Secular folks should worry.

[honorentheos]

It is his bigotry and divisiveness that I see as a threat to civil society.

This discussion is like every other discussion with MG. Underlying the premise and supposed talking points lie a foundational set of assertions that MG is not going to examine nor even allow to come into question. Yet everything he argues, both for and against, requires the assumptions be accepted in order to engage with him. And therefore, the surficial discussion is pointless.

"Civil society" is a fraught term that hardly has a settled definition. Its origins, meaning, composition, and preservation are debated. MG isn't debating about how Gen Z, and more honestly non-religious views, are affecting society writ large. He's making bland statements about how the conservative patriarchal myth he believes ought to exist isn't being sustained into the future by the rising generation. It's fed by a commercial/political marketing machine selling the myth it DID exist at one time and good people everywhere ought to unite in preserving and restoring that quasi-utopia.

Civil society, in concept, derives from the idea that individuals within political and economic systems form ties and shared community identities that, while not independent of them, are different from the political and economic systems of their culture and society. But what does that mean exactly? How does this public sphere and identity intertwine or maintain independence from the political or economic? That's where the discussion on the topic is more energetic.

But this should be interesting if you go back up a couple of paragraphs in what I wrote where I noted, "(The past golden society myth is) fed by a commercial/political marketing machine selling the myth it DID exist at one time and good people everywhere ought to unite in preserving and restoring that quasi-utopia." Economics and politics united in asserting the nature of the third sphere? Wait a minute...

MG isn't living in reality. He's told us he has a perpetual paid-for subscription to the narrative that asserts his religious community's religiously fundamental, politically and economically conservative views are both threatened AND beyond debate. He's so blinded by this he came to a Mormon-related board to share a dumb essay that Trojan-horsed an Evangelical superiority study into the Deseret News. Away for it's Mormon-Trojan horse article, the general thrust of the information did not show "other religious" people in a favorable manner when it was presented to Evangelical born-again Christians.

MG isn't here in good faith to discuss this. He's asserting it the same way a fundamentalist will assert Kangaroos must have lived outside of Australia because of the Noah's Ark story. Assuming Noah's Ark as fact, it's simply a matter of asserting over and over the conclusion this forces one to accept. Never mind the big, "If" regarding Noah's Ark being fact, of course.

The world is changing. It isn't didactic good v. evil. Democratic societies are constantly in flux. Rights either expand or contract to include more or fewer people depending on the values and beliefs of the society whose turn it is to champion them.

MG's path leads to self-delusion and incuriosity. When he dies as we all will, he won't know that it wasn't worth whatever hatred and disdain it created in his heart. He won't be made aware of the limitations his unwillingness to just look at the world without his assumptions causes. He will, like almost all of us, be forgotten in a couple of generations. And society will be what it has become at that time, too.

Personally I think the topic regarding civil society and its constituents is an interesting one. I do think that behavioral trends among folks threatens it's function in the interconnected place it occupies along with political and economic systems and values. But that's true of every generation and I don't think that is a Mormon discussion. Mormonism as a manifestation of modern American conservatism is a better description for what MG is concerned about. But when he views it as a war and the participants are combatants? Thanks but no thanks.

[malkie]

I assume that by "those such as yourself" you mean atheists - right?

I suppose I should be more accurate for legalistic folks like Res Ipsa. I’m referring to secular humanist non and/or anti theistic folks. Now if they want to define and or reclassify themselves in order to make it more palatable, then fine.

It is interesting, nonetheless, that there has been almost zero support for the Deseret News article on this board.

It does NOT support the worldview that many would like to see play out.

Regards,
MG

Please - I really don't understand why you have to say things like this. It has nothing to do with palatability. Do you really not understand, or are you simply acting?

It's statements like this that make me, once again, dislike interacting with you. I've been attempting to have a discussion in good faith, but I really get fed up with this kind of nonsense. I think I'm done with this thread.

[Res Ipsa]

MG 2.0 goes through elaborate mental gymnastics to turn me into his existential enemy. MG 2.0 is not my enemy. The fact that he is a person of faith is no threat to me, let alone an existential threat. It is his bigotry and divisiveness that I see as a threat to civil society.

As I think I’ve already said, but if not clearly…here goes again, I do not see YOU as a person as an existential threat. I have little doubt that you as a person are a decent and good human being. It is the secular humanist anti/non theistic school of thought that I believe poses a danger to civil society over the long haul.

