This is fucking nuts. These people took part in an insurrection and they’re all getting slapped on the wrist, even after they get into a standoff with cops trying to arrest them.
Any lawyer on any non-violent case where their defendant is looking at more time than these chucklefucks have done, In my view, has an absolutely valid case to say that their defendant should not serve more time than a convicted insurrectionist.
There are a lot of people in jail for over a year because they don't have $1,000 to get out. They haven't been charged with a crime yet. (Spoiler alert: They're not white)
Some of them die due to neglect. So. There's that.
“Reduced penalties” shouldn’t be two years. Especially after shooting at cops. A plea bargain should result in a lesser sentence, not a ridiculously lesser sentence. May I remind you that these people tried to overthrow the U.S. government?
While I agree 2 years is not long enough, the shooting at cops was while they were doing a welfare check because he was suicidal. Not when they were going to arrest him for Jan 6th. He told his wife he was gonna suicide by cop.
I know this guy deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law for the horrible murder of George Floyd… But nobody deserves to be shanked in prison.
Prison is for reform and rehabilitation and correction.
The U.S. prison system is an abomination of human rights.
Strip their badge and their gun, strip their dignity, strip their title, strip their liberties, but don’t through them defenseless into certain torture.
I will be down voted for this but my heart goes out to this man and his family.
All you need to know about US prisons comes down to just 4 little words. Don’t drop the soap. I say this every single time US prisons are brought up. Where else is the proper response essentially don’t get raped? It’s used as a joke here in the US. This is the advice that friends and family give to people they care about that are going into prison.
I fully agree. The people cheering this on don’t feel fundamentally different from people who said “Floyd deserved what he got because he was a criminal”. Yes, Chauvin committed an incomparably more heinous act, but he got a fair sentence according to the justice system. Vigilantes adding more punishment doesn’t make the world a better place, at least in this case.
People who glorify prison vigilantism are monsters. “Raped to death” is not a punishment for a crime, yet you always hear people excitedly saying, “Oh he won’t do well in prison.” It’s disgusting.
I completely agree with everything you said except that I don't feel the least bit bad for him.
It shouldn't have happened. Things like this shouldn't happen.
Do I feel even slightly bad for this guy that he's laying in a hospital bed with stab wounds? Nah. At least he got to live, unlike his victim.
I do feel bad for his family, but only because they somehow hitched their wagon to this PoS and probably love him - so I'm sure this is difficult for them.
I’m happy to say that after a whole bunch of people showed up at the school board meeting to speak on Max’s behalf the school board fully reinstated the original play and it’s actors including Max and issued a formal apology. Special thanks to Grayson Pride for leading the effort. kxii.com/…/sherman-isd-board-trustees-votes-reins…
Just want to point out that this statement makes it very clear that the original decision was reactionary discrimination against a minority in the first place.
Following the closed meeting, a board member, Wendy Vellotti, put forward the motion to reinstate the original version and cast of the production as it was before the gender rule was created.
Edit: The school board is now launching an investigation into the actions of the superintendent.
They need to investigate him. There are images circulating of him harassing parents who spoke ill of him about the situation. Another board member was shown to be protesting the local pride problem that was held, yelling at children and taunting them.
Speaking about the broader point about housing collapse hurting homeowners of a single home, I wouldn’t call people who had 50K-100K saved that went towards downpayment rich. There certainly are many poorer people but saving this much requires earning just $1000 extra per month for 5-10 years. That’s $10/hr more. These aren’t the rich people that should be eaten.
I’m just addressing the general point of who gets hurt during a real estate market collapse. I know the article is talking about landlord taxes. Those are going to hurt the right people. In fact I was going to suggest that if you want to hurt rich people more than the working class, you want to tax them and/or pay the working class more, not tank the markets that render vast quantities of working class homeless.
This is not quite true. They don’t have a house. They rent a house at a different rate with different rules. For example should they be unable to pay their mortgage, the interest portion of which is pure rent, their house will be sold for them by their bank. This can occur if their mortgage is variable in an rising interest environment or if the economy tanks as a result of a housing crash, or because of the rising interest rates. So homeowners can and are affected by market crashes even if they don’t sell.
My example involves many people being forced to sell. That wasn’t the parent’s argument or at least I didn’t understand it this way. I think it made a point about voluntary sale. Otherwise they wouldn’t have said that vast majority of homeowners would be unaffected. I’m saying involuntary sales are a significant effect of housing market crashes. In fact involuntary sales might be required to have a market crash in the first place. If that’s true, a significant number of homeowners must be affected in order for a crash to occur.
Their example was literally about them not selling. Maybe learn to read. They explicitly called out foreclosure by a bank where the bank takes their property back from the homeowner and sells it to reclaim the mortgage amount. That is not the homeowner selling.
Lol just $1000 extra a month. I agree that no, those people aren’t ultra wealthy, but let’s not act like that much a month isn’t a completely unobtainable amount for many, many people, especially when rent is eating up 50% of people’s paychecks to start with.
If you’re a homeowner and not wanting to sell or refinance this isn’t a big deal for you. Your taxes go down. If you own a vacation home in the mountains I am just not that bummed that your investment has lost value
I’m not and probably never will be a homeowner, but I wasn’t talking about the topic of the article, just laughing at the idea that someone could say just save an extra 1k a month for a decade like that’s an easy thing to do.
I agree with you but generally but there are unlucky people that will get ducked. There are situations where you HAVE to sell. If someone loses a job and for a million possible reasons can't get equivalent employment and can no longer afford their mortgage for example. Medical bills, spouse dies, etc.
No one is pretending that’s the case. Eating this money simply isn’t enough to make the lives of the ones that don’t have it measurably better. There’s a fuckload more extracted further up the chain. Distributing some of that money should be enough to get the ones that don’t have the extra $1000 a month have it. That’s my point. Put differently, if you think the person that can save $1K a month is wealthy, the people that save $10K per month would be happy to offer the $1K guy’s money to you, while they keep theirs, and you won’t find yourself in a significantly better position than before.
Eating the rich is the way to go, but it can only work if we eat the rich. Not the ones making $10/hr more.
I don’t know, $1000 extra income is less than $10/hr extra than someone who can’t save this money. This hypothetical person still can’t save for retirement and they definitely don’t have a house cleaner. $10/hr could be the difference between a junior and a more senior UAW worker. Or the difference between a UAW worker and a Toyota one. I can’t call any of these workers rich. These aren’t the rich people in my mind.
After reading the title, I did not expect this to get even more fucked up
Miranda-Jara was initially in a relationship with the girl’s mother but when things soured between the two, mom allowed Miranda-Jara to move on to her then-12-year-old daughter. Eventually, they would begin living together as a couple
Remember this is the same McQarthy who chose to kiss orange ass at every opportunity he got. He was given so many opportunities to do the right thing but deliberately chose to be an asshole and pack all the committees with Nazi caucus members. He did everything he could to push extreme right wing lunacy and kill bipartisanship.
Now the same Qevin turns around and makes a pikachu face why Dems didn’t save his sorry ass.
K-Mac was also the dude that said on the floor that Putin pays Trump and Dana Rohrabacher. Yet he continued to side with them, after Dead Eyes Paul Ryan told him to keep that info in the family.
