Are Safe Spaces for Religious Millennials Justified?

[AspieMillennial]

(07-02-2021, 11:44 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-02-2021, 05:10 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: One thing is that religious Millennials and Zoomers are refusing to date outside the faith. Believers are also divorcing the nonbelieving spouses for disbelief. There is more hardcore dedication as atheism becomes more common.

Civic generations are supposed to be more collegial, and critics of Boomer righteousness are looking to Millennials and Gen Z to be more accepting, less doctrinaire, more flexible and more fact-oriented. You are saying that today's polarization will continue through your generation, and that Millennials are just as uncompromising as Boomers are alleged to be. I don't know if you are correct about your generation, though. It's your view, your report. We'll see.

Where is my motive to compromise though? I think the more they want to convert us to atheism the less we should compromise. You got to live as the majority. We don't so we need to be firm.

[AspieMillennial]

(07-02-2021, 11:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-02-2021, 07:13 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(07-02-2021, 07:02 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-02-2021, 05:10 PM)BAspieMillennial Wrote: One thing is that religious Millennials and Zoomers are refusing to date outside the faith. Believers are also divorcing the nonbelieving spouses for disbelief. There is more hardcore dedication as atheism becomes more common.

So you are now the intolerants you accuse others of being. Be a bit introspective. It’s extremely valuable.

Millennials are very much into consensus. If we compromise our beliefs they will overpower us and will refuse to compromise with us. We will have compromised for no reason. They don't live and let live so we don't have that option as Christians.

It could be the consensus of the 1T. It could be the secular tech-oriented attitude, and the middle aged millennials will conform and set the tone and religion will be suppressed. It will be interesting to see if you religious folks can find your place in the next "high-tech high." Will there be enough consensus and enough prosperity to allow a conformist society, or won't there still be so many concerns that rebels and traditionalists alike will still question authority and depart from the predominant consensus? I tend to think so.

In the last 1T, it was kind of a mix. People had both secular and religious; well, sorta. We had the humanist manifesto becoming accepted and the materialist and tech worship and progress is our most important product, and the men in the grey flannel suit keeping up with the Joneses and the Giacometti Man and the inner gyroscopes. We also had Norman Vincent Peale (an inspiration to Trump) and plain-looking churches on every street corner and people going dutifully on Sundays to lifeless services and getting preached at. You could have you choice, or do both; in either case in mindless robotic motion. But it was OK, at least for white guys; they had their secure careers and pensions and earned their silver watches, and the middle class was growing and America was the top and lots of great new conveniences ("what will they think of next?") and amazing freeways and cars that looked like rocket ships and TV shows like Leave it to Beaver and those disgusting westerns all the time creating the myth of America, and we only had to worry about the Russians and love the bomb, and maybe look for a red under every bed.... 

If you weren't a white straight adult guy though, you were fair game for abuse or put downs or red-lined-confinement in ghettos, which however were still communities. Not for long though, because urban renewal and black removal was in the works too.

Society? What society? You can move and have separate communities doing their own thing. If the majority doesn't accept us it's time to be more insular. Only befriend and marry each other.

[AspieMillennial]

This 1T will be more like the post Civil War 1T.
One side will win the war but there won't be unanimous consensus. It will just be a peace because of people getting tired of fighting. Each side will live apart and it will seem idyllic because keeping apart will keep the peace for now. Political arguments will be less because of prosperity but also because each side won't keep the other side as friends or company. Politics and religion will be as segregated as the races were in the 50s. That will keep the peace until the 2T because the only way to get full consensus is separated social circles. 

 In the workplace discussing politics will be taboo and it will be taboo on ads or mixed unknown company.

[pbrower2a]

(07-03-2021, 04:04 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: This 1T will be more like the post Civil War 1T.
One side will win the war but there won't be unanimous consensus. It will just be a peace because of people getting tired of fighting. Each side will live apart and it will seem idyllic because keeping apart will keep the peace for now. Political arguments will be less because of prosperity but also because each side won't keep the other side as friends or company. Politics and religion will be as segregated as the races were in the 50s. That will keep the peace until the 2T because the only way to get full consensus is separated social circles. 

 In the workplace discussing politics will be taboo and it will be taboo on ads or mixed unknown company.

Because this Crisis Era has no parallel in any prior Crisis in Anglo-American history and is yet to be completed, the forthcoming 1T is hard to predict. We have no shooting war (unless you are counting hypodermic needles "shooting" and getting an injection from a soldier a warlike activity), and how the politics of this Crisis Era will play out is anyone's guess. We had an attempted coup, dammit, in an effort to extend a Presidential term unconstitutionally, for which there is no precedent at any time in American history. 

We still have a struggle on voting rights, and how that plays out may determine what sort of 1T we have.  We could end up with an extended polarization of America into a relatively-liberal half of the country and a reactionary near-half. If the Right gets its way, then power in choosing the President could revert to state legislatures in some states in  determining how the electoral vote goes for those states. Because a 1T is not a good time for political activism of any kind that could lead to an enshrinement of neoliberal economics once the dust settles. What would that be like? 

As the billionaire oilman H. L. Hunt put it some years ago, "He who owns the gold makes the rules", and political figures like Senators Ron Johnson and Representative Marjorie Taylor Green could be the norm because they endorse plutocracy at its purest and harshest. 

On the other side we could start making adjustments for the realities of 

(1) global warming -- the Pacific Northwest is getting a scare with whether more typical of Riyadh than of Seattle... and there could be more  We stop this or it can make life miserable and precarious -- especially as its worst effects could arrive in time for the Crisis of 2100, when much of the world's prime farmland and the homesteads of peasant farmers on such land are inundated. I've asked someone who denies the nasty potential for global warming, "where do 200 million people from Bangladesh go? 

(2) the end of scarcity -- the capitalist system will have no easy way of making Big Money for economic elites who can exploit a need at dear prices for the consumer. That could slow progress in the promotion of technologies usually lucrative for suppliers. As a corollary, gross need will no longer drive people to do work that they loathe without some purpose other than an animal level of survival. This will change many of the assumptions about life in general, and what looked like the solution to all human problems may create a new set. 

(3) the singularity -- when machine intelligence overtakes ours. That could be big trouble. 

(4) demographic shifts -- most notably that Africa is undergoing a population explosion when the rest of the world has a stable population. 

All big changes have moral conserquences.

[Captain Genet]

(07-02-2021, 11:44 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-02-2021, 05:10 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: One thing is that religious Millennials and Zoomers are refusing to date outside the faith. Believers are also divorcing the nonbelieving spouses for disbelief. There is more hardcore dedication as atheism becomes more common.

Civic generations are supposed to be more collegial, and critics of Boomer righteousness are looking to Millennials and Gen Z to be more accepting, less doctrinaire, more flexible and more fact-oriented. You are saying that today's polarization will continue through your generation, and that Millennials are just as uncompromising as Boomers are alleged to be. I don't know if you are correct about your generation, though. It's your view, your report. We'll see.

It might be a turning's feature: everybody gets more open-minded during 2T and 3T, and everybody gets more dogmatic during 4T and 1T.

[David Horn]

(07-03-2021, 03:59 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: Society? What society? You can move and have separate communities doing their own thing. If the majority doesn't accept us it's time to be more insular. Only befriend and marry each other.

That model has been tried and typically works poorly over the long haul.  Yes, the Amish are able to function outside modernity, and the so did the Shakers -- for a while, at least.  Communitees like Amana didn't so much disappear as they slowly rejoined the majoority.  So that idea can work -- has worked -- but it's rare.

[AspieMillennial]

(07-10-2021, 07:10 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-03-2021, 03:59 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: Society? What society? You can move and have separate communities doing their own thing. If the majority doesn't accept us it's time to be more insular. Only befriend and marry each other.

That model has been tried and typically works poorly over the long haul.  Yes, the Amish are able to function outside modernity, and the so did the Shakers -- for a while, at least.  Communitees like Amana didn't so much disappear as they slowly rejoined the majoority.  So that idea can work -- has worked -- but it's rare.