That's what polite people call "sophistry." You have labeled me a "secularist" You are waging war against secularists. The sophistry is a simple excuse to avoid facing the fact that fear and hatred of your fellow humans permeates your worldview.

Here's how I think a person interested in promoting civil society would approach the library book issue you described. The vast majority of people would agree that not all books that have ever been and will ever be written are appropriate for a public elementary school's library. Also, it is not possible to stock every elementary school library with every book ever written, someone must decide which books will be contained in the library. We call them librarians.

Each librarian is a person, and although they educate themselves about children's literature, they are individuals who will make different decisions about which books to include in a library. Some books may be in nearly every library, while others may not.

A librarian being a human being, it is entirely foreseeable that they may include a book in an elementary school library that is inappropriate. In a civil society, someone who thinks a book in the library is not appropriate would raise the issue with the librarian, explaining why they thought the book is in appropriate and asking why the librarian selected the book to be in the library. That gives both individuals the chance to hear what the other person has to say and perhaps resolve the issue through mutual agreement. If not, there is a person who is in charge of the school, who we call a principal, who can get input from interested parties and decide the issue. And from there, one could go to the school board, the state's education department, or even the legislature. In a civil society, at each stage of discussion, there would an opportunity for discussion, including listening to and taking into consideration the viewpoints of others.

One could label this the "running to government" approach. It seeks to deprive each student of the school of the ability to check out the book from the library.

Another approach would be for a parent to take interest in the books that their child checks out and reads from the library and discuss it with them. They could even require their child to let the parent read a library book before the child reads it. If the parent becomes aware of a title that they do not want their child to read, they can tell the child.

Or they could send their child to another school or even home school.

One could label this the "self-reliant" approach. The parent takes responsibility for what their child reads and works with the child to make sure the child only reads "appropriate" books. The solution to the problem does not involve depriving anyone else's liberty or freedom.

And there a host of other solutions that people interested in promoting civil society could arrive at that would allow the library to provide a wide range of reading materials while still allowing parents to exercise the degree of control over their children's reading that they choose.

In a civil society, we would call this "solving a problem." Disagreements between or among people will arise in a civil society. A civil society should anticipate that those disagreement will arise and provides mechanisms to resolve them. However, that requires an understanding by the citizens of a civil society that they will not always get their way in any disagreement and agree that having a civil society is more important than winning any specific disagreement. above all, a person who supports civil society does not respond to not getting their way by trying to destroy the very things that allow a civil society to exist.

Here is what a person who believes in and promotes civil society would not do with a disagreement over library books: whip up an angry mob to try and intimidate librarians and other school officials into getting their way. They would not not make anonymous threats to the life and safety of librarians, teachers or principals. They would not engage in histrionics to inflate the types of disagreements we should expect to arise in civil society into extential crises that amount to declaring war (holy or cultural) against those with different points of view.

You aren't just waging war against ideas floating around in the ether. You are waging war on fellow humans, flesh and blood people just like yourself, and the harm I described above is a direct consequence of your holy war.

As I mentioned to malkie, Canadians, even if their society has become more secularized, in practice, as a result of governmental control and its historically entrenched views/inclinations towards less liberty and freedom in comparison to what our founding fathers envisioned (those that carried the day anyway), still carry the principles and ideas taught in the religious teachings of their forefathers in their hearts/consciousness.

Religious belief is neither necessary nor sufficient for liberty and freedom. The evidence is overwhelming that people can be "good" without God and "bad" with God. Frankly, you are conflating historical contingency with causation. You are also conflating religion and politics. Let's just skip the dance and do the full Godwin: that the religious teachings of the founders and their ideological descendants justified slavery is sufficient to conclude that there is room for independent judgment as to the merits of the founders beliefs in 1776.

Generationally, this may not last forever as the whispers of those principles and teachings taught within a religious system of thought and action gradually disappear from the collective consciousness.

Oooo. This is sounding like a Clive Barker horror story. Specific tenets of specific religious traditions have come and gone for tens of thousands of years. We have no idea which concepts were religious in origin or adopted by religion from some other source. The golden rule, for example, is simple common sense that appeals to consistency. It doesn't depend on religion in any way.

It is GenZ’s somewhat radical departure from the faith of their fathers that is causing some degree of consternation for many as to where this may lead as we look to the future. For reasons I’ve already laid out in this thread.

