By the way, Adelstein's a former highly confident atheist turned agnostic because of his in-depth study of the philosophy of religion. So he's not a true believer yet!
Out of curiosity, how does this affect your opinion of the significance of religion? I’ve always found the question of God’s existence to be of little practical interest because even if it were a mathematical certainty that the God of natural theology - the first cause etc. - must exist, it is almost certainly not the God of religion that is basically just an omnipotent human being who’s perfect by human standards, shares human values, and cares about whether humans masturbate. Proving the existence of a deity gets one about 0.1% of the way from atheism to a religious view of the world. It seems odd to me that it’s treated as the most important thing to prove when it’s actually perfectly consistent with functional atheism.
Because there are other arguments for those religions, and the existence of God increases the prior probability of those arguments significantly (God existing increases the probability that the resurrection happened, which is high evidence for the truth of Christianity). There are also very strong deontological reasons using secular intuitions that much of Christian sexual morality is correct. I've been working on an argument for that that I'd like to publish on Substack sometime.
I wouldn't really call wokeism a "secular religion" - not in the typical sense of secular anyway. If secularism is the separation of religion and the state then clearly wokeism is not a secular religion as its tenets are often codified into law or are enforced by state officials even if there is no official codification of said tenets.
But secular/secularism has no direct connection to “separation of church and state”; it merely means distinct from [traditional, spiritual] religion. And that is exactly what wokeism is, especially for younger leftists.
In a similar way, “global warming will destroy the planet” is the secular religion for many older liberals/leftists.
I don’t understand how you’re so intelligent but can’t see “wokeism” as simply part and parcel of the social negotiation process inherent in the discovery of group social identity and cooperation.
If you cannot see how our turn towards social justice is a matter of finding mutual interests in order to cooperate, it might mean that you’re incapable of bargaining fairly. If you cannot be trusted to bargain, you ought to be excluded from social negotiations until you can learn to cooperate.
Wow this adelstein guy is really smart and good looking
By the way, Adelstein's a former highly confident atheist turned agnostic because of his in-depth study of the philosophy of religion. So he's not a true believer yet!
I lean towards theism at this point—maybe 60% odds.
Out of curiosity, how does this affect your opinion of the significance of religion? I’ve always found the question of God’s existence to be of little practical interest because even if it were a mathematical certainty that the God of natural theology - the first cause etc. - must exist, it is almost certainly not the God of religion that is basically just an omnipotent human being who’s perfect by human standards, shares human values, and cares about whether humans masturbate. Proving the existence of a deity gets one about 0.1% of the way from atheism to a religious view of the world. It seems odd to me that it’s treated as the most important thing to prove when it’s actually perfectly consistent with functional atheism.
Because there are other arguments for those religions, and the existence of God increases the prior probability of those arguments significantly (God existing increases the probability that the resurrection happened, which is high evidence for the truth of Christianity). There are also very strong deontological reasons using secular intuitions that much of Christian sexual morality is correct. I've been working on an argument for that that I'd like to publish on Substack sometime.
Oh wow, I didn't know that! Thanks for sharing!
Where can I watch the video after the fact?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLZZfnJPqGE
might want to listen to this.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noj4phMT9OE
I wouldn't really call wokeism a "secular religion" - not in the typical sense of secular anyway. If secularism is the separation of religion and the state then clearly wokeism is not a secular religion as its tenets are often codified into law or are enforced by state officials even if there is no official codification of said tenets.
But secular/secularism has no direct connection to “separation of church and state”; it merely means distinct from [traditional, spiritual] religion. And that is exactly what wokeism is, especially for younger leftists.
In a similar way, “global warming will destroy the planet” is the secular religion for many older liberals/leftists.
I don’t understand how you’re so intelligent but can’t see “wokeism” as simply part and parcel of the social negotiation process inherent in the discovery of group social identity and cooperation.
Because none of that is relevant as to whether wokeness is true or a religion or not. An idea can have all of those qualities and be obviously false.
Do you see how this works yet? "Woke" isn't a religion. It's a cooperation strategy.
If you cannot see how our turn towards social justice is a matter of finding mutual interests in order to cooperate, it might mean that you’re incapable of bargaining fairly. If you cannot be trusted to bargain, you ought to be excluded from social negotiations until you can learn to cooperate.