I mean more not befriending them as much or marrying them. Also separate places to socialize and separate clubs. There won't be any more Christians in my generation if we don't do this.

[Eric the Green]

(07-10-2021, 05:19 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(07-10-2021, 07:10 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-03-2021, 03:59 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: Society? What society? You can move and have separate communities doing their own thing. If the majority doesn't accept us it's time to be more insular. Only befriend and marry each other.

That model has been tried and typically works poorly over the long haul.  Yes, the Amish are able to function outside modernity, and the so did the Shakers -- for a while, at least.  Communitees like Amana didn't so much disappear as they slowly rejoined the majoority.  So that idea can work -- has worked -- but it's rare.

I mean more not befriending them as much or marrying them. Also separate places to socialize and separate clubs. There won't be any more Christians in my generation if we don't do this.

I know there was a singles club advertised called Christian Mingle (the announcer sounded like it was Chrissian Mingle).

[pbrower2a]

(07-10-2021, 05:19 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(07-10-2021, 07:10 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-03-2021, 03:59 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: Society? What society? You can move and have separate communities doing their own thing. If the majority doesn't accept us it's time to be more insular. Only befriend and marry each other.

That model has been tried and typically works poorly over the long haul.  Yes, the Amish are able to function outside modernity, and the so did the Shakers -- for a while, at least.  Communities like Amana didn't so much disappear as they slowly rejoined the majority.  So that idea can work -- has worked -- but it's rare.

I mean more not befriending them as much or marrying them. Also separate places to socialize and separate clubs. There won't be any more Christians in my generation if we don't do this.

First of all as a Christian you can give testimony in your personal life that makes you a desirable model of life -- including your faith -- to others. America has plenty of fake Christians, the biggest of which is Donald Judas Iscariot Trump, who would have likely separated the infant Jesus from his mother Mary and stepfather Joseph. Maybe part of your life is what you don't do, like frequenting strip clubs, whorehouses, and porno palaces. Maybe because you have poor facial recognition you might find cheating difficult at best. Aw, too bad! (OK, I have no knack for hot-wiring cars, so I will never be an effective car thief).  

As an Aspie, I recognize that there is much that I could not get away with... but if some woman had gotten me to marry her I would be extremely loyal to her. I'm not a good liar, and because my facial expressions do not match my words I must make my actions prove my words. (The perfect compromise might be that she has children, but not by me, as a child by me might end up institutionalized for extreme autism). 

You can choose to live without hypocrisy. That is inconvenient, but also precious.

[David Horn]

(07-10-2021, 05:19 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(07-10-2021, 07:10 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-03-2021, 03:59 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: Society? What society? You can move and have separate communities doing their own thing. If the majority doesn't accept us it's time to be more insular. Only befriend and marry each other.

That model has been tried and typically works poorly over the long haul.  Yes, the Amish are able to function outside modernity, and the so did the Shakers -- for a while, at least.  Communitees like Amana didn't so much disappear as they slowly rejoined the majoority.  So that idea can work -- has worked -- but it's rare.

I mean more not befriending them as much or marrying them. Also separate places to socialize and separate clubs. There won't be any more Christians in my generation if we don't do this.

You already have the perfect gathering place: church.  Any place in the public sphere is open to all, and private member-only-"clubs" are more elitist than what you have in mind.

[AspieMillennial]

(07-11-2021, 10:12 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-10-2021, 05:19 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(07-10-2021, 07:10 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-03-2021, 03:59 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: Society? What society? You can move and have separate communities doing their own thing. If the majority doesn't accept us it's time to be more insular. Only befriend and marry each other.

That model has been tried and typically works poorly over the long haul.  Yes, the Amish are able to function outside modernity, and the so did the Shakers -- for a while, at least.  Communitees like Amana didn't so much disappear as they slowly rejoined the majoority.  So that idea can work -- has worked -- but it's rare.

I mean more not befriending them as much or marrying them. Also separate places to socialize and separate clubs. There won't be any more Christians in my generation if we don't do this.

You already have the perfect gathering place: church.  Any place in the public sphere is open to all, and private member-only-"clubs" are more elitist than what you have in mind.

I think if atheists are allowed to be intolerant to religious people and state their non belief in God as a fact, I shouldn't have to be tolerant of the atheists. Also if they are to become the majority of my generation, technically I am a minority and they are the ones oppressing me.

[pbrower2a]

(08-10-2021, 06:16 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(07-11-2021, 10:12 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-10-2021, 05:19 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(07-10-2021, 07:10 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-03-2021, 03:59 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: Society? What society? You can move and have separate communities doing their own thing. If the majority doesn't accept us it's time to be more insular. Only befriend and marry each other.

That model has been tried and typically works poorly over the long haul.  Yes, the Amish are able to function outside modernity, and the so did the Shakers -- for a while, at least.  Communitees like Amana didn't so much disappear as they slowly rejoined the majoority.  So that idea can work -- has worked -- but it's rare.

I mean more not befriending them as much or marrying them. Also separate places to socialize and separate clubs. There won't be any more Christians in my generation if we don't do this.

You already have the perfect gathering place: church.  Any place in the public sphere is open to all, and private member-only-"clubs" are more elitist than what you have in mind.

I think if atheists are allowed to be intolerant to religious people and state their non belief in God as a fact, I shouldn't have to be tolerant of the atheists. Also if they are to become the majority of my generation, technically I am a minority and they are the ones oppressing me.

The only atheists who were really-bad people were the Marxist-Leninists who were awful for reasons other than rejection of religious faith. 

I suggest that you take a look at the writings of Bertrand Russell, who rejected religion for very different reasons than any political fanaticism. There's much to find fault with with Christianity, such as that almost all of the Nazi war criminals were of Christian origin. Add to this some horrible deeds done in devotion, most infamously the Inquisition. To be sure, the Roman Catholic Church fully repudiates the Inquisition today, bit it cannot undo the damage. In case you think that the Anglican communion is innocent, then consider how well it served the despot Henry VIII who adopted the same savagery against Catholics as the Inquisition did to non-Catholics. The Crusades are nothing suited to Christian pride. 

I saw some Jewish literature refuting Jesus as the Messiah on multiple grounds, and the harshest is that Christians have done horrible things. A religion that could truly improve people would not churn out so many bad people. Oh, yes, there are good ones, but their goodness is following Jewish moral laws in ways that, should such behavior be the norm, will get them to Heaven -- the Jewish Heaven, the only one that exists. They will convert at the gate. (I certainly don't want to go where the Nazis are!)  

Christians in Europe and the Americas were involved in one of the greatest crimes ever against Humanity in the Atlantic slave trade. Add to this the mistreatment of Native populations of the New World... Never show pride in any connection to the Crusaders (Kill them all -- and God will sort it out!). Oddly, the Catholic Church (which now repudiates this) encouraged the Inquisition for devout reasons. Need I remind you of all the people of Christian origin who did the absolute worst on behalf of Nazism?  

To be sure, I have much good to say of Quakers, who proscribed slavery quickly as an abomination and rejected militarism as a horror. I did one of those tests at BeliefNet that tests what one's beliefs are and matches them to the closest religious tradition. The three best matches for me were 

1. liberal Quakerism
2. Unitarian-Universalism
3. Reform Judaism

I was not brought up in any one of those traditions. Oddly my parents were antisemitic.. well, if one is to rebel against one thing, that is one of the best things to rebel against.

[AspieMillennial]

(08-11-2021, 04:26 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(08-10-2021, 06:16 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(07-11-2021, 10:12 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-10-2021, 05:19 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(07-10-2021, 07:10 AM)David Horn Wrote: That model has been tried and typically works poorly over the long haul.  Yes, the Amish are able to function outside modernity, and the so did the Shakers -- for a while, at least.  Communitees like Amana didn't so much disappear as they slowly rejoined the majoority.  So that idea can work -- has worked -- but it's rare.

I mean more not befriending them as much or marrying them. Also separate places to socialize and separate clubs. There won't be any more Christians in my generation if we don't do this.

