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Comment by techdragon | Hacker News Reader

America has “Puritan Roots”, while long removed and tempered by centuries of immigration, westward expansion into territory of other cultures both native and similarly imperial (the French and Spanish territories of the new world) … but somehow you can still see the Puritans influence, reverberating down through time in the minds of each generation of waspy Protestants… it even got monetised in the form of purity preaching baptist and Christian megachurches with the fostering of a “everyone is a sinner, give money to much church to assuage your guilt” mindset being lucrative to a charismatic few…

The short version… what do you expect from a country founded by the Puritans, the only people who looked at the repressed tight laced morality of Victorian England and said “harlots, degenerates”… they were pushed out of English society for being killjoys and too prudish… for Victorian England

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The peer comment to this one gets it right. The Puritans predated the Victorians by a couple hundred years. That'd be like saying the Victorians were reacting to the degeneracy of Fox News.

My recollection (vague as it is now after decades since taking classes) is that the Calvinists and Puritans decided to leave northern Europe (remember there were more than just Brits sending boats) after being denied authority to impose their mores on the rest of society. As ever, they wanted to control those who didn't subscribe to their values.

There were two strains of "Puritans" in England. The Pilgrims believed that the Church of England was unredeemable and preferred to establish their own community somewhere else where they wouldn't be persecuted anymore. They (well some of them) first moved to the Netherlands and later to America.

Non-separatist Puritans who remained in England or moved to Massachusetts wanted to "reform" the Church of England instead of establishing their own. They later won the civil war and established a religious dictatorship (well obviously that's grossly oversimplified and there were many other groups besides the puritans which took part in that)...

The Plymouth colony was established by the separatists/Pilgrims while most non-separatist Puritans went to New England. The ones in Plymouth were a bit more tolerant (e.g. they didn't hang Quakers like the Puritans in Massachusetts did, only fined then and stripped them of their civil rights, so I guess that's something...)

That's quite simplistic. There was a lot of persecution and bad blood behind the decision to migrate overseas because of religious beliefs in the 17th century. Saying it was just a bunch of frustrated control freaks doesn't even come close to capturing it.

The British civil war and the then rejection of Cromwell and what they stod for was probably a significant factor in so many puritans leaving for the American colonies.

The Puritan influence on America is really fascinating in my opinion, it's strange to think how the sociopolitical trauma of the English Reformation echoes to this day completely removed from its original context; modern England (the whole UK actually) is now a very secular country in practice with minimal church attendance.

It wasn't the Victorians who pushed them out though rather it was quite a bit earlier, it was the post-Restoration requirement in 1660 for English clergy to swear Anglican oaths which the Puritans really took issue with. They actually did suffer social disadvantages for being outside of the Church of England and were often suspected of disloyalty by other English people though not without reason since the most famous Puritan Oliver Cromwell had literally overthrown the government and imposed a moralistic religious republic in recent memory.

The Victorian Era started in about 1820, 200 years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

While the original Puritanism is gone, it left behind a set of tools and tactics and strategies that "in" groups can deploy to bludgeon "out" groups. That's why we see revivals of behaviors that look suspiciously Puritanical - it was simply very good at its job.

On the subject of American Christians, I find ironic that one of the reasons of the splintering of western Christianity, namely the sales of indulgence, is one of the main driving forces of modern Christianity.

I also lament the poverty of philosophical debate when American refute preposterous positions held by these post modern Christians and think they have refuted the whole of human religion as bunk. All the while calling themselves Atheist with capital A. I mean, if you don't believe in something, why define your self as the opposite of that? Non existing things don't have opposites.

Scientism is the fastest growing religion in America these days - people just want to believe in higher powers of any sort. For almost everyone who says it, "I believe in science" is usually no different than saying they believe in the Judeo-Christian God.

Science's greatest doubters tend to work in the field.

I believe in peer-reviewed, evidence based reasoning. I also love to read on the multitude philosophical traditions seeking to make sense of reality. And most importantly (to my mental health and well being) I don't make either part of my identity. I identify as a colony of human cells and microbes.

Whenever people complain about scientism, I assume they're gullible marks complaining that their favorite woo is rightly getting called out as nonsense. It hasn't steered me wrong yet.

Sadly, science has been politicized, and has had such perverse incentives applied at the University that it's almost corrupt.

For example, peer review, (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/).

The replication crisis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis).

If you're not able to call out woo in science, I assume you're also a gullible mark that simply trusts authorities in a lab coat instead of authorities in a priest smock.

Yeah, the social sciences are in quite a quandary with the replication crisis. Still, anyone that uses the word scientism is probably complaining about their favorite woo being called out.

Unfortunately you have your first case. I have several accepted journal articles in peer-reviewed publications and work in a field of science. Sorry to ruin your streak.

And I'm not sure what "favorite woo" is, but I'm agnostic/atheist. Though I suppose those have their zealots of woo as well.

EDIT: Not social sciences, as I saw you carve that out in another comment.

> I also lament the poverty of philosophical debate when American refute preposterous positions held by these post modern Christians and think they have refuted the whole of human religion as bunk. All the while calling themselves Atheist with capital A.

Can you give a name or an example? I read a lot of athiest stuff and I've never encountered that (from a respected source at least, not from random people on facebook). Sure a lot of the writing focuses on modern Christianity, but that's a population thing and nobody I know of pretends like there isn't religion outside of that (in fact many of them specifically mention that they're going to focus mostly on Christianity but that there are plenty of other things out there). It would be largely a waste of time debunking Zeus and Jupiter in the 21st century

It comes down to the strawman fallacy. If a specific claim is made that can be refuted, that's science. If you just hand wave away huge chunks of philosophy and literature based on a specific claim that someone made, or that you stand up for the purpose of discussion, then you are impoverishing human culture.

Maybe you should read ancient Greek mythology before saying 'Zeus is bunk'. Is there a specific claim about reality you are referring to? Or are you saying all of ancient Greek texts about Zeus have zero philosophical value?

Who said ancient Greek texts about Zeus have zero philosophical value? I didn't, and I doubt anyone except you did, so it's quite ironic that you say:

> It comes down to the strawman fallacy

Most atheists are scientists. People talk about what they know. If you're mad because they don't talk about Greek mythology (which is a pretty different subject), are you mad that they don't discuss the correct way to make a ham and cheese omelette as well?

Also, would still like a name/example that we can evaluate your claims against.

I also never said you did. I'm also not mad about anything. I also don't know what most scientists believe and don't make claims about that.

I'm not making any claims. I'm just stating opinions.

Fair enough, I interpreted:

> Maybe you should read ancient Greek mythology before saying 'Zeus is bunk'. Is there a specific claim about reality you are referring to? Or are you saying all of ancient Greek texts about Zeus have zero philosophical value?

As directed to me or the aforementioned atheists, but as a general question it has value (IMHO)

The ai censorship is of the modern "social justice" form, which does not find roots in "waspy Protestants".

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