes over female-bodied athletes is not the result of culture, resources, training or gender identity. Rather, it is the result of having male gonadal sex, specifically testes and bioavailable testosterone in the male rather than the female range. Even non-elite male-bodied athletes, including boys, can and do routinely surpass the very best female athletes. When we compare the latter two groups—the best elite females against non-elite boys and men—the performance gap is small but collectively determinative.

To illustrate this point, Jeff Wald, Wickliffe Shreve, Richard Clark, and I developed the visual that appears below, taking three of our sport’s best-known female stars, all of whom are multiple Olympic and World Championship gold medalists who, because of their role-model status, continue to produce valuable goods for themselves and for the IAAF: Sanya Richards-Ross, Allyson Felix, and Christine Ohuruogu. We placed each of their individual lifetime bests in the 400 meters in the sea of male-bodied performances run just in the single year 2017. As expected, the figure shows that Richards-Ross, Felix, and Ohuruogu would lose to the very best senior men that year—Wayde van Niekerk, Fred Kerley, and Isaac Makwala—by a margin of about 12%. But it also shows that even at their absolute best, Richards-Ross, Felix, and Ohuruogu would go on to lose to literally thousands of other boys and men, including many whose times wouldn’t place them in the sport’s elite male echelons.



To be clear, our claim is not that an identity-based eligibility rule would introduce this enormous sea of boys and men into women’s competition. Rather, it’s that biologically male athletes—however they identify—don’t have to be elite to surpass even the very best biologically female athletes. And it doesn’t take a sea of them to obliterate the females’ competitive chances at every level of competition. If only a very small sub-set turn out to identify as women, we will be overwhelmed.

[Bo Diddley]

A long well-researched article published today at Quillette on this topic.

It took a long well-researched article to figure that out?

[Uncle Ted]

A long well-researched article published today at Quillette on this topic.

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[Surfah]

NSFW: Language