You already have the perfect gathering place: church.  Any place in the public sphere is open to all, and private member-only-"clubs" are more elitist than what you have in mind.

I think if atheists are allowed to be intolerant to religious people and state their non belief in God as a fact, I shouldn't have to be tolerant of the atheists. Also if they are to become the majority of my generation, technically I am a minority and they are the ones oppressing me.

The only atheists who were really-bad people were the Marxist-Leninists who were awful for reasons other than rejection of religious faith. 

I suggest that you take a look at the writings of Bertrand Russell, who rejected religion for very different reasons than any political fanaticism. There's much to find fault with with Christianity, such as that almost all of the Nazi war criminals were of Christian origin. Add to this some horrible deeds done in devotion, most infamously the Inquisition. To be sure, the Roman Catholic Church fully repudiates the Inquisition today, bit it cannot undo the damage. In case you think that the Anglican communion is innocent, then consider how well it served the despot Henry VIII who adopted the same savagery against Catholics as the Inquisition did to non-Catholics. The Crusades are nothing suited to Christian pride. 

I saw some Jewish literature refuting Jesus as the Messiah on multiple grounds, and the harshest is that Christians have done horrible things. A religion that could truly improve people would not churn out so many bad people. Oh, yes, there are good ones, but their goodness is following Jewish moral laws in ways that, should such behavior be the norm, will get them to Heaven -- the Jewish Heaven, the only one that exists. They will convert at the gate. (I certainly don't want to go where the Nazis are!)  

Christians in Europe and the Americas were involved in one of the greatest crimes ever against Humanity in the Atlantic slave trade. Add to this the mistreatment of Native populations of the New World... Never show pride in any connection to the Crusaders (Kill them all -- and God will sort it out!). Oddly, the Catholic Church (which now repudiates this) encouraged the Inquisition for devout reasons. Need I remind you of all the people of Christian origin who did the absolute worst on behalf of Nazism?  

To be sure, I have much good to say of Quakers, who proscribed slavery quickly as an abomination and rejected militarism as a horror. I did one of those tests at BeliefNet that tests what one's beliefs are and matches them to the closest religious tradition. The three best matches for me were 

1. liberal Quakerism
2. Unitarian-Universalism
3. Reform Judaism

I was not brought up in any one of those traditions. Oddly my parents were antisemitic.. well, if one is to rebel against one thing, that is one of the best things to rebel against.

There is no objective morality under atheism. If you take atheism to its conclusions, you are just a bunch of random cells created randomly and there is no objective value for anyone's life. The Nazis views were very social Darwinist. It was based on what they thought was survival of the fittest and they culled the fittest through murder and thought it was evolution. The goal was ultimately to create a master race through forced evolution. They said they were Christian but their actions reflected more of a secular view. Society based morality is also secular. Christianity also inspired the abolitionists but somehow only bad things get attributed to Christians and all the good things to atheists.

[Eric the Green]

(08-11-2021, 05:05 AM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(08-11-2021, 04:26 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(08-10-2021, 06:16 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(07-11-2021, 10:12 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-10-2021, 05:19 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: I mean more not befriending them as much or marrying them. Also separate places to socialize and separate clubs. There won't be any more Christians in my generation if we don't do this.

You already have the perfect gathering place: church.  Any place in the public sphere is open to all, and private member-only-"clubs" are more elitist than what you have in mind.

I think if atheists are allowed to be intolerant to religious people and state their non belief in God as a fact, I shouldn't have to be tolerant of the atheists. Also if they are to become the majority of my generation, technically I am a minority and they are the ones oppressing me.

The only atheists who were really-bad people were the Marxist-Leninists who were awful for reasons other than rejection of religious faith. 

I suggest that you take a look at the writings of Bertrand Russell, who rejected religion for very different reasons than any political fanaticism. There's much to find fault with with Christianity, such as that almost all of the Nazi war criminals were of Christian origin. Add to this some horrible deeds done in devotion, most infamously the Inquisition. To be sure, the Roman Catholic Church fully repudiates the Inquisition today, bit it cannot undo the damage. In case you think that the Anglican communion is innocent, then consider how well it served the despot Henry VIII who adopted the same savagery against Catholics as the Inquisition did to non-Catholics. The Crusades are nothing suited to Christian pride. 

I saw some Jewish literature refuting Jesus as the Messiah on multiple grounds, and the harshest is that Christians have done horrible things. A religion that could truly improve people would not churn out so many bad people. Oh, yes, there are good ones, but their goodness is following Jewish moral laws in ways that, should such behavior be the norm, will get them to Heaven -- the Jewish Heaven, the only one that exists. They will convert at the gate. (I certainly don't want to go where the Nazis are!)  

Christians in Europe and the Americas were involved in one of the greatest crimes ever against Humanity in the Atlantic slave trade. Add to this the mistreatment of Native populations of the New World... Never show pride in any connection to the Crusaders (Kill them all -- and God will sort it out!). Oddly, the Catholic Church (which now repudiates this) encouraged the Inquisition for devout reasons. Need I remind you of all the people of Christian origin who did the absolute worst on behalf of Nazism?  

To be sure, I have much good to say of Quakers, who proscribed slavery quickly as an abomination and rejected militarism as a horror. I did one of those tests at BeliefNet that tests what one's beliefs are and matches them to the closest religious tradition. The three best matches for me were 

1. liberal Quakerism
2. Unitarian-Universalism
3. Reform Judaism

I was not brought up in any one of those traditions. Oddly my parents were antisemitic.. well, if one is to rebel against one thing, that is one of the best things to rebel against.

There is no objective morality under atheism. If you take atheism to its conclusions, you are just a bunch of random cells created randomly and there is no objective value for anyone's life. The Nazis views were very social Darwinist. It was based on what they thought was survival of the fittest and they culled the fittest through murder and thought it was evolution. The goal was ultimately to create a master race through forced evolution. They said they were Christian but their actions reflected more of a secular view. Society based morality is also secular. Christianity also inspired the abolitionists but somehow only bad things get attributed to Christians and all the good things to atheists.

There is enough blame to go around among religions (especially Christianity) and atheism. 

Christianity is basically materialist; seeing a battle between spirit and matter, God and Devil. It is also authoritarian and socially conservative, meaning the faithful are deserving and the infidels are to be converted or killed. To say "only bad things get attributed to Christians and all the good things to atheists" makes me wonder what planet or nation you live in, Aspie.

I understand that Germans in the Nazi era belonged to an ancestry that was Christian for about 1000 years. But the Nazis were as Aspie says social darwinists and had gone over to materialism. The Nazis were the ultimate social conservatives, but authoritarian, exclusivist Christianity did not prevent this but paved the way for it. Atheists can believe in ethics, but I agree with Aspie that morality is dimmed by materialist atheism, for even though atheists can still have good ethics and believe in principles, the culture that materialism has spawned over the last 3 centuries is increasingly immoral, and moral relativism is not a sufficient basis for ethics.

Neither atheists nor Christians/Muslims have to be authoritarian social conservatives. That is the main problem with both of them. We need to question authority, not submit to it routinely and blindly, and to value all people and all beings, not to pit religious or racial/ethnic groups against each other and conceive and establish superiority of one over the other, or to conceive of Nature as only something material to be conquered and used for our own devices.

I would say a full and ethical life requires going beyond seeing ourselves and other beings as a "bunch of random cells created randomly", OR seeing our group as spiritual and/or virtuous and other beings as material and/or unworthy. Just how one conceives of divinity does not have to be the traditional, exoteric, authoritarian Christian or Muslim way, or the way of denial. To be spiritual but not religious is a step beyond both.

[Eric the Green]

(08-10-2021, 06:16 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(07-11-2021, 10:12 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-10-2021, 05:19 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(07-10-2021, 07:10 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-03-2021, 03:59 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: Society? What society? You can move and have separate communities doing their own thing. If the majority doesn't accept us it's time to be more insular. Only befriend and marry each other.

