What is Emotional Reasoning? Why has it been so harmful throughout the course of history? Why will it continue to restrain progress forward?

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I'm almost certain that Matt Christman did episodes with the other Chapos about Opus Dei and it's founding as well as it's deep involvement in US politics.

Incidentally, Matt just wrote a book about the Spanish Civil War, which I pre-ordered and can't wait to read. His podcast with Chris Wade, Hell on Earth is so good and explains so well the rise of capitalism from the rotting corpse of feudalism.

Oh, I'm glad. I heard he had a stroke and I was worried about him. I hope we hear more from him. While Felix was the comedian and Will was the moral authority, Matt was the scholar. I found his takes fascinating and refreshing.

 

[Tomb1]

@LightSun ....here is a story and there is a lesson to every story. When my grandfather was a young man, he had a feeling...he warned his family..."i believe they will come." They didn't believe him....afterall, it was a bald assertion, unsupported by evidence. They tried to persuade him with appeals to reason. Make him see the folly of his thinking. But he believed in his feeling. Maybe he smelt it in the air. So finally one day he left and fled to the U.S. They all stayed behind. Now was his feeling based on instinct or was it based on emotion....whichever one you choose the point is this: had he listened to them instead of his feeling he like them would have been rounded up and shot

 

[Lark]

It is happening. I have been making this observation for years, long before Trump appeared on the scene, before John McCain gave in and pandered to the Christian Fundamentalists in an ultimately futile attempt to get elected. The ideology goes back to Reagan, at least. To the degree that this is happening, it constitutes a de facto override of our Constitution, which explicitly separates religion and public policy.

The legacy of a culture dominated by a certain sort of religious tradition is a huge, huge thing in the US, I think that Jimmy Carter was one of the first presidents who tried to tap into it and that coincided with the rise of tele-evangelism.

De Tocqueville wrote about it back when he wrote about Democracy in America and its weird reading that book how up to date it reads, I am always careful reading anything to try and not perform the ahistorical reading, there's way, way too many kids who will pick up a book and read it as though it was written yesterday, but sometimes there are things that ring true still, even when you possibly correct for context etc.

The other thing which I think is really significant is so called "trash talk", as a mass phenomenon via medium of sports, both have really imprinted on thinking and political communication.

 

[Coriolis]

The legacy of a culture dominated by a certain sort of religious tradition is a huge, huge thing in the US, I think that Jimmy Carter was one of the first presidents who tried to tap into it and that coincided with the rise of tele-evangelism.

De Tocqueville wrote about it back when he wrote about Democracy in America and its weird reading that book how up to date it reads, I am always careful reading anything to try and not perform the ahistorical reading, there's way, way too many kids who will pick up a book and read it as though it was written yesterday, but sometimes there are things that ring true still, even when you possibly correct for context etc.

The other thing which I think is really significant is so called "trash talk", as a mass phenomenon via medium of sports, both have really imprinted on thinking and political communication.

It is interesting that you reference Jimmy Carter. He considers himself an evangelical, but in the very inclusive sense of someone who tries to behave as Christ did, reaching out to those marginalized in society, and caring for the least among us. There is nothing wrong with faith informing our behavior as individuals. Carter's life after leaving office has been a testament to that. What our Constitution prohibits is tying faith - any faith - into government policy.

 

[Coriolis]

They will say that it was never meant to suggest separation of Church and State, because it simply talks about Congress being prohibited from making no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

They think that all it means is that Congress can't establish an official state church. They think there's nothing preventing them from making laws enforcing the edicts of a specific religion, for instance.

There is little difference between establishing an official state church, and having laws reflect the doctrine of a specific church.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

There is little difference between establishing an official state church, and having laws reflect the doctrine of a specific church.

Indeed, but I suppose they think it's a clever little loophole they've discovered. And unfortunately, I think they've found judges willing to go along with that.

 

[Lark]

It is interesting that you reference Jimmy Carter. He considers himself an evangelical, but in the very inclusive sense of someone who tries to behave as Christ did, reaching out to those marginalized in society, and caring for the least among us. There is nothing wrong with faith informing our behavior as individuals. Carter's life after leaving office has been a testament to that. What our Constitution prohibits is tying faith - any faith - into government policy.

Its about the difference between public and private life, which I think is important, I dont much care what anyone thinks in private, how they choose to live their lives, privately, its when they decide for everyone else who they ought to think and act that problems arise, when they think that their private preferences and proclivities should determine public life.

There in lies the issue, as while for many people it appears obvious when it is the tenets of religion and public life, it does not seem so obvious when it is the equally pernicious tenets of ideology and public life.

