Our Post Christian Culture Often Replaces Faith with Nonsense

In the fields of psychology and sociology, social scientists have long sought to explain human behavior and optimize the human experience without regard to faith, or in open opposition to faith. Ancient moral norms are discarded in the name of a more scientific approach to human self-actualization, and people eagerly lap up studies that provide “secret keys” to success or “hidden insights” into humanity. All this is completely understandable. Life is hard. Professional success is elusive. Happiness can be fleeting. Raising children is challenging. We can be desperate for quick fixes and explanations that make sense of the world — even when the “fix” seems absurd.

Click to expand...

Take, for example, the idea that your body language can be key to how you are seen by others and how you regard yourself -- the idea of the "power pose" which has been incredibly popular.

Take the idea of "ego depletion", which means that we all have a limited supply of willpower, and it becomes depleted with over-use. The solution, of course, is not to use it so much.

Next, the idea of "unconscious racism". In other words, we can "know" that a white cop is more likely to shoot a black suspect because of the snap judgments we all tend to make.

All of this is backed up by studies with facts pro porting to validate the concepts. The trouble is that psychology is in the middle of a replication crisis right now, and all of the above ideas have become caught up in it. It all might be wrong, nonsense. In all three cases investigators have been unable to confirm the key studies or replicate their results, and a Harvard economist surprised himself and everyone when he found that cops are more likely to shoot white suspects.

In other words, use extreme caution when applying psychological principles to real life, whether it be personal, corporate, or governmental.

For generations Americans have been taught by word and deed that there is a better way, that the lessons of the Judeo-Christian tradition should be discarded as so much oppressive hocus-pocus. Ancient moral teachings aren’t just false, they’re destructive.

[...] In reality, “science” is often leading us astray — and for reasons that the biblically literate can easily predict. It turns out that human beings are self-interested, that we’re drawn to quick fixes and splashy results. It turns out that we’re mistake-prone and often make entirely arbitrary judgments. And it turns out that we really, really like to see results that confirm our own righteousness and virtue. In other words, scientists don’t offer an escape from the fallen world; they’re part of the fallen world.

Click to expand...

This does not mean that social science is useless, but it must be subjected to rigor, and replication must be insisted upon. New knowledge is often nonsense, and it must be viewed with the skepticism it so richly deserves.

Read more at: Social Science & Religion Compared: Religion Can Be a Better Guide | National Review

LowDown said:

Take, for example, the idea that your body language can be key to how you are seen by others and how you regard yourself -- the idea of the "power pose" which has been incredibly popular.

Take the idea of "ego depletion", which means that we all have a limited supply of willpower, and it becomes depleted with over-use. The solution, of course, is not to use it so much.

Next, the idea of "unconscious racism". In other words, we can "know" that a white cop is more likely to shoot a black suspect because of the snap judgments we all tend to make.

All of this is backed up by studies with facts pro porting to validate the concepts. The trouble is that psychology is in the middle of a replication crisis right now, and all of the above ideas have become caught up in it. It all might be wrong, nonsense. In all three cases investigators have been unable to confirm the key studies or replicate their results, and a Harvard economist surprised himself and everyone when he found that cops are more likely to shoot white suspects.

In other words, use extreme caution when applying psychological principles to real life, whether it be personal, corporate, or governmental.



This does not mean that social science is useless, but it must be subjected to rigor, and replication must be insisted upon. New knowledge is often nonsense, and it must be viewed with the skepticism it so richly deserves.

Read more at: Social Science & Religion Compared: Religion Can Be a Better Guide | National Review

Click to expand...

Well, it is not quite so simple to be consistent, when you loose your ethical basis and switch from an absolute definitional framework to one of popular relativism. That is, after all, what has happened over the past century. And as the Karamazov brother said, that means that there is no good or bad and anything goes.

LowDown said:

This does not mean that social science is useless, but it must be subjected to rigor, and replication must be insisted upon. New knowledge is often nonsense, and it must be viewed with the skepticism it so richly deserves.

Click to expand...

Physician heal thyself.

"Post Christian" society in a nut shell?

More or less this...



Cheap and meaningless sex, drugs, and nihilistic hedonism galore, all rigidly enforced by jealous social and legal consensus, backed by vaguely authoritarian masterminds and agenda setters working behind the scenes, who keep the idiot masses too awash in unrestrained materialism and irrelevant drivel to know or care what's happening.