That model has been tried and typically works poorly over the long haul.  Yes, the Amish are able to function outside modernity, and the so did the Shakers -- for a while, at least.  Communitees like Amana didn't so much disappear as they slowly rejoined the majoority.  So that idea can work -- has worked -- but it's rare.

I mean more not befriending them as much or marrying them. Also separate places to socialize and separate clubs. There won't be any more Christians in my generation if we don't do this.

You already have the perfect gathering place: church.  Any place in the public sphere is open to all, and private member-only-"clubs" are more elitist than what you have in mind.

I think if atheists are allowed to be intolerant to religious people and state their non belief in God as a fact, I shouldn't have to be tolerant of the atheists. Also if they are to become the majority of my generation, technically I am a minority and they are the ones oppressing me.

Being in the minority is not to be oppressed, if the rights of minorities are respected.

Note however, that the version of "respecting minority rights" professed by right-wing Christians like Ted Cruz means that if Christians are not allowed to impose their religious views on others, that means that these Christians are "oppressed."

It is the same approach practiced by free-market conservatives (neo-liberals), that says "economic rights" and "economic freedom" means the right of owners and business authorities to do whatever they want regardless if it hurts or oppresses anyone else.

The Christian morality common to all religions says "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It is also basically the same as the Kantian philosophy that says do as you would have all rational people do. That means if you want to be tolerated, then practice tolerance yourself.

[AspieMillennial]

(08-11-2021, 06:33 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-11-2021, 05:05 AM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(08-11-2021, 04:26 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(08-10-2021, 06:16 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(07-11-2021, 10:12 AM)David Horn Wrote: You already have the perfect gathering place: church.  Any place in the public sphere is open to all, and private member-only-"clubs" are more elitist than what you have in mind.

I think if atheists are allowed to be intolerant to religious people and state their non belief in God as a fact, I shouldn't have to be tolerant of the atheists. Also if they are to become the majority of my generation, technically I am a minority and they are the ones oppressing me.

The only atheists who were really-bad people were the Marxist-Leninists who were awful for reasons other than rejection of religious faith. 

I suggest that you take a look at the writings of Bertrand Russell, who rejected religion for very different reasons than any political fanaticism. There's much to find fault with with Christianity, such as that almost all of the Nazi war criminals were of Christian origin. Add to this some horrible deeds done in devotion, most infamously the Inquisition. To be sure, the Roman Catholic Church fully repudiates the Inquisition today, bit it cannot undo the damage. In case you think that the Anglican communion is innocent, then consider how well it served the despot Henry VIII who adopted the same savagery against Catholics as the Inquisition did to non-Catholics. The Crusades are nothing suited to Christian pride. 

I saw some Jewish literature refuting Jesus as the Messiah on multiple grounds, and the harshest is that Christians have done horrible things. A religion that could truly improve people would not churn out so many bad people. Oh, yes, there are good ones, but their goodness is following Jewish moral laws in ways that, should such behavior be the norm, will get them to Heaven -- the Jewish Heaven, the only one that exists. They will convert at the gate. (I certainly don't want to go where the Nazis are!)  

Christians in Europe and the Americas were involved in one of the greatest crimes ever against Humanity in the Atlantic slave trade. Add to this the mistreatment of Native populations of the New World... Never show pride in any connection to the Crusaders (Kill them all -- and God will sort it out!). Oddly, the Catholic Church (which now repudiates this) encouraged the Inquisition for devout reasons. Need I remind you of all the people of Christian origin who did the absolute worst on behalf of Nazism?  

To be sure, I have much good to say of Quakers, who proscribed slavery quickly as an abomination and rejected militarism as a horror. I did one of those tests at BeliefNet that tests what one's beliefs are and matches them to the closest religious tradition. The three best matches for me were 

1. liberal Quakerism
2. Unitarian-Universalism
3. Reform Judaism

I was not brought up in any one of those traditions. Oddly my parents were antisemitic.. well, if one is to rebel against one thing, that is one of the best things to rebel against.

There is no objective morality under atheism. If you take atheism to its conclusions, you are just a bunch of random cells created randomly and there is no objective value for anyone's life. The Nazis views were very social Darwinist. It was based on what they thought was survival of the fittest and they culled the fittest through murder and thought it was evolution. The goal was ultimately to create a master race through forced evolution. They said they were Christian but their actions reflected more of a secular view. Society based morality is also secular. Christianity also inspired the abolitionists but somehow only bad things get attributed to Christians and all the good things to atheists.

There is enough blame to go around among religions (especially Christianity) and atheism. 

Christianity is basically materialist; seeing a battle between spirit and matter, God and Devil. It is also authoritarian and socially conservative, meaning the faithful are deserving and the infidels are to be converted or killed. To say "only bad things get attributed to Christians and all the good things to atheists" makes me wonder what planet or nation you live in, Aspie.

I understand that Germans in the Nazi era belonged to an ancestry that was Christian for about 1000 years. But the Nazis were as Aspie says social darwinists and had gone over to materialism. The Nazis were the ultimate social conservatives, but authoritarian, exclusivist Christianity did not prevent this but paved the way for it. Atheists can believe in ethics, but I agree with Aspie that morality is dimmed by materialist atheism, for even though atheists can still have good ethics and believe in principles, the culture that materialism has spawned over the last 3 centuries is increasingly immoral, and moral relativism is not a sufficient basis for ethics.

Neither atheists nor Christians/Muslims have to be authoritarian social conservatives. That is the main problem with both of them. We need to question authority, not submit to it routinely and blindly, and to value all people and all beings, not to pit religious or racial/ethnic groups against each other and conceive and establish superiority of one over the other, or to conceive of Nature as only something material to be conquered and used for our own devices.

I would say a full and ethical life requires going beyond seeing ourselves and other beings as a "bunch of random cells created randomly", OR seeing our group as spiritual and/or virtuous and other beings as material and/or unworthy. Just how one conceives of divinity does not have to be the traditional, exoteric, authoritarian Christian or Muslim way, or the way of denial. To be spiritual but not religious is a step beyond both.

I see Christianity as anti materialist. The materialist position says there is no soul, no divine, no objective morals, no supernatural, no afterlife. Christianity says all of them exist. Christian ancestry does not mean Christian values. Jesus would not approve of their behavior.

[pbrower2a]

(08-12-2021, 05:30 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(08-11-2021, 06:33 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: There is enough blame to go around among religions (especially Christianity) and atheism. 

Christianity is basically materialist; seeing a battle between spirit and matter, God and Devil. It is also authoritarian and socially conservative, meaning the faithful are deserving and the infidels are to be converted or killed. To say "only bad things get attributed to Christians and all the good things to atheists" makes me wonder what planet or nation you live in, Aspie.

I understand that Germans in the Nazi era belonged to an ancestry that was Christian for about 1000 years. But the Nazis were as Aspie says social darwinists and had gone over to materialism. The Nazis were the ultimate social conservatives, but authoritarian, exclusivist Christianity did not prevent this but paved the way for it. Atheists can believe in ethics, but I agree with Aspie that morality is dimmed by materialist atheism, for even though atheists can still have good ethics and believe in principles, the culture that materialism has spawned over the last 3 centuries is increasingly immoral, and moral relativism is not a sufficient basis for ethics.

Neither atheists nor Christians/Muslims have to be authoritarian social conservatives. That is the main problem with both of them. We need to question authority, not submit to it routinely and blindly, and to value all people and all beings, not to pit religious or racial/ethnic groups against each other and conceive and establish superiority of one over the other, or to conceive of Nature as only something material to be conquered and used for our own devices.

I would say a full and ethical life requires going beyond seeing ourselves and other beings as a "bunch of random cells created randomly", OR seeing our group as spiritual and/or virtuous and other beings as material and/or unworthy. Just how one conceives of divinity does not have to be the traditional, exoteric, authoritarian Christian or Muslim way, or the way of denial. To be spiritual but not religious is a step beyond both.

I see Christianity as anti materialist. The materialist position says there is no soul, no divine, no objective morals, no supernatural, no afterlife. Christianity says all of them exist. Christian ancestry does not mean Christian values. Jesus would not approve of their behavior.