I like the way Tim Minchin said it in his Christmas song, White Wine in the Sun:

I don't go in for ancient wisdom
I don't believe just 'cause ideas are tenacious
It means they're worthy

Not everything about the "faith of their fathers" is by definition "worthy." The faith of their fathers is a collection of ideas that Generation Z, like your generation and every generation before them, gets to sort through and decide which are "worthy" and which are not. They get to do that. And the fact that they do not think the way you do does not justify your waging of war against them.

We see some of those unfortunate inclinations expressed in recent history as we are observing the cultural divide as to what is and isn’t appropriate for young innocent children to be exposed to in regards to sexuality. Apparently there are those that seem to have little or no difficulty accepting pornography in the school system of America’s schools. Secularism at its best/worst?

This is a crystal clear example of the bigotry that permeates your worldview. It's fairly obvious that you have no definition whatsoever for "secularism" other than "people who do not believe in MG 2.0's God." You use it solely as a pejorative label. That is the very essence of bigotry. I will state what I am confident is a 100% non-controversial proposition among people of not-faith: no public school library should contain pornography. To try and slur millions of your fellow humans by asserting they have little or no difficulty accepting pornography in school libraries is simply bigotry of the most malicious kind.

Some folks have raised an issue about the appropriateness of a significant number of books found in school libraries. OK, which books? Why are they inappropriate? Why did the librarians who included them in school libraries think they were appropriate. If any of them truly meet the definition of "pornography," it would have set a record for fastest resolution of a problem in history -- it would be pulled everywhere it exists at once. And not just out of school libraries -- from public libraries, amazon, barnes & noble –– basically everywhere except adult bookstores.

Why? Because "secularism," they way you use the term, simply does not exist. People of non-faith may subscribe to a number of different ideologies, or to bits and pieces of all kinds of different ideologies including those found in religion. But virtually none of them include putting pornography in school libraries. The "secularism" or "secular humanism" or "cultural marxism" that you rail about exists almost entirely in the imaginations of you and your fellow holy/cultural warriors.

Do you even know what percentage of the librarians that included "pornography" in the school library are people of faith? Or did you just assume they were "secularists" out of pure bigotry?

So, if you want to discuss books, tell me which ones students should not be free to check out in their school library, and we can read them and make an effort to learn why they were chosen to be included in the school library. Then we find out if we agree or disagree on question and debate the merits of the books. But, as far as I'm concerned, as I don't have any school aged children anymore, I'm happy to let those who are directly affected solve the problem.

Of course, there are other areas also where secular humanist anti theists are also trying to work themselves into the very fabric of traditional morality and ethical behavior (relativism). It is a war of sorts as you have alluded to. Two diametrically opposed schools of thought have a difficult time coexisting, even though people that may consider themselves to belong to one or the other of these schools of thought CAN and DO exist together as neighbors and often cosponsors of various charitable endeavors, etc.

MG 2.0, you've shown such a high degree of moral relativism in your discussions about Mormonism that it's amazing that you expect anyone to take this statement of yours seriously. Do we have to go beyond slavery in the U.S. to dispense with your notion that religion is actually based on any object set of morals and ethics? Or are we going to play an infinite game of "No true scotsman." You are just as much a moral relativist as I am. You just purport to choose from a narrower range of morals and ethics.

The million dollar question is whether this civility would/will continue if secular non/anti theistic majorities were to gain the upper hand. Religious folks, generationally, have been the ‘glue’ that hold things together. Not religiously powerful governments, mind you…but individuals and churches.

What "civility." Apparently you've missed the fact that the most fanatical religious folks in America aren't being "glue" -- they're functioning as a giant maul and splitting wedge. And you are right in there being "anti-glue" with the worst of them. You haven't even given the barest definition of "civility" to this point. At best, you've used it simply s a synonym for "religiosity." Congratulations -- you've proved a tautology. You've simply created a fantasy history out of whole cloth and claimed it represents reality.

[honorentheos]

Excellent post. But a point of order.

You've simply created a fantasy history out of whole cloth and claimed it represents reality.

MG isn't that creative. The fantasy history he presents is as mass produced and mass marketed as a Marvel or Star Wars movie and it's associated merchandise. It IS a fantasy, no doubt. But it's one with millions of LARPers. CPAC may as well be a CON.

[Res Ipsa]

I suppose I should be more accurate for legalistic folks like Res Ipsa. I’m referring to secular humanist non and/or anti theistic folks. Now if they want to define and or reclassify themselves in order to make it more palatable, then fine.