While I would say there is a division between the traditional and innovative / novel in both ideology and religion, that division of public and private life remains, where you draw the line can be debated but I dont think it can be debated that there very definitely ought to be line in the first place.

Anyone who thinks otherwise has some type of totalitarianism on the go, whatever way they dress it up.

 

[ceecee]

It is interesting that you reference Jimmy Carter. He considers himself an evangelical, but in the very inclusive sense of someone who tries to behave as Christ did, reaching out to those marginalized in society, and caring for the least among us. There is nothing wrong with faith informing our behavior as individuals. Carter's life after leaving office has been a testament to that. What our Constitution prohibits is tying faith - any faith - into government policy.

Yes. And any agent of government, regardless of the level of government, their personal beliefs do not matter. The fact that this is at all tolerated in the US, I feel, is a lack of real education about what governing is. And that involvement is critical to a functioning government.

Just a note on Jimmy Carter. Who is one of the best humans to hold the office of President - Progressive Evangelicals were a thing that I remember well as a child. Social Gospel looked to deal with societal issues like Jesus would - economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean environment, child labor, lack of unionization, poor schools, and the dangers of war....

It seems to me the people pushing for the above are secular libs and progressives today - showing you don't need religion to be a moral person.

 

[Lark]

Yes. And any agent of government, regardless of the level of government, their personal beliefs do not matter. The fact that this is at all tolerated in the US, I feel, is a lack of real education about what governing is. And that involvement is critical to a functioning government.

Just a note on Jimmy Carter. Who is one of the best humans to hold the office of President - Progressive Evangelicals were a thing that I remember well as a child. Social Gospel looked to deal with societal issues like Jesus would - economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean environment, child labor, lack of unionization, poor schools, and the dangers of war....

It seems to me the people pushing for the above are secular libs and progressives today - showing you don't need religion to be a moral person.

Whether its philosophy, religion or ideology shouldnt matter if the people holding public office are making life better for everyone.

I can see how at the time of the last attempted enlightenment it became possible to believe that philosophy was going to supersede religion, it still might with the full passage of time.

I also find it an embarrassment, to put it mildly, that what seems to prove the most enduring when it comes to religion is usually religion at its worst rather than religion at its best.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

These days I see religion as providing cover for the promotion of morally indefensible people and things. Essentially, it's a form of indoctrination to convince people to serve a rather nefarious agenda. I have known people of different religions who do not go in for this, but they are apparently not considered "mainstream" or "real" examples of their faith. They are outliers, apparently, to hear others tell it.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I would, however, be down for starting a religion called Waldoism, which would posit that once the prophet Waldo is picked from the multitudes, a new golden age will reign. The high priests would keep the signs by which one can identify Waldo.

 

[Coriolis]

Yes. And any agent of government, regardless of the level of government, their personal beliefs do not matter. The fact that this is at all tolerated in the US, I feel, is a lack of real education about what governing is. And that involvement is critical to a functioning government.

Just a note on Jimmy Carter. Who is one of the best humans to hold the office of President - Progressive Evangelicals were a thing that I remember well as a child. Social Gospel looked to deal with societal issues like Jesus would - economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean environment, child labor, lack of unionization, poor schools, and the dangers of war....

It seems to me the people pushing for the above are secular libs and progressives today - showing you don't need religion to be a moral person.

Progressives, perhaps in the name of separation of church and state, have long failed to make the Christian argument for progressive policy: for diversity and inclusion, for social programs that provide opportunity for the disadvantaged. This has allowed reactionaries to co-opt Christianity for their own agenda, when what they espouse is very far from the example of Christ.

 

[Lark]

Progressives, perhaps in the name of separation of church and state, have long failed to make the Christian argument for progressive policy: for diversity and inclusion, for social programs that provide opportunity for the disadvantaged. This has allowed reactionaries to co-opt Christianity for their own agenda, when what they espouse is very far from the example of Christ.

In the UK the ethical socialists who were the architects of the NHS / national insurance and the welfare state were largely christians, RH Tawney's books were largely all about his ethical case for an alternative to capitalism (revulsion at money values) and that carried over into people like Orwell, despite being an atheist, none of that would make much sense to anyone now though in the UK, and the religious elements, were they still exist, want to see all those gains rolled back and eradicated.

I've read some commentators or historians refer to it as socialism which is "more methodist than marxist" but if you ever read William Morris' writing about socialism its clear he has a sort of secular religion concept idea of it all, which was a thing too, I even think there's an aspect in which whatever basis you give it there's a kind of pseudo-religious character to most of the thinking informing the ideas associated with an alternative to the status quo.

The religious ideas that are dominant unfortunately are toxic ones, the apocalyptic, end times sort of ones, which are all despair, decay, decline, death drive embracing stuff.