One part of Christianity is anti-materialist -- the part that denies the reality of the eternity of a depraved and corrupt world beginning with the Roman Empire. Pragmatic concerns have never prevented Christians from relying upon the highly-material reality of church buildings, the collection plate, Bibles, church literature, and (in some cases) television. To deal with the emergency that is COVID-19, the Pope told Catholics to stay at home and participate in the Mass through EWTN, cable TV, and a television. Catholic Churches and Catholic events were not to become super-spreaders. 

Pure materialism is inhuman. Pure anti-materialism (idealism) is unreal. Apologies to Charles Sanders Peirce.

[pbrower2a]

(10-17-2021, 09:03 AM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(08-13-2021, 12:45 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(08-12-2021, 05:30 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(08-11-2021, 06:33 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: There is enough blame to go around among religions (especially Christianity) and atheism. 

Christianity is basically materialist; seeing a battle between spirit and matter, God and Devil. It is also authoritarian and socially conservative, meaning the faithful are deserving and the infidels are to be converted or killed. To say "only bad things get attributed to Christians and all the good things to atheists" makes me wonder what planet or nation you live in, Aspie.

I understand that Germans in the Nazi era belonged to an ancestry that was Christian for about 1000 years. But the Nazis were as Aspie says social darwinists and had gone over to materialism. The Nazis were the ultimate social conservatives, but authoritarian, exclusivist Christianity did not prevent this but paved the way for it. Atheists can believe in ethics, but I agree with Aspie that morality is dimmed by materialist atheism, for even though atheists can still have good ethics and believe in principles, the culture that materialism has spawned over the last 3 centuries is increasingly immoral, and moral relativism is not a sufficient basis for ethics.

Neither atheists nor Christians/Muslims have to be authoritarian social conservatives. That is the main problem with both of them. We need to question authority, not submit to it routinely and blindly, and to value all people and all beings, not to pit religious or racial/ethnic groups against each other and conceive and establish superiority of one over the other, or to conceive of Nature as only something material to be conquered and used for our own devices.

I would say a full and ethical life requires going beyond seeing ourselves and other beings as a "bunch of random cells created randomly", OR seeing our group as spiritual and/or virtuous and other beings as material and/or unworthy. Just how one conceives of divinity does not have to be the traditional, exoteric, authoritarian Christian or Muslim way, or the way of denial. To be spiritual but not religious is a step beyond both.

I see Christianity as anti materialist. The materialist position says there is no soul, no divine, no objective morals, no supernatural, no afterlife. Christianity says all of them exist. Christian ancestry does not mean Christian values. Jesus would not approve of their behavior.

One part of Christianity is anti-materialist -- the part that denies the reality of the eternity of a depraved and corrupt world beginning with the Roman Empire. Pragmatic concerns have never prevented Christians from relying upon the highly-material reality of church buildings, the collection plate, Bibles, church literature, and (in some cases) television. To deal with the emergency that is COVID-19, the Pope told Catholics to stay at home and participate in the Mass through EWTN, cable TV, and a television. Catholic Churches and Catholic events were not to become super-spreaders. 

Pure materialism is inhuman. Pure anti-materialism (idealism) is unreal. Apologies to Charles Sanders Peirce.

I don't like the current reality so I reject it for my own ideals. I also reject much of generational theory. Generational theory demands that I be this archetype like the normies are. I reject this and refuse to follow the mainstream demands.

Some realities are beyond my control. Weather is obvious. Very soon I will need to have shelter or adequate clothing to avoid frostbite, or go elsewhere. I cannot expect to do anything that violates the strictures of physical law. Conventions such as law and language are real.

Nothing is eternal. Institutions are obvious enough, and the most corrupt and depraved ones are extremely vulnerable to internal rot, especially when those become aggressive. Nazi Germany is one of the most obvious examples of that pattern. Maybe the Roman Empire would have lasted longer had it emancipated slaves, promoted mass education, eschewed militarism, and avoided despotism.

Ideals have their value, but reality serves as a test. Those with perverse ideals, especially those that do grave harm to others for highly-concentrated indulgence, typically find legal and material reality turning against them, as is the case with pedophiles and thieves. People can call all sorts of sleazy objectives 'ideals', including living some Good Life that depends upon economic exploitation and destruction of the civil rights and liberties of those who become subjects. Aristocratic ways have become at best parodies (think of successful film stars) and are often comparative novelties. Great family fortunes can fade over time. Anderson Cooper, a descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt, says that there is no longer a Vanderbilt fortune, and that he lives on his pay from being a media personality.

...You no as I do that we share positions on the autistic spectrum. We both must live lies to survive in our system. We must often conform to expectations that are contrary to our nature. When we are honest we can say or write unsettling things. Maybe our overall society needs to accept that some unsettling things are vital. As such we both need to express ourselves rationality or to create some entertaining fantasy as a diversion from the troublesome reality that most of us know without being crazy about it. We also need some morality. In general, Lawrence Kohlberg offers a hierarchy of potential criteria for discerning Right from Wrong:



This relates to the question of whether a compounding pharmacist has an inherent right to create a sure cure for a horrific disease (the specific case is cancer) and price a man out of getting it for his wife who will surely die a horrible death without it. (OK, that makes an unlikely scenario). Preconventional morality isn't very high, and it gets little support. Wild animals and small children usually operate on this level (stage 2), and adults don't get away with predatory behavior unless extremely cunning or under protection. The perception that one will not be caught (so you took two half-dollars from your parents' coin collection and traded them in for a soda) is something to suppress because it it is an extremely-bad habit. Crude self interest (2) is fine for people who live as hermits or lone castaways, but it is not good for forming and maintaining complex societies and organizations that make life more satisfying.

Raw conformity (stage 3) allows one to go along with the crowd. Of course someone leads the crowd on, whether that crowd is the Girl Scouts of America or the infamous Bund Deutscher Mädel, the only permitted organization for girls in the Third Reich. Going along in the Girl Scouts is innocuous. IN the Nazi parody it was good for pushing the ideology of the Party and even recruiting girls to grow up to be monstrous guards in the camps. To be sure, blind rebellion is itself risky. Stage 4 implies obedience in the assumption that disobedience tears at a good society (thus ratting out a black person who drinks from a "WHITES ONLY" fountain in "Kukluxistan" is a good idea) but personal loyalties matter.

At the Social Contract position (Stage 5) one has some advanced ability to discern right from wrong and the reliability of those in power to act morally. This is the position at which one can protest gross injustice, perhaps by showing that it fails to serve law and order (that segregation rips at the assumption of freedom and democracy, persecution of ethnic or religious minorities is unconscionable, or the denial of basic dignity to pariahs is ultimately dangerous to us all).

Here is my scenario: I have been threatened with gay-bashing. The problem isn't that someone thinks that I am gay, as morally-mature people draw no conclusions about the validity of my existence even if they misjudge me on that. I wasn't going to do something nasty to someone I think is gay for being gay. The problem is that someone thinks that it beating people up for being gay is acceptable because they see gays as dangerous perverts. At this point I can formulate arguments for gay rights. Maybe if people recognize that LGBT people are peers (a woman who shares the same attitudes toward men as I do would be a lesbian) and merit equal protection under the law and a community standard that accepts homosexuality that is not a personal choice. So long as it precludes pedophile behavior and sexual exploitation (which I cannot accept when such is heterosexual) I can live with it. Acceptance of LGBT rights makes the world safer, and a safer world is a better world.

So I can tailor an appeal on Law and Order to people who may not quite accept my reasoning on basic human rights, but even at that, Law and Order is essential to making basic human rights possible. The question is who determines what laws are statutes and which ones are to be enforced.  I prefer that the police go after drug dealers and not after flagrant homosexuals. I can't excuse heroin and cocaine but I must accept homosexuality. Attacks on homosexuals are thus inexcusable and rightly subject to police repression and to official prosecution. People who might have free-floating anger must be convinced that attacking homosexuals is unacceptable and intolerable. We do not need people being made pariahs without them having done something inexcusable. Laws can establish the patterns toward which we conform lest we get burned by the legal system and penal administration.