Kevvy pooped in his bed and was surprised he woke up covered in shit.
K-Mac sounds a budget version of a Big Mac except somehow you have convinced yourself you a have a 50 % chance of getting dysentery and the other 50% is that it won’t give you dysentery. Yet every time, you have a K-Mac…you get dysentery.
This article is terrible. First off, where do they get 60% from?
They link to the wrong research. The research they link to is a survey of people who already have anxiety. If you look at the research of the actual survey of the whole sample, not just those with anxiety, (here), it says that 42% have a diagnosed mental health condition, which includes an anxiety disorder amongst other disorders like depression, ADHD, and so on.
90% of the diagnosed conditions (90% of 42%) is anxiety, which would mean the actual number for only anxiety would be 37.8%.
78% of those 42% (32.76%) have depression as well. So a lot of those people with anxiety also have depression.
So the actual title should be 38% of Gen Z have an anxiety disorder. Which is only a bit higher than the total population.
Let’s also not pretend that older generations arent likely wildly under diagnosed because of stigma and lack of any resources. That means Gen Z may just have a totally normal amount of anxiety.
During their lifetime, so not that 33.7% of the population are affected by anxiety disorder right now. The study about Gen Z seems to be talking about the “right now” figure.
That’s true. From the same study that gave the 33.7% lifetime prevalence, they have 21.3% annual prevalence (those who experienced the disorder in the 12 months before the survey.)
There was no point prevalence (right now) on the study. So maybe it would be lower?
But the study from the article with the 38% figure provides no peer reviewed research. They are a data management firm that conducted a survey.
The other stats come from actual research with stringent methodologies with a much larger sample (9000 compared to 1000 for the data firm).
I think the point is unless they had done the same survey at a population level to compare the numbers between Gen Z and the whole population, there’s no way of knowing if 38% is high or not. Never mind that the article posted here says 60%, which is completely wrong.
Whilst everything else of your post is on point, the last bit is not really applicable: you can’t really compare “lifetime” probability (i.e. for the age range 0 - life-expectancy) of getting something (i.e. “be affected by”) with the probability of actually having something (i.e. not just be affected by it at any one point but rather being now suffering the effects from it) whilst being in a specific age range (roughly 10 - 30, a subset of the lifetime one).
It might be possible to derive the second one from the first if knowing the statistic distribution in relation to age of that disorder and the average duration of the condition, but as it stands there those 38% aren’t comparable to those 33.7% as they’re statistically quite different things.
That’s not how mental health stuff works. People do not really develop anxiety in adulthood like that. You won’t wake up one day and have suddenly developed a mental health disorder. Mental health disorders require both genetic predisposition and real-life experiences, but those experiences really only affect someone in that way before their brain is fully developed.
His lawyers probably didn’t expect to juggle a dozen trials at the same time. That, and, no one even halfway competent would ever work for Trump. Most of his previous attorneys are codefendants in his criminal trials at this point.
These are the types of people who don't understand consent. They shove a camera six inches from your face, say nonsensical bullshit, keep following you when you back up, don't listen when you repeatedly say No and Stop, yet are all shocked Pikachu when someone finally has enough. Fuck these "pranksters". I hope his next injury is worse, because we all know this literal warning shot wasn't enough and he's going to continue.
Whats the guy supposed to do, just shoot up in the air? Or maybe carefully aim and shot by his foot just enough threaten him? Or maybe just show the gun to this much bigger guy whos already harrassing him? Any of those situations could either result in a bystander getting hit, or the victim getting killed when his assualter pulls his own gun out.
He did the right thing to protect himself. However he should not have been placed into this situation, all the fault should fall on the aggressor. But instead this victim is being held in jail and might be charged a felony for protecting himself from some deranged youtube asshole, WHO IS PROFITTING FROM THIS CRIME. The victim wouldve been better off if he had got a kill shot.
Back away, run away, call 911, get a mall cop to help, throw a punch…
Literally just about anything other than try to kill another guy.
I mean you actually admitted it yourself without meaning to: “guy whos already harrassing him”. Harassing isn’t threatening. It’s annoying, but it doesn’t make you fear for your life. The other guy didn’t have a weapon, didn’t make physical contact, didn’t threaten him, he just aggressively harassed him. Nobody should die in that situation.
Naw the victim was assualted, the jury already decided that. But thats besides the point. None of what you suggested is a viable option when you are face to face with a deranged person. We’re not going to see eye to eye, so i wont be resppnding even if ypu reply.
None of what you suggested is a viable option when you are face to face with a deranged person
Of course it is. A possibly deranged person who isn’t violent, who hasn’t attacked, or even touched you. That’s no excuse to use lethal force. You’re not going to respond because you know you’ve lost the argument. When you admitted it was harassment you knew that it wasn’t suitable for killing, but you want to pretend that it is, because you like the idea of being able to kill someone who annoys you.
I know! He was supposed to go all Yosemite Sam on his ass and yell ‘dance, partner!’ while discharging his firearm at the assailant’s feet very quickly. Hillarity would have surely ensued! /s
If you are in imminent enough danger to be discharging your firearm, It should be discharged into the danger.
By firing warning shots, you are showing that you are not in imminent threat, because if you were, you wouldnt be wasting time shooting into the air or off to the side, both of which has a decent probability of ruining some innocent persons good day.
I didn’t watch Steve-o’s own show but were there any Jackass skits where they accosted sometime who wasn’t in their crew? Some of them happened in public but they were still members of the crew being stupid and filming the publics reaction from afar.
It's wild to me that after the last six years or so, people are still happy to conclude this must be a troll or fake. Like damn, what is it going to take to convince you that racists are fucking brazen?
I’d say it’s also that a lot of folks are very invested in making other people second guess if something like this is actually real or if it’s just Black folks with ulterior motives. It makes it easier for more people to dismiss overt racism when it happens.
because it’s from a screenshot on the link from the flyer. They are quoting that. t.me/s/whitetricitiesparentsandtots but now that quote has been taken down and linking to a white supremacist website unabashedly. Do you think this is still a legit flyer of someone trying to start a whites only daycare, or someone just trolling?
Did you read the “article”? There was no research or investigation. It was literally describing a social media post with no investigation to corroborate anything. This is the news community. There should be quality standards for news posts. This is a pretty clear low effort “article” to capitalize a upward trending controversial social media post to grab clicks and ad views.
Reports that don’t corroborate the social media with verification from other interviews, other social media with similar reporting, etc. are pretty bad. This thread has a pretty good break down of why it seems pretty sus that this is a legit flyer: lemmy.world/comment/376517
What does that even mean. I’m not sure why recognizing local news click bait meant to trigger my liberal sensibilities outs me as a conservative somehow. This headline and post isn’t meant to trigger conservative outrage, it’s liberal outrage. (Also the OP tagline says the news is about sparking outrage.)
Like damn, what is it going to take to convince you that racists are fucking brazen?
Call me crazy but I don’t typically associate racist trash mom and tot groups with the sort of people who make very clean and legible flyers with fully formed clear english and even properly used apostrophes, as well as a QR code (centered too!), a telegram group, and a proton email
The deeper you look into all the context surrounding the flyer, the faker and faker it looks.
It’s amazing how well the average white supremacist can blend into society.
