I don't think we do that any more now than we used to, is just that as what is considered politically incorrect changes some people will think that there is an increase due to them personally getting more shit, where there is actually just a change in focus.
I have personal conversations offline with people where we can discuss controversial topics without anyone taking offence or "calling out". I have learned to avoid any such topics on social media because of the social consequences. I know many others who do the same: simply avoid certain topics online.
I'm old enough to remember how we were before the internet, too. It wasn't like this. Discussions were more interesting and less fraught. People had a wider range of opinions on everything. At least, that's how I remember it.
We are, literally, living the Monty Python moments which resonate so well.
All it takes to demonstrate this is a brief moment of pause before you hit the upvote or the downvote button.
Beyond that point, we are all made of wood and weigh the same as a duck.
WOW, that was well phrased.
10 or even 5 years ago, you could have debates on every controversial topic online from abortion to atheism to lgbt to healthcare. In comment threads you would literally see every side of the debate. But something happened fairly recently where social media got weaponized for political reasons. And "blasphemy laws" got established on social media platforms. What's interesting is that the same "blasphemy laws" are on every platform as if a pope or an authority figure sent out a decree that everyone had to obey.
Now there are even well funded "hit squads" to attack or shame people for wrongthink. But I think their time is coming to an end because more and more people are getting tired of censorship.
I mean, I've posted a couple of John Gray links here and it would be difficult to have read anything of his without having spent at least a little time thinking about the secular analogs to religious practices, as that is one of his major themes.
You've just successfully described one of my main hobbies. As far as any secular tradition goes, I am firmly in the Diogenes camp.
like elements of the crowd that wants to stone a woman for adultery, we're all itching to chuck a rock or two, not so much because we love violence or hate the woman, but because we're afraid someone more powerful will accuse us of failing to throw a stone and we ourselves will become the next target. i don't see any Jesus on the horizon to stop it.
So they want things that will anger as many users as possible, so that they will stay on the platform and share the outrage with their friends, but not so outrageous the advertisers will leave.
I don't think this is going to end well.
Also known as the 'Daily Mail' strategy. (Which admittedly has had a slight change in tone recently what with the editor being changed for someone very slightly less mental after Lady Rothermere got bored of being teased at parties)
Moreover, the changes brought by enlightenment were actually revolutionary and immense. But what is his correct observation is that no rights are fixed and that the most of the humans who have them now can as well lose them fast.
Atheism is an affirmative answer to a question about your faith in the unknown. So I agree with him, again just personally.
If you take a honest look in what religions are "really about" you'd come to: hell. Deities providing a place to torture human souls. Even Buddhism (as a developed religion, not as an idea on which it was established) has its hell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naraka_(Buddhism)
The proof that all of these stories are actually produced by humans and even have one origin is that the concept of hell effectively didn't exist around 3000 years ago but then appeared in all the cultures which mutually exchanged goods through the trade routes around 2500 years ago. The timing also doesn't fit with any of the religions claiming they have "the truth": the concept of hell was surely unknown to early Judaism but was provably spread across the cultures centuries before the Christianity appeared.
> But it has value in exploring questions and aspects of humanity that we are not able to understand with reason.
Like, we can imagine hell really good, and obviously successfully spread the invented stories about it. Heaven on another side is either non-existence, or profoundly uninteresting or obviously produced for a mind of sex-obsessed hormone pushed teenagers who will therefore be motivated to die for their "religion" (virgins always ready for sex).
> Human beings are really bad at reason.
Should we then prevent them from trying to reason about their religions? Or shouldn't we support them exactly to do so? The problem is, raising people to "not do something" because they will be "punished" in the afterlife provably doesn't work, otherwise we wouldn't be where we are now -- the human civilization constantly being near to complete annihilation.
By pure nature of how probability works, there will be sooner or later some false alarm that will indeed trigger the actual detonation of the nuclear weapons. The only sane action by humanity would be to reduce their amount to the scale which makes humanity's annihilation impossible. We are very far from that at the moment. Because it's so profitable making these weapons.
Yes, human beings are really bad at reason.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/john-f-k...
"military and intelligence leaders responded by unveiling their proposal for a pre-emptive thermonuclear attack on the Soviet Union, to be launched sometime in late 1963. JFK stormed away from the meeting in disgust, remarking scathingly to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, “And we call ourselves the human race.”"
I don't think this claim stands up to much scrutiny.
Sure - religion is interesting from a historical perspective. "Why do we think the way we do" for example. Or "how did we grapple with problem X before we discovered Y..."
But religion doesn't offer some unique perspective or insight we don't otherwise have access to.
In fact, it stops us exploring questions we don't yet understand. Because (organised) religion claims to have the answers. That's what makes it so dangerous.
And, as Christopher Hitchens used to say, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to support them"...
We can, and we did.
The US constitution for example, is explicitly secular.
In fact I'd say there's a convincing case to be made that - as soon as faith (in some form) enters the equation - you can no longer have a reasonable argument about human rights, because by definition, a person who believes something 'on faith' cannot be persuaded by logical argument, reason, or evidence. They simply 'know it to be true'.
> I think a good example is human rights. Remember, these started out as natural, or god-given rights.
The teachings of the most common major religions included some human rights. But also a lot of incitement to commit atrocious acts completely counter to our human rights (for example the death penalty for adultery and homosexuality, the command to commit genocide in several cases, genital mutilation and so on).
Sure, you can cherry pick just the 'good' parts of your chosen religion, but if you're doing that, why bother with religion in the first place?
If you (or anyone else reading this) genuinely agree with the comment I'm replying to, please, please, please watch this debate with an open mind --> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJCZKZomtXQ).
True (although amongst some species no higher than our own, so not sure what point that proves).
> By using the word atrocity you’re buying in to some definition of evil that has to come from a philosophical belief system, ie a faith, which could be directed toward God, the future of humanity, logic, a flat earth, or literally anything else.
I don't know that you can believe in logic or the future of humanity.
Definitely not in the same way people believe in God.
As for where morality/our basis for human rights comes from if not from religion, Richard Dawkins explains best (in ~5min) how the source most probably isn't belief/faith/religion in this video --> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XtvWkRRxKQ).
That is true, however look at the world we live in. A lot of people are not moral.
He admits the question asked of him is a "genuinely hard question:" using concepts of good and evil is an inherent admission in some faith in such concepts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg
So, no to those that claim that, humans aren't special, and no, the good sides of morality don't come from religion, especially not from the modern ones with a "jealous" god (killing homosexuals, or punishing women when not wearsing something, however, if that is considered "morality", indeed provably does come from religion).
The whole talk:
> We can, and we did.
> The US constitution for example, is explicitly secular.
The US Constitution is a plan of government amended with a listing of human rights. In its original form it left those rights entirely unenumerated. It's an odd argument to claim that it forms any kind of basis for those rights when that basis is clearly elsewhere.
I liked this quote, even if I'm not 100% in agreement:
>On the whole, they are older and wiser myths than secular myths like progress