Stage 6 is for people who are as adept at making moral judgments as Fritz Kreisler was at playing a violin. This is the realm of jurisprudence and moral prophecy at its best. It is parallel to Abraham Maslow's "self-actualization", and people at this level have clearly attained transcendence. (Neither of us, as Aspies, can ever approach self-actualization. We have terrible gaps of personality that we must at best synthesize because such does not come naturally).

Level 1 is for the psychopath. It is primitive and animalistic, and it usually leads to prison or the gallows. Level 2 allows one to see oneself as Master over victims less cunning than oneself. At best it serves the sell-out, and at worst a criminal fairly good at deflecting attention from himself or getting away from the scene of the crime. Mobsters are generally at this level, as were pirates and are serial killers, rapists, and thieves. Maybe they evade judgment for some time, as was so with a Ted Bundy, John Dillinger, or Osama bin Laden.  Level 3 ensures that one is no better or worse than the crowd or clique. At the worst the group might be a genocidal gang, and going along allows the very worst in human conduct. If one follows a leader at this moral level mindlessly (as such people demand) one might be following a Charles Manson or Adolf Hitler. Level 3 cannot judge, and it is amenable to the appeal of fakes and frauds. That is where I see the Trump cult.

At Level 4 one is no better than the formal structure. One can become an enforcer of the cruelties built into the system such as segregation and religious bigotry. When the formal structure of society improves, so does the result of recognizing the validity of law and order.  Level 4 can accept that there are good reasons for not using illicit drugs or participating in scams. It is also perfect in the service of the old KGB or the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission.

Level 5 is risky. If one's thoughts are mostly benign and one has some self-restraint and intellectual one can operate here. This is where one decides the distinction between Good and Evil and can make that distinction stick if in authority. One can explain what one believes it and formulate it as law and principle. If one is smart and conventional, then one can operate at this level as a political leader, judge, police chief, diplomat, journalist, or college professor.  It can still be pragmatic and not quite be stuck in some ivory tower. Mikhail Gorbachev and Angela Merkel seem to operate at this level. American Presidents? Gerald Ford and Barack Obama fit. For high-visibility divines one might find Billy Graham and Fulton Sheen.

Level 6 is that of the Prophet and Saint. Human nature craves this, but it is far easier to come up with counterfeit prophets and saints than with real ones. Cranks and crooks often exploit people as fakes here. For the fakes it is best that most people operate around Level 3, willing to follow but incapable of making moral judgments. I can see Abraham Lincoln or Mohandas Gandhi at this level.

[AspieMillennial]

(10-17-2021, 11:50 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(10-17-2021, 09:03 AM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(08-13-2021, 12:45 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(08-12-2021, 05:30 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(08-11-2021, 06:33 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: There is enough blame to go around among religions (especially Christianity) and atheism. 

Christianity is basically materialist; seeing a battle between spirit and matter, God and Devil. It is also authoritarian and socially conservative, meaning the faithful are deserving and the infidels are to be converted or killed. To say "only bad things get attributed to Christians and all the good things to atheists" makes me wonder what planet or nation you live in, Aspie.

I understand that Germans in the Nazi era belonged to an ancestry that was Christian for about 1000 years. But the Nazis were as Aspie says social darwinists and had gone over to materialism. The Nazis were the ultimate social conservatives, but authoritarian, exclusivist Christianity did not prevent this but paved the way for it. Atheists can believe in ethics, but I agree with Aspie that morality is dimmed by materialist atheism, for even though atheists can still have good ethics and believe in principles, the culture that materialism has spawned over the last 3 centuries is increasingly immoral, and moral relativism is not a sufficient basis for ethics.

Neither atheists nor Christians/Muslims have to be authoritarian social conservatives. That is the main problem with both of them. We need to question authority, not submit to it routinely and blindly, and to value all people and all beings, not to pit religious or racial/ethnic groups against each other and conceive and establish superiority of one over the other, or to conceive of Nature as only something material to be conquered and used for our own devices.

I would say a full and ethical life requires going beyond seeing ourselves and other beings as a "bunch of random cells created randomly", OR seeing our group as spiritual and/or virtuous and other beings as material and/or unworthy. Just how one conceives of divinity does not have to be the traditional, exoteric, authoritarian Christian or Muslim way, or the way of denial. To be spiritual but not religious is a step beyond both.

I see Christianity as anti materialist. The materialist position says there is no soul, no divine, no objective morals, no supernatural, no afterlife. Christianity says all of them exist. Christian ancestry does not mean Christian values. Jesus would not approve of their behavior.

One part of Christianity is anti-materialist -- the part that denies the reality of the eternity of a depraved and corrupt world beginning with the Roman Empire. Pragmatic concerns have never prevented Christians from relying upon the highly-material reality of church buildings, the collection plate, Bibles, church literature, and (in some cases) television. To deal with the emergency that is COVID-19, the Pope told Catholics to stay at home and participate in the Mass through EWTN, cable TV, and a television. Catholic Churches and Catholic events were not to become super-spreaders. 

Pure materialism is inhuman. Pure anti-materialism (idealism) is unreal. Apologies to Charles Sanders Peirce.

I don't like the current reality so I reject it for my own ideals. I also reject much of generational theory. Generational theory demands that I be this archetype like the normies are. I reject this and refuse to follow the mainstream demands.

Some realities are beyond my control. Weather is obvious. Very soon I will need to have shelter or adequate clothing to avoid frostbite, or go elsewhere. I cannot expect to do anything that violates the strictures of physical law. Conventions such as law and language are real.

Nothing is eternal. Institutions are obvious enough, and the most corrupt and depraved ones are extremely vulnerable to internal rot, especially when those become aggressive. Nazi Germany is one of the most obvious examples of that pattern. Maybe the Roman Empire would have lasted longer had it emancipated slaves, promoted mass education, eschewed militarism, and avoided despotism.

Ideals have their value, but reality serves as a test. Those with perverse ideals, especially those that do grave harm to others for highly-concentrated indulgence, typically find legal and material reality turning against them, as is the case with pedophiles and thieves. People can call all sorts of sleazy objectives 'ideals', including living some Good Life that depends upon economic exploitation and destruction of the civil rights and liberties of those who become subjects. Aristocratic ways have become at best parodies (think of successful film stars) and are often comparative novelties. Great family fortunes can fade over time. Anderson Cooper, a descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt, says that there is no longer a Vanderbilt fortune, and that he lives on his pay from being a media personality.

...You no as I do that we share positions on the autistic spectrum. We both must live lies to survive in our system. We must often conform to expectations that are contrary to our nature. When we are honest we can say or write unsettling things. Maybe our overall society needs to accept that some unsettling things are vital. As such we both need to express ourselves rationality or to create some entertaining fantasy as a diversion from the troublesome reality that most of us know without being crazy about it. We also need some morality. In general, Lawrence Kohlberg offers a hierarchy of potential criteria for discerning Right from Wrong:



This relates to the question of whether a compounding pharmacist has an inherent right to create a sure cure for a horrific disease (the specific case is cancer) and price a man out of getting it for his wife who will surely die a horrible death without it. (OK, that makes an unlikely scenario). Preconventional morality isn't very high, and it gets little support. Wild animals and small children usually operate on this level (stage 2), and adults don't get away with predatory behavior unless extremely cunning or under protection. The perception that one will not be caught (so you took two half-dollars from your parents' coin collection and traded them in for a soda) is something to suppress because it it is an extremely-bad habit. Crude self interest (2) is fine for people who live as hermits or lone castaways, but it is not good for forming and maintaining complex societies and organizations that make life more satisfying.

Raw conformity (stage 3) allows one to go along with the crowd. Of course someone leads the crowd on, whether that crowd is the Girl Scouts of America or the infamous Bund Deutscher Mädel, the only permitted organization for girls in the Third Reich. Going along in the Girl Scouts is innocuous. IN the Nazi parody it was good for pushing the ideology of the Party and even recruiting girls to grow up to be monstrous guards in the camps. To be sure, blind rebellion is itself risky. Stage 4 implies obedience in the assumption that disobedience tears at a good society (thus ratting out a black person who drinks from a "WHITES ONLY" fountain in "Kukluxistan" is a good idea) but personal loyalties matter.