Please stop being so closedminded. These people want you to think since they aren’t toothless rednecks in a Maga hat that they can’t possibly be racist. This shit comes in a sizes and flavours.
Sorry but I go with Occam’s Razor on this one. The possibility of some racist going through all the necessary motions to make this scenario occur are incredibly specific and incredibly unlikely.
The facts don’t add up to this being real. It’s a narrative that just doesn’t make sense and seems so deeply unlikely that I can’t even imagine it happening. There’s way way too many coincidences and holes and unlikely occurrences.
Whereas the scenario of “a person wanted their social media to get a huge boost, so they made a fake flyer, a fake telegram, a fake email all within a couple hours, took a picture of it, made a post on their social media, and then shared those posts minutes later with the local news to gain a bunch of traction”, is way more common and doesn’t have any holes in it.
Of the possibilities, the latter is astronomically more likely and requires no mental gymnastics to arrive at, so I assume it’s the case. It’s that simple.
And there’s not really any mental gymnastics involved in “racists exist.”
That is not what the question is, nor the conclusion.
The question is, “Who put this flyer up?”
And of the answers:
Option 1: Genuine Racist
They possessed the capacity to produce this fairly well made flyer, despite the fact the venn diagram of “person who can make a flyer of this quality” and “person who is openly racist” is a very thin sliver (unlikely occurrence #1)
They did not have any existing members of an “in group”, and made the telegram “pre-emptively” (extremely uncommon, typically people of the group precede the creation of a chat room to chat in, unlikely occurrence #2)
They setup a proton email, an extremely uncommon tool typically only used by extremely tech savvy individuals, but didnt put in the extra work to make it have a real account name which is extremely uncommon (unlikely occurrence #3)
They telegram group has a photo of the exact same paper that was “discovered” shortly after, but on a table, and the photo was set only a short period of time before it was “discovered” and posted to social media. Which means the individual took the photo, set the picture of the telegram group, went outside to put the flyer up, and in under 1-2 hours it was already posted up to social media and shared with the news. (unlikely occurrence #4)
The group who discovered and shared this picture happened to be discovered by the owner of a social media group “BlackVancouver” who happens to also be a group specifically focused on spreading awareness about racist acts in the area. They were exactly in the right place at the right time to find this picture literally moments after it was put up? (extremely unlikely occurrence #5)
Despite this, no other pictures at all of these flyers have surfaced anywhere else, which seems to mean that one single flyer was posted and was taken down as soon as it was found. No one else has any info on this flyer except the couple pictures shared by BlackVancouver. It’s very unlikely that a person who made flyers for their group would put all that effort into making the flyer and proceed to post up literally just one of them. (unlikely occurrence #6)
The telegram group has had no members added, and no posts made after the sharing of the flyer with the news outlet (unlikely occurrence #7)
Option 2: Someone fostering fake outrage to boost their social media
A person who manages a social media account is not that unlikely to possess the skills to make a fairly decent looking flyer
If they were making a fake telegram to add “face value” authenticity to their flyer, the lack of any members of the telegram group is not unexpected
A proton email would be not unheard of to be utilized by someone looking to setup a quick and dirty fake email to add further authenticity to their flyer
Wanting to quickly slap together the telegram group in as low effort as possible while still trying to create the appearance of being real at face value, using the flyer itself as the picture of their fake telegram group is a quick and dirty solution, and it would make sense that they would have taken the picture for it shortly before going outside to put the flyer up
The group discovering the flyer being the one who made it is self explanatory at this point, as that is the goal, no longer a coincidence but by design
The individual would not want to get in trouble, so they would have only made a single fake flyer, tacked it up, snapped a picture, then took it down asap, explaining why there aren’t any other photos that have surfaced of the flyer and why it seems like only a single flyer ever got posted up.
The individual, once satisfied that everything looks legit and enough outrage has generated, locked the telegram group and abandoned it, as it has now served its purpose.
Note how the first option requires enormous mental gymnastics to make sense, whereas the latter largely fits within its own context and doesnt require any stretching to conclude. All the “unlikely coincidences” in scenario 1 become expected results in scenario 2.
Thus… Occam’s Razor concludes that situation 2 is way way more likely, and is the one to default to.
If you can come up with an even more likely scenario than situation 2 though, by all means, lets hear it. But I don’t see anyway this narrative fits some random racist mom and tot group founder without having to make numerous extremely unlikely assumptions.
It’s jk for its not actually investigation or at least not on ground, but it’s at the very least more journalism than the article, you’re right about that. I just don’t know the tag for half joking
The City of Port Coquitlam also commented to say, “Thank you for bringing [the sign] to our attention earlier. Bylaw officers are out taking them down.”
They also apparently put the fakeflyer out there.
While the Telegram group is private, messages from the chat can be previewed. In the previewed messages, the administrator says they are “encouraged by the response” the group has gotten […]
And populated the telegram channel with fake messages.
I’m not sure how you wiekd Occam’s razor but it’s becoming a pretty elaborate con for just some internet clout.
Not sure what you are talking about. The City itself was told that the flyer existed, they dont have to be “in on it” to respond like that.
If you post up a fake flyer, the city will take it down and respond the way you said. It’s not that complicated.
And populated the telegram channel with fake messages.
Indeed, theres a whopping two whole messages on the telegram, posted minutes apart, and both of them were posted about an hour before the post of the flyer was put up on instagram/twitter, and no further messages have been posted to the channel since then, no members added, etc. It appears to be effectively abandoned minutes after it was made.
It literally only has those 2 messages and thats it, and they come out to a grand total of like, 4 lines of text total.
Do you think that sounds like a totally legit telegram account chat group? Cuz that sure sounds fake as fuck to me lol
Maybe some investigation Journalism that actually checks if this is real, or not? Because yes, a lot of these posts have turned out to be bullshit from trolls
ITT: Men who don't understand the dangers of living as a woman.
I'm a passing trans woman. I presented as a man for decades of my life and have lived the last handful as a woman. But the amount of times I've been groped, harassed, chased or made to feel worried about my physical safety just for existing in the world has skyrocketed. Truly, I know what it's like to experience society both ways and without question it is worse for women.
I've had men sit next to me at the theater, put their hand on my knee and try to feel me up. Ive had men smirk as they "accidently" bump in to me at the grocery to squeeze my breasts. I've been followed to my car by men asking what I was doing tonight, who then started yelling and only left because I had pepper spray.
Like, srsly. Every single one of you saying this is discrimination have no clue what it's like to worry that any interaction with a man you don't know can quickly turn scary. Getting in to some random guys lyft who will then know where I live, while he has the ability to lock the doors is honestly a super vulnerable position to put yourself in situation.
Yes, mens wages will be harmed, but women are physically being harmed right now. Tell lyft to pay their drivers an hourly wage like they should anyways and STFU about a safety feature.
Well, then you are just being willfully ignorant because I already typed out why getting in to a cab is scary. Features like this are going to help women choose what type of situation they are putting themselves in. Say whatever you like about women being to use a gun/knife too, but assault and sexual assaults happen, the average man is stronger than the average woman and being in a confined space with a stranger is putting yourself at risk. Women are at a greater risk then men, so should have greater control how they handle those interactions.
I see. It’s not like Lyft isn’t taking on drivers who are men, it just allows women and enby pax the option to set a preference for women and enby drivers.
