I'm just trying to draw comparisons, not definitive proofs. Though I don't think that is the pivotal issue at all. I think the ultimate purpose of religion is choosing to trust a particular group to inform you how to live for the sake of not getting screwed by unintuitive threats. Nobody has time or energy or even the mental capacity to sort out every decision and its possible future consequences in real time detail, so we choose programs that seem reliable or were recommended by people we trust to run those tedious calculations for us.
Even though religion serves as a tool for control, it wouldn't have come about were people not afraid of death and the unknown. The core issue of every religion is concerned with the fate of one's soul. Everything else follows from that premise, and the rules which religions set for their followers are intended to both guide and control their actions in preparation for the next life. If social justice were the equivalent of a religion, it would need to promise either an improvement of one's lot beyond their existence on this mortal coil or a transcendence of one's soul, with the means to attain that end being to do what's considered right. Now, you might argue that social justice advocates (those spooky "SJWs"), through saying you're not a good person so long as you hold such and such a viewpoint, attempt to guilt trip people into doing what they want you to do. On a surface level, this seems comparable with the teachings of organised religions. The difference is that religion treats this life as a test of one's character, with the reward attained at the end of one's life after one has purified their soul. Social justice advocates have never promised a life after the one we live now.
This was maybe a legitimate problem 20 years ago for a minority of women, but has turned into a different problem in modern times in the expectation that- given the freedom to choose- women would take an equal interest in STEM as men, which is an absurd secular leftist piece of doctrine that is taken on faith without any factual backing.
It's possible men and women won't have a completely equal interest in STEM no matter what we do, but what if the gender skew is more lopsided than it would've been otherwise? Women played a pivotal role in the early development of computer science, and it was only after it became profitable to pursue computer science as a career that the gender skew tipped towards men. You claim this is an accusation made without any factual backing, but due to both accountable and unaccountable variables affecting data, there is no factual basis for determining whether the baseline would've been 1:1 or 7:3, thus we don't know for certain the exact extent to which gender disparities are attributable to nature or nurture. Anyway, I cited the gender skew in STEM as but one example of how societal norms affect gender roles. Despite any possible misgivings over the finer points, I can at least respect that gender studies researchers are taking the time to ask what those variables are, thus providing an opportunity to discuss things in the marketplace of ideas, while if others had things their way, those questions would probably never have been asked.
Are you a climate scientist, or are you choosing to have faith in them? Of course the climate is changing, eventually this planet will just be a scorched rock as the sun expands. But there are no such things as future predictions that are facts (not a reference to the fact that climate is changing as you stated). No matter how likely. I don't know what's going to happen to the planet between now and scorched-rock time, but I'm not going to work myself into daily fits over it.
That's a false dilemma. I don't see how not being a climate scientist means I must choose to have faith in them. To say I'd have faith would be to imply a complete, unwavering trust in what scientists say. It's more about being informed through the reading I've done into the issue, and forming conclusions from there. It so happens that the world is warming in average temperature at a faster rate, and the rate in which it's increasing is directly proportional to the extent of our industrialisation. Whereas religious people would believe in the existence of a god or gods no matter what evidence points to the contrary, I would be willing to change my mind about climate change if indisputable research proved it was a hoax. Besides, oil companies and corporations contributing to pollution have more to gain from denying climate change than acknowledging it, while scientists who publish the research really don't have much profit to gain from publishing it. I suspect most climate change denialists of being funded by the wealthy, so as to continue to profit from exploitation of non-renewable resources.
Maybe I'm a callous product of my generation, but I could not care less if I tried. I mean I think it's a weird fetish, and I don't particularly care for Louis CK, but having a famous guy ask and then jerk off in front of you seems absurdly banal in a historical context. If you can't mentally handle something like that, you are probably not cut out for this world- and if worrying about stuff like this is your focus in life, what the hell are you thinking? There are so many better ways to spend time and energy and interest (this is rhetorical and not leveled in your direction).
I refrain from value judgements both in the case of Louis CK and in the case of yourself. I couldn't care whether or not you're a callous product of whatever generation you happen to belong to, because that has little bearing as to who's right. I mean, I find what Louis did disgusting, but I could also rationalise it as a weird fetish I know nothing about, and maybe what happened was primarily the result of a misunderstanding. I don't pretend to know the full story, so I can only speculate on the possible factors involved.
I haven't spoken of social justice at all aside from comparing it to evangelism, which it mirrors spectacularly. In christianity alone there are many different small subsets (baptists, presbyterians, etc) each of which focuses on something slightly different, but has most things in common. And the big thing that all of them have in common, including the secular leftists, is that they want (need) you to think like they do.
You may not have used that term directly, but I've made it a point to distinguish social justice from what you describe as "leftism". Your use of the term is a vague blanket term which you'd apply both to socialism and progressiveness. No one would ever call the Soviet Union champions of social justice. These things overlap, yes, but they are still two separate things, and so I've chosen to focus on the aspect of progressiveness because fiscal policies have thus far not been the issue of our discussion.
Any pundit who pushes their views wants you to think like they do. In that respect, social justice advocates are no different from conservatives, libertarians, or fascists who use the same platforms to make themselves heard. This begs the question as to why you feel the need to single them out in particular.