At the Social Contract position (Stage 5) one has some advanced ability to discern right from wrong and the reliability of those in power to act morally. This is the position at which one can protest gross injustice, perhaps by showing that it fails to serve law and order (that segregation rips at the assumption of freedom and democracy, persecution of ethnic or religious minorities is unconscionable, or the denial of basic dignity to pariahs is ultimately dangerous to us all).

Here is my scenario: I have been threatened with gay-bashing. The problem isn't that someone thinks that I am gay, as morally-mature people draw no conclusions about the validity of my existence even if they misjudge me on that. I wasn't going to do something nasty to someone I think is gay for being gay. The problem is that someone thinks that it beating people up for being gay is acceptable because they see gays as dangerous perverts. At this point I can formulate arguments for gay rights. Maybe if people recognize that LGBT people are peers (a woman who shares the same attitudes toward men as I do would be a lesbian) and merit equal protection under the law and a community standard that accepts homosexuality that is not a personal choice. So long as it precludes pedophile behavior and sexual exploitation (which I cannot accept when such is heterosexual) I can live with it. Acceptance of LGBT rights makes the world safer, and a safer world is a better world.

So I can tailor an appeal on Law and Order to people who may not quite accept my reasoning on basic human rights, but even at that, Law and Order is essential to making basic human rights possible. The question is who determines what laws are statutes and which ones are to be enforced.  I prefer that the police go after drug dealers and not after flagrant homosexuals. I can't excuse heroin and cocaine but I must accept homosexuality. Attacks on homosexuals are thus inexcusable and rightly subject to police repression and to official prosecution. People who might have free-floating anger must be convinced that attacking homosexuals is unacceptable and intolerable. We do not need people being made pariahs without them having done something inexcusable. Laws can establish the patterns toward which we conform lest we get burned by the legal system and penal administration.

Stage 6 is for people who are as adept at making moral judgments as Fritz Kreisler was at playing a violin. This is the realm of jurisprudence and moral prophecy at its best. It is parallel to Abraham Maslow's "self-actualization", and people at this level have clearly attained transcendence. (Neither of us, as Aspies, can ever approach self-actualization. We have terrible gaps of personality that we must at best synthesize because such does not come naturally).

Level 1 is for the psychopath. It is primitive and animalistic, and it usually leads to prison or the gallows. Level 2 allows one to see oneself as Master over victims less cunning than oneself. At best it serves the sell-out, and at worst a criminal fairly good at deflecting attention from himself or getting away from the scene of the crime. Mobsters are generally at this level, as were pirates and are serial killers, rapists, and thieves. Maybe they evade judgment for some time, as was so with a Ted Bundy, John Dillinger, or Osama bin Laden.  Level 3 ensures that one is no better or worse than the crowd or clique. At the worst the group might be a genocidal gang, and going along allows the very worst in human conduct. If one follows a leader at this moral level mindlessly (as such people demand) one might be following a Charles Manson or Adolf Hitler. Level 3 cannot judge, and it is amenable to the appeal of fakes and frauds. That is where I see the Trump cult.

At Level 4 one is no better than the formal structure. One can become an enforcer of the cruelties built into the system such as segregation and religious bigotry. When the formal structure of society improves, so does the result of recognizing the validity of law and order.  Level 4 can accept that there are good reasons for not using illicit drugs or participating in scams. It is also perfect in the service of the old KGB or the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission.

Level 5 is risky. If one's thoughts are mostly benign and one has some self-restraint and intellectual one can operate here. This is where one decides the distinction between Good and Evil and can make that distinction stick if in authority. One can explain what one believes it and formulate it as law and principle. If one is smart and conventional, then one can operate at this level as a political leader, judge, police chief, diplomat, journalist, or college professor.  It can still be pragmatic and not quite be stuck in some ivory tower. Mikhail Gorbachev and Angela Merkel seem to operate at this level. American Presidents? Gerald Ford and Barack Obama fit. For high-visibility divines one might find Billy Graham and Fulton Sheen.

Level 6 is that of the Prophet and Saint. Human nature craves this, but it is far easier to come up with counterfeit prophets and saints than with real ones. Cranks and crooks often exploit people as fakes here. For the fakes it is best that most people operate around Level 3, willing to follow but incapable of making moral judgments. I can see Abraham Lincoln or Mohandas Gandhi at this level.

True we have to fit in to some extent but why bother hanging around people who disrespect your beliefs or what you think? Many of them are very hostile and don't seem worth the bother. If you're at work or a place you need to get along then fine but why not form your own spaces that help you?

I've read the hierarchy of morality. Conventional morality is harder for me to grasp than the higher forms or lower forms. Maybe this is why secularism makes no sense to me.

[pbrower2a]

(10-17-2021, 04:23 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(10-17-2021, 11:50 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: ...You know as I do that we share positions on the autistic spectrum. We both must live lies to survive in our system. We must often conform to expectations that are contrary to our nature. When we are honest we can say or write unsettling things. Maybe our overall society needs to accept that some unsettling things are vital. As such we both need to express ourselves rationality or to create some entertaining fantasy as a diversion from the troublesome reality that most of us know without being crazy about it. We also need some morality. In general, Lawrence Kohlberg offers a hierarchy of potential criteria for discerning Right from Wrong:



This relates to the question of whether a compounding pharmacist has an inherent right to create a sure cure for a horrific disease (the specific case is cancer) and price a man out of getting it for his wife who will surely die a horrible death without it. (OK, that makes an unlikely scenario). Preconventional morality isn't very high, and it gets little support. Wild animals and small children usually operate on this level (stage 2), and adults don't get away with predatory behavior unless extremely cunning or under protection. The perception that one will not be caught (so you took two half-dollars from your parents' coin collection and traded them in for a soda) is something to suppress because it it is an extremely-bad habit. Crude self interest (2) is fine for people who live as hermits or lone castaways, but it is not good for forming and maintaining complex societies and organizations that make life more satisfying.

Raw conformity (stage 3) allows one to go along with the crowd. Of course someone leads the crowd on, whether that crowd is the Girl Scouts of America or the infamous Bund Deutscher Mädel, the only permitted organization for girls in the Third Reich. Going along in the Girl Scouts is innocuous. IN the Nazi parody it was good for pushing the ideology of the Party and even recruiting girls to grow up to be monstrous guards in the camps. To be sure, blind rebellion is itself risky. Stage 4 implies obedience in the assumption that disobedience tears at a good society (thus ratting out a black person who drinks from a "WHITES ONLY" fountain in "Kukluxistan" is a good idea) but personal loyalties matter.

At the Social Contract position (Stage 5) one has some advanced ability to discern right from wrong and the reliability of those in power to act morally. This is the position at which one can protest gross injustice, perhaps by showing that it fails to serve law and order (that segregation rips at the assumption of freedom and democracy, persecution of ethnic or religious minorities is unconscionable, or the denial of basic dignity to pariahs is ultimately dangerous to us all).

Here is my scenario: I have been threatened with gay-bashing. The problem isn't that someone thinks that I am gay, as morally-mature people draw no conclusions about the validity of my existence even if they misjudge me on that. I wasn't going to do something nasty to someone I think is gay for being gay. The problem is that someone thinks that it beating people up for being gay is acceptable because they see gays as dangerous perverts. At this point I can formulate arguments for gay rights. Maybe if people recognize that LGBT people are peers (a woman who shares the same attitudes toward men as I do would be a lesbian) and merit equal protection under the law and a community standard that accepts homosexuality that is not a personal choice. So long as it precludes pedophile behavior and sexual exploitation (which I cannot accept when such is heterosexual) I can live with it. Acceptance of LGBT rights makes the world safer, and a safer world is a better world.