It would be interesting to see it argued in court that this constitutes as discrimination.
The analogy here is providing an option for a customer at a restaurant to select which race or gender they want serving them. Yes, definitionally, it is discrimination by sex. Especially because no one is given the option to pick a male driver, this will just result in women receiving more ride requests while they’re active and driving.
I can’t see how this would be anything but a slam dunk violation of federal law. Lyft is actively and obviously participating in discrimination on the basis of sex by enacting this policy.
What they SHOULD be doing is raising driver pay and enacting real protections for their passengers which do NOT violate federal law.
Is it illegal to choose your primary care physician based on gender? Maybe I’m not reading this entirely correctly, but why would it be illegal to similarly choose your ride driver by gender?
Wouldn’t discrimination be more if Lyft refused to hire male drivers or something to that effect according to the civil rights act?
why would it be illegal to similarly choose your ride driver by gender?
Because it’s against the law, as it is written. It isn’t a BFOQ for a taxi driver to be male, female, young, old, of any particular race or religion, so yeah, discrimination on those qualities clearly violated the law.
Wouldn’t discrimination be more if Lyft refused to hire male drivers or something to that effect?
Preferentially encouraging discrimination against male drivers is still discrimination, even if male drivers are still allowed on the platform.
The customer is making the choice not the business. When you search for primary care physicians in most networks, you can search and filter by gender. Again, is this illegal by your insurance/network to allow this filter?
the business is preferentially participating in the customer choice
customer choice is also covered by the 1964 civil rights act, it’s just nearly always unenforceable unless someone goes on a racist/sexist tirade
when insurance companies allow people to filter for male and female doctors, they’re allowing people to prefer both options, so they’re not preferentially participating in the choice like Lyft is here. And, there are medical specialties where one could argue that being either male or female was a BFOQ. Being a taxi driver doesn’t involve one’s genitals like being an obstetrics patient does. If you are using your genitals to operate your car, you’re doing it wrong.
“Why getting into a cab is scary” There. Stop right there. You nailed it. Thats it, that’s the whole point. Getting into a strangers vehicle is scary. Period. The end.
Thing is. Nonbinary must be allowed to mean literally anything in the way it currently is defined.
I am a man, I identity as a man. However, if I were to Identify as Nonbinary, that would need to pass - I might internally and externally be male, but if I say I don’t identify with being male - it’s sexist to deny me the right to identify that way - because identifying that way is not tied to a specific thing you do.
I think a lot of straight cisgender men think that they understand the anxiety women and visibly LGBT+ people face in these sorts of situations. And maybe they understand it at some academic level. But they really don't truly grok it, and how it affects people's lives.
I’m a bisexual non binary black person. I do understand the anxiety discriminated groups face, but that’s not an excuse to discriminate even more. We should look at the root causes of the violence and solve those rather than just discriminate even more and just let the issue get worse.
I mean I agree we should look into the root causes. But practically that is a long-term, society-wide project. We don't even know what the root causes are, let alone how to address them. And moreover that project is not one a ride-share company can address.
So we sometimes have to take less-than-ideal, but more practical measures to address the current situation, right?
Truly, I know what it’s like to experience society both ways and without question it is worse for women.
Here are some fun facts about how much better it is to be a man in our society:
Based on available data from 1980 to 2008—
Males represented 77% of homicide victims and nearly 90% of offenders. The victimization rate for males (11.6 per 100,000) was 3 times higher than the rate for females (3.4 per 100,000). The offending rate for males (15.1 per 100,000) was almost 9 times higher than the rate for females (1.7 per 100,000).
In the United States, more men than women are shot to death by the police. As of August 28, the U.S. police shot 600 men and 21 women to death in 2023. In 2022, the police shot 1,022 men and 44 women to death.-
I don’t doubt you had terrible experiences related to sexual harassment, and I’m sorry for you. Nobody deserve this.
But don’t try to muddle the issue here. You have been attacked by people. And you decided that the pertinent group to understand these attacks is their gender, so we need to differentiate on this basis. You could have analyzed it along education level, wealth, apparent race, apparent religion, social persona, zodiacal type, car brand, profession, haircut, or anything else.
But you chose to judge the risk level of people based on their gender. Because you think that, for some reason, you have a much clearer perspective than other people you know litterally nothing about but their gender. It is the exact same thing that makes people discriminate others about the color of their skin, or wealth, or any of the illegal type of discrimination. You are using the same logic, and by extension, you are legitimazing it. There’s a reason discrimination laws do a blanket ban of this kind of thing, and not “some genders/races/others are more protected than others” : it’s because every use of every kind of this arbitrary categorization strengthen every other.
Being a little rich isn’t a problem. Being very to insanely to disturbingly rich, that is a big problem and should be removed as a possibility by governments. Tax the shit out of people until their riches reach acceptable levels
Capitalism is only anti democratic if left unchecked. It needs to be much MUCH more limited than it currently is. But you don’t want to remove it, capitalism is -unfortunately- the most successful way of running societies. Again, you want to limit the crap out of it and right now it’s just running in stampede mode which indeed will destroy democracies
Disagree. The more disparity in wealth there is, the more anti-democratic. There are many small towns in the U.S. that are captured by a single large employer (who I guess is a “little rich”) through threats to move or lay-off workers, campaigning, “donations,” or just straight-up kickbacks to judges and law enforcement.
Capitalism is inherently anti-democratic. It creates an owner class and a worker class, and the owner class has a very large amount of power over the worker class. Something like a worker cooperative is inherently democratic (workers own and control their workplace/means-of-production, democratically).
As for “successful,” I suppose that depends on what metrics you use. I’d bet there have been other societies that were on a whole happier than capitalist industrial societies. I think we can do better than capitalism, and I think the survival of the human species depends on it. Capitalism requires unending growth to function, and I don’t think that’s sustainable on a planet with finite resources and a finite atmosphere that can only take so much greenhouse gasses being dumped in it before it causes a reduction in other resources, such as arable land.
No its not. At its core, capitalism is about allowing people to directly trade and find the most efficient solutions. This has led to the success of the west.
It creates an owner class and a worker class
Does it? I’ve been a worker. I’ve been a company owner (well, technically still am). So?! If you want to own something, you buy it.
As for “successful,” I suppose that depends on what metrics you use.
How about the metric of the largest super power in the world? How about the most advanced power in the world? How about the richest country in the world? Trust me, I’m not trying to woo the USA, it is VERY flawed with a shit tonne of problems, but it is BY FAR the most successful country in the world coming up with “yeah what metric” is bullshit. Ask a poor homeless person in the USA if they would perfer to extrange their lives with somebody in say, Niger, and I think I can be pretty sure they will say “HELLS NO” because as shitty as their lives are, its still a mile better than the alternative. The USA does not have famines.
I’d bet there have been other societies that were on a whole happier than capitalist industrial societies.
Yeah this is just plain naive. This is looking at the problems that our current societies have, and without knowing anything about the alternatives, saying “well the alternatives must be SO MUCH BETTER!” Yes, our capitalist system needs MUCH more checks and balances, we need to tax the shit out of the rich, we need less focus on material things and money and more focus on just being happy, we need universal and free healthcare, we need free education… So many problems we need to resolve…
But its NOTHING compared to how life was only a hundred years ago where people still got 12 kids because they knew that on average, 4 of them would not even reach adulthood because of diseases, famines, war and whatnot.