It is interesting, nonetheless, that there has been almost zero support for the Deseret News article on this board.

It does NOT support the worldview that many would like to see play out.

Regards,
MG

Please - I really don't understand why you have to say things like this. It has nothing to do with palatability. Do you really not understand, or are you simply acting?

It's statements like this that make me, once again, dislike interacting with you. I've been attempting to have a discussion in good faith, but I really get fed up with this kind of nonsense. I think I'm done with this thread.

My view has nothing to do with "legalism," and I think MG 2.0 understands that. He wants to make up a label for "people who aren't people of faith" and then claim a symmetry between those people and his religion. It's a rationalization for his "religious people friend" "everyone else enemy" mentality. To claim that a set of people defined only be something they are not is an "ideology" or "-ism" is sheer nonsense.

[Res Ipsa]

Excellent post. But a point of order.

You've simply created a fantasy history out of whole cloth and claimed it represents reality.

MG isn't that creative. The fantasy history he presents is as mass produced and mass marketed as a Marvel or Star Wars movie and it's associated merchandise. It IS a fantasy, no doubt. But it's one with millions of LARPers. CPAC may as well be a CON.

Point of order well taken. It would have been more accurate to describe it as mythology common among those with a certain combination of theistic-political views.

[Res Ipsa]

Where does Jesus command his disciples to hate? He tells them it is more important to love him than to love their families. He tells them to put following him above family relationships. But language are you referencing when you say he taught his disciples to hate their families?

Morley is correctly citing the passage I had in mind when I offered an example of mixed messaging (sorry I figured we were on the same page when you too referenced Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament). But I may be confused on the point you’re raising. We can pick another example, like Jesus never knew many believers or He came not to bring peace but a sword…referencing examples in the gospels is natural since it appears each gospel was written with the previous gospels in mind, at least after mark’s gospel. It’s as if these subsequent authors intended to change it for their own reasons. But that suggests no consistent or wise God endorses those works, unless of course he endorses mixed messaging—love your enemy according to Matt’s gospel and hate your close relatives according to Luke’s. Expand beyond the gospels and the Bible is full of mixed messaging as I see it.

Thanks, Stem and Morley. I was reading the account in Matthew of the same event, which uses priorities of love in contrast to the binary love/hate. I know nothing of what a God would do in any given circumstance. But, in context, including Jesus's use of metaphor and hyperbole (did he literally mean that faith could move a mountain?), I don't think that it's reasonable to conclude that Jesus was telling his followers to literally hate their families.

[MG 2.0]

I suppose I should be more accurate for legalistic folks like Res Ipsa. I’m referring to secular humanist non and/or anti theistic folks. Now if they want to define and or reclassify themselves in order to make it more palatable, then fine.

It is interesting, nonetheless, that there has been almost zero support for the Deseret News article on this board.

It does NOT support the worldview that many would like to see play out.

Regards,
MG

Please - I really don't understand why you have to say things like this. It has nothing to do with palatability. Do you really not understand, or are you simply acting?

It's statements like this that make me, once again, dislike interacting with you. I've been attempting to have a discussion in good faith, but I really get fed up with this kind of nonsense. I think I'm done with this thread.

The way I see it is that there was no harm, no foul. If you want to see it otherwise, so be it. I’m enjoying the interaction. But if you want to pull out that’s fine. Your perspective will be missed however.

Regards,
MG

[honorentheos]

Please - I really don't understand why you have to say things like this. It has nothing to do with palatability. Do you really not understand, or are you simply acting?

It's statements like this that make me, once again, dislike interacting with you. I've been attempting to have a discussion in good faith, but I really get fed up with this kind of nonsense. I think I'm done with this thread.

The way I see it is that there was no harm, no foul. If you want to see it otherwise, so be it. I’m enjoying the interaction. But if you want to pull out that’s fine. Your perspective will be missed however.

Regards,
MG

In the pickup games I played in, if someone called a foul and the offender said, "No harm, no foul", usually this hurt the game as pickup games relied on folks being able to call and accept their own fouls. Someone unable to agree they'd fouled someone else and asserting there was no harm done so everyone should just keep playing was probably not going to be told when we played next. Worst case, they ended up on the receiving end of an undeniable foul with the, "no harm, no foul" thrown back at them. Again, bad for the game.

[Kishkumen]

CPAC may as well be a CON.

Isn’t it though?