In essence, it's humanity re-imagined as pigs at sty - Helpless children to be provided for by a government apparatus elevated to the level of near-Godhood, rather than as productive or personally responsible citizens expected to provide meaningful contributions to the world.

Gathomas88 said:

"Post Christian" society in a nut shell?

More or less this...

Cheap and meaningless sex, drugs, and nihilistic hedonism galore, all rigidly enforced by jealous social and legal consensus, backed by vaguely authoritarian masterminds and agenda setters working behind the scenes, who keep the idiot masses too awash in unrestrained materialism and irrelevant drivel to know or care what's happening.

In essence, it's humanity re-imagined as pigs at sty - Helpless children to be provided for by a government apparatus elevated to the level of near-Godhood, rather than as productive or personally responsible citizens expected to provide meaningful contributions to the world.

Click to expand...

There's nothing particularly post-Christian about what you describe.

Napoleon said:

There's nothing particularly post-Christian about what you describe.

Click to expand...

We've been inching towards "post-Christianity" since the Enlightenment.

Gathomas88 said:

We've been inching towards "post-Christianity" since the Enlightenment.

Click to expand...

Of course, because superstition has been gradually slain by reason, but the behaviors you describe are not a product of the Enlightenment.

Napoleon said:

the behaviors you describe are not a product of the Enlightenment.

Click to expand...

The below could be argued to be a simple return to the amoral pagan status quo of the pre-Christian era.


The rest, however, is almost entirely modern; basically being an unholy admixture of Marxist political philosophy, scientific hubris, post-modern nihilism, and "New Left" Libertine influences.

Gathomas88 said:

The below could be argued to be a simple return to the amoral pagan status quo of the pre-Christian era.

Click to expand...

Gathomas88 said:

The rest, however, is almost entirely modern; basically being an unholy admixture of Marxist political philosophy, scientific hubris, post-modern nihilism, and "New Left" Libertine influences.

Click to expand...

What you describe is a spot-on description of life beneath the thumb of a decadent aristocracy and hypocritical Church (running all the way up to the Pope) during the Christian era. Indeed, even Louis XIV - the most formidable enemy of the Enlightenment and a devout and ruthless Catholic - had quite a hedonistic reign. Among other notable things, he sired 13 illegitimate children that we know of by two out of eleven known mistresses.

Napoleon said:

What you describe is a spot-on description of life beneath the thumb of a decadent aristocracy and hypocritical Church during the Christian era.

Click to expand...

:lol:

You're clearly ignorant of the subject matter at hand.

The idea that the state even necessarily has a responsibility to subsidize the livelihoods of its citizenry, let alone attempt to micromanage their activities in the interests of some sort of "scientifically" determined greater good, is entirely modern. Pre-modern states would have had no such capability.

Gathomas88 said:

:lol:

You're clearly ignorant of the subject matter at hand.

The idea that the state even necessarily has a responsibility to subsidize the livelihoods of its citizenry, let alone attempt to micromanage their activities in the interests of some sort of "scientifically" determined greater good, is entirely modern. Pre-modern states would have had no such capability.

Click to expand...

You keep shifting the conversation. We weren't talking about "scientifically determined greater good" - we were discussing life during the Christian era.

Napoleon said:

You keep shifting the conversation. We weren't talking about "scientifically determined greater good" - we were discussing life during the Christian era.

Click to expand...

Yes, which you clearly know nothing about.

Gathomas88 said:

Yes, which you clearly know nothing about.

Click to expand...

I'm certain I know quite a bit more than you want to admit. I know, for example, that Louis XIV - a devout Catholic and the most formidable enemy of the Enlightenment and free-thinking people - had quite a hedonistic reign. Among other notable things, he sired 13 illegitimate children that we know of by two out of eleven known mistresses. I know plenty about the corrupt and hypocritical clergy - rot that ran all the way up to papacy. It was a do as I say and not as I do world - where superstition was leveraged to subjugate the poor and uneducated masses and provide extravagant, decadent, and morally and ethically abominable lifestyles for the elite. The only thing the Enlightenment changed as it relates to hedonistic behaviors is that the masses came to realize that the right to enjoy life with reckless abandon is not reserved for the aristocracy and clergy they were falsely led to believe were ordained by a supernatural entity to lord over them.