Say what you want about the US, and it has done some fucked up shit, but its been a pretty stabilizing force in the world. Without the US, the communist USSR would have overrun Europe and we’d all be enjoying the funs of famines, state terror (read about the chekists!) and just general misery.
There are no other countries that match the successes of capitalism, period…
Now, you want to talk on really how to improve societies?
Try north European countries. Socialist countries that use their capitalist systems to fund their socialist ways. THAT, I believe, is the solution. Control wealth with taxes, but let people free to do what they want. Educate people, have a shared political power system (and not the winner-takes-all shit like everywhere in the Americas) so that you have political stability, use the power from limited and capped capitalism to fund things like free healthcare, free education, a strong army for defense (unfortunately still required)… That will make hte world a better place.
No its not. At its core, capitalism is about allowing people to directly trade and find the most efficient solutions.
No, that’s the idea of free-markets. You can have free-markets without capitalism, and you can have capitalism without free-markets (such as State Capitalism). Capitalism is about using wealth (capital) to acquire the means-of-production (capital assets), and hiring and paying workers less than the value of their labor to make profit. It is inherently anti-democratic because the workers have little-to-no say on what labor they do within the company, how their labor should be used, who should manage the various parts of the company, etc.
This has led to the success of the west.
The West has been very “successful” before capitalism. I’m more in favor of the hypotheses from Guns, Germs, and Steel (for the most part, geography, climate, and natural resources has determined the fate of the nations). There are many very poor capitalist nations after all. Most the wealth of those nations seems to be funneled into the hands of the owning class in rich nations.
Does it? I’ve been a worker. I’ve been a company owner (well, technically still am). So?! If you want to own something, you buy it.
Yes, it does. When you make money from the labor of others, you are in the owning class. I am also, personally, in the owning class. I suppose there is some gray area with 401ks and stock options, but those amounts of ownership are often very low compared to outside investors, founders, executives, so they have virtually no voting power.
Don’t get me wrong. I think Social Democracy, which northern European nations are close to, is preferable to the extremely weak regulatory and welfare state the U.S. has; but Democratic Socialism would further reduce exploitation, IMO.
I’m also no fan of the USSR or China, and do not even consider them to be leftist governments (the State owns much of the means of production, not the workers, which is antithetical to leftism). I consider them to be authoritarian State Capitalist nations.
Not without grassroots movements and uprisings. Especially when it comes to stuff like labour laws and slavery. If factory owners got their way, we would still have worked 12 hour workdays 7 days a week. The wealth was not shared with the people, anything gained was taken by force in the form of unrest and movements. In many ways the French Revolution was the subtle threat to every nation unless they gave the people what they wanted.
Then not to mention stuff like women’s rights and civil rights, which were not given thanks to wealth, but again due to grassroot movements and civil unrest. In many ways we still are facing tons of inequality today, due to the profit incentive of the people with wealth. See rising wealth inequality for example. If wealth and capitalism is what gave regular people political power, why do we not see this trend continue today?
If anything, I’d argue we got democracy and political power in spite of capitalism and concentration of wealth. Maybe it has more to do with the developed technology than with the economic system. Stuff like the printing press and easier access to knowledge. Requiring an educated populace to operate factories and producing more complex technological items. These kinds of stuff paving the way towards people getting “funny ideas” and thinking back on their position in the world, no longer accepting what was the status quo, but instead striving for something better.
I’d even argue that today’s capitalism is a compromise, because the people in power tried their hardest to stay in power, but not the ideal that we could have had.
Maybe it has more to do with the developed technology than with the economic system.
What incentivized the development? We know for a fact that kings and other rulers of the past used to block innovations because they could undermine their political power. We have more political power now than before. It’s true that many people give up on politics, because the increasing complexity and knowledge required to make decisions make it too hard for them to follow.
Don’t look for simple answers; you can’t paint everything as either black or white. It’s a mix of both in this case, just as you described yourself. I never said that capitalism was designed to give us political power, but ultimately, it did.
Rulers also knew that if they ended up behind other countries they would end up crushed by economics or times of war. Technology was vital long before democracy got its hold in the modern age. The industrial revolution happened under the British monarchy, after all. Did they block that development? The printing press was also created under the holy Roman empire, long before capitalism, and we can see how well that went with many monarchies trying to suppress it. Maybe they tried, but they failed.
Don’t look at the answer starting from capitalism and working backwards. History is much more nuanced than “the system we have right now is the best and is what caused good things”. It very well could be that the system itself is mostly coincidental, or due to parallell historical factors.
And technology would have been developed no matter the economic or political system. As it did, and as it does. As long as people researching new things get sufficient time and resources to do so. And they do, and did, because being more technologically advanced makes you stronger compared to others.
I mean, hell, saying capitalism is what solely incentivized development is completely ignoring how many resources state actors are pouring into science even today. From the US military to the global academic network. It wasn’t very different back then, at the start of capitalism. Philosophy traces back to ancient Greece, after all, and exists everywhere in between.
My whole point is that saying that “capitalism gave us political power” is the too simple answer. And I argue against it, because it posits capitalism as this objective good that should stay when that is not certain. And it may well be what is actually standing in the way of democracy. Maybe political power would have been spread to the people quicker if it were not for capitalism, hard to say, because capitalism quickly entrenched itself in the whole world. But history can give us clues.
In the end, it’s important to not necessarily attribute too much to capitalism, because, well, we live in, and have been, surrounded by capitalism our whole lives. With no part of the world really escaping it. We don’t have anything else to compare to, as we only have one world. We are always looking from a capitalistic point of view by default. But maybe there is more to everything than just capitalism.
Don’t look at the answer starting from capitalism and working backwards.
I’ll be looking at what modern political and economic science tells us if you don’t mind.
My whole point is that saying that “capitalism gave us political power” is the too simple answer.
Yes, because we’re on a forum. This is not a place to write long essays and lecture people as if they came to you, begging for knowledge. In fact, I think it’s arrogant and disrespectful to treat people like that. Especially if we consider the fact that I’ve already agreed with you that this process was not simple and it isn’t certainly good or bad. It feels like you didn’t even read my post.
“the system we have right now is the best and is what caused good things”.
it posits capitalism as this objective good
I’ve never said any of that. I think that you have a lot of ideas and impressions from other arguments that you’ve been involved in. And you keep arguing with these ideas, adding more to what I said than there was. I’m not really interested in that kind of a conversation, sorry. I see that this topic bothers you, but please entertain yourself not at my expense.
It wasn’t capitalism. The Soviets had science, technology and progress without it. That doesn’t excuse all the bad, oppressive, authoritarian things. Just blows holes in your claims.
The same could be said for China, ignoring their atrocities. And yeah you could even say that about the US too if you ignore their copious atrocities. So it isn’t something endemic to capitalism
It wasn’t capitalism. The Soviets had science, technology and progress without it. That doesn’t excuse all the bad, oppressive, authoritarian things. Just blows holes in your claims.
The only hole here is your understanding of what Soviet Union was and why it has fallen. If anything, Soviet Union proves my point.
