Is the LDS church a shining example of Christian Nationalism?

[Physics Guy]

Peterson's discussion with McKinney is weird. While accusing McKinney of consistently misreading him, Peterson seems to be wilfully misreading McKinney. In fact Peterson seems mainly to be agreeing with McKinney that Islamic occasionalism was an obstacle to science, but Peterson deliberately picks a fight with McKinney on an obviously unimportant issue of emphasis.

It would be ridiculous not to emphasise, as McKinney does emphasise, how far Newton went beyond medieval and classical predecessors. It would also then have been quite appropriate for someone like Peterson to say, "Yes, of course, but there was also some continuity, and if we really want to understand where Newton came from then we need to appreciate the continuities as well as the differences." I see no indication that McKinney has denied that, or would wish to deny it; you just don't say that kind of second-order qualification right away when there's a big point to be made clearly first. Instead of just adding this reasonable footnote of a point about continuity, however, Peterson makes out that McKinney's main point is to deny all continuity between Newtonian and pre-Newtonian science, and hate on Aristotle.

The whole discussion reads to me as something that only ends badly, having failed to go anywhere, because Peterson himself made the discussion go that way by turning McKinney into a straw man that he could kick down.

[drumdude]

The whole discussion reads to me as something that only ends badly, having failed to go anywhere, because Peterson himself made the discussion go that way by turning McKinney into a straw man that he could kick down.

I think that has become something of an automatic reflexive response for DCP. I suppose that's the fruit of a lifetime spent knocking down straw men.

[Physics Guy]

For my own part, I feel that "Scientific Revolution" is a misleadingly broad term. It's kind of like referring to the invention of gunpowder as "the Military Revolution". The military consequences of gunpowder were so far-ranging that a label like that would indeed make sense in a lot of ways, but to use only that label would obscure the overwhelmingly important fact that it all depended crucially on the discovery of that one special substance. In the same way, "the Scientific Revolution" is really all about Newton's laws of motion and gravitation. The gunpowder was Newton.

Newtonian gravity and mechanics, with motion described by second-order differential equations, was unique and unprecedented in the enormous scale of its reduction. It set up one universal law that applied to planets, moons, oceans, and apples; its prescriptions for how planets circled the sun, and thrown rocks flew through the air, were precise enough to be confirmed quantitatively. In comparison to Newton's universal and precise laws, every previous idea about any aspect of how the world works had been either a rule-of-thumb description of one specific phenomenon or else a vague principle that could fit almost anything. Ptolemy had dazzled humans for centuries by precisely predicting the motions of planets; Kepler improved Ptolemy's accuracy with more complex rules for planets; but Newton derived all Kepler's rules from one equation, and it was the same equation that applied to everything in the world, not just a few lights in the sky.

After Newton there was a whole new way of looking at the world, expecting it to obey universal laws that could be tested quantitatively but whose specific implications might require far more thinking to work out than humans had previously expected to have to do for anything. The Scientific Revolution wasn't some broad and general sociological transition to that kind of expectation as a cultural meme, though. It was a spectacular demonstration, like detonating a bomb. Newton was gunpowder. Of course the world changed.

Except that of course the world didn't change. The world was always like that. The world is like that. The most important reason why the Scientific Revolution happened is that the world actually is governed by differential equations. Characteristics of cultures or individuals are secondary factors. One can still ask, if Newton's discovery was always and everywhere only a big spark away, why did the spark happen there and not elsewhere?

To be sure, Newton did not start from nothing. He knew Kepler's laws, as well as Kepler's obsession with the Sun as the cause of the motions of the planets; he knew Galileo's ideas about acceleration. Indeed the logical step from Kepler and Galileo to Newton can seem quite small—in hindsight. The calculational, step, however, is unprecedentedly enormous. Considering Newton's contribution as a mere logical principle or qualitative hypothesis is a bit like trying to do justice to the impact of gunpowder by yelling, "Bang!" The part of Newtonian theory that you can put into words isn't the gunpowder part. It's the calculation.

The calculation is hard. Just a couple of years ago one of my fellow faculty members came to me to ask for a reminder of exactly how we get to Kepler's laws from Newton's. It took the two of us an hour or so to remember all the details. It is really not simple. It's not creative at all. You don't introduce any extra assumptions. It's just that it's a bit like solving a jigsaw puzzle with a lot of pieces. It takes a while even if you've done it before, unless it was very recent.

Who would even guess that long derivations like that would ever pay off? We know now that reality is such that they do, because reality follows differential equations like Newton's which our crude monkey brains can only unravel in long sequences of steps. Nobody before Newton had any reason to imagine that the world should be like that, however. As a form of explanation, differential equations are a completely different thing from all the various logical arguments, analogies, myths, and justifications to which people have looked when they want to know Why. Discovering that the world runs on differential equations was a bit like discovering that magic is real but that instead of casting spells by reciting strange words, what you have to do is compute a thousand square roots. Or maybe it's like discovering that humans can levitate, after running two hundred miles. It would be hard to discover that, because until you know it brings levitation, you'd never run nearly that far.