So I can tailor an appeal on Law and Order to people who may not quite accept my reasoning on basic human rights, but even at that, Law and Order is essential to making basic human rights possible. The question is who determines what laws are statutes and which ones are to be enforced.  I prefer that the police go after drug dealers and not after flagrant homosexuals. I can't excuse heroin and cocaine but I must accept homosexuality. Attacks on homosexuals are thus inexcusable and rightly subject to police repression and to official prosecution. People who might have free-floating anger must be convinced that attacking homosexuals is unacceptable and intolerable. We do not need people being made pariahs without them having done something inexcusable. Laws can establish the patterns toward which we conform lest we get burned by the legal system and penal administration.

Stage 6 is for people who are as adept at making moral judgments as Fritz Kreisler was at playing a violin. This is the realm of jurisprudence and moral prophecy at its best. It is parallel to Abraham Maslow's "self-actualization", and people at this level have clearly attained transcendence. (Neither of us, as Aspies, can ever approach self-actualization. We have terrible gaps of personality that we must at best synthesize because such does not come naturally).

Level 1 is for the psychopath. It is primitive and animalistic, and it usually leads to prison or the gallows. Level 2 allows one to see oneself as Master over victims less cunning than oneself. At best it serves the sell-out, and at worst a criminal fairly good at deflecting attention from himself or getting away from the scene of the crime. Mobsters are generally at this level, as were pirates and are serial killers, rapists, and thieves. Maybe they evade judgment for some time, as was so with a Ted Bundy, John Dillinger, or Osama bin Laden.  Level 3 ensures that one is no better or worse than the crowd or clique. At the worst the group might be a genocidal gang, and going along allows the very worst in human conduct. If one follows a leader at this moral level mindlessly (as such people demand) one might be following a Charles Manson or Adolf Hitler. Level 3 cannot judge, and it is amenable to the appeal of fakes and frauds. That is where I see the Trump cult.  

At Level 4 one is no better than the formal structure. One can become an enforcer of the cruelties built into the system such as segregation and religious bigotry. When the formal structure of society improves, so does the result of recognizing the validity of law and order.  Level 4 can accept that there are good reasons for not using illicit drugs or participating in scams. It is also perfect in the service of the old KGB or the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission.

Level 5 is risky. If one's thoughts are mostly benign and one has some self-restraint and intellectual one can operate here. This is where one decides the distinction between Good and Evil and can make that distinction stick if in authority. One can explain what one believes it and formulate it as law and principle. If one is smart and conventional, then one can operate at this level as a political leader, judge, police chief, diplomat, journalist, or college professor.  It can still be pragmatic and not quite be stuck in some ivory tower. Mikhail Gorbachev and Angela Merkel seem to operate at this level. American Presidents? Gerald Ford and Barack Obama fit. For high-visibility divines one might find Billy Graham and Fulton Sheen.  

Level 6 is that of the Prophet and Saint. Human nature craves this, but it is far easier to come up with counterfeit prophets and saints than with real ones. Cranks and crooks often exploit people as fakes here.  For the fakes it is best that most people operate around Level 3, willing to follow but incapable of making moral judgments. I can see Abraham Lincoln or Mohandas Gandhi at this level.

True we have to fit in to some extent but why bother hanging around people who disrespect your beliefs or what you think? Many of them are very hostile and don't seem worth the bother. If you're at work or a place you need to get along then fine but why not form your own spaces that help you?

Sometimes we must choose between accommodation and exit. To be sure, some religious expressions create fewer problems to outsiders than do others. If you can't get along with Roman Catholics because they are Roman Catholics, then you have a big problem. I can assure you that if you insist that you are not going to work near that (insert ethnic, religious, racial, or sexual slur) then you will get a dressing-down from your boss and probably lose your job. That's only fair. People who can't get along with others are the people with the shortest tenures on the job short of those who get caught in wrongdoing, disobedience, dishonesty, or incompetence.

May I suggest a book for you?



The book at Amazon.com

It is old and simple, and even shallow. It can help people who have trouble getting along with others. Getting along with others is not rocket science; it might even be more difficult. You can change some of your ways to better fit into an organization that can pay you better than can a job that is best described as raw labor. Getting along with others is one way of getting access to experiences that might enrich your personal life. Everybody must make compromises of his nature as a person if he is not to end up bored, broke, and lonely. Nobody will get you out of that situation (gee, Bored, Broke and Lonely sounds like a great title for a country song... if only I could wrote the lyrics!) for your sake without getting something in return.

Very rarely does anyone get anything, including gratification, without giving something in return or making some investment. Learning something about gardening (if that person is deep into gardening) or the favorite sports teams  of someone else is an easy compromise.



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In many institutional settings (including work) it is often necessary to keep silent about things that can create trouble. If you have a sexual fetish, then that would be wise to leave in the "unmentionable" zone. Explicit discussion of sexuality is a bad idea except in appropriate contexts (such as medicine). I've taught as a substitute teacher and have made statements that chastity is best, and "safe sex" is second best. There's not much to say about chastity, and "safe sex" is entirely clinical. Extremist politics is also troublesome. If I am on the job, do not try to convince me that "Trump actually won" or that the Democrats are a cabal of pedophiles.

Quote:I've read the hierarchy of morality. Conventional morality is harder for me to grasp than the higher forms or lower forms. Maybe this is why secularism makes no sense to me.

It could be that you understand the lower two levels of morality, then it might be that those are so inadequate that you would reject them on the spot. Avoiding punishment and self-gratification are not high levels of ethical behavior.  "Everybody for himself" creates a lonely and impoverished world. Anyone in a desperate situation finds no aid in getting out of a bad situation. At that level there isn't even a fire brigade to keep a house fire from becoming a conflagration.

Moral development may not be an exact parallel to intellectual development, but you well know that infants are extremely selfish and demanding. At some point one expects them to grow up and do certain things. Rather early that includes toilet training. A little later that includes some table manners and refraining from saying obnoxious things.

Stage 3 means going along with the crowd, which is fine if the crowd does innocuous things. A bucket brigade is a good thing and a lynch mob is bad, and I doubt that I can go into more detail on my judgment of such. Stage 3 cannot judge the crowd. Someone might join the crowd, as I would in a bucket brigade, but for reasons other than conformity. Armies make much of parades and marches as means of creating identity with the group so that when it faces danger it can achieve its purpose with lesser cost of time and casualties. But is the fighting force the United States Marine Corps (the best way to deal with the United States Marine Corps is to raise your hands high, drop your weapons, and surrender because you will be treated humanely as a prisoner) or the Totenkopf-SS which had a high proclivity of executing prisoners.

Stage 4 recognizes that civil strife and institutional disobedience are big trouble. Overt crime is unacceptable. Law is to be obeyed without judging whether the laws are themselves just. We can all accept that speed laws and regulatory signs on highways are to be obeyed. As an example, I typically drive the speed limit if possible and drive slower if conditions mandate or faster under what I consider rare cases in which the speed limit gets in the way of safety. I consider tailgating more dangerous than speeding. I stop for stop signs and lights. I know that the criminal code exists for good reason.

Can the law be wrong? Sure. The Inquisition was wrong. The Fugitive Slave Laws were wrong. The Nuremberg Laws were wrong. Article 58 of the Soviet Criminal Code (basically making just about anything that one does a crime) was wrong. Laws enforcing Apartheid or Jim Crow practice were wrong. There are deeds that are abominable under any circumstances, such as murder, rape, arson, enslavement, theft, false testimony and fraudulent oaths, abandonment of the helpless, drug-dealing, drunk driving... I think we get the general idea. Some don't. Our prisons are full of people who broke laws and got caught for such.

Maybe it is simply too obvious that being out for oneself alone is futility at best and great harm at worst. Conformity and obedience have their place when the consequences of conformity and obedience are benign but not when the consequences are gross wrong against people.

I would figure this: that if you can see the potential inadequacy of any particular level of moral development, then you operate on a higher level. I see few problems with anyone acting on the social-contract level.  This was obviously impossible in the Third Reich, Stalin's Soviet Union, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, Syria or Iraq under Ba'ath-fascist regimes, or ISIS.