The hole is yours. I’m afraid I understand the reason perfectly well. It’s largely the same reason that the United States is falling right now. And the fall China is cruising towards as well.
Let’s pretend you were right about the Soviet Union. You’d still be wrong regardless. Social and scientific progress were everywhere even before capitalism was a twinkle in the eye of the fool that coined the term. It was happening in the renesance, under any number of monarchs and even the church. Capitalism accelerated and encouraged none of it realistically.
Capitalism didn’t industrialize the United States either. The whole world was industrializing. It just happened in America DESPITE capitalism. Americas success in the 20th century has nothing to do with capitalism. It’s more a function of being as far as geographically possible from 2 of the worst wars in human history so far. Combined with untold stolen natural resources.
The academic model of capitalism has safeguards in place to prevent the shitshow we’re living in now. Leave it to us Americans to knock off those safeguards because we’re greedy as hell.
Religion is the biggest scourge against humans. Controlling behavior, brainwashing the young and stolen untold trillions of $$. Fuck religion. They all need to be labeled as cults and treated as harshly.
At the risk of interrupting the circlejerk here, most churches have tiny budgets that aren’t worth taxing, and run by clergy with very little pay. The other side of that is the established ones sit on land in the center of towns that has been in their hands for decades or centuries: they may not be able to afford the property taxes.
On the other hand, if you were thinking of modern televangelist millionaires, by all means tax their income. I don’t know where to draw the line and it’s probably good to be conservative about it, but some of these people really seem to have crossed it already
I think a better option would be stripping the tax exempt status from the ones that politik from the pulpit. Actually enforce the law we have now instead of being afraid of looking like we’re persecuting them. Hell, they all have that complex already anyway.
I dont think the churches that just sit and read a book are really deserving of a “flood”. I also wouldn’t call taxes a flood though, so I’m not opposed to that.
It’s very inline with the church’s teaching to pay taxes.
Mark 12:17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and give to God the things that are God’s.” The men were amazed at what Jesus said.
There is no religious conflict at all with taxing churches.
This is in a thread about a sect of Christianity. I am not aware of another religion that uses the word church. The dictionary definition is christian house of worship. Jewish Synagogue. Islamic Mosque. Hindu Temple. Norse Hof. Greek and Roman temples.
Talking about taxing churches is about a tax on Christian houses of worship. There is no Christian religious rule against it, which means that it would be a stretch for anyone to claim that the government is violating the first amendment.
If you allow taxing churches you open the door for Republicans to just tax every church they disagree with, and I’m pretty sure you can figure out how that will go.
You are aware that the entire reason taxing churches was a big deal in the 18th century is that we’ve already seen what happens when taxing churches is made political, right?
Do you know this is a topic with historical precedence, in a situation in which it is laughably easy to predict what a certain party would do with this power?
I’d argue being a policy realist is an absolute necessity, rather than a “barrier for ideas.”
I am a volunteer climate lobbyist in a deeply red constituency, so I very much live a life bound by practicality.
My rep I lobby most often has solar panels and drives an EV and votes against climate change proposals unless we can sell them as “job creation” so he can sell them to his constituents.
The messy details absolutely take precedence over what we’d like.
IDK, if we’re comparing scourges against humanity I’d say “the rich” in general are worse, be they kings, CEOs, religious icons, politicians, or whatever. Their pursuit of money and the power to keep that money corrupts everything. They ruin everything from companies to countries and even religions (makes them even worse).
Really though, the most evil thing is cancer. It kills indiscriminately and tortures its victims the whole way. Even if you win, you never get the peace of knowing it’s truly gone. True evil.
Look at how much hate we’re getting. All of my posts about corporatism and GOP spouting nonsense getting blasted. This place is another spot for GOP, facism and the church to have a voice in the form of bots.
I’d have a hard time believing that Hitler was super cool with the people who worship a Jew as a god.
Hitler in his table talks: “The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science … Gradually the myths crumble. All that is left to prove that nature there is no frontier between the organic and inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light, but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.”
Good rule of thumb is to never underestimate Hitler’s ability to hate a group of people lol
Don’t have a hard time believing it. Christianity has indoctrinated most into believing Jesus was white. Just look at all these southern baptist molesters that want Trump as their new god.
I’m sorry, I’m genuinely not sure I understand your comment. Are you saying that because you believe Christian propaganda to be that powerful, you’re ready to believe that Hitler also fell for the same propaganda? I get why you’re ready to make that assumption, but I don’t think choosing to believe an assumption made out of heavy bias is appropriate in the face of evidence directly to the contrary. Hitler outright condemned the belief more than once
I didn’t say that at all. I’m saying Christianity isn’t about God. It’s about power, slavery, money, pedophilia. Same as with the elite now. Hitler was just a part of it. It’s all a big club.
Yuh if we’re gonna go that deep, the rock are responsible for the deep corruption running thru society, across all society’s ills around the world. I agree that american religion’s descent into facism-promotion is a symptom of that rather than a driving force.
And yet a lot of people are still religious so if you’re running around suggesting destroying the thing they love and feel positive about you might find they are unwilling to listen to anything you have to say. Right now I really would rather we focus on collective action over the climate than worry about whose version of faith is correct.
When this sorry undeserving species is all dead, alien archaeologists will learn how religion was the biggest, most successful device used by the powerful to sedate the poor and keep their interests driving everything (including destroying the habitability of the planet for short term luxury), from the early civilizations until the very end. Then they will find your comment on an HDD and fucking laugh at you, at all of our stupid asses.
------ian doomsday fantasy is one of the major drivers of climate change. They have always viewed the world as disposable, indeed, the sooner disposed the better.
Maybe anti-religious people need to make an effort to understand how to better communicate their views as frankly many cone across as the same as bigots do.
I dunno if it’s actually possible (for me) to be honest and communicate evenly with the faithful. I cannot see their beliefs as anything other than wishful thinking and fantasy.
Not to say the religious are stupid, i don’t believe in binary smart/stupid in most cases. I know some very intelligent religious folks who have what i consider at best a blind spot for their belief.
I frankly believe it to be impossible. Any discussion where one side has “faith” to fall back on and calls poking holes in religion as an attack on that faith is fated to fail before you start
Don’t talk about their faith then. Talk about what needs to be done and if a member of an Abrahamic faith asks why remind them it’s what God told Adam to do. Genesis makes it clear humanity is to tend the earth not exterminate all life on it.
Well that is a good point. I’m not well versed in the Bible however, and i would hesitate to quote it even if i were. how would it sound to someone faithful to have someone without, quoting their faith at them? It would further require my reading the Bible with the express purpose of busting their chops, which wouldn’t feel good to me.
how would it sound to someone faithful to have someone without, quoting their faith at them? It would further require my reading the Bible with the express purpose of busting their chops, which wouldn’t feel good to me.
There’s a whole list of 8 points over what constitute a cult.
I don’t remember the whole thing, but it was something like : Cults don’t let you leave. If you do leave, your family and friends who are still in the cult will not speak to you. Cults control you in details. They make sure you are tired at the end of the day, too tired to think for yourself. Cults make you dependent financially. Once you are that deep in, leaving means starting over economically.
There’s more, but it is different from how most people experience mainstream religions (I mean there are pockets here and there that are very cultish, but really the religion as a whole is a different beast that just works differently than an actual cult).
