The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Destroying evangelical Christianity in America: tips and tricks
Qingu
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Most people here agree that evangelical Christians are a bad influence on America. I believe they are a deluded, dangerously large cult.
But this isn't a thread to talk about how much evangelicals suck. This is a thread to talk about the best strategy for diminishing their influence and, ideally, "deconverting." By strategy, I don't mean on a day-to-day personal level; I mean government policy.
Strategy 1: Ostracism. This strategy calls for cutting off all contact with the evangelical voting bloc. Don't even try to work with them; certainly don't invite them to speak at important public events like inaugurations. Treat them like the Ku Klux Klan. Renouncing their cult should be a precondition for working with the Obama administration.
Strategy 2: Integration. This strategy calls for breaking down the barriers between our world and the evangelical world (many of which were put up by the evangelicals). Invite them to work together with us on common ground problems. Include them in public rituals.
First of all, I want to say that reasonable people can disagree on the best strategy here. If someone promotes Strategy 1, that doesn't mean they're "intolerant" or that they want to disenfranchise evangelicals. If someone promotes Strategy 2, that doesn't mean they hate gay people or are supportive of any evangelical position.
That said, I am all for Strategy 2, and here is why: A cult only survives if it walls itself from the outside world. Cults cannot survive if their members' worldviews are constantly challenged and are presented with perfectly good alternate lifestyles. And evangelicals have largely succeeded in walling themselves off—they have their own communities, their own commercial entities, even their own pop culture, TV, and music.
Evangelicals are familiar with alternate worldviews, but largely in strawman form. (They know about evolution just enough to "disprove" it with creationism.) Few of them have ever actually spoken in depth about these issues with someone who can rigorously defend them.
More importantly, their moral and emotional views go unchallenged in their communities. They are taught that the world is full of sin and that the Bible is innerrantly true and moral. Few of them, especially the younger ones, have ever really questioned their own moral worldview. I think this, more than learning about any "rational" counterargument, is why so many evangelical kids go atheist when they go to secular college—they are exposed to a rival moral worldview and, on an emotional level, see that it's not so bad.
I think integration is the best policy because I am confident in the superiority of the secular, Western ideology. I am confident that in a free and open exchange of ideas, our ideas will eventually win out. The problem with evangelicals is that they have walled their culture off, blocking that free and open exchange. The ostracism strategy, rather than helping solve this problem, really just reinforces it. An integration strategy may take generations to have an effect, but it is the best way of defeating this cult—because cults cannot survive in the open.
But this isn't a thread to talk about how much evangelicals suck. This is a thread to talk about the best strategy for diminishing their influence and, ideally, "deconverting." By strategy, I don't mean on a day-to-day personal level; I mean government policy.
Strategy 1: Ostracism. This strategy calls for cutting off all contact with the evangelical voting bloc. Don't even try to work with them; certainly don't invite them to speak at important public events like inaugurations. Treat them like the Ku Klux Klan. Renouncing their cult should be a precondition for working with the Obama administration.
Strategy 2: Integration. This strategy calls for breaking down the barriers between our world and the evangelical world (many of which were put up by the evangelicals). Invite them to work together with us on common ground problems. Include them in public rituals.
First of all, I want to say that reasonable people can disagree on the best strategy here. If someone promotes Strategy 1, that doesn't mean they're "intolerant" or that they want to disenfranchise evangelicals. If someone promotes Strategy 2, that doesn't mean they hate gay people or are supportive of any evangelical position.
That said, I am all for Strategy 2, and here is why: A cult only survives if it walls itself from the outside world. Cults cannot survive if their members' worldviews are constantly challenged and are presented with perfectly good alternate lifestyles. And evangelicals have largely succeeded in walling themselves off—they have their own communities, their own commercial entities, even their own pop culture, TV, and music.
Evangelicals are familiar with alternate worldviews, but largely in strawman form. (They know about evolution just enough to "disprove" it with creationism.) Few of them have ever actually spoken in depth about these issues with someone who can rigorously defend them.
More importantly, their moral and emotional views go unchallenged in their communities. They are taught that the world is full of sin and that the Bible is innerrantly true and moral. Few of them, especially the younger ones, have ever really questioned their own moral worldview. I think this, more than learning about any "rational" counterargument, is why so many evangelical kids go atheist when they go to secular college—they are exposed to a rival moral worldview and, on an emotional level, see that it's not so bad.
I think integration is the best policy because I am confident in the superiority of the secular, Western ideology. I am confident that in a free and open exchange of ideas, our ideas will eventually win out. The problem with evangelicals is that they have walled their culture off, blocking that free and open exchange. The ostracism strategy, rather than helping solve this problem, really just reinforces it. An integration strategy may take generations to have an effect, but it is the best way of defeating this cult—because cults cannot survive in the open.
Qingu on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
That said, I want so badly to ostracize them, but then it'd just be another militia movement in 50 years and we'd have to deal with that brand of crazy with guns trying to overthrow the US.
So long as they can create walls you cannot fully integrate them.
I'm not saying we should "fully" integrate them; that's probably impossible. I'm saying that we should try to better integrate them, to peel some of them off and reduce their influence. There will obvious be holdouts.