Napoleon said:

I'm certain I know quite a bit more than you want to admit. I know, for example, that Louis XIV - a devout Catholic and the most formidable enemy of the Enlightenment and free-thinking people - had quite a hedonistic reign. Among other notable things, he sired 13 illegitimate children that we know of by two out of eleven known mistresses. I know plenty about the corrupt and hypocritical clergy - rot that ran all the way up to papacy. It was a do as I say and not as I do world - where superstition was leveraged to subjugate the poor and uneducated masses and provide extravagant, decadent, and morally and ethically abominable lifestyles for the elite.

Click to expand...

Ummm... Are you kidding? Louis XIV (I missed your edit concerning him earlier) was basically the model of the "Enlightened Despot."

He was an "Enlightenment" ruler in basically every sense of the word; devoted to science, exploration, imperialism, wealth, and worldly power. He even flagrantly ignored the Pope's requests that he come to the aid of the Holy Roman Empire when the Ottomans laid siege to Vienna because he was hoping that the Ottoman Empire would win, eliminate his opposition, and leave him as the sole "hegemon" of Continental Europe.

As far as the rest is concerned, it doesn't have anything to do with what I posted. You seem to have missed what I was going for entirely, in point of fact.

Are you even familiar with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World?

Gathomas88 said:

We've been inching towards "post-Christianity" since the Enlightenment.

Click to expand...

So, are you arguing that greed and materialism did not exist before the enlightenment? Or, that agenda-driven authoritarians were not involved in the political decision to endorse christianity? Or, that the bible is a stranger to irrelevant drivel?

All of your chicken little, falling-sky analysis is just human nature being re-discovered in a secular context, by the selectively outraged, and proclaimed to be a new disease. Personally, I much prefer to accept the world as it is, minus the contradictory, moral certainty of a religion that gives itself too much credit for instilling morals in humans when its failures to do so are documented very well throughout history. Yes, yes, I know, god's amp goes to eleven.

How conservatives love to constantly look backward and then blame progress for the fact that they stumble.

LowDown said:

Take, for example, the idea that your body language can be key to how you are seen by others and how you regard yourself -- the idea of the "power pose" which has been incredibly popular.

Take the idea of "ego depletion", which means that we all have a limited supply of willpower, and it becomes depleted with over-use. The solution, of course, is not to use it so much.

Next, the idea of "unconscious racism". In other words, we can "know" that a white cop is more likely to shoot a black suspect because of the snap judgments we all tend to make.

All of this is backed up by studies with facts pro porting to validate the concepts. The trouble is that psychology is in the middle of a replication crisis right now, and all of the above ideas have become caught up in it. It all might be wrong, nonsense. In all three cases investigators have been unable to confirm the key studies or replicate their results, and a Harvard economist surprised himself and everyone when he found that cops are more likely to shoot white suspects.

In other words, use extreme caution when applying psychological principles to real life, whether it be personal, corporate, or governmental.



This does not mean that social science is useless, but it must be subjected to rigor, and replication must be insisted upon. New knowledge is often nonsense, and it must be viewed with the skepticism it so richly deserves.

Read more at: Social Science & Religion Compared: Religion Can Be a Better Guide | National Review

Click to expand...

Religion naturally evolved to take advantage of and culturally guide certain aspects of human psychology.

Psychology is a science that relies on observation and reports of human behavior and is constantly subject to unintended biases that affect measurements and conclusions.

The latter never has and never will be able to replace "faith".

D_NATURED said:

So, are you arguing that greed and materialism did not exist before the enlightenment? Or, that agenda-driven authoritarians were not involved in the political decision to endorse christianity? Or, that the bible is a stranger to irrelevant drivel?

All of your chicken little, falling-sky analysis is just human nature being re-discovered in a secular context, by the selectively outraged, and proclaimed to be a new disease.

Human nature is to rape, pillage, murder, and steal. All of those things must be kept in check for society to function.

Personally, I much prefer to accept the world as it is, minus the contradictory, moral certainty of a religion that gives itself too much credit for instilling morals in humans when its failures to do so are documented very well throughout history. Yes, yes, I know, god's amp goes to eleven.

How conservatives love to constantly look backward and then blame progress for the fact that they stumble.

Click to expand...

Another poster who seems to miss the point. :roll:

Again, are you even familiar with Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World?"

If not, I wouldn't respond. There were some very specific things (all of them extremely similar to the ideology of the modern Left) I was making reference to.