I’ll gain an iota of respect for Frankie and Catholics when they unilaterally decide to stop donating money to this church until they purge all of the child rapists and reform their teachings on confessions so child rapists are no longer protected.
We’ve just changed the form of monarchal feudalism, it’s still very much alive. Just disguised as CEOs and Presidents in our present oligarchy. But they might as well be kings and queens. And an enormous amount of those people still manipulate religion as a means to holding on to power. We are a long way from strangling our last king or priest.
Yes, modern religion has many rules made by the dicks once they took over. Before the dicks rules were things like don’t steal shit, don’t fuck your neighbor’s wife, don’t murder people, don’t lie about shit, etc. The dicks were so bad that some other guy had to come along and say “seriously guys, stop being dicks”. But the dicks didn’t like that so they killed him.
And yet the golden rule usually doesn’t get written down until multiple generations after the religion is formed. Took almost a century for Christianity to bother.
Many religions are more “don’t be a dick to your fellow brothers in faith, but feel free to be a dick to others”. In-group out-group dynamics were historically quite important.
You know - “don’t murder”, but at the same time Deuteronomy says
10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves.
Also
(19) “You are not to lend at interest to your brother, no matter whether the loan is of money, food or anything else that can earn interest. 21 (20) To an outsider you may lend at interest, but to your brother you are not to lend at interest, so that Adonai your God will prosper you in everything you set out to do in the land you are entering in order to take possession of it.
You know - “don’t murder”, but at the same time Deuteronomy says
If you take each verse at face value, this is a problem and what you imply is true.
But the thing you quoted from Deuteronomy were instructions to the Israelites. It’s recorded history, not instruction. You can’t just point to a verse in the Bible (like Acts 8:8 "Saul, for his part, approved of his murder") and say “see? The Bible says to do bad things!”
And going deeper shows that the Mosaic Law (the laws in the old testament, excluding the ten commandments), part of which is in your second block quote, was superceded by the Law Covenant when Jesus died. Again, it was a law directed specifically at Jews of the time.
You can kinda think of the first five Bible books (called the Torah in Judaism) as a speed run of history. So much happens in terms of time covered in those five books.
Not everyone who considers Deuteronomy to be scripture is Christian. For example, basically any rabbi would disagree with you.
The Deuteronomic code is literally presented as instruction from Moses to Israel as a normative set of rules for israel to follow. Many of the rules in it are included in the traditional lists of the Torah’s 613 commandments.
I don’t know of similar commandments in the new testament, but it’s had its fair share of religious leaders inciting sectarian wars, pogroms, persecution, etc. For example, Pope Paul IV wrote a decree that forced the Jews of Rome into a ghetto in 1555, prevented them from owning property or working most skilled jobs. The Spanish Inquisition primarily targeted Jews and Muslims who converted to Christianity under threat of exile.
Not everyone who considers Deuteronomy to be scripture is Christian. For example, basically any rabbi would disagree with you.
Sure, but this thread is mostly about Christianity (the post is about the Pope and the Catholic Church).
The Deuteronomic code is literally presented as instruction from Moses to Israel as a normative set of rules for israel to follow.
Yes. I said basically this. I wrote: But the thing you quoted from Deuteronomy were instructions to the Israelites.
I don’t know of similar commandments in the new testament
Because there aren’t any like that.
had its fair share of religious leaders inciting sectarian wars, pogroms, persecution, etc. For example, Pope Paul IV wrote a decree that forced the Jews of Rome into a ghetto in 1555, prevented them from owning property or working most skilled jobs. The Spanish Inquisition primarily targeted Jews and Muslims who converted to Christianity under threat of exile.
And? Your next door neighbour can be a “Christian”, go to church every week, etc, but then find out he’s a regular thief and had murdered someone. Would you then conclude there must be a commandment somewhere in the Bible that condones stealing and murder? Or would you conclude that he didn’t follow the principles of the Bible he proclaimed to believe in?
Examples of people doing bad things in the name of the Bible is not evidence of anything against the Bible. It’s just an example of terrible people being manipulative, exploitative, and ultimately evil. Many people throughout history (and many alive today) have realized that many people are more willing to listen to and accept what you say when you claim it’s from the Bible. These people don’t care about the Bible, they just care that it’s a tool they can use for manipulation.
Examples of people doing bad things in the name of the Bible is not evidence of anything against the Bible.
Christianity, and catholicism more specifically, are more than just the Bible itself.
Religious teachings evolve over time based off of new reinterpretations of old passages, teachings from influential leaders, folk traditions that spring up, etc. Those are all part of the religion, too.
For example, most Christians would say that the serpent in the garden of eden is Satan. Yet Genesis doesn’t say anything about that, and the New Testament doesn’t explicitly say it either. Mostly, it’s a folk tradition some people found a couple verses you could squint at to support it.
And particularly in the case of Catholicism, there’s a world of difference between a pope issuing an official bull, and your neighbor being a catholic who happens to be a shitty person. There’s a huge difference between a random person teaching to be nice to your neighbor but shitty to outsiders, and for St Jerome to do that.
Christianity, and catholicism more specifically, are more than just the Bible itself.
Catholicism yes. Christianity, no. Christianity is literally based on the Bible and a “Christian” is a follower of Christ (it’s actually what the word means).
most Christians would say that the serpent in the garden of eden is Satan. Yet Genesis doesn’t say anything about that, and the New Testament doesn’t explicitly say it either.
Well, that’s not exactly correct. It’s true that in Genesis it doesn’t say “the snake in the garden that spoke to Eve was Satan”. However, Satan is referred to as “the father of the lie” and “the original serpent”. Satan is the only one to directly challenge God’s right to rule and the lie to Eve was the first challenge. It has nothing to do with folk tradition. There are other supporting scriptions also.
And particularly in the case of Catholicism, there’s a world of difference between a pope issuing an official bull, and your neighbor being a catholic who happens to be a shitty person.
Yes, there is a difference in the sense that the Pope has a huge and wide reaching audience and the neighbour is mostly a nobody. But that doesn’t matter when we’re talking about their conduct as it relates to “doing the right thing according to God”. Each person is accountable to God for their own behaviour and actions.
On the other hand, there’s an argument to be had about whether or not Catholicism should even be considered Christian anymore. There are so many doctrines and teachings that aren’t in the Bible, or flat out taken from other “pagan” religions (religious syncretism). Sometimes even going against teachings in the Bible.
Reference:
John 8:44 “You are from your father the Devil, and you wish to do the desires of your father. That one was a murderer when he began, and he did not stand fast in the truth, because truth is not in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks according to his own disposition, because he is a liar and the father of the lie.”
Revelation 12:9 “So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan”
And going deeper shows that the Mosaic Law (the laws in the old testament, excluding the ten commandments), part of which is in your second block quote, was superceded by the Law Covenant when Jesus died. Again, it was a law directed specifically at Jews of the time.
While rabbis don’t agree on much, the official line of all the denominations is that messianic Jews are Christians, not Jews.
Every “rabbi” that accepts that the Torah was superceded by Jesus is a messianic Jew, basically by definition. That makes them not a rabbi, but a Christian minister in cosplay.