Option #2 is slower, but more effective. The key point behind highly conservative Christian values is the 'I'm-right-you're-wrong' mentality. The only way to break that is to expose them to the views of the rest of the world, so that they can see for themselves that their view isn't the only right one. If you try ot force it upon them, they'll just resist. Of course, we'll still have some tightly knit communities that resist change (i.e. Mormons), but some will always avoid change whenever possible.
I'm a product of option #2. I grew up in a very conservative Christian household - I went to church weekly, was int eh choir, I was even an altarboy (but I'm not Catholic, thank god). I was convinced that what I was taught was right, and that everyone who disagreed was simply a sinner. I honestly felt that people who didn't go to church were beneath me. However, a few years at university and a lot of exploring the Internets (and then taking a course or two on religion) slowly turned me around. Now, I'm merely a Pastafarian.
One big issue for me, and undoubtably for a lot of people, is that of family traditions. If children were free to choose their religion, these sorts of cultural shifts would happen a lot. I was lucky enough to have a family that mostly accepted my decision. I know many people whose parents are pretty hostile to atheism and 'liberal values'. The kids of these families are also strongly religious, and so the pattern will continue. How do you break that? Other than encouraging kids to rebel against their parents?
Yeah, that's the thing, it's partially that we're not walling them off, and it's partially their specific brand of, umm, mortar, to carry on the imagery.
Their reaction to secularized, moderately religious people is that they've lapsed. It's not about lifestyle or anything like that, it's about what their god has to say about it, and while the evangelicals have ceded a bit to reality, they're far more devoted (and generally have a stronger understanding of the text) than the moderates, and this is why moderates are simply failed individuals to evangelicals.
So, hypothetically, integration might work if there were a real way to integrate. I mean, lots of them hate Rick Warren for being too liberal. If we could break their devotion, they'd integrate naturally. Until they don't believe in gods at all, this isn't going to happen.
This is an incredibly stupid statement.
Are you honestly telling me you wouldn't eliminate ANY culture group through ethical cultural manipulation (rather than, say, gunning them down)?
Neo-Nazis?
Jihadists?
KKKers?
Ostracizing them would simply reinforce to these kids that the outside world "hates" them.
Even the adults are, ultimately, the victim of prior generations of stupidity. It's unethical to deprive them of a chance to get the hell out of that deranged little world.
There needs to be a general breaking down of the attitude that being a jackass if you're religious is acceptable. Out of fear of retribution everyone pays lip service to the fundies "beliefs" even when those beliefs would get make you a social outcast in a non-religious setting.
Aren't evangelicals, like, 30% of the Christians in America? I think the Mormons are next after that. Might not be a minority.
Again, I'm not saying they're right to act the way they do, I'm just saying they aren't typically trying to be malicious about it.
Oh noes we hate harmful cultures so we're evil now?
Who did you expect this thread to attract?
Are you fucking serious?
There's a right side of history and a wrong side of it. These people are on the wrong side. Would you have said it was bigoted and radical as trying to reduce numbers and the influence of racists in 1960? Exact same thing.
So the ends justify the means?
Now this is an extreme example on my part, but this is where ethnic cleansing comes from. A group sees themselves as being "right" and another group as being obviously "wrong". Therefore, it's perfectly fine to destroy that other group.
Whether you're right or not, these are human beings we're talking about. What's more, with evangelicals, they're not even being intentionally hostile towards you, they're just doing things you disagree with. Cutting them off from society seems like a slippery slope to me.
These people? Really? And where do we draw the line? Do we stop at the Pew Jumpers and faith healers? Or do we go after the door to door bible salesmen? Or is the line at church caroling groups and charities? Wait, maybe the line is at anyone who celebrates Christmas, or Easter? By god, why stop there! Lets go after anyone who says "God Bless You" when you sneeze! Or that guy right there because he looks like he could be religious, and I haven't seen him for two sundays in a row!
Edit: Hell lets get those guys because they are from a different tribe than us! (Rwanda anyone?)
Dude, where the fuck are we advocating extreme and oppressive measures? The strawman, it burns us.
And it's not just them doing things I disagree with. It's them actively choosing to be agents of hate and intolerance in our society. We shouldn't be debating this with an air of moral relativity when we're talking political movements because there is no moral relativity in the Constitution.
This discussion has nothing to do with depriving evangelicals of rights.
Ostrich.
There are good means and bad means.
Bad means include murder, torture, and enslavement.
Good means include education, discussion, and cooperation.
I was going to be really careful and deliberate about responding to this because I really just don't want to get banned again because of some ass like you. Instead, I'll just ask you a question:
Can you show me where I'm advocating something that could be harmful for those included in your ridiculously useless, pointless, and ignorant hyperbole?
Also, I'm not even talking about talking to evangelicals here. I'm talking about public policy, not interpersonal interaction. Completely different levels of discussion.
It's "Should the Obama administration reach out to the evangelical community with gestures like Warren speaking at the invocation?"
Not "Should the people in the Obama administration refrain from referring to evangelicals as cultists in press conferences?"
In the OP, one example given is that for someone to work with the Obama administration, they should have to renounce their evangelical faith. You're literally saying that they should have to give up their deepest beliefs if they want to integrate. Again, some evangelicals actually aren't crazy. Yes, the most visual ones tend to be, but with a group that large, generalizations are pretty inaccurate.
You didn't read the OP, or you completely failed at reading comprehension.