The novel basically described a dystopian, nihilist, world intentionally frozen in stasis. At the top, it was quietly dominated by an manipulative and "soft-power" authoritarian overclass which kept the masses in line through a basically limitless welfare state, and through the low-key suppression of dissenting ideas. The citizenry, meanwhile, were basically a bunch of depraved uber-materialistic hedonists - Addicted to brainless media, all of them heavily using drugs, all of them wildly promiscuous to the point where "love" was a forgotten concept, and all of them basically devoted to the idea of pleasure above everything, while ignoring or ridiculing anything else as being a waste of time. The family also no longer existed. Children were grown in tubes and raised by the state. "Mother" was actually considered to be a dirty word. Religion no longer exists either.

Fail to enthusiastically devote yourself to the above? You're branded as being "anti-social," deemed a threat to society, and banished.

Any of that sound familiar? We're already seeing a lot of these things even today.

Gathomas88 said:

Another poster who seems to miss the point. :roll:

Again, are you even familiar with Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World?"

If not, I wouldn't respond. There were some very specific things (all of them extremely similar to the ideology of the modern Left) I was making reference to.

The novel basically described a dystopian, nihilist, world intentionally frozen in stasis. At the top, it was quietly dominated by an manipulative and "soft-power" authoritarian overclass which kept the masses in line through a basically limitless welfare state, and through the low-key suppression of dissenting ideas. The citizenry, meanwhile, were basically a bunch of depraved uber-materialistic hedonists - Addicted to brainless media, all of them heavily using drugs, all of them wildly promiscuous to the point where "love" was a forgotten concept, and all of them basically devoted to the idea of pleasure above everything, while ignoring or ridiculing anything else as being a waste of time. The family also no longer existed. Children were grown in tubes and raised by the state. "Mother" was actually considered to be a dirty word. Religion no longer exists either.

Fail to enthusiastically devote yourself to the above? You're branded as being "anti-social," deemed a threat to society, and banished.

Any of that sound familiar? We're already seeing a lot of these things even today.

Click to expand...

I think you missed my point. The human dynamic, in America and elsewhere, has always been and may always be out of material balance. What you dislike about the welfare state can be addressed and refuted with the word "welfare", which means people eating and learning and living under a roof. The only reason people are against a welfare state is that they think they won't ever need it. They imagine that, in what is the alternative to the welfare state, they will be BETTER off. The alternative, though, is to accept hunger, ignorance and sickness as immutable human conditions rather than taxes. It's one thing to accept that someone will always have more than others, it's another to imagine that poverty should be fatal.

Fatal poverty is the glaring, unapologetic, tough-love politics of the right. How convenient for the grandsons of monarchs or slave profiteers to denounce public charity, as they do. How ironic to use the rhetoric of justice to describe a privileged birthright. We both know this is not really about Huxley, it's about modern right-wing dogma. One of the most insidious forms of that dogma is the notion that Christianity is fundamental to a moral social arrangement. It's not.

The OP is attempting to make the case that in a "post-Christian" America, the liberal evolution is toward a new form of slavery, whereby the poor are controlled with food and shelter. Except, in this version of slavery the benefit to the wealthy is found in the absence of torches and pitchforks rather than bails of cotton. This sort of hyperbole ignores that the traditional, Christian brand of slavery is about a more overt exploitation and the horrible result is a lesser form of nutrition, housing and liberty.

If you have to choose your slavery, the liberal kind is the most like being free.

I never really understood that part of psychology. They embrace all sorts of coping techniques but faith is off limits. It's not a bad thing it could help people.

CLAX1911 said:

I never really understood that part of psychology. They embrace all sorts of coping techniques but faith is off limits. It's not a bad thing it could help people.

Click to expand...

How do you figure that faith is off limits in psychology? Ever seen how a twelve step program is applied? They ask you to find a higher power. Personally, it seems like they're asking you to replace one drug with another. Psychology, as a science, can't ignore that human cultural evolution included the various manifestations of faith. However, religion can just as often be the problem as part of the solution. Why? Because faith is the coping mechanism that too often divorces one from their reality, as a way of coping, and that just kicks the mental health can down the road.

D_NATURED said:

How do you figure that faith is off limits in psychology? Ever seen how a twelve step program is applied? They ask you to find a higher power. Personally, it seems like they're asking you to replace one drug with another.

Click to expand...

Lol, AA isn't psychology it's recruiting. I further don't understand how belonging to a religion is a drug.

Psychology, as a science, can't ignore that human cultural evolution included the various manifestations of faith.

Click to expand...

I'm not talking about manifestations

However, religion can just as often be the problem as part of the solution.

Click to expand...

I'm not talking about religion.

Why? Because faith is the coping mechanism that too often divorces one from their reality, as a way of coping, and that just kicks the mental health can down the road.

Click to expand...

Faith in lizard people or illuminati yeah. Those things are a delusion to cope with something that can't be explained any other way. There are no lizard people. We know this. You may claim there is no god and that is fair enough, I'd say that claim is a coping mechanism it isn't a deluded one but it isn't proven. Belief in a god isn't a delusion necessarily. Beliving in an invisible bear that talks to you and nobody else is a delusion.

Gathomas88 said:

The below could be argued to be a simple return to the amoral pagan status quo of the pre-Christian era.

​

The rest, however, is almost entirely modern; basically being an unholy admixture of Marxist political philosophy, scientific hubris, post-modern nihilism, and "New Left" Libertine influences.

​

Click to expand...

That's not "amoral", simply different morals than yours. Morals are subjective, relative.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

D_NATURED said:

I think you missed my point. The human dynamic, in America and elsewhere, has always been and may always be out of material balance. What you dislike about the welfare state can be addressed and refuted with the word "welfare", which means people eating and learning and living under a roof. The only reason people are against a welfare state is that they think they won't ever need it. They imagine that, in what is the alternative to the welfare state, they will be BETTER off. The alternative, though, is to accept hunger, ignorance and sickness as immutable human conditions rather than taxes. It's one thing to accept that someone will always have more than others, it's another to imagine that poverty should be fatal.

Fatal poverty is the glaring, unapologetic, tough-love politics of the right. How convenient for the grandsons of monarchs or slave profiteers to denounce public charity, as they do. How ironic to use the rhetoric of justice to describe a privileged birthright. We both know this is not really about Huxley, it's about modern right-wing dogma. One of the most insidious forms of that dogma is the notion that Christianity is fundamental to a moral social arrangement. It's not.

The OP is attempting to make the case that in a "post-Christian" America, the liberal evolution is toward a new form of slavery, whereby the poor are controlled with food and shelter. Except, in this version of slavery the benefit to the wealthy is found in the absence of torches and pitchforks rather than bails of cotton. This sort of hyperbole ignores that the traditional, Christian brand of slavery is about a more overt exploitation and the horrible result is a lesser form of nutrition, housing and liberty.

If you have to choose your slavery, the liberal kind is the most like being free.

Click to expand...

If we've fallen so low as to have to "choose" our preferred form of slavery, we've already lost every battle worth fighting.

We can, and should, aspire to more than that.

roguenuke said:

That's not "amoral", simply different morals than yours. Morals are subjective, relative.

Click to expand...

After a certain point, the Roman elite basically had no "morality" to speak of, other than their own wealth and power. They did as they wished, because they could.

I would very much classify that as being "amorality."

CLAX1911 said:

Lol, AA isn't psychology it's recruiting. I further don't understand how belonging to a religion is a drug.

Click to expand...

If it eases your anxiety and becomes something you need, it is like a drug. If it causes you to burn bridges and be in denial, it's really like a drug.

I'm not talking about manifestations

Click to expand...

How do you know faith exists if it doesn't inspire some action or another. Charity and suicide vests are both manifestations of faith and define faith.

I'm not talking about religion. Faith in lizard people or illuminati yeah. Those things are a delusion to cope with something that can't be explained any other way. There are no lizard people. We know this. You may claim there is no god and that is fair enough, I'd say that claim is a coping mechanism it isn't a deluded one but it isn't proven. Belief in a god isn't a delusion necessarily. Beliving in an invisible bear that talks to you and nobody else is a delusion.

Click to expand...

So, you're atheist when it comes to lizard beings or, I assume, Zeus but not to the generic form of god. Oh. There are many different coping mechanisms and they don't all work on everyone. They require you to believe the right things first. I suppose the generic, one size fits all, god is just the thing some people need when they're really looking for a flexible deity.

I guess nothing works as well as the god we create for ourselves.

Gathomas88 said:

If we've fallen so low as to have to "choose" our preferred form of slavery, we've already lost every battle worth fighting.

We can, and should, aspire to more than that.



After a certain point, the Roman elite basically had no "morality" to speak of, other than their own wealth and power. They did as they wished, because they could.

I would very much classify that as being "amorality."

Click to expand...

Not how morality works. That would still be morality, even if a "selfish" based morality.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk