Hacker News Reader

What 'far more broken, dangerous, and sinister' things have filled the void left by Judeo-Christian values? There's a long history of Judeo-Christian values being pretty broken, dangerous, and sinister themselves. The Spanish Inquisition is just 1 of many examples.

YouTubers might not be able to get famous as easily if they link the wrong channels

The culture of deprioritizing free speech, free association, presumption of innocence and other such principles in lieu of "virtuous" principles that seek to right the wrongs of society.

So hypothetically if you say the wrong terminology to refer to a group of people, then you have blasphemed and regardless of context your use of the terminology deprives you of due process, presumption of innocence and freedom of speech. Anyone who defends you has their freedom of association revoked.

Stories like these seem to be becoming more and more common. The dark and sinister replacement seem to be a new set of rules whose goal is to protect people from certain blasphemies. At one time it was the sun revolving around the earth or denial if the ressurrection of Christ. Today it's some forbidden phrase like Merry Christmas or handicapped or midget. If you are the CEO of Firefox or Oculus rift, you are fired for your charitable donations. Freedom of association is far more important to society than the harm done by a CEO who blasphemes or pays people to blaspheme.

The Spanish Inquisition occurred under the aegis of a church that had strayed so far from Judeo-Christian values that many of the most pious people in Europe would soon abandon it.

Judeo-Christian values are hard to pin down, but I feel confident that the 15th century Catholic Church did not reflect those values.

Isn't that just a way of saying Judeo-Christian values are anything good Judeo-Christians have done, but none of the bad stuff?

Isn't that what "values" means? Things that "good" people do and "bad" people don't.

I'm just offering the Reformation as evidence that even people in the 1500s didn't consider the behavior of the Catholic Church at that time "good".

Edit: As the responses point out, people don't all agree about values. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

Values aren't only the good - you want them to be only the good. It's like asking to judge the character of a person by only the good they do, not the bad

I don't think values means that at all. Some of the most evil people in history had values too, but they were considered awful by others. Many times in history their values from their perspective were noble, yet to others they were murdering people for their thoughts or speech.

> The Spanish Inquisition occurred under the aegis of a church that had strayed so far from Judeo-Christian values that many of the most pious people in Europe would soon abandon it.

The Spanish Inquisition (unlike the Papal Inquisitions, or the later Roman Inquisition) occurred under the aegis exclusivelt of the Spanish Crown; and “Judeo-Christian values” are most often cited as a thing by evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants trying to pretend that their views (often quite personal and not even broad enough to be sectarian) have some kind of broader grounding than can be justified factually.

> Judeo-Christian values are hard to pin down

Because “Judeo-Christian values” aren't actually a thing.

> Because “Judeo-Christian values” aren't actually a thing.

Also considering that Christianity is a rejection of many of the values and norms of Judaism.

This is a preposterous false dilemma.

"By displacing to a large extent judeo Christian values, for all their faults, perhaps in education and elsewhere, it looks like something far more broken, dangerous and sinister has filled the void left by it."

Bingo.

A good quote - "A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities. The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relations, there is an atmosphere of moral mediocrity, paralyzing man's noblest impulses. And it will be simply impossible to stand through the trials of this threatening century with only the support of a legalistic structure."

> As an outsider it feels like young people in America are getting their values from some kind of cult of political correctness. It seems to be doing the same thing that the religious right used to do at one point in time. The old censorious approach to a new set of blasphemous topics has become the norm.

> What seems obviously broken is the fact that ideals like free speech, free association, due process, etc. have taken a backseat to some new rules like inclusivity, hyper sensitivity and hyper empathy.

"As an insider" it seems like this as well. Not everyone in America falls so far on either side that we can't see this.

I don't think fareesh meant to imply only non-Americans can perceive the situation as they do. I think fareesh was merely providing context for their perception.

Which is fine and generous; not everyone like fareesh may be so accommodating.

What, precisely, are "judeo-Christian values"?

I refer you to David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water”

In my comment I am referring to what George Washington talked about in his farewell address when he discussed a similar topic. He didn't name judeo Christian values but it's implicit when he says "religion".

If you are not familiar with it see the section on religion morality and education

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_Farewe...

OK, but the concept is historically nonsensical - antisemitism was a large part of early and medieval Christianity - and the term itself didn't come into use until the 40s.

> If you are not familiar with it see the section on religion morality and education

Am having a hard time seeing how the idea that morality can't be maintained without religion connects to "free speech, free association [and] due process".

Those are individual rights, and arguably they came from a worldview (stemming from those values) where all people are created equal.

Much of the new culture I am referring to, seems to elevate the rights of groups and treat individuals as unequal because all people are born unequal depending on the group they belong to - the exact opposite of what the country was founded on and believed for a long time. It isn't untrue because people are born to vastly different circumstances that have a big impact on their long-term success in society. This seems to have become a sacred cow, i.e. a new set of religious principles.

How this plays out in this particular context is that when Pewdiepie uses his YouTube channel to make amusing videos, if he touches on certain blasphemous topics, then regardless of context, he is convicted as having "ties to white supremacists". His rights as an individual are deprioritized because the subject matter is blasphemous to the new value system, which places a very high priority on protection of the sentiments of minorities.

This is an exceptionally great goal, but freedom, due process and presumption of innocence of the individual must come first, if the goal is to create a fair and stable society, in my opinion.