I don’t disagree with you entirely I was pointing out that using absolutes with Jews is fraught with contradictions. I wasn’t necessarily trying to support the person you responded to. Even within the framework that they were rules to follow there is an extremely wide variety of interpretation. And while I agree with your messianic assessment, as an atheist Jew that remember a tiny amount, I also think gatekeeping a religion is sketchy territory. Most fundamentalists don’t believe any other sect is truly part of their religion, hard to draw lines using the perspectives of people that have a clear in group mentality. To me, if you say you’re a Jew, you’re a Jew, I have no reason to challenge the claim.
The problem is “don’t be a dick” meant different things in different points in time. Now, enough time has elapsed that there are a huge amount of different iterations of “don’t be a dick” rules and people just pick and choose which rules suits them.
If you’re talking about all religions, I can’t speak to that. But if we’re talking about “Christians”, then that’s not the case. “Love your neighbour” and “Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you” are pretty hard to interpret “differently”. There’s no excuse.
When the rules are laws, lawyers argue in front of judges and define the grey areas. They change the grey areas from time to time. We as a society have agreed to have a single interpretation of those rules.
In religion, when people don’t agree on the rules or how they should be interpreted, they can break apart and form their own religion. There is no governing body with the power to enforce the single interpretation.
Thus, people who missed the dont be a dick memo just find each other and pretend their interpretation of the thousands of years old text is more valid than the don’t be a dick crowd.
Calling religion the biggest scourge on humanity is a huge exageratrion. I’d probably say slavery is significantly worse, and human trafficking shows no signs of stopping. Capitalism is also clearly worse, and it’s the most impactful force today. A large reason religion, and specifically Christianity, has gotten worse in recent years is because of the influence of capitalism.
I’d elaborate a bit on my interpretation of what the fella said.
The religion in point - catholicism, and maybe we can generalize to all abrahamic religions, I’m not very familiar with other religions to speak of them, instill a way of thinking that doing wrong is all fine and well as long as you repent and ask for forgiveness. Sound sensible, right? Except we’re dealing with people here so they take it to mean that you can do all sorts of crap as long as you say you’re sorry. It got so bad at some point that the pope was selling indulgences. ‘Give me money and I’ll let you sin’.
They also instill a sort of moral superiority on the adherents to said religions versus the pagans.
So yeah, slavery is worse (and I’m counting human trafficking here as well - it’s the modern version), but is it not facilitated by the mindset instilled by religion? First - you see them as savages needing to be civilized - that’s the moral superiority talking - you enslave them, BUT you bring them to god as well, so there’s a load off your moral issues. Add to that the fact that even if you were wrong and did bad stuff, you didn’t ‘know’ any better, and it’s ok cause hellfire won’t get you because you repent, there’s your free ticket.
On the other hand, if you kidnap and force good christians into sexual slavery, you can be pretty sure that you most likely won’t get murdered / maimed while you’re raping because their moral teachings say to turn the other cheek instead of fighting back. And one of the 10 comandments is thou shalt not kill. Also a belief in sky-papa dishing out punishment in the afterlife makes people less inclined to seek vengeance (compounded with the previous point - thou shalt submit to being dehumanized by a fellow human without recourse).
This is an oversimplification to make a point, but sure, religion is seemingly not worse than other crap people are capable of but it sure sets the groundwork nicely. Sort of like you need to know a language before you can swear in it. A tool, but less like a hammer and more like a scythe. One good use, but so many other bad ones.
The messengers and the prophets will come to you and give you what belongs to you. You, in turn, give them what you have, and say to yourselves, 'When will they come and take what belongs to them?'
Jesus (but in a text buried in a jar for centuries after becoming punishable by death for just possessing it)
Modern day religion. In the past your faith was quite important and dictated morals. It’s unfortunate it’s been so twisted over the years. And by past I’m not just saying the 50s, but even back in the 1500s.
Everything has two sides to it. I think it was predominantly used more for good back in earlier civilizations, but I don’t think there’s a need for it today.
It’s much easier now in 2023 to be able to look back at how religion was used for thousands of years and criticize it. I’m an atheist myself and I think the necessity of religion was to learn from it and advanced society. Today I think we’re so advanced we no longer need it.
What? Look, I’m an atheist myself by choice but I’ve seen religion fix up a homeless man and through “God” he was able to get himself back on his feet and reenter society. I think reddit/Lemmy has too big of a hate on religion, but in the outside world it’s still the majority dominated beliefs.
Plus you can’t overgeneralize “religion” as there’s about 4000 of them. Buddhism is pretty dope if you read into it. Regardless, I think we will see a shift into more atheists/agnostic people in the future though.
Yea I don’t think I’m changing your opinion here. I think everything has two sides to it. I’m of the opinion of just let people live their lives. Shoving atheism down everyone’s throat is equally as annoying as shoving religion. Remember that religion ≠ Christianity. The Greeks gods are also pretty cool in my opinion.
It’s just human nature to “worship” something. Whether it be materialism or idealism. As I see it, there couldn’t have been an early world without religion because humans are just that way.
My mom isn’t going to be scammed by the Nigerian prince if she already knows it is a scam. That’s the importance of educating yourself.
Brain washed religous people ≠ religion. That’s my distinction. Just because people murder each other in Harry Potter doesn’t mean kids are going to interpret that to go on and be murderers.
The people who should be ridiculed for the actions are the murderers, not the entire fanbase.
Dude I’ve literally been agreeing with you. From my first comment I don’t think there’s a place for religion in MODERN society. But at the same time, we wouldn’t have this current modern society if it weren’t for religion in the first place. Many early philosophers and scientists believed in “God” to some degree, despite questioning their faith, too. I’m not defending it today, but there was a time and place for it at some point. It’s archaic today, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been good influences of it throughout history. Therefore I can’t say religion is all 100% bad. It’s original intentions weren’t that, but thousands of years of humans playing telephone through a book has led to its awful usage today.
Plus if my gram who is a god fearing woman is dying on her death bed, I’d rather her die peacefully with the lesser understanding of the universe than keep telling her that her beliefs are wrong and there’s no afterlife. I’m okay with the acceptance of no religion, but not everyone is completely prepared for that. Education is key and that’s why our current society is shifting towards more atheists than ever in human history.
That being said, as long as strong beliefs are held true by individuals, then even a “religion” of anti-religions could exist. May I introduce you to Pastafarianism lol, they worship the flying spaghetti monster to prove the point that “God” is not needed as a concept, but in doing so they’ve created a new religion, just one without a deity.
Religion has always been a cancer on humanity. We don’t need an imaginary sky daddy for morals. We would have got there (and likely much quicker and much better) without religion.
I’m not religious myself, but “God” played a role in at least trying to comprehend the world before science. Whatever we didn’t know was “God” until we did know. I don’t think modern society needs it, but our concept and understanding of the world and universe is so broad now that we don’t.
It’s dangerous now to label whatever we don’t know as “God” but earlier in humanity I think it’s part of the reason why some (not all) laws and morals were established in the first place.
Religion can fuel some truly abhorrent things, but at the same time I know people who have used religion and faith to pull themselves out of a really bad spot in life.
There can be a middle ground between admonishing all religious practices and dogmatic bible thumpers, and that starts with religion being a understood as a personal choice and how people interpret the religion being a reflection on their self and not the every religious person ever.
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