I think that the difficulty of differential equations is the main reason why religious beliefs may really have had some role in the human discovery of physics. Detached philosophical preference is probably enough to get you to contemplate circles and epicycles, or principles of geometrical order, but to crunch through from F = ma and universal gravitation to Kepler's laws—for the first time, without knowing that it would work—may well have taken more than just extraordinary mathematical talent. I think it may have needed fanatical mysticism. The fact that Newton was a fanatical mystic, obsessed with alchemical codes in the Bible, is probably not an embarrassing flaw in his genius. It may well be why he succeeded.

Rare talents do appear now and then. Beyond talent like Newton's, discovering physics only needed a few specific ideas: universal and immanent natural law, quantitatively rigorous. Merely thinking of the ideas would not have sufficed, though. They had to be pursued fiercely. This is where I think the religious context of Newton may well have mattered a lot.

[Doctor Scratch]

Some great points, Physics Guy. The “weirdness” May stem from the fact that Peterson does not have “conversations” with *anybody* online. He’ll dispense remarks to posters who are dutifully worshipful towards him, or he will assume someone is an enemy and either ban them or go on the attack, as he did with McKinney. This has been going on practically since the beginning of the Internet, and you can find examples of it on the SHIELDS website, which has archived email exchanges dating back to the mid-1990s. Peterson has no response to this criticism: he cannot cite a single example of an extended, cordial online exchange with someone who fundamentally disagrees with him.

[huckelberry]

Physics Guy, you create a significant expansion in my perhaps limited awareness of how science grew. Thankyou for the clear and interesting instruction.

[huckelberry]

drumdudes opening link includes a view of what Christ's kingdom means which is like my view and unlike what appears to be expected by some other people.

I first skipped the opening link but went back and enjoyed it. Thanks Drumdude.

I hoped many here would resonate with it! It was a really refreshing perspective, one that I think is sadly very rare.

Drumdude, I found myself ruminating, or perhaps puzzling over your reply. I found the sermon to fit comfortable into what I have imagined as , at least broadly speaking, a consensus view. Sure there may be bits people may choose not to like. I do not like the phrase god is a verb. It strikes me as intentionally too vague. I have heard it before. I checked google wondering what the phrase would link to. There was a sermon by an individual liking the phrase as saying God acts and we can participate in the action, an excellent view I think. That article noted a wide variety of people have used the phrase from Aquinas to Shelby Spong.

For views that would be Christian nationalist I have imagined as a fanatical cult in small cells. It may well have spread . Conservative , fundamentalist, late planet earth types are fertile soil for the cult. I realize that that general group has been growing over the past forty years. I do not really know how far the cult has spread into that soil. There is some difficulty in seeing that in determining what constitutes Christian nationalism. For a Christian to hope for Christian influence in culture art education and government is not strange or out of order. All Christians are going to have that general hope. I think a serious problem begins when people start seeing force as desirable or acceptable to establish there own version of that influence. I hear , and see via youtube an expansion of very ugly versions of this expanding in recent years. I have seen recordings of people saying in America that because Jesus is Lord he has authority over all government, his true followers share and receive that authority. It was clearly vocalized that this means the constitution should be overridden setting up theocratic Christian leaders making governmental decisions not democracy. Then there are the ugly policies desired(which a democracy will not create).

Finding an appropriate link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdTrqfIzsco

The book in question exists, I saw it yesterday in the local bookstore. I perused it a bit but will not contribute money by purchase.

Sometimes I hear a complaint about lack of pushback, salute Frankie, well maybe his language gets a bit harsh, truth could be harsher:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhLY0JqXP-s

Did I link without enough explanation? Both links are to comments by Frank Schaeffer, son of Francis Schaeffer who contributed to the growth of conservative versions of Christianity though lacking some of the more negative dimensions of that. The son Frank has always been a bit of a firebrand. He was instrumental focusing interest in stopping abortion (70s 80s or so). He states he deeply regrets having helped to empower the radical conservative Christians that he views with alarm now.

The first link discussed a current book, Unhumans, which refers to the political left as subhuman and supports the strategies of Pinochet and Franco. The second link is some eight years earlier discussing the growth of the Christian nationalist cult.

On topic, I remember being taught that the LDS leaders were supposed to save the constitution when it hangs by a thread. I am no longer close enough to know if that is still taught. It should be. I hope it is.

[huckelberry]

On topic, I remember being taught that the LDS leaders were supposed to save the constitution when it hangs by a thread. I am no longer close enough to know if that is still taught. It should be. I hope it is.

I find myself wishing to turn this into a question for people with more recent involvement in the church who would know. Is the constitution still viewed as very valuable, to be preserved? Are people primed to preserve it? It does enshrine people making choices about leaders not just having divinely established rulers.It does embody a deep respect for people making choices.

Is freedom still valued in the church or has this pay and obey rubric squashed it?

I remember being taught that personal responsibility, personal integrity, personal choice, combined with embracing a can do hope was central . People were to learn in order to be effective in their choices. I remember being deeply put off by Protestant appearing to teach inability and dependence. Mormons knew the truth about people while some weird authoritarian dependency had been infused into Protestants.

If this is correct then Protestants are infected with incipient Christian fascism( see Cromwell or Calvin) and the LDS church may be a force to save democracy.

Or is the LDS church letting this deposit of faith slip away to serve authority?

(Yes the comparison is oversimplified. I have been and now perhaps increasingly ambivalent about Luther's